BURN THE ASHES

In the face of her husband's betrayal and the rise of the Empire, Padmé Amidala takes things into her own hands. Revenge of the Sith AU. Part one of the son of suns verse.

Padmé Amidala snaps shut the Naboo emblem clasp on her cloak without paying it any real attention.

How could he?

Anakin, a traitor to the Jedi, to democracy itself. Politics have always been one of the places he runs up against walls with her, and she him. Even all those years ago on Naboo, in the fields of Varykino just before the War, some of the things he had said left her feeling uneasy.

But this? Padmé had crushed the datachip Obi-Wan gave her during his visit earlier this evening under her heel as soon as he was gone. It had been a weight in her hand. One she'd had no need to watch again.

Rise, Lord… Vader. Every time she closes her eyes, she sees that blue scanned holo of Anakin on his knees—of his head bowed under Palpatine's triumphant gaze.

Padmé had wept as the Jedi Temple burned bright on Coruscant's skyline all last night. As smoke plumed from its spires, black against the red sunset and then the navy sky. And the tears came harder when Anakin had appeared on her landing pad at the darkest hour of the morning, running his gloved hands through her hair and drinking her in with wild eyes.

Because he was safe.

She would have pushed him into the skylanes if she'd known of the blood on his hands. He'd murdered younglings, Obi-Wan had told her. For her, to save her, she knows. That, no doubt, was Palpatine's price for her supposed life.

Women don't die in childbirth on Coruscant.

Padmé goes over to her dresser and does the front of her hair in braids, pinning them back and away from her face. The back is loose in wild curls. When she's done, she opens a drawer and pulls out her pistol, then an arm holster she hasn't used since she was Queen and her dresses didn't have pockets.

She's about to shut the drawer, but her eyes fall on a bundle of patterned material and the chromium plated knife nestled in its folds. An old birthday gift from the now long-assassinated Senator of a proud, civil-war-torn system.

To think she'd once been so sure she'd never have a use for it.

Padmé strokes her free hand over her round belly, head bowed as her husband's in that security recording. Mustafar, Anakin had told her on the landing pad. When he gets back from Mustafar, the War will be over, everything will be all right.

Yes. She pulls up her hood and comms Captain Typho, ordering him to ready her speeder. It will.

"Senator Amidala. To what do I owe this honor?" Palpatine—Darth Sidious, Obi-Wan had said—smiles from beneath his own hood. It is the same, grandfatherly smile he's given her since she first stepped into galactic politics.

Now, it's a cold breath down Padmé's spine.

"I have come to discuss a matter of utmost importance, my Lord." He'd appointed himself Emperor in today's emergency Senate session. Padmé's mouth wants to pull into a sneer, but she doesn't let it. "The other members, of the Delegation of 2000, are… unreceptive of the New Order."

Sidious is watching her. It's no secret how much she'd opposed his policies when he was Chancellor. "I am glad you've… reconsidered your stances, Senator." He pauses for a long moment. "There are some of your colleagues who would have me killed?"

"Yes." Padmé makes a shudder shake her body. "And I cannot sit back and allow such treason to occur—"

"Names." Is it her imagination, or do Sidious' eyes flash gold for an instant? "Give me names."

Padmé hesitates, looks away.

"Now."

If you insist.

When Padmé gets to her feet and comes around his desk, Sidious stares at her for a moment. Maybe the barest of her true intentions are visible in the Force, or perhaps no other Senator has ever dared draw so near. But he stays in his seat.

Triggering the catch on her arm holster, she grips the handle of her knife when it slides into her hand. "Padmé Naberrie Amidala of Naboo."

Shock washes Sidious' face blank. It's her chance to plunge her blade into his chest, so she does, rips it free, and draws back again with her sights set on his throat. She needs to end this—that shock has flipped into rage, and Padmé doesn't need the Force to feel the power buzzing in the air.

A flick of Sidious' fingers sends Padmé's knife flying out her hand, the weapon sinking half its length into the carpet. "You would dare attack a Sith Lord?" he demands around the blood filling his mouth, standing. Energy buildup hangs heavy around him, something about it different—electric, almost—from the power already filling the room.

When Sidious' hand thrusts out toward her, Padmé throws her arms up to block him. But the blow she expects doesn't come, blue-white tendrils of lightning snaking out the tips of his fingers.

Anakin's spoken of Sith lightning before, of how it crawls across and under one's skin—of the agony of its fire settling inside one's bones. And Padmé had never much understood, only sympathized. Not until now—now, she's on her knees and then crumpled on the floor, her own strained cries ringing out high around her.

