Chapter Text
Sun was filtering in through the window of Padme’s apartment above the senatorial complex. Courscant’s evening breeze floating in through the open balcony and gently swaying the curtains and tapestry that hung about the living room. The holo was running mostly as background noise while Padme worked on cooking dinner in the kitchen area. She paused after stirring the meal to look back out to the group that was in the middle of the room. Anakin and their beautiful children. She leaned against the counter to watch the three of them dance around each other in the empty space of the room. A smile making her way onto her face as Anakin guided Leia’s elbow to the proper position to hold her training saber.
“Like this, see? Then if someone strikes at you you won’t hurt yourself while blocking.”
It was almost hard to believe that the twins were turning seven this year. It felt like only yesterday her and Anakin were laughing about the ridiculousness of their arguing for names. She had been convinced that their child would be a boy but Anakin had been so stubborn in his conviction that the newborn would be a girl. They’d settled that whoever was right would get to name them. She’d always liked the name Luke but Anakin had always had his heart set on the name Leia. When they learned it was twins, they’d laughed as they held their little ones. Tears of joy on both their faces.
Anakin caught her eye as he helped Luke adjust his footing. He smiled at her and she smiled back. They’d been through so much and the war was still going on. Palpatine had betrayed them and fled the Republic. It wasn’t lost on her that she’d very nearly lost her husband that night as well. The Clone Wars had continued under the guidance of their new chancellor, Bail Organa. Unfortunately, Anakin was still a General who served on the front lines. He was only granted as many reprieves as he was because he had a wife and two children who needed him at home. The Jedi council certainly hadn’t been happy when they found out and she still remembered the exhausted looks that haunted her Anakin for the days that followed.
“Mommy!”
Luke’s voice shook her out of her thoughts as he ran over to her; those were all for another time when you had two young force sensitives who held just as much energy as their father around. She bent down to his level.
“Yes?”
“Daddy said after dinner we could get ice cream!”
“Did he now?”
She raised an eyebrow to Anakin who was now kneeling behind Leia to fix her braids and giving her an embarrassed smile. Luke nodded vehemently and she couldn’t help but laugh and ruffle his hair.
“Alright, only if you finish all of your dinner this time okay? No picky eating or there’s no ice cream.”
Luke gave her a dramatic pout, another thing he inherited from his father. Anakin put his hand on their son’s shoulder.
“I think dinner’s just about done, go help your sister set the table.”
Luke huffed but conceded, there was ice cream on the line and he wasn't planning on doing anything that could jeopardize that. Padme was still smiling when she stood up, her eyes full of love while Anakin took her arms and kissed her. Following her over to the stove and wrapping his arms around her waist while she stirred and he rested his head on her shoulder, peppering her cheek with kisses.
“What were you thinking about just now?”
“Our family, how lucky we are, how far we’ve come.”
He hummed lightly. The sounds of dishes and laughter coming from the dining table.
“I love these days.”
It was her turn to hum. She wished everyday could be like this one but she had known that wouldn’t be a chance for her future when she realized she’d fallen in love with a Jedi. Even more so when the war began. The plan had been to raise them back on Naboo, the twins' room by the gardens, raising them like that would have been a dream. And it became one when they realized how much the Republic still needed them. The Republic had been in so much turmoil after the betrayal. She was a needed voice in the Senate, just as Anakin was a needed figure in the war if they were going to win.
“When do you leave?”
He sighed, his breath sending goosebumps over the skin on her neck.
“End of the week, I’m going to the outer rim, trying to help Obi-wan with negotiations out there. He thinks they’re going to go south quickly.”
She nodded as she turned the stove off and put the lid over the pot she’d been stirring.
“Then it’s a good thing he has you to watch his back. One step closer to ending this war is one step closer to you coming home to us for more than a few days at a time.”
