Author's Notes: I missed out a small piece of dialogue in my last chapter, so I've gone back and reinserted it at the end of the first scene, between Padmé and Dooku. If you wanna go back and read it, feel free. I'm not sure how I forgot to include it, TBH; I just did that many drafts of the past few chapters that I kinda forgot what was and wasn't in the chapters. :) I think these last few parts, and the next few, perhaps, ought to be labelled as the slush-factor-chapters because they are kinda sentimental, but it won't last. I'll milk it whilst I still can, and whilst I still need to. :) And these aren't the best chapters I've ever written, but hey… I hope they're still all right.

And have you all seen "Revenge"…? WOW! But my poor Dook'… He went too soon… I still love him, though. He went out in style, at least, and he kicked absolute ass! (He's got it in for Obi-Wan, hasn't he…?)

I had hoped to finish this story before Christopher Lee's birthday, which is tomorrow (May 27th), but that's gone out the window. But a very happy 83rd to Mr. Lee:D

Padawanmage: Some things are better left for the readers to decide. ;) And you're too right about Obi & Dook'

Silverwolf47: I haven't worked so hard on a fanfic ever as I have been working on this for the past few works, so rest assured that I'm not slacking off!

Cmdr. Gabe E.: Can I have Dook' back now…? ;) Pwlease? Heh. And I'm not so sure that there will be happy ending. I mean, c'mon, this is an alternate Ep.3! ;)

Millie: I think you might be reading the wrong fanfic - Ami/Ani just doesn't figure in this story. Sorry.

Kynstar: Thanks! I tried to put myself in Bail's shoes, and I hoped I got it right.

HRHpadmeamidala: Thankies.

REV: Obi and Dook' will have to swallow their pride and work together soon, I will say that.

Part 49 - Haunted

The seasons on Serenno had a mind of their own. The good weather soon gave way to a short, jaded autumn, and then this developed within mere days into a tempestuous winter. Snow billowed down from the heavens in vast multitudes, jamming communications and drawing the temperature down so far in the old, stone manor that it wasn't uncommon to see people muffled up in great snow-coats indoors. The Tarsos did all they could to keep the fires burning and the hall's many rooms warm, but it wasn't an easy task. The snow provided some good training situations for the rebel group, as they took to adapting their exercises for adverse weather conditions, but it was otherwise a bleak and depressing time.

The Dooku manor had, by now, become something of a revolutionary hub. Contact points had been set up across the galaxy and new codes of communication had been produced so that all messages between parties were intricately encrypted. A further boost to moral had come in the form of the elusive Bothan spy network, who had, thanks to Bail's careful negotiation, now pledged their loyalty to the rebel cause; they sent news from the Imperial worlds as often as they came by it, which helped the uprising hugely, and, though it was far too early to be able to judge how successful this insurgent movement would ever be, there certainly appeared to be hope. But still there was no news of the project Death Star.

After tensions had died down a little concerning this superweapon, and Padmé's baby, people began to seriously get their heads down, and there was a general agreement that everyone needed to be prepared to face the likes of Darth Vader and his Emperor again. Therefore, for his part, Master Yoda had taken it upon himself to help train his two Jedi Knights - or his Knight and his former Padawan, at least - to the best of their ability. The problem with training Obi-Wan Kenobi and Serenn Dooku together was the fact that they didn't get on, and most of the time they didn't even try to; they were as stubborn as each other (which, if one knew as much as Master Yoda did, was no surprise). To make matters worse, the very Force itself had become fidgety and nervous, which thus rubbed off on those who felt its effects most intimately, and if it hadn't been for Master Yoda's constant supervision of Obi and Dooku's duels, then someone would have woken up to find more than mere droplets of sweat on the training hall floor...

