Twilight was falling over 500 Republica when Padmé returned home after yet another long day of bureaucracy, and the only thought she had as she walked through her door was: Why do I have to be pregnant now?
Don't get her wrong. She was overjoyed. Every day that passed, every time the Coruscant sun rose and fell in the sky, she was one day closer to meeting her baby for the first time. Her baby, her precious baby, equal parts her and Anakin, a physical human being growing inside her that single-handedly served as the greatest testament of their love they could ever have. A baby that Padmé loved more and more every time she felt a little foot kick her in the diaphragm and knock the wind out of her. So of course she was happy, thrilled, ecstatic. She was.
But did this really have to happen now?
The Republic was in complete disarray. No, that didn't even do it justice. The Republic was failing. Crumbling. And as much as she tried, as much effort as Padmé exerted, it seemed she was completely and entirely powerless to stop it.
Palpatine's power was growing at an exponential rate. Two-thousand senators had signed that petition, two-thousand, and what did they have to show for it?
A list of names that Palpatine had probably already thrown right down the Senate Office Building's garbage chute.
It would have been tough on any normal day, but it was a lot tougher when Padmé had an enormous belly and perpetually swollen ankles. She needed a day off.
And these gowns. Some of the ensembles she wore weighed a solid five kilos themselves. She had used to love all her Senate gowns, with their rich, velvety fabrics and luxurious beading. She'd loved putting on her wigs, each hair carefully woven in place by a variety of well-known designers back home. It had always felt like dress-up, fun and exciting. But now, when she was forced by circumstance to wear these enormous gowns to conceal her very secret pregnancy (which she was very excited about! but also tired of) she was starting to hate going to the Senate for that reason alone.
Why couldn't she just sit at home like any normal mom, pampered by her husband, who would treat her like the goddess he thought she was? Who would rub her aching back, her sore feet, her tense shoulders? Why couldn't she have that husband, right now, when she needed him the most?
And then, deep in her reverie, that husband called her.
Picking up her comm, which was set by him to be only audio, she answered, "Anakin?"
"I'm here."
Padmé gave him a moment to speak more, and frowned. "You know, normally the one who calls is the one who starts the conversation."
She was hoping, foolishly perhaps, that such a light-hearted comment would garner any sort of response. An emotionless chuckle would even be enough for her. Instead she got, "Where are you?"
"I just got home," she said, fingering a tangle out of her hair, pretending she wasn't bothered by the bluntness of his question. "Where are you?"
"Are you all right?" Anakin asked, ignoring her question, and she noticed his voice sounded kind of odd, kind of strained, and she didn't know what to make of it.
"I'm fine, Ani," she said. "What about you? Is something wrong?"
"Don't worry about me," he said, sounding for a moment like his usual self. "Just…stay there. Stay where you are. Don't go to the Senate."
What? What was he — "Ani, it's late. Why would I go to the Senate now?"
He made a frustrated noise, like halfway between a sigh and a scoff. "Just — just don't go, okay? Just —"
She heard him exhale again, and now she was getting worried. "Anakin, what's wrong?"
"Nothing," he said, and she was so used to him saying that by now that she thought it must be a reflex, and he seemed to think so, too when he added, "Everything. I don't know. Just — I love you, okay? Just don't go anywhere. It's gonna be okay, Padmé, I promise."
"That's exactly what I've been trying to tell you," she reminded him, trying to include a hint of playfulness in her voice.
There was a long pause. So long, in fact, that for a moment Padmé thought he had disconnected. But then he said, sounding like it cost him great effort, "I'm going to keep you safe, Padmé. I swear I will. I swear I will."
Any trace of a smile fell from her lips. He'd been repeating these things, these same things, for days now. She didn't know what else she could do at this point. She had absolutely no ideas.
"Hey," she said gently, holding the comm close to her mouth, as if it would bring her closer to him. "Come over here. Come home. Why don't we just relax tonight, like we did when you came back from the Outer Rim Sieges? It was only a few days ago but it feels so far away. Come be with me."
Another long, silent pause. "I can't," he whispered. "There's something I have to do."
"What?" she said desperately, trying to reach him. Trying to understand him. "What do you have to do? What's more important our love?"
"I…I don't know yet. I don't know anything." He stopped talking, and she was left absolutely speechless. She heard him heave a great breath. "Just stay where you are."
And then he hung up.
Shaking her head in dismay, she made her way to her walk-in closet to take her dress off, letting it plop to the ground in a big thump. Her husband, she thought. She didn't know what to think about him right now. She didn't know what to do with him. She didn't know how she could make him understand two very basic, fundamental things, two things that any solid marriage needed to be true if it was going to thrive: that she needed him to be there for her right now, and that everything was going to be all right.
