Archive of Our Own ^beta

“It might be better for you to die,” Obi-Wan muses as she holds her children in her arms. Padmé looks up at him and arches an eyebrow.

“I didn’t mean literally,” he clarifies.

“I know what you meant. I’m thinking about it.”

Obi-Wan’s right. Anakin-that-was thinks the woman he loved is gone, thinks that she has been twisted against him. If he knows she’s alive, he will find her and he will kill her. Maybe he will even kill the children.

“All right,” Padmé-that-was answers. “But we do it on my terms.”

Obi-Wan is wise enough not to argue.

“I can start helping to pull people together,” Bail tells her as she gently rocks Luke back and forth. Obi-Wan has Leia in the crook of one arm while he types into a computer with the other. “There’s going to be plenty of people who want to fight Palpatine and Vader.”

“Good. Do it.” Padmé shifts Luke to her other arm. “Put out word of my death. Tell them Vader killed me. That’ll stir up anger on Naboo and Coruscant and maybe a few other worlds.”

“The children?”

Padmé looks down at Luke. “Miscarriage.”

“Consider it done.” Bail looks at Obi-Wan. “What are you doing?”

“Spreading news of my murder. I went on a killing rampage after the Senator died, some Clone Troopers took me down.”

Padmé nods. “Smart.”

“Are you two going to stick together?”

She looks at Obi-Wan, who hesitates.

“I don’t want to do anything that Padmé isn’t comfortable with.”

Padmé blinks, surprised. “I’d like you with me, please.”

“Then I’ll stay with her.”

Bail nods. “I’ll get you a ship and I’ll have R2 and 3PO wiped.”

“No.” She’s startled by the vehemence of her reply. Bail and Obi-Wan look just as surprised. “Leave them.”

“If the Empire gets their hands on them-“

“They’ll be able to adapt better.” Padmé gazes at Bail keenly. “Please. Trust me.”

Obi-Wan’s giving her a thoughtful look and she wonders if he knows that a small part of her wants something around to document what happened, what life was like, memory banks to hold every detail that actually occurred. But if he does, he doesn’t say so.

“All right,” Bail relents. “I’ll keep them working in our palace. They won’t be able to go far.”

“Thank you.” She reaches out and grasps Bail’s hand. “For everything.”

Bail gives her a smile, the first one she’s seen out of anyone since Obi-Wan held Luke in his arms right after he was born. “There’s nothing to thank.”

Padmé cuts her hair off with a knife.

It’s not very elegant, maybe not even very practical. But there’s something so very satisfying about hacking it off, about clutching the ends of her hair and feeling it fall away in her hands brutally. She dyes it honey blond.

Obi-Wan finds her calmly sweeping up her hair off the floor of the small room the med droids have given her. Luke and Leia are asleep in twin cribs in the corner. Obi-Wan raises an eyebrow at her straggly hair now hanging in between her chin and her shoulders.

“The people are used to seeing the Senator with large, dark hairstyles.” She neatly dumps the hair in her trash. “They wouldn’t suspect she’s alive if they saw her without them.”

“It’s very smart.” Obi-Wan puts a pile of clothes gently on her bed. “These are from Bail. He says they’ll be rough enough that nobody would expect a former Queen in them.”

“Good.” She surveys the dress given to her. It’s a deep burgundy and appears easy to move in. It will suit her needs just fine. “Obi-Wan?”

He pauses from where he was going to leave. “Yes?”

“Why were you hesitant when Bail asked if you were going to accompany me?”

Obi-Wan is silent. Padmé looks up to see him still at the door, avoiding her gaze.

“Obi-Wan,” she says sternly. “Tell me the truth.”

When he speaks, it sounds like he is choosing his words carefully. “I don’t want to be an uncomfortable reminder.”

Padmé gives him a long thoughtful look. “I’m going to be constantly dogged by uncomfortable reminders,” she says eventually. “The galaxy is never going to let me forget. It’s the nature of the way things have turned out. But you’re not an uncomfortable reminder. You’re my friend. You’re the best friend I’ve got. I’d like you by my side.” She pauses. “But if I’m an uncomfortable reminder for you, I understand why you wouldn’t want to accompany me.”

“No,” he answers immediately. “No, I’d like to go with you.”

“Good.” She smiles at him and a tiny part of her feels all right for the first time since everything changed.

Their first mission is a disaster.

Padmé ends up running from Clone troopers (Stormtroopers, they’re calling themselves Stormtroopers now) with Leia sleeping while wearing earmuffs across her chest in a sling. Luke is also wearing earmuffs on Obi-Wan’s back but they don’t seem to be working and he’s crying loudly at the blaster fire Padmé and Obi-Wan are delivering to the Stormtroopers.

“Shush, shush,” Obi-Wan chants as he jumps over a barrel to get to their ship. “It’s going to be all right, I promise, it’ll be all right, little one.”

The moment Luke sniffles and stops crying is of course the moment Obi-Wan gets clipped in the leg by blaster fire. He stumbles and Luke begins to wail again. Padmé moves to help him but he waves at her. “Adrenaline, I can make it, just keep moving.”

They make it aboard. Padmé’s not the most wonderful pilot, but she insists Obi-Wan sit and she gets the ship into hyperspace adequately with only minimal damage to the ship.  She moves to where Obi-Wan’s sitting on the ground, struggling to bandage his leg. Fortunately it’s not a terrible blaster burn.

“Let me.” Padmé starts wrapping his leg up.

“Good job flying.”

Padmé smiles faintly. “I’m not the best pilot.”

“Neither am I.” He returns her smile. “Let’s see how far we get.”

Obi-Wan doesn’t use his lightsaber anymore.

She knows he’s keeping Anakin’s.

They don’t talk about it.

“We’re looking for Itan Jekez,” Padmé says, leaning slightly on the table in the cantina. She’s getting used to have small babies on her back but she’s still not quite adjusted to the constant weight. “Is that you?”

Jekez raises a green eyebrow. “Who wants to know?”

Obi-Wan lowers his voice. “Members of the Rebellion.”

Jekez looks unimpressed. “Names.”

“Ben Kenobi.” Obi-Wan has started going by the name “Ben” to others. When Padmé asked why, he shrugged and told her that it was a nickname he had as a youngling in the Temple.

Jekez looks at her. “And you?”

Padmé was a common enough name on Naboo that she feels comfortable using it. She hasn’t yet considered a last name. “Padmé-“ She hesitates for the barest of seconds. “Kenobi.”

She can feel Obi-Wan’s surprised gaze on her. Jekez seems satisfied and slides her the data stick they need.

“Thank you.”

They don’t speak until they’re back in the ship and Padmé is transmitting the data to Bail. The data is not sensitive enough that it has to be delivered in person.

“Kenobi,” Obi-Wan finally says. Padmé flushes slightly.

“If that was crossing a line, I apologize. It won’t happen again.”

“No, it’s fine. You can keep using it.” Obi-Wan clears his throat. “Just curious why.”

“It just… seemed natural.”

Obi-Wan doesn’t say anything else, but he smiles slightly.

Luke has developed blond fuzz on his head and Leia brown on hers. Padmé will touch it sometimes and marvel at how something so soft can exist in this galaxy.

The kids are learning how to walk. Obi-Wan holds their hands and helps them along while Padmé holds out her arms. Luke is the first to walk on his own and when he makes it to Padmé he giggles like mad. Padmé can’t help but cry. Luke frowns and reaches out to touch her wet cheeks. The twins have proven to have a knack for picking up on things. Obi-Wan says it’s common for extraordinarily Force sensitive children to do so at a young age.

“It’s okay,” she tells him. “It’s happy tears.”

Satisfied, Luke curls up into her. Leia watches as she plays with a small wrench Obi-Wan left after fixing up the ship. Three days later, she will take her first steps on her own.

Padmé rocks Leia back and forth, pacing slightly. The kids don’t cry often, but sometimes they have a hard time getting to sleep. Luke is asleep on Obi-Wan’s chest, tiny fist clutching his shirt.

“Do you wish that they weren’t Force sensitive?” he asks out of the blue. Padmé stops rocking Leia. “You don’t have to answer,” he adds.

“I love every part of them. They’re beautiful.” She sighs. “But sometimes, yes. It hurt Anakin. And I just know it’s going to hurt them.”

“The Force doesn’t hurt everything.”

She looks at Obi-Wan sadly. “I haven’t seen proof of that yet.”

Obi-Wan doesn’t answer, but gently runs his fingers through Luke’s rapidly growing hair.

“Say Mama,” Padmé encourages in one of the pocket headquarters of the Rebellion, a basement of a starship factory on an Outer Rim planet. “Come on, Leia, you can do it. Say Mama.”

Leia furrows her brow at her like she’s making a ridiculous request.

“You can do it, sweetheart. Say Mama.”

Obi-Wan told her they may start speaking in sentence fragments not long after they begin speaking. Padmé would settle for a single word.

“I feel like Luke’s going to talk more than his sister,” Obi-Wan says, taking away from Luke a mini hologram projector that he’s been chewing on determinedly. “Just a feeling.”

He speaks two days later.

“We are strong,” he says suddenly while playing with blocks on the floor of their latest freighter. Padmé chokes on her water and Obi-Wan looks up from the blueprints of the latest weapons factory they’re going to sabotage. The words are ones Padmé had said earlier in the day on a pirate broadcast to be sent through the Core Planets, a message of hope.

“Yes, sweet boy,” she says faintly. “Yes, we are.”

Luke smiles at her radiantly. “Mama,” he says. Padmé kisses his cheeks over and over again.

“Gimme,” Leia commands a week later when Obi-Wan takes away a pencil she was repeatedly stabbing into the floor. Somehow, Padmé isn’t surprised.

“Papa, when?” Luke asks when Obi-Wan tells him they can have lunch soon. Obi-Wan drops his book.

“Oh. Um. Luke, no, I’m not Papa.”

Luke frowns. “Papa,” he repeats insistently. “You’re Papa.”

“We can have lunch soon,” Padmé says over Obi-Wan’s stammering. “Be patient, sweetheart.”

Luke sighs but obeys, curling up in his blanket.

“You didn’t correct him,” Obi-Wan says when the children are asleep and they are piloting the ship towards Serenno.

Padmé takes a deep breath. “You’re more a father to them than anyone they’ve ever known,” she says levelly. “And I suspect you’re more of a father to them than Anakin could have been. If they want to call you Papa, I’m more than all right with that. If it makes you uncomfortable however, we can make them stop.”

“No.” Obi-Wan clears his throat. “That’s all right.”

