"…You are Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith and my former Master."

"What?"

The sound of groaning, twisting metal filled the air around them. Pressurized, the Force swelled around them to the point where Leia was almost grateful her connection to the Force had been dampened, but that didn't stop her from taking an involuntary step back, her chest seizing in what she could only recognize as fear as she stared at Anakin. The wiring over their heads sparked and the lights flickered as the temperature around them chilled.

She hadn't felt fear like this in a long time. Not since—

"Me?" rasped Anakin. "I— I'm Vader? But— how?"

She could tell by the way that he frowned that the word Vader had left a bad taste in his mouth.

"How can I be Vader?"

Leia knew that he wanted an answer, but when she opened her mouth, the words seemed to fade and die on her tongue.

His fists clenched at his side at her silence. "How?"

"You fell," began Leia, her throat dry. "You betrayed the Order—"

He had been distracted, his eyes falling on something past her, but as soon as she said it, his eyes darted back to her. "Betrayed?" he questioned, his words wrapping around the word and drawing out every syllable. His voice was soft, and yet Leia could feel shivers running up her spine at his tone.

But she hid it behind a face of stone.

"Perhaps Kenobi was right," she said. "Maybe you do need to clean your ears out more often."

Normally, Leia would've rejoiced at the pitiful look in the young Jedi's eyes— the pathetic groveling of the man who had turned her life into a living hell, but now all that Leia can feel is the hollowness at the bottom of her stomach, gnawing at her.

"Leia," said Padmè as she stepped forward. Her voice was soft, yet somehow piercing in the small room. "Please, don't do this," she begged, desperation in her eyes. "You've made your point. Please don't make this any harder than it needs to be."

She shook her head. "No, Padmè. I've only just begun to make my point," she sneered (she didn't mean to, but she couldn't control it anymore— and she was done trying). "My resolve has never been stronger," she said as she ignored Luke's whisper, the word liar echoing in the recesses of her mind. "You wanted the truth, and now I'm giving it to you."

The Senator swallowed, but she held her ground.

"Betray?" whispered Anakin, his voice hoarse. Gravelly with disuse and strained. "Me? Betray the Jedi?"

"You were tricked," said Leia, straightening her posture as she turned to face him. "Palpatine— Sidious, he used your fears against you. Fear leads to anger—"

"— anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering," Obi-Wan finished, his voice barely above that of a whisper as he stared down at the floor in deep thought. Leia was certain he hadn't meant to voice is thoughts, and he seemed unaware that he had even said the words aloud.

She nodded, eyes closing. Han and Luke's face danced across her memory as well as in the dark of her eyelids. Staring at them, Leia felt as though she would never be able to open them again. "Yes," she agreed. "Near the end of the war, people had started to become suspicious of Palpatine. He had amassed so much power that even members of the Senate began to question him. The Jedi too."

She opened her eyes, meeting their eyes. She continued, afraid that if she stopped now she would never be able to start again. "Padmè was pregnant with my brother and I when the dreams started again," she said, looking at Anakin. "Just like the ones you had of your mother dying on Tatooine."

Anakin grasped Padmè's hand as if he were a man about to be swept away in a current.

"You feared for her life," continued Leia. "Enough to allow Palpatine to manipulate you. He promised you a way to stop her death from happening, and you couldn't help but say yes. He got you to join him as his apprentice and then he ordered you to march on the Temple with the Clones."

"I beg your pardon?" asked Obi-Wan as if he was the one in need of an ear cleaning and not Anakin. "What did you just say?"

"You heard me," countered Leia. "As spirited as the Sith are, two of us alone are hardly a match for an entire Order," she said before adding; "physically, that is. Mentally and intellectually I do believe the Sith reign superior. Sidious and Vader did not act alone. They had help from the Clones."

"The Clones would never willingly betray the Jedi," said Anakin. "I know those men. They would never—"

"Turn on the Jedi like you did?" asked Leia with raised eyebrows as Anakin's mouth snapped closed. His expression was clouded.

"They called it Order 66," she supplied. "It was the product of obedience chips placed into the Clones at a genetic level at birth. There were a number of Orders that if issued, the Clones had no choice but to obey. Order 66 pertained to the Jedi and ensured that if the Jedi ever went rogue, the Clones would—"

"—kill them," interrupted Anakin. There's something in the tone of his voice that reminds Leia of Vader, even though she's never heard Vader be quite that vehement before. "This is what Fives was talking about," he seethed. "A plot against the Jedi, put there by the Chancellor."

"You're right," said Obi-Wan, hurriedly before turning to Leia. "If what you have said is true—"

"It is."

"—then we must warn the Council," he finished, not missing a single beat. "Before it is too late."

Leia opened her mouth to reply, but Padmè was the one who stole the word out of her mouth. "No."

Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow. "Senator? What—"

"We can't tell the Council," she shook her head as she met Leia's gaze; "at least, not yet."

"And why is that?" Obi-Wan asks. He wasn't taking her seriously, but he wasn't dismissing her entirely.

