Sometimes, she wishes she could forget.
It's all too much, now, as she stares at the dark ceiling of the bedroom in her sister's home. The feeling washes over her like it does so often, with a relentless crash in her dark mind that rattles Padme to her bones. Like every night, she can feel the pounding, screaming pain of all she has lost wash over her. Like every night, she's helpless against it.
In the smaller bed beside her own, she hears one of the twins stir, and her heart twists. If only you were born to another life, my loves. If only you were born to another who could give you more than empty promises and dried-up tears. It isn't fair to them that they'll never truly know who they are and where they come from. They're barely four years old and she's already scared out of her mind for what will become of them.
Of course, nothing would happen - not while she was still around. She's been through hell already; Padme's felt the sharp sting of betrayal and the tearing sensation of a love lost years ago. She's lost people in a number of terrible ways and she doesn't intend to let the same fate befall either of the little lives she loves so dearly.
The door creaks and a sliver of yellow light spills into the dark room. "Padme," a voice whispers. It's Sola, of course - one of the last few people who still know Padme for who she used to be. Her only sister. "It's almost six in the morning. Today's important, remember?" Her voice has a false sort of cheeriness to it that Padme recognizes all too easily. Today is no reason for joy; today is when they will be visited formally by the one and only Emperor - former Chancellor Palpatine. Padme can't help her expression twisting into one of clear disgust.
Her dark eyes come up to meet Sola's. "It's not something anyone's likely to forget, Sola." Her voice is curt and resounds around the small area, reminding her of her bittersweet memories as senator for her home planet and the even farther ones of her term as queen. Before everything changed.
Her sister's eyes are tired and Padme can't help but feel guilty for her sharp tone. Sola and her husband have been nothing but wonderful for the past years as Padme has struggled to gather herself, and sometimes she isn't sure how she'll ever repay her. "Trust me, Padme, I know." She sighs, running a hand through her mess of dark hair and blinking. The dark bags that hang beneath her eyes make her look much too old for a woman of only thirty-three. "I hardly got any sleep at all last night," she says, yawning softly. "Darred gave me some sort of sleeping draught at about two in the morning after I'd tried practically everything."
Padme watches her sister, feeling quite awful herself. She'd been quite sleep-draught-less, so she supposed she might have gotten just as much - or less - sleep as her sister. It was perfectly fine, though. These past three or so years had all been haunted with heart-wrenching nightmares or Luke and Leia crying; she was usually lucky to get even six hours. Unfortunately, today she isn't. She'll have to face Palpatine with nothing more than four and a hope that her skills as a politician are still fresh on her mind.
She blinks out the sleep in her eyes, leaning over the bed of her children. For a tiny, wonderful moment, her heart swells and she smiles to herself as Leia wraps a little fist around her brother's blonde hair and tugs. The moment passes and Padme turns back to Sola, face grave once more. "What time should we expect him?" She forces her voice to remain steady and clear.
"Around eleven hundred hours, I believe. He said in the message that he would love to sit and enjoy lunch with us - 'if we allowed it,' of course," Sola explains, and Padme thinks her sister must be much better at remaining calm because the only trace of anything other than neutral, formal thought on her face is the spark of mocking bitterness that flashes through her eyes, gone far too quickly for anyone to be sure it was really there at all.
Padme is far from as civilized when it comes to things such as this. "I'm sure we truly had the final say there." She used to be a senator; while she learned to respect the opinions of others, she was also taught to speak out what she thought in long speeches and fight for the liberty she knew the world deserved - the very liberty Palpatine had stolen away.
"Padme." Sola's hands fall to her younger sister's shoulders. Her eyes are solemn, the familiar brown depths stern. "I'm sure you know this, but I thought I should remind you. None of us have high views of the Emperor or anything he stands for. However, he is in the power to do what he wishes to anyone he wishes - even your children. It would not be wise to talk harshly to him."
"I know," she whispers, fighting against the sting of tears in her eyes. "Thank you, Sola. Thank you for everything."
