Author's Note: Minor detail change. Instead of Vader attacking Takodana, I changed it to Tatootine because it makes a little more sense and will be explained later in the chapter. I'm sorry I haven't been updating much of anything lately, work and school have been cruel mistresses. I'm going to try do to better but I can't guarantee anything.

Anywho here's Ch. 4 of Obsession, tell me what you think yeah?

The bond was silent during the week leading up to the gala in which Padmé was meant to find Rush Clovis. And while Megara wanted to be relieved, her encounters with Vader so far had convinced her otherwise. When she wasn't helping her cousin to prepare for the upcoming reunion, she was pondering over her situation, the nature of it, and what she might have to do in certain situations.

When the day arrived, Megara was meditating in her quarters trying to think of a solution that didn't include telling the Jedi Council or those closest to her. Eventually, her thoughts went to her late Aunt Andromeda. Unlike most of their people, she chose a more passive path in life and refused to learn how to fight much to her sister's chagrin. She had a tendency to be naive and a hopeless romantic. Which was why her aunt didn't heed her mother's warnings about the man who had begun to court her. This particular man had an... unsavory reputation, but Aunt Andromeda was convinced that she could change him. Six months after the courtship began, she ran away with him.

Megara winced as she remembered her mother telling her that they eventually found out that her aunt was raped multiple times before being killed. Once the man was eventually caught, Themyscirian laws gave her mother the ability to avenge the wrongdoings inflicted upon her sister. She was pregnant with her and Mathyus when she removed the man's head after he was determined to be guilty. That was the explanation Atalanta gave her when she finally confronted her on why she was much harsher with her than she was with Mathyus when it came to their training.

I lost one of my sisters because she refused to learn how to defend herself, I refuse to lose my daughter for the same reasons.

A horrible thought then occurred to her. The Sith try to take whatever they want, no matter who it hurts. What's to say that he wouldn't take her body without her permission?

She gritted her teeth and stood up, subconsciously grabbing her lightsaber and igniting it. No, I will die before I let that monster defile me!

"Meg? Are you alright?"

Megara blinked before remembering where she was. "I'm fine."

Extinguishing her lightsaber, the Grey Jedi composed herself before turning and leaving her room. When she walked into Padmé's bedroom, she found her sitting at her vanity with Tekla fixing her hair. Megara leaned against the doorway and smirked. "And will we be using your real hair today or one of the many wigs you have?"

Padmé playfully glared at her through the mirror. "Oh haha. If you must know I will not be using any wigs for this particular mission. All-natural."

Megara grinned. "Then true congratulations are in order then."

Her cousin gasped mockingly. "So cruel, and after I had a dress provided for you and everything!"

That made the Themyscirian pause. "Excuse me?"

Padmé grinned. "You heard me. While you are my bodyguard, you're also my cousin. And what's more natural than two cousins promenading a gala together?"

Megara shook her head. "There is no way I'm wearing a dress. I love you Padmé but no!"

The senator waved Teckla away before turning to look at her cousin. "Think about it, you would still be there as my bodyguard. But it would give Clovis the impression that I trust him enough to have my personal bodyguard not on guard as much."

At her cousin's silence, Padmé grinned in victory. "You know I'm right. The dress is ready and waiting in your closet.

Megara growled under her breath while wondering when during the day she managed to sneak past her and put a dress in her closet. "I hate you!"

Padmé's laughter followed her out. "No you don't!"

-Time Skip-

Megara sighed as she looked at herself in the mirror. Thankfully, Padmé didn't go too overboard. It wasn't even an actual dress, it was more of a dressier, version of her Grey Jedi robes with an open front skirt and collar that went a little higher up her neck.

Clipping her lightsaber to a hidden pocket in her robes/dress and straightening the more elaborate than usual braid her hair had been pulled back in, she nodded at herself before walking out to the receiving area where Padmé was waiting. Her cousin looked up from the report in her hands and grinned at the sight of her. "See? I took you into consideration when I had it designed."

The Grey Jedi laughed and looked down at her apparel once more. "Indeed you did." A thought occurred to her and she looked at Padmé. "Need I ask how long you've had this on hand?"

