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“But ye hold me fast, let me not go,
And with you, I’ll go home.”
- The Ballad of Tam Lin
--
If there’s one thing that Padmé is quietly grateful for, it’s that at just three months shy of two, the twins are finally starting to sleep through most nights. Between raising them, her day job as a cop, and her night job as the Grimm of Portland, she doesn’t get that much sleep as it is.
Still, she supposes, it could always be worse. At least the twins are safe, though one of these days she’s going to have to invest in one of those child harnesses, just to keep Luke from wandering off. Especially when there’s still Sith gunning after them.
Her hand brushes briefly over the velvet box. If she opens it, she knows, she’ll see a simple silver engagement ring, with a small diamond as its only embellishment.
Anakin had bought it for her, the day before--before she’d seen her first wesen. God, things had been so simple back then, when fairytales weren’t real. When her boyfriend was her boyfriend, not the man who tried to kill her. When she was just Padmé the cop, and not Padmé Amidala, the Grimm of Portland.
She breathes out, then pushes the velvet box back behind her books.
No point in going down that road again, wondering what she could’ve done. She lets her hair down, gives an exhausted sigh--it’s been a long day, she’d mediated an argument between a Bauerschwein and her ex-wife up on 36th Avenue after the usual blur of criminals and crime scenes, both human and supernatural, and in between that the twins have been demanding her attention more.
And it’s raining, too.
She’s checking the state of her various and definitely illegal trinkets in her drawer when she hears the doorbell ring. She sighs, stands up and shuts the drawer, makes her way down the stairs. “Coming!” she calls, when the doorbell’s ring becomes more insistent. “Jeez, Lisa--I thought you and your ex already settled matters, what made you come all the way down--”
--here, she means to finish, but when she opens the door, it’s not Lisa who’s staring down at her.
“Hi,” says Anakin (says Vader, says her fiancé, says the man who tried to kill her). He’s soaking wet, clothes hanging off his thin frame, and he’s shifting his weight from side to side, as if not entirely sure what to say.
Padmé stares up at him. “So,” she says, after a moment, pushing down on the rage and the sorrow and the guilt and, god help her, the love and adopting a carefully flat tone, “what name do you go by, these days?”
Anakin shoves his hands into his pockets. “Just Anakin,” he says. “Um. My car broke down before I could get to the motel I was staying at, can I. Can I come in? Until the rain lets up.” He hunches in on himself, so unlike the man who’d proposed to her or the man who’d almost killed her. She wonders which one she’s dealing with now. “I swear I’ll be out of your hair in the morning.”
Padmé huffs out a breath. “Turn over all your weapons first,” she says. “And--can you still woge? I’m not completely sure.”
“I could, but I try not to,” says Anakin, rocking back onto his heels. “I haven’t in a while.”
“In eight months?” says Padmé.
“Yeah, that long,” says Anakin. “I’ve been trying to get my head together for those eight months.”
“And now, what,” says Padmé, leaning against her doorway, “you just show up at my door and ask if I could let you in? After eight months, without a word?” She shakes her head, runs a hand through her hair. “I thought you’d gone and gotten yourself killed.”
“I did try,” says Anakin. “And I’ve been talking to Ahsoka.”
“But you asked her not to tell me,” says Padmé.
“I asked her not to tell you I was here,” says Anakin. “Everything else was fine, you needed that info if you were going to take the Sith down, but--you didn’t need to know I was here.”
“So what’s changed now?” says Padmé. “What brought you back here?”
“Like I said,” says Anakin, resigned, “the rain.” He runs his teeth over his lower lip, says, “I’ll be out in the morning, before the kids get up.”
Padmé crosses her arms, huffs out a breath. “You sleep on the couch,” she says, after the silence presses down so much that it’s become unbearable. “You turn over all your weapons. Even the potions. You stay until the rain goes, and you’re out before the twins wake up. You take nothing from the library, you don’t go anywhere near the library or the twins. You go after me or anyone else in this house, I’ll make sure the next death sticks. We’re clear on that?”
