FicWad

She forces herself to stand there, watching and waiting, while Darred Janren (movements weirdly wooden, eyes oddly vacant, and with a strangely empty smile on his face) gets himself wiped off, puts most of his clothes back on (the sleeveless shirt that he’d been wearing next to his skin, on top, having been sacrificed and used on him and her both as a towel), and then heads obediently for the double doors, pausing to look out first before slipping away, his motions swift and furtive as he heads for the stairs and whichever suite of rooms he’s been given to stay in (likely as far away from the suite that has been his and Sola’s for as long as they’ve been wed as is possibly practical). She keeps seeing the cold, closed-off look Obi-Wan had on his face when she was trying to explain about how Qui-Gon Jinn had caught her spirit when her body died and how this had been the reason why she could manifest in the tower the way she had when Sola had tried to twist the Force into an attack against them and the hard, angry scowl on Anakin’s face both when he’d insisted that her explanation made no sense and when he’d later accused her of cowardice whenever she closes her eyes (and is not immediately faced with the shocky, pale to the point of grayness face and ripped at arms of Darred himself), so she forces herself to stand there unblinking, since the memories weaken her and make legs that are already wobbly want to unhinge at the knees and dump her back into the floor. She spends the entire time waiting for some sort of real remorse to hit her, for her to feel bad for what happened, for Darred’s sake if for no other reason, but humiliation and shame for the current state she’s in (and how ridiculously easy it was for him to get her like this, little more than the feel of his face under her hands and his mouth covering hers necessary to completely roll her, making her behave in a way that likely would have made even a whore blush for shame) and anger at herself for getting into a situation like this – especially when she’s sworn, more than once, that she won’t put any more problems on Obi-Wan and Anakin’s shared plate – are as close as she ever seems to get. Terror over the possibility of being caught like this and panic at the thought of what Obi-Wan and Anakin might think of her are far closer to the surface than any sense of remorse for what she’s done, and somehow that’s even more awful than the lack of remorse itself.

Finally, though, Darred is gone and she’s alone. Wrapped securely in a thankfully oversized throw from one of the small library’s other chairs, Padmé manages to make it all the way back to her rooms before the shaking becomes so bad that she loses her grip on the edges of the decorative blanket and, in tripping over its edge, manages to finish tearing away the whole skirt of the ruined nightgown, since it’s become so tangled up in the throw that treading on the edge of the one ends up ripping apart the last handbreadth or so of intact material on the garment’s back in the vicinity of the waist. The urge to scream, as she catches sight of herself in the mirror above the vanity, is so great that Padmé finds herself snapping her teeth together and clenching her jaw tight to keep the sound from escaping her, in the process accidentally biting down on the tip her tongue hard enough to make it bleed. Blood instantly floods her mouth, choking her with its metallic heat, and, with a despairing little cry that makes her spit blood up all over the hand she’s belatedly tried to raise up to cover her mouth and down her chin, she immediately starts to run, dropping the torn rags of their ruined clothes (which she’s been carrying with her, intending to dispose of them properly) and tearing violently at the ragged remnants of the ruined nightgown as she goes, desperate to get the rest of it off of her. Ducking out of the last bit of her shredded clothing, she hits the bathroom door hard enough to leave a broad smear of garishly bright blood on the pale wood and doesn’t stop until she’s inside the ’fresher unit, slamming the controls over from sonics to water and twisting the knob over until the showerhead blasts on at the highest pressure setting and hottest water temperature the unit is safely programmed to go to. The water is probably only half a degree below scalding, if that, and maybe half a p.s.i. of pressure away from being strong enough to hurt, and yet she still ends up shivering convulsively under the stream, the water feeling sluggish and icy-cold against her skin. Suddenly desperate to get clean, despite what honestly feels like a trickle of water no more than half a degree above the freezing point, she grabs the nearest container and upends it over her head and shoulders and chest, not noticing that the liquid soap within is scented to match both the flower and fruit of a certain type of very sweet blood-red Nabooian berry – and is such a bright scarlet that it effectively makes it look as if she’s had a bucket of blood upended over her.

Afterwards, staring in horror down at herself, she finally can’t keep herself from screaming – high-pitched, throat-scraping, ear-piercing shrieks of anger and pain and humiliation – and it takes so much out of her that she collapses bonelessly onto the wet tile, eyes screwed shut with horror and both hands clamped with painful tightness across her mouth in a vain effort to muffle her cries, fingers digging into her skin more than hard enough to hurt, but even that doesn’t help. The entire ’fresher rings with screams, the sounds deafening her with a confusion of fury and horror. She finally curls desperately in around herself, trying to bend as much of herself in around her mouth as possible while still tucking herself down into the smallest possible shape that she can go, in an effort to escape. Even though a part of her is still alert and aware enough to realize that she’s falling to pieces and that it really isn’t a good time to be breaking down like this, she’s completely unable to do anything to stop or even slow the process – is, in fact, entirely helpless to do anything but feel it as she crumbles around the edges, lines of stress fractures splintering and cracking their way into her so that bits and pieces of herself break off and fall away with every passing moment – and it’s at that point that something deep within her shifts, some hitherto unknown part of her or of this body (perhaps even a combination of the two, some surviving bit of this body’s hindbrain concerned only with self-preservation and the part of herself that’s horrified and ashamed beyond words at her behavior?) slides forward and, after quietly observing the whole painful disintegration for a time, calmly declares, You really can’t afford to panic like this. Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker are quite possibly the most powerful living Force-sensitives in the known galaxy, now, and they /will eventually feel you falling apart, even if no one can hear you screaming, and come to investigate, thinking that they need to save you for either someone or something. Besides, if you don’t get up soon, you’ll drown yourself. After all, you’re planted right over the drain and the water is on full blast, child./

Padmé only curls resolutely tighter, spooked and driven even further towards utter panic by the unexpectedness of such a voice (however calmly matter-of-fact it might seem) and trying to ignore it enough to make it go away. (Besides which, drowning might not be so bad, all things considered . . . When she’d used the Force to command Darred, her words had infused the misty glare surrounding everything in a fractured rainbow of afterglow, making that residual bright energy-shine darken to ice-green, freezing everything translucent and hard until she’d felt as if she were suspended in a pocket of seawater and her hindbrain had wondered idly why she wasn’t drowning. Perhaps the strange effect had actually been an echo of the future, a glimpse of what the Force has in store for her instead of just some hallucination caused by synaptic overload, and drowning now would just be a way for her spirit to finally finish catching up with the death that’s been chasing her since the false invasion of Coruscant.)

