Star-Crossed: An Anidala Zine

For a while, Padmé thought she was dead. The galaxy around her swirled in hot reds and blues, then cold blacks and whites. Grief so raw it threatened to tear her apart, pain unlike any she had experienced, then stillness. Such perfect, silent stillness. She was weightless, drifting through some gentle embrace where there was no pain. No suffering.

It was the babies’ cries that called her back.

Once she was well enough to sit upright, she held her children close to her. Leia had Padmé’s eyes; Luke had Anakin’s. She was given privacy to cry. And once she had no more tears to shed, she set to work.

Padmé contacted Sabé, and her dearest friend organized the rest. Gathering Padmé’s former handmaidens, they worked swiftly to organize a body double and a funeral, and before long, the people of Naboo mourned the death of Padmé Amidala.

Heart aching but determined, Padmé had agreed to have her children separated – from her, and from each other. Having lost Anakin, Palpatine would turn his interest to the children if he knew they lived. Obi-Wan disappeared into the Outer Rim with Luke, and Bail falsified Leia’s birth records and took her into his home.

Over the years, Padmé – Sola Minnau, now – worked closely with Bail, Mon Mothma, and other trusted allies, establishing contacts, supply lines, and information networks. They smuggled food and medicine to communities being bled dry by the Empire, and helped those in danger disappear, all while trying to bolster support to resist the ever-growing dominance of the Empire over all worlds.

They all knew the risks. If they were caught, they could be subject to execution, or worse. But Padmé couldn’t stop. She would help, no matter the cost. She had spent her childhood on relief missions with her father, and she hadn’t been able to stand by while her people suffered when she was queen. She wouldn’t hide now.

That’s the thought that kept her focused when the contact on Rodia ended up being an Imperial informant. They had barely greeted each other before Padmé was surrounded by stormtroopers. Padmé had kept quiet, giving only her pseudonym when they initially questioned her. The troopers marched her onto a shuttle, and once they’d boarded the Star Destroyer in orbit, she’d been taken to a holding cell.

She took a deep breath and leaned back against the cold wall. In the twelve years since the fall of the Republic, Padmé had never been taken aboard a capital ship. With no communication or resources, help wasn’t coming. Padmé was on her own.

The door of the holding cell hissed open. She stood as a towering black-clad figure stepped in. Coarse, mechanical breathing filled the room; Padmé forced down a shudder. They had never crossed paths, but she recognized him from endless holos and horror stories, from the expressionless helmeted mask, from the lightsaber hanging from his belt.

Darth Vader.

*

Darth Vader’s breath would have hitched if his respirator hadn’t dragged the air from his lungs and reinflated them automatically. His heart would have stopped if the cardiac regulator hadn’t measured out steady heartbeats. The servos in his legs whirred as the galaxy was swept from under his feet and he nearly fell to his knees, so overcome with the emotions that suddenly raged inside him.

Padmé was alive. Alive, breathing, not five feet away.

No, that couldn’t be. She was dead. Vader had observed her funeral on Naboo, had mourned at her tomb. This was some trick, some deception meant to rattle him; the Emperor himself was likely behind this, testing Vader’s resolve. What was this trickery then? A PROXY droid? A Force Apparition? A Changeling? Perhaps a handmaiden?

But as Vader and his dead wife stared at one another, he shakily reached out with the Force, and felt – Padmé. Her existence thrummed in the Force, whole and strong, with that same vibrance he remembered from so long ago.

But she’d never looked at him like this. Anger burning in her eyes, resolve in the set of her lips, defiance in her stance. He’d seen her look at others like this and he’d admired her dedication and determination. But to have her glaring at him now, with loathing and defiance… he felt unsettled.

Padmé didn’t waste time. “On what grounds was I arrested?” she demanded. “It’s unlawful to take a citizen into custody without disclosing the nature of the supposed criminal activity.”

The current Admiral of The Executor had been so smug when he’d approached Vader to announce that a rebel insurgent had been captured. Vader had strode to the detention block, flanked by two stormtroopers, ready to wring out all the information he could from the rebel scum –

Of course she would be with the Rebellion. The Empire was the very thing that she had been so concerned about creating during the Clone Wars.

