A Thousand Lifetimes
Summary: AU. Padmé was too stubborn to die, but the Emperor found her, and punished her by locking her away, cutting her off from the Force so Vader would never find out the truth. For now she waits a thousand lifetimes for him to come back to her.
Author's Note: Off topic completely, my sister-in-law's had her baby, I have a very pretty niece!
Padmé sat in her cell in the imperial prison on her home planet of Naboo, writing down her thoughts on the walls. Sheev Palpatine had left her there to rot, in a cell that cut her off from the Force so that Darth Vader would not sense her presence.
There were interrogations involving drugs that made her feel pain, but she could handle pain, and they gave up, leaving her alone.
Time passed slowly, which was even more painful for her. An hour was a year, a day, a lifetime.
It had been a long time since she'd gone outside or even seen the sun.
Once she'd been given a cell mate, a Dr. Aphra, an archeologist, she'd been caught doing something for Lord Vader, apparently, she was one of his trusted "minions".
"Tell me about Lord Vader, if you work for him why would you be in this cell with me?"
"Well uh—that's kind of complicated," Dr. Aphra admitted. "Y'see people don't know I work for Lord Vader. They just see me as a meddling archeologist who goes after antiquated weapons."
"What's he like?" Padmé asked again.
"He's not the easiest person to be around, he's not one to talk much, he's very much a person who will do anything to complete his mission. I find him fascinating, there's never been anyone quite like him, more machine than man, I'd love to learn more about him."
You wouldn't like what you'd learn Dr. Aphra, Padmé sighed.
Padmé told her nothing about Anakin, after all, why would Dr. Aphra believe her, especially since Vader looked and behaved nothing like her Annie. It was nice having her tell stories, even if the things Vader did terrified her.
She was immensely surprised Anakin had returned to Geonosis, considering the memories they both shared.
At least her husband was decent to the woman, he wasn't particularly decent to his own subordinates, Padmé had heard a hundred stories of how Vader Force choked officers to death, she'd experienced it, and barely survived.
The evidence of this was the oxygen mask she wore, she had trouble breathing normally, even after 24 years, not that the Emperor provided the best medical care, as she could see with her husband, Vader could have been far more efficient with much better prosthetics and even the breath mask and artificial lungs, but Sheev enjoyed suffering, and that's why they were both the way they were.
"You're at least 46 right, so you were around when the Old Republic fell, yes?"
"Yes I was, there, I heard him and his speech, I heard all of it."
"Oh, I see."
"Well as for what I've done for Vader, I helped him get an army," Aphra explained. "Took him to Geonosis, for the battle droids."
"That's…interesting," Padmé noted.
"He's been searching for the person who has the plans to, well one of the Emperor's many weapons, he wouldn't give me details."
"Tell me about the Old Republic, and I want to record your answers, for posterity of course."
"No, if I told you anything about me, you'd be in danger," the former senator insisted. Vader would probably think Aphra was lying, making it up, and he might snap and kill her.
"They said you're the most dangerous person in the Empire, you look rather harmless."
"I wouldn't say that much," Padmé managed to laugh, before coughing. "I'm an excellent shot with a blaster."
Aphra sat beside her. "Won't you let me get this on record? Don't you want to share your story?"
"If you're going to record me, you show this only to…only to Vader, do you understand me?! You can't make this public! The Empire will murder you if you do!"
"You must really be dangerous then, how interesting!" Aphra noted the woman seemed to falter in saying Lord Vader's name, as if it were foreign and unnatural to her.
Aphra pulled out the recorder.
"Anakin, I know the last time we spoke, you weren't listening to me, so pleased just listen now, just this once. Anakin Skywalker, it is the name of your true self, you've only forgotten."
"I remember when there was goodness, light and warmth inside you, and I've thought long and hard about what happened to us, and I realized things I'd never thought of. I know how the dark took you away from me."
"The Dark is generous. Its first gift is concealment. Our true faces lie in the dark beneath our skins. Our true hearts remain shadowed deeper still. But its greatest concealment lies not in protecting our secret truths but in hiding from us the truths of others. The Dark protects us from what we dare not know."
"Its second gift is comforting illusion. The ease of gentle dreams and night's embrace. The beauty that imagination brings to what would repel in day's harsh light."
"But the greatest of its comfort is the illusion that it is temporary, that every night brings a new day. Because it is day that is temporary, day is the illusion."
"Its third gift is the light itself. As days are defined by the nights that divide them, as stares are defined by the infinite black through which they wheel, the dark embraces the light and brings it forth from the center of its own self. With each victory of the light, it is the Dark that wins."
"The Dark is generous and it is patient. It is the Dark that seeds cruelty to justice; that drips contempt into compassion. That poisons love with grains of doubt. The Dark can be patient, because the slightest drop of rain will cause those see to sprout. The rain will come and the seeds will sprout, for the Dark is the soil in which they grow and it is the clouds above them, and that waits behind the star that gives them light. The Dark's patience is infinite. Eventually, even the stars burn out."
"The dark is generous and it is patient—and it always wins. It always wins because it is everywhere. It is in the wood that burns in your hearth and in the kettle on the fire. It is under your chair and under your table, and under the sheets on your bed. Walk in the midday sun, and it is with you, attached to the soles of your feet. The brightest light casts the darkest shadow."
