The earth was cool and soft beneath her fingers as the sun shone down overhead. A small, satisfied smile lit her face as her deft fingers tended her flowers and plucked any invading weeds, keeping the gardens that surrounded her guesthouse healthy and thriving. She was immensely proud of her little place, and dutifully and passionately saw to its care almost solely on her own.

She had come to Naboo over fifteen years ago now, nearly twenty, although it had felt deep down like she had returned to the green little planet after a long absence. It felt like home in a way Alderaan never had. Sure, both planets were beautiful, and in many ways quite similar, but Naboo's lakes and rivers pleased her eye and her soul in a way Alderaan's mountains and crisp cool air never had. For several years she had lived in a little community a little ways north of Alderaan's Capital City, Aldera. It was lovely, and she had been sad to leave when the time came. But she had felt it was time.

Her friend Bail, who had really been one of her only visitors, had insisted on taking care of the arrangements, and had chartered a small ship to take her and her companion Sabé to Naboo, a planet where Sabé had said they had a past. Then she had tried desperately to remember what that past was, only to come up with a crushing feeling in her chest and a memory of great pain.

She'd had no memory before waking up in the Medical Facility on Alderaan in the little town where she had made her home when she had lived on that planet. The only thing she faintly recalled was the memory of hearing people speaking over her, their voices wending in and out of her focus, dampened and distorted as though she had been deep underwater. It was from those memories that she dimly heard what she then assumed to be her name. "—dme Am—" she had heard; Dema, her semi-conscious mind had interpreted, my name must be Dema, for they are speaking about me, "can be no mo—must beli—ildren wi—for her saf—but tha—wins." The rest had been little more than gibberish to her shattered mind.

But then, almost everything she had heard in those days had been garbled and distant.

The medical droids had explained that her memory loss likely stemmed from an immensely traumatic experience, something Sabé had inadvertently confirmed through her surreptitious glances and worried looks alone. Dema was also told that it would be better, healthier for her mind, if she were to remember on her own. The medical droid and the therapist from the medical centre had both pressed her companions to abstain from telling her too much about her past, to let her memories return on their own.

It was a torturous reality that she had begrudgingly resigned herself to bear. As time had passed, her past had begun coming back to her. She began to remember her parents' faces, that she had a sister and nieces, fleeting memories of her childhood room, her teachers, and her school friends. She had remembered Sabé, sort of, and others like her who had all been close. The names had been on the tip of her tongue, but she still hadn't quite been able to coax them past her lips.

Her memories taunted and teased her incessantly. Faces without names, names without faces, terms she had no idea what their importance was. She remembered law codes and charters, the proper way to address large bodies and small crowds effectively, and diplomatic niceties and appeasing rhetoric sometimes escaped her even in the most mundane of conversations. Yet she couldn't even remember why she had left Naboo—for she was relatively certain she had been born on the small planet—or why the necklace she always wore was so important to her, or why she dreamed of a handsome young man with a bright smile and serious blue eyes that always looked at her with an intensity that made her knees go weak and her heart thrum with delight.

She'd pushed all that away, though. Whatever she had been in the past, whoever she'd been, she wasn't that person anymore. Not without her memories. And she had learned quickly that she couldn't force them to return to her. She could coax them and slowly work them free of the fog that mired them away from her conscious mind, but it was slow work. Everyday she wandered through parts of Theed, stirring her memories as much as her conscious mind would let her before the wall of protection her subconscious had erected snapped painfully back into place.

Slowly but surely, fragments of her past life began to bind themselves together. Now, nearly twenty years on she had made remarkable progress. There were still great blank spaces in her memories, but she had long ago accepted that she might never know all the secrets her past held, painful or otherwise. Part of her refused to believe that she would never remember, but another part of her was far more pragmatic, and so she chose to make the most of her lot.

Upon returning to Naboo, she and Sabé, who now called herself Mina and posed as Dema's sister—to help protect them, she'd explained—had purchased a little place on the outskirts of Theed. Dema had loved it from the start, and had eagerly set about transforming it. Sabé/Mina had taken a job at one of the archive centres within the City, leaving Dema to focus her energy on recovering in both mind and spirit.

