Soft footsteps broke Luke's restless sleep. He recognized them instantly. Leia had woken up, her breath fast and shallow, choked as if she'd been crying.

"Luke?" She asked, "I know you're awake."

"I am," he answered, and pulled aside the duvet so she could crawl into the too-big hotel bed with him.

They laid close, but not touching; Leia hated being crowded, and she had the coldest feet and hands. Her long, long hair was tied up in a sleep scarf, the braid making her head seem much larger than it actually was.

"Did you dream?" He broke the silence. Leia sharply inhaled and pulled her hands closer to her chest. The bed moved with her shuffling.

"I never remember the details," she murmured. "Just the feelings. And the possibility. I hate it. I wish I could make it stop."

Luke wondered what that was like, because he remembered his dreams so vividly. Sometimes his subconscious felt more powerful than his waking mind. It could be useful, like when he stole the speeders and boats and went joyriding; his hands moving faster than his thought. And sometimes it was a burden, like now.

"You probably could stop them," Luke mused. "Or at least control them to some degree."

She turned around to face him. Her breath was minty with the restful sleep tea Mother had given them both. It hadn't been very effective.

"Do you really think so? Was it something the Jedi taught you?"

Luke frowned. He knew once he was a Jedi youngling. He had one clear memory of that time, the memory of meditating, the utter quiet of the Temple creche as tens of younglings drew mental shields together for the first time. Luke had never felt so perfectly alone. He'd started to cry, and couldn't be soothed by anyone in the creche, not until someone who he thought was Obi-Wan came. He remembered a Force presence like a breath of fresh air.

"Luke? Was it something the Jedi taught you?"

He blinked, and shrugged. "I guess. I can do a lot of things I don't remember learning that the Jedi taught me."

He just preferred not to. It was nice to hear the sounds and have the dreams and really feel the Force. Especially when he was with Leia.

"So can you show me?" She sounded earnest, desperate, and not afraid. "How to stop the dreams, that is."

If he showed Leia how to make shields, would she feel as alone as the memory of the creche? Mostly he recalled reciting the Code and meditating a lot; quiet contemplation of the Force, learning mantra after mantra. Rushes of half remembered words as they learned to become brother and sister in service to the Force, mother and father to all and unifier beyond the flesh.

The Force was far away and utterly alien to his senses.

He much preferred having a real sister. What the Force showed him through her, he understood.

"It's not easy," Luke whispered, reluctant to deny his twin anything. "And it's really boring."

"Shut up and show me," she laughed. "I'm not afraid of a little hard work."

"Don't say I didn't warn you," Luke grabbed her hands. "It's called shielding, and you can only do it when you get really good at meditating."

"Oh, this'll be easy then. I already have to meditate a ton with Mama," confident as always, Leia closed her eyes. Luke watched her, eyes unseeing in the dark. Unlike the temple, even the thickest walls couldn't silence the roar of Coruscant.

"Well?" She prompted. "What next?"

"You have to meditate on the Force," Luke clarified. "You have to exclude everything but the Force, then close that and feel only yourself. What ties you to the mortal plane? What tethers cloud your connections? These tethers must be let go, and only then will you hear clearly, and control when and where you listen."

Leia's breathing slowed, and Luke let his eyes slip shut as he focused on the sound. The central mantra he'd spent so long not thinking up sprung up effortlessly in his head.

There is no emotion, there is peace.

Fuzzy, like looking at water damaged flimsiplast, he could remember fear. They...the Jedi had been afraid, and angry.

There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.

Sadness and terror warred in them, but when Luke was four, he hadn't had a word for the painful hooks of emotion tugging him every which way. There'd only been peace, except in those early years there never was, and none of the crechelings knew how to express their distress, only told it didn't exist but to be given up to the Force.

There is no passion, there is serenity.

He'd only found serenity when he found Leia. He didn't remember meeting her, didn't remember the circus of leaving the Temple to move to Alderaan, didn't remember his room in one of the boarding houses of the palace. Didn't remember, but he remembered Leia's kindness, her warm determination that washed away all the torment of true loneliness. She'd found him, and from that moment he had direction in the darkness; he knew he loved her.

There is no chaos, there is harmony.

An uneasy balance was struck with Organas. Leia wanted Luke as her friend, and Padme came and became Mother and Luke realized he could be more than an ex-communicated crecheling or an unhomed foundling, he could be a son and brother.

There is no death, there is the Force.

When Luke looked at himself, he stood alone in a mirrored river that reflected the galaxy. Eddies like black holes trapped him, and the water weighed him down and buoyed him up. He was completely enveloped; every droplet a bond.

The Force yawned above him, infinite, immeasurable. He could not see the end nor the start.

He could disappear, if he wanted to. Pull himself out of the water, away from the entanglement of life and petty distraction, conflict beyond and within his control. There was peace to be found there.

He ducked down, as casual as soaking his head in the bath, and found there was peace in the mire too.

When he opened his eyes, for the first time in five years, he was shielding. Leia cried out.

"Luke?" She threw her hand out and gripped his pajamas. "Where'd you go?"

