Silence reigns for a long moment as Padme stands there staring at the both of them. Vader can't tell if his Angel is more amused or bemused by Ahsoka's outburst at this point. That's a good sign in and of itself, he supposes. After all, she's not getting angry right off the bat like he might have expected.
Sidestepping Ahsoka prostrating herself at Padme's feet, the beautiful Nabooian Senator simply raises an arched brow in Vader's direction.
"Anakin? Is this true?"
Vader sits, back straight and shoulders squared as he nods his head.
"The infidelity is true. Ahsoka overestimates how much influence she had over the situation though. It takes two to duel, after all. I am as much to blame for this as she is."
Kneeling on the floor, Ahsoka shakes her head.
"T-That's not true! I kissed him first Senator! I came onto him and-!"
"And I reciprocated. If anything, the blame lies more with me because Ahsoka did not know we were married until after all was said and done."
Ahsoka's teeth click as her mouth shuts in the face of his impeccable logic. Also probably because Vader gives the kneeling Togruta a distinct Look that promises retribution if she continues arguing with him. Old habits die hard, he supposes.
Padme hums, taking this all in even as she moves through the room, as graceful and gorgeous as ever. She is truly poetry and motion… though oddly enough, Vader finds himself noticing a… lethality to his wife's form that he doesn't remember ever existing before.
It had been a long time since he'd last seen her to be fair, but he doesn't recall Padme ever once moving with the precise, silent poise of a trained assassin. Or maybe he's just seeing things because he feels guilty over not just betraying Padme with Ahsoka, but also everything else that came before it in another timeline.
Even if the events of that timeline would never come to pass (Vader would make sure of that), it had all still happened for him after all.
Finally, Padme arrives at the couch and to Vader's surprise, sits down next to him and takes his hand in her own. He watches as she gives him a small smile, before tilting her head to the side curiously.
"How long has this been going on for?"
Ahsoka might have had another outburst, but she was cowed by his last look enough that Vader is able to answer that question, evenly and without hesitation.
"Today. I came over immediately after to tell you."
If that surprises Padme, she doesn't show it. In fact, her Force Presence is oddly muted right now. Vader hadn't noticed originally because he wasn't about to violate his wife by attempting to read her mind or emotions, especially right now… but all the same, she feels odd to his senses.
Down on the floor, Ahsoka blinks owlishly at this exchange.
"You're not… mad Senator Amidala?"
Looking over to the Togruta, Padme's eyes turn sharp and her smile a little… vicious.
"I'm still deciding, actually."
Ahsoka blanches, even as Vader snorts derisively. Yeah, that sounded like his Padme. She could be brash and reckless when she wanted to be, but even when it seemed like she charged into a situation without fully understanding it, the truth was… she usually had its measure all the same.
Turning her gaze back to him, Padme hums as she places a hand on his cheek.
"What happened? What prompted this… indiscretion?"
If he's going to be honest about everything, he might as well be honest about this too.
"The Dark Side."
On the floor, Ahsoka makes a choked noise in the back of her throat, as though she thought that Vader would at least keep this much hidden from his wife. Padme, meanwhile, has frozen up.
"The… Dark Side?"
Vader just nods, staring into his gorgeous wife's eyes for the first time in far, far too long. Funny, there'd always been something of an age gap between them. But now the age gap went in the other direction. She'd been the older, experienced woman before, but now Vader was the experienced one.
"I'm afraid I didn't reign in my Force Presence well enough. It drew Ahsoka, freshly Fallen, to me like a moth to a flame. From there, things escalated and our judgment became… clouded."
That description proves to be too much for Ahsoka. Or maybe the effects of the Look were already wearing off.
"H-Hey! I wasn't 'freshly' Fallen, thank you very much!"
Vader just raises an eyebrow.
"You were compared to me."
At that, Ahsoka flushes and clamps up again. Meanwhile, Padme's hand remains in his even after all of this, her fingers tracing soothing circles across his flesh on pure instinct. When he looks back to her, it's hard to figure out what she's thinking.
"You Fell, Anakin?"
Vader nods and considers for a moment where to even begin explaining everything he needs to explain. In the end, he decides to start with the most important piece of information he has.
"Palpatine is Dooku's Sith Master and the one orchestrating everything we're currently dealing with. He goes by Darth Sidious."
He only has eyes for Padme in this moment, so he only hears Ahsoka's horrified reaction as the Togruta chokes on her own spit. Still, it's about what he would expect from the Fallen Jedi Padawan.
Padme on the other hand… there's something off about her reaction. Her eyes widen in surprise immediately, her careful façade cracking and crumbling to show her true emotions. That all would be fine… except it's not the right kind of surprise. Vader had gotten very good at reading some very skilled liars over the years he was stuck in that suit. Even with her Force Presence muted, Vader can see the way Padme's initial honest surprise is almost instantly replaced with a different sort of manufactured surprise.
The second form of surprise is more what he would have expected from her, the surprise of someone finding out a world-shattering revelation for the first time. But the first form of surprise… the honest surprise… that was the sort of surprise where someone who already knew a secret found out that someone else they didn't tell also knew that secret.
Somehow, impossible as it seemed, Padme… knew already. She knew Palpatine was Darth Sidious. How? It didn't make any sense. And combined with her muted Force Presence and the lethal grace he'd noticed her giving off earlier, it paints a terrifying picture. Was this even his Padme?
