Chapter Text
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away . . .
( prologue. )
Dread coiled in her gut as she watched her husband’s shuttle land on the marble platform of the Naboo Royal Palace. Padmé kept her hands clasped together so they would not tremble. Over the years that had passed, she had only ever seen him in holograms. She never spoke to him. They only ever relayed messages through their staff.
She wore a heavy lavender cloak, but even its thick fabric could not keep the chill of the night at bay. Her hair was neatly pinned up, despite how quickly Padmé had put herself together for her husband’s arrival. She had received the notice last minute, and with everything that had transpired on Naboo, she only had a short time to prepare herself. She hardly wore any makeup, and she had forgotten to remove her japor snippet necklace. Her cloak kept it tucked away.
There were two Stormtroopers on either side of Padmé. She was usually accompanied by her own staff, but it was apparent that her husband wanted a closer watch on her after her infraction. She was beginning to feel like a prisoner—and maybe he was here to deem her as one officially.
The shuttle door hissed open and the ramp lowered. A dark figure emerged from the white steam.
Anakin.
Padmé never liked to refer to him as his Sith name, nor his Imperial title. She only did so in formalities, if others were present, like now.
He did not look like her husband anymore, not in the way Padmé always imagined him. He hadn’t in years. Anakin had a hardness in his face now that had not been there before. His hair was a few shades darker, but only slightly shorter in length. He wore fitted clothing, a belt where his lightsaber hung, a cape, and boots, all in black.
The most striking difference was his eyes: they were amber-colored like topaz jewels. It was different than Palpatine’s had been—predatory yellow, devoid of the twinkle of humanity. Anakin’s burned and flickered like flames. She saw it when he looked at her, though she could not interpret what he might be feeling.
The wind blew, rustling Padmé’s cloak. She could not tell if the shiver that ran through her was from the breeze or Anakin’s presence. She decided to tell herself that it was the former.
Padmé waited to verbally acknowledge him until he drew closer.
“Emperor Skywalker.” Padmé gave him a curt nod, like she was a hostile politician who hardly knew him, not his wife. She could not manage anything else.
He did not answer her greeting. He only looked down at her, his amber eyes strangely cold.
Anakin walked briskly by her. Padmé turned to follow him, having to take quick strides to catch up with him. The Stormtroopers brought up the rear, but kept their distance.
“I—” she found herself flustered, puzzled by his silence. “I know you must be very angry with me.”
Again, there was no answer. Moments of grim silence passed as Padmé walked at her husband’s side, waiting for his composure to break. Her face began to burn; she felt rather silly, being ignored by her own spouse. Perhaps he was punishing her now, for all the years of her refusal to speak to him. Only now would she tolerate a meeting (though she was given no choice in it), when the lives of her friends were in danger.
What did he want her to say? Did he want an apology? Did he want her to beg? To bargain? Padmé had not come prepared. He had not allowed her the luxury of time.
“Lord Vader,” she tried a different title. His resolve was the same.
Padmé had wanted his composure to break, but instead she found that it was hers that was slipping. She allowed it. She hated to be vulnerable in front of him, but she already was. There was nothing she could do to remedy that.
“If you do not wish to speak to me, then why did you come here? Why did you order me to meet you? You could have had your will carried out and sent me a missive. That is what you always do. But not this time—why?”
“You would rather discover the imprisonment and following execution of your rebels through a missive than to see me?” Anakin remarked. He spoke in a monotone. It was the harsh voice of an aged military man, not the young Jedi that Padmé had loved.
Padmé flinched at the mention of execution, even though she knew that he was more than likely to order the death of everyone involved in the Naboo resistance. The moment that she was informed of the Queen’s arrest and imprisonment, she accepted that it was over. But part of her had hoped that her husband might speak with her first before making a decision.
“I just do not understand why you have come,” she answered him plainly. “Are you not above such a low-level threat to your throne?”
“Enough of that. You know I must do this myself.”
“No, I don’t. Why? This is a small matter in the grand scheme of the galaxy. You left a military campaign to come here.”
Padmé kept tabs on what her husband was doing from time to time. Anything that Anakin did not want her to know, she would not find out, but if she wished to be informed on where he was or what he was doing, she only had to ask the Imperial staff members he had assigned her. It was through them that Padmé and her husband communicated. They never spoke over a comm, let alone a hologram.
