Stepping out of the requisitioned speeder bus that had brought them from the landing strip where they'd crashed the Invisible Hand to the main landing area of the Senate tower, the two Jedi were confronted by the two things that they most wanted to avoid: the media, with a three rank phalanx of cameras, reporters and assorted boom microphones, and a formation of the great and good of the Senate tower. Ahsoka, as the junior team member, simply raised her hood, disappearing as much as she could into the shadows of her robe, spluttering slightly from the smell of smoke that infused every item of clothing they were wearing. Anakin, whose robes lacked any form of hood, had no option to do so, and, as the senior member of the team, had the responsibility of facing the cameras anyway, regardless of his personal interest in doing so.
"A parade." Ahsoka muttered, quietly. "We save one politician and they give us a parade in front of the media."
"I know, Snips." Anakin replied, softly. "Now start smiling at the cameras, before they decide you're the next sith apprentice."
Reluctantly, Ahsoka started to grin a little under her hood, drawing on her memories of winning a podrace, what seemed like a whole lifetime before, and imaging she was on the flat ground of the winner's enclosure. Anakin drew on his own experiences, managing to put up a facade of being happy in front of the cameras.
"Jedi Skywalker?" He heard. It was a war reporter from HNN, which was one of the few sources of news and opinion that he actually trusted. "Huw Griffiths, HNN. There are reports that count Dooku has been killed in the battle above Coruscant. Can you give any information about his presumed death?"
"Huw, I can say that the current status of Count Dooku is presumed dead." Anakin replied. "Until we recover his body, assuming that it hasn't burnt up during an uncontrolled re-entry, I cannot confirm his death." I know I killed him. It doesn't mean he is dead. He felt a little guilty over dropping into spokesbeingese, but it was the best option under the circumstances.
"General Skywalker?" He heard. It was a lethan twi'lek reporter, wearing the tabard of Coruscant Hourly News. Most of what they reported was celebrity gossip and entertainment news, rather than actual news, in his opinion. "Did you kill Count Dooku?"
"I was present at his presumed death." Anakin replied.
"You say presumed," she replied. "Why is the death of such a significant individual only being presumed?"
"Miss Cjl'hilm," he said, reading her name off of her nametag. "Standard military procedure is not to confirm the death of any combatant until the body of said combatant is in the possession of the military force. Until we have recovered the body, I can give no further information."
She looked a bit frustrated, and he felt few compunctions about his next action. "You want to go and file your story." He said, waving his hand, and using the standard mind-trick tone. I know I shouldn't have done that on galactic holovision, but... He grinned slightly.
"Kalisha Jilini, west rim news!" He heard. When he turned towards the insistent voice, he saw that the speaker was a particularly well-known reporter who was liable to walk into a lit lightsaber in an alleyway. "General, what is your reaction to the suggestion that you have been sleeping with your Padawan since she was assigned to you three years ago, primarily as a sexual slave?"
Anakin looked at her. Suddenly, her hands rose to her throat and she started to make gurgling noises. Forcing down the surge of anger he felt, he lowered his hand, and unclenched his fist at his side. He hadn't even realised that he was using one of the classic sith attacks in his outrage.
There were screams of horror, a few chuckles, and even what sounded like a couple of claps from the assembled pressbeings, as the human reporter clambered to her feet.
"That is my reply to your insinuations." Anakin replied, his voice low and very deadly, suggesting that she was a few threads from being bisected. "No deliberate or intentional sexual interactions have taken place between myself and Ahsoka Tano, regardless of the persistent attempts by certain members of the press to insinuate that I have at any time had sexual intercourse with her."
No-one was particularly inclined to challenge the toweringly angry Jedi as Kalisha was helped to one side.
He just really hoped that the council wouldn't believe him to have deliberately throttled a journalist live on air, regardless of what she said to try and get a reaction. He also really hoped no-one would pick up on the qualifying verb.
There were a few more questions to field, of course. He clarified a number of non-classified military details, such as the number of republic military casualties.
"Sadly, in the battle," he told the news reporter. "More than seven million clones lost their lives, protecting the freedom of the Republic. Alongside them, more than six hundred thousand volunteers gave their lives in space and on the ground, many of them members of the Galactic Red Cross, and two members of Coruscant Rescue Ops Fire Team Three who were killed while attempting to bring the fire aboard the Invisible Hand under control."
The reporter had the decency to look horrified at the sheer number of casualties.
