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Padme dressed simply.
It was the kind of outfit one dies in. Plain, to the point. Like the scrubs they gave patients in med-centers, or how most elderly dress on Naboo. Easy, comfortable, and not too complicated. Something the dead will be taken out of and dressed in something else, something nicer, in their coffin.
She dressed simply. There were no gowns, no suits, no bands, no belts, just a pair of plain slacks, a matching long sleeved shirt, and brown work boots.
There were no extravagant hair-do, no braids, no pleats, no clips, twists, just a simple, practical bun at the top of her head. It would not do to have her hair in her eyes, or getting too sweaty and uncomfortable on her neck.
Her face was bare, and it made her feel exposed in a way she was not used to. She can't remember the last time she left her rooms without makeup. She always had something, even when it didn't look like it. A touch of foundation, blush, something subtle on her eyes. She was so used to wearing makeup that she would sometimes forget it was there and fall asleep in it, yet today she has nothing but her skin.
The dagger she took with her was a simple blade, a wooden handle, and a small, thin piece of metal that released from the hilt with a flick of her hand. Made to be fast and discreet. It felt inconceivably light tucked up in her sleeve, by the fragile skin of her wrist.
Even if the act of killing was not her arena, like it was her husband's, she knew the knife would be more than enough.
The knife was preferable over the bulk, and impersonal quality of a blaster, or the poetic justice of a fallen Jedi's lightsaber, and the uncertainty of a ranged weapon. It was simple, and sure, and though Padme usually strayed away from the simple, it was all that she could bear that day.
It would get the job done, in the only appropriate way. A quick death, but not too quick. One where she would need to be close as it was carried out, so that she could catch him when he fell, and in those remaining seconds he was alive, she could hold him. She would apologize profusely, kiss his face as it went slack.
The ship was released from hyperspace without fanfare, but she still jumped at the change in atmosphere.
Mustafar loomed through the window like a red and black monster. It looked like the evil spirits that lived in the darkest places of the night. The monsters which populated the folktales of Tatooine. The ones Anakin told her, in the rare times he talked to his childhood, of Krayt Dragons, and devils.
The planet itself seemed to swirl and ebb with the patterns of flowing lava- a moving thing in the cold black of space. It made Padme's head hurt to look at it, so she made herself keep looking.
She grasped the steering and angled the nose towards the planet, guiding it slowly, but steadily toward the atmosphere. It was a thin line to pass, unnoticable by sight, but the gravity of the planet is mighty, and the moment she broke into the air, it began to pull at her ship down.
-
It was not easy, and she did it anyway. The moment Anakin released her neck, she spared enough time for two deep breaths, turned, and slipped the dagger in between the unprotected, unassuming ribs beneath his tunic.
When she pulled away, he seemed no closer to dying than he did a minute ago.
He caught her when she moved to bring the blade down a second time, his hand was large around her wrist, and he twisted it, slowly, until the blade clattered to the black rock below.
"Padme," Anakin growled, and his voice was shaking. He sounded hurt, and unspeakably angry. "Why?"
She blinked away the tears, and there were less than she expected. "Because I must."
"Why? Why must you?" He asked again. He jerked her forward and they were too close together. "Tell me Padme, after everything I've done for you…b"
She thought it was unbearable for both of them to still be alive. One of them should be dead, or the other, or both. Both of them alive was not the future she had envisioned. "Because you are a monster," She said, simply.
His eyes narrowed threateningly. They were a cruel, yellow color. She did not know Sith had yellow eyes, but she did now, and it was a fact she would never forget.
"I have done this for the republic," He told her desperately. When she did not answer, he said, more honestly, "I did all of this for you."
"You killed children," She said. She left no room for an argument or a denial. "I never asked for that."
"Jedi," He corrected. "I killed Jedi."
"Children, Anakin," his hand released her, slowly. "Jedi children."
She snatched her wrist away, surveying her husband carefully. He was watching her with his slit pupils and heavy breath, and he was panting, like a dog or rabid animal. He…did not look like the man she married. Who, sure, got jealous sometimes, even got angry-
Who killed an entire village of Tuskens. Who she has known was dangerous for a long time.
