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“Stop!” Padme cries. “You cannot torture a prisoner.”
The comlink is too small to for Padme to see anything but Dooku, but it doesn’t mask outside sound, and Padme can still hear Anakin’s cries. She wonders if he’s even awake, because he surely would have spoken if he was.
And Dooku is smiling.
“Torture?” he says, as though affronted by her accusation. After all, she can’t see Anakin through the comm, and thus has no true proof. “I don’t know what you mean... I’ll give you an hour to consider my proposition. I’m sure that you will make the right choice.”
The comm blicks out, and silence fills the room. Finally, Jar Jar steps forwards.
“Yousa have to trade with him,” he says. Padme only shakes her head, walking forwards slowly. Anakin, she knew, wouldn’t hesitate for an instant. He would choose her above the Republic and never regret it.
But she wasn't her partner. Not even close.
“I can’t, Jar Jar. With Grievous captured we could… we could end the war.”
(That had been the plan, hadn’t it? Win the war, clean up the aftermath, and then retire here to Naboo. A stupid fantasy, really. Despite the corruption in both the Senate and the Jedi, Padme knows that neither she nor Anakin could ever really leave.)
“...But hesa our friend.”
He’s so much more than her friend.
“I know, Jar Jar… I know.”
Silence fills the room once more. They all know her decision, and they all hate it.
But it’s the only way.
One hour later, Padme finalizes the fate of the man who’d give her everything, but would never truly forgive her for this (if he survives. She needs him to survive. (She doesn't deserve to need anything from him, now.)).
“Hello, Senator. I trust that your decision is made?”
Padme nodded, solemnly. Yes, she had made her choice.
“We will not be making the trade,” she says with a calm she didn’t truly feel. A small twinge of satisfaction fills her at Dooku’s taken-aback expression. She’d given up something huge in this trade, and it was good to know that neither side had won.
Then Dooku’s smile returns.
“Well then, I suppose that I have lost today. Grievous is in the hands of the Republic while I… have Skywalker.”
He’s baiting her, and she knows it. She keeps her faux-calm. She made her choice.
Even if it does break her in two.
She forces herself to smile, as she speaks.
“The Republic will win the war, Count Dooku, and we can survive without a single General… can you?”
She hangs up. It doesn't feel like a victory.
She’s never felt so disgusted with herself as right then, Anakin’s cries still echoing in her head. She doesn’t think she ever will be.
(That night, she sleeps in a guest room at Varykino, hand curled around the Japor Snippet Anakin had given her. The silver chain hangs loose.
They had never been able to give each other wedding rings, but Anakin had found the chain on a mission. He’d still been a Padawan, then, and he’d smiled at her as he strung the pendant through the chain.
“Will you marry me?” he’d asked with a smirk as he placed the long chain around her neck. She’d smiled, pulled him down to her height by that ridiculous Padawan Braid, and kissed him.
Now that snippet and chain were all she had left.)
(Three weeks after she makes the choice, she finds Anakin’s lightsaber on her desk. She bursts into tears right there and she’s never felt so weak.
“When I finished constructing my lightsaber Obi-Wan said to me, ‘Anakin, this weapon is your life’.”
He’d held out his blade to her, face earnest.
“This weapon is my life.”
Padme had merely tried to push him away.
“No, Anakin,” she’d said, “A Jedi lightsaber is…”
Anakin had only smiled, placing it in her hand regardless. It was too much, and Padme had been the one to joke here, not him.
“Wow. It’s heavier than I thought.”
It was so corny, but Anakin had smiled anyway.
“It’s yours.”
And, though they hadn’t known it at the time, that was literal.
He’d given her his life, and she’d given it away.
She was wrong, three weeks ago. This is the most disgusted that she will ever be with herself.)