It was in aforesaid training hall, one bleak evening, and several months following Padmé's rescue, that Obi-Wan Kenobi faced off against Count Dooku again, and the atmosphere between them was practically crackling with strife. Yoda watched with exasperation from the shadow of the sidelines as the red and blue blades crossed and the two men tackled one another with all possible manner of un-Jedi-like savagery…

Obi-Wan swung his blue 'sabre down over Serenn's red one and the two weapons crackled. The two warriors glared at one another, sweat trickling down their brows and stinging their eyes, before, with a great thrust, the Count threw Obi-Wan off-balance and sent him crashing to the floor. Obi turned his fall into a roll, and leapt back to his feet, before he propelled his lightsabre forward at Dooku and locked it against the elder man's another time.

They pushed hard against one another, the muscles in their arms trembling to sustain the assault, until Kenobi withdrew and smoothly thrust his blade at Dooku's abdomen, only to have it parried to the side by the Count, who then sent a flashy kick into Obi-Wan's groin.

Kenobi doubled up and dropped to his knees whilst a great wash of insults now poured from out of his mouth. The fact that Serenn just threw the younger man a curt smirk rather than an apology didn't help matters, and Obi reacted by thrusting his hand out at the Count and volleying him, with the Force, right across the chamber. Dooku consequently hit the far wall with an embarrassing thud before he dropped to the floor and just lay there.

Yoda placed his tiny, clawed hand over his eyes and shook his head. "Control!" he pressed, looking between the groaning Obi-Wan and the floored Count in irritation. "Where is your control?"

Dooku heaved a great sigh and stared up at the ceiling, breathing deeply, whilst Obi inhaled heavily in turn and flicked off his blade, giving the Count a cantankerous scowl. "You're not concentrating," he snarled, before he tossed his lightsabre away as if he truly didn't care, and walked off toward the sidelines. "You're just wasting my time." He then picked up a towel and began to wipe the sweat from his body.

The atmosphere in the room was very chill and it made Yoda sad to see it. He sighed again and shook his head pitifully whilst a horrific blizzard thundered against the windows.

Serenn remained lying back on the floor and covered his eyes with his arm as he caught his breath; he knew he hadn't been concentrating, but he could hardly bring himself to focus. Every time he closed his eyes, it was there… the dream, the nightmare, the terrible vision.

/Two children… a trail of blood… mother dead/

At length, though, he did finally climb back onto his feet, deactivating his weapon before he then walked slowly across the room in Obi-Wan's direction.

"How are we supposed to train if you don't concentrate?" Obi-Wan groused on as Dooku met his eyes. The Jedi wiped his face with his towel before he threw it, a little too violently, toward Serenn. "Come on, enlighten me," he insisted.

The Count caught the towel then glared at Kenobi. "You wouldn't understand," he grumbled.

Obi-Wan opened his mouth to protest but Master Yoda thrust his cane onto the floor and sent a loud echo through the hall, nipping Kenobi's objection in the bud. "Enough, children!" the diminutive Jedi Master said. "Need this we do not."

Obi sighed, giving in, and just stared down at his feet.

"Clear your mind must be, Serenn," Yoda continued, looking to his old protégé. "Clouded your thoughts are."

Serenn gave his master a long look but said nothing.

"And patient you must be, Obi-Wan," Yoda added as he turned to Kenobi.

Obi sighed and looked a little humiliated as he thence dropped his head and stared at the floor.

Yoda pursed his lips and made one of his small grunts. "Difficult this time is for all," he said to them both, "but make it only more difficult both of you do."

Serenn's lip trembled slightly before he made a sudden turn toward the wall and hurled the towel into it. It made a dull slapping sound as it struck it, before it then fell to the floor.

"Serenn!" Yoda barked.

Dooku ignored him. He just walked on past Obi-Wan and left.

Obi ground his teeth together and shared a frustrated glance with Yoda. "This isn't getting any easier," he murmured. "We've been at this for weeks and I just can't work with him. He doesn't want to work."

"Troubled are his thoughts," Yoda said, hobbling over the floor toward Kenobi. "Difficult are things for him."

"It feels like I'm working with Anakin again," Obi continued, turning to look at the doorway through which Serenn had just left. "He just can't focus. He's just…" He pursed his lips and gesticulated with his hands, physically trying to grasp the words he wanted, but failed to catch them. "Oh, I don't know…" he sighed at length. "He's impossible."

