"Your majesty, it is a boy."

Her head was spinning, dizzy with the pain as the physician placed the child in her arms. It was smaller than she pictured – she would have assumed that a stomach so decidedly large would have been able to conceal a much more impressive infant.

"Your majesty, it's a girl."

The second infant was even smaller. Still, she barely had room to hold both of them in her arms at once. The hovering midwife helped her arrange them, but she was honestly too dazed to wrap her mind around much of what was going on. The only thing she could seem to focus on were the tiny bundles in her arms – wrapped in bloody cloths – at least one of them screaming at the top of his or her lungs.

That high, piercing shriek was far more than she could take. It pierced through the fog in her brain, drilling into the back of her skull.

"Take them," she commanded, offering them up to the midwife. "Bathe them."

The midwife lifted the boys out of her arm, furrowing her brow and nodding. Perhaps she had expected more joy, or perhaps she had expected even less of a reaction from the notoriously cold and calculating Empress. Padme did not know what to tell her, except that she had assumed wrong in both cases.

There had to be a natural point during a pregnancy where every woman was allowed to stop and ask the question or whether or not the entire ordeal was actually worth it.

Padme absolutely hated pregnancy. She hated everything about it. She could not tolerate the limitations that had been placed on her because of it. It was so difficult to move about. Everything was sore – her feet swelled if she stood for too long, but her sides started to ache if she remained in a chair or a bed for hours on end. Her breasts were tender and a corset, it went without saying, was impossible. She found it difficult to step out into public without feeling viciously underdressed.

Time and time again, she treated the members of her court as if she expected them to graciously gloss over the fact that she had a female body in most cases.

The veteran council members had it the easiest. Out of everyone, Anakin was the one who suffered. Of course, that was to be expected. He was the easiest victim, the most convenient. She was more hostile, lashing out whenever it was least necessary. She made it clear that he annoyed her, that she would be in a far better temperament if he were banished from her sight altogether. Of course, she never executed her threats. He was hers.

That much was very abundantly, painfully clear.

Referring to her condition as fragile would have been a disservice. She was far from delicate, and her temper often spiked at the most inopportune moments. There was some concern discreetly expressed regarding exactly how often her foul moods appeared. She was, if anything, more dangerous than ever.

It put the entire court on edge, frankly. A dangerous precipice for a system already struggling with to adapt to sudden changes with its new, tyrannical Empress.

She thought that finally giving birth would restore the balance. But it was not to be the case. The moment that they placed her new babies on her arm, she felt a shift – but it was in a far more sinister direction than she could have anticipated.

They placed the babies in her arms and she felt her heart drop into the pit of her stomach. She felt nauseated – but she blamed it on the pain. It had not passed, and she was left pale and shaking in the bed – drenching the unfortunate white sheets with her sweat.

Her children were as red as cherries – she could not help but think that they looked like they had been steamed. The physician assured her that they were supposed to appear that way – and she did not feel the slightest bit guilty for thinking their small, fresh bodies looked distorted from the womb.

They would grow out of it. They would change incredibly within a day's time. But for now, they were not what she had imagined. She thought babies were supposed to be beautiful.

And within the first few hours of life, they both proved to be very different from one another. Leia was the smallest and she was also the loudest. For the first few months of her life, she could have sworn that she slept for a total of a single minute. It dragged Padme's nerves through the mud and made them ragged – as she adamantly refused to allow any nursemaid access to her children. Luke, on the other hand, was bigger and his sole interests appeared to be both sleeping and eating. That came with its own merits. He could slumber like the dead through the worst of his sister's shrieks – but he consumed twice his weight in milk, and she was exhausted with trying to keep up the supply for his demand.

She tried to distract herself with their care, but it was not enough. Something inside of her had changed. She did not know exactly what, but it was insidious and too deep-seated for her to root it out easily. Not to mention, she did not have the time for introspection. She had two children to attend to as well as a kingdom to wrestle back into submission.