Anakin breathes out, eyes darting down to his muddy shoes while he’s mulling it over, then nods. “Crystal,” he says.
She steps aside. He steps inside, ducking underneath the doorframe, and hands her his wet coat before he pulls out his gun from his holster and sets it down on the table, then the knives, then the stoppered vials.
Years ago, Padmé reflects, they wouldn’t be going through this. Anakin would just step inside and catch her lips in a kiss, scoop her up and carry her to bed, the two of them laughing. But years ago they were just a cop and her dorky journalist boyfriend, not the Grimm and a Zauberbiest. If Anakin is still one.
Her hand ghosts over the hilt of her knife, as she watches him slip out of his shoes. He’s much taller than her, but up against a Grimm, the size advantage doesn’t always mean much. No, what she’d have to worry about is if he decides to woge and--
She breathes out. When did paranoia become her default state?
When the Sith managed to turn Anakin, comes the answer.
--
He leaves in the morning, as per their agreement.
She doesn’t see him again for almost two weeks.
--
“I have no idea how you managed to charm that Eisbiber enough that he keeps sending you free hair care products,” says Padmé, as she and Obi-wan walk up to Ahsoka’s comic store. “Come on, Kenobi, tell me your secret.”
Obi-wan, her partner and probably the one other person closer to Anakin than she was, huffs out a laugh and shakes his head. “For one thing, I’m not a Grimm like you are,” he says. “For another, I have yet to cut someone’s head off in front of him.”
“Okay, fair point,” Padmé concedes. “Here, lemme get that for you.” She pushes the door open, gestures for Obi-wan to step inside.
“You’re much nicer to me than usual,” Obi-wan dryly comments. “Are you certain that has nothing to do with all those hair care products I keep getting? Because you could just ask.”
“Not at all,” Padmé lies, stepping inside after Obi-wan and deftly avoiding the scantily-clad Captain Kirk statue. “Hey, it’s Wednesday, she’s probably in the back room doing inventory.”
“Then we’re lucky we got here earlier than usual,” says Obi-wan. “Imagine this place when Wednesday afternoon hits.”
“Please don’t remind me, I’ve been here in the afternoon,” says Padmé, wincing. She touches a Batman comic, briefly, and tries not to think about Anakin’s old Batman shirt, still hanging in her closet. One day, she’ll throw it out. One day. “What’s this I hear about you and Satine, anyway?”
“Nothing is happening between me and Satine,” says Obi-wan, primly.
Padmé rolls her eyes. “That’s what you’ve been telling me for a year,” she says, opening the little door leading to behind the counter. “Either you’re lying to me or the two of you are incredibly dense.”
“She’s a journalist, it won’t work out,” says Obi-wan, resigned.
“It’ll work out,” says Padmé, unthinkingly. Then she pauses, a hand settling on the frosted glass, the printed letters reading EMPLOYEES ONLY. “Much better than mine did.”
Obi-wan looks away and down to his shoes, breathes out through his nose. “I suppose so,” he says, finally, something heavy in his tone.
Padmé nods, not trusting herself to speak anymore. Instead she opens the door.
“--Samhain is coming up in two weeks,” Ahsoka’s saying, behind a bookcase filled with arcane volumes inherited from her adoptive father. “Mysterious shipments, an uptick in disappearances, and now art theft. If this is all just a coincidence, I’ll eat my hat. The timing just lines up too well.”
“I’ll agree on that,” says another voice, and Padmé realizes, it’s Anakin. “The question is what they’re planning, exactly. We don’t know what these shipments contain, and the stolen art’s--what was it called again? Ka-something?”
“Kalikori,” says Ahsoka.
“It’s a family heirloom, it’s not worth anything to anyone outside the family,” says Anakin. “You have to warn Padmé, anyway. She’s a police officer, she might know something.”
“Warn her yourself,” says Padmé, stepping into what she’s come to think of as the war room. Ahsoka’s pinned up a map of Portland on her pinboard, red thread connecting recent attacks by the Sith on humans and Wesen alike, and the round table at the center of the room is covered in maps and books, arcane and modern alike.
