A/N: I am not well versed in writing, but I do feel confident enough in attempting to pen this. Hopefully it isn't too bad. If you like this story then maybe you will stay around and watch me progress in writing? You can only go up and improve, right?
I'll consider this an early birthday present from me, to me. I am totally not fishing for early birthday regards. *whispers* Yes I am.
Also, this is my attempt at a half-baked au. We'll see how that turns out, hm?
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He died, and part of her (their) family died along with him.
Life was never guaranteed to be easy, but no one ever told her it would be nearly this hard, either.
Leia Jobal Amidala was in tears. Again. 'Why is it she is always in tears these days?' Padmé wondered to herself as she watched her young daughter with tired eyes. Somewhere in the back of Padmé's mind she knew the answer to her silent question. Before she had been a mother or a wife or a senator or a queen Padmé had been a twelve year old girl once, too.
Gently, almost cautiously she asks "What's wrong, honey?" And that gentle prod was all it took. The dam broke and Leia's small sobs became a torrent of tears as she desperately grabbed onto Padmé's robes as if they were her very life support in this weary, bleak world. And in a way Padmé supposed she was just that for Leia.
In between her daughter's retching sobs Padmé made out a few words, barely. Not. Strong. Enough. Jedi. And it was a that point that Padmé realized though her daughter's adolescent hormones may have had something to do with her miserable feelings as of late, it wasn't the root of it. Leia, determined, ready to always prove herself Leia, was upset that her brother was advancing faster than her in jedi training.
Padmé was thoroughly glad Leia seemed to be saving these occasional breakdowns for the privacy of the Amidala household and not in front of the Academy. She highly doubted the well meaning, but often abrasive Yoda's words wouldn't have been too kind or understanding to her daughter, that much she knew.
She wasn't sure what to say either, however. So, instead Padmé did instead. She fully embraced her daughter in a tight, warm hug. With a gentle sigh she laid her head to rest on her daughter's chocolate brown locks and then began to rub soothing circles into her daughter's shaking back. So quiet that she was almost silent she began to hum a soothing tune as she rocked Leia back and forth in her arms until her sobs stopped.
When she could finally cry no more Leia raised her head up to look at her mother, her eyes blotchy and puffy from her many tears, "I'm not the jedi I should be."
"No honey, you are perfe - "
"But I'm not." She insisted, almost snarling with so much conviction that it startled the older woman slightly. "I should be better than this. Better than him. Better than them all."
Frowning slightly and biting her tongue for a moment she thought about what to tell her daughter. Deciding to try a different tactic, "I know how you feel, sweetheart."
"How?" Leia challenged, her eyebrow quirking every-so slightly. Padmé had to stifle a sad laugh. She looked so much like Anakin when she did that, she sounded so much like him too.
Padmé opened her mouth to say "Because everything you are feeling right now your father before you felt first," but quickly decided against it. That would do no more than make Leia ask questions. Questions that Padmé wasn't ready to answer and may never be. Questions that would lead to answers that wouldn't go over well in the Order, or the senate, or anywhere. "Because I'm your mother, and everything you feel I feel, in some way or another." Padmé partially lied as she brushed a stray tendril of soft, downy brown hair out from Leia's eyes.
Leia could hardly disguise her disbelieving scoff. Pulling away from her mother's warmth she said with a bit more of her normal fire in her eyes and a lot less sorrow, "Do you want to know something, mom?" Her mother nodded. "One day I'll be the most powerful jedi ever. I'll do things no other jedi has ever done before. Not even Luke." She said her brother's name with such disdain that it disheartened Padmé so.
Trying not to seem bothered by her daughter's ever growing distance from her twin, she smiled slightly and said, "I have no doubt you will be even more wonderful someday, darling. I believe in you." The tween nodded in solemn agreement.
A sense of calm then washed over Leia's features as she said without a moment's hesitation or thought, as if it were the first thing to pop into her head, and very well could have been, "And one day I'll find dad, too. Wherever he is. And we can be a family again. I promise."
Padmé sat on the balcony bench that connected to her small family's apartment. A part of her wanted to cry, she really did. But after so many years of doing so little else but crying she found it hard to spare tears anymore. Still, her heart felt disquiet and her bones heavy. She felt far older than she was. Not even out of her thirties and she already felt as if she'd lived a hundred harsh and grueling years. Too wizened and hardened by the world far too soon.
Still, no matter how wise or strong she grew there were things she couldn't do, no matter how much she wish she held power to do something. Anything, really.
Things she couldn't do:
She couldn't help the fact that her twins, her precious babies, were growing farther apart with each passing day. She didn't need the force to feel that their twin bond was weakening, and she wasn't sure why. They had always been like night and day, absolutely nothing alike, but up until a year ago they had coincided in near perfect harmony. Now something was happening, something had snapped and it seemed like they were drifting in two distinctly opposite directions.
She couldn't help that neither child ever even got to meet their father. How desperately she wanted them too, though. She wanted Luke to see his strength and perseverance in his father's identical blue eyes. She wanted Leia to feel that overpowering bond she just knew her daughter would have if she ever met Anakin. For Leia to feel that feeling of not only meeting her father, but meeting a kindred spirit as well.
Sadly, she couldn't even share the wonderful memories she held of him with them in fear that their parentage would become known to someone outside the family.
She didn't have the heart to tell her daughter that once upon a time her father had a similar desire to her own.
Anakin had wished to stop people from dying. Leia, unknowingly, wished to bring people back from the dead. In the end Anakin couldn't stop his own self from dying at the hands of Darth Sidious, though he saved the galaxy in the process. And in the end Leia will never be able to bring him back, no matter how desperately she (they) need him here. With them.
Anakin was always good at fixing things, be it droids, or podracers, or hearts. If anyone could fix what was so insidiously but destructively happening to their dear family, he could.
Yet he can't, because he isn't here to...
The tears that weren't supposed to be there anymore fill her eyes, obscuring her vision rapidly. She feels like her family is dying all over again.
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A/N: This was really fun to write. Although I do not think I'll be writing any more Star Wars stories any time soon.
So many franchises, so little time!
P.S. Yes, I fully intended for Leia to come off harsh in this. Half-way through I went 'I want her to develop into a dark side character'. So this was just a small inkling of the person that in this au she will become.