So This is How Padmé Dies

Padmé awoke, disoriented.

She wasn't sure where she was, nor how she got there.

She only knew Anakin.

For all the darkness and confusion in her mind, she could still clearly remember the first time she had laid eyes on the feisty boy who would become her husband. A slave with no possible hope for escape from a lifetime of manual labor, yet overflowing with such vibrancy that one couldn't help but like him.

His first words to her were "Are you an angel?"

She remembered feeling flattered, and even a little embarrassed. She thought it ironic that the Queen of a world, chosen and beloved by her millions, would be so flustered by the attentions of a slave boy, but of course he hadn't known at that moment what her station in life was. Completely unaware of all her political power and wealth, he had simply looked into her fourteen-year-old soul and said what he saw.

Padmé remembered telling Sabé about it. How he had proven himself brave and selfless, and every bit the pilot he claimed to be. His defining moment, however, had been back in the junk shop, when he had told her what she was. How could she possibly be any less than an angel, when such a power as Anakin Skywalker had said it to be so?

Sabé had laughed and said it was a childish infatuation with Padmé's regal beauty, but she knew better. She had felt his gaze penetrating her mind and her heart, and she knew he had spoken only the simple truth.

After that, everything she did, every risk she took to protect her people, had been in some small measure for Anakin. Years later, Queen Jamilia would tell her that her single most important act as Queen had been kneeling in humility before Boss Nass of the Gungans, and not the repulsion of the Trade Federation's embargo as the history vids would claim.

But Padmé knew that in her heart she had been saying, Do you see me now, Anakin? I am more than a girl, I am a Queen, yet I am still brave and humble and virtuous and good. I rule an entire world, but I am still your angel.

After they had saved Naboo, he had left to become a Jedi. Padmé went and studied up on the Jedi Order, ostensibly to better understand the soft-spoken man who had sacrificed himself and the strange Zabrak warrior who had slain him. But when she had learned how the Jedi forbid attachment and felt her heart sink within her, she could no longer lie to herself about her motives.

And so she had chosen to marry herself to her work, to her duty, just as Anakin did. So she could prove herself to be every bit the angel he was.

Padmé heard a voice. "I think she'll be awake soon." She recognized it as belonging to Obi-Wan Kenobi. Hadn't Obi-Wan gone back to Coruscant with Anakin? But then she remembered, she had seen him again, when he was assigned to protect her from the threat of assassination. And when he reported for duty, he had brought his apprentice. Padmé wanted to laugh out loud when she remembered how she hadn't even recognized Anakin at first, being so focused on the political issues at hand.

But when she opened her mouth to laugh, only a small groan came out and she nearly blacked out again.

She thought of Anakin, and it was as if he were there. She felt as if Anakin was standing next to her, and helping to keep her out of the abyss. And she remembered again the first time Anakin had been there for her, watching her sleep through electronic security monitors. How she felt suddenly overcome with modesty, knowing he could see her. I am an angel, she had chanted to herself as she fell asleep. I am an angel, I am an angel. And then her angel had swept in and stopped the next assassination attempt with his brilliant blue lightsaber.

His lightsaber was the same color as his eyes.

Suddenly she was looking into his eyes again, for the first time. Imagining that the feelings she had were being reflected back at her. She tried to cover her indisgression by saying, "Don't try to grow up too fast." Don't try to grow up too fast? What kind of thing was that to say to the boy she had only just realized was now a man?

And as she silently berated herself, Anakin said, "I am grown up; you said it yourself," and then the emotion in his eyes was not a reflection of her own, but a deep wellspring of passion that she had long since buried in herself.

She remembered breaking off the contact then, telling him that it made her uncomfortable.

Why did I do that? She had to adhere to the principle of unattachment to safeguard her virtue. For Anakin.

Even if that meant from Anakin.

Still, that moment had been the beginning of the breakdown of all her barriers. All the time she suddenly had to spend together with him, coupled with the sudden lack of duties to attend to, gradually allowed her to open her mind and her heart to the possibility of a relationship. She had forsworn all relationships for him, but had known for so long that he was unreachable. Even with him right there, confessing and demonstrating his love for her, she still had difficulty grasping the idea that they might be together.

Besides, she had already decided in her head that a public life of service did not couple well with a family life.

She made some of these excuses to Anakin and told him she didn't want to live a lie. And deep in her heart, she cried out for him to ease her concerns and mastermind a solution.

Instead, he agreed with her words. "It would destroy us."

