"Now the story's played out like this,
Just like a paperback novel.
Let's rewrite an ending that fits,
Instead of a Hollywood horror."
-Nickelback
Someday
"Absence diminishes small loves and increases great ones, as the wind blows out the candle and blows up the bonfire."
-Francois de la Rouchefoucauld
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Padme thought it strange that she thought of herself as honest, but had so many secrets. She mentioned this to Anakin once and he said that it was because she was a politician and that a politician without secrets was like Tatooine without sand. That the longer she remained one the more she would get – they would grow on her like spores on a Gamorrean. She whacked him with a pillow for that, but he claimed there was a very simple solution – she needed to get out of politics and run away with him. Padme said she dearly wished it were that easy. He sighed mournfully and said that if she'd rather have spores… he got whacked again for that. Then Anakin playfully pounced, wrestling the pillow away. Latter that night, as they lay in bed together, he murmured into her hair that, even if she were covered in spores, she would still be the most beautiful woman in the universe. Then he had left her bed to slip back to the temple, leaving her alone. Like she was now.
Padme sighed and rubbed her eyes. She had been staring at the report for the past fifteen minutes and had yet to take any of it in. She knew it was important, though her tried brain couldn't figure out why. She knew she had to read it before her next meeting with the Delegation of 2,000. But all she could think of was her husband. Instead of focusing on secret reports for secret meetings Padme's mind wandered to her secret husband and how she would tell him of their secret child. Padme groaned and put her head on the desk. No, she was the most honest politician in the senate, really. Actually, that was, sadly, probably true now that she thought of it. Padme raised her head from the desk and attempted to read the report one more time before she gave it up as a bad job.
Padme stood and stretched, rubbing her lower back. She wasn't tried yet, but couldn't work any more. She could watch the news, but that would only bring up the war and Anakin and end with her crying herself to sleep. No, there was only one thing to do on a night like this and that was to pull out another one of her secrets, one her husband didn't know about. She reached for her com.
"Sabe?" There was a pause before her loyal bodyguard and friend picked up.
"Yes my lady?"
"Could you bring over your newest paperback acquisition?"
There was laughter on the other end. "Of course my lady, I'll be right over."
Bless her dear, sweet friend. The "paperback acquisition" was of course, not quite that. For starters there were very few things written on paper these days, and second, "acquisition" was perhaps a bit too formal of a word. But research showed they were once paperback and they were by all technicality "acquisitions". Her slightly self-righteous justification was interrupted by a knock at the door. Going over she went through the security procedure slightly faster than either Typho or Anakin would be happy with, as both men were a little more than paranoid when it came to her safety. The last time she had complained about security measures to Typho he left, then came back and presented a list to her detailing the number of times she had been targeted by an assassin of some sort. She then complained to Anakin about Typho and her husband suggested giving the man a raise.
Padme opened the door to find her old friend standing on the other side. Sabe gave her the chip with a small smirk.
"You do realize that my reputation as a serious, dedicated, bodyguard could be seriously damaged if someone discovered I regularly go to the store to buy romance novels."
"Not as much as mine could be," Padme returned playfully, her secret addiction clenched in her fist.
Sabe smiled. "There was a new series released, Beyond the Stars. I picked up the first. It's about a woman whose secret Jedi husband is away at war."
Padme groaned, "It uses my husband again, doesn't it?"
Sabe smirked, "The "Hero with No Fear" is young, handsome, a war hero, and unattainable. With fangirls swooning left and right, it's no surprise when they include him subtly and not-so-subtly. He sells." She laughed, "if you ever need some extra cash you can always give a tell-all interview." Padme mocked glared at her friend. "What? It would prove that he was well and truly unattainable with all of the… exclusive details."
"Oh get out you!" Padme playfully shoved her friend out the door and attempted to subdue the red in her cheeks. Sabe wasn't known for being shy.
After re-arming her extensive security systems (top of the line with some modifications from her mate) she sighed happily. Setting the chip down on the desk, she rushed around as best as she could pregnant getting ready for bed. Then she poured herself some tea and curled up in her bed ready to read.
"If hate can save than love can kill."
Padme blinked at the first sentence. That certainly wasn't what she expected. She began again.