I suppose you would prefer having Obi-Wan and Anakin break the door down and finding you like this? Freg! You kriffing useless little fraidee-frog! I suppose that means Sola has been right about you all along. You’re a liar and an oath-breaker and wouldn’t know how to keep a promise even if someone drew you a map with all the navpoints already connected!

The foul language and insulting words don’t bother her (though perhaps it might have occurred to her how odd it was for the voice’s tone to change quite so quickly, if only shock had been clouding her mind and slowing her wits just a little bit less). The mere thought of Obi-Wan and Anakin seeing her like this, though, in combination with the suggestion that Sola might have been right about her in at least one respect, after all, is more than enough to trigger a second, stronger wave of panicked terror as well as a sudden surge of blind rage. The screams eventually tear loose from her throat with enough violence that they force her lips apart around their bursting sounds, sending a spray of blood through her tightly laced fingers to join the frothing and dissolving mass of blood-red liquid soap smeared all over the tiles around her.

Well, then, if you don’t want them to feel all of the panic and guilt and horror and rage and pain and all of the other wonderfully strong negative emotions that you just happen to be projecting all over the fedding place and rush in here thinking that someone actually needs saved from something or someone only to find you, cowering on the tiles and in general making a damned fool of yourself, you’ll just have to get a grip, now won’t you? Otherwise, you’re going to make a scene – which means you’ll be well and truly farkled, my dear. Because that means that what you’ve done will become common knowledge. Which means that they’ll all know that a certain Sith Lord made a mistake when he chose Sola, since obviously you’re the most screwed-up of the Naberrie girls and you’re the one who actually could’ve given him the galaxy on an electrum platter, if only he’d had sense enough to recruit you instead of your sister. So unless you want that, little piffer, allow me to suggest that you stop frakkin’ panicking – and now rather than later! And for stars’ sake, get up before you drown yourself! Brix, child, you’d think you have no mind at all in there, the way you’re behaving!

She really doesn’t want to uncurl from her foetal position (the tight crunch of her body down into that shape makes her feel somehow less vulnerable), but Padmé forces herself to do it anyway, dragging herself back up to her feet by the skin of her teeth not because she’s still furious at the voice’s insults, but rather because what the voice is saying to her is beginning to make all too much sense. She can’t risk being found like this. She certainly can’t risk letting Obi-Wan and Anakin find out what she did, what she caused, or how she reacted by automatically reaching out to control another’s mind and will, rather than by rationally and patiently trying to fix what she had so carelessly caused to be broken. Anakin hates coercion of any kind because of his time as a slave. And though she’s never been able to figure out why, Obi-Wan loathes using mental tricks so much that he once accused the Dark Woman of engaging in actions improper for a Jedi because of the way he’d seen her deliberately control another person’s mind and force that being to kill himself. If they were to discover what she’s done – if they were to suspect how easy, how natural, it had been for her to reach for that power –

Exactly which part of “stop panicking” do you not understand? Sithspit! I suppose I’ll just have to do it all myself, won’t I? Now. You don’t want other people to know what you’ve done, do you, my dear? Well? Come along, now! A simple “yes” or “no” will suffice!

Oddly enough – perhaps because she is, technically, in shock – it never occurs to Padmé that talking back to a voice inside her own head might not be the best of ideas, even given the fact that she is currently even listening to said voice due to the fact that she’s frankly panicked and terrified about certain recently gained firsthand knowledge involving just how easy it is to use the Force to mess with another person’s mind. If I say “yes,” then will you stop harping and start helping?

Ah! There’s my feisty little Nabooian Queen! Of course, dear child. I’ll help you. All you have to do is relax and do everything that I tell you to do. Now. You don’t want anyone to realize just what it is that you’ve done. So what you need to do is get rid of all of those wonderfully noticeable darker emotions before you catch the attention of anyone Force-sensitive enough to sense them and curious enough to try to track them down to their source. Jedi are very good at excising all sorts of nasty emotions and have made rather an art of such self-mutilation, and you’ve been very good about following their example so far. And you don’t even need to excise all of your emotions: you just need to remove a few and turn the rest in another direction. That should be easy enough, even for you. So, then! What I want you to do, my dear, is this . . .

***

Padmé looks . . . different, somehow, when Bail finally looks up from the datapad he’s been reading over, with its automatic updates from the Senate and from his people, back on Coruscant (who will soon be Raymus and Alaina’s people, just as soon as everything has been settled here and he can go home and finalize his abdication so that it’s all legal and proper), and notices her, standing silently in the doorway of the sitting room and gazing at him. And it’s not just because she’s taken a shower and put on some more substantial clothes, or because it’s Padmé in Sola’s body. He’d been able to get a good long look at her when she’d come down from the tower with Anakin and Obi-Wan, bearing the twins with her and looking so radiantly happy that she’d seemed to have a faint hint of actual light clinging to every part of her, liming her like an aurora. He’d known it was Padmé and not Sola as soon as he’d seen her. There had just been too much of Padmé in the way she held herself, and moved, and smiled with such unabashed joy, smiling with her whole body. He hadn’t needed to be convinced, as the others had, or to exclaim over the suddenly brown eyes that had always been blue or the slightly lighter and much curlier hair or the way that certain facial features suddenly seemed to have changed or perhaps . . . shifted . . . in some way and launch into a feverish spate of comparing between all of these characteristics and those of Padmé and Sola. Despite the obvious dissimilarities – finer, more classically refined features and a greater overall height being the most noticeable differences between this woman’s appearance and the visage of Padmé that always appeared in Bail’s mind’s eye whenever he thought of her or heard her name – he could see nothing but Padmé when he’d looked at her. Now, though . . . now, she just looks like any other brown-haired, brown-eyed woman who’s been through too much pain and calamity in too short a time might. She looks wan and tired and . . . thin is the word that comes to mind, not thin as in physically slender but thin as if she’s been stretched out upon a rack and worn down around the edges, like an image of a woman instead of an actual woman, as if she’s had most of her parred away and hollowed out until there’s nothing left of her but a shell, a facade, of a woman. If not for the tightness around her suddenly hollowed-out eyes, Bail would assume that Padmé no longer resided within that body at all.

