When she saw the name Padmé on the device she'd been given upon arriving to this strange island, Leia had been filled with hope and some other emotion she couldn't quite name. It wasn't a common name, she didn't think, and this woman shared it with her mother. But that hope had faded when the woman had corrected her. It had been a lot to hope for, even if Leia had no clear understanding about how it might even be possible for her mother, who died at her birth, to be here. Then again, this entire situation was quite a bit out of Leia's grasp.
Some strange work of the Force, perhaps. Or an afterlife, she thought, as she trudged up to the lighthouse, where this Padmé had offered to meet her. It wasn't completely out of the realm of possibility, that Leia was dead. She'd felt the cold grip of death before, recently even, and with the loss of her brother so fresh in her mind (let alone, the loss of her ex-husband), well, it wouldn't surprise Leia that she was the next to go. She simply didn't remember dying, and she always assumed that she'd know it was happening when it did.
Leia reached the lighthouse and stopped to glance around. The island was bigger than she assumed it was, and Leia didn't look forward to exploring. There was something off about the place, something that gave her pause for concern. She breathed in deeply then turned and knocked on the lighthouse door.
Since waking up on the island earlier that morning and finding herself alone, Padmé had fought down her brief panic and gotten to work. Learning the environment and finding shelter had been at the top of her list, followed closely by attempting to reach Ben; unfortunately, her comms hadn’t been able to reach anyone at all, and she’d focused on finding a relatively safe place first. Once she had, Padmé had reached out to others on the device that she’d woken up with, and then got to work inventorying things while she waited.
The latest message she’d received had been accompanied by a name she hadn’t expected - Leia Organa. Her own daughter was named Leia, and while the twins were currently safe on Alderaan with the Brehas while she and Ben had been on a mission, it was startling to see their last name attached to her daughter’s and had asked to meet. The strangest part of all had been that the woman had known her public name, the one she no longer used to avoid being recognized when possible.
When the knock came at the lighthouse door, Padmé first ensured her blaster and hidden vibro blade were in place, just to be careful, then made her way over and opened the door slowly. The woman who stood there was older than expected, but immediately took her breath away - she looked so much like Padmé’s own mother (and grandmother) that she wasn’t sure exactly what any of this meant.
“...Leia?”
Leia had her lightsaber tucked under her cloak, and a blaster as well, though she didn't feel like there would be any need to use either of them. She felt calm, in fact, even though the other woman was giving off a wave of worry and nervous energy.
She looked up when the door opened. Despite her giving a different name, Leia knew this to be Padmé Amidala. It hadn't been easy to access the files on Coruscant after she finally learned her mother's name; it had taken a lot of digging up and subtle asks. Eventually she'd uncovered enough, even gone to Naboo to seek out more information. She hadn't finished her search - the rise of the First Order had prevented that - but she knew enough to know that this woman was, very likely, Padmé Amidala.
Leia smiled warmly and nodded to confirm that she was, indeed, Leia.. "Padmé," she greeted. "Good to meet you. It was certainly a hike to get to this end of the island."
All her years of training in stoicism and control threatened to fly out the window momentarily as she studied the woman before her, then stepped outside. She wanted to have this conversation in the sunlight while it lasted, rather than behind closed doors, if only because she was still very confused about what exactly was happening.
“It’s good to meet you, too,” she said finally, still very careful about her words, but interested in learning more. “I’m sorry for staring, it’s just…you look very much like someone I know.” Being here, in a galaxy very different from her own, was already a very unusual possibility, and she was beginning to suspect there was a great deal more here going on than what she’d gathered so far.
“You said that Bail and Breha are your parents, yet…you seem to be older than them.” The couple weren’t too much older than herself, so that seemed to be the best place to start. “And I know that they don’t have children. They’re friends of mine,” she explained.
Leia stepped aside to let Padmé outside as well. She tilted her head up to catch what was left of the sun in the afternoon sky. It was chilly here, reminding Leia of winters on the northern continent on Alderaan, the memory rising without warning to the front of her mind. She shook it away, not wanting to linger too long on distant, sad memories.
She wanted to ask who she reminded Padmé of. Not herself, surely, and unlikely that the answer was Vader either. But Leia didn't know otherwise. "I've been wondering since setting foot here if this might be an afterlife," she said. She continued on from there immediately. "I was adopted," Leia said, "at birth. Which was many years ago, as you can see. I was born in -" She did the conversion to the old system quickly in her head. "7958, if that date means anything to you. And before arriving here, it would have been 8011."
