A/N: I'm back! Thank you so much for your continued reviews. Now we jump forward in time a bit-- we are no longer in the immediate aftermath of Padmé's death, or looking back on that time. This is Beru in the interval betwene the PT and the OT.

Beru Lars

I only ever met her once. She came into my life very suddenly, bringing with her all the glamour of another world. I hadn't known that creatures so elegant really existed; she was so far removed from everything I had ever seen.

We did not meet under the best of circumstances—I was so worried about Shmi, and she was so worried about Anakin. Yet she was kind to me. She answered my questions about her world as though there was no difference in the lives we led. I never suspected that she was, as I found out later, a Senator in the Republic, and once the Queen of her planet. She arrived at the side of the Jedi whom she desperately loved, and she married him in secret. She was like the heroine of a fairy tale to me; I was a desert girl, not ambitious, content with her quiet life. Two days after her arrival, just as suddenly as she had come, she left. I never saw her again.

Now, when Luke asks me about his mother, I wish I knew more. Owen doesn't think it prudent to speak to Kenobi to ask, not even about something so innocent as that. And of what little I do know, there is so much I can tell Luke nothing about.

I tell him only what I can, with little details my imagination has colored in for him: Her name was Padmé. She was very beautiful, like a queen in a fairytale, and very brave, and very kind. She came from a planet where everything was green and lovely. She loved your father desperately, and she loved you, Luke, more than life itself. I don't know if this last is true, but how could it not be?

Luke loves these stories I tell him. When I finish he is always begging for more, but I have no more to give.

A secret part of me is glad of that.

I know it is wrong to be jealous of a ghost. I now that I shouldn't be glad I can't tell Luke any more about the woman who bore him. But I also know I can't help it.

I love Luke like he's my own son, and I envy her that she gave birth to him and I didn't. I wish that I could claim Luke as wholly mine and be his mother in fact as well as feeling. I wish I didn't have to share him with this distant memory of beauty.

And I can't help but feel that if she turned up alive tomorrow and he had to choose between us, I would not be his choice. He will never be content with Tatooine, he fantasizes about going away. And he would be enamored with that quality of grace I remember in her which I will never have.

But then other times I think that, wherever she is, beyond this life, she must envy me the chance to raise her son. To hold him and teach him and watch him grow. That is all mine. And then I think how lucky I am, to have been given this gift, this chance. She has given me Luke, and I cannot be anything other than grateful for that.

I have a picture of her that I found in a HoloNet article. There are two or three old pictures of Anakin that once belonged to Shmi, but I only have one of her. Owen doesn't know I have it. I cannot show it to Luke now, and if he ever found it he would only ask why I have this old article on Senator Amidala. But someday, when he is old enough, he can know the truth, and then I will have this for him, this one small gift. I will give him his mother.

That is how much I love him.

And the more I know I love him, the more I feel I have to say… Thank you, Padmé. Thank you for giving Luke to me.

Thank you for our son.