Anakin startles.
Ahsoka doesn’t, instead propping her chin up on her hand and saying, “You’re early today.”
“We wanted to beat the crowds of nerds,” says Obi-wan, fixing a hard gaze on Anakin. Padmé doesn’t have to look to know he’s brushing his fingers over his holstered gun. “Anakin, what a surprise to see you here. When did you come back to Portland?”
“Two months ago,” says Anakin.
“If either of you shoot each other in my store, you’re both going to pay for the damages,” says Ahsoka, calmly.
“No one’s going to shoot at each other,” says Padmé, shooting Obi-wan one of her patented Looks before she takes a seat beside Ahsoka. Obi-wan follows a second later, pointedly scooting away from Anakin. “What’s this about the Kalikori?”
“Ancient artifact from Thrawn’s private collection,” says Anakin.
“You mean an ancient artifact Thrawn stole from the rightful owners,” says Ahsoka, sourly.
“We know what that is,” Obi-wan says, impatiently. “What role does it play?”
Anakin shrugs. “I have no fucking clue, there’s just too many possibilities,” he says. “I need to take a peek at the shipments coming in. Which I was going to do after I met with Ahsoka.”
“It could be insurance fraud,” says Padmé, dryly. “This is Thrawn.”
“Nah, he’s smarter than that,” says Anakin. “No, something’s up here. Does anyone here know where the Syndullas are?”
“I do,” says Ahsoka, “but that’s not information you need to know. I can pass your info on to them, though, they’ll appreciate the heads-up from a trusted source.”
Not you, Padmé doesn’t hear, but the distrust is there anyway. The three of them are clustered around one side of the table, and Anakin’s on the other. Like an interrogation, and all that’s missing are the cuffs.
Anakin shifts in his seat. He knows it too, she thinks.
“We’ll investigate the shipments,” says Obi-wan. “I’m sure we can find some fault in--”
“You can’t,” says Anakin. “As far as the authorities are concerned, the shipments are completely legal. Any charge you can scrounge up against them, they’ll stomp all over.” He huffs out a breath, says, “But they do need to go through checkpoints.”
“Knock out the guards and say they were called off-duty,” says Ahsoka. “I like that plan.”
“We won’t have to knock anyone out,” says Padmé. “Obi-wan and I are cops, remember? We’ve still got some wiggle room. Obi-wan can play by-the-book cop and keep everyone busy with paperwork.”
“I always get by-the-book cop,” says Obi-wan with a huff.
“Because you are,” says Padmé. “Meanwhile Anakin and I will be checking out the shipments, while Ahsoka keeps an eye out for anything that might go wrong.” And I’ll keep an eye on Anakin, she thinks to herself, but she doesn’t say it out loud. They all know she’ll be balancing finding some way to foil this plot with keeping an eye on her formerly batshit ex.
Anakin drums his fingers along the table. It’s an old habit, one she’d seen him do sometimes, when he was staying up late working on a story to send in, when he was playing connect-the-dots with his informants’ testimonies. It’s disconcerting to see it now, because she hasn’t seen him drum his fingers like that in--a long while, she realizes. Since Vader.
“It’s a good plan,” says Anakin, at last. “They’re coming in tonight, and we can take on the last checkpoint in the way.” He shrugs, says, “Should be easy.”
“It’s never that easy,” says Obi-wan, years of experience weighing down his words.
--
The plan goes sideways, as it so often does. Most of the night, going from the discovery of all the animals and the varying drugs packed up in the crates, is kind of a blur in Padmé’s memory.
The wonders of adrenaline, she’s sure.
Obi-wan and Ahsoka are gone now from the impromptu clinic Padmé’s set up in her kitchen--Ahsoka to talk to the Syndullas, Obi-wan to catch up on his much-needed sleep. It just leaves Padmé and Anakin in the same kitchen once more, for the first time in more than a year, Anakin perched near the sink and Padmé patching him up, like almost four years ago, before--
She pushes that thought away, and focuses on the work.
