As Vader soon discovered, keeping a 5-year-old hidden on a big spaceship was next to an impossible task. As soon as she had woken, she immediately wanted to explore the ship. But Vader stopped her just as she was about to go out the door.

"Leia, you are not allowed to walk around on the ship. People can't know you're here.", Vader said, towering above her. Fear spread throughout his chest, but he didn't let it show.

"I can do whatever I want. You can't stop me.", Leia said stubbornly and crossed her arms over her chest.

Vader sighed. She was too much like him. And Padmé. He remembered that she could be quite stubborn too.

This was unlike anything he had ever been through.

You don't know how to be her father.

"Yes, I can. I'm your father.", he said pushing away the voice.

"No. Bail is my dad.", she said stubbornly.

"He may be your adoptive father, but I'm your real father.", Vader reprimanded her.

"Fine", she huffed and went back into the room. Vader felt triumphant for winning this little fight with his daughter. But he had a feeling there would be many more arguments over this matter.

He went into the living room in his quarters where Leia had gone. There was a holoprojector on a small table and a sofa in front of it. The furniture was painted in dark colours, mostly grey and black and there was only a small circular window that showed the outside of the ship - space sprinkled with brightly shining stars.

"Can I watch a holovid?", Leia asked.

"Fine", he bit out reluctantly.

She plopped herself on the sofa and started watching a holovid.

He sighed and left her by herself as he walked out of his quarters. Vader strode towards his meditation chamber and sat himself down in the chair as the walls came down around him. As soon as they came together, his helmet was taken off his head and he took a breath inhaling the first air in a long time.

The air inside the chamber had been filtered so that he could be without his mask, although he still longed for being able to breathe fresh air. But if this was the price to pay for his power, then so be it.

Only in this place did he allow himself to think of his past. Or more precisely, of her. Padmé. His angel.

If there was truly a chance that she was alive...

But he dared not hope. Fate had been cruel to him so far. And Palpatine had said that he killed her in his anger...

Then a knock on the door. He quickly pushed a button that lifted the walls around at the same time as his mask was put on him.

He rose up from the chair and walked towards whoever dared to intrude on him. His anger boiling in his chest. There were so many things out of his control. What to do with Leia. Whether his wife was alive or not. And he hated the feeling. He felt the need to hurt someone, preferably whoever had disturbed him. Badly.

He opened the door.

Then he pinched his two fingers and the officer who stood outside his door suddenly grabbed his own throat, gasping for air.

The icy anger he felt created an aura of cold around him and his darkened mood almost radiated from him in waves.

"Sir...", he managed to get out.

"You should have known better than to come unannounced, officer.", he said spitting out the words.

Nonetheless, he wasn't in the mood to clean up bodies. And there was a chance his wife was alive. That brightened his mood immensely, and he let the officer go. That officer didn't know how lucky he was that he didn't catch the dark lord on a day when his mood was worse.

"Sir, we are closing in on Naboo.", the officer croaked out, his voice coarse from the lack of air.

And for the moment, any anger he had left dissipated, and Vader strode past him and went towards the bridge.

As he arrived, the backs of the officers straightened, and they acknowledged his arrival. But he took no notice and instead went to the window. There was the planet that Padmé cherished, her home world. Naboo.

The planet was as he remembered. Completely green, the colour of the forests that habited its surface. He still remembered the big waterfalls around Theed, where he and Padmé had visited during his mission to protect her.

"Land immediately.", Vader said without hesitation.

As the ship finally landed on the landing platform the gate opened in the ship's hull with a hiss. Vader went down the ramp with his cape fluttering in the wind.

The climate on Naboo was warm and humid, hinting at the diversity of life that inhabited the surface.

The capital of Theed was as beautiful as in Vader's now faint memories of his time here. He had tried to repress those memories after his turn to the dark, but they kept creeping up every now and then.

He knew where he had to go next, but for some reason he felt out of place on a planet so full of life and where the dark side of the force had no reach.

Vader was soon on his way towards his destination. It was the place he swore never to visit. And now he was going there of his own free will.

But he had to know for sure.

But as the beautiful scenery flew past him, where he sat in his speeder, he didn't even notice. His mind was too focused on the task.

Then he slowed down his speeder down to a stop. He was finally there.

It was a small building made out of stone. With small pillars holding the glass roof up. And at the entrance was a figure. He drew his breath inside his mask as he saw who it was supposed to look like. It was a statue of her.

The stone carved carefully into her shape. But not exactly the one he remembered most. It was a statue of her as the queen of Naboo. The ornaments on her head and the elegant clothes a reminder of her years of being a queen, at the bare age of 14. Like she looked like when he was only 9-years-old.

Then he heard a rustling in the bushes behind him, and he was drawn from his thoughts. He looked around, his eyes narrowed. I must have imagined it, he thought and turned his attention to the tomb again.

He went down the hill and started walking in to the tomb. An icy chill crept up his spine as he entered the building. There was something eerie about this place.

Inside the tomb was a sarcophagus made out of stone, and he almost thought that someone was laying atop of it until he saw that it was just another statue of her on the lid of the sarcophagus. And in front of the stone sarcophagus was another figure of her, this time made out of stained-glass. The light shone through the glass and painted the room in colours of blue, yellow and green.

He was stunned by this other remainder of her beauty. But, he thought to himself, no one would ever be able to capture the true beauty of Padmé Amidala.

He takes a deep breath and lays a hand on the stone sarcophagus. And all of his intentions when he came here were washed away.

Now the only thing left in his chest was an emotion he hadn't let himself feel for 5 whole years. Grief.

He hadn't let himself grieve over her. Because according to his master, grief was for the weak, anger was more useful. And he couldn't help but agree with his master at this moment. He hadn't felt weaker in his life.

But he couldn't bring himself to open her sarcophagus. He could not face what had become of her. What he had done to her. Guilt gathered in him like a dark cloud, weighing down on his shoulders.

So he didn't even reach out with the Force to see if she was there. He couldn't bear to feel the hole in the Force where her life should have been. And he didn't open the casket.

And that's how he knew he had to leave. Still unknowing whether she was alive or not.

He took a final look at the sarcophagus with the statue that captured her features better than the one outside. And he felt a single tear run down his cheek before he turned around and walked out of the tomb without looking back.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Hi! Thanks for reading my story. Hope you enjoy it so far! I have many exciting things planned for the upcoming chapters, so I hope you stick with the story.

Do you think anyone might be spying on Vader while he's in Padmé's tomb, in that case who do you think it is? I would love to hear your ideas.