Hello there.

This is the first story I'm writing on here, and the first one I ever wrote in english. I'm mostly writing to improve myself, and because I enjoy it. So I would be very grateful for any sort of feedback I can use to get better. Anyway, enjoy the story, I had fun writing it.

Everything was pure darkness. There was no sound, no sensation. It was like Vader was deep underwater, being embraced by silence. A few lights appeared in the distance and Vader flinched to avoid them.

His eyes hurt, not yet familiar with the sudden light that got brighter and brighter. Vader opened them carefully, his blurry vision turning more focused with every second. As soon as his vision had somewhat adjusted, he could make out doctors bending over his head, examining him.

He heard their blubbering voices as if they were far away, and he wanted them to shut up so badly, so he could have his peace. "Are you fully conscious again, Lord Vader?", he could make out one of the voices saying.

"Yes.", he answered the simple question, surprised by the sound. He wasn't wearing his mask, but his voice wasn't rough and sore. He barely remembered his actual voice.

Usually he sounded like he was taking a forced break between two coughs, and he could feel his dry throat grinding itself with every little sound he made. It was already a relief.

If the surgeons had been able to repair his vocal cords to this extend, his worries might have been without reason. "Wonderful.", the doctor replied, witnessing his attention to another part of Vaders body.

Vader noticed how he inhaled and exhaled without the far too well known throbbing in his chest. He could breathe.

That even was painful in the mask, and here he was doing it all on his own, as if he was a fully functioning human being. "Everything went perfectly.", another doctor assured him gently.

He felt how all of them stopped touching him and took a step away. They finally stopped talking too. "Try sitting upright, Lord Vader.", the leading doctor said after a few seconds of much needed silence. Vader wasn't used to be given orders from others than the Emperor.

But he couldn't care less right now. He began bringing his Torso upright, which was hard work, considering he wasn't wearing his armor. He had no control over his mechanical limbs without it, so he had no support of his arms or legs.

He had to do it only with the muscles of his abdomen. He nearly jumped as his arms joined his act instinctively. He hurried to reach his goal so he could stare at them, unbelieving. They couldn't be here.

One of them had been burning in a lava lake on Mustafar for two years already, his right one had left him on Geonosis even longer ago. He looked at his equally human legs with fascination.

"You really have returned what I have lost.", he murmured, addressing the doctors, as he was deep in his own thoughts at the same time. "Not returned, but replaced with an exact replica of your own limbs and organs."

He was no longer a cyborg. He was human again. He wasn't relying on the machines that caused him such immense pain anymore.

He felt how his fingertips touched each other, which was a sensation he had almost forgotten in two long years without a second in which he was spared of inhumane pain. He looked up at the old Twi'Lek in a lab coat.

He could feel how afraid she was. He chuckled innerly. Of course she feared him, she wasn't a fool. Obviously not, Vader added to his train of thoughts, looking at his limbs. His very own limbs. "Thank you.", he said sincerely.

"You are very welcome, Lord Vader.", she replied. He had been nervous to be unconscious as long as the surgery took, since it was leaving him in such a vulnerable position.

There was barely anything that he despised more than letting his guard down. Barely. Something in him tightened, at the thought of her. How dared he?

The thought of her was sacred, and he wasn't even close to being worthy of polluting it. Not after he choked her to death.

The pain and shame came back to him, the two years that had passed didn't change a thing about what Vader felt about Padmé's death.

Leia's lower lip slowly began to move. Padmé knew what that meant. Her daughter was gravely displeased. "Cookie!", the toddler demanded again, with more determination. Padmé took her daughter in her arms.

"Please.", the exhausted mother began. "You've just had one, Leia. It's time to sleep now." Padmé threw a glance at Luke who was fast asleep already. Leia's chubby, tiny face hardened a little.

It would have been adorable if it wasn't the symbol of the senator's diplomacy failing. "Cookie!", Leia said again. She wasn't asking anymore. "Sweetie, it would be unfair. Luke won't get a second one either."

Leia looked at her brother with disinterest. "Cookie!" Padmé sighed. "I don't stand a chance against your Skywalker will, do I?" Padmé inners cramped as the name left her mouth.

She didn't want to argue with her daughter anymore. Leia struggled slightly, as she was put in the crib she shared with Luke, but was calm then, aware not to disturb her brother.