"I'm still here," he reassured. "But that's how you stop the dreams."

"I can't feel you," her grip tightened. "Why can't I feel you?"

Luke sighed. "I don't know how to reach out from behind shields. I only know how to make them."

"Well, stop it." She sniffed haughtily.

"Not so easy, is it?" He poked her in the rib, which he knew she hated and was rewarded with a squealing squirm.

"No," she agreed. "What did you meditate on? I meditated on the runes..."

"What did you see?"

"Why do you think I saw anything?"

Leia was force-sensitive, at least according to Anakin. Luke was inclined to believe him.

When Luke dreamed of him, the sky and sea burned. It was overwhelming, all-encompassing, and loud. It felt as if the Force far above his head suddenly solidified and dipped into his atmosphere, like a star destroyer landing on a tiny moon and burning up its surface.

Words were never clear, nor thoughts or sensations, and when Luke woke up, all he had were imprints of raw feeling. Much like what Leia described.

"Just a feeling," Luke said, grateful that at least his shields were hiding his guilt.

"I saw six, nine, and four. Not very good odds. Evil, unity, and death. And I saw the past. Padme, when she was queen, and people in cages...I don't know. None of it makes sense to me."

"That you saw that much means you're good at meditating."

"But I didn't make a shield."

"Sorry, nope. But from there it's just practice!"

Leia groaned and didn't move. Luke hesitated, and then offered to meditate with her. He wasn't Master Kenobi and couldn't reach out and guide her the way he had Luke on so many occasions. But he could be there, so that when Leia stood bereft of all her armor before the Force, at least she wouldn't stand alone.


When Padme was younger and hopeful, she had drafted a legislature document, complete with demands and declarations, and had a majority of the Senate sign it— two thousand delegates, and many from major systems of the Core and Inner Rim, not just Mid-Rim reformists like Padme. It had been a labor of love, a project she had poured her heart and soul into since the Galactic Republic first failed her people when she was a fourteen-year-old Queen.

For fourteen years she had carefully written that document. When the Queen appointed her Senator, her Senate mentor foisted her off on his aid, Mon Mothma. Eventually the two young women became good friends, and Padme had shared her draft after a night spent downing two bottles of champagne.

Mon had read every word, and then promptly took her to Cantham House. The goal? Impress Bail Organa, who had the money, connections, and influence to refine her pipe dream philosophy into a document— a bill to replace the charter of the Ruusan Republic, with decentralized sector governments and militia to enforce laws to best serve each region's diverse needs, and a central decision-making body that would guide each of those regional governments. Every public position would be directly elected; no longer would Senators be appointed from the patrician upper crust. Penalties for lawbreaking would be reformatory, not punitive, and capital punishment, abolished. Courts would rule in favor of welfare for the vulnerable.

A true democracy; a civilized society. Civilized societies had equity for the weak. Barbarian societies discarded them.

Anakin had read the near-finished bill first in those early years of the war. They disagreed frequently on politics, but more often than not, he would look at her, his pale eyes filled with wonder when she verbally dismantled his somewhat hegemonic philosophy. The night he finished the last page, and praised it, that was the first moment she knew it was ready to be proposed as a bill. Every word of its dry, dense legalese, every article and sub-article and provision.

He had called her perfect, the perfect, kind creature found rarely in space, more often in fantasy— his angel.

And when she'd failed to end the war after she'd spent so long chastising the Senate and Palpatine for not doing so— when she allowed herself to be convinced to exchange prisoners of war and negotiate with traitors and terrorists— she realized she'd almost begun to believe him, because she wasn't perfect, she was selfish. She needed more eyes than her own and the one who loved her most on the reform document that would save democracy.

She trusted the delegates at Cantham House to push the document through the Senate, because Padme simply didn't have the leverage. Her spending, military, and social reforms were often brushed off as the dreams of an out-of-touch idealist. Her calls for ceasefire were drowned out by fear mongering.

This is a galaxy where only the strong survive, my dear, you know that. Didn't you used to work for Planetary Relocation and Reformation? You know not every sentient is built to thrive, never mind succeed. Some life forms are simply born for subjugation, Palpatine had wheedled at her. I understand your concern.

Bail Organa had become a close friend, and a savior of sorts. Much better established, he pulled her out from under the shadow of the Chancellor and into the network of moderates and reformists that sought to end the war and reform the Republic. Bail's group was much less paternalistic, and Padme didn't have to hold her tongue. Being among the youngest members, she often went on missions into warzones and unstable regions to negotiate, doing the work that Jedi had once done. The work the Senate should have always done. More often than not, Bail became the face of the Delegation in the Senate while Padme practiced diplomacy in the field.

When she went through with her pregnancy, when she pressured Anakin to turn himself in, when she pursued custody of her children— selfish, selfish, selfish. On particularly dark nights, when everything hurt, when breathing itself became difficult, when Luke and Leia threw tantrums, when Sola was overbearing, when Breha was hostile, she wondered if it was her punishment. Did she deserve this because she didn't do enough? Did she deserve this for meddling in the fate of pathetic creatures doomed to die?

