Reflections
I should not have been so surprised to see him. I knew he had gone into Jedi training, with Obi-Wan as his mentor. While I'll admit that I hadn't followed his career, I should have expected that he would accompany Obi-Wan on this mission, just as Obi-Wan had accompanied his own mentor, Qui-Gon Jinn, on the mission to Naboo all those years ago. I should not have been surprised. Yet there he was, waiting for acknowledgment of some sort, and here I was in one of those moments that stretch into eternity, trying desperately to think of the right words. "Good to see you"? "How's the training"? "Sorry I haven't written for the past ten years"?
"You've grown," I say, inwardly berating myself for not being able to think of anything more original. But I was caught off-guard. And anyway, it's true. He has grown.
"So have you. Grown more beautiful, I mean."
Hm. More practiced and intentional than "are you an angel," but still the same Ani…blunt, straightforward, honest, still wearing his thoughts and emotions on the surface.
Isn't a Jedi supposed to have control?
That's not control I see in his eyes when he looks at me.
Ignore him, Senator. You have a mission, too.
The first meeting should have prepared me. If not the first meeting, then certainly the way he watched me when we were preparing to leave Coruscant. I could feel his eyes from across the room, even with my back turned. I wished I could stare him down, and at times I tried. My eyes were always the first to drop. It was then I first began to wonder if he were using his Jedi mind tricks on me, because there was no logical way to explain how fast my heart was beating.
He is a child, Amidala. He is years younger than you, no matter how much he has grown. He doesn't know what he wants.
On the contrary. I think he knows exactly what he wants.
"Don't look at me like that."
"Why not?"
"It makes me uncomfortable."
It is a good plan. It can't help but be a good plan. I disagree with it, I hate it, but the leaders of my people, in concurrence with the Jedi Council, decided that I would be safer elsewhere. As the doors close on our first transport away from Coruscant, I meet his eyes and see there, for the moment, only the urgency and the weight of the mission. He will protect me with his life, if need be. Why don't I feel safer?
I try to keep the conversation light, casual, a time of reminiscing and catching up between friends. I laugh off his awkwardly delivered compliments on my beauty, my intelligence, my charm. After all, he has probably not known many other women, at least not outside of a training center. He is still nursing a child's infatuation.
But he is not a child anymore, Amidala.
Neither are you.
It is a personal tradition to take time to watch the waves upon my return to this house in the Lake Country of Naboo. It is calming, centering. I try to be alone for these times, but he never leaves me alone. (He is your bodyguard, after all, Senator. Giving you space isn't part of the mandate.) He is talking about the planet, how much more beautiful it is than Tatooine, and I am trying quite hard and failing quite miserably to concentrate on the sun glinting on the waves.
"Everything here," he says, and with mounting panic I see movement in my peripheral vision and know what is coming, "is softer." He caresses the skin of my arm, my back, and I curse myself for wearing this particular dress, and I curse myself at the realization that I had worn it because I thought he would like it. Obviously he does. I curse myself most strongly for noticing the dryness of his knuckles and the warmth radiating from his hand.
I turn to tell him that is the worst pick-up line I've ever heard. I will tell him to go inside, to unpack his bags, to patrol the perimeter of the property. Anything to make him leave.
My eyes meet his and see once again the openness, the boldness, the honesty that prevents him from hiding his feelings like the Jedi wish him to do. Why do they ask him to lie? Suddenly, I am tired of lies. I have lived with liars all my life, first in the royal court, now in the Senate. For each devoted servant of the Republic, there are ten more power-grasping wretches thinking only of their own advancement, only of themselves.
And you, Padmé? Is it the Republic that occupies your thoughts in this moment?
To be perfectly honest? No.
I am tired of lies.
It is my first kiss. I have never had any time for this sort of thing, living for the Republic as I have. It must be his first kiss, too, for Jedi are not allowed this experience. For a first kiss, we fit together far too well. You must end it, Padmé. The first will be, must be the last.
I already regret it. It has strengthened a tie that was too strong from the beginning, awakened a desire that I had been trying to ignore. And it has hurt him. To live with the memory of a kiss may prove worse than living with the dream of a kiss.
Or at least I feel that is how it will be with me.
I love the Lake Country. The rural solitude of the place is a welcome respite from my hectic urban life in politics, the life I chose, the life I live with no regrets. But I sense the danger of the place, too. Here we seem to be outside of the flow of time. Never before have I been here without an entourage, a bodyguard.
