Author's Notes: It took me forever to get this chapter up. I hope I still have some readers around. My deepest apologies. I got painfully off track, but I hope to finally get back into gear and finish this baby up as I intended to many months ago. Again, my apologies.

Chapter 18

Anakin woke up at the sound of his own irregular breathing. When he lifted his head upward, it wasn't long until it sunk back down. Every inch of himself felt so heavy he wondered if he could even keep his eyes open. He fell short in a vain attempt to say words, his throat clearly dry and lacking in hydration.

A moment later, his throat suddenly constricted and he couldn't breathe.

"Ughhh…"

Above the flat surface he lay upon, the evil eyes of his former Dark Lord bore into his weakened vision. "I see you're finally awake, my former apprentice," he snickered with bitterness. "With continuous transfusion, I could keep you painfully alive indefinitely."

Anakin coughed heavily, his thoughts drifting to the only place he found solace.

Padme.

"Some friends they are. Leaving you behind like that." Darth Sidious gingerly wrapped his fingers around Anakin's neck letting the power of the force do his bidding. "After everything I've done for you, this is how you repay me." His concentration allowed his invisible grasp to squeeze tighter. Sidious had no care for the boy whatsoever. "I'll kill you over… and over… and over again."

Anakin didn't think it was possible, but as the events of the past few days finally caught up with him, he was struck with the sudden realization, that unlike before, he was actually afraid to die.

"I can't believe we just left him there." Padme paced back and forth with immense alarm. Dread filled her intensely and all she could think about was remembering Anakin's fallen body as she, Obi-Wan and Master Yoda fled Darth Sidious's near capture.

"We had no other choice. If we stayed behind, we would share a similar fate as the others. We escaped so we can find another way," said Obi-Wan.

"And what about Anakin?" she snapped back angrily.

Padme was more than angry; she was down right frustrated at the situation. After Anakin passed out, Obi-Wan and Yoda managed to hold Palpatine off for just enough time to escape. She kept repeating the events in her mind, trying to find ways they could've escaped with her husband.

Husband. After everything that they've been through, she was finally able to refer to him as such without the sickening feeling that was normally associated with it.

"The force will protect him."

"Don't you dare," she said angrily. "He could be dead right now."

"He's not dead," Obi-Wan assured her calmly as possible.

Padme didn't believe him, remembering the fight between the Jedi and Palpatine. The anger and hatred that her former mentor exhibited towards his former apprentice showed nothing but darkness. She was ashamed to have ever looked up to the monster when she served as Queen and then Senator in the Old Republic.

"Alive, young Skywalker is," Master Yoda included. For the last few minutes, he's been idly standing by meditating at the situation. "Weak, he is but dead, he most certainly is not."

Coming from the old Jedi, Padme felt only small relief, but the only way she'll truly be satisfied is if Anakin was right there with them at this very moment, alive and not in the hands of the master Sith Lord.

"And what do we do now?"

Before Obi-Wan could answer her question, Master Yoda beat him to it.

"Nothing."

Padme looked at the Jedi Master incredulously.

"What?"

This time, Obi-Wan echoed her sentiments.

"Master Yoda, we can't possibly leave him at the hands of the Sith. Palpatine could be torturing him."

With a calmness that the small Master can only accomplish in such a tension-filled situation, he said "Skywalker's battle, this is. Interfere, we will not. To free himself, alone he will have to be."

Padme glared defiantly at Master Yoda. "Then you condemn him to death!"

"Faith in Skywalker, you must have."

Padme left the presence of the Jedi hoping to calm herself from the emotions that raged inside of her. She wished she didn't care, wished that she never met the man hidden behind all that darkness, but she did. All the restraint and teachings she learned to harness as a servant to her people began to crumble against the weight of a man she's grown to care deeply for.

Anakin Skywalker crept beneath her skin before she even got a chance to notice he was there. He cared and protected her without thought of the consequences. If he hadn't been taken by the Sith, if she had just met him as Anakin Skywalker, there was no doubt in her mind he was a man she could easily and faithfully fall in love with.