It was her fault Palpatine even came to power. It was her fault Anakin met the Jedi. Maybe she shouldn't have survived. Maybe she should have died as divine payment for all the evil she had brought onto the galaxy. Everything she touched was tainted.

Some days, she felt particularly bitter. Everything she had ever worked for worked against her now. Democracy ruled in the welfare of the children, just as she wanted. And though she was their mother, she couldn't offer her own children the things a Queen could. Children were entitled to two parents, and she was alone.

On those days, she had to remind herself to be grateful that the darkest days of the galaxy were past, and a large part of the new democracy's efficacy were because of the policies of her party. The war was over, the former CIS sectors had accepted her constitution. Reparations were made. It was the golden age of the galaxy.

So why did she hate her life so much? She should have been happy to see Leia swathed in fine silks, chieftess of every political coterie she associated with, charming and sharp. She should have been pleased Luke excelled at his private boarding schools. She should have been happy they were thriving without her.

She hated herself the most, that she couldn't buy the illusion. She couldn't be happy her stolen children lived picture perfect lives on the surface and suffered beneath the mask. Leia yielded her existence to the yoke of duty, alone, disallowed the company of her brother— Padme saw herself, alone, a child queen. Luke a child of disfavor, constantly under criticism and rejection simultaneously.

Children shouldn't suffer in a civilized society.

That was why she couldn't forgive Anakin. His rapid decline was unexpected, and every crime against her she'd already forgotten, but seeing her children grow without her, like twisted vines struggling to surpass barbed wire, that cut her to the core. She knew it was his fault.

Those dark thoughts dominated her the morning of the supervised visit as Sabe went over Anakin's case with her.

She and Sabe sat at a little caf shop down the way from the diner where the children had their supervised visit. Padme hadn't gone in. She didn't think she would be able to stop herself from spitting at Obi-Wan if she saw his traitorous face.

"This is all fucked, Padme," Sabe— Padme had grown up calling her the handmaiden alias, and never broke the habit. They were second cousins, as most of the Naboo bourgeoisie were, except Padme had a whirlwind three-year fling with a Jedi and squandered her modest inheritance and assets suing the government she created and moving to Alderaan and Sabe had married up and was well on her way to becoming a Royal Judge. If Padme wasn't so happy for her she'd have spontaneously combusted from envy.

"Yes, I know," Padme pinched the bridge of her nose. "I didn't know they were holding him extrajudicially. I thought he was out on parole; the person who sponsored him was very reliable."

When Ahsoka had written to her to let her know she'd sponsored Anakin when his parole was granted, Padme was relieved. Ahsoka worked paramilitary gigs now, so Padme was certain her skills were still sharp and she'd be safe. Anakin still had much tenderness for his former padawan. Ahsoka had based her firm out of Coruscant with satellite offices on Chandrila, Axxila, and Shili. Padme had thought Anakin was living in some halfway house on Coruscant.

"I don't think you understand exactly how fucked we are," Sabe sighed, "if he brings this to court, he'll have a chance to vacate the sentence. He held his parole, the Jedi didn't. If he wanted to, he could even seek reparations. I don't know that he'd get them— the smear campaign after the Clone Wars was effective— but…"

"Anakin doesn't care about the credits," a migraine pounded behind her eyes. "And I promise you, the average Core layperson still gets stars in their eyes when they hear about the Hero with No Fear."

The holocall had been bad enough. She didn't know how she could face him. He'd looked eerily the same; skin paler, hair so dark it was nearly brown, pale gray circles beneath paler eyes, but hardly wasted away. They'd let him wear his prosthetic, without the glove in his cell, the spindly fingers bare. She didn't know if she could stand to be near to him, feel the weight of his gaze, the knowing in his eyes, the subtle twists in his bland expressions. The smell of him, the strength of his grip when he held her hand and corralled her body into his own. The blood on his knuckles when he got jealous and hostile and mean.

He was exactly the same, as strong and tall as he'd ever been, and she'd withered. The worst was knowing he'd done this to her, and it would be easier than ever to do it again.

"He should, because the intergalactic family court will care," Sabe said, "No longer a felon, with enough credits in his pockets, and no real domestic violence charges laid against him, all he'd have to do is prove paternity and he'd be more than an eligible candidate. Is your marriage certificate even legitimate?"

"A religious ceremony," Padme sighed, "not legally binding so we have no shared assets, but legitimate in the Old Charter of the Galactic Republic. And I never divorced him"

The dour look from her cousin was enough to bring a flush to her cheeks. Religious weddings were legitimate on Naboo, but everyone knew only crazy people and the mentally incompetent got those. Padme would die before admitting that she was the one who proposed they get married, especially now that she was a cripple.

Slaves didn't have wives. Anakin hated keeping them secret not because he cared about lying to the jedi, but because it made him feel like he was still a slave. Still less than the woman he declared to be better than human, an angel.

"At least they can't contest paternity. Imagine the field day the reporters would have if the children were illegitimate on top of all this mess," Sabe shuffled the thick binder she had compiled from the other legal counselors at her firm. Padme had been a dedicated client of their firm for six years, but this was the first time Minure Saba herself had taken the case.

