When Angels Weep

Chapter: 16

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She chanced a transmission to Sola. It was Anakin she ran from, not her family. They deserved to know the truth. And so Padmé told her sister everything, stressing the need for caution if Anakin should come there looking for her. Sola's voice was a comfort, that loving acceptance of her no matter what had occurred.

The transmission was longer than she'd planned, Sola informing her of how they'd tried to reach her and not been able to get through to her apartment. They'd seen that interview, heard of the birth of the twins and wondered why she'd not contacted them. They'd hoped she and Anakin would come to visit and why not? The war had been over. They'd looked happy. Her mother had been excited by the news of more grandchildren. Weeks had gone by, then months and they'd still hoped to hear from her. They'd been so worried, yet had never doubted they'd hear from her again.

Padmé ate a quick meal, then sat down with Artoo. She talked to him, like Anakin had done, as though the droid was a person. He whistled and hummed and when her words ran dry, Padmé touched Artoo's side.

"It's you and me, Artoo. Let's make it count."

He gave a whistle in answer and Padmé turned her head to stare out the window.

~~~~~~~~~~

When his wife had informed him that she had found a baby girl to adopt and that the child was already with her on Alderaan, he hadn't known what to say. He'd dreamed of such a day for so long that he was speechless. No words would leave him.

Bail made his way toward their bedroom, strides quick, but not enough to say that he ran. How strange that he was nervous! It's only a baby, he thought. Nothing to be nervous about. He recalled Breha's warm giggle at his non-response. She'd sounded like a young girl at that moment, giddy, happy.

He found her waiting for him, the little girl in her arms. She was making nonsensical noises that the baby seemed to enjoy. Bail crossed to her and knelt, hands going to her knees. He felt the velvety texture of her dress, smelled her delicate perfume. The baby was lowered so he could see her.

Emotion choked him. Theirs. This girl was theirs. They had a daughter at last. "She's beautiful," he managed, touching a finger to the blanket that was loosely wrapping the baby.

"Her name is Leia," Breha said, clutching one of his hands and urging him up to sit beside her. "I'd like to keep her name."

He nodded, accepting Leia into his arms. Bail shifted her a little and a sliver of unease crept along his back. A suspicion began in his mind and he could not loose it from him. It was a little thing that grew the longer he held her. He looked down at this child's face and felt as though he knew her already. He took in Leia's size and weight, the familiar feel of her in his arms and knew that this was Padmé's girl Shmi. He had not one doubt.

"How..." He paused, cleared his throat, calculating how old Shmi would be now. "How old is she? Eight months?"

His wife laughed. "No, no, no. Leia's only six. Her mother said she was born big."

"What was the mother's name? I'm curious."

"Nura Zantal."

The name meant nothing. He turned what he knew of Padmé over and over in his mind and could find no connection between the name and his friend. "Nura Zantal," he repeated, again looking down at Leia.

"Yes. She was so sad to give up her daughter, Bail. She lost her older child to a fever recently and...." Breha leaned over to the table beside her and poured a drink, then sipped it before continuing. "I've given her permission to come and see Leia on occasion."

"Is that wise? What if she decided she wishes her child back?"

Breha smiled, serene and lovely, certainty wrapped over her. "She won't. She can't afford a baby."

Perhaps this child was Padmé's and perhaps not. Leia looked like the baby girl he'd been pressed to hold whenever he and Mon Mothma had visited with Padmé. But what proof did he have? A hunch was no proof. He thought Leia was Shmi, yet he couldn't know.

It did not escape him that there were two ways to interpret his wife's statement.

She can't afford a baby. The obvious monetary interpretation. Or the second choice. A baby would be in danger with her. If this was Shmi, then where was Annie? Would Padmé split up her children?

Looking into the sweet, innocent face of this child, Bail chose the first interpretation. This girl Leia was the daughter of a poor woman named Nura Zantal. They'd raise her and love her and that was final.

~~~~~~~~~~

The Empire had come to Naboo.

Ryoo and Pooja were crying, clutching at their mother.

Vader motioned to the guards. "Take the children."

"No!" Sola tried to stop them, Vader stretching out his right arm and pinning her to the wall. The guards took the children, carried them screaming from the house. She turned her fear and anger onto him, hands pushing, trying to scratch.

Vader subdued her. It was easy really. Time obligingly slowed for him, showing him how this was going to play out. Honestly, Sola didn't stand a chance against him. She railed at him, spat out curses he wouldn't have thought she knew and finally quieted, chest heaving from the exertion. "Are you willing to cooperate now, Sola?"

Eyes very much like Padmé's stared at him in terror. "What's happened to you," she gasped with a wince.

Vader eased his grip somewhat. "What do you mean?"

"You're not the Anakin I remember."

Annoyance plucked at him and he snorted. "That's what she kept saying." He straightened, hand still holding her to the wall. "Don't try it Ruwee. You will be disappointed in the outcome," Vader cautioned Padmé's father, knowing full well the man thought to protect his eldest child.

"Let her go, Skywalker."

Vader glanced over his shoulder with a confident smirk. Many underestimated him these days. What a pity. He'd like Padmé's father. With a bored air, he held out his left hand, felt the Force flowing about him. The blaster the man held ready flew from his hand and into Vader's. "I warned you." He shot Ruwee, not to kill but to wound. When he was finished with Sola, he'd get whatever he could from Ruwee.

