Log: Darth Vader and Padmé Amidala WHO: Padmé Amidala and Darth Vader WHAT: The Funhouse brought Darth Vader, isn't that fun? WHEN: August 17 WHERE: The Tumbleweed Funhouse WARNINGS: Domestic violence murder from canon discussed; first few paragraphs and some others might be body/medical horror? (His physical/medical state is detailed)
Darth Vader was tired. His duel with his son had not been especially physically exerting and he only had a glancing wound thanks to the boy's inadequate skills, but the outcome had left him emotionally drained. He had returned to Mustafar and had been in the process of having his droids and specialized machinery prepare him for his bacta tank— lightsaber unbelted, prosthetic limbs detached, helmet and faceplate removed, and without the cape that concealed the equipment on his back. It was a vulnerable state.
It was a state that left him on the floor in the Funhouse. Without the hermetic seal of his helmet and faceplate, his respiratory equipment did not properly intake and exhaust air. The inadequate oxygen levels weakened his physical capabilities. His natural eyes were strained and stung without the lenses and optical filters that usually protected them. His artificial hearing was mostly intact, but sounds were muddled together without the usual processing that distinguished which sounds to amplify or keep in the background. If he did not keep his head and thus his mouth properly positioned for the enunciator that magnified and processed his weak voice, its vocal output became obviously electronic or failed entirely. He had exerted himself with the Force, attempting to levitate through the mirrored paths, but could not maintain it for long.
The memories of Anakin Skywalker informed him of Tumbleweed, who was present here, and that he had the means to communicate with them. They were his best option for an exit. It infuriated him to be forced to rely on others to assist with his physical state, but it was necessary.
But making contact with Padmé… alive, not a memory or trick of his own mind this time… It had been decades since he had felt such pain. To actually see and hear her… The pain grew as he waited for her to find him.
“Oh dear - I do hate these sorts of things, so very much!” The mechanical voice could be heard quite clearly suddenly, from around the corner. Considering the unusual happenstances that had been occurring around the funhouse, Padmé had sent C-3PO in from the exit in an attempt to find Anakin. The gold-colored plated droid made its way around a bend, then stopped, giving a little hop of surprise.
“Oh! Oh dear. Hello. Oh my, this will be more of a problem than I suspected. Oh dear.” Turning around awkwardly, Threepio called back down the hall, “Senator Amidala! Senator Amidala, over here! I’ve found him!”
Quick footsteps were heard a few seconds later as she reached the droid, holding out a hand in its direction to hush. Her eyes took in the scene quickly and while she hated seeing him like this, she immediately turned to the droid. “Threepio, please see one of the attendants and bring us a wheelchair,” she said quietly. As the droid shuffled off back in the direction she’d come from, Padmé stood in place for a long moment, then slowly walked over and knelt in front of him.
“Hello, Anakin,” she said quietly, searching for some resemblance in his face or eyes of the man she loved.
Vader had managed to get himself seated against a wall, so at least he wasn't lying flat as he waited. Threepio's voice grated at Vader's hearing, but that was nothing compared to how it felt hearing Padmé's voice again after two decades, remembering the last words she'd said to him. He couldn't see her as clearly as he once had, but it was enough to see her at all.
His encounter with Luke, and now having the living Padmé in front of him again, had weakened the dark side's hold on him; his eyes were blue as he gazed at her. The shapes of his features remained, but his skin was nearly white, heavily scarred, with no hair remaining. Still, there was enough resemblance remaining for Padmé to see it was him.
"You know that I am Vader now, Padmé…" His artificial baritone sounded nothing like the Anakin she remembered. Tilting his head away from the enunciator, he could let her hear his natural voice, almost breathless and raspy and strained through damaged vocal cords. "Padmé. It's really you."
Her breath caught faintly as he spoke, and his eyes were familiar… more familiar now, really, than the man she had told to leave their home. Otherwise, he barely looked like himself - and his voice was nothing like what she knew, but she didn’t comment. It hurt her too much to see him like this, but she would deal with it anyway.
Reaching out, she delicately rested her hand on his cheek and gave him a sad smile. “You’ll always be Ani to me,” she told him softly. A part of her actually wished she didn’t love him so much, but Padmé couldn’t help it. “And yes - it’s really me,” she confirmed.
The memories he had been given of this place reminded him that she had told him to leave. A marriage was broken by choice instead of by death. It didn't feel the way he remembered when she touched his cheek, but he still knew her touch. He had to close his eyes and his head sank back down to where he spoke through the enunciator. "Why did you come?"
When he shifted, her hand didn’t move and as a result he moved out from under her touch. Padmé’s hand stayed there for a moment longer, then slowly fell back to clasp her other in front of her. “Because you asked me to,” she told him, still studying him. “You need help.” Even despite her current separation from Anakin, they were still married. “So long as I’m able to, I’ll help you, Ani.”
"I… am grateful, but I do not deserve your help." He had opened his eyes again to look back up at her. "You were right to tell me to leave."