"It helped when I was trying to appeal for visitation since the Jedi wouldn't unseal Leia's adoption records," Padme sighed. "I couldn't see Leia otherwise, since apparently I was the one who signed a no-contact sealed adoption. I sued for visitation with Leia on Anakin's behalf as his wife and sole beneficiary. That's when the case got moved to interplanetary family resettlement court, and they moved Luke to the Organas. Luke was easier to get, since he was given up to the Jedi and they have provisions for familial and cultural connection. That's why they sent him the pictures."

"This is a mess, Padme," Sabe sighed, "I don't know how you managed to make this many waves on not one, not two, but three family courts—"

"When half the judges are against you and the other half are Jedi you tell me how you'd fare," she laughed, dry and bitter. "I had no choice but to escalate, and I did the best I could."

"Mhm," Sabe nodded, "And what did you think this little scheme would get you?"

"What scheme?"

"Don't think I don't recognize an Amidala plot when I see one. The Organas love that little girl. You think they'll be scared off by one baby-faced Jedi?"

"That's not why—Luke deserved to know his father! You didn't see how they treated him…"

"Like a Prince?"

"Like a handmaiden—well, manservant, I suppose. Leia was the princess of Alderaan, and Luke was just a ward of the state to them. And Breha, she would play them off against one another. They sent Luke away every chance they could get. Leia was the favorite, and she knew it. They're such good children though, I don't even think they took it to heart, but they are like Anakin. They know things, and Luke...I think it was getting to him. And if I didn't do something, Leia would definitely be affected. I don't care if they supposedly love Leia. You don't love one child more than the other. You don't treat one child like a princess and the other like a slave. They shouldn't have either of my children because they can't love them the same."

"Padme…"

"I thought knowing their history would help…knowing they were wanted, knowing they had a mother and father. Anakin had been writing to me, and I never replied, but he seemed different. Better." The words poured out of her, too fast to control, a harsh whisper. "Did you know, I heard that Breha was looking to adopt another girl? She smiled at me and said she thought Leia deserved a sister to love, as if she didn't send away her twin brother to my house or boarding school every chance she got. As if she hadn't instructed my daughter that the princess was only the daughter of the queen. That she had a duty to Alderaan. I won't see her ruined by duty— otherwise, what's the point? What was the point of the war, of the Reformation, of playing nice? Leia doesn't deserve what we do to our Queens on Naboo. I didn't deserve that."

The silence was a weighted thing between the two of them, and Padme wiped delicately at the corner of her eyes. Tears had welled up, but she refused to look disheveled in front of her children, Obi-Wan, and Anakin. They needed her to be strong.

"You really, really thought the visitation would help them? Even knowing what Anakin's done?" Sabe sounded disbelieving, and sad, and Padme looked incredulously at her cousin.

"They deserve to know their history, and where they come from, even if that history isn't all sunshine and rainbows. They deserved the truth, and the choice," Padme sighed. "Another Amidala plot indeed. Rife with idealism and foolish hope. Things have changed. They were hesitant at first, but I thought that it was important that they at least try. I thought not knowing was worse. I thought Breha was alienating Leia. Anakin never makes a good first impression."

Selfish, her conscience spat at her, you thought if you pushed it, eventually she would see…

Sabe smiled. "Padme, I cannot believe you sometimes. I thought this was a threat. You know, you were deemed unfit, but if Anakin vacates this sentence he can sue for full custody. I thought you were insane, willing to rehome the children with an abuser, so you don't have to see someone else have them."

"They're not possessions," Padme whispered, "How was I to know the Jedi were illegally imprisoning Anakin? I thought he was on parole, living in Coruscant the entire time. A convict is as unfit as a cripple, but if we could show we were unified, co-parenting, and I could make a little more if a judge gave me alimony..." She sipped her tea forlornly, glaring at the pale liquid as if all the answers in the galaxy could be found in it. "But honestly, I can't stand to see them with the Organas. Not after what Bail did to me."

"It's not about what's been done to you," Sabe sighed. "It's about what's best for the children. Don't forget that."

The silence fell on the two of them, heavy. They didn't usually talk about that time. When push came to shove, and Padme found herself disabled and alone parsecs away from anyone that could help her, no one had been on her side. Even now, as they sat and drank together as cousins and not lawyer and client, Sabe was working on Padme's credits. Loyalty was nothing between friends, and there were no friends to be had in the galaxy anyway.

"You might still lose them," Sabe whispered. "If he gets off these charges. He'll be an innocent sentient in the eyes of the law, and able-bodied. An illustrious military career. There are plenty of governors that'll hire an ex-convict for paramilitary work. I promise none of them have forgotten he used to turn the tide of battle single-handedly. When I met with him...Padme, he's not well, but we've both seen him play to the crowds. If he walks free and takes your children, you might never see Luke and Leia again anyway."

"He wouldn't," Padme said certainly, and at Sabe's frankly disbelieving expression, she huffed. "I know him—"

"It's been ten years," Sabe cut her off. 'Have you not changed in all this time?"

"Of course I have," Padme replied.

"And so has he," Sabe said, "and prison rarely changes a man for the better."


