Fox/Padme, recovering from grief.
The first time she wakes up and doesn’t immediately want the world to go back to sleep with her, Fox is on the other side of the tiny room, bouncing Leia on his knee, with Luke asleep against his shoulder.
It feels, a little, like the world is still. Like everything is spinning but they're at the eye of the storm, and Padmé lies in the hard, uncomfortable bed, every limb aching with the sort of exhaustion that’s beyond bone-deep, watching Fox smile at their children, and—
Oh, she thinks, and then, I've been sad.
It’s a revelation, even if it should be too simple for one. Putting a name to the grey haze of survival in this strange new world isn't precisely important, but—naming it helps, a little. Strangely so, maybe.
Leia burbles, bright, amused, and Fox leans in, smiling at her. He bumps their noses together, making Leia giggle, and she fists tiny hands in his greying hair, beams up at him. Fox looks back, like she’s the moon in an empty sky, like she’s everything, and Padmé breathes out, then slowly, carefully pushes up to sit.
Fox has been here the whole time. He’d found her on Mustafar, gotten her to medical help, gone into hiding with her. If not for him—
“Padmé,” he says, catching the movement, and immediately pushes up, crosses the room in a few long steps. When he sinks down on the bed beside her, Padmé gives him a smile, curls in tight against his side as he wraps an arm around her, and chuckles when Leia grabs for her hair, too.
“Look at the grip you have,” she tells her daughter, admiring. “So strong. Just like your father.”
She slides a hand into Fox’s, silent reassurance that she means him and no one else, and he breathes out, presses his cheek to her hair. His stubble catches, pulls, but it’s a good sort of prickle, makes her smile.
Fox and Luke and Leia are the only things that make her smile, these days, but—maybe that’s enough.
“Are you all right?” she asks quietly, taking Luke when Fox shifts him over. Luke stirs slightly, resettles, but doesn’t wake, and she kisses his fair hair, curls her legs up under herself to sink more fully against Fox’s side.
Fox is silent for a moment, then sighs, quiet. “Thire was leading the last patrol I saw,” he says. “He didn’t see me, but—he’d taken the paint off his armor.”
All of the clones have. Fox hadn’t heard the order that went out, because he lost his hearing early on in the war, had his hearing aids damaged in the attack. By the time he’d realized what happened, could work out what had been done to all the other clones, it was too late for him to do anything but follow Padmé and Obi-Wan to Mustafar.
“I'm sorry,” Padmé says, soft, and threads their fingers together, squeezing gently.
Fox is silent for a long moment. “I'm not,” he says finally. “Not sorry to have survived. Vader's always hated me. I wouldn’t have made it long, if I heard the order. This is…” He swallows, looking down at Padmé, at their children. Breathes in, and then says, “Not bad. Good, most days.”
Padmé smiles. In a few hours, they're going to have to get up, keep moving; even this far down, Coruscant isn't safe for them to stay in one place long. But—
She’s still sad. It still hurts, the thought of getting up and leaving, carrying on. But it hurts less than it did, maybe, and she has a word to put to the feeling now.
And when she does, Fox will go with her. That’s something.
Right now, sitting here with his heartbeat beneath her ear, it almost feels like everything.
