No. 24 FIGHT, FLIGHT OR FREEZE
Blood Covered Hands | Catatonic | "I don't want to do this anymore."
Hello! Welcome to another fic, I had a lot of fun with this one :D
Heads up: While I took inspiration from post-natal depression for this, this isn't supposed to be a representation of it at all, accurate or otherwise. Likewise, in terms of pregnancy and any medical stuff, I am but a humble student who knows nothing about any of it. Apologies for any inaccuracies.
I've loved the idea of Padmé being Force-sensitive while pregnant ever since I heard it. This fic was meant to explore what it'd be like for her on Mustafar, running into that much darkness at once, but instead I found myself fascinated with what happens when she loses that Force-sensitivity. There was that definition of eldritch horror I saw online once but never found again, where the horror is that for a moment, you understood all the secrets of the universe, and now you're flesh and blood again, physically incapable of understanding any of it. That was the thread I played with for most of this fic.
"Senator Amidala," Palpatine, her emperor, says, peering at her in a paternal manner from atop his throne, "Padmé. My dear. Are you sure of this? I do think this is for the best, but it is a radical change, and I do not want you to undertake it if there is any doubt in your mind at all. Your husband would never forgive me if something went wrong." He gives her a fond smile—at least, it is fond to her eyes. She wouldn't be able to tell anyway. "I would never forgive myself."
She accepts his smile and meets it with a grim nod. "I am."
He holds out the bottle. She rises from when she was kneeling, unstable, to receive it. It's a tiny thing, made of rich green glass. The liquid inside it is a luminescent gold that seems to shed its own light—the same colour that his eyes have now turned. She thinks they used to be blue but can't be sure: all her concepts from Before are hazy, saturated with colour. Her interpretation of Before is not reliable.
When she uncorks the bottle and drinks its contents, his smile is triumphant.
Mustafar roils below her. The lava fields are bright against the dark landscape; she finds them useful to anchor against, staring at them until they burn into her retinas, leave imprints on the dull black walls wherever she looks. Her husband has no taste in décor, but it wasn't like she was around to help him when he was building the palace, and she hasn't mobilised herself to redecorate yet.
Her hand moves on autopilot, rocking the twin cribs Luke and Leia are sleeping in. She hopes they are sleeping. Leia rolls over to cling to her brother's leg, but perhaps the motions are just the last spasms of a dead body. She can't feel them anymore. When she holds them against her chest, their heartbeats syncing with hers, she gets… something. Some sort of connection. Otherwise, they and their bodies are as alien as her own changing one is.
Sometimes she holds them too tight against her chest. Sometimes they start crying, and she thinks this is it, I have suffocated them… But their cries, although they should hurt her—and they certainly hurt Ani, when he hears them and comes to fuss—fill her with relief. They are alive. They are not lost to her. When their soft, fragile bodies are moulded against hers again, she remembers what it feels like to be their mother.
She should let them sleep. That is what the nanny droid advised, when last she woke them up in her panic to check they were still breathing. But her hands itch to reach for them anyway.
The door hisses open behind her. A small scream jumps out of her, her hand going to her weak, racing heart. When she turns around, it is only her husband, dressed head to toe in black as always. If it were not for the loud rasping of his new respirator, she would have no idea that he was there, in the darkness, against the black walls. Two lonely blue balloons in the corner of the room try to cheer it up, to no avail.
She should not be glad that Anakin was injured so thoroughly—and by a man she brought to see him no less. But she is glad for the respirator. She is no longer certain that her husband is alive either, but every other second his inexorable breaths prove that he is.
"Padmé?" he asks gently—as gently as he can, with his loud voice. She can't remember exactly how he used to express gentleness, but it was to do with quietness, wasn't it? She remembers whispering to each other in a large, pillared hall, confident that they could both sense no one was lurking nearby, wrapped up in each other's presences. "I noticed you missing from our room. Shouldn't you be asleep?"
His old speech patterns stumble inside the vocoder's strict limits. She's already noticed him trying to work around it. Before long, he'll talk like her diction tutors used to.