Anakin hisses, as Padmé wraps a bandage around his arm. “Careful,” he says.
“Stop complaining,” says Padmé.
“I’m not,” says Anakin. Then: “Sorry.”
Her hands still, for a moment. “For what?” she asks, resuming her work.
“Ah--I didn’t know the Astartes were here,” he says, as Padmé ties off the bandage and kneels down to wrap his swollen ankle. “I would’ve told you and Ahsoka if I did.”
“I believe you on that much,” says Padmé. “Can you get back to your motel tonight?”
Anakin shakes his head. “It’s on the outskirts of town, and my car’s still in the garage,” he says. “I took a bus earlier, but it’s too late now. Could walk, though that’ll be hard with the ankle.”
“With the Sith around, I’m not too sure on that,” Padmé replies. “You did piss them off pretty badly.”
Anakin nods. “That’s maybe the one thing from the past two years that I don’t regret,” he says. “Anyway--this could go easier. With the healing stick.”
“The Templars’ treasure,” Padmé corrects.
“Which is a fancy stick that can heal anything,” says Anakin.
“And which I also hid in a remote location,” says Padmé. “I don’t really know what it does. Until I do, it isn’t worth the risk for something a plain old first aid kit can’t fix.”
“You used it on me,” says Anakin, mildly.
“I thought you were dying,” says Padmé, quiet, standing up. “And what happened afterwards was the reason why I hid it.”
“What, me coming back?”
“More like, you begging me to kill you again,” says Padmé, leaning back against the dining table. “I didn’t know that was even possible.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be,” says Anakin, pulling a knee up. “All the Sith lore I could get my hands on said as much, and none of it said anything about the Templars’ treasure being able to reverse the ritual.”
“What did you call it?” says Padmé. “The ritual that brought you back.”
“I can’t pronounce the German name for it,” says Anakin, “but the rough translation’s Wounding of--oh.” He breathes out, runs a hand through his hair. “Oh,” he breathes, and presses the heel of his palm to his forehead. “He’d wanted to destroy it so much and I never even asked why.”
“Terrible journalism,” says Padmé, but she steps in closer, carefully sets her hands on both sides of him, inches away from touching him. “What would Professor Hart say?”
“I don’t count as a journalist anymore, considering everything,” he says, with a half-broken laugh. “And he’d be horrified.”
She has to admit, he’s got a point.
Tentatively, she places her hand over his. He stiffens a little, surprised and unsure, but leans into her touch a moment later when she brings her hand up to brush against his shoulder. How long has it been, she wonders, since the last time Anakin touched anyone? Since the last time someone had held him close?
She thinks of the last time she held him, how he’d sobbed into her shirt, leaving bloodstains on her jacket, the words he’d repeated, Padmé I’m sorry I’m so sorry I don’t know what to do what have I done what have I become--
Anakin cocks his head. “You hear something?” he says. “It sounded like--”
“Oh, no,” says Padmé, and she breaks away from Anakin, who breathes out a shuddering breath. She steps around the table and says, “And what are you two doing up and out of bed?”
Luke freezes, his hand halfway to the jar of sweets on the table. Leia, holding him up with an unnatural strength, goes completely still, eyes wide in surprise.
“Hi, Mama,” says Luke.
“This is Luke’s fault,” says Leia, then, “Ow! Luke!”
“It’s not,” Luke insists.
“Luke, don’t kick your sister,” says Padmé, pinching the bridge of her nose. Of all times for the twins to decide to come sneaking down to the kitchen for snacks, it had to be tonight. “Leia, put your brother back down and wash your hands, his feet are dirty.”
“Um,” says Anakin, and Padmé turns to see him limping slowly towards them as Leia sets her brother down. She steps closer to the twins. “Should I--”
“No,” says Leia, before Padmé can answer. “Mama, lift me, I wanna see.”
“Me too,” says Luke, heatedly. Me first, he means.
“You both should be in bed,” Padmé half-shouts. She’d made sure their door was locked, how the hell did they get out?
