Anemoia | (Anisoka +18 ENG version)

Chapter IV

It had been two weeks since Anakin and Ahsoka last saw each other in the meditation dojo. After that, they were assigned to different missions and their paths hadn't crossed again.

Anakin had broken through a separatist blockade outside Ryloth's orbit in record time, and thanks to his victory—though with his usual questionable methods—he had been granted a brief leave to rest for the remaining rotations. After several failed attempts to communicate with his padawan, who had been reassigned to oversee Saw Guerrera's squad in Onderon, he opted for his second-best option: meeting his wife on Coruscant.

Everything felt strange and foreign to him in the apartment he shared with Padmé. He spent so much time away that each time he returned to find new furniture or his belongings rearranged, it made him feel sick. It was as if he had never been there in the first place, or even as if he were merely a guest and not a resident in his own home. And to him, it hadn't been his home for quite some time. Where once he had felt safe and sheltered from the cruelty of war and the threats of the galaxy, now he felt small and invisible, like when he was a child, like when he was a slave.

Sitting on the wide six-seater couch that Padmé had brought from Naboo, he leaned his head back, slipping off his boots with his feet and resting them on the small glass table that adorned the center of the living room. He had time to sigh twice before his wife's voice broke the silence.

"Anakin. Take your feet off the table, I've told you hundreds of times. It's unpleasant." Her tone sounded more like that of an annoyed mother than a loving wife, he thought. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes and reluctantly obeyed.

"Sorry," he muttered.

He didn't like the idea of feeling this way about Padmé. He would have given anything to feel the devotion and passion with which he had once looked at her again. But he wasn't going to let his marriage sink so easily. He truly loved her, beyond everything; he didn't want to lose her or hate her. He wanted to save their relationship from the claws of routine and distance, to reclaim the youthful love they once had. Or at least that he wanted to believe they had. Because he knew for a fact that Padmé Amidala was a great person and an excellent senator, but not such a good partner—or maybe not for him.

He stood from his seat and walked slowly over to the desk where she was reviewing a stack of speeches. He smiled at seeing her so focused—she looked pretty, though distant. When he was behind her chair, he placed his hands on her shoulders and began to gently massage them as warmth began to spread through every part of his body.

"You're tense. Don't you think it's time to relax a little? It's already getting dark, and I can help you forget the stress," he whispered with his lips very close to her ear, but the reaction he got wasn't the one he had hoped for. Padmé pulled away, tilting her head as she kept her eyes fixed on her papers filled with words that Anakin found difficult and pretentious.

"Anakin. I have to finish this."

"But I'm here. We haven't seen each other in weeks. I miss you, I miss your warmth," the Jedi's voice became raspy and needy.

His heart began to throb in his limbs with a familiar anticipation. When he inhaled his wife's floral perfume, he wrinkled his nose. He used to like it, but now he longed for another scent. A spicy and wild scent that reminded him of the color orange. He cleared his throat, trying to shake off that thought. His wife simply shrugged to create some distance, frowning in annoyance.

"Work comes first, you know that."

"Yes, I know," he muttered in response, noticeably irritated as he pulled back, defeated, and looked over his wife's shoulder.

All he could think about was kissing her neck and having her all to himself in their bed. He hated Padmé's priorities—they felt silly, unfair. Or maybe he was the one who was wrong, placing her on a pedestal above the Jedi Order, above the war, above everyone else. Almost everyone else.