Chapter Text
Padmé Naberrie could see the end. White light, washing over her, relieving her of the pain that filled her body. She was glad for it, as much as the raw desire to stay with her children ached to her very bones—that white light was freedom from the pain.
She wanted to live for them, to give them a mother. But oh, how tired she was.
Her body was tired, so tired, and so was her mind. Her will to keep fighting was fading, the bright light so tempting. Her heart hurt, a dull throbbing that felt as though someone were pulling it from her chest. Tearing it out, displaying her pain for the whole world to see.
Padmé was dying, because of Anakin—because of the stranger that had her husband’s voice and face. The stranger that choked her. If she were not so exhausted, if she had not been so very tired, then she would have questioned everything.
For now, though, all she questioned was the words echoing inside her mind, the words Ani had said (but no, she did not believe that he was her Anakin). Her Anakin must be somewhere inside of that man, he must still be alive. Something had corrupted him, there must be some explanation for his words and for the duel between Anakin and his master, Obi-Wan—the man he looked up to more than anything.
Someone held out her children to her, and she whispered their names to them, gently kissing each on their head. The names she and Anakin had wished for their children.
On Naboo, the birth of twins was seen as something special, it was seen as a balance in the world of the living. A balance in the Force, some would call it. If she were on Naboo—if she were at home, with her mother and father and sister and family—then her children would go through their naming ceremony within the first hours of their life.
But Padmé was not on Naboo, and she couldn’t even ensure that her children would ever step foot on her home planet.
Another flash of pain went through her, piercing through the white light. It was a phantom hand around her throat, a pounding ache in her head that would never go away.
Her eyes shut tight against the tears falling down her face as she grasped onto Obi-Wan’s hand, onto the hand of Anakin’s brother, and tried to form the words to tell him something before her time on this world ended.
She wished to tell him to take her children home, to Naboo, to her sister and mother and father, but she knew in her heart it was a useless hope. Padmé’s blood family would be the first place Anakin would look if he were trying to find their—her—children.
She had longed for the day they would raise their children together, the day they would watch them take their first steps, speak their first words—and as much as she wanted her husband to be the same person he had been when they married, she did not know if he could come back to her.
But she hoped. Oh, how she hoped.
She wanted to tell him all of this—how she could not trust her husband to take care of them, that he had gotten too close to the evil that was poisoning their galaxy, and she did not know if there was enough Anakin left in him (but she had to believe). She longed to tell Obi-Wan to help him, to help Ani, the man from Tatooine whom she loved.
There was so much else as well that Padmé wanted to tell Obi-Wan to do, to love them as she would, to take care of them, to protect them.
She wanted to tell him to speak to Bail and Mon Mothma—to help them fight against the tyranny growing in their government. Padme wished to give him her notes, the ones she kept locked away, the ones that were the seeds of change.
The seeds of a new hope.
As the words formed on her lips, the words telling Obi-Wan all the thoughts in her mind—her lungs constricted, and Padmé could not tell how much longer she had.
In the white light that danced along the edges of her vision, Padmé thought she could see a hand reaching out. Dep in her heart she knew it was the hand of someone she loved, someone who loved her back.
Ani’s face filled her mind, his blue eyes and the scar upon his face. As her final breath rattled through her lungs, all she could say was that hope she held deep in her heart. All she could say was words about Anakin, because as all the things in her life seemed to be, they were dedicated to him.
There is still good in him…I know…there is still...
Padmé Naberrie Amidala was not given a moment longer to finish her sentence, to hold her children, to stay on that planet for one word more.
Her heart stopped as her eyes fell closed, and she allowed herself to slip into that white light.
It was easy, in the end. To go quickly, and let go sooner, than keep fighting against the pain and all the realizations.
That her husband might be a monster.
That her world was crashing around her.
That all that she had fought for within the Senate might be for nothing.
It was easy, in the end. For Padme, the white light was a relief—she would get a break from the pain, from the helplessness.
At last, she’d get to rest.
