Starcrossed: A Star Wars Fanfiction

Mirroring Another's Fate

By the time Eris reached Padmé's hospital wing, everything had gone to poodoo in a killbox.

Whether it was the poetically tragic karma of the universe, or Padmé herself losing the will to live, Eris would once again learn the hard way that not everything she threw her heart into was meant to be saved.

The senator was in full active labor when the medi-scan ventilator monitoring her babies sounded alarm, detecting the infants' heart rates at 180 beats per minute.

"My orders were that she be put under anesthetic for operation."

"I am sorry, Lt. Halo," her drone answered, hovering in with a fresh set of blankets and sterilizing fluid. "We could not locate you by comlink. Without the proper authorizations, we were required to act quickly. Because the patient was showing signs of labor, GH-7 ordered that we administer an oxytocin injection."

"The patient is bradycardic," Eris countered the induction call, using the handheld medi-scanner to assess Padmé's faint and concerning pulse. "Her heart won't take the strain of natural labor. The little ones are already in distress."

"There is no time. The patient will give birth before we can safely prep the operating room."

"Anakin," Padmé whispered in soft delirium, her head turning dazedly to the medic. "Has Anakin hurt our children...Please, save the little ones..."

"I'm looking out for your little ones, Padmé," Eris assured her. "We're going to deliver them both safely. You have my word."

And letting her worries rest in the care of her attending medic, Padmé closed her sun-fire eyes to tears that fell like comet's tails across the bridge of her nose.

Eris's heart broke with hers, frustratedly powerless as Amidala's life fell from her hands like stardust.

"Hold on," Eris beckoned Padmé. "There's still hope. Please don't give up now." 

For the sake of stars, for once in her life, couldn't she just make something happen other than feel so powerless?

Would she always be made to stand back from everything she'd lost that had been deemed the will of the Force?

"The patient's blood pressure is rapidly descending," her drone warned her.

"Dammit," Eris whispered, unwilling to bear witness to yet another regrettable fate. "We need to stabilize her condition immediately. Where is that anesthetic? Double my original order."

"Doubling anesthesia injection by 0-250 milliliters," the drone repeated the medic's instructions, as her quick mechanical hands prepared the serum.

"Hang on just a little longer, Senator. Long deep breaths," Eris encouraged her patient. "Shut out everything else and concentrate your energy on your little ones. You're almost there."

"Anakin...he's...still the man I love...I know he's still..."

And the crushing despair hanging over those words made it impossible for Eris to shut it out, as if her own broken heart were spilling onto the floor for the one Padmé called Anakin. Knowing now that it was more than just a broken heart she was racing against time for. She had picked her battle with the destructive, unbalanced power of the dark side, as only a negligent abuse of its sway could lead to such unrelentingly and unnecessary suffering in one who had loved another so deeply.

And wouldn't Eris have felt the same, had it been her instead of Padmé?

How could anyone live in a galaxy like this one, having remembered the old one before with a love like the one Padmé lost?