He pulled away but stayed close as they both made their way to the table. Luke and Leia were sitting at their spots, one each next to an empty seat that would soon be occupied by their parents. Padme sat the pot in the middle of the table and removed it’s lid. Luke and Leia both leaned forward in their seats to see the food while Anakin dished out their meals for them.
The meal went like most of their other ones. Luke and Leia excitedly talking about what they learned in their classes at the temple. Asking Anakin questions about things they didn’t really understand and asking Padme about politics. They weren’t a normal family but they made it work the best they could.
The sun was sitting low in the sky at this point, painting it with oranges, reds, and yellows. They’d just gotten back from ice cream and were finally winding down before bed. The holo was on for a drama show that Anakin had loved from the moment Padme showed it to him. Anakin sat on the floor with his back leaning against the couch, Luke sitting on his lap. Leia sat on her legs next to them while Padme sat on the couch and worked on brushing out her daughter’s hair. It was quiet except for the show, the characters putting the pieces of the puzzle together one part at a time unaware that the enemy was with them. It was strikingly familiar to reality if they were to think about it for too long.
Padme was just about to start braiding Leia’s hair into her night braids when Luke wriggled around to face his parents.
“Isn’t that what happened? With Sidious?”
Padme’s hands stilled and she looked to Anakin for his reaction. He only paused a moment before looking down at his little boy.
“It is. Sidious lied and tricked everyone until he revealed himself.”
It was Leia’s turn to look at her dad, resting her chin on Padme’s knee.
“But you beat him, right Daddy?”
Anakin paused for a moment, figuring out how he wanted to say what he was about to.
“For the moment yes. But I still have to beat him again so that the war ends. You two deserve more than a war for your childhoods and I’m doing everything I can to try to end it. That way I can spend more time here with all of you.”
Luke spoke up again.
“In class they said you and Grandpa Obi-wan fought him together.”
Obi-wan and Anakin’s relationship had taken more of a brotherly turn after Anakin’s knighting ceremony but it hadn’t changed the fact that Obi-wan raised him. Obi-wan was the closest thing he had to a father, and besides Anakin had always enjoyed teasing him about his age. Calling him Grandpa to the kids had started as a joke originally but then it just stuck.
“We did, Grandpa Obi-wan helped me a lot that day.”
“When was the last time the Bad Man showed up?”
Anakin smiled a little at Luke’s name for Sidious. When the twins were little and asking questions before the Temple had reached those classes Anakin and Padme had made the mutual agreement to call him the Bad Man as a point of reference for something to avoid at all costs without scaring their little ones. They were both as curious as he was at that age but something about this conversation wasn’t sitting right with him.
“It’s been a while, but we should avoid talking about it like this. The force has a habit of making things happen when we start to question them. It’s why you don’t ask if things can get worse because they always will.”
Before the twins could even nod their consent to Anakin’s request, static from the holo filled the room. Their program was gone, replaced instead by a Separatist signal figure and then Palpatine in his office at some safe house. Just seeing him again made anger pool in the base of Anakin’s heart.
“This war drags on by your Republic and Jedi refusing to give in. How many more have to die needlessly before you realize you are on the wrong side? I can protect you. When I was Chancellor of the Republic the casualties were not so high, look at them now. If you truly want to end this war then I have an offer. Fight me young Skywalker. Defeat me and my army and this war ends now-”
The holo was turned off after that. Anakin was trying desperately to hide the fact that his hand was shaking from their children but Padme saw it. She knew what this was already and from the looks of him, so did her husband. This was it. The finale they’d both been hoping for and dreading. She had thought it would be on a normal battlefield, that it would be a spur of the moment that they would catch Palpatine and finally put an end to the agony the galaxy had been in for nearly ten years. But no. Instead the Sith had called her husband out by name for something that was so obviously a trap, and one that he had no choice but to spring.
“See? The force likes to nudge you if you talk about things.”
“I didn’t mean it Daddy.”
“I know, I know you didn’t know this would happen Luke it’s okay.”