Only she knew the times for dreams have come and gone, and a dangerous war wages between the light and dark. The Jedi continues to fall against the oppression and tyranny that the Dark Side Sidious had let loose to the galaxy, and the only way to be free of him is to destroy Sidious himself, or die trying.

Padme feared that the most. She didn't want him to die, and she hoped Anakin knew that too.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Anakin screamed against the pain and agony inflicted against his already battered and broken body. For only a moment, his mental blocks fell and he could hear the faint sound of a familiar voice break through the valley of pain that he had been experiencing non-stop for Force-knows how long.

"You were always good at persevering, little one." Sidious appeared besides him, taunting him as he usually does. "Just tell me where they are, and all this suffering will go away."

Even in his condition, Anakin would never fall for such easy bait. His suffering is the only thing that keeps Sidious happy. Thankfully, he knew nothing of the rebel's location, and even if he told a lie, it would guarantee his death and he wasn't about to give his former master the satisfaction.

"Go to hell," Anakin whispered.

Sidious hovered dangerously close to his face when he replied, "I'm already there." He raised his hand and shock Force lighting through his fingers, letting the power of the Dark Side surge Anakin's weakening body with a thousand bolts. Burnt marks began searing through the clasps that kept him restrained on his wrists and ankles as he continued to scream in agony.

And when he couldn't take any more of it, he blacked out.

Unconscious, one after another, images from a different place and time flashed before his eyes.

"It must be difficult having sworn your life to the Jedi. Not being able to visit the places you like, or do the things you like – "

"Or be with the people I love," Anakin added gently.

Padme looked at him carefully, her curiosity getting the better of her. "Are you allowed to love? I thought that was forbidden for a Jedi."

Anakin let out a small grin. "Attachment is forbidden." Then he looks at her intensely. "Compassion, which I define as unconditional love, is central to a Jedi's life, so you might say we're encouraged to love."

---

"You're in my very soul, tormenting me. What can I do? I will do anything you ask," he said to Padme with barely contained passion.

---

"Don't be afraid," Anakin whispered to her.

For the first time, Padme allows herself to see him as the man he has become and not the Jedi she was forbidden to think of. "I'm not afraid to die. I've been dying a little each day since you came back into my life."

Anakin stares back in surprise, afraid to hope. "What are you talking about?"

"I love you."

"You love me? I thought we decided not to fall in love. That we would be forced to live a lie, that it would destroy our lives?"

"I think our lives are about to be destroyed anyway. My love for you is a puzzle, Ani, for which I have no answers. I can't control it, and now I don't care. I truly, deeply love you, and before we die, I want you to know."

---

"Something's happening. I'm not the Jedi I should be. I want more, but I know I shouldn't."

---

Padme tried to hold onto him as the man she loved grew farther apart from her. "Anakin, you're breaking my heart. You're going down a path I cannot follow."

---

"Love can't save you. Only my new powers can."

---

With hope and confidence, the young man walking besides Darth Vader says, "I've accepted the truth that you were once Anakin Skywalker, my father."

"That name no longer has any meaning for me."

The boy didn't back down. "It is the name of your true self, you've only forgotten. I know there is good in you. The Emperor hasn't driven it from you fully."

---

"Luke, help me take this mask off," he gasped in pain.

Luke was afraid. "But you'll die."

"Nothing can stop that now. Just for once, let me look on you with my own eyes." Reluctantly, Luke takes his mask off. His father's face was old and pale carrying scars that'll never disappear even if he willed it so yet Anakin simply stared at the boy he and his beloved Padme created together, and allowed the mixture of awe and contentment fill him. "Now, go my son. Leave me."

Defiant, just as his mother had once been. "I won't leave you here; I've got to save you!"

"You were right… you were right about me. Tell your sister… you were right." Finally, blackness claimed him.

Torn and helpless, Luke pleaded for him. "Father, I won't leave you!"

Father, I won't leave you. The young man's last words snapped Anakin back into consciousness as a surge of energy filled his veins and a new wave of power awakened.

To be continued…