Padme woke up with a gasp, fingers clawing at her throat, trying convulsively to get in air. Her feet kicked at her covers and she panicked more, shaking so hard she thought she would fall apart. She finally realized that she wasn't on Mustafar, she was in her bed - it had been a nightmare. Only a nightmare. She forced herself to control her breathing, taking deep gasping breaths that soon became harsh breaths instead. She took her hands from her throat and brought her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them, and started rocking back and forth. She soothed herself like this for a while, letting her current surroundings seep into her consciousness, calming her further. Once she was sure she could stand without falling over, she walked into her fresher and washed the sweat off her face. Her hands were still shaking, but not as badly. She wondered what could have caused that nightmare to finally come about. She had thought that being around Obi-Wan would have set it off before she had arrived on Dantooine, but that hadn't happened until tonight. Then it hit her - the cat - the yellow eyes. She snorted and covered her mouth, stifling a hysterical laugh. A cat had set her off. A truly pathetic-looking specimen that had decided to give all of its loyalty to her son.
Her breathing was mostly back to normal, so she decided to get some tea to help her get back to sleep. She rounded the corner and peeked into Luke's room. She saw him sleeping on his belly, one arm around Super Frog, Petey curled up on his other side. The cat barely acknowledged her presence, blinking slowly at her and then closing its eyes completely. She sighed in relief, at least Luke hadn't picked up on her distress. Unlike either of his parents, Luke slept like the dead, and at this moment she was most grateful for that trait, no matter where it had come from.
Padme padded softly to the kitchen, trying to not to wake Obi-Wan, only to see that he was already sitting at the table with two mugs in front of him. Damn Jedi, she thought affectionately.
He gave her a weak smile, and she immediately felt guilty. "I'm so sorry Obi-Wan! Did my nightmare wake you?"
"On the contrary, my lady. I was already awake by the time I noticed your distress. I do believe our new houseguest has had the same effect on both of us", he soothed her.
She could only nod in acknowledgement. They sat in silence for a while - neither wanted to speak of Mustafar, but knew that this subject had to be approached at some time or another. It seemed that fate or destiny had decided that now was the time. Obi-Wan took a deep breath, and Padme braced herself.
"I suppose I should apologize to you for having snuck onboard your vessel. I had no idea that Anakin would attack you of all people. He seemed to love you above all else. I am so, so sorry, Padme", he said sadly.
She saw the guilt clearly written on his face and felt her heart go out to him. "I failed Anakin, and thus I failed you, almost costing you your life and your children's as well. My failure cost the Jedi Order and the Republic. I am so very sorry".
No, he couldn't be apologizing for something he was not responsible for. She knew now that she had to tell him the truth about why Anakin had turned. Obi-Wan may have been unaffectionate and unable to give Anakin all that he needed emotionally, but he was not responsible for Anakin's turn. She took a deep shaky breath of her own, and decided to unburden both of them: "I will accept your apology for going onto my ship without my consent. That was truly unnecessary. But I will not accept your apology for Anakin's turn to the Dark Side. That was probably more my fault than anyone else's". Obi-Wan started and he looked at her with questioning eyes. She steeled herself and went on.
"Anakin and I got married in secret right after Geonosis. We had been lying to you since then. Please accept my apology for that, first of all. For, I believe that that secret was what truly made it to where you could not have been able to help Anakin no matter what you did."
Obi-Wan sighed sadly, but he didn't seem surprised. She decided to keep going, since the man had suffered enough for both her and Anakin to last several lifetimes.
"When you got back from rescuing Palpatine from Dooku", she ground the name out distastefully, "I had told Anakin that I was pregnant. He started to have nightmares that very night, visions of me dying in childbirth. Visions like when his mother had died." She swallowed hard and tried not to notice Obi-Wan flinch. He had known that Anakin's mother had died and there was clearly still guilt over how he had disregarded Anakin's premonitions. "I had begged him to tell you of what was happening to him, to tell you about us, that you would help, but he wouldn't hear of it. He thought you would turn him over to the Council and that they would do nothing about it, and just let me die. I kept reassuring him that there was no reason for me to die, that I was perfectly healthy, but he was obsessed with finding a way to save me. He told me that he would do whatever it took to make sure of it. I just didn't think that he would do what he did. He told me that Palpatine had promised him the power to save people from death, and that only his new powers could save me." She stopped, choking on a sob, remembering how horrified she had been at that moment at what had become of her husband. She had been in denial up to that moment, hoping against hope that Obi-Wan had been mistaken, even though she had known just what Anakin was capable of.
Obi-Wan kept looking resolutely down at his mug of tea, picking at a little piece of plastic wrapping that was still stubbornly clinging onto it due to static.
"I'm not truly angry with you over sneaking onto my ship now", she admitted, hoping to alleviate his distress some. "Granted, you came out at an unfortunate moment, but if I'm honest with myself, if it hadn't been at that moment, he would've attacked me some other time. He was not Anakin anymore, or at least not the Anakin that I knew and loved. I can't imagine what would have happened had he taken me back with him to Palpatine, what would have become of my children. My love wasn't enough for him at that moment, and it hadn't been enough before that either. He was obsessed with my death and getting enough power to keep his own fear from being realized."
She sniffled some more and dabbed at her eyes, waiting for Obi-Wan to say something. The only thing he said was: "I wish you could have told me sooner. I would have helped you. It would not have been my place to tell the Council. I would have made sure that he had done that himself, eventually", he finished sadly. "I just can't believe he let himself be deceived by the Sith".