Often I forget that my companion is also my bodyguard. He lacks the seriousness of all other bodyguards I have had. With this bodyguard, I do not feel like a politician in mortal danger. Instead, I feel like a child, carefree and with my life stretching out invitingly before me. I cannot remember the last time I felt like a child. He makes me forget the world beyond the Lake Country, the moments beyond now. I can't allow myself to forget my duty. But for the first time in my life, I wonder what would happen if Senator Padmé Amidala resigned from the political arena. Would the course of history be so terribly altered if I refused to be part of it? It is a ridiculous question, and I know that I could no more abdicate from my responsibilities than he could throw away his Jedi powers.
I watch him riding one of the shaaks in the meadow, moving with the carefree arrogance of someone who believes that he is untouchable, that he will live forever. He is blatantly showing off now, and Senator Amidala heartily disapproves of such nonsense. Padmé Amidala, however, is laughing like the giddy schoolgirl she never had a chance to be. No one has ever tried to impress me in this unrefined manner. Everything in my world has been smoke and mirrors, tricks and shadows. For as long as I can remember, only a handful of people have seen me as something more than just a politician. Only a few have loved me despite my position, not because of it. Even my most trusted advisors came to me after I achieved a certain rank, a certain level of status. Yet years ago on Tatooine, the boy Ani took one look at a peasant girl and began to worship her. I always felt that he was disappointed to discover that I was the queen. Things could not be the same between a queen and a potential Jedi apprentice as they were between equals.
But then, we were never truly equals. He had me on a pedestal so high that the top was in the clouds. It was flattering, intimidating, and completely unrealistic.
Was it love? Is it love?
Yes, the Lake Country is more dangerous than Obi-Wan Kenobi could ever have anticipated.
My mighty bodyguard, who has been yelling his head off in a completely undignified manner, suddenly yells louder than usual and falls. I race across the field, no time to analyze the situation or the sudden terror springing up within me, one thought running through my mind faster than I move through the grasses: You can't die, Anakin Skywalker. I collapse onto my knees next to his motionless form, breathing hard, and as I reach out to feel for a pulse, he grabs me, laughing like a ten-year-old, then rolls swiftly to the left, taking me along with him.
To a Jedi, my relief must be tangible. And I am even more relieved when we roll to a stop, dizzy, and his eyes are filled only with a childish excitement. If only Ani could stay this way for the remainder of our stay here, we could enjoy each other's company.
If only Anakin would release me, I could catch my breath.
Tonight he broached the subject of the kiss, his words and his intensity casting my worst imaginings into dismal certainty. "Haunted," he calls it. It is the right word. I cannot allow these growing emotions to live. If I were only a humble citizen and he only a simple mechanic, it might have worked. Except for the little problem of us never having a chance to meet, it might have worked. But this mental exercise is useless…we care for each other because of who we are. And it is precisely because of who we are that these emotions must be stopped.
Ironic that the deepest truth could only be purchased by the deepest lie.
His mother is in trouble. Her distress calls to him across the distance between worlds, calls to him in dreams. I marvel at his strength in the Force, that mystical connection he experiences which I cannot fathom. I admire his loyalty, even though it means he bends a few rules. After all, I am a politician. I know that some rules are made in ignorance. I know when rules should be bent.
So we go to Tatooine, the two of us, not knowing what we will find there. I am filled with a strange mix of confidence and foreboding, but I try desperately to hide the latter from him. If he can sense his mother's distress from across planetary systems, surely he must be distracted by unease from one sitting beside him in the small cockpit of a starship. I've never been taught to shield my feelings, but I must try. Surely there must be a way to keep him from knowing all that is in my heart. I focus my thoughts on my confidence in him. Perhaps it is my imagination, but he seems to relax.
He has a stepfather, a stepbrother, a home. If he had only returned sooner….
We ask about his mother and are told she was captured by a band of Tusken raiders. My mind fills with images of Shmi Skywalker, gentle and compassionate and hospitable, longing above all for her son to have a better life. My breath catches in my throat, and I see his eyes cloud over. With all of my strength, I try to force my way past the mental barriers imposed by a lifetime of undiscipline, reaching for his mind, seeking to calm him, comfort him, hold him without touching him. I can't. He is alone. And suddenly I realize that I am alone, too, in a way I haven't been for weeks, and I know for certain now that his mind has been in constant contact with mine ever since we met at Coruscant. Instinctively, I know what this sudden isolation means, and fear fills my heart.