Someone at a Rebellion hideout asks for the children’s names and she tells them Luke and Leia Kenobi.

“You never wanted to tell people they had different names as part of a cover?” Obi-Wan asks while Padmé cleans up one of the momentarily deactivated astromech droids damaged in a battle.

“Anakin and I never discussed names.” She can’t prevent the bitterness leaking into her voice. “He wouldn’t know.”

Obi-Wan gazes at her for a long moment. “How do you feel about him these days?”

Padmé sighs. “Angry. At him and at myself.” She scrubs at the droid. “He wasn’t the man I deluded myself into believing he was. I’d like to believe he was at one point. But if he was, he wasn’t for a very long time.” She pushes her hair out of her face. “There’s always going to be a small part of me that misses Anakin. But I don’t think I love him. Not anymore.”

Obi-Wan nods slowly. “I’m sorry for all the pain he has caused you.”

“And I’m sorry for all the hurt he caused you. How are you coping?”

Obi-Wan smiles sadly. “One day at a time.”

He doesn’t bring up the last name she gave the children.

One day Padmé looks at Obi-Wan. They are sitting on a train shuttling them to the nearest city on Aroiula where they will meet a contact. Luke is perched on his shoulders, meticulously braiding his hair with pudgy fingers. Leia is in his lap, gazing the latest transcripts from Bail studiously even though she cannot yet read. Obi-Wan doesn’t reprimand them or tell them to stop. Instead he seems for a rare moment at peace.

Padmé looks at him, and she thinks oh.

Padmé and Anakin’s first kiss had a hint of desperation to it. It was beautiful but complicated, wonderful but frightening.

The first time Padmé kisses Obi-Wan, there is none of that. While the children, now three years old, build a fort out of sticks on Oure and the two of them are keeping an eye on them making sure they don’t hurt themselves (Luke and Leia are going through a tree climbing phase, which inevitably means they are going through a falling phase as well), she simply leans over and kisses him gently.

He looks at her in surprise. She gazes back, waiting in silence.

Obi-Wan smiles and she grins back. He wraps an arm around her shoulders and pulls her in. She comfortably nestles her head in the crook of his neck and watches the twins try to climb on the roof of their fort and balance unsteadily.

Obi-Wan and Padmé tell the twins stories of Anakin Skywalker, the great fighter pilot in the galaxy. They are enraptured of the stories, amazed that Obi-Wan and Padmé knew him. They don’t tell them who he truly is.

“When they’re a little older,” Obi-Wan says, and Padmé can’t help but agree.

They visit Bail on Alderaan and it is the first time they have seen him in four years, since they departed after the birth of the twins. He is graying slightly and there are more bags under his eyes, but he smiles warmly when he sees them. Luke hides behind Padmé’s legs, always the more cautious one of her children (although not by much). Leia, however, strides up to Bail and holds out her hand.

“My name is Leia Kenobi,” she says formally in the way she has heard Padmé and Obi-Wan introduce themselves. Bail doesn’t laugh at her seriousness, instead kneeling down to shake her hand.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Leia,” he answers just as solemnly. “My name is Bail Organa. I was there when you were born.”

“It’s really green here,” Luke whispers. As far as Padmé’s memory goes, it’s the most vibrant place the children have been to. Mostly they stick to Outer Rim planets, hot desert worlds. Bail turns his attention to him.

“It is. Would you like to look around?”

“Yes.” Luke tugs on Obi-Wan’s hand. “Come on, Papa.”

“I’m coming.” Obi-Wan holds out his other hand, which Leia takes. Bail raises an eyebrow at “Papa”, but says nothing.

“Do you want to get married?” Obi-Wan asks in their bedroom. The children loved Alderaan, climbed all the trees they could find and sported bruises to prove it. Luke and Leia are sharing a room next to Obi-Wan and Padmé’s, the first time they’ve ever had a room to theirselves. They were very excited about it, but fell asleep in minutes. “Officially, and all that?”

Of course he knows she considers them practically married. Padmé cocks her head. “I got married once before,” she answers. “It didn’t agree with me very much.” She pulls something out of her pocket. It’s Anakin’s wedding ring, left behind in their apartment the night everything went wrong. “I wouldn’t mind if you’d take this, though.”

Obi-Wan smiles. “It would be my privilege.” He slips it on.

“I’ve been thinking.”

“A dangerous pastime,” Obi-Wan says seriously. She elbows him.

“I don’t want the only home Luke and Leia know to be freighters and the backs of ships. I want them to have a stable home.”

“Are you thinking about retiring?”

She shakes her head. “People could still come to us from the Rebellion. A way station. We would keep in contact with them and pass information along to Bail.”

Obi-Wan nods thoughtfully. “I think you’re right.”

Padmé smiles. “I’m always right, Ben.”

It’s Obi-Wan’s turn to elbow her.

“He makes you very happy, doesn’t he?” Bail asks apropos of nothing when the two of them are touring the gardens. Alderaan reminds her of Naboo in all the best ways.

“He does,” she answers peacefully.

“Good. You deserve some happiness.”

“Mama!” Luke shouts, running up to her with a large bouquet of flowers. “Mama, look what I picked for you!”

“They’re beautiful, sweetheart. Thank you.” She kneels down and takes them from him. “Did you ask permission first?”

“The gardeners said it was all right.”

Obi-Wan comes puffing up behind him. He’s good at chasing after the children, but Padmé suspects has spent most of the day running after them. Leia is on his back, delicate emerald roses braided into her hair.

“Papa did it for me,” she tells Padmé, nimbly hopping off Obi-Wan’s back. “He’s getting better at doing it.”

The roses are done clumsily and there’s lots of stray hairs sticking out. Padmé catches Obi-Wan’s eyes and quickly looks away with a smile.

“Leia, do me!” Luke grabs his sister’s hand excitedly, then turns to Padmé. “Mama, can I have a few flowers?”

Padmé laughs and gives him the bouquet. “Here you go, darling.”

“Thanks, Mama!” He and Leia run off and Padmé feels softly and gently at peace.

They decide on Tatooine, because Owen and Beru live there, and Padmé thinks it might be nice for the twins to know their family, what’s left of it.

Obi-Wan and Padmé take them to meet the two one morning. Owen and Beru emerge from their home, much more tired, somehow seeming much older, obviously confused.

“Obi-Wan, Padme,” Beru greets. “What are you doing here?”

It’s this moment that Leia and Luke dash forwards from their ship.

“Mama, Leia was pulling my hair,” Luke complains. Leia folds her arms.

“Only because he was poking me.”

“Luke, stop poking your sister,” Obi-Wan instructs. “Leia, stop pulling your brother’s hair.”

Leia and Luke both groan sulkily but chorus “yes, Papa.”

The way Owen and Beru are looking at the children, Padmé knows they immediately know whose they are. But they don’t say anything in front of them. Instead they take Luke and Leia to the workshop where they repair the droids. Luke’s face lights up.

“We’re learning binary,” he says excitedly. “I’m doing better than Leia.”

Leia glares at him, evidently still surly after their fight. “You are not.”

Luke doesn’t seem to hear her, immediately running to put parts together. He’s taken to building things. Leia sighs and sits next to him, leaning her chin on her hands and watching her brother. Looking at Luke build has always seemed to calm her.

“If we leave you two here, do you swear to me that you’re not going to get into any trouble?” Padmé asks. The children take the promise of swears very seriously. Leia is the only one who answers with “yes, Mama”. Luke just nods absently, lost in his work.

“Do they know?” Owen asks immediately as soon as the children are out of earshot. Padmé shakes her head.

“Too young.”

Beru nods. “Seems wise.”

Owen’s eyes are shrewd. “You would be the Ben and Padmé Kenobi, then? We wondered.” Their surprise must show on their faces, because Owen continues. “News of the Rebellion reaches even backwater worlds like this one.”

“Yes. That would be us.”

“Hm.” They sit at their kitchen table. “Why are you here?”

“I want to give the children a steady home. I thought it might be nice to do it nearby their blood family.”

Beru raises her eyebrows. “You think it’s smart to do it here? Don’t you worry that…” she hesitates. “That Vader will find you?”

“Vader thinks we’re dead,” Obi-Wan replies and Padmé finds herself wondering when they started referring to him as Vader. She didn’t even notice. “Me, Padmé, the twins. He won’t be looking for us.”

“And even if he was, he wouldn’t come here.” Padmé knows this in her bones, knows that he would never return to the planet he hated the most, where he lost his mother, where he committed his first slaughter. “Trust me, he’ll avoid Tatooine like the plague. This is the safest place to raise Luke and Leia.”

Owen looks slightly miffed at what must seem a little like disdain for the planet, but Padmé can tell from the look on Beru’s face that she understands what she’s trying to say. “So are you leaving the Rebellion?” she asks.

“We’re still going to have visitors from them. Facilitate things.”

“Then you’ll want somewhere out of the way. There’s a collection of caves in the Jundland Wastes that could be a suitable home with a little work. You can reach Mos Eisley from there via landspeeder and it’s far enough away from the Hutts that it shouldn’t give you any trouble.”

Padmé isn’t quite sure what all of that means, but she trusts their judgement and nods.

“I’d better go check on the twins,” Obi-Wan says, standing up. “Make sure they haven’t caused a small explosion.”

Padmé smiles a little. “I think if they had, they would have come running in here excited to show us what they’d blown up.”

Obi-Wan chuckles. “True.” He gently covers Padmé’s hand with his own before he leaves, a gesture that doesn’t go unnoticed by Owen and Beru.

“May I ask a personal question?” Beru asks. Padmé nods. “Is he-“ she hesitates. “Is he a replacement for Anakin?”

“Beru,” Owen says, sounding scandalized. Padmé, however, doesn’t mind at all. Beru is straightforward when she is concerned and she appreciates that.

“No,” Padmé says. “He’s not Anakin at all. I love him for everything Anakin wasn’t, and everything only Obi-Wan is.”

Beru nods, satisfied. “Good.”

“I would like it if the kids called you Aunt and Uncle. But if you’re uncomfortable with that, they don’t have to.”

Owen shakes his head. “No. I think we’d like that very much.”

Obi-Wan staggers in with Leia clinging to his leg and Luke to one of his arms. “It seems it’s climb on Papa time,” he says dryly. Padmé laughs, feeling lighter than she has in ages.

The home carved from a cave in the Jundland Wastes is large and requires a lot of work to make it habitable and it is exactly what Padmé and Obi-Wan wanted. Luke and Leia paint their room (they insist on sharing one, and Padmé sets aside one of the rooms for the separate bedroom she knows they will want when they are teenagers) blue with golden swirls. Padmé hangs pictures of starfighters on Luke’s side and Leia insists on covering her side with paintings of plants. Obi-Wan and Padmé assume Alderaan really stuck with her.

