She begins to feel herself fading.
Her presence on this plain of existence growing weaker. It becomes harder to reach out and make her hand grasp the mugs of tea Obi Wan sets out for her. She can still feel the bond to her children, bright lights like the twin suns of Tatooine, guiding her spirit to each of them, but the physical manifestation is getting harder to maintain.
She sees Obi Wan watching her still, waiting for the moment she disappears. It pains her to see him reduced to this. The once proud Knight, alone, drowning in his guilt and shame.
She does her best to distract him. To remind him of happier times. She asks for stories as he works, and tells her own in return as they hike through the desert. "I miss the greenery of Naboo," she confesses on one such walk.
"Your incorporeal!" he exclaims. "You don't even have to deal with the sand." and she laughs, reminded of Anakin's old complaints.
That reminds her of her children. How strange that they should grow up in such different places. She hopes they will one day be fortunate enough to somehow meet and talk about their homes.
How lucky she is for having such good friends, to care for them both, to protect them and shield them, and how glad she is for this strange blessing of being able to watch over them still. For being able to connect to the living, even for this short time.
That night, as Obi Wan drifts in an uneasy sleep, she leaves his homestead and visits the Lars place.
She hasn't often appeared this way to Luke. Leia had been faster to sense her before she found herself able to materialize and more accepting of an "imaginary friend." Luke had been curious but more suspicious. Tatooine was a harder world, even for dreamers like her son was turning out to be. But now he accepted her presence, if only as a friendly desert spirit. Sometimes he even ask Beru for small bowls of offerings to be left out for her, the spirit he claimed watched over him.
She appeared in his room and just let herself float and look. Looked at his small body, all legs and elbows at this point it seemed, curl up in the thin bed. He looked happy.
She brushes light fingers through the mop of his hair. He sighs in his sleep, but does not wake.
She will have to remember to keep this trust in her friends. Trust Obi Wan to keep watch. To trust that Owen and Beru would continue caring for Luke.
She would not torment Obi Wan with echoes of herself once she faded from this physical plain. Able to sense her and she him, but unable to respond? No, no. She would return to Alderaan, return to the green and the chaos of the city where she could hide her presence in crowds and in water itself.
She was not made for desert worlds.
It would be soon now. She can feel it coming. Like water leaking through a cracked vase, her hold on the world ebbing.
With one last look at her son, she turns to the rising suns, and towards Obi Wan's.
She is waiting in the kitchen for him when he wakes, and smiles as he quietly places the customary two cup of tea on the table.
She does not reach for it today.
He doesn't notice until his own cup is almost empty.
He looks sad but stays silent, swirling the last dregs of tea in his own mug.
"You're leaving soon, aren't you?" he finally asks. That makes it sound like she was voluntarily leaving. Perhaps going on vacation somewhere pleasant.
"Yes." she replies simply. He doesn't look up. After weeks of watching, now he cannot seem to raise his eyes to meet hers.
"I'm sorry," she says, not quite sure why she is apologizing for something beyond her control. She wants to move closer, wants to reach out and comfort, but she isn't sure if he would welcome the touch. Or even if she was still able to touch him at all.
He looks up finally, tears shimmer in his eyes. He looks so old suddenly, in a way she hadn't noticed before. Hair streaked with grey, the rest bleached by years in the sun. The lines on his face, creases worn in by Time and grief and sand and sun. She knows her own face is unchanged.
He doesn't work that day. They stay in the house instead, waiting.
Obi Wan goes back to bed, back to the place she'd finally managed to appear to him, and she curls up on the floor, head resting on a translucent arm as curls flow behind her, as in water.
He asks for stories, and she provides. Tales of her time as Queen, of days spent attempting to confuse Captain Typho as to who was in the Queen's makeup today, or training with her handmaidens. She tells of her friends in the Senate and watches him roll his eyes in fond exasperation when she mentions Bail. As the suns chase each other across the sky she even tells him stories of the short time she and Anakin had at the Lake Country. Of how they'd picnicked in the rolling green fields and about how he'd teased her.
As the suns begin to set, so too does Padme's faint glow begin to wane. Her voice takes on an echo-y quality and she finds that she must speak louder than usual in order to be heard.
Obi Wan, who had been gently nodding towards sleep on the bed, jerked away when she finally paused.
One look at her face and he knows. It won't be long now.
Padme shifts closer, the fading light of her body dimly highlighting the curve of Obi Wan's cheek, the mess of his hair.
"Thank you again Obi Wan." she says eyes locked on his. "Keep watching over Luke for me. And yourself."
"What?" he says tears beginning to brim up again. He's cried more in these past weeks than in the entire past year.
"Take care of yourself, my friend. You are not to blame. For any of it. Care for yourself, and stay safe." her voice is growing softer and she raises a hand up in farewell.
Between one breathe and the next, she is gone.
Obi Wan gasps.
No.
No no. It's couldn't be that fast. He reaches a hand out to where she knelt last, in denial.
"Padme?" he whispers, and strains his senses, feeling for her, listening hard. But she is gone.
The deep well that houses Obi Wan's grief bubbles forth again, tears falling in the empty spaces around him. He reaches his senses out farther, maybe she only faded from here but is still by Luke, but he feels nothing of her presence.
He lets his head fall down to the soft blanket of his bed and weeps.
Is this his destiny? To always end up alone? To weather the storm by himself?
He eventually falls into an exhausted sleep.
The next morning he wakes early, feeling the ache of a night spent emotionally exhausted and physically curled up too tight for his aging bones.
He doesn't feel like breakfast. Instead he tries to meditate. Tries to release his feelings into the Force. They rage around him, like a sandstorm. Grief, pain, despair. He cannot yet let them go. He doesn't want to. He wants to sit here and let this grief wash over him like wave.
Before he can let despair sink in and truly take a hold of him, a voice he's longed to hear for years emerges as if swept in on a warm breeze.
"Fear not my Padawan. A Jedi is never truly alone."