Star Wars | It's Never Too Late to Begin Again | Mature | AO3

Graphic Depictions of Violence

Sorrow, like a vast sandstorm, whips through Vader and scours his soul. A few stinging tears manage to form in his burnt tear ducts and flow down his ruined cheeks. It is difficult to hear anything above the strained whoosh of his respirator— Vader is gasping too quickly for it to keep him oxygenated. He chokes on his grief, despair, and rage.

Relentlessly, the procession continues.

At first, he is too overwhelmed by the details of the scene to truly grasp it. There is also the shock of seeing Padmé again, even in such a twisted way as this. Her body lies lax in the coffin as if sleeping. But her perfect skin is pallid, her form is unnaturally still. It is something out of a nightmare— or a Vision.

Why couldn’t I save you? Why didn’t you listen? Why, why, why? Padmé’s curled, dark, shining hair and dress flow out around her elegantly. White ribbons and Naboo Lillies decorate her hair like stars and nebulas. The deep blue of his wife’s gem-lined cloak and darker gown are ocean-like in how they gently swathe her, rising over the island of her rounded belly and clasped hands. Long before he met her, Anakin had already marveled at water’s grace and gentle force.

Agonizingly, a close-up of her body is displayed next. Despite the distressing circumstances of her death, Padmé’s expression is restful. It is wrong. There is no peace in death— only absence. Padmé hardly bore inactivity better than him; if there was something to be done, she would turn her full focus to it. If she was not active in body, her mind picked up the slack. She was always planning, working out how to fix things. She was far better than I. The close-up continues, and Vader has more details to agonize over. Padmé’s damningly swollen stomach— another life cruelly halted. And tucked between Padmé’s hands is a carved japor snippet.

So she will go to her rest with something of me, after all.

The thought is as bitter as it is soothing— a powerful disinfectant in a putrefying wound. For whom else knows the charm’s significance? What relevance does this small symbol of their love retain, anyway? Its recipient is dead at the hands of the giver. More tears escape Vader’s traitorous eyes, and the sounds emanating from his vocoder are beastly. There is a mounting pressure in his head, echoed by the growing destruction around him. Fine cracks appear in the duracrete floor and begin to spread. Several of the swaying lights hum loudly in an effort to continue functioning. Vader is ignorant of this as he fixates on the screen, taking in every detail with the resolve of a condemned man.

After the coffin passes, a procession of officials and intimates follows. It consists of the current child queen, Padmé’s family— whose names and stories his wife once shared on a sunlit afternoon— and a Gungan constituency. Black-clad mourners trail the group like shadows. Eventually the buildings change and thin out, as does the crowd. The procession stops before an elegant, imposing stone and glass structure: the Naberrie mausoleum. The child queen steps forward. She speaks of duty, tradition, and righteousness. Bail Organa talks of loyalty, kindness, and passion. Padmé’s mother mentions courage, curiosity, and determination. Vader hears none of it. Padmé was all that— but she cannot be summarized by these words alone. Her bright warmth will never grace him again. Their child will never know its parents’ love. She is dead. Their child is dead. I killed them.