Padmé. It's the only thing going through Anakin Skywalker's head. Her face, her smile, the sound of her voice, her deep, deep eyes. The still-fresh smell and soft touch of her hair on his face as he wakes up next to her. Her tears, which seem to flow far more freely than they used to. Their secret wedding vows, repeated endlessly in his head. Countless I love yous. Padmé. She's the only thing going through Anakin's head as he leads a battalion of clone troopers through the streets of Coruscant, moving towards the Jedi temple.
She's the only thing he can think about because she's the only thing that lets him know that he's right. About an hour earlier, he killed Mace Windu, the second in command of the Jedi Order. He's just sworn allegiance to the Sith Order, an archaic hierarchy of dark side megalomaniacs that he's spent the last three years fighting against. In the eyes of his new master, Anakin Skywalker is dead – his name now is Darth Vader.
He's turned to the dark side, and he knows all this will crush him as soon as he pauses to consider what he's done. His thoughts rage and thrash with doubt and anger and fear and denial, but he dare not confront them. So instead he thinks of his love Padmé, and of how destroying the Jedi Temple will cement his power enough to prevent her from dying.
He loves the Jedi Order. Being a Jedi was all he used to dream of. He wasn't piloting a podracer through a narrow canyon on Tatooine; he was sliding his advanced starfighter through a tight asteroid formation, no doubt on some fantastic adventure above some fantastic world. During his days as a slave, the Force would whisper to him, and tell him of how that one day, these dreams would become reality - that they were not just delusions and pretensions, but echoes of an all too possible future.
And then he had met Padmé, and then even the mere thought of becoming a Jedi paled next to her perfection. He'd at first mistaken her for an Angel, a being of pure beauty and light. But an Angel she was not, and over the course of their all too few weeks together, the two had bonded tightly.
But then Obi-Wan Kenobi had whisked Anakin away for Jedi training, and Padmé became a distant memory; she had no time to be more than a daydream against the fantastic life of lightsabers and Force powers and starships that Anakin was now living. But he would often think – and dream – of her. Either her or his mother. But his mother was dead now. She'd died in his arms as he watched, crying, unable to help her. But that wouldn't happen to Padmé. Not now he was on the cusp of being able to save people from dying. Soon, no-one he ever loved would need to die again.
So he marches on, moving towards the foot of the wide, marble staircase that led to the Temple ziggurat filling his mind with aspects of his doomed love, telling himself that he would soon become powerful enough to save her from the fate he had forseen. To save everyone.
He stops at the foot of the stairs, and a metallic clunk rang out and echoed as the legion of troops stopped in his wake, just as abruptly as he had. They didn't question him, or continue their advance to the temple doors, but simply stopped and waited for Anakin's next order.
Gingerly, Anakin moves onto the lowest step. He lowers his hood, scanning the temple entrance with dark, brooding eyes. The long staircase that ascended the ziggurat was framed by two rows of ancient pillars, casting their black shadows against the moonlit temple stairs. He raised his eyes to look at the five towers that rose from the ziggurat's flat surface. They reached into the sky like a hand trying to grasp at the stars themselves. A dull pain echoes within Anakin's stomach; this place has been his home for more than a decade. Within its walls he has made friends and bonds that he thought would last forever. Could he do this? He knows that his love for his life is more than enough to overshadow his love for this place. He'd destroy the galaxy if it meant saving Padmé; that is indisputable. But why will destroying the Jedi Temple – a place of healing and learning – grant him the power so save Padmé's life? Why can't he just reach into the limitless flow of power and anger he feels coursing through his veins in order to save her? Why can't the Chancellor use his Sith powers to revive her in his stead?
Anakin Skywalker has never needed a sign more in his life than he does now.
And there it was – another Jedi emerges from behind one of the pillars, melting into existence from the shadows. Something about this Jedi is odd – although he wears a lightsaber at his belt, he is wearing Jedi robes of an odd cut and style. And something about how the Force ripples about him makes the hairs on the back of Anakin's head prick up. He is not from this time. Anakin looks into the eyes of the stranger, and the stranger looks back, and for a moment there, they connect.
That's my grandson.
There it is – the sign that he's doing the right thing. How can his grandson exist if his wife dies during childbirth? He flicks his hood back up, and a grim smile splits his face. He's doing the right thing. His heart flares with an unquenchable love for Padmé, and their unborn child, and their unborn grandson. He turns to the clone troopers before him, barks orders, and together they march into the Temple. To make things right.
Years pass. Even in Vader's darkest days, the sight of his grandson, standing there outside the Temple, existing, fills his black heart with hope. My grandson exists. Things will be right.
Jacen doesn't realise what he's done. He's flow-walked sixty years back in time to settle his anguished mind. He's passed judgement on Anakin Skywalker, and has returned to the present knowing that, although he may now be part of the same Sith Order that Anakin once was, he's still different. He's proven to himself that it's okay to be a Sith. That he's going to be the one to make everything right.
But, although he doesn't know this, he's proven that to Anakin Skywalker too.