Eclipse

by Jurious

AotC & RotS AU: Once apprehended on Geonosis, Padmé falls into the clutches of the villainous Count Dooku, and is taken on one of the most unexpected and frightening rides of her life. A very twisted and unconventional love story.

47. Power and Passion

Author's Notes: Ahem. This chapter has already broken the record of chapter 45's length, reaching a great 14000+ words! Eek, I got carried away! This is a big, long, sometimes angsty, occasionally almost slushy chapter about Serenn and Padmé, so expect something that Eastenders would be proud of (j/k). It's taken a lot of work to get there, but I've tried to hit a right and appropriate balance between them, and I think I got there in the end. I'm just hoping that it feels right to you guys. There's been a strange 'thing' going on between these two for ages and I think I've finally resolved it for both parties to my twisted satisfaction. If you don't like the Padmé/Dook' thing, stop reading now. (Well, you should have stopped reading a long time ago, but I'll say it for good measure! ;) LOL.) I must also say a massive thank you to Kynstar who gave me some useful advice for this chapter and which thus changed it from being a slightly incongruous one into a much more credible one.

After this, we've just got a few more chapters to go until the story concludes, so I think things should begin to round off now. If I could round it off on part 50, I'd be pleased, but we'll see… I've got one week to do it all in - oh dear - and I'm just getting far too excited for RotS!

Love you all! -Juri'

Padawanmage: Of course they had a lot of history. I bet it was absolutely insane. :) I'd try writing about it if doing Yoda-speak didn't do my head in so badly. :) LOL.

HRHpadméamidala: He's not gonna be Mr. Composed, I tell you now!

Silverwolf47: My story's no way gonna be better that RotS. No way. :)

Cmdr.GabeE: The warm fuzzies seem to have been doing their rounds. Glad you liked the Yoda-thing and the Padmé/Dook' hug.

Queeny: You're too kind to me, you really are. :)

REV042175: I think I'll need to do more explaining about the yoda thing and whatnot in the next part because this one's so full of Padmé/Dook' angst. ;)

Kynstar: Thanks again for your advice in our emails. It helped so much! I hope you enjoy the resulting chapter.

Cael Fenton: Thanks for coming out of lurk-mode - your reviews are certainly the most in-depth and constructive I've received. I'm so grateful that you've given my fanfic so much time and thought.

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Part 47 - Power and Passion

Edna Tarso was one of those people who could be called nothing but constant. She was that stable point in the universe that, no matter what was happening around her, would never change; no war or political upheaval would ever unseat her. She would still be there, at the end of it all, just the same as she had ever been, ready to polish the cutlery and wash the linen. There was something ridiculously comforting about this, Count Dooku thought, as he and Master Yoda landed at his manor on Serenno - at least some things carried on as normal in this crazy galaxy.

Yoda was the first to go down the ramp from the shuttle, after it had landed in the hangar adjacent to the mansion. He was clearly very weary and in pain, but he made no complaint, and just went on his way to gain some solitude and rest. Count Dooku soon followed him, enveloped in his red royal guard attire, and he carried Padmé in his arms, who was still sleeping deeply.

Edna was waiting to greet them by the far door, and she came to the Count's side as he emerged, but before she could begin to rattle off about how terrible things were and whatnot, Serenn spoke first; "I need a room for this young lady, as soon as possible," he said.

Mrs. Tarso fell into step beside him, trotting along hurriedly as the Count marched across the small hangar. "Oh, but sir, there are no more rooms available," she said.

"No more?" he asked, stopping and giving her a surprised glance, "No more, in this huge place?"

"Well, sir, I'm sorry to remind you, but we are currently playing host to quite an assembly of guests. I've never in my life had the place so full! I've done everything to Master Kenobi's wishes, just as you said, and housed everyone in the available chambers, and --"

Serenn nodded, having to force a silence on her because she would never stop talking otherwise. "Yes, all right," he said. "She can have my room."

"Your room, sir?" Mrs. Tarso asked. "But where shall you sleep?"

He shrugged and began walking again. "Oh, I'm sure I'll find a sofa somewhere."

"Now, really, sir," Edna gasped.

"Please, Edna, trust me. After all I've been through, I wouldn't even turn the floor down for a night of sleep." He gave her a departing nod and left his housekeeper stood there, quite vexed.

---

It was some time later when Padmé finally awoke. As she blinked in the light, she briefly forgot about the events of the past few hours and felt quite disorientated. Then suddenly, everything came rushing back to her in one go, like splashes of paint onto a white canvas. She rolled onto her side and looked about the room, initially trying to ascertain where she now was. It was all recognisable, from the old tapestries on the walls to the great windows with the long curtains, and, though she knew that she hadn't been in this exact room before, she was unlikely to forget the old-fashioned décor of this place. She knew she was on Serenno.

She sighed and collapsed back onto her pillow, turning to see a pretty little vase of flowers stood on a chest of drawers to her side. A clear, healthy ray of sunlight showered down through the curtains at the window and gave the room a most homely glow. Slowly, she felt a sensation begin to overcome her - one of relief. The simple fact was that she wasn't on Coruscant anymore, so surely she was safe now?

"Well, you're awake!" came a voice suddenly from the doorway.

Padmé turned and sat up, knowing that voice at once. "Obi-Wan!" she cried, smiling widely. "Oh, thank the Force… I never imagined I'd --"

The Jedi Knight came over and sat by her side, embracing her. "I'm so happy to see you," he said, "I thought Yoda was being plain crazy when he told me he was going back to Coruscant, but just to see you here has made it all worth it. It's been such a long time."

"I don't understand," she confessed, trying not to get tearful, so overwhelmed was she by relief; "I just really don't understand."

"It'll all come out in time," he assured her, patting her shoulder. "But first, you must rest."

He made to get up, but Padmé gripped his sleeve and said, "Obi-Wan, where is he?"

Obi sat back down and regarded her carefully. He didn't need to ask who she was talking about. "He's resting," he replied.

Padmé allowed herself a smile. "Force, what a brash, stupid plan… to just run in there and grab me!" She laughed at the thought. "It wasn't yours, I gather?"

"No, I had nothing to do with it," he replied, "It was all down to him - and a little to Yoda, of course - but we couldn't think of anything better to do right now. When we finally heard where you were, and… well, what he presumed was happening to you, we had to get you out of there. It was that one-shot plan or nothing at all. And we had to have one final strike at Palpatine… Yoda did all he could, but he wasn't strong enough. No one is."

Obi-Wan paused for a moment, then reached out and stroked Padmé's hair back from her face so that he could see her clearly. "You look different, Padmé," he whispered, "You're thinner, paler, and a little older, if I'm not mistaken. Has life been so very bad…?"

She swallowed, drawing her knees up to her chest and sighing, "Yes… Oh, Obi-Wan, what has happened to Anakin?"

Kenobi rubbed her shoulder a little, though he knew it would be of little comfort. "Palpatine has fooled and manipulated us all. Anakin more than others…" He frowned to himself. "The Emperor knows what he is doing. I just wish we had been more careful…"

There was a moment's silence.

"Can I see Serenn, Obi-Wan?"

Kenobi dropped out of his reverie and got to his feet, looking a little less than happy by her request. "Well, I shall get a message to him, but it's down to him whether he then comes to see you or not."

That was a strange answer, but Padmé left it at that. "Thank you," she said.

Obi smiled sadly then left.

Padmé watched the empty space where he had been for a moment before she got to her feet and drew the curtains fully apart at the window. She must be on another side of the house to where she had been on her first visit, she thought, for a gorgeous lake greeted her out the window, surrounded by fields full of grass. The birds were all singing and the sky was blue - it was glorious.

She leant on the sill and just stared over the landscape for a while before she was seen to by her old acquaintance, Mrs. Tarso, the kindly old housekeeper whom she had quite forgotten since her last unfortunate stay here. Edna helped her have a good wash, and dressed her in some plain but fresh attire, chatting to her constantly about the house full of 'rebels' and the fact the Count had given up his room for her, and whatnot. By the time she left to see to the other guests, it was growing dark again, and Padmé was soon just ushered back into bed to rest. There had been no sign of Count Dooku.

She lay there late into the night, her eyes wide open, listening for the slightest sound out in the hallway lest her rescuer finally come to see her, but he did not. By the time she decided to check the clock by her bedside, it was midnight. She sighed, unsure why Serenn would do this to her, and give her the snub. It felt wrong.