Her sister dares a smile, eyes genuine and expression soothing. She tugs Padme into a hug, arms tight. Padme lets a tear fall - no one sees it slide down her face. "Of course, little sister." They stand for a few heartbeats, taking comfort in the safety they feel in each other's' arms. When they step back, Sola strokes a piece of wayward hair out of Padme's face like she used to do when they were nothing but young children with blinding smiles and dreams that were always just out of their reach. "You're strong, Padme," she whispers, eyes gleaming with unshed tears. "You've made it this far. You can do it."
x
Padme watches the clock.
A second ticks by, then another - ten - twenty - a minute, two. Any minute now, surely, Palpatine will arrive with his false smiles and taunting eyes and she will be forced to welcome into her sister's home and talk like they're old friends reunited. She'll look into his ghoulish eyes and see the reason she lost everything, when she still had everything to lose. She'll see the traitor of a man - the monster - who stole everything she loved and turned it against her.
She'll see the reason he's gone.
But she can't think of him, not now, not ever, because then she won't be able to contain herself from doing something completely reckless and foolish when the man who destroyed everything she used to stand for walks through the very front door she's known for years -
A series of knocks resound through the small home. Padme freezes, breath catching in her chest and heart stuttering a frantic rhythm against her ribs. Slowly, she checks her appearance in the mirror on the wall, breathing in deeply and willing her heart to stop racing in awful anticipation. He's a force-user. A Sith. He can feel your terror. He can feel your anger and your hatred, all directed toward him.
When she opens the door and faces the horrible man she's hated for years, her face is stone and her voice doesn't shake in the least. "Emperor," she greets, the word burning her throat like acid. Sidious, the voice in her mind hisses like a curse. "Welcome. Come in, please."
Palpatine's eyes are friendly and calm, but Padme's far from foolish. Her anger rears its ugly head, but she smiles coolly. Let him feel my hate, she thinks. Let him know every thought that crosses my mind, if it shows how little I truly respect the face of the Empire. "Senator Amidala," he answers, voice filled with the deceptive cordiality that had everyone in the Republic fooled all those years ago. "I trust you are doing well?" He steps in, and Padme imagines his feet burning holes in her carpet.
"Well enough, Emperor." Something about the way he addresses her sets her on edge. No, she hadn't been a senator since he took over her Republic, and she certainly didn't serve him. "I apologize for this, Your Majesty, but I must request you address me on some other terms. I am no longer a senator in the Republic." The unspoken words crackle between them, and she sees his eyes narrow just the slightest, but she refuses to be fazed.
"Hm." Something dangerous creeps into the melancholy tones of his smooth voice. "Well. That is certainly a shame, Lady Amidala. What a talented politician you were, all those years ago. I hate to see so much talent go to waste."
She bows her head respectfully, as if grateful. "Thank you, Emperor. I was disappointed, as well. Of course, I believe many must have been. We lost so many great voices on the Senate when the Republic fell." Padme strings her words together cautiously, but she can tell he catches the double meaning.
"Yes, I suppose you did." His eyes assess her, scanning her from head to toe. "But you must recognize the importance of something new every once in awhile." He smiles slowly, and she understands why people will cower below him, shaking in fear. His smile is distorted and his eyes tinge yellow as he looks down on her. He looks like the feared Sith Lord he is told to be.
Her jaw tightens, but she forces her smile to relax into a laugh that sounds fake even to her own ears. "You must be correct, Emperor. Forgive me." Internally, she scoffs. Forgive me of what? If liberty is a sin then I suppose we're all doomed.
Palpatine's smile broadens, tracing over his whole face eerily. "Of course, my dear. Now, shall we sit? I have someone I simply must introduce you to."
She chooses to ignore his invitation to her own couch. He's done far worse things than sit down uninvited. "Oh, do you?" Her smile is polite as she sits beside him - as far away as she can get. "How . . . wonderful."
"Yes, it truly is," he drawls, voice slow and clearly trying to draw any genuine interest from her at all. He doesn't get it. "I've been training an apprentice, you see. Only for about four and a half years, but I've been blown away by the amount of potential he possesses." He holds her gaze for a moment more, and an uncanny feeling of discontent settles in her stomach. Something bad, her mind tells her. "Go fetch Vader," he says, speaking sharply to one of the red-clad guards next to him.
Vader. Padme's heard rumors of another Sith Lord ruling by Palpatine's side, and she supposes she is about to meet him.
