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True love - TkMara - Star Wars - All Media Types [Archive of Our Own]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/64813795

For many years, Padmé Amidala believed she had found the love of her life — the man who made her heart race, who kissed her lips like it was the most precious thing in the galaxy, who supported her and would fight the world for her. For many years, Padmé truly believed Anakin Skywalker was — and would always be — the only love of her life. That was until her children were born, and until she saw what it truly meant to be the love of someone’s life.

It had been weeks since the twins were born, since Anakin was gone, and since the galaxy fell under the rule of the Empire. Weeks since Padmé lost her husband and the father of her children. But she was fine. Or she would be. She would get through this — it would be hard, but she had to. Her children needed her now more than ever. Their lives would not be easy, and she was a mother now — she had to be strong for them, and that’s exactly what she intended to do.

If only she could count on Obi-Wan to help her — but unfortunately, her husband’s former master was acting in a way Padmé had never seen before. Cold, distant — the complete opposite of the Jedi Master everyone, including Anakin, had placed on a pedestal of endless light. The truth was that, even without being Force-sensitive, Padmé could tell Obi-Wan Kenobi looked almost… extinguished.

“Shhh, shhh, it’s okay, little ones. Mommy will be right back,” she soothed her children gently after an exhausting hour of nursing.

After the birth, Obi-Wan had become restless. In the first few weeks, he hovered over Padmé and the babies like a desperate mother hen. But after three weeks on the ship with him, he slowly pulled away. He stopped hovering. Stopped asking if she needed help. One day, he just… wasn’t there anymore. He spent most of his days sitting in the pilot’s chair, staring into the endless void of space, holding the ship’s yoke for no other reason than to give his hands something to do.

“How are they?” was the first thing the Jedi Master asked when Padmé stepped into the cockpit.

She sighed, feeling exhausted — and not just physically.

“They just fell asleep. They’re fine.”

Silence.

She was getting tired of the silence.

“How long are we going to do this?”

“This?” he asked without turning to look at her. He knew what she meant, but he was pretending now — playing dumb. Honestly, this really was the man who raised her husband. Padmé wasn’t sure if Anakin’s stubbornness came solely from Shmi Skywalker or if Obi-Wan had contributed to it as much as he had to everything else Anakin learned.

“Don’t play dumb, Obi-Wan. Please. How long are you going to keep treating me like I’m the worst person you could be stuck with right now?” He opened his mouth, but she was faster. “And don’t tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about. I’ve seen how you look at me when you think I’m not paying attention. You’re angry. So tell me why.”

Obi-Wan didn’t answer right away. He took his time, focused only on the void ahead, never loosening his grip on the yoke — even though the ship was now on autopilot.

She tried to be patient. He was grieving too, and he deserved compassion. But minutes passed, and still he said nothing. Padmé sighed, giving in to the exhaustion and frustration that had built up over the past days — maybe even years. She sat down in the co-pilot’s chair with a graceless huff, but she didn’t care. She was no longer a queen. No longer a senator. She was no longer anyone.

"Obi-Wan," she began slowly, after a moment of calming down. Obi-Wan was her friend — not as close as some, but they'd been through a lot together, and he was Anakin's family, and now, he was also her children's family. He deserved at least an attempt at her help. "Listen, I know you've lost so much, the Jedi, the temple, I know it still hurts, I know you're sad, I understand, but..."

A cruel laugh echoed softly, startling her.

"Sad? Sadness isn't enough to describe what I'm feeling, Padmé."

He blames her. She can feel it every time his name slips from the Jedi Master's lips — he blames her, and that's not fair. She's suffering too. She knows what it's like to have her home invaded and the people she loves taken from her.

"I know you're upset right now, I am too, okay? Obi-Wan, I lost my home and family because of the Empire, my children will grow up without a father, and I lost the love of my life just a few weeks ago! But I'm trying, okay? I'm trying to move on, I have to get up and start preparing, because from now on, it will be just me and my children against a galaxy that wants to destroy us!" Her voice became breathless, suddenly all the fear for the future and her worries poured out. "I can't even ask my family for help without putting them in danger, I only have you now, you're my only hope, Obi-Wan, and I need you to pull yourself together, no matter how impossible it seems..."

The silence had never seemed so loud before. The Jedi Master finally let go of the yoke and placed his face in his hands. For a moment, Padmé worried she had made him cry, but she was surprised when what she heard wasn’t sobs, but laughter — loud, horrible laughter.

"Love of your life? You lost the love of your life? You?" She recoiled, offended by Obi-Wan's mocking tone. Never in her life had she imagined hearing such a cruel tone from Obi-Wan Kenobi's usually calm voice. "Listen to me carefully, dear, you have no idea what you're talking about..."

"Anakin was..."

"No!" She fell silent, everything seemed to quiet at the Jedi's command. Even the constant hum of some droids stopped.

