Padmé Amidala waited in her bedroom for her new husband with a pair of droids.

After the battle, she’d contacted the Lars family about returning C-3PO. But Cliegg Lars had insisted Anakin keep him. He had said that since he had built him originally, Threepio was Anakin’s by right, that there was relatively little use for him on Tatooine anyway, and that he could deal with the droid’s personality, since it was of his creation.

She did wonder at his generosity. But she was beginning to understand the latter sentiment.

“He is all together taking too long." The protocol droid was chattering away, whether to himself, to her, or even to R2-D2, it didn't seem to matter much. "Very irresponsible of him. You should let me go to him, Miss Padmé; surely his Master cannot keep him busy all night, that would be very rude of him, and will you please stop trembling?”

Padmé couldn’t stop trembling. She wasn’t sure why she was trembling. She ought to be the one more comfortable in this situation. She had never asked, but she had gotten the feeling that Anakin was in fact a virgin, and she was not. She didn’t understand why she was afraid of him.

The obvious answer stood in front of her, of course, had done so since that conversation in the basement of the Lars homestead, but she didn’t dare believe that. If she did, she might run. And if there was one thing Padmé Amidala was sure of, it was that she could not turn her back on Anakin Skywalker.

“Hours and hours of travel to this tiny island and surely he could have talked with Master Kenobi then-oh, Master Anakin!”

He had arrived at last, grinning from ear to ear. “I can stay for a few days, for your safety,” he reported. “They figure I can do an easy assignment while getting used to the new arm.”

How easily just seeing him happy could sweep away all her worries. She let herself be taken into his arms, kissed. She wanted the kiss to never end.

“Oh, may I offer my congratulations...” Threepio started.

Artoo interrupted by calmly perambulating forward and butting against Threepio while letting out a series of whistles that perhaps clarified the request.

“Oh, my apologies. You shall have to reprogram me later, Master Anakin. Good night.” He walked out, Artoo following.

“You take him,” Anakin said to Padmé after the door closed. “Protocol droids are for Senators. Seriously, what was I thinking as a boy?”

“Talk later,” she replied, and kissed him again.

They had still kissed far too little for Padmé’s tastes. She steered his hands and tongue with her own, guided him back to the bed, sat him down and climbed onto his lap. He was erect; she could feel it through his tunics, but they didn’t need to hurry into anything just yet. He had stuck his tongue into her mouth without any skill, and she batted her own against it and around it until he moaned. There was a flesh and blood hand buried in her hair, and she felt its pull through her skin. And yet the other one hung limp at his side.

When she broke the kiss, Padmé said, “Touch me with both your hands.”

Anakin reached his hand up, still hesitating. One of his metal fingers clasped at a loose lock of her hair. “You have full sensation,” said Padmé, “right?”

He nodded. “But I don’t think it can be very pleasant to be touched by these things.” He flicked his metal fingers. “Must be like being touched by a droid.”

“It’s you,” said Padmé, “and I don’t want you to hold back anything with me.”

“All right,” said Anakin, still skeptical, “but tell me if you don’t like it.”

Padmé watched as Anakin moved his hand to the side of her neck and felt the cold metal settle against her skin. His other hand moved down to touch the other side of her neck. The contrast was unsettling; Padmé couldn’t deny that.

There was an awkward moment where they looked at each other, and Padmé realized Anakin had no idea what to do next. “Are Jedi even allowed to have sex?” she asked. “I’ve heard they sometimes do, but then I’ve heard they can’t...”

“Technically, yes. But I never wanted to.” He closed his eyes and looked down.

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” she said to him. “In fact, most traditional cultures would consider this a great gift to me from you. Though of course, they would typically assume I was the one giving the gift.”

In fact, Padmé now wished she was. But how could she have known something like this would ever happened to her? She hadn’t thought she’d marry for several more years at the very least, when she’d served more time in the Senate and was ready to start a family, and noone waited until they were that old, not in this day and age.

