Hi! Thanks so much for bothering to stop by and take a look a my little thread.

This is my explanation for Padme's absence in the original trillogy. It was originally supposed to be a short story, but it got so involved I knew I wouldn't be able to pull it off without people prodding me on. Never the less, I'm a little uncertain about it, so I would LOVE feedback, really, dahling, I would.

Thanks again,

Meredith

Ps. I'm not neglecting my other fics, I promise!

LEGAL DISCLAIMER:

(to 'Georgy-Porgy')

George Lucas is a guy,

He makes so much money and stacks it so high,

So, in his universe I'd like to play,

As long as the lawyers don't make me pay!

PERSONAL DISCLAIMER: I'm a hopeless romantic, but not a very nice one. You've been warned.

It's not the canaries couldn't cry out as they were killed.

It's just that they chose not to.

-"Kanariya" by Ayumi Hamasaki

Date Begun: December 14th, 2001

Date Finished: April 6th, 2002

=======================

Inside I'm Hollow

by Meredith Bronwen Mallory

mallorys-girl@cinci.rr.com

http://www.demando.net/

=======================

They lay down together in separate beds, because he was a Jedi and she a senator. The room was red and cream, the colors of wanting, and between their bed rose a red stained-glass window. They reached their hands across the space, touching, holding on. The lights went off and the crimson darkness, thrown by the window, settled over them both.

"I knew you, a long time ago."

She turned her head, resting her cheek against her hair as she gazed at him across the divide. Her voice was quiet, the words formed like grains of sand.

"It has been a long time for," she hesitated, tasting the word, "us."

"No, I meant something else. I saw you-- before we met."

Because she wanted to understand, she remained silent.

"I was outside town, watching the sunset. You were there, on the dune, bleeding and crying but you were still--," he stopped for a moment, "You were still an angel. I wanted to help you, but you looked at me and it hurt, having you look at me. Then, just like that, you were gone."

For some reason, she couldn't say she was sorry, so she said, "It's alright, Anakin."

"No. No, it's not alright. It was a vision, I think. Will you be careful?"

This-- the two of them, holding hands and whispering in the darkness-- was the furthest thing from careful, but she said, "Alright, darling."

"Thank you," she could just make out his smile in the blood light, "Good night."

Their hands detached, and he rolled over, but she just lay still. Her hand fisted over her heart and she stared up at the red tangle of black illumination on the ceiling, eyes wide. After a while, she thought she was drowning.

For a long time after that, whenever Vader's mind lashed against her own, scraping against her skull and trying to get inside; whenever his Force rushed her to the edge and she stood over the yowling darkness, she would go back there. She'd stand between the two slim beds, staring up at the red-glass window and holding on for dear life.

* * * * * * * * *

She turned her head, the welts on her cheek protesting the touch of her matted hair, the cold of the bench they'd strapped her to. Bit by bit, she forced an awareness of her body, to make sure it was all still there. Here are my toes, which burn because they've been kissed by hot coals; here are my legs, one of which is broken; and my wrists that ache with embrace of iron bands; my chest that is too heavy to lift... Her cracked lips pulled back ever so slightly, releasing a long hiss of pain. There had to be more than that, more identity than wounds on the body, something beyond the bright light and the cold table.

Alright, okay, when you're tired past feeling and your soul is tethered to your body by a little thin cord, you go back and try to find some place dark enough to swallow the whole of your being. She did that too, casting back over the horizon's of her life, seeing a smile from mother here, and a double sunset there, and a little boy with the face of an angel who worked as a slave in a junk shop.... Well, there wasn't any comfort there. Maybe she'd just made that up, anyway. It was probably part of a fairy tale, mixed with something she'd read, because aren't dreams just a reflection of what you see when you're awake? She turned her head again, squinting against the bright light above, which was like the heat on Tatooine and at the same time like the flame she'd burned herself with when she was three. Hold on then, keep them coming, if the light is like the twin suns of some one's--

I know but I'm not telling

-- home planet, then what is the cold bench like? The rock, shaped like a coffin, jutting up from the lake like a giant whale. She could see it from her bedroom window when she was a child. Then, when summer rolled late over the mountain village, she'd run with her cousins down that the lake, waves brushing against they're ankles like the wings of held birds. The chill in her memory was the same as the present cold on her back, and they merged into one so that she *was* running into the lake, the water rushing against her in a painful embrace. She moved her arms, pulled herself through under the surface, thick dress and hair swirling about in the current. She turned around, could see the light coming down through the water, broken to pieces until she could just reach up and touch it...