“How long do we get to stay here?” Luke asks while Padmé and Obi-Wan are moving their dining room table.

“A long time.”

“Three weeks?”

Padmé’s smile is tinged with sadness as she thinks that this is Luke’s perception of how long one can have a home. “Many years, I hope.”

Luke’s eyes widen. “Years?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Wow,” he whispers, looking awed. He runs off to tell his sister, shouting her name in excitement.

“They’re so young,” Obi-Wan says quietly. Padmé looks at him and sees the most powerful combination of love and sadness she’s ever seen on someone’s face as he gazes where Luke disappeared. She stops shifting the table and takes his hand.

“They are,” she agrees. “But they’ll be all right.”

Padmé and Obi-Wan teach the children. They prove to be fast learning in their schoolwork. The two of them take the kids out to the townships often. Luke strikes up a friendship with a little boy named Biggs and Biggs’s friends (albeit possibly a little grudgingly) welcome him into their fold. Leia seems slower to talk to them, almost suspicious. But she likes Biggs well enough and talks to him agreeably.

For their sixth birthday, Obi-Wan surprises them with gifts he’d picked up from a trader who’d stopped by the planet several months before. For Luke he gives him a model toy of an X-Wing and a small book on ship repair. Leia he gives an abridged book on the history of democracy in the Core Worlds and a box of various scraps of ribbon and thread. One of the activities that seems to calm Leia the most when she’s feeling tired or unsettled is braiding scraps of string into not only her but her brother’s hair.

“How old is the book?” Padmé asks while they wrap their gifts the night before. Bail sent Padmé an Alderaanian Lily in a small pot for Leia and a little package of chocolate for Luke.

“Old enough that the Empire’s not in it.”

“We should be careful,” Padmé says solemnly. “We’re harboring dangerous literature.”

Obi-Wan nods seriously. “We wouldn’t want to risk upsetting the Empire in any way.”

Both break into laughter.

Lots of people from the Rebel Alliance come through their home. Bail never visits, but he has appearances to keep up. His friendship with the Jedi is too well known and his ties with the Rebellion would be suspect. But there are plenty others. Admiral Ackbar, a former fighter in the Clone Wars visits, as well as a senator from Chandrilla, a young woman named Mon Mothma. There are Mandalorians, Lothals, Bothans, all kinds of people visiting. They act as a way station, a place for recovering victims of attacks to heal, a place to pass along information. The fact that there are two children in the Jundland Sanctuary (Obi-Wan masterfully suppresses a laugh when he hears that’s what their home has come to be known as) penetrates the Rebellion, and often the members of the Rebellion will come with little gifts for the the twins, little sweets and toys and charms.

One evening when Luke and Leia are seven, Padmé is hanging Chandrillan wind chimes outside their home (a recent gift from Mon Mothma, delicate twists of glass that sound like birds singing when rattled) when she sees a figure in a dark cloak approaching from a distance. She freezes. There were no transmissions telling them that anyone would be arriving tonight (many of the Rebels come in at night) and dark cloaks only mean bad things to Padmé.

She hurries inside their home. Obi-Wan takes one look at her face and knows something’s wrong.

“Take Luke and Leia into the back,” Padmé instructs. “Take your weapon.” They’re rehearsed this before, what to do in case anyone ever found them. Padmé is the first line of defense, a blaster hidden in her dress. Obi-Wan is the final line, because she wants the children to be protected by the most skilled fighter.

Obi-Wan nods, briefly presses his lips to hers before dashing to the children’s room. Padmé slides her blaster into her cloak and steps outside.

The dark cloak has gotten closer and she waits. When the figure is close enough, she puts on a friendly voice.

“Evening, traveler,” she calls. “Have you gotten lost? You’re an awful long way from the townships.”

The figure stills. Padmé’s stomach turns over.

“Senator?” A familiar voice hesitantly asks. Padmé freezes, then presses a hand to her mouth.

“Padmé.” The figure lowers her hood to reveal Ahsoka Tano. Her face is slimmer than it was when Padmé last saw her, her tails longer. Her face is contorted in shock. She is one of the most beautiful things Padmé has ever seen.

“Ahsoka.” She embraces her tightly and Ahsoka buries her face in Padmé’s shoulder.

“I thought you were dead,” Ahsoka whispers.

“I thought you were dead, too.” Padmé pulls back and wipes the tears from Ahsoka’s eyes with the sleeves of her robe.

“They said there was a woman at the Jundland Sanctuary that used to be in the Senate. I never thought it would be you.”

Padmé motions to the home. “Come in.”

She leaves Ahsoka in the dining room and heads to the back room. “It’s me,” she calls before stepping in. Obi-Wan is standing in front of Luke and Leia, gazing with wide fearful eyes. “It’s all right, it’s all fine. It’s a friend.” Padmé holds out her hands. “You can stay up a little late to meet her.”

“Who is it?” Obi-Wan asks.

“Come and see.”

When Ahsoka sees Obi-Wan, she starts crying anew. “Obi-Wan.”

“Oh, Ahsoka.” He holds her tightly and she clings to him. “Look at you. You’re all grown up.”

She wipes her eyes. “I am.”

“Come here.” Padmé instructs to Luke and Leia. They shyly look up at Ahsoka, who kneels down to them. “Luke, Leia, this is your Aunt Ahsoka.”

Ahsoka smiles weakly. “Hi, kids,” she says. “I knew your dad.”

Luke looks up at Obi-Wan. “She knows you, Papa?”

Ahsoka, to her credit, scarcely reacts. “That’s right. I did.”

“Did you fight in the Clone Wars?” Leia stares at Ahsoka. “Papa did. He was a general and he fought alongside Anakin Skywalker, who was the greatest pilot in the galaxy.”

Ahsoka’s smile is tinged with sadness. “I did. And I knew him too.”

Luke and Leia’s eyes go huge.

“You knew Anakin Skywalker?” Luke whispers.

“Can you tell us stories?” Leia asks eagerly.

“Why don’t I make you some hot chocolate and tuck you in,” Obi-Wan says, glancing at Ahsoka. “Let your aunt sit down. I’m sure she’ll be here in the morning.”

Ahsoka sits at their dining room table while Obi-Wan bustles around the kitchen. Luke and Leia sit at the table, gazing at her.

“Were you a Jedi?” Leia asks.

“In a manner of speaking I was, for a little while.”

“I wanna be a Jedi,” Luke declares. “I can even move stuff with the Force.”

“You can, huh?”

“He can,” Padmé confirms a little wearily. The amount of screwdrivers and wrenches that have been whizzing around between Luke and Leia has been a little exhausting. Their tantrums are even worse. “So can his sister.”

“Mine waver more than Luke’s.” Leia looks a little down. Luke reaches out and grabs his twin’s hand.

“That’s okay,” he says seriously. “Mama can’t lift stuff with the Force at all, and she’s one of the coolest people we know.”

Padmé’s heart melts a little bit. Leia gives her brother a look that’s clearly supposed to be stern but she keeps smiling and ruining it.

“Mama’s one of the only people we know.”

“We know lots of people.”

“I’ve got to concur with your brother.” Ahsoka leans her head down. “Your mom is definitely one of the coolest people I know. And I know lots more people than you two do.”

“Told you.”

“Hm, well. Maybe a little.” Leia sneaks Padmé a smile, like she’s trying to ensure her mother knows she’s kidding. Padmé reassures her with one back.

“All right, you two.” Obi-Wan hands each of them a mug of hot chocolate. “Let’s take you to bed. You can talk to Ahsoka in the morning.”

Luke and Leia obediently hop off the bench at the table.

“Good night, kids.” Ahsoka stands only to kneel in front of them. “Tomorrow I’ll tell you some stories about Anakin. I have some really great ones.”

Luke and Leia both hug Ahsoka at once. Ahsoka automatically wraps her arms around the pair of them.

“Have a good night, Auntie,” Luke tells her.

“Night, Aunt ‘Soka,” Leia adds.

Ahsoka swallows.

“Sleep well,” she manages. “Enjoy your hot chocolate.”

The children walk very carefully back to their room, Obi-Wan shepherding them gently. Ahsoka wipes a tear from her eye when she thinks Padmé isn’t looking, so she pretends not to see.

Ahsoka clears her throat. “He looks like Anakin did. When he was little.”

Padmé looks at her, startled.

“Anakin showed me a picture once of him and Obi-Wan when he was still a Padawan. He was older than Luke is. But they still look the same. Leia I’m guessing looks more like you did.”

“She does.”

Ahsoka’s smile barely trembles. “They’re wonderful.”

Padmé smiles back just as weakly. “They truly are.”

Obi-Wan comes back. “They’re very excited you’re here,” he tells Ahsoka, sitting across from her next to Padmé. “They can’t wait to hear stories. We’re running out of family friendly ones.”

Ahsoka leans forwards. “How did you survive? The official news said you were both dead.” Ahsoka glances at Padmé. “Although they said you were from miscarriage complications.”

“If there’s anything I’ve learned,” Padmé says wearily. “It’s that people believe what you tell them.”

Ahsoka nods in understanding.

“What about you?” Obi-Wan asks. Ahsoka shrugs.

“I wasn’t a Jedi anymore,” she answers. “Order 66 missed me. It didn’t occur to anyone that I’d still be out there.” She pulls something out of a pocket, a thin data stick. “I got this from Ackbar's people. They said the people at Jundland would know how to translate it and who to get it to.”

Padmé takes it from her. “I can get that done. Did they say how time sensitive it is?”

“No more than usual.” Ahsoka hesitates. “Do you know what happened to Anakin?”

Obi-Wan and Padmé stiffen and Ahsoka rushes on.

“I mean, I know he has to be dead. He’d be here with the children if he wasn’t, I know that. I just need to know who’s responsible. I need to…” she swallows. “I need to find them. And take care of them. I need to be able to mourn him properly.”

“Revenge is not the Jedi way,” Obi-Wan murmurs.

Ahsoka’s eyes harden. “I am no Jedi.”

“No. I suppose I’m not either, anymore.” Obi-Wan and Padmé look at each other for a long moment. Then Padmé gets up. This is something Obi-Wan needs to tell her, and not her.

“I’d better get to translating this,” she says, holding up the stick. “I’ll come back when it’s done.”

