Can You Love Me Again?

Chapter 23- Merely Bait

  Padmé Amidala-Skywalker arose with a terrible headache pounding behind her eyes that only seemed to worsen as her eyes fluttered open for the first time in days, to see nothing in a dark and dreary room. 

She groaned with strain as she pushed herself off the cold hard ground that she had laid uncomfortably on, when ironically there was a cot right beside her. 

'Typical.' She mused bitterly inside her mind. 

Padmé pressed a cold palm to her head to ease the agony that screamed as she tried to come to terms with this most displeasing situation. "I must've blacked out." She murmured to no one as she rubbed her stiff neck, thanks to the lovely hospitality of her captor. 

Which of whom the identity was still unknown to her. 

Her inner thoughts were muddled like the eutrophic waters of Nal Hutta in an inchohereant mess as she tried to recall what put her in this dreadful predicament. For instance, 

Where was she?

Was she home?

Where was Luke and Leia?

Where was Anakin...?

Her husband swarmed her thoughts with his laugh and smile, and the unbridled fury that screamed in his azure eyes when he saw her binded and slightly wounded by her kidnapper. Her children's horror pierced her mind as their jaws dropped, tears threatening to spill over at seeing their mother abused. She blinked back her own tears as she thought of her family, but one thing was for certain.

If Anakin found her, There would be one less slime ball in the galaxy. 

She closed her eyes again, both to ease her headache and to remember what had happened.

She was in the kitchen... so yes she was home and most likely making dinner. She heard shuffling, rapid and rushed, accompanied by her twins questions and a voice to hush them. So, she strolled down the hall to investigate. Then at the base of her wooden Naboo styled staircase, stood her two children and her cheeky, stealthy husband pulling his own jet-black cloak around his broad shoulders. 

The one he wore on Mustafar and had ripped off as he went to face his master-

'No. No,' she chided herself, knowing she didn't have time for this if she was to remember.... 

Forcing herself to focus again, she brought herself back to the memory.

She had asked where they were going, as any mother would knowing her kids were off to some unknown location with their crazy father. Leia said Tatooine, Anakin said market... she was getting confused. But her thoughts begun to clear as she easily remembered a heated argument. She had tried to stop him and he got defensive, as always. 

She remembered with a cold chill, not from the draft in the cell, but from the hurt, guilt and anger exchanged in their words before he made one last remark, and slammed the door shut, allowing her paintings nearby to quiver along with her body. 

"To get blue milk!" and then... an overwhelming sense of dread clouded them both. 

So Anakin.

Anakin was the reason she was in this mess. 

Typical. 

Her lips pursed absently, skewing to the left as she began to ponder on the words that had been echoing in her dreams. That and some old sins of the past that never really left her. 

'Blue milk my ass.' She muttered under her breath. He was hiding something. She could only just pray it wasn't dangerous for her... twins sake.