RC-1197 here! Just a small vignette set around the beginning of the Empire. A small plot bunny didn't want to scurry back to its burrow, but no harm done. If you feel sad after reading this, check out, "The Japor Snippet." It's my own AU story where Anakin doesn't turn to the dark side and Obi-Wan had more faith in his brother than in the movies.

I DON'T OWN STAR WARS. Enjoy!

I am sorry. I am so sorry. Those words served as a mantra in the mind and soul of a broken man. He felt hollow inside. It was if his entire humanity and meaning to his life left the corporeal space. Agony ripped through his veins and left an ache in his heart. Everything he had cared about was gone, violently ripped away from him without a single word of protest in his part.

Had he not made the mistake of believing the Emperor's web of lies, he would've been with his family in the mountainous planet of Naboo. How he missed the rolling plains where wild shaaks roamed and the crystal blue waters he could have taught his children to swim in. He dared to dream endless days of relaxation with the children chasing each other without a single care in the whole galaxy except keeping up with their game; his beautiful angel wrapped in his protective arms, even if it burned a painful reminder of what had not been.

Yet he still imagined the lazy afternoon with the imagined rays of sunlight bathing both he and his wife, creating a light golden glow around them. She would've smiled at the spectacle their children were making and he would give a soft chuckle to go along with it. "It's so calm, peaceful, and perfect here," her sweet voice sighed in the most exquisite of ways. He would have played with his wife's chocolate curls that cascaded down to the middle of her back before taking his wife's hand in his fleshed one.

"It's only perfect because of you and the children, my love," he heard himself purr in his mind's eye, a degree of warmth evident in his every word. He would then place his wife's grasped hand near his mouth and lightly kiss it, feeling his lips brush her knuckles.

"You romantic," he imagined her teasing him, as she would feel his arms draw her closer to him, if that were even possible. It was just perfect.

But it was only a fantasy, a simple conjured up line of thought made to make a being wonder and dream. Just a dream…

His own breath caught him off-guard for a moment as the mechanics of his life-support kept him alive now. It sounded menacing and ominous, a dark shadow constantly creating that noise, something a parent would imitate to their children during a boogeyman story. Dead and soulless, that's what it sounded like to his badly burned ears. He wondered if that's what other beings and Imperial officers thought about him, nothing more than a cyborg whose main purpose was to obey the Emperor's wishes. It had hurt and angered him because they were right.

Images of imaginary moments flashed through his mind without the slightest hesitation and he flinched at the ghostly warmth of his wife's body pressed to his, he can no longer feel that. Light caresses of her cheek were no longer an option, as his now mechanical hands had no sensors to feel anything. Soft blades of grass under his feet would now be crushed underneath his heavy boots that covered fake appendages. The dancing winds would just beat against his helmet in protest as something unnatural had impeded its path.

For days on end, the flashes tormented him. It teased him in the most cruel of ways as it constantly reminded him of what he lost. He could no longer sleep, for the armor had restricted him to a comfortable slumber. In rare moments where mercy finally allowed him to lose conscious thought, he only dreamt of nightmares far worse than what the flashes produced. The galaxy hated him and he had to agree with it, because he hated himself.

Yells of approval suddenly brought the man to his physical surroundings. Clad in his Force-forsaken black life-support armor, he loomed over the Emperor's sickening presence like a shadow beings could see and dared not talk about. "My friends, it is a devastating loss for me to see a close friend perish before she could see the Empire's might," the Emperor announced as he glanced at the shadow beside him. Darth Vader could tell that his master only said those words to throw him into the abyss of regret and blame. "In the utmost respect and honor, I am proud to present you with this," a veiled section of the wall behind them fell to the ground in an un-glorified way.

Vader turned his head quickly to see Padmé Amidala stare back at him. The portrait had captured his wife in her youth. Though she was a mere painting, it made Vader yearn for her. Her soft lips against his and tender moments shared between lovers hung over Vader's head. Padmé was dressed in the same yellow sundress she had worn while they were on Naboo before the war; her gaze was regal and admirable. Vader wanted to hug and hold her in his embrace forever, but it was the dream of a dead man.

At that exact moment, as the final remnants of Anakin Skywalker gazed at his wife's portrait with longing eyes, he screamed for help as he lay dying in the black void of Vader's mind. Anakin wanted to find a way to reverse all he had done and regretted. But none came.

His scream was left unheard.

Let me know what you guys think, I honestly read your reviews and from there I can improve my writing for the better.

May the Force Be With you!