“Milady Padmé?” he hesitantly asks, looking around the room and noticing, with some surprise, that they are alone, Darred having not yet returned and Ryoo Thule and the Naberries apparently still somewhere off with the twins.

“Bail. May I come sit beside you?” Even her voice sounds thin and tired!

Well and truly concerned now, Bail immediately puts the datapad aside on the graceful little table next to the high-backed sofa he’s been sitting on and regains his feet, striding over to the doorway and carefully taking her arm. “Of course! But Padmé, are you alright? You look . . . very tired,” he finally says, compromising and using a word that will show his concern without entirely revealing his fear that Padmé is essentially fading away before his eyes.

For a moment she hesitates, body pausing mid-stride and abruptly stiffening against him, but then, just as suddenly, all the strength seems to drain out of her, and she wilts against him, the breath rushing out of her in an almost quavery sounding sigh. “I am,” she admits, allowing him to support most of her slight weight and guide her over to the closest end of the sofa. “Bail, I’ve done something foolish. Again. And after I swore I wouldn’t cause anymore trouble or hurt anyone else ever again with even one more hasty action or stupid decision,” she adds with a bitter little laugh, slumping back into the corner of the sofa with her head cradled in her hands as if she no longer has the energy even to hold it upright on her neck.

A sudden suspicion dawning in his mind with the strength of certainty, Bail takes her (shockingly cold) hands between his and, pressing them comfortingly, quietly asks, “Is this about Darred?” putting as much compassion as he possibly can into his voice.

Her head comes up again at that (so quickly that he has to suppress a sympathetic wince), dark eyes swimming with unshed tears, and her voice nearly breaks when she asks, “How did you know?”

“I only suspected, Padmé. It was . . . a number of things, really. A memory of the look on his face, one time when I visited you here, on Naboo, perhaps a month or two after Pooja’s birth, when he stood looking down at you holding her on your lap, rocking her to sleep. Something in the quality of his voice, when he commed after one of the first attempts on your life to make sure you really hasn’t been hurt. Things like that, in combination with the way he seemed so much more concerned about how his wife could hurt your reputation than any possibility that she might’ve been possessed by Sidious against her will and didn’t seem surprised at all to learn that Sola had been stealing the life-force and Force-energy from him. And the look on his face, when he first looked up and saw you, when you came down behind Obi-Wan and Anakin, carrying the twins with you. I think I knew, then, that he would ask you to stay. That’s what happened, isn’t it? He asked you to stay and you had to tell him no, even though a part of you wished to tell him yes. Right?” he asks, squeezing her hands comfortingly.

In reply, she begins to cry, huge, gulping, broken, gut-twisting, heart-wrenching, agonized sobs that sound as if they’re being forcibly hauled up out of her from somewhere down around the vicinity of her toes, yanked up out of her by some power beyond her control, with her fighting against turning them loose the entire way, so that they tear free of her throat with all but audible ripping noises, as if they are actually shredding part of her on the way out of her mouth. His heart aching for her, Bail exhales a near-silent sigh and reaches out to gather her up to him, carefully lifting her up into his lap and holding her, soothingly stroking her hair and rocking her rhythmically, like a heart-broken child in need of comfort, feeling an odd twinge of déjà vu as he recalls doing something very similar for Obi-Wan, after Master Jinn’s death on Naboo. He would start a similar running litany of calming murmurs and consolations, but he rather doubts she’d be able to hear any of it over the sound her of own grief and pain, so instead he just holds her and rocks her, waiting to see if she’ll try to speak or just needs a shoulder to cry on, so she can cry herself out before she has to face Obi-Wan and Anakin again. He has reason to be glad of that, soon enough, as she begins gasping out an explanation in between sobs, her whole body shaking so violently and her voice shaking and stammering so badly as she tries to recount what’s happened that all of his motions gradually still as he has to concentrate more and more on what she’s trying to say to piece together what she actually means to be saying.

When she finally gets to the part about what happened, as they returned to themselves, after drawing so near to the explosion of energy and love and joy of Anakin and Obi-Wan’s joining, in the Force, understanding dawns and he finds himself torn between an entirely inappropriate urge to laugh, considering her obvious agitation and anguish (but great stars! To be so upset over something like this, when it’s so overwhelmingly apparent that she and Darred have cared about one another far more than any brother and sister by marriage should and they are not only both finally free to do something about it but have been faced with the obvious truth that no more such chances will be presented to them, after this day is over), and to shake his head in exasperation (for being careless enough to take such a risk, in drawing so close to Obi-Wan and Anakin in such a state with someone else in tow, when she obviously understands so little about the effects such power can have on other beings). Instead, with another quiet sigh, Bail gently but firmly cuts her off, reassuring her, “I think I can guess what happened next, Padmé. You don’t need to try to explain. But I have to tell you, as a friend, that I think you’re overreacting a little, here. As long as Darred understands that what happened between the two of you is because of the aftereffects of coming too close to that much unshielded power and love, I don’t see what the problem is or how this could hurt anyone. You’re both adults, neither one of you is legally married or handfasted or even informally promised to anyone, and technically that body is his former wife’s. So why are you so upset, Padmé? It’s not like anyone is going to talk about what happened – I won’t even tell my Masters, if you’d prefer, though I think they would more likely be happy for you, that you had this time with Darred and were able to come to an understanding about your feelings for one another, than they would be troubled or disappointed by what happened. What else is troubling you?”