Because right now, he very much did not understand the second one, and he was so preoccupied with his sureness that things wouldn't be all right that he couldn't even begin to approach the first.
Padmé sighed again. She'd been doing that a lot lately.
Why couldn't they just be happy, and carefree, and in love? Why did they have to have this life of secrecy and deception? Why couldn't they just run away to Naboo, leave all their troubles behind, forget about the plotting and the politics and these haunting, terrifying dreams he kept having….
She donned a comfortable woolen dress, grabbed a snack, and made her way to her living area, fantasizing that Anakin would listen to her for once and show up to her apartment, throw his arms around her in a grand romantic gesture and kiss her with all the passion and love he had to give.
And then, fifteen minutes into a holoserial later, a Jedi showed up at her door. It just wasn't the one she had expected.
It was his apprentice.
"Ahsoka?" Padmé said incredulously, complete and utter bewilderment flooding through her. What on Coruscant —
The former Jedi Padawan stood tall and proud in her clothes of blue and gray. Her montrals had grown a few inches since Padmé had last seen her, the stripes on her lekku thinner and curved.
Captain Typho was there as well, coming in behind Ahsoka. "I'm sorry to intrude, Senator," he said, "But she says it's urgent."
"It is," Ahsoka said, holding out a hand, palm facing toward Padmé to indicate getting up was not necessary. She joined Padmé on the couch, and Padmé couldn't help but think how much older the girl seemed than last they met. "There's something wrong with Anakin."
Tell me about it, Padmé thought, but that wasn't exactly the most proper response to seeing an old friend for the first time since representing her at her military court tribunal….
"It's okay, Captain," Padmé said over Ahsoka's shoulder, and Gregar nodded, leaving them alone. Padmé looked at Ahsoka. "First of all, hello."
Ahsoka gave her a joyless smile. "Hi. Sorry. I seem to have lost all my manners after being away from Obi-Wan so long."
Despite the situation, Padmé laughed. Then, she realized abruptly that the nightclothes she was wearing left her baby bump very pronounced, and she placed her hand on her belly. "I have some news."
Ahsoka's lips curved upward again, but this time a light was brought to her eyes. "I heard."
Padmé blinked. "You did?"
"Yes," Ahsoka said slowly. "From Obi-Wan. Who heard it from Anakin."
Oh. And that was when Padmé realized, definitively, that there really was something wrong with Anakin, if he actually felt driven to finally, finally tell Obi-Wan the truth.
do you think Obi-Wan might be able to help us?
we don't need his help.
The look on her face must have said it all, and Ahsoka nodded in apparent understanding. "I have some news as well," she said. "And you're not going to like it."
Padmé blinked again, apprehension pouring into her like water filling an empty vase. So Ahsoka began to fill her in.
It turned out, Padmé realized as Ahsoka spoke, that feeling she'd been having, that the Republic was about to crash and shatter into a million, billion, trillion pieces? Yeah, except it actually was. Not just a feeling. It was real. All because the man in charge of it, the man who had ignored her petition, the man who had been slowly acquiring explicitly dictatorial powers and the man who she had once considered a friend, was the Sith Lord that the Jedi had been looking for for the duration of the Clone War. Which, incidentally, that man had also created by himself.
It was not a long conversation. Padmé did not need convincing, for there was not a single ounce of her that did not believe it. Not after all the struggles she had faced in the Senate, and all the times he had passive-aggressively put her down. All she needed right now, having been enlightened of the awful truth, was the same thing she had needed an hour ago. A day off, and a husband who was not having a mental breakdown.
She inhaled, realizing why Ahsoka was here before the girl could even say so. Realizing exactly what it was, precisely, that was wrong with Anakin.
Palpatine was what. The Chancellor. The Sith. Anakin's friend.
Oh, not friend, she thought like a punch in the gut, or a baby's foot to the diaphragm. Abusers were not friends.
Oh, Naboo gods and goddesses, please intervene, because they were going to need a lot of help here.
Ahsoka said they needed to go to the Jedi Temple, that she had spoken with Obi-Wan, who had gone to talk Anakin down — Padmé explicitly refrained from asking, "Talk him down from what?" — and eight months of pregnancy couldn't stop Padmé from rising quickly to her feet before Ahsoka could even finish her sentence.
There was only one thing that gave Padmé pause. Just — stay there, Anakin had said to her over the comm, raw desperation in his voice. Just stay where you are —
I'm sorry, Ani, she thought decisively, but this time, you're the one that needs saving. You just don't know it yet.
