What little physical remains of Darth Sidious which lay buried in the Palpatine family estate would be turning over in his grave, Padmé mused as she found herself buried once more under the comfort of her blankets, unable to will herself to leave her bed and face yet another day. Was this truly war, she wondered? It seemed to her an endless bipolar cycle of pain and torment, juxtaposed in between the adrenaline high of action, rage, death...the almost orgasmic feel of the Force flowing through her as she cut through a battlefield, followed unfailingly by the guilt, the self-recrimination, the revenge of her conscience once that high wore off. Sidious would have reveled in it, drinking in the deaths and sufferings felt across the galaxy like mother's milk. For her part, Padmé was already struggling and failing to ward off the worst of her demons, even while trying to wean off as much of the Dark Side as she could during this turbulent time. If she couldn't handle a small war now, completely out of her own making, how could she handle ruling a galactic empire?

She heard the water in the fresher turn off and minutes, later, Anakin emerge back into their room, and felt his surprise through the Force.

"You're still sleeping," he said matter of factly.

"No." She pulled her head from under the blanket, admiring the sleek body and form of her husband, dressed in a light silk morning gown. "I was just...meditating."

Anakin laughed. "Well, if that's the case then I hope you can meditate yourself ready for your morning briefing in twenty minutes."

"Ugh," Padmé moaned painfully. "Ani, can you be a dear and read me my schedule today?"

He frowned. The Padmé he knew and loved would have already have the next week's schedule memorized, complete with hundreds of potential adjustments and contingencies if necessary. Anakin walked over to the bureau to pick up his wife's datapad.

"0845, briefing with Mon and Bail. 0950, briefing with General Dooku. 1100 briefing with Obi-Wan and Quinlan. 1220, lunch with the Queen...well, we can check that one off the list at least." Squinting his eyes, he moved to adjust her schedule to account for the expected death of Queen Jamillia.

"Cancel it all," Padmé said groggily, slowly rising from the bed. She looked around the room, where a glimpse of her visage in a side mirror brought her side to side with Anakin. The sith groaned again as she studied her appearance. She was less than a year away from thirty, looked like she was forty, and felt over a hundred years old.

"Are you sure," Anakin asked quizzically. "I suppose with Naboo in mourning for their queen it would be understandable."

"I'm standing in a dead woman's house," Padmé whispered more to herself than anyone else. "I just want to leave here. Go to Varykino...or hells, Tatooine even. Anywhere but here."

"It wasn't your fault," Anakin said, recognizing that he needed to comfort his wife once more. Setting the datapad down, he put his arms around her small frame. "Jamillia made her decisions, and she alone decided her fate."

"Dormé said the same thing. But...," she frowned, thinking back to the events of yesterday. "Even if she needed to die...I enjoyed doing it. I enjoyed choking the life out of her. I reveled in her shock, her pain, her...her grief when she realized she had been betrayed by those she cared about."

"It's the nature of the Dark Side," Anakin said, confused as to why his wife felt so pained over one death. They both had killed many many times, and seen death even more often. "It strengthens us."

"No," Padmé said, pulling away from her husband and walking alone to the small balcony overlooking a small inner courtyard within the palace grounds. "It's me."

Anakin followed, confused as ever. "I don't understand." Moving to comfort her once again, he felt himself rebuffed almost violently through the Force.

"Do not touch me, Anakin Skywalker!" Padmé turned swiftly to face her husband, and Anakin saw just sadness rather than anger as she backed slowly away from him, her words a warning, not a reproach. "I am not a good person. I am tainted by death. By darkness."

"We're Siths," Anakin protested strongly, not knowing what to make of his wife's sudden existential crisis. "Yes, we changed the Order to serve the greater good, but still, the Dark Side will claim its share. We both know this."

"Not the Dark Side," Padmé said, pacing slowly across the room in a circular path. "It's me. This ambition inside me...I can feel it. It devours me every waking day, it gnaws at me while I sleep...I feel it eating away at my soul at all times. I feel this ambition...the path it lays before me, and everything else falls away...but just getting what I want is not enough."

She stopped, and slowly lifted her arm in by inch, pointing one finger out towards the window. "No. I wish to destroy them. It angers me, that they dare deny us what is rightfully ours. That it dares to defy this hunger in me. I don't even hate them, for they are below my hatred. I feel for them only contempt. They are beneath me, beneath us. They are not even worthy of our presence, let alone our hate. They do not deserve it more than us. No one deserves it more than us, because no one desires this, desires everything, more than us. More than me."

Realizing that she was screaming, hyperventilating, she lowered her voice, but continued. "I feel the truth, Anakin. I have always felt this fire burning within me. It may be amplified by the Dark Side, but this is me. This has always been me."

"Then let's step away," Anakin said, surprising her with the simplicity and frankness of his response.

"Can you do that? After everything that we've done, after all the work...all that this has cost us."

"Yes." He approached his wife and sensing none of the resistance from before, clasped her shoulders softly with his hands.

"What about freeing the slaves? Ending corruption, bribery, crime? Can you just let the slime of the galaxy continue as they were?" She would have said 'villains', if only for the realization that she already was one herself. There were tears in her eyes, something that was all too common by this stage of her war.