He listens attentively as she hesitantly (and with more than a few false starts) tries to explain, nodding now and again to show his understanding and even his approval of the way she handled things, calling on the Force to help calm Darred down and remind him (in a way that he couldn’t just choose to ignore) of all the reasons why Padmé still couldn’t stay with him, even after something like what they’d so obviously shared. Eventually, the truth comes to light, and it seems to surprise even Padmé a little bit when it does. Evidently, Padmé is not only upset about the mistake she made and happened between her and Darred and the way she handled it (her worry over the way she simply ordered him to forget what had happened, if remembering would hurt him too badly, reminding Bail of Obi-Wan’s distaste for what he called “Jedi mind tricks” and his general unwillingness to use them, despite – or perhaps due to? – his far greater than average skill and ability with essentially all such forms of mental manipulation and trickery): she’s also furious with her sister all over again for the way she’s treated the ones closest to her and upset with herself for being so angry with Sola when it obviously won’t help matters any or make things easier for her, when her time is up and she finally does need to go. This time, Bail doesn’t bother to hide either his sigh or the amused exasperation that her confession sparks in him, smiling at Padmé as he hands her a handkerchief for her face and reminds her that she isn’t a Jedi who needs to release her emotions to the Force (and, even if she were, she wouldn’t be expected to do that any longer, as Obi-Wan and Anakin and the Grand Masters have invalidated the entire Jedi Code for the harm it causes those who try to live their lives according to its narrow dictates) and that Sola has done so many selfish and hurtful and evil things that it’s natural to be disgusted with her and even to hate her, at least a little, for all the hurt and harm she’s caused.

It takes some persuading, but after a while (and a solemn promise, on his part, not to speak of this conversation with anyone else) Padmé calms down enough to listen to reason and to come around, and soon afterwards their conversation drifts to other topics, Padmé congratulating him on becoming the first wholly new recruit of the New Jedi Bendu Order by being declared Obi-Wan and Anakin’s shared Padawan and praising him for his willingness to continue working with the Senate, irregardless of that apprenticeship, while the need for his presence there is still so great, and Bail telling her about the many changes in store for the government and the plans he and Mon Mothma and the Grand Masters and others have already set into motion to see to it that those changes will occur at the level they’ll need to for them to really stick and be able to do all the work that they need to, to lay the foundations for the kind of order that the galaxy really needs. Padmé is acting much more like the passionate and fiercely intelligent young lady Bail has respected and been friends with since shortly after her first election to the Naboo throne, eagerly telling him about a similar set of plans she’s been working at off and on for years (as a way to distract herself from far too many ugly realities that seemed entirely unlikely to ever change, as she explains it) and animatedly sketching out some of the possibilities for things like the protection of sentient rights – including the hitherto trampled upon or otherwise simply ignored rights of such beings as the clone troopers and droids like C-3PO, whose AI and programmed personalities have combined in such a way that the result is a self-awareness and sentience at least as demonstrable as that of most recognized citizens – including the elimination of all forms of slavery in the known galaxy, as well as ways to encourage more open (and less devastatingly cut-throat, not to mention injurious for the peoples and worlds being ruthlessly taken advantage of by the profiteers) trading practices and the establishment of development projects for poorer worlds and systems, when Bail suddenly feels as if a door in his mind has swung open to reveal the face of a sun, flooding him with heat and light and energy.

“Bail? What’s wrong? Are you alright?” Padmé asks, laying a hand on his arm in concern.

Gasping a little, the sheer rush of power having left him more than a little breathless, Bail insists, “I’m fine. It’s my Masters. They’re wondering if you’re ready for them to come get the twins yet.”

“To come get – ? Oh! Oh, dear. I told them they’d have to come fetch the twins, so I could go and say farewell to my nieces. I hadn’t thought about my mother wanting to take them with her, so she could hunt up some clothes and toys and a properly sized cradle for them. My dad’s probably making faces at them to keep them entertained while mom and da’mâth Thule go through all the boxes and boxes of things they’ve kept, over the years. Should I – ?”

“I can go up and tell them, Padmé. With their help, I’m sure I’ll be able to find everyone else and get them all back down here, by the time you finish saying your farewells to Ryoo and Pooja,” Bail assures her with a broad smile, carefully asking his Masters (the overwhelming sense of power is so strong that he can’t even tell which one it is, or if it might not be both of them, doing the asking) for patience and warning them that he will be coming up to their suite directly.

“Thank you, Bail. You’re a good man. And you’ve been a great friend to me, braud-caredd. Beannachtas an bàingeal dhuit, Athros, for you and your Masters. I have a caoimhneachan to give you, Bail. Threepio should have them ready for you by now – I saw him and Artoo on my way down, and spoke to them both, then, to thank them for the loyalty they’ve given my family and loved ones and say my goodbyes. It’s nothing terribly special – just a collection of holodocuments and handwritten notes and datacards, filled with plans and daydreams for such things as ways to rid the galaxy of slavery without sparking another war. I know you’ll know what to do with them,” Padmé smiles, leaning forward to brush a kiss across his right cheek. “Go with the Light, Bail. Bydd i ti ddychgwelyd. I am certain we will meet again, someday, in the Light. I will miss you, until then. Farewell, for a time.”

“/Soréadh aing beannaichtas dhìuth/, Padmé. Farewell, for a time, /piuthair-córaid/. Go ever with the Light,” Bail replies with an easy smile, leaning in to brush a kiss across the center of her forehead before rising, only staying long enough afterwards to help her to her feet before making his way over to the door.

