To Love a Jedi
Chapter 12: The Decision That Changed Our Lives Forever
Author's Note: YES! THE PROPOSE SCENE! READ IT NOW! (It is good, so it took me a little extra time.)
We are in wait of Vader's arrival. Leia, thankfully, was able to get out by Bail Organa making the guards believe she was Dormé's daughter. They are safely on the other side of the planet, far enough away so he won't be able to sense her.
Bail Organa has tried convincing me to leave as well, but there are no ways out of here past stormtroopers. The only other ways is a secret hangar covered up by a hologram. But a ship would be seen and tracked. I am to wait in the bowels of the palace, with two guards watching me. They say I am protected and I will be safe.
I know I will not.
It took a while to convince Leia to leave. At first she did not want to leave at all. She likes it here, she explained. Of course we couldn't tell her why she had to leave, so we told her it was because the palace was being cleaned. When she finally agreed, she realized that I would not be going with her. Leia hung on to me and refused to let go. I had to explain to the small child that her mommy wouldn't be able to come, due to circumstances beyond her control. I did not tell her it was because at least I have a chance trying to hide in plain sight, rather than run away and show all the stormtroopers that I am here. Finally, she decided to leave with Dormé.
At least I don't have to fear for her life, as well as my own.
It's not that I really fear for my life, but I fear what Ani may do. He is sure to recognize me, if not by my looks then by my feeling. He may take me prisoner, or he may just kill me. But I doubt either of those two. If I know Ani, he may just leave me alone.
I tried again to explain this to Bail Organa but he wouldn't listen. He told me I must hide for my own protection and he handed me a blaster. I looked at him in revulsion. I am a master with a blaster, true, but the thought of firing it at Ani?
"I cannot." I told him.
"Milady, if he seeks to kill you, then you must defend yourself!" He replied.
I twisted my wedding ring, still on after all those years, in a nervous habit. "I cannot because it's not just Vader. It is also Ani, and no matter what the circumstances, I could never blast Ani." I let the gun fall onto the floor.
Senator Organa picked it up. "If you cannot blast him, then blast stormtroopers should they seek you. Can you at least blast them?"
I stared at the blaster in his hands for a moment, then I took it. "Yes," I said, "I can do that."
So now I am waiting in a small chamber underground. The two guards who have been set to watch over me stand at the door, their blasters at the ready, ready to open fire on anyone who comes down here. I myself stand in a corner of the dark room, nervously twisting my wedding ring.
I have kept this ring on for seven years and I have no intention of taking it off now. Not once have I ever removed it from my finger. Not even when Ani…became like this. This is proof of my everlasting love for his old self. I know he still does not have his…it fell into the molten lava four years ago. I wonder if he even remembers it, or if he ever regrets losing it. I doubt it. He does seem to have forgotten everything else.
As I touch this ring, I think about how it came to be on my finger. How we decided to unite our love in holy matrimony…
With luck, Anakin and I had survived our ordeal on Geonosis. I somehow think that our proclamations of love made us stronger and gave us a stronger will to live. After we had been in the arena some time, jedi came to rescue us. There was a battle between the jedi and droids, and then when all seemed lost, clone troopers came to the rescue. Another battle was held between the droid army and the clone army, and Ani and Obi-Wan tried to take on the traitor, Dooku, alone. He had escaped, and luckily Ani and Obi-Wan had survived the fight, though Anakin had lost his right hand.
A medical ship arrived after they made a call to the nearest one floating around. It picked Ani, Obi-Wan, and I (I didn't want to be separated from him.) up and he was set in a chamber. Obi-Wan and I waited outside for what seemed like hours as the droid examined the wound and fitted him with a mechano-hand.
Finally, the medical droid left the room and we were allowed in. Speechless, Obi-Wan and I walked it. I will never forget what we saw. Ani was lying on a bed, monitors beeping beside him with their screens filled with endless amounts of data, and his arm. It was normal human flesh from the shoulder, but then it was hooked up to many wires and metal supports. It had a skeletal look about it.
Anakin turned his head and looked at it. "Forgive me master, it was my lack of skills that made this thing become attached to me."
"No, Anakin." He shook his head. "Many other jedi have lost limbs in battles. It is nothing to be ashamed of."
He nodded and looked back at his limb in disgust. He clenched the metal fingers into a fist. "I should have killed Dooku."
Obi-Wan looked slightly alarmed. "We cannot worry about that now, Anakin. We have more important things on our hands. Like this upcoming war. Speaking of which, I must have a word with the jedi council…"
He left. Anakin and I exchanged glances, and I shut the door and locked it, just in case. I then sat by his bed. He spoke, "Padmé, why couldn't I kill Dooku? Was it because I wasn't good enou—"
I shook my head, cutting him off. "He was a coward, Ani. He ran away rather than fight."