As she leaves, doing her best not to look at Ahsoka’s face, she hears Obi-Wan say very gently “Ahsoka, there’s something I need to tell you…”

She works on the stick in Luke and Leia’s room. Their presence has always granted a measure of serenity to Padmé when she’s unsettled, and that is the least powerful word to describe how she feels at the moment.

She hears something break in their dining room. She takes a deep, steadying breath.

“Mama?”

She looks over from the decryption device to see Luke, sitting up sleepily.

“Something broke.”

She smiles gently at her son. “Your papa probably just dropped something in the dining room. Don’t worry about it.”

Luke’s frown deepens. “You’re upset. What’s wrong?”

Obi-Wan’s much better at disguising his emotions from the children than she is. They’re very intuitive and sometimes they (usually Leia) slip through his defenses (when Obi-Wan wondered why, Padmé said nothing, but knows that it is because he is their father, and in certain ways they know him better than many), but he’s still got years of training himself to shield. Padmé doesn’t have that training and so it’s easier for the twins (usually Luke) to pick up on her feelings.

Padmé sighs and puts the decryption device down. She walks over to Luke’s bed, a small twin. “Move a little, sweetie. You come here too, Leia,” she adds, because maybe she’s not Force sensitive but she’s a mother and nobody’s fool.

Luke does and Padmé lies down in the middle of the bed, wrapping her arm around him. He instantly curls into her, snugging up and leaning his head into her chest. Leia darts in on Padmé’s other side and she pulls her close with her other arm.

“Do you know why we moved so much when you were smaller?”

“We’re part of the Rebel Alliance,” Leia answers immediately.

“Do you know what that means?”

“It means we’re an alliance that rebels against stuff,” Luke says solemnly.

“Yes, that’s what it means. Before you were born, there wasn’t an Empire. The galaxy worked on a democracy.”

“What’s a democracy?”

“It’s where everyone has a say, not just an Emperor.”

Leia frowns. “That sounds better.”

“It had its problems, but yes, it was.”

“But there’s a Senate now. Uncle Bail’s in the Senate.”

“It’s not…” Padmé struggles for a second, trying to figure out how to explain a puppet government to her children. “The way the Senate works now, they don’t actually get to do anything. The Emperor lets them continue so it just looks like everyone’s working together, but actually, he’s in charge.”

Leia’s eyes narrow and Padmé recognizes the fire within them. “That’s not fair.”

“No. It’s not. But back when the Senate still worked-“ and she will just leave at that, because there is no easy way to explain to seven year olds the intricacies of how bad the Senate had gotten by the time she was there, how it just opened the door for Palpatine to control them. “I was a Senator for my home planet.”

“People have home planets?” Luke asks.

Padmé has to take another breath. “Yes, they do.”

“Senator Padmé Kenobi,” Leia says contemplatively. Padmé smiles a little.

“I wasn’t a Kenobi then. They called me Padmé Amidala when I was a Senator.”

Leia nods seriously, absorbing the information.

“What happened to the Senate?” Luke demands. It could almost seem like another bedtime story, if Padmé didn’t see the weight in his eyes of understanding too deep for a seven year old, and yet somehow still nowhere near enough.

“Well, there was a war, not long before you were born, called the Clone Wars. Your papa fought on the battlefield of them with Anakin Skywalker.”

“Papa was in battles?”

“He was, and lots of his friends, too.”

“What happened to his friends?”

“Did they die?” Leia whispers. Padmé runs her fingers through her daughter’s hair.

“I’m afraid they did, sweetheart.”

“Oh.”

“Aunt Ahsoka fought in them too. She was Anakin’s apprentice and she left before her and your papa’s friends died, so she was all right. But she didn’t know what happened to Anakin, and right now your papa’s telling her.”

“Did Anakin die, too?”

“Yes,” Padmé says simply, because despite everything that she’s telling them now, they are still too young. “And your papa having to tell Aunt Ahsoka reminded me of what happened, and it made me sad.”

Luke presses his face further into Padmé’s body. “I’m sorry, Mama.”

“It’s all right, sweetheart.” Padmé rubs his back. “Sometimes sad things happen. People can’t be happy all the time.”

“Is Aunt Ahsoka going to be okay?”

“She might be sad for a little while, too. But people aren’t sad all the time, either. She’s going to be fine.”

“And Papa?”

“Your papa is much better than he was before you were born. You two have made him so very happy.”

“He makes us happy, too,” Leia murmurs.

“I know, little princess.”

The twins don’t ask anymore questions, but not too much later they fall asleep. Padmé carefully extricates herself from the two of them. Leia automatically curls into her brother in her sleep, and Luke, still not quite fully awake, grabs at her arm.

Padmé slips quietly into the dining room. Ahsoka is asleep on their couch, her head leaning on Obi-Wan’s lap. One of their pots is smashed on the ground. Obi-Wan looks up at her entrance, eyes red-rimmed.

“Ahsoka offered to get us a new one,” he tells her, voice raspy from crying. “I told her not to worry about it.”

“Of course.” Padmé sits next to him. He leans on her a little. “I just had to give the children a crash course in the Clone Wars and the Rebellion.”

“Did it go all right?”

“I think so. I don’t know.” She sighs. “I don’t know if I’m doing any of this right,” she confesses. “What if I’m damaging them, Ben? Maybe I should have just settled down. Maybe I should have asked Bail to take them, or Owen and Beru.”

Obi-Wan shifts slightly so he can look Padmé right in the face. “You are,” he says clearly. “An excellent mother. The twins could not ask for better. We are doing our best between the two of us, and that is the best that can be done. They are growing into kind, wonderful people, and that is the way it should be.”

Padmé stares at him, then leans her forehead into his.

“I’m so glad you came with me,” she whispers.

“And I’m so glad you let me.”

When Padmé wakes up, Obi-Wan is still asleep, having fallen flat onto the couch where Ahsoka had been sleeping and Padmé half on top of him. Ahsoka is making breakfast in the kitchen.

“Sorry about the pot,” she says, cracking eggs. “I didn’t really believe Obi-Wan when he told me.”

“Perfectly rational.” Padmé stands slowly. “Don’t worry about it. How are you doing?”

Ahsoka sighs. “I don’t really know.”

Padmé pulls the whisk down from where their kitchen implements are and hands it to Ahsoka. She’s smart enough to know Ahsoka won’t accept any help. “It was complicated for us for a while, too. The kids and the work helped. Can we do anything to make it any easier?”

Ahsoka shakes her head. “It’s something I have to deal with on my own, I think.”

“I understand.”

Ahsoka stays for three days, a little longer than most Rebellion members. She’s good with the kids, playing games with them and telling them stories. At the end of the three days, she gives them tight little hugs with the promise to visit again. Obi-Wan kisses her on the forehead and Padmé takes her via speeder to Mos Eisley to drop her off.

Before she leaves, Padmé hesitates, and says “Ahsoka.”

Ahsoka looks up at her.

“You never once. You never judged me for.” Padmé swallows. “You haven’t asked me about my relationship with Ben.”

Ahsoka tilts her head at her. “Does he make you happy, Padmé?”

“Yes. Very much.”

“Then that’s all I need to know. I’m not going to judge you for moving on after Anakin. I wouldn’t have even if he wasn’t- even if he was just dead.”

Padmé smiles and hugs her. Ahsoka hugs her back just as tightly.

“May the Force be with you, Ahsoka.”

“May the Force be with you, Padmé.”

Years pass.

Obi-Wan gets grayer and grayer and Padmé teases him about it, even as the hair she let revert to brown some time ago gains silver strands of its own. The children get taller, Luke proudly maintaining height over Leia.

The twins get older as well as taller. Padmé watches them develop further and further into their personalities. Leia is brasher and angrier, and it worries Padmé slightly, how much of Anakin she sees in their daughter until one day when they are eleven years old and Padmé is watching Leia braid funnel flowers into Luke’s hair, Obi-Wan turns to Padmé and says “she has Anakin’s emotion but your restraint.” That is all it takes for Padmé’s fear to be assuaged. Leia has a head for books, reading whatever the members of the Rebel Alliance brings with them voraciously.

Luke, meanwhile, is a little calmer, a little quieter. He too can be prone to outbursts, but he runs a little more level than his sister. His interests are less to do with reading and more to do with technology- for his twelfth birthday Beru and Owen buy him a battered land speeder that he adores. He spends at least three days a week at Beru and Owen’s, helping them fix maintenance droids and run the farm.

Obi-Wan coaches them in the ways of the Force. The two of them discussed it for a long time but eventually agreed that Luke and Leia were too strong to pretend they had no knowledge of the Force, and that it was safer to teach them.

The first thing Obi-Wan teaches them is to how to shield their minds in case a Force user (they don’t say anyone in particular, but both Padmé and Obi-Wan know who they mean) tries to infiltrate them. It breaks their hearts a little, but it has to be done. Leia is exceptional at it, blocking even Obi-Wan before long. Luke is less good, but he is passable. He is, however, excellent at meditation. Leia struggles with it until Ahsoka, on one of her visits, shows her a different tactic to Obi-Wan’s, and then she settles into it.

When they are thirteen, they sit the children down.

“We need to talk to you,” Obi-Wan says gently. “About your father.”

The twins look at each other, than at the two of them.

“Is this about how Anakin Skywalker is our birth father?” Luke asks.

Obi-Wan looks like he’s having a stroke. Padmé drops the yarn she’s been fidgeting with.

“How?” she manages while Obi-Wan gapes. The twins exchange a look again and it such a painfully Anakin look that Padmé’s heart clenches a little.

“You two aren’t near as subtle as you think you are, for Rebellion spies,” Leia answers.

“Ah. Well. Yes.” Obi-Wan clears his throat. “It is in part about that, yes.”

Luke’s brow furrows. “There’s more?”

Part of Padmé wishes, selfishly, that they’d already figured this part out too. That the two of them didn’t have to explain it.

But they do. Luke and Leia’s faces are impassive, save for the way they’re holding each other’s hands ever tighter. They’ve always held each other’s hands in times of stress, since Obi-Wan and Padmé seriously imparted to them the importance of holding onto each other’s hands when running when they were little.

After they finish between the two of them, their throats sore, Luke and Leia nod as one. Obi-Wan’s always said that their occasional synchronicity of movement could be attributed to the strength of their connection in the Force. It’s long since failed to faze Padmé.

“We need to go talk,” Leia says, Luke nodding in agreement.

“Of course,” Padmé answers. “Come to us if you need us, okay?”

“Okay, Mom.”

“Yes, Mama.”

They walk off, headed into the Wastes. Padmé isn’t worried. The children know this desert better than some of the old folk living in Mos Eisley.