***

Padmé stands over the bed for several long moments, simply looking down at her eldest and currently fast asleep niece, feeling so marvelously calm and content, with Bail’s reassurances and the proof of his unaltered high regard for her all but still reverberating in her ears, that she feels almost as if she were drifting at a great height above the world around her. She notices, distantly, how the shape of Ryoo’s face currently all but mirrors the shape of her own daughter’s face, in the timeline that will never happen now and the body that Leia will never know, and absently traces over the tiny telltale marks that presage how the shape of that face will change, as Ryoo grows into womanhood, growing both more angular and slenderer, until she will most likely end with a face very much like Sola’s once was, only with cheekbones like her father’s. No doubt about it, Ryoo will be a beautiful young lady someday, probably quite soon. And she glows within Padmé’s perceptions like a young star, her potential strength in the Force a steady beacon of hope and promise. A part of Padmé is drawn to the light of that promise and feels a distant ache of disappointment at the knowledge that she will have no part in the shaping of that potential, but most of her is simply radiantly, serenely accepting of the hope promised by that light and deeply satisfied that one who is truly of her blood will be a member of the New Jedi Bendu Order in the days to come. Lips curving unconsciously to the shape of a smile that is not quite self-satisfied enough to be gloating, Padmé reaches out and places her hand on Ryoo’s forehead, brushing aside a strand of the girl’s long dark hair and waiting for her to awaken.

It doesn’t take long. Ryoo is a fairly light sleeper, and so she comes awake with a start, gasping up at the shape above her that is both familiar and strange. Despite the fact that the room is only dimly lit and despite the fact that the silhouette bending over her more closely resembles that of Sola, even if the actual features more closely resemble Padmé, Ryoo realizes who it is at once, perhaps due to the aid of some of that as yet untrained potential power. “/Mâthair’uir – mamaithryn/ Padmé!” she cries, launching herself towards Padmé in a motion that is almost as much tackle as it is hug.

“/Níthoghean/,” Padmé smiles, scooting a little further onto the mattress so that Ryoo can comfortably climb all the way up in her lap and hug her more closely. “I’ll miss you, little one. You and your sister.”

Some of the wild joy perceptibly dims, Ryoo’s grip becoming a little tighter, a shade more desperate. “You can’t stay, mamaithryn Padmé?”

“I would if I could, little one. But I’m afraid it’s not possible. I am on borrowed time as it is, Tavia, seeing as how this body is not mine,” Padmé explains, deliberately using Ryoo’s shadow name so that she will know to take her words seriously, making sure that her voice is firm but also as gentle as possible. “In any case, I trust that you will be able to take care of yourself and your little sister without me, where you will be going. I’ve seen Dala City and it’s a wondrously beautiful place. You’ll be a fine Jedi Bendu and make the family proud, /níthoghean/,” she predicts, stroking her niece’s hair.

“I won’t let you or the family down, mamaithryn/,” Ryoo immediately promises, voice solemn as pulls away enough to look Padmé in the eye as she swears it. Then, tripping over her words slightly, in a sure sign that she is blushing, she adds, “But when I felt you appear, earlier, so suddenly, I’d thought – I’d /hoped – with Aeshtaúr Skywalker and Bendu Kenobi finally together and . . . and everything . . . that you and Athra – ”

“I love your father a great deal, Tavia, and I love you and little Cryssa,” Padmé explains, her head tilting automatically towards the adjoining room, where Pooja is still sleeping soundly, “more than words could ever convey. But this body is not mine, and it is past time for me to move on, youngling. Do you remember how ulluv Threepio explained to you about the Force, and how it binds everything in the universe together? Our spirits – our minds and our souls, those things that make us who we truly are, inside – live forever within the embrace of the Light that is the Force’s energy field, /inion-caredd/-mine. That is where I’ll be going. So I will never be very far away – and, in a way, I will never truly leave you, Tavia.”

“You’ll be one with the Light?”

“Yes, love. One with the Light, forever.”

“Alright, then. That’s not so bad. But I’ll still miss you, /mamaithryn/!”

“I know you will, little one. I’ll miss you ever so much, as well. But I trust you’ll take care of your aithár and little Cryssa. Take good care of her, especially, Tavia. Her pathway lies along a far different road from your and Darred’s, and you don’t want her to ever feel excluded or left behind.”

“Cryssa’s like you, mamaithryn/,” Ryoo agrees with a knowing nod. “She’s already started a debating club and a political activist group, at school, and has been talking about wanting to volunteer for the Refugee Relief Movement so she’ll have some practical experience when she wants to join the Legislative Youth Program. /Athra has been putting her off for most of the past year, because of the troubles, but the need for more volunteers will be very high now, with the Clone Wars ending now and the rebuilding beginning, and I’m sure she’ll convince him to let her join, soon.”

“I’m certain you’re right, /inion-caredd/-mine. Cryssa is very persuasive – rather like another young girl I know!” Padmé smiles, tugging gently on a lock of that dark hair and making Ryoo giggle.

“It runs in the family, from what I can tell, /mamaithryn/,” Ryoo grins cheekily.

“You know, I do believe you may be right about that, dear-heart! You are a Naberrie and a Thule and a Janren through and through, my dear. Don’t ever forget that, /inion-caredd/.”

“I won’t, Mâthair’uir Padmé. Will you be going now?” Ryoo asks quietly, voice growing heavy with sadness.

“Soon, little one. I have my goodbyes to you and Cryssa, and a few messages that I want to record – hopefully to help ease the minds of some good people, in case they are suffering any doubts about their judgment because of the manner and the place and time of my death – and then I must say farewell to Bendu Kenobi and Master Skywalker. This body will need seeing to, after I am gone. You know that Sola was banished from Naboo, don’t you?”

“She’s lucky the clannachd didn’t declare for diùghaltair-cheart and kill her immediately, /greine ’s ghaoithe/. She deserved far worse than death, for aiding Darth Sidious,” is Ryoo’s grimly adamant reply.

The urge to say something less than calmly accepting – to snap something harsh, in response to that hard declaration – flashes momentarily across her mind, but so fleetingly that she pauses barely a heartbeat before quietly replying, “Be that as it may, youngling, it is perhaps a good thing that the clannachd chose exile with death as the punishment for any attempt to return, instead, as otherwise I would not be able to sit here and hold you as I am.”

“I could bear to go without the hug, could I but see and hear you again, Mâthair’uir Padmé,” Ryoo merely replies, voice solemn but steady and almost painfully honest.

Voice choking on her, Padmé’s reply comes out in a fiercely proud whisper as she hugs Ryoo tight. “Brave child! You will be such a /láoch/, for the Jedi Bendu, my brave little one!”

