Title: Candlelight Reminiscence
Author: pinksabergirl
Characters: Padme, mentions of Anakin
Timeframe: Post RoTS AU
Summary: A vignette on what might have happened had Padme chosen a different path for herself and Anakin. As always, George Lucas is the one who can use one hundred dollar bills as paper towels, not I.
Candlelight Reminiscence
She lights a candle for him every night. She isn't quite sure why, for it is little more than a stub of wax now, but the solitary flicker of a lonely flame comforts what remains of her soul in a way nothing else could. It provides warmth to her hands when the night chills them. It illuminates her dark room in a subtle warm glow, giving the feeling of the past becoming tangible. If she were to move her hand too close, however, she knows it will burn and certainly cause pain. What she wouldn't give to feel anything now.
In short, it reminds her of him.
She thinks it's rather strange that an object so old in invention brings him to her mind. Certainly, it isn't only this candle that instantly recalls his image to her soul. A child on a swoop bike passing at a dangerous speed is almost sure to bare his face. The sand on the beach seems to whisper his name as she lies there, the sun drying her body. In the water she sees his blue eyes, and in the mountains she can almost feel his strength.
None of these, though, are like the candle is to her. It's the most tangible piece of evidence she has of their love, next to the sacred japor snippet that always adores her neck. One single finger print is melted into the side, its unique swirls and dots belonging to the one man she could ever hope to love. He had lit it for her that first night in hiding. Instead of retiring immediately they had merely gazed at one another and spoke of nothing imparticular. The candle's temperature steadily rose, and though now she was sure it had burned his hand to hold it, he never said a word. It was only when he laid it in the single candelabra that she had noticed the wax that was plastered all over his palm. He had brushed it off, saying in his ever charming manner that he would endure far greater pain just to see her face lit in the soft glow.
She never doubted that he would.
She sits and stares at the flame for hours, her thoughts drifting in and out of this world and into the next. She can see her chair, but suddenly it is no longer that but the seat in the Jedi Council which he occupied for a short time, before he had died fulfilling a prophecy. Her dresser is transformed into a table where fruit is floating and laughs are being exchanged. Then just as quickly as the mirage comes, it fades. She is left with but what she had before, which in truth to her is nothing but the golden flame. He took everything with his death, and she is but the hollow shell, merely floating until her time comes.
She never got to love him as she wanted. She longed to kiss him, hold him tight as the moonlight fell across the bed, illuminating his face in an ethereal glow. She wanted to dance with him on the veranda to no music but the nocturnal birds and distant water falls. She wished to love, and be loved in return. But that fate was not theirs to walk down, and with a seemingly iron hand she had turned him away. He had been crushed, but continued his service to the Order. She, meanwhile, had done what she always knew she would: give up everything for her people.
The wax drips on her hands, the intense heat searing her flesh. She doesn't move, doesn't flinch, for she does not feel it. Touch, scent, sight, smell, all had fled from her body when he became one with the Force. She had retired from public life, removed herself from friends and family, and taken up residence in the Lake House where they had spent their happiest days together. Most everyone, she knew, thought her mad from exhaustion. As it was, she was simply exhausted from living, and her soul had gone too numb to feel the heat of any joy or comfort.
The candle is now burning out, and the flame touches the sheet. Instinctively she moves to extinguish the flame before it consumes bed, but she stops. Why? What purpose is there? Waking up to another day of a life long gone? That wasn't reason. To help her people? She had given them everything she had. She would be selfish, this first and last time, and finally be with the man she should have ran to all along. The flame grows wider, and the pain becomes too much. She gives a final cry, her last words unintelligible, and then there is no more.
Another candle has been extinguished.