Something inside of Padme snapped at that. "No, Obi-Wan, he wasn't deceived. He chose to do what he did. I've heard you mention that the Dark Side is the quick and easy path to get what you want - and that was what he chose. He chose to believe Palpatine because Palpatine was giving him what seemed like the easy solution - a guarantee. He chose not to go to you for help, he chose not to listen to me, he chose to attack me, he chose Palpatine over you and me. Anakin and Anakin alone is responsible for his choices." The anger she felt at Anakin was beyond words at this point, but she drove her point further, getting to the real heart of her anger: "He wasn't some kind of passive victim when it came to joining Palpatine. However, he assumed that I was, that you had turned me against him, as if I had no agency of my own and couldn't have found his decisions repulsive for myself. That is what truly makes me angry - that in the end he thought so little of me that he thought that I was being manipulated. That I had brought you there to kill him. He didn't even let me explain that I had not brought you on board my ship. I know now that he wouldn't have listened no matter what. Palpatine had told him what he wanted to hear, and anything other than what he wanted to hear was considered akin to betraying him."
Obi-Wan sat in stunned silence. He had assumed that Anakin had turned for other reasons, and that Palpatine had to have manipulated the boy he had raised for him to have done what he did. He felt ashamed of his simplistic rationalization, for he had removed Anakin's own agency from the equation. In faulting himself for having failed Anakin, he was doing the same thing. He didn't know what to say to all of this, it seemed like everything that he thought he had known was being upended all over again.
Padme sighed and leaned back in her chair, exhausted. "When I woke up and was giving birth", she spoke very quietly, "I felt like something was trying to suck my will to live from me. I didn't want to die, but something felt like it was whispering to me to let go, just let go. It was the strangest and worst feeling I have ever experienced", she finished, eyes unfocused.
Obi-Wan cleared his throat. "Master Yoda found that you and Anakin had a Force bond. He severed it, believing that Palpatine was trying to siphon your life-force into Anakin's. Once the bond was severed, Palpatine would have assumed you had died, which is why we went ahead with your 'funeral'. Yoda had tried to keep you from going into a coma, but Palpatine had weakened you quite a bit and the removal of the Force bond would have to heal on its own as well."
"Force bond?" she whispered incredulously.
Obi-Wan was taken aback. "I would have thought that Anakin had told you about it", he said cautiously. "There would have been no other way for you to know about it otherwise."
Suddenly she was furious again. She got up and started pacing. "I had told Anakin not to do anything to me with the Force several times, and then he went and did that. Please tell me that was not something that he did on purpose."
"Unfortunately, I cannot. Force bonds can be forged with non-Force-sensitives, but it can only be created one way, via the Force-user originating it", he finished awkwardly.
She burst into tears all over again. Who had she married after all? Why had she done any of it? Why had he disregarded her requests? Had he ever loved her? No, no he hadn't. Love involved respect for the other person's wishes and positions. He had done neither. Gods, she had been so blind.
Obi-Wan knew just how to put his foot in his mouth: "This was why the Jedi forbade attachment".
Padme froze, and now her fury was directed at Obi-Wan. "No, you need to understand that the Jedi helped create the monster that Anakin became. Your Council told him that missing his mother was a crime. Your Council conflates love and attachment, when they are two separate things. If Anakin had truly loved me, he would have respected me and let me go, not choked me for not agreeing with his decision. What Anakin felt for me was attachment - possesiveness. That is not love. Love is being willing to compromise, to accept someone for their flaws, but also be willing to help them be a better person, not trying to force them to be someone or something they are not. Although how could you blame him for not knowing the difference? Did anyone on that Council even think about what a former slave would think of what calling them Master meant? Did anyone on that Council ever think about what it would to do Anakin to have to return Jabba's son to him, knowing about his past as a slave?" She breathed deeply and waited for Obi-Wan to retort, but he could only sit there, stunned by her fury.
"I will tell you what love is. Love is making sure that my son is raised to be a full individual, capable of making his own decisions, not just blindly parroting what other people have told him. Love is making sure that he will be a strong person, strong enough that he will know right from wrong and not question himself when being tempted by bad choices. Love is making sure that if the Sith ever find us, that I will do what is necessary, including taking my own life, and Luke's, if it comes down to that. Love is allowing Vader to think that I am truly dead, for if he ever found out that I was alive, he would feel vindicated in his choice."
Silence reigned supreme for a few moments. Obi-Wan finally had to say something: "Do you truly think that we were that misguided? That those rules hadn't been put in place for good reasons? Look at what happened with Anakin. I loved him, and I failed him by not being able to end him for good, and now look at what he's become!"
"Again, I will tell you - attachment and love are two different things. But you and your Council could not differentiate between the two. Most people experience loss, and most people do not become deranged murderers because of it."
"True, but most people do not have the power of the Force."
"So it's a matter of scale then? Do you need to have the Force be an agent of destruction? Look at the Hutts and tell me that a Sith Lord is that much worse. Most of the Empire is comprised of non-Force-sensitives - they are willingly carrying out atrocities. Is every single one of them being manipulated by a Sith Lord? People choose to believe what they do, whether they have the Force or not. You act as if Anakin had been the only one to fall to the Dark Side. Did Barris bomb the Temple due to attachment? Did Count Dooku fall to the Dark Side because of attachment?"
Obi-Wan had no argument to any of these points she had made, and they both knew it. She sighed and sat back at the table, feeling calmer now for having unloaded. "I know you mean well, Obi-Wan, but perhaps part of the reason why the Jedi failed to notice the Sith was because they were so busy looking for what they had always been told to look for, even when it was clear that that was not the case. I also think it's time for you and I to accept that Palpatine had Anakin all along, and he just let us pretend that we did. If we ever expect to be able to defeat this Empire, we cannot let ourselves fall into the old ways, for that will only lead to failure again."
She squeezed his arm one final time, and watched him dip his head in acknowledgement. There was no more that needed to be said right now, so she went back to bed and hoped her nightmares would stay at bay.