“Padmé.” Obi-Wan shook her shoulder, refusing to look at the med-droid’s endless list of vitals, flat lines and dropping numbers, its beeping and cold acceptance of her death.
Obi-Wan wished to pull out his ‘saber and cut the med-droid in half.
Because he and Padme were friends.
He knew her for all of the Clone Wars. Even before they had begun.
He met the young girl when he was only a padawan himself.
A queen. A handmaiden. Twisted up in the spiderweb of politics and assassins and Jedis.
They laughed together. They faced the horror of not knowing what their fates would be. How gruesome of a death they might face. They had smiled together and kriff they had done so many idiotic things together.
He had turned his back so many times so she and Anakin could steal a word, a kiss, a touch—even if they were in public. Obi-Wan should have stepped in, but Padmé was Anakin’s world and oh, how his brother needed some good in his life.
But no. Obi-Wan shook his head to clear his mind of the man who always stood and laughed at him (with him) when Obi-Wan was decidedly not looking at Anakin and Padmé in such situations.
Padmé was such a strong woman, she was brave and fierce and a good politician—one of only a few left in the Senate.
Even though Obi-Wan had always thought politicians were untrustworthy. Even though he had always tried to have backup plans, to not become friends with them.
They had become friends.
And now she was another name to add to his list of dead friends. His dead soldiers.
Because she was under his watch.
“She’s gone, Obi-Wan. We must prepare her body for her family, we must find a safe home for the twins.”
Obi-Wan did not meet Bail Organa’s eyes.
Instead, he reached out with the Force. Surrounding the body laid out on the med-table, there was a lingering sense of darkness. Obi-Wan did not allow himself to face what that darkness was. Because there was also a lingering sense of life.
Obi-Wan knelt on the floor beside Padme and held his hand out towards the med-droids.
“Leave us.” After a moment, he spoke again, this time to Bail. “Do not speak for five minutes. That is all the time I need.”
Obi-Wan did not say, That is all the time we have. After that, there is no hope.
He did say, “I am going to do something no Jedi should do. But it is how Darth Vader is alive today, and if you want to try and defeat our enemies sooner rather than later, then I suggest you do not stop me.”
There was no response from Bail, and so Obi-Wan closed his eyes, and let himself slip into the Force.
You see, the Force always begged for balance. When there was a lack of balance, evil thrived.
In this moment, the Force was overrun with evil, and no balance had been found.
One life had been taken in favor of another.
And now a life would be given, in favor of another.
It was the way of the Force, to take was to gain, to give was to lose.
Obi-Wan had never used the Force in this way, but it was simply diving deeper into something he’d been brushing into all his life. Though it was something he didn’t care to admit to himself, he knew his actions were for Anakin. For his brother.
His robes, which had always kept him a comfortable temperature, now felt too thin as the hair on his arms stood up.
Once, a long time ago, his Master, Qui-Gon, gave him a lecture about the Force. About the ways that Force could be used but shouldn’t.
“This is a desperate measure, one that should only be taken in the direst of circumstances.”
“But Master, how will I know?”
In front of Obi-Wan’s eyes, he could almost see the scene play out. His face, rounded and smoother, scrunched up as it did often when his Master made no sense.
“You will know, my young Padawan. This is a use of the Force that few know of. And within those few, are even fewer who have used it. Most can only do it once in their lifetime, for it brushes so close to offsetting the balance of the Force.”
“I don’t understand, Master.”
The strange padawan vision of Obi-Wan was reaching a tone close to whining.
“Why are you telling me this if I’m never going to use it?”
“Often we are told things that we never put to use. But it is better to have learned and not needed, then needed and not known.”
Padawan Obi-Wan let out a sign that sounded quite akin to those older Obi-Wan has let out in many a political meeting.
“I suppose so.”
The world tilted—and now another padawan was standing in front of his master. This time, it was Anakin, young and small and so very eager.
They had just been discussing life forces. Anakin was so young—Obi-Wan couldn’t burden him with what Qui-Gon had left for him.