"The republic lost more than one thousand star destroyers, and better than three thousand acclamator assault ships." Anakin stated. "More than thirty thousand starfighters were destroyed during the battle." He had been given the figures before he landed at the Senate tower. They were a chilling reminder that the war was costing huge numbers of lives, which was largely ignored. Clones weren't valued enough to really matter to most sentient beings.
Another reporter came in. "Alex Gillespie, GNC." The galactic news channel was reliable, and fairly apolitical, anyway. "What is the current status of the fleet?"
"The fleet is currently engaged with the remains of the separatist flotilla." Anakin stated. Anyone with a pair of macrobinoculars would be able to tell that much. As he spoke, a flash was visible behind him. His earbud confirmed the source. "That was the main reactor of the last providence class dreadnought present in the Coruscant system letting go."
"Thank you for your time, Master Jedi."
With that final question the journalistic scrum dissipated leaving the second inevitable wave of public figures behind them to come forward. Ahsoka took the opportunity to employ her comparatively low rank and disappear into the background, with a certain amount of sympathy for her Master's plight. If there was one thing that he liked less on galactic media, it was the galactic political establishment.
Bail Organa was one of the very few politicians with the courage to approach the still smouldering Jedi. "The Senate cannot thank you enough," he said. "The end of Count Dooku will surely bring an end to this war and an end to the Chancellor's draconian security measures."
"I wouldn't be so hopeful, Senator." Anakin replied. "I am fairly sure that this war will continue until General Grievous joins Count Dooku in whatever plane defeated Sith lords and their associates end up in."
"Is that what the Chancellor said to you?" Bail asked, curiously.
"It is certainly what he seems to intend." Anakin stated. Out of the corner of his eye, Anakin noticed a figure, with a slightly bulging stomach, wearing a traditional Nabooan hooded robe.
"Senator?" He asked. "My padawan and I need to go and consult with our friend over there." Bail glanced his left. He couldn't identify the hooded figure, but he fairly reasonably assumed that a Jedi at that range would have a fair idea who it was, and turned to leave.
Anakin was briefly blown away by the sensation of Padmé's mind in such close proximity to his. The two hadn't been very physically close since they ended their physical relationship. But what made it even more magical than a simple reunion was the sense of the two smaller presences intertwined with hers.
"Did they tell you it was twins?" He asked her, abruptly, as they moved into close enough range that their speech would not be audible from more than a few yards away.
"At the clinic, this morning." She replied, for the first time giving Anakin an idea of what the idiom glowing meant, when assigned to a female object as he looked into her face. "There wasn't time to tell you."
"Padmé?" Anakin asked, hesitantly.
"No, Anakin." She replied. "In this day and age, the stigma of bastardry is rarely recognised by galactic law. On planets like Agmar," she said, referencing the planet generally considered to be the most backward and primitive in the civilised galaxy. "It still features in the legal code, but on Coruscant, as long as you're willing to sign a piece of paper that says you were the father, there isn't any stigma at all."
"What about Naboo?"
"Our relationship was all over the sludgenews outlets for a while." Padmé said. "I'm sure that they'll be a tiny bit irritated at the polls, but I've got a good twenty percent majority, and the real conservatives wouldn't vote for a woman anyway." When she looked around. "Ahsoka." She greeted Anakin's padawan. "You're looking remarkably recovered."
"It was a while ago, Senator." Ahsoka replied.
Then Padmé took a step back. "Ani!" She gasped. "She's seventeen."
"What?" Anakin asked.
The Senator rounded on the Jedi Knight, looking extremely angry, and quite capable of physically overpowering him, despite the discrepancy in their sizes, and her delicate condition. "How long?" She demanded.
"How long what?" Anakin asked.
"How long have you been sleeping with her?" She asked, still in Krayt Dragon mode.
"Only once." He said. "We were both drunk, I'd had a few more than her, and it ended up happening while we were both too out of it to know better."
"Anakin, this is not a drunken one night stand!" She snapped. "When?"
"Ten days ago." He replied, nervously.
"And exactly what have you said to her since?" Padmé demanded.
"How did you know anything at all is conceivably happening between us?" Anakin asked.
"She's mirroring you, she's constantly slightly presenting to you, and her eyes generally aren't anywhere else but where you are."
Vaping Force! Anakin thought. Is it that obvious?
"Tell me that you have at least been using protection."
"We were drunk." Anakin repeated. "It happened once."
"She's in love with you." Padmé replied, her voice very low and quiet, but nonetheless very threatening despite that. "And if you dare play with her affections, or if I feel you are in any way taking advantage of her, I will go straight to Obi-Wan and tell him."