In that moment, Vader reaches out with the Force and slows everything down. Or more specifically, he speeds himself up. It's a technique he'd learned to get around the limitations of the suit, one that allowed him to not just process everything far faster than usual but also move far faster as well. Force Speed, some ancient texts had called it.
In this case, Vader uses it more for the first thing than the second. Still sitting there staring into Padme's nearly frozen, barely moving features, Vader tries to figure out what the fuck is going on. Is this even Padme? Or has she been replaced with an agent of Palpatine?
Ironically, Vader finds his answers in the last place he would have ever looked… the memories of Anakin Skywalker. Not himself, not the Anakin he used to be… but the Anakin that he'd come back and taken over.
In actuality, Vader hadn't replaced or supplanted this younger version of Anakin… he'd merged with him. It was his own instinctive need to separate himself from all versions of Anakin Skywalker that had caused him to suppress his new memories and left him in the dark up until now.
Focusing now, he's able to dredge up the memories of this timeline's Anakin Skywalker as if they were his own and quickly learns that this really isn't his original timeline. Ahsoka's age and the fact that she'd been apprenticed to Kenobi instead of him was a big clue, but as he looks back over this body's history, he sees other differences as well. Fortunately not too many. By and large, the big things seem to remain the same.
However… in his memories of Padme, going all the way back to Tatooine when he was just a boy, Vader sees the differences in his wife in particular clear as day. In this timeline, this has always been how Padme acted and felt. A muted Force Presence, a hidden lethal grace… the Anakin of this timeline had never really caught on to any of it, perhaps because of his love for her, or perhaps simply because Vader had more experience with these kinds of things.
This was Padme Amidala… but it wasn't his Padme. Part of him had already known that, but he hadn't understood what it truly meant until now. There was variance here beyond what he ever would have thought possible.
Dialing back the Force Speed, letting it fade away, Vader blinks. Barely three seconds have passed since his declaration of Palpatine's true nature. Ahsoka is still reacting in shock and surprise on the floor, but Padme has yet to say a word.
Vader cuts her off before she can, his tone even and as non-accusatory as he can possibly make it.
"You already knew."
Padme stiffens, flinching back. She tries to pull her hand away from his… and Vader almost grips down to keep her from escaping. But then, words from a long, long time ago echo through his head.
_"Ani… you're hurting me."_
He immediately relaxes his grip before he can even tighten up enough to hold Padme in place, letting this strange version of his wife slip out of his grasp and off of the couch. Ahsoka is barely starting to react to his latest declaration, making noises of confusion and bafflement down on the floor.
With a wave of his hand and a downright gentle application of the Force, Vader puts Ahsoka to sleep. The Togruta slumps to the floor, unconscious in a literal instant. Padme tenses at seeing this, but Vader remains seated, trying to appear as non-threatening as possible.
"Sorry. I should have put her to rest before saying that. But please Padme… explain."
Looking tenser than Vader has ever seen her, Padme hesitates for a long moment… before finally hanging her head and letting out a shuddering sigh.
"I've wanted to tell you. Ever since the first time you confessed to me back on Naboo. I wanted to be honest with you even then, but I didn't know how to find the words. And… I didn't know how to say them without making you hate me."
Vader frowns at that.
"I could never hate you."
And it's true too. Even if this isn't HIS Padme, it's still a Padme… and he still loves her with all his heart, with the passion of a thousand suns. Maybe part of that is the fact that he now knows he merged with this timeline's Anakin rather than outright supplanting him… but Vader suspects it has more to do with the overwhelming guilt he still feels about how things ended with his own Padme.
Smiling sadly, Padme shakes her head.
"Couldn't you? Lord Sidious… is my Master, Anakin."
Now that is shocking to hear. Because even though she's clearly had some training in hiding her true nature in the Force… Vader still doesn't sense a single iota of Force Presence from the Nabooian woman. She's not Force Sensitive. But then… Vader is reminded of the games Palpatine had played in his timeline. His numerous… Hands. Not all of them were Force Sensitive either.
Once she's confessed and he remains silent, the words start to flow out of Padme like a waterfall.
"He bought me from my parents at a young age. Trained me to serve him as one of his agents faithfully and loyally. Only later did I learn that he engineered the desperate situation that forced my parents to sell me in the first place. And when they got back on their feet and tried to get me back, he had them killed."
Padme's throat convulses as she swallows heavily.
"That's when I turned against him, though he doesn't know it… I hope. I've done everything he's asked of me. I became Queen of Naboo on his orders. I called for a Vote of No Confidence so he could become Supreme Chancellor on his orders. I pretended to 'defy' him and returned to break the Trade Federation's blockade, also on his orders. I then became Senator, again on his orders."
The more things changed, the more they stayed the same, Vader supposed. It was like looking at a dark mirror of the original timeline. Things were ever so slightly off, but at the same time, not.
"Our marriage was not on his orders, Anakin. It was the first time I truly did something of my own volition. Something I did because I wanted to, rather than because he wanted me to."
Oh? Vader lifts a brow, even as Padme bites her lower lip.
"… But he does know. I couldn't hide it from him. And… he approves. If only because he eventually wants you to join him. I know for a fact that he wants you to replace Dooku as his apprentice and he sees me as a method of getting you there."
The words hang in the air between them for a moment before Padme comes back to the couch, sitting beside him again and looking at him imploringly.
"Anakin… how did you find out about Palpatine's true nature? I can tell from the way you said it alone that you aren't with him yet. But then how?"
He'd come here with every intention of telling Padme everything. But now Vader finds himself hesitating. After all, while this definitely was a Padme… she technically wasn't HIS Padme…