“Do you wish I was?” she asked. She had to know.

“I shouldn’t,” he said immediately. “I remember something Master Kenobi said to me once, about not only should it not matter, but that it does usually ends up making life very hard for the lower-ranked sex. I’m afraid I wasn’t paying much attention to the details about it, though.”

“But you do care, though.” She could tell. Already she was well on her way to being able to read his feelings from his face and body language the way she’d heard he should be able to read hers from the Force. Was he doing so? She was afraid to ask.

“I...don’t like to think about another man touching you.” His voice shook.

“And none ever will again, so long as we both live. That at least I can promise you, Ani. And nor will any man ever mean to me what you do.”

“That’s true, isn’t it?” He asked softly. “Even if other men have touched you, they haven’t touched this, have they?” And he reached out and placed his hand-the flesh and blood one-to her chest, his fingers nervously flicking on the cloth of her nightgown.

“Noone,” she said. In the life she’d lived, there’s been noone she could even imagine doing it. Noone she’d ever met, except for him. “Noone but you.”

She had only a moment, while his metal hand moved from her neck to the back of her head, to reassure herself it was going to be all right, before his mouth had taken hers again. Now having done it a little he was more certain, he kissed hard, his flesh hand going down her back. His exploratory touches felt like little fires darting through her skin, his tongue found her palate and she lost control for a moment, moaning wildly and scrambling with her hands to keep her grip on him. Having found her weakness he attacked her without mercy, tongue flicking over that part of her mouth until her loins were burning with growing need, pressing her more against his body until the heat between them was near unbearable, and she could feel his body tense and his hips move against her, his hard member rubbing against her thigh, so close to where she wanted it more and more, but it was too late; Anakin’s movements were now shaky, his chest unsteady as it heaved under hers, flesh and metal fingers together sunk into her skin and she felt it when he came, the power with which he surged forward, groaning into her mouth before he went slack, and she felt the dampness in his leggings.

“Oh…oh…” Their grips on each other loosened and he fell back, jaw slack and open, exhaling and deflating as he hit the blankets. His apology was almost lost underneath his heaving breaths.

“I’ve heard this is common in males their first time,” she assured him. “Can you get it back up quickly?” She resisted the temptation to make a Jedi stamina joke, but not by much.

“Think so…” He was pulling at his leggings, grimacing at their stickiness. He still wasn’t used to working with the thin metal fingers, and he kept losing his grip. Padmé moved to help, and together the two of them got them pulled down.

Underneath he had on a piece of underwear the likes of which Padmé had never seen before. It looked like a piece of cloth wrapped around his groin multiple times. He stood up, and pulled out one end. She grabbed it, he spun around, and oh, was this a treat, to watch cloth fall away from him, slowly, smooth skin on his ass becoming visible bit by bit, every moment feeling the anticipation build, giving little hard tugs as they reached the sections made sticky, until finally she held the whole length of cloth in her hands as she sat on the edge of the bed, and he turned around to face her.

Even though intellectually she’d known better, somehow she’d expected his cock to be more impressive. Wet and deflated for the moment, and uncut, it certainly wasn’t small, but it looked a little sad somehow, just hanging there. The first time Padmé had seen a penis, her first thought had been that it looked ridiculous; that memory came back to her now.

Maybe Anakin was thinking something not dissimilar, because he drew his knees up and looked away. Padmé caught his hand, the flesh and blood one, and on impulse, pressed her lips to the palm, followed by her tongue. The slightest catch of his breath. She licked up to his wrist. A little moan. She looked up his arm, and wished he wasn’t wearing the tunic.

He took a step forward, and on another impulse, she got down to her knees. This, she thought, would really stun him, when he discovered what it felt like. But her tongue only had time to get the slightest taste of his drying semen before he pulled violently away, yelling, “Don’t!”

His intensity frightened her for a moment, and she recoiled, backing into the bed. He took several deep breaths, she watched his fists clench, then relax. “You don’t have to do that,” he panted.

