Illicit Affairs | Obi-Wan Kenobi

Seven

28 BBY | Almost four years later

I lay on his chest, moonlight shining in through the window in his room that overlooks the city. It's peaceful, beautiful.

I'm holding his bearded face, so much older, so much wiser and dare I say more handsome. But it's his eyes that have not changed, still as beautiful and bright as ever.

"So darling," I find myself absentmindedly pondering as he holds me close. "What was the agenda for today's long and horridly boring council meeting?"

"The council is debating giving Anakin a padawan," he tells me and I can't help but laugh. "It's not funny it's terrifying."

"Anakin with a padawan?" I question. "He's barely even a knight and they want to put a child into his care?"

"With my supervision," he assures me, fingers running over the skin exposed by my nightgown. "Soon it will be the three of us sent to some blasted corner of the galaxy to fight."

"Which means you and me free to do as we wish without the council watching," I remind him with a smile and his eyes brighten at those words."See sweetheart, everything is falling into place."

"Better than we could have hoped for," he says, thumb tracing the smile on my face before he kisses me and tells me the words I've been dying for. "I love you my darling, more and more everyday."

"I love you too," I whisper and it's then I wake within my dream and know none of this is real and tell him what I never could otherwise "I wish I came with you."

"It's not your fault," he tells me as tears fill my eyes. "You were never given a choice to come with me, that choice was taken from you by the council before you could make it."

"But I had made it," I whisper as he slips away between my fingers. "Obi?"

And he's gone. 

Numbly I wake to the smell of spice in the air and unconscious scantily clad people around me, my head pounds as I take in the aftermath of the night. I'd be lying if I said I did not intend for it to end like this, I knew how I planned to end up when I put on a short dress and enough makeup nobody would be able to recognise me. 

They would never know their Princess of Theed is a raging rogue bleeding from the inside, and yet none of it did anything to ease the ache in my heart nor the pain that spice dreams bring, so vivid it could be real. It felt real.

It is still the only thing that feels real as I make my way to the palace to clean myself up before someone catches me like this. But by the time I make it back to my room in the palace Padme is there waiting for me, eighteen now and yet she has become far older than I could ever be. While she's aged into a wise queen I've grown into a tall child who's learned what a pretty face and the right name can get herself.

And how freeing having nobody know my name is.

"Where were you?" she asks me, taking in the smudged black liner covering my eyes and then smells me from where she's sitting. "Rhea I swear-"

"Relax I was hardly a participant," I tell her, not that I can remember any of it but I assume it's a lie. "I'm twenty three, am I not allowed to go and have a night out every once in a while."

"No," she answers shortly and lectures "You cannot go and mingle with spice addicts in warehouses and come back in the morning remembering none of it. You have just finished your term as Princess of Theed and are about to become the General of Naboo, you have a reputation to maintain."