There was a lot to parse from those few words, and Padmé did what she could to put it all together in her mind. This woman was born the same year as her children, and was somehow from the distant future compared to Padmé’s own time, which didn’t make sense - but she’d make it understandable. As she stared into eyes that were only a few shades off from her own, she knew instinctively that the woman was telling the truth.
But the fact that she’d mentioned being adopted, and suspecting this was the afterlife…well, it was unsettling, to say the least. “Do you have a brother? A twin, named Luke?” She finally asked, because that would cement things in her own mind.
Leia bit the inside of her cheek and held it for a moment. "Yes," she said, "I do." If this were the afterlife, it was possible he might be here, since she'd lost him so recently. "Is he here, too?" Her heart pounded with the possibility. She had so much she wanted to say to him, so much that they had never been able to say. Especially in those last moments when he'd projected himself to her. They'd lost so many years together; could they get them back here? Was that possible?
“No, he’s….” Padmé hesitated briefly, then decided that in this particular situation, caution was no longer needed. “He’s not here. My children - Luke and Leia - they’re only four years old,” she said slowly as she studied the woman who, it seemed, was somehow possibly her daughter. “I left them with Bail and Breha, while Ben and I went on a mission. We’re due to return to them in a couple of days.” Or they had been, until she’d found herself on this strange island.
“You’re her, aren’t you? Somehow…you’re my daughter.”
She took in all of that information that was being shared with her. Hope blossomed at the cemented knowledge that this woman in front of her was her birth mother, was Padmé Amidala. It took her a moment to register that she had said Ben. Leia looked at her. "Ben - Kenobi?" she asked, a frown passing across her face. A long-distant memory started to surface again, a conversation she'd had when she was very young with Ben.
"My birth parents were Padmé Amidala and Anakin Skywalker," Leia admitted a moment later, her tone changing slightly at the mention of Vader's name. Even though she'd long since come to terms with her bloodline, it was still a pain point for her. "My mother died at my birth, and I was adopted by the Organas, and my brother went to his aunt and uncle on Tatooine."
“Yes,” Padmé said simply, deciding that his part of the story could wait, at least for the moment. She caught the shift in Leia’s voice at the mention of her father, but before she could fully process that, her breath caught slightly at what Leia said next.
“That’s…not exactly what happened. I’m not certain why or how that happened to either of you,” she said, confusion obvious. “I did nearly die, but the medical droids were able to save me. After discussion, we decided that it would be best if Ben and I took you and your brother to Tatooine to raise together, in secret - partially because it’s where your father is from, but also because it’s far from the Empire and the Core worlds.” There was an edge to Padmé’s voice, her disdain for the Empire made nearly as obvious as her confusion over Leia’s background.
“At times, we go on missions - we waited until you and Luke were old enough to understand we’d sometimes be gone for a few days. Occasionally Owen and Beru take care of you in our absence, and sometimes we take you both to Alderaan, when we know that none of the Governors are due to visit, at least. I don’t know how an adoption happened for you, though I am glad that it is the Organas who raised you in…in my absence.”
It was one thing to anticipate now coming across people Leia knew to be deceased. It was another to hear of an alternate history. She knew none of what Padme was saying was true, as far as her own history. Her father may have kept things from her while he was alive but she'd learned the truths in his death. If this were the case, if she'd spent her early years with her birth mother, and with Ben Kenobi, let alone with Luke, she'd have known it.
"That's a damn good story you tell there," Leia said, stepping back to cross her arms. She wasn't defensive, or upset, even if she may have looked it. It was more the posture of a woman who had spent years shouting commands and battling totalitarianism. A woman who led armies and wasn't always sure who to trust. "Would have been nice if it had gone that way, maybe. But it didn't."
That attitude, that stance - that was all Anakin, and despite the way Leia obviously didn’t fully believe what she’d said, Padmé very nearly smiled, though it didn’t show on her face. Nearly unconsciously, Padmé drew the mantle of Amidala about herself and straightened some what herself, neither defensive nor angry at being doubted.