Yoda chuckled and the sound of his laugh softened Obi-Wan a little.

"What's so funny, master?" he asked.

"A long time did I tutor Dooku, from a small boy to a man. Impossible he is, think you, hmm? Trained him you did not! Worked with him as a teenager you did not. Think you know impossible do you? Ha! What know you of impossible? Think how Master Yoda feels!"

Obi-Wan smiled widely and chuckled. "Forgive me, master. I guess when you put it like that…"

Yoda smiled back, thankful that the tension had dissipated, and he and Obi-Wan thus left the hall together.

Serenn had wandered off. He was alone in one of his mansion's many corridors, sat on the floor with his back against the wall and his legs stretched across the hallway. He stared hard at the opposite wall, his eyes intense but also, more significantly, shining with unshed tears.

The wind howled against the window at the far end of the hall, nothing being visible out of it except a blanket of white, and it was incredibly chilly in this corridor, so much so that one's breath hung in a mist before one's mouth. And yet the Count couldn't care less; he hardly felt it. All he wanted was an end to these dreams and premonitions, and yet what could he do? Nothing. He was just so afraid that that they would come true… and he knew that he would be powerless to stop it if they did.

/Not in control, are you. Never liked this, has Serenn Dooku. No, never liked lack of control/

He looked up as he heard movement in the corridor and watched as Padmé sat opposite him, wrapped in a thick blanket. Despite this copious layer of covering, he could still discern the round curve of her belly, swollen with several months of pregnancy; he knew she had not long to wait until her baby was born, and he was afraid for her. And she knew it.

"What's wrong?" she whispered.

He stared back at her. He could feel the hairs on his arms standing on end in the cold, could feel his muscles tremble in search of warmth, but he cared not. He turned his gaze to the floor and ran his metal fingers over the marble tiles, creating gentle tinkling noises as he did so. "I can't focus, Padmé," he murmured. "I'm afraid."

The wind howled at the windows, shaking the glass panes and sending shrill whistles beneath the doors.

Padmé studied his face for a while before she asked, enclosing herself even tighter in her blankets, "What are you afraid of?"

Serenn shook his head, knitting his teeth together. He didn't say a word.

"Serenn, how can I help you if you don't open up?"

He gave her a sharp glare. "Don't tell me to open up. I can't."

"I want to help you."

"You can't."

Padmé exhaled a breath of exasperation and looked away at the window down the corridor.

Serenn sighed, feeling a trickle of penitence seep into his veins as he realised how he was acting, and yet he couldn't bring himself to respond in any other way.

"I thought we trusted each other," Padmé now whispered, and, when Serenn glanced up at her, he saw she was looking not merely at him, but through him.

He swallowed. "We do," he said.

"But do you?"

"And you?" he challenged. "Do you?"

They stared at one another, lost in their own words, two politicians of the past thrown together by a dark, devised destiny.

Padmé curled herself into as much of a ball as she could before her belly obstructed her and she leant her head to the side, propping it up on a clustered mound of her blankets whilst she stared at him a little longer. "I trust you," she said. "But I also trust that you aren't telling me something."

He blinked once, slowly, and merely continued to stare.

"You can't relax," she went on. "Everyone says so, especially Obi-Wan."

Serenn's lip made an evident movement as he heard Kenobi's name, and he jerked his head to the side. "Yes, well I wouldn't take too much stock of what Master Obi-Wan has to say…"

"Oh, grow up," Padmé sighed in return. "He's lost so much, and he's given up many of his principles to help you, and yet you treat him like…"

Serenn continued to stare away. "Like what?" he murmured.

"An inferior," she said. "Someone who's second-rate."

The Count slowly looked back at her. "I can't help that right now. I see so much in him that I'd rather forget, and yet I can't…" He dropped his gaze to the floor again and knocked his metal fist against the marble. "I'm guilt-ridden and afraid, and everyone around me suffers because of it. That's the best justification I can give you for my behaviour at present."