For those first few years on Alderaan Dema had felt broken, like something had shattered painfully within her. There was no other way for her to describe it. Neither did she know why she felt that way. She'd barely had the will to speak to anyone, to move, to eat. There had been entire days that were now lost to her, she'd been so confused and emotionally fragile. The answers obviously lay within the memories her subconscious hid from her. She had been wasting away, Sabé had said. She was suffering from a broken heart, she'd overheard Bail whispering to Sabé one day. Dema had puzzled that over in the years since she had come back to Naboo, and had come to the conclusion that he was right, after a fashion. She had absently wondered if the way her chest seemed to physically ache when she thought of the blue-eyed young man meant she had loved and lost him. But something deep down within her told her it was more than that; far more. She had lost so much more than the man she loved, a little voice would murmur to her. She wanted, no, needed to know what that voice meant. She needed to find what was missing in her life. It took time, but soon she had a will to live again. Slowly, the pieces of herself that had shattered along with her mind began aligning themselves, though they didn't yet fit together. It wasn't long after that that she had indicated that she felt she didn't belong on Alderaan. Evidently Bail and Sabé had taken her declaration as a positive sign of her recovery, for they had both seemed quite happy that she had said it.

Within a handful of years she had made the little house in Theed her own. The gardens flourished under her care, something that pleased her a great deal more than she had anticipated. But she needed more. It had taken some convincing, but a couple years after they had returned to Naboo, Dema insisted on having something more to devote her mind and energy toward, and Dema and Mina had decided to transform their little house into a guesthouse. It still wasn't quite enough, but it kept her busy with long, fruitful days and Dema was satisfied with caring for her guests.

But there was something else she was missing, that she was more desperate to remember than just about anything else. It was actually her body that first felt the loss, whatever it was, while she was still back on Alderaan. Part of her felt empty, like something more tangible than memory was missing. Her arms longed to hold something she didn't understand, that she couldn't remember.. Finally it was her subconscious that put the pieces together without Dema even realizing it.

"I'm a mother," she had absently said to Mina—still just Sabé, then—one afternoon as they'd sat in the sun overlooking Alderaan's mountains. Sabé hadn't answered, though her face tightened with pain and worry. She had refused to meet Dema's eyes, focusing instead on the way Dema had been fiddling with the fine chain of her necklace. It had been a confirmation to Dema in and of itself. Dema hadn't needed a confirmation, though. She knew she was right. It was a hole that she'd had in her heart that she'd just realized was there. She'd had a child—no, that wasn't quite right either, her instincts told her—she'd had children. And she didn't know where they were, or if they were all right.

It had taken her time, several years since coming to Naboo, before she made an important realization.

There had been a little girl on Alderaan, a little girl who had looked impossibly familiar. But where was the other, a little boy, her subconscious supplied, with sandy hair and his father's eyes. The little girl had had dark hair and darker eyes, and couldn't have been more than three or four years old at the time. A feeling of deep sorrow that Dema hadn't been able to name had come over her when Bail had brought the little girl with him on one of his visits. 'Leia', she'd whispered, her fingers lightly touching her pendant when she'd seen the girl walking nervously toward her, unsure exactly where that name had come from. Sabé and Bail had exchanged anxious glances, but neither had said a word.

The little girl was her daughter, Dema had recently concluded, though she hadn't told Mina she'd figured it out. A piece of her shattered mind had found its place, bringing her a step closer to being whole again. Her realization had been rewarded with a faint but powerful memory.

"He keeps kicking," she had laughed in response to his concern. He had met her eye with a questioning look.

"He? You think it's a boy?" She had laughed at his skepticism.

"My motherly intuition," she had teased back, her hand tugging his to the spot where their baby was happily kicking away. It seemed pleased at its father's attention, and the kicks had intensified. She had laughed again at the joyfully incredulous expression on his face.

"Whoa, with a kick that strong, it's got to be a girl!" he had declared, his vibrant blue eyes sparkling with joy.

She had been happy with him. But the realization only sparked her desire to know more. More than having her memories blocked by her own mind, the fact that she didn't know what had happened to her children tortured her. Her little girl had been happy and well cared for with Bail; that she instinctively knew. She had seen it in the way the girl had looked up at him and the fond way he had watched over her. Another part of Dema was nearly overcome with sorrow at the same realization, though. Bail was not her daughter's father, part of her wanted to scream, her father was—she still couldn't remember his name. More than that, she had no idea what had become of her little boy, a realization that distressed her greatly. It had been enough that she had sunk back into the despondency that had gripped her on Alderaan for a short while, though not nearly with the same intensity. It had worried Mina greatly.