She wraps her arms around her stomach. "They're alive?" she asks.
His sigh is gentle, at least, as is his hand when he steps forwards to stroke her cheek. "Yes," he says. "Alive and glowing as ever." He tilts his head. "Luke is dreaming about stars."
"He did that a lot, Before." Among the haze, the blur of sounds, images, impressions, knowledge, she remembers that. She watched the night skies from beyond her ship, after her last trip back to Naboo after she realised she was pregnant and watched her home skies before she flew to unfamiliar ones. Luke always stopped kicking to gawk when she sent them that. They both did.
"Will you sleep, if I promise to tell you if anything changes with the children?"
She should know herself. She wishes she could—she is their mother. Mothers do better than this. Mothers do not hold the children they have carried for months in their arms and barely recognise them at all. They do not lack any sort of bond with them.
"I can't sleep anyway." Scrutinising every breath, every twitch, like sheer time and intensity could reignite the excitement she felt when she drummed her fingers on her pregnant stomach.
Anakin paused. "Padmé… about what happened here…"
They have not addressed it since she woke up from her coma. She can hardly remember that rush of red, anger, and darkness that overcame her.
"I understand why you decided to build your castle here. It's a striking landscape." One she can find a connection in, even if that connection is overwhelmingly negative. She doesn't dare to return to Naboo and see how that feels, if this detachment extends to the planet she dedicated her life to serving.
"You had a knife. Obi-Wan was on your ship. I was afraid—" He breaks off. "You still have that knife, don't you?"
It's sheathed at her side. She doesn't know why she can't part with it, which makes her want to throw it into the lava. But the thought ties her stomach into knots, until she wants to be sick, until she can't take it anymore, because all she has are vague memories and disconnected thoughts that make no sense.
"The knife was not meant for you."
"Who was it meant for?"
"I don't know, Ani," she whispers. Her eyes find the window again and the darkness beyond.
Anakin folds his hands behind his back and paces. "Obi-Wan escaped on your ship. With our droids." His voice is rising. It washes over her, shaking her to her core; she likes that she can feel this so deeply. "What happened? Why did you come to kill me?"
"I didn't," she says. But his voice—and more likely, his distress, a distress that Padmé cannot feel or empathise with or understand nearly as acutely as she used to, and she hates herself for that as well—wakes the twins. They start screaming. Padmé picks them up.
They are warm against her skin, bundled into her arms. She crushes them there, closes her eyes, breaths. At least the fact that they stop crying means they can still feel the connection forever lost to her.
"I understand your fears, my friends, and I thank you for raising them with me." Palpatine looks from Padmé to Bail to Mon, mouth twisting. "I do not know what I can do to assure you further. I will lay down these powers when the war is over, but until then I see few other options."
Bail interrupted, "In the interests of democracy—"
"I love democracy," Palpatine cut him off. "Please, you all know that. I hardly enjoy this."
Liar.
Padmé shapes the words, narrowing her eyes, but she's too canny to say it out loud—yet. She has no proof, even if she's grown increasingly attuned to how dark the Senate is recently. It stinks of lies, corruption, deception, but she knows she cannot call someone out on a hunch. The Delegation of 2,000 have already exposed several war profiteers with distinctly undemocratic aims based on these hunches of hers. After years of war, and more years of slow, near-stagnant political processes, it feels spectacular to finally find clarity in all this drama. People have finally been listening to her.
Palpatine turns to her, like he caught the words on her lips or in her mind. "Senator Amidala, is there anything you wish to add? I didn't mean to cut you off—you know I have always valued your input, my dear." A vague stab at Bail, but she ignores it.
She knows his tactics, knows how he always flatters her into thinking that her opinion matters. He certainly does value her input, if it serves his goals. The vote of no confidence in Chancellor Valorum was proof enough of that. If he could, he would manipulate her into a political monster at his beck and call in all issues, providing him the necessary means to accumulate more power.
She will not stand for it.
