Rey tried to keep it together after Mara took her to Leia's starship's medical bay. Between sobs she said, "It hurts!" She carefully laid her freshly cut off wrist and freshly cut off right ankle into the bacta water.
"I don't know what you were thinking," Mara scolded, "you're lucky you only lost a few limbs to a dark lord of the sith. You could have ended up like-" she stopped herself short and caught her breath before she said, "my Ben. My baby boy."
"I'm sorry," Rey said, drying her eyes, "I shouldn't have left the Skywalker's side when we were on Raxus."
Mara replied, "No dear, Palpatine would have caught up to you eventually and carved out the coordinates from your back if he had to. It's better we got this over with now."
Rey gasped, "My mom! She's still inside the ship!"
"What?" she asked, "She's here?"
"Yeah," Rey answered, "I don't know if Master Skywalker or Senator Organa told you, but my mother is a clone of Padme."
Mara couldn't move. She had heard that name for most of her adult life. The sadness Anakin exuded whenever she was brought up was unmistakable. To think Palpatine had cloned his late wife...no wonder his rage was so palpable. She said, "No, they didn't tell me."
"I didn't know," she confessed, "not until recently. I went to Zygerria to see her again. She's inside Palpatine's ship and I don't think she'll leave! At least, not willingly." She wanted to move and get her again but she couldn't, she knew she couldn't. She had to stay in the water and heal.
Mara assured her, "Anakin will never leave her behind."
"Anakin."
Of course when Anakin left the broken ship to figure out what to do next, the first face he met up with was Obi-wan's. Why didn't it have to be him? And why was he so insistent they talk?
"I still have nothing to say to you, old man."
"Your rage is overpowering," Obi-wan continued, "it's quite difficult to focus with everything going on. Can you really live with such anger?"
Anakin shouted, "I just watched my oldest grandson be left in pieces by the sith lord the jedi council didn't see coming right outside their own bedroom windows over 50 years ago! You're lucky 'rage' is the only thing I feel right now and not 'vengeance' or 'bloodlust' or 'righteous fury!'" He wasn't afraid to get into Obi-wan's face. What was he going to do? Cut him up and leave him on fire to die again?
"I'm sorry," Obi-wan said softly as explosions went off overhead, "for all of it. I couldn't kill you that day. I couldn't bare the thought of it. If I had been strong enough to finish you off, you would have been spared all of this." He gestured to the chaos surrounding them.
Anakin replied, "The empire still would have reigned. He still would have carried on and found some other poor soul to torment into the dark side." He paused. "That's what I don't understand, Obi-wan. You really thought if I was gone it would have ended. You wanted Luke to kill me. You really think that would have stopped him?"
Obi-wan said, "Palpatine wasn't my brother. I never fully trusted him. He didn't defy orders throughout the war just to save my life. I didn't raise him as my padawan."
"You took it personally?"
"How could I not?!" Obi-wan asked, "I taught you everything I could about being a jedi master and then at the end of the war I left you for three days and suddenly you're the newest sith lord and a youngling murderer. How could I not be at fault for such a drastic shift?"
Anakin didn't know what to say to that.
A tall man came up from behind him, Qui-gon Jin, stopped deflecting the blasts from above and said, "Anakin, why don't you tell us why you fell. The real reason."
"Because I was scared," he answered, "and you weren't there." He looked Obi-wan over. "Neither of you were there."
"I couldn't be," Qui-gon said, "my time had come."
"I was sent to Utapau," Obi-wan said, "you know that. I didn't abandon you."
Anakin confessed, "It's irrational but in my worst hour it didn't feel that way. I was alone, against the most vicious monster in the galaxy, and he won."
The communicator on his wrist beeped. It was Mara. "Anakin," she said as a hologram, "Rey says her mother is still inside Palpatine's ship and she likely won't come out easily."
"What?" he gasped, "Padme's in there?"
He reminded himself she was a clone. It wasn't the real her. He wasn't going to see his wife again. This was a different woman, who had different experiences, and who had fallen in love with someone else. His half-brother. He didn't want to think about it.
As he turned to run to the broken down ship, it surprised him that he didn't sense her sooner.