Padmé leaned down to kiss both of her children on the forehead. Finally she sat down on her own bed. It had old and thin sheets, that barely kept her warm. She always kept her daily clothes on over night.

Before Padmé wanted to blow out the candle's light, to leave the small cabin's inside in darkness, something moved in the shadow. Padmé tried to make out what it was as she recognized it. It was the Cookie Jar.

Those Cookies were the only treats she could afford for her children. When she left Coruscant, she thought that they would have settled somewhere by a few months at the most and she didn't take all of her savings with her.

That turned out to be a grave mistake. Now she fought to keep every single credit, growing very poor after two years. At first she wanted to go to Alderaan. Padmé had hoped Bail would hide her and her children.

He had said his world was too involved with the empire, and that she wouldn't be safe there. It was too close to Coruscant. He had only offered to take Leia in, and raise her as his own daughter. Padmé had struggled to formulate her decline in a polite manner.

Bail had organized her a shipping to the rim. It would be far from the Emperor, he had promised. So they had ended up on Thyferra. The bright side was that Padmé didn't need to pay any money on warm clothes.

Although, she did fear that the children would run off into the jungle when they were fast enough. Leia was still wrestling with the Jar. It wobbled a little but didn't budge. Leia wasn't even aware of what she was trying to do.

But Padmé had seen it a lot of times, she knew when they used the Force subconsciously. Sometimes she was terrified. She had thought using the Force like this had to be trained for years. And here were her twins.

They could barely say more than two words in a row, and yet they were performing telekinesis without any training or education. Padmé figured it had something to do with Anakin being the Chosen One.

The one who would destroy the sith to bring peace back to the galaxy. To bring Balance to the Force. That was how he had quoted the prophecy so many years ago. Padmé refused to give up hope.

Staging his death on Mustafar was probably all part of his plan. He really was the Chosen One. He lived. That was the belief she was clinging to. She feared that she would lose her sanity the moment she accepted his death.

Darth Vader sat in his quarters, meditating. The dark side was present like always, despite him not having conjured it willingly. He didn't want to belong to any order. Nor any empire. Vader looked at the lightsabers in front of him.

One was the one he had built after he broke his weapon in the Droid factory on Geonosis. Her face flashed through his mind. She had been there too. She was so set on going there, having a mind of her own.

He had gotten the other one after his fight on Mustafar. Vader had lied to the Emperor when he opposed his then new master. He told him that he had lost his saber to Obi Wan Kenobi.

When Vader was screaming in agony and frustration, having lost all limbs and burning alive, Obi Wan had picked it up and made his way back to her lifeless body. Vader had reached out through the force and dropped it from his belt unnoticed.

Vader still didn't know why he had lied back then, or why he had put so much effort into retrieving it, while he was on fire. Somehow he couldn't stand the thought of losing it, or bloodying the Kyber Crystal in it.

He wasn't able to grasp why. But he didn't bother to think more about it than necessary. He could feel the force signatures of both weapons so strong he felt like he could almost touch them. One was filled with rage and hate.

Vader had to bloody the crystal in the Throne room two years ago. Sidious had wanted to see it. The other one remained as pure as it had always been.

Vader felt something comforting about something never changing as his world and beliefs collapsed around him like a house made from cards. It didn't matter to him, who would win the war.

It didn't matter to him if the people were to anxious to look at his face. It didn't matter to him if he was a sith. Though he thought that that should require more passion and commitment. He remembered the Code of the Sith.

And he remembered the Code of the Jedi. They opposed each other in every way, teaching the exact opposite. The sith taught to use negative emotions to one's advantage. Like Hate and Anger.

They taught to welcome and fuel those emotions. Jedi taught to have no emotions at all. No negative feelings, nor positive ones. There was only the force. Vader had always believed that both ways were ignorant. What about positive emotions?

The Jedi believed they led to hatred, even though they were complete opposites. The Sith thought that those feelings led to pity, mercy and weakness. But what if they were both wrong?

What would happen if one fuelled the force with pure, beautiful love? Whenever he tried to use his love to Padmé, he had failed. There had been pictures in his head of her choking, as he gripped tighter through the force.

His tries always resulted in enforcing his self hatred. He despised no one more than the person who had killed his beloved Padmé. But Vader still refused to believe that the Jedi's teachings of love were correct.

If Padmé was alive, unharmed, maybe Vader could have made his theory work. But she wasn't.