When news of Alderaan's destruction had broken a few years after her realization, it had rocked the galaxy. Dema especially had been devastated. While she hadn't felt at peace on the peaceful planet, she had come to love it in a small way, especially after concluding that it was the home of her daughter. If realizing her child was no longer her own and that she didn't even remember the name of the man who fathered her child was enough to send her shattered mind diving back to despondency, believing her child was gone certainly was. The walls her subconscious had erected had strengthened against the progress she was making in dismantling them, though thankfully she hadn't lost any of her regained memories, which by then had become a substantial collection. It was only by clinging to the memory of her blue-eyed husband—she had come to the conclusion that that was precisely who the young man was—with his gentle hand resting against where their child kicked at her belly that she retained some semblance of sanity during that dark time.

It was Mina who had saved her. She had appeared in Dema's room one morning, carefully closing the door before coming to kneel in front of Dema, pressing a small datapad into her strengthless hands. After a great deal of coaxing, Dema had looked down to the datapad. What she saw there had yanked her out of her despondency far quicker than Mina had anticipated, startling her faithful companion.

She wilfully ignored that they were calls for the capture and arrest of important Rebel figures put out by the Empire, focusing instead on the fact that it was recently issued and on the faces it displayed. A few at the top she faintly recognized, like Mon Mothma and Orran Adyé, but it was not one but two in particular that set her heart racing in her chest. Leia she recognized in an instant, though she hadn't seen her since she was barely more than a toddler. Her vision blurred.

"She's alive," she had murmured absently, tracing a finger over the projection of her daughter's face as a feeling infinitely greater than relief surged through her. Somehow Mina had known that the secret grief at believing her daughter dead with Alderaan's destruction was what had sent Dema into her despair. Had she not already been sitting, she likely would have collapsed. But there was another face that caught her attention. The name beneath it sent her nerves tingling and her memory straining.

"Luke..." She hadn't even had to look to Mina to know the woman who had been posing as her sister had been watching her anxiously. "I know him," she said quietly. It was not a question. Only then had she'd looked up at Mina. "He's my son, isn't he," she'd asked. Slowly Mina had nodded. Dema's eyes had dropped back to the young man whose picture stared out at her from the datapad. He has his father's eyes, she remembered thinking. He'd grown to be so handsome. A wistful smile had come to her lips of its own accord, while her fingers rose to brush against her pendant. Another piece of her shattered self settled back into place as she stared at her son's face. He was alive too. They both were, and they were together. The notice had named them as associates.

"No one must know, Milady," Mina had said softly after a few long moments of Dema looking at the wanted notices for her children. She sometimes did that, calling Dema Milady out of long ingrained habit when they were alone. Dema knew now that it was because she had once been an influential and important public figure for Naboo. She was long used to the nostalgic looks and curious glances she garnered when she walked about, but she paid it little mind most of the time. She also had remembered that Mina had, as Sabé, been her handmaiden and bodyguard and that she essentially still was. She hadn't been alone either. There had also been Dormé, Elle, Moteé, Neva and others before them; she remembered all of them now. In some respects, there was little she didn't remember anymore. Most of the pieces of her fractured mind had found their way back into place save the last few, critical pieces. On good days she could remember almost everything up until she left Naboo for Coruscant, bad days a little less. She remembered who she was, mostly. She was still shaky on her name, but knew from slips from Mina that she had once been known as Padmé. And she knew that the Galaxy believed her dead, though she couldn't yet comprehend why. Part of her didn't want to know. She still felt totally disconnected from her past, even though she had remembered most of it. It was as though she was remembering the plot of a novel she'd once read, not her own life; it felt like it didn't belong to her.

"I know," she had replied mournfully.

She was not oblivious. Her mind might still be fragile, but she still had her wits. She knew what was going on in the rest of the Galaxy, of the struggle between the Empire and the Rebel Alliance. Part of her rebelled at the very concept of Emperor Palpatine's New Order over the galaxy. Meanwhile another part of her felt intimately connected with the Rebellion. Had her life not been interrupted so completely by whatever event or series of events that had broken her, she could easily imagine she would have been a part of the initiative to restore the Republic. In fact, part of her did believe she had been a part of it. At least, some early incarnation of it. Part of her even now wished she were involved. She had tentatively and rather subtly suggested involving herself to Mina; so well, in fact, that Mina almost agreed before she had caught on to exactly what Dema had been suggesting.

