IV
Everything has changed. Everything seems like such a lie now. Everything seems so twisted, so wrong.
I wake up to a new galaxy—a new Empire. I feel broken. My heart is experiencing an ache like nothing I've ever felt before. I've worked my entire life, devoted my youth, shed my blood, and sacrificed more will than I'd imagined ever needing to.
I think of the world my baby will grow up and how different it will be compared to the childhood I had. I want my child to have every opportunity he or she want for itself. I want my child to be able to rule a planet at fourteen just as I was able to. I want my child to become a fearless, strong individual. I don't want this new government to limit my child's dreams.
I know I need to flee Coruscant. I don't want to stay here another day. There's nothing for any of us here anymore. However, my promises are keeping me from leaving this concrete and chrome hell. I told Anakin I would be here, waiting for him to return to me.
But what hidden corner of the galaxy is now left for me to raise my child in with the aspirations and life I want it to have? Nowhere is safe anymore. Not even Naboo.
I wanted to go to Naboo. I wanted to raise my child in the safety and beauty of the Lake Retreat. However, once the grip of the Empire spreads throughout the galaxy, will Naboo be the safe haven I've always known it to be? Will any System be safe and beautiful as it once was?
I want to go back to a simpler, more peaceful time. I want Anakin and I to be able to be happy again and raise our child without worry or stress. I want us to live the lives I see us having in my dreams. I want us to be able to laugh, love, and smile together.
The baby stirs within my bulging belly. Soon my baby will be here. Soon we'll have either a little boy or little girl to introduce to the galaxy. Soon we'll have the opportunity to make things right and hopefully I can spend endless days holding this baby I've longed to hold for so long.
I think it'll be a boy. Luke. I've already decided on the name. It means "light" in some of the other dialects I've learned throughout my schooling. The name just makes sense to me. It feels right. Luke Skywalker.
Anakin disagrees. He seems convinced that we'll be having a daughter. Even though my motherly intuition tells that we'll be having a boy, I've allowed him to choose a name in the chance that we do have a baby girl. He chose "Leia." Leia Skywalker. It is so beautiful, I swore I almost cried the first time I heard his soft voice say it to me. I have no idea where the name came from. Maybe it's something he heard during his youth on Tatooine? Or perhaps it came from one of the Systems he was stationed on during the War?
Luke. Leia. Whether we have a boy or a girl, I just want it to be healthy and safe. Regardless of what happens to me, I want to know my baby Luke, or my baby Leia has a world to live in.
I rise from bed, feeling my stomach, larger and heavier than ever, slow my pace as I walk to the end of the room to place a purple lace overlay over the waist of my white, satin nightdress. I tie some matching ribbon belts to the dress in an effort to mimic one of Dorme's tricks at hiding my pregnancy. However, it's no use. My skills are nothing compare's to Dorme's, and now I'm beginning to fear that I've reached a point where no amount of robes or illusions can hide my secret.
I attach a pewter headdress into my hair to keep it from hanging sloppily. With the remaining hair, I tie the bundle with matching hair bands and allow it to hang down my back.
I sit in silence for a moment debating, reflecting.
Where is Anakin right now? Is he safe? When is he coming back to me? Is he thinking of me the way I am of him? When can we leave and be safe and happy together?
I hear the alarms go off. A visitor? An intruder? My instinct tells me to reach for the blaster pistol I've recently had sitting next to my bed at all times.
But before I can react, the alarms silence and I hear Threepio's voice from the veranda.
"Hello, might I help you," he begins. My heart simultaneously lurches in my stomach, and I'm unsure whether for good or bad. "Oh, it's you, Master Kenobi. Come in, please, come quickly."
Obi-Wan! Can it actually be his voice? Was he able to survive?
I almost refuse to believe it until I hear his voice for myself.
"Has Anakin been here?" He asks.
My body relaxes and I allow myself to take a moment to smile in relief.
Obi-Wan survived. He made it, and his first concern is Anakin's safety. He wants to reunite with him. He wants to fix this broken Republic. Together, I know this pair—if any—could right all the wrongs of the galaxy.
"Yes…right after the attack on the Jedi Temple." Threepio informs him.
My feet make soft tapping noises as I stand up and cross the room, reaching for a casual dressing gown hanging in my closet. The gown is a soft, but heavy ensemble with a rich, deep purple color. It features a vintage embroidered trim, decorative sequins, and handcrafted beaded tassels in appropriate places along the arms and center cut of the gown.
Slipping on a pair of purple shoes, I descend the steps to the veranda as quickly as my pregnant body allows me.