She could not fight everyone at once, which is why Anakin had been given more leniency. She had been seeing more of him as of late – it seemed that he was taking advantage of her slackened hold. It did not matter to her. She did not go out of her way to avoid him, but she never sought him out. She had her hands full as it was – and with her twins, she had to go the extra mile to protect them. She was well aware that they were her only true weakness. And as bitter as the reviled word love was to her, and as fast as it stuck to her throat whenever she tried to utter it, she knew she did love them unconditionally.

Anakin's presence largely served as an annoyance. Whenever she saw him wandering she could not help but presuppose that he was attempting an escape. He never failed to hover and keep a watchful eye on their children – appearing fascinated and intrepid both at once.

His relationship with her had evened out – considering she now had only the rare occasion to lash out at him. She had been less hostile since her twins had entered the world, but that did not stop the ground from shaking underneath his feet.

Of course, no matter what, the twins were their bond. They would be tethered to one another forever.
Both of them had come to terms with this fact, and they resented it.

Of course, Anakin was not the type of man who could leave well enough alone. He always had to push for more – that was what had gotten him into trouble in the first place. In this case, it occurred after Padme had left the room for only a moment to retrieve a seal ring from within a desk in her study. When she turned, he was standing there – cradling Leia in his arms.

Leia was small enough that her 'father' only needed one hand to hold her – but the man used two, handling the baby like she was something precious; it was like the child was in danger of breaking apart any minute if he moved through the air too quickly. Padme felt rage coming to a boil deep inside of her belly. Where exactly had the stationed guards gone? She may not have known, but she was certain of one thing…more than a few heads would roll for the grievance if they were without very good excuses for their neglect.

Padme's dainty feet quickly covered the ground between them as she wrenched Leia right out of Anakin's arms. The baby opened its mouth and let out a high, keening wail. Her anger zipped through the air, singeing him as she lashed out with her tongue.

"What do you think you are doing?" she demanded. Anakin tried not to look like she had genuinely startled him, even though she had.

"I…" he began.

"Do not – ever – touch them again." She snarled through her pearl-like teeth. "Do you understand me perfectly well? Never. You will not touch my children."

Luke's mouth trembled and he joined his sister's cries. Their high, despondent voices echoed throughout the small chamber – already increasing her growing headache tenfold. They could sense the tension in the air, the sudden turn of atmosphere – the bad blood. Babies had a nose for the scent.

Anakin, meanwhile, had defaulted to being infuriatingly calm. He seemed to throw it up immediately as a wall whenever he was around her – that guarded face she hated so much. He stood there while she tried to quell the babies. She was annoyed with him for just standing there – perfectly aware that her irritation was not born of sound reasoning.

"Our children." He corrected her. She lifted one eyebrow.

"Excuse me…?"

"Our daughter and son. You referred to them as though they were yours alone."

She scoffed openly. "You assume much when you lay claim to them." They were at least starting to quiet down, shoving tiny fingers in their mouths to suckle on and bring their cries back down to whimpers. "How are they yours – on the basis that you impregnated me? That does not make them yours, not truly. Do yourself a service and do not be so prideful. It does not suit you at all."

He didn't miss a beat. "Your mind games no longer have their desired effect on me." He warned, biting the tip of his tongue between his teeth with such forceful emphasis.

Over a year of imprisonment had taught him to bite back. Her sharp tongue had invaded his mouth in more than one way – always leaving behind less-than-satisfied biting wit.

She knew what effect this was having on him – everything that had changed. She could feel the changes taking place with her as well, and she didn't want to place that on the twins – but she knew it had something to do with their birth. It all drew its bloody roots back to him, making everything that had led up to this moment his fault. She washed her hands of any responsibility for his unhappiness. He was the cause of his own failings.

She considered responding, grinding her teeth to halt the sharp retaliation in its tracks. She had to turn her back to him, holding the twins close to her, no longer able to stand his presence. It was far too irritating. It was a miracle she had managed to put up with him this long…

"So," his words reined her in. "Tell me, how are you going to treat them?"

She set her mouth into a thin line.