Anakin. Anakin.
As dusk falls he disappears over the horizon. He has gone to look for her. He had to. I excuse the strange behavior exhibited on his departure to Cliegg, Owen, and Beru, who accept my explanations without introducing any of the questions I know they must have. We talk late into the night, and despite the tension that still clings to us all, there are still moments of levity, of laughter. It is a relief to be with these people, in this place. It is a relief to laugh.
The sudden realization of the late hour ends the conversation. Owen excuses himself to take Beru home, teasing about her being out past curfew. Cliegg had retired hours ago. I sit alone in the room for a long time after they have left, waiting for something that never comes.
I have not seen him for hours, not since we all saw him briefly at his return. His return with the body of his mother. My heart cries out to him, but he does not come to me. So I leave the grieving members of the household behind and go in search of him.
Power hits me as soon as I enter the garage in which he has taken refuge. Power…and rage. I ask him what happened, and he, at first reluctantly and then with increasing fervor, begins to tell me. He strides about the room with a passion he is forbidden to possess, an unease he was told he would escape. And it turns out that I didn't want to know this story, didn't want to know what he was capable of, didn't want to know that I loved him. Even after all of this.
You always wanted to save the world, Amidala. Perhaps you are all that stands between this boy-man and his own destruction.
I reach for him, hold him as his mother would have held him, and as his arms close around me and we begin to cry together I feel a jolt within my mind, and I know we'll make the stand together.
May we prove strong enough.
He does not need this. He does not need to lose another loved one, the father figure following the mother. Despite the invectives he hurled at this man so recently, he does not wish him harm. People always say things they don't mean in times of great distress. But he is too confused, too grief-stricken, too uncharacteristically cautious to act. I am not. This time, he can tag along with me. We are going to rescue Obi-Wan. I won't let Anakin lose his mentor.
He stares at me, surprised and pleased, and I see respect dawn on his face, a respect I have never seen before when he looked at me. Funny that gaining his full respect means breaking some rules. I suddenly feel that I am no longer an object of worship, that I am finally a human. Gratitude rushes through me, and I struggle to suppress it. I am not making this choice to impress him. I desire only to save a loyal friend from certain death. Whatever camraderie Obi-Wan's Padawan and I share as the ship takes flight, it is not enough to save us from ourselves. We must keep to the paths laid out for us. We are not allowed to forge our own.
That went really well, Amidala. Not only did you fail to save Obi-Wan, you've sentenced yourself and Anakin to share his fate. When we enter the arena, we will be chained to the pillars near Obi-Wan, who will doubtless be heartbroken to see us there in defiance of his orders. Then wild beasts will pounce upon us, tearing us limb from limb for the entertainment of countless spectators.
How many people are this lucky? To find yourself, in your final moments, next to the one person who merited a deathbed confession?
So I tell him. Now, when we are dying, it doesn't matter if this love destroys us. In the face of death in an arena, I only regret not choosing the less painful destruction. If indeed it were a choice.
Suddenly, I feel an incredibly strong desire to make it through this alive.
The kiss we shared before heading into the arena was the pledge. Fighting as one strengthened it. We were always destined to meet, destined for each other. We belonged to each other before either of us recognized it. Here on Naboo, all we have done is acknowledge it before witnesses. We face the future boldly, because we face it together. Destiny can't let us down after bringing us through all of this.
The wood carving hangs around my neck, the one he gave me to remember him by when we first met. I wear it now to remind him of Anakin Skywalker. Anakin the miracle. Anakin the prodigy. Anakin the doomed.
I do not need Jedi senses to discern the life within. He senses it, too. His eyes look hungry these days, hungry and dead. He spends all of his time with Emperor Palpatine. I block all thoughts of betrayal. He is loyal to the Emperor now. Dissent from me would be tolerated as much as dissent from the Jedi Council was once tolerated. I would be dealt with just as swiftly. Perhaps only the life I carry inside of me keeps me alive as it is.
When he touches me, I know he is thinking of me not as a lover, but as a mother. The mother of yet another loyal servant to the Empire. When I look at him, it is he who first looks away.
Anakin. Anakin, my love. There is still good in you. Give up your hatred. Anakin...
Only I dare to hope.
Only one knows my secret.