"'If hate can save than love can kill' Natalie mused, 'for my hatred for oppression has, in the past, allowed me to fight against it, saving those who could not save themselves. And the love my mate and I hold for each other will surely kill us both. Our fault in the end, living a lie destroyed us.'"
Padme reared back as if slapped. She heard her voice, a far away whisper carried on the wind, "…then we'd be living a lie… I couldn't do that. Could you, Anakin? Could you live like that?" then his voice, the barest of echoes, "no. You're right. It would destroy us."
Padme's tea was forgotten that night as she read. When exhaustion finally won their struggle, she lay down, staring at the ceiling in an attempt to clear her mind for sleep. In vain as it turned out, the last part of the chapter saw fit to repeat itself continuously in her head, as if on a loop. "Natalie remembered reading an old saying "absence diminishes small loves and increases great ones, as the wind blows out the candle and blows up the bonfire." According to him then, their love was very great indeed. 'But no one,' she mused, 'can control fire, not really, and when the wind snatches it out of the hearth the question is not "what will it burn?" but "what will it leave behind?"' And she did not have an answer."
When Padme finally finished the novel a few days later she found herself in tears. And yet she went back and read it again and again. The sequel wasn't done yet so she couldn't continue and she didn't pick up a new one. For some reason she found herself drawn back, much to the amusement of Sabe, and Anakin when he found out.
She had not meant for him to know, but with all the chaos surrounding the attack on Coruscant and telling him of their child, she hadn't had time to hide it away. He saw the novel sitting out on the bedside table, opened to the last page she was on, and, curious, picked it up and read part out loud. "'Love is not a children's fairy tale, not a colorful storybook or glittery holofilm, not a sugar-spun fantasy, not really. It's a war, a series of battles fought with yourself, with your mate, with the outside world, for your mate, for that wonderful concept of "us". Again and again unstoppable forces meet with unmovable objects and both are changed. Love is growing up and changing. In the end you are scarred and now stronger than you ever were before. And you look for your love, both of you changed, and see if it was worth it. Selfless love, giving love almost always gives the answer yes. Selfish love, possessive love, no. Hayden wondered in the end what type he had.' What is this Padme?"
She blushed, "just something I was reading, now give it here." She tried to snatch it from his hands, but he held it out of reach.
"Senator Amidala spends her time reading romance novels," he laughed.
"But of course," she purred, changing tactics, "I get so horribly lonely when you're away. Where else could I seek out a cure for the romantic desires that plague me?" The novel was quickly forgotten in the following activities.
As Padme lay in her husband's arms that night, more content than she had felt in what seemed like years, she looked over and saw the small light that indicated that the holoreader was still on.
Anakin felt his wife's shift in moods. "What is it angel?"
For some reason Padme, not as prone to poetic or over-the-top romantic sediments as her spouse, felt what she could only describe as an icy hand griping her heart. "A premonition of the future?" She resolved to not read any more romances for a while and to put away Beyond the Stars the very next day. She then tried to firmly push away whatever the illogic had descended upon her, but the feeling just wouldn't go away. She bit her lip, then replied to her husband's question with a question of her own, not sure herself of the problem.
"Ani what type of ending do you think we'll have?"
"Oh something suitably dramatic I'm sure," he replied in his usual flippant manner.
"Please," her voice was trembling for some reason, "be serious. In the world we live in…"
Anakin rolled so he was hovering above his mate. He gently traced her face with his finger, sending soothing waves through the force, trying to grant her a measure of the peace she supplied for him naturally. "No matter what happens, no matter what we have to go through, in the end we will have a happy ending. I promise."
Padme gave him a watery smile, not sure why she was so emotional, and he bent down to kiss it away. The falling knight and his doomed bride entered sleep peacefully, together. But that night he had a nightmare…
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"What's this?" asked Han, picking up an old data chip out of the intricately carved wood box.
"Well you could ask me, as I obviously have the ability to know by glancing at it. Or you can plug it in and find out yourself," Leia shot back, not in the best of moods. They were in an old, dusty apartment that didn't look like anyone had cleaned it since the Clone Wars. There was no real reason to be here except it had been listed as belonging to Vader. She wished that she could have shoved the job off to a subordinate, not wanting anything to do with her father at all, but her brother wanted them to go through as many of their father's things personally as they could. Some times it simply wasn't reasonable, the three of them alone couldn't go through all of Bast Castle, they had duties after all and the castle was both off planet and huge. The apartment, however, while not small, would not take nearly as much time and was both on planet and close. So she had given in to her twin and was thus spending her afternoon covered in dust instead of discussing peace treaties.