She heard the commotion before she caught sight of them. The children came out of the diner in a storm, both of them crying. Obi-Wan and the social worker followed behind, the former stoic and the latter flushed. When Padme tried to reach out, Leia turned away and huffed angrily. Luke concerned himself with his sister, ignoring her. They were both obviously hurt, and when Padme stood to try to comfort them, Luke lashed out in a way he never had before.

He shoved Padme, with his hands or with the Force she couldn't tell, and she flew into the sharp edge of the table, toppling it entirely, and collapsed hard on the cold tiles. She couldn't hold back the yell of pain as her back collided with the table, right over one of her surgery scars. Her legs were numb and aching. For ten years constant unending pain was an unwanted companion, but her hip jolted sharply, and she landed hard on her right wrist; the left side of her body was slower to respond and slammed ungracefully on the floor. Her head narrowly missed cracking on the side of the overturned, heavy synthstone table, and her chair shuddered as it was shoved back an inch. Her walking stick clattered loudly on the ground from where it had been resting beside her.

The reaction was instant. Leia and Sabe yelped in surprise, and even Luke seemed too stunned to speak. Padme was breathless with pain as she scrambled to get her feet under her. Obi-Wan had pulled Luke back with a sharp admonition, and offered a hand, but Padme ignored him. She only had eyes for her children.

"I'm fine, I'm fine, no need to worry," her voice came out like a whisper, and it was as if the years of rehab, the years of speech therapy vanished in an instant in her startlement. Sabe wordlessly provided the aid Padme denied from Obi-Wan, and even then, Padme tried not to be resentful. She hated when people forced their help on her unasked for. It made her feel more incapable than her injuries ever had.

"I'm…I'm sorry!" Luke cried out, "I didn't mean to! I don't even know…"

"Luke, it's fine," Padme winced at how short her tone was, and deliberately gentled her voice, "I'm okay, and you didn't mean to. Why don't you help me into my chair?" Her wrist throbbed, and she was grateful that she'd had the foresight to bring her hoverchair. Luke and Leia were grateful for the distraction and scrambled to do it, though Padme could have done it herself. She didn't think she'd have the energy to deal with any of this otherwise; it was hard enough not to let on to how much pain she was in. She became more certain it was a Force-shove, if only for the power of it.

"You must learn to control your feelings, young one," Obi-Wan murmured once Padme was settled, Luke wringing his hands nervously. "You know better."

"Thank you, Master Jedi," Padme snapped, "But it was an accident. He's fine."

"It's not though!" Luke shouted, "I'll be just like him!"

"You'll never be like him," Leia stole the words from Padme's mouth and held her twin's hand tightly. "You care."

"Your sister is right," Padme mustered up a smile, "and even if you were like him, that's not a bad thing. But you're your own person, and as long as you're sorry and apologize, it's okay."

"I am sorry, I really am!" he didn't seem to be able to calm down, voice thin. His breath started coming faster and faster, and he hid his face in his hands. Padme forgot her pain— it was as if the sharp sensation was far away, happening to someone else. She had never been more grateful for her chair, that she was able to hover forward and gather up her son and daughter into her arms, and that there was space enough for them both, even though she felt so small.

"Luke, it was an accident. I'm not even hurt, see? It doesn't hurt. What's wrong? What happened?"

But Luke just shook his head. His gasping, dry sobs hurt more than any tears could have, and in this past year there'd been so many of them. Not for the first time, Padme regretted. Anxiety welled up, and it took all of her queenly composure to remain serene as her children fell apart.

Fucking Anakin, she thought desperately, what did you do?


It was hours before Padme felt comfortable to even think about going to her own visitation. Sabe had gone ahead to discuss Anakin's criminal case alone while she wrangled the children back up to the hotel. When Padme called her, Sabe had answered right away, and told her not to worry; she would handle the meeting. Padme was thankful; she didn't have the emotional bandwidth to face him.

Luke didn't cry, but he refused to talk to her or Leia, and locked himself into the hotel bathroom the minute they went upstairs. R2D2 whirred around in circles, and eventually Luke opened the door to let the droid in, but Padme hadn't seen him since. She figured it wouldn't hurt to let him cool down.

Meanwhile, she attended to her daughter.

Leia had flopped on the floor and started picking at the pins in her hair; an anxious habit Padme had noticed.

"I hate this," Leia whispered when Padme let down her hair and started brushing it. "It's all my fault."

"No, Leia," Padme sighed, "it's not your fault. It's mine. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Please forgive your foolish mother."

Leia had turned her large, dark eyes up. "It's so stupid. I don't know why he's all upset now when I told him this would turn out this way."

"'I told you so' is not a very gracious response for a young princess," Padme said, "but I do understand. But Leia, sometimes…hope fools us."

"It's the worst," Leia hugged her knees to chest, "Luke always talked about him like he was some hero! And he wasn't. He's a war criminal. He hurt you. He hurt everyone who loved him, and he doesn't deserve you, or Luke, or anyone! He should just go die alone. He ruined my life."

I ruined your life, Padme thought. As if sensing her guilt, Leia turned her head and met Padme's eyes, discerning.

