a/n: after the next chapter, where the "Funeral" theme ends, things will be picking up a LOT. Any questions? Ask them. Thank you sodorland for the review
"He fell into the precipice, by choice he entered through
Dark waters yet unspoken of, a loss he could not bear to be true." – The Gardener, artist Lisa Gerrard
Second installment
"How?" came the rasp from the wretch from within the black suit.
Sidious smiled, almost. "The Jedi teach that the only way to resurrect someone is to give what you are taking from the Force. A life for another life. When one resurrects another, the necromancer dies." He came closer, robes rustling over the floor. "They teach that to give life, a life must be given in exchange. Is it always true? When a mother gives birth to her child, do they both not live? Is life not given then?" he came closer to his apprentice, launching his trap. "Or when both die, is the rule still sound?" he murmured softly, comfortingly, pityingly.
Even without visibly seeing his back straighten, Sidious knew he had touched upon a soft spot.
"It doesn't." Vader agreed, the breathing apparatus that kept him alive made his voice flat and unchangeable. The feeling Sidious felt behind it was injustice. Indignation. "It doesn't," Vader seemed to insist, to himself, to Sidious and probably to the Force.
"It isn't." Sidious agreed, circling his apprentice and he could feel the physical pain the prosthetics brought him. "The Dark Side has the ability to bring back the dead without trading a life for another. You can have your wife with you, at your side Lord Vader as it was meant to be."
He could not quite feel her weight in his arms as he once had been able to. The cyborg body he'd been afforded prevented such intimacy. Metal and wires encased in leather could not feel what used to be warm skin and smooth muscle. Even the sensors in his prosthetics couldn't replace natural nerves.
The stiff, dead weight lying heavily in his arms was cold and unmoving. Her corpse was beautiful. Pale and with her arms clasped rigidly to her side holding between her fingers the japor snippet he'd carved for her when he'd been a boy.
Darth Vader bore down on her, leaning back to allow the bulkiness of his mask to view her. Her image was distorted due to the hemispherical goggles attached to his mask, but nonetheless something to be beholden. He didn't feel the emotion the young boy had; innocent admiration to the girl who was different and shown like a beacon to him for reasons he hadn't understood. He wasn't feeling what the Jedi padawan felt either; attraction and childhood love funneling and reshaping itself into something alive that had sewn itself into the fabric of his making.
He felt devotion. As a corpse, she was only beautiful. Alive, Padmé had been beautiful; she'd had ideals about the galaxy that could reshape everything for the better. Anakin had foolishly tried his hand at politics when he should have simply supported his wife. Yet another failure of Anakin Skywalker. Vader had never been meant for politics, but as Amidala, people loved her.
Vader was wiser than Anakin. He would not fail her.
He placed her down gently on the slab of the ceremonial stone hidden underground of Coruscant. The writings on the walls were an ancient language his master was teaching him. Obscure, occult script crawled from the ceiling to the floor. The slab was in the middle of it all, and it alone was untouched by the graffiti.
There was a kind of potency in the air of the room that would have affected a Jedi. It didn't affect Vader, not anymore.
He smoothed her hair from her face and absently brushed away the flower petals that had come undone. The flowers represented life lost. There would be no life lost here. He placed her in the middle of the slab and straightened her dress. Her abdomen was still round from the extra weight the pregnancy. His hand flattened over it, long black gloved fingers curling over the smooth hill of her stomach. Her body had no memory of the child.
That it was his failure to protect his wife stung. Padmé had her ambitions, but over all others, her greatest had been to have children. Many children, as was tradition in Naboo where family was held in high regard. She would have none.
None that she had bore already, and none that he would be able to give.
Her hips had widened to accommodate the birth and her breasts were larger. Her body would not know of child. It was the only thing Vader would regret about resurrecting her; the other things, the elephants in the room that would undoubtedly accompany her back, they could be rectified. Vader's hand moved from her stomach to her collarbone where he used to rest his hand to feel the fluttering pulse in the dip between the delicate frameworks of bones.
His hand wandered to her throat and in that moment when his knuckles brushed the small feminine apple that was still, he remembered what he'd done to that throat. He still wasn't entirely sure who he hated and blamed the most. He stroked the thin crease lines of her throat absently before he moved to her chin, the bottom lip where the red strip of her Queen days had gone and rested the tips of his fingers on her forehead.
Oftentimes he'd rested his forehead against hers, simply to hear her breathe and listen to her heartbeat. He had taken pleasure in the closeness they'd shared, but never had been particularly thankful of the simple fact that she had been alive.
Unconsciously, his thumb rubbed over her forehead as if he was just soothing away another headache for her. Smooth, uninterrupted skin was all he'd ever encountered.
Her skin had always been smooth. Coming from a desert place where sand was used to scour pots, pans, bowls, and utensils and served as an alternative to bathing water for slaves, his skin had only had a youthful softness in his childhood. He imagined she was still soft.
From the gloom of the shadows, Darth Sidious stepped out and looked down at the body atop the stone slab. "So young," he said with a disapproving click of his tongue.
"She will be again," Vader whispered. The breathing apparatus made it sound as if he'd only sighed.
Sidious moved impatiently and lifted a long hand to gesture Vader to move away from the body. The black figure did, though the helmeted head remained gazing down at her.
"Find her," Sidious hissed and came closer, placing a gnarled palm over Padmé's ribcage and breast where her still heart was entombed. "And show her the road home." He gathered the Force around him and began to wrap it around the still body of the woman, thread by thread.
It was time and Vader felt anxious excitement rush through him with a thrill.
When Vader opened into the Force, wrenching it apart to find her within it, it wasn't dissimilar to jumping into hyper speed in a fully armed warship. There was no stopping a juggernaut.
"You will have to find her in the Force. If any part of her lingers here, she will be easier to find and pull through." Sidious no longer was the comforting grandfather, but the ruler who wanted a proper heir. Much as he was to loathe it, Amidala was key to Vader's successful rise. Key to his heritage. She may even make a worthy contribution to the Empire if she could be shown a different way.
Sidious knew enough about the way of the resurrection that he was confident that Amidala could be shown the way.
"Pull through?" Vader questioned.
Beneath the hooded environment of his robes, Sidious rolled his eyes. "Yes. Pull through. The Force doesn't give up pieces of itself completely without a fight. You will have to find her and pull her through, and show her where to go."
"Show her the way back," it was awe-inspired. Vader seemed lost in a fantasy, of where Amidala was at his side as it should have been. As it would be. "Will it hurt her?" he seemed to snap out of his dazed state to confront his master.
"Only the same way it hurts to sew a wound, but it heals it and prevents infection."
Vader accepted the answer and began to make arrangements with his master to collect the body of his wife before they cremated her. While he plotted with Vader, Sidious saw the old ambition begin to rise in Vader once more.
Darth Sidious watched as love breathed life into the dragon once more.
