Disclaimer: Everything belongs to George. Even Padmé's expensive dresses.

Note: This fic is set in an AU where Anakin killed Sidious in ROTS. But certain points of view apply here, and Sidious' death may not mean quite what most people would think...

Greyspace

The official word was that Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker had defeated the Sith Lord Darth Sidious and saved the Republic.

There had been a climactic battle in the Chancellor's office. Three Jedi had been killed, and the great Master Windu himself had nearly succumbed. But in the end, Windu and Skywalker together had destroyed the Sith, and balance had been restored.

That was the official word. Anakin often thought that his life would have been much easier if only it were true.

Of course it fell to him to ask the questions. The Council had initially tried sending others, but their prisoner was apparently not interested in conversing with them, and in the end it was a simple matter of logic and necessity. Which was, of course, what Palpatine had intended all along.

Imprisonment had not really had much of an effect on him, Anakin thought. He was still and always in control of his surroundings, and that was what the Council had failed to understand. It was what made Anakin certain that Palpatine would not die in this prison. His darker side, the part that whispered around the edges of his fatigue and his lost dreams, knew that Palpatine was really only here as long as he wanted to be.

But he asked the questions anyway. Most of the time he didn't get answers—he got them only often enough to ensure that the Council would continue sending him. Exactly as Palpatine wanted.

Anakin hadn't yet decided whether he minded or not. Palpatine was a Sith, and had manipulated him for nearly as long as he'd known him. Anakin was aware that this probably hadn't sunken in fully, because he had yet to feel any sort of blind, murderous rage (and he should have felt that, no matter what the Jedi might say). Instead, he felt lost, the way he had as a child when he'd wandered away from his mother in the busy marketplace and found himself surrounded only by strangers.

Except that Palpatine was still there, and that was part of the problem. Because he was still so very easy to talk to. And he still had those warm eyes and that sternly indulgent smile, the way that Anakin had always imagined a father should. The only thing that was different now was that he was no longer hiding, and neither was Anakin.

So they developed a routine. Anakin asked about passcodes and accomplices, and Palpatine responded by asking after Padmé's health. Occasionally he asked how Master Kenobi was handling things. Once he volunteered a few tips on changing a baby's diaper.

It was usually about then that Anakin turned on his heel and stormed out. But in his own mind he could never be certain whether he was angry or running.

For the first several months following the incident in the Chancellor's office, Anakin barely had time to think. His days were eaten up with press conferences and encrypted files and Council meetings and investigations, and to top it all off there was the matter of his now far-from-secret marriage. As though he and Padmé had really needed any more media publicity. Not to mention the Council's reaction.

He was almost glad for the hectic pace of reconstruction. It may have been only partially successful in keeping the Council off his back, but it was successful in leaving him no time to think. And his duties with the investigations gave him a very handy excuse for avoiding Obi-Wan.

And just when things were beginning to settle down and it looked as though he could no longer put off having a long talk with his former master, Padmé had the baby. Or rather, babies.

In addition to being tiny and beautiful and perfect and wholly sacred in his eyes, Luke and Leia were also excellent distractions. And it wasn't as though he'd been getting much sleep lately anyway, so he hardly minded the late nights.

Padmé had wanted to give birth back on Naboo, but she hadn't counted on the downfall of a Sith Lord disrupting her schedule, and as it was, they were both far too occupied with the reconstruction to even think of leaving. At first Anakin was convinced this was a blessing—it was only because of the chaos surrounding Sidious' revelation and downfall that the Queen allowed Padmé to continue as Senator. And while a part of him couldn't imagine anything better than he and Padmé retiring to Naboo and spending the rest of their lives out of the public eye, the more honest part of him knew that Padmé could never be content living that way. So he was glad that things had turned out as they had.

At least, he thought he was. It wasn't until two weeks after the twins' birth that Anakin realized why, exactly, having their children born on Coruscant was a problem. Because it meant that he was still on Coruscant, too. Coruscant, home of the Jedi Council and, more ominously still, Obi-Wan Kenobi.

It was sheer luck that he was in the babies' room when Obi-Wan made his inevitable appearance. Admittedly, Anakin was initially inclined to think it was sheer bad luck. (He had long ago decided the Force must hate him, and this was only more proof of the same.) He couldn't imagine a more awkward situation if he tried, and the fact that he knew Obi-Wan had only learned of the twins' birth by watching the holonews was not helping in the least. Nor was the fact that Padmé seemed to be caught somewhere between awkward embarrassment and a fierce protectiveness, and was evidently having difficulty deciding which reaction to present. Anakin hoped she would settle on the protectiveness. True, it wouldn't bode well for Obi-Wan, but he would certainly be much better off.

It was about then that Obi-Wan broke the silence with the very last thing Anakin had ever expected to hear from him. "They're beautiful children," he said, gazing into the bassinet. He even appeared to be smiling a little.

