#welost

Favorite moment of 2021: that one time we had a dance-off with a bunny-eared amphipod 🐰✨⁠

prompt: “We lost.”

ao3

notes for this au:

Yes, this is another one of Arti's-Niche-AUs-TM-that-might-become-a-multichapter-au-someday so here's some background!

- Palpatine doesn't reveal himself as the Sith to Anakin in the office - instead, he tells Anakin that he's learned of the Separatist Council's location and sends Anakin to deal with them on Mustafar - While Anakin's gone, he calls in Order 66 by himself and the clones march on the Temple - and he also sends troopers after Padme at her apartment, considering her too much of a risk to his reign too leave alive - Padme initially escapes and Obi-wan, who manages to make it back more quickly, senses a disturbance and they meet up - Aannd Padme gives birth. Awful timing, I'm so sorry Padme - So they each kind of take a baby in their arms and run for it. Padme escapes. Obi-wan does not. So, Leia is taken by the Empire and while Obi-wan eventually escapes the clones he doesn't manage to rescue Leia - They eventually find a ship and flee off planet - And then Anakin returns from Mustafar, lands on Coruscant, and is like "??????????? what the fuck happened here"

and that's basically the set up here! enjoy :D

*

Now that they're finally out of danger, Padme allows herself to sink to the ship's floor and break. The sobs wrack her body with their force, and she can hardly keep herself from going blind with tears. "Leia," she says softly to herself, "Oh, Leia." She'd only gotten to hold her daughter once before the Empire had taken Leia from her so cruelly—she'd been less than an hour old. An hour. And now she's—

Padme doesn't even want to think the word. Suffice to say that the Empire, only hours old, has already demonstrated that it shows no mercy. 

"I'm . . . so sorry, Padme," Obi-wan says, head bowed. "If I had only been quicker—"

"No. This isn't your fault. This was the Empire's doing." And if they're talking about things they should have done better—well, she should have never risked giving birth on Coruscant. Better to be in the middle of labor on a rickety, dangerous spaceflight to have risked Palpatine's wrath. 

"How could Palpatine have done this," she says numbly, desperately trying to shush Luke as he wails. "How could we have been so blind?"

"We were so certain a Sith was behind it all," Obi-wan whispers, more to himself than anything. "We were so certain that we'd find the Sith Master and that the war would be over. That Palpatine was just a peripheral threat."

"Well, you were wrong," she snaps, so angry all of a sudden. The Senate, her life's work—it's all been destroyed. Like it was nothing. The Jedi are dead. One of her children is dead. Her husband is—most likely dead. Why else would Palpatine have spent so long cultivating a friendship with him, after all, if not to more easily eliminate him when the time came?

"Did you find—him," she whispers, too drained to speak any louder, "at the Temple?"

"Last I heard, Palpatine sent him to Mustafar, with intel on the Separatists." Obi-wan responds just as quietly.

He doesn't need to say anything else. There has been a squadron of clones stationed there since the start of the war.

Order 66 wouldn't have spared any Jedi.

"We lost," Padme says as Luke continues to cry for the sister he'll never meet again. "We lost everything."

*

Anakin comes back from Mustafar and the arrest of the Separatists to a Coruscant up in flames.

He has no idea what could be happening—one moment he was capturing the last of the Separatists, so certain that the war would finally, finally be over and now—

All the Jedi are gone. And. . . so is Padme. And Obi-wan. And Ahsoka. What is happening?

He finds the Chancellor in his office. Except the Chancellor is the Emperor now. 

And he's holding a baby in his arms.

"Anakin," Emperor Palpatine says somberly, "I am so very sorry you had to find out this way."

Anakin swallows dryly. "What—what happened?"

"The Jedi attempted a coup." What? "It had to be stopped. Necessary measures were taken. The Senate has made the decision to form an Empire, for the security and safety of the galaxy."

His head is spinning. This is all—too much.

"I. . . regret to inform you that," Palpatine sighs heavily. "Senator Amidala went into labor while you were away. She is," he closes his eyes and leans back. Anakin's heart drops down to his stomach. "dead. We all mourn her loss."

"The child," he says numbly.

"This is your daughter, Anakin." Palpatine stands up then, walking over to him and slotting the girl neatly into Anakin's arms. "Had you discussed names together?"

Anakin's arms tremble before he manages to steady them. He looks down. The girl blinks her eyes open lazily, calmer than she had been in Palpatine's arms. She gurgles.

Oh, he thinks, tracing a finger over her cheek with his flesh hand. This is his daughter. His little girl. All that's left of Padme in this galaxy. 

She's beautiful.

He blinks back tears. So he had been right, after all. It was a girl. And Padme and him will never be able to banter and tease each other over it, ever again.

They had discussed names, he remembers. Blearily, at the crack of dawn, when his nightmares had been keeping the both of them up. "Leia," he says, holding her closer.

We lost

(check tags for tw)

Ash and dust were flowing in the air, getting into the lungs and making people cough. Besides the wounds and injuries, besides what they have been into just a couple hours ago, they were smiling.