“I will do my best, Mâthair’uir Padmé. I swear it.”

“I know you will, youngling. I know it,” Padmé agrees, her voice trembling only a little. “White your world, níthoghean. Beannachtas an bàingeal dhuit. A true light in the darkness, you shall be. /Go sìan-saoghail/.”

“And beyond as well, if necessary.”

“Good girl. Now come here and give me another hug, youngling. I still need to speak to your sister, before I can say my farewell to Masters Kenobi and Skywalker.”

***

Pooja, sleeping in the bedchamber adjoining Ryoo’s, is still so small that she barely makes a dent beneath her covers, the wild shock of dark curls showing above the blankets seemingly bigger than the rest of her entire body. Padmé smiles as she sits on the edge of the bed, remembering how she had both loved and hated being the one who had inherited the naturally riotously curly hair that ran both on the Naberrie side of the family, on her father’s mother’s side, and on the Thule side of the family, from her mother’s father’s side, and how Pooja had apparently decided, as soon as she was old enough to understand where she got her own curls from (in addition to her own father), it meant she should model herself as closely as possible after her aunt Padmé and her great-grandmother Shelané Naberrie, Breos Thule by then having already passed on. Padmé’s smile turns into a wistful half-sigh as she remembers da’mâth Shelané – an active, vibrant woman with a shock of nearly black curls and hazel-green eyes – and she catches a strand of Pooja’s hair in her hand, absently winding the ringlet around her fingers the same way da’mâth Shelané used to do with Padmé’s hair whenever she would see her. Pooja’s hair is actually a bit more like her father’s – the individual strands of hair are a bit finer, making the curls a little bit larger and looser than Padmé’s or da’mâth Shelané’s – and Padmé is fairly certain that her niece’s ringlets will become smoother and less inclined to surrounding her face in an untamable cloud as wide as or wider than her shoulders the longer she allows her hair to grow. Pooja may look more like her mother’s side of the family through the face (she has been mistaken, more than once, for Padmé’s daughter), but her still darkening hair (likely destined to be near-black, by the time she finishes growing) and her naturally slightly darker, more golden skin tone is actually from her father’s family. In fact, if her hair were auburn instead of dark, she would likely look very much like the holos Padmé has seen of Darred’s mother, Sosánaigh Archill Janren.

Padmé is quite sure that Pooja will be heartbreakingly lovely, in just a few more years, with the kind of ever-present beauty that’s so great it requires no artifice or animation to give it life and, in fact, nearly has a separate life of its own, even when the body is at rest. Pooja will be able to gather hearts to her even without trying, something that should stand not only her good in the field she’s apparently already chosen but also help her hold her own against the increased charisma that Ryoo and their father will likely develop, as they learn more about the Force and give their power more room to breathe and grow. Given how fiercely intelligent and independent Pooja is, how large her heart is (she has more than once chided Padmé for not taking a public stance against the way the Republic has been using the clone troopers as if they were little more than droids, a created and renewable resource to be used however the Republic sees fit, rather than as individuals with minds and wills and precious, irreplaceable lives of their own), and the undeniable advantage of personal magnetism that her beauty will provide, Padmé wouldn’t be at all surprised if Pooja were to eventually follow in her own footsteps all the way to the throne of Naboo, if she truly does decide to devote herself to a political career. The thought restores her smile, and she is still grinning proudly as she reaches out to grasp Pooja’s shoulder and gently shake her, just enough to bring her to wakefulness.

“/Mamaithryn/?” The word a sleep-fogged mumble, intelligible only because Padmé can guess what Pooja is saying.

“Yes, little one. I’ve come to say goodbye.”

“Ryoo said you were back. She was hoping you’d stay, but I said you wouldn’t, even though I want you to stay, too, because it would be cheating and you wouldn’t do that even if the Force would let you, which it probably wouldn’t,” Pooja half-mumbles and half-yawns, knuckling sleep out of her eyes as she squirms around on the bed until she can prop herself up against her pillows.

“That’s essentially right, my lovely little clever one. But do you understand why, Cryssa?”

“Balance, right? We only have so long here, but then we get to have the rest of forever in the Force. That’s what ulluv Threepio says Bendu Kenobi always says, and Bendu Kenobi would know because he’s got so much of the Force’s Light in him that he glows. Threepio’s seen him do it,” Pooja yawns again, coming a little bit more awake. “So the Force is just lending you to us for a while longer, since that evil ugly Sith did such horrible nasty things and his war ended your time here with us maybe a little earlier than it would’ve been otherwise. Ryoo said that Bendu Kenobi and Aeshtaúr Skywalker probably talked the Force into letting you stay a bit longer, but I think you stayed for them, so you could put things right again. Right? You’ve put things right for everyone, haven’t you, /mamaithryn/?”

“I think so, little /inion-caredd/-mine. I certainly hope so, anyway. Bendu Kenobi and Master Skywalker are together, now, and they’re remaking the whole of the Jedi organization. Your sister – ”

“She’ll go to Dala City to train, won’t she? And /Athra/,” Pooja adds, nodding and smiling.

“Yes, darling, Tavia and your father both need to be trained and I think they will both be very good Jedi Bendu. But how did you – ?” Padmé begins to ask, frowning slightly in puzzlement.

“/Athra/ feels like Ryoo when I close my eyes and think of him. Warm and bright and kind of glowy. The only other people I know who feel like that are Bendu Kenobi and Aeshtaúr Skywalker, though they’re much, much brighter and warmer,” she replies, shrugging offhandedly.

“Clever child! For a moment I wondered – ”

“No, /mamaithryn/,” she promptly declares, cutting Padmé off before she can finish, voice and manner both very matter of fact. “I don’t have hardly any glow at all. I don’t think I could be a Jedi – or a Jedi Bendu. Besides, I don’t want to fight people with weapons, anyway. I want to help make things better for people other ways. The Legislative Youth Program, for starts. Then maybe the Senate. I like what I’ve heard about your friend, Senator Mon Mothma. She’s worked a lot with the displaced and the refugees from the troubles. I’d rather do that than have to fight people all the time.”