"I remain concerned, Your Excellency," she says. "Between friends, you understand why?"
"I do, my dear," he replies. "Senator Amidala, are you quite well?"
She blinks. Palpatine's yellow eyes—blue, weren't they?—blink before her. She forces a smile. "My apologies, Your Excellency—Majesty. I…" She abandons delicacy. "I zoned out."
He chuckles. "Understandable. You have had a different introduction to motherhood. Lord Vader tells me how much attention you pay them—and you have only been conscious for a month!" He turns back to whoever is beside him. "I was just introducing you to General Tarkin and his wife. He fought by your husband at points during the Clone Wars, you may have heard of him."
"I have." She focuses on Tarkin, an older man with greying hair already, his wife at least ten years younger than him. She met him Before; she does not think he liked her. They did not part happily. She said something to him, plucked out of his mind, about unnecessary brutality on one of his campaigns… "A pleasure to remake your acquaintance, Governor Tarkin."
His eyebrows shoot up. "His Majesty has confided in you, I see."
"I have not had the chance to." Palpatine looks at her intently. "You avoided talking to me for the first few weeks after your awakening, in such a difficult time. I did not want to intrude." She remembers that. Remembers Anakin wanting her to talk to Palpatine, who was extremely worried about her, and how she screamed and screamed until he dropped the subject. The apprehension still coils tightly in her gut, but there is no rhyme or reason to it. She can make no sense of her own instincts. Her former mentor is as genuine and innocent as he ever was.
She nods. "It was a difficult time, I am afraid."
"But I am glad you heard the good news, nonetheless. I have instated governors across the galaxy to better maintain order. Governor Tarkin will be one of them."
"Congratulations," she says mindlessly.
"Our old friend Captain Panaka will be the Governor of the Chommell sector as well!" he continues. "I needed someone who would be gentle with you in your re-adaptation into your role as senator, and he has been most obliging, has he not? I cannot think of anyone more deserving of such a high honour." He smiles. "Aside from yourself."
She nods, still mindlessly. "I am glad to hear it."
"How did you know about Governor Tarkin's promotion?"
His face is neutral, as is Tarkin's. She watches the muscles in both of them flicker, their micro-expressions changing as clear as day to her practised eye. She waits for understanding to kick it. It remains absent. Something she used to be so skilled at has left her.
"Lord Vader told me," she lies, somewhat awkwardly. Palpatine gives her a concerned look—is it too concerned? Is he faking it? The unease in her gut, random snippets of suspicion, accuse him of it, but there is no evidence of that.
How does she know about Governor Tarkin?
"Don't try to hide from me, Obi-Wan. I know you're here."
He doesn't insult her by staying in her closet. The door opens, and he crawls out, grimacing at her. "I should have expected this."
"That I'd notice someone trying to sneak onto my own ship? Yes!"
"That you would sense me."
She snorts. "The amount of noise you were making—"
"Was none," he says quietly. "Padmé, I need to come to see Anakin with you. I do not intend to hurt either of you. I want to talk to him."
"You are on a mission to kill him." He can't deny that. She can see it in his eyes, read it on his face as plain as day.
"You have a knife with you, Padmé." He gestures to her sheath at her belt. "Why would you have that if you weren't afraid you would have to do it yourself?"
She places a hand on it protectively. "I need to carry it."
"Why?"
"A hunch."
"I see. Your hunches have been very accurate, as of late."
She draws the knife and points it at him, narrowing her eyes. "I've been paying attention. The worse this war gets, the more we need people to do that."
"And you have risen to the challenge. Even—or especially—while pregnant." He glances at her swollen belly. "You did not respond earlier, but I know I was right. That is Anakin's child."
"Children," she corrects.
"Twins? I can only sense one. Is your doctor sure?"
"I asked my doctor to keep it a secret," she snaps. "I know there's twins."
"Because you are Force-sensitive."
