Author's Note: Written for het-bigbang 2018. Title taken from the lovely Florence + The Machine's song of the same name. (This is also recommended listening for this fic.) The violence level in this fic never exceeds that which is seen in a Star Wars movie, and although the majority of the fic is in Padme's POV, I do have just a couple of POV changes much later on. This fic also includes necessary OCs, but not in major roles.

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars or any associated characters. Only the OCs of my own invention. Star Wars belongs to Disney.

Part I

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

-Dylan Thomas

Chapter One

Prophecies are tricky things. They can misread, misinterpreted. In a word, they can be misleading. The prophecy of the Chosen One was one such case. But the Force does not abandon. It does not deceive. When the balance is shifted dramatically, either to light or dark, the Force recognizes a need to intervene. And when it does intervene, it does so in any way it sees fit.

#

Padme awoke in a fit of coughing, as if she were choking. Before she even knew what her body was doing, it was clawing at her throat. It only took a few moments beyond that to realize that while she was breathing, she was not breathing entirely on her own. A few of the medical droids had already rushed to her side, and they shoved one of their varying needle appendages into crook of her right arm. She tried to protest, tried to scream and shout the millions of confusing questions that filled her mind. But the world was already starting to look a little hazy around the edges. She vaguely heard one of the droids order, in Basic, to prepare to take the breathing apparatus off as soon as she was under. She reached up, weakly, with her right hand, trying to get the teal and silver droid that stood over her, trying to catch its attention. It swiveled its head to stare, but by that time, the sedative had already set in, and Padme's world faded back to black.

#

She had no idea how long the drug had kept her under, but when Padme awoke again, the breathing tube was gone. She could hear the steady beeping of all the various monitors around her, and she was a little surprised to see that the droids were standing at the foot of her bed, waiting for her to wake up again.

"Can you hear me?" a teal and silver droid asked.

Her throat felt a little hoarse. Not raw, but rather just parched, like she had gone an eternity without water. Visions of red-hot lava and black, charred landscapes flashed briefly across her mind's eye. She forced the vision away, nodding her head in response to the droid's question.

"Can you respond verbally?" it asked.

"Y-yes," she responded… and her eyes widened.

Something was wrong, different. She closed her eyes and placed a hand to her forehead. Her voice had sounded… strange. It was possible that it was just the result of her oh-so-dry throat, but, even then, that didn't sound quite right.

"Are you feeling any pain, Miss Sarbarn?"

Padme's eyes flashed open as she brought her hands to rest in her lap. Her brow furrowed, she leaned forward just a bit.

"What… what did you call me?"

The three medical droids exchanged glances before the lead—the teal and silver—turned its attention back to her.

"I merely referred to you by your name. Can you tell me your name?"

"Of course," she sighed. "It's—"

Her lips froze, trying to form the first syllable of her name. She shook her head, trying to get rid of whatever had made her hesitate. She parted her lips once more, ready to proclaim her identity, but again, no words came out. She blinked rapidly, trying to force the words out. Again, nothing. The droids were beginning to look concerned—or as concerned as droids could manage to look. She began making little noises, verbal interrupters like "um" and "oh" just to make sure she could still produce sound. Those came out just fine. In her mind, her brain screamed at her to just say her name. It was easy. After all, she had been herself for her entire life. She was Padme Amidala Naberrie, senator and native of Naboo. She had a father, a mother, and a sister. She had friends. But none of their names could come out either. It was like some invisible something was keeping these things all locked up inside her mind. Finally, the teal droid rolled over to the side of her bed.

"Don't you remember?" it asked.

"I-I can't… I d-don't…"

"Miss Sarbarn, you've been in a coma for some time now. It is entirely possible that a slight case of amnesia has formed as a result of your injuries."

"Why are you calling me that?" Padme demanded. "What's going on? Where am I?"

"Calm down. We shall have to approach this slowly," the droid stated.

Padme rested her face in her hand. A moment passed, and then, it hit her. Something more was off, more than just her inability to tell these medidroids who she was. She pulled her hand back, staring at it as if she had never seen it before. Which was quite fitting, as she actually had never seen this hand before. She turned her attention to the droid at her side.