"Master Kenobi…" I sigh, seeing him and throwing my arms around him, forgetting the rest of the galaxy for the moment. "Oh, Obi-Wan, thank goodness you're safe."
I cannot express through words how truly worried I was for him.
He looks at me sternly. "The Republic has fallen, Padme. The Jedi Order is no more…" He must know that I already know all of this. Why is he informing me of the tragedy?
"I know. It's hard to believe everything to which we've dedicated our lives is gone." I reply, joining his solemn greeting.
He looks me in the eyes and says to me bluntly, "I believe we have been part of a plot hundreds of years in the making."
How can he know this? And what does it even mean? Who could have plotted that all of this could have happened exactly as it did?
I rack my mind for words of comfort. "The Senate is still intact, there is some hope."
"No, Padme…it's over…the Sith now rule the galaxy, as they did before the Republic." He says back, refusing to accept my optimism.
"The Sith?" I gasp.
What does he mean? What proof does he have? Surely he doesn't mean that Chancellor—no, Emperor Palpatine—is a Sith Lord.
He lets go of me and turns away, as if examining, inspecting the veranda for something—or someone.
"I'm here looking for Anakin. When was the last time you saw him?" He interrogates, as if he's some sort of detective, asking me for information of the scene of a crime.
I think back to the morning, months ago when Obi-Wan came to visit me to talk about Anakin. It seemed so out of character for Obi-Wan to come to interrogate me like that. Now, it's all happening again.
I'm slow to answer, but quick enough to avoid suspicion.
"Yesterday," I lie to him. Anakin has been gone several days, but something within advises me to avoid telling Obi-Wan the truth. Something tells me that I cannot allow Obi-Wan to know he's on that mission to Mustafar.
"And do you know where he is now?" He asks further.
"No." I quickly lie again, walking past him and heading towards the end of the veranda.
He follows me. I think he can sense that I'm being difficult. "Padme, I need your help. He is in grave danger—"
"From the Sith?" I ask, half mocking his earlier accusations. However, I seek a moment's relief. If the Sith were behind everything, it would make sense that Anakin would be in danger, as he is a Jedi.
I'm not prepared for what he says to me next, however.
"From himself. Padme, Anakin has turned to the dark side." His words come out smoothly and clearly. I cannot make them say or mean anything else even if I wanted to. They are as unmistakable as ever, and my heart goes cold.
But the statement seems so outlandish and ridiculous I expel it immediately.
"You're wrong," I snap back. "How could you even say that?"
Obi-Wan walks past me. He keeps his contemplation out on the skyline past the veranda's edge. It's as if he cannot bear to look me in the eyes when he says it. And I'm glad he doesn't. I couldn't bear to see the look in my eyes right now, either.
"I have seen a security hologram of him…killing younglings." He says slowly, as though he still hasn't accepted this truth either.
I refuse to even listen to his words. My mind blocks everything out.
"Not Anakin," I defend. My voice is shaky and broken. "He couldn't…" I breathe in a little more than a whisper.
I refuse to think of my Anakin committing these horrible acts. I know where he was the night the Temple was attacked. I know he was in there as the clones killed the Jedi. But he wasn't killing them. I know he couldn't. I'm sure of it. They're his family. He wouldn't. He couldn't….
Obi-Wan turns back to me. My horror-stricken eyes meet his and he begins to explain.
"He was deceived by a lie. We all were. It appears that the Chancellor is behind everything, including the War. Palpatine is the Sith Lord we've been looking for. After the death of Count Dooku, Anakin became his new apprentice."
His words cut through me like a knife. I feel cold and I feel sick. I feel my heart ache worse than it did during the Senate Session.
I don't know what to do but deny it all.
"I don't believe you…I can't." I breathe, slowly moving to the couch and lowering myself onto its edge. My robe twists close around me and reveals the outline of my pregnancy. I see his face change, but I am too late to fix the fold in my robe, too late to pull the heavy cloth away.
I want to curse. Dorme has spent seven months dressing me in ways to keep my secret expertly hidden. The one time I am in company and dress myself, my secret is revealed. Had she helped me this morning, or had I just taken more time to dress less sloppily, he would've never known a thing.
Everything has changed. Everything seems like such a lie now. Just as my lies and secrets are revealed to Obi-Wan and any other company that may have seen, every other secret and illusion in the galaxy seems to unravel itself before me.
Has Anakin been keeping all of this a secret from me? Were the Jedi innocent all along? Did Anakin really kill his brothers that night the Temple went up in flames, and the Jedi became public enemies, traitors of the Republic? Did Anakin have a hand in all of the corruption that has destroyed everything around us?