Though it was against her better judgement, Padmé soon just got out of bed in her nightdress and put on a pair of slippers she had been given, before she pattered out into the manor's dark hallways like a sleepless child. The manor was as creepy and foreboding as ever, and all the paintings of the Dookus of the past still glared out to her from the walls, following her movements in the dark. She hadn't a clue where she was going - Serenn could be anywhere - but she had to find him. He couldn't leave her hanging like this, waiting for so many explanations - surely he must have known that?

"So restless are we, Senator Amidala? At this hour, even?"

Padmé's hand shot to her chest and she gasped in shock as, looking to her right, she saw Master Yoda. He was sat down on a decorative chair, by the edge of the wall, and bathed in a shower of moonlight.

The wrinkled old Jedi heaved a great sigh and slowly opened one of his eyes to look at her. "Mmm… fraught with troubles, your mind is. Great troubles."

"Master Yoda," she whispered, finally finding her voice. "I, well…"

Yoda closed his eye again and seemed to go back into his meditative state. Padmé just frowned at him, wondering how she was expected to react to this.

After a couple of silent minutes, she gathered that Master Yoda had no intention of continuing to speak, so she quietly picked up her feet again and began to step passed him. Yoda consequently thrust his gnarled walking stick out across her path, and said, as she halted again in surprise, "On the ground floor, you need to be. Training in the hall, he is."

Padmé blinked at him, momentarily stunned, but soon hurried off in the direction Yoda had indicated. How had he known? It was scary, and almost as if he had been waiting for her - but at least she knew where she had to go now.

She rushed on down the corridor until she found a flight of stairs, which she descended quickly, before she then turned and made for a passageway to the east. She now seemed to have some notion of where she was going, and it didn't take her long to recognise the corridor where she knew the training hall was located. This was where, during her first visit, she had heard the sounds of a lightsabre in the dark, and where she had first opted to try and kill Serenn. It sounded so stupid now…

As she reached the doors of the hall, she could hear the sound of a lightsabre again from within, thrumming here and there as its wielder put himself through his paces. Without hesitation, Padmé pushed open the door and went in.

Serenn was there, just as Master Yoda had said, and, immediately sensing her presence, the Count halted and turned to look at her. The room was very dark, as it had been on their first encounter there, and the perspiration on his bare chest and forehead twinkled in the ruby light of his weapon.

She held his gaze for a while, then watched his chest as it rose and fell. It was all so strange to see him there; he was clearly alive and well, stood right before her eyes, yet she couldn't quite shake the feeling that he had died. To think that he had been out there all this time…

And thus Padmé whispered, "I thought you were dead." She wasn't quite sure to whom she spoke - to him or to herself - but it had resonance either way.

He blinked then replied, "It might have been better if I was."

Padmé felt her brow crease - what kind of an attitude was this? It didn't seem like him at all…

The Count swung his 'sabre this way and that in his hand before he ran his thumb over the hilt and deactivated the weapon. The room thus fell dark, lit by nothing but a faint shimmer of moonlight that crept in beneath the window blinds, rendering the entire scene quite ghostly.

Anxiety trembled in Padmé's veins; she was nervous, yet she knew not why.

With a wave of his hand, Serenn sent the blinds rolling up and brought a full wash of moonlight into the room, cascading down through the glass in great, white torrents. He and Padmé could see each other clearly now, but the atmosphere was tense, very different to how Padmé had expected it to be. "What is it?" she asked him. There was something wrong, something troubling him, and it only made her feel nervous in turn. She was beginning to regret seeking him out at all.

He heaved a great breath before he suddenly tossed his 'sabre hilt up into the air. Padmé watched it fly upwards, and then tumble down, before the Count caught it again in his hand, the weapon making a solid thud as it landed in his palm. He then stared at it for a little while before he flung it up again, but this time he caught it with his other hand, the metal one, so that it clanged as he grabbed it. "Answer me this," he said quietly. "How can you be so strong?" He looked to her and their eyes met. "How can you look me in the face and not shudder to think of what I've done to you? How can you not want to plunge my own lightsabre through my heart?"

She gaped at him, shocked, and yet she knew he had a point.

"I am sullied, soiled by my own disgusting acts and deeds, from which no water in this universe can purify me… and I wasn't even fast enough to save you from him. I was just too late. I wasn't strong enough."

Padmé really was at a complete loss for words. It was what he did next that terrified her the most, though. With great determination, he marched across the floor toward her and dropped to his knees at her feet, then held his lightsabre up and pointed it in toward his chest.

Padmé shook her head in alarm. "Stop it…" she whispered.

He stared up at her, the moonlight highlighting the whites of his eyes in the gloom. "Tell me to do it, and I will," he said.

This was more heartbreaking and more disturbing a scene than any which she could ever have imagined he would put her through. She wished he were playing some twisted game with her, but she knew, from that look in his eyes, that he wasn't.

He pressed the weapon a little further toward his breast, indenting his skin with its distinctive, jutting blade protector.

Padmé choked on her fear, the real fear that he might actually do it. "Stop it," she asked him again, feeling her palms sweat with terror. It was unbearable to see this noble creature knelt before her in submission, asking, almost begging her to let him end his life.

"I will if you wish it…" he said again.

"But I don't! I don't wish it!" she cried. She dropped to her knees before him and placed her hands over his, prying the weapon away and, at the same time, completely reversing the incident from back in her room on Coruscant, where he, as the royal guard, had saved her. "Why are you doing this?" she asked, "You save me and reawaken all my hopes, then threaten to impale yourself before my eyes?" She finally forced his hands down and stared him in the face. "Why? What's wrong?"

He was looking at her, but in great anguish, and his breaths were coming thick and fast from out of his throat, as if he was going to cry. She shook her head a little again and placed her hand on his cheek. "I don't need this, Serenn," she said. "What is it?"

He didn't meet her gaze. He looked so vulnerable and innocent, and so broken within, that Padmé didn't quite know what to do.

"I'm sorry… I never meant to frighten you," he said at last in a hoarse whisper. "I don't know who I am anymore, Padmé, or what keeps coming over me. I'm just afraid."

"Afraid of what?"

He swallowed convulsively and she could see that he truly was crying. That was perhaps the most telling thing for her - to see tears roll over that barren wasteland, a rare and significant occurrence on his part if ever there was one.

She gently caressed his cheek again and stroked his long hair back from his face. "Serenn, please… You come and rescue me in good spirits, and now you're being like this? I can't deal with that."

He closed his eyes with another sigh. "I can't try to forget it forever, Padmé. I can't brush everything I have done under the theoretical carpet and try to dismiss it." He paused for a moment before he resolved to get to his feet. "Every time I close my eyes, I see blood. I see the bodies I have inadvertently slaughtered, the people I have hurt, the planets I have devastated." He then looked at her intently. "And I see you, the person I have hurt most of all."

She bit her lip gently, having to glance down to avoid those ravaged eyes.

"There are times when I want to end it, like just now. I can't escape it…"

"This isn't like you," she whispered.

He gave her a significant look. "No… but I'm not simply 'me' anymore." He turned away and heaved a great sigh. "I sense that you want answers. That is fair enough. I need to tell you everything as it is. It's eating me up from inside and if I don't tell you, then I don't think I can consciously carry on." He put the lightsabre toward his chest again. "And if I can't carry on, then I'll have no choice."

'This weapon is your life'

Padmé placed her hand over his again. "I know we need to talk, but please don't be like this. I don't even understand what's happened to me, or why, but to hear you talk like this…"

He just stared at her as she sought for the words.

"I can't bear it," she said at last. "I've been through Hell, and then been through it again, and now here you are, wallowing in self-pity. How am I supposed to react to that?"

He chewed on his tongue, her words hitting him like a slap in the face.

"I need your help," she implored, clasping his metal hand in hers.

Serenn looked at her small, delicate fingers as they curled about his ugly, bulky limb; there was such a great contrast there, and it felt weird.

"Please don't do this," she pleaded, her voice barely audible.

Dooku placed his other hand gently on top of hers and tried to collect his thoughts. "I'm sorry. I just can't quite come to terms with everything, or find any answers for it all. I just feel like I've lost all control." He paused for another moment, then said, out of the blue. "I saw it all Padmé, every night in my dreams… I saw that man, that boy, pleased about what he was doing to you, trying to possess you so badly that he caused you pain." He shuddered as he forced down the memories. "And I just couldn't prevent it. I'm so sorry. This is all my fault."