"A mirror. Can I… can I see a mirror? Please?" she asked.

The lead droid nodded and one of the others at the foot of her bed scurried off to fulfill the order. A knot was forming in Padme's stomach. She had a bad feeling about this, about all of it, but the problem was, she didn't even know what "it" was quite yet. Her brain was swimming, still trying to pull out facts she knew about herself. It was hazy, but some things were coming back to her. She remembered Anakin stopping by her apartment—their apartment, secretly—to tell her of the Jedi. She remembered… she struggled, trying to complete that thought. Something made her feel ill, like a terrible thing had happened, and she just didn't remember what it was yet.

The droid returned with the mirror, passing it to her. She held it up to her face and fought hard to maintain a steady expression. She was Padme Amidala. She knew that with no doubt. And she knew what her face looked like. But this… this woman staring back at her? She didn't have Padme's dark tresses. Instead, she possessed bright, mussed red hair. There was a slight—almost unnoticeable—smattering of freckles across her pale cheeks. Her eyes were a deep green, like a dense forest as seen from the sky. She was Padme Amidala… but this was not her body.

#

The next couple of weeks seemed like an eternity, especially with the information that Padme had gathered. It seemed that the medidroids truly believed that she suffered from amnesia, as a result of some transport accident she had been involved with. Her name—or rather, this body's name—was Triana Sarbarn, and she had family. Padme was anxious to be released from the medical facility—on Coruscant, she was happy to discover—but the physicians and droids here were unwilling to do so until they believed she had recovered some—if not all—of her memory. Being that she wasn't actually Triana, that was proving to be difficult.

They—the human doctors that ran the facility—had cleared her to move from the wing she had inhabited—filled mostly with still comatose patients—to a private room. Her vitals were stable, so she was free from machines, but, at least for the first few days, she was closely monitored. Doctors and medidroids came by quite frequently those first days, asking her all sorts of questions about her life—or rather, Triana's life. Frustratingly, she had tried the first day to simply tell them that something was wrong on a cosmic level. That she was not this Triana Sarbarn, but rather Padme Amidala. But every time, her great declarations would force her mouth and tongue to freeze, despite her raging brain. She couldn't explain it, and the doctors were explaining it away as part of her amnesia. They stopped coming by so frequently once they realized that she would do herself no harm. But her release, on the other hand? That was not coming until they could progress her memory to a satisfactory point, according to one female doctor who had visited with her.

But now no longer on such close watch, Padme was free to roam about the hospital. On her very first day of freedom—day five of being awake in this body—she spent at least three hours in the fresher, just staring into a mirror. Doctors came to check on her after about ten minutes, but she waved them away, saying that she was just… reacquainting herself with… well, herself.

This new body was roughly the age she was when she… died. She had died, hadn't she? And how had that happened? Everything was still blurry for her. Memories of herself, her real self, kept coming to her, but only in flashes and patches. But, this new body—and that in itself was an odd thought—had to be in her mid- to late-twenties, as Padme had been herself. Again, there was the striking difference in appearance—the red hair, thick and wavy once brushed—the pale, pale skin and the smattering of freckles. Not to mention the green eyes. Padme had once thought she wanted green eyes, when she was a child. Now that she had them, in the way that she had them, it was deeply unsettling. It took thirty minutes for Padme to realize that listing all the differences between her old body and her new one was going to drive her madder than they already thought she was. So, she decided to switch gears.

Yes, the body had to be about the same age. It—or maybe it would help if Padme thought "she"—was at least Padme's height. And, most importantly of all, it didn't feel like the wrong body. She felt as confident in her strides and hand-eye coordination as she would have in her old self. And she was definitely steadier now that she was in a body that wasn't being flooding with the extra hormones of pregnancy.

Blinking, Padme moved her hands—maybe just a touch larger than her old ones—to her body's flat, toned stomach. This Triana she had woken in had at least taken care of herself, as the doctors had mentioned in passing that, other than the accident and the amnesia, she was the picture of health. Her odd green eyes were now locked on her reflection, hands still firmly pressed to her very not pregnant stomach. Another memory flashed before her, and she was sitting in the pilot's seat of her sleek, silver ship, tears streaming from her eyes as she tried to clear them before meeting with Anakin.