Obi-Wan took a deep breath, trying to calm himself, running his hand through his hair, which looked dirtier and more disheveled than Padmé had ever seen. So far from the image of the perfect Jedi that Anakin always described when referring to his master.

"No," he said more calmly, his voice softer now. "Never say that again, not to me, please. Anakin Skywalker was your husband, that's all, just that... he wasn't the love of your life, Padmé. The loves of your life are right behind you, sleeping in a crib, completely unaware of what's happening. They are small and don’t even know who you are yet, to love you. But you know who they are, and that’s enough for now."

He lifted his head, and finally, they were face to face. His deep, exhausted blue eyes stared at her, with tears he refused to let fall.

"You didn't lose the love of your life, Padmé, you just gained them. As for me?" He laughed without breath, looking completely shattered. "I lost everything, and I'm not just talking about my friends or my home. I can get past your losses, they're in the Force now, I can feel them whenever I miss them, I can live without them, but Anakin? Oh, losing him isn’t the same, Padmé, because losing him was losing everything. It was losing my padawan, my son, my brother, my best friend… losing Anakin was losing the center of my life..." A watery breath and he was laughing again. "Worse, I didn’t just lose him to death, I was the one who left him to die. I let him fall, and then I let him die... Do you know what that’s like? To have a life given to you and watch it grow? To see it slowly shape itself and grow every day? To see all of that and then watch it die in the worst way possible because you didn’t have the courage to deliver the mercy blow? Do you know what it's like for the same person who entrusted you with that life to be the one who sends you to end it?"

Padmé couldn’t look him in the eyes, not now.

"I raised him, Padmé. I raised him longer than his own mother ever knew him, and now I abandoned him, I let him burn..." He sobbed. "For 13 years my life was him. Was he hungry? Was he okay? Was he alone? Had he gotten into trouble again, like painting Master Yoda's nails while he was asleep? For 13 years, Padmé!"

There was unjust anger in Obi-Wan’s eyes. He didn’t want to be cruel to her, but he was suffering. She could feel his pain even without Anakin’s ability to sense emotions in the Force. She could feel it because his eyes had never looked so dead.

"And now he’s gone... gone because he loved you..."

She clenched her fists, this wasn’t fair, they both knew it, but he didn’t stop.

"There’s a good reason why we forbid attachment, dear, I don’t want to undermine or diminish your love and pain, never. He chose to love you, and that was no one’s decision but his own, he loved you, deeply, I knew that..."

What?

"Yes, I knew, but I was a hypocrite, I knew the rules about attachment, I knew about his love for you and yours for him, still I allowed it, allowed it because you made him happy, allowed it because I knew that soon he would tire of the life we lived, that he would leave the Order someday and leave my side to finally be free and live as he wished. I allowed it because I thought you’d be the one to give him a happy, secure life, but I allowed it mainly because I thought you’d be the voice of reason for him, that you would know when the boundaries were crossed..." He sighed as though he still couldn’t believe everything that was happening. "The problem with people is that they don’t understand that loving without limits is dangerous, I risk sounding hypocritical, but I know I’m right when I say that love needs limits. Anakin always had issues with limits, and for many years I was that limit. I stopped him from making mistakes he would later regret, I guided him through his negative emotions when they clouded his thoughts, I reprimanded him and guided him through his mistakes before holding him and moving forward with him to fix his problems, but..."

He stood up as if he couldn’t stay seated any longer, or as if he couldn’t continue looking at her.

"I know it wasn’t your duty, you’re not his mother, nor his master, but love is caring, love is guiding, and not just patting them on the head and saying everything is okay when they make a mistake! And..." Obi-Wan bit his lip, trying to hold back his emotions, but he couldn’t. Padmé could see it in every sign of his frail, exhausted body, Obi-Wan Kenobi was angry, angry at her, angry at Anakin, but mostly angry at himself. "You forgave him after everything bad he did, Padmé, you patted him on the head, letting him believe everything was okay, it was okay because you loved him and he loved you too. You let your love blind you when you should have talked to him or come to me or any other Jedi and explained that something was wrong, we would have done everything we could to help... I would have done everything I could to help him, always!"

Then where were you!? She wanted to ask him the cruel question. Where were you when Anakin lost his mother!

She wanted to ask, to hurt him the same way he was hurting her, but she couldn’t, because she knew where Obi-Wan had been. He had been busy saving lives, busy being oblivious to Anakin’s visions because his padawan never told him the truth, because Anakin had always been afraid of seeming imperfect next to the man he saw as perfect and indestructible, and here she was now, without her beloved, facing a broken version of the man Anakin had loved most.

A tear rolled down her right cheek, and she quickly wiped it away. Her intention in starting this conversation had been to draw Obi-Wan out of his silence, out of his pain, to make him vent so he could leave his state of mourning and return to being himself again. Although that plan seemed impossible now, she still allowed him to vent.

