Author's Note: Hello there! This chapter is only...three and a half weeks behind schedule. Ohmygod. Work was hell for the entire month of August, and I'm so sorry for the lateness here.

Lot's of canon dialogue within. George Lucas wrote it, I am just here to play :)

Chapter 19

Anakin

"And the Jedi rebellion has been foiled…"

Chancellor Palpatine's speech had uneasiness curling in Padmé's gut. Smoke billowed still from the ruin of the Jedi Temple, and here the Senate sat, hanging on every word of the man who had ordered its destruction.

"In order to secure the continuing stability," Palpatine continued, "the Republic will be reorganized into the first Galactic Empire!"

No. Padmé's stomach dropped as all around her the Senate erupted into applause.

"For a safe and secure society!" Palpatine concluded.

Their cheers intensified. It was deafening. Jeering.

The din swallowed up any sound of protest. A wave of motion swept throughout the chamber as Senators rose from their seats.

A standing ovation.

"So this is how liberty dies?" Padmé said with a glance back at her security and fellow Delegation senators. She glared down at Palpatine. "With thunderous applause."

Palpatine raised his arms, accepting the Senate's rapturous cheers as if they were a lover's embrace. Somewhere beneath the noise, he laughed in triumph.

No one seemed to care.

"It is done, then," Mon Mothma said, and for the first time since Padmé had known her, she sounded weary. "The Jedi are gone, and the Republic with them. What we've feared the most has come to pass."

"No." Bail stood. "We cannot allow this to happen. The Senate is still intact. We can still stop this before—"

"Bail," Mon Mothma said. "Listen to them"

The crowd grew louder, chanting Palpatine's name.

Bail sat back in his seat, looking pale. "I can't…"

"Milady, what are we going to do?" Dormé whispered.

"I don't see what can be done," Captain Typho said quietly. "They chose this. They are choosing this as we speak."

"Palpatine. Palpatine. Palpatine."

His name no longer sounded like a name at all, but rather some diseased, infectious heartbeat powering the frenzy.

"No." Padmé shook her head. "I won't accept that. We cannot give up. Not yet. Not like this."

"Milady, you should leave this place. You could be in danger. You were there at the temple," Typho said. "You helped Jedi escape. What if someone saw you? You heard what the Emperor said—"

"The Emperor?" Dormé hissed, aghast.

"Dormé, he's right," Padmé said reluctantly. "We must call Palpatine what he's become. He seized this power, but we will find a way to seize it back."

Bail spoke up, "Chancellor Palpatine had no right to claim this power in the first place—"

"But he has," Mon Mothma said. "The Senate granted him emergency powers, and the seizure is within his right. This is the galaxy in which we now live."

Padmé felt grim. "It doesn't have to be."

"No," Mon Mothma said. "It does not."

"Where do we begin?" Bail whispered. "The last avenues for change in the Senate are all but closed to us."

Padmé played with the chain of her japor snippet, weighing their options with a heavy heart. "There must be a way to operate within the confines of a dictatorship, one that Palpatine cannot stifle. We must continue the work of the Delegation."

"Chancellor Palpatine already counted the Delegation as an ideological opponent. Emperor Palpatine will regard us as something far more dangerous. It will not be easy," Mon Mothma said.

Padmé let the necklace fall. "It never has been."

Mon Mothma bowed her head in agreement. "Then we will do our work wherever it can be done. Inside of this chamber, and out."

The Senate still cheered as if they would never grow tired.

Bail glanced around the vast, echoing chamber. "We'll need to change minds…"

"We'll need more than that," Padmé said. "We'll need to change hearts."

It had grown dark. Early night hung above Varykino, shrouding the lake country in blackness dotted with a million tiny stars.

It felt to Padmé as if anything that happened there would be a secret. As if it were a world removed from the Delegation and the Rebel Alliance and the Empire itself.

As if in a dream, she took Vader's outstretched hand and dismounted the shaak, and he caught her waist to help her to the ground. She stepped forward to stop herself before she could touch him, and again she was shaken by his closeness.

Padmé was lost in him, and guilt chewed at her heart.

I'm supposed to be stronger than this.

But a deeper part of her, one that had gone too long unexplored, spoke up.

I don't care.

For the first time, Padmé let herself feel it.

"Are you all right?" Vader asked, thumb drawing a reassuring line on her wrist that left her lightheaded. "You're trembling."

"I'm fine," Padmé lied, withdrawing her hand from his grip.

There was a crease between his brows, but he didn't press her.

She knew that frown.

I knew you. The pit in Padmé's stomach deepened.

But even with her creeping suspicions, she could not picture Vader any way other than he was now. Yellow-eyed and too young and full of fear.