She glowers at him. "I am not a Jedi. That's a ridiculous allegation—"
"But your husband is." She shouldn't be shocked that he knows about the wedding as well, but perhaps he's known everything, the whole time, and they were fools to hope otherwise. "Your children will be two of the most powerful Force-sensitives ever to live. They are sharing your body, your nutrients, your blood. The midichlorians have flocked to you as well. As long as you carry them, you are also Force-sensitive."
She scans him. Truth, in every line of his body. Truth, her gut instinct says. A gut instinct that may not be instinct after all.
"We've discussed it," he continues. "Master Yoda, a few other Jedi. It's noticeable, in the Senate. You are more likely to notice lies or when people obscure information."
"That's my job. I'm good at it."
"You are. Moreso, now you can get people to agree with you—"
"That's also my job."
"It has happened more in recent months. You must have noticed."
"In recent months, more people have grown tired of this war and wanted to work towards fixing it." She's breathily heavily, now. The children can sense her distress and try to reach out to her, which calms her a little bit. She shouldn't let her stress hurt them.
"And you have the full capacity of a Jedi mind trick behind your words."
"Those only work on the weak-minded!"
His smile is entirely inappropriate for this situation. "Oh, there are plenty of those in the Senate."
"I have never had any intention of overriding anyone's free will—"
"Only convincing them to agree with you." He nods. "Padmé. You are Force-sensitive. And, as you have said, you are clever, and good at your job, and you have always been prepared for every eventuality for as long as I have known you. Are you aware how many of your speeches over the last three years have been eerie predictions of what came to pass? That was before you became pregnant."
"What's your point, Obi-Wan?"
"I trust your judgement, Padmé. I always have." He tries to make his voice soothing. "Your ability to foresee events must only have improved. Why have you brought your knife?" His gaze catches on it. "That is a ceremonial dagger."
"Handmaiden weapons."
"I presumed as much. Why did you bring it, if not because you knew you would have to kill Anakin?"
"I will not have to kill Anakin!" she snaps. "I am certain of that." Before he pushes further, she hesitates— "But I will have to kill someone."
"Why?"
She grits her teeth. "Before they can turn me into a monster."
"Palpatine has contacted us once again," Anakin tells her. "There is another function we must attend."
Padmé sits in her chair and stares at the carpet. It has been a painstaking process, redecorating the castle, but at least it means she can prove to herself that some parts of this reality are real: the carpet, such a neon blue it almost hurts her eyes, is one such grounding comfort. Sola dyed her hair in stripes with that colour when they were teenagers, when Padmé was overseeing rebuilding Theed after the invasion.
"I'm not going."
"We must. My master insists."
She won't do it. No more seas of faces, no more expressions, gestures, words she can't reach back to understand. When did she become so reliant on a fleeting Force ability instead of her own trained skill? When did a complex tapestry become a stone wall to her?
"I don't want to let him down, but I'm not going. No more functions, no more galas, no more meetings this week."
"We are the face of the Empire, Padmé. I am in charge of the army. You are influential in the Senate. And we are both Palpatine's heirs and protégés. Our wellbeing and appearances mean that everything appears to be set right."
She hasn't set foot in the Senate in months. She hopes Jar Jar is holding on fine without her. Bail has contacted her frantically, but she hasn't been able to field his calls; her friend's voice is like a stranger's to her. After so long dancing outside her cave, forming connections deeper than she knew were possible, she is trapped inside her own skull again. It seems far smaller now.
She shifts her hand to her belly. "Are the children alive?" she asks.
After what seems like an eternity of suffering, Palpatine invites her to confide in him, and she does. She cannot help it. Confiding in her husband is difficult when he is so set on viewing the galaxy through the multi-faceted prism he experiences and cannot fathom how black and white her eyesight has become.
His office is quiet after she finishes. The distant speeders flash past in her vision, but not her awareness.
"I had sensed you were stronger in the Force than was usual, but I assumed that was just the child inside you," Palpatine admits. The fact that he is a Sith Lord should come as a shock to Padmé; it doesn't. Did she already know? Did she suspect? Did she love or hate him for it? "If it is true that you gained Force-sensitivity through your children's immense power and lost it again… I cannot imagine the difficult withdrawal you must be experiencing."
