Author's Note: Many darlings were killed in the editing of this chapter. Contains some canon dialogue.

I've been asked a couple of times whether this is an Anidala or Vaderdala story. It's both, and an unapologetic redemption fic :)

Chapter 14

The Calm Before

"Look at the two of you! Master Vader, you're soaking," Threepio said as he ushered Vader and Padmé into the retreat. The clouds amassing over Varykino rumbled ominously outside. "Hurry, please. I'll light a fire upstairs."

"Where's Artoo?" Padmé asked.

"An excellent question, Miss Padmé," Threepio answered before Vader could speak. "I'll go and find him."

"No, it's all right—" she began.

But Threepio was already leaving, calling as he went, "Artoo? Artoo! Where have you gone?"

"I'm sorry. When I told him he was responsible for Artoo, I didn't know he'd be so…enthusiastic." Vader hesitated. "Do you like him?"

"Yes, very much," Padmé said. "How long have you had him?"

"Four years."

It was partly true.

Oh, the Maker! Master Ani, you've returned! You're here to rescue us!

Oh, I'm so proud of you, Ani…

Lightning flashed against the windows and the wind whipped up, shaking its way through the villa. Gooseflesh erupted on Vader's skin and a knife of unwanted guilt twisted in his stomach.

Padmé frowned. "You're shaking."

"I'm cold," Vader said.

With a smile, Padmé retrieved a thick blanket from a nearby fainting couch.

Vader swallowed when she drew closer. Her hair smelled like flowers.

"Next time you decide to jump in a lake, you should dress for it," Padmé said as she wrapped the blanket around his shoulders. "You must be freezing."

Vader smiled at her concern. "I'm all right."

Padmé's hands stilled as she closed the blanket at the center of his chest. He took hold of it, and his ungloved fingers brushed hers in a slide of skin against skin.

Vader's breath hitched. His next shiver had little to do with the wind.

Padmé took a step back, dropping her hands, and her presence in the Force was a pulse of surprised warmth. Like a heartbeat.

"I should change." She retreated, the loss of her presence a physical pain. "Meet me on the second level?"

Before Vader could answer, Padmé hurried away, disappearing upstairs and leaving him alone with the howling wind.

Alone in her room, Padmé exhaled shakily.

Her breathing was too fast, her pulse racing along with it. She leaned back against the door, and closed her eyes.

Had there always been so many details to Vader?

The smallest things would not stop drawing her attention. The rosy tone of his lips and the creases beside his mouth when he smiled; the breadth of his hands and the length of his fingers; the jumpy way he'd fought to keep his eyes up when she'd climbed onto the dock, and the flushing way he had failed.

I'm being observant, Padmé told herself as she stripped out of her wet things. Keeping an eye on him to keep him away from the study.

But the thought rang false.

Somewhere outside her room, Vader waited for her, and Padmé could not decide if the buzzing in her stomach was from anticipation or dread.

She would not allow it to be the former.

And either way, she had delayed long enough.

Dressed again, but not ready, Padmé opened the door.

Vader stood waiting in the hall. He had shed some of his layers, and wore a dark tunic. The drying fabric clung to his shoulder blades.

Padmé swallowed. "You look warmer."

He turned. "So do you."

Vader took a step. Padmé's chin tilted down as she looked up at him. She was very aware of the exposed skin at her midriff. The urge took her to run her fingers along it, confirm its visibility, and satisfy some inexplicable, tactile need, but she didn't.

Because, of course, that would be ludicrous.

Instead, she brushed past Vader and down the hall, heart hammering in her ears.

"This was always my sister's room," Padmé said, opening a door.

The bedroom was full of warm colors and soft fabrics, disorganized in a way that suggested its owner alone knew everything's place. It looked like Sola's. Padmé felt a twinge of sadness.

Vader went in ahead of her, eyes darting from a wooden wardrobe to the ivy peering in from outside the glass. He stopped by the bed and reached down to press his hand to it.

The ends of his hair were still wet. A bead of water clinging to his skin broke free and trailed away beneath the collar of his tunic. Padmé's eyes followed its path. The flutter in her chest became an ache.

Stop, she thought. Get ahold of yourself.

"Thank you," Vader said. He went the window, looked out, and back to her with a smile. "I've never slept in a place like this."

Though his answer stoked her growing curiosity for him, Padmé smiled.

"You still haven't, Lord Vader."

He grinned, and it pierced her.

"If you're settled then," Padmé took a step back toward the clarity of the empty hall, "goodnight."

"Wait."

Padmé's breath caught, and she stopped, fingertips resting on the handle. "Yes?"

"There was something about a fire."

Upstairs, in the third level sitting room, the protocol droid's fire burned low in the hearth. Vader passed between twin sofas and leaned over the dying embers with a poker, trying to reignite the flames.

Padmé sat on the edge of a cushion and twisted her fingers in her lap.

The fire crackled back to life. It warmed her skin, but did little to banish the ache from her chest.

Slowly, she let out a breath.

"Master Vader," the protocol droid said, drawing Padmé from her confusion. He wandered inside, carrying a tray set with two steaming cups and a bowl of sliced fruit. His golden coverings glinted in the firelight. "Pardon me. I found Artoo at last."

Padmé's heart thudded with worry.

Oh no…

"Downstairs circling around doing who knows what," the droid said. "And there's other news."

Padmé exhaled with relief.

He doesn't know. He didn't catch him.

