Disclaimer: Star Wars and the picture used are property of George Lucas and LucasArts. Sadly...
He's Not Coming Home
Sighing, the Senator of Naboo sits down on one of her over-stuffed couches and begins to work on breathing. It's an old joke from simpler days, but Padmé was never one to doubt an effective method, no matter where or how it originated. She needs to calm down, to remember that whatever she sees next is not the end of anything. So, bracing her heart for whatever is waiting for her, she begins her search.
He's been gone for exactly three months, a week, and four days. And she has never felt so alone. Sometimes she will get little messages in a code only they know, but the messages were always short and to-the-point. Normally, the notes were simply meant to let Padmé know that he was alive and that he didn't know when he was coming home. But recently the encoded notes had become fewer and farther in between. So, as she always did, Padmé had resorted to her least favorite method of finding information on her husband. When she she was in a position where she was receiving semi-frequent messages from Anakin, she only looked at the HoloNet articles if she stumbled upon them. But now, three weeks since Anakin's last message, she goes looking for them. It's not difficult, it never is, millions of articles are written about him weekly and the hardest part for her is simply sorting through them. She searches until she finds the most recent one; her fingers trembling and her body shaking with fear, because the title is not as it should be, with bold, proud words like "victory" and "hero" and, most importantly, "returning". This title has words like "tragedy" and "mourning". So with no breath left in her small body, she opens the link. She forces herself to look at the holo. She reads the title. She opens her eyes to find herself curled on the ground, her mind struggling to comprehend, her security and handmaidens (though she swears she sent them home before she began her search, like always) asking her if she is okay in voices that sound like they are miles away. Sitting up slowly with the world unfocused and tilting at terrifying angles around her, Padmé robotically responds to the concerned questions that flit into one ear and out the other and sends her staff away, claiming that exhaustion has finally taken its toll on her.
Slowly, she looks back at the holo. Reading the title once more, she again feels the beginning of the nausea that sent her to the floor earlier. He's dead, she thinks. They've finally killed him. He's not coming home. He promised he would always come home. Barely breathing, she takes C-3PO's metal arm (Padmé, I want you to have him…) and fall asleep in her bed, still dressed, laying on top of the covers, her eyes puffy and swollen, her cheeks gleaming with shed tears, her face buried in his pillow.
††††
He walks in quietly. He does not wake his sleeping wife, though he does wonder what could have caused her so much distress so as to leave her in such a state. He simply lies down beside her and takes her slim hand in his scarred one, kisses her forehead, and whispers that he is home.
Author's Note: Ehh... I'm not particularly pleased with how this turned out. Padme seems too weak and freaks out too easily. If you have any suggestions or reviews they would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for giving my writing some of your time; it means a lot to me.
You're amazing and wonderful,
-When In Doubt, Smile