"I was so happy. And then I was even happier when I got Luke and you. You didn't make me wear stupid heavy dresses or annoying hair styles. I don't have to act like a princess with you. And Luke is wonderful. He's my friend. I had Mama and Dad and the aunties and you and Luke. It was nice. It was perfect."

"We can't control change," was the only platitude Padme could offer her, because more than anything she wished she could turn back time and do something different, anything different. "Sometimes things change for the better, sometimes for the worse."

"You don't get it," Leia whined, "It's not about that. Luke talked about him like he was a hero. And when we go visit, he's enthralled, hung on that awful man's every word!"

Padme huffed and smiled when Leia glared at her. "Dear one, he was a hero. For a long time, he was."

"Heroes don't hurt people, and he hurt you. He hurt you so bad you couldn't keep us. That's not a hero, that's a monster; only monsters would hurt someone they say they love."

"You're right, we don't hurt people we love. I can't speak for what Anakin did. I won't excuse it either; it was wrong. I never expected it…I never understood."

Did she really? She remembered that black night on Tatooine, his handsome features had looked like the twisted visage of a nightmarish mutant. As he raggedly confessed to his atrocity, Padme had been terrified.

He'll kill me, she thought, for the first time. He'll kill me if I don't stop him.

The only way to stop him was to be on his side, and the blood of innocents was washed under the sand, another secret that set them against the world.

It was insane.

"Leia," she pulled her daughter up to her feet. Her hair had grown so long, in the tradition of the Alderaani. It was near her knees. In her sleep gown she was all elbows and knees, and tiny. "I can never apologize enough. You will never have to come back here if you don't want to. That feeling?" She touched her daughter's chest. Her heartbeat fluttered, quick but steady beneath cold fingertips. "Always trust that feeling."

"I'm not like Luke—" Leia immediately began to protest, but Padme turned her shoulders to keep eye contact.

"This has nothing to do with the Force," she said once Leia stopped fidgeting. "This is about your intuition. Your heart is good. You know the difference between right and wrong. Promise me that you'll always trust yourself and your feelings first. I am heartbroken, Leia, that you didn't trust me to tell me when you overheard Aunt Sola. But I also know that perhaps I was not worthy of that trust."

Her daughter's silence ground whatever shards of her heart remained in her chest to dust.

"So, promise me that you'll trust your heart. Follow it. Follow what you know is right, and help your brother do the same. He's like me. We're not a wise breed when it comes to our hearts."

Like a khyber crystal, Anakin had once said, a conduit for endless love, reflective and burning, but easily shattered and irreparable.

But Force, that damned man had been relentlessly poetic when the mood took him. She hated that she still loved him. She despised the energy it took to hate him.

Not for the first time, Padme yearned for the sweet void of apathy. The galactic masses so easily existed in that state, uncaring of the suffering of others.

"Your not stupid," Leia pressed a soft kiss to Padme's cheek. "Luke is a nerfherder."

"Be nice," Padme laughed. She had so much attitude!

The silence settled like a blanket over them; warm and companionable. The sky darkened over, though the city lights kept the hotel room bright enough to see through.

"Go get your brother, and I'll order dinner," she said, "I have to make a few calls anyway."

She had planned to surprise Anakin with a visit after the children's visitation to try to find out his motivations, but that ship had sailed. Perhaps she'd contact the Temple to arrange another holo-call, and call Sabe to see what she said. And she had to call the Children's Services, to discontinue the visits, and the list went on and on…

"MOTHER!" Leia's shrill scream had her turning her hoverchair so quickly she nearly made herself dizzy in her haste to get to the bathroom.

"Leia— what?" The bathroom was a mess. The dressing room was empty, dresser doors and drawers flung open, the sonic shower curtains thrown aside, and the bath drained. Leia ran in from the twins' hotel room.

"I can't find Luke!" she sniffled; eyes wild like a hunted animal. "He's gone!"


"I should have known," Anakin paced like a restless animal in its cage, back and forth, back and forth, relentless and rhythmic. "Whenever a situation is bad, the hypocrisy of the Jedi can always, always somehow make it worse."

His former master stood beyond the bright red shield, his expression placid and unfazed but his eyes tight with anger. "Really, Vader? Is that where you are going to go with this?"

"Where else am I to go?" he snarled. "My children...Padme...did you think I would just forget? That I would just forgive you for everything you've done to me?"

"You did this to yourself when you chose the Sith—"

"This is not about Palpatine," Anakin cut him off, and his voice was so dark that Obi-Wan paused and raised his chin defiantly and held his silence. "Or are all the Jedi's evils forgiven?"

"That's neither here nor there," Kenobi tucked his hands into his robes, and Anakin zeroed in on the slight movement. Their bond was blocked, not severed, a general awareness that the other man lived, and that was all they shared. But Anakin knew Obi-Wan well, and so knew his every tell. He was anxious about something. "The fact of the matter is that your parole is invalid anyway. The crimes you committed were committed under the charter of the old Republic. The sentence handed down cannot come from the new Constitution. And I know you well enough to know your promise means nothing."