He leant his head forward into his hand and exhaled heavily before he heard a rustle of fabric and felt Padmé settle next to him. He felt her hand touch his thigh and rub it up and down and then he felt her head as she rested it on his shoulder. "You're cold," she whispered, hooking her arm round his and clinging to him.

"Aren't I always?"

She didn't say anything. She just pressed her lips against his arm and kissed him gently, sending a warm tremor through his body.

"It'll be all right," she said.

"Will it?" he asked. "I can't convince myself of that." He looked down at her through the gloom. "I can't stop thinking about you, and feeling that… you might get hurt."

She looked at him. "Is that still bothering you?"

He didn't say anything else. He knew that Padmé was aware he had reservations about her pregnancy, but he hadn't told her that it was of her death that he constantly dreamt.

Padmé placed her hand against his cheek and rubbed her thumb over his rough beard, smiling tenderly at him. He turned to her and smiled a little in return, and watched as she leant up to him and pressed her mouth against his, giving him a long kiss.

When she eventually drew away, she gave him another smile and then said, looking into his eyes, "Don't worry. What will be, will be."

Needless to say, it didn't comfort him at all to hear that.

/Padmé… Where are you/

Tremors through the foundations made the subterranean foundries on Geonosis tremble like fearful children. These great, underground factories never slept, and were currently being worked day and night, not for Count Dooku, but for the Emperor. The Imperials had swept into the Geonosian lands and taken over, infesting the underground structures like a great swarm of ants usurping a giant beast's carrion. From off these production lines now came huge reinforced girders, great transparasteel windows, sheets of armour plating, weaponry… everything; but all this equipment wasn't just for any old battalion or ship - this was all for the Emperor's ultimate weapon.

Darth Vader didn't really have a clue why he'd been sent here, though. He had done as his master had requested, had contacted Governor Tarkin, and had thus been sent out here to report on events, and now found that he was being asked to remain here by Lord Sidious. This infuriated Vader no end, and he was certain the Sith Master knew it, yet he dared not oppose the man; Sidious was not a figure to be trifled with. Governor Tarkin was reasonable enough company, though obviously infatuated by this project of the Emperor's, but he could have been the most exciting man in the universe and Vader still wouldn't have wanted to be here. The thing was that Padmé was still out there - he could still feel her, like a hint of delightful aroma on a passing breeze, yet he could never discern from whence her signature came, or from how far. He knew that she was still carrying his son, though, and he needed to find her before the child was born. He was the boy's father, and he would have him here with him as he grew up, revelling in the Empire his father had helped to create, and living in a society that would be a secure and functional place. How proud his boy would be.

Darth Vader heaved a great sigh and mulled all this over and over in his mind. He was sat cross-legged in the centre of a large, bland chamber that overlooked the great molten pits of the metal-casting units below; a small window allowed one to preside over the views of the bright yellow and orange liquid as it poured from one chamber to another and was forced into shape before it cooled. All this glowing molten metal sent terrible, malicious splashes of red and gold up the walls, and the constant sound and movement - even more so, the smell - of this factory made Vader feel most ill at ease. He wanted to get off of this planet as soon as he could. It didn't hold good memories.

He breathed deeply, searching the waves and plains of the Force for another time, looking for his loved one, but she was barred from him. He had a terrible feeling about this, a sensation of unwanted 'familiarity', as far as Padmé's current predicament went; he couldn't explain this, it was just as if he knew she was with someone that he didn't want her to be with…

/Come back to me, Padmé/

Padmé watched the great blanket of white out of the windows of her bedchamber as the evening drew in. Her hand rested lightly, almost unconsciously, over her belly as she watched the snow hurtle down in great swathes over the landscape. She desperately wished for the company of her sister right now, to talk about the things they now would never have chance to talk about, to discuss her child's future and to hear her sister's stories of Pooja and Ryoo's births and infancy. She needed that right now, but contact with anyone beyond these walls, unless essential, was not permitted, and she had to respect that.

