[How should I your true love know
From another one?
By his cockle hat and staff,
And his sandal shoon.]
It was the first time since the outbreak of the war that he had returned to her, and though transmissions were easy enough to slip through to one another, it was a different thing entirely to have her husband (husband) standing in front of her, alive and well, the taste of his lips still lingering where they had touched not a moment ago.
Her smile softened as she took in his face, still so young, so full of that same boyish wonder she had always associated with him. But there is something else there now, because her Ani's face was so impossibly old. There had been duels and bombs and so much death and a thousand other horrors neither of them could have considered two months before. Only now he had considered them, and confronted them, too, and Padmé did not know him anymore. Not as she used to.
She took his cheek in her hand and frowned, brushing with her thumb the small, spidery line that it found there. It was faint, but it was all she had, all that was tangible about this new part of him that they did not share. Padmé hesitated, then reclined her head and gently pressed her lips to the new scar. She felt Anakin inhale sharply, followed by a deep sigh of contentment, and the moment had passed.
Finally she knew him again.
[He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone;
At his head a grass-green turf,
At his heels a stone.]
Sola is not entirely sure she wants to be the one to make this holocall. No, scratch that. She knows for a fact that she'd rather be doing anything but standing here, her hand hovering above the dial pad, wondering how in the galaxy she's supposed to tell her little sister that her best friend is dead.
She knows the words, of course. The cold facts.
Sculptor Palo Eylon, a devoted member of the Naboo post-martialist movement and former public servant, was executed in the Trian system under the charges of suspected espionage. Naboo ambassadors failed to reach a settlement with the Trianii government, and Eylon's sentence was carried out yesterday morning after a four-month incarceration.
The announcement hadn't made galactic news, and Sola isn't at all surprised. Each morning the holonet bears headlines of a different battle won or lost, another system under threat. Despite the rather impressive grassroots movement that had sprung up across Naboo in protest, it would be foolish to expect galactic attention on behalf of one artist from a relatively unimportant planet when there's a war on. It would be perfectly reasonable to think that not even that planet's senator had been informed.
But this is Palo. He's family. He has been ever since he came to visit Padmé when she was running for public office in Theed and she blushingly referred to him as her boyfriend (but only once he was out of earshot, of course). Nothing more had really come of that (Sola thinks), but she has it on good authority that through her little sister's long years in public service, Palo was one of the few who could remember Padmé, not Amidala. What's more, he was the only one who could help Padmé herself remember.
For her sister's sake, Sola hopes she is wrong in believing that.
[There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray,
love, remember: and there is pansies. that's for thoughts.
I would give you some violets, but they withered all
when he died: they say he made a good end]
Luke looks like her.
This is the first time Obi-Wan has seen him at such close proximity since he was five years old, when he appeared the spitting image of his father. Now, thirteen years later, she is the first person his mind reaches out to when Padmé's son glances at him from across the room. Even more so when he inquires after Anakin's fate.
Does he know that was the last thing she ever asked him?
It is to her that Obi-Wan begs forgiveness for what he is about to do. Padmé would not want Luke to find out this way. She would not want her son to know the truth, not without knowing who he had been before. Obi-Wan begs her forgiveness, for it must be done.
But again it is Padmé that he sees in Luke's earnest face when he turns to tell him everything. I know there is still good in him. Her dying words call to him from across the years, and Obi-Wan's resolve falters. Yes, let him believe in the good of the universe, like his mother before him. Let him fight the monster to avenge the man that once was.
Obi-Wan tries to ignore the small voice that says she would never have condoned this either. He nearly succeeds.
[By Gis and by Saint Charity,
Alack, and fie for shame!
Young men will do't, if they come to't;
By cock , they are to blame.
You promised me to wed.
So would I ha' done, by yonder sun,
An thou hadst not come to my bed.]
And she wept then, as she had never wept before. It was ironic, and horribly cruel that a seasoned politician could be so easily exposed as the not-yet adult she really was. And by a man, no less. She had gone against all her mother had taught her, all that Naboo tradition dictated. But they were to be married, he had said. Would it really make a difference in a year's time?
She had not known what it meant to him, what pre-marital relations implied about a woman on Scipio. She had not thought to find out.
There would be no wedding songs now, no canopies, no holy men, no white caavna veil. She would never grow old with him, never argue how to raise their children as both Naboo and Scipian, never wake up in the morning to find him already awake, watching her. In her mind, she knew that she could never want these things with him anymore, but on this, the rarest of occasions, her heart ruled her thoughts.
Her breathing stopped for a moment, then she wiped her sleeve across her eyes and picked herself up. Padmé could afford to grieve later for what might have been. Amidala had work to do.
[To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day,
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine.
Then up he rose, and donn'd his clothes,
And dupp'd the chamber-door,
And let in a maid, that out a maid
Never departed more.]