“I would hardly call the monarch of an Imperial planet building a rebellion against my Empire a small matter.” Finally, he looked at her, but it was only a glance. “A rebellion that my wife is involved in. That is why my presence is required. You know this.”
She understood now. “You came to make an example out of them.” It was not an accusation. She stated it as fact.
Anakin did not deny it. “Your ties with the resistance will be kept quiet,” he told her.
“People will talk, you know. I am an absent Empress. I have been since before you took the throne. A plot of rebellion rises on the planet I live on, within the Royal Palace, orchestrated by my close friends and political allies.”
Padmé was not sure of what she was trying to convince him of. She would like for him to drop this and give them all a pass just for this one time, but she knew it was unreasonable. Anyone who defied Emperor Skywalker paid in blood. Padmé had warned Queen Apailana of this in the beginning, before she became wrapped up in the plot herself.
“Let them. It will only be a rumor. There are already many about you—about us.”
Us.
There was something about the way he enunciated the word that made Padmé’s stomach fold with dread. It was the same feeling she had felt on Mustafar, when Anakin’s familiar demeanor had begun to break when she had told him what Obi-Wan said he had done.
“He cares about us.”
“Us?”
“He knows. He wants to help you.”
Us—he said it with that same bitter, accusatory tone.
What Anakin said was the truth. Padmé had heard many of them herself, though most of them she refused to confirm or deny, or acknowledge at all, when she was approached about them. Some people say that Padmé had been forced to marry Lord Vader, in a long-planned scheme by the former Emperor Palpatine. Others claim that Padmé was in on the Imperial takeover all along, but fled from the capital when the regime did not live up to her expectations. There were many speculations about the relationship between the Emperor and the Empress, and why Padmé had decided to leave Coruscant.
As they ascended the steps to the Royal Palace of Theed, the coiling feeling in her gut turned into a knot.
“I know you are not here to listen to my requests,” said Padmé, “but I am asking you—I’m begging you—to please show mercy.”
Anakin’s gaze was cold and incredulous. “This is not a negotiation. Even if it was, you have nothing to bargain with.”
“I am the one you should punish,” Padmé insisted. “Not them. I did this.”
He stopped abruptly just before they reached the steps to the palace and turned to her. Padmé struggled to meet his gaze, but she forced herself to hold it.
“You will be dealt with as well.”
This silenced her, but only for a moment. Padmé was not afraid of him, or what he might do to her; whatever he had decided, she knew that he would not hurt her. If not out of love, then for their children, who would never forgive him if he did such a thing.
“You’ve ordered them all executed. All of them. The Queen, too. Her staff.”
The Jedi, she wanted to say, but it would not help her cause.
“They are insurgents. Just because they may have been helped by, or orchestrated by you, does not grant them immunity.”
“I am only asking you to be fair. Please.”
“This is fair. Just because you disagree does not make it any less just.”
Anakin continued their walk up the steps to the palace. He did not slow his pace for Padmé, and instead allowed her to struggle to keep up with him.
“No, don’t—” she broke into an almost-run up a few steps to fall back to his side. “You have never cared about being fair or just. This is you making your mark as a tyrant. To strike fear, to keep everyone in line.”
“The punishment for treason is death.” Padmé tried to catch his eyes, but he did not look at her.
“But you aren’t sending me to the firing squad with them.”
“What kind of man would kill his own wife?”
“So even some things are beyond you.”
This did not stop him in his tracks, but she felt his sharp glance on the side of her face.
“You can keep this up all you want. It will change nothing.”
Padmé went silent, but her eyes burned with indignation. There was more she wanted to say, but not in the company of Stormtroopers, nor the palace guards inside. It seemed Anakin felt the same; the silence continued through the palace entry hall until they were enclosed in the lift with the Stormtroopers.
“Do you have a room here?” he said at last. The question was oddly tense and weighted, more so than the other words they had exchanged.
Padmé pressed the button to the upper levels of the palace. “I have a guest suite,” she replied.
There was not another word spoken until they reached Padmé’s suite. Anakin instructed the Stormtroopers to wait just outside the door before they entered.