The guard disappears out of the door - still ajar. She sits, hands clasped respectively around each other in her lap. "Have you any ideas of what you might want for lunch, Emperor? My sister was just about to start it."
"Ah." He sounds decidedly less interested in the prospect of lunch than that of his evil apprentice, she thinks darkly, mockingly. "Whatever you have will do, I suppose. I'm not picky."
Padme's nose wrinkles in the slightest, most miniscule bit of distaste. "Of course," she says, but her insides simmer with the enclosed anger, and her nails bite into her palms.
Behind her, a voice says, "Lord Vader is here, Your Majesty."
And then Palpatine: "Excellent" in the chilling, anticipating voice she's heard only in holovids. It sends a shiver down Padme's spine, and when she turns around -
Nothing could have prepared her for what she was faced with.
Vader is tall - impossibly so - and his figure is nothing but a dark outline in the doorway, but she knows. She can feel it as vehemently as she felt it when she was presented with Luke and Leia - how she knew exactly who they were without a second thought. The Sith standing in her doorway wears a hood that keeps his face inclosed in darkness, and he wears a long black cape that brushes the ground. His hands are gloved and his stance is imposing but it is, without a doubt, him.
For a moment, she forgets to breathe. She forgets to see and feel and hear because she's drowned in an onslaught of memories and feelings, lost in a time where smiles were common and tears were almost unheard of. She sees a wide expanse of sand and the burning heat of not one, but two suns beating down on her back. She hears voices long forgotten, she sees herself, but at the same time it isn't her because that girl knew exactly what she would be and who she always was. Queen Amidala, someone whispers. I am the queen, says a fourteen-year-old girl with nothing but unwavering loyalty and determination to guide her. A little boy's voice, curious and innocent - Are you an angel? Cheering and the adoring gazes of people who loved her and respected her.
And then - a blur of colors and people depending on her and the crowded, huge Senate. A scheme, a plot, and two Jedi knights sent to protect her. Ani? My, how you've grown. A flash of mischievous blue eyes, an enchanting smirk - So have you. Grown more beautiful, I mean. Naboo, clear as crystal and green and happy and some strange, unwelcome feeling in her chest, soft lips on her own - I shouldn't have done that. Tatooine, a dying mother and the burning sadness, another's anger, burning through her like a knife - I killed them. I killed them all. They're dead, every single one of them. Not just the men, but the women and the children too. They're like animals, and I slaughtered them like animals! I hate them! A whirlwind, a dangerous game, a death sentence - I'm not afraid to die. I've been dying a little bit every day since you came back into my life. The start of a war and a secret wedding and the feeling of the smile etched onto her face - I love you.
A baby - a miracle in the middle of a war. A smile, surprised and bright and lovely and adoring. The feeling of strong arms around her. Fear, so much fear - nightmares and cloudless skies filled with stars and the hiss of lightsabers. Blue eyes, dark with dangerous, unruly emotions, worry building in her chest - Hold me, like you did by the lake on Naboo, so long ago when there was nothing but our love. No politics, no plotting, no war.
Fear in her own chest, and the frantic beat of her heart and a baby - a baby kicking in her stomach and a father too far to feel it himself. Tears in her eyes and a ship with someone in it - someone special, someone she loves - flying away and a man with tired blue eyes and a russet beard and a horrible, dawning realization as the world she knew and loved crashed and burned right before her eyes - So this is how liberty dies . . . with thunderous applause. A mission, childish determination in her heart, a dark, fiery place like hell itself - You're breaking my heart! Tears clouding her vision and a terror like never before, the terror of losing someone forever, the disbelief and disgust together in her heart, dread coursing through her - Don't you turn against me. And how - how did it all fall apart so fast, because now - Stop! Come back - I love you! The worst emotion imaginable and the new, unfamiliar eyes glaring dangerously down at her, eyes dark with hatred and fear and anger - Liar! She's shaking her head and the tears she's been holding back finally fall and - oh, oh, there's something constricting her throat - she can't breathe, she can't do anything anymore -
Pain. Unimaginable pain and the stark white of a hospital room and med droids buzzing around her and then - soft crying filling the room instead of her screams, and a smile of her face again as she whispers Luke. More - more, but she knows it's worth it, somehow, when there's another one - and her name is Leia and she is beautiful. Then - blackness. Unconsciousness. A void.
