Ever since he left with Obi-Wan he dreamt about her every night. They were good dreams, innocent and pure, beautiful. She was always smiling, always accepting. He would run to her and her eyes would crinkle with joy upon seeing him, every time. Sometimes he brought her gifts. She was always accepting them with grace, like she did the first and as he thought then, the last thing he had ever given her. She wore plain clothes, light and soft, like her, so different from the ones she wore as a queen. They were beautiful and breath-taking but they hid her inside them, more effective than her make-up, making her someone new.

In his dreams she was as she was the first time he saw her on Tatooine.

Despite Obi-Wan's warnings that being attached was against Jedi way, he wasn't worried. He was not likely to see her ever again. His dreams were enough.

He survived ten years of his training with just a memory of her. It was enough. She always wore the necklace he gave her and had that radiant smile that held all the beauty of Naboo. He never saw a planet so green, so beautiful as Naboo, never in his life, through all of his journeys with Obi-Wan. There were similar ones, filled with green, with waterfalls, but none had her. She was like an angel, unattainable and yet so important, so close.

Sometimes he would hear a whisper, a rumour. He learned from Obi-Wan that she was no longer a queen, on his eighth year as a padawan. He couldn't imagine her as anything else, as a mere woman. As someone within his reach. In fact, he had trouble imagining her as anything. She was a constant, a good memory that never faded. Never changed.

Sometimes he dreamt of his mother and that was even worse. She just stood there, aging before his eyes, alone back on the Tatooine. His Master told him that not all dreams were visions and that he shouldn't worry about his mother, that he would've felt if something were to happen to her. Dreams of Padme were more pleasurable then, even if they reminded him that he will never see her again. It was a privilege to meet her at all. Obi-Wan sometimes asked why he was so focused on her, a woman, a girl he had seen briefly so many years ago. He had an easy answer. She was a rare sight to behold on Tatooine. She was otherworldly and yet so kind and attentive to a boy who was less than her subject, who was a mere slave. She was the only one who talked to him and was interested in him then, aside from Qui-Gonn.

Obi-Wan usually looked guilty after hearing this and let go off the topic.

It was almost a miracle that he could see her yet again, that he would be there to protect her. Since the moment he learned that they were chosen by the Chancellor as her companions he couldn't think about anything else. It was better than any dream he had ever had and he felt so grateful to the Chancellor for making it possible. He was almost grateful to the people who wanted to harm her, if it meant he would be allowed to be in her presence again.

After days of daydreaming about their meeting he was still unprepared when he finally entered her rooms.

She was... Different. And yet the same. She still held the same authority of a queen and the grace of an angel, she has barely aged a day. And yet...

She was a woman. A fact that somehow escaped him when he was a child, living on his memories of an angelic creature that gave him a smile when he needed it the most. Now he noticed more. He noticed the way her dress hugged her figure and the way her face looked so devastatingly beautiful without the extensive make-up, her cheeks and eyes now expressive, not bound by the facade of cold calculation and monarch's demeanor.

He met a good deal of beautiful women on his way and he learned about attraction well enough. He had never applied the rules to her. She was on a higher plane, out of his reach, impossible to taint. Until she wasn't.

He was well aware that he was making fool of himself, digging his grave with every word he uttered, confirming her belief that he was still a child. He didn't mind. She remembered him, and that's what mattered. It was more than he could ask of her.

Still, he felt angry whenever she addressed Obi-Wan instead of him, treating him as a mere padawan, as if her bond with Obi-Wan was stronger than whatever she had those years ago with Anakin Skywalker, a slave from Tatooine. He knew he shouldn't feel that way, that anger was not a path of a Jedi. Unless he acted on it, it was harmless, he told himself. So he just talked, observed. Tried to make her notice him as he was now. If he could let go of his memories of her and perceive her as she was now, she should do the same.

Eventually, she did.

The more time he spent with her as her assisted bodyguard, the more he understood how different she was from his image of her. She was passionate, she got angry, she negotiated. She was so much more than that smiling angel he dreamed about and she wielded much more power than when she had been the queen. She was a Senator now, wiser and tougher than before, a true leader of the opposition, not that he cared at the time. He cared that she still treated him like a guest, not her real escort.

He cared that with every conversation they've had her smiles became more genuine and directed only at him.