As the sliding doors closed, Anakin pressed the control to lock them.
Padmé’s suite was an expansive room with white, red, and pale coral furnishings. There were sheer curtains that hung on either side of the double doors that led to the balcony overlooking the plaza. There was a vanity with Padmé’s hair pins and cosmetics scattered across the counter—evidence of her scramble to ready herself for Anakin’s arrival. She had left her jewelry box on the dresser open, where she had meant to place the japor snippet.
Most incriminating to her hurriedness was her nightgown strewn on the bed. It was made of seashell pink silk and delicate strings of pearls for the straps.
The suite had an adjoining living room and bathroom, which were each on opposite sides of the bedchamber. Padmé could hear the crackle of the fireplace; in her franticness at her husband’s abrupt visit, she had left it on.
Anakin’s eyes swept carefully over the room as he made his way to the living room. He paused in front of the bed, eyeing the nightgown, and then continued. Padmé followed gingerly behind him, uncertain of his motives. He was looking for something.
The living space was lit only by the amber light of the synthetic flames that danced in the white marble mouth of the fireplace. A blanket was thrown across the sofa, where Padmé had been curled up in her nightgown watching a HoloNet newscast before Typho notified her of Anakin’s incoming shuttle.
Anakin stopped in front of the fireplace and finally turned to her, his expression accusatory.
“I already know the truth,” he began, “but I want your admission.”
Padmé blinked at him. “Of what?”
There were many things that Padmé had not yet admitted to him, but she would not reveal more than was necessary.
The coldness in his eyes faded in an instant and was replaced with a flare of rage. It did not touch the rest of his features. He was so unlike the man she saw on Mustafar; even now, furious at Padmé’s betrayal of the Empire, he kept himself far more composed than Padmé ever thought possible for Anakin.
“The Jedi,” he ground out.
Padmé felt her heart drop into the pit of her stomach. No, she thought. No, no, how could he know?
Her dread had clearly passed onto her face, because Anakin glared at her knowingly.
“Yes. I know. There is nothing—” Anakin inched closer to her, the flame in his gaze intensifying “—nothing you can hide from me.”
“I—” she did not know what to confess to. Was Anakin aware only of Padmé’s assistance in the harboring of Jedi, or did he know everything else?
His anger suggested the latter, but it could not be. It couldn’t be, she insisted to herself.
“I—I did what I thought was right,” Padmé said. Despite her best efforts to sound strong and resolved, there was a tremor in her voice. If Anakin knew the whole truth—no. No, she would not consider it until he said so. “You hunt them like dogs. You and your Inquisitors.”
“So you had to invite one into your bed?”
“What?”
She was so taken aback that she nearly shrieked the word.
“No!” Padmé shook her head vigorously. “No, no, I did not.”
“Was he here earlier? Did he take your nightgown off and throw it on the bed?” Anakin stepped closer to her again, like a cat about to pounce on its prey. Padmé forced herself to hold her ground.
“Did you do it right here?” he gestured to the sofa and the rumpled blanket.
“You’re being ridiculous; the palace has been on lockdown since the arrests yesterday morning!”
“Infiltrating the palace is not an impossible task for a Jedi.”
For a moment, Padmé thought of all the nights she and Anakin had stolen; when he would sneak out of the temple to come see her once everyone had fallen asleep, and return before they woke in the morning. She pushed it away, as she always did when she reminisced on their time together.
“And Evren Marr would do anything for you, wouldn’t he?”
There it was. Anakin did know everything.
She scowled at him. “It isn’t like that. Even if it was, what would it matter? Word of your consorts reaches beyond Coruscant, you know,” Padmé said acridly.
“You read too many tabloids on the HoloNet,” he dismissed the accusation. “You are the only one. You have always been the only one.”
“I don’t believe you. Regardless, I have not stepped out of our marriage—if you can even call it that.”
“No?” he was watching her intently, as if he could read her face and know if she lied. “You have been seen with him. Together.”
“He kissed me,” Padmé admitted. “But that is all. I didn’t reciprocate.”
She had warned Evren, but he had known who she was from the beginning, and what the consequences of falling in love with her may be.