Was it true then? There was no way they could be together. Padmé felt crushed. She smiled and went through the motions but inside she felt dead.

"She may be dying."

Padmé tried to answer the strange electronic voice that had said that, but her own voice was not responding. She wanted to tell them that she wasn't dying. Then she had a disturbing thought. What if I am dying? Her memories rushed at her again, back to the first time she thought she was about to die.

When she and Anakin had faced the Separatist droid army and lost. When she had been so sure that she would not see another sunset, that she had admitted to Anakin that she loved him.

Somehow, both of them had miraculously survived the battle of Geonosis, and had immediately fled to Naboo to be married. Padmé decided that it was probably not a good comparison to the way she was feeling now.

At least she was starting to pierce her own mental fog. She was at least pretty sure that a few years had passed since her wedding, even though their time together had been severely limited by his duties as a commander of clone armies, and her own duties as Naboo's Senator.

But nobody knew that. Padmé suddenly found herself struggling to remember why she'd been pretending to be single. Why had she been living a lie that would destroy her? Oh yes, she remembered. The Jedi. Her secret husband was actually a Jedi.

Padmé knew it was impossible for her husband to be anything else. It was part of his very being to be a hero, to always help those who needed him.

Somewhere in her mind, a little voice told her that he was only trying to help her.

Why did I need helping? She was fairly certain she hadn't received any more death threats since the beginning of the war. Suddenly, a sharp pain in her abdomen reminded her - the baby. Padmé was about to have a baby, and Anakin had been sure she was going to die.

The little voice told her that he was right. She was dying. Then Padmé realized that Anakin had been right about everything. I'm about to die, thought Padmé, and I can't forestall it by confessing my love. This time, I die for real.

She vaguely heard some alarms going off nearby, and she thought she could feel a medical droid's probing touch, but she ignored them. Anakin knew I would die and he tried to save me. He killed the younglings and abandoned the Jedi in the hopes that it would somehow keep me alive. She remembered crying out in shock at his actions. "I don't even know you anymore!"

Yes you do, said the voice. You know he has to be a hero. He has to save people. Why, Padmé, why wouldn't you let him save you?

"Are you an angel?"

No, she thought. I'm not.

Then the physical sensations became too much for her, and her eyes fluttered open to see Anakin's dearest friend, Obi-Wan Kenobi, standing over her. But hadn't Obi-Wan tried to stop Anakin too?

I'm not an angel, she tried to say, but her "I" turned into a scream of pain.

"Don't give up, Padmé," urged Obi-Wan.

But I lied, she thought, I lived a lie. I was no angel, just a selfish girl--

Another sharp contraction seized her, reminding her again of the new life she and Anakin had created together.

"Is it - it's a girl. Anakin thinks it's a girl," she managed to say.

Obi-Wan said something about staying with them.

"If it's a girl--" The pressure on her abdomen became unbearable for a moment, and she cried out in pain. If it's a girl she won't be an angel either, because her mother was not an angel. "If it's a girl, name her Leia." The Nubian goddess of pain.

Then the droid handed her baby to Obi-Wan, who told her, "You have a boy."

Not a girl. He might have a chance then, to be more than his mother. "Luke." Nubian for angel. “Oh, Luke.”

Suddenly the birth pressure swept over her again, and Padmé felt herself getting weaker as her body devoted all its energy to pushing. She barely had strength to cry out in pain. A moment later, the droid appeared, holding another baby.

Obi-Wan looked over at the baby, and then reported, “It’s a girl.”

“Leia,” answered Padmé, and suddenly the room was spinning too rapidly to say anything else. She needed Anakin to catch her again. "Anakin..."

Somewhere she heard Obi-Wan's voice, saying "Anakin isn't here..."

Where are you, my angel? "Anakin, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," she screamed. "Anakin please, I love you!" But the declaration could not save her life again. Anakin wasn't here now, because Obi-Wan had tried to stop him. Why did you stop him, she sobbed. He was trying to save me. He was my angel.

It took her a few moments to calm herself down, but she had to do it. She had to tell Obi-Wan he was wrong about Anakin.

Each breath felt like a struggle.

"Obi-Wan?” she whispered. “There’s good in him. I know.” She felt Anakin’s touch on her mind once again, but it was distant, fleeting, as if he were searching for her. “I know there’s..." She gasped for another breath of air. “…still…” That breath was her last one.

The last thought to register in her brain was I am not an angel...

And then she was one.