"Padmé," Anakin whispered softly. "I love you. I am infinitely proud of everything we have accomplished together. For you, I would free a million slaves." He paused, his expression growing darker. "For your soul, I will also slaughter billions. To save you, I would set the galaxy afire. Whatever you ask, I shall do."

Seeing her contemplate his words, he continued. "But we must move forward or back. Either we finish what we started, or we run, and live the rest of our lives running. Either path I will take gladly, but I will embark on neither one unless it is what you truly want. What your soul, what your heart tells you is the right path. If you say your soul is dead, then I will stab my own in the heart as well, and we will live out the rest of our days as monsters, fine by me. If you wish to reclaim yours..."

"What is there to reclaim," Padmé asked, looking down uncertainly at their feet. "At this stage, after all we have done. Had we any conscience left..."

"We do," Anakin insisted. "You continue to mourn the consequences of our actions. Sifo-Dyas's death, Jamillia's...all the innocent lives in this war, if they still stain our consciences, then it still lives. You say the darkness is in your soul. If you're wrong, and it is truly the Dark Side controlling us, then we are lost anyway. But if the demons are our own, then we have control of it, and we can continue to control it. Either the choice is always ours to make, or it is already too late."

Padmé sighed. "And what if we don't know?"

"If we don't know ourselves, then we do not deserve the title of master."

Taking a deep breath, the lady of the Sith made her decision. "I believe the darkness lies within us. But no running. Even if it is too late for me, I would rather die a shadow, falling forward, lunging into oblivion...than a feral beast, toothless in retreat." She took one step forward, pressing her body as close as she could to Anakin's, and stroked his cheek with her thumb and index finger, noting the irony of how they formed the same shape that took the life of the Queen the previous day. "But it's not too late for you. You're still young, your soul less tainted by darkness and time. If the Jedi are right, that you are the Chosen One, then there is nothing impossible for you. Leave me while you still can, and save yourself."

As Anakin pulled away from her upon her words, Padmé felt her heart sink. She had made the offer, but would he really leave her? How could she live with that? Oddly, she watched her husband retrace her path, pointing down with one finger in each spot upon the marble where she had placed her feet in seconds prior. He then pointed at his own two feet.

"Do you see these," he asked, staring intently at her, his blue eyes never so intense before in her memory. "These are the footsteps of giants. Think of the great ones that came before us. Teta. Revan. Or even King Jafan here on Naboo, or every great dynast or conqueror in the history every single system in this galaxy...do you think they accomplished what they did with unblemished consciences? That they lived as infallible saints, even the founding Jedi of old, to be able to change the course of history and bend it to their own will?" He pointedly did not mention the Jedi of their era, those mumbling mediocrities who could never come close to being bestowed by greatness.

"No," Padmé said, continuing Anakin's line of thought. "Some were good. Some were evil. Some were neither. Or both."

"Their deeds live on. Their names live on." Seeing the light and spirit return to her eyes, Anakin smiled and took her hand in his. "I am with you forever. In this life and what may come. With our footsteps, we will crush many. But we walk down the road of legends. As equals. As partners. As we promised so many years ago."

"Then woe be to those who stand in our way," Padmé said, as she felt the fire reignite inside her. Though she wondered if it could ever be tamed again.

She was convinced she could fix the galaxy. She had to try, considering no one else seemed willing to do so. Well, she guessed Skyguy and that Amidala lady were trying, from a certain point of view. As for the Jedi who had joined the Sith, she didn't know what to think. Not that they joined the Dark Side, per se, but they were serving their will.

"And freeing slaves and sentients from oppression," Ahsoka reminded herself. How did that compare to those who served the Supreme Chancellor, who was now pretty much openly on record as supporting slavery and oppression. Precious few served him directly, thankfully, most having learned the lessons of Ki-Adi-Mundi. Most, like her own master Kit Fisto, now on yet another trip to Dagobah to seek the alleged wisdom of Grandmaster Yoda, did nothing, leaving her to the doldrums of her classes and all those instructors, teachers who never seemed able to answer all of her questions is a satisfying or sensible way.

"Why don't we just get rid of him," she had managed to ask Master Windu once when they bumped into each other in the Room of a Thousand Fountains. The senior Jedi quickly launched into a lecture involving legal precedents and political ramifications and the future of the Republic, but it all sounded like excuses to her. There wasn't going to be a future to the Republic unless someone did something!

The door to Senator Fafi's office was open, and Ahsoka held her nose as she mustered up the courage to approach the man. She did not fear him, not at all, but there was something about the Senator that always repulsed her, even to the point of nausea. It was odd, that he gave her such a bad feeling, while Anakin Skywalker, one of the two Siths she had actually encountered on Sern Prime...hells, Ahsoka hated to admit it...she liked! He seemed...normal. Fun. Cool. Brave. And until the revelation, Senator Amidala had been one of the few politicians she actually admired in the galaxy. Even now, she struggled to rationalize what it was that Amidala was actually doing wrong. How was she actually harming the galaxy, so much so to cause such loathing and trepidation from many in her Order?