"I've done it before, and you knew that," He reminded her, "Children… can be necessary victims in war, it is not preferable, but the war needed to end," He said, "The Jedi did not want the war to end."
She was strangely numb to the terribleness of his words. Perhaps it was because she could hear the doubt in them. How he was so desperate to say them, to have her agree, angry because he needed her to tell him it was okay, to tell him he was a good soldier and husband and person.
She just would not say it.
He was inspecting his wound, one hand clenched over it to stop the bleeding. "This is deep."
She cradled her hand to her chest.
She did not point out that before, when he killed the Tuskens, it wasn't war. Before, he did not act on anyone's orders. Before, he was not a blind soldier standing in the way of her democratic ideals, but he was a child who lost a mother and, as unforgivable as his actions were, Padme loved him, Padme could look the other way with the promise of no repeats. Not because she was kind, but because she loved him.
In the end, she does not point these things out because they do not matter.
"I have always known who you are, what you were capable of. But I-" She is surprised by how far away her tears are, suddenly. What she feels is almost… relief. "I suppose- no, I was selfish. I loved you…"
"Loved me?" Anakin scoffed. "You should be honest, you still do. I can feel it."
"I am honest," Padme said. "How could I love you? A man who repays my forgiveness by making the same mistake. Who destroys what I have fought my whole life to protect and says it's for me? What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to thank you, Ani? Am I supposed to thank you for the eradication of a people, and the death of a free galaxy? I will not do that- you should know me that well."
Anakin said nothing, but the face he made answered her question for her.
"Ani… Or is it Vader, now?" She asked, voice like the hiss of a viper.
"I still love you," He said, blood dripping through his fingers. "I can feel that- that you love me too."
"Not how you want me to."
"It will…" His breath wavered like a gust of wind in a storm, "Be enough…"
His hand reached forward, movement surprisingly gentle and slow, and she did not flinch as it landed on the swollen globe of her belly but it was a near thing.
Suddenly, Anakin's eyes shot over her head. The door to her ship was left open, and so she could see how Obi-Wan revealed himself from inside of it. The Jedi's blade was lit the moment he began down the gangway in a clear, obvious challenge.
Anakin gripped her arm with bruising strength, and before she could react she was yanked forward. She was close enough to taste his breath when he spoke. It might've been romantic once- the sort of thing she imagined in the dark of night, his strength against hers- but no longer. She did not want it.
"You," Anakin said, "You brought him here to kill me?"
"No, I had no idea he was here," She tried to wrench herself free. "He's a stowaway- I came to kill you. Do you think I'd want company for it?"
"If it didn't work?"
"I thought it would work," She said. There is less emotion behind than there should be. An acceptance.
"It didn't."
"Clearly."
"Anakin, let go of her," Obi-Wan said in a steady voice. "You do not want to hurt her."
Surprisingly, Anakin did. Released, she stumbled back.
"I will be back for you," He told her, and she believed it. His lightsaber was drawn as he stalked towards Kenobi, "Stay here. Wait for me."
-
She waited. She waited a long time, until her legs grew tired of supporting her, and she rested in the ship. With time to think, she reflected on the act of marrying the wrong man.
Obi-Wan returned. He had one less arm than before.
"Is he dead?" She asked.
"Yes," Obi-Wan said, grimly. His voice had an undercurrent of pain that he couldn't get rid of despite his usual control of himself His face was black and brown with ash. He would likely look worse in the coming days, not better, because his bruises had not yet had the time to set in. "He is."
So, Obi-Wan had succeeded where she hadn't.
The fact made her breathe a little easier.
"Good," She said, and cleared her throat to stifle the heat suddenly building up in her face and eyes.
"We can go to Polis Massa," Obi-Wan said, collapsing into the passenger seat. "I would offer to fly, but…" He waved his stump in the air and then grimaced, his face going tight in agony. It had been severed above the elbow, at a diagonal angle. It would be difficult to graft something new on the wound without cutting a little more off to make it a straight cut.
"I understand," She told him. "I can fly."