Epilogue
Hold me
Like you did by the lake on Naboo
When there was nothing but our love
No politics
No war
- Padmé Amidala Naberrie Skywalker
{...they're the most beautiful creatures in the universe.}
{Grown more beautiful, I mean.}
{You are so… beautiful.}
{Our baby is a blessing.}
How right their father was.
I fervently hope our blessings will forgive me for leaving them on the galaxy's doorstep with not but a prayer.
{Luke.}
{Leia.}
But there must be balance. I understand that now in a way I never did before. My husband extinguished the lives of several innocent younglings mere hours before his own would be born. Sins such as this come at a cosmic price. I have never known a hurricane of strength which compares to my love as a mother; I will not permit my son and daughter to be sacrificed to pay his debt— not when I can buy them time by submitting myself in their stead. The era for rebellion will come, but my mortal role has been played to its bitter end. I pass what light I have left to my children.
Inhale.
Exhale.
{I want to have our baby back home on Naboo.}
Where am I? The table beneath me is cold. This strange room is too cold.
{You come from a warm planet, Ani.}
If they are anything like their father—
Ani, Ani, you're a father—
{The happiest moment of my life.}
— they'll need to be swaddled in blankets quickly. They won't like the chill of space.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Twins. We have a family, Anakin. The children grew up and had children of their own.
Just a girl.
Just a boy.
{A boy? Have you seen the way he looks at you?}
Oh, sister. Every time I envisioned this day, it was with you gripping my hand and telling me when to breathe.
Of course, now, you would be urging me to breathe.
Back when I still possessed the ability, I'd turned my head and found sightful touch with the small figure on the other side of the glass. His green eyes met mine pleadingly.
{Senator Amidala… Seeing you alive brings warm feelings to my heart.}
Look away, my old friend. Your heart won't want to see what is coming next.
The other former Master looks at me mournfully, yet I would feel it if Obi-Wan had been successful in their duel. A man who swore he could not breathe without me searches through our bond for his air supply even now. All the same, I cannot explain to Obi-Wan the pact I've made with his Force. The apocalyptic level of love I have experienced is beyond a Jedi's comprehension; I haven't the time or will to excuse my exit to this sad, broken figure who smells of charred fabric and smoke— nor to the bewildered medical droids running around with cold circuit wires for veins. It is sufficient that I alone understand the continued beat of my heart would only serve as a homing beacon for a man who will never let me go, no matter what demon name he adopts. No matter how many bodies stand between me and him, all would be ruthlessly mowed down in his pursuit to reclaim me. There is nowhere I can shelter, no person or planet I can ask to hide behind. My sun god has already reduced too many lives to ashes in order to keep me by his side. What is a universe of martyrs to a man such as this?
{I would follow you across the galaxy.}
I said it in the very beginning. I won't let anyone else die for me.
The Force is coming to collect on our bargain. Removing myself from the equation in order to resolve it is a forfeiture my youthful fire rebels against, but the deal has been struck. Nothing can stop that now. I no longer feel the cold of the table; I no longer smell the singed tunic dotted with ash. So be it. I will surrender these senses without protest. But it's becoming harder to see the faces of my newborns; to hear my daughter's whimpers.
Why is she being held so far away? Please, bring my baby girl to me. I'm running out of time… the time to memorize a face I will not be granted the mortal opportunity to remember.
{With a kick that hard? Definitely a girl.}
The man standing in my husband's spot is like me— a relic of the past. In his arms is the future. I say Obi-Wan's name only so that he may bring those new ears closer. The blood of a former Queen musters long enough for the final strength of a wife and mother. The last declaration of Padmé Skywalker. Hear me, my son. And tell your sister.
There's good in him.
Inhale.
I know there's still good in him.
Exhale.
Luke, Leia… I pray whatever magic is passed down to you by your father will enable you to remember the love from your mother.
Exhale.
Oh, Ani. May our children forgive us for the sins they will inherit.
I love you. I love you.
I love you.
{Are you an angel?}
It is difficult for me to reconcile that for a galaxy's republic, Qui-Gon Jinn discovering Anakin Skywalker on Tatooine was the beginning of the end, when for me it was the catalyst of my life truly starting… however long that life was destined to last.
Whenever I imagined my final day, different scenarios would act out in my mind, but he was always there. My grounded angel, my bridge, leading me from one version of existence to the next. Perhaps, in hindsight, it's absurd— a woman who'd made mortal enemies and faced numerous assassination attempts before she'd reached twenty-five still hoped she'd grow old. But I knew very quickly that ten lifetimes would never be enough time with Anakin, so, in my imaginings, I greedily stretched the one lifetime I got as far as it could go. Boldly, I pictured meeting my end far in the future. Our hairs would be silver-gray; clasped hands papery with age; our children, grandchildren, even great-grandchildren flourishing around us. No matter how many other faces drifted in and out of my deathbed fantasy scene, the most important details were always the same. I would be lying in my favorite place— Anakin's arms. And from the day I married him, I knew I wanted my last words to be me telling my husband I loved him.
Anakin had a signature tendency to make passionate promises, ones he spoke as ardently as if he'd mined them from the center of his very soul. Leaving my life, I would honor that tradition with an eternal vow of my own. And so there, in his goodbye arms, I would promise I would wait for him, wherever I was going. His magnificent face would be the last I saw. Him telling me how much he loved me— the last words my ears would hear. Although I would despair to leave Anakin behind in grief, in none of my scenarios could I ever fathom losing him to Death first, no matter how many years we had together. It would be the lost tug of war I could not survive.
A thumb caresses down my cheek. A sweet kiss at the pain of separation.
{Please, wait for me.}
It's as if the Force gave me an echo of the scenario that could have been. It's easy to not realize you're moving into your own deathbed when you're still standing on your veranda, a nearby temple burns, your body is home to more than one life, and your concern is reserved for the man you're watching walk away to face his own danger. But his imploring request for me to wait has echoed across the stars, beyond the limits of its original meaning, beyond the barriers of life and death. It reaches me still.
His demons were feasting on him before my eyes. Anakin aimed his arrows at his own chest, but he couldn't hit himself without missing me.
The rosy, if morbid, fantasy of my elderly end became another failed dream. One more collection added to the smoking pile. However, the single most critical detail of it endures— I will wait this time, and I will be there to meet him when he comes to find me. My hope and my love will last far longer than my last breath.
Here, at the end of my testimonial, there is one final secret I must cut free. It is my darkest, most closely guarded of all.
For all the truth there is that I am a steward of democracy and the greater good, if I had known what Anakin would become— how his beautiful attachment to me would be twisted into the dagger that undid him— would I go back and separate us? Would I sacrifice having had love with Anakin at all if it meant the atrocities that were to come at our end— and after— never happened? Would I knowingly let us come together if in every possible parallel universe, it means a galaxy will be torn apart in the aftermath?
What would he decide, if we were somehow given the choice to go back to that afternoon at 500 Republica and stop Anakin from stepping off the elevator?
{Ani, you'll always be that little boy I knew on Tatooine.}
I'll allow you to read between the lines, hear what my soul has testified in these pages, and deduce our answer for yourself.