Every goodbye is hard.
Dormé departs first, for Naboo. We hold each other a long while and both shed tears. She has been my dearest friend, closest confidant, trusted strategist and protector for all my long years as Senator. I do not have words for what she means to me. We know this is the last time.
Master Yoda takes his leave the next morning, after conferring at length with Obi-Wan, for a far-off world called Dagobah. "May the Force be with you," I tell him.
"And with you, Padmé. A light, you and your children are, amid the darkness." Then he is gone.
Bail gives me an untraceable communications code that I can use to contact him in future. "Once you have disappeared for a while and become someone else, let me know when you are ready to jump back into the work again, in secret."
Then it is time to part with my precious children. Bail and Obi-Wan give us a moment alone.
"I love you, Leia, Luke. More than you can ever know. You are going to have the best parents. But I wish I could be part of your life, so much that it hurts. Take the best parts of me and of your father and make them your own. My heart goes with you."
I thought I had used all my tears, but they pour from me now as I hold the twins close. Leia gurgles, confused, and lifts her small hand to touch my cheek. Luke sobs to mirror my own. I kiss their soft foreheads. I will never be ready for this.
I try to hold myself together as Bail takes Leia from my arms and Obi-Wan takes Luke.
"Be safe, Padmé," Obi-Wan says, clasping my arm in a rare display of emotion. I throw my arms around him and Luke.
"Take care of my son, and yourself."
Then each man boards his own spacecraft, infant tucked safely inside. As they each make the jump to hyperspace, my heart falls to pieces, and I am a mess on the floor.
As a Senator I was so rarely alone that I craved it. Now I am the most alone I have ever been.
After even more tears, I collect myself. I take a knife to my well-cared for Senatorial hair and give myself an uneven bob that brushes my shoulders, then lather my scalp with dye that turns my hair blonde in seconds. Then I dress in plain weather-worn garb and take the one bag of belongings Dormé brought for me from the "not-lake house" on Naboo.
By now, the Queen will have received news of my death and the handover documents I had been preparing for months. My family will know that I live but will never see them again. There will be a state funeral with no corpse.
I am no longer Padmé Amidala, politician and pacifist in a war-torn Republic. I am Berrie Obrin, refugee of the Galactic Empire. Reborn from the ashes.