"Will you treat them as the old Emperor treated you? Will you groom them to be your perfect enforcers? Will they be killers with innocent faces and honey-sweet words? I know that you are simply dying to find out whether or not they carry the Force…"

She felt like she had been stabbed through the heart, all of the breath being expelled from her body. A new emotion slid across her face, something far more tender than she had ever dared express.

Flashbacks to her childhood. There was nothing lingering there to make her smile. There was nothing other than brutality, the savage way killers were reared – there had been no compassion for her, no children's games – no fun. No memories, no discoveries. Information had been force-fed to her.

Expectations had been heaped upon her shoulders. She had been forced to carry the burdens of an elder at such a young and impressionable age.

This realization cemented it for her. She had no desire to raise child soldiers. She did not want them to face battle. She did not want them charging into the faces of their death, drenched in blood, the gnashing of lightsabers as they sang through the air and bit into flesh, cutting small lives short. She did not want that for them. She wanted them to be her heirs, her prince and princess. She wanted them to be loved and protected just as children should be.

Somewhere deep inside of her, she had known that. But it had taken his words to bring her out of that. She resented that fact.

He could sense that she was hesitant. It gave him the courage to approach her. He reached out, touching her small, graceful shoulder. She jumped, pulling her children closer and looking up at him accusingly.

"You should rest." He said. "You've barely gotten any."

"I am not made of glass." She snapped back at him. She knew he was right, of course. She needed sleep. She had barely gotten a wink of it in-between caring for her children and juggling her duties to her subjects.

Her head was spinning with the force of a cyclone, and she felt like her thoughts were a light trying to pierce through a thick fog.

She was too tired to fight him. Too tired to do anything. She was fueled entirely by spite these days, doing what everyone said she should not be attempting – what protocol and history books had actively been discouraging.

"I will send for a nursemaid." He told her when he didn't get an answer right away. He reached out to take one of the children from her, but she refused to hand the tiny thing over, pulling the child tighter to her chest.

"No.," she said. "I will not let another woman touch my children."

"They must sleep." He urged her again, repeating himself was the only way he knew to get through to her head. "And so should you."

"I know that." She set the babies back down in their cribs. They started squalling again, and she bit her bottom lip. This would be the first time she had not taken them to bed with her in a while. She didn't know if she felt like they could handle sleeping in their bassinets all by themselves…

She touched their full little cheeks. She let the Force seep into their skin, soothing them as gently as a kiss. The babies calmed slowly, cries fading out to whimpers before they succumbed to sleep. It would not extend beyond a natural period for them, but it would certainly be enough that she could at least get a few hours…

He touched her arm. She looked at him again, her brow knitting with confusion – borderline disapproval. She did not care for unsolicited touch.

"And then are you here, sir, to escort me to bed?" she sneered, mocking what she thought were his obvious intentions. He furrowed his brow as if insulted by the implication.

"You should know that I know better than to try and force anything upon you."

"I should hope so." Her breath was fast for no reason at all.

He finishes locking his arm through hers, sliding his hand down the length of her arm to grasp her hand. The single act of his skin sliding over hers was enough to bring feelings back to the surface, rearing their ugly head. Loving her was not beautiful. It was not easy. It was always so complicated, so difficult. She could not let anything be easy. It was against her nature to love and be loved, to let others love her-

He walked her back into the bedchamber, closing the doors to the nursery behind them. His heart was pounding in his throat. Her bed loomed before them, all plush brocade covers and numerous pillows scattered by the headboard. She turned to him, and for half a second he nearly caught himself reaching out to her – as if he was going to pick her up by the waist and lift her into bed like she was a child.

She pursed her lips – a pettish little habit that made her look like she was just a girl still. He lifted his eyebrows, a silent inquiry as to what she could want from him.

His head was swimming, his face was flushed. Why was he so confused? How could have this effect on him still?

Without warning, she slipped her arms around his waist. The touch was so foreign to him that it almost sent him into shock. He put his arms around her in return, a reflex, pulling her close. He dropped a kiss down onto her hair, his breath getting caught in his throat.