As the rise of her belly became more noticeable, and her emotions began to play more than a little havoc with her senses, she couldn't help but look to the future and wonder how things were going to play out. And it wasn't the Empire she was thinking of, not even the rebellion… it was simple things like whereabouts the baby would be sleeping, and where she would allow it to play, and how good a mother she might make. And then there was that terrible niche of the father figure to fill, if Anakin didn't right his ways and see sense soon… which she lamentably knew he wouldn't.

She swallowed and ran her hand over the growing curve, until she suddenly jumped as she felt two hands slip onto her shoulders from behind and massage them gently. She smiled a little and leant back into the man. "The weather's dreadful," she sighed.

"I know," Serenn replied.

They stared at the blizzard in silence for a while.

"What were you thinking about?" he asked.

She lay her hand back against him and coil his long hair round her finger. "The baby," she replied quietly. "I was just wondering… you know, thinking about how lovely it'll be for him to grow up here."

Serenn remained silent.

"Did you have no brothers and sisters?" Padmé then asked, catching him unawares.

His brow contracted for a moment as she asked this of him. "No," he said plainly. "I was the last and only son of the late Count Dooku - did I not tell you? - My parents lost me to the Jedi, so that was that, and the family line ends with me."

Padmé tried to picture her life without her sister having been there as she contemplated all this, but she could not. "That's rather sad," she said, cushioning her head more firmly against him. "Have you ever wondered what it would have been like to have grown up here, or to have had siblings?"

She felt his hands shift to her waist and come to rest over her abdomen. "Oh, yes," he murmured. "It's only natural for one to ponder on the ifs and buts of the past, is it not?"

She smiled and nodded. "Of course."

She watched the snow for a little longer, before she then asked, as her eyes tracked the movements of the giant snowflakes, "So, what will you do with your estate afterwards?"

Padmé felt a sigh resound within his chest as she brought this rather grim inevitability to light. "I shall just give it all to the revolution," he eventually said, "I know I won't be needing it."

"All this, along with your fortune?"

He smiled a little. "Yes. The rebellion can have it all… though…" He then seemed to tense a little as he tapped his fingers across her belly, a thought occurring to him.

She angled her head back to look at him. "Though what?" she pressed.

"If you'd permit me," he went on, his rather nervy tone implying that what he was about to say wasn't a decision he had come to easily, "Maybe your child will need some provision. I'm willing to make up for that."

She looked at him with quite some humility and surprise. "There's no need," she whispered.

"Why ever not?" he asked. "I owe it to you… and, perhaps, to your baby."

She leant back against him again, unable to get her head round his sudden kindness, for his generosity to a child that was not only not his, but which was fathered by his bitterest rival. "Thank you, Serenn," she said.

He smiled again, but he didn't look down at her.

It was then that Padmé suddenly felt a strange sensation in her abdomen, something that took her by complete surprise and sent her into a spasm of excitement. She sprang from the Count's arms and looked down. "Oh Force," she gasped. "Serenn! Quick, give me your hand!"

Dooku looked at her dourly. He had a strong inclination not to give her his hand, yet her face was just so bright, and her smile so true, that it heartened him a little just to see it, so, after a long pause, he did offer her his left hand and watched as she snatched it eagerly and placed it flat out on her belly.

"Can you feel it?" she asked.

Serenn swallowed, trying not to meet her eyes.

"Can you feel my baby kicking?" she went on, pulling her eyes away from her womb to see his reaction.

Serenn just froze, staring into nothingness as he stood there with her soft hands enveloped warmly over his only remaining flesh one; the fact was that he didn't want to feel Anakin's child - but how could he communicate that to her? He couldn't without hurting her, and he refused to do that. He felt removed from the whole child-bearing thing as it was, being a man, but when faced with it, and with another's man child at that, how was he supposed to react? With his haunting dreams hovering in the back of his mind on top of all this, it hardly made for a tender moment.

He swallowed, before he then glanced into her amazed, joyous face, and saw there such happiness and bliss that he didn't have the heart to utter any discontent - on the contrary, he had the sudden urge to please her. Heaving a great sigh, he consequently did his best to sweep his apprehensions aside, and he attempted to see beneath her skin, closing his eyes and asking the Force to open up to him the reality of her baby so that he could, in turn, please her in some way and tell her what he could see.