"I am not certain you are real, Your Excellency," she tells him. "Majesty."
He pats her hand. "Do not worry yourself with titles. We are friends. And I understand this. Perhaps, with time, you shall regain your old exceptional abilities? You built them once—rebuilding them will surely be a shorter process. Less than a year with the Force does not erase the two decades you spent honing your skills. Your empathy, your ability to read people, your oration… As you tell me that traitor Kenobi said to you, even your acute sense of judgement, and ability to predict what will come to pass. This is enhanced by Force-sensitivity, but you have had it for years. It will return."
She nods. Right now, she cannot imagine anything but the deadness of the galaxy around her, but he is not wrong. Before, she could do anything, completely on her own. She was not reliant on a skill her children gave her.
And yet, he hesitates. Obviously enough that even she, with her limited perception, notices. He notices her intense look in return.
"Or," he admits, "I believe I know of a means to return it to you."
She hates how her heart skips a beat at that. He takes her silence as an invitation, spinning in his chair to pull a real, flimsi book from a drawer in his desk.
"Have you heard of the Mother? I presume not—it is not a common story even among Force-sensitives who were raised in such a sect from birth. There are—were—almighty beings in the galaxy who were the living manifestations of the Force. Anakin met them a year or two ago, I believe, but they died recently. The Father, the Daughter, and the Son." He turns to pages which illustrate them, the stylised prints still bright with colour years after production. "This story, while rare, is still known to some Jedi. The story of the Mother less so."
He turns another page. Padmé peers at it, seeing a woman with a sheet of straw blonde hair laying her arms around the Son and the Daughter.
"She was a mortal servant created to serve them but grew to be a part of the family. When she grew old and threatened to leave them forever, she found a way to become as immensely powerful with the Force as her family. She bathed in the Pool of Knowledge and drank from the Well of Power—interpretations of this differ among scholars, of course, these may be metaphorical descriptions—and became a Force-sensitive entity beyond mortal imagining."
He shuts the book with a snap. "I know of no Pool or Well. But I do know a great deal of Sith alchemy. If it would be well with you, my dear, I can research a cure for the terrible burden you are now forced to bear."
"What happened to the Mother? If her family are dead."
Palpatine grimaces. "We do not know. Anakin reported no Mother on Mortis when he ran into them, so we can only speculate."
If he is lying, Padmé cannot tell. If he is lying by omission, she especially cannot. That instinctive distrust comes in her chest—fear, terror, excitement—but she waves it away. She cannot trust emotions of which she does not know the source. She cannot afford to be hysterical.
"I can't feel my children," she says. "I don't want to do this anymore."
He smiles at her warmly. "I will do my best for you, my lady," he promises. "I will find a solution to all our problems very soon."
It is not long until he finds a way. When he does, he urges her to come to his throne room alone, without telling anyone. "It is best not to disappoint Lord Vader if this does not work," he says. "And if it does work, it will be a most pleasant surprise for him."
Before she leaves for such a life changing event, she picks up her children and crushes them against her chest. Although at first they snuggle against her, the tighter she holds them, the more they start to wail. Their cries vibrate through her.
She closes her eyes and savours the moment. Her arms and her ears ache from the strength of her children's vitality.
She was warned to expect pain when giving birth, certainly, but this is beyond excessive. Padmé screams, and she imagines her parents can hear her on Naboo, parsecs away from the cold, clinical medbay Anakin rushed her to on Coruscant. Her husband is here holding her hand, already in that grotesque, dehumanising suit that makes Padmé cold every time she looks at it, but she can't process anything beyond the pain—pain—fear—disgust—loss that tears through her.
Palpatine wanted to be here to support them. She refused, absolutely certain that something would go wrong, that he would try to kill her, or take her children, or— she isn't sure, but she knows that she made the right decision. Anakin is doing his best to comfort her on his own, and Palpatine's presence would only have made her terror worse.
