Work Text:
It was a shootout.
Padmé wasn't supposed to be there, which was the truth that crawled through him like an infection. His pulse was throbbing in his ears, in time with the rapid-fire pouncing of his heart —get there, get there, get there. Of course she had gone under the radar to attempt to negotiate on behalf of the Republic, stave off the bloody slugfight that would be the armies of the Republic crossing blasters with Dakara's allegiance with the Separatists, of course she would—and what infuriated Anakin was that the Resolute had picked up on a ship exiting hyperspace in Dakara's atmosphere, but it'd been flagging commerce codes, it'd been flagging agricultural import signals from Corellia. But of course it had been Padmé, and of course she had known how to get right by him. But of course she was there, and of course it was a shootout.
His boots thundered against the floor—he followed the slow beat of her life through the Force, weaving between streaking blaster bolts, feeling the Force surge at his back, swirling like a typhoon. She had to be in the convocation chamber—at least near it—
Anakin barreled down the hallway, boots skidding on the floor when he took a corner sharply. He leaned into it and pressed forward. His commlink beeped furiously—no doubt it had been beeping furiously for a while—but he twisted it off, and there, there, this was the hallway.
Breathing raggedly, he squeezed his eyes shut. Show me her, Anakin demanded. Show me.
The Force flickered, glittered in his mind's eye—he smelled the sweet wind of the lake country of Naboo, the lowlands where the winds crawled down from the soft, rounded mountains, rolled off the lake. Padmé, the water, the gleaming shellacked surface of the lake, or the ominous, shadowed and dangerous depths that housed beasts with teeth and starving stomachs at the heart of all of Naboo. One thing and then another, seamlessly.
She was in the service hallway by the chamber. She'd hidden herself, before the battledroids had stormed the chamber and down the hall.
He opened his eyes and the strength of the Force fell away, and he ducked quickly into the disguised service hall doorway, pulling it shut behind him—and, sure enough.
"My lady," he said, softly, hitting his knees beside her. "Padmé, my love—"
"Please tell me," she gasped out, blood flicking her lips, "that you didn't abandon the battle for me."
"They know what to do," Anakin said, fiercely. So what if I did, so what, what's more important than you, tell me, try it, he thought, nearly vicious with it. He felt like one of the canyon krayts that burrowed into the rock together once mated, defending each other with gnashing teeth, bellowing roars, spirals of blood spattered onto the red-orange sands.
Padmé wasn't supposed to be there, and it burned through him, infected him—but there she was beneath him, a blaster bolt buried in her gut, staining her white flight suit the red of the lake flowers on Naboo. There was another that had struck her thigh, and he could practically feel the trail of blood behind him where she'd dragged herself from the chamber to this hallway, where she'd curled up and bled slowly in the low yellow light. Bled slowly, and alone, banked her pain inside herself alone.
Count Dooku had ordered this. Count Dooku had commanded this. He would rip out every single one of the Count's teeth and hammer bolts into the bloody holes. He would carve the good Count into bloodsoaked ribbons, pluck his tendons from the wreck and bind it into a necklace for his love; pluck out the Count's eyes, so that he'd never see her again, he didn't deserve the sight; rip out his vertebrae to make paperweights for her work; anyone who had ever laid a hand on her, he would—
"They need a leader," she rasped. "You can't lead from here."
"And you can't walk out of here," he snarled. He reined himself in. "I'm—I'm sorry, my lady."
Anakin buried his rage. He could unstring Dooku's intestines later, wrap the gore around his hands until there was a wet, sick pop, and splatter them on the floor, stomp on the Count's skull like the insect he was later. His hands fluttered over her, unthinking—panicking—and then he shrugged off his robe and started ripping off a shred of it, long dark strings snapping when he pulled.
"This is going to hurt, my lady," he said, quietly, in a voice pitched just for her.
Padmé grunted. The compact crown braid scrawled over her head had come half-undone, some of her frizzy, ruffled hair stuck to her face with sweat. Anakin cupped her cheek with his hand, thumbing beneath one of her eyes, wiping away a stray tear.
"I'm not going to break, Ani," she croaked. "Get it over with."
He snuck his hands beneath her leg and propped it on his folded knees, wincing at her cut-off groan—and then he wrapped the strip he'd just torn off his cloak around and over the wound on her thigh. "Breathe in, my lady," he said, and she sucked in a shaky breath. He pulled it tight, once, twice, and then tied it off.