She knocked. "Mas," a deep voice sounded from within the office. "I don't recall you on the docket today."

Ahsoka gently pushed the door open.

"Oh," Fafi said, his eyes widening in shock before he quickly recovered, gathering his Senatorial bearing. "Ah, a young Jedi...Padawan, I believe? How may I help you? I do not recall meeting you before?"

He eyed her slim figure up and down. She was very young, he realized. Not too young necessarily for his tastes, but Fafi did not get to where he was by thinking with his balls. Power and politics always came first...the rest would come naturally. For that, he needed to maintain propriety. Jedi were to be taken seriously, even children.

"Senator Fafi? I'm...my name is Ahsoka Tano."

"Ahsoka Tano." He paused in thought. "Ah yes, you were one of the Jedi that accompanied the traitor Skywalker on Sern Prime, weren't you?"

"I participated in the battle, yes." She still did not fear the Senator. He could accuse her of being a traitor, but she could easily pierce his fat heart with a lightsaber. Besides, it was similar rumors surrounding Fafi's office that brought her here in the first place.

"So it would appear then," Fafi said diplomatically. There was no point to threatening a Jedi, even a child as that. Especially since he sensed that she needed his help somehow. "So complicated is the state of the galaxy these days, with so many shifting loyalties."

"Yes, Senator. There's a lot of rumors too about you, ya know...on the holonets."

"Is there now?"

"Jedi gossip too, sometimes. Most Jedi do not approve of Chancellor's Gunray's actions at this point."

Fafi coughed loudly. "Chancellor Gunray is our elected leader and we must follow his leadership the best we can," he said, putting extra volume into his voice.

"I don't think you're beloved in the Order either, but I think there's many who would prefer you to Gunray. They think they can work with you, at least, within reason. You, at the very least, would not cut the throat of an innocent woman live before the entire galaxy." She didn't say that she figured Fafi would probably have something of that sort done behind closed doors.

"She was an assassin convicted of espionage."

"Oh come on, you know that's complete bullsith, Senator, what with Gunray being the sole judge and jury."

"Hmmppff. You speak for Master Windu now? He fears coming here to speak this treason in person?"

"Excuse me," Ahsoka said, crossing her arms indignantly, "I speak for no one but myself."

"Ha," Fafi said, laughing as he took a swig of water. "So you seek to singlehandedly execute a coup d'etat, hmmm?"

"You know," Ahsoka said slyly, "that's what the rumors say you're trying to do too. Maybe we can help one another?"

"Close the door," Fafi said, more quietly this time. So this girl wanted to play with fire? Let him see how far she was willing to go then.

Ahsoka obliged.

"What is it that you're really trying to accomplish, young Ahsoka?"

"What is it you're trying for, Senator? The rumors say that you want to take his place to open negotiations with the Alliance."

Fafi beckoned the young Padawan closer with his fingers, and she approached his desk. "Do you trust me, young Ahsoka?"

Ahsoka scoffed. "Like I'd trust a rancor!"

It was Fafi's turn to act indignant. "Then why come to me then?"

"Because you're not Nute Gunray. If somehow you can restore peace to the Republic and bring the Alliance back into the fold, then that's better than continuing the way we are now. You know this can't last. I'm guessing...I'm guessing that if you're the one to negotiate the peace, you can get yourself a pardon for your own crimes. And the Jedi will forgive everything since Republic can bring in the Sith once it's reunited." Truthfully, she wouldn't mind it if the Siths got away. Let them roam the galaxy, freeing more slaves in the Outer Rim. She just wanted to end Gunray's reign of terror.

"Very interesting thoughts," Fafi said. She was bright child, but she was still a child, knowledgeable of the ways of the world, yet naive about how things really worked. "Why you?"

"Because no one else is doing anything."

Fafi chuckled again, this time in a way that made Ahsoka shiver. "You are dismissed, Padawan. This conversation never took place."

"Huh?" It felt like she had been slapped in the face. She seemed so close to gaining his confidence. Would he report her to the Jedi Council now? To Gunray?

"There is opportunity," Fafi whispered, "and there is time. They are two separate entities. When they coincide, you will know."

He winked, an atrocious sight, but bowing before she left, Ahsoka was happy with the result of the meeting nevertheless.

So was Fafi. He retrieved his datapad and pulled up a list of Jedi. Setting the filters until it showed only those currently working with the Alliance at the moment, he read and reviewed the profiles of every member of the Order until he found the one he was looking for, and whispered the name to himself.

"Obi-Wan Kenobi."

1saaa: No worries! Being a Sith out in the open has definitely emboldened Padmé, but a lot of it is just the nature of managing a war. Padmé could control both sides like Sidious did, but she is choosing to control only one side (because it's slightly less evil), which obviously leaves her with less overall control of events, and more subject to unforeseen obstacles and difficulties. As for your prediction, it would definitely be a very graceful character and plot arc! However at this point of the story at least, Anakin cares more about his wife than doing the right thing, per se.

TheWateringWizard: Thank you! War makes everything darker...

Nightshade's sydneylover150: She won't, not unless he presses her, which he won't, since he's more preoccupied with both the war and his wife's state of mind.