He walked away from her and drew a towel to his hand, wiping the sweat from his forehead and his body. He then tossed it back onto a bench nearby and said, "I'm sorry I didn't come to you earlier, when you asked for me. I couldn't bring myself to face you again. You caught me completely off guard in the shuttle. I never thought you'd embrace me like that. And now, I just feel so awkward. I don't know who I am, or what I am, or how to treat you."

He quietened for a minute and looked around for his shirt, but couldn't seem to find it. "I had to go back, to rescue you," he went on, giving up his search. "There was no question about that - it was my duty - and yet now that you're here…" He looked at her, his mouth moving in silence as he tried to find the words. "I can't even convey my feelings to you. I don't know what to feel, or how to feel, or…" He sighed once more and shook his head, kneading his temples. "Oh, what does it matter? I don't matter any more. But you do."

The Count then offered her his metal hand.

Padmé hesitated but soon placed her own hand into his, and trembled a little as those fingers closed round her own.

"I am at your service," he said as he closed his grip on her. "You have many questions to ask, so allow me to answer them, and to tell you everything."

She swallowed again and nodded to him. "Then tell me everything, Serenn," she whispered as she held him by the arm and looked into his brown eyes. "Tell me it all."

---

Serenn decided to move to somewhere a little more comfortable for this difficult conversation, and so he escorted Padmé to the manor's large sitting room. He got a fire going in the grate whilst Padmé settled herself nearby, sitting in one of the bottle-green armchairs; in fact, it was the very chair she had sat upon during her first visit here, all that time ago. Dooku then stared at the portrait of one of his ancestors over the fireplace, and watched how the shadows now shifted and danced over his visage and clothes, before he began to speak.

"I joined Lord Sidious ten, maybe eleven years ago now," the Count related, "The Republic was failing before my very eyes and Qui-Gon, my dearest Padawan and friend, had been slaughtered in the midst of this corruption, doing his duty. I was angry, Padmé - violently so. I could see things happening all around me but I had not the power to do anything. On top of this, the Council was becoming increasingly frustrated with my temper and with my constant agitation toward the senate, so I decided to get out of there before it was too late." He looked at her. "Don't think it was an easy decision to make - I had to embark suddenly upon a kind of life I had never been able to lead before. I came into ownership of a vast fortune; I was free to dress as I liked, to own what I liked, and to practically do whatever I liked. More importantly, I could feel how I liked, and freely, too."

His fingers went to his lips and he tapped them for a moment. "Lord Sidious is a clever man, and he has always been so. I confess that I almost joined him out of sheer spite, but I did need everything that he offered me. With the power he gave me, and the extra training - training of the likes I have never suffered before - I knew I could achieve all the changes that I had ever wanted in the galaxy. I could oppose the Republic."

Padmé let him talk and merely listened so that she could try to understand this man and, hopefully, in due course, find some answers of her own.

"But when one starts off gaining such power," Serenn continued, "one doesn't quite know when it is safe to stop. With every step I took, I set the limits for achieving my objectives a little further away, so that, bit by bit, and unbeknownst to me, I began heading to the extreme. Every time I crossed the theoretical line, I didn't stop myself; I just reset the boundary to suit me until I had just gone too far.

"By the time one realises they have succumbed to the dark side, and cannot get out, it is a shock. It is a fact one denies oneself and something one cannot quite believe they have stooped to, but it happens, and then one is lost to it." He looked at her. "It tortures and torments one, this dark side. I never mastered it - it only mastered me. I took it greedily at first, revelling in my newfound strength and abilities, but now… I have gone so deep that it has consumed me. I cannot get away from it. It shall haunt my dreams and feed off my weaknesses until I die. I now realise that there is only one master of the dark side, and that is Lord Sidious; he is infallible, and the dark side serves him. It preys on the rest of us, we dark side pretenders, for those of us who have known love or compassion cannot master it - we can only be enslaved by it."

Padmé swallowed heavily. It was frightening to hear him talk about the dark side like this.

"And I never realised all this until that night, after I had abused you in that shower, when you told me I was evil. That dug beneath my skin and tore into my nerves unlike anything anyone has ever said to me before. It was from that moment that you made me slowly perceive the error of my ways and made me understand that I had, in fact, become a slave to the darkness, not the other way round."

Padmé fiddled with the seam of the upholstery on her chair. "I've never been so scared of you than I was at that moment," she confessed, trying not to think about it. "You were just wicked."

Serenn's face withdrew in on itself and she could see him pondering on all this with remorse. "I'm not sure what happened to me that evening, Padmé," he said, "I just wanted vengeance on Skywalker so badly, and…" He swallowed. "I needed to prove to myself that Skywalker had no power over me, that he couldn't stop me. And there you were, at my mercy, ready for the taking. All I had to do was use my powers, to just reach out --" And here he held his bionic arm out before him, grasping lightly at the air, before he then dropped it back by his side. "But no… you stopped me." He sighed. "I was simply infatuated by you."

She felt herself colour a little. She was grateful that he decided not to notice it.

"So, what else can I tell you?" he implored, "Question me, interrogate me - I beg you."

She sighed and thought over everything, trying to find a place to start. "I'd like to know what happened to you after that battle with Palpatine," she said, "I don't understand how you survived."

He nodded, then steepled his fingers and looked at her, sucking in a long breath, before saying, "Well, let me see… I'll start at the end of the battle. Darth Sidious was stood over me and --"

"If there can be only one apprentice," the Sith Master said, his lightsabre hovering idly above Dooku's chest, "Then one of you must die." He hooked Dooku's 'sabre hilt to his belt and raised his own behind his head. "Who do you think I have chosen to die, Tyranus?"

Serenn swallowed, his cards all but spent. If he faced reality, the only question that now remained was simply how he would die… And he made that decision in but a second. He rolled across the ledge to his left, clutching the stump of his right arm in his other hand, before he flung himself off the edge of the building.

Sidious's 'sabre severed nothing but air as it fell and he watched the Count drop down into the darkness of Coruscant below; "Then so be it…" he muttered, swinging his blade round once more in his hand before it fizzled out into nothingness and he returned into the chamber.

The wind rushed through Serenn's hair, the lit windows of the skyscrapers flashing by as he plunged on downwards to gravity's will. The pain in his severed arm was immense and threatened to override his senses completely, but he wouldn't let it - there was still hope.

Serenn smiled vaguely at Padmé. "Skywalker wasn't the only Jedi to ever have been a notorious acrobat of the sky-lanes. He was but one of a long legacy."

Padmé just frowned at him, a little confused.

Closing his eyes, he gave himself up to the Force, let it fill his fatigued and exhausted body and his weary limbs with new life. The speed at which he was falling seemed to slow, and he found himself focused once more and able to take control of this impossible scenario. He opened his eyes, and flung his remaining hand out to his left, grasping for but a brief moment the passing bumper of an air taxi. From this he swung his body to the right, falling down onto the shiny, frictionless hull of a huge freighter vessel.

He ground his teeth together, striving to keep the agony within his body contained as he slid rapidly down the ship and off its edge, giving himself up once more to the air. He was falling with calculation and control now - the Force was with him.

"Though I doubt that that couple in the taxi will ever be the same again…" the Count added.

Padmé continued to look befuddled. "I don't follow you…"

His fall was perfectly timed - he kicked himself off from a cab and towards a cruiser, which he managed to land upon, and jumped off onto another cab, before he flipped off this and plummeted down into the seat of another unsuspecting taxi. The couple sat in there just screamed as he landed before them.

He didn't take his time to even look at them however as he let the Force guide him and vaulted back over the vehicle's edge, before he landed unsteadily on the permacrete of one of the city's upper street levels below. Collapsing onto the floor and inching his way backward into a dark alley, retreating like an injured beast out of sight, he sat there for a long time and just clutched his wound, trying to gather his strengths. He was suddenly very alone and vulnerable in the universe, having fallen (literally) from the top to the bottom of the hierarchy in a mere matter of minutes.

"I fell a long way," he explained, "Through sky-lane after sky-lane, passing so many stories of the skyscrapers, I dare not dwell on the thought… I had to think fast, to try and recall the reckless days of my youth, and to do the impossible - control my fall."

Padmé shook her head a little. "You can't control a fall…" she said.

"Then tell me how I survived."

She looked at him hard. In the end, she just nodded stiltedly and was forced to accept the unbelievable.

"Yes…" he said. "Do not doubt the impossible."

"And then what happened?" she went on. "How did you end up with Master Yoda?"

