Sorry Im late, had a graduation to attend, really late. Anyway, this chapters kinda boreing in my opinion, the way I made it, tho it picks up on some fun plot in the next chapter, which should be out tomorrow. Anyway enjoy.
P@treon Hermit47
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Rain whispered against the high windows of Dromund City.
Not the soft rain of Naboo, not the warm summer storms of worlds where people still looked up at the sky without thinking of war. This was Dromund Kaas rain—cold, constant, silver against black glass, lit now and then by distant lightning that turned the room pale for a heartbeat before surrendering it once more to shadow.
When Anakin woke, he did not know where he was.
For several long seconds, he only lay there, half-sunk in warmth, staring up at a dark ceiling ribbed with carved beams and old Sith motifs so softened by reconstruction that they no longer felt menacing so much as ancient. The room smelled faintly of rainwater, warm fabric, and the deep green scent of the jungle beyond the city walls.
Then he became aware of the softness beneath his head.
Not a pillow.
A lap.
His eyes shifted upward.
Padmé looked down at him and smiled.
It was not the public smile of Senator Amidala, not the careful expression she wore in senate halls or state dinners or under the thousand eyes of Coruscant. It was smaller than that. Warmer. Private.
For a moment, everything in him went still.
Then memory came back in broken fragments.
Korriban.
The starbase.
Pain.
Plagueis.
Fire inside his veins.
Bones splitting.
The dark side roaring through him until he could no longer tell where it ended and he began.
He groaned softly and shut his eyes.
Padmé's hand moved through his hair in slow, careful strokes. "Easy."
He exhaled through his nose, then opened his eyes again.
"How long?" he asked, his voice rough with sleep and strain.
"Three days."
He let his head fall back more fully into her lap and made a low, unhappy sound.
"That bad?"
Padmé's fingers kept moving through his hair, combing gently through the longer strands now falling around his temples. "Jango told me you were worse on the first day."
Anakin frowned slightly. "How long have you been here?"
"Only today."
That made him look at her fully.
"Jango contacted me," she said. "He told me enough to make me afraid, but not enough to make me panic. I found an excuse to leave the Senate for a few days. Jar Jar is handling my duties until I return."
That drew the faintest huff of amusement out of him.
"Poor Jar Jar."
Padmé smiled. "He was very brave about it."
Anakin groaned again and forced himself upright.
The motion made him dizzy immediately.
His body did not feel like his body.
Not wrong, exactly. Not broken.
Just… restructured. Every movement gave him information he was still learning how to interpret. His shoulders felt broader. His center of gravity had shifted. His muscles carried weight differently. Even breathing felt deeper, stranger—especially when he paused and really listened and heard the two separate rhythms in his chest.
One heartbeat.
Then the other.
He sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, elbows on his knees, palms pressed together, trying to steady himself.
Padmé watched him quietly.
When he stood, it was slow at first, then with more confidence once his legs stopped threatening to fold beneath him. He wore almost nothing—just dark loose underclothes—and the room's dim light left nothing to soften what had been done to him.
He crossed to the mirror.
And stopped.
For a long moment he simply stared.
He had always been large. Broad-shouldered, powerful, built more like a warrior than a traditional Jedi even before Plagueis had laid hands on him. But this—
This was different.
He was taller. Substantially. The top of the mirror should not have been that close to eye level. His frame had changed in more subtle ways too. His shoulders were wider. His chest denser. His waist still lean, but the whole line of him more imposing, more severe. Every movement pulled harder through thicker musculature. The ridges of his face and neck were slightly sharper, his claws more pronounced, his canines just visible when his lips parted. Even his eyes looked brighter in the reflected dimness—like something behind them had been polished into a stronger, more dangerous light.
He lifted a hand and ran it down over his chest.
Then stopped there.
One heartbeat.
Then another.
He closed his eyes briefly.
Behind him, the mattress shifted.
