For a long moment, Anakin could only stare at her, trying to process what he'd just heard. "What?" he said at last. "You want—you want to kill Palpatine?"

He thought that surely she must be joking, but Padmé's expression was stony and determined. "Yes," she said.

"But you're on his side," Anakin said. "You're his heir. You support the Empire, you—" A wild thought occurred to him. "You're—are you secretly working for the Rebellion?"

"What? Of course I'm not, don't be absurd," Padmé said impatiently. "I don't want the Republic back, look what it did to Naboo."

Obviously she still hated the Republic, Anakin realized, after it had stood back and allowed a massacre on her home planet and the deaths of her parents. It had been so long since their conversation that night on Naboo and she'd made no mention of it since, he'd almost forgotten. "Then what's going on?" he asked.

"I support the Empire, but I don't support Palpatine. When he first reorganized the Republic into an empire and asked me to be his heir, I thought he was doing it to help people. I thought he wanted to prevent what happened on Naboo from happening on other planets, I thought he wanted to improve people's lives." Padmé's eyes were overly bright. "But now I see that he fooled me just as much as he fooled everybody else. I have good reason to believe he orchestrated the invasion of Naboo, just to manipulate me into calling for a vote of no confidence in Chancellor Valorum so that he'd be elected to replace him. And I still blame the Senate for its ineffectiveness in dealing with the situation, but the Trade Federation might never have invaded in the first place if not for Palpatine."

Anakin gaped at her. "Palpatine was behind that?"

She nodded. "He only wants power for himself, and he doesn't care if the entire galaxy has to suffer for it. Even his home planet."

"Well, yeah. Anyone could've told you he was a power-hungry bastard," Anakin pointed out. "Are you only just now realizing it?"

"No, I realized it years ago, only weeks after the Empire was first born," Padmé said. "But by then it was too late for me to rebel and fight against him, I was already deeply involved in the Empire's inner workings. The Rebellion was only just brewing and they would never have trusted me, not that I would've wanted to ally myself with them anyway. So I vowed to take down Palpatine from the inside, but I knew I couldn't do it alone. And when I heard that you, the Chosen One, had escaped the Jedi purge, I knew you were the one I needed to help me."

"Why would you think you could trust me?"

Padmé shrugged. "I knew you'd be just as eager to see Palpatine dead as I was, even if we had slightly different visions about what should happen after his death," she said.

"I suppose," said Anakin. His brain was overflowing with a thousand questions, so he blurted out the next one that came to him. "But why would you go to the trouble of tracking down a Jedi and getting him on your side instead of finding an ally closer to you?"

"Anakin, be reasonable. Palpatine is a Sith Lord," Padmé said. "He's the most powerful Force user in the entire galaxy. Except for you. You're the only one who can stand a chance against him, don't you see? Even Master Yoda was no match for him, but you? You're the Chosen One."

"That's what people have been telling me since I was nine years old, but I was never sure if I believed it," Anakin said quietly. "Padmé, I'm no match for Palpatine either, you saw how easily he throws me around during our training sessions—"

"But if he didn't see you coming," Padmé said earnestly. "I can shield my mind well enough, it's how I've been able to keep him from sensing I want to overthrow him. But if I actually tried to kill him myself, he'd see me coming in an instant. You're a Jedi, you can cloak yourself in the Force much better than I can, you'd be able to sneak up on him without him sensing your intention."

Anakin shook his head and stood up. "Just—just give me a minute," he said, pacing around the room as Padmé watched him anxiously. He tried to sort through everything that was going on. Padmé wanted him to kill Palpatine for her. Anakin really didn't think he'd be able to, but he was willing to try. After all, he'd wanted to kill him when he first arrived here, and Padmé's threats to Owen and Beru were the only things stopping him from attempting it.

He stopped pacing and looked at her. "The Lars family," he said. "They won't be harmed if I help you? What if I'm unsuccessful and Palpatine catches us, and he kills them as punishment?"

"I'll call off the Stormtroopers watching them before the assassination attempt and send the handmaidens to bring them somewhere safe, so that Palpatine doesn't know where they are," Padmé said. "That way if we fail, he won't be able to harm them."

Anakin studied her for a minute. "You'll call off the Stormtroopers and deliver a message from me telling them to flee. And enough credits for them to be able to start a new life away from Tatooine," he added. "But you won't know where they've gone either. No one in the entire Empire will. That way, if I agree to help you, you will never use them to threaten me again."