It was the only time Dema had seen Mina look both truly frightened and genuinely angry. She had forbidden it, pointing out that they were in hiding, that Dema was still not fully recovered from her ordeal, that she would pose more risk to the Alliance than help, that they couldn't risk the consequences should it be discovered that Dema was still alive—Mina had abruptly cut herself off there. That was when Dema had truly understood her own situation; she had suspected the galaxy believed her dead, or that who she had been, at least, was dead, but now she knew for sure. A million different counter-arguments had sprung to mind, but the look in Mina's eyes had dissuaded her. She had also realized then that Mina had essentially given up her own chance at a life for her sake, to keep her safe as she regained herself; it was a sacrifice she'd had no desire to squander. Thus she had decided to stay on Naboo, at least for the time being.

She needed to be of use. Part of her desired more than anything to do something to help fight the tyranny that had spread throughout the Galaxy, even so far as to make its way to Naboo, threatening the planet she loved.

It was because of that desire that, when she met Obscura, she hadn't hesitated to help her.

The young woman had shown up on her doorstep, looking for lodgings. She had instantly looked familiar to Dema, though it had taken her some time to place just why. Though her hair was a lighter colour and she had blue-gray eyes that looked familiar for another reason, Dema's new guest had looked for all the galaxy like a woman from her past; Neva, once Princess of Theed, almost-Queen of Naboo and a friend and ally to Dema in her past life as Senator Amidala. She knew Neva was long dead, like many Dema had once known. She had pressed Mina for information on those she had considered friends once their names had returned to her. The Empire, as Mina had told her with a sad reluctance, had murdered Neva, along with her young child, for helping the Jedi. Obviously, Dema concluded with satisfaction, the child had survived, and had received training in the ways of the Force.

Though there was obviously a great deal that the young woman was hiding, especially given that she had provided Dema with what was likely a false name, she trusted the girl, and did everything she could to help her. There was something in her face that Dema intimately understood; that this woman searched for answers seemed obvious to Dema. Her suspicions had been confirmed when the newcomer had asked after the best places to go in order to find someone on Naboo.

She had also recognized the young woman for another reason. In the weeks prior to her arrival on Dema's door, Imperial troops had been pouring into the Garrison east of Theed. More than that, her face and name had been posted all over the city along with the caption "By Order of His Imperial Highness, Emperor Palpatine, the Dark Lady Obscura is to be apprehended. Use extreme caution; she is highly dangerous. Do not approach, but inform the nearest Imperial agent." She could believe the dangerous part. The girl known as Obscura—Dema still didn't know her true name—had moved with the same measured grace and had the same perceptive look in her eyes that Dema dimly remembered in the Jedi she had once known; that she'd been close with a few Jedi was still a relatively newly regained set of memories. That this girl was Force-sensitive seemed almost immediately obvious to Dema. Memories that still hid from her teased Dema as she spoke to the young woman. There was something else about her, someone other than Neva that she reminded Dema of, though she couldn't manage to place it.

It was partially because of the way that Obscura piqued her still shrouded memories that she had followed the young woman the next day. That and the part of Dema that longed for some sort of way to be a part of the greater fight. That this woman was no longer a servant of the Empire as she had once been was blatantly clear to Dema, and not just because of the calls for her capture. The girl's presence had made her a little nervous at first, given that she knew Obscura had once been Darth Vader's Shadow, but that apprehension soon melted away. Though she hid it well, there was always a glint in her eye and a particular way she spoke that told Dema she despised the Emperor; it surprised Dema at first how easily she was able to read the girl, but then she remembered her realization that she had known and been close to several Jedi.

That she wanted to keep an eye on Obscura turned out to be a good thing. Just as Dema had feared, the young woman, despite her care and skill at moving about unnoticed, had been spotted and recognized. Even knowing Mina would be furious that she took the risk, Dema had intervened, helping Obscura to slip away from the Stormtroopers chasing her out of pure reflex. Then, as she had been keeping out of sight with Dema, the younger woman had gotten the bright idea to sneak into the Imperial Garrison. Without hesitation, Dema had resolved to go with her even though she thought the idea was mad. But, even without all her memories to tell her so, Dema knew she was not one to sit out. She could see Obscura's logic, and understood her desire to find any way to help the fight against the Empire. So Dema had broken into the Garrison with the former Imperial agent.