Padmé rose and crossed the room without hurrying. The silks she wore whispered against her skin as she moved—layers of soft cream and muted gold, some sheer, some gathered close to her body. Beautiful, elegant, and not nearly enough to hide the shape of her.
She came up behind him and slipped her arms around his waist.
Then, leaning around him slightly, she rested her cheek lightly against the center of his back.
"You got a little taller," she murmured.
Anakin's mouth curved despite himself.
"A little?"
"Mm." He could hear the smile in her voice. "Enough that I noticed."
He looked at their reflection together.
Padmé, soft and luminous even in the storm-lit room.
Him, larger and harder and somehow more visibly what he had always been beneath the mask and armor.
He should have been thinking about the war.
About the fleet.
About what Plagueis had done.
Instead, all at once, every feeling in him hit with terrifying clarity.
The relief of seeing her.
The hunger still gnawing low in his body.
The stress not yet burned off.
The warmth of her against his back.
The scent of her skin.
The shape of her beneath that silk.
The reaction was immediate and almost embarrassing in its force.
Padmé noticed at once.
Of course she did.
She lifted her head, meeting his eyes in the mirror, and one corner of her mouth turned upward.
"Well," she said softly, "that answers one question."
Anakin turned in her arms.
His hands found her waist almost automatically, and even there he was aware of needing more care than before. He was stronger now in ways he hadn't measured yet. Denser. Sharper. He could feel the difference in every restrained movement.
"What do you know?" he asked, though the question came out lower than intended.
Padmé looked up at him, unafraid.
"Enough."
Her hands smoothed up over his sides, then rested lightly against his chest.
"Jango brought you here," she said. "He told me the ritual changed more than your body. That for a while your emotions would be… amplified."
Anakin gave her a look. "Amplified."
Padmé nodded very solemnly, though her expression was threatening to turn amused again. "Anger. Hunger. Stress." She paused, then added with deliberate softness, "Desire."
That drew a sharper smile from him.
"Yes," he said. "That seems accurate."
Her fingers traced lightly over the center of his chest where his pulse beat twice beneath her palm.
"Does it hurt?"
"All of it."
Padmé's expression softened instantly.
He exhaled and lowered his forehead until it rested against hers.
"It's strange," he admitted. "I feel stronger. Faster. Like I could walk through a wall if I wanted to. But I also feel…" He searched for the word. "Louder."
She understood at once.
"The Force?"
He nodded.
"And everything else," he said quietly. "It all hits harder now."
Padmé looked at him for a long moment, really looked at him, as though she could see the ache under the new frame and the danger under the quiet.
Then she smiled again, softer this time.
"Then maybe," she said, "you should let yourself be still for one night before you go back to carrying the galaxy."
His hands tightened slightly at her waist.
"That sounds unlike you, Senator."
"I'm off duty."
"Is that official?"
"It is now."
He laughed then, low and real, and she leaned up just enough to kiss him.
It was meant to be gentle.
It lasted all of three seconds before the heat in him surged again, stronger than before, and his hands slid from her waist to the small of her back as he pulled her closer.
Padmé made a quiet sound against his mouth that did absolutely nothing to help him recover his self-control.
When they finally broke apart, she was smiling in that infuriatingly composed way she wore when she knew exactly what effect she was having and intended to enjoy it.
"You see?" she murmured. "Amplified."
Anakin looked down at her and decided, very deliberately, that the war could wait another hour.
He bent, lifted her easily—more easily than he meant to, enough that both of them noticed—and Padmé's brows rose before she laughed softly and wound her arms around his neck.
"That's new," she said.
"Yes," he replied, and there was enough dangerous amusement in his voice now to make her pulse jump.
Outside, the storms of Dromund Kaas rolled endlessly over the rebuilt capital.
Inside, in a room hidden high above a city the Republic barely knew existed, Anakin Skywalker let himself forget fleets and prophecy and pain for a little while longer.
And when the night deepened around them, the silence that followed was not the silence of war or ritual or fear.
It was simply the silence of two people clinging to the only peace either of them trusted.