Padmé watched him carefully, his hand causing a slight tingling sensation in her body, in great contrast to the feelings that the Emperor's touch had stirred within her, and she giggled a little as the sensation coursed through her, making her feel as close to her baby as she yet had.

Suddenly, however, the wonderful moment was shattered as she felt a flash of darkness cascade down before her eyes like a falling curtain. She gasped and then felt Serenn's hand shoot away from her body, almost as if he'd received an electric shock in the same instant.

She panted and looked to him for an answer, the short but sinister experience creating a cold spot in her heart; "What was that?" she whispered. She was certain that something was wrong, she could see it in his face, he was just so pale and shaken.

He remained silent for a moment until his brow then furrowed and he swallowed heavily.

"Serenn?" she pushed on.

"No, please, don't worry," he murmured, coming back to himself, "It's nothing for you to be anxious about, it's just… well…"

Padmé hung on his every word. "What, for the Force's sake?"

He sighed, images of his dreams flashing before his eyes.

/Two babies… cots in the moonlight… mother dead in a pool of blood/

"There's two," he whispered.

She looked perplexed at first and drew away from him. "Twins?" she asked softly.

He offered her a wan smile, trying to clear the images of his visions from his mind; he half imagined that he saw Padmé before him, right now, covered in blood, and that was the last thing he wanted to see. "Yes, I believe that twins is the technical term," he replied at length, trying to shake the thought from his mind.

She broke into a smile then laughed and lunged herself at him, clasping him around his neck and embracing him in celebration. "Oh Serenn," she cried with joy, breaking him from out of his morbid stupor. "Twins! I never imagined…"

His body went rigid again as she did this, but he eventually forced himself to stroke her hair down her back and forget his apprehensions. "Congratulations," he whispered.

She couldn't stop herself from smiling, and allowed herself another one of those rare, short moments where she felt nothing but pure happiness. She held onto the Count for some time whilst this all sunk in, her mind just overflowing with this new thought of there being two babies growing inside of her. It was such a blessing… But with this their equally came new fears, and if the Emperor discovered that there were two--

Padmé's brow then creased as she now stumbled upon this puzzling state of affairs. "Serenn," she asked, "why didn't he know?"

"Hmm?"

"The Emperor," she muttered, drawing herself away from him and looking into his eyes. "He only saw one child."

Serenn's brow knotted as he thought on this and he glanced away. That was a point: Why had the Emperor, that all-powerful Sith Master, only seen one? "I… don't know," he replied, frowning to himself all the while. "There could be any number of reasons for it. Perhaps the Force concealed it from him, maybe he just wasn't looking for more than one… who knows?"

Padmé sighed and closed her eyes, leaning back against his body again and running her hands up and down his arms. "It's better that he doesn't know, isn't it?" she murmured.

"Perhaps. At least one of the two won't be sought after."

Her grip tightened on him as he said this. "I don't want any of them to be sought after," she said. "How can I protect them? How can I make sure they're both safe?"

He pried her away from him and stroked her cheek, looking into her eyes sadly. "I don't know," he confessed.

Padmé gazed back at him for a while until, suddenly, she looked away. An unwanted memory had risen back up to taunt her, images flashing before her eyes like an unstoppable slideshow, and she bit her lip in shame; "I can't believe I was going to kill them…" she whispered.

Serenn stared at her for a moment, perplexed. "What's that?" he asked.

She looked again into his eyes. "Do you remember, on Coruscant, when you saved me? I was about to kill myself, and kill my baby… or rather my babies."

Serenn swallowed, glancing away.

"I couldn't bear the thought of the Emperor and Anakin taking my child away from me. I was prepared to risk so much… and to end so much."

The Count's eyes remained distant and grave until he looked into Padmé's and saw that he wasn't helping matters. He tried to alleviate the sombre aura with a slight smile. "It's all right now. You're safe."

Padmé smiled at him again. She wanted to be happy and to tell the world about her pregnancy, to enjoy the prospect of becoming a mother and having a children of her own, but the situation, the war, Anakin… it was all too much. How could she enjoy the prospect when such shadows loomed over her head?