Babies, Anakin decided, made very good distractions indeed.

Of course Palpatine also had to congratulate him on the twins' birth. It wouldn't have been so bad, except that Anakin honestly couldn't decide what his motive was. Was it a veiled threat? A mockery? Did he just want Anakin to know that he still had access to information about the outside world? Or did he genuinely mean what he'd said?

The last was by far the worst possibility.

Needless to say, that particular visit did not last long.

Everyday marriage, Anakin soon discovered, was not really much like the three years of secret trysts he and Padmé had shared. Not at all.

For one thing, there was the business of actually living together. He hadn't thought about it much before, but this was really the first time they'd had to share living space on a regular basis. He found out that Padmé liked to take hour-long showers, and that after the first couple of days, it quickly stopped being endearing. He learned that she was not terribly concerned about keeping their closet space orderly, and he was genuinely surprised by how much that bothered him. Once she banished him from their apartment for several hours after she caught him organizing the mess in her closet for the fifth time in as many weeks. She said she hated his over-tidiness, and the fact that he was always up before sunrise (though he wasn't sure what exactly that had to do with organizing a closet). She also threatened to "organize" all of his tools and spare parts in his work room, which he felt was patently unfair. Everyone knew that a work room was supposed to be a bit cluttered. A bedroom was not.

And then there were the fights. These weren't like the disagreement over the organization of closet space—that had been a minor squabble. Admittedly, in the war years he would have thought it was a fight. (But then, in the war years he had never really bothered to look at the inside of their closet—her closet really, as he was never home often enough to use it.) Now he knew the difference. Squabbles were what happened when they disagreed about who would get to cook dinner, and they were easily fixed with kisses and sometimes…other activities.

Fights were what happened when he realized that the amount she spent on a single dress would be enough to buy three slaves on Tatooine. Fights were defined by words you couldn't take back. Maybe if you'd cared more about people than dresses, my mother would still be alive.

Fights were what happened when she demanded to know why he was still going to visit Palpatine three years later. Fights thrived on words you couldn't take back. Maybe if you hadn't been so caught up in your own fantasy of having a father, the war might never have begun.

The thing about fights was that, no matter what anybody said, you couldn't just kiss and make up. You had to find some way to meet again.

Anakin Skywalker had spent most of his life with the Jedi, but it was fighting with Padmé that finally taught him how to forgive.

Sometimes on his visits, Anakin brought a portable holochess board. Palpatine had taught him to play during his first year as a Jedi apprentice, back when his visits with the Chancellor had been the only thing keeping him from running back to Tatooine and his mother. Even now, he still lost nearly every game, but he'd actually managed to win a few over the last year. The wins had been rare enough that he was almost certain Palpatine hadn't simply allowed them.

Palpatine still asked about Padmé and Obi-Wan, but the questions had changed subtly over the years, becoming less leading, more open and only vaguely curious. Anakin thought that might be a good thing. He hoped it meant his former mentor was no longer looking for information he could use; now he was just making small talk.

He tried not to think about it too much, though, because that always brought his mind back to the one question he couldn't answer. He knew that not even the entire Jedi Order could keep Palpatine captive if Palpatine himself did not in some sense allow it.

So why was he still here?

When Luke and Leia turned six, they received a mysterious package with a tag that read only "for my grandchildren." Anakin was fairly certain that the package wasn't from Ruwee, or from Cliegg for that matter. For one thing, neither of them struck him as the type to give a six-year-old a lightsaber construction kit.

Of course, Obi-Wan wasn't out of the question in that regard, but as he had already given the twins each a new Jedi tunic the day before, Anakin found it unlikely.

Padmé quickly took the kits from the twins, pacifying them with promises of "When you're older." He thought he heard a mumbled "much, much older," under her breath, and decided now was probably not the time to tell her that, had they been raised in the Temple, they would already have begun their lightsaber training. Not for the first time, he was grateful for his status as an outsider to Jedi life. He was there when they needed him, but he was there on his own terms. He didn't yet know if Luke or Leia would ever be there, but if they were, it would be on their own terms, too. For now, he was happy just watching them conduct Force-assisted food fights and the inevitable water fights in the bath that followed.

He trailed Padmé into their bedroom and watched in amusement as she shoved the lightsaber kits behind a number of jumbled hairpieces and other components of clothing whose purpose was even less clear. He'd leave them be for now. Plenty of time tomorrow to see how good an eye his former mentor had for parts.

Padmé turned and raised an eyebrow at him, and he grinned and took her arm, leading her back out to the main room, where there was the promise of cake and Obi-Wan being forced to juggle for the birthday children's amusement.

But he wasn't surprised when he received an urgent com from the Council an hour later. Of course Palpatine was gone.

The only thing that surprised him was that he had waited so long.