We follow Sabé into the house and up a narrow staircase. I can feel the sadness, it permeates the very walls. The silence is oppressive, and it fills me with a sense of dread as we draw closer to where Padmé is.

Sabé stops outside a door that is slightly ajar. She turns and looks at me.

"I will see if she is up to visitors," she tells me. "I'm afraid you'll overwhelm her if you all go in at once, though. She is quite fragile emotionally these days."

I nod my understanding, and wait with my children and their friends as Sabé enters the room. I can feel my children's anxiety, and it only serves to amplify my own. Who will we find behind that door?

Sabé returns after a few minutes and motions for me to come forward. I look back briefly at Luke and Leia, and then follow her inside.

The room is quite large, the big picture window opposite the door affording its occupant a splendid view of the lake. "I love the water..." I remember her telling me long ago.

Almost as though I am moving in slow motion, I approach the chair where Sabé has directed me to. My heart in my throat, I reach her, the sight of her face after all these years threatening to bring me to my knees.

She gazes out the window, her large dark eyes watching the sunlight dance on the still waters of the lake. Her face has aged, which is to be expected after 22 years; but she is still beautiful, just as beautiful, I decide, as the first time I saw her in Watto's junk shop so many years ago. There is so much I want to say to her, for I have fantasized about this moment so many times over the long agonizing years without her; yet I cannot speak, all the words have run dry, and all I am able to say is her name.

"Padmé…"

She starts, as though noticing for the first time that she is not alone in the room, and slowly raises her eyes to me. The moment our eyes meet is nearly my undoing. Padmé's eyes, her soulful, luminous eyes are full of sadness that tell of a lifetime spent alone, mourning the loss of all those that she loved. Time seems to stand still as we search one another's eyes, each of us looking desperately for the Love we had lost so long ago.

"Ani?" she says at last in the dulcet tones I had all but forgotten.

"Yes, Padmé," I say, kneeling by her side. "It's Ani. I'm here."

She brings a hand to my face, a crease forming on her brow.

"But…how?" she asks, touching my face as though trying to prove to herself that I am indeed really there. "Mustafar…"

"I nearly died there, yes," I tell her gently. "And bore the scars of the terrible day for many years. But someone saved me from the Dark Side, Padmé, helped me to be remade, to become the man I once was, the man who loves you more than life itself."

Padmé blinks, the crease not leaving her brow. Her fingers gently run through my hair, her eyes following their path, and then down the side of my face once again. I close my eyes; the sensation of her touch is heady, exhilarating; yet so very tender and delicate.

"Why, Ani? Why did you leave me alone?"

I knew she would ask it; it was inevitable; yet the question reaches inside of me and grabs at my heart, wrenching it painfully.

I reach up and cover her hand with my own. "Oh Padmé, it was never my intention to leave you alone. I only wanted to save you, and I was foolish enough to believe that I could do so by embracing the Dark Side. If only I could go back to that terrible day on Mustafar…" I tell her passionately.

Her eyes harden, ever so slightly. "Why have you come here?" she asks tiredly. "How did you find me?"

"Mon Mothma told me where to find you."

"She had no right to do that," Padmé responds. "She promised never to tell anyone."

"Unless Darth Vader ceased to exist," I remind her. "Vader is gone, Padmé, I promise you."

She shakes her head, as tears start to form in her eyes. "You took everything from me," she says softly. "Everything! And now you just show up after 22 years and expect that things will be the way they were?"

"I don't expect anything, Padmé," I tell her. "I have no right to expect anything. But when I found out that you were alive, I had to see you."

"Why?" she asks simply.

I frown at the question. "Why?" I repeat incredulously. "Padmé I have spent the past 22 years living in my own self made Hell. I can't tell you how many times I wanted to die, to free myself from it; and it wasn't the mask, or the fact that my body was a monstrous wreck; no, it was the knowledge that I was responsible for the death of the One I loved more than anything in the galaxy. When I believed that you were dead, a part of me died as well, leaving me an empty shell. Darkness was all I had to fill that void, and so I embraced it whole heartedly. I had nothing else, my capacity to feel anything but anger and hatred was destroyed."

"You say you loved me, but you tried to kill me Anakin!" she cries. "If Obi-Wan hadn't stopped you, you would have killed me!"

"Padmé, please…"

"When I saw the man I loved disappear before my very eyes, saw him morph into an angry, vicious monster, I too wanted to die. Part of me did die on that day, Ani. And then when my babies died…" she stops, as the emotions overwhelm her.

"Padmé, they didn't die!" I tell her, clasping her hand. "You were lied to! They are alive; they are with me here, right now!"

"Liar!" she cries, yanking her hand away. She gets to her feet. "You are lying! Why would Yoda have told me such a thing if it weren't true?"

So it was Yoda…

"I don't know," I tell her. "But I'm sure he did it with the best intentions, Padmé."

"I don't believe you!" she sobs, backing away from me. I stand up, my heart breaking with the waves of sorrow I feel emanating from my beloved wife. Yet, under the sorrow I feel her desperate need to believe; a small glimmer of hope that I am not lying.

"I will prove it," I tell her. I walk over to the door and open it, motioning for Luke and Leia to enter the room, ignoring Sabé's protestations. My children enter at once, their eyes darting about the room in search of their mother. I turn to Padmé and I can see that she realizes the truth. Her eyes are wide; her trembling hands cover her mouth.

"It's true!" she cries. "You're alive! You're both alive!" She holds out a hand to each of them. "Oh my darlings, my sweet Luke and Leia!"

My son and daughter, our son and daughter, rush to their mother and embrace her tightly. The three of them weep openly Padmé kissing them repeatedly as though trying to make up for all the time they were apart. My heart fills at the sight of my beloved angel reunited at last with our children; but I feel as though I have no place here. Quietly I leave the room, closing the door behind me.