Anakin had him hugged close to his chest, Leia sliding away from Padme and hugging her father as well. They both could feel the emotions in the room, they knew what the holo meant even if they didn’t fully see its repercussions. Anakin gave them each a kiss on the head before pulling away to look them each in the eye.
“Daddy has to go away for a little bit, alright?”
“Because the bad man wants you to fight him.”
Now Leia had slipped into the old name. The image of Sidious’s face if he heard how Anakin’s children referred to him made a smile pull on his lips and a small laugh to escape. He couldn’t look at Padme just yet. He needed to present calm to his kids. He needed them to believe he would be alright, he couldn’t bare it if they thought they’d never see him again. They were both as reckless as their parents, Anakin knew that if they thought he’d die they’d find a way to get to him and the last thing he wanted was his family anywhere near Sidious.
“Yes, yes princess. I have to finish this so I can stay home for more than a few days at a time.”
Luke was nodding but Anakin still caught the way he was wringing his hands in his shirt sleeves, another thing he got from him he supposed.
“Luke?”
Worried blue eyes turned to look up at him and the scene itself made his heart break. He never wanted either of his children to look like this.
“What if you don’t come back? He’s really strong.”
All of them had seen the scars Anakin had on his body. From the lightning and the saber burns he’d gained during his last fight with the Sith. But Luke would know if he was lying, so Anakin gave his little ones a sad smile and made a promise he wasn’t sure he could keep despite years of knowledge that told him not to.
“I’ll come home. I can’t leave your mom with the both of you. You’re too rambunctious for that.”
He laughed, a little bit forced but the image of Padme reigning in both of the twins was something he’d seen enough times to know it was a funny one. His laughter in turn made the twins both laugh. At that moment Anakin thought it was the sweetest sound in the world. He tickled both of them a little, something they’d both gotten from their mother, they were ticklish on their stomachs and sides. He never wanted it to end but their time was limited and he finally decided to meet his wife’s eyes. The great Senator Amidala was used to holding back her emotions but she couldn’t stop the tears that were threatening to spill over, she had almost lost her husband to Sidious once before she didn’t want to risk it again.
Anakin hugged the kids close.
“Mommy and I need to talk okay? Go play for a little?”
The twins luckily nodded and left the room leaving Anakin to watch them exit down the hall and move to embrace his wife. Padme hugged him tight and buried her head in his chest while he rested his head on hers.
“I don’t like this Ani.”
“Neither do I Angel, but if I don’t go…”
“It will get worse, I know. I know but-”
Sadness and worry were blending together and rolling off her in waves. He placed a kiss to the top of her head and tried to hold back his own emotions at the thought that this may be the last time he sees his family.
“Knowing Palpatine he will want it broadcasted. He wants it watched. Probably so everyone can see me either fall or die, but I won’t let it be that way.”
She nodded at his words before turning her head up to look at him. He could see every bit of passion and love and fear in those brown eyes.
“Don’t you leave me.”
“I would never Angel.”
He leaned down to kiss her on the lips. It was ironic in the way that the kiss was much like the one when they first confirmed their love. Sure they weren’t physically being wheeled into an arena meant to kill them but this fight that was coming was sure to be a show. And before he died he wanted her to know.
The pinging of his comm on his wrist was what finally made them pull away. He brushed the two escaped tears from Padme’s beautiful face before swallowing hard and steeling himself for what was to come. He couldn’t show that he was vulnerable, he had to do this there wasn’t another way. Mace’s voice was the one that greeted him when he answered.
“Skywalker-”
“I know. I’m on my way.”
Anakin kissed her again and Padme reached her hand towards his. She didn’t want him to go as much as she knew he had to. He squeezed her hand and made his way to the door before pausing and turning back to look at her. Padme might not be force sensitive but she wasn’t blind. She could see the love and longing and just barely hidden fear in his eyes.
“I love you.”
“I know. Be safe Ani, I love you.”