The Jedi’s eyes softened as he looked at her, there was still resentment, but compassion had returned to its usual place in the grey-blue of Obi-Wan Kenobi’s eyes. He sighed and crouched in front of her.

"Love is beautiful, dear, it truly is, the Jedi preach..." His voice trembled, but he composed himself. "They preached love and peace, but when there are no limits in that love, when there are no boundaries preventing love from corrupting, it becomes attachment, and attachment becomes jealousy, distrust, and possessiveness. Without knowing how to limit the love I had for you, and with Sidious manipulating everything behind the scenes, that caused Anakin’s fall."

She averted her gaze, no longer wanting to hear that her love had been wrong, but Obi-Wan wouldn’t allow it. With a warm, calloused hand, he cupped her wet cheek and made her eyes return to his. Padmé wondered if she looked as bad as Obi-Wan had, as sad and tired.

"Don’t be mistaken, the fault wasn’t just yours, Anakin is just as guilty, if not more, because he knew the rules, he knew what could happen, but still, he ignored everything I taught him... the fault is mine too, of course, and the Order's for forgetting our purpose and becoming more loyal to the Republic than to the Force, for straying from the path of peace and choosing war. We failed him and everyone else, and I regret your loss, Padmé, I truly do. You loved him, he was your husband, and I have no doubt that you’re suffering too, but..." He stammers, letting the tears he had been holding back finally fall from his eyes. "But don’t say you lost the love of your life, okay? Please. You don’t know what real love is, not yet, but you will, you’ll know because Luke and Leia will show you that every day from now on. They’ll make you laugh, cry, have gray hair before your time..."

They share a melancholic laugh.

"They’ll make you celebrate the most trivial accomplishments as if they were the most amazing things you’ve ever seen, like calling you 'mother' for the first time, hugging you, coming to you confidently knowing that you’re the key to solving all their problems, or they’ll just look at you with that..." He sobs. "That gleam in their eyes that will make you feel like the happiest person in the universe, because when they look at you, there will only be love, and that’s when you’ll realize you’ve found the love of your life..."

The Jedi’s hands tremble as they move away from her knee, he gets up from the floor and stumbles toward the door. Padmé doesn’t have the courage to call him, but he turns to her anyway.

"I’m so sorry."

"What?" She hadn’t expected that.

"I... I should forgive you and say it’s all okay, that it will be okay, that’s what a good Jedi would do and what I would say to Anakin if he were here, but... I can’t," he sobs. "I’m sorry, but I can’t do that, because I’m angry, and that’s not fair, it’s not fair to take it out on you and... and you’re here, and it’s so bad, Padmé, I hate myself for being angry with you, because you and the twins are all I have left of him now, but I can’t help it..."

He opens his arms as if saying, ‘I’m sorry, it’s unfair, but that’s how it is.’

"I can’t help it, because you’re alive and he’s dead, because you were going to take him from me and now I’m stuck with you, I can’t help it because you took the love of my life from me and I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive you for that, I can’t forgive you for being here when all I wanted was for it to be him..." Obi-Wan sobs and finally allows himself to cry as he truly wanted to, sobbing and breathless, releasing all the pain and sadness he had been trying to hold in, his entire body shaking as he whispers again. "I’m so sorry."

Obi-Wan exits the pilot’s cabin and Padmé gets up. She even tries to follow him, perhaps to console him with some words, maybe apologize for everything, anything! But she changes her mind, she has no words to comfort Obi-Wan and there is nothing for her to apologize for, because it wasn’t her fault she loved Anakin...

Her children cry, and Padmé forgets Obi-Wan to go see them. When she picks them up in her arms and gently rocks them to calm their cries, they open their eyes to her, blue and brown eyes fixating on her face, and, as if by magic, the twins stop crying.

"Hey," she calls, feeling out of breath as both look at her as if they were finally seeing her, as if suddenly they were aware of the fact that ‘Hey! That’s my mom!’

Eyes so beautiful and small, looking at her with admiration.

Two hands reach out and touch her face, identical laughter fills the room and Padmé feels she understands what Obi-Wan meant. Those two, those were the loves of her life, not Anakin Skywalker, not anyone else she could have married, but them, Luke and Leia, it was for them that Padmé would destroy herself as Obi-Wan did, not for Anakin.

Hours later, when she’s sure Obi-Wan has fallen asleep, she will go to the Jedi Master and leave a small blonde braid beside him. That didn’t belong to Padmé, Anakin didn’t have the right to give it to her, but anyway, she didn’t need it to remember her husband, she had her children, and they were everything to her, while for Obi-Wan... perhaps that braid was all that remained of the love of his life.

#star wars anakin #star wars clone wars #star wars darth vader #star wars prequels #star wars #star wars padme #obikin #anidala #platonic obikin #luke and leia #fanfiction recommendation

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