“But I want to,” she said softly. “I want to taste you.”

“You want to?” He asked it as if it was incomprehensible. He staggered over to the bed and sat down hard.

She pulled herself up to join him. “Is it really so strange?” she asked him. “That I should want to do something so intimate? If you’d let me continue for another moment I could have showed you how good it feels to have that done to you, too. Is it so shocking that I want to do something that makes you feel so good, Ani?”

“I...” His fists clenched again, and Padmé wondered just what was going on. Then he asked, “So you don’t find it humiliating?”

“No!” she exclaimed, shocked; sure, she knew some people did, but she would never have expected Anakin to be one of them. “Ani, what have the Jedi been telling you?!”

“Oh the Jedi didn’t talk about this,” he said darkly. “Obi-Wan gave me a brief lecture once on what he remembered being taught as an Initiate, humanoid anatomy and the reproductive act and contraception and the orgasm, very basic. But I learned more as a slave.”

“As a slave?” A horrific possibility occurred to her, especially with how much it would explain. “Ani, noone ever made you...”

“Actually, no. Watto would never have allowed that, at least. But I saw a lot of stuff happen, especially when I was really young and owned by Gardulla.”

“And I once saw,” he said. “I think was I only six, Watto sent me to a bar because there was a pilot he said had cheated him, and I was supposed to tell him to come back and pay the difference or Watto’s big friend was going to talk to him...though come to think of it, I don’t know if Watto actually had a big friend...but anyway, I found him in a corner of a bar, with this poor white creature on her knees under the seat. He had his hands on her head and I don’t even want to think about what he was saying to her. I think she was in tears.”

A virgin, yes, but not at all innocent. Now Padmé had to scold herself for not thinking about any of this, about the implications of Anakin growing up in that environment, for just assuming he was a blank slate, to be written on with her knowledge and love. Instead he had dark things to unlearn, possibly even emotional trauma to the point that it would be hard to teach. She was silent for a minute as she tried to figure out how to proceed.

It was finally Anakin who made the next move, hand touching her shoulder, and then cautiously running down her back. Through the cloth of her nightgown they finally settled at the small of her back, then the tips ghosted over the more sensitive flesh of her butt.

He was leaning towards her, and she leaned back, closed her eyes, and just let him explore. His careless strokes were growing in strength, sending tiny shocks of pleasure through the whole area between her legs. She thought he was only coming to really believe he was allowed to touch her there, and his hands were trying to move forward, but were fumbling; they were pushing against her hips as if he didn’t realize how wide they were.

“Let me take this off,” she said, “and take off your tunic.” He let go and they both disrobed; for a moment she wished she’d been wearing underwear but it didn’t really matter. Of the admittedly tiny handful of men she’d seen naked, even with the mechanical forearm his body was by far the most beautiful, chest and legs outlined in hard muscle, hairless on his torso but with a light sprinkling of blonde between his legs, handsome face framing eyes that now grew wide with hunger as they took in her own form, especially after she tossed her long hair behind her head to fully expose her breasts and stomach to him.

His hands jerked out an inch; he stopped them. “It’s all right, Ani,” she said gently. “I want you to touch me.”

“But you’re nervous,” he said. “I can see it.”

She wondered if he could hear her heart hammering; she was very nervous, true, now that they were coming to it. When she’d walked into this bedroom earlier in the evening with the two droids, she hadn’t thought she’d feel this kind of anxiety; if only because after all that they’d been through the past two weeks, something like sex didn’t look so big and incredible. But becoming aware these past ten minutes just how significant it was for him, combined with the knowledge that she’d never slept with someone she’d felt this way about, nor taken the lead as it looked like she was now to do, and she was fighting back panic.

She moved closer, breaking eye contact, looking up at the ceiling, trying to center herself. Swathes of lavender gauze hung down; for the first time she noticed a couple of the knots were coming loose.

