A/N: Sorry I abandoned this story for so long. I just haven't had any good ideas. But now I do!
Disclaimer: Lucas owns it. I just write about it.
A year later, and still they all treated me like a doll. I was so thoroughly sick of it, but still I could not protest overtly. They had Luke and Leia, you see.
This is why you do not fall in love. You do not have children. You do not make friends. You force yourself away from your family. Other people are the greatest weapons of war. Love is the single most destructive tool in the hands of an enemy.
But what is life worth without it?
My life is worth nothing anyway. I am past caring about it. It is only Luke and Leia, and yes, I admit it, Anakin, that keep me from jumping out the nearest window on any given day.
He is still there. He must be. Were he not, were all traces of him gone entirely, I would know. I would.
I woke up to find him pacing by the window.
"What is it?" I asked, almost automatically. He tilts his head to look at me.
"I've laid out your clothes," he said, not answering me, "We've been invited to dine with the Emperor this morning."
What a way to start the day.
None of them know what I am doing, secretly. Everyone is under suspicion- except for me. I was, of course, in the beginning, but thirteen years as a politician have made me a consummate actress. I can be broken, reluctant, accepting, obedient without flinching, except inwardly. I can act the part of myself, although I am not entirely she any longer. More importantly, I can act the part of myself in various situations. For example: I can act the part of myself, trapped here, as I am, trapped into submission by my children. I can act the part of myself trapped into submission, not secretly helping the Rebellion.
Because who would ever expect it of the pretty little Padmé doll?
Anakin should.
Palpatine should.
They underestimate me, and it will be their downfall. They underestimate us all, and overestimate themselves: their power, their support.
They don't realize how much their government by terror is detested.
Now that I look back on it, however, it has been coming to this for a long time, pieces slipping slowly, separately, into place.
The Naboo War.
The Separatists- all of it orchestrated, of course, by Palpatine.
The Separatist threat gave us a government by terror of terror. And from there, it is a small matter indeed to eliminate the "of terror"- but doesn't it amount to the same thing?
I did my duty. I slipped into my clothes, woke the babies and fed them, told Anakin I was going to send a letter to my mother (which I was, it wasn't a lie, it just wasn't all I was going to send) and left his quarters. Down to the main room, put my mother's letter in the box, walk down the hall, find the right place, slip the disc into an obscured niche in the wall.
The Emperor doesn't dream that any of his soldiers dare question him. They're all clones, of course, and he makes the mistake of thinking that this means that not one of them has the capacity to overcome his training, his very personality. But 'accidents' happen, if you will, accidents of the mind, aberrations in the thinking.
I don't know which clone trooper it is. But it gives me a great deal of hope, something that I have been sorely lacking.