I woke up with a killer headache.
"Padme," Obi-Wan murmured, touching his cool hand to my clammy forehead. I tried to talk, to ask him what had happened, but I couldn't. My tongue felt like rubber.
Then to memories came back to me.
The Republic, Naboo, Chancellor Palpatine, Anakin, Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, the pregnancy, the birth… Oh Force.
"The children!" I blurted out, jolting up to a sitting position. I was in a hospital bed, but different from the one I'd given birth in. I was also in a clean hospital gown. The room, though, looked the same.
"Hush, love," Obi-Wan said, gently pushing me on my back again. I looked into his eyes and frowned. He looked trouble, his auburn eyebrows furrowed above his brown eyes…
Brown eyes?
I lifted a frail, shaky hand and caressed his cheek. His face relaxed and he smiled lightly. Then he bent down to kiss me…
When I'd recovered my breath again, I looked at my deflated stomach and frowned.
"Where are the children?" I asked him, stroking his cheek again.
"They are safe, my love," he whispered. For some reason, I didn't believe him.
Suddenly, the door glided open and a flustered-looking man stepped through.
"Lord Vader!" he cried at Obi-Wan. We both frowned- I in confusion, him in anger. The man caught Obi-Wan's eye and turned from red to a peculiar shade of whitish-green.
"V-Vader?" I stuttered. I'd heard that name before.
Obi-Wan sighed and, to my horror, took off his mask.
"Nice job, Tarkin. I was going to wait until after I was refitted with my suit, but I guess the cat's out of the bag." As he slipped the mask off, his voice got a grainy, smoky quality, and his face changed from my beautiful Obi-Wan to a hideous bone-white one. His eyes glowed like embers with hatred and anger.
"Disappointed, doll face?" he sneered. I wanted to scream, but my throat was drier than the sands of Tatooine. Finally, I managed to croak out,
"…A-Ani?"
His face grew dark, and he clenched his fists to his side. I noticed one of them was made of metal.
"That name means nothing to me now!" he snarled.
"Where's Obi-Wan?"
He snorted. "Far away from here. Probably off at your funeral in Naboo."
I felt my heart clench. "And the children? Where are our babies?"
Anakin- or whatever was left of him- seemed to soften a bit.
"They're here, on the ship. They're safe and waiting for their parents in the nursery. You've just got to come with me-" his voice took on a pleading quality- "You've just got to join me. Join the Dark Side, Padme. Then you'll live forever."
I was shocked, the details of the events happening prior to the twins' birth coming back to me in a wave of red.
Going to Mustafar, knowing Obi-Wan was stowing away but hoping it wouldn't matter too much; begging Anakin to please, please tell me the truth; feeling guilty for lying to him again; being choked; blacking out; Obi-Wan's last sweet words…
I sat up straight again, leaned over the side of the bed, and retched.
When I was done, I sat back and closed my eyes, feeling tears well up.
"Padme, I'm sorry it has to be like this. But you betrayed me and I was so angry- I just couldn't help myself."
"What did you do to Obi-Wan?" I asked, my voice hoarse. Anakin smiled bitterly.
"Nothing. We fought on Mustafar, and he did this to me." He pointed to his charred skin. "Then, once the twins were born and everyone believed you were dead, I snuck into the hospital, replaced you with a pregnant corpse, took the children, and took you to the ship. This is my second TIE fighter, more of a cruiser than a fighter, but it still has enough weapons to keep you and the twins safe."
"When can we leave?"
"Never."
I was jolted awake by that.
"What do you mean, 'never'?" I shouted. Anakin smiled almost-sheepishly.
"The whole galaxy believes you're dead. We can't risk messing that up. And I'd hate to change that gorgeous face of yours." He cupped his hand under my chin. In a flash of insane fury, I twisted my neck and bit down on his charred hand hard.
"Ow!" He drew back his hand and his rough skin colliding with mine was the last thing I felt before blacking out again.
When I woke up again, I was in a neatly furnished room not so different from my senator quarters.
I felt sick to my stomach and was tracing the indent of metal fingers on my cheek when I heard a loud cry from the room next to me. I froze in shock. I knew that cry.
I rushed across the room- some vague part of me noticing that I'd been redressed in one of my senator gowns- and yanked open the door to the adjoining room, where the crying was coming from.
The room was a nursery, with one half of the wall painted pink and the other blue. There was a crib on each side and toys littered across the floor.
Whoever had put the room together must've done it recently, because I could smell the paint still drying. It gave me a head ache as soon as I stepped into the room.
"Hush, baby," I cooed as I approached Luke, who was the one crying. I picked him up and instinctively knew to bounce him up and down and pat him lightly on the back.
As I was doing so, I glanced over at sleeping Leia and thought I saw Obi-Wan leaning down to pick her up. I blinked, and he was gone.
Five years later...
Leia shivered as I took off my cloak and wrapped it around her shoulders. Luke was pacing back and forth, looking too serious for a five-year-old.