"Anakin!" Obi-wan shouted after him, "Wait!"
"Leave him be, Obi-wan," Qui-gon replied, "he has to confront this."
Inside the ship, Anakin climbed over the broken and mangled bits easy. No wonder he couldn't sense her before, her fear was hidden behind Rey's. It felt so similar to hers. He walked through the now familiar maze of halls in the back. Passed where the bacta tank his body was from, and upstairs.
Even in the back, the ship from broken and off-center. One wrong move and they could have a long way down to the bottom. Anakin followed the fear to a doorway and hesitated.
What could he say to her?
He knocked gently. "Padme?"
When she opened the door, she flushed red with embarrassment. Although she had seen this man her entire life, seeing him for the first time in real life was surreal. "It's you," she said breathlessly.
This Padme was older than he had ever seen his own wife. She had died so young, at only 27. It was clear this Padme was in her 30's, the same age as Sevriko.
Anakin took one step inside and remembered when Rey told him her mother had hundreds of pictures on her walls of him. She wasn't lying. He saw pictures of himself from every part of his life, even when he first started at the jedi temple. He used the force to break all of them, forcing the images away. "You don't have to stare at those anymore," he said.
"Oh," she said awkwardly, "thank you."
"Padme, we have to leave," he said gently, "this ship is broken beyond repair. There's no place for you here."
"What?" she said, "No! I've never left! I'll never leave!"
Anakin carefully took her arm and felt her past pain instantly. Old scars revealed what Palpatine had done to her. He grabbed her by the arm harshly in the same spot, then smacked her repeatedly while shouting, "You certainly have a petulance for falling in love with the wrong man!" She screamed for him to stop.
"He's hurt you," Anakin said, gently rubbing his hand over her scars.
Padme nodded, "All the time."
"You don't have to be afraid anymore, Padme," he explained, "Palpatine is gone. He's dead. He won't hurt you ever again."
She asked, "Is he really?"
"Yes!" He insisted, "But we have to go. The ship is falling apart."
"But I've never-"
"Rey is outside," he interrupted. He felt her happiness and curiosity soar.
Excited, she asked, "Really? She is? Is Sevriko out there too?"
"Yes," he said, "they're waiting for you. They want to see you again and make sure you don't get hurt. Let's go."
As he guided her through the collapsing ship, she said, "You know, you're much more handsome in person than you are in those old pictures."
"It's alright, Padme," he said, helping her over a broken walkway, "you don't have to fulfill that purpose anymore."
She insisted, "But it's true."
"You're in love with Sevriko," he said, "I can feel it, Padme. Even after all these years of hating him, and wishing he hadn't disappeared with Rey, you love him."
Padme hesitated across the broken floor. "I-" she confessed, "I'm sorry. I failed my purpose."
Anakin said, "You can do whatever you want now."
She looked ahead at the treterous crossing and could barely believe her eyes. Explosions outside rocked the destroyed ship and moved the busted walkways around. She held onto Anakin tight-unable to not admire his muscles.
She didn't want to leave. She didn't want to throw herself into danger. The real Padme could. It seemed in those old recordings the real Padme wasn't afraid of anything, but this Padme was. She couldn't catch her breath.
"You're alright," Anakin insisted, "that wasn't in here. It's outside!"
"But we're going outside!" she said, terrified. She couldn't move.
Anakin pulled her along. "If we stay in here we won't make it. We have to go, now!" She resisted, which he didn't appreciate. His wife never gave him this much trouble whenever danger lurked.
Padme gasped one more time and couldn't take it. She fainted in his arms.
Anakin grabbed her and carried her out of the now deserted ship. Above him, outside, the First Order ships weren't slowing down. They had no idea Palpatine was gone and their fighting was over nothing.
After a few moments, Padme regained consciousness and remembered where she was. She had hardly ever left the confines of her room, let alone Palpatine's ship, and now seeing the true outside for the first time ever was more than terrifying. Once Anakin set her down, she looked around and couldn't help but feel fear-until Sevriko ran up to her.
"Padme!" he exclaimed, "You're okay!"
