Author's Note: I don't own the characters, Star Wars universe or even really the plot of this fic - hence the designation fanfiction. Anyway, there are many, many fix-its and AUs out there to solve the problem of Anakin turning to the Dark Side; this is my take on it. Anakin/Vader has been my favourite character in the Star Wars universe since I was a toddler, so I set out to create a reality where he and Padmé could in fact live and raise their children together. I am using bits and pieces of the dialogue from both the movies and the official novelisations, if things sound familiar. Please let me know what you think!

Summary: What would happen if the events on Mustafar went entirely differently? What if the Force stepped in to redirect the Chosen One?

Chapter One:

"I loved you too much to see you! To see what you are!" Darth Vader grated, drawing deeply on the rage simmering just below the surface and letting the tatters of Anakin Skywalker slide from him like the filthy rags they were. The crystalline, frost-edged clarity of the Dark Side rose to envelop him, erasing the last vestiges of the foolish Jedi Knight and husband, while the dragon within burned with a cold satisfaction. Returning his attention to Amidala, he raised a leather-clad hand, curling it into a fist that brought the Senator up onto her toes, clutching at her throat as she fought for breath. The frozen inferno only intensified as he examined his prey. She would not have another chance to betray him.

"Let her go, Anakin!" His mouth twisted as the Jedi's demand broke into his thoughts. Keeping his eyes on the woman, he shook his head. "You will not take her from me," he growled, a detached corner of his mind registering the soft whisk of fabric as Kenobi's robe fell to the blasted rock of Mustafar and the familiar hum of a saber blade as it snapped into existence. Taking a deep breath and drawing with it all of Amidala's disbelief, anguish and fear, Vader plunged deeper still into the embrace of his new power, his awareness expanding until he felt he understood what the Son had been trying to tell him all those months ago. This deep in the Dark Side, his body thrummed with the vitality and power that should rightfully have been his years before, but he wanted more; he needed more. Widening his awareness to Kenobi's own despair and pain, he drew on the Force until every region of his soul was saturated in it – but he did not stop.

Reality snapped.

Thud thud. Thud thud. Breath thundered earsplittingly loudly in his ears; the thudding of his own heart was enough to send waves of red-hot pain arcing through his nervous system. Dimly he heard Kenobi cry Amidala's name as she slumped to the ground, his attention torn from her moments before she lost consciousness. Vader could feel her fight to draw breath as though they were his own, scorched air whistling through a damaged windpipe that simply could not draw enough; he could feel the panicked flutters of the babies in her womb, the doubled heartbeat that mirrored his own; he was even aware of the moment that her waters broke, wetness cascading down her legs even as she collapsed. None of this mattered. For years, Anakin Skywalker had been tormented by Force visions of his loved ones dying in his dreams; those very dreams had set in place the chain of events that Vader had needed to take control. But those dreams were nothing compared with the visions that plucked Vader from himself as neatly as floodwaters did a leaf.

A welter of confused sounds and sensations enveloped him. He felt the bite of a lightsaber as it sheared through his limbs, the agony as he choked on the scent of his own flesh burning. He screamed as relentless blades bored into his bones, clamping on unwieldy prosthetics with the casual brutality of a bygone age.

It seems, in your anger, you killed her.

The words whispered in his ears, burrowed into all the tender nooks and crannies of Darth Vader's blackened soul, settled into his bones triumphantly as the Force bore him inexorably onward.

Master Skywalker, there are too many of them!

The temple had only been the beginning; followed by his troopers, Vader ruthlessly exterminated every Force sensitive in the Empire. Jedi traitors fell, Padawans were crushed, and even those newly born to their powers were extinguished by the glowing blade of the Sith.

You were the Chosen One!

Vader thrashed frantically, determined to escape the crushing weight of the Force, to no avail. He wiped out whole settlements of suspected Rebels. He broke countless minds and threw them aside like garbage. He killed, he threatened, he tortured so many that the faces all blurred together into an endless ocean of blood and destruction.

"You may fire when ready." Darth Vader looked on impassively as concentrated beams of light focused on the glowing green planet below, reducing it to no more than a field of asteroids in less time than it took for his suit to complete a breathing cycle. Within his emotionless grip, the white-clad princess sagged in grief and horror as millions of voices cried out in terror – and were silenced.

Still imprisoned in the Force's inexorable current, he had no time to process the incredible evil he had witnessed. He took at aim at a Rebel pilot only to be hurled into space; he gazed out at the stars through a web of cracked glass as Boba Fett informed him that Luke Skywalker was the Rebel he was looking for; his was the lightsaber that cleaved his son's hand from his body, his the shock that enveloped him at the discovery of a daughter. He looked through Anakin Skywalker's dimming eyes as the second Death Star collapsed around him, and felt the moment when his heart ceased to beat. Threaded throughout all the pain and destruction and hatred Darth Vader unleashed upon the galaxy, Sidious' words repeated endlessly. …you killed her… you killed her…

Then, with all the speed of a cracked whip, he hurtled back through the slaughter and carnage at the Temple, the choice that was no choice in Palpatine's office and before that as Dooku knelt before him. He stood again on Mortis as the Son showed him glimpses into the future and heard the hooting cries of the Sand People turn to terror as he hacked them apart, maddened by his grief.

At last, the dreadful parade of memories halted, leaving him with Schmi in his arms, her bloody hand pressed to his face even as her whole body relaxed in death.

The Force seemed to hesitate, several heartbeats passing as he gazed at his mother's broken form. He had forgotten how peaceful she seemed, her happiness at seeing her son one last time softening her features into the mother he remembered, not the beaten scrap of humanity that had been tethered in that tent. A terrible, empty grief rose to choke him as he collapsed to his knees in the dust of Mustafar, a grief that spilled itself onto the ground as he vomited up everything that remained in his stomach, his connection with the Force severed by his own shock and disbelief. Flesh and mechanical fingers dug at the unforgiving rock as he struggled to understand what he had seen. You killed her.

Padmé.

Author again: Thanks for taking the time to read this, it means a lot! This has simply been uploaded as I drafted it, and the plot can really go any direction from here. Do you have thoughts on what I can improve? Ideas for where to go next? Things you want to see as the story progresses? Then please review and/or message me, I'd love to hear from you. After all, I'm not just writing this for myself. ;)

May the Force be with you.