This admission seemed to appease Anakin slightly, but the fire was only calmed, not extinguished. But Padmé felt even more unsettled by this; there was something in him beyond just fury. That, Padmé could stomach. She expected it.
She did not expect the knowing look he gave her, the twinkle in his eyes that was just on the edge of playful, like the way Leia might look when she catches Luke in a game of hide-and-seek. It was smug and triumphant, but bitterly so.
“Was that before or after you agreed to take the twins and go away with him?” he spoke the words softly, and yet somehow, they still landed like the blade of a knife.
This was the nail in the coffin. There was nothing more for Padmé to try to hide, to test and see if Anakin was aware of the full scope of her betrayal.
She swallowed hard to alleviate the feeling of her throat closing up. “You left me no choice,” her voice was just stronger than a whisper.
Padmé looked away from him. She couldn’t bear this; to look at his face and see the man she fell in love with, only to know that he was gone, and would doom their own children to the dark side. It was easier to betray him when he was not there. Padmé treated her husband as a ghost, as an entity that existed far beyond the bubble she had created for herself on Naboo.
But now that he was here, how could she look at him, even in all his black garb and the demeanor of the cold, cruel man that he has become, and not see Anakin? Not Emperor Skywalker, not Lord Vader. Anakin. Her Anakin.
“No choice?” his voice was low, but it was sharp as a blade. There was nothing gentle about the way he spoke.
Padmé didn’t answer; she did not know what to say. There was no way to defend herself. She could deny the affair with Evran, because it was the truth, and there was a chance that Anakin may see reason and realize that. But she could not deny this, not when Anakin had a testimony of her plans.
Anakin did not accept her silence, nor her continued staring at the floor. “No,” he drawled.
He closed the short distance between them and roughly gripped her chin, forcing her head up to meet his gaze. His movement was so abrupt that Padmé did not have time to get away, nor was she able to stifle the whimper that escaped her lips.
His grip was so harsh that at first, she had thought he held her with his prosthetic hand, but then she registered the warmth of his flesh on her skin.
“Look at me.”
She stared back at him, her eyes wide and wet with tears that had yet to fall. His face, half lit against the fire, half shadowed, was hard and unforgiving. She found that his icy demeanor deeply disturbed her more than anything else about him. Anakin was a vibrant man, especially in anger; he was the embodiment of fire, wild and unpredictable. But Lord Vader was cold and calculating. It made all of his acts even more heinous.
“You will not defy me,” Anakin said. “I informed you of how things would be long ago.”
Even as she trembled, Padmé found strength. She was not afraid of Anakin harming her; she was afraid of him taking away everything she held dear. But Padmé doubted that it mattered what she said; the damage had been done. He would make a decision, and she would have to accept it.
“You’re not the man I married,” she breathed. “Not the father you were meant to be. I can’t—I couldn’t sit idly by while you teach our children to use the dark side.”
“You do not get to decide. I have been more than lenient with you, but I will instruct the twins how I please. With this, you will not interfere.”
Padmé yanked her chin away, and he let her go, his hand falling back down to his side. She held her ground, maintaining their closeness. Padmé could not shrink from him now. She found it uncomfortable to be so near him again; she could feel the heat of him, though she tried to tell herself it was the fireplace. He still smelled the same. That hadn’t changed. Padmé would know his scent anywhere, all these years later. It used to linger on her sheets well after he had left for the Jedi Temple.
And the morning after the night of the first annual Empire Day, when Padmé made a transgression and allowed him back into her bed. A terrible mistake—that she repeated the next day. And the next. And the next.
She would never admit to him that this was part of the reason she left. There were many other more compelling reasons to leave Coruscant, but the conflict between her attraction to him and detesting who he had become was a driving factor as well.
“Lenient,” she repeated. “You make all the decisions and I comply? You call that lenient?”
“I have allowed you to live however you wish.” To her dismay, she could tell that this answer was sincere.
“If that were true, we would have been divorced by now.”
His lips hardened into a line as his eyes narrowed at her. “It seems you must be reminded,” Anakin told her, “that everything you have is at my discretion. You reside on Naboo because I allow you to do so. We send the twins back and forth because I agreed on it. You stand here, in your palace suite, rather than a prison cell because I decided to spare you.”
