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It was supposed to be quick. Padmé had sharpened the blade before leaving Coruscant to ensure it would be, because even when she allowed herself to consider that she might need to use it there wasn’t a single universe where she’d want Anakin to suffer. And there still isn’t, even as he convulses and chokes on her lap, the blood pouring out of his neck while she grips the very knife that slit it, and all she can do is hold him and watch. The knife clatters to the floor and she cups his face, rubbing her thumb softly against his cheek, murmuring a useless litany of barely-comprehensible apologies and assurances in case he can somehow still hear her.
He’s still breathing, or still trying to, wet, strangled gasps and coughs escaping from his neck as much as his mouth. His eyes are blankly flitting back and forth, searching helplessly for something they can no longer see. Maybe for her. She gently guides his head so that she’s in his line of sight, and she swears his eyes stop for a moment and fix on her. “I’m right here,” she manages to say through her sobs, and his body responds by making a horrible gurgling noise as more blood bubbles from his throat.
He’d been the one to guide her hand to his neck when she’d first revealed the dagger, and he’d been the one to press it hard enough to draw blood. His hand had stayed over hers as she continued to cut, perhaps his attempt at absolving her, and then he went limp, and then it was just her , by no will but her own, cutting into the person she loved most in the galaxy like she was slaughtering an animal. She’d slowed at one point, watched the blood flow out of him and wondered if perhaps it wasn’t too late; if she pressed down on the wound then maybe the bleeding could stop for long enough to get him to a med center. But by then she’d cut far past the jugular and he was limp in her arms and he would’ve been dead by the time she mustered the strength to carry him into the ship.
His eyes have stopped moving now, though his body is still attempting something that vaguely resembles breathing; it’s an awful sound, damp and ragged and barely human, and Padmé never wants it to stop. As long as it continues she can cling onto the hope that he’s still there, that the bleeding will stop and she’ll sweep him away from here and stitch him up and beg for his forgiveness and they’ll run away together, away from this new empire and all the blood on their hands and into a life that’s for no one but them. The bleeding doesn’t stop, though, and whatever mimicry of breathing is coming from Anakin’s sliced-through windpipe is only getting quieter. Padmé presses him closer to her as his body gives out, desperate to take in whatever final sound his oxygen-deprived lungs make like they’re his last words.
His actual last words were “You came here to kill me,” said as ragefully as they were miserably when he pressed her knife to his throat, and then, simply, “Liar,” as the first drop of blood was drawn. She doesn’t remember exactly what she’d said in between, what words actually came out and what died amongst her sobs, but she remembers trying to say she didn’t want to, remembers saying “I love you.” And she remembers pressing the knife deeper into his neck, looking into his eyes and seeing nothing but pure acceptance and perhaps even wanting . A silent agreement passed between them, then, that perhaps he deserved this and this was the kindest way he’d get it, and he’d let her finish without any protest, all his fiery determination snuffed. What did it matter if he lived if she wanted him dead, and what did it matter if she died if he was dead first? But she didn’t think he deserved it, and she never for a second wanted him dead, even as she killed him.
Padmé continues to cradle him against her protruding stomach. He was always so eager to feel the baby kick, pressing kisses to her belly and then resting his cheek against it and looking up at her with the widest grin if he felt something, and while she can’t be sure he still feels anything, can only hope that he doesn’t and hasn’t for a while, she also hopes that if he can, that if he has been feeling every awful and futile attempt by his body to resist drowning in its own blood, he’ll at the very least be allowed the small mercy of also feeling his child kick one final time. Air is still sputtering from his neck but it’s not reaching his mouth anymore, each small hiss weaker than the last. Padmé moves her hand lower so she can feel them against her palm, halfway hoping she can grip the final one in her fist and hold onto his last bit of life forever.
She can’t hold it, though; it blows against her skin and then dissipates, and all she can hold is what’s left of him. He’s stopped moving, blood still trickling from his neck but no longer accompanied by any sound. He’s still warm. Padmé moves her hand back up to his face, running her fingers delicately over his eyelids before cupping his cheek again.
She’s always thought Anakin is prettiest when he’s asleep. He rarely fell asleep before her, and she treasured those rare times he did, studying his face, the near-angelic softness of his relaxed features. Soft isn’t a word most would use to describe Anakin, but it’s always the first word she thought of on those nights, watching him in the early stages of this comfortable, nightmare-free sleep he could never get anywhere else. It was something no one else got to see, and as much as she wished he could find peace outside of her she still selfishly treasured that he couldn’t, that she got to have moments like those that were totally and entirely hers.
