I am back. See the below! Please read and review!
Padmé does not sleep that night. The sun has come and gone, and come again, as she has stared at blank shadows, gray and hollow with cheerlessness, alone in an empty bed where there should be another.
The surgeons whisk Anakin away during the dim glow of dawn's first light.
Padmé paces and waits in the confines of her quarters, wary of betraying too much consternation. It is not the leisure of a commander to burden their men with their sorrows. Instead, she waits and prays to the Force, the only thing close to a deity that she can even conceive of believing in.
Her mind paints ghastly pictures of sharp scalpels slicing and slashing, of ichor dripping, machines beeping and whirring, and in the midst of it all, Anakin's drawn and limp face, pale and vulnerable at the head of the operating table. It is the most recognizable part of him, the one in which she still sees her husband's traces, a ghost of the smile and the twinkling eyes she'd known as thoroughly and carnally as if he were a part of her own soul.
She has mourned him once. Mourned and cursed him. But never hated him. No. She had always loved him. Even believing him to have died a murderer, she had still loved him completely. There was good in him. There is good in him. As surely as there is good in herself. She considers their children, and a part of her finds a way to feel even deeper grief for the loss that they may never know. Anakin loves them. He loves them completely. Just as he loves her completely. But he is also the reason the twins never knew their parents. Not really. She'd been with them for as long as she could, but as the Rebellion struggled and floundered in the fifth year of the Emperor's reign, they had needed brave and willing leaders. How could she refuse when it seemed so eminently clear that this was bigger than her and even bigger than her family? She would have seen herself damned before she would let Luke and Leia grow up under the Emperor's iron boot. And so, she'd left them. Always returning. But it was never the same. They had cried and sobbed but gradually become accustomed to her absence, always being reminded that, ultimately, their mother did what she did because she loved them.
Padmé often wondered if she had been wrong to leave them so soon. So young. She probably was.
If Anakin lives, perhaps they will have the chance to make it right.
For hours, she sits, head in hands, heart beating frantic, staring at the comm, fearful of what news it may bring.
And when word comes that they have finished and that he is still breathing…she cries a rainstorm of tears, her face dripping with relief.
A half-hour passes, maybe more, when her comm suddenly flares to life.
"General, we have a situation..." Her heart drops into her stomach, blood freezing in her veins.
He can't be...No...he can't be...
"He is dead, isn't he?" Her words are cold and toneless. Monotone in anticipatory grief.
There is a pause. Really, no more than a split second. An eternity of limbo.
"No. But at the rate Vader's going, he will be! He came out of anesthesia screaming for his wife...ripping the place apart... we're evacuating the operating theater, but he's lumbering around in there, tearing everything up, himself included. I thought maybe you could…you seem to be the only one he trusts…otherwise, we'll be forced to—"
"Do not engage! I'm on my way!" She snaps.
Padmé bolts for the operating room as fast as her legs can carry her.
She hears him long before she sees him, the vocabulator's garbled roar echoing with horrid fury—
"…WHERE IS SHE?! …LET ME SEE HER….you promised…YOU PROMISED….!"
As she runs, she passes men and women in stained surgical gowns rushing by her. Some tell her to run. Not to go in there. But she barely hears them. And does not acknowledge them.
As she rounds a corner into the surgical suite, a hospital bed rattles, and shakes and then flies as if on its own power, crashing through a neighboring wall.
And then she sees him. The eye at the center of the storm. Bandaged in a horrid white crate that now wraps around his chest, the new life support system. It is covered in blood and debris, torn sutures, and ruptured scar tissue oozing down its corners.
Blood drips from the edge of his mouth, and then, moments later, she watches in horror as the dark fluid splashes from his lips down to the sterile floors. Objects around him cave as explosions of chaotic fear erupt like microbursts around her, denting paneling and crushing equipment.
Outside, a containment team rushes into position, ready to kill if it becomes necessary.
The medics have run for their lives. She supposes she ought to do the same. But still, she stands. Rooted to the spot, she watches him lumber about like a Faustian devil. Bleeding and hacking. Heaving up globs of dark blood, as he tears apart the equipment around him.
He's dying… She realizes. Watching in numb horror as he tears out the tubes feeding into his bionic body, opaque liquids spraying across the rattling detritus swirling across the floor….