“And now you jeopardize everything I have given you. Did you really believe I wouldn’t find out? Even if I had not—that you could hide my own children from me?”
“I had to try. I owe it to Luke and Leia as their mother,” Padmé answered begrudgingly. Of course, she had doubts about the plan, and knew it may have failed. But she thought that there was a chance—at least to hide the twins until adulthood—and because there was a chance, she had to take it.
This was not supposed to have happened. Someone had to have sold them out.
“I hope it was worth it, Padmé. All of the rebels will be executed. I will remain on Naboo to see it done,” Anakin stated. He spoke with the same briskness of a military leader giving a briefing, like this was nothing but routine to him.
“And as for you—” Padmé’s eyes shot up to meet his “—I present you with a choice.”
She stared at him in silence. She wanted to speak, but when she tried to form the words, they crumbled like sand in her mouth.
“Lead Evren Marr to me, and I will allow you to continue your life on Naboo virtually untouched. We will continue to share the twins evenly. If you decline, I will take the twins, and you will be permitted to see them once a year—but you will come to Coruscant to do so.”
“That is hardly a choice,” she answered bitterly.
“Cooperate with me, Padmé. You know I will find him without your help.”
“Then why are you doing this?” she knew the answer, but she asked anyway, because she did not want to believe her suspicion.
“I want you to be the one to bring him to his death. This is how you will make it up to me.”
“Anakin, please. This is needlessly cruel.”
“No man will touch you and live,” he said. “But I can be merciful, just this once. I will make it fast.”
As if that made his proposal any better.
When silence fell over Padmé again, Anakin impatiently prompted her. “Take advantage of my generosity now before I change my mind.”
“I’ll come with you,” Padmé blurted out. “To Coruscant. Spare him, and I will come back with you. I’ll be your wife again; in whatever way you want. Just don’t put his blood on my hands. I will do whatever you ask.”
She expected this to please him, or at least to soothe his anger and soften his resolve. All Padmé could bargain with was herself. If this conversation had proved anything to her, it was that Anakin still wanted her. That, she could use.
But his eyes remained cold, and she knew that she had been wrong.
“No,” came Anakin’s drawl. “You are always welcome on Coruscant, but I will not have you there as a hostage. You cannot bargain with me; make a choice.”
There was no way out. Not for her, not for Evren. No matter what Padmé chose, he was doomed anyway. Anakin was an expert at hunting the Jedi, and now that he had Evren’s name and most recent whereabouts, it was only a matter of time.
She knew what she had to choose. Padmé could not leave her children solely in their father’s hands. That was why she had done all of this, and if she surrendered them to him now, their fate may be truly lost.
Padmé did not want to cry. Not in front of him. But she felt it coming; it had stayed back for so long, but now that she had to speak the words it all came rushing up to the surface.
Tears that had yet to fall pooled in her eyes and stung them with their salt.
“I—” finally, one tear rolled down her cheek. “I’ll do it.”
Anakin had claimed he was being merciful, generous even. But not in this moment. He was relishing his victory.
“Do what?” he prompted.
Another tear. And another.
“I will lead him to you,” Padmé clarified. She looked away from him again, not wanting to see the satisfaction in his face. He did a good job of hiding it, but he allowed some of his triumph to slip past his mask of stoicism.
With the thumb of his gloved hand, he wiped the tears from her cheeks. His touch was so gentle that she could not believe it was his; she had not thought him capable of it anymore.
Anakin would touch her like this. Not Lord Vader. She hated how the two of them blended together, no matter how hard she had tried to separate them.
“Do not cry for him.” His voice was still familiarly Vader’s, blunt and cold. “He is nothing.”
Padmé did not pull away from him, but she could not hide the resentment that shone in her tear-filled eyes.
Her heart ached for Evren, for his certain, impending death that he did not deserve, but also for Anakin. The man she loved would never have seen another human being as nothing, as less than even dust.
Anakin had been gone a long time. Padmé had just never made peace with it.
She met his cold gaze with her tearful eyes. The ache deepened, but it would help her understand.
The emptiness in his eyes echoed her thoughts. Anakin has been gone a long time.