“But we wanna see,” whines Luke.
“Izzat Dad?” says Leia.
Anakin leans on the tabletop and peers down at them, says, “It’s nice meeting you guys, but I really have to go.”
Luke’s quiet for a moment. Then he scrambles under the table before Padmé can catch him and tackles Anakin’s uninjured leg with a cry of, “No! Stay!”
Leia also takes up the cry as Padmé scoops her up, crying, “Stay, stay, stay--”
--
Anakin ends up staying the night.
“They’re never going to stop crying if you don’t,” Padmé says, once she’s put the twins back to bed and confiscated their secret stashes of sweets under the bed. “Couch is downstairs. You know the drill, it’s almost the same as last time.”
“No weapons, no potions, don’t go near the library and try not to wake the twins,” says Anakin. “I--I can manage that.” He looks back at their bedroom, the door decorated with glitter and stickers and crudely-made crayon stars. “She’s got your eyes,” he says, quietly.
“He got yours,” she says. “They both got your sense for trouble.”
“They both got your strength,” he says, limping his way down the stairs. “They’re good kids. Did you tell them I was--”
“I told them you left,” says Padmé, and never has she been more aware of the distance between them, like a thousand miles. “They’re almost two years old. For now, that’s the only explanation they need.”
“Yeah, I guess telling them their dad went nuts and killed people is kind of rough,” says Anakin, glancing down at his feet. “But you told them who I was.”
“You deserved that much,” says Padmé, voice carrying from the top of the stairs. “Go to sleep, Anakin.”
Anakin looks back up at her. He nods, then limps away to the living room.
Padmé watches him go, then goes back to her bedroom. She sits down on her bed, lets down her hair, and lies down.
--
She doesn’t see him again for three days.
When she does, it’s on a completely unrelated case, one that doesn’t involve the supernatural, for once.
“Someone tried to rob the diner,” says Quinlan Vos when she and Obi-wan arrive at the scene. “Key word being tried. We’re taking witness statements right now, but the guy can’t have gone far.”
Obi-wan surveys the controlled chaos, shakes his head and mutters, “So uncivilized.”
“Whoever they were, they were desperate,” says Padmé. “Where are the witnesses?”
Vos nods to the ambulance, and it’s only years of perfecting her poker face that Padmé doesn’t let on her shock. “Just the staff and some customers,” says Vos. “One of them looks like he’d be your type, Amidala.”
“Mm,” says Padmé, vaguely, ripping her gaze away from Anakin.
Because that is Anakin. She would know him in the dark or if he woged, she’s sure, and she would certainly know him even with brown contacts, a fake scar, a bad mustache and a Dodgers hat.
She waits until Vos has wandered off to talk to the first responders and the other witnesses, then pats Obi-wan on the shoulder. “Anakin’s here,” she says, nodding to Anakin.
“Shit,” says Obi-wan, softly. “Do you think he had something to do with this?” He sounds almost despairing at the thought of it, and Padmé can’t blame him. Once upon a time, it wouldn’t have even crossed their minds.
But then, once upon a time, Anakin hadn’t tried to kill her.
“No,” says Padmé. “I’ll go talk to him, anyway.”
“You do that,” says Obi-wan. “I’ll look at the security footage.”
Padmé watches him leave first, then she shoves her hands in her pockets and walks over to the ambulance. The paramedic’s gone, having gone off to attend to someone who’d suffered an asthma attack during the break-in, so Padmé just walks up to Anakin and says, “So you work here now?”
Anakin blinks up at her. It’s disconcerting, seeing muddy brown eyes when she’s so used to blue. “Yeah,” he says, tugging on the nametag printed on his overalls, the one that just reads Clay in red embroidered letters. “I, um, I’m the janitor. It was the only job I could get where no one would ask too many questions why I looked like a dead journalist, so.”
“You hate cleaning,” says Padmé. “I used to have to bribe you to wash the dishes and vacuum the carpet. We had our first fight about that. How did you manage to get that job?”