Padmé nodded. "All right."

Anakin kept thinking. You must wonder why I wanted to marry you in the first place. This was why. So he could impregnate her and then do her dirty work for her. "I really am just a tool to you," he said aloud, bitterness seeping into his tone.

Padmé furrowed her brow. "What do you mean?"

"It's not that I ever thought you genuinely cared about me," Anakin said, starting to pace again. "But still, now I see that you only were interested in me because you think I'm the Chosen One. You've only ever cared about my power. Just like every single other person in my life. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan would've left me to rot on Tatooine if not for my midichlorian count, and you would've let Palpatine torture me to death."

His voice was shaking, and Padmé was looking bewildered. "What do you want me to say?" she said. "Of course I only cared about your power. At first. But things are different now, we've been married over a year and I know you as a person, and—and I do care about you, Anakin."

He snorted. "Liar."

"Anakin—"

"If you really cared about me, you would've called off the Stormtroopers from Owen and Beru ages ago," he snapped. "You've only agreed to do it now in exchange for me helping you with your assassination plot."

"I couldn't risk letting you escape before I'd asked for your help!"

"Because you didn't trust me! You thought I'd run the second it was possible for me to do so!"

"And wouldn't you have?" she fired back. "If I'd told you yesterday that Owen and Beru were safe from the Empire forever, wouldn't you have left without a backwards glance?"

"I—" That gave Anakin pause. Would he have just up and left the twins like that, before even getting the chance to know them? "I don't know what I would've done," he said finally. "But you're missing the point—"

"No, you're missing the point!" Padmé said fiercely. "I'm sorry I hurt your kriffing feelings by only caring about your power instead of who you are as a person, but the wellbeing of the galaxy is at stake here! If we don't stop Palpatine, who will? How many more lives will he have to destroy before someone takes him down? Are you going to allow the galaxy to continue suffering because you're upset that I hurt your feelings? Some Jedi you are."

She uttered the last sentence scathingly, and Anakin glowered at her. "How do I know you'll be any better?" he retorted. "For all I know, you're just as selfish and power-hungry as him, and you're only pretending to care about the wellbeing of the galaxy so that I'll help you. But once Palpatine's dead and the throne's yours, you'll kill me and have free rein over the Empire and cause just as much suffering as he has!"

"I walked into my own home and found the floor covered with my parents' blood when I was fourteen years old!" Padmé shouted. "If you think I can stomach the thought of any other person in the entire galaxy going through a thing like that, the things Palpatine inflicts on them on a daily basis, then you don't know me at all!"

Anakin fell silent, breathing heavily. She was glaring at him, but there were tears in her eyes too. "I want," he said finally, "to hear some concrete plans about what you intend to do once you're empress. Go on."

"I will put a stop to the exploitation of impoverished worlds," Padmé said. "No more imperial enforcers. No more labor camps. I'll give some power back to the Senate, so that it's no longer a glorified puppet show like it is now, but not so much power that it becomes complacent and ineffective like the Republic's Senate. I'll call for every single senator to be democratically elected by their home planet, and I'll impose term limits so that senators must be reelected every few years, and their people can vote them out of office if they become corrupt."

Anakin watched her carefully. She did seem sincere, and everything she was saying sounded pretty good to him…but he was no politician, he had no idea whether her propositions would actually change anything, or if she'd even be able to carry them out…

"But the first thing I'll do," she continued, "the very first thing I'll do when I become empress, is outlaw slavery throughout the Empire. Even the Outer Rim worlds. Even Tatooine."

Anakin's breath hitched. Palpatine had only worsened the situation, but even under the Republic slavery had been widespread, though technically illegal. The Republic had never cared to do anything about it because it benefitted them. The Jedi hadn't wanted to intervene because they didn't want to act against the Republic. Not even Obi-Wan had wanted to help Anakin return to Tatooine and free his mother.

And now, for the first time in his entire life, someone was looking at him and telling him that she knew about the suffering he'd endured and wanted to do something about it. Telling him that she didn't want anyone else to go through what he'd gone through. Telling him that she cared.

"You'd have to enforce it," he said finally. "The Republic outlawed slavery too, but they didn't enforce the law, so it continued."

"I will station Stormtroopers and imperial officials on every planet to make sure that every single soul in the galaxy remains free, if that's what it takes," Padmé said quietly.