It wasn't until a few minutes later, when the pain died away, that she realized she *had* tried to move her arm, and the machine had acted accordingly. Down the hall, the sounds of doors being unlocked and pass codes being verified carried like the heavy echoes of spider movement. This was how she told time, when she could conceive of time at all; heavy chimes of heat, muscles being stretched, on and on.

They never even asked her any questions.

* * * * * * * * *

Once, he'd come to her side to justify himself.

They'd left her lying on the metal table, with the bright light pressing its needles of illumination into her skin. Closing her eyes, she saw the color of her eyelids, felt her throats desperate clutching for water. She'd tricked herself into believing that she was five again, crouched in the dusty, cold stairwell near her parents' apartment. The cold was a second garment around her slim shoulders, and she pressed herself inward, watching the sunlight tumble down the steps. Meager warmth filtered in against her back; she found, staring into the winter sun, that the world could change like the painful facets of a crystal. In the bright blotches-- red, brown, yellow and fire of orange-- she saw ribbons of destruction, ladies riding with their swords raised high. Faeries meeting their death by fire. It was all the same, past and present, the stairwell and the bench. Again, she saw pillars of fire and wars that spilled blood and blood. Entertainment for the dying. Sound curled against her ears; the child in the long-ago stairwell thought it was dried leaves on the wooden boards, but she knew better. More noise, retreating boots, the closing of doors-- he'd motioned them away. She heard the scrape of metal on the merciless stone floor, but couldn't bring herself to open her eyes. The brightness bore through her defenses; the Light of the Force, building rules and regulations, burning away passion and anger and hope and chances and taking her Ani away.

The darkness was abrupt, the fall of a heavy blanket and, though she'd longed for relief, she fought against the change. There were things that grew and blurred when the light went away. Her arms tried to raise, to defend her body from whatever blow was to come, and that was a mistake. She thought her own screaming voice sounded like an ocean of blood, and was almost certain she was loosing her mind. Fear was as piercing as the electrodes holding her limbs down.

"Padme." His voice, and she realized her broken gasping was in time with his own. Holding her breath, she pressed her legs together and waited. Another click and the darkness changed texture-- there must have still been a few lights on.

"Thanks," she said, because she'd been taught to say so. Her cheek touched the table, the table caught her tears as she sought out his voice. A touch came against the welt on the side of her face, the feel of synthetic humanity. Because old memories were turning her stomach, she asked, "Do you even have any fingers left?"

"In that hand, yes," Vader's voice was flat, factual. She didn't want any hope, didn't want to remember that he was left handed and now touching her with his right, the one with real fingers. It didn't mean anything. 'So fickle I am,' she thought, 'I want the light back now that the dark is trying to trick me.' The sound of the respirator could have been the waterfalls outside the window, she could be young again, recently married and sick with her husband at her bedside.

Her teeth stabbed at her lip like little pearl knives, "Why am I here?"

"They cut your hair," he exhaled angrily, fingering her shorn locks. Taking a strand in two fingers, he brushed the boyish length behind her ears. "I told them not to cut your hair."

"Did you, now?" Padme smiled bitterly, wondering if he could see it in the dark.

Such a paltry thing, her long ropes of hair; but she'd loved it so much that she hadn't cut it when she wed, as traditional Nubian women did. Shorn hair was a loss of power-- it symbolized a break with the past. She remembered her sister's wedding party, the two of them holding fold after fold of ebony curls over the flame, watching them melt into gold.

