Padmé entered her darkened apartment with a heavy heart. Visions of an empire with a Sith Lord as it's leader flashed through her mind without warning. All ended in suffering, blood, death...

Shaking her head softly and pressing back the bile rising in her throat, the senator sunk down into her living room sofa. Tears welled up in her eyes, blurry vision seemed to be all too common to her.

"What am I going to do?"

Seemingly, the fate of the galaxy rest on her shoulders. She was the only soul that was loyal to democracy and to the republic that knew about this. A heavily pregnant young woman whose hormones were about as balanced as a three legged bantha. The odds of her pulling everything off and getting Anakin to keep his promise seemed slim. To slim to even have hope.

Padmé sighed deeply and reluctantly pulled the datapad that T-K9O gave her onto her lap. She scrolled through the speech "outline" that Sidious had wrote for her but to T-K9O's credit, she was right. Most of the speech was already written. Padmé grimaced as she read the lies on the page about the benefits of the empire. The ending of this war, the unity of all peoples, peace through the galaxy, a stable economy, free trade routes, low taxes- the list went on and on. All of it was glorious propaganda that she knew would fail in the end. Even a no brained low life would know that this was a horrendous idea. Yet, it didn't matter what other people thought. No, Palpatine got his power... and that is all he wanted. With Anakin ruling right beside him.

Padmé thought that with the promise he made her last night, she had succeeded in ridding all the darkness that was in him. But when he was promising her to never change, Padmé saw gold flecks in his eyes. Tension in the way he held her hand. As if he was trying to hold back darkness, hold back screaming at her.

"Am I already too late?"

No... she had to believe her Ani was still there. The day she stopped believing was the day that life was no longer worth living.

A sharp knocking at the door shook Padmé out of her reverie. Shaking her head and blinking quickly, she arose from the couch and waddled over to the door to her apartment. The senator pressed the button that was beside her metallic door and it swooshed open, revealing her an old friend behind the door. Padmé's eyes widened and covered her smile with her hand. She ushered in her friend with urgency into her apartment and quickly shut the door behind her.

"Ahsoka!" Padmé exclaimed and hugged her. Ahsoka giggled and hugged Padmé back with glee.

"Padmé it is so good to see you! I hate to tell you this but, I can't stay long." She explained and Padmé nodded.

"Of course, Ahsoka, I know how busy you are." The senator said with a wink and led Ahsoka over for her to sit on the sofa. Two cups of tea were already set out on the caf table in front of them, the scent appealing to all scenes.

"It's so weird to hear you call me Ahsoka, I normally go by another name these days..." Padmé raised her eyebrow and Ahsoka smiled.

"Fulcrum, it's a code name so my real identity is well, secure."

Padmé laughed, her eyes watering at the thought of Ahsoka leading rebel alliances all around the galaxy.

"Things have changed so much since you left here." Padmé mentioned wistfully, looking down at her tea with a solemn expression. Ahsoka took hold of Padmé's hand.

"I know..."

A tear leaked out of Padmé's deep brown eyes and fell into her tea. With a sigh, she set it down onto the table and Ahsoka leaned in for another hug.

"I am so sorry Padmé, about all the corruption, all the death, everything."

Padmé welcomed Ahsoka in another embrace, pressing her close to her own body. In the process, one of Ahsoka's hands was lost in the squeeze and fell right on top of Padmé's abdomen. Feeling it to be rounded and hard, she jerked back and her eyes seem to pop out of her sockets.

"What wrong, what is it?" Padmé asked flustered.

"Are you-?" She breathed out, mouth agape. Padmé looked down to where Ahsoka's gaze was and her eyes flashed from confusion to recognition.

"Ahsoka, there- there is something you should know..." The young woman trailed off and the togruta folded her arms.

"I think so!" Ahsoka responded with a louder voice than necessary.

"I- I am pregnant." Padmé confessed, eyes averted from the gaze of her husband's former padawan.

"Oh my gosh, at this time?"

"It was an accident!" Padmé interjected and paused. "A good one though..."

Ahsoka sighed but smiled.

"Padmé, I am happy for you but who is the father?"

"Oh dear... here we go."