“The truth is always easy to tell, when it is the truth,” she said calmly. “IS there something else you’d like me to say, to prove to you who I am? I told you before that my name now is Padmé Naberrie - which is true. That is my family name. If you’ve researched Amidala, then you’d know that it was the name I took when I first began my campaign, and that traditionally on Naboo the Queen candidates choose new names in order to separate themselves from their family, in order to represent all the peoples of the planet instead. No one aside from my family and my handmaidens knew my true name. I kept it when I was asked to serve as Senator for our sector.”
She paused then, tilting her head slightly as she met Leia’s gaze easily. “What questions do you have?”
Leia considered many of the questions she could ask and narrowed it down. She didn't know right away what might be the best. Her father had only referred to her Padme with the Amidala surname, and the records she dug up didn't divulge a family name as far as she could find. She didn't think Luke had uncovered anything like that either. She hesitated. "On the day that Palpatine was voted in as Emperor, what did you say to my father? To Bail Organa," she corrected.
That day haunted her still, and every moment was etched into Padmé’s mind - and she knew instinctively what Leia was referring to. At the time, they hadn’t been alone in their pod, but she’d pitched her tone so that Bail was the only one who’d heard her, so no one else could possibly know unless he’d repeated it.
“I said, ‘so this is how liberty dies: with thunderous applause,’” Padmé said quietly, and for a moment - sorrow, pain, and disappointment flitted across her face, slipping through her mask. In the years since, she’d realized the part she’d played in Sheev’s pageant in his rise to power, and she regretted much of it; that day, much of it had come to a head.
Leia remembered the first time her father told her that story. He hadn't used Padme's name, and it wasn't until years later, when Leia found the recording her father had left her, the one that told her the truth (too late for the big confession, the one about Vader, but it had revealed her mother's name, and that was enough), that Leia made the connection from that story to the woman who had birthed her. She nodded, a shiver moving up her arm and to the back of her neck at hearing the words again. Even though, she realized, taking a moment to glance behind her at the island spread out in front of her, they were far from the Empire, far even from the First Order, here.
"Very well," Leia said, her voice low, rasped. "I don't know how to explain the differences in how it happened, why in my life you died and in yours you lived, but not much about what's happening here makes much sense."
“I think that what’s important right now is that we do what we can to take care of the others who came here the way we did,” Padmé said slowly. “As for our lives, well, we can discuss that as we go, but I think the important part is that we’re here together. The differences can wait.” She wanted at that moment to just wrap her arms around this woman in the tightest possible hug - it didn’t matter how different their ages were, but somehow this was her daughter who stood in front of her.
Instead, she held out a hand. “I hope that we can get to know one another for however long we’re here, Leia.”
Leia had been raised to take care of people. To care for an entire planet. Even though she'd lost Alderaan, she'd gained the Rebellion. And then as part of the New Republic Senate, then the Resistance. Her entire life had been to care for others. She knew how to do that. She supposed it would be good to continue that here. "How many people have arrived, do you know?"
She took Padme's hand and smiled. "I would like to get to know you better, Padme, yes," she said.
Padmé returned the smile and squeezed her daughter’s hand gently, glad to hear that, before returning her attention to the question at hand. “Not yet. Only a few responded to my message, but others had postings as well. I’m not certain yet that we can trust that each of those names means there really is someone attached to the other end, but if so there has to be at least a dozen others, likely more."
Leia nodded. "Might be worth taking some kind of census," she said. "Doesn't guarantee everyone will respond or even respond truthfully, but it's a place to start." Her mind was already moving in several directions, drawing in on all of her Rebellion and Resistance experience. Besides, it would keep her focused on something besides how confusing and frustrating this situation was.
“Do you want to start with that?” Padmé burned to ask more about her life and what she’d done, but her own words about what they needed to focus on at the moment took precedence, and she reluctantly let go of Leia’s hand at last. “I’ve inventoried a few items, including what I’m fairly certain is this world’s version of food, but most of it is unfamiliar. I hope some of the others know better what it is.”
Leia nodded. "I can start seeing who we're working with, yes. I haven't looked through the comms yet to see what else people have been saying, so I'll start there. Do you have time to show me what you've inventoried?" She nodded back to the lighthouse.
Padmé smiled and nodded. “I do,” she said, then turned to lead her back inside. One way or another, they’d get through this, then take all the time to talk that they could.