"You should," his words were weak. He knew that she hated it when his voice trembled. "You should be…resting."

His emotions were swelling, crashing into him like a tide. She could sense his fear – his confusion. She was feeding on it. She touched his cheek and cooed softly, a succubus with an angel's face.

"Come to bed with me." She purred, and he felt himself being pulled even deeper into her web. She was the black widow. He was only the helpless prey.

"I don't think it would be wise." He said. The look on her face was clear. She was not to be argued with. This was her will. She was Empress. He was in no position to refuse her. He would have turned her down flatly on that basis alone, but something else quickly followed the more vicious expression. She wanted him. She truly wanted him – his love, his lust. She wanted to feel his body against hers.

She pulled him towards the bed with another insistent tug of her soft hand. He climbed up the side, his knees sinking into the soft mattress. She embraced him again, pulling him back down against the mattress. His body was already reacting to her, responsive to her touches. He knew he was too far gone to resist, he had to give in. She always did this to him; he was helpless against her advances.

Her body was just as pliant, just as needy as his. She placed her hands on either side of his face, dragging him in for a kiss. He opened his mouth for her, and her pink tongue pushed its way inside, thrashing around. He caught it between his teeth – and the slight struggling of the muscle made him feel aggressive. She used to enjoy it when he took control – as if she relished the excuse to let loose. Maybe now that was what she needed…

Maybe she was just far too tired. Maybe being a mother and running a kingdom was catching up to her. She just wanted something else. She wanted someone to take control for a time so she could release her inhibitions to the wind.

He kissed her jaw right underneath her ear. He didn't know how this needed to be. Was it supposed to be messy? Like every other time? Was it supposed to be spiteful, hateful? Were there supposed to be that undercurrent of bitterness, or at least the understanding that she held the true power – she was in charge, no matter whose body was on top?

She was so vulnerable right now. It scared him because he did not want to do the wrong thing. He did not want to fully immerse himself in this dream only to wake up and have her lash out at him. But she was so very difficult to resist with long curling lashes, fine limbs, and her soft, curved jaw…

He kissed along her neck again, creating a path down to her chest. He savored everywhere his lips fell on the way, worshiping her with his mouth like she was a goddess revealed. He sucked her skin, biting it, teasing it with the tip of his tongue. She moaned underneath him, a fiery blush spreading up to her cheeks, turning them dark red. She quivered, her whole body trembling as he dragged his blunt nails down her back, raking them over the curve of her ass – his fingers working to spread her thighs apart. He ground down against her, his hips rocking – his firm erection was obvious through his pants and there was an infuriatingly small amount of cloth that separated them.

He pushed up her dress – it was a waterfall of soft, white and blue fabric – multiple layers of pleats and lace. It rode up her legs and exposed everything to him. He lowered his mouth and kissed the exactly swell of her thigh, right where it began to taper off into her shapely leg. He kissed up her thigh, keeping to the warm inside, his lips sliding up until the skin that he reached grew hot. His tongue skated over the inside and she pulled her thighs even further apart for him, whimpering, covering her mouth as he pressed his tongue against the soft, silky undergarments she was wearing. He pushed his tongue right up against where her entrance was covered and slid it back and forth, getting the fabric hot and wet, prodding it with his tongue, wriggling it back and forth to tease her through that. She couldn't seem to breathe properly. She was reaching out but she didn't know what to grab onto. She grabbed his hair, knotting her fingers up in it, tugging viciously – squeezing her thighs around his face.

She wanted him. She needed him, desperately, but she didn't want him to know how much. His tongue made her lose her mind – she already felt like she had been cut loose and was being allowed to drift up the river without anything to keep her afloat. She was in danger of drowning – she was in danger of giving up everything she had worked for – all she had constructed between them to establish their dynamic. She wasn't secure enough in her position to have even a moment of weakness. It was all she needed, to let him drag her down once, and then that would be the end of it all…

She was too delirious with her need to do anything more than a whimper when he gripped her undergarments between his teeth and dragged it down her thighs. She had not been touched since she had her children. The nurses had told her to give herself time to heal – and she was healed, now, but she was also incredibly sensitive. She didn't realize exactly how much until she felt his tongue touch her bare flesh. It was like being zapped by electricity and it made her jump. She was going to go crazy. If he didn't go through with this, she was going to flip him over and ride him and make sure she got the pleasure she needed...