"My stomach was in knots," she whispered to herself, surprised that the words left her mouth. "I was so worried that what O—"

Again, her lips froze. Obi-wan, her brain said. Her mouth remained immobile. Tears were filling her eyes, and frustration was quickly overtaking her. She had to get out of this damned hospital! Where was Obi-wan? And Anakin? And her child? Where was her child? She leaned forward on the gleaming metal sink, sobbing into the basin. A medidroid kindly escorted her back to her room. She didn't fight. Instead, she let herself be put straight to bed.

It was day six, and she had a new purpose—get out of this place and get the answers she needed. A doctor visited her after her morning meal, and what had now become the routine began. The doctor posed questions, questions that would directly relate to Triana Sarbarn, not Padme. Past finally getting the name correct, she knew nothing else. With a sad tsking noise, the doctor had reiterated to her that she was free to roam the facility, but not to go outside it—for her own safety.

Like Padme didn't know Coruscant, after living here for years? But the doctor didn't know that, so Padme only nodded, thanking her. The moment she was gone, Padme threw off the covers of her bed, put on a thin, blue dressing gown, and left for the common room located at the very edge of this wing. On the short walk there, she took a moment to organize her thoughts—a to-do list that would end with the goal of her freedom from this hospital. She had to get to records of Triana… that would give her enough to convince the doctor—an older, gray haired human that Padme had yet to truly commit the name of to memory—that she knew herself as Triana. And she had to get to the HoloNet. She had to reorient herself in this new world. The doctors and medidroids had been careful around her, as to not overwhelm what they saw as her fragile brain, but she had caught a few disturbing words. Words like "empire" and "emperor" and "tyranny." So, to achieve the goal she saw as the easiest, she made her way to the common room.

The room—open to all free roaming patients—was drably decorated, with beige sofas and chairs, no tables, a few decorative ferns, and—as she had hoped—a large HoloScreen playing the HoloNet News. She found an empty seat on the edge of a sofa near the back of the room, and tightened her dressing gown about herself, as if that would give her some security. Twenty minutes of the news, and she wasn't sure if she was angry, sad, or sick.

Four months. She had been gone for four whole months, and the whole galaxy had changed in that time. Palpatine—who was never pictured, despite how incredibly often he was mentioned—had taken over as Emperor. The senate still stood, but through the subtext of the many reports alone Padme could glean that everyone knew that that would not be for long. In fact, they seemed to merely be there for an ease of transition, as Palpatine had issued many laws—mostly restrictions on freedom of information, as well as on taxation—without Senate approval. The reporters were also talking of a black figure known only as Darth Vader, who seemed to be serving as the Emperor's right hand and whose primary task seemed to be hunting down Jedi who had escaped something called Order 66.

Something tugged at Padme's mind, filling her with both a feeling of familiarity and of dread. But she couldn't figure out what exactly any of that meant. She glanced away from the screen, looking to a station across the hall from the common room that the doctors and medidroids convened at on this floor, exchanging information and orders on patients. She caught sight of her own gray-haired doctor. Padme pursed her lips, watching as the doctor indicated a filing cabinet on the leftmost wall of the little station. A droid pulled open, producing a small screen and handing it to her as she walked off.

Patient records. It had to be. All Padme had to do was get the records on Triana, and then she would be free. This was not going to be easy, but very few things in her life had been. From behind her, a brief mention of Naboo caught her ears. She turned, alarmed to see the newscaster speaking of the results of the emergency election for the new Naboo Senator, following the tragic death of Padme Amidala.

She blinked, a knot forming in her stomach and in her throat. Everything was such a blur to her, and strangely enough, that was where most of the terror of this situation was coming from for her. Why had she died? How had she come back? And why? Did it have to do with this new Empire, or the Loyalist committee she had worked on with Mon Mothma and Bail Organa? Or both? There had to be a reason.

And why, oh, why, had there been no mention anywhere of Anakin Skywalker? He had been the hero of the Clone Wars, for Force sake! Her hands dug into the cushions of the sofa. She had to get out of here.

Turning, she watched as more doctors came and went, and it became painfully clear that the early morning was not the time to attempt the theft of hospital records. She stood up and made her way back to her room. It was going to be a late night, and tomorrow, she would be on the road to freedom.