A pang of sympathy shot through her heart, mingling with something far stronger in a potent cocktail. An emotion she didn't dare name.

An ache spread through her chest.

As they walked down the portico to the lower level entrance, Artoo rolled to greet them.

Vader passed by him and went inside, but Padmé hesitated. Artoo's radar eye swiveled toward her with a beep of confirmation. A lump rose in her throat.

The time left for ever voicing that feeling was growing thin. The computer was repaired, the ability to send a distress signal within her reach. She could be gone as soon as morning.

Padmé exhaled, suddenly afraid.

Their time was up.

"Is there anything you need?" Vader asked, startling her from her thoughts. "Before you…"

He cut himself off.

"No," Padmé whispered. Her chest tightened, her heartbeat sped.

Vader gave her a nod of acceptance and moved for his cloak in an alcove off the entryway.

Padmé closed her eyes. "Vader."

He turned back to her with an expression of unmasked and utter devotion. It gave her a chill and stole the words from her lips.

Vader stepped closer. "Yes?"

Padmé swallowed. "I want you to co—"

"I wish you didn't have to—" Vader said at the same moment.

He stopped just as she did, echoing her nervous exhale.

"But I do have to," Padmé said. She took a steadying breath. "And I'm going to."

Vader didn't meet her eyes.

Padmé hesitated and cleared her throat. "You didn't change your mind about—?"

Vader shook his head before she could finish and reached out to brush a loose curl from her face. Padmé caught his mechanical hand and held it. His fingers tightened around hers in surprise, a tight, unwavering grip. It loosened, and she linked their fingers.

"I would never do that to you," Vader said.

"You've changed so much…"

The words felt strange as she said them.

Vader bit his lip. "You haven't changed a bit. You're exactly the way I—"

Padmé kissed him.

His mouth yielded beneath hers as he cradled her face in his hands. Padmé broke the kiss and pulled back, and rested her forehead against his. She screwed her eyes shut and found they were wet.

"Padmé," Vader said shakily. "I…"

She pressed her fingers to his lips, silencing him, tracing their shape. If it was her only chance to say it. "I love you."

Vader pulled back, his eyes searching her face in shock. He looked to his feet. "I thought that you had decided that you were going to run."

Did he not understand?

"You were going to escape," Vader said, "and be free of the Empire…"

"I think we both know I won't be free as long as there's an Empire to run from," Padmé said.

She ran her hands down Vader's arms, taking both of his hands in hers. The cold and the warm. The living and the dead.

"I truly, deeply," Padmé's said, "love you. And before I run, I want you to know."

Vader nodded and pulled her closer. Padmé let him, her arms twining around his neck. She laughed when he spun her in a circle and pressed his mouth to hers. Vader set her down, her back meeting the wall.

Padmé's breath hitched when Vader kissed the slope of her neck Again, and again, hands wandering along her waist and back, learning the shape of her. Her fingers tangled in his hair, and she closed her eyes with a sharp breath when he nibbled at her pulse point. Her hands trailed along his spine and tightened against his shoulder blades, when he mouthed the hollow of her ear. Hungry and clumsy and wonderful.

"I love you…" Padmé said, almost startled by the aching, breathy desperation in her voice,"Vader."

She drew him into another kiss, but he pulled back with a gasp.

"Wait," Vader said, holding her at arm's length.

Padmé swallowed at his sudden distance, at the cool wall against her back, and realized where she may have gone wrong. She crossed her arms over her chest. "Oh. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have assumed that you—"

"You're sorry? No. Look at me…" Vader's thumb traced her jawline and Padmé did just that. His eyes flickered to her lips. "It's not you. It could never be you. You are—" Whatever she was, Vader didn't seem to have a word. His eyes went soft and his fingers tangled in the hair at the nape of her neck. "I love you."

Padmé inhaled.

"I've always loved you," Vader murmured to himself more than to her. He shook his head as if to clear it. "But, Padmé, it's…It's my name."

Padmé's heart flew to her throat.

Vader's eyes lit up with silent pleading. "Padmé, please, say my name…"

"But I did. I—" Padmé's eyes grew larger. Because in that instant, she more than knew.

From the moment she'd met his eyes on the bridge of the Annihilator, some latent part of her had wondered.

The oil-stains on his shuttle's workbench and the way he piloted ships. The way she felt so easy with him, like he were a friend she had never known she was missing. That inextinguishable kindness in him that burned like a low ember. How he'd watched out for her each and every moment since they'd met, never content with helping her no matter how many times he managed to do it. The way that he blushed and stammered and lost control of his words when she was near. And the way he had looked at her necklace.