Then his hands touched her breasts, hot skin and cold metal both making her gasp. The touch sparked her, and the fire in her loins taking new heat, she looked back down at him, placed her hands on his shoulders, and very delibrately pressed. His lips parting, he unfolded, kicking himself back as he did so, until he was lying beneath her on the bed, her hands still on his shoulders, trembling.

He was beginning to regain his earlier arousal. She reached down to stroke his erection, letting it gain strength. He groaned softly. “Feels good, doesn’t it?” she whispered.

“I’ve done this much with my own hand-oh,” he choked. “But...oh...yes...”

His hands weren’t still as she worked him, though they were much less guided. The metal one was still hesitating, but the other was down to her legs, and when he discovered stroking her inner thighs made her pant he started doing it over and over. She wanted more kisses, but he wanted to see what he was doing, bending his head upward when she tried to push it back, just as his hand cupped her mound. She heard him whisper, “Labia...vagina...clitoris.” She gasped as the tip of his thumb stroked the last. “Do you want me to keep doing that?” As her frantic nod he pressed harder, the tip of a hesitant finger at her opening. Another nod, and she moaned as it slid in.

But then a moment later he stopped, and pushed her hand away from his now hardened cock. “Do we have anything?” he panted. “Some sort of birth control?”

“Already taken care of,” she told him. “I brought a twenty-hour serum here with me and injected myself while you were talking with Obi-Wan.”

“Good,” he sighed. He looked down at their genitals and up at her face. “I...I suppose this should be simple...”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “If it disappointed you I’ve done this before, at least know I’ll handle this part. Just lie back and hold on.”

She placed his hands on her shoulders, braced her knees on either side of his body, positioned his cock into place, stole a quick kiss from his lips, took a deep breath, and slowly sank herself down.

As she saw her husband’s eyes go wide and his mouth part, heard his gasp, and knew he had never before known this, Padmé Amidala understood for the first time why it was still considered such a prize to claim a virgin. “Deflowering” was the wrong word to use for it, though; she felt more like she was opening Anakin up, making him bloom, as he groaned and arched up and deeper into her, and her clit throbbed so hard she had to reach down to touch it.

“Wait, stop,” he croaked, his hand suddenly on her wrist. “You’re not...stimulated...?”

“It’s okay,” she murmured, “don’t worry about it.”

“No, please, let me see,” he urged. “Let me see what you’re doing.”

So she pulled herself upright, and let him watch as she rubbed at herself in the circular pattern that at her age was second nature. The sensation made her body clench around his cock, and she could feel the effect on him in the tense frame underneath her, but his eyes were locked on what she was doing. She was feeling herself getting close when he whispered, “Stop,” again, and when she forced herself to, a moment after she felt herself touched once again, invisible fingertips caressing her in the same pattern, and she didn’t dare move for fear of breaking Anakin’s concentration, but the intimacy of this act alone was making her quiver, building the heat up further so fast she could barely take it-and then she couldn’t, and she rocked forward hard into Anakin as she came, pleasure ripping through her body so intense she was nearly sobbing with it.

When she came back to her senses Anakin was clasping onto her back once again, thrusting up into her on instinct, and now it was her turn to hold on, face buried in her husband’s neck, body still trembling with aftershocks. But wanting to see this, she forced her head up, until she was hovering over his face, looking into lidded eyes as they went hazy with pure need, and his muscles were seizing up, out of his mouth came a long, deep groan, and she felt the surge of warmth that was him coming inside her. More moans escaped him, soft cries that led her to draw him deep into her arms and lay kisses to his trembling face, fluttering eyelids, panting mouth.

“Stars and galaxies...” He breathed. “That was...” She weakly hummed her agreement. Anakin had nothing to be jealous of; noone had ever made her feel anything like this.