"Sevi!" She had wanted to see him again, and now that she knew Rey was safe, it was easier for her to except her husband back into her life.
Anakin looked away. He reminded himself once again that this wasn't his wife.
Once they finished hugging, Sevriko said, "Anakin, Luke and Leia have decided to take over the death star and blow this place to pieces once they finish rounding up all these First Order soldiers."
"That's-" he paused to think on it, "that's a great idea. Then this place won't be used again."
"I know," he replied, "but I brought everyone I could think of connected to the force back to life. That includes Shmi, and the real Padme. They both carried force sensitive children at some point so they should have been brought back as well."
"What?" he gasped.
It only took a second to scan the battlefield. All jedi and all First Order fighters. No one in between and definitely not his late wife and mother.
"I never thought I'd ever get the chance to be inside one of these things again," Leia said, walking into the control room of the half-built death-star.
"I think it's bigger than the last two he built 30 years ago," Luke said, looking at the controls.
Leia said, "Once everyone is off of Exegol, it's done for."
"Do you know how to start this thing up?" Luke asked, reading the different control levers and button labels.
"My nightmares remember."
On the ground, Anakin no longer cared about the overly excited First Order pilots swooping down at him, shooting away bits of the massive ancient temple. He went back inside and went through the maze of halls he didn't even bother looking through before. The inscriptions on the wall were lit up, still enacting the incantation from earlier.
Away from the fighting, safe within the temple walls, to the point where he couldn't even hear the explosions anymore, came a familiar voice.
"Ani?" his mother asked excitedly.
He stopped and stared at his mom wearing white robes. She was happier than he had ever seen her. "Mom?" He ran up and hugged her for the first time in over 60 years.
"You got so big and strong!" She marveled, "So handsome!"
"I'm sorry I couldn't save you," he whispered into her ear, "I tried to get to you as soon as I could but it wasn't fast enough."
Shmi pried him away, he was so much taller than her now. She ran her fingers through his long hair and said, "Ani, because of you I died free. That's all I asked for, to see you again, and to be free and I got what I wished for in the very end."
Anakin confessed, "Mom, I wasn't strong enough to be a jedi. I couldn't handle your death and I went down a dark path-" he stopped himself. She knew nothing of the jedi lifestyle or ways of life. She had never heard of the sith or the dark side of the force. She'd have no idea what he was talking about, and he knew he didn't have time to explain it.
"You did your best," she said, "I'm sure. Now look at you, whatever you did wrong, you can try to right those wrongs while you have the chance. It's over for me, Ani, but you can still do so much more."
He couldn't believe he actually felt better. One conversation with his mom was all it took. "Thanks," he said, "I love you so much."
"I love you too, Ani."
"Mom, there's someone you should meet," he said, reaching for his communicator, "Sevriko, I found my mom. Use my location and come meet her."
Outside, Sevriko couldn't believe what he was hearing. Should he go down and meet her? Of course he had always wanted to but he figured he would never get the chance. But there it was, waiting for him.
"Are you sure?"
"Get over here!" Anakin commanded.
Sevriko walked down the corridors alone, leaving his wife near the entrance, safe. Anakin moved on, allowing them to talk alone, as he felt another presence down the halls he hadn't sensed in a long time.
Padme. The original one, born and raised on Naboo. He turned to see her dressed in the outfit she was buried in. Her hair curled and long.
"Padme," his voice shook. It was really her.
"Ani," she replied, "hugging him, I knew there was still good in you!"
"I'm sorry!" he said, carefully touching her neck, "I never should have force choked you! I never should have believed you'd ever have an affair with Obi-wan! I should have left the jedi and then we could have lived normal lives with the twins."
Padme hugged him and said, "You didn't know what Palpatine was planning, Ani. You couldn't have prevented any of it. Not even the council or Master Yoda saw any of this coming."
Anakin insisted, "I could have done more."
"You're doing more now," she said, "that's what matters."
"Padme," he asked, "do you want to meet your children? Bail raised Leia, and Owen raised Luke."
"I'd love to."
He knew as soon as Exegol was gone, she alongside his mother would vanish. Still, he knew he had to let them meet each other just once.