Padmé rolled her eyes before standing up. "Not long. From what I've been told it was easy and simple to alter your robes."

Megara sighed before smiling at her cousin and offering her arm to her. "How are you doing? Are you ready to see him again."

The senator snorted and shook her head as she twined her arm through her cousin's. "I don't really have a choice in the matter do I?"

"That's not what I asked. I asked if you were ready, not Senator Amidala."

Padmé was quiet as they walked towards the speeder meant to take them to the gala, Threepio treading along behind him. "Not particularly. It ended on such a bad note Meg, I don't even know if this will work."

Megara patted her hand as they sat in the speeder. "It will work. With how he reacted to your rejection, he'll be drawn to you like a moth to a flame."

Her cousin nodded. "I hope you're right."

So do I.

-Time Skip-

The gala was already bustling with activity by the time the two cousins arrived. Megara recognized a few senators from Senate Meetings and other similar gatherings mingling together with the quote-unquote Nobility of Coruscant.

"There he is."

The Grey Jedi followed her cousin's line of sight to see the man their mission revolved around, Rush Clovis talking with a few noblemen.

"Orders Milady?"

Padmé took a deep breath before slipping into Senator mode. "There's a somewhat of a secluded balcony that overlooks the garden. I'll get Clovis there, you will be waiting in the garden below as a look out."

With one more squeeze of their hands, the cousins separated to their respective posts. Megara's dress was perfect when it came to blending into the shadows, which made it easier not to be noticed as she made her way through the crowd and out of the building.

The garden as an actual sight to behold, and she wished she had more time to look around, but the mission came first. She arrived at the balcony where Padmé and Clovis were already conversing. Already her cousin's body language showed discomfort with how close her old... Friend was. Thinking quickly, the Grey Jedi plucked a flower from a nearby tree and used the Force to float it up towards her cousin. Padmé saw the flower and quickly plucked it out of the air, giving her/the garden a grateful look.

Megara let herself lean against a tree as she listened to her cousin converse with Clovis. Unfortunately fate was not with her that night, because she felt the Force shift and the man who has been plaguing her thoughts appeared.

He didn't say anything at first when he saw her, instead he looked to be in complete and absolute awe.

"Now I know what true beauty is."

Megara's thoughts went back to her aunt and she looked away. "I sincerely doubt that."

Vader tilted his head as he drank in her form. "What occasion has you dressing so exquisitely?"

She didn't look at him. "No reason that concerns you."

The Sith Assassin smirked. "Now that I sincerely doubt."

Megara looked up to the heavens for strength. "How can you converse with me so normally?! What gave you the impression that any of this is normal?!"

His calm shrug infuriated her even more. "This bond isn't by chance. There's a reason why The Force bound us."

"I don't want this."

"I doubt either of us have a choice in the matter."

A smirk at the irony of choices and her particular path was on her lips for a brief second before disappearing. "We always have a choice."

"And I'm choosing you."

The Grey Jedi's eyes snapped to him, fury sparking in her gaze. "Why can't you just let me go?!"

"Why can't you accept that we're meant to be together?! The Force bound us together for a reason!" His yellow eyes raged with fire. "We will be together Angel, and I don't care what I have to do in order for that to happen."

Megara snarled. "I will take my own life before I let you use me in such a way."

Vader froze and went very quiet. The Grey Jedi watched in confusion as many emotions swam in his eyes while his face remained in its shellshocked state. If anything, he seemed... haunted.

"Vader?"

The Sith slowly refocused his gaze to her. "You think I would force myself onto you... that I would force you to give your body up to me?"

Megara pursed her lips, not expecting him to react this way. "Is that not the goal? To claim me? Bend me to your will?"

He stumbled back as if she had struck him. "No... No that's not what I want-"

She advanced on him, emotions as well as the force crackling around them. "Oh, but isn't that what the Sith do? Take whatever they want with no regard to anything else but their own selfish desire?!"