“If that is what you want to do, little /inion-caredd/-mine, then that is what you should do. You know, don’t you, that they’re both ways to serve the people and the greater good, and that one way isn’t innately better or more worthy of praise than the other, right?” Padmé carefully asks.

“You don’t need to worry, /mamaithryn/. I won’t take all the attention or do all the work. Ryoo can protect people her way, by hunting down and arresting bad people like the Sith and other criminals, and I can help people my way, through things like activism and changes in the legislature that’ll protect and help everybody, and between us maybe we can make things a lot better for a lot of beings,” Pooja replies, her sweet smile radiant with hope and determination.

“Good girl,” Padmé smile back at her youngest niece, her worries on the subject laid to rest. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

“It’s okay, mamaithryn. Ulluv Threepio is always saying we need to focus on our own talents and not burn energy and time wishing for things we don’t and can’t all have. Besides, this way we’ll be able to fight for the same things from different directions, which will make what we want twice as likely to get done and to stay that way.”

“You are a very wise young lady, Cryssa. I think you’ll do very well and go very far in your chosen field. You make me very proud, /níthoghean/.”

“Thank you, Mâthair’uir Padmé! You’ll still be able to see me from where you’re going, in the Force, right?”

“Yes, darling.”

“Oh, good! I like that. I want you to be able to see what I can do, mamaithryn/. I’ll miss being able to see you and hug you, but if I know you can still see me, it’ll be alright. Ryoo and /Athra and I will be okay. Maybe Ryoo and I can even find somebody for /Athra/, after he’s had a while to get over all of this. Finding out about Sola hurt him a lot more than I think he lets on,” she admits, sighing.

“Good luck with that, little /inion-caredd/-mine. Your father and I had a talk about much the same thing and, though I think it may take some time, I trust that he will be alright, but I don’t want him to have to be alone. I think it would be wonderful, if you and your sister could find someone for him,” Padmé smiles reassuringly, stroking Pooja’s hair back away from her face and then pulling her close for a warm hug.

“Thank you, Mâthair’uir Padmé! I’ll tell Ryoo and we’ll make some plans, then, and start watching out for someone for him. We’ll do our best!”

“I know you will, little one. You are both my lovely little /inion-caredds/. I believe you can do anything you put your minds and wills to doing.”

“I’ll miss you,/ mamaithryn/. I may talk to you, sometimes, but I’ll understand if you can’t answer back at all. It’ll make me feel better, so I’ll do it anyway, even if you can’t say anything back. Is that okay?” Pooja asks, snuggling into the hug.

“That would be wonderful, youngling. I’ll look forward to hearing from you!”

“Good. Because I really will miss you, /mamaithryn/. I know we’ll all meet again, some day, in the Force, but I’ll miss you being here where I can see you and hug you and really talk to you,” Pooja admits, voice shaking a little. “I know you have to go, though. So /soréidh aing beannachtas dhìth. Bydd i ti ddychgwelyd/.”

“White your world, níthoghean. Beannachtas an bàingeal dhuit. A true light in the darkness you shall be, like your sister but in your own way. /Go sìan-saoghail/,” Padmé declares, hugging her tighter even as she says the ritual words of the farewell blessing.

“And beyond, Mâthair’uir Padmé,” Pooja promises, voice firm even though her shoulders are beginning to shake.

“Yes, youngling. Beyond as well, as necessary. Lie back down now, love. I need to say my farewells to Athros Kenobi and Skywalker. Wait here another fifteen minutes, please, and then fetch Ryoo and come down to the sitting room on the first floor that the family always uses for its councils. I should be done with my goodbyes soon afterwards, and that way you can both be there when I go.”

***

Fortunately, Obi-Wan and Anakin are both completely dressed by the time Bail makes it up to their suite and knocks on the door. It doesn’t take long to find the Naberries (the sense of the twins is so strong that all they have to do is follow that to where they actually are in the house) and Padmé’s prediction proves to be essentially true (actually, by the time they make it down to where the twins are, in a room down on the second floor, near the back of the house, Ruwee and Darred are taking turns making funny faces at and otherwise entertaining the twins, whose sight and hand-eye coordination already seems to be equal to that of much older infants, despite the fact that they are the size of small newborns). Even though it’s fairly easy to find them, though, it takes awhile to get everyone back to the sitting room. Although everyone in the room seems quite clear on the fact that these are Anakin’s and Obi-Wan’s children, Padmé’s various family members are all obviously delighted with and more than half in love with the twins already, and they’re so determined to find as many things for them as possible that it takes some . . . creative persuading to get the women to stop sorting through and looking for various items and then to get those various items (clothes, toys, blankets, etc.) shifted to the room that has been set aside for their nursery (just off the suite of rooms given to Obi-Wan and Anakin, technically not a part of that suite but opening onto the same anteroom) before finally everyone is ready and willing to be escorted back to the sitting room. It doesn’t help that Luke and Leia both seem to want Obi-Wan and Anakin both, requiring a bit of juggling to get everyone situated for the walk over (Luke in Obi-Wan’s right arm, Leia in Anakin’s left, their other arms around each other’s waist so they can stand closely enough together for the twins to be able to gurgle happily as they sort of half reach out for each other). In the end, they probably aren’t all gathered together back in the sitting room for much more than fifteen minutes before Padmé joins them.

She’s cleaned herself up and changed clothes at some point since they all came down from the tower, and, judging from the dress (a plain, loosely cut, extremely A-line gown made out of some kind of heavy but soft looking brushed cotton that’s some light color that’s not quite green and not quite gray and not quite blue, with a high neck and long sleeves and a full skirt that’s probably meant to be long but instead, given how much taller Sola’s body is versus how tall Padmé’s body was, stops abruptly a generous handsbreadth above her ankles) and the soft, shapeless slippers she’s now wearing, went back to her own rooms to do so. Smiling softly, her eyes locked on the twins being held in Obi-Wan’s and Anakin’s laps, she says, “That’s everyone except you, /Athros/, and the twins. Will you bring them with you? This shouldn’t take long. I thought we could use the room behind this one, to save time.”

