A Love That Turned Evil

Chapter Ten

Luke and Leia

            "Feel it you can, Master Windu." Yoda said, peering out the Temple windows onto Coruscant.

            "He is fully transformed. He belongs to the Dark Side now." Mace said.

            Obi-Wan was in mental pain. How had his Padawan become a member of the Dark Side? A student of Lord Sidious? His prisoner?

            How would he tell Padme?

            Poor, dear Padme. Although he had no desperate need for Padme, the way he could see that Anakin did, he loved her as his sweet, dear friend, and he was prepared to take any responsibilities that Anakin had left behind.

            Obi-Wan took a deep breath and knocked on the door of Padme's house. She had gone home a few days after the children were born.

            The woman that opened the door was so sunken and pale that Obi-Wan did not recognize her.

            "Oh, Obi-Wan!" Padme flung her arms around him and sobbed into his Jedi cloak. "What has happened to Anakin? He's been gone for so long!"

            Obi-Wan helped Padme inside, where she flung herself on the couch and wept.

            She is still so in love with him, Obi-Wan realized. Maybe the Council had been too harsh, after all.

            Then this whole mess wouldn't have gotten started.

            "Padme, I know what has become of your husband."

            Padme looked up with such joy that Obi-Wan could not look at her.

            "Your husband, the former Anakin Skywalker, has turned to the Dark Side under the leadership of the evil Lord Sidious and is now going by the name of Darth Vader. That is all I was able to perceive, using the Force. I am sorry."

            Padme shook her head quickly, back and forth. She is in denial, Obi-Wan recognized.

            Padme began weeping loudly, as if she was at a funeral. "Not my Ani. Not my Ani!" She wailed over and over.

            A baby began whimpering in the next room. Padme looked up and ran to her child.

            Two cribs sat side by side. Two round babies, one with brown hair and one with blondish hair woke up and started crying.

            "Obi-Wan," Padme said in her shaky voice, "meet Luke," she pointed to the blonde haired baby, "and Leia," she pointed to the brown hair child.

            Leia began to bat a piece of wood that was tied to a leather string above her crib. Padme began crying again. It was the amulet that Anakin had carved for her.