already gone
"remember all the things we wanted, now all our memories they're haunted,"- kelly clarkson
Their love had been like a slow poison, slowly destroying, slowly crumbling. However hard she had willed it to survive, her wishes had not been granted, denied harshly against the wind.
In the start, when she had pushed him away, unwilling to tell him that his feelings were returned fully, she'd had not worried of what was to come. If Anakin was by her side, she felt complete, felt on top of the world. If he was gone, so was half of her heart. She couldn't live half a life with only half a heart.
She had wanted to leave so he could fulfill his destiny by triumph over the Sith. Padme supposed she had been selfish, only thinking of the needs of others, of her own, instead of Anakin's. What if he didn't want to be the one to defeat the Sith, didn't want to become a Jedi in the first place? There were rare cases of Force-Sensitive denying their rights to becoming a Jedi, and in those cases they lived out their lives normally, as they would have if an unknown force hadn't chosen them to bestow powers upon. They were rare, but not unheard of.
What if Anakin wanted to live his life with her, instead of with the Jedi? Could she be the one to draw him away from the Jedi, to take the Chosen One from his destiny? Gods, she couldn't do that! If she did that, and listened to her heart, she would be denying the one thing the world needed to get rid of the Sith, the evil slowly creeping across the galaxy.
She would be denying Anakin a future. He would stay at home, while she would work, looking after their children, doing nothing of purpose. No matter how much he had argued that he would be content doing just that, she knew in her heart that it was not the case. He needed adventure, needed a case to solve. And the Jedi, not her, were the only ones that could provide him with that.
He would become a shadow of his former self, and she couldn't be the one to do that to her beautiful, smiling Ani.
So she left, stealing away in the dead of night, her black cloak hiding her softly swelling stomach. She would return in a few years, when Anakin had forgotten about her, and their love, and she held no power over him. He would be his own man, and she would still love him, secretly, no matter the consequences.
Her child would be born in secret, the only thing that would remind her of their love. Hopefully, he or she would look too much like Anakin. She couldn't bear that, she knew.
Before boarding the ship, Padme stole a glance at the silent Jedi Temple. Somewhere in there, Anakin was asleep, dreaming of all the good things in the world. She couldn't tear him away from his destiny for her own selfish needs.
This was the right thing to do.
But still, that didn't stop the tears from pouring down her cheeks when her children - twins, surprisingly- asked where their father was.
And then, for the first time in five years, she questioned her decision. Then she wept, as she heard that Anakin had been killed in battle.
She hadn't done the right thing.
She had made a mistake that had cost dearly.
She had lost half her heart.