He snapped like an enraged Nexu. "I would never demand that of you! Yes I want you by my side, yes I want to be the only man in your life. Yes I want to destroy anyone who would take you from me. Or anyone who would hurt you for that matter... But to hurt you like that-" He looked away from her, his expression pained. "I am many things Megara, but someone who takes advantage of a woman is something I refuse to be."

The way he said his words is what made the Grey Jedi pause in her advance. Taking advantage of a woman was a sensitive topic for him. Megara remembered the time they played together when they were children, she said his master had punished him, meaning he was a slave. So at one point, he had probably seen a woman being taken advantage of.

"Who?"

Vader clenched his eyes shut before turning to look at her. "Who what?"

Megara's face didn't change. "You know what I mean by who." She bit her lip as she pondered her next move. "I'm still not sure what you saw, but from what you indicated you saw some of my most precious memories. How is that fair for me when I haven't seen any of your memories?"

The Sith assassin wrestled a dry smirk on his face. "You technically saw two of my memories before in the two visions from the past."

She rolled her eyes before turning away. "Why do I bother?"

"Wait." Megara paused but didn't turn around when he called after her. "I suppose sharing one of my memories with you would be beneficial. Trust is a two-way street after all."

She did turn around that, crossing her arms as she did. "I wouldn't go as far as to say that I will trust you after this, if ever."

Vader shrugged. "So you say." At the Grey Jedi's silence, the Sith sobered up and some of the pain from earlier returned to his features. "You know I was a slave."

Megara nodded. "I remember you telling me about what your master did to you when we were children."

Deep anger and hatred burned in his eyes when she mentioned that memory. "Watto. He... owned me and my mother. Other than the occasional beating he never forced either of us into any savory actions. Except for one time." His fists clenched and despair wrestled with anger and hatred. "I still don't know why it happened. Maybe Watto was drunk along with the scum he called friends, maybe he lost a bet... But he let them rape her. He let absolute trash hurt my mother in the worst way possible."

Without warning, he reached out to something she couldn't see before closing his fists around it, and moments later a crumpled droid fell at her feet. They both stared at it for a while, on in shock that something that was with him was suddenly with her while the other was haunted by a painful memory from the past.

Shaking herself from her shock, Megara looked at Vader to see emotions fighting for dominance on his face, anger and sadness being the winners. She reached out to touch his shoulder, but her hand stopped at the last moment. She pulled away and let her hand fall back to her side. "I'm sorry, your mother didn't deserve such cruelty."

Vader didn't look at her as a cruel and disturbing grin twisted itself onto his face. "I took my revenge on them... Every single one of them, I made them hurt more than she ever did. I saved Watto for last though, and I made sure to draw out his pain before I ended him."

A horrible thought then occurred to her. "Tatooine... That was why you were on Tatooine wasn't it?"

That awful grin was than directed towards her. "Indeed it was. And I enjoyed every minute of making anyone who hurt me and my mother suffer."

Megara could only shake her head as horror filled her. "Just when I thought there was a chance you were-"

"The creatures I killed were not what even you would consider good people Angel. They have hurt people other than me and my mother, and a lot worse too. I just gave what they deserved." He tilted his head mockingly in her direction. "I would have thought you of all people would have understood that."

She thought back to early when she was reminiscing about her mother avenging her sister by killing her rapist and murder. "I do, believe me I do." She remembered the pain of the massacre that took place on the desert planet, remnants of said pain still lingering in her psyche. "But the people who hurt you weren't the only ones you killed, were they? You've killed others, innocent people. People who've never even met you."

"I hardly think that Tusken Raiders could be considered people or innocent, and anyone else was people who dared to stand in my way."

Megara couldn't bear to look at him any longer. "Only a Sith deals in absolutes."

"Did you think I was anything different?"

She didn't let the mocking nature of his tone get to her. "No, I suppose not."

Both were silent after that, and the silence was once again broken by Vader. "What were you referring to earlier, when you were agreeing with me?"

Megara didn't look at him. "No, that's not how it works. You've seen a number of my memories, and have so far only told me about one single memory from your past." She couldn't resist rubbing a little salt into the wound. "When you were the boy that I played with as a child."

