- sat curled up on the armchair across the room, legs drawn in tightly, chin resting atop your knees.*
The glow of Coruscant at night was nothing short of breathtaking, a soft wash of light stretching endlessly beyond the windows like a living mural.
Skyscrapers blinked in and out of sight through the thick streams of traffic lanes.
Ships humming in their quiet procession, each trail of light weaving into the great, pulsing heart of the city.
It was a view Damia admired countless times. But now, with the weight of two days’ confinement pressing down like a too-heavy cloak across your shoulders.
The room was dim save for the spill of citylight through the windows, which cast long golden shapes across the polished floor and up the far wall.
It made the shadows softer, but it didn’t change the silence you were wrapped in.
Anakin and Padmé sat side by side on the couch nearby, the low murmur of voices just loud enough to hear the cadence of care behind them.
His arm was draped along the back of the couch, fingers occasionally brushing her shoulder as if by muscle memory, a quiet tether of reassurance he didn’t seem aware of.
Padmé leaned into him slightly, poised as always, though her expression—soft at the edges, tired through the middle—held the quiet gravity of recent concern.
From time to time, one or both of them glanced in Damian direction. Not with judgment, nor anger. But with that same unmistakable air of parental vigilance.
Watching without hovering. Letting you breathe, but not vanish. That tether of worry still hadn’t snapped back into comfort.
he hadn’t apologized. Not really. Damian grumbled at the start. Muttered something about overreactions.
Claimed you had everything under control, because you had. Or at least you thought you had. For you hadn’t planned on drawing attention.
But when the patrol droid scanned Damian's chip, it hovered and gave a neutral announcement: “Unaccompanied member from Senator Amidala’s household. Escort procedures initiated.”
That was all it took. A few glances, quiet murmurs—attention drawn your way.
You slipped away before it could follow, but the droid alerted the system, and Padmé: “Damian, Amidala household. Unescorted. Location: Unknown. Initiating patrol search."
Anakin’s tone when he tried to explain—“he ran from a patrol droid. Anything could’ve happened.”—had shut the conversation down cold.
Now, grounded, he was left to stew in silence. The suite felt too quiet, too big, too watchful, for they hadn’t gone anywhere either.
Padmé had rescheduled nearly all her in-person meetings, relegating her senatorial work to holocalls and encrypted communications.
Anakin hadn’t so much as stepped outside. He suspected they were keeping close on purpose, like a silent reminder that this wasn’t punishment, not really.
It was about them—about how they felt, and about how close they'd come to imagining the worst.
The type of fear that had now etched into the architecture of these two quiet days.
“You’re quiet tonight.” Anakin’s voice cut gently through the stillness, low and even. But he didn’t answer right away.
There wasn’t much to say that wouldn’t sound like pouting, and Damian already dug that hole deep enough.
"Damian.." He didn’t sound angry. If anything, he looked tired. Not in a way that meant he regretted grounding Damian—but in that quiet, aching way he recognized when he returned home from missions that had gone just a little too close to danger.
“You didn’t come back when you were supposed to. You didn’t answer your comm. Stars, Padmé was ready to contact the guards.” His brow furrowed just slightly. His voice didn’t rise, but it caught there at the end like it snagged on something raw.
“We know you’re upset, but we're not grounding you to punish you. It’s just..."
Padmé turned toward you then, fully, her presence a warmth even before she moved.
She left her place on the couch and crossed to Damian, her steps quiet on the floor. "If anything ever happened to you, we wouldn’t recover from