A/N- Here is the next chapter as promised! It's a little shorter, but oh well.

Chapter Three

Padmé was dimly aware of the convulsions the needles sent her body into, her limbs wanting to flay madly and being kept bound tightly, her head hitting the metal hard, but not hard enough for her to black out. She could feel the war as her body raged against the drugs implanted in her system, drugs sent to take what the shadow was having difficulty getting. She could feel the pain from every screaming nerve as needles pierced her skin over and over again, filling her system with drugs designed to penetrate her mind.

But she could not allow herself the luxury of becoming distracted from the secrets she did not know away from the man who would use them to destroy her children. She did not focus on the pain, because she could not. Her body screamed for her to focus full her full attention on it, but she did not. Instead, she kept a constant vigil against the shadow, always keeping it away from her center.

It had already penetrated several layers of her mind, breaking into her memories of private moments and looking through them after discarding them to dig deeper. The shadow was immensely strong and powerful, and she could feel it pressing against her, fighting her at every turn. She could not let her guard down for even one instant.

Give in, it whispered in her head. Give in to me, and I will leave you in peace. Let me see behind these barriers; you know it is useless to fight me.

She ignored it as best she could and concentrated on weaving a thicker defense around her unconscious mind, wreathing it with memories of everything she knew of the Jedi. She had stood in the shadows, observing Anakin meditating, and he had taught her a few things. She clung to them desperately, knowing they were the only things that could save her.

Ahh, the shadow whispered. You want to know about Anakin, then.

Instantly, she began seeing the man she recognized to be her husband. She saw Jedi younglings, innocents. A blond-haired boy asked, tears filling his eyes, "Master Skywalker, there are too many of them. What are we going to do?" Padmé saw him ignite his lightsaber with a grim look on his face, raising it. No, she thought, searching for a way that this could not be possible. No. Not my Anakin. When he cut down the first child, she screamed, not only in her mind, but in reality, her anguish reverberating around the large room, echoing in her ears shrilly.

No more, she begged the shadow. I cannot bear it. She felt the shadow's triumph and amusement then. It tasted like ash in her mouth.

Then relinquish your defenses. Padmé knew that if she did so, she would be dooming her children to the life of her husband. She felt a brief pang of hurt, stunning in its intensity, but then shoved it behind the defenses that she had set up.

The shadow knew her defiance. She felt its frustration, and prepared herself for an onslaught. She screamed again as it showed her more of Anakin's sins...

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Lord Vader staggered under a new assault of blinding pain and mental agony. He was on the bridge of the Star Destroyer, and so all his men saw his moment of temporary weakness. None of them moved to help him; they were all too stunned that the immovable Vader had shown even a temporary sign of vulnerability.

But in the world that Vader was seeing, there was nothing but her face, twisted in a shape of agony even more powerful then when he had seen her in dreams. He saw her writhe and scream, held by restraints that kept her from harming herself. Not only did he see her, he felt everything she felt; her sense of betrayal and panic, the feeling of being alone and conquered.

He did not realize that he was going to speak until the word erupted from his lips, far louder and more powerful then he would have intended it to be. If he still could speak with a normal voice, the sound would have been raw, but instead it was mechanical, mocking him even as he screamed her name in pain.

All the officers on the bridge cowered in obvious fear and wonder, in awe that their commander had shown such an obvious display of emotion, in fear that he would kill them for witnessing it.

Vader regained himself enough to know that he had to go, had to go to her, had to save her. Her torment was his, and suddenly the fact that he would be in direct disobedience to his master if he left did not seem to matter.

"Commander," he hissed. The man came before him, trembling, too afraid to say a word.

"Stay in orbit around Tatooine. I am leaving on a mission, and will communicate with you from where I am."

As an afterthought, he added, "Search all ships leaving the planet."

He strode down the floor, his thoughts racing ahead of his actions, towards the smaller, discreet ship he would use to search. He would find her;hecould only pray that it was before it became too late.