Red-stained teeth bared in a grin, Sidious turns to press a button on the underside of his desk. "Security," he begins, his voice thick, and the heartbeat thudding in Padmé's ears drowns out the rest.

Are you dead, little one? She stares up at the ceiling through eyes begging to close.

Two fluttering kicks from within are Padmé's answer. They force her back to her feet, and her weapon's back in her hand as she stumbles but surges forward again.

Her knife's everywhere, and so is Sidious's lighting. There's no lightsaber in sight, in her chest. And in the back of her mind she wonders why, because don't Sith—

Anakin. Of course.

Renewed fury sparks in her chest. She found that little boy in Watto's shop on Tatooine, had seen the fire of burning high in his heart before the rest of the galaxy—Sidious and the Jedi included—had even known he existed. This comes out as screams with no meaning but rage, then words when she slashes at Sidious' deformed face. "He is mine."

Garbled laughter echoes around them as Sidious loses his balance, grabbing her by the hair and making her hit the floor with him. He rolls over and pins her down before she can get away, an arm across her chest and a hand yanking her hair taut.

"For not the first time, Senator, you are mistaken." Blood splatters out his mouth, down his front, across Padmé's face. She wasn't imagining his eyes earlier: They're an ill yellow bordered with red. "Anakin Skywalker was mine a decade before you began deluding yourself otherwise."

Padmé lets out a rasp when something unseen constricts her throat, arching up off the carpet. Sidious forces her back down. "I said," she chokes out with the last of her air, "he's mine, you bastard." Triggering the catch on her holster for a second time, she feels the cold plating of her pistol slide into her hand. Across the office, the doors hiss open, red-robed guards and clone troopers flooding in along with blinding light.

The Force hold around her neck has set her lungs on fire, and shadows are edging Padmé's vision. So she puts a blaster bolt through Palpatine of Naboo's skull and lets the galaxy slip away.

"The prisoner is with twins and has gone into labor due to injuries and stress sustained from her attack on the Emperor." Everything is still dark, but Padmé can hear the empty voice of a droid. "The twins are a boy and girl. What are your orders, Lord Vader?"

The next voice is cold and quiet. "Deliver the children—Luke and Leia Skywalker are their names. And keep their mother sedated until I say otherwise."

"…my Lord?" The droid sounds almost hesitant.

"Do it."

For a year, Padmé dreams of galaxies where she flew to Mustafar and put a knife in Anakin's heart instead.

Galaxies where he draws the Force around her neck and lets her life fade away.

Galaxies where Obi-Wan cuts him down. (And he Obi-Wan.)

Galaxies where her children grow up in the shadow of their father, eyes blazing gold.

Every time, the stars wink out. Her Republic burns. And she begins to forget which ones aren't real.

It's a prison worse than any dark cell.

When Padmé's eyes finally open again, the life supposed to be growing inside of her is gone.

In all her dreams, all her nightmares, the Republic fell. The stars died. But her children were always there.

I failed. This is her only thought, because now that she's empty and hollow, she knows. Knows Sidious wasn't the darkness in the galaxy, or within Anakin—

—no, he drew out what already existed, what she couldn't see in its entirety. What she didn't want to see, until it was too late.

There is no one to hear, and nothing else she can do, so Padmé throws back her head and screams.

Screams lead to tears, and tears to sobs. She's kicked the sheets of her bed to the floor and stripped her voice raw by the time she quiets, sagging back against the mattress.

The room around Padmé is large, every side except the floor and ceiling mirrored. Bare, except for the bed and a few holomonitors she's too tired to read. Durasteel cuffs hold her hands down on either side of her, immobile and unforgiving.

It doesn't occur to her that at least one of the walls might be two-way. Not until a door that wasn't there before slides open, and Anakin Skywalker steps through.

No.

Not Anakin Skywalker.

Vader still has her husband's rakish good looks. But he's thinner beneath his black robes, his face all sharp lines and pale hollows aside from the shadows beneath his eyes.

Fragile has never been a word used for the man before her. Now the fractures that form him are all Padmé can see.

"Welcome back to the land of the living," Vader says, leaning against the wall, arms crossed. Watching her. "I'm sure you're aware no one can say the same for Palpatine."

Sidious is the name he should use. But Padmé ignores the error because no matter what one calls him, he's dead. "Where?" Her tongue feels heavy from disuse.

Vader blinks. "What?"