Of course things had invariably gone wrong, and ultimately Obscura had been captured, but not before she had pressed a datachip containing intelligence to help the Alliance into Dema's hands. You say you are no friend of the Empire? Prove it now. The young woman's words were echoed through Dema's mind even now and the intense, determined look in her eyes was burned into her thoughts. From there she had given herself as a diversion, allowing Dema to sneak out of the Garrison, though not before Dema had promised to tell the girl about her mother. The way Obscura had reacted when Dema had brought up Neva confirmed in her mind that the girl was who Dema thought she was.

She only hoped the girl would survive and return to find out more.

Dema had taken some time to wander the city before returning home out of an instinctual sense of caution to ensure that she hadn't been followed. Mina had been waiting anxiously for her when she had finally returned. She had begun admonishing her when she discovered where Dema had been, but her words dried up when Dema had interrupted her with the revelation that Obscura was Neva's child. Mina had known Neva too, and had also counted her a friend. Then Dema had shown Mina the datachip. Upon seeing it, Mina made a confession.

Dema couldn't say she was entirely surprised when Mina had confided that she had been a part of the Underground Nabooian branch of the Rebel Alliance for many years already. But Dema couldn't deny that she was hurt by the confession. She had longed for years to be a part of the Alliance herself, something Mina had always denied her. She understood why and, no doubt had their positions been reversed, Dema couldn't deny that she likely would have done the same, especially as she couldn't deny she was a liability with her mental state as it was.

But, as Mina—going by Sabé again among the other Rebels—was a member of the Alliance, she would be able to get the datachip to the Alliance much faster than Dema could going through the channels Obscura had suggested. Sabé knew Commander Adyé personally and had promised Dema she would deliver the chip into his hands herself.

Sabé left that evening. It was several days before she returned.

But then one day, a couple days after Sabé had left—the day, she later learned, that the Emperor had died—she had felt him. It was a strange sensation and a feeling that she equated with the ones the Jedi she'd known had always spoken of; a presence that lingered by her side as though sitting beside her. She remembered then. She remembered him. The final piece of her fractured self nestled back into place. Her hand rose to grip the Japor snippet, holding it tight.

"Anakin," she'd said quietly, her words like a sigh.

She remembered everything.

In the space of a moment Padmé had run the gamut of emotions that had been pent up inside her along with her buried memories; pain, sorrow, rage, heartbreak, betrayal, frustration, grief...love. She finally remembered how she had fallen in love with him, how they had married, that he had been haunted by visions of her death giving birth to their child. She remembered with agony the way Palpatine had destroyed the Republic she had loved and twisted and corrupted the man she had given her heart and soul to, using his fear and pain against him until he had become a dark reflection of her husband. She remembered her fear and grief at watching the Jedi Temple burn, a tangible indication that the galaxy she had known was burning down around her as she watched helpless and unable to stop it. She remembered the anguished feeling of betrayal at the way he had turned on her on Mustafar. She remembered the insane rage in his eyes as he looked to Obi-wan where he'd stood on the ramp of her ship. She remembered giving birth to their children without him, crushed and heartsick at everything he had done. It had been the final blow that had shattered her.

She remembered that the man who had attacked her and her unborn children on Mustafar hadn't been Anakin.

She knew that the presence beside her was.

She knew what it meant that he was beside her but not.

Tears sprang to her eyes as she realized that her Ani had come back to her but that she would never see him again, never feel his arms around her, never get to look into his crystal-blue eyes as she told him she loved him again, and that she forgave him.

A faint breeze brushed against her cheek, and she could have sworn it was his touch. She began speaking, then, not quite realizing she had until the words were pouring out of her mouth. She spoke of the good memories she had of them and of her life since waking broken and memory-less on Alderaan. She told him of what she had heard said over her semi-conscious form; Padmé Amidala can be no more. The Emperor and Vader must believe she is dead, and her children with her, not just for her safety, but that of her twins, someone had said. The words had come back to her with her memories.

She told him of how her memories had returned to her, how Bail and Sabé had helped her. Everything poured out of her and she knew he was listening intently, and could swear she felt the devastating intensity of his sorrow and remorse when she spoke of the dark times he had caused her. She knew him well enough to know he would have been weeping with guilt as she told him what she could remember of their children's birth, and how Obi-wan and Neva had been there to help her through, how Neva had all but shamed her away from letting herself die. She could feel his wonder when she spoke of meeting their daughter on Alderaan, though she hadn't realized it at the time, and was sure that he was pleased that she had helped Obscura here on Naboo.