Obi-Wan looks at Padmé. Padmé gets up and sits on the couch. Obi-Wan sits next to her and she burrows into him a little. He wraps his arms around her.

“Did we do the right thing?” she whispers.

“I don’t know,” he murmurs back.

She wakes up to Luke gently tapping her on the knee.

“Mama,” he says softly. “Wake up. Leia and I need to say something to you and Dad.”

Padmé sits up, blinking blearily. Obi-Wan’s rubbing at his eyes a little. If it were any other moment, she might tell him how adorable she finds it. Leia and Luke have pulled up chairs and are sitting across from them seriously.

“How long has it been?” Obi-Wan asks, yawning.

“A couple of hours.”

“What did you need to say, sweethearts?” Padmé pushes her hair out of her face.

The twins look at each other, then at them.

“It’s not important,” they chorus.

Obi-Wan looks as confused as she feels.

“Sorry?”

“Darth Vader is terrible,” Leia says solemnly. “And everything he’s done is awful. But we’re not heartbroken over what he did to Luke and I.”

“Anakin Skywalker was never there for us,” Luke tells them. “He wasn’t there for our first words, or our first steps. He didn’t teach us anything or help us with our schoolwork or anything. You did, Dad.”

“You’re my Papa.” Leia’s voice is calm but firm. “And you’re Luke’s papa. Not someone we’ve never met. You. So it doesn’t matter if we’ve got his blood running through our veins. Cause we’ve got you and your love in your minds.”

Obi-Wan looks close to tears as he pulls the twins into a hug. They immediately lean in and clutch at him back.

“You’re my children,” he whispers. “And there’s not a thing that can change that.”

Luke reaches out and pulls Padmé into the hug. They all end up falling asleep on the couch in a vague huddle for the evening.

Padmé hears Obi-Wan talking to Qui-Gon sometimes. She doesn’t bring it up.

Shortly before they’re fifteen, Padmé finally relents and Obi-Wan asks if they want lightsabers of their own over breakfast.

“I don’t want Vader’s that Papa thinks he’s very good at hiding from us,” Leia says without looking up from her textbook. Leia has a very low opinion of him. She’s confided to Padmé that Luke wants to know more about him, thinks there’s still good in him, but she thinks it’s very doubtful. Privately, Padmé concurs with Leia.

“I’d like maybe one I could build myself,” Luke says shyly. Obi-Wan nods.

“I’ll talk to Ahsoka.”

And so, on their fifteenth birthday, Ahsoka arrives with Khyber crystals, and the twins spend the week building their own lightsabers. When they’ve finished, Luke has a green one and Leia a purple one.

“Now you have to learn to use them,” Obi-Wan tells them. He trains Luke, and Ahsoka trains Leia.

Privately, Obi-Wan trains Padmé, too, with Anakin’s old saber. She doesn’t particularly enjoy it, but she agrees it may become necessary someday.

When the twins are seventeen, Leia tells her parents that she wants to be a Senator and a spy for the Rebellion.

The ensuing fight between her and Padmé is so bad that Leia stays with Beru and Owen for three days.

“You can’t be that surprised that she wants to follow in your footsteps, my love,” Obi-Wan says gently, after Luke has put in his fight on Leia’s side, and Padmé knows he’s right, knew it before he even said it.

“What’s your name?” Padmé asks as she helps Leia pack.

“Leia Organa.” Leia hands her a dress that Bail had given her as a gift for her seventeenth birthday, an elegant white dress with lace. “I am a distant niece to Bail and Breha Organa. Because Uncle Bail and Aunt Breha have no children, they have decided to name me heir to the throne of Alderaan. I have also decided to go into Senatorial politics.”

“Where have you spent most of your time?”

“In residence on the other side of the planet or on charity missions through the Outer Rim.”

“Good.” Padmé closes her trunk. “Do you know why I didn’t want you to go?”

Leia looks startled at the subject change. “No.”

“Because this is dangerous work, my beautiful daughter. I was terrified from the moment you brought it up.” She takes Leia’s chin in her hand. “But you are strong and you are brave, my wonderful girl. You're going to do just fine, Leia. I trust in you completely.”

Leia smiles tremulously. She hugs Padmé and she wraps her arms around her child, pressing a kiss into her hair.

“Thank you, Mom.”

“Always, sweetheart.”

Obi-Wan kisses Leia gently on the forehead before she goes and promises to look closely after her lightsaber for her. Luke hugs her the longest, the siblings clutching at each other before Leia pulls away tearfully and wipes her brother’s face with the edge of her traveling cloak.

“Don’t cry, little brother.”

“I’m older than you by two seconds.”

“Yeah, but you’ll always be my little brother.” She smiles weakly. “May the Force be with you, Luke.”

“May the Force be with you, Leia.”

She waves to Padmé, who waves back. Then she takes Ahsoka’s arm, and they walk to the speeder. All three watch until they are a speck in the distance. Padmé watches long after they have gone.

They receive a small holo-projector from a member of the Rebellion from Alderaan about two months later. The second he has left, they quickly turn it on.

Leia stands there, hair in an intricately braided bun, wearing a beautiful white dress with a jeweled belt.

“Aunt Dormé, Uncle Reytan, and Cousin Irin,” she begins, their assigned codenames. “Life on Alderaan has been magnificent. Aunt Breha and Uncle Bail have been most accommodating…”

She talks about the things she’s seen on Alderaan, the places she’s been, the people she’s met. It’s her way of letting them know everything’s going smoothly and just like that, the tension Padmé has been carrying around with her dissipates.

“She’s certainly your daughter,” Obi-Wan observes dryly. “I could never lie so well as you, my love.”

Padmé narrows her eyes playfully. “I’m fairly certain that’s a compliment.”

Obi-Wan smiles winningly. “Would it ever be anything else?”

Luke says nothing at his parents’s banter, but rests his chin on his hands and watches his sister speak, regal and poised.

On Luke and Leia’s eighteenth birthday, they receive a package wrapped in silver paper. In it is a holo-projector with three reels, labeled simply NEWSREEL #1, NEWSREEL #2, and PRIVATE TRANSMISSION #1. They look battered. There’s a note with them, too, in Leia’s hasty script: for my little brother’s birthday, with the help of our aunt, and for my mother and father on the anniversary of the beginning of their new lives. L.

Luke slots in the private transmission reel and Padmé gasps, hand flying to her mouth. Obi-Wan grips her other one tightly.

Anakin gazes at her from the wavy blue lines, scar over his eye, crooked grin firmly in place.

“Is this thing on?” he asks. There’s a laugh from where they can’t see it. “Shut up, Obi-Wan, we never had these things on Tatooine.”

“Is that him?” Luke whispers. “Mama, Dad, is that Anakin?”

Padmé nods.

“Where in blazes did she find this?” Obi-Wan murmurs, looking entranced by the visage of his former best friend. Padmé hushes him as Anakin starts speaking again.

“Okay, I figured it out, you can go now. Go, this is for Snips.” Anakin waits until Obi-Wan’s evidently left, then turns his attention back. “Okay, hey, Snips. So, it’s your birthday! Okay, so I know I can’t be there, secret mission with Obi-Wan and everything, but, I can tell you a story about how we were just fighting these Geonosian vipers. Obi-Wan got sprayed in viper guts…”

Anakin tells the story and Luke watches, enraptured. It’s been eighteen years since Padmé saw him, longer still since she saw him when he was so fully Anakin like he is here. She can see the similarities between the way Anakin and Luke talk, the way he and Leia tilt their heads, their little quirks and mannerisms. It also reminds her how many of their mannerisms the twins got from Obi-Wan.

The other two are newsreels of Anakin and Ahsoka and Obi-Wan from the War, days of The Hero With No Fear. Luke watches those, too, but they capture him less than the personal holo that Anakin sent to Ahsoka all those years ago.

Luke makes his sister a bracelet with little charms for their eighteenth birthday. One is from the wood of a Tatooine tree, a branch that had fallen and made its way to the Wastes. Another is a tiny polished gear from his landspeeder with an eighteen carved into the side of it very carefully.

“Is there anything you think I should add?” Luke asks while he finishes tying the bracelet together at breakfast one morning while Obi-Wan is trading in Mos Eisley. Padmé hesitates, and then holds up a finger.

“Hang on.”

She rummages around in the chest she keeps in her and Obi-Wan’s room, the one container in the house that holds any remnants of her past life, until she finds what she’s looking for. She returns to Luke and hands him the Japor snippet Anakin carved for her lifetimes ago. “Put this on it.”

Luke ties it on the bracelet and smiles. “Looks perfect.”

“I gave Luke the Japor charm to put on Leia’s bracelet,” she tells Obi-Wan later that night when she’s surveying reports from the Rebellion and he’s patching a hole in his Jedi robe, his sole souvenir of their past. They’ve already sent her birthday package out to be carefully distributed over the next few weeks by the Rebellion, from Obi-Wan a simple carved gold ring and from Padmé a diamond bracelet, one of her last pieces of jewelry she hasn’t pawned from when she was a senator.

Obi-Wan looks up. “Oh?”

“I wanted to give her a piece of Anakin from when I knew him as Anakin. Not as Vader.”

Obi-Wan smiles. “That’s a wonderful idea, Padmé.”

She smiles back fondly. “Thank you.”

The next transmission, Leia is wearing her brother’s bracelet on one hand, and her mother’s gift and her father’s ring on the other. Padmé’s heart swells.

Time goes on.

Luke spends four or five days out of the week at Owen and Beru’s, helping them around the farm and fixing up their droids and computer systems. He seems a little restless, longing a little to get out and join the Rebellion, but not nearly as much as Padmé would have thought. When she asks him about it, he shrugs.

“Maybe if I’d been on this rock my whole life, I’d want to get off it more,” he tells her. “But we didn’t have a home for a long time when we were kids, Mama. I like having one here now, with you and Dad and Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen. This’ll be okay, for a little while longer.”

About six months before Luke and Leia’s twentieth birthday, when Luke has spent the week at Owen and Beru’s, Obi-Wan looks up from their table, eyes unfocused for a moment before he looks at Padmé.

“Your son is in trouble again,” he tells her. Padmé rolls her eyes.

“How come he’s my son when he’s in trouble? Did he knock himself out again with stripped wires?” That had been a notable afternoon, when Obi-Wan had jerked slightly at the table, blinked dazedly, and mumbled “Luke just gave himself quite a shock”.

Obi-Wan tilts his head. “No. He’s about to be attacked by Tusken Raiders.”

Padmé stands. “That is most definitely a trait of your son. Come on.”