And maybe the old darkness is better than this new reality, because as soon as she snaps back into the world where everything is wrong and fear is everywhere, the old pain that gripped Padme's heart so long ago, the pain she had tried so hard to forget, is back and she struggles for breath for a split second before she remembers where she is and what has become of the two hopeless lovers from her mind and that they were always destined to fall apart. Oh, Force, did they fall apart.
So she stands in Sola's living room, fists clenched so tightly that she can feel the slickness of blood start to gather underneath her fingernails, looking directly at the ghost of the man she once knew as Anakin Skywalker. She can't help that her voice trembles as she says, "You." Her eyes are wide and disbelieving and it feels like they're on Mustafar all over again and her heart is breaking like it did then.
And then the other feelings hit. The disgust first - the disgust at everything he's done and everything he hasn't - and the flaring renewal of the anger in the pit of her stomach. The unrelenting sadness that comes with his betrayal is far from new, though. She can see each of her open emotions hit him like a slap to the face; he may not be her Ani anymore, but he'll never be very good at hiding the things he feels.
"What," Padme begins, voice icy and body shaking with - fury? Sorrow? Revulsion? She wouldn't know. "Are you doing here?"
Some part of her wants to hear him speak, wonders if he'll still talk to her like he did to no one else or if the four years without her with him have made him untouchable to anyone - even Padme, the woman he married eight years ago.
She can't see his face - hell, she doesn't know him anymore, so it might not matter if she could - but his stance is far from what it was when he arrived. He looks taken aback, and if he was her Ani she would say he looked - upset. To what extent, she cannot tell. "I - Padme -" His voice is the same, maybe rougher, but she'd recognize it anywhere. "The Emperor is my master" is what he says, sounding and looking a bit more collected.
Her face twists in disgust. "No," she snarls. "No. Get the hell out of my house, Vader. And take your Force-forsaken Master with you."
In her passion, she has stepped forward, close enough that she can see the familiar face of the man she would've liked to tell others was her husband and hear their children call him Dad, but things went so terribly and their destiny was never so bright. The sharp planes of his jaw are still as such, and his eyes are still blue, but not as clear - better than the evil yellowish tinge they had taken on at Mustafar, the last time she had seen him. She can see through them like they're windows to his very soul - what's left of it, at least - and something akin to anguish resides in the oceanic depths.
"Padme," Anakin - no, no, Anakin has been gone for years - whispers, sounding desperate and pleading and the sound of it ignites the lividness lurking beneath the surface of her anger. "Please - you don't understand - it's all been for you -"
"How is that any better?" she practically screams, backing up until she hits a wall. Or a bookshelf. She can't tell. Behind them, she can practically feel Palpatine leer, taking grand enjoyment in their pain and desperation. "Tell me, Lord Vader." Padme spits his new title at him like the nastiest of swear words. "If you can think of a single reason that would make anything you've done the past four years justifiable, please - tell me! I love listening to people talk utter shit. I was a senator for over a decade."
He looks shocked - even steps back, gives her a clear once over, then speaks. "You have no right to speak to me like that." Anakin's voice is cold, but she knows him too well to be fooled by the icy words.
"Don't I?" Padme steps to the side, leaving the path out of the house open to either of the unwelcome guests. "Leave. Get out of my house, Anakin Skywalker - or whatever you are now. Get out of my house now." She means it. She means it more than she's meant anything these past years. It hardly mattered if she still loved him now. He'd messed up enough of her life. She was not letting him do anymore damage. Or Palpatine, for that matter.
When the emperor in question leans in to give her a final message, she feels she might shove him out the door herself, infamous Sith Lord or not. "Be careful of your choices, Senator. They may affect the ones you love in the future." Though she shivers, Padme holds her chin up and meets his eyes with hard, unrelenting ones of her own until he and Vader are shut behind her door.
When she finally turns away from the ghost of their retreating figures in the window, Sola is staring at her in utter shock. And then -
Padme collapses into her sister's arms and finally breaks down.