"My husband." She said confidently, though underneath her thick skin, she was trembling.

"You have a husband?! Well, thank goodness because if you got pregn- you know what, I won't even go there. But, anyway, how come I don't know about this and second, who the heck is he?" Ahsoka was at the point of hyperventilating but she masked it with her curiousity.

"Ahsoka, nobody knew about us, not even my own family. It was for the better that no one knew about our secret marriage." Padmé told her and Ahsoka bit her lip in confusion.

"But why did it have to be a secret? How long has this been going on? And who-?"

"Ahsoka, I have been married to the love of my life for three years now. My husband and I wed right after the Battle of Geonosis. We had to keep it a secret because of his line of work. That is all I can say at the moment..."

"Padmé, come on, you can tell me who the father, your husband is. I promise I won't tell a soul." Ahsoka pleaded. "I can help you, there is a great midwife I know on Shili-"

"Anakin."

Ahsoka blinked. "What?"

"My husband... is Anakin."

The togruta paused. "Oh," was all she said with a high lilting voice. And Padmé waited patiently for her to answer.

A few seconds later, Ahsoka's eyes widened and her mouth dropped. The synapses finally were formed. "OH!"

Padmé blushed at that surprised exclamation.

Ahsoka's eyes then trailed down to Padmé's stomach and somehow, they widened even more.

"OOOOH!"

"Yes, so now you know." Padmé responded awkwardly as Ahsoka continued to stare at her belly.

"So you- and Master Skywalker -"

"Yes, yes!" Padmé interjected quickly, not caring what she was going to say next. The conversation was growing to uncomfortable for her liking.

"Wow. I am still in shock but congratulations, to both of you." Ahsoka told her and Padmé smiled.

"So I'm guessing that you know exactly where he is right?" Ahsoka asked and ruffled around her satchel for something.

"Pardon?"

"You know exactly where he is at right? Because these are everywhere on Coruscant." Ahsoka pulled out a crumpled piece of actual flimsy paper and handed it over to the senator. Padmé unraveled the tangled mess of it to see that it was a missing person poster. It was issued by the Jedi that Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker was missing and any information about his whereabouts were greatly appreciated.

"Obi-Wan must be worried sick." Padmé whispered and looked up at Ahsoka. "I do know where he is and he is okay." Or he will be...

"I wanted to make sure. But I am glad he is okay, I won't go into the details because I am already running out of time as it is."

The datapad on the caf table that Padmé was reading earlier pinged, an alert being sent in. She reached over and picked it up to see that the alert was sent out by the Jedi themselves.

First two words were in bold lettering, TEMPLE BREACHED.

Padmé sucked in a breath and snapped her head in the direction of the girl sitting next to her.

"You did it." She breathed as Ahsoka nodded seriously.

"I did, but are you sure you want this, Padmé? This is very, very dangerous."

"I do, I need it."

Ahsoka sighed but nodded. "I trust you." Yet again, Ahsoka's hands dived into her satchel and pulled out the exact holocron Padmé asked for. Smiling at its distinct shape, Padmé marveled at its reddish glow, its pyramid like features.

"I will open it for you but after that, I am leaving. I don't want to hear one word of what is in this thing." Ahsoka told her and sat down on the floor criss cross, the holocron in her lap.

"I understand Ahsoka, I won't fail you. And I promise, someday you will understand." Padmé said.

"I hope I do. Goodbye Padmé."

"Goodbye Ahsoka- goodbye Fulcrum."

Ahsoka grinned as she closed her eyes and unlocked the dark secrets awaiting inside the holocron. She quickly got up and left without a word as a figure flickered to life on the holocron. Padmé watched with interest as a familiar looking Muun materialized in front of her.

"I hope this works." Padmé thought and the holocron began to play.

"Hello. I am Darth Plagueis."

EHEHEHEHHEH!!!! Oh I am so evil aren't I? Ah well, bad news. I go back to school. Tomorrow. Yeah, so don't expect a ton of updates but I did want to update this as kinda a "Back to School" update. Meh...
Anway, thiiiiiis part is dedicated to _nighthawk for commenting on this story a lot! Thank youuu! :)