Anonymous asked: Okay, so with this new Vision 'verse, how does Padme fit in later? Is Shmi all about this girl and when they first meet weirdly attached to this baby senator? Is Obi-Wan also weirdly attached, or is he conflicted because this woman caused his padawan to form Attachments? And lastly, we have Anakin. Fully-remembering-bad-timeline Anakin. How does he act around her, knowing that in another timeline he killed her and she had his children?
Shmi is definitely all about her and definitely weirdly attached. Obi-Wan is … weirdly CONCERNED, more than anything else, but also attached because yeah, it’s not Padmé’s fault Anakin went Dark Side, Sidious would’ve just found some other way to get into his head. She didn’t handle everything perfectly, but neither did HE, so it’s not like he’s got a damn leg to stand on.
Anakin, now. Anakin is gonna be the concerning thing. Because I know you all think this is gonna be awkward hilarity but honestly? Honestly? LOOK, WE’VE COME THIS FAR WITHOUT ANGST, GUYS, AND GODDAMN IF I’M GONNA LET DOWN THE SIDE AND MAKE A FLUFF-ONLY AU WHEN I’VE GOT THE PERFECT OPPORTUNITY TO RUIN LITERALLY EVERYONE’S LIVES.
“Are you alright?” Padmé asks softly, ducking under the table just enough to clearly see the little boy hiding underneath it. Rabé and Captain Panaka and the others are in the throne room with the Jedi, still, but when she saw the unfamiliar boy peering in from the doorway and then fleeing in alarm the moment he was noticed, she couldn’t just leave him alone. “You’re not from the palace. Are you lost?”
The boy lets out another cracked little sob, and huddles back against the wall.
Anakin crying is usually the signal for Shmi and Obi-Wan to descend on whatever the fuck made their (padawan son child brother Anakin) upset with the fury of a thousand impassioned demons. I can’t help but see them bursting into the room, screaming something along the lines of ‘ALL RIGHT JERKFACE PREPARE TO DIE - oh Miss Naberrie, we didn’t see you there, so sorry about the accidental threats is Anakin okay?!’
Padmé is SO CONFUSED and also kind of instinctively wants to stab the people who burst in and scared the boy even worse, except then the boy runs right to them and hides behind Master Skywalker’s robes while Knight Kenobi crouches down to wipe away his tears and fret over him, so–he came with them, then? She didn’t see him earlier, and she isn’t sure how else he could’ve gotten into the palace. But also, why on EARTH would the Jedi bring a boy this young on a MISSION? She thinks she’s insulted, if that’s how seriously the Order is taking the plight of her people.
And his robes do look a little Jedi-ish, she supposes, now that she can see them better. He has an unusual little braid tucked behind his right ear that Knight Kenobi is tugging on as he whispers to him, and she SWEARS that’s a Jedi thing, isn’t it, doesn’t it mean … something? It’s some kind of identifier or another–she’s sure of THAT, at least. She wishes she’d had more time to read up on Jedi before they’d come, but obviously the situation was not ideal for that.
She does wish it, though. Maybe she wouldn’t have frightened him so, if she’d been able to.
OKAY I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS TO COME UP.
Like, Anakin is still in love with Padme, I assume. His nine-year-old/ancient/forty-something brain is all tangled up with itself and with the Force (slightly more benignly tangled up than last time, so, like…there’s that), but it’s still tangled up around the fact that Padme is the sun and stars. No, say better, Padme is space and holds all other things within herself and Anakin is in love with her like he’s in love with lungs, okay.
But.
Once upon a time, in another galaxy, far from now, he kills her.
And he’s coped all right with that, he’s at least reasonably okay, not least because, um, Shmi and Obi-Wan are probably not here for the stoic Jedi act, certainly not in wee little Baby Space Jesus/Possible Space Antichrist (pretty sure this makes Palpatine the Devil, right, that seems accurate).
So they go to Naboo and Anakin is going to be fine, all right, even if it kills him, he’s going to be fine, and besides they need him to fly the mission on the droid ship, so it’s going to be fine, it’s going to be fine, it’s going to be–
Padme walks into the room, handmaidens in tow.
Anakin is not going to be fine.
PAIN EVERYWHERE i love pain i’ve been waiting with bated breath for this ever since this au started BECAUSE THERE’S ALL THESE FUCKING TIME TRAVEL AU’S AND NONE WHERE ANAKIN COMES BACK AND FLIES INTO THE WORST PANIC ATTACK IN HISTORY THE SECOND PADME IS WITHIN HIS LINE OF SIGHT LOOK THIS KID IS GOING TO HAVE _ISSUES_ OF THE FIRST DEGREE AND I GODDAMN WELL EXPECT ONE OF THEM TO BE ‘I LOVE THIS WOMAN MORE THAN ANYTHING IN THE WORLD AND I KILLED HER I DID THAT’ ‘I CAN’T LIVE WITH THIS’ basically torture i like to torture myself and everyone else and especially anakin
Anakin is always in love with Padmé. If I am writing an Anakin that is not in love with Padmé, it’s because he hasn’t met her yet, and EVEN THAT IS NOT A GUARANTEE, AS THIS AU SHOULD PROVE. He’s also very definitely nine, though. He’s seen visions of being older–MUCH older–but he is very DEFINITELY nine, and he doesn’t always remember all of the visions at once. Part of him is vaguely aware that Padmé dies and that it’s his fault, but most of him is caught up in how much he LOVES her, he LOVES her, she is so much, she is so many things, she is EVERYTHING and he LOVES her.
He’ll be fine, though. He loves her but this time she’s not gonna love HIM, he’s already decided he’ll stay away from her so she can be safe. His mom told him okay, if he had to, and Obi-Wan looked relieved, but he doesn’t think either of them really believed him. But he IS gonna stay away. He’ll be small and uninteresting and he won’t say anything weird to her or do anything to make her remember him, and then she’ll have ten years to forget him and he just won’t go on the bodyguard mission, his mom and Obi-Wan can do that, they’ll be strong enough. And it’ll be safe. So he loiters back in the doorway and hides, and makes himself small and unimportant in the Force so no one pays him any mind.
But it’s been so long, he forgot that Padmé was the kind of person who never missed anyone, no matter how small or unimportant.