He stayed with her, even long after her voice gave out and she fell silent. They had sat together in her garden, watching the sun set. Even though she could not see him or feel him in any real, physical sense, she knew his fingers covered hers where they rested on the bench.

They were together again and, for that one perfect moment, it was enough.

It was a couple of days later that Sabé had returned, and when she did she was practically exploding with joy.

"Palpatine is gone!" she had repeated over and over as she embraced Padmé, tears of relief and elation streaming down her cheeks. Padmé soon found herself crying too. But she had known already; most of the Galaxy had known within hours of the Emperor's death that they were finally free of him. Everything had changed. The entire city of Theed had practically swarmed onto the streets to celebrate. It had been a long time since Padmé had seen her people so happy.

More than that, she had changed. Sabé noticed almost right away that something was different. Sabé had burst into tears again when she realized just what had changed about her friend; Dema was gone, and Padmé had returned.

Eventually she imagined that she would reveal to her family that she had survived, especially now that the Emperor was gone, but for now she was still getting used to being herself again. For now she was content to tend to her guesthouse and her garden in peace; a state she hadn't truly known before the events on Mustafar and Polis Massa.

As she stood from the patch of her garden she had been looking after, stretching out her aging muscles and brushing back a loose strand of her gently silvering hair, a soft chime came from the front door. With a small, satisfied smile at the work she had done and curiosity blooming at who her new guests might be, she ducked inside, heading for the front door. The faint hope that it was Obscura surfaced as it always did when she heard new arrivals ringing the chime and she reluctantly pushed it aside.

She actually laughed with delight when she saw who it was.

"You came back," she exclaimed. Standing in front of her was Obscura, looking tired but eager as she stood on the stoop. Padmé was finally able to place what else was so familiar about the young woman as she steadily met Padmé's gaze. She had Obi-wan's eyes, Padmé realized with a twinge of sadness that still managed to mingle with delight. It pleased her to realize that Neva had gone with Obi-wan, and that they'd had some time together before Neva had been killed. Obscura nodded slowly, hesitation suddenly evident in her posture.

"I did," she replied quietly. Padmé smiled kindly and welcomed her inside. With a small smile the younger woman stepped inside. It was then Padmé realized that she wasn't alone. A young man had come with her. Her heart nearly stuttered in her chest as she took in the sandy blonde hair and clear blue eyes that looked back at her. Even if she hadn't seen a holo of him before, she would have recognized him in a heartbeat.

"Luke," she breathed, drawing startled looks from both the young man standing in front of her and Obscura. They exchanged a brief startled look before they both turned back to Padmé. Then Luke's eyes narrowed, and Padmé recognized the thoughtful look that passed over his face as one her husband used to get when he was listening to the Force around him. Before she could stop herself, she began reaching toward him, though she hesitated short of actually touching his cheek.

"You look so much like Anakin," she didn't even realize she had spoken until Luke started back from her, his eyes wide with bewilderment. Obscura's hand closed about Padmé's arm as she spun the older woman around, looking just as astonished as Luke as she met Padmé's dark eyes.

"How do you know that?" she sputtered, stumbling over the words in her anxiousness to ask. Padmé couldn't help the sad smile that came over her face.

"I've known Anakin since he was a boy," the former senator said, unable to hide the wistfulness in her voice. A faint frown creased Obscura's face as she processed what Padmé said.

"Who are you," she finally asked, her tone sharper than Padmé suspected was her intent. Luke stepped forward, a look in his eyes that sent a shock of nerves through the former Senator.

"Athara," he murmured absently, a hand landing on the arm that still clung to Padmé's sleeve. Padmé glanced to Athara, distantly pleased that she finally knew Neva's daughter's real name; she obviously hadn't liked it when Padmé called her Obscura the last time she'd been here. Taking a calming breath, Athara withdrew her hand, though she didn't drop her intent gaze.

"Who are you," the young woman repeated quietly. Padmé took a deep breath. It was the moment of truth. She had imagined this moment, of meeting her son and revealing who she was to him, a hundred times and had prepared a thousand things to say. Nothing she had prepared seemed right.

"You met me as Dema," she started, her voice trembling a little at first, "I have been known by many names, some of which you may have heard before. For a time I was Queen Amidala of Naboo, then I was Senator Padmé Amidala of the Galactic Republic. Then I was dead to the Galaxy, known only as Dema. But my true name, the name I have longed to bear but never had a chance to own, is Padmé Naberrie Skywalker."

A/N: Thanks for reading!

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