Chapter 19: Eclipse

It was early afternoon of the next day cycle when he came to see her again.

Padmé stood so motionless looking out the view port that he'd assumed that she thought she was still alone in the room.

"He's dead, isn't he?"

Startled, Vader waited for her further explanation before answering. Unfortunately, he had killed many, many people, but he had a sinking suspicion of to whom she was referring.

"Obi-Wan." She turned to face him.

"Did you kill him?" Her face was studiously blank as she awaited reply.

Of course. I knew it!

"Yes." He hoped that was enough information for her, but somehow knew that it wasn't. She could be relentless, sometimes.

"How?" She prodded him. Vader did not want to talk about it.

"How did he die? Did you kill him right after you…woke up? Did you get your revenge immediately?"

"No, it happened only very recently."

As she heard his clipped tones, Padmé felt a profound sadness. She was close to tears. Perhaps she might have had a chance to see her old friend.

"I killed him when challenged me to a duel aboard the first Death Star."

His voice became distant as he mused over the recent past. He purposely left out the important fact that Obi-Wan had vanished in front of him and had become one with the Force. It angered him that his old Master succeeded in snatching victory from him, once again.

A final time.

"I did not realize until later that he had used himself as a distraction so that Luke and the Princess Leia Organa could escape." He shook his head in disgust. His old Master had outwitted him. He should have known Obi-Wan would do something like that. Sacrifice himself.

Padmé felt her heart tighten at the mention of the name.

"Princess Leia..?" She tried to say the name as casually as she could. Maybe Anakin would offer up more information, since he seemed more so in the mood to talk.

"Yes. I intercepted her diplomatic Alderaani ship transmitting classified information to the Rebels."

Bail!

Her heart raced, but she tried to calm herself. She could not let him know. She hoped he still could not read her mind. Vader sensed something was not right with Padmé, but could not pinpoint the exact cause. Although he had grown ever stronger in the Force, her thoughts were still greatly hidden from him.

"I can sense your pulse racing," he stated tersely. "Are you yet thinking of Obi-Wan?"

Padmé's mouth dropped open with shock. Then a blaze of fury coursed through her.

"How dare you? After all this time!"

Heat flooded her face. She remembered the tightness in her throat when he had Force choked her on Mustafar. She wanted to rage at him for his single-minded idiocy, but knew that calm words would cut more deeply.

"I have only loved y- my husband," she corrected haltingly. At this precise moment, she thought of him as purely Darth Vader, and could not bring herself to admit to him, or even to herself that she still loved him.

"Never anyone else." Her eyes blazed at him for a moment. Slowly, her harsh gaze softened as she remembered their old friend.

"Obi-Wan was like a brother to me," she reflected, despondently. "And I shall never see him again." That phrase twisted like a knife in Vader's heart. Tears had gathered in her eyes. She took a deep breath, and began to slowly move around the perimeter of the room as Vader watched her.

"He knew about us, Anakin. He guessed it when I refused to tell him where you were." She took a breath. "Despite what you think, I never told him anything. I didn't have to; it was as plain as day to him at that moment, the last time I spoke to Obi-Wan, that you and I were together. That I was carrying your child."

Her face clouded with distress as she turned to him. "He was going to kill you. I was sure of it. I couldn't let that happen! He apologized to me, Anakin. He apologized... He was so sad…" She paused, her thoughts taking another turn.

"I knew he would have helped us if we had only trusted in him. But you didn't trust him. You didn't even trust me." Her face twisted in anguish as she looked sharply up at him.

"Padmé…"

"No! Let me finish! I know what you thought, Anakin. It hurt me then and wounds me to this day! You thought that I had betrayed you to Obi-Wan. But you were wrong! So very wrong!" She was righteous in her indignation.

"You put your trust in the wrong person- Palpatine-" she spat out the word like a curse, "And he is the only one who betrayed you! Not I, not Obi-Wan, not the Jedi Order!"

She paused, looking at him keenly.

"I was never in any danger, Anakin," she avowed softly. "Only from you; only from

him-" She was stopped short.

"Padmé-"

"Listen to me, Anakin-"

"No, Padmé, you listen to me! Do you think I do not know this?"

Hot, molten rage flowed through him. He was barely keeping it under reign.

"You must think me a fool. You have always thought me a fool compared to you, haven't you?" Resentment surged in him. His old insecurity reared its' ugly head.

"Never, Anakin-" she shook her head vehemently in denial.

"I already know all of this, Padmé. And more. Much, much more," he hissed. "But I can not change any of it. I started down my path, years ago…once I cut off Master Windu's saber arm. Palpatine was then able to attack him with Sith lightning. He most likely died from the fall from Palpatine's window, but it was my fault. Master Windu died because of me."

Her eyes were, at once, appalled and distressed at his admission.

"But I truly sealed my fate when I killed my first youngling." His eyes narrowed behind the mask at the painful memory. He felt as if he had just done the vile deed. Eyes haunted and glassy, Padmé stood transfixed, as if hypnotized.

"There was no way I could go back after that." He paced the room like a caged beast. "I had to destroy all the Jedi, including Anakin Skywalker. I had past the point of no return, Padmé. All I had was you and Palpatine."

