Chapter 25

Anakin stared into Padme's pleading eyes, not knowing what to say. After all this, he might lose her anyway once she knew the truth. Would she hate him now? At least she was alive, even if she did, and he felt good about the fact she did have her life back. He also wondered if her fragile health could take the news. But there was no avoiding it now. He took a deep breath and didn't really know where to begin. "Padme, a lot has happened, a lot it might be hard for you to grasp right now."

"Anakin, I can't wait. I need to know. Tell me now, no matter what."

Anakin looked back over at a very anxious set of twins and began, choking on his words: "Well, let's put it this way, to start with, that age difference thing we used to have, you being older than me, that's no longer a factor."

She shook her head in confusion. "What does that mean? Where is the baby?" She demanded. Anakin began again.

"Darling, this is going to be hard for you, but now there is nothing else I can do but tell you the incredible truth. You died in childbirth, just as my dreams predicted. I just traveled from the future, and your life was restored by the spirits of some of my Jedi masters."

Her face was pale with shock. "How is this possible?" She muttered. "And what about the baby?"

Anakin put his hand on her cheek and tried to smile in a comforting way. "We had twins, Padme. A boy and a girl, Luke and Leia."

A look of recollection crossed her face as she remembered the birth. "Oh, my babies, yes, of course!"

Anakin used his hand to slowly turn her face to the doorway where they stood. "Much time has passed. There are our twins."

Padme started panting. "This cannot be, no no!" She shook as she cried. He tried to comfort her but she pushed him away. Luke and Leia ran over and tried to calm her.

"Mother." Leia spoke, and when she did, Padme remembered her from the apartment. "You- you said you were my daughter, come from the future to save me, and I didn't believe you! Oh, if only I had! What terrible events must have occured because I didn't listen to you. But it seemed so crazy at the time, yet, now, not as wild as this. Oh, it's all my fault." She started to cry.

"No, no!" Anakin cried, reaching for her. "It's all my fault, you have no idea."

"What do you mean?" He proceeded to fill her in on everything that happened, from the time she passed out at Mustafar until now. It took a long time. Luke and Leia stayed with them to make sure they were okay. Padme was silent through most of it though her mouth and hands were shaking. It was all too much to take in. The fight with Obi Wan. His disfigurement, dismemberment, and life as Vader. Organa and Lars raising the children. And how destiny brought them all back together through the droids, and the battles that followed. Then the entire new set of shocking events that had happened since Luke had killed the Emperor, Luke on the dark side, Anakin turning back, Anakin's healing, the time travel, culminating with her own ressurrection! She sat stunned, holding her arms around her legs, refusing to look at anyone. This was very traumatizing. She swatted at any hand that touched her. "I want to be alone." She cried. They all understood, and walked away. She appeared to go catatonic, and they worried if she'd ever be totally normal again after all she'd been through. All they could do was give her time.

Anakin walked the other way, also wanting to be alone. Luke and Leia saw that he was crying. They cried too, knowing what this had done to them both. Saving her was great, but they had to think about the consequences and other things in the grand scheme of events. Still, Luke assured Leia that the force ghosts would not have allowed her to be brought back if there wasn't a good reason, and that they had to know it was all going to be all right. This had to be part of, yes she was tired of hearing about it, the will of the force. And the force wasn't done with any of them yet.

Just then, Han and Chewy started clanking around up by the pilot seats. Luke and Leia ran to see what was wrong. "There's something wrong with the ship, kids." He said in a voice that did not sound encouraging. "We're going to have to put her down, nearest place we can for repairs."

"Can you fix it?" Leia asked, very worried.

"I think we can, me, Chewy, and your father, but we have to land, now." There was nothing around that Han recognized on his charts. He did not want to alarm the others, but he was afraid they might just lose power and start drifting into space uncontrollably forever. Then he noticed a planet, it was showing up on his instruments, but it was not on his charts! He had never seen it or heard of it before. He had no choice, unchartered and mysterious as it was, he took the Falcon down and landed it in the only place that looked inhabited. As he walked out and looked around, he was shocked to see that the few beings who resided there were of a lower life form of odd looking fuzzy creature, They had huts and crude clothing, but certainly did not possess the technology the rest of the galaxy enjoyed in some form. This must be why it was unchartered, they had never been able to communicate with any other planets! So all this time, it had been free of the Empire. Han wondered if when this place was charted, he would get the credit for its discovery. It was a shame that Threepio was still not functional, though he may not have been fluent in this strange dialect at all.

Nothing Han could do broke the communcation barrier, until, strangely, suddenly, a group of humans, a Twi'lek, and a couple other known species came running toward him. They were wearing the same crudely spun clothes as the creatures, but they were in the form of Jedi outfits, and many of them held lightsabers!

One of them spoke to Han. "Are we glad to see you! We haven't seen a ship in 24 years! We've been stranded here since we were kids!"

Luke, noticing this, and the lightsabers, came out to see what was up. "Are you, Jedi?" He asked, showing them his own lightsaber.

"Yes, we are." Spoke one of the young men. "We were living in the Jedi temple when the terror came."

"Terror?" Luke inquired.

"Yes, there was a purge on the Jedi, and our temple was being invaded by clones. But before this happened, we got a strange message."

Just then, Anakin's curiosity got the best of him despite his deeply emotional condition, and he came out of the ship. "What kind of strange message was this? How do you know of the Jedi?" He asked.

A strangely familiar young man in his early 30's with golden hair looked up at him. "Master Skywalker!" he exclaimed in surprise. Master Skywalker...he had not been a master, though he should have been...no one called him master except...except...the younglings!