Disclaimer: The following characters are property of George Lucas. I just named Bail's wife because the poor woman didn't have one.
A/N: Set three years after Revenge of the Sith.
Beautiful…but Sad
She came at night, as she always did, a slight weight on the side of the bed where the little girl slept. Long brown hair, once braided, now lay in kinked strands across the pillow. The woman brushed one of the hairs off the girl's forehead and smiled.
Brown eyes flew open, and a mouth that wanted to scream curled quickly into a smile. The little girl sat up, rubbing those brown eyes with tiny hands, then brought her knees to her chest and waited.
The woman's face, which shone blue despite the cloudy night, was sad. Her lips tried to smile, but nothing could counter the sorrow in her own brown eyes. The little girl noticed this and reached out to gently pat the woman's arm.
"What's wrong, Padme?" the little girl whispered, so as not to wake R2 or C-3PO as they recharged in the next room.
"I'm leaving, Leia," the former queen, senator and Jedi's wife said. "I've done all I can do here; I have to move on."
Leia tilted her head to the side, considering. She was only three year's old, but she understood the significance of the blue-woman's words. There would be no more late night chats about her father, or the droids, or the political life this woman had known. Mostly, they had just talked of flowers and cats and butterflies. Leia could remember Padme singing to her as an infant, soft words of a happy time.
But, thought she knew the truth, Leia could not call this woman "Mother." She knew of the connection, but Madrigal Organa, queen of Alderaan…she was Leia's mother. This woman, Padme…she was something else. Padme didn't seen to mind, though, that Leia always called her by her first name. It sometimes made her smile.
A little tear slipped down Leia's cheek. "I will miss you, Padme. I am sorry you have to go."
"So am I, little one, so am I."
The blue glow around Padme grew brighter, too bright, and Leia had to close her eyes. When she opened them again, the woman who had given birth to her was gone. Three-year-old eyes overflowed with tears, but no sound escaped her lips. She would be strong, as Padme had always asked her to be.