When Padmé looked up to meet Vader's eyes—

Blue.

Her heart gave a thump of realization.

His eyes were blue.

Padmé's hands flew up to cup Vader's face so she could look at him, really look at him.

Look into his eyes for the first time in eleven years.

And Padmé knew. She'd always known. His name escaped her lips in a near-inaudible whisper. "Anakin?"

Vader crushed her into a kiss. Padmé swallowed it like water after a month of thirst but withdrew again to look into his eyes.

Anakin's eyes.

With a cry, she kissed every inch of his face, from his cheeks to his chin to the tip of his nose.

"Ani, Ani, Ani," was all Padmé could say each time she got a word in. "You're Anakin. You're—"

Padmé pulled him into her arms and held him there with a sigh, her fingers curling possessively into his hair as if at any moment he could be taken from her again. He dropped his lips to the crook of her neck and Padmé closed her eyes, pressing her cheek to his hair and breathing him in.

Vader drew back and cupped her face in his hands.

"You're crying." His thumbs swiped at her tears.

Padmé pressed a kiss into his palm. She tried to smile, but her lip shook instead. "I thought you were dead."

"I know."

She felt herself crumbling.

"You, you're here, you…" Padmé said, her fingers straying from his shoulders to his face, proving he was there with her. Horror set in like illness in her stomach. "You lied to me."

Vader reached for her hand as she broke away, and it felt like tearing off a limb to pull herself away from him. Padmé felt sick.

He spoke to her back, "I have no excuses. Padmé, I'm so sorry, but I couldn't…"

"Why didn't you tell me? I would have helped you," Padmé said, whirling on him as hot tears rose in her throat, "I would've done anything that I could if I knew—"

"You would have tried," Vader said. At least he looked ashamed of himself. "There is no helping me."

Padmé studied him, the bow of his head and the broken way he held himself. "Ani, what did the Emperor do to you?"

Vader shifted, suddenly uncomfortable. "I can't—"

"Anakin—"

"Don't. I'm sorry, I was wrong. It doesn't…It doesn't sound right."

Padmé felt a quiver of horror in her stomach, but respected his wish. "What happened to you?"

"What did you think happened?"

"I thought you were taken back to Tatooine, or by the Federation. I thought you could have been ejected from the fighter, lost in space," Padmé said. "I was barely fourteen. I thought of everything, a thousand awful ways for you to die—"

"I'm worse," Vader said. "You don't know the power of the Dark Side."

The words hung between them with a cold note of finality.

"Tatooine…" Padmé looked at Vader with new grief. "Oh no. Shmi, she—"

"No," Vader said harshly.

Padmé stopped, her heart skipping a terrified beat.

"Please," he said more quietly. "I will not talk about that. Anything but that."

"All right," Padmé whispered. "We won't"

But her pulse was still racing.

Vader reached out with more hesitancy than before, and lifted the japor snippet from where it rested against her sternum. "I remember when I gave this to you."

"So do I." Padmé folded her hand around his, hating the way she was shaking. "Thank you for telling me the truth."

She let go.

Vader swallowed, hand curling at his side.

Padmé couldn't quite look at him as she said, "I'm still going to leave—"

"I know," Vader said. "You should, and soon."

"You can stay tonight," Padmé said, "have Sola's room."

Vader tried to meet her eyes. "Thank you."

She didn't look at him. She didn't say anything back.

Vader gave her a long look in parting, and turned away.

Padmé waited for him to ascend the stairs before following, watching him all the while.

He wore the same robes and bore the same scars. Had the same hair and hands and mouth. And an hour ago, he had had a different name.

What was she supposed to call him now?

Padmé felt tears coming on before she could stop them.

He lied to me, she thought again.

And yet.

I didn't lie to him.

She watched Vader open Sola's bedroom door in silence.

Padmé spoke before she could stop herself, "I'm glad to have met you, Anakin."

He smiled at her sadly. "I was glad to meet you, too."

Padmé's cheeks hot and wet as he nodded in parting.

Anakin turned to go.

"Wait."

He froze, his hand on the door to Sola's bedroom.

Padmé's heart hammered. "Stay?" Her eyes filled with fresh tears.

Anakin was only still for a moment before his eyes widened in realization.

"Ani, please," Padmé said, "stay with me?"

With a hesitant step, he inched nearer, and she gave him a the smallest nod..

In three quick strides, Anakin closed the distance between them, catching Padmé around her waist and pulling her to his chest. Her arms closed around his neck, fingers tangled in his hair, and their lips met in a desperate, needy kiss.

Padmé's feet left the floor as he stumbled back with her into her room. Over his shoulder, she shut the door.