Her mother's voice now, in the back of her mind, 'If you must cut your hair, burn it quickly. Women have a power men don't, you don't someone else to get it.' Mother, smiling now, her face alive with remembered glory. Old, weathered finger tossed gray locks into the blaze. 'Smell that?' she held her hand in front of her nose, 'It's the smell of possibility. Long hair brings good fortune.'

Curling her fingers in, Padme let her nails kiss her palms until they drew blood. The soldier who cut her hair had known, had laughed as he held the blunt knife to the nape of her neck and pulled and pulled and pulled. God, she didn't even know why she was here. Vader reached over-- with his right hand again-- peeling away her fist with a few fumbles of his fingers.

Hurting, she said, "Your lightsaber..." but somehow couldn't finish. Ram me through, she meant to say, pin me down like a butterfly under glass, let's see what kind of a sound my burning flesh makes.

"No," he was touching a wet cloth to her lips now, and she turned her head away.

"Why am I even talking to you? You're a party to this." The rhythm of his breathing seemed to change.

"I don't want to do this," he said.

"Oh, don't you just?" her tongue flicked against her teeth like anger, "You come here and you hold my hand like someone I used to know. You touch my cheek with pieces of his body, but it DOESN'T BELONG TO YOU!" Tears pooled before her eyes, she was drowning in them, "You stole his body! Grave-robber, thief! Thief!"

"STOP!" His left hand clamped over her mouth, and she screamed against it as electricity leapt from her chains to sing in her veins. "That is enough. I asked you before, I gave you a chance." He took his hand away, "You can still have it." He must have seen her frown because, after a moment, he continued. "They brought you in from the Rebel underground on Hoth-- you were made of glass you were so cold." He traced along the dip in her shoulder, "When you first saw me, you struggled so much you broke your collar bone. Name your accomplices, vow loyalty to the Empire-- the questions are the same as they were then." There was more emotion in his voice than she thought machines were capable of producing.

"Is that what happened?" She had no memory of the event, made no effort to search for it. "Isn't that convenient-- I don't do what you want, so it's my fault. Well," Padme tilted her chin like she was still a queen, not a prisoner chained down, "I'm done with penance and guilt." His flaring anger was almost physical, she could feel it washing against her bare skin. The rising column of his lightsaber threw red light as though it was blood, as though they slept beneath the cut-glass window of so long ago. The blade reflected in her eyes, and her face reflected in the polished onyx of his mask.

It hurt to look at him.

Swallowing her grief, she breathed, "What do you want of me?"

If she wanted to, she could give him one of Anakin's expressions beneath that mask. He could look bemused, vaguely angry as he plunged the room back into darkness-- and Padme forced herself to withhold that humanity from him. He didn't touch her again, and she closed her eyes. They could be two shadows, formless, speaking in the void.

"You gave birth to twins," he said, and it was as if he'd driven a fine thorn into her breast. "There wasn't a Force-sensitive in this galaxy who didn't feel their power. Obi-Wan must have worked quickly to hide them so well."

"You're not going to find them," she said softly. There was no need to say it firmly, for it was the truth. "I don't even know where they are." Her arms ached, the cradle of her hips felt empty-- oh, she might as well have been childless.

"That's not the point."

"Isn't it?"

"You can not touch the Force," he spoke without inflection, and she imagined him as a puppet for the Emperor's words, "yet your children are powerful, more powerful than can be accounted for, even if their sire was strong in the Force."

"I'm not a Sensitive."

"Perhaps not in conventional terms." Why did it sound like he was smiling? "The Emperor believes you can tap into the Force in ways many Jedi are barred from."

He grabbed her hand in a way that brought back a million different moments, in a way that was so powerful Padme knew it had been deliberately calculated. Anakin's memories, wrapped in a machine that could use them against her! There was an explosion somewhere, in her throat, in her brain-- it might have been both-- and she felt the pain inflicted on her body and mind as one thing. He was pushing at her, she didn't know how, but she could feel him edging her towards different paths, uncharted territories that stretched into frightening oblivion. It was like opening a door, just a little, making a small crack in a window. Something always comes in, through the chimney, the threshold, the basement; whether you know it or not. And...