He couldn’t tell a youngling how to save a life, how to nearly turn to the dark side. How there was a line, between the light and between the darkness. Qui-Gon walked that line and once taught Obi-Wan how to walk that line, how to find that eerie twilight.
Obi-Wan did not teach Anakin. He took him to Yoda, who added onto their conversation.
Yoda did not mention Qui-Gon’s teachings.
Obi-Wan never mentioned it, either.
Eyes closed, the world shifted around Obi-Wan. Time passed by, and it swirled around him, going forwards, going backwards.
Obi-Wan watched as the world rewound, for seconds—for hours and for years.
And then it was all back to the start.
A light, in the distance, amidst flames and sunlight and bursting stars.
“Padmé,” Obi-Wan called out, into the abyss that was the Force. His eyes were closed, yet he could still see the room, and the figure standing at the door. “Come back.”
The figure turned, her face full of life in a way that it should not be. “Why?”
Obi-Wan said, “Come back for your children.”
Obi-Wan did not say, “Come back for Anakin,” because Anakin was dead and gone, but Luke and Leia were alive and well.
The woman turned, half a smile on her face. “I was so close to—”
“Shhhh,” Obi-Wan said. He reached his hand out to her. He did not want to hear the end of her sentence. He did not want to know whose name it would have been.
Whether Anakin or one of her handmaidens or soldiers or all the other lives that had been lost.
He could not have another reminder of what this world had taken from him.
“Come home,” he said. “Live. Fight. For them.”
There was silence. The figure turned.
“For the future,” she said, and walked back, towards Obi-Wan.
Towards the twilight of the Force not quite tipped into darkness, not yet.
Obi-Wan thought it would be painful.
After all, he was trading his life for Padmé’s.
Instead, it was a pull, deep inside of his chest. Close to his heart, something strong and powerful pulled at his Force. At his soul.
Memories flashed before him.
Anakin. Young and foolish and winning that kriffing race. Saving them, saving all of them.
Setting them onto this path.
Qui-Gon. Choosing Obi-Wan and choosing him again and again. Giving him a home and a father and a friend.
Leaving him.
Dying, Darth Maul falling and Qui-Gon dying alongside him.
So much death. So much pain.
His life swirled around him, all of the good and all of the bad—what had come and what had gone.
Then, memories he didn’t know. Memories that weren’t familiar.
A boy. Young and foolish. Just like Anakin.
The girl, too. Fierce and proud and stubborn and hair just like Padmé’s.
Both growing up to change the galaxy.
Then—there was the pain.
It was burning and wholly awful.
Obi-Wan looked up, he was both watching the memory and right inside of it.
The pain wasn’t even physical—his heart was shattering because though there was a ‘saber in his stomach, it was a figure in a black suit, a dark helmet staring at him. Darth Vader.
It was his lightsaber.
It was his hand that killed Obi-Wan.
Was this his future? Was this where it all would take him? Were any of his choices worthwhile if this was to become the future?
“Obi-Wan?” It was a man’s voice—not Anakin’s, nor Qui-Gon’s.
A door opened. Obi-Wan could only hear it. He could feel the ground beneath him as well, he must have fallen.
But the world was dark. He could see no light.
“What in the universe…” The man’s voice drifted off. Obi-Wan heard a gasp, and the room filled with the sound of various machines beeping.
“Is she alive?”
“What did you do?” Bail, because it must be Bail, whispered. Obi-Wan lifted his head, turning it in the direction of the voice. His muscles ached—had he been unconscious for days or only mere minutes?
His own voice was quiet. “I saved her.”
At what cost, though?
“Will she survive?” The steps of boots moved closer to Obi-Wan and hands pulled him upwards.
Standing, shakily, he leaned on Bail. “She has to.” She must.
The wail of a baby cut through the silence, and Bail left Obi-Wan’s side to comfort the child. Obi-Wan’s world was still dark, strange, and unfamiliar.
His sense of the Force was gone.
Would it be like this forever?