He caressed his beard and stared into the fireplace; "It's strange, isn't it?" he said, a little absentmindedly, "I had a reason to live, and yet… I had no idea how to go about getting back on my feet again." He smiled bitterly. "I don't know how long I was down there, living unnoticed in the depths of Coruscant, cradling the painful, throbbing stump of my arm, and skulking in dark corners. The pain got to a point where it frankly blinded me. I just sat there, cold, weak and alone, until, out of the darkness one day, a small hand touched me and said, 'Welcome home, Serenn'."

The Count paused, blinking and looking thoughtful. "Master Yoda had found me," he said. "I don't pretend to know how - his abilities are beyond me - but, together with some volunteers, he dragged me to my feet and hauled me back through Coruscant, unseen and unheard."

Serenn paused and raised his eyebrows briefly in amazement. "You know, it's frankly astonishing what people resolve not to see down there." He cast this aside, and continued; "The rest of the journey was fuzzy to me. I know I was taken into some sort of shuttle, and thence off-planet, but I slipped in and out of consciousness so much that I hadn't a clue what was going on. Master Yoda was always there, though. He sat by my bedside speaking to me, and talking about my boyhood and all my mistakes, telling me about his expectations and his pride in me. And his disappointment, too." Serenn stopped here and wiped his eyes, having talked himself into a bit of an awkward spot.

"So Master Yoda just forgave you?" Padmé asked, "Rescued you without question?"

Dooku looked at her from under his hooded eyelids and heavy brow, and murmured, at length, "Master Yoda does not forgive easily, but he also does not hold grudges. I cannot make up for my betrayal to him, or take back the anger with which I fought him on Geonosis, but he knows me better than anyone, and he could see - no, rather he could sense - the changes that had by then taken place in me. He came to find me on Coruscant, not because I was being Tyranus and he wanted answers, but because I was being Dooku again and he needed my help. And I do not doubt that, perhaps, without my even knowing it, in those moments of delirious pain, I may have reached out for him in turn and sought frantically for the aid of that kindly little creature who had always loved me most… And so he came and found me, and, thus, I was home."

This made Padmé feel very sad for some reason, to hear Dooku relate this to her and to see the distress in his eyes and the creases in his brow. She was sure that this must now weigh on him somewhat, the fact that he owed his life to Master Yoda, a Jedi he had almost killed in combat not too long ago, at the start of the Clone Wars. It was just one of the many prices he had had to pay.

"So you two are friends again?" she continued.

He gave her another of his pensive looks. "I suppose 'friends' is the word. How else can I possibly treat an individual who has saved my life? Master Yoda has helped me to recover, to clear my mind, and to rescue you. I owe it to him, and I dare say to myself, to become something of his student again."

He looked back to the flames beneath the mantelpiece and watched them waltz with one another in tumult. "I've already told you about my nightmares, haven't I? Before I rescued you, in nearly every single one of these dreams, I saw you, you with that Skywalker, and I felt all your pain and suffering as though it were my own." He clenched his fists and breathed heavily, shaking his head. "It was horrible…"

Padmé felt the blood drain from her face and her heart filled with an icy-cold sensation as her memories from those recent dark times with Anakin came flooding back.

"I couldn't take it--" Serenn stammered on. "I couldn't sit back and know what he was doing to you, and let it all happen." He heaved a great sigh, his eyes glassy with rage, directed more at himself than anyone other; "I couldn't let you go through all that again. That was why I carried on - to save you."

Padmé remained silent. He looked so much like Anakin in how he acted right now, in how his eyes shone with regret, how his body could barely control the ire he felt toward himself. It scared her a little, these similarities, but it was at least the Anakin of before that she saw in him, and not the Emperor's Darth Vader.

"As long as you're safe now," he went on, his voice falling to a hoarse whisper, "Then that's some comfort. I don't care anymore what happens to me. I have done my duty to you, though I doubt that it is of much consolation, and I'm sorry that I was too late to help you…"

"It's okay," she said, getting to her feet and walking to his side. The fire sent a welcome shimmer of warmth over her skin as she stood in front of the hearth, and she reached out, placing her hand on his metallic arm and giving him a faint smile. "I'm very grateful for what you did."

He stared at her, seeming to be a little amazed by her words and her very composure. He moved a little from the mantelpiece and turned to face her head on, raising his left hand to her cheek and stroking her skin gently. "I know he did terrible things to you, just as I once did…" He tilted her face this was and that, then took her arm and looked over it, seeing traces of bruising and rough handling there. "I don't understand how I could do it now, dare to imprint such marks of brutality on you… dare to take what is not mine to have." He rubbed his thumb over some of the bruises, just lightly, so as not to hurt her.

"I don't understand it, either, Serenn," Padmé whispered in turn, running her finger in gentle circles over the top of his hand. "Anakin hurt me so much..." She swallowed and looked at the Count. "I know you did, too, but this…" She took a deep breath, shuddering. "It was as if he wanted to hurt me, to just hurt me as much as possible, so that he could cleanse me of… of…"

Realisation dawned upon Serenn and he whispered, "Of me."

Their eyes then met and Padmé nodded. "Yes," she agreed. "Of you." She pulled away from him and hugged herself, feeling a chill traverse her body. She suddenly wished she'd put on a robe of some sort, or even just a jacket, because she felt so cold now. Serenn noticed this and moved back to her side, against his better judgement, so he could put his arm round her and rub her bare arms to keep her warm. "You should have known better than walking around this place in your nightshirt," he said.

She smiled faintly and let him touch her. In fact, she rather welcomed it. It was a relief for him to just go off-topic for a moment, and just to feel his hands on her.

"I'm in a good mind to take you back to your room now," the Count resolved at length, "You really need to rest."

"No, don't," she asked him. "Please, not yet."

He sighed and let her have her way.

She paused a minute and watched his hands on her arms, hands that had done so much, and hurt so many, the same hands that had taken her by the shoulders on their first fateful meeting, which had pinned her to the wall in that Nubian shower, which had carried her off that precipice on the uncivilised planet… and which now comforted her beyond measure. "Serenn," she asked as she mused on all this, "Why did you do it?"

She stopped again, unable to articulate the actual word. She knew she had to get it out, though, to speak to him about it and get to the bottom of it all. She swallowed hard and built up her courage, saying at last, "Why did you rape me?"

His hands shuddered to a halt and his very demeanour seemed to fall into the depths of despondency. "Oh, Padmé…" he whispered, "I can hardly think of a reason now. There is never a reason for it, not a valid one."

"I need to know."

He clutched her arm a little and nodded his concurrence. "Yes… I know you do."

"So why…?" she pleaded.

He sighed, pausing for a while.

"Please bear with me. I may be crude," he murmured at first. "I might have to be…" He then took a deep breath and said, "You were 'untouched', as the euphemism goes, when I first met you. I knew that. I also knew that you had a young, strapping Padawan on your tail, vying for your heart, a Padawan who had also made himself my enemy and, not only that, but who had held my master's, and many other peoples', interests for some time. This boy had to be felled. So, what better way to knock down a Jedi then by encouraging him to take himself off track? The easiest, and most terrible, way I could do this was through you. He loved you desperately and wanted you to be his and his alone." His thumb made a slight pass over Padmé's skin, and he breathed deeply before he carried on. "I thus took it upon myself to make sure that he could never have you all to himself. I slept with you, and took your virginity, and that was that. It could not be undone, and it sent Skywalker spiralling downwards faster than anyone anticipated. So fast, in truth, that I didn't see my own displacement coming along with it."

He left her side and walked away toward a window, passing out of the circle of light that the fire gave off, and allowing himself to be swallowed by the shadows. "It was all a game, Padmé," he whispered, overcome by a terrible sensation of disgust and pain. "One big, sick, twisted game."

Padmé stared ahead into space. She thought that she would feel uncomfortable about this, about being so near him when he was telling her about his most horrific of crimes against her, and yet she didn't. Perhaps that was because she didn't feel like she was with that same man anymore. This still couldn't prevent her feelings of insecurity and betrayal coming back to haunt her, though; nothing could wipe those stains from her soul. "So I should be blaming you for Anakin's fall?" she quietly deliberated. "For everything?"

Serenn froze up at that. "If you so wish," he murmured, "I cannot deny that I had a good share of the responsibility." He turned to her again and stepped back into the light. "But don't forget, Padmé," he went on, "I didn't only orchestrate the beginning of Anakin's fall, but I also orchestrated my own, completely without realising it. Sidious used you not only to draw Anakin away, but to defeat me."

Padmé looked at him carefully as he talked, staring into his eyes all the time.

"He knew I was falling in love with you," Serenn went on, "Force, he probably foresaw it, he has a habit of that - so he used you as my weakness at the same time as he used you as Anakin's. Can you see what happened, and how I fell into my own trap?"