He raised his mechanical hand. "After he did this to me."
I took the mechano-hand. "Ani, you are a strong jedi. The strongest I have ever met. Someday, you will find him, and you can face him and bring him to justice."
He looked at his new hand. "It's ugly. I hate it." He said.
"No," I said. "If its part of you, then I don't mind it a bit." Our hands came together, and we sat silent for a time.
"Padmé," Anakin said. "Did…did you mean what you said."
I was confused. "When?"
His sapphire eyes looked at me in wonder. "When you told me that you…loved me."
I nodded. "Yes, Ani. I meant it. I meant every word. I tried not to…but…I couldn't help it."
"Me too." He said gravely. "When you told me that it would destroy us, I tried my hardest to push my feelings for you aside, but I couldn't. Whenever I was around you, my heart would lift. Whenever I was around you, my mind was never my own."
I nodded, smiling slightly. "What are we going to do?" I asked.
He didn't answer my question. "Padmé, there is going to be a war starting. I am a jedi. I will have to fight. I…I will be gone for long periods of time. And…there is a possibility that I may not come back at all."
I gasped. "Ani! Don't say that."
"But I must." He retorted. "I must show you the reality of our situation."
"But…" I felt a tear in my eye. "Ani! You…you're going to leave me behind while you fight? I can't bear to be separated from you for a day! How am I going to survive this?"
He took both of my hands in his. I felt my heart race like the first time we kissed. His eyes sparkled as he said, "Marry me, Padmé."
I gasped. For a second, I couldn't speak. "A-Ani…?" I murmured.
He began explaining himself. "Padmé, we will be separated, but I want you to wait for me. Please. Not as Padmé Amidala, the senator. But…Padmé Skywalker, the wife. Force, Padmé, I love you so much! And those secret meetings which I know we shall have…I want to spend us to spend them as husband and wife…not as Senator Amidala and Jedi Skywalker."
I still stared at him in shock, trying to make up my mind as I weighed the consequences. It would be more risky than what I had thought of…was I willing to do it? Was Ani willing to throw away all jedi rules for me?
Ani sat up from the bed and lowered his voice to a whisper. "If this war goes well, I will quit the jedi order. I will tell them the truth and we can live in Naboo or wherever you want us to, together. Without hindrance of our lives. But rather than marry then, I want us to marry now, to solidify what love we have before its too late."
He stroked my cheek with his flesh arm. I took his hand in mine and looked at him. "Marry me, Padmé." He said, in one final plea.
In an instant, I thought it all over. I knew it would be hard, and this would be the biggest secret I would ever keep. But I succumbed to my feelings. My love for him conquered all my doubts. This thought, this dream of living with him as a wife took hold. In an instant, I made the choice that doomed all people in the galaxy.
I said nothing, but closed my eyes and met his warm lips with mine. And I was the happiest woman ever in that moment. I was no longer Senator Amidala, a woman strong in hiding her emotions. I was Padmé soon-to-be Skywalker, an average woman with unending love for her fiancé.
That was the day I made the choice. The day we begun our long-kept secret. That was the day I—
"Milady!" A guard calls, throwing me out of my thinking. I turn to the door of the chamber. People are outside it trying to get in. Here it comes…the stormtroopers we have been waiting for…
Boom! The door is shot open. Before anyone fires upon us, I blast at the door. The guards around me follow suit. Through all the blasting it is impossible to hear one's thoughts. Stormtroopers fall in the doorway as we fire blindly into the smoke. Occasionally we have to dodge a blast, but it seems stormtroopers are not as skilled as we thought.
I hear a blast and a moan, I turn around, one of my guards has been shot in the knee. The other takes over blasting until we can hear no more troops. I only have a split second to make this decision, and it must be made.
"You take care of him!" I order. "I'll get out of here!"
I don't care if there are stormtroopers looking on, I'll go to the secret hangar and leave before others suffer for my stupidity. I run out the doorway and through the corridors under the palace. I can hear blasts and fighting from above. I hope Bail Organa is all right! He should, considering that he is important on this planet. They would not kill him without a good reason.
As I run, I do not see where I am going. I hardly look ahead of me. I am staring behind me, looking for followers, when I bump into something. I have a horrible feeling of what it might be, and I look up, confirming my terrifying feeling.
It is Darth Vader.
Author's Note: EVIL CLIFFY! Oh well, I wrote the propose scene, didn't I?
