You think you know… what you are, what’s to come…

She swoons as a nauseating fury washes over her. There’s a power in such anger, and for the first time, she can almost understand Anakin’s willingness to embrace the darkness.

The problem is, she's not exactly sure who she's more upset with. There’s Obi-Wan, of course. Yet deep down, she understands that he merely wanted to protect her. Because he knows her. Knows that she might do something reckless like run off on some crazy mission to redeem her husband.

You’re a good person. Don’t do this.

But mostly, she’s angry with herself. She should have known that Anakin survived Mustafar. He is as much a part of her as their children are.

At least he was.




‘You’re taking the children and leaving, aren’t you?’ Obi-Wan’s voice is soft and low, his tone benign yet somehow damning all at once.

‘What makes you think that?’ she asks tersely, her back to him.

He doesn’t answer. She finishes brewing her caf and watches the sand stir outside their window for a moment before sitting down at the table.

Obi-Wan takes the seat across from her. Although she cannot bring herself to look at him, she knows he is watching her intently. Instead of feeling irritated, she feels defeated. Frail and empty and so very tired.

‘You’ve been crying,’ he observes. ‘I’m so sor –‘

‘Don’t,’ she interrupts, holding her hand up to him in protest. She takes a breath and lifts her gaze to meet his.

He looks as broken as she feels.

‘I’m not taking the children anywhere,’ she tells him haltingly. ‘If… their father was to find out about them, I have little doubt that he would track us down and bring them to Palpatine. I will not let them be taken from me by a madman and his… his s-slave.’

The last word chokes out of her and she covers her face with her hands. She is suddenly incapable of stemming the tide of her grief as it breaks loose. She senses Obi-Wan moving toward her. He presses his hand to the small of her back, an attempt to comfort her as she weeps.




Obi-Wan leaves for Mos Eisley. She wishes she could go with him but she can’t bring herself to leave Luke and Leia with the droids.

She watches the twin suns descending slowly on the horizon and wonders what Obi-Wan will have purchased with the monthly stipend Bail Organa provides. She longs for satin gowns and Shurra fruit, luxuries of a past that now seems all too fortunate.

Reaching further back, she recalls the simple beauty of Motée’s lyrical humming as she prepared her lady’s hair and clothing for the day ahead. Dormé’s gentle reassurances after a particularly tough session in the Senate. And earlier still, the aching remembrance of her sister’s conspiratorial giggle, the holos on the wall in her old bedroom, and her parents’ embrace.

Mere snippets of Threepio’s dialogue with her children reach her ears as she slips further into her pained daydreaming. Moments later, a sudden tug at her skirt startles her.

Leia looks up at her, eyes questioning. A frown pulls at the corners of her mouth. ‘Mama sad?’

She wants to lie to her daughter, wants to tell her that Mama is not sad at all. Mama is just waiting for Obi-Wan to return safely. But Leia will know the truth. Her daughter’s knowingness is almost unsettling.

She sighs instead and gives Leia a small nod.

‘Mama’s sad.’





What she thinks in the middle of the night, what she can never tell Obi-Wan, is that she doesn’t know if she loves Anakin anymore. That even though she feels the need to see him, she doesn’t know if she can love him anymore.

So you do feel something!

Once upon a time, she had been Padmé Amidala, a Senator of the Republic who fell in love with a Jedi Padawan named Anakin Skywalker.

Once upon a time, she believed their love would outlive them both.

She now knows better.




‘I need to see him,’ she tells Obi-Wan, watching as he kneels beside Leia, guiding her as she Force-floats the ball toward Luke. Luke holds out a chubby hand and takes over effortlessly when the ball approaches. He beams up at her and it breaks her heart to see how much he looks like his father.

‘Padmé, I know you want to, but it’s –‘

‘Dangerous,’ she finishes, nodding curtly. ‘Yes, I know, Obi-Wan. But no more dangerous for me than for you. Besides, this place…’ She looks around the hovel, frustration clamping down hard inside of her. ‘You can’t keep me trapped within these same four walls, within these same property borders forever. I can’t breathe anymore.’

She stands and approaches him, kneels down. Her hand reaches out, softly caressing the skin around his eyes. He closes them in reflexive appreciation.

‘This place, this life, it’s slowly suffocating both of us, Obi-Wan. And Luke and Leia...’ She moves her hand to stroke her daughter’s hair, gaze shifting between her two children as they float the ball to each other. ‘They deserve a better mother than I’ve been to them.’

Obi-Wan opens his eyes, watching her with plaintive anguish.

‘I need to see him with my own eyes,’ she tells him. ‘Nothing will happen to me watching a simple HoloNet feed, and I’ll wear my cloak. If I leave first thing in the morning, I can return well before nightfall. I just… I need to see his eyes. I need to know that he’s truly lost to me.’

‘You no longer believe that there’s good left in him?’ Obi-Wan watches her with frank surprise.

‘I didn’t say that, Obi-Wan. But my duty as his wife… He broke any such commitment when he murdered innocent people. When he tried to murder me. If… Anakin is ever to find his way back to the light, it is his journey alone.

‘We’ve been so angry with each other, I think, that we’ve forgotten to be angry with the one person who actually deserves it.’ She sighs.

‘Anakin,’ he replies.

She nods. ‘Anakin.