A/N: This has been tugging at my mind for ages and I had to get it out. I'm not sure where it's going, if anywhere. It's obviously AU, about five years after ROTS, and I decided this is how it works- Obi-Wan didn't go with to Mustafar, so Anakin didn't choke Padmé and she left and had the babies on Coruscant.

Disclaimer: Ce n'est pas a moi. C'est a George Lucas.

It had been years since he last saw her, since he watched her get into her ship and fly away from him, forever. Since he realized he could not use the Force to hold her there, because she had just as much of a paralyzing effect on him as it should have had on her. And now, now that he saw her in the processing chamber of this maximum security detaining station, she was different.

Her hair was the first thing he noticed. It always was, since as a nine-year-old he had been somewhat fascinated by the elaborate confection of braids merging gracefully into one on her head (little did he know that for her, that was simple!). But now, it was shorter, straighter. It looked lighter- it had been bleached by radiation, like his. She was a pilot now, in the Rebellion. He wasn't surprised. He had always thought she would be good at it. But when he saw her hair, how she had changed it, his first thought was one of anger. How could you change your hair!

He didn't realize that this close, their old Force connection lingered. That hate often has love at its center.

It's my hair, Vader. I'll do whatever the hell I want to it. He nearly winced at the force of her anger. Her thoughts were not calm and collected as they had been before. She was more intense now, angrier. More like him.

Padmé Amidala was afraid. She was afraid for her children, that he would find out where they were. She was afraid he wouldn't even have to torture her to find out. She was afraid of what just being in the same room as him did to her.

She was afraid that she was still in love with him.

She studied him in her peripheral vision, without letting him know she was looking, without changing the defiant set of her chin. His hair was shorter, ironically more neat than it had been when he was a Jedi. I thought you turned to the Dark Side to let loose all that raging chaotic passion, she thought somewhat bitterly, forgetting that he would pick it up.

How dare you say that! His cry echoed with anger and…even pain. I did it for you, to save you.

I'm not the one that needed saving, Anakin.

She hadn't meant to think that, or to call him by the name of her husband. Her husband was dead. This was someone else entirely, someone she did not love, but hated. She didn't realize that hate often has love at its center.

She was looking at him full-out now, and he at her. His eyes were burning with something. Passion. Rage. Both unfulfilled. You can kill as many innocents or as many stormtroopers as you want to, Anakin, but it won't fix the mess you've made.

You're not angry with me. You're not even angry with the Emperor, though you wish him dead. You're angry with yourself.

The force of the answer nearly sent her reeling back into the wall, though she didn't show it on her face.

I AM NOT!

She realized then that not a single word had been spoken out loud since he had arrived. How strange. How utterly and completely surreal this whole thing truly was.

Anakin realized something, looking at her, hearing her thoughts. That chaotic intensity, her stance- overtly confident, even cocky, so very unlike her usual dignified elegance- the way her face was set, everything, even down to the look in her eyes and the air of mingled anger and confidence emanating from her, was an imitation of him. It was his old self, his Jedi self, staring out from the eyes of the person he loved most in the galaxy.

This is what you gave up. This is what you left behind.

Looking at her now, he realized that by making her his angel, he had cheated her of herself. Standing here before him now, she was more than an angel. She was fiery, she was sad, she was grieving, she was defiant, she was pissed. She was a woman, a person, full of emotions and ideals warring with each other. She was more than an angel.

And she was still in love with him.