Disclaimer: Star Wars belongs to George Lucas and Lucasfilm. I mean no infringement and make no profit.
A/N: This is the first vignette in my Requiem series. It is Bail Organa's perspective on Padmé's death. Thanks a million times to Marten for pushing me to make this as good as I could make it, and thank you to the kind people who reviewed the prologue.
When I think of this series, a quote by Terry Pratchett always comes to mind: "This is a story about memory. And this much can be remembered..."
Bail Organa
I watched her die.
She was my colleague, my friend, I admired her. I truly think she was the best of all of us. I knew her and worked with her for five years. We were allies inside the Senate and out. It is very rare to come across someone you can stand to be around in both spheres, but she was a very rare person. Most knew her as Amidala; I called her Padmé. I had thought that I would have her by my side, working to restore the Republic, lending support and sharing laughter, for years to come. Instead, on a lonely, isolated Outer Rim settlement, I watched her die.
When I first met her, she was twenty-two. In appearance, she could have been little more than a child. But in her eyes, in her voice, in her bearing, there was something that spoke of wisdom and maturity beyond her years. At that time I had never seen another person like her, ever.
I hadn't expected her to be the way she was. Perhaps that was why she made such an initial impression. I knew of her, of course. When I first heard the name "Amidala" mentioned in the Senate, I searched my memory and came up with a day, eight years previously, when the galaxy had witnessed the child Queen of a little-regarded planet stand up before all the members of the Senate and demand justice for her people. So perhaps I expected the elaborate costume and the studied accent of Naboo's Queen. But while all of that was gone, the articulate courage which had so impressed me years ago always remained. And, amazingly, so did much of the innocence, or perhaps I should say idealism of that young girl. I know there were times she doubted, but unlike so many others she never stopped trying to do what was right. It was a rare quality, and I tried to protect it over the years, when she would let me. And the most remarkable thing was that she never lost hope, despite everything, even though the galaxy was falling apart. She made me believe. She became my friend.
She shouldn't have died like that. She shouldn't have died so far from her home and her family. I know how much her home and her family meant to her. She shouldn't have had to die so young, she shouldn't have had to die with so much pain. To die at the hands of someone she loved… I cannot imagine anything worse. No one should die that way, least of all someone with so much left to do, to accomplish.
Even on the last day of her life, she was giving me hope. She saved our organization—our rebellion. Almost the last thing she said to me was to make me promise to vote for the Empire so that I could keep it going, even if it took twenty years to prepare. The depth of her understanding, her sharp mind, may yet save us all. She saved my life, that day, but I could not save hers.
I watched her die, and I couldn't believe what was happening. It was like a nightmare.
She knew it was going to happen. Somehow, she knew. She tried to tell me, but I still felt the shock, on top of countless other shocks I'd felt that day, when the message came from Obi-Wan Kenobi: that he had battled Skywalker, that Padmé was with him and she was hurt badly, Skywalker had tried to kill her and he thought she was having contractions. I had to have him repeat that last bit. I hadn't even know she was pregnant. I didn't completely believe him until he carried her down the starship ramp.
I watched her die. And I couldn't save her. Stars, I would have saved her if I could. I couldn't even comfort her. I could only watch, helpless, while hour after hour she screamed and cried.
I remember that I felt numb. I could scarcely feel my body at all, as though my soul had retreated somewhere deep inside myself. And from that deep place, my soul was screaming. All I was thinking was, Not Padmé. Please, please, not Padmé.
I was praying to any god that would listen, but none answered. And when it was over, I was staring down at two small, pink, squirming, crying things. I did not reach out to them. I just stared, trying to make sense of what the very sight of them was making me feel.
There was some amazement, that these beings were Padmé's children, that they were part of Padmé. And yet they were nothing like her. I could see in them none of her beauty or her grace. I pitied them, vaguely because they were alone and so small, but more specifically because they would never know what they'd lost. They would never know their mother; they would not even have a memory of her. They would never see her face or know how she would have loved them. They wouldn't even know how great their early loss was, the greatness of the mother they should have had. Their father had taken all of that from them before they were even born.
But most of all I felt… anger, I suppose. Not precisely at them, but at the injustice of it all. Why were they alive, weak and imperfect, when she was dead and the galaxy needed her so? What good could they possibly be? They had only given her last hours more pain.
Then the infant girl, Padmé's daughter, looked up at me with Padmé's eyes. That was when I first wept.
It felt better than anything had felt in days. But no weeping lasts forever. I know she wouldn't want us to mourn.
She is gone now. So we will go on in her honor. We will wait as she advised, until one day we will be ready fight. We will go on to form the rebellion she helped to design.
I will go on, with this miracle she left behind. For I decided, then and there, that the baby girl Padmé named Leia would be the child Breha and I had talked of adopting. I gave her the middle name Amidala and made a promise—to Padmé, to the Jedi, to myself, and to Leia—that she would be safe and loved in my care. I will raise her to be a princess and a lover of justice. If she's anything like her mother, that won't be hard.
Of the two gifts Padmé has given me—the hope of the rebellion and the hope of the child—I believe already I love the child best. I will bring her home to Alderaan. I will watch her live and grow. She will be loved and protected all her life.
I promise, Padmé. And so now all I must do for you, and what is hardest to do, is say goodbye.
I loved you. I'll miss you.
Goodbye.