While they were on Naboo, he cared very little about anything else than her. He couldn't bring himself to worry about his Master or about the Senate when his days were filled with sun and laughter. The lakes and gardens of Naboo were the most beautiful sights he had ever witnessed, even more than he remembered them to be. Without his childish idolization they no longer seemed like a heaven, becoming just a place in the Galaxy he could access whenever he wanted if the time was right. It was her home, though, and that made it magical.

He got very proficient at ignoring the voice in his head that warned him to remember the Code. The Code could be interpreted in many ways and there was nothing in it about caring for her. In fact, his mother always told him that love was the greatest power in all the universe, that it was what kept people good. Why should Jedi abhor it? How could they say that his fierce wish to protect her, to simply be with her was against their teachings? Jedi were supposed to care for everyone in the Galaxy, so there was no reason for him to stop caring for her, to stop seeking her company.

For wanting her to reciprocate.

Back then he didn't know that the moment she did reciprocate she would be lost.

She was more reasonable than him, he was well aware. She was his support when he tried to save his mother and she was there to bring him back from the brink of the Dark Side after the massacre he had made on the Tatooine, she had already seen what he was capable of. And yet she let herself love him, as she confessed at the Arena, and neither of them thought about the consequences then. They got the taste of what it would feel like if they were to lose each other and it was unbearable so they went on, forgetting Padme's own words uttered in the privacy of her home at Naboo. She knew by then that it would be end of them and she still believed herself to be wrong. He did not even entertain any hesitation, he simply wanted to be with her, consequences damned.

So he married her on the Naboo, not bothering with the fact that they were damning each other to live in a lie, to hide and risk getting separated for ever. It didn't matter. The sun was shining on the day of their wedding, as if the Force gave them its blessings.

The Clone Wars, paradoxically, gave him hope. If he could love her and still do the right thing it meant that the Jedi were wrong. His attachment to her was making him stronger, better. He was still good.

He couldn't believe his own luck when she told him. He was to become a father and though she seemed nervous then, as if she somehow foreseen what could happen, he wasn't bothered. He had her and now he would also have a family. It felt like a reward from the Force, like acknowledgement that he was right, that he deserved this.

And then the dreams started.

He hasn't dreamt of her for a long time, his dreams more like memories of the times when they were together than true dreams, dreamt only when they were apart, giving him hope and strength to come back. These dreams were different, like the ones about his mother. Padmé was dying and he could do nothing, just watch. She was going to die because against her better judgment she loved him. The Force could never be so cruel... And yet the dreams persisted. And in each one she was in more pain, with only Obi-Wan as her aid. Why he wasn't there? Why his Master was with his wife in her last moments and not him?

He couldn't ask the Council, not when they treated him like a spy. Like a traitor. He knew what they believed him to be. A Chosen One. The one to bring the balance to the Galaxy. They had a strange way of showing it, by mistrusting him every step of the way.

They would have never understood, had he asked them. They would call him a traitor, or treat him like Count Dooku. He would become the hunted because the Jedi had no longer any idea as to who was their enemy and they were so obsessed with their ancient Code that they could no longer win. The world has changed and they refused to notice it. They were losing this war, they were losing the Galaxy, too torn apart by a fight that seemed to have no end. People were dying and Padmé was going to die too, because the Jedi for all of their mighty words were powerless. They were only human. Not immortal knights he once believed Qui-Gonn Jin to be. Just humans who could be wrong.

Palpatine was different.

He had vision, and he could understand. It didn't matter than he was a Sith Lord, because at least he had power to act. Where Jedi could not do anything, he moved whole systems according to his will. He betrayed powers and abilities that were beyond the Jedi's teachings, he was far more than what Anakin was taught a Sith should be. And he could save Padmé. He had the power to stop the war and save Padmé, it was enough to consider him a better option.

He had sworn to serve the Chancellor and to bring peace. To protect his wife and their child. He was still good.

He never regretted stopping Master Windu from killing Darth Sidious.

Killing the younglings was necessary. Had they became Jedi, the fight would go on. Their heads would be filled with disdain and out-dated understanding of the Force and they would fight with all their might, trying to overthrow the new Emperor because they could not understand. Because they believed that peace was good only if they were the ones to achieve it.

He couldn't look them in the eyes, but it was necessary. For the peace. For Padmé. For a moment he thought he had heard her cry, as if she knew, as if she heard.

But when he came back home she was waiting for him, concerned. She loved him and trusted him to do the right thing. To save her, no matter how much she didn't believe in his dreams. How could she have had such a strong belief that he was wrong, then? How could she deny her possible death so forcefully? She was not Force-sensitive, and yet she was so convinced... Or maybe she wanyed to convince him.