His tongue was scalding. It slipped back and forth over the outside of her entrance, teasing her clit, sliding deep inside of her. She felt like she was being stretched when he slid it inside, her knees locking up – her whole body getting tense.

"A-Anakin…" it sounded like she was on the verge of both a plea and a sharp command.

His tongue went deeper, diving itself as far as it could until he could not be pushed any closer – his nose pressed up against her mound, his breathing hard against her skin. She moaned, long and loud - her head tilting and her back arching a little bit, enough to lift her hips up off the bed. He held onto her, his hand sliding underneath her to grab hold of her ass as he continued to lick her. He twisted his tongue around inside of her, getting her worked up until she couldn't take it anymore.

Against her will, she was starting to drip. She didn't want him to see how obvious it was that she wanted him, how needy she was. It made her human to want him this much, for him to be able to make her thighs this slick, for him to be able to do the things that he was doing to her, making her hot skin blush…

Anakin felt the wetness gathering up on his tongue and he spread it around, trailing it up to her red, aroused clit and pausing there. He played with it, flicking his tongue back and forth over the hard, aroused little spot. He dragged his teeth over it playfully, the pressed his mouth even closer – wrapping his lips around her to suck on her most sensitive place. Padme gasped so hard she choked, her fingers digging into the sheets, knotting up in them as she dragged them up.

"Yes, yes…" she breathed. "Mmm, fuck, yes…"

He gave it a few more hard licks and then grazed his teeth over it again, gently enough this time so that she could barely feel it. It was playful – a bit of a reminder that he could, in fact, take charge. She growled a little when she felt his teeth again, but she wasn't in any position to flip him over and take the control away from him, not when she was already so close…

The hard strokes of his slick tongue were starting to build up pressure between her thighs. Padme felt her whole entire body tense. She clenched her fists, her fingernails digging into her palms, leaving little half-moon marks that filled with blood.

"Yes, yes, yes." She moaned. "Yes, just like that…" her voice was climbing with high, breathy sounds that he found entirely appealing. He hadn't seen her so flustered since they first met.

It put him off only a little. Ever since her betrayal, he had looked back on those times wondering how many of them were sincere. But he saw no reason for her to pretend in this moment – she was not afraid these days to tell him how she truly felt about anything.

So it was comforting on some level that he seemed to be pleasing her. He just wanted to press harder. He wanted to make sure she was entirely satisfied. The connection he felt with her this time was far more desperate and romantic than it had been in a long time. He needed her. He needed to be vulnerable, just this once…

"Anakin!" she screamed his name again, and he thought his heart was going to fall out of his chest. "Anakin, I'm…!" she bit her lip so hard she nearly drew blood. The pressure in her thighs was mounting and she couldn't control it anymore. She was going to cum, and he continued to lick her, tease her, urging her to do so…

She came – her whole body going rigid and her thighs shaking. She felt herself gush – expelling so much liquid onto his tongue. He lapped it all up, and then slid over her body to grab another kiss, his lips coated and glistening in an appealing way.

Padme finally allowed her body to relax. She knew she was blushing all the way up to her neck. She was still mostly clothed, and she could feel where her skirts underneath her were damp. She blushed furiously – not sure if she was upset with him or not for doing that to her. She knew her eyes were glassy as she looked up at him again and he claimed another passionate kiss. She could taste herself on his mouth.

"Do you want the same?" she purred, locking her thighs around his again as if to prevent him from escaping. He lifted his eyebrows as if he was too busy coming down from the high of having pleased her in such a quick, heated manner. He couldn't quite process what she was asking him.