Anakin just shrugs noncommittally and inclines his head. At the small nod, Obi-Wan nods as well, amiably agreeing. “If you’d prefer,” he allows, gathering Luke up closer to his shoulder before standing and waiting for her to walk past, preceding them to the back of the room and the closed door there leading into the next chamber.

She waits until they’ve made themselves comfortable on two-seat sofa at the center of the room before drawing up a chair from a nearby table and sitting in front of them. Then, with another smile for the twins (who are staring at her with an almost odd intentness), she simply says, “If I could, please, I would like to ask you both a favor, first. I’m afraid that when I leave this body that it will either collapse like a puppet with its strings cut or begin wailing like a newborn child. When I leave, could you please send this body to sleep, so that Ryoo and Pooja don’t have to see anything like that?”

This time Obi-Wan is the one who shrugs slightly, turning to look at Anakin before finally nodding. Anakin, nodding his agreement, then says, “I don’t see why not. Is there anything else?”

“I don’t think so. I’ve left some things for both of you. Most of them are documents or letters of one sort or another that I’ve been preparing, for some time, in the event that something like what actually happened on Coruscant happened to me while you were still off somewhere, fighting in the war. Threepio has most of them on a series of datacards. The rest are in packages that I entrusted to my current handmaidens. I think I said pretty much everything worth saying at some point or another in those documents,” she tells them, spreading her hands wide in her lap in a helpless sort of gesture. “I’m afraid I really don’t know what else to say to you, except that I love you both and I will miss you both and I am still sorrier than I could ever say for what I did to you. If there’s anything that either one of you would like to ask me or to say . . . ”

Obi-Wan looks a question at Anakin. They’ve discussed how they wish to say farewell, but they really only had about ten minutes to talk about it before they realized how much time had passed and thought to check in with Bail, to see how things were going and to find out if they needed to come back down from their suite yet. Anakin just nods and smiles, though, tilting his head invitingly towards Padmé, so Obi-Wan smiles back before turning his gaze towards Padmé and offers, “I don’t believe there’s anything else that needs saying or asking, cariodal, but we would like to give you a chance to say farewell to the twins properly. Anakin and I can bring you into a light meld with them, for a time, if you’d wish.”

The look Padmé gives them is half stunned amazement and half unadulterated joy. “Oh! Oh, yes, please!” she finally breaths, leaning forward with her hands clasped in an almost pleading gesture.

“Then reach out your hands to the children and reach out with your mind towards us. We can guide you the rest of the way,” Anakin half orders and half promises, waiting until she’s obeyed enough to see her lay trembling hands on the twins’ heads before reaching out along the bond for Obi-Wan.

The twins are a part of themselves, both in a literally tangible sense and in the way that beings can share parts of themselves through the Force. Their places occupy a different kind of space in the larger network of layered and overlapping bonds that link Obi-Wan and Anakin to their Padawan, Bail, as well as to the Grand Masters (the connections binding them in some as yet inexplicable way that they can sense but not put into words is even more unlike a normal Master-Padawan bond, even though they obviously fulfill many of the purposes of just such a bond), but their presences are both unmistakable and easy enough to reach that they can act as a bridge between the twins and Padmé without any risk of allowing her too far within the sense of sharing that their own bond has evolved into and so perhaps tying her to them as well, anchoring her beyond her ability to escape from the body that is holding her. In truth, it’s simple and almost effortlessly easy: all they have to do is touch Padmé’s mind through the Force and be aware of each other (as they always are now) without actually tumbling together into the fullness of sharing (which always comes with the greater sense of oneness they feel whenever they come together and tumble blazing into the Force) while also reaching out enough along the network of bonds surrounding them, so that Padmé can use her own rudimentary knowledge of the Force to make her way along the roads connecting them to the twins. The resulting sense of joyous closeness seems easy and natural to Obi-Wan and Anakin, though the amount of love pouring out of Padmé into the twins would likely seem disconcertingly fierce and unrefined, perhaps even frightening, to others. It doesn’t even make them blink, though. They both know just how passionate Padmé is, how capable she is of feeling things with the whole of her not inconsiderable strength, and besides, it’s not like her absolute adoration of the twins is really anything surprising, all things considered.

Padmé looks on the twins with love not only because they might have once been her own children but because they are Anakin’s and Obi-Wan’s children and, in her own eyes, evidence of her own redemption, physical proof positive of the restitution she has necessarily and honorably made for the pain she has caused the two men. If she were staying with them longer than she is, Obi-Wan might be tempted to argue against the need for any such compensation (and Anakin would probably end up questioning whether anything she might possibly do could ever really make up for what she’s already done); however, since she’s going to be with them for far less than an hour, at this point, they both let the point slide as moot. It’s easier, by far, as well as seeming much kinder, to simply give her this and let her be happy than it would be to try to press the issue and make her miserable so close to the end of her time with them. So they act as a bridge and quietly wait, watching and patiently biding their time until they can feel that more people have entered the room connected to this one – Ryoo and Pooja Naberrie coming in with C-3PO and R2-D2 – and that so much time has passed that the twins are on the verge of falling asleep. Then, gradually and gently, they pull back, inevitably pulling Padmé along with them, back out of the meld and into awareness of the room around them. She comes back to herself shivering slightly, with tears of joy shining on her face, and immediately leans even further forward, ghosting her lips over first Luke’s and then Leia’s forehead and then bending down to whisper words of love and farewell into their ears, her hands tenderly smoothing down their baby-fine hair and gently clucking them under their chins as she leans back away. Raising eyes that are almost literally shining with love and happiness, she then meets and holds Obi-Wan’s and Anakin’s gazes, telling them, “You have given me a far greater gift than anyone could ever ask for. Thank you. Blessings of the All upon you both. May the Force hold you ever close and keep you safe within its embrace. And may you ever be presented with love and kindness and joy tenfold to that which you bring into existence.” Then, turning solemnly to look at the others in the room, she adds, “I think I am ready to move on, now.”

***