Hello all! I am finally back! Thank you so much for your patience with me! Without further ado, here's...

Chapter 34

The minute he awoke, he knew his plan had failed.

Through the darkness behind his mask, Vader's eyes found Sabe's, watching him. "You're awake," she said, and he felt relief oozing out of her Forcemark. "I was so worried."

He struggled to sit, using the Force to suppress the pain, and took stock of his situation. He lay on a cot, surrounded by metal, the quiet churning of engines in his ears. Behind Sabe was the control panel of... a starship. They were running away.

Fury simmered in his heart. "We lost."

"We can regroup and—"

"No!" He shook his head, controlling, not suppressing, the boiling hate and anger. "We lost." Anakin has beaten me again.

Sabe's lips folded together, like she was holding her useless words in. "This battle, yes," she finally murmured. "But when we return to Coruscant—"

"Return? Are you insane?" He leapt to his feet in spite of the pain that prowled and ripped at his nerve endings. "Change the nav-calcs. Go anywhere that isn't Coruscant."

"But, m'lord—"

"What is it you're not capable of understanding? We've failed, and my master won't tolerate our bungled defeats any longer. If we return, he might even kill us." Nevermind that Sabe was never meant to make it through this. "No, we have to hide for now. At least until we have another plan to end the Skywalkers."

Sabe didn't speak again, though as she changed the nav-calcs, she kept watching him over her shoulder, strangely, as if she worried about his sanity. But at least she did as he asked and asked no further questions.

Once when her eyes returned to the controls, Vader eased back onto the cot, the searing pain from standing now too intense to ignore. He relaxed—as much as he could anyway—and his body rested; but his mind whirred, clipping along like a droid given a task. He had to recover, and he had to come up with a plan.

For years while his Master groomed him in the Dark, Sidious was the only other being Vader knew. Having spent so much time with the Dark Lord, clinging to his every word, repeating his every gesture, Vader knew his master, far better than even Sidious could guess. He knew him well enough to know what his next move would be, knew him well enough to know the exact moment he would realize Vader wasn't come back.

Knew him well enough to know that he would not tolerate failure. Not this many times. If Vader was stupid enough to return and caught his Master in a good mood, Sidious would throw him out and set the Senate on him; if Sidious was not in a good mood (as was far more likely), he would torture Vader, then kill him on the spot.

No, the armored man shook his head. He could never go home. Not until he proved to his Master—and himself—that he was not a failure.

Vader had not returned.

Not that he was worried of course. He was the Emperor and Vader was an occasionally useful pawn, so there was nothing to worry about. But it was somewhat... concerning that the boy had elected not to report back to him.

In fact, it could only mean one thing, and Sidious rather hated the idea.

He ground his teeth together. Stupid, useless boy! He'd failed again, undoubtedly, he'd failed again, that miserable cud of a half-man. He should've left him to die on Mustafar—no, should've left him to die years ago when he first discovered him on Tatooine. He should've left Ace to the scientists and stolen Anakin then, instead of attempting to control both sides of a painfully cloudy prophecy.

The one from whom...

Or the one for whom... Few Sith could agree on the translation. The original language was Seeira, an ancient tongue predating both the Sith and the Jedi. Generations ago, when the prophecy was discovered, less than a hundred in the Galaxy could read the language, and none could translate it for certain. So each picked the version he or she liked best and passed it on as fact. The Jedi blindly trusted the one their elders had chosen to believe; the Sith puzzled over the two, fried the ancient parchments in frustration, and, if they happened to be Darths Plagueis and Sidious, decided to make the prophecy come about on their own, watch closely, and thus determine which would actually be the case.

Not that curiosity had been the sole purpose of Anakin's creation—far from it—but Darth Plagueis at least had found the watching-and-waiting bit rather fascinating.

Pity he never made it past that part, Sidious thought dryly.

When the Dark Lord met Ace, felt the rage stirring in the boy, he'd thought he'd known. After all, it had taken only a nudge to turn him to the Dark, whereas young Anakin had been bursting with light; it was almost blinding. The Dark had warned Sidious that if he attempted to turn the boy now, Anakin would only work against him. Careful grooming must take place, years and years of conditioning, before the boy was anywhere near ready to turn.

And now, it was nearly time.

But if that idiot Vader was the only one who could defeat Anakin, then either it was even more imperative that Anakin be drawn to the Dark—Vader always was a failure, so why break pattern simply because an age-old prophecy was on the line?—or said prophecy had grossly overestimated Anakin's power.

Because Sidious had always had a plan to solve the former, and because he'd seen and felt Anakin's potential up close, he decided to trust in the first option.