There was a complete break, like a twig snapping. Though she was still laying down, she felt her small freedoms in the ability to move her arms, her legs, without fear of electrocution. Her body, so starved for pleasant sensations, soaked them up so quickly that for a moment Padme was not able to tell where she was. Smooth satin lay against her body, a gold that shimmered to passionate crimson. There were cool black rings embracing her fingers, the feel of cut gems laying against her neck and dangling from her ears. There was a motion, the rocking of a cradle, and she realized she was being lifted in a type of lectaria, all smooth circular lines to cushion her body. Soldiers moved in and out of her field of vision, smoothing quilts over her, tucking them in down around her ankle. None of them spoke to her, they were just doing their job; tilting their white helmets away from her like ghosts. Truly struggling now, she found her freedom falling away-- smooth ropes of pearls were looped around her wrists. Such extravagant binding! She felt sick to her stomach, a china-doll parody of a prisoner. She moved her legs, kicked away the coverlets, found her feet bent and reshaped into tiny works of art. With growing horror, Padme realized she would never be able to walk. The covers were smoothed back over her, the lectaria was carried on the shoulders of Stormtroopers into a world of varying white. A city then, she thought, craning her neck in an attempt see more of the buildings. Ebony danced in the corner of her eye, and she knew instinctively that her captor would always be the same. Vader loomed at the bottom of landing ramp, staring out at the assembled community who looked back at him with the eyes of frightened children.

A voice boomed, "It is an honor to serve you, Lord and Lady Vader," and she tried to howl her rage, her betrayal into the cold air.

No sound came.

Frantic now, Padme clawed at her neck, at the delicate strings of her throat, bashing the round pearls against her chest as though she could shatter herself. Misery wound itself inside her, and in that moment Vader turned; she could see the symbol of his triumph hanging on his belt, beside the lightsaber he used to cut down so many.

Floating in a small, invincible vile, was her voice box.

Screaming she left, and screaming she returned; embracing the torture chamber with insane relief. At least the electrodes, the chains and the table did not bother to dress themselves up and lie.

"What did you see?" Vader prompted, moving his hand over her mouth once more. She bit down on it with animal ferocity, disgusted with that she'd just seen (been?). Voiceless, motionless; the Dark Lord's little pet... Her blood sang with rebellion, with strength she'd thought long gone.

"I saw nothing," she spat, "That's never going to happen. I saw nothing!"

"You did see something, your mind opened for a moment," the man in Anakin's body was calm, somehow distant. Paying him no mind, Padme tested the fingers of her left hand, finding three unbroken.

"What the hell did you do to me?" she muttered.

Again, she somehow sensed his mirthless smile, "The future is always in motion. When a Jedi has a vision, he sees only the possible. But," he was using the Emperor's words again, she could tell, "if the future is in motion, then so is the past, so is everything. The Emperor believes you can see things he can't, and I believe he is correct."

"As bad at it is," she shook her head, remembering her broken little vision-feet, "it can always get worse." With slow, childish movements, she pushed against the band of gold resting on her ring finger. That it remained when all else had been taken from her was yet another symbol, everything here was weighted. The wedding band slipped from her finger, falling against the floor with a sound of swords clashing. Vader knelt by her side, siding the ring against her finger in such a parody of devotion that Padme laughed and laughed and could not stop laughing.

The next day, he brought in the cell the man who'd cut her hair, and murdered him with a cool swipe of his blade. When she shouted her rage at him, he pushed her into the maelstrom again.