"Push, Padmé," he murmurs to her—except, his vocoder is loud, so he orders her instead. "You've got to continue." But his vocoder garbles his former speech patterns, and she only catches the meaning of the words, not the shape of them.
Her first child comes out, screaming and crying, and the relief she feels at the connection that bursts between them is explosive. His cries, when they begin, tear into her chest. The meddroid picks him up, and even Anakin stops his obsessive chants of comforting words to stare at— at—
"Our son," he says in awe. She cannot see his eyes, but she knows the look he is giving him anyway: the same look he gave her when she told him she was pregnant, of unabashed awe and adoration.
"Luke," she says.
He nods. "Perfect." He lets go of her hand to take Luke into his arms, and she can tell how hard he's been practising to be gentle with his new durasteel limbs, because Luke's cries fade rapidly when he is folded into his father's embrace. He blinks up at them both with colourless blue eyes—will they stay blue, like Anakin's, or turn brown, like hers, or take on another colour coded for deep in their shared genetics? Padmé laughs softly.
The second child comes soon after. It seems quicker, more elated, and soon there is another baby in the meddroid's arms. Their daughter.
"Leia," Padmé promises her before the meddroid even puts her in her arms. She is warm against her chest, wriggling and complaining about being woken from her dark, warm sleep with her brother, but she nestles against Padmé's heart like a firework. Padmé smiles, holding her.
"Padmé," Anakin says. "You did it. These are… our children."
Padmé doesn't respond, staring into Leia's balled up face. Her firework is fading. She is warm and sticky in her arms, but Padmé wishes she would start crying again, so Padmé could soothe her, so—
What is this?
Where have her children gone? Where are they going?
She can still sense them, they are right in front of her, Anakin is huffing gentle breaths in his shock and awe, but they are dimming. So is Anakin. So is all of Coruscant, once cacophonous beyond the soundproof walls, now locked out behind steel and glass and the thin bone of her skull.
Was Obi-Wan right? Is this over? Is this overwhelming knowledge, these heightened instincts, finally over?
It's too soon. Her heart races. She still needs this—her children are still in danger. Leia starts crying again in her arms; she holds her tighter. What will happen? What—
Palpatine smiles at her. "Are you ready, my dear?"
Padmé turns in the Emperor's pod in the Senate, smoothing down her red velvet dress, her hair pulled back behind her head. She catches her own eyes in the curved silver reflection of the pod's edge, and watches them glitter gold.
"Yes, Your Majesty," she says. The pod rises, and she begins to speak. She can feel how all in the room sway towards her, in awe that one of Palpatine's fiercest critics would support him now and listening to her for it. Supporting him, too, for it. She leans into these new persuasive powers of hers and pushes, pushes, pushes, until their victory is assured.
Her children, barely able to stand but already dressed head to toe in black training gear, watch beside her father. Good. They will serve this role one day, as well. This is what her family is for: to support and one day rule the Empire. To keep order through force, where her persuasion fails.
She has three galas she must attend this week where she will meet her former allies, Rebel sympathisers, and persuade them to reconsider. If they do not, her mentor has taught her how to kill silently. It takes less than a thought from her to pinch the right areas of their brain so that they never trouble the Empire again.
Palpatine made her his monster. She shall serve him loyally until death.
She screams. Both her twins, buried in hers and Anakin's arms, scream with her. Anakin starts and reaches for her shoulder.
"Padmé? Padmé, are you—"
She has to stop this. She cannot trust Palpatine, she cannot allow Palpatine to come anywhere near her or her children, she will kill him if she has to—yes. Yes, that is what her knife is for; she reaches for it, but it was removed when she was put into this hospital robe; she understood at the time but now its absence aches like an amputated limb. She needs to get away from Palpatine.
Why?
Leia is still crying in her arms, but Padmé cannot sense her distress anymore.
What is wrong with Palpatine? He is as two-faced as any politician, but so is she. What should she fear? What—
She cannot allow herself to forget. If this gift is leaving her, she cannot allow herself to forget—
Shortly after giving birth, Padmé falls into a coma. When she wakes, her connection is gone, and the galaxy is fundamentally alien to her.