“I know,” she said quietly, though it pained her to admit that. “That doesn’t mean I’m happy about it, or that I stopped loving you. I haven’t.” She had to privately express relief that, at the very least, he was more or less reassociating himself with who he truly was, at heart. “Ani… I’m sorry this has happened to you.”
It surprised him when she didn't deny it, and it showed in his voice. "I did not expect you to say that." He couldn't say that he hadn't stopped loving her, either, even after all this time and what he had done to her; words of 'love' were words he couldn't bring himself to voice any more. "Do you know how this happened?"
“What did you expect, Ani?” She was curious, but she was glad he was still talking. And not shouting. At his question, she shook her head and glanced around briefly, studying their surroundings. “No...but strange things have been happening to people the past few days, and it seems to be a result of this...funhouse.”
"You must not know what happened to you." He shook his head as well to her response, briefly distorting his voice. "I did not mean this place. I meant everything that happened on Mustafar."
Padmé turned her eyes back to him, anguish showing for a brief moment before she hid it again. “I know I don’t see our children grow up,” she finally said. It was as diplomatic a response as she could manage right now. “You didn’t answer my question.”
He fixed his eyes on her and lifted his head again; she deserved to hear his confession in his own voice. "You did not live to see them because I killed you, Padmé. I killed you."
She returned his gaze and the color in her face drained. For a moment, she blanked completely, not sure she’d heard him right. When she finally found her voice again, Padmé was slowly shaking her head as a tear fell, unbidden, down her cheek. “Why?”
"I did not mean for you to die, but that is what happened. You rejected what I had become. You brought Obi-Wan. And I could feel that he meant to kill me." His long-ago rage over her perceived betrayal had long since dulled to a sadness over seeing two people he loved turn against him. Anger towards Obi-Wan still remained, but not towards her.
“I can’t believe that he would try to do that. Not without talking to you first, trying to… do something -” She broke off suddenly, returning to the main part of this conversation. “You didn’t mean for me to die? What happened, Ani - Anakin?”
"He came to lecture and to kill." It was so like Padmé to start a debate, but that of course was not the important thing about what he had said. "I am well experienced in a Force technique that prevents breathing. I did not realize I had… that you would… I went too far. I was unaware when you succumbed. I thought our child-- our children-- had died with you."
She had heard of force chokes before, a practice used by the Sith. This meant that everything else she’d heard had to be true. He really had gone to the Dark Side, and was at Palpatine’s side in the future. She closed her eyes, letting out a slow, shaky breath, then opened them again. “Obi-Wan said that I died in childbirth.” Something she had barely believed because that simply didn’t happen in a place like Coruscant… but now she knew the full story.
"That may be… part of the truth, but it isn't what caused your death. Obi-Wan was a liar. He lied to you, to me… to our son." He wanted to tell her how much he regretted what he had done to her, but there was no absolution he deserved in apologizing for that. He had knowingly, deliberately attacked her, too furious to care that it could irreparably harm her. Could kill her. "He should have told you. He endangered you, kept you from knowing that you remained with your killer."
The sound of clanking footsteps coming from behind kept her from saying anything else, and Padmé stood as Threepio entered with a wheelchair.
"Oh! Master Anakin, oh my! I am terribly s--"
"Be silent, C-3PO, I do not require your prattling." Threepio had always had terrible timing, Vader recalled. Even when Anakin was a little boy, with a partially complete droid, the droid had still managed to have poor timing. Vader shifted himself, leaning forward, but he had no experience transferring himself alone from the floor to a seat. It would take the Force, or assistance, or the Force to augment that assistance. Threepio alone didn't have the lifting capacity to move Vader, even reduced as he was, but Vader could make up for what the droid lacked. "Come here. You will move me to the chair--" Threepio began to bemoan his failures at being able to help, but Vader kept on talking over him. "You will. The Force will make up for your forthcomings."
“I’m not going to agree with you about him without him being here to defend himself.” Padmé was barely holding onto her resolve, but she wasn’t going to let herself break - not here, at least. Not in front of him. Standing and stepping back as the droid approached, she hugged herself absently.
“Do as he says, Threepio,” she told him. “And be quiet about it.” She certainly had no patience to listen to him right now, as much as she typically valued his counsel and knowledge. After Anakin had been settled in the chair, she turned to lead the way to the exit. “Threepio will take care of you while you’re staying at our - my apartment,” she said. “I’ll find lodging elsewhere.”
"... Thank you." He seldom had reason to express genuine gratitude to anyone, rather than sarcastic. Before Threepio began to push the chair away (unnecessary, but Vader was too exhausted not to allow it,) he moved to use his own voice again. "If your husband returns here… do not take him back. You know now what he is capable of."
“You’re welcome,” she said faintly, and followed them so that she’d be able to pack a few things once they reached the apartment. This was all way too much to handle, but she knew how to hold things in until she was alone.