"Give me my children and I'll obey my parole. After all, my word is good so long as it benefits me and mine," Anakin's pace did not falter, "Have you forgotten your own lessons in your old age?"

"For the greater good," Obi-Wan was unfazed, and looked steadily into Anakin's eyes, "I taught you to circumvent the system for the good of others, of innocents, not for your own selfish gain. The Republic wasn't perfect, and I knew you understood that."

"They are my children! Who but me in this galaxy stands to defend them? I went to prison to spare them this Core world stigma. They were supposed to be with Padme, with my wife. You lied to me for years, Obi-Wan, and you're still lying."

"Don't lie, you went to prison to save your own skin. If you'd been convicted, I would have done everything in my power to get you executed, new Republic or not. You claim to want to protect them," Obi-Wan's face flushed slowly with anger, "But you've come closer to killing them than anyone else ever has. You are incapable of love; your 'love' is possession, attachment,and you're a danger to everyone you say you love, Anakin Skywalker. I tried my best to teach you, but an unwilling student never learns."

"Am I Anakin, now?" Anakin sneered, "Anakin when you love me, and Vader when you don't. Take your lessons and your lying Jedi love. You tried to kill me, Kenobi. You said you loved me and then tried to kill me. You admit to it even now. You know love as well as I do."

"Well, now I suppose you know how Padme feels," Kenobi smiled, a wretched twist of his bearded lip.

The blow landed like a saber to the heart, and Anakin slammed his palms against the shield with a shout of rage. The pain, the burning of the flesh of his palms, matched the heat burning in his chest. Everything that wasn't bolted down shuddered, twisting like detritus in a hot swirling wind, and anything that was bolted down dented outward, bent and distended by the Force of his towering anger.

He hated that his old master was calm, his cool gray-blue eyes the only window into his feelings. Deep in the belly of Coruscant, it felt as if he and Obi-Wan were the only things alive.

"You can't choose," Anakin pressed his palms harder into the barrier, "You can't choose to forgive one evil and forever condemn another."

"You planned to kill younglings," outwardly, the Jedi master hadn't moved, but Anakin could tell his self-soothing grip on his wrists tightened imperceptibly. "Younglings and elders, who knew you, who trusted you, who needed you! And you marched on the defenseless with an army of traitors."

The memory of death hung between them in the Force; as the only two things alive for miles and miles it bounced between the two, amplified and echoing over and over...Thousands of knights of padawans screaming in terror, then a million voices giving a staticky cry and instantaneously falling silent at once. An almost neutral buzz flatlining instantly.

The Jedi's saving grace.

"I would have spared the crechelings a life as a Sith. I was born to endure this storm. I was a slave to the Jedi, then the Sith, then the State, but the Force has always owned my soul. The Force tormented me endlessly before any pathetic sentient clapped me in dogmatic chains. My orders were to harvest the creche, you know? Kill the padawans and the elders, kill the initiates who surrendered, but take the children and the ones who hated." Anakin smiled cruelly as his old master blanched. "Oh yes, and he told me so many pretty lies. He promised me power to save Padme, my children. Together we would destroy the Jedi and build an empire of justice, and from the ashes of the old order a new one would rise, a new order of Sith Inquisitors who would keep the peace and bring law and order to the galaxy. A peaceful world ruled by wise men where I would be so powerful no one would hurt me or the ones I loved ever again. And then he told me to kill the Separatists as I had killed Dooku—in cold blood."

"Anakin!" Obi-Wan's eyes were wide with shock, as he had been unconscious on the Invisible Hand. Even now, he'd trusted that Anakin had killed him in the heat of battle. What a fool. Anakin had always made the difficult decisions of the two. Good knight, bad knight, and the role of bad knight fell so easily on Anakin's shoulders.

Anakin spoke over him, undaunted, "When I hesitated, he turned his lightening on me. The Chancellor Palpatine, my oldest friend, my wisest mentor, tortured me until I kissed his feet as my master. Then he helped me up, and cupped my face as gently as he ever had, and told me 'How could I hope to save Padme when I was too weak to decisively end the war?' The Dark Side would give me the power, he promised, and to obey his command, to kill on command, was the way of the Dark Side. The Jedi had failed me three times now, and half the council had fallen before a single feeble old man."

"Because you betrayed the Jedi Council!" Obi-Wan's voice was cold. "Do you really expect me to believe you just turned? That you weren't colluding with your true master the entire time? That you didn't plan the downfall of every Jedi you held a petty grievance against? I have always known you had a darkness in you. But you knew right from wrong, and you knew exactly what you were doing."

"You weren't there," Anakin would not argue about the truth of the matter with his old master. Whatever lies Obi-Wan Kenobi and the Jedi Order had deceived themselves with had no bearing on his course of action. "Believe what you will. But the Jedi were fools and weak, and I would rather have killed every single one of you, down to the squalling children and nursing mothers, than let a Jedi contaminate my new order."

It was as cruel as it was untrue, and he'd said it intending only to hurt, so he was pleased when he felt the pain radiate from the man he once loved as a brother. It was sharp, rife with disbelief and stabbed at Anakin's own heart; it was also only true from a certain point of view.