"Just to stop the bleeding," he said. "Keep everything out of it, when I drag you through here."
I'll cut each one of Count Dooku's fingers and give them to you, Anakin thought.
She nodded, mutely, eyes screwed shut—his heart thumped once, twice, and then he leaned forward and pressed a quick kiss to her forehead. "Soon you'll be alright," he said, ferociously. "Nothing can stop that, my lady, nothing."
"I believe you," she murmured. "I believe you, love, I'm—I'm not going to break. Go ahead."
"This one will hurt more," he said, shredding another strip from his cloak with a rip. "Because I have to pack the wound. It'll keep the bleeding down, keep anything from getting in it."
He tore off another smaller strip, and, slowly, he folded it over and pressed it into the shallow puncture wound in her gut, his stomach twisting at the warmth of her blood. Quickly Anakin pulled the longer strip beneath her and around her middle, and then tightened it, gritting his teeth against her miserable gasp. He wanted to gnaw through his wrists, get rid of the bitter hands responsible for hurting her.
"Bundled up," he said, flashing her a watery smile. I'm so sorry.
She breathed quick and shallow. Alarm sparked in his chest.
"My lady," he said, cupping her cheeks. He pressed kisses to her forehead, rapid-fire, and then brushed her sweat-slick hair away from her face.
"There might be something wrong," she said, tightly.
He thumbed her tears. "Show me where it hurts," he said.
Padmé raised a bloodsoaked hand, her face screwing up against the pain, and said, "I got—I got thrown forward. Hit the edge of a—I can't breathe, Ani."
"It'll be alright," he said, punctuated with a kiss to the tip of her nose. "You'll be alright. It's probably a broken rib. Can I unzip the top of your—if I can feel it, I can probably tell if it's broken."
The corners of her bitten, bloodied lips turned upwards. "Asking your wife if you can undress her," she said. Her eyes were still shut, wrinkled at the corners. Her whole face was tight and pale.
"Nothing if not thorough," he said, and leaned forward to kiss her forehead again. Anakin's lips tasted like salt, from her sweat, and that—he was used to, but not quite like this. Not quite like this.
He unzipped the top of her suit, moving carefully, revealing the white underlayer for her breasts beneath. Her ribcage on the left had blossomed black and blue, and when he ran his hand over the ridges of bone, he tried to be as gentle as he could—not quite successful, judging from her intake of breath, but he located a knot fairly quickly.
"Broken rib," he said. "It doesn't feel like it's puncturing your lung, but that's no reason to waste time."
"So I'm alright," she said.
Anakin shook his head. "You're injured. Just not dead. Thank the Force and the stars above for that, Padmé, that was—"
"Reckless, stupid, irreverent."
Anakin's brow raised. "You took the words out of my mouth."
"That's what you complained about Master Yoda saying you were, last week," she said, warmly.
Anakin swallowed a laugh. "Keeping me on my toes."
Her eyes flicked open. "Every day, every hour, Skywalker. Welcome to marriage."
He snaked an arm beneath her, braced to pull her upright. "Every day, every hour," he hummed. "Means you're alive to see it all, then. I could get used to that."
Padmé leaned against him, with a choked-off, stuttering breath. Gingerly she raised an arm and draped it over his shoulders, and he felt the corded muscle there, the deceptive strength that drew him in over and over and over. "I said my vows in Nabooian."
And he'd read the words until he could recite them by heart, until they lived in him. "Yeah. You ready to stand?"
"Let me tell you this," Padmé said, and finally she looked at him, dark eyes like durasteel. "I meant it. I meant it when I said that I'm with you, dead or alive. You carry me, too, even if you lose me. You know that?"
Anakin couldn't swallow. Let me tell you this, he wanted to say. Let me tell you that I've watched people get beaten until they die. That I've watched them feed the corpses of my friends to the dogs, that every day my mother could've been bought, bartered for, put down, that everything I touch burns to ash and everything I do is watch people bleed out in front of me, and let me tell you, I didn't carry a single one of them, I don't have a single one of them.
"I know that," he murmured. He reached over and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "Breathe through it, my lady. And tell me when you need to stop."
Then he stood, and together, they ambled through the wreckage the battledroids had left behind.