Leia sighed and rubbed her eyes. Why her father decided to buy an apartment and do nothing with it was beyond her. The former resident still had pictures hanging on the wall, the papers on the desk were from the Clone War era, even the bed covers were still thrown back and the closet door opened. Han picked up the chip and was plugging it in to a holo player sitting on the bedside table as if the last owner had just put it there and was ready to walk back in and use it. She wondered if Vader had killed the poor woman then, spitefully, decided he probably had. Luke felt her emotions and sent her calming waves through the Force. She gave a half-hearted attempt at letting go, and gave up. Despite the female feel to the apartment, despite the evidence that the only person who lived here was one of the many senators killed near the beginning of Palaptine's reign, there was something that reminded her of her father here. Something illusive, a half-heard echo, already faded with age. Not only was a part of her father here, but she couldn't figure out how, and the Vader-mystery combo was serving to drive her crazy and thus make her irritable.
Luke entered the room. He glanced at his sister, feeling both her emotions and the reasons behind them, but unable to help. Leia would have to come to terms with their father on her own time. As for his father's presence, he felt it too, but was no closer to solving the mystery than she. In the absence of a force-ghost helping, he would have to find something more tangible.
"Find anything?"
"Tons kid. Here we have some dust, a bedcover, more dust, a closet with a bunch of dresses, even more dust, a few pictures, and what do you know, more dust!" Han smirked at Luke's eye roll as the chip loaded. "I hate to break the news to you, but there doesn't seem to be anything of your father here except for some old news reports. The last owner must have been quite a fan, she collected every mention of him. Besides that, the only things we've found of interest were in a box."
"What was in it?"
Leia pick it up and handed it to him. "A braid of hair, a piece of carved wood, a data chip, and a few other trinkets. Nothing important." She sighed. "I'm sorry Luke there just isn't anything here."
"If there is nothing important in the apartment than what is important about the apartment itself? Why did our father buy it and continually update its security to protect it? There has to be a reason. Besides," he met his sister's eye, "there's more than meets the eye here. You can feel what he left behind as well as I can."
"Maybe the former owner was such a big fan of his he couldn't bear to give it away?" Han offered.
"Some how I don't think so."
"Well she was certainly the type to swoon over a face on the holonet. All this chip contains is a romance novel."
Leia perked up at this. "Really? Which one is it?" The men in the room stared at her. Finally Han spoke up.
"Since when do you read this kind of stuff your worship?"
Leia flushed, "I don't! I had a nurse who loved them and read them to me obsessively. Now which one is it flyboy?"
"Beyond the Stars part one."
"Oh yes, I remember that series, by GWL. It was started during the end of the Clone Wars and the last part was published a few years into the Empire. The original novel was about a Jedi, but after the purge it was changed to a regular soldier. What version is that?"
Han read a part, "Natalie smiled then, 'Love Master Jedi? Love is not a victory, it's a surrender.'" He nodded, "If they stopped making him a Jedi later than I'd say this is an original."
"It was quiet good, sad though." Leia smiled and quoted, "'…and how many,' Natalie wondered, 'had died in her name, and would die in her name.' She could never know for certain, but knew that, ironically, she would be counted among them."
"What was it about?" Luke asked, more curious about why his sister had memorized a part than in the novel itself.
"It's about two people," Leia ignored Han's snort, "who fell in love and got married in secret. But he loved people more than principles and she loved morals over mortals. So when he did something against both of their morals for her sake, it tore them apart. She couldn't abide what he did as it was so against what she believed in, and the fact that he did it for her made it even worse. He sacrificed everything for her because he loved her and when she left him it tore him to pieces, driving him to commit worse and worse acts. They died without ever being reconciled."
"Pretty sad for a romance," he commented.
Leia smiled at her brother, "Oh no, it was happy in the end. They met again in the afterlife and were finally able to be together for eternity beyond the stars."