Vader paused, his voice lowering into a tortured whisper.

"Then I lost you…I had nothing to live for…"

His voice changed in tone. "…but the Emperor convinced me that I could bring peace to the galaxy. End the wars. I could finally find some purpose, something to justify my miserable existence…" A virtuous and admirable ambition. He held his head high.

He sighed through his mask.

"And, as the years went by, the desire to destroy myself had slowly diminished."

Incredulous, Padmé was taken aback at that disclosure. She would never have thought him to even consider such a thing.

His voice grew hard. He turned from her. This was the most painful confession for him to make.

"I know the truth, Padmé: once again…I am a slave! First on Tatooine, then to the Jedi, and now to the Emperor." He turned back to her, and the light gleamed eerily off his helmet.

"But now, Padmé, this slave is the second most powerful man in the universe!"

Padmé sat down on her bed and sobbed openly.

The tears welled up in her eyes and spilled down her face as she let loose all her coiled grief at his words. It felt as if her heart was breaking again. The cries were muffled as she placed her hands over her eyes and mouth.

Vader could not bear any more of her tears; he had to get away from her. He turned to hastily exit her chamber.

She stood up at once and took a step towards him. "Please don't leave," she said, thickly. "I don't want to be alone anymore."

He swung around to face her once again, to face the dark eyes that were beseeching him; he saw no condemnation there. Padmé sat back down on the bed. Then she lay down. She was feeling weak.

Vader was floored at her request. Something fluttered in his chest.

Perhaps, over time, she could grow to love me again, as I am now.

Hope warmed him. He had no idea that time was not on their side.

He slowly nodded his head in acknowledgment of her earnest appeal and sat down quietly in the chair nearest her bed.

"Come closer, please," she whispered. He acquiesced immediately, sliding his chair nearer to her.

They sat together in the darkening room in a companionable silence.

x x x x

It had been so long since she had spoken that Vader wondered if Padmé had actually fallen asleep.

He would stay anyway, regardless, as long as he could. He hoped his Master would not want yet another briefing on the progress of the space station, because that would be the only reason for him to leave Padmé at this point. The evening cycle of the space station had dimmed the lights in the chamber and a shadow had fallen over Padmé's face.

For a brief moment, a chill passed over him because she looked as still as death. He shook his head at the thought and turned his mind away from the unpleasantness and toward the path of mediation. She was safe with him. She would never leave him again. Calm washed over him.

"Will you let me see you without your mask?" Her voice was soft and even, interrupting his meditative state.

Vader was taken aback and instantly furious.

Items on the table started to tremble with his burgeoning rage. He needed to control himself or he would begin to shatter all the breakable items in the room.

Did she want to taunt him?

He rose stiffly from his seat, and stood in front of the view port, looking out through troubled and unseeing eyes, lost in his own musings.

Could she be so cruel?

"Anakin, I don't care what you look like. I just want to see your eyes for once…"

Liar!

Padmé rose from the bed and tentatively moved toward his forbidding presence. Gaining courage, she silently glided to his right hand side and placed her hand on his upper right arm, gently squeezing the flesh underneath his cape and below the multi-ply insulated black suit. It was the exact same place that she had caressed him before.

Vader remained stock still.

He was both stunned and pleased at her touch.

Then, the grossly distorted imagined vision of her reaction to his true form came to his mind. If she were to see him without his mask and suit- the cybernetic limbs joined to the twisted, scarred flesh …he vividly painted her reaction: the revulsion, the hatred, the rejection.

Suddenly, Vader was consumed with anger and self-loathing.

Padmé, eyes wide, felt an odd sense of vertigo shift her. She felt herself being pushed away from him, her feet sliding across the floor away from him as he gently, but firmly rebuffed her. He was now very much determined to leave.

"Why do you do this, Anakin?" She whispered to him in a low tortured voice, feeling like a discarded thing.

"Do not try to sway me, woman!"

He had virtually barked that command at her, causing her to flinch away further from him. Her instinctive reaction to his loud voice further proved to him that he knew how she really felt about him, despite her honeyed caress.

She despises me.

Vader had misguidedly assumed she had touched him in the hopes of seducing him and changing Luke's fate. He had thought she was speaking of Luke, when, in fact, she was referring to him pushing her away from him- both physically and emotionally.

"What do you mean-?" She was now most thoroughly confused. Vader thought her a great actress, her wide eyes looked almost sincerely bewildered.

"No more arguments, Padmé." He ground out forcefully as he approached her.

"The course of Destiny can not be changed." His body menacingly loomed over her and he rudely pointed his finger at her.

"Do not try my patience any longer."

Something feral and wild was loosed in Padmé at his accusation.

"What are you going to do- choke me again?" She hissed the words at him through gritted teeth. She was livid.

Vader was utterly dumbstruck at her suggestion.

How could you think that I would-

He would never, ever in a million light years even think of doing that to her again, no matter how enraged he was by her. And he was quite enraged with her at this very moment. Astonished, he noticed that her teeth were bared and she snarled at him.

"This time, make sure you finish it!"

Vader was utterly appalled.

He fled her room for good.