"Do I…what?"

She grabbed hold of his arms, flipping him over and pinning him neatly on his back. Her bare entrance was hovering just over his hips. He tried to catch his breath, but it got stuck in his throat as soon as he looked at her and got lost in this large, deceptively innocent eyes. She looked like a little angel up until she smiled.

He hadn't seen her smile like that…not since the Emperor died. Not since she became Empress.

She just didn't smile. Not really.

He reached up and touched her face, sliding his hand over her cheek. She closed her eyes and for a moment, there is a real connection.

It was just a moment, but she realized it. When she opened her eyes again, they were back to something he recognized. Intense, burning anger. It was so sudden and fierce that he could not understand why it was directed towards him. He crawled back, moving out from under her, as if something that could get him out of the line of imagined fire.

"Get out," her voice lashed out, cutting him deep like a barbed wire whip. He furrowed his brow – he didn't understand exactly what he had done to earn her ire.

"I don't understand." He said. "Did I do something wrong?"

"You need to get out." She just repeated, which wasn't an explanation. He wasn't going to accept that. He reached out and grabbed her hand, his erection was throbbing, but it was already starting to go down. He needed at least a few more seconds before he was going to be able to walk away from this at all.

"Why do I need to leave? I thought that…"

She shook her head. "This isn't right for us. It was too much. It was…" it was too close to intimacy. She was fine with playing helpless in bed every now and then – submission was as much of a release as domination at times – even if she had not played that role in a long time, and even if she had never intended to play a soft, sweet one for Anakin ever again. This was different. This was something like they had in the beginning – it was too much like the moment when she had first realized that she was in love

– that word she hated so much because of all it had done to wreak havoc on her life.

She didn't want to tell him any of this. In that moment, she hated him. She wanted him out of her sight. She was glad that she was leaving him to drag his unfinished desire between his legs. He didn't deserve to have any release, not after what he just did to her – emotionally – and no doubt intentionally. He was an insidious creature who only cared about hurting her as badly as she had him. That was entirely his game. That was why she kept finding him with the children. He wanted to get close to them, get them attached. He wanted to be their 'father' figure, he wanted them to love him as well so he could turn them against her, one day…

It was all the sort of thing she might do, were she in his place. But she isn't in his place. She is in control. She isn't the one who needs to be lashing out with petty emotional blackmail. And he just needed to get out.

She pointed toward the door again for emphasis, locking her gaze with his so that there was no looking away, no trying to skirt around the issue and remedy it with soft kisses and placating words.

He got up, pressing his hand into the side of the bed. He was finally able to walk – probably.

He understood her mindset without her even having to tell him. He had felt it too after all. He had wanted to feel more of it – and he thought she had as well. Clearly, he had underestimated exactly how deeply this change was affecting her. He thought maybe Luke and Leia had done something more to change her as a person.

He had been wrong about a lot of things, lately. One more error in his judgment was not going to kill him. That would be too merciful.

"Is there anything more I can do for you, my Empress?" he tried not to sound bitter. But she was sending him off half-finished after all. He had been so hard a moment before that a simple brush of her fingertips may have been enough to make him come undone Perhaps it was a good thing she hadn't gone that far with him this time…she may have laughed at his sensitivity, his need.

"No.," she said imperiously. "But you were right in one regard…I need to rest. And I do not wish to have company." She turned away from him, raking her long hair over her cold shoulder. "Shut the door on your way out."

He bowed cheekily, glad she couldn't notice the obvious sarcastic gesture. He turned and started walking out of the room, heading for the nursery where the twins still slept.

She didn't want him there, but it did not matter. He would wait there until she woke up.

Padme heard the door shut and felt her heart's fluttering start to settle down in her chest. Only when he was gone did she grab hold of her coverlet, pulling it up to her chin as she curled up on her side and stared at the window – where the sun was seeping through the thin curtains with insulting audacity.

She could not take her mind off the moment they just shared – how euphoric and yet disgusting it made her feel.

She was not going to sleep anytime soon.