"Why now?" she asked herself, "Why must I bring these children into the world now?"

The Count swallowed and shook his head again. "It's not your fault."

There was another moment of silence between them, which the Count then broke, saying quietly, "Padmé?"

"Yes?"

He bit his lip for a moment and walked a little away, looking out into the snowstorm as he thought on how best to explain what he wanted to - or even whether he should tell her at all. "I would like to tell you something," he resolved at last, "Something about me. You might find it… interesting."

Padmé felt her brow furrow. "Okay," she said.

The Count had that distant look in his eyes, but one with which Padmé could relate - a look of sorrow, of pain, or having lost something so precious it stung you to your core. "I have a son," he said.

She looked confused and didn't know what to say at first. The thought had never occurred to her that perhaps, across all those years of his life, he might have fallen in love with someone and had a child. And yet he had never mentioned it; in fact, he'd pretty much denied it. "You told me, long ago, that you had no issue," she reminded him, thinking back over their time together. "Was that another lie?"

"No," he replied at once, "though it may depend on your point of view as to whether you concur or not. Technically I don't have any issue. This son wasn't 'legitimate' - not under the principles of the galaxy's aristocracy and upper echelons, anyway - and, to add insult to injury, he was raised under an anonymous name and under an anonymous guise. I could never acknowledge him as my own - that was the bargain."

"'Bargain'?" She shook her head. "I still don't follow."

He ran his hand through his hair and looked up at the ceiling, as though it might offer him a window to the past; "He was a beautiful baby," he said, "He looked, and still does look, more like his mother, but when I think about his character and how he acts…" He made a gentle laugh, "He's so like me."

"But you were a Jedi, weren't you?" Padmé asked.

"Oh yes," he nodded, "We both were. That was why he was taken from us. We were forbidden to have 'connections', strong bonds and all, and we were definitely forbidden to love, as you surely know. Our boy was strong in the Force, so, as soon as he was born, the Jedi kept him for their own devices, as they always do. There was no question." He sighed, wiping his eyes. "So here was the agony. Every day my lover and I would see him, but never could we call him 'son', never could we let him know who he was, or who we were… Never."

Padmé felt a bit odd - now that she knew about this anonymous, faceless 'lover' from Serenn's past, she felt a little… perturbed. Suddenly there was another person on Serenn's arm who had given him the ultimate gift - or perhaps, in his case, the ultimate curse - and yet there was no real reason for her to care about this. It must have been a long time ago, and there was no need to feel threatened…

"We wondered why we weren't expelled from the Order," the Count continued to relate, "Yet I suppose one could say that this forced 'estrangement' from our child was punishment enough." He shook his head. "His mother never recovered from this loss. I think it drove her to her death."

Padmé now felt uneasy. "I couldn't cope if that happened to me," she said, "If my children were taken away from me." And, before she could even enquire after the identity of Dooku's son or the name of the mother, something hit her - was he telling her about his past, and this unfortunate liaison, because he saw parallels between it and her current predicament?

Padmé now shook her head and began stepping away from him. "No!" she shouted, "You won't take them away from me! You can't! I won't let you! They're my child, they'll be all I have left!"

"Padmé…" He reached out to touch her, but she slapped his hand aside.

"Don't touch me! You can't take them away from me!"

He had an expression on his face so filled with pity that Padmé almost hated him for it.

"I would never consider separating you from your children," Serenn whispered, "But there are those that would, and that will."

He then gently pulled her into his arms and held her to his chest where his steady heart beat lulled her into a restful stupor and calmed her down a little. Padmé felt her nerves settle as she lay there and breathed in his scent - he was right, of course; she knew things were never going to be easy. She then felt Dooku run his hand over her hair and nestle his face in her locks; "I wish I wasn't separated from you by the sands of time," he murmured to her before he kissed her cheek. "I really do."

TBC…

NB: Please tell me whether or not I've used that window-to-the-past sentence before, because I can't remember! It was originally in Part 47, but I'm sure I took it out…