#prisoner exchange
Anakin is lying on his side, facing the wall of his bunk. Padmé fidgets with the fringe of the blanket in her arms before she works up the courage to knock on the doorframe.
“How are you feeling?” Padmé asks, holding out the blanket.
Anakin is quiet—unnervingly quiet. He looks up and stares quizzically at her offering.
“When you were a little boy, you always got so cold in space,” Padmé explains. “I just thought…I guess it was silly.” She looks away, color rising to her cheeks.
Anakin takes the blanket and spreads it out over the bunk, rolling onto his other side to face her.
“Was it the right decision?” he asks her plainly.
Padmé sits down on the floor and leans against the bedpost. “Ani, I could never let you go. I wasn’t going to let them use you as a pawn in their twisted game.”
“But that means we lost the game,” Anakin says. His eyebrows knit in confusion and he swallows hard. “Doesn’t it?”
Padmé reaches out to comfort him by rubbing his shoulder, but a grimace stays her hand. She doesn’t know what injuries he might have sustained beyond the electrocutions they had all witnessed. Kix had examined him and apparently felt comfortable sending him to his own bed instead of medbay, so hopefully it wasn’t anything too serious, but it must still hurt.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, pulling the blanket up around his shoulders and stroking his hair instead. “I’m so sorry. Are you in pain?”
“It’s not too bad. Obi-Wan and Kix made me take something,” he mumbles.
Padmé keeps stroking his hair, and he closes his eyes.
Anakin exhales, and for a moment, there is nothing but relief and comfort between them. Then he opens his eyes again.
“We lost Grievous. Dooku won. Was it worth it?” Was I worth it?
There was too much to unpack there, personal and professional. Dooku had wanted it that way. Padmé had rethought her decision a thousand times, examined the problem from a thousand different angles, and there was no scenario where she saw herself walking away from the proposed prisoner exchange without something to feel guilty for.
“Ani, I don’t have the answer to that. But I’m so glad that you’re safe,” Padmé finally says.
LOVE the trope of a captive finally getting ransomed back to their own side and they’re brought out in front of their friends for the first time in weeks, maybe months, squinting in the bright light, pale and bruised and limping, and they’re practically dragged towards their friends before being dropped unceremoniously at their feet, they try to tell everyone they’re okay or even make a joke, but start to sway and then pass out before they can finish speaking.
Everyone wants to rush forward and help them but Whumper is still in the room and Whumpee is still in danger until the trade is complete. The team watches an uninjured Whumpee helplessly, even though they’re only feet away.