When he left to Mustafar he was finally feeling like the Chosen One he was always called. He had stopped the war. He had destroyed the Jedi, bringing the balance to the Force, like they said.

Maybe they somehow knew that the balance required their downfall. Maybe that's why they never accepted him or trusted him. Only Obi-Wan did, but he too, was too much invested in the Code and the Jedi ways. He had to die as well. Anakin could only hope that not by his hand.

When he was done with the Separatist leaders he felt calm. He had done it. Padmé was safe, he had earned it. The Force would not hurt him now, now that he had brought peace. His new Master would not betray him, he would find the way... That's what he had believed until he saw the ship landing.

He knew it was Padmé before he sensed her presence.

And yet... She wasn't as she should be. She was afraid of him, as if she couldn't understand. She tried to talk to him, to reason with him like many times she did before but suddenly her words lost their meaning. She was talking like a separatist, like a traitor. After all he had done, she dared to look at him the way the Jedi did. How could she?

The sight of Obi-Wan explained everything.

He influenced her, he warmed his way back to her heart, as he always did, the peripheral danger, the false friend who whispered in her ear and kept her from understanding what Anakin did for her.

Anger darkened his vision then, how long had Obi-Wan been pitting her against him? For how long her eyes saw him as a monster Obi-Wan painted him to be? Could she not see that what happened at the Temple was necessary?

She was still talking and her words were irritating him, every single syllable sounding false, setting her on the Jedi side when she should be on his. So he stopped her from talking altogether. Before, he had no idea that the Force could do that. When she fell on the ground, unconscious, he turned his attention to Obi-Wan. His former Master, who dared to take Padmé from him.

He probably always intended to do so. Always at her back, always asking Anakin about her, visiting her when Anakin was not there.

He had never felt so powerful as he did back then, anger flowing through his veins, hatred filling him. Padmé was not there to stop him, to ease his mind and suddenly he realized his full potential. Maybe from the beginning she was what stopped him, maybe...

Obi-wan was too weak to face him now, now that he took his place as the Chosen One, now that he was the hero the Jedi never could be.

And yet he lost.

As he burned alive on the ground, he couldn't understand why. Why should Obi-Wan, loyal to the Republic and to the rotten Jedi Council defeat him?

He wondered if this was his end. If his destiny was to die when his mission was accomplished, like the heroes in the stories do. Maybe that's why he was not in the dream, watching Padmé's last breath. Because he himself was dead by then.

When his Master came to save him he already knew he was wrong. He woke up already at the operating table, with droids and medics trying to save what was left of his body and all he could think about through the pain, was her.

Was she still alive? Could he have to time to save her, or at least say goodbye? He had not felt her death and he would have, he should have... She was his. No matter what Obi-wan tried to do, she was his, she came for him, he could see now, she loved him, she...

"Lord Vader... Can you hear me?" The voice of his Master woke him from his own thoughts.

"Yes, Master." His own voice was not as it used to and talking brought him pain, but it was a minor concern at the moment.

"Where is Padmé? Is she safe? Is she all right?"

"It seems in your anger, you killed her." His Master would not lie to him, and yet it felt like a lie then. He couldn't believe it, he would have never...

"I...? I couldn't have." How? She was everything, she was to be saved! " She was alive... I felt it!" And yet when he reached to the Force, he could not feel her. He searched for her, for any sign that she was on Mustafar, but there was none. He could always feel, if not where she was, then at least how she was and now... She wasn't there.

He let the grief take him, not caring that he was wearing himself out. He was so worried about her dying, about him not being with her that he never considered that he would be the one to kill her. And yet she was gone, by his hand. He had no heart to ask about the child. Neither Obi-Wan, nor him were there to help her, neither of them cared at the time, both foolishly believing that Anakin Skywalker would have never killed her. That he never could.

But Darth Vader was no longer Anakin Skywalker, not when Padmé was dead.

"She was your last barrier, my young apprentice." The Master's voice sounded almost comforting.

"She would have betrayed you sooner or later. Her mind was too deeply rooted in the lies of the Republic and of the Jedi. She would have become your greatest weakness, had she lived." He saw the wisdom of his Master's words, and yet he couldn't agree, not out loud.