They walk out into the desert, Obi-Wan making his krayt dragon call along the way. Luke is lying unconscious in the sand. Padmé and Obi-Wan look down at him.

“Told you,” she says. “Your son.”

Obi-Wan kneels and shakes Luke slightly. “Luke,” he says. “Wake up.”

Luke’s eyes flutter and he looks hazily at Obi-Wan.

“Oh, hell,” he mumbles. “I’ll never live this down.”

“No,” Padmé confirms fondly. “You never will.”

“Where are the droids?”

Obi-Wan frowns. “What droids? How hard did you hit your head?”

There’s a whistle from the shadows. Padmé looks up and gently holds her hand out.

“It’s okay,” she says. “You can come out. We won’t hurt you.”

R2-D2 rolls out and she gasps slightly.

“Oh.”

“They said they knew you.” Luke’s sitting up slowly and gingerly with Obi-Wan’s help. “I was gonna take them to you this afternoon, but then this little one set out last night.”

“Yes.” Obi-Wan smiles nostalgically at R2. “He would.”

“Where’s Threepio, R2?” Padmé asks. R2 whistles mournfully. Padmé steps over some of the rocks to see C-3PO, one of his arms broken off and deactivated.

“We’d better get inside,” Obi-Wan says. “The sand people will be back, and in greater numbers.”

“I know.” She hands Luke the detached arm. “Can you put this back on?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Then carry it.” She flips the switch that’ll turn Threepio back on.

“You knew where to find it right off?”

“Of course.” Padmé watches the light return to Threepio’s eyes. “Anakin built him.”

“Mistress Padmé! Oh, it is good to see you again, even if it is on this sand trap of a desert rock-“

Padmé smiles even as R2 twitters at him to shut up. “It’s good to see you too, Threepio.”

“Master Luke is here, did you notice? I haven’t seen him since he was a little boy.”

“It’s very exciting,” Padmé says gently. “But we need to get moving. We’ll talk at our house, okay?”

Luke’s eyes turn on Padmé, dark and fearful. “He says there’s something wrong with Leia.”

Padmé’s stomach lurches. “At the house,” she reiterates firmly.

Obi-Wan works on R2 while Luke reattaches Threepio’s arm. “I saw part of the message,” Luke tells them. “It was skipping. I just saw a small bit of it.”

“What was she saying?”

Obi-Wan tugs on something and suddenly there she is. She is small and blue and wearing a white dress with a hood pulled up over her hair. Even as little as she is, Padmé can see the shadow drawn tight over her daughter’s face.

“General Kenobi,” she says, voice careful. “Years ago you served my uncle in the Clone Wars. Now he begs you to help him in his struggle against the Empire. I regret that I am unable to present my uncle’s request to you in person, but my ship has fallen under attack and I’m afraid my mission to bring you to Alderaan has failed. I have placed information vital to the survival of the Rebellion into the memory systems of this R2 unit. My father will know how to retrieve it. You must see this droid safely delivered to him on Alderaan. This is our most desperate hour.” She hesitates, voice wavering ever so slightly for the first time. “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope.”

The transmission flickers out.

“The Empire’s got her?” Luke whispers, terror in his eyes.

“Threepio,” Padmé murmurs. “What happened?”

“We were sent to accompany Princess Leia back home to Alderaan with plans we weren’t allowed to know the nature of. I don’t know where she’s getting this business about fetching Master Kenobi from.”

“It’s code.” Obi-Wan absently pats the top of R2’s head. “She’s been taken by the Empire. She wants us to finish her mission for her.”

“We’re gonna go get her, right?” Luke asks.

Padmé meets Obi-Wan’s eyes.

There’s no way Vader doesn’t have her, isn’t attempting to interrogate her. There’s no telling what he might do to her.

“We’re taking R2 and Threepio to Alderaan,” Padmé says. “And then we’re taking all of the planet’s ships, and we’re going to get your sister back, if I have to rip each stormtrooper apart with my bare hands to do so.”

It’s not a Sandpeople attack.

Padmé knows what Luke’s going to find as soon as she sees the bodies of the Jawas, knows what’s going to happen. She quietly gets into Luke’s land speeder and seconds later he jumps in to start flying it desperately toward Owen and Beru’s. She knows what he’ll see, is amazed he hasn’t felt it. Or maybe, by the drawn look on his face, he already has, and is trying to tell himself otherwise.

The farm is burning. Luke sees Beru and Owen’s bodies before she does, and he stands in front of them, stunned. She wraps her arms around him and he buries his face in her shoulder.

“We can’t let them get away with it,” Luke whispers.

“Don’t worry, Luke. We won’t.”

They gather up the possessions important to them from their home in silence. They don’t need to speak to each other to know they aren’t coming back.

“I want you to try using the Force,” Obi-Wan instructs Luke as they near Mos Eisley. “The guards will ask about the droids. Convince them they don’t want to know about them. You’re going to need more hands-on experience.”

They drive up to the entrance of the township and the stormtrooper stops them.

“Where is your identification?” he asks.

Luke hesitates, then takes a deep, steadying breath. “You don’t need to see my identification.”

The trooper straightens slightly. “I don’t need to see your identification.”

“These are not the droids you’re looking for.”

“These are not the droids we’re looking for.

“We’re free to move along.”

The stormtrooper waves his hand at them. “Move along, move along.”

Luke’s hands shake as he steers the speeder in. “That was… a little frightening. Do you really think we’ll find a pilot here that’ll take us to Alderaan?”

“Most of the best freighter pilots can be found here. Only watch your step. This place can be a little rough.”

“I’m ready for anything,” Luke insists. Obi-Wan gives Padmé a slightly amused look and she shakes her head. Youth.

“Have the droids wait out by the speeder,” Padmé instructs Luke as the three of them approach the cantina. “The two of them can take care of themselves and they don’t serve their kind in here.”

R2 whistles and the two leave.

“When have you been here, Mama?” Luke asks, wide-eyed.

“I’ve met contacts in here.” Padmé feels secure with her blaster concealed in her dress. Every year since she arrived on Tatooine she has carefully altered the travel dress Beru gave her so it would fit her, an elegant dress with a hood made of sackcloth with pants of the same fabric. Just in case she needed it. It has multiple secret compartments in the skirt, one of which holds her blaster. “It can be a little hairy.”

The bar is dimly lit and she can see that Luke is overwhelmed by all the strange people, all the sights. She gently takes his arm.

“I’ll take him to the bar,” she murmurs to Obi-Wan. “Find us a pilot.”

Obi-Wan nods and Padmé leans against the bar next to Luke.

“This is a lot of people,” he mumbles. She puts a gentle hand on his back.

“You haven’t been around crowds for a long time,” she says comfortingly. “It’s a perfectly rational response to be a little startled.”

It’s also a perfectly rational response, of course, to jump when someone pulls at him and starts bellowing at him. His friend appears.

“My friend doesn’t like you.”

“I’m sorry,” Luke mutters and turns back to the bar. He taps him again.

“I don’t like you, either.”

“Hey,” Padmé says sharply, stepping in between the two. “That’s enough. Go back to whatever corner you crawled out of.”

“Well.” The man grins lecherously. “What have we here?”

Padmé pulls herself up to her full height and lets her commanding air draw around her for the first time in years, pulls on the power of being a queen and a senator. She can feel Luke’s wide eyed stare as the men in front of her shrink. He’s never seen her at the full of her power, the way she used to make impudent junior senators cower before her.

“Go,” she says calmly. “Away.”

They slink off.

“Breaking hearts?” Obi-Wan queries dryly, appearing suddenly next to Padmé. She wraps herself back in her normal, Tatooine Padmé Kenobi self.

“Always,” she asserts serenely. Obi-Wan smiles slightly and motions to a Wookiee next to him.

“This is Chewbacca. He’s first mate on a ship that might suit our needs.”

They follow Chewbacca to a table where a man lounges. Padmé instantly notes the Corellian bloodstripe, the way he seems perfectly at ease. This is a man who is dangerous, who knows how dangerous he is and is counting on it to protect him. He arches an eyebrow at the sight of Padmé and Luke before turning his attention to Obi-Wan.

“Han Solo,” he introduces himself. “Captain of the Millennium Falcon. Chewie here tells me you’re looking for a ride to the Alderaan system.”

“Yes. If it’s a fast ship.”

Padmé tries not to sigh at Obi-Wan’s arch tone. Han looks offended.

“Fast ship? You’ve never heard of the Millennium Falcon?”

“Should I have?”

“It’s the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs!”

“Parsecs are a measure of distance and not time,” Padmé murmurs. Han turns his offense to her.

“And you are?”

“My name is Padmé Kenobi. This is Obi-Wan, my husband, and our son, Luke.”

Han makes a hmphing noise before turning to Obi-Wan. “She’s fast enough for some family sightseeing trip, old man. What’s the cargo?”

“Only passengers. Myself, my wife, my son, two droids, and no questions asked.”

Han turns new eyes over them, sweeping and evaluating. “What is it? Some kind of local trouble?” His eyes linger on Padmé. She meets his eyes coolly and is pleased that he looks away first.

“Let’s just say we’d prefer to avoid any Imperial entanglements,” she tells him calmly. Han grins a little.

“Well, that’s the trick, isn’t it? And it’s going to cost you something extra. Ten thousand in advance.”

“Ten thousand?” Luke bursts out. “We could buy our own ship for that.”

Han looks amused. “Yeah? And who’s gonna fly it, kid? You?”

“You bet I could, I’m not such a bad pilot myself!”

Obi-Wan holds up a hand and Padmé is grateful for the pause in the testosterone. “We don’t have that much with us right now. But we can pay you two now, and fifteen once we reach Alderaan.”

Padmé knows he’s right. Even if it wasn’t Leia captured and knowing Bail bring her back, whatever R2 has will certainly be worth fifteen thousand credits. Han thinks about it, then nods.

“Okay. You guys got yourself a ship. We’ll leave as soon as you’re ready. Docking bay 94.”

“I’m sorry you have to sell this,” Padmé says quietly after Luke receives payment from a spindly looking creature for the landspeeder. Obi-Wan is emptying their possessions out of it. “I know how much it meant to you.”

“I’m not.” Luke takes his bag from Obi-Wan with a shrug. “Leia’s worth it, Mama. And it’s not like we’re ever coming back here, anyway.”

When Padmé sees the ship, she will admit, she experiences some doubts.

She gives Obi-Wan the side eye, but he looks calm enough, so she sets aside her concerns somewhat trepidatiously. Luke does not seem similarly consoled.

“What a piece of junk!”