The dark emotions from early came back to his face. "That weak child is dead, I destroyed him."

This time the Grey Jedi did look at him. "I don't know if I believe that."

Vader raised an unimpressed eyebrow. "Early you said 'Just when I thought there was a chance that you-' I'm assuming you were going to say saved. Really darling pick an opinion of me, it is starting to become quite tiresome."

Megara couldn't find a refute for that one. Instead she just sighed. "This doesn't change anything does it?"

"That depends. I still plan on finding you and bringing you back here, I just don't plan on forcing you to give your body up to me." A dreamy kind of smile crossed his face. "Once you're here you will completely give yourself to the Dark Side and learn to love me."

The Themyscirian shook her head. "I'm not just going to give myself up...and I'm happy without serving an actual side of the Force." She paused as she pondered over the second thing he said. "Vader the kind of love you're talking about is not a healthy kind of love."

Vader smiled. "Don't you remember what I said the last time we talked? Love is cruel, painful, and addictive. You will love me one day, and the two of us will fight side by side."

She observed that thought for a moment. "Maybe I will, and maybe you won't be fighting for the Sith."

"Keep telling yourself that Angel."

Before she could say anything else, a gust of wind blew through the garden, causing some of the flower petals to fly off their stems and towards them. Vader suddenly reached out and snatched a few from the air when they were right next to her head, observing the white petals in his palm. "Where are you?"

Megara scoffed. "As if I'd tell you."

He looked ready to say something else, but before he actually did the Grey Jedi felt something in the Force shift. And it wasn't caused by the Sith Assassin.

She looked around the garden until she saw that she wasn't alone. Leaning against a statue was a tall man in black, armor-like clothing with a burnt orange lining. His dark eyes sparked with mischief, and his tan face was decorated with a half-smirk. Megara knew exactly who he was.

Before there was Rush Clovis, there was Hiro Ryu. Padmé would talk about her other companion from the Legislative Youth Program, and how when he spoke it was almost like he was casting a spell. She had claimed he could persuade anyone to his side.

Then he disappeared, and Padmé had been heartbroken. When he resurfaced after she became Queen of Naboo, she was at first relieved but then scandalized to see what the boy she had feelings for had become. He was a spy, a thief. Megara remembers when Padmé told her the words he said to her before he disappeared in the night again with several valuable trinkets that belonged to some of her advisors that ended up being corrupted after some investigation.

Maybe you should take a better look into the people who choose to surround yourself with Love.

"-gel? Angel!"

She was pulled from her memories by Vader's voice. She looked back at the Sith before looking back at the man who once, and might still, hold her cousin's heart. His smirk widened before he let his eyes travel up to where Padmé and Rush were still conversing. Megara narrowed her eyes at the man, and Hiro held a finger to his lips before winking and disappearing back into the shadows.

The Themyscirian sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "That is the last thing that needs to happen tonight."

"What? What's happening?"

She glared at Vader. "None of your business."

He crossed his arms. "When will you learn everything concerning you is my-"

The Sith's voice cut off as their connection suddenly closed and he disappeared. While she was relieved, she really had to learn how to actually block so the connection doesn't open while either were in embarrassing conditions like during a shower.

Shaking her head, she quickly made her way out of the garden and back up the stairs to the gala, praying to strength as she did. Please don't see him... Please, Gods of Olympus, don't let Padmé see him.

Her prayers were in vain when she noticed her cousin dancing with Hiro, who was somehow wearing clothes more suitable for an event. By the looks of it, they were arguing. Well, Padmé was arguing, Hiro was smirking as he refuted back. The timing ended up being perfect, however, because when the senator saw her perched at the edge of the room the music stopped, and she took the opportunity to say a brief word to her former flame before bustling over to the Grey Jedi as quickly as she could.

"We need to go, now!"

Megara said no more as she twined her arms with her cousin and both began walking to the door. She caught a glimpse of Hiro Ryu as they walked out, and the spy/thief gave her another grin and a two-finger salute.

Author's Note: Yes, Hiro is going to be a bigger character, especially when it comes to Padmé as the story goes on.

Daniel Henney as Hiro Ryu