He forced himself to speak. “Conspiracy against the Empire.” His synthesized voice rang out in the enclosed space, so warped and pitched that she would never realize who she spoke to.

But did he really want her to know? Did he want Padmé to know what became of Anakin Skywalker? To see this broken, twisted husk of what remained? Would she want to know? Vader had killed Anakin Skywalker, had carved out everything that remained of the naïve Jedi, everything that Padmé had loved, until only Vader remained.

She was speaking, and Vader said nothing. He just… listened to her voice, bringing to mind memories of her practicing her speeches the night before important Senate sessions, as he half-listened, so happy that the Force had their paths cross all those years ago in Watto’s shop –

Fury burned in Vader’s core and he let it fester, let it burn away at the memories of the man he had killed. He turned his head, addressing the two stormtroopers standing in the cramped cell just behind him. “Leave us.”

Hastily, the troopers filed out, the door sliding closed behind them.

His breathing filled the silence; Padmé had stopped talking when Vader spoke. He felt her fear, though it did not show on her face.

“Do you have nothing to say?”

She had come to him on Mustafar, knowing what he’d done. Even as she betrayed me, she loved me.

It was the last thing she said to him; Vader heard it in his nightmares, sometimes. “Stop, stop now, come back. I love you. Anakin…”

Grief welled in him, and he spoke before he could stop himself. “I thought I lost you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. We’ve never met.”

“You were alive, I knew you were, but I felt – I felt our bond break.” His emotions roiled through him. “You were gone, he said –“

Hatred .

“He said I killed you,” Vader rumbled. “He said I killed you in a fit of anger, and when I couldn’t sense you, I believed him. The Emperor lied to me. He’s kept you from me all these years, knowing that I –”

That he what? Would have left Emperor Palpatine’s side? That he would run away with his long-lost wife? That he would kill her?

Padmé’s eyes had gone wide, frightened, incredulous as she stared at him. In a small voice, so quiet he almost didn’t hear: “…Anakin?”

The anguish threatened to consume him.

“Anakin Skywalker is dead.” He paused. “I…am what remains.”

She stared at him for so long, so silently, that Vader wondered if this might be a dream after all. “What…what happened?”

“It is because of Obi-Wan that I am like this,” he hissed.

“No! He would never hurt you! He loved you –”

“Enough! I don’t need to hear empty assurances.”

Fear lingered in her eyes, but that spark had returned. “If you can’t believe he loved you, what about our love?”

“I loved you more than I can ever express. I did everything for you – I would continue to do anything for you – ”

“Except come with me.”

“You brought Obi-Wan to kill me.”

“No! I didn’t know! I didn’t know he’d snuck aboard my ship.” And Vader was startled to hear the truth of her words reverberate in the Force. Taking a hesitant step forward, Padmé’s eyes flickered between the lenses of his mask, as though trying to see through them. “All I wanted was you. For us to be safe, and happy. We didn’t need anything else. Even…even after everything you did…”

“It was necessary. To bring order to the galaxy, to gain powers of the Force that would save –” Vader stopped abruptly. “The child. Does the child live?”

She bristled, and that was all the answer he needed.  

He turned from her, but he didn’t see the cold cell around them. He saw a child splashing in the lakes of Naboo, Padmé laughing as she chased them, and Anakin Skywalker watched them from the grass, smiling and happy, whole and unburnt.

And then his vision clouded with red, and black, and Darth Vader’s fury returned, wiping out the scene of peace that had been stolen from him. Because it had been stolen from him. If he had never pledged himself to the Emperor, never razed the Jedi Temple, never succumbed to the Dark Side, if the Emperor hadn’t lied to him about Padmé’s death… 

“Anakin?”

He jolted out of his seething reverie. Padmé’s expression was carefully controlled, but Vader could sense her unease, her fear, her… hope.

Her steady voice held more gentleness than he deserved. “What happens now?”

Now, the Emperor would die. Now, Vader would have revenge. Now…

He turned on his heel and waved his hand, the cell door opening, harsh white light spilling into the dim space.

“Bring her,” he commanded.

The stormtroopers moved immediately, pulling Padmé from her cell and marching her behind him. He could feel her eyes boring into the back of his helmet, but he didn’t turn around. If he took the time to explain, he might lose his nerve.

