Notes: I wrote this ficlet some time ago and am only now getting around to archiving it, so of course, it does not contain any spoilers for Episode III.
His robes swished softly around him as he climbed to the upper level of the suite, his steps faltering as he neared the top of the lushly-carpeted blue spiraling stairs. The furnishings here were worthy of royalty.
Of course he was not afraid. He had learned the truth from his master. She had been evil. She had corrupted him. They had been star-crossed, she and he, she a succubus attempting to pull him away from the clutches of his destiny. His master had seen it all, and what his master had seen was truth. He was not afraid.
In what was left of his heart, he knew what his master had set in motion. What he had done. No, what he had been put up to. It was not his fault, he acted because his master told him to, and his master was always right. And had to be obeyed. He was not afraid; nothing but his master could frighten him anymore.
But what had he done that night, that night his master had sent him out to perform the irrevocable deed? It was so hard to remember now, the night an irrevocable blur. How she had hated him near the end. All people hated him, and she'd hated him more, and he hated himself most of all. That he could still remember. But what had he done that night?
He was afraid.
Not knowing what he would find ahead of him, he stept forward to the door and allowed it to slide open before him, sliding open and admitting him to the burnt-out sleeping chambers of the suite. The past three years of memories flashed back to him, and many happy moments spent in this bedroom threatened to warm his heart. No, he corrected himself, sternly, they had been falsely happy moments. Nothing she had ever given him had been good. He knew it was true because his master had told him so.
The city lights of Coruscant by night splashed in through the long oval window stretching across the blackened room. The remains of the bed were roughly in the middle of the pool of cool light it cast, and, hesitatingly, he stepped up to it.
He lifted the charred body from where it lay, cradling it to his chest, unable to feel it because of the cold metal of the body armor separating them. She had been so beautiful. Padme.
Behind the mask, he wept.