"You're With Him"
Summary: On the journey from Mustafar to Polis Massa, Padmé thinks about the meaning of those three words… This is not a very pro-Anakin story.
Disclaimer: None of the characters, places, or italicized dialogue are mine.
Padmé felt the back of Obi-Wan's hand touch her cheek, and then she sensed more than saw him leave her alone to get some rest. As she lay there, though, somewhere between sleeping and waking, her mind replayed the accusing words Anakin had shouted at her on Mustafar.
"You're with him! You brought him here to kill me!"
He had only been half-right.
She hadn't intentionally brought Obi-Wan to Mustafar to kill Anakin, but she was with him. She was allied with Obi-Wan in a way she never was and never could be with her husband. She and Kenobi believed in certain things that she was no longer sure Anakin had ever really believed in at all. She and Obi-Wan believed in using diplomacy and negotiation to achieve their goals. They would fight if they had to, but only as a last resort, while Anakin had always been more eager to use power and violence to get what he wanted.
She remembered part of the conversation they had had after Shmi's death:
"You're not all-powerful, Ani."
"Well, I should be! Someday I will be!"
Later in that same conversation, he had made a confession to her about how far he had gone in seeking vengeance against the Sand People for his mother's death.
"I--I killed them. I killed them all. They're dead. Every single one of them. And not just the men. But the women and the children too. They're like animals, and I slaughtered them like animals! I hate them!"
She had said to him, then, "To be angry is to be human," but a part of her had been afraid to see him so consumed by his rage and pain. One of the reasons she had later married him was to try to stave off the darkness she could see in him. She had been afraid for him, but also for herself, of what he might do to her if she refused his love.
When Qui-Gon had died, however, and Obi-Wan had been the young man grieving the loss of a parent, she had not been afraid. She remembered standing next to Kenobi at Qui-Gon's funeral and thinking about what the wise Jedi Master had sacrificed his life for. Qui-Gon had helped save her planet from being occupied and ruled by the Trade Federation. He had restored Naboo's democracy and returned freedom to her people.
Democracy and freedom—that was what she and Obi-Wan believed in.
Anakin, however…
She now remembered another conversation she had had with Skywalker on Naboo three years ago.
"We need a system where the politicians sit down and discuss the problem, agree what it's in the best interest of all the people, and then do it."
"That's exactly what we do. The trouble is that people don't always agree."
"Well, then they should be made to."
"By whom? Who's going to make them?"
"I don't know. Someone."
"You?"
"Of course not me."
"But someone?"
"Someone wise."
"Sounds an awful lot like a dictatorship to me."
"Well…if it works…"
Even then, when he had still been a Padawan, Anakin had not been opposed to a dictatorship, to forcing everyone to agree on something. And now he had helped put a dictator into power.
Padmé shivered as she thought of how far Anakin had fallen. Though she had married Skywalker three years ago and carried his child even now, she had really made her choice long before then. As she attempted to get some sleep before she got to wherever it was her ship was going, she thought she could still feel Obi-Wan's hand caressing her cheek.