She nodded stiltedly, feeling more than a little numb and lost inside. "It's strange," she mused, "I just… don't know how to feel about you." She turned to the mantelpiece and reached out to it, running her finger along some of the carved shapes on the stonework. "You've finally admitted that you were falling in love with me," she whispered, "but it doesn't take away what you did. You raped me for little other than your master's gains, and that emotionless attitude frightens me more than anything. You did it for purely functional reasons…" She looked straight at him. "And you lied to me. Why did you lie to me? Why did you tell me for so long afterwards that nothing had happened?"

He looked so uncomfortable and revolted by himself right now that Padmé wouldn't have put it past him to run from his shadow, so it understandably took him a while to collect himself enough to answer.

"I had to lie," he confessed at last. "I had to keep you in enough doubt so that you would never be able to do anything about it. You had no proof that anything had transpired, no memory, just a feeling. What could you do? Nothing except stick with me, as much as that hurt you. At the same time, I had done enough to set the alarm bells ringing in Skywalker's head - the Force told him everything; I wasn't sure that it would, but it did, and I had therefore fed the flames of his rage enough to keep him burning for a long time. Sidious meanwhile played along in the background and continued to add but more and more fuel to Skywalker's ire, and the effects are plain to see. Even now, that boy has not gotten over it all. He still seeks to wipe every trace of me from this galaxy. And from you."

"But if you hadn't done it," Padmé stated coldly, "then he wouldn't have, either. Don't you understand that? It's all your fault!"

He swallowed and nodded reluctantly. "I know…"

"I should hate you," she said, "But I hate what Anakin's done more because I've known him for a long time, and it hurts so much more when you see someone you love destroy themselves, and then destroy you." She wiped her eyes again. "He's changed, and you've changed, and I don't know where I am anymore."

Padmé's finger was still wandering over the fireplace and it paused suddenly over a carving of some kind of fruit - it looked like a bunch of grapes. She ran her finger down over the curves of this until she reached the bottom, and there she paused again. "I'm afraid, Serenn," she whispered. "I never wanted this to happen. Not like this, not now…"

Serenn came back fully into the light and his brow creased. There was something wrong here, he could feel it, yet it was something he couldn't perceive through the Force, something that had been kept hidden from him. "What's happened?" he asked.

Padmé turned to him as he paced over the rug before the hearth and then stood before her. She felt suddenly awkward; the thought had just come to her mind, as she looked at this battle-scarred Jedi, of what exactly he meant to her. Obi-Wan was a friend, people like Bail were colleagues, the Emperor was an enemy, but him… what was he?

She looked down at the rug, following its intricate patterns with her eyes as she thought on this. She needed to tell someone about her condition because it was consuming her from within, not to mention that it would undoubtedly endanger her, and anyone else near her, due to the eagerness with which she would soon be sought by Lord Vader. But why did she want to tell him first? It was half the reason she'd sought him out, she secretly knew that, and yet what was Serenn? She couldn't see him as a friend - she knew him far too well for that - but he wasn't a lover, either. Anakin was, or rather had been, her lover. Yet, if Serenn wasn't a lover, then what, in the Force's name, was he? And why was telling him this now proving to be so difficult?

Serenn looked uneasy as he picked up on Padmé's vacillation, and he couldn't help but raise his hand to her cheek and cup it, running his thumb tenderly over her skin. He could see this surprised her, but she did not repel him - on the contrary, she leant into his touch, and lay her hand on top of his, trying to draw some comfort from him.

As she soaked up Serenn's affection, it then suddenly occurred to Padmé that this whole picture felt rather familiar…

'From the moment I met you, not a day has gone by where I haven't thought of you. And now that I'm with you again, I'm in agony.'

The fireplace, the quiet, the solitude… It was another one of those ironies.

'The closer I get to you, the worse it gets. The thought of not being with you… I can't breath.'

Padmé gasped all of a sudden as she felt Serenn's lips on her cheek, and her hands shot forward to grab his shoulders in an attempt to ground herself. His left hand remained by her face, whilst his metal one took in the curve of her shoulder, and slid over the silky fabric of her nightgown until it settled on her hip. Padmé felt an inappropriate burst of desire erupt within her at this, and her body tingled all over.

The Count moved his lips from her cheek and she then, for just a moment, felt his breaths against her ear, before he teased the lobe with his mouth. She actually moaned a little then, to her shame, and wondered briefly how they'd gotten into this situation; he'd just suddenly made a move on her and she hadn't stopped him! His desire for her seemed to have taken him by the neck - or something else, more likely - and pulled, but, to make matters worse, she found his emotional turn infectious; suddenly, she just wanted to caress and hold him, too. Maybe he was a lover after all…? But, bearing in mind all they'd just talked about, was this the answer? Did this solve things? Or had she not really come to talk things over at all…?

Padmé sighed out loud again as Serenn continued to play with her ear - it was surprising how sensitive it was - before he then moved down to kiss her neck. Her hands seemed to move of their own accord, and she clasped the back of his head with one, and moved the other to the small of his back, holding him tightly into her. Her silk-covered breasts pressed into his bare chest and she felt a shudder run through his body, which then sent a tremble off in her own. Suddenly, all that mattered to her was him - never mind her apprehensions or her worries.

It was a mystery to her how she subsequently ended up flat-out on the rug; she just didn't realise she was down there until she became aware of his body pressing onto her whilst she kissed him with wild abandon. She jumped a little as his metal hand drifted up her thigh to her hip, and she arched her back, driving herself against him. He groaned loudly and it sent a thrill through her, to actually have some kind of influence on him, and yet… There was something missing.

Suddenly, Padmé felt nervous again. Suddenly, she remembered what she had to tell Serenn. Suddenly, Anakin's ghost was hovering between them and, as all these thoughts flustered her, they soon diverted him in turn. He drew his lips away from hers and looked at her, seeking an explanation for what had gone wrong, and for the reason of this hiatus, because he wasn't sure himself.

Padmé sighed, frustrated. She had been so close to having what she had never had before - plain devotion, trust and compassion - and, even now, when she knew it had retreated back out of reach, she still kept her grip on Dooku, as though afraid of losing him.

"What is it?" Serenn asked, running his fingers through her hair as he lay on top of her.

She looked away sadly, her hand trailing unconsciously down his back, circling at the small, before then retreating back up to his shoulders and running over the ridges of the scar tissue that lay all over his spine. She realised she couldn't do this, not whilst so much still remained unresolved and uncertain. Serenn soon understood this and so eased himself off her, wiping his forehead and looking quite humiliated.

"I'm sorry," he spluttered, "I--"

"No," she hurriedly assured him, "It's okay. It's just me, I--"

"I'm so stupid," he growled, "To think you'd even want --"

"I do!" she said, rather too quickly.

He gave her a stunned glance.

"It's just… I just can't…"

He ran his hand through his long hair. "I'm sorry," he sighed again.

"No, it's not your fault," she assured him once more, "It's just --"

Serenn looked at her - he could feel the presence of Skywalker between them now, holding them apart and keeping them apart. It made him a little angry; he didn't want anything to do with that boy anywhere near him, or anywhere near her, ever again. "Tell me," he implored.

Padmé drew her nightgown back over her knees and looked down. When she didn't say anything, Serenn exhaled deeply and said, "If you want me to go…?"

"No," she replied, "It's just difficult."

It must be, the Count resolved, for she still didn't speak. Chewing on his tongue, he eventually reached out to touch her shoulder and tried to comfort her. She looked back at him in turn and strained to communicate the anguish that this one secret was causing her.

"Look…" Dooku said, holding her gaze. "We're going to be here all night if you don't say something soon."

Now that he really looked at her, he could see that she appeared very frightened, and what little colour there had been in her face had completely drained. This scared him a little and he hence asked, more urgently, "Force, what is it?" Something wasn't right, he could sense it so clearly now, and yet she really didn't want to tell him about it. He knew that she knew that she needed to tell him, but she was finding it all a little too much.

"Serenn," she said, then went quiet.

He looked at her, watching a tear wend its way down from the corner of her eye, rolling over her cheek and onto her nightgown below. "Talk to me, Padmé," he whispered.

She nodded, looking back to the rug beneath her. She then felt the warmth of Serenn's body as he shifted round and sat right by her side. As his arm came over her shoulder, she bit into her lips and clutched at his hand. "I missed you," she suddenly professed. "I just missed you so much…"

"Likewise," he murmured, caressing her shoulder, before he then kissed her cheek solidly.