“It helps,” says Anakin, dryly, “if the other applicant is high when he’s doing the interview.”
“No,” says Padmé. “Seriously?”
“Seriously,” says Anakin, a corner of his mouth twitching upwards. “He stank like weed when I got there, and since we were the only two here…” He shrugs. “Huh. Maybe it’s a revenge crime.”
“Did you tell that to the other officers?” says Padmé, sitting down next to him.
“Yeah, I told Vos,” says Anakin. “Did he--”
“All he said was that one of the witnesses was my type,” says Padmé. “I don’t know about you, but the mustache is a big turn-off.”
Anakin shakes his head with a huff of laughter, looks down at his hands. “No, he was talking about one of the waiters,” he says, nodding to a particularly handsome young man. If she squints and tilts her head, she supposes he would, sort of, seem like her type.
“It’d have to be dark first,” she says.
Anakin leans back, breathes out, air hissing through his teeth. “How are they?” he asks, quiet.
“Luke’s been asking when you’ll come back, and I caught Leia trying to sneak back downstairs to steal her candy back,” says Padmé. “You could drop by, I guess, just so I can have a night’s sleep. Standard rules apply.”
“I’ve got a walkabout tonight,” says Anakin, clasping his hands together and resting them on top of his knees, “following up on some leads about the Samhain ritual. But I’ll drop by before the twins go to sleep--when do they go to sleep?”
“Eight sharp,” says Padmé.
“Seven,” says Anakin. “I’ll come by around seven.”
“Lose the mustache,” says Padmé, bumping his shoulder. “You look ridiculous.”
“I look dignified,” says Anakin, puffing his chest out.
“You have no dignity left to speak of,” Padmé informs him.
--
Luke absolutely adores his father. That much is obvious enough, from how he throws himself at Anakin every time he sees him. Padmé’s certain it’s the novelty of having a new person around who’s willing to pick him up and tickle him.
Leia is a little harder to impress. Padmé sees her bringing her favorite picture down to the couch where Anakin beds down and explaining, in grave tones, that as her father, it was his duty to read her the book, and do the voices.
“Why?” he’d asked.
“You gotta,” Leia’d loftily explained. Padmé had left them to that, in order to prep for Bail coming by to babysit the twins, and had come by once more to hear Anakin pitching his voice high, like Leia’s favorite Princess of Alderaan, and Leia and Luke’s giggling.
He’s still there on the couch, when Padmé comes back down from tucking the kids in. “They’re asleep?” he says.
“Yeah,” says Padmé. “I think you just passed Leia’s test.”
“That’s nice,” says Anakin, beaming. “They’re good kids, one day they’re going to rule the world.”
Padmé smiles, huffs out a breath. “Right now I’d be satisfied just getting them to sleep,” she says, and sits down next to him. She hesitates a moment, then brushes her hand up Anakin’s arm to settle on his shoulder.
He shudders, leans into her hand, like a dog starved for affection. Once upon a time they’d lean in, and she’d catch his lips and they’d be kissing on the couch, like teenagers trying it out for the first time.
It breaks her heart now, to see him go so still, to see how his gaze flicks to her as if he doesn’t quite know what to do with this, with just a hand on his shoulder, gentle and warm.
He inhales, exhales, then slowly reaches up his hand, fingers brushing lightly, reverently against her wrist. It’s maybe the first time he’s touched her in a while--the last time he had, he’d been crying against her in the rain, begging her to kill him, end it, I don’t want this I don’t want to feel so much anymore Padmé please just--
She pulls her hand away, reluctant. He lets his drop to his lap, tugging at his sleeve.
“You should get going,” says Padmé, quiet.
Anakin nods. “I should,” he echoes, and stands up, passes her by and picks up his coat from the rack, his weapons from the table.
She turns to him, and says, “Come back tomorrow. Leia’s going to want you to read all her picture books.”
Anakin stops, his hand pausing on the doorknob. He turns to her, and his mouth twists into a small smile. For a moment, in the darkness, if she squints and tilts her head, she could almost pretend that he’s just on his way out to work, that he’ll come back later and kiss the top of her head, that they’re just two people in love, the way they used to be before everything.