Padmé's mother came from the hallway, appearing to have forgotten the weapon in her hand in her haste to reach her husband. Vader sent it from her. Jobal knelt over her husband, crying as troops cut off all escape.

With a sigh, Vader returned his attention to Sola. "Now, where were we? Ahh yes. Your sister. My wife. Where is she hiding?"

"I don't know." He saw defiance in her eyes.

Vader set the blaster down, that same hand raising to smooth Sola's hair from her brow. "You know more than you're telling." He leaned in close, whispered in her ear. "I will find her. It's only a matter of time. She will come back to me."

Sola was stubbornly silent. Just like Padmé. Stubborn. Strong-willed.

He released her, took a few steps back, touching his index finger to his lips as he thought on the best way to handle this woman. "Do you love your husband and children, Sola?"

Pain flashed in her eyes, as though she had grasped instantly what he meant to say next. Smart woman. The answer was there, a resounding affirmative to his question. Sola loved them and she'd do anything to keep them safe.

"All I'm asking is the location of my wife and children. Is that knowledge truly worth the lives of your own family? Your husband and children? Is blood thicker than matrimony and the bond of a mother to her children? Will you sacrifice them for her or her for them? One or the other, Sola, you can't have both."

"Don't Sola," Jobal gasped. "Don't listen."

Vader shot an irritated glance at Padmé's mother. "My son and daughter aren't even a full year old yet. She's not keeping them safe by dragging them about the galaxy. What sort of parent is she being? I mean really? On Coruscant, they had both their parents and isn't that important? Family, I mean. The love of their mother and father." He played that card, the family one. With such a family as Padmé's, it might work. "Like your family here. Like the family you grew up in. Loving. Happy. They were taken care of, with shelter and medical care if it was needed." He gave a shrug. "What do they have now? I'll tell you what they have. The cold darkness of space."

She was crumbling, her will to resist flagging. Vader struggled to keep triumph from showing. Another moment and Sola would sing her knowledge loud and clear. Padmé would be back where she belonged.

"Padmé would protect you with her last dying breath, Sola." Jobal pushed herself to standing. "She would protect you."

Vader watched resolve strengthen on Sola's face at Jobal's quiet words. Her lips parted and while her voice was shaky, he heard Padmé's strength in it. "You'll get nothing from me."

Rage, hot, burning, boiled over inside him. Vader growled. His hand opened, lightsaber fitting itself into it in a movement he didn't recall making. It ignited with a hiss. In five strides he was at Jobal, burying the blade in her body, twisting it.

Padmé's eyes, filled with pity, stared up at him as the light of life faded from Jobal. Padmé's mother was dead.

Sola and Ruwee's cries filled the room. Vader stepped back, numbness eclipsing his ire. "Take these two, then burn the house." He deactivated his lightsaber, tucked it back along his belt. "I'll question them both again later."

Vader left the house, strolled down the street he'd once walked with Padmé. It got easier, he thought. With each kill, he felt less and less remorse. Each person was a means to an end now. Finding Padmé.

He did not stop until he was by the square. Years ago, he'd walked up those steps there with Padmé. They'd been aware of each other in a growing romantic sense at that point and later, they'd gone to the lake country. Inside him was an urge to visit that place, to stand on the balcony where they'd shared that kiss.

Vader tamped it down, ignored it. His wife would not go there. She would have to be stupid to go there and Padmé was not stupid. She was not going to make his search easy. That was fine. Easy was boring.

~~~~~~~~~~

Alone in the ship, Padmé found herself reliving a moment from the past, another time when she'd succumbed to tears. Her children and Dormé were safe. It was only she in danger now. Tears overtook her, wet her face. Padmé cried out all of the pain she'd locked away for these long months until she was spent and fully numb, encased in ice. She had no tears left inside. It was all gone, leaving only grim determination behind.

This had to happen. The Republic could be saved and with it, somehow, her Annie.

You're not alone, Padmé.

"I know," she whispered. The voice had guided her these months, rarely above a whisper, sometimes difficult to hear. She fancied it belong to the long dead Qui-Gon Jinn, for at times the intonations were his. Occasionally, she'd decided the voice was Obi-Wan Kenobi's, that good friend who'd tried to show her what she should have seen all along.

What they all should have seen.

Anakin was damaged, the when and how of it not completely clear. Had the rift inside him always been there? Did the little boy from memory have a shadow lurking in his heart the entire time? Did the rift begin the day he'd left his mother? Or the night he'd killed the Tusken Raiders?

Padmé would never know the answer to that. There were too many things added to the equation. Suffice it to say that somewhere along the road to adulthood, Anakin Skywalker had been irrevocably splintered into two. He had been changed and no one had seen it coming.

Those who love us best are often blinded to the worst in us. Blinded. Love blinded me. I'm sorry, Annie.

She shuddered.

Padmé piloted the ship to land, saw those waiting for her. She was expected.

Standing, Padmé made her way outside and onto the landing dock. The sight of the scruffy people waiting made her heart ache. They were a rag-tag bunch, scraped up and heavily burdened with sorrows, but determination glinted in those eyes as well as sorrow and Padmé drew herself up tall.

Courage, Padmé.

"For the Republic," she said simply.

The crowd answered in kind and she managed a small smile.

From the ashes of destruction, she thought, a rebellion is born. The way of the right and just must prevail. Bail fights his way. This will be mine.

The true rebellion had begun.