Padmé felt something in that kiss that was more than reminiscent of their passion a moment before, but it scared her this time. She knew that, whilst she was bound to Anakin, this couldn't be right; she couldn't string Serenn along like this and fall into that trap of desire without being candid with him.

"Serenn," she said at last. "I'm going to have a baby."

There was silence. The spirit of Skywalker had become triumphant, and the Count had been bested, and he didn't say anything; he just didn't say a word.

The atmosphere seemed to become quite cold, despite the fact the fire still raged in the hearth, and, after a while, Padmé couldn't bare the silence any longer, so she looked him in the eyes, hoping to gauge his reaction. He appeared somewhat strange to her, having an aura of regret and sorrow about his person; she couldn't quite put her finger on what it was, or what it meant.

At long last, he met her gaze again, and asked, "You're pregnant?"

She nodded slowly.

He again looked away, his eyes darting everywhere except onto her. He still didn't say anything.

"Serenn, don't be like this," Padmé whispered.

He didn't look likely to take things calmly, though. His chest had soon started to rise and fall in rapid succession of itself, and his eyes had taken on that wild, distressed aura that she really hadn't wanted to see.

"Serenn," she said, placing a hand on his shoulder.

He shrugged her off. Ouch.

Padmé hated this. It made her feel bad, and it wasn't her fault. If anything, all this was only a consequence of the chain of events that the Count had set into motion in the first place! Why should he be so surprised? "For the Force's sake, don't shut me out!" she said to him.

"Why not?" he retorted, his tone suddenly bitter. "I'm better off 'shut out', aren't I?"

"Stop being so childish."

"So I'm bloody childish now, am I?" he thundered. "What do you want from me, Padmé? What can I give you now that he hasn't?"

She found herself shaking her head slowly, "What is it with you? Has everything just meant nothing now that this has happened? You can't feel anything for me now? I'm just another tool? You saved me to cleanse your soul, but you won't help me to save mine…? Well, shut me out then, Count Dooku. Leave me alone in this dark void. Perhaps it's better that way."

Serenn gave her a look that was so reminiscent of Anakin it scared her; he just stared long and hard into her eyes, and she watched his face in return, seeing him think things over behind those harsh, chiselled features. He then did what Padmé thought was the worst possible thing - he just walked away in silence and left her there, alone in the dark.

She leaned back against one of the armchairs with a great sigh and propped her head up on her hands. That really hadn't gone well.

---

Serenn walked away as fast as he could. That was his problem - he always walked away, or talked his way out of things, or threw himself off buildings... Was it little wonder that no one except Yoda trusted him? He was too upset to think on this, though, so he just kept marching along, his eyes livid, until he tore out of a door onto the veranda that backed onto his manor, and there slumped down onto the flagstones, watching the moonlight flitter over the lake beyond like a fountain of glowing petals frolicking in the breeze. He couldn't shake this feeling, the terrible anger that was balled up in his chest, the deep rage and despair. He'd never felt anything like this before, and it surprised him. He was being so self-pitying right now that he hadn't even stopped to think about how Padmé was feeling, left back alone in the gloom, more than likely shocked and hurt by his outburst.

He sighed deeply, and just stared out into the night, his eyes blank and his mind hollow. He felt like he had been betrayed, or something, and it pained him. His mind was soon interrupted, however, by the slow tap-tap-tap of an approaching cane. He sighed inwardly, the angry knot in his chest tightening and twisting - Master Yoda was the last person he wanted the company of right now. Trust him to be out wandering this time of night, waiting for these things to happen.

Serenn ignored Yoda for as long as possible. He could sense the small Jedi's presence behind him as vividly as if he had been standing there, right before his eyes, but he knew Master Yoda wouldn't remain silent for long.

"So much pain are you in Serenn," Yoda said at last. "So much agony."

Dooku gritted his teeth together and remained silent, whilst a tear rolled down his cheek.

"Tell me about it, you should," Yoda insisted.

"Leave me alone, Master Yoda," Dooku snapped.

"Hmph. Pain you are in and help you need, but so proud are you. Always proud." Yoda seated himself by Serenn's side and prodded him in the ribs. "Too proud."

"Why did you bring me back, Master Yoda?" he murmured, "Why didn't you just leave me to die?"

"If intended to die you had, then dead already you would have been. Alive did you keep yourself. No intention to die had you yet."

Serenn wiped the tear from his face and looked away.

"Yes. Know the truth, you do," Yoda nodded, "Blame not Yoda for your good fortune. Blame yourself."

"You're not my master anymore. You can't keep lecturing me like this."

"No. But still master you call me. Still will I lend you my ear, my son. Still will I listen."

Dooku bit his lip as he felt Yoda's small, gnarled hand touch his arm, and he trembled, suppressing his rage and anguish.

"Speak to me, Serenn," Yoda went on.

The Count blinked hard and lowered his head, hanging it between his arms as he leant them across his raised knees. "It hurts, Master Yoda," he growled, his words and very body shaking. "It just hurts."

"Hmm. Feel your pain, I do."

"I can't cope."

"But cope you must. Not your concern it is."

"Not my concern?" he spat, looking at Yoda incredulously, his long hair seeming to give him an added frenzied look. "Not my concern?"

Yoda just looked back at him sadly.

"Tell me, master, why it isn't my concern?"

Yoda looked away, gripping his gimer stick and settling into a meditative manner. "Say nothing, I shall, until your problem you tell me."

Serenn scoffed. "You know my problem, or else you wouldn't be able to judge whether or not it was my concern!"

"Yes, but too easy would it be for you not to talk. On your part some effort is needed, so your problem you must tell me."

The Count growled and looked downwards, his dark eyes filled with a morose maelstrom.

"Hear you, I cannot, Serenn."

"Stop using my name."

Yoda laughed, chuckling as he often did at his own jokes. "Given to you for a reason, your name was. Why then can't Yoda use it? Must Yoda call you only 'Dooku'?" He laughed again, a sound which, at this moment, only grated on the Count's nerves. "Yoda likes that not."

"Shut up, master!" Serenn yelled, shooting to his feet and throwing his metal fist into the wall. "For once just shut up! You've got no idea how I'm feeling right now, you've just got no idea! You don't know the torment of the dark side, the pull of passion - you just can't help me!"

Yoda shook his head as he watched fragments of brick patter to the floor. "So much pain, so much anger, and so much puerility. Why can you not just talk to me, my son?"

"I'm not your blasted son," Serenn growled on, "I'm not your Padawan, I'm not a child and I'm no Jedi! Not any more…" His eyes were wild as he looked at Yoda. "Have you seen what I've done, master, since I left you? Have you seen the destruction I've wrought? The lives I have destroyed? The planets I have wiped out? Are you proud, master? Are you proud of what your 'son' has done?"

Yoda still only watched him with a calm and thoughtful look, and thus only infuriated Dooku further. The Count felt his chest burn with wrath, but he could do nothing in the end except let his anger collapse in on itself, and his eyes were, by then, blazing with tears. Yoda was thus satisfied that his old Padawan had burned himself out, so he finally spoke again; "Now your problems, tell me, old friend."

Serenn was reluctant to speak to him any more. He felt uncomfortable after his outburst.

"Love," Yoda said to start things off, "Mysterious is this emotion. It brings so much pain and suffering, yet so much glee and happiness can it also bring. Hmm… strange it is, indeed."

Serenn eyed him warily.

"Yes, a dangerous emotion it is. And embraced it, you have." Yoda's green eyes focused on Dooku and, by that alone, he managed to draw his old Padawan back to sit by his side. "Speak to me, Serenn" he asked as Dooku settled down again on the flagstones. "Talk about it."

Serenn sighed deeply. "I… I hurt her, master," he muttered. "I keep seeing it over and over, everything I did. And I can't believe it was me…"

Yoda's eyes closed again - Serenn was finally ready to talk, but he was starting with the past, and with his most heinous of crimes, something he needed to get off his chest to someone who would listen and help him.

"I used her," Dooku went on, thinking back to that first night with Padmé, "I--" He breathed heavily, a look of realisation on his face, as though the thought had only just now come to him. "I can see her as clearly as I see you now," he whispered, "There she was, upset, alone, and in a strange place with a strange man, and I--"

'Forgive me, my dear, I have no intention of intimidating you'

He stared downward, brow creasing in horror. "I…"

'Perhaps I can help you sleep…'

He shook his head. "She was so distraught, so afraid, and I…" He blinked, unable to quite comprehend it all. "I took advantage of that."