Padmé is examining his hand, the new, shiny, metal one. Anakin had feared that it would repulse her, but he was wrong. It fascinates her, that this appendage of machinery could be just as much a part of him now as the flesh and blood of the other had always been.
"We're married, aren't we?"
She looks up. She does not understand, that much is clear. Anakin weaves his cybernetic fingers through her flesh ones, and looks for the words to explain. That has never been terribly difficult for him.
"Marriage on Tatooine isn't the same," he says. "We don't have ceremonies. Nothing official. We aren't allowed." (and he trusts that she knows what he means by we) "But when you survive something together, something like that… you just know."
He hasn't spoken of what happened at the Tusken camp since they left the planet. He doubts he'll ever mention it again after this. But he watches her intently as somehow the pieces click into place, and he knows she understands. Come what may, everything has changed and they are bound to each other now. Nothing will ever be the same.
[They bore him barefaced on the bier;
Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny;
And in his grave rain'd many a tear:--
Fare you well, my dove!]
She's back again. She's been in here every day this week, and last week, too. I'm starting to wonder if there's something I should do, perhaps someone I should contact. I'm not an idiot, of course, or some nosy, do-gooding member of the Parian Cult like dear old mum. I've worked here long enough to know that there are some people in the galaxy that simply enjoy a solitary cup of Ardees while they read the holonews. Nothing wrong with that. But trust me, if I know anything about those people, I know this girl isn't one of them.
Every day it's the same thing. She comes in, takes the little booth in the back, orders her cup of Naris-bud, and then just sits there for hours, staring out the window. Really. None of us can ask her to leave, even though the tea's usually gone within ten minutes. We just don't have the heart.
Because the reality is this. There probably isn't anything I can do. In all likelihood, there isn't anyone I can contact. If there were, she wouldn't be here. Or he would be sitting in that booth with her like the decent man he clearly isn't. I pity her. For all it claims to be the progressive center of the universe, Coruscant isn't kind to single mothers. In three months, she won't have the time to sit in a diner and stare out the window. She'll be too busy dealing with what he left behind, a child and the fragments of a life that should have been blessed, not shattered.
[You must sing a-down a-down,
An you call him a-down-a.
O, how the wheel becomes it! It is the false
steward, that stole his master's daughter.]
"I don't believe that just happened. I didn't know Sabé was on the pla – mmf."
"I didn't know you were on the planet," Padmé said when finally they broke apart, positively beaming. It was one of his shorter absences, certainly (or maybe it just seemed that way after that business on the Malevolence), but that didn't mean she didn't know to take advantage of it. These days, she and Anakin were never quite sure when they would see one another next.
Her smile softened slightly as she cupped his face in her hands, turning his head gently to the left, and then to the right. It was a ritual that Padmé had continued without quite realizing, ever since that first night he had come home to her. It was an unspoken agreement. There would be no merriment, no serious discussions, no passion until she knew him again. Anakin closed his eyes as she brushed her thumb over the fresh red stripe which now adorned the left, and exhaled contentedly as Padmé elevated herself to kiss it softly.
"Now what's this about Sabé?"
"Nothing. It's not important."
"Ani…"
"I… almost gave us away. Almost. You look too much alike."
She stared at him for a moment, then laughed softly into his chest as he enveloped her in his arms, contented to stay there for a few minutes, or an hour, or perhaps another year or so.
[And will he not come again?
And will he not come again?
No, no, he is dead:
Go to thy death-bed:
He never will come again.]
This is not the end, my love. This is not how we end.
I was a fool, Anakin. We both were. We knew exactly what I needed from you – something you were willing to give a thousand times over – but I ignored what you needed in return. It was too ugly, the war and the visions and the childhood spent in chains. These were not the things that a girl who had been raised to believe in doing good without ever confronting the reality of the bad could deal with.
I never loved you as I should have, and you, with your unquestioning devotion and wide-eyed wonder and unfailing belief in my quest to Do Good… The thought never crossed your mind that I might be wrong, and so you ignored those needs, too.
The galaxy paid the price for our foolishness.
Do you know that our son is coming to find you, Ani? He knows that this machine is not who you are, and he wants to help you be free of it. Leia is staying behind to fight in the battle. She's too much your daughter to do anything else.
You don't have much time left. You'll listen to Luke, I know you will. You have the time to fix the mess we made, Anakin. And then we'll see each other again. It'll be as it was during the war, when you would come home from the long campaigns. I'll take your face in my hands and kiss the scars. Then we'll talk, because we never did that before, and only then will we know each other again.
Because this is not how we end, my love. It will be better, the next time.
[White her shroud as the mountain snow,
Larded with sweet flowers
Which bewept to the grave did go
With true-love showers.]