Anakin met her eyes. And he believed her. "All right," he said, slowly sitting back down on the bed beside her. "I'll help you."

Padmé gave him a nod, looking relieved. "Thank you," she said.

"So…what's the plan?"

"I haven't exactly got one yet," she confessed. "I just thought you could use the Force or something."

"Oh, very specific," Anakin muttered. "We'll have to work out the details. When were you envisioning this happening? Soon?"

"As soon as possible, yes, but not until after the twins are born," Padmé said, resting a hand on her baby bump. "When I first become empress, it'll be a volatile time, and being pregnant makes me much more vulnerable and less able to defend myself. People will try to take the throne from me, and the Rebels will try to strike during the transition of power—"

"What are you going to do about the Rebels once you're empress?" Anakin interrupted, realizing it was a question he'd forgotten to ask.

"I'll do everything in my power to negotiate peace with them. This civil war is tearing the galaxy apart," Padmé said. "But there's only so much I can do. If they refuse to negotiate, I may be forced to continue the war until they're defeated."

Anakin pursed his lips, but he nodded, knowing that she was right. But hopefully if she made good on all her promises, the Rebels would see that the Empire was becoming a force for good and they would agree to stop fighting.

"Anyway, we'll do nothing until the twins have been born and I've fully recovered my strength," Padmé continued. "But that also means that we have to succeed, Anakin. If Palpatine catches us trying to assassinate him, I don't even want to know what would happen to the twins."

The thought made Anakin's blood run cold. "Why couldn't we have done this before you got pregnant?" he said.

"I wasn't sure I could trust you enough to let you in on my plan," Padmé said. "It was only when you were talking to the twins at dinner tonight that I truly knew…if you wouldn't agree to help me for my sake, you might at least agree to do it out of love for them."

Anakin briefly touched her belly, sending a pulse of love and warmth to the twins to the Force, though he wasn't sure they'd be able to feel it. "I…I would do anything for them," he said, realizing it was true only as the words left his mouth. "And to let them grow up in a galaxy that's at peace, that's not ruled by an evil Sith tyrant…" Anakin took a shaky breath. "I would die to give that to them, Padmé. I swear to you, I'll kill Palpatine no matter what it takes. Even if I die doing it."

Padmé took his hand and squeezed it. She didn't say anything, but she didn't have to.

Over the next couple months, Anakin felt a spark of true, genuine hope burning inside him for the first time since he'd come to Coruscant over a year ago. Palpatine's days were numbered. Anakin and Padmé were going to kill him and finally put his reign of terror to an end, and then Padmé would rule the galaxy and make it a better place, a place where all its citizens could live in peace and prosperity.

Anakin felt like he had to reevaluate everything he'd ever thought he knew about her. She still had no love for democracy or the Republic, but…in all honesty, neither did Anakin. The Republic had turned a blind eye to slavery on Tatooine and other planets, and he'd always felt the Senate to be just as corrupt and ineffective as Padmé said. Frankly, he'd only toyed with the thought of escaping Coruscant and joining the Rebellion because he opposed Palpatine specifically, not necessarily the concept of the Empire.

But now at last, he knew once and for all that Padmé was nothing like Palpatine. She wasn't a monster. She wanted to help people, to improve their lives. She wanted to free the slaves.

As Padmé's pregnancy drew near its end, Anakin's anticipation grew until he could hardly stand to wait any longer, both for his children's birth and Palpatine's demise. He and Padmé began to plan more seriously for the assassination and agreed that they would send the twins somewhere safe and unknown to Palpatine just beforehand, in hopes of keeping them out of danger were anything to go wrong.

And as for Owen and Beru, Padmé told Anakin they couldn't risk moving them to safety and removing the Stormtroopers until just before the assassination, because if Palpatine found out he might suspect that something was afoot. Anakin reluctantly agreed—it was a good point, they couldn't do anything that might make Palpatine suspicious—but he knew he'd feel a lot better once they were fully out of harm's way.

One night just weeks before Padmé's due date, the Force awakened Anakin just before the shouting. He sat bolt upright and stared wildly around in the darkness, knowing immediately that something was horribly wrong. Heart pounding, he jumped out of bed and raced outside his bedroom—

—and almost ran right smack into Eirtaé, who was apparently coming to find him. "Eirtaé, what's happened?" he asked urgently. "Something's wrong—"

"It's Lady Amidala," she gasped, tears streaming down her face. "She's been kidnapped by the Rebels."