Han comes down the boarding ramp, eyes narrowed. “She may not look like much, kid, but she’s got it where it counts. We’re a little rushed, so if you’ll hurry aboard, we’ll get out of here.”

Chewbacca ushers them up the ramp. Just a few moments later, they hear blaster fire. Han dashes in.

“Chewie, get us out of here!” He runs into the cockpit. Padmé, Obi-Wan, and Luke follow,  watching as Han and Chewbacca frantically hit buttons and pull levers.

“Why don’t you outrun them?” Luke asks. “I thought you said this thing was fast.”

Obi-Wan and Padmé exchange a look. They don’t have to say anything to know what the other is thinking. Anakin’s son.

“Watch your mouth, kid, or you’re gonna find yourself floating home,” Han snaps. An explosion rocks the ship and Han grins. “Here’s where the fun begins!”

“Pilots,” Obi-Wan mutters. “How long before you can make the jump to lightspeed?”

“It’ll take a few moments to get the co-ordinates from the navi-computer.”

“At the rate they’re gaining?” Luke demands.

“Luke…” Padmé says warningly. Luke ignores her.

“What’s that flashing?” he asks, pointing. Han slaps his hand away and Luke pouts slightly.

“We’re losing our deflector shield. Go strap yourself in, we’re about to make the jump to light speed.”

They lock themselves in and Padmé feels that dizzying rush of air in the ship, the promise of the stars whizzing past like so many pinpricks of light. She loves the home she made for herself with her family, but this? The knowledge of open space?

She smiles at Obi-Wan, who shakes his head fondly back.

Luke finishes braiding her hair for her, two braids leading down to a bun. “There you go, Mama.”

“Thank you, sweetheart.” She pats him gently on the shoulder. “I’m going to go check on Captain Solo.”

Chewbacca watches Luke pull out his lightsaber to train with an amused grunt as she passes by. She sits in the seat opposite Han.

“Have we outrun them?”

“Just about.” He glances at her. “You look like you with your hair up.”

She pauses. “Pardon?”

Han leans back in his seat. “Back when I was a kid,” he tells her. “Last few months of the War. Corellia got hit pretty bad. Nobody not from there cared much. We were just ship and pilot manufacturers to them at that point. Everyone’s concern was if it was gonna halt our progress at all. But there was a delegation that came. A single Senator, from Naboo.”

Padmé stares at him, saying nothing.

“She toured the damage, met with the people who survived the explosion. She was pretty far along at that point, we could tell, but she still moved into every space she could to console people. I remember my dad took me to see her, and I gave her some flowers. They were-“

“Arquellan Blossoms,” Padmé murmurs.

“Yeah. I could tell who you were, second I saw you in the bar.”

Padmé finally meets his eyes. “And you remember that?”

Han shrugs awkwardly, looking away. “It meant a lot to us at the time, ma’am. You don’t forget something like that.” He looks at her out of the corner of his eye. “Thanks. For caring.”

She smiles gently. “It was my pleasure.”

He clears his throat. “Guess I met your kid then, too.”

Padmé feels a twinge of the fear she’s been actively suppressing for Leia. “One of them.”
Han opens his mouth to ask, but Padmé hears a clatter and a heavy thump from the main area. She stands immediately and sweeps into where Luke is on the ground, clutching his head, eyes screwed shut tight. Obi-Wan has sat down, looking faint.

“Luke? Luke, what’s wrong?” Padmé kneels down by him. “Sweetheart, talk to me.”

“They’re screaming,” he says, teeth grit. “It hurts.”

Padmé looks up at Obi-Wan helplessly, who seems to come back to himself. He kneels by Luke as well.

“Luke,” he murmurs. “Focus. Just let it swim past you.”

Luke swallows and eventually opens his eyes, still shaking slightly.

“M’okay,” he mumbles. “M’okay, Mama, Dad, it’s fine.”

“What happened? Was it-“ she doesn’t know if she even wants to know, if they just felt the loss of her daughter and she didn’t.

“No. She’s hurting, but she’s alive.” Obi-Wan swallows. “We felt a great disturbance in the Force. As if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were silenced.” He meets Padmé’s eyes. “Something terrible has happened.”

Han hesitantly comes in. “Ma’am?”

“Padmé’s fine, Han.” She looks up and forces a smile. “What is it?”

“Looks like we’re coming up on Alderaan. Chewie?”

Chewbacca and Han go back to the cockpit. Padmé helps Luke to his feet, handing him back his lightsaber that he'd dropped when he hit the ground.

“Thanks,” he mutters. He looks at Obi-Wan with frightened eyes. “I’ve never felt anything like that before.”

“No,” Obi-Wan murmurs. “No, neither have I.”

The ship rocks suddenly. The three make their way into the cockpit, where they see that they are surrounded by asteroids and rocks.

“What’s going on?” Padmé asks.

“Our position is correct,” Han mutters. “No Alderaan.”

“What do you mean? Where is it?” She looks back at Luke and Obi-Wan, who both look a little green, with the sinking feeling she already knows.

“I don’t know, ma’am, but it ain’t there. It’s been totally blown away.”

“Destroyed,” Obi-Wan murmurs. “By the Empire.”

“Ben,” she whispers as Luke sits down heavily. “How?”

“I don’t know.” His hand finds its way into hers. “But it’s true.”

“There’s another ship coming in,” Han reports.

“Maybe they know what’s happened?” Luke asks. Han shakes his head.

“It’s an Imperial fighter.”

“It followed us?”

Padmé leans forwards as the small ship zooms past, recalling the specs for the ships she’s looked at. “No, it looks like a short range fighter.”

“There’s not any bases around here,” Han points out. “Where could it have come from?”

“Looks like they’re headed for that small moon,” Luke adds.

The moon gets larger and larger, until it becomes obvious what it is.

“That’s no moon,” Obi-Wan says in a hushed tone. “That’s a space station.”

“It’s too big to be a space station,” Han snaps.

Padmé curses harshly in Tusken. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

“Yeah, I think you’re right, ma’am. Chewie, lock in the auxiliary power, full reverse.”

The ship continues to move towards the station. Padmé feels her mouth tighten into a grim line. “We’re caught in a tractor beam. Is there anything you can do about it, Han?”

“Not a damn thing, ma’am, I’m in full power. But they’re not gonna take us without a fight!”

Obi-Wan moves forwards and puts a hand on Han’s shoulder.

“You can’t win. But there are alternatives to fighting.”

Padmé feels mildly tempted to make a speech about how Stormtroopers should have soldiers short enough among them so that she can disguise herself in a similar manner to Han and Luke, but she’s fairly certain it would go unappreciated. Instead, she slips in with the droids and Obi-Wan behind the two of them and Chewbacca. Han and Luke bicker as C-3PO and R2D2 work on the computer port. Obi-Wan catches hold of her wrist and pulls her aside slightly.

“She’s on board here,” he murmurs. “It’s why Luke’s so prickly, he can feel her better than I can.”

Padmé sets her jaw and nods. “We’ll take care of it.” She tries to smile reassuringly at Obi-Wan. “Although as you know, I don’t have the greatest track record with rescue missions.”

Obi-Wan smiles. “That I do recall.” He kisses Padmé’s forehead. “May the Force be with you, my wonderful wife.”

Padmé can hear all the goodbyes he isn’t saying, just in case. “And you, my beautiful husband.”

They turn back to Luke and Han, who have finally stopped arguing and are studying the layouts for the station. “I have to go to diffuse the tractor beam alone,” Obi-Wan tells them. Han doesn’t seem to care much, but Luke frowns.

“I want to go with you.”

“Be patient, Luke. Stay and look after the droids.”

“But-“

“If you don’t,” he tells him firmly. “Other systems will suffer the same fate as Alderaan. You must stay with them. The Force will be with you, always.” His face softens. “I will be with you, always.”

Luke hugs his father, who puts a gentle hand on the back of his head. Han and Chewbacca look away uncomfortably. Then Luke steps away, and Obi-Wan is gone. Luke immediately looks at Padmé expectantly.

“Well? We’re gonna go get here, right? Dad knew that, didn’t he, that we’d go get her?”

Padmé purses her lips, considering their options. Han frowns.

“Wait, wait, wait, who?”

“The Princess of Alderaan,” Luke answers. “Leia. She’s being held captive on this ship. 3PO and R2 can find out where, right?”

“Indeed we could, sir,” C-3PO confirms. R2 starts whirring away on it.

“Now, don’t go getting any funny ideas,” Han warns. “Your ma and you and I and Chewie and the droids, we’re gonna sit tight and wait for your crazy old man to get back.”

Luke frowns, and then gets that look on his face Obi-Wan describes as “your mother’s Senatorial bargaining face”. He leans in. “She’s rich,” he whispers. Han’s eyebrows shoot up.

“How rich?”

“Richer than you can imagine.”

“I dunno, I can imagine quite a lot!”

“Look, the reward for her would be-“

Padmé pulls her blaster out of her dress and starts inspecting it, making the others fall silent.

“Captain Solo,” she says calmly, stowing it back in her dress once she’s seen that it’s in working order. “The woman in question is my daughter and Luke’s sister. I will be going to retrieve her. You may come with Luke and I, as I suspect he is also coming, or you may sit here. The choice is really rather up to you.”

Chewbacca barks out a throaty laugh. Han struggles visibly for a moment, then groans.

“Aw hell.” He stands. “You need someone to keep an eye on you, ma’ame I don’t know how good at it he’ll be.”

Luke frowns. “Hey-“

“Thank you, Captain Solo,” Padmé interrupts with an amused smile. “Your assistance is greatly appreciated.”

She’s not that surprised about how badly it all gets kriffed up, honestly.

“You’re a good hand with a blaster, ma’am!” Han shouts as she, Chewbacca, and Han fend off the stormtroopers after Luke goes to get his sister.

“Oh, I’ve had practice!” She replies airily. “One time I went on a rescue mission to get Obi-Wan and helped start the Clone Wars.”

The look on Han’s face is priceless. “Oh. Great.”

“Oh, you don’t get to talk, young man, with your slight weapons malfunctions.”

Chewbacca cackles again. She certainly likes him.

“Looks like you managed to cut off our only escape route,” a familiar voice snaps behind Padmé and she can’t help a little grin.

“Maybe you’d like it back in your cell, your highness!” Han answers back.

“This is some rescue mission. When you got here didn’t you have a plan for getting out?”

Han gesticulates between Luke and Padmé. “They’re the brains, sweetheart!”