For more than a few moments Anakin was quietly stunned. This was the Padmé he had seen making impassioned speeches in the Senate, decrying the state of the galaxy, not the relatively vulnerable and unsure, if rather physically passionate young woman he had been in a relationship with for more than two years.
Then, Ahsoka stepped up to the mark. "Senator?" She asked. "Is it wrong?"
With that simple sentence, she broke down the sudden barrier of fury that had been building between the two adults.
"Both of you, come." She said, assertively. "It'll be easier to talk over a meal."
-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-
Padmé's apartment was on the top floor of a government building, to be precise the Senate Apartment Complex. At some point in the galaxy's past, a bean counter had decided that the most efficient way to house the great and good of the galaxy was to build a spacescraper for them to live in. Anakin had always been somewhat sceptical of the logic, primarily on the grounds that it considerably reduced the number of bombs that would be required to knock off most of the galaxy's senior politicians.
That said, the view from the top floor balcony was excellent.
This particular night, the highly competent chef assigned to the Senator had produced a large gooberfish risotto, garnished with a variety of herbs and spices. Instead of the usual rice-based dish, instead, a fibrous equivalent based on longchain proteins had been used. As far the humans were concerned it tasted like rice that was a little richer than usual.
Ahsoka, on the other hand, was in a position where she didn't have worry about overeating, or the usual consequences of eating grain-based dishes designed for humanoid omnivores, which would usually, at the least, be very uncomfortable for her, and leave her on the refresher for most of the night with a severe case of constipation. In the longer term, there were far more severe consequences in store for the Togruta who over-indulged in products such as non-togruta-specific cakes; potentially, she could destroy the functionality of her pancreas. Even with the advanced medical technology available, it wouldn't be a pleasant experience for her to go through.
Over dinner, the conversation was fairly banal, focusing on mutual acquaintances, war stories, and a long list of anecdotes from Padmé about some of the things she'd walked into Senator's offices and found them doing. Anakin had heard a few of them, but they were entirely new to Ahsoka, who was very much watching her table manners, feeling out of place in the official surroundings, and while eating off of what appeared to be actual china plates with silver cutlery, as opposed to the duraplast table settings she was used to as a member of the Jedi Order.
"Well, I needed to pay a visit to Senator Gobbins." She said, referring to one of the representatives of a smaller sector in the mid-rim. "I wanted to try and get his support for the Clone Rights Bill. So, I walk into his outer office, and I can tell the window is open straight away from the traffic noise. I go in, knocking first. Outside the window, I can see a droid, just a bit above a traffic lane, with a green light on top of it. And the senator is standing in the open window, with a set of golf clubs, practicing."
"He was hitting the balls... out of the window?" Anakin asked, having not heard that particular tale before.
"Right into the traffic lanes." Padmé confirmed. "CSF had had a few reports of narrow misses with golf balls, so it was something they were interested to know."
Ahsoka giggled slightly. It was a slightly burbling giggle. Anakin looked carefully at the bottle of wine that had been put out on the table. He knew he and Padmé had had one glass each. The bottle was empty, except for a few bits of liquid in the bottom.
"Snips." He said, sternly. "How much have you had from the bottle?"
His reply was a bit of a hiccup.
Without really looking, he firmly used the Force to confiscate her wineglass. She made a half-hearted grab for it, but it was already out of her reach. The togruta nearly ended up planting her face on the table.
Padmé just watch the byplay, before giggling slightly.
"Have you got the guest bed made up?" Anakin asked.
"I've got the guest double made." She replied, with a slightly arch look at her former boyfriend. "I assumed that you'd both be wanting it tonight."
Ahsoka giggled again.
"Well, I'll go and pour her into it." Anakin said. Reaching out with the Force, he took a firm grip on Ahsoka's shoulders with the Force, before hoisting her out of the chair, floating the weakly struggling padawan along the corridor, and into the bedroom, before pulling back the covers with his other hand, and dropping her firmly into the bed, before dropping the covers over her, leaving her fully clothed in her robes, largely in the hope that she'd sleep it off.
Then he returned to the main room, to find that Padmé had cleared the table, and was in the process of activing the holovision, and trying to find something that wasn't conflict-related.
"How is she?" Padmé asked.
"Gurgling happily." Anakin replied. "She'll be snoring like a rancor when I go in to join her."
Then he sat down. "Now, tell me about our children." He said.
Padmé sat down as well, in the armchair she'd brought with her from Varykino, and started to fill in the newly expectant father on all of the little details.