"What do you think will happen if we tell the Council?" she asked. "If we tell the Council that Palpatine— who is beloved by the entire Republic and who has control over much of the Senate— is a Sith?"

Leia cocked her head curiously while Obi-Wan merely frowned in confusion. Padmè, it seemed, remembered their conversation from earlier, and she understood what was at stake.

"Think Obi-Wan," added Leia. "You know what the Council will do. What their next move will be."

"They will try to remove him from office," said Obi-Wan swallowing.

"He holds too much political power," continued Leia. She could see the slight tremble in his hands, but he worked to still them. "And he's popular. More popular than the Jedi."

"So?" scoffed Anakin, clueless as ever. "What does popularity have anything to do with this?"

"Because Palpatine is loved," said Leia, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "And the Jedi are not. If the Council moves against Palpatine—"

"—it will not end well," finished Obi-Wan as he stroked his beard worriedly.

"And even if you did tell the Council, you wouldn't get very far. Coruscant is crawling with his spies," she said before adding; "don't think for a second that he isn't aware of what is discussed behind the Council doors. He will find out and he will issue Order 66, just like he did in my timeline."

Obi-Wan drew in a shuddering breath as Anakin blinked, processing the words as best as he can. His confusion, however, didn't last long. "Then what are we supposed to do?" he demanded. "We can't just let him get away with this!"

His words lit a fire inside of Leia, who straightened up and snarled. "I have no intention of letting him get away with anything. Why do you think I came back here?"

"So then what was your plan?" growled Anakin. "Kill me and then go to Coruscant to assassinate Palpatine?"

"And then to the Separatist front to kill Dooku and then myself," she spat. "No more Sith."

Anakin's eyes widened. "You— you were—"

"There was never a scenario in my plan where I came out of this alive," she said before adding; "I would think the trying to 'wipe-myself-out-existence' ploy would've clued you into that already, Skywalker."

Leia could see the pain in his eyes as he jerked his head to the side and out of her view, his eyes going everywhere in the room except on her. He looked flighty in the too-small room, like a bird that wanted to take off only to find itself trapped. "So what can we do?"

"Kill him," was Leia's quick response. "Cut out the tumor before it spreads too far and wide. It may not solve much, and it may prove to be futile in the end, but it is the only option that we have."

Palpatine was not the only evil that would need to be rooted out before they could deem democracy safe. After all, in the grand scheme of everything, it had been the corruption and lawlessness of the Republic that had given rise to Palpatine.

He had been a symptom of a galaxy-wide, systemic problem. The Republic had been in decline well before Sheev Palpatine had even been born.

"It's not the Jedi way," Obi-Wan protested weakly, "to murder a man in such an uncivil fashion, without a trial and without concrete evidence to prove him guilty."

What he meant to say was undemocratic.

"Who cares," snarled Anakin. "He murdered my son. I'll kill him myself if I have to."

"Spoken just like Vader," said Leia idly as the young Jedi's nostrils flared. "But I must warn you, you'll have to get to him first. There's no way I'm letting you have the honor of gutting the old man twice."

"Twice?" asked Padmè, horrified.

"You've seen how explosive your husband's tantrums can be," said Leia, staring at Anakin coyly. "Or have you forgotten what he did to the Tusken Raiders who murdered his mother?"

The same thing had happened after Luke's death. By the time Vader had finished with Palpatine, there had been nothing left but what remained on Vader's boots. And then he had gone down to the surface of Endor and that was how Leia had encountered him. With blood-soaked armor and chunks of skin gnawed into the grills of his mask.

(Leia wondered what he had looked like beneath that mask. When he had ripped Palpatine into shreds)

With the freshly blood-stained hands that had just murdered his Master, Vader had turned Endor into a bloodbath. And no one, not even the Imperials, had been safe from his wrath.

"Tuskens?" breathed Anakin as Leia was forced to focus on the present. "How do you— how do you know about that?"

"You told me," was her snide response. "How else would I have learned of it?"

"Why—" he choked, "would I tell you that?"

Vader hadn't actually told her as much as he inadvertently showed her. He had been miserable in the wake of Luke's death, and Leia being in close proximity (not by choice) had given her front-row seats to Vader's anguished dreams.

Leia could tell that Anakin was ashamed, as if he had been laid out naked for everyone to gawk at. It had been his deepest, darkest secret and Leia was sure that if she hadn't shared his dreams with him that Vader would've never told her.

"What are you talking about?" asked Obi-Wan before looking at his former Padawan. "I thought you said the Tusken's who murdered your mother had been slaughtered by another Tribe. That you had found your mother in the carnage."

"Oh they were slaughtered, all right," said Leia as she gave Anakin an indifferent look. "Just not by other Tuskens."

Obi-Wan blinked. "Then who—" he turned to look at Anakin but stopped as soon as he saw the stricken look in his former Padawan's eyes.

For one horrible, bitter second, Obi-Wan was in disbelief. "It was you?"

Anakin's face was as white as bone and even from where she stood, Leia could hear his shallow breaths.