#

The good and bad thing about droids was simple: they didn't sleep. But Padme was nothing if not cunning. In the deep darkness of early morning, Padme had slipped out of her room and stole into another. This patient, she had noticed, was not in horrible condition, but was still bad enough to be hooked up to monitors for oxygen and blood pressure still. This man—deep in sleep and a species of alien that escaped her—had his back to the approaching woman. She muttered a quick plea for forgiveness and pressed a series of random buttons on the monitor. As she had hoped, a loud, alarming beeping sounded, and she hid herself behind the room's door.

Moments later, several medidroids and a pair of doctors rushed into the room, and she slipped out behind them without notice. She half ran, half walked down the hall to the station, to find that still one droid remained. She stopped, blinking and thinking quick. It wouldn't take long for those professionals to figure out that it was a false alarm. Steeling herself, she made her way up to the droid and put on her best distressed face.

"Please! Please, you must help me!" she cried, and the droid turned, fixing her with a cold, emotionless stare.

"Please calm yourself. I will alert a doctor in a moment," the droid responded, already reaching for a communicator.

"No!" Padme all but shouted. "I need my doctor! Please! You have to go get her!"

"Please hold out your identification band," the droid responded.

Padme did as instructed, managing to work up a few tears to add to her act of hysterics.

"Miss Sarbarn, Doctor Mells has gone home for the evening. You will have to see the on-call doctor, who is busy at the moment. Perhaps I can help with your emergency?"

"No!" she insisted. Time was running out, she was sure. "No, no, no! You have to go get her! Go get her!"

She slammed her hand, open-palmed so that it produced a satisfying smack down on the countertop of the station, which rose almost to mid-chest on her.

"Now!" she sobbed. "Please, now!"

The droid, clearly flustered, made its way out around the station. "Please remain here. I will retrieve a doctor for you."

She waited until she was sure that droid was focused on its new task. Then, with a small smile, she made her way around the station and pulled open the records drawer. Droids… one could always rely on droids… Anakin had said that to her once. It took her only a moment to locate the "S" section on the HoloPads, and a moment later to find the one that contained the information Triana Sarbarn. Quickly, she yanked it from its spot and hid it in the waistband of her hospital clothes. She then rounded the station and stood there, blinking around as if she was lost.

The droid returned with the doctor, and Padme could see that others were following, muttering "false alarm" and "stupid machines" behind this new doctor. He stopped just inches from Padme.

"Miss Sarbarn, what's the matter? The droid said you were in clear distress and demanding your doctor," he stated.

She blinked at him. "What? How did I get here?"

He pulled a light from his pocket, shining it in her eyes. Furrowing his brow, he stared at her.

"You don't remember asking the droid to retrieve your doctor?" he asked slowly.

"What? No. I remember climbing into bed to sleep… and then I woke up here. Maybe… maybe I slept walk?"

The doctor rubbed the bridge of his nose, sighing. "Well, you appear fine. Why don't I escort you back to bed?"

She nodded and followed with no trouble until he finally deposited her safely back in her room. As soon as the door closed, she pulled free the HoloPad, and began to read. Tomorrow morning, once she had memorized all she needed, she would drop the thing in some inconspicuous place. She had a knack for memorizing information, thanks to her political life, so one night with it would be all she needed.

#

She deliberately flubbed her usual morning visit, in order to dispose of the HoloPad. Then, in the early afternoon, she made a show of mentioning Triana's sister's name in front of a doctor. Doctor Mells had been retrieved, and she had set Padme down and re-asked her questions. Padme gave her answers, slowly, as if it was all coming back to her. And she deliberately "forgot" some things. After all, she didn't want to be a miracle case. She just wanted out. Once the interview session had ended, the doctor smiled, standing. Padme stood with her.

"Let's keep you one more night, just in case. But, if you can answer these questions again in the morning, I think we'll be free to release you into the care of your sister," Mells smiled.

"Briari," Padme said, smiling back.

"That's right. And that's good. That's very good."

The doctor left, and Padme sighed. Now, finally, she could figure some of her real problems out, starting with the greatest existential question of all: Why was she here?