-----------------------

They used pain to push her into foreign landscapes, precise suffering to force her into looking through someone else's eyes. In her mind, she addressed those women who bore her face and name as strangers; screaming in her secret heart 'that can't be me!'. The reflections of herself were too painful to be recognized, too different but all too understandable. No one wants to see themselves magnified. She stemmed the guilt, the sadness as quickly as she could; any emotion could be used against her. Vader knew, of course, whatever she was feeling; the fractured pieces of Anakin's body were like dowsing rods, dipping into her heart with practiced ease. She raged against him, but anger could push her into the tempest; she wept her mother's grief, but she saw her children's futures in shades of red, gold and black-- impossible and frightening. Staring up at the ceiling, Padme shelled herself out, ripping from herself the things that betrayed her. Safinudo, an accented word held low in the throat. 'Brethren cut', literally; the Nubian word for traitor.

Time was fluid because the light was only there when it could make her feel discomfort, and the dark came only to frighten her out of her emotional draught. Always, the red window was with her, and Anakin's voice:

"I knew you, a long time ago."

// It was like being rebuilt, molecule by molecule, this entrance into elsewhere; this transference of the mind. As always, the colors seemed at first too dull, then too bright, and Padme felt her heart flutter in fear. 'What if I never get back?' Could she abandon her body, just like that; liquid poured from one container to another? Or, like the whispered stories told in her mother's voice, would she wander-- always seeking someone to pull down in her place?

The room grew with her awareness of it; sunset colors poured through the high gilded windows, falling over the marble desk, the elegant chairs in their vague colors. Padme turned slowly, watching the people as though she was watching a play. Impersonal; this doesn't involve me. Sabe stood by the couch, her hand resting on it's frame in a distant gesture of comfort. And there, with her back straight and her hands folded regally, was the else-Padme. Face pale with makeup and eyes distant as the twin moons of Naboo, she was orphaned and polished, she was Amidala personified. Padme turned away from the others-- who could not see or hear her even if she screamed and screamed-- casting her gaze out on the darkening skies. Coruscant sprawled before her, magnificent but somehow changed. It took her a moment to realize that the pace of the crowds was not the usual hurry of things that needed to get done, but instead the chaos of war. In the half-light of the fading sun, it was easier to see a peace that wasn't there.

"Your Majesty, we must leave," Sabe's voice was quiet and somehow broken in the otherwise silent room. Padme folded her hand against the window, closing her eyes; it was easier to listen to disembodied voices.

"I will not be driven out," Amidala said, and her voice was firm but soulless. Almost as a confession, she added, "again."

"Pad--" the handmaiden began.

"No," said the Queen without a throne; said Padme, her lips silently forming the words. How well she knew herself now that she could see from the outside! Gentler now, "Hurry. Just go to the transport deck before they get that too. Someone will take you, I promise, just..." There came a rustle of skirts-- Sabe kneeling quickly, Amidala bidding her a farewell that said they might never see each other again.

'Now it's just me,' Padme thought when the door clicked shut. 'Me, myself and I.'

Turning from the window, she saw Amidala still sitting on the couch. The other woman (me, it's me, it's me!), though motionless, seemed to be gathering something into herself.

"Looking for purpose, honey?" Padme asked, surprised by the tone in her own voice. Absently, she ran her hands along the desk, relishing the fact she couldn't actually feel anything, "Looking for resolve? I can't help you." Her words hung in the air, falling on her skin like drops of blood, but she felt better for saying them. The building shook, subtly at first, like a mounting tsunami, before the jarring gained force and crashed against her body like an invisible fist. The windows cracked and shattered, she felt the glass pass through her and wished it would cut her so much that she was almost ill with it. Amidala rose from the couch, and Padme watched her carefully, watched her ballerina movements and the way she held her skirts when she moved. The Queen reached out her hand-- the one Padme knew would bare a scar from falling out of a tree at five-- and snatched something off the desk. A piece of glass, perhaps? Padme's wrists pounded with blood screaming to be free. Cut me too, she chanted internally, oh, cut me too. A sound washed into the room, Padme found herself looking furtively for its source; it was like the sound of a tornado in the distance. Amidala must have heard it too, but she only squared her shoulders and took a seat once more, crossing her legs in an almost ludicrous motion of casualness. The ornate door, once closed and locked, gave two protesting moans before it caved to the force behind it. Padme saw the shine of the red light saber, saw the bloodglow reflecting in two blue eyes she had once known. The low cry of loss tore itself from her throat, but Amidala was strangely silent.