"Anakin," Obi-Wan's face was faint, denial warring with the inconvertible fact that he did not know his Padawan as well as he once thought. "What— what happened?"

"You already know what happened," was Anakin's thin response. "They murdered her, slaughtered her like an animal," he said, his lips pulling back into a snarl before he finally turned to look at Obi-Wan. "So I showed them the same mercy that they had shown her."

Obi-Wan swallowed. "So you murdered them."

The sound of groaning, twisting metal filled the air. It was so thick and heavy that neither Leia nor Padmè could help but take a step back, the air pressing them back as the light overhead began to flicker.

"It wasn't murder," Anakin said, his face tight and his lips still pulled back as his metal fist tightened at his side. "You can't murder a rabid animal, Obi-Wan. You can only put it out of its miserable existence."

"Anakin," interjected Obi-Wan, looking lost in the flickering light. "Do you even hear yourself? Comparing any life form to that of a rabid animal is not the way of the Jed—"

"She was my mother!" he cried, his hands shaking. The groaning intensified. "What was I supposed to do? Leave them be?"

"Justice is not the same as revenge!" Obi-Wan was angry, and he didn't bother to show it. "Force, Anakin. You know I taught you better than—"

The light burst, glass showering down on the three of them like rain. Padmè yelped as she quickly stepped out of the path of the falling shards while Leia merely watched, her feet firmly planted on the ground as she felt the shards collecting in her hair. There was a stinging sensation in her cheek, but it paled in comparison to the sting in Anakin's eyes.

"Don't you dare," breathed Anakin, his words shallow as he glared at his former Master. Maybe it was a trick in the dimmed light, but Leia could've sworn she saw yellow in his gleaming eyes. "You knew I was having dreams of her death and when I came to you for help, you did nothing."

"Because I thought they were just dreams," protested Obi-Wan. "Anakin, I swear if I had known that they were visions I would've—"

"Would've what?" asked Anakin. "What would you have done, Obi-Wan? Helped me save her?" he scoffed as he shook his head. "You know as well as I do that you wouldn't have done anything."

The explosion of denial that Anakin had undoubtedly been expecting never came, replaced only by a silent pause that seemed to last an eternity. Blood dripped down Anakin's cheek, emanating from a cut near his eye. They looked like tears.

Obi-Wan looked at his former Padawan in horror as the transparisteel window that had served as Leia's only view of the moon below began to slowly crack.

As much as Leia enjoyed Anakin's pain, she knew she needed to do something.

"Get out," she ordered, glass crunching beneath her shoes as she pointed at the door. "All of you. Out."

Anakin didn't need to be told twice as he turned heel and swiftly exited the room, the cracks coming to a gradual stop the further away he drew. Padmè went to follow, but Obi-Wan grabbed her arm before she could.

"It would be best if you stayed here," he said before adding; "his temper is much too volatile at the moment for you to safely be near him."

"He's my husband," protested Padmè. "He would never intentionally hurt me."

"He isn't in his right mind," said Obi-Wan. "Please, Padmè. Just let me handle this."

She considered his words for a few moments before she reluctantly backed off, her eyes falling on the door in obvious dismay. "Go."

Obi-Wan disappeared down the corridor, Padmè's eyes following him until she could no longer see him.

"He's right, you know," said Leia, her voice piercing the silence. "He will hurt you. Maybe not now, but eventually his temper will get the better of him."

"So you've told me," said the other woman as she turned to look at the Sith, her lips pressed thinly together.

"You should leave him," said Leia. "Get on a ship and get as far away from him while you still can."

"And where would I go?" asked Padmè. Leia could tell that she was not taking her suggestion seriously, but she wasn't dismissing her out of hand either.

"You could go home to Naboo," was Leia's measured response as she watched the other woman carefully. "To your family. They could help you raise your children. You wouldn't be alone."

More than that, she and Luke could grow up together. It was a future that Leia had only ever dreamed about in the quiet, but one she had never dared believe could happen. It had never been a possibility.

Until now.

"I am not leaving my husband," was Padmè's firm response as Leia pressed her lips tightly together.

"I know," said Leia, chest clenching. She had already known what her mother's response would be, but that didn't make it hurt any less. "Don't say I didn't warn you," she added. "He will ruin you. Have no doubt."

Padmè said nothing for a moment before she finally said, much to Leia's surprise, "you're bleeding."

Leia brushed her cheek with her finger, ignoring the sting as she stared down at the crimson liquid. Padmè was right. She was bleeding.

She glanced at the glass beneath her feet numbly as the blood on her finger dripped down onto the floor. All of this had been the result of Anakin's inability to control his temper, and yet Padmè acted as if she could care less.

Did she not realize the danger she was putting herself into?

"Stay here," said Padmè, and Leia couldn't tell if she was joking or not. "I'll be back."

"Where are you going?"

"To see what I can find in the way of bandages," said Padmè before turning a critical eye on Leia, "and a change of clothes."

Leia looked down at her torn and muddied robes and opened her mouth to protest, but Padmè was already gone.