He looks the same as he did on those precious nights, even with blood still seeping from his gaping neck. She’s cradled his head like this countless times, always gentle to ensure she wouldn’t wake him up, endlessly grateful to have him in her arms and pushing back the ever-nagging fear that one day he’ll return to her a corpse. And now he has returned to her arms again, peaceful and pretty and dead and totally and entirely hers.
Maybe that’s why he let her do it, why he practically begged for it. He’d lived life as a star always on the brink of becoming a supernova, destructive and violent and entirely at the mercy of things so much bigger than him, and maybe death at her hand was the most peaceful death he could imagine for himself. Maybe it was a gift. She tries to tell herself it was like it matters at all, like him having wanted it makes him less heavy in her arms, like it makes his beautiful lifeless face less cold and her hands less blood-soaked. And it doesn’t, just like any noble motive she’d had coming here doesn’t, and her sobs turn into screams because she’s holding the corpse of her whole life in her arms and there’s nothing else she can do.
She doesn’t register Obi-Wan’s presence until he speaks words she neither understands nor cares about, barely even hearing them over the white-hot rage that fills her body. He’s standing a small distance away from her and the sight of him makes her cling tighter to Anakin, almost protective; Anakin had described to her how he’d felt the night his mother died once, the fury so blinding it mutated into a dissociative daze, the memory of the subsequent slaughter technicolor-vivid and yet belonging to someone else entirely, and as she looks at Obi-Wan’s dejected expression she thinks she’s closer to understanding that feeling than she ever has been before. Tears and snot and her husband’s blood run down her face as she spits out “Isn’t this what you wanted?!” and she only knows the words are hers because of how each one scrapes her throat raw. She doesn’t wait to see his reaction because she doesn’t care.
All she wants to do is bring Anakin closer to her, and she can’t because he’s too heavy and because the distance between them is unbreachable, and she can hold his body as much as she wants but she’ll never actually be close to him again. She screams again, not fully sure she ever stopped, and when it starts hurting too much she goes back to breathless, hiccuped crying. The air is thick with smoke and her lungs feel ready to give out, and she keeps gasping between sobs in hopes they actually might.
She’s never feared death enough to run from it. She’s only ever desired it in fleeting moments, moments where the only relief she can find is in assuring herself that everything can simply stop , that if she so chose she could will it to herself. And then those moments pass, and her desire transforms back into its usual cool acceptance; death often chases her, has chased her since she was fourteen and will continue to, and it is something she neither invites nor prevents. She’s stared down enough blaster barrells to think that if she wanted it, truly wanted it beyond a fleeting few seconds, she’d embrace it like a friend, like a lover. But right now she wants it, desperately, hopelessly wants it, and every continued beat of her heart is one too many, and the blood-crusted blade beside her is sharp enough to dig into her chest and cut it out; she wants it, and she’s still too much of a coward to pick the blade back up and turn it towards herself.
She thinks of cutting her stomach open instead, of ripping their baby out of her and setting it aside for someone else to find while she bleeds out. She stares at the dagger while she considers it, and then she remembers whose blood it’s covered in and she can’t bring herself to reach for it. Her hand is still on Anakin’s cheek, the same Anakin who burned down the world to save her, who sold his soul for it, who let himself die for it. Killing herself would just be killing him a second time.
She just wants to lie with him. She’s tired, and he’s heavy, and her mind keeps wandering back to their late nights and lazy mornings together, nights and mornings they’ll never have again, spent with their limbs sprawled and tangled over each other. She drops Anakin onto the platform floor ever-so-gently and lies beside him, resting her head on his shoulder. If she closes her eyes and ignores the sharp metallic smell that burns her nostrils as much as the smoke does, it's almost the same as it always is.
“I love you,” she whispers hoarsely, pressing kisses to his neck like there’s still a pulse beneath it. “I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. IloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyou.” She says it until the words puddle into gibberish, and then she keeps saying it, and when her voice tires out she continues to mouth it against his cold and bloodied skin.
She’ll get dragged away from here soon, she thinks. She’ll get dragged away, or she’ll fall asleep and wake up in a world without him, or, if the Force or whatever cruel entity puppeteering all this is merciful, his dreams will come to fruition early and she’ll simply die here with him. And all she can do is continue to kiss him and reach for his hand, intertwining their fingers, gripping it knowing he’ll never grip back.