"The strangest frequency is emanating from the Specter-Chaser," the droid said. "I don't know what it could be."

"A message?" Vader asked with a frown.

"Possibly. It's difficult to tell with this dreadful weather rolling in."

"All right," Vader said, a tinge of reluctance in his voice. "I'll check to see if it's—"

"I'll go, Master Vader," the droid said, "and I'll bring Artoo along with me. Surely that will keep him focused for once."

Padmé gripped the edge of the cushion so tight she swore it would rip in her hand. This would set her back even further.

"Excuse me, my lady." The droid left his tray on Padmé's side of the sofa, and departed.

Cautiously, Vader sat beside her, leaving a cushion of space between them.

A safe distance away.

Padmé didn't know if that made what she was feeling better or worse.

Vader's eyes flickered over her face and he frowned. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Padmé said.

She reached for one of the cups, but it levitated before she could touch it and floated the last half a foot toward her, the liquid inside threatening to slosh over the edge.

Padmé laughed, unable to stop herself. She plucked the cup from the air before it could spill. "You are ridiculous."

"Or helpful," Vader said.

"I was closer than you!"

"I think that's a point in my favor."

Padmé shook her head and looked down to hide her amusement.

But there was no hiding Vader's. His eyes lit up brighter than the flames.

"You didn't." Padmé leaned forward with a laugh of disbelief.

"No, no, I did." Vader pushed the sleeve of his tunic up past his prosthetic, revealing a triangle of white scar tissue at his inner elbow. "I still have part of the scar. See?"

Padmé began to reach for it, but stopped before she made contact. "You rode an acklay."

"Well, tried. I wasn't entirely successful," Vader said, pulling his sleeve back down.

Padmé laughed again, a musical sound, and reclined against the sofa back. She had unraveled as the hours passed, leaning in and curling one leg beneath her.

The sight of her like that brought Vader's worst impulses to the surface. He could not stop telling her ridiculous things, because he wanted her to know them. He could not stop trying to get her to laugh. She shone in the Force each time she did, radiant and warm as the firelight on her skin.

A smile hung on Padmé's lips as she speared the last piece of shurra on her fork.

Vader rested his chin on his forearm, drunk with watching her. "Did you dream of power and politics when you were a little girl?"

"No, that was the last thing I thought of," Padmé said. "You did?"

"Well, not exactly…" Vader went quiet, unsure of how to explain.

Politics had never held any draw, but how could power not have appealed to him? Even the barest scrap of it after a life of powerlessness was something to be guarded and celebrated and clung to fiercely.

Padmé was lucky, to have never known that feeling. Vader would not have wished it on anyone.

"You're so different," Padmé said after a moment.

"Than what?" Vader frowned.

Padmé swirled her fork through the empty bowl, not quite looking at him. "What I expected."

"You're not."

Padmé looked up, her eyes almost black in the dim light.

Vader stared directly into them. "You're exactly who I always thought you'd be."

A silent moment passed between them, the kind where nothing needed to be said.

"It must be difficult, having dedicated your life to the Empire," Padmé said, "if it was never what you wanted…What did you want?"

Vader hesitated and took a breath. "I wanted to be a Jedi."

Disbelief bloomed over Padmé's face. "Oh."

"It's true." Vader shifted, uncomfortable.

"I never would have thought that…" Padmé couldn't finish and looked to her lap.

Vader felt like a fool. He had ruined the good mood between them with the truth. Sickness curled in his belly.

Shame.

I want you to go to the Jedi Temple. Do not hesitate. Show no mercy. Only then will you strong enough with the Dark Side to save—

"With what you can do," Padmé said cautiously, "why weren't you found by the Jedi Council, selected for training?"

"There was no finding me," Vader said. "I was born in the Outer-Rim."

Familiar sadness crept over Padmé's face, the same kind she had felt on Malastare. As much as Vader wanted to claim it as his, he knew he couldn't. It wasn't meant for him anymore.

"I hate it out there." Vader knew he sounded petulant, even to his own ears, but he couldn't hold the words in.

Padmé furrowed her brow. "But you're based in the Arkanis Sector. Why would you be if you—?"

"That wasn't my choice to make."

The Annihilator's orbit near Tatooine was a well-earned torture, a reminder of who he had been and what he had done for a chance at what amounted to failure. The ship had not returned to its usual station since the battle above Scarif, and Vader felt nauseous at the thought of going back, and knew he would.

"I must obey my master."

Padmé looked at him with some new emotion, soft on her face and in the Force.

Sympathy.

Vader craved it from her as much as it repulsed him.

He didn't deserve it.

"You can't believe that," Padmé said.

Vader wished he could agree with her.

"Whatever else there is to this, I don't have the right to ask," Padmé said, not hiding the curiosity in her tone. "But I did not fight for eleven years in the capitol to come away believing anyone should have a master to obey. Not even you."

That stole his breath away. Vader's heart nearly burst. "Padmé…"

He wanted to tell her then. Everything. Everything he had done, and had ever been. Everything he'd become.

But a sound made Vader stop.

The unmistakable whir of a Theta-class shuttle.

No.

Fear flooded his every vein.

It crept into Padmé's voice. "What is that?"

Vader stood and went to the window. Sunrise was grey with the heavy storm clouds, casting scant light on the shuttle landing in the nearby meadow.

Vader could not answer her. He couldn't breathe.

The Empire was at Varykino.