Palpatine and Anakin have played the galaxy. They have taken our free, democratic society and turned it into a corrupt dictatorship where the powerful and violent hold the authority.
Palpatine destroyed my Republic. Anakin destroyed my heart.
Obi-Wan moves to the couch and sits beside me. I refuse to meet his eyes with mine. I have too much on my mind to look at him right now. I feel heat behind my swollen eyes.
He leans into me and says, "Padme, I must find him."
His voice speaks with urgency, but also fear. I know all of this is breaking his heart too.
"You're going to kill him, aren't you?" I ask, turning to look at him with an expression that combines horror and disgust. It's as though I know the answer before he even has to say it.
Obi-Wan merely looks at me. He neither confirms nor denies my question, no matter how much my face begs him to.
"He has become a very great threat," is all he manages to say to me. I can see tears forming in the corners of his eyes at the thought of having to slay his own brother.
Yes. I answer in my head for him. He wouldn't say it if his life depended on it. I know, deep down, it's killing even Obi-Wan, a man known for devotion to duty and service, to think of doing something that really tore at his emotional core like this.
Anakin is my husband. I don't care what he's done, or who Obi-Wan says he's become, as long as Anakin Skywalker is living and breathing, he is my husband. I know he is in that body and soul somewhere.
I do not care that he has done the galaxy wrong. I've worked too hard, and too long for the preservation of democracy, and all of that is gone now. I have to protect the only thing I have left—the only thing that matters to me anymore.
"I can't…" I whisper back to Obi-Wan, turning my head just before warm tears fill my eyes. I look back out across the veranda. I know I'm betraying Obi-Wan. And if what he says is true, I'm betraying democracy by not divulging what I know about the man responsible for its demise. But I cannot tell Obi-Wan where he is. I cannot tell Obi-Wan where he could find him. I cannot tell Obi-Wan where to kill him.
After a long moment, Obi-Wan turns away. I suppose he has finally accepted that I'm not going to tell him what I know. He rises from the couch and begins to head back to his speeder, parked at the edge of the veranda.
Before he gets too far, he turns back to me, and says to me plainly, "Anakin is the father, isn't he? I'm so sorry…"
Obi-Wan places the hood of his Jedi robe over his head and walks to his speeder, swiftly climbing inside. Just as the top door closes down on him, he pulls away from the veranda's dock, and speeds out of sight.
Sorry for what? I think to myself, looking down at the floor. Is he sorry for bringing me this news? Sorry that everything we've worked for has been destroyed? Sorry for me having to bring a baby into this wretched galaxy? Or is he apologizing for having to tell me that he needs to find and kill my husband, his brother?
My folded hands begin to shake at these thoughts. I have nothing more to say to Obi-Wan. I don't even feel like myself right now. What have I become? What has this war—this galaxy—made me? What has Anakin made me?
I pull the twine necklace from around my neck and hold the tiny japor snippet in my fingers.
Holding it in my hands, I think of the day Anakin and I first met. In the thirteen years that have gone by, this little pendant hasn't changed at all. Yet, nearly everything else in our lives has.
And where is Anakin right now? What is he doing there on Mustafar with the Separatists? Did he deal with them the same way he dealt with the younglings and Jedi in the Temple? The thought alone makes me feel sick.
I close my eyes and I feel his presence again, like before in the apartment, the night before the attack.
I feel him standing on an overlook, looking down at the fiery inferno below. The white, hot sun is trying to poke its way through a swirling vortex of smog-infested clouds. The heavenly sky above the hellish lava falls is beautiful, but in a tragic way.
Lastly, I feel a sob. A sob that does not come from me. The sob comes from Anakin. I know it does, but I don't know why.
If everything Obi-Wan has told me is true, then Anakin is more of a victim than I am. Anakin has made his deal with the devil—formerly known as Palpatine. He's made his deal, signed his life, freedom, and soul over to him and the feeling I'm sharing with him comes from deep within Anakin's heart. It comes from his tiny, muted voice of goodness and truth that is wondering if what he's doing is right? He's wondering, almost hoping that he's doing this for the greater good—that his actions will save me and create a better world for us to live in. He's doing this for me. He's done everything for me. All of this, all along has been for me.
I cannot let it go on any longer. I cannot let things get any worse. I've lost my government. I've lost my career. I've lost my friends. I cannot lose my family.
I must go to him. I must go to my husband. I must get to Anakin before somebody else does.