“Okay,” he says, and Padmé lets the fantasy go.
--
Vos drops into the seat beside her in the precinct the next day and says, sounding strangely rattled, “So, uh. You remember when I dropped by Montgomery Street last week?”
Padmé glances up from the autopsy report. From the bruises alone, she’s sure this is the work of a Jägerbar, and if she has to deal with another dumbass celebrating their kid’s debut with a Roh-hatz, she’s likely going to forego diplomacy and just tranq them. “Yeah?” she asks.
“How long has it been since--”
“Two years,” says Padmé.
“Shit,” says Vos, softly. “I don’t--I don’t know if it’s just that, or the stress from the Halloween season, but last week, I thought--”
“You thought what?”
“I thought I saw Skywalker,” says Vos. “Near the Value Inn.” He huffs out a shaky laugh, pushes his hand through his dreads, says, “Of all places to hallucinate your dead boyfriend in, huh?”
Padmé hums. It’s a testament to how long she’s spent perfecting her poker face that she just says, “You should probably go see someone, yeah? And maybe take a few days off, since it’s Halloween and all.”
“I’ll go see someone, sure,” says Vos. “But I’m not taking the day off, someone’s got to fill in for you while you take your twins trick-or-treating.” He waggles his eyebrows, adds, “Besides, you know how lonely Kenobi gets without you around.”
“You are the worst friend,” Padmé informs him, passing the autopsy report to him. “Come with me, we’re going to go look at a body and you’re going to tell me what you think happened.”
“There are other, more romantic places to take a guy than a morgue,” Vos teases.
“Good thing I’m just bringing you for your uncanny ability to be right on the money about the victim’s death, then,” says Padmé, dryly. “And try not to flirt with Obi-wan on Halloween, all right? I don’t want to come back to broken hearts all over the precinct.”
“I can’t promise anything,” says Vos, “but fine.”
--
The next time she sees Anakin after that, she’s breaking up a Roh-hatz.
It isn’t going too well--she and the rest of the team that stormed the place have managed to neutralize most of the Jägerbar’s friends and even a few family members without having to fire a lethal shot, but the young man who’d wanted to go through this in the first place is still at large. The traps are still active, so Padmé has to watch where she steps, just in case there’s a trip wire rigged up.
She hears the scream first. She draws the tranquilizer gun from its holster, steps slowly and carefully closer.
She has to duck behind a tree when Anakin and the Jägerbar boy burst through the bushes, both of them fully woged and trying their damnedest to kill each other. Padmé reins in a curse, and instead loads up the next dart and takes aim.
The Jägerbar catches sight of her first. He snarls out a curse, throws Anakin off and charges towards her. Padmé sidesteps, ducks down low and sweeps the kid’s legs out from underneath him. Then she pulls the tranq gun and snaps, “Stay down.”
“I’m not scared of a fucking Zauberbiest,” the Jägerbar snarls. “What makes you think I’d be scared of a Grimm? Hell, you’d be--”
“You finish that sentence,” says Anakin, still woged, his eyes still burning red as he stands next to Padmé, drawing his own gun, “and I will make sure you regret it. Do you understand?”
Padmé fires the tranq gun, watches the Jägerbar spasm for a second before his eyes close and his body goes limp, then looks at Anakin. “What are you doing out here?” she asks.
“Going for a stroll,” says Anakin. He breathes out, rolls his head, and when he looks at her again, his eyes are blue, and he looks just as human as she does, though there are leaves and twigs in his hair, and a small cut just below his cheekbone.
“You’ll forgive me if I don’t believe you,” says Padmé, kneeling down to cuff the Jägerbar’s hands behind his back. “Considering the active police presence here, and all.”
“Yeah, true,” says Anakin, holstering his gun. “I was looking for an informant. Someone from the old days, who I was keeping an eye out for. He’d disappeared, so I did some digging.”