Anakin- or rather, Vader- hadn't allowed us off the ship. Not even once. We must've gone to a thousand planets, and seen even more blown up, but he'd always lock the door to our rooms while we were in port. And then he wouldn't unlock them until after we'd left its atmosphere.
I spent the time telling the twins about the Old Republic and Naboo and Obi-Wan. I never used his name, though. I always called him "that one special Jedi…"
They grew up believing Anakin was their real father. Of course, he thought so too, but I knew it wasn't true. Luke's blue-green eyes were too much like Obi-Wan's, and Leia's stubbornness and astute thinking was also equivalent to his. Perhaps the one thing they learned from Anakin was fear. Fear of the light, of the Jedi, of death. Fear that they weren't being told the truth, and fear of the ones they loved most hurting.
Luke displayed that last fear yesterday. He and Leia were playing around, using the toy lightsabers Anakin had given them. But Leia had scribbled out the red on hers with blue, making it purple. Anakin came in and obviously remembered Mace Windu and his tragic end, stalked over to Leia and made to hit her.
Well Luke just couldn't stand that. Chivalrous, like his father, he stepped in front of Leia and took the blow. He now had metal indents on his cheek to match mine.
"Don't mess with your toys, Leia," Anakin said, smiling emptily, his eye twitching in anger. I thought he was going to strike again, but he just stepped back and left the room.
(Back to the present)
Leia scooted herself close to me.
"Mother," she started, her intelligent brown eyes sagging in sadness, "why does Father have to hurt Luke? Why didn't Luke just let me get hurt?"
Luke turned to us, his young face marred with barely-contained anger that broke my heart.
"If I'd let Father hurt you, that'd be admitting defeat! We can't lose to him. He's hurt us so much…" Luke voice broke, as did his anger dissipate. He slumped down beside us and held Leia's hand.
"We're getting out of here. And I know how. Mom," his bright eyes looked up at me, filled with hope for the first time, "you remember those stories you tell us about Jedi? Aren't there some left?"
I sighed and ran a hand through my head. "Yes, there are some, but-"
"Then let's contact them! They've got to help us!"
"Luke, it's become too dangerous, even for Yoda himself. I doubt they'd come to save us. Besides, how would we contact them?"
Luke searched his tunic pocket and took out a wiry, bulky, junky device that I vaguely recognized as a homemade comm.
"We can use this!" he exclaimed excitedly. He pressed a button and its broken screen came to life. "I took Father's old blue prints and made one of the guards build it for me under the pretense that I was Father."
I sighed, smiling. Even at such a young age, with little-to-no training, Luke was an excellent Jedi. I took the comm from his hand and turned it over, my thumb grazing over the green lights. It actually worked.
"I'll think about it, Luke. I promise."
"C'mon Luke," Leia said, standing up and shrugging off my cloak. "Let's go play a prank on Tart-face."
Poor Tarkin, I thought amusedly, he's gonna have his hands full governing those two.
I spent the rest of the day looking over the comm and trying to decide what to do. If we were found running away, Anakin would've killed us; but if they stay any long he might as well kill us now.
In the end I was still confused as ever as to what I was supposed to do, but I knew what I wanted. But as I was tucking the twins in- their cribs had been long absent and were replaced with small beds- I looked at Luke's sleeping face and realized any hope I had left of either of them becoming great people was to take this opportunity.
So I did.
Meanwhile, in the cold deserts of Tatooine…
Obi-Wan sat at his kitchen table, resting his chin on his hands and propping up his arms with his elbows. The Jedi master's face was etched with worry and confusion-
Why was he getting flashbacks now?
The young Master's cheeks were flushed and he felt an odd tingling sensation in his stomach while riding up the elevator lift to see Padme again. He realized with astonishment he was nervous.
But what was there to be nervous about? Padme was Padme, nothing special, just an old friend…
He was lying to himself. He knew he'd fallen for her the day he set eyes on her. That love had come back full force as he was faced with the prospect of seeing her again for the first time in ten years, and now he was fighting to keep his whirling emotions from his Padawan. Of course, Anakin wasn't exactly blasé, either.
"I can't believe we're going to see Padme again!" Anakin exclaimed. He was absolutely bursting with joy and looked just like he had as a youngling. Obi-Wan chuckled to himself.
"Contain yourself, Padawan," Obi-Wan chided half-heartedly. Anakin nodded, but Obi-Wan could still spot the young man's hands shaking. He hoped his hands weren't doing the same.
He held his breath as the Senator's door slid open and she was revealed. She smiled graciously and Obi-Wan felt himself bow, although he'd much rather kiss her hand and tell her how beautiful she still looked.
Obi-Wan shook himself out of his reverie as he saw something that hadn't happened for five years.
His comm was ringing.
A/N: I wrote the first five pages of this a couple of months ago and decided to add onto it, making the first chapter. I'll switch between this, Drafted, and Agoraphobe in no particular order. The point of view will be first person for Padme (although that's definitely subject to change) and third person for everyone else. Mainly it'll just be Padme, Obi-Wan, and Anakin later in the story.
Hope you liked the first chapter. Please review! ^-^
(Btw, I actually have a plot for this one! Gaspeth!)