So maybe he'd made a mistake in choosing Ace over Anakin. Maybe he should've taken Anakin then and forced him to turn, whatever the Force had to say about it. Maybe, more than fifteen years ago, the curiosity of seeing how the Lighter boy would be broken and turned had addled his good sense. Even so, that mistake could be rectified—perhaps not easily, but it was far from impossible, even a few parsecs off from difficult.

After all, he was the Emperor now. Sidious grinned, glancing over at the document he'd been compiling for the past few days. Finally, he could do as he liked.

Including flushing out that little pawn who still thought he was a Jedi.

You're mine, Anakin. From before you were born, you've been mine.

So Vader had failed. Let him run off with his useless lover and imagine that he was safe for a few months. When Sidious could be bothered to do so, he would hunt him down, cut out his organs, watch him writhe, and revel in his screams, make him pay for his stupidity and arrogance.

Until then, Anakin remained the objective. And what Darth Sidious wanted, he made sure to get.

When Anakin entered the house, his wife was on the sofa, a baby in each arm, waiting up for him. "How'd they take it?" she asked he sat down.

"Typho's family?" Anakin took Leia as he tried to decide what to say. "As well as can be expected, I guess."

His wife sighed and closed her eyes. "And Sola?"

Anakin paused. Truthfully, he was pretty sure his sister-in-law was still in shock, but he didn't think that information would help his wife's frame of mind.

But Padme knew him too well and after a few seconds of silence, she nodded. "That bad then?" Her voice didn't even tremble; she was that good at masking her pain.

"I think she's ... upset and confused. Still trying to process, you know? And she can't talk to him while he's out. She... does want to speak to you as soon as possible, though."

Padme nodded again. "Of course."

But Anakin sensed her hesitation, and it made him wonder if she actually would.

After a short stretch of silence, she swallowed. "What is... what is Typho's family planning to do with him?"

"Private family burial." Anakin turned to look her in the eyes. "But they understand that he died defending you, and they still believe in you, Padme. They want you to come."

She nodded slowly, but when she didn't reply, Anakin ventured a question. "Do you want to go?"

She let out a harsh scoff. "Yes." Her eyes closed and her head shook. "I'm sorry.

"But we need to lie low for a while. After all that's happened. I mean, Sabe... Darred—" She stopped herself, breathed deeply, then restarted. "We need to regroup, get our bearings and figure out what to do next. We can't be seen in public right now." She paused, then ended in a whisper. "Not even for Typho's funeral."

Secretly, Anakin agreed: Padme and the twins needed to stay out of sight, at least for now. At the same time though, he could feel her pain—almost literally—and he knew it would be easier to bear if she at least had the chance to say goodbye.

Then again, that only made it slightly better.

Anger simmered, growing to fury, boiling to hatred at Darred, at Sabe, at Vader... at himself. How could he have let this happen anyway? How could he not foresee Sabe's betrayal? What in the worlds was—

He clamped down on the fury, reminding himself that he was a Jedi not a Sith, making himself remember where these emotions led. The hatred cooled and shriveled, then curled up in a deeper part of his heart.

He leaned over to kiss his wife on the forehead and used his free hand to wipe away the tears lingering on her face. "I'm so sorry, Padme."

She sniffed and shook her head. "This isn't your fault."

And then the anger swelled back, because it was. After all his working, all his searching, all his trying, he hadn't even managed to find the spy. Sabe had shown herself and on Vader's terms. Yes, he'd subdued them and yes, he'd gotten his family back, but he hadn't defeated them. Not really.

For most intents and purposes, he'd failed.

Padme shook her head, knowing enough of the Force and, most of all, knowing him well enough to know where his brain was going. "This isn't your fault, Ani, and you didn't fail. The twins and I are here because of you."

But if he'd found the traitors earlier, they wouldn't have been put through that at all.

Still, he had a feeling this was something they could never agree on, and, this once, he didn't want to start an argument. He opened his mouth to change the subject, ask where Acacia was or Dorme or something, when his senses suddenly honed and he sensed Dorme down the hall and his sister slumped into the chair across the room. In spite of all that had happened, his mouth edged up upon spotting Acacia, eyes closed, hair in her face, adorably fast asleep. "Is she okay?"

"Acacia? I think she will be. Her ribs and back are bruised, but nothing's broken. Give her a few weeks of rest and she should be okay."

Anakin scoffed and muttered. "But what are the odds she'll get those weeks of rest?"

He hadn't meant for Padme to hear him, but a second later, she replied, "Not high."

Thanks for reading! Please review!

Author's Note: I'm working now, so I won't update every week, and, obviously, it won't be on Fridays anymore. Just whenever I finish a chapter, I'll post it. At most, there should be two weeks between each one, but I'll aim for a week and a half. :) See you next time!