the sensation of her heart being ripped from her chest was one that padmé had familiarized herself with many times over the years. none had been as severe or traumatic as leaving behind leia & luke with the hope that they might have a better life, with the secure knowledge that they were safer without her. the decision was justified, but that did not mean that it had been easy for her to make. far from it. many nights alone, she had wondered if she had made the right chioce. vader had never found her, even when she had begun working more directly with the rebellion that she had planted the seeds for alongside bail & mon. maybe things could have gone a different way ... but she could not change the past. all she could do was make sure that leia knew the whole truth.
“oh, leia,” she breathed out her daughter’s name with such sincere sadness that it threatened to suddenly shatter reality around them. lips turned down into a frown, brown eyes wide & doe - like. looking at leia was like a reflection of her younger self, but the spark, the fire that she saw, that was all her father. the version of her father that she had known, that she had fallen in love with. “i never stopped thinking about you, my love.”