Padmé awoke sometime later. She had no idea how long it had been. A few hours. A day. A week. But she felt groggy and lightheaded. As if she'd been sedated instead of naturally sleeping. Slowly, and yet suddenly, things began to come back to her. Anakin. His anger. Mustafar. The medical center. Labour. The medical droids. Obi Wan. Her twins. Her babies. Luke and Leia. Padmé reached up to the IV attached to her arm, wondering how to disconnect it. Where were they? She had to see them. Her twins. Anakin's children. She slumped back down as a wave of sadness overtook her. Anakin's children. His babies he would never see. Could never be with because of what he'd become. But what if showing him the twins, the real, living beings that had come from her, was what he needed to see things clearly? To turn back before it's too late. She tried to sit up when a memory made her pause. Hadn't she already shown him the children? Spoken of a future where they could all be together?
"Love won't save you. Only my new powers can do that."
"At what cost? You are a good person. Don't do this."
"I won't lose you the way I lost my mother!"
"Come away with me. Help me raise our child. Leave everything else behind while we still can."
"Don't you see? We don't have to run away anymore. I have brought peace to the republic. I am more powerful than the Chancellor. I can overthrow him, and together you and I can make things the way we want them to be."
Padmé wanted to shake away the memory, to close her eyes and forget everything she'd seen but Anakin's face haunted her. The eagerness in his eyes as he spoke of ruling and power. He had killed younglings; he hadn't denied it, and didn't seem to care about his master and friend Obi Wan Kenobi, let alone the other Jedi who now may be dead. Would bringing Luke and Leia to him only put them in danger? She couldn't believe she was thinking this. But this was not her Anakin. How could he have done those things, those unspeakable things? And all the while, he thought he'd done it for love. For her. She felt sick. Completely heartsick and overtaken by the fear and betrayal she felt. Was he truly gone? The Anakin she had loved? She just couldn't believe that. There had been that moment, that small fraction of an instant right before Obi Wan had appeared behind her out of her shuttle, that she'd seen a flicker in Anakin's eyes where she'd thought that she might have got through to him. That he had been about to change his mind and come with her. But all of that had disappeared as soon as he'd seen Obi Wan. He thought she had turned against him. Betrayed him. When really it was the other way around. He had left her alone in this. He had turned away from everything they'd wanted together. He had betrayed her. Even as she thought these things to herself, she knew she couldn't bear to believe them of him and she hugged her arms to her chest as deep sobs began to wrack her body, crying harder as she upset her sore stomach muscles ravaged and aching from giving birth. Even if they weren't in danger from this Anakin she couldn't recognize, they would surely be in danger from this new Emperor the man she had known as Chancellor Palpatine had become. The one who was Anakin's new master. A Sith lord. As if alerted by her sobbing, Obi Wan burst into the room and came to her side, taking her hand in his as he had done during her labour. She half wondered if it were the only way he could think of to help. "Padmé"- He said, watching her cry uncontrollably over her loss of her love. His tired, stress-filled eyes deeply sad."I'm so sorry." His words and tone, though infinitely more grieved than before, triggered another memory. They were the same words he had said after he had discovered Anakin was the father of her child. Her children now. That memory and that which had followed made Padmé jerk her hand away suddenly. "What did you do to Anakin?" She demanded. "Did you- did you kill him?" The thought made her voice choke up but she continued to glare at him, awaiting his answer. Obi Wan looked down, unable to meet her gaze, and began to speak in a low voice. "He left me no choice. He had to be stopped. He was turning into a great threat." "Tell me the truth!" Padmé cried angrily. "Did you kill him?"Obi Wan hesitated, then answered gravely. "I don't think so, but he was grievously injured when I left him." Padmé sank back down onto her bed, unsure how to take this news. How to feel. "Padmé," Obi Wan reached for her hand again and she let him, too dazed to think to resist. "You must know, that man is not Anakin. Anakin was killed the moment Darth Vader was born. He is not the man you knew or loved. Not anymore." Padmé turned to him, hot tears streaking down her face, her eyes alight with rage, such as she had never felt before. "He was Anakin when he spoke to me on the platform! I saw his light there in his eyes, I know there is still good in him! But you showed up and you ruined everything! I had Anakin there in my arms! He was about to turn back, I know it! But you- you swept in and I lost him! He thought I had betrayed him. He was coming back to me! Why did you even save me? I wanted to go! Couldn't you have just let me die-?" Padmé was cut off by her own tears and Obi Wan stood there for a moment, unsure of the right course of action. She could hardly see for the salt of her tears, but she heard him back away saying a quiet apology and a plea that she should try to get some rest. Then he was gone, the automatic door sliding shut behind him.Padmé sat silently for a few minutes and then she wiped her eyes, despair settling in. She wanted to blame Obi Wan for everything that had happened, but even now she knew that she couldn't. Words he had said had rung too true in her mind. Anakin was dead. Even if he had survived his wounds, the man he was now was not her husband. Her Ani. The father of her twins. Anakin was truly gone, and as much as Padmé wanted to hope that he would turn back to the Light Side, come back to her, she knew that she couldn't. It was a dangerous thought to think of going to him again, to try and bring him back to himself, since she had scarcely survived their last encounter. Her Anakin had tried to kill her. He had choked her. No, she thought, not my Anakin; Darth Vader. Somehow, she had to accept that her husband was gone from her, dead even, probably never to return. That this Darth Vader was in his place, and that he would hurt her, if he knew where she was. That she was now alone, with two babies to care for, who needed her. Vader could never know about the twins. He would want them, surely, to join him on the Dark Side, in his new Empire where he could raise them to think as he did. Padmé knew she had to take them far away, and hide them where he could never find them or her. But where? Where could we go? Padmé thought. Where is safe?