'We're not frightened of the old Count, are we?'

"Why? Why did I do it…?"

'Give yourself to me'

Yoda's lips pursed then loosened and he peered out at Dooku from under his half-closed eyelids. "The past that is, Serenn. Much pain did you cause, much terror. Hurt an innocent woman you did."

"Woman?" he scoffed sourly, "Woman? Master, she was barely more than a girl!"

Yoda gave him a sharp glare. "Knew that, you did."

Serenn stared at him, and his face paled - of course he had known it, but he had never felt as bad about it as he did now, as he heard his old mentor, Master Yoda, say that to him. He suddenly felt sick and his hands were shaking.

"But realised your errors you have," Yoda added.

"It's rather too late," Serenn whispered, wiping his eyes.

"Yes, too late. Far too late… But now, tell me what pains you now, in the present."

Dooku thought for a moment, then murmured, "I…"

"Hmm? Speak up! Old ears, are mine. Not everything can they hear."

Serenn gave Yoda a slight frown, finding his humour ill-timed, before he then looked up at the sky to collect his thoughts, a great blanket of black imprinted with many small, tiny, sparkling dots, each and every one of them a system, which would each be filled with planets, and each of them perhaps covered with life. And yet, all that was so insignificant right now; they were just specks in the distance… Nothing more.

"She's pregnant, master," he finally said.

"Hmm," Yoda nodded, as if he already knew, "New life, it always comes."

"It hurts, master."

"Not in control, are you. Never liked this, has Serenn Dooku. No, never liked lack of control." Yoda looked at him hard. "Tell me why hurts so much, this does."

Serenn shrugged, looking at a rare loss for words. "The very notion causes me pain. I never thought, I just never thought--"

"That another she would find? That not yours she is?"

Serenn's eyes darted onto him, as though Yoda had again managed to hit a nerve.

Yoda nodded austerely. "Yes. Possession, another dangerous emotion that is. And succumbed to it you have. See you now why, to a Jedi, possession is denied? Hmm?"

Dooku's larynx bobbed up and down as he swallowed. He did not break Yoda's stare.

"Yours Senator Amidala is not. Her own person, she is. Her own spirit with her own free will. Why choose to disregard this, do you?"

"I don't, master!"

"Yet still full of pain, are you?"

"Yes, master."

"Love her, you do! Too harshly, too passionately and too possessively. Your own fault this is."

"I bloody well know, Master Yoda!" he snarled.

"Your child she does not carry. Come to terms with this, you must."

"I can't, master! Tell me what to do. I can't get rid of this anger, this rage, this--"

"Displacement."

Serenn's chest rose up and down and he swallowed again. Yoda always did this to him, made him come out with everything, and then some, in the end. He wished he wouldn't. "Yes," he acquiesced quietly, "And that…"

Yoda nodded, grunting shrewdly. "Hurt her you have. Tortured and destroyed her. Yet forgive you she does." He looked sternly at Dooku. "Unusual this is, but a little of the Force is there in her. Understand she does that not the same person are you as were you before." He pointed at his old protégé. "Grateful for this alone you should be. Your support and your goodwill does she deserve now, that more than anything else. Cast aside your jealousy, cast aside your anger, and give her your friendship." He looked away again and closed his eyes. "Not so petty should you be. And only twice as bad would you have reacted if your child she carried."

Serenn looked at him dourly. "Perhaps…" he murmured.

"Hmm. Not impossible… just improbable. Better this way it is. No need is there for you to make that mistake again. Not so late in life."

Dooku gave Yoda one final glare before he got to his feet, kicked the wall behind him, and slowly began to walk away.

"And more clothes you should wear!" Yoda nagged at him, "Cold out here it is, and there you sit with no shirt. Stupid boy, always stupid. Want a chill, do you?"

"It might do me some good, master," Serenn snarled after him, before he went back inside.

Yoda allowed himself a smirk - some of his students never did grow up.

---

Padmé rubbed her eyes. She hadn't expected Dooku to turn on her like that, to go so crazy and to be so callous. She knew it wouldn't be easy, but still, surely a man of his rational and his intellect would have reacted better? Surely a 'noble aristocrat' didn't customarily deal with things in that way?

But he wasn't plain Dooku anymore, was he? He had changed. He couldn't look at things from beneath those black, bushy brows as he had once before. He had been greatly altered by his deeds and experiences and she couldn't expect him to view things with the same distance and reserve as he had at the very beginning.

She was wandering aimlessly around the corridors of this manor now, trying to find her way back to her room again. She hated this place - it was a frightful labyrinth - and she went on turning corner after corner, seeking for a sign of something she recognised, but she couldn't find anything. All the corridors looked the same. She huffed to herself after a while, standing still at a junction in the halls and folding her arms.

Then suddenly she yelped as her arm was taken from behind and she was hurried along down a passage. When she turned to look at the person, it was Serenn again, but he didn't say anything. He just led her along without a word, guiding her effortlessly to the stairs that she had failed to find before, then up onto the landing, and finally along to her room. (Or what had been his room, but was now her room.) He then walked her in, closed the door behind them, and sat her down on the bed.

She looked at him in surprise, her brow creasing. She didn't know how to react to him, or how to talk to him - he had withdrawn into that unpredictable and explosive area of his personality which scared her more than she cared to admit. She had rather hoped that he had left this facet of his character back in the past, but he clearly hadn't.

Before the Count spoke, he first dropped to his knees in front of her again, and Padmé prayed that he wasn't going to pull his 'sabre out on himself and repeat his scene from earlier. Thankfully, he didn't - he just looked straight into her eyes, and whispered, at last, "I'm sorry."

She continued to stare at him, still dubious.

"I…" he murmured, before he reached out and stroked her arm, "I just can't cope. I…" He swallowed. "It's difficult for me, Padmé. I know I'm acting odd and like a harebrained youth, but I really don't know who I am any more."

She studied him for a while before she was satisfied he had come back to his senses, and she then placed a hand over his as he touched her arm. "It's all right," she whispered, despite everything.

"But it isn't," he countered frankly, "It shouldn't be. You know that."

"I confess that I thought a Count of Serenno might react a little more coolly than you did," she said with a faint smile.

He exhaled noisily, staring at her. "This Count would have if he was still the Count Dooku of the separatist movement, but he isn't. The woman this Count loves is sat there, right in front of him" - and he pointed to her - "with another man's child growing in her womb, and this Count doesn't know how to deal with it. This Count has also just had his ear bent by his old mentor and he feels downright low about everything." He sighed and looked down at the carpet, then back up at her. "This Count almost certainly needs to talk to you."

She smiled at him - she couldn't help it. Though he was clearly a bit tense, he wasn't as wound-up as before, and his sense of humour was shining back through a little, which could only be a good sign. "Then would this Count oblige me by getting off his knees?"

He smirked. "I rather thought you liked me kneeling before you."

"I do, but it doesn't suit you."

He shrugged and got up, before, at her invitation, he sat by her side, on the edge of the mattress.

"What else do you want to talk about?" she asked him.

He paused for a moment then said, "Padmé, Master Yoda has just highlighted something rather significant to me, and I want to know now, if you can tell me, why it is that you have forgiven me?"

She watched a stray strand of his hair swing gently in front of his eyes and she reached up, moving it aside. "Because I can tell when someone's changed," she said quietly, looking back into his eyes once she had placed the strand behind his ear. "Because I can tell when you've come back from the darkness."

He shook his head, clearly astounded by her disposition. "And why do you want to think that? How can you believe that I have?"

"Because I… Oh, I don't know. I have feelings for you, though I'm not sure what they are, but… well, I suppose --" She halted abruptly and swallowed, unsure whether or not it was wise to go on.

Serenn waited on her. "And what?" he asked.

She looked into his eyes and said timidly, "I just have to hope. I have to believe that he can come back, too."

Serenn felt his pride dented a little and he glanced away. "Skywalker…?" he murmured.

Padmé nodded, placing her hand on his arm and rubbing it softly. "Yes. I have to hope that he'll follow your path and come back to us… come back to me."

The Count swallowed and stared at his metallic limb; everything about him oozed a symmetry with Skywalker, and he was more like the boy than he wanted to admit. As he heard Padmé speak of him, and about all her hopes and fears, he could feel nothing but terribly uncomfortable. He wasn't quite sure who came first for Padmé. Naturally, it should be Anakin, and, from what she had said, one would be led to believe that it was, yet he liked to think he had a place in her heart, too. Perhaps he was being selfish, but he just loved her so badly, and the thought of not being with her ever again… it was suffocating. She had been his reason for living, and if she shunned him, he wasn't sure what the point of his life was. He couldn't help but think that he meant something to her - surely the affection she had shown him on occasions was more than just friendliness on her part, and surely their earlier jaunt on the sitting room floor hadn't been a mere trivial thing?

