#suppressionchapter4

Suppression

The forbidden tale of Anakin and Padmé's AOTC courtship. A detailed expansion covering the movie, known deleted scenes, and many new scenes. If George showed 20% of their screen time, this is the other 80%. Told in Padmé's POV with ROTS awareness. Written for the enduring fans of Anidala.

Link to Prologue at FanFiction.Net and AO3

I Coruscant. Chapter 4: Fleeing

I didn't realize how lonely I was until Anakin came back into my life. I pushed away my personal wants and desires for so long that these freedoms became strangers to me. I poured all my breath into my political efforts and left none for myself. The fight and the successes sustained me, but I was a woman half-alive. My love for democracy beat in my heart like a furnace but it did not set fire to my blood— not like he did.

After years in a Senate filled with backstabbers who gave the holomovie actors a run for their money, I was unaccustomed to such an unfiltered soul, much less one deep in the pursuit of courting me. I remind myself of that whenever my regret berates me over the coals for the time I wasted resisting his charms. I was the elder, I tell myself, it was the right thing to do.

Right. Wrong. Truthfully, I'm too biased to decide such verdicts. All I know is, I was so lurched to the side of selflessness that when a chance came to finally want and take something for myself, I grasped at it like a woman starved. I thought I was rebalancing myself. But all I did was go from abstaining to gluttonously craving. Right and wrong increasingly didn't matter.

It certainly didn't to Anakin.

I was his, as he was mine, and he wasn't going to let a little thing like my penchant for self-sacrifice stand in his way.

Captain Typho, Dormé, and I ranted and raged together against the directive until we at last burned ourselves out. It took a while— we had plenty of fuel to feed our ire. No one liked the idea that I was being separated from my security retinue, especially when all duties and responsibilities were to be handed over to an unproven (last night's saber skills notwithstanding) teenage apprentice. I lost count of how many times Typho yelled, "He's not even a Knight!"

As to be expected, I was the most crushed over being forced off-planet at the crucial time of the MCA vote, but even the captain was openly dismayed by it. He usually kept himself more focused on the particulars of my protection rather than on my political labors, but even he was disheartened that the past year's work might come to naught. Ironically, considering he'd been the one most "grateful" and pleased when the Jedi got involved yesterday, the turn of direction they'd taken with this move significantly soured his appreciation. His switch to livid disapproval would've been comical, if all of it wasn't so frustrating.

I learned that Typho was informed of the situation by the chosen apprentice himself. It seems Ani comm called the captain while en route from the Chancellor's office and filled him in far more than the Chancellor had me. I got the impression this came more from Typho refusing to let Ani end the call until his list of demanding questions had been sufficiently answered— even Ani knew better than to hang up on an angry and incredulous Captain Typho. The specific order to go into hiding and travel as refugees on unregistered transport came from Mace Windu. Obi Wan had advised that Dormé take over the appearance of my continued presence on Coruscant, to be protected by Typho and the rest of the staff. They wanted to keep the bounty hunter's focus on the capital planet as much as possible while Obi-Wan carried out the investigation by himself. Beyond that, my fate was to be in the hands of Anakin Skywalker.

The official word would be that I was very much still on Coruscant but recovering from back-to-back assassination attempts. If the investigation took longer than expected, then the story would become that I was properly sick with some non-fatal but serious illness. Both the fighter and the truth-teller in me bristled at such excuses.

Throughout all this, Dormé would take over sleeping in my room and occupying my apartment during the daytime, which would remain on heavily armed lockdown. It was the compromise I fought hard for after the rant session when the last schematics were being figured out. Everyone agreed that Dormé didn't quite look enough like me to pass as Amidala in the halls of the Senate. Nevertheless, I'd made it clear that even the idea of Dormé walking through the city in my stead with the threat so close would result in my immediate refusal to hide, Chancellor's or Jedi's orders be damned.

At present, Dormé and I were in my room, splaying black suitcases across my bed. "It doesn't even make sense!" With my last word, I threw the first garment I randomly grabbed from the closet into a luggage box. "If it's so important that I go into hiding, why am I going to my home world? It's the first place a hunter with half a brain will check if they figure out I'm not on Coruscant."

With a somber smile, Dormé retrieved the thick snow jacket I'd flung into the suitcase and put it back on the hanger— I wouldn't need it where I was going. Softly, she offered, "Perhaps they know the planet most willing to hide you is your own." She paused, regarding me for a serious moment. "The people of Naboo would die before they let any harm come to you."

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that." Then I swallowed painfully, realizing it already had.

Dormé shook her head from side to side. "I still can't believe their putting your safety in the hands of a Padawan."

I didn't comment. My frustration at Ani had cooled since earlier, and, in truth, I felt some shame for the anger I'd directed his way after the order came down. He couldn't help his age, nor his status as an apprentice. Besides, if Typho's second-hand account was correct, the Council had given him this assignment unasked. He was following orders, same as me.

Not only that, but the longer I ran the situation over in my head, the longer I begrudgingly began to see where the Jedi and Palpatine were coming from. It didn't mean I liked it, but it was my job and my nature to consider the other's side in a disagreement or else be blinded by stubbornness.

Staying would mean going back and forth between last minute meetings and the Senate, increasing the risk of vulnerability to my entourage when most Senators already had their minds made up.

Leaving meant those left behind could lock down the apartment and stay put. Stay alive.

{More so than anyone, I've faced the pushback, the arguments, and worked out the compromises.}

Did I feel owed? Is that what this stemmed from? Pride?

My tenacity to see the defeat of the Military Creation Act through, while being something I indeed prided myself on, could put Dormé, Typho, Jar Jar, and the rest of my dedicated staff in lethal danger. Their lives weren't worth my glory moment in the sun.

It had already cost us Cordé and six others.

"Where do you think you'll go?"

I shot her a wry look. "You heard my travel agent."

While the Chancellor's suggestion that I see this as a vacation made my skin crawl, I couldn't disagree that the Lake Country made for a remote, secure hideout that was beyond idyllic. Not only was it beautiful, but it was possibly the safest place on Naboo for me, spare the palace. It was also home to where I always I felt the happiest— my family's lakeside house.

"Does that mean…?"

I nodded. "Varykino."