The brilliant, shining contents of Palpatine's little bottle touch her tongue. The taste is shocking enough—sharply bittersweet, with a stench of rot and mould—that she gags, too sickened to swallow for a moment. She stumbles back down the stairs of the dais, Palpatine watching her intently, her grip tight around the potion.
Whatever he did to this, whatever alchemy this is, it wraps around her tongue before she even swallows. A brief touch, a brief flash—
Omnipotence is dizzying. She forgot that part. The barriers to her mind are stampeded and suddenly her feelings sharpen, not hysterical at all but rational, she had bad feelings because she knew, deep down, bad things would happen, and—
She looks up and sees Palpatine smile.
"Padmé?" he asks worriedly. No, he is not smiling, he is faking concern, but he wishes he could smile. He is enjoying watching a thorn in his side finally grow a rose. "I fear it will be dangerous if you do not drink the whole thing, the transformation may not be complete—midichlorians are fickle, and while they should be attracted to you with this it will only last for so long, and you will have to suffer the withdrawal effects—"
He is so full of shit. He is making all of this up. The rotting taste in her mouth multiplies; if she swallows this horrible liquid, if she lets it deeper into her than it already is—her bloodstream, her brain, curling around her heart and mind—that rot will sink in inside her. She will become no better than him.
Clarity is fleeting but elating. She can see how all of this will pan out: if she swallows, she will regain the Force but bound to him, his will, the dark side taking root in her too deep to ever unwind. She will have immense power in an empire she would never otherwise have supported. She, along with her husband, will be Emperor Palpatine's most powerful assets in exacting his total control over the galaxy, and she will raise her children to do the same for him.
Disgust fills her—of course it does. But more than that, she weeps with relief, tears wetting her cold cheeks, to finally understand what mysteries have tormented her for months and months and months. If she swallows, she never has to undertake that again.
Palpatine was right. Rebuilding her skills, her confidence, her faith in her own instincts, would be a slow, painstaking process. She does not need to do that.
"Are you alright?" he asks. Then, eyes narrowing slightly— "Have you swallowed at all?"
Hesitantly, she nods, face still contorting at the grim taste. But her ability to lie is still compromised, and he sees right through her. He rises from his throne, steps down towards her, takes the bottle from her hand.
"You need to drink," he says—orders—looking right into her terrified eyes. She wonders if her eyes will be that same terrible gold if she obeys. "If you drink, this will all be over. I know that is what you want."
It would not be over.
There are no easy solutions to adjusting to this—to any of this. Pregnancy has fundamentally changed her body; it always would have. War, strife, and Palpatine have fundamentally changed her galaxy. There are no easy solutions for any of this. There is only accepting this reality, obeying her new emperor and fitting into the despicable role that will be forged for her, or refusing it.
She spits the potion in Palpatine's face.
He did not expect that. He rears back, reaching up to wipe it out of his eyes. While he staggers, she draws her dagger from the sheath she is so obsessive about carrying and drives it into his heart.
Emperor Palpatine has already survived four Jedi trying to assassinate him; a senator should not have been able to. But it is her children's future at stake. Her Republic's future. Her future. He stares at her, gasping.
She yanks her dagger out of his chest. He falls to the floor. The bottle rolls across the carpet, draining its contents into the long, thick carpet.
After a long moment, she starts shaking. She needs to sit down—the throne is the only seat in sight, so she collapses into it and cries. The knowledge at the back of her mind that, for one more precious moment of clarity, she finally understood, fades back into incomprehension. Rot is bitter on her tongue.
There is no getting back what she has lost. All she can do is rebuild it as best she can.
She fumbles for her comm. "Anakin," she orders. "Anakin, come to the throne room, now."
She misses his response, but she doesn't need the Force to know he is coming. He will always come. She shudders in the throne—in her throne, now—and grits her teeth.
None of this is proceeding as she has foreseen.
She can be grateful for that, at least.