"The children. Leia, Luke—" And then Padmé stops, hit with a flash of shimmersilk sheets and Anakin's arms around her.

"If the baby's a girl, Leia," she'd murmured so long ago, "and a boy, Luke."

"I'm a fan of Anakin Junior myself." His mouth was against the top of her head in a drawn out kiss. She could feel his lips form every word, despite the layers of her hair. "Mostly 'cause I'm sure it's a boy."

"Mother's intuition, Ani."

"Hey, my name is gender neutral if the census records the HoloNet dug up are anything to go by."

"Humph. I saw. Well, Leia is the goddess of war and peace on Naboo—balance, in some interpretations. One of my favorites. And Luke…"

Well, she just had liked the sound of it.

"I wish you would just ask the meddroid if it's a—"

"No! It should be a surprise—"

"That's the thing, Angel. It was."

Her only response was to turn over and go to sleep, and pretend the words didn't still sting the next morning.

One look at Vader's face tells her he's seen the memory in her eyes. Ripped it out her mind. "The twins are fine. Just as they've been for the last year."

"You—you told the droid to put me in a coma, I heard you." Heat and hate smothers Padmé's mouth and nose. "You took them."

"No, they were born," Vader says, the words edged with ice. "And before that, you threw them away. I saw the recording, Padmé. Palpatine could have killed all three of you, and he held back—"

"For the sole purpose of controlling you."

He'd have killed me like he killed a thousand years of democracy. Just for power. Just to watch the galaxy burn.

Vader's lean face twists in pain. He takes a step toward her bed, but falters at the fire in her gaze. "This was—is—all for you, to save you. And Luke and Leia—"

"My life isn't a commodity to be bought and sold with the deaths of innocents, Anakin," Padmé says, eyes locked on his. I should've gone to Mustafar. I should've killed you. And if I failed, then no doubt Obi-Wan would have been there to—

"Obi-Wan did come to Mustafar," Vader snaps. He's brimming with that same sick darkness Sidious possessed. "I assure you, the one Jedi you trusted more than me burned to ashes just like the rest."

The idea of someone alive as Obi-Wan Kenobi dying is so foreign, so unreal, Padmé almost doesn't hear the whole sentence. "I… what?"

"Obi-Wan got called back to Coruscant a lot more than I did, even with the Outer Rim Sieges. Council duties and all." Vader reaches up to rub at his clean shaven chin. "I wondered, sometimes, you know. We were always so careful, and then… twins."

"You're mad," Padmé breathes. She was never anything but loyal, not until Anakin had decided to destroy everything good in the galaxy.

Including himself.

"I could sense Kenobi's influence in your very soul the moment I was back on-planet, so yes, I hope so." And then Vader—damn him, damn him to the deepest pit of Chaos—laughs. "You're lucky the children aren't redheaded. Or I wouldn't have known what to think."

Padmé's shaking so hard the cuffs around her wrists are beginning to rub her skin raw. "Let me see them. Let me see Luke and Leia."

Vader turns and flips his hood up without a word, starting for the part of the wall he came through.

"I'm their mother, I have a right—"

"You gave up your rights when you decided to murder the Emperor," Vader says over his shoulder. "Remember that, Padmé."

She blinks, and he's gone.

Silence leads to more sleep. Real sleep, and real nightmares.

Nightmares where Padmé's cut down by a boy and girl with lightsabers matching their flaming red hair. Nightmares where she's so close to killing Vader, her knife poised at his back, but she can't do the deed.

"He is mine," Padmé had told Sidious, with all the anger and fury of possession. She used to think that when Anakin left the boiling heat of his homeworld as a boy, he'd stepped into a cooler, kinder galaxy. And so a decade later she'd let living fire lie beside her, trusted it not to catch in her hair or raise welts on her skin or even flat-out kill her when that's all it knew how to do.

It doesn't matter if Anakin had escaped the rule of Tatooine's twin suns when he was a child. Not when heat and destruction are his essence, and he's set the whole galaxy alight.

In the mirrored wall across from her bed, Padmé's eyes find her reflection. Her mouth is a thin line, and her eyes are weak and red rimmed. She looks old in a year, and she's not yet thirty. The gray streak running down the front of her hair—where did that even come from?—and her skin, blotched from crying, don't help.

Neither does the carved Japor snippet resting on her chest, held there by a thin chain around her neck.

Padmé just stares at it until new tears blur her vision.

end

Originally posted on AO3 8/19/14. Title from "My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light 'Em Up)" by Fall Out Boy. A huge thanks to Skygawker for the beta!