He saw her funeral through the holonet. She looked beautiful, as if she was only sleeping. As if she would wake up any moment and put the flowers off her hair, laughing as she always did when surrounded by flowers. She loved them as much as she loved Naboo. And now she was buried on Naboo, with flowers filling her coffin. The whole Galaxy cried for her, not knowing what took her from them.

He couldn't watch it and yet his eyes stayed fixed on her figure as the coffin progressed. She was not alone in it. Anakin Skywalker's child accompanied her to her grave. As if to highlight this fact, somebody put her necklace in her hand. For them it was just a memento, a gift from a young boy she met long time ago, something treasured.

For him it was a clear accusation. She would have lived, had she not loved him. She would have lived had he not loved her.

He never went to Naboo ever again.

She came back in his dreams.

She never talked, or moved. She just looked at him, flowers in her hair and the necklace in her hand. He could never reach her. As she was before, she was so far from him, unattainable. This time, it was his own fault and there was nothing he could change.

Sometimes he wished she would accuse him. That she will shout and cry, that she would somehow uphold the illusion of being more than just his imagination. She never did. She just stood unmoving, as if waiting for him.

His Master was wise. The group of Senators she met with so often suddenly disappeared. Few years later, they turned out to be the leaders of an outright rebellion. For a while, he felt happy that Padmé was no longer here. Had she been on their side...

But she was no longer alive.

He wondered sometimes what would she say if she saw the project of the Death Star. She often told him that fear was not loyalty and it was not true power. She probably wouldn't like it then.

It didn't matter, because she was no longer there.

The years without her all seemed the same. They were filled with widening the borders of the Empire, with stopping the rebels from upsetting everything they tried to build.

The dreams about her grew fewer and fewer with time and soon he could barely recall her face, or voice.

That's why he was so taken aback when they brought him Princess Leia of Alderaan. The moment he looked at her defiant face, he saw Padmé. He saw her clear as day, like she was in the Arena, brave and unyielding. The illusion disappeared quickly. She had similar hairdo and that was about it. When she proved to be immune to the truth serum, he almost felt proud. As if she earned the comparison to Padmé. Still, she was a rebel, an enemy. He watched Tarkin destroy Alderaan with no regrets.

The night after the princess's escape and Obi-Wan's death, he dreamt of Padmé yet again. This dream however, was different than the others. They were on Naboo as it looked when they were there together, sunlight making the lake shine like gold. She was looking at him with a soft smile and he was almost sure that this was a memory, until he felt someone tugging at his sleeve.

It was a boy, one he had never seen before. He had sandy hair and looked at him with something akin to awe. Not knowing why, he picked up the child, as if it a logical thing to do, and watched Padmé give the boy a soft kiss on the cheek. He opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by a shout, possibly girl's, coming from behind him. When he and Padmé turned to face the approaching girl, everything disappeared. He never sees the girl's face, nor the boy's. The dream never returned.

By the time he learned that the boy who helped the Princess to escape was Luke Skywalker he is determined to convince the boy to join him. If the boy had his mother's blood would never agree for him to join the Empire, but maybe, just maybe... Anakin Skywalker's son was alive. And it was more than he dared to hope for.

Yet it turned out the boy was more Padmé's son, than Anakin's. He was defiant, trained by Obi-Wan in the way of the Jedi and refusing to open his mind to other options. He might become a weakness, just like his mother could become a weakness and he needed to be taken care of. Darth Vader couldn't let everything come to ruin because once he was Anakin Skywalker.

So he hunted the boy, he tried to persuade him...

When he learned that he also has a daughter, that one dream from years ago, the one he could never forget now makes sense.

Watching Luke suffering by the hand of the Emperor is the end of Vader.

If she managed to give birth to two children, she could never die by his hand.

Anakin Skywalker did not kill Padmé. And he will not kill any of her children.

He is thankful when he feels the systems supporting his life shutting down few moments after his former Master disappears in a lightening.

He cannot live in this new world of Luke Skywalker.

But when he finally looks at his own son with eyes of Anakin and not Vader, he sees her again. He sees her in Luke's eyes and in his concern. He sees her in his undying hope and love for him, even though he does not deserve it.

Now he regrets many things.

Dying in the arms of his son is not one of them. With his last breath, Luke's image becomes blurry and for a moment he sees somebody else kneeling next to him. He sees a beautiful woman in a purple dress, flowers in her hair and a bone necklace in her hand, the other one caressing his cheek. Her eyes are wet with tears but she is smiling.

Finally, she is smiling.

Anakin Skywalker also smiles and closes his eyes.