But Anakin Skywalker had sacrificed everything to abandon the Dark Side and spent the next six years in the inviolable grip of the Force that had loved and tormented him in equal measure. Wrath lived within him, and if Obi-Wan wanted to see his monstrous face that too he could give.

When he'd returned to Coruscant from Mustafar, he'd been greeted by an empty CT. His Force signature was dull, utterly without spirit. A breathing, living doll at the mercy of his master, void of free will.

"Lord Vader," the CT had said, "We're under order to execute sixty-six. We've been waiting for your command to march on our target."

A hundred thousand clones lined up in gleaming white plastisteel armor, and Anakin's soul was screaming, the hairs on his arms raised, slowly freezing beneath the malignant press of the Dark Side. The leaders of the Confederacy had begged for their lives. He had cut them down anyway. That hadn't phased him so much. It was that he had never felt pleasure inflicting pain before, not even when he slaughtered the animals that had killed his mother. It was the memory of that feeling that had his stomach churning with disgust. At first, it'd been hard, but then every death that followed felt good, an instant high, until he couldn't stop himself, a slave to his own feelings. There was no control.

And seething with dark purpose, fear, and desperation, Anakin realized he was the same as this empty CT, for he served the same Master now. A dark overseer, the prisoner that whipped his fellows for the first pick of the scraps, the snitch that sold out his brother to the Master.

Palpatine's words, the future he promised him had hung before him on a barbed hook.

To save Padme, he had to destroy the Jedi. The power from killing Palpatine's puppet worms was intense, but short. At that moment, he had gazed into the empty CT, and realized Palpatine would have to be destroyed too. He could not deliver children into the hands of the Sith. He was too weak, too weak to stop Palpatine, too weak to live without his beloved, but this fate, the fate of the Dark Side which the Jedi so abhorred, he would spare them from. He couldn't— wouldn't— save the crechelings, but their sacrifice would deliver unto him the power to shape his destiny, and they would find peace in the Force they so loved, he had rationalized.

There is no death, there is the Force.

Better off they were dead than Sith. And he would kill them with mercy, quickly, and leave no one alive to suffer.

"Look at how the time has twisted you, old man," Anakin sighed, and the anger left him as swiftly as it appeared. The Anakin of ten years ago felt so distant, a remembered stranger. Now, the Force showed him visions of the children he slaughtered, and they all had Luke and Leia's face. "How could you keep them from Padme? She was good."

Never one to be stumped, Obi-Wan always had an answer. "She could hardly take care of herself, Anakin. When she came looking...sending Luke to the Organas was a kindness. If he were a Jedi, he would not have been allowed to know her until he was at least an Initiate; by then I'm certain that he would not have been interested. And I would not deliver a youngling into a life of strife and poverty to be cared for by an invalid."

"Your precious Code meditated all the heart out of you."

"And what could you have done? You were on death row, and you should have stayed there."

Anakin barked out a joyless laugh. "The Jedi are as blind as ever; you don't even see the string of darkness in you you've let fester. You stopped seeking justice a long time ago." Wistfully, he sighed. "I thought the world of you, even as a traitor, and a betrayer, I thought you could do no wrong. The face you showed me was the perfect Jedi. The Force itself turned you against me. You were nothing but its conduit, the hand that smothered the babe."

"This is pointless," Obi-Wan ran his hands over his face and down his beard and sighed. "I don't know why I came down here." His wrists were red from the force he'd gripped them, and his robe was wrinkled. His usually neat beard wasn't combed, though his hair was, and the deep hollows that had formed beneath his eyes during the war were gray with exhaustion. Anakin could see through his facade of composure like transparisteel.

"You know why you have come," Anakin dug his finger into the bleeding blister on his palm, relishing in the pulsating agony of the burn, "You know you're wrong. You've lost your purpose, Jedi. If you fight the will of the Force your every plan is doomed. You couldn't kill me, you couldn't kill Padme, and you can't keep my children from me. I'll have them, and if you stand in my way, I'll destroy you and your Order, and even this little farce of a republic."

"Every time I come here, I cannot help but hope that I will see a glimpse of the Anakin Skywalker I once knew…"

"I've finally become wiser, Kenobi," Anakin looked directly into his old Master's gray eyes, "There is no justice except for that the Force gives. My time here is over. Maybe, if the Force wills it, you'll see me suffer the way you think I deserve."

But the conversation was over. Obi-Wan, spine stiff and mind shielded, turned on his heel and walked away.

"I gave my parole and held it!" Anakin spat at his retreating back, "and you couldn't even keep that promise!"

Then, Obi-Wan's airy presence was gone, above him again, lost in the storm of life.

Anakin Skywalker was alone.


This chapter is fucking huge. I'm sorry. Please let me know if you see any particularly egregious typos; this was written almost entirely on notepad. On the topic of multiple endings, well, I wrote them both entirely, and didn't like either, so combined them both and rewrote Padme (III). :D Now I am satisfied. Idk if you will be.

Conclusion will be up soon ;)

YellowWomanontheBrink

February 3, 2022

10:17PM