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If you can’t sleep I’ll be there in your dreams,
I’ll be there in your dreams if you can’t sleep at all.
And in your dreams I’ll touch your cheek,
and lay my head on your shoulder.
1.
Padmé Naberrie is ten years old, and is a Princess of Theed. The princesses of Theed have many responsibilities, but always there is time for play. The girls take turns hiding and finding one another, darting in-between the smooth, curved pillars of the palace of Theed. One day, their paths will diverge; one of them will become Queen. Today, however, is not that day.
Padmé Naberrie always gets found first; she’s caught out by her voice. Padmé loves to sing, and she makes up songs the way others put together sums. They collect in her head and come soaring out of her mouth, dexterous and free as birds. She’s singing a silly ditty about their history & policy instructor when her sister-in-all-but-blood catches her, giggling as she drags her into the light by the sleeve.
Padmé never minds. Today, and all the days before, she is glad to be known for something, to be recognized. Her parents had always prized creativity, and she’s glad to be a good example, a person to be proud of. Not everyone can make up a song, let alone sing one.
2.
Padmé Naberrie is twelve, and on the fast track to the Queenship. She stands up straight, learns her courtesies, and the adults around her marvel at her politesse and maturity. However, she hasn’t lost her taste for singing, though now there is little time for it.
It’s the morning before a gala, the first ball of the season. Soon she’ll report to her appointed dress chambers, and be assisted in preparing her face, dress, and coiffure for the ball. The other girls have gone, all scattered on the planet’s face in different mayoral positions. She’s the only one left in Theed.
She crosses the great hall, careful not to scuff the swirling marble floor, and hums to herself. This mindless melody picks up a rhythm; she plucks words out of the air like feathers, and strings together a little song about men in black and women in white, dancing at a ball. She sings until she hears a cough from behind the grand staircase.
She whips back, alarmed; it’s only Senator Palpatine, smiling indulgently as if he were her own grandfather. Padmé never knew her grandfather.
“A lovely voice for a lovely girl,” he says, looking amused at her staring at him open-mouthed. She quickly remembers herself, and executes a quick-but-perfect curtsy. “Senator Palpatine. I apologize, I didn’t know I was accompanied.”
“Never mind that,” he says, waving his hand as if swatting a dragonfly. “I was curious of the song you were singing. I confess, I’ve never heard it before.”
“I made it up, sir.”
“How extraordinary,” he breathes, his face the very picture of amazement. After a brief pause, he asks, “Would you sing it for me? If it’s not too much trouble.”
Padmé considers this for a moment. She’ll be late for her preparations; she still needs to practice her speeches. But the Senator’s gaze pins her in place, and she has no choice.
So she sings, reciting the words from memory. Senator Palpatine closes his eyes and sways to the sound, as if lost in a faraway place. When she finishes, he smiles, and tells her it was beautiful.
3.
Queen Amidala is fourteen, and Tatooine is beyond any place she’s ever imagined, in life or in a story. The images of slavery and degradation are frightening; she often has to remind herself that she is a queen, and queens do not know fear.
The boy, Anakin, occupies her mind. She’s never met anyone like him. He’s curious like she is; he matches her questions with questions of his own, and listens raptly when she relays the minute details of her home world (all except for her true identity, of course). After a prolonged conversation about music, she asks him if he knows any songs.
“I can sing songs in four different languages,” he says triumphantly, eager to impress her. Then, rather sheepishly, he adds “the one I know in Huttese is a drinking song, though.”
“Where did you hear such a thing?” Padmé asks, smothering a laugh with her hand. Anakin only shrugs. “I go where my master goes, and places he doesn’t even know I’ve been,” he confides. He fixes her with an inquiring look, cocking his head. “How many songs do you know?”
“Oh, many,” she says, playing with the hem of her sleeve. “Only in Basic, I’m afraid. Though I do make some up.”
“Really?” he says, looking less like a defiant slave and more like any little boy from her home world, “Can you do one now?”
She shrugs, hums a simple melody, and sings a lilting song about a boy climbing a tree, not knowing what’s at the top. He listens, brow furrowed, leaning his chin upon his hand. When she finishes, he smiles.