"The Dark is generous, and it is patient, and it always wins—but in the heart of its strength lies weakness: one lone candle is enough to hold it back. Love is more than a candle. Love can ignite the stars."
"I've lived a year for every hour you were away—It's been a lifetime. A thousand lifetimes. I've missed you so much! So stop, come back! Stop all this and come back! I love you! Always, Anakin. Forever. Come back to me, my love—my life. Come back to me. I forgive you."
Dr. Aphra sat in awe, she felt stunned, this woman loved Vader, she knew him, she didn't understand how anyone could considering his reputation, but she knew Vader would understand, and if it meant she could learn more about Lord Vader, she'd take the risk of delivering this message to him.
"Give him this," Padmé handed her the Japor pendant Anakin had made for her a long time ago. "He'll understand."
Suddenly, the door opened and the guards pulled Aphra to her feet. "You're being released!" they told her. The stormtroopers escorted her out of the room.
All Padmé could do was sit and wait.
Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Vader was suspended in the air inside his hyperbaric meditation chamber as he prepared himself for the painful reattachment of his mechanical limbs. He was lost in some meaningless daydream, of his beloved Padmé and the life they could have had together.
"Please keep me sane," he whispered miserably to himself.
A medical droid had just finished injecting him with medicine, not that it actually helped, Vader had to wonder if he was being injected with a placebo, as nothing seemed to heal his injuries, not even the Dark Side of the Force.
"Nnnn," he grunted. "How much longer?"
"Beginning assembly now," the medical droid replied. Vader braced himself for the pain.
"Engaging neural stimulators," the medical droid informed him as he screamed in pain as his mechanical limbs were reattached to his body.
"Please keep me sane, my love…" he whispered desperately to the ghost that wasn't there.
He sat down on his chair, burying his face in his hand.
Suddenly, the screen lit up, and Dr. Aphra appeared on it.
What is it Dr. Aphra?" Darth Vader asked, somewhat irritated.
Aphra was quite stunned to se coursee his scarred face, but most surprising were his eyes, they were a bright and piercing blue.
"Lord Vader, I have a very important message from a woman, she wanted me to give it to you in person."
"Feh! Vader sneered, "Another sycophantic marriage proposal? Throw it out, I have no need for such petty things!"
"Lord Vader, she told me to show you this," Dr. Aphra showed him the Japor pendant. Vader stilled, she heard him audibly gasp.
"Bring the recording inside! And you must never tell anyone of this matter!" Vader ordered her.
Dr. Aphra did as she was told. She watched as Vader reverently took the Japor pendant in his hand, touching it. Then he took the hogram chip from her and put it into a holoprojector.
"What happened to your face Lord Vader?"
"Cease your probing, just let me hear the message."
He played the recording and Dr. Aphra watched as the most feared man in the galaxy burst into tears.
He had emotions, and he was human deep down, he wasn't completely a monster.
"The breath mask, did she say why she had it?" he asked, fearing the answer.
"She said she was strangled and even though the damage could be repaired, the Emperor himself wants her to suffer."
He shut off the hologram half way through the message.
"My Master, you shall pay, you lied to me!" Vader let out an animal snarl. "She was alive, I felt it!"
"She said she was in a cell that cut her off from the Force, whatever that means."
"That son of a Bantha!" Vader raged. I will find her, nothing and no one will stop me!"
"Lord Vader who is she?" Dr. Aphra voiced the question.
"She is my wife, Dr. Aphra," he replied.
"Makes sense turning down marriage proposals, but why is she in an Imperial prison? Shouldn't she be with you?"
"My wife was the champion of freedom and democracy in the Old Republic, she would never follow me down this path. In many ways, she is stronger than I ever was." Vader sighed.
He glanced over at the Dr. He would need an army to assault the prison where she was being held.
"On what system was she imprisoned, Dr. Aphra."
"The Naboo system, Lord Vader."
His master was clever, Sidious knew that Vader could revisit planets associated with his life as Anakin Skwyalker, but he hated going there, it was just perfect for him to imprison her on her home planet where she was revered, but unlooked for. The official story was that Padmé had died under suspicious circumstances.
"There's more Lord Vader, she has more to say to you," she prodded.
So he listened to the message, all of it, and fell upon his metallic knees, sobbing in agony.
"I've lived a year for every hour you were away—It's been a lifetime. A thousand lifetimes. I've missed you so much! Stop all this and come back! I love you! Always, Anakin. Forever. Come back to me, my love—my life. Come back to me. I forgive you."
Three words slew the Dark Lord of the Sith, crushing the dead star dragon under his mental heel, reigniting the heart of the Hero With No Fear.
Instantaneously, Darth Vader died, and the Chosen One Anakin Skywalker was reborn.
He turned to Dr. Aphra, eternally grateful.
"Dr. Aphra, will you assist me?" Anakin asked.
"Of Course Lord Vader, what do you need?" Dr. Aphra was excited. Ever since she'd met him, she'd had nothing short of an adventure, at least in her mind anyway.
"I need you, to help me fake my death," he replied.
"That is exciting!" agreed, rubbing her hands, indeed Lord Vader was the best thing that had ever happened to her.