Was this to be an end? A raving madman. Exsanguinating in a state of derlium. Dying only from his own madness as he bleeds himself out…
It was her worst nightmare come to life.
He is muttering her name. Screeching it by twisted turns. There was no point in keeping secrets now….
With a dry swallow of her throat and a pounding heart inside her chest, she steps forward, out from behind cover, squaring up on his bellowing, thrashing figure.
"Anakin!" She cries. "Look at me!" His head snaps up, and he flinches as if struck.
"No, you're dead…YOU'RE DEAD…!" He screams. "You're not real…you can't be real…I killed you!"
She is keenly aware of the eyes that follow them. The ears that listen with sudden stunned silence. The secret is out.
"I'm not dead. I'm here, Anakin. I'm here."
Padmé's eardrums ache as the fury of his voice threatens to burst them with its rage.
"I'm not dead…" She murmurs again.
He shakes his head in a painful jerking motion as if clearing the phantoms from his vision.
"No…" He whimpers again, taking a stumbling step toward her, his face contorted in a strange mix of hope and horror. She hears footsteps from behind her as two soldiers move to flank her protectively, their plasma rifles charging with a threatening whine.
She raises a hand without looking back, bidding them to stop. If this is how she is to die, then so be it. She will die with her husband.
"Anakin…" She repeats softly. Ignoring the gore. Ignoring the blood. Ignoring the power crackling in the air around them. "Anakin…You didn't kill me. I'm here. I'm alive….and so are you."
His eyes blink rapidly. Staring at her. Frozen. Nearly stunned. One of the prosthetics gives out beneath him as the air around them stills. He hits the floor with a hollow thud, falling heavily into a hunched posture.
"Stop tormenting me…" He wheezes. The voice that was a moment ago so full of violence is now vulnerable and cracking.
"…I'm here…" And slowly, she moves forward, kneeling before him as he lifts two prosthetic arms toward her in supplication…
"Padmé…?" He breathes, tears dripping down his twisted face. He is reliving the Emperor, she realizes. He is reliving the nightmare day that started this all. Had this been how he was when he'd woken alone and butchered in the Emperor's clutches? Sobbing and crying with pain. Grieving. Devastated.
He would have been so helpless…So vulnerable…
Suddenly, she understands. She understands why.… Oh, Force… all those years. All those years he had suffered under the Emperor's service. Her indomitable husband, broken by her loss—
"You're alive…" He sobs. "No…it has to be a trick…?"
"It isn't a trick." She rasps. Her throat thick with hidden tears.
His strength gives out.
He crumples, bloody hacking coughs, soaking her shoulder crimson as he falls into her waiting arms. She crashes to the floor, unable to support his dead weight. Even so, she cushions his fall, shielding his fragile bleeding body as they hit the steel with a sickening thump. She hears a rib crack. Her own, she hopes. And is sure that she doesn't care.
"Medics!" She yells breathlessly from beneath his mass. "Get the medics in here…" She knows the soldiers hesitate. But they obey her all the same.
He is past the point of posing a danger.
"It hurts…" He sobs, his face twisted in panic. "…..what happened…what did you do to me…what did you…!?"
She hears footsteps behind her. The thud of a trauma kit hitting the floor. The sound of items being unpacked and withdrawn.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry…" She whispers to him, the weight of his body driving the air from her lungs. "We had to…We had to do this to save your life…You were dying, Ani….You were dying… You will get better. You will…Trust me…please trust me…let the doctors help you…"
The whimpers die in his throat, and she sees him fighting to slow his breathing. He's getting weaker…losing yet more blood….
"General Amidala….?" An uncertain voice asks from behind her. It is her medic awaiting orders.
Her gaze meets Anakin's pleading eyes from where he rests on her thin chest; his irises are flashing yellow, then blue from behind fluttering lashes.
"Anakin…do you trust me? Anakin…?"
"…I trust you…" He gasps softly. Moments later, his eyes shut and he goes limp as Padmé signals the medic to move forward.
The rest is a blur as they pull her out from under him. Medical staff bustle around, fighting to stabilize his plummeting vitals. She stays doggedly. Looming over them watchfully should he wake again. He won't die this way. She won't let him.
She won't let him.
Poor Padmé...I will be nicer to her next chapter. Don't worry. I know it's short...