And neither Darth Vader nor Anakin Skywalker ever lost their nerve.

*

Padmé wanted to cry. She wanted to curl into the corner of some isolated place and sob her heart out. Instead, she raised her chin and walked as upright as she could as the stormtroopers escorted her behind the towering Sith.

How had the man she loved become the most feared monster in the galaxy?

She had believed, all those years ago, that there was still good in Anakin, even as he turned his back on everything he believed because he thought it would save her. But when Obi-Wan said that Anakin was dead –

Obi-Wan. Did he know that Anakin lived? Did he know what had become of his best friend? Had Obi-Wan lied to her about Anakin’s death, the way the Emperor lied to Anakin? No, she couldn’t believe that. He had been nearly as distraught as her. He couldn’t have known.

With all her heart, Padmé wanted to believe that there was still some sliver of good left in the creature that was Darth Vader; some glimmer of Anakin that she could recognize. But the horrific things that Vader had done… She watched the Imperials scatter from him in fear as Vader led her through the maze of corridors. How many had he killed? Tortured? He continued to hunt down surviving Jedi, relentlessly pursued Rebel insurgents, left ruins in his wake.

Could there really be good left in such a man?

She had to believe there was.

The corridor opened to a hanger bay. TIE fighters, small cargo ships, and shuttles lined the platform; technicians, pilots, deck crew, officers, and troopers moved in tightly organized groups, or else with purpose from one task to another. Darth Vader ignored them all, heading straight for a shuttle.

Technicians tending to the shuttle tripped over themselves as they leapt to attention.

“Lord Vader! We weren’t informed of a scheduled departure –”

“An apt statement, as I don’t often operate on schedules.” The man flinched. “I have need of my shuttle. Is it suitable?”

“Yes, my lord! It has been returned to your specifications.”

As the deck crew hurriedly cleared away their equipment, Padmé couldn’t help a twinge of familiarity; of course Anakin would be particular about his ship. So that, at least, had remained.

Darth Vader stood at the landing ramp and faced her. The troopers shoved her forward. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his hand twitch. But he didn’t strike. Instead, he stepped in front of them. “That will be all.”

“Sir?” one of them asked confusedly.

“I am not accustomed to repeating myself.” The low, warning tone sent a shiver up Padmé’s spine.

“Yessir,” the other said hastily, stepping back. The first trooper went to speak, thought better of it, and followed his fellow soldier.

Darth Vader’s shadow fell over her as she walked into the ship. Despite the size of the shuttle, there wasn’t much room inside; half the interior was taken up by some spherical mechanism, like a ball-shaped chamber.

“What’s happening?” she asked, doing her best to keep her tone calm.

Instead of answering, Vader swept past her, cape billowing behind him as he strode to the cockpit. “Strap in until we enter hyperspace.”

Her stomach flipped. Where was he taking her? Why didn’t he bring any guards along? Tense, she lowered herself into a seat and adjusted the safety harness. Darth Vader – Anakin – no, she couldn’t think of him as Anakin – Vader sat in the pilot's seat, expertly flipping switches and adjusting controls until the ship hummed to life.

The harsh white of the hanger bay ended as they emerged into the blackness of space. She could just spy Rodia through the viewport as Vader turned the ship and input coordinates. Coordinates to where? Within moments, the stars warped and stretched, before slingshotting them into the blue-white of hyperspace.

Gathering herself, Padmé undid the harness and stood. Vader made no movement as she walked into the cockpit. Even when she stood beside him, he didn’t turn to look at her. She gazed out the viewport feeling like she was hurtling towards –

“I will take you anywhere you want to go.”

A breath escaped Padmé. “What?”

Vader said nothing.

“You’re –” she sat heavily in a little-used copilots chair. “You’re helping me escape?”

“You will be interrogated as a Rebel spy. You may be tortured, or killed. And if the Emperor discovered your identity, he may take personal interest.”

After a long moment he added softly, “I cannot lose you again.”

With a trembling hand, she reached over and touched the side of that black mask. Finally, he turned to face her. It may have been a trick of the lenses, but for just a moment, she thought she saw his eyes illuminated in the light of hyperspace. Anakin’s eyes. Luke’s eyes.