(Spoilers for Episode 3 . . . )
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Even those who are not Jedi feel connection to the Force when making life. Lying here now, my hands curled in agony, struggling to continue, I can't help but think of Anakin, my husband. I scream, and I can see Obi-wan hovering nearby anxiously, his hand scrubbing away at his beard. Yoda, I know, is watching off to the side, and I suspect Bail Organa is here as well, although he hasn't dared to come quite into my line of vision yet.
It's not done this way on Naboo. If anyone would be with me, it would be my mother and possibly my sisters. My child, what a strange way to bring you into the galaxy . . .
Anakin would have been with me too. I would have insisted on that.
But he can't be here now.
He is dying.
I can feel it.
It drives me mad, feeling his pain and unable to do anything about it.
Anakin! You have to live!
Is this what the Force feels like? I can't imagine being a Jedi then, able to sense so much.
He gave so much for our children. He can't die now.
I don't know what is happening, but Anakin is in pain; his mind invelops my own, and I sense his anger, his rage, and his own helplessness. I sense things he had not told me all those years ago, and it is difficult to imagine the little farm boy with the sandy blond hair that he was suffering and hiding so much. It is if a wall that he built has been breeched by our shared agony.
I scream.
I can feel my body, but I cannot move, my breath comes in shallow gasps except when I cry out, long and hard, and try to claw my way free from the encircling shadow metal of the medical droids, tiny lights on their fingertips and cameras on their wrists as they delicately attach cold stinging metal and I WANT TO DIE!
Tears run down my face. Anakin. Your children are coming, the ones to whom we gave life. I gulp in breaths of air, and my throat hurts; I would like some water, but I can't think to formulate the words to ask.
I am ordered to push, and I do so, but my mind is not on the baby.
( . . .For reasons we can't explain, she is dying . . .)
Anakin. I love you. Please come back to me.
I love you.
"Padme." Obi-wan has come up to me, and a tiny voice is wailing beside me. "It's a boy."
I am given our son. I squint into his face, but I can't see anything of Anakin there. It is too soft, too innocent. His eyes are a soft blue, but that's the only resemblance I can really see. "Luke," I whisper. "His name is Luke."
The girl comes next; I have chosen her name long ago. "Leia."
You have twins, Anakin. Do you know that? Twins. They're so beautiful, perfect. I want you to live for them, Anakin, because I can't.
There is a hiss of mechanics, as a black mask closes over his burnt face, charred beyond recognition. The medical droids did not bother trying to repair that yet when they had so much other, more important work to finish; reparing nerves, grafting skin, attaching legs, an arm, and replacing seered organs and nerves with mechanical ones.
They are imperfect, but there is no need for perfection in this operation. This man, this servant of rage and death, has no need for comeliness.
"Lord Vader . . . can you hear me?"
An intake of painful air, drawn in and let out.
". . .Yes . . . Master."
The wall that was once broken has been repaired. I can't sense Anakin anymore. He is dead.
I close my eyes, silently give my children my love, draw my last breath.
How perfectly ironic, that we two who had loved each other so much should die at the same time.
Perhaps, in the end, it is better this way . . .
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