Leia rolls her eyes and grabs her saber from Padmé’s belt, igniting it. She slices through a small grate right next to Han, making him yell in surprise.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Somebody has to save our skins. Into the garbage chute, flyboy!”

Leia jumps down the opening. Padmé nimbly follows, landing next to her daughter in the trash compactor. She wrinkles her nose. “Eurgh.”

“The smell is atrocious,” Leia agrees. She gives Padmé a trembling smile. “Hello, Mom.”

Padmé wraps her arms around her daughter, pressing her lips to her temple. “Hello, sweet girl.”

Luke lands next to them with a splash and instantly fires a bolt at the door. All three immediately duck as the bolt ricochets across the magnetic sealing and then do it again as Han and Chewbacca arrive and do the same thing.

“Put that thing away,” Leia snaps, turning from her mother and to Han. “You’ll get us all killed!”

Han looks like he’d enjoy strangling Leia. “Absolutely, Your Worship. Look, I had everything under control until you led us down here. You know, it’s not going to take them long to figure out what’s happened to us.”

“It could be worse.”

Something moans from the murky water.

“It’s worse,” Han mutters.

“Something’s alive in here.” Luke looks frightened. “I can feel it.”

“It’s your imagination, kid.”

“Something just moved past my leg, look, it’s right-“

Suddenly, Luke is yanked under the water. Leia screams and grabs her saber, lighting it up. When he surfaces, Leia swings at the tentacle around his throat, the heat of the lightsaber enough for the monster to release Luke. Han and Chewbacca help Luke to his feet as Leia makes her way to her brother, throwing her arms around him.

“Please don’t make me lose you too,” Padmé pretends not to hear her whisper. Either Han does the same or actually doesn’t hear her, because he says “Where the hell did you two get those things?”

Leia detaches herself from her brother. “We made them,” she answers a little primly. “Why, where did you get your blaster?”

Han opens his mouth and then the walls around them groan and start edging towards them.

“Try to brace them with something!” Leia cries. Chewbacca and Han start hauling long metal poles to put between the walls, but they simply snap under the pressure. Luke grabs his comlink.

“3-PO!” He yells. “3-PO, can you hear me? 3-PO!”

“Chewie, help the Princess try and get to the top of the garbage,” Han directs quickly, holding out his hands to Padmé. “Ma’am, here, let me-“

“I can-“

“No time to argue, just climb!”

“Shut down all garbage mashers on the detention level!” Luke shouts. “SHUT DOWN ALL GARBAGE MASHERS ON THE DETENTION LEVEL!”

Chewbacca starts scaling the wall of garbage. Leia and Padmé do their best to try and pull Han up, whose feet skitter on the trash.

The groaning stops. The walls still. Leia lets out a whoop of joy, accidentally skidding down the garbage heap she’d been on top of. Han catches her and they hug in delight, laughing. Padmé sags against the wall of the compactor in relief.

“We’re all right,” Luke reassures 3-PO. “We’re all okay.”

Padmé goes charging down the hallway, blasters drawn, with Han. How can she not?

“Look!” Luke cries, and Padmé glances up as she ushers them towards the Falcon to see her husband in his Jedi robes of old facing against his former pupil, her former husband, the father of her children, a black behemoth.

“That’s him,” Leia whispers. “That’s him. I met him.”

My love, Padmé hears, ringing gently in her mind. I love you. I am so sorry.

She knows what’s going to happen before it does and she can’t look. She can tell the children must know by the suddenly stricken look on their faces. She doesn’t ask what he must have said to them, only tries to grab them by the shoulder so she doesn’t see the first man she ever loved strike down the last.

She knows when he does, though, knows when Vader’s lightsaber connects with Obi-Wan’s robe, by Leia’s gasp and Luke’s scream.

“DAD!”

Vader turns towards them and his step falters. Padmé briefly wonders if he recognizes her, the woman he never got to grow old with. But there are more important things now, like dragging away her son who has shot at the control panel, sealing away Vader and his Stormtroopers from the rest of them, and getting her daughter up the ramp, her daughter who isn’t crying but whose fingers are digging into her palm.

She gets them onto the ship, she knows that much. Han won’t meet her eyes as he and Chewbacca run to the cockpit. Padmé knows he doesn’t know what to say. Luke slumps down into a seat and Leia wraps a blanket around him, sitting next to him and curling into him slightly as he cries.

“I can’t believe he’s gone,” Luke mumbles, wiping his nose with the back of his hand.

“There was nothing we could have done.” Leia’s voice sounds mechanical and desperate all at once. “There was nothing we could have done.”

Han rushes into the hold area, face apologetic.

“Kid, I’m sorry to have to do this to you,” he says. “But we’re not out of this yet.”

Luke rises and heads for the gunport, vengeance burning in his eyes.

“Move up a little, sweetheart,” Padmé says, sitting next to her daughter with bandages. Leia stares at them in vacant confusion.

“What are those for?”

Padmé gestures at Leia’s hands. She looks down at them to see little crescent cuts in her palms from her nails, bleeding slightly. “Oh.”

Padmé wraps the bandages around Leia’s hands and takes the opportunity to look at her daughter, really look at her up close, for the first time in years. She’s grown into herself a little more, less of the gangly teenager Padmé had said goodbye to so long ago. She looks tired and old, and so grown-up.

Obi-Wan never got to see her like this.

“You got so big,” Padmé whispers, voice cracking slightly on the last word.

Leia doesn’t cry, but she presses her face into her mother’s shoulder and shakes. After a few moments, she stands.

“I need to go to the cockpit,” she tells her mother. “I need to be useful.”

Padmé gives her a reassuring smile. “Go.”

Leia leaves, and with none of her children present, Padmé stops trying to hold back her tears.

“Oh, Ben,” she whispers. “What have you done?”

When Padmé disembarks from the Falcon after everyone else, everyone who knows who she is in the Rebellion stares in shock. It is General Dodonna who recovers first.

“Madam Kenobi,” he says. “An honor to finally have you in a base. Is Master Kenobi present?”

“I’m afraid Obi-Wan was killed by Darth Vader.” Padmé’s voice is steadier than she expected, even at the murmurs from the Rebellion. “My daughter, Leia Kenobi, whom you have been familiar with as Leia Organa, is in possession of certain plans that will be of assistance to the Rebellion. Please, confer with her.”

Mon Mothma meets Padmé as Dodonna heads for Leia. Luke is quietly hovering around his sister, who has her arm resting against his comfortingly even as she stands tall and proud, relaying information to the General.

“I’m sorry about Obi-Wan,” Mon says softly. Padmé swallows.

“Thank you. Is Ahsoka here?”

“She’s out running a mission. We can send for her return if you like.”

Padmé shakes her head. “I’m sure the Empire tracked us here and if they did and they succeed in destroying the base, then Ahsoka needs to be out there so she can regroup what’s left.”

Mon seems calm at the idea of their destruction. Padmé always knew she liked her. “Good thinking.”

“You did a good job there,” Padmé tells Leia, briskly walking through the base as it prepares to attack the Death Star. “You’ve become a good leader.”

Leia smiles wanly. “I learned from the best.”

Luke storms up to them away from Han and Chewbacca, who are stacking small boxes for transport to the Falcon a little forlornly. Padmé approaches him, leaving the twins to their moment of talk as Leia reaches for Luke’s hand and squeezes it gently.

“They gave you a reward after all,” she observes. Han starts and looks a little guilty.

“Uh, yeah. They said I deserved it and, well, look, I wasn’t gonna say no, ma’am-“

“I don’t begrudge you it, Captain Solo.” Padmé smiles kindly at him. “We all have to go our own ways, and you two are going yours.”

“You don’t wish I would stay?”

“Of course I do. And I think this is your fight. But, well.” Padmé sighs. “I’ve gotten old, Han, and I know that sometimes people are going to do what they’re going to do.” She stands on her tiptoes and kisses Han on the cheek. “It was good to see you again, Han. I’m glad our paths crossed once more.” She gives Chewbacca a hug. “Keep an eye on him, would you?”

Chewbacca barks an affirmative and she smiles, going back to her children.

“Did you talk any sense into him?” Luke asks. Padmé shakes her head.

“He’s got to follow his own path, Luke.”

Leia nods. “That’s what I said.”

“You also said you didn’t like him,” Luke mutters.

“I don’t,” she retorts. “He’s obnoxious.”

Padmé chuckles softly. “He has a very good heart, Leia. I’ve learned to tell how.” She stands on her tiptoes and kisses her daughter on the cheek, and then her son. “You’re both going to be spectacular. I love you both so much.”

They all hug, knowing it might be the last time they see each other.

Padmé honestly doesn’t remember much about the battle itself, swimming in worry for Luke, for Leia, for herself, for the galaxy. She does remember when Han comes back, however, when Luke wins the battle. Leia looks delighted in spite of herself, and Padmé smiles at her daughter.

“Told you,” she says. “Good heart.”

She lets Luke, Leia, and Han reunite at Luke’s X-Wing on their own. She gets a glimpse of Luke’s delighted blond head and that’s all she needs to see. Her children are alive. This is what matters.

Instead she sits in the room the Rebellion has given her, sits on the regulation bunk with her eyes closed, and waits.

“I’m so sorry,” she hears from behind her, soft and loving. She sighs and turns around.

Obi-Wan is surrounded by a blue halo, something she wasn’t entirely expecting. She doesn’t know what she was expecting, really.

“I know,” Padmé answers. “I forgive you.”

Obi-Wan looks vaguely amused. “No, you don’t.”

“No, not yet. But I will. And I still love you.”

“That’s all I can ask for.”

She reaches out hesitantly. “Can I touch you?”

Obi-Wan takes her hand in his. “Always.”

“Do you think…” she smiles tremulously. “It’s been a very long day. Do you think you could just hold me for a little while?”

Obi-Wan wraps his arms around her, resting his chin on top of her head. “Always.”

After a while, they walk down to the room Leia and Luke are sharing. If people see Obi-Wan, nobody comments on it. Padmé opens the door to see Leia and Luke, both in new and clean clothes. Leia is quietly braiding golden thread into Luke’s hair while she watches Luke taking apart and putting back together some little mechanism, a harmless toy of some kind.

“It’s going to be a long road,” Obi-Wan murmurs.

“Yes,” Padmé agrees quietly. “It is.”

Leia looks up and her eyes widen, mouth falling open in shock and joy.

“Papa!” She cries, scrambling to her feet. Luke follows suit.

“Dad!”

Obi-Wan makes his way into the room. Padmé stays in the doorway. As she watches her children embrace their father, she thinks.

Yes, it’s going to be a long road.

But a road, perhaps, that will be worth it.