Chapter Three

I'm not sure how many days passed without me having ever seen Luke and Leah. The first time I really saw them, the first time I held them, was magic. It felt as if holding them in my arms could send my strength surging right back into me, giving me the power to do everything. Obi Wan brought them to my room one day while I was sleeping. He was holding them both in his arms when Leah woke up and started crying. Hearing this, I awoke to the best vision of my life. It was the first time since I gave birth to them that I had seen them. The moment I saw them I started crying tears of joy. Obi Wan smiled warmly and gently placed them in my arms. He helped me sit up on the edge of the bed so I could hold them better. As soon as I took them, Leah stopped crying. I guess she knew mommy was there. No words were spoken. No words were needed. All that was needed was the long awaited moment of peace and joy.

I was beginning to gain some of my strength back, and although the bleeding never stopped, it did slow down tremendously. I spent most of my time laying down, sitting with Obi Wan and holding my beautiful babies. I may have felt week, but I felt alive. Regardless of how alive I felt, they still thought I was going to die.

Well, I didn't think I was going to die.

I knew I was going to die. If technology and science weren't helping me, I knew that something greater, something more powerful, something with a lot more authority than computers was deciding my fate. That's why I spent these days the way I did. I wanted to enjoy something simple for the first time in so long. I remember the last time I felt like something was simple. I was in Anakin's arms. It may have only lasted a moment, but it was good for us. It was a moment like the ones we never got enough of.

Hold me the way you did on Naboo when there was nothing but our love. No fighting, no politics, no war.

Those days in the Lake Country with Anakin were the best days of my life. There really was nothing there but our love singing in perfect harmony with the trees, the flowers, and the sparkling blue water. No one was there to tell us we had to hide. No one bothered us unless you count the little blue and yellow bird that woke Anakin up every morning. It would cling to the vines outside the bedroom window and sing to its little heart's delight. Anakin would wake up to it and not be able to go back to sleep in his annoyance. Eventually he would give up and go outside on the deck to meditate or just watch the sun rise. About an hour later I would wake up and we would go eat breakfast. This was how it went almost every morning. But on the very last morning that we were there, the bird didn't show up. We never heard it sing again. I suppose even the little bird knew that everything was about to change.

I knew what the bird knew, but I was afraid to admit it to myself. Anakin didn't think things would change. He thought we would always have the perfect, beautiful life of love we'd had on Naboo. Anakin had a fantasy in his head that he was never able to let go of. When he figured out that he'd been wrong all this time, that things were never going to be perfect again, he fell apart. He reached out in a desperate attempt to salvage what was left of the life he remembered, of the life he wanted, before it was too late. But he dissolved under the pressure of it all. He just didn't know how to handle seeing his dreams going up in smoke that way. In turn, he went up in smoke. Literally. I had forced myself to come to terms with that.

I couldn't help but wonder something. If I offered him that perfect life again and told him to come back to Naboo with me, might he actually do it? Could we survive? I laughed at myself a little. I know him better than that. He thinks I've turned against him. He would see anything I said to try to turn him away from the Emperor as a trap set by Obi Wan and me. I knew this. I believed this wholeheartedly.

So why was I still planning on doing it?

It was because I could see a sparkle of new hope in the eyes of my babies. It was a hope that maybe despite what I knew that something I said would find its way through into his heart.

It was a stupid notion, but it was the only one I had left. It would be hard to leave my children, but I knew that Obi Wan would keep them safe. It would be hard to leave Obi Wan, too, but knowing that he would watch over my children somehow made it easier. I suppose I just didn't want any of them to be alone like I was.

I wanted all of them: Obi Wan, Yoda, Luke, and Leah to have someone beside them and to never be alone. I didn't want to be alone. Oh well. My life doesn't exactly have a history of giving me what I want, does it?