“That was the most beautiful song I’ve ever heard,” he declares, and she demurs. “You know, I saw a tree once, in a book.”
She laughs aloud.
4.
Senator Amidala is twenty-four, and has been married for seven days. For four of those days she is separated from her husband, by her senatorial duties, by his Jedi duties. For the remaining three days, her husband has had nightmares each and every night.
She does her best; holding him, whispering mindless soothings in his ear, shaking him awake when he screams and twists in the sheets. It’s happening again, tonight, their last night before he has to leave with Obi-Wan. They’re naked, clinging together, she doing her best to hang on to his kicking limbs.
She wracks her mind, and sings a song, all that she remembers of the song about the boy in the tree climbing to the top. He climbs and climbs and finally he reaches the upper branches, and sees a bright blue sky, and the city far below. She sings these stanzas over and over, hurriedly and urgent, until his shaking stops, and his breathing becomes even. She sings over and over again, her eyelids drooping, but keeps on in her endeavor until his body goes limp and his muscles relax.
She sings until she falls asleep, exhausted, sprawled on his broad chest.
5.
Senator Amidala (privately, Padmé Skywalker) is twenty -six years old, and she has just heard the most splendid news. Anakin doesn’t know, but he will soon. The galaxy is in turmoil, and the future is uncertain, but she knows that her child, not yet born, will be loved and blessed.
She packs her bags for Coruscant, currently based a mid-Rim planet on important senatorial business. Obi-Wan has accompanied her, ostensibly as a guardian (privately, as a friend and sorely-needed companion). He has been more cryptic and mysterious than usual, holding her elbow as they negotiate stair steps, inquiring with the cook in this diplomatic manse about their meals. She pays it no mind; she sings a song and she separates her clothes, an old hymn from Naboo. The song praises the moon goddess who inspired the crescent-shaped ceremonial headdresses of Naboo’s queens. She’s known it since her days at Theed; the news has made her feel like a girl again, excited and full of promise. She wonders if she’s carrying a girl, and hopes she’ll know that feeling of soaring in the sky, unencumbered.
She hears a quiet knock on the door. She crosses the room to input the unlock codes to let the visitor in. It’s Obi-Wan, looking more awkward and more essentially Obi-Wan than ever. In that moment, she knows that he knows.
“Congratulations,” he blurts out, and they stand there together for a brief moment, staring at each other, unsure of what to say. She makes up her mind to throw her arms around his neck, to his shock and probable embarrassment.
+1.
Padmé Amidala Skywalker, née Naberrie, former Queen of Naboo, senator of a Republic that no longer exists, is on fire. Sweat beads on her forehead, and it’s difficult to breathe: from the unbearable fever, from the crushing fist (the living Force, she thinks bitterly) around her throat; both.
But her children are safe, and healthy. That’s what matters. She had torn herself apart, martyred herself at her husband’s feet, destroyed everything that was in her for her family, and she’d do it again. She’d endure even worse, if worse was possible.
She knows she can trust them to Obi-Wan. She knows this is the end. She tells him the truth, the only truth that matters: her husband can be turned, he can be brought back. He only needs to see, and he needs time. Obi-Wan has to believe that; can’t he see? It’s the only way for things to be set right. For the sake of the Republic. For the fate of the galaxy. For the future of their children. Obi-Wan has yet to let her down; he must pick up the mantle, where she must set it down.
As the edges of her vision begin to blur, she’s struck with a sudden thought: she can’t leave them, not yet. She will never see them grow, getting tall and golden and beautiful around her, children bright as she used to be, as mystical as her husband was once.
She remembers a long-ago melody, a song her mother once sung for her. There were no lyrics; at least, none she could remember. Just hummed notes, that helped her to stop fretting and lie still, and wait for sleep to come.
She needs to sing it for her own children. This is dire. She tries to open her mouth, to breathe, to make sound come forth. Her throat constricts painfully.
As Padmé Naberrie fades from the galaxy, she makes up words for the last time, nonsense words about a little boy and a little girl, holding hands, marching proudly under waving flags, loved by all, but especially by one. Her last thoughts are frantic, trying to make her mouth and lungs work, thinking no no, it’s not time, i’m not finished, i’m not ready––
End.