He had gone very still, holding himself in place, as if he was afraid even the slightest move would mean they were no longer tangled up in each other. He was going to be insecure, she realized; he was always going to be afraid of getting caught-which she was too, but she wasn’t the one who was outright forbidden this, and she couldn’t say she wasn’t entirely unconcerned with the way they had come to each other, he for so many years holding onto her as an image, and it wasn’t as if she hadn’t had her own thoughts about him, clinging to the memory of a boy who had looked at her as Padmé when everyone else had only looked at her as the Queen.

“We’re a real mess,” he finally murmured.

“Sex is a messy business, Ani,” she said. “Messier if you’re too into it to care.” In fact, both times Padmé had done this before, much as she’d enjoyed being held afterwards, long before this time she’d started feeling sticky and in need of a shower. “I’m afraid you usually have to wash off when you’re done.”

“So we should do that now?” he asked, without moving in the slightest.

“Pretty much.” She didn’t move either.

But then she decided to take stock of things, and she only shifted slightly, but Anakin made a noise of pain, and with a pang of regret, she pulled her body off of his oversensitized flesh. They were both of them soaked with sweat, his hair plastered to his head, hers tangled and heavy. She’d been dripping before she took him in; it lay on their bodies and on the sheets. It was a good thing the change of linens had been left on the island.

“If you shower,” said Anakin, “I want to shower with you.”

“Are you up for it again that quickly?” she laughed, but she wondered if he might be; he was a Jedi, after all.

“I don’t want to shower with you to have sex with you again,” he said. “I just want to shower with you.”

And how many of the males Padmé had known in her life would have ever expressed that kind of sentiment? Not many. “Let’s see if there’s room,” she said.

There was room, though they were cramped in; in fact, once they got in, they discovered it was hard to turn around. Sex in that tiny cubicle was definitely not something Padmé was interested in; it was crazy enough when they tried to reach behind each other to soap each other’s backs, and it took both of them together to do anything productive with her hair, reaching around for it, him trying to peer over her head to see if it was fully lathered, and then again to see if it was fully rinsed out. They still weren’t sure when the water turned cold and they had to get out.

Anakin sat on the bed, barely wrapped in a sheet as Padmé threw on a light robe and set to work brushing her long mane out. Funny that after such an intense encounter she wasn’t feeling tired at all, and Anakin didn’t look it either-but again, he was a Jedi. “Do you feel like sleeping now?” she asked. Jedi did sleep, she reminded herself; she’d seen Anakin do so on the refugee ship, and he couldn’t have had the nightmares about his mother without being asleep.

“Only if you do,” he said. “But you napped on the way here, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, a little. It’s a warm night; why don’t we step outside?”

Anakin put on his tunic first, which Padmé found kind of disappointing; she would have liked to have seen him walk out there naked. But he wrapped an arm around her and drew her robe closer to her, as if the temperature out actually allowed her to feel cold, and she could hear his breathing, almost in time with the song of the nightbirds, as they climbed out of her bedchamber and up to where they could overlook the lake.

In fact, she realized, they were walking to the very same spot where he had kissed her for the first time. The memory was vivid to her: the blue sky and water, the sun hot on her bare back, Anakin’s clumsy words and far firmer lips, setting off wild sparks in her head and she’d wanted him so badly that it wasn’t just out of conscience she’d fled, but fear too. “Do you remember?” she asked.

“I’ll never forget,” he replied. “But it’s easier now. You burned me that day, but I’m no longer burning.”

“You weren’t the only one,” she said.

Once again they leaned on the railing. Naboo’s moons were reflected in the water just below her. Last time they’d leaned against this railing Padmé had been deeply tense, now she was the most relaxed she’d been in months.

She sighed softly as Anakin drew her closer, until she was tucked in under his chin. His arms wrapped so tight around her she felt it through a body still tingling with the last effects of the afterglow, and she burrowed in, encouraged him to hold her tighter. His lips ghosted through her hair. It was almost unreal, how loved Padmé felt. Her own heart seemed to dance in the air around them.

There they remained, her happier in his embrace than she’d felt in maybe all of the two years she’d lived on Coruscant, for a long time. They could never have stayed that way long enough.