“And you came up here,” says Padmé. “That wasn’t just your only reason, was it?”
“No,” says Anakin. “I figured there was a chance you’d come up here, break the Roh-hatz up, and I thought you might need extra back-up.”
“I have literally an entire police squad parked just a few yards away,” says Padmé, crossing her arms. “Who’s your informant? Former informant. We’ll talk with him.”
“Silman,” says Anakin. “He used to work in City Hall. Then he saw someone--he saw me woge in front of him, so now he’s a bit. Um.” He rocks back onto his heels, and Padmé knows he means most people’s tendency to lose it, when confronted with anything that can’t be easily explained away. “It’s kinda my fault, so I’ve been trying to keep him out of trouble.”
“You’ve been doing a great job of that so far,” says Padmé, letting one hand drop and setting the other on her hip. “Where is he? And the other hostages.”
“Ancestral cave, if you can believe it,” says Anakin, jerking his thumb over his shoulder, indicating a haphazardly made trail. “Can’t miss it. It’s the one at the end of the trail there that smells like piss and terror.” He pauses, then adds, “Don’t worry about the traps, I, uh. I kinda. Triggered them all. Multiple blow darts are not fun to dodge.”
Padmé sighs, then pulls her walkie-talkie away from her belt and to her mouth, says, “Suspect’s down and cuffed, I need a squad on my location, over.”
“Copy that, Lieutenant,” Obi-wan’s voice crackles over the walkie-talkie, “over.”
She slips the walkie-talkie back onto her belt and says, “You should get going. It’s going to be a little hard explaining what my dead fiancé’s doing walking around an active crime scene to most of my colleagues.”
“And you’d rather not try,” says Anakin, shoving his hands into his pockets. “All right. I guess I’ll be seeing you?”
“Later tonight,” says Padmé. “Luke’s got it into his head that he wants to bake a cake, and you’re a slightly better baker than I am.” She shifts her weight from one foot to another, says, “Standard rules.”
Anakin blinks at her, then smiles, ducks his head almost shyly. Like the boy Padmé had known, so long ago. “Yeah, I can drop by,” he says.
--
“--need two,” Luke’s voice is saying, as Padmé passes by the kitchen doorway, reading over her grandmother’s journal, Leia riding on her back and staring hard at the “scary pictures”, as she’s come to call them.
“Why not just one?” Anakin’s saying. Padmé stops, steps back to lean against the doorway and smile at the scene. Luke’s standing on top of the stool, his father at his back, ready to catch him if he falls. “We could save on eggs.”
“No, two,” says Luke, with the patient tone of someone who has explained this twice over now. “Mama’s book says two.”
Anakin’s face scrunches up. “But that’s the less fun way,” he says. “What about--two eggs, three cups of sugar?”
Luke’s eyes practically light up at the prospect. Padmé looks at Leia, who’s also scrunched her face up the same way her father does, clearly ready to take on her brother for the right to the sugar-laden cake. “You’re right,” he gasps.
“You do that and I’ll never be able to sleep again,” says Padmé, stepping inside.
“I want some,” Leia impatiently declares.
“Okay,” says Luke, conciliatory, as Anakin hooks another stool closer for Leia to sit down on. “You get some, I get some.”
“What about Mommy, then?” says Padmé, gently letting Leia down from her shoulders to stand on the stool. “I’m hungry too.”
“Mama gets cake,” says Luke. Duh.
“Of course she does, she’s Mama,” says Leia, as if that had been such an obvious thing. Padmé drops a brief kiss to the top of her head. “What about Dada?”
Anakin stiffens, eyes growing wide. Padmé goes still as well, at how casually Leia drops the title.
“Dada gets cake too,” says Luke, sounding offended that Leia would even believe he would leave their father out of their cake. He reaches a chubby little hand out to the jar of sugar, and continues, “Everyone gets cake.”
“That,” says Anakin, so softly, “is a very good attitude, kiddo.”
“I’m not a kiddo,” says Luke, as proud and prickly as his father before him. “I’m almost two.”