"Padmé, can you tell me where I rank in your mind?" he asked, "because I'm not sure myself." He looked at her then and studied her eyes, to see how she was reacting. She looked quite horrified by this request, as if she was quite unable, or just unwilling, to answer. He felt a bit contrite about this, about putting her on the spot, but he needed to know. "I love you," he elaborated, "But I'm confused..."

Padmé was taken aback by what he was saying, but the thing that shocked her most of all was the way he had hit on exactly the same dilemma she had been mulling over earlier, of what it was that Serenn meant to her; he resided in a problematic space of her mind, and she couldn't quite decide what it was she wanted him to be, or to become.

To make matters worse, he then murmured, "If you're suffering as much as I am…"

Padmé's eyes couldn't shoot onto him quick enough - those words, those exact damn words, and he had said them!

'If you're suffering as much as I am, please tell me.'

'I can't… We can't… it's just not possible.'

'Anything is possible, Padmé, listen to me.'

'No, you listen! We live in a real world. Come back to it…'

"Padmé?"

She blinked and looked at him, saying, "I' sorry, it's just you said the same thing…"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Anakin," she explained, "He said that exact same thing, those exact words to me, before we… we…" She lost her voice, and licked her lip. "It's just all like a vicious circle that I can't get out of, a ride I can't get off. It's all happening all over again."

"Is it?"

She shook her head. "Oh, I just don't know…"

Serenn could see her discomfort at the present so he placed his hand upon her shoulder and gave it a rub. "Just tell me what I am to you, then I'll go," he said. He didn't demand to be violently loved, or to possess her absolutely, or for her to marry him - he didn't want any of that - he just wanted a plain acknowledgment of where he stood with her. He needed to know where his boundaries now lay. "That's all I need to know," he added. "It's all I want to know."

"I can't tell you," she said, "Because I don't know. I'm not sure how you expect me to answer when so much has happened between us, and you've shown me so many faces. How can I begin to know which Serenn is mine and which is the real you? They might not be the same thing."

"'Your Serenn'?" he muttered, his lips flickering into a slight smile.

She smiled a little back at him. "Stop it," she sighed.

"Look," he explained, "I didn't save you for me. I saved you for the love of you, because I cared for you, and because I owed it to you."

"I know that," she answered. "I just… don't know what you are to me."

He sighed once more and thought that enough was enough for one night, so patted her on the knee and got to his feet, ready to leave. "I think it's best that I go now, don't you? You still need your rest."

Padmé seemed to tense a little again when he said this. She wasn't sure that she wanted to be alone, and she was still filled by a number of unanswered questions and strange feelings. "Serenn?" she asked.

For some reason, the Count found the way she said his name somewhat sensuous. It was just the way her lips moved over both the syllables and how her tongue rippled behind her white teeth; he had the strange urge to ask her to say it again. "Yes?" he asked.

She looked down and licked her lip, her small fingers toying with one another, before her eyes stared pensively at his face and then took in his chest, abdomen and his legs.

The Count felt a little perturbed, recognising the signs, and knowing that they should both be more careful before they stepped willingly into this territory again. And yet, alas, he was just far too enthralled by it all to care too much. "What?" he asked her again at length.

She looked once more into his eyes, but she didn't need to say anything. He saw it all there, shining within those gentle orbs. She was lost - her entire world had been turned upside-down, and now she felt that he was all she had left. She had no purpose in life since the Republic she'd fought for was dead, and the man she thought had loved her had betrayed her viciously.

The Count emitted a soft sigh and sat down by her side again. "Easy there," he said, touching her cheek with his left hand and tilting her countenance up to face his again. "Relax, it's all right. You're safe."

She looked around the room, as though to check for sure, before she then returned her eyes to his. "I can't bear it, Serenn," she confessed, opening her heart to him, "I feel like my soul's been torn out and I'm shrivelling up inside."

Padmé then jumped a little as she felt him touch her lower abdomen, where her womb would be. "Are you sure this isn't responsible?" he softly asked her, though she could hear the slight bitter edge to his tone, the envy and the resentment.

She cast it aside and merely shook her head, managing to laugh a little. "No, this is different," she said. She placed her hands flat on his breast and ran them in steady circles there, marvelling at the feel of his warm skin beneath her hands. When he sighed a little in response, though, she recoiled, as if embarrassed and afraid of these feelings, of these acts of which she had little or no experience; love had been forced on her ruthlessly before, but now that she felt so lost, so run down and deceived, it was really the one thing she could do with experiencing - yet how could she even begin to trust anyone to give it to her?

"Relax a bit," Serenn murmured, his voice smooth and velvety as he placed his hands onto her shoulders and rubbed them, "You've been through a lot… you need time to get over it all."

She closed her eyes with a gentle sigh and felt her body tremble with something that she didn't want to think about. Then, at his tacit behest, she lay down and drew her legs onto the bed, reclining flat out on her back, and tried to settle down.

He sat by her side and stroked her hair out over the pillows. "There now," he whispered to her.

Her hands gripped the blankets beneath her and she stared into the dark corners of the room, still unable to fully relax. "I'm afraid," she confessed, "Afraid of the future. I was so happy to be free, but now… I just don't know." She rolled over to look him in the face. "Am I even free?"

He frowned and ran his finger down the side of her face. "I can't tell you," he whispered. "I just don't know." He looked down her body and then ran his hand over her abdomen slowly. "You need to tell the others about this child of yours," he said. "As soon as possible."

She didn't like how he had said that for some reason, but she didn't put up a fight. She couldn't be bothered to. She did like the feel of his hand on her body, though.

"It's not just that," she confessed, tapping her fingers along the metal edge of his arm, "I'm afraid of my feelings as well."

He looked into her eyes whilst she played a tune on his artificial limb."Of what feelings?" he asked.

She sighed, then clenched her hand into a fist and knocked that, gently, against his arm. It resonated strangely. "I'm afraid," she said again. "Every time I've believed myself to be 'in love', or I've trusted someone, I've been deceived, and I… I just can't bring myself to feel… to feel--"

"Safe?" he interposed.

"Yes," she nodded, swallowing as his fingers came back up to rub her cheek.

"I won't hurt you," he assured her, stroking her cheek up and down. "Never, ever again."

She looked into his eyes and she could see there, not lust, but caring, and she found that she did trust him completely; he wasn't manipulating her feelings like he once had, he wasn't forcing anything onto her - he was just being honest.

Padmé leant up toward him and stared at his beard for a moment, then lightly touched his face, before asking shyly, "Can it just feel good?"

He looked at her curiously, his brow knitting.

"Because it never has…" she forced herself on, flushing a little, "Not for me. It's only hurt."

He looked away, swallowing, but didn't say anything. Her words had sent a thrill through his body, and he had an uncanny feeling that she were actually seducing him.

Suddenly, Padmé had closed the gap between them and kissed him, hesitantly, on the cheek. This broke him out of his reverie almost immediately and he turned to look at her in silence. She looked at him warily, yet he could see, alongside this, that other part of Padmé, that insecure part, that was just holding her arms out to him and asking for his love. Perhaps he could never cure her, or cleanse her of his filth, but he could do something to alleviate her pains. She trusted him, and she was entreating him to relieve her.

Steadily, just making sure that he hadn't got the wrong message, he lightly pressed his lips against hers. As soon as she embraced him in return he knew that he had not been mistaken, and he thus had no qualms in reaching for her and holding her tightly whilst he bestowed upon her a long, tender kiss.

Padmé clutched at him in turn, and brushed her lips against his, feeling the heady yet innocent sensation of an honest kiss. She was actually feeling good about this, this situation where she'd normally suffer both fear and dread, because she could feel, for the first time, the sincere effects of love. And yet it was more than just that because she felt, in turn, that she was also somewhat helping Serenn - there was no doubt that he needed this, too - and that made it all the more significant; it was mutual and special.

Hypothetically, Dooku's life was now in her hands

She felt her back slowly come down to touch the mattress again, before Serenn settled gently, almost coyly, on top of her. Perhaps it was wrong, but it felt far too right for that; she wanted to be loved, she needed to be loved, and now, at long last, she was.

TBC…

NB: Sounds like and ending, doesn't it:) Not yet, I'm afraid.