Padme moved behind the couch, watching the two carefully; her mirror and this grotesque Anakin. How much easier it was to dismantle her love when she could see the hatred burning in his eyes! This Vader had held onto Anakin's face. There was no recognition between them; the junk shop and the hot sun and the low words of reverence had never happened.

'I will not be driven out again,' Amidala had said.

Had she lost Naboo to the Trade Federation?

That explained the perfect grace, the emotionless eyes. This Amidala was a puppet, a goddess stripped of her power. How demeaning.

"Who are you?" Anakin, the twisted little boy, asked. Padme's throat closed over her tears, for she saw in his eyes that same love of so long ago, that same instant enslavement.

"Amidala, of the Naboo." There was no raising of the chin, no haughty tone, much to Padme's surprise. Instead, Amidala smiled helpfully, almost shyly, gazing downward just slightly. A stray curl fell from her elaborate braids, brushing against her cheek in whispered invitation.

"Amidala," the Sith repeated, tasting the name. Reluctantly, it seemed, he took stock of the rest of the room. For the first time, Padme noticed the small rifle laying on the couch, and her eyes rested on it just as Anakin's did. He looked from the blaster to the Queen, and back again; and Padme somehow thought that he relaxed his grip on the light saber. Never allowing her gaze to leave her enemy's face, Amidala took hold of the weapon and tossed it to the ground. In one fluid motion, the Queen knelt beside it, her violet gown pooling around her like alien sunshine.

Thrusting her hands forward, palms up and wrists bared, she said, "I'm at your mercy." She was looking up through her lashes, lips parted breathlessly. Skin crawling, Padme watched Anakin deactivate his light saber, hold out his hand to Amidala.

"Will you come with me?" he asked, sounding much like a little boy, "I'll see that you're taken care of. I won't let anyone hurt you."

Amidala's smile was enigmatic, sickeningly sweet, "Of course." She rose as gracefully as she had fallen, hand in Anakin's as she allowed him to draw her close.

"I know you, somehow..." the Sith began, but never finished, for there was a sound of metal on flesh, clawing its way with ruthless precision. Dark joy rose in Padme, and then shame; Amidala's hand was fisted around the handle of a knife-- she must have grabbed it off the desk-- twisting it between the bones of her enemy's ribcage. She'd cut to the heart, her palms darkening with crimson as Anakin crumbled to the floor. His eyes, his sky blue eyes, rolled up and disappeared, and his face went lax, erasing the surprise.

Amidala stood over him for a moment, Padme by her side, studying the ruins of a man she knew and did not know. She held her hands up, as if to support the weight of her crime, before wiping them roughly on her skirts. With one, delicate shoed foot, she kicked the body.

"This," she said on impact, "is for thinking I would ever really bow to you." She stepped over him, her baring regal and without remorse. Padme stood, looking down at the corpse with a face so like her husband's, and wondered if it was worse to be the conquered or the conqueror.

Somehow, she was thinking they were the same thing.//

Coming back was not as abrupt as it used to be, it was more like being drawn in with the tide, called back to her anchor. The lights were off-- a great relief-- when she gasped and rose at last from the sea of consciousness. How many levels could she descend, how far could she dive before she lost her way entirely?

"Don't make me do it again," she gasped, somehow sensing Vader's presence. She was choking on guilt; how much she loved Anakin and how much she wanted this impostor dead. "God, why do you do this to me?" He was near, very, for he reached out and ran his gloved finger against the column of her throat. She wanted to be deprived of sensation, she didn't want to feel anything anymore.

"I don't want to," he said, like he meant it, which was the worst part. Maybe he really believed it, maybe he really did want to help her and the Emperor's power over him erased all the will. She wasn't sure what she wanted to believe. Would lies go down any easier than the truth? "I never wanted to hurt you."

She laughed, or made a sound that might have been one once. "You break my heart," she said, "and I break yours back."

Of course, he had nothing to say to that.