I'm sooooo sorry this took too long. I got stuck... quite stuck in fact. There is just too much of this story in my head, and I need to whittle it down before it gets written out because otherwise I think I would end up with a sort of "minute by minute" storytelling- & thats just not good!

Thanks, again, to all of those who have reviewed. Off I go to write the next chapter!

reviews, of any kind, are always appreciated.

16. Give In

The next day, Vader and Aurren met up early again. This time, she came upon him in the kitchen as he sat before the hearth reading a data pad. Without many words, they ventured out once more into the countryside in the small ship.

Both of them had a lot on their minds. They spoke very little as they covered a few provinces to the east of the villa, only discussing landscape and suitability. Even though the stretches of silence were vast, it was once more a sort of comfortable silence.

On the trip back, Vader glanced at Aurren, and could feel her mind spinning. She was gazing out the window, but he knew that all that passed her eyes was not actually being seen. He wondered how she felt, being here after so long, being so close to the place where her parents had died- where her life had been changed forever. He wondered how he would feel if he ever found himself back on the deserts of Tattooine where his mother had taken her last breaths.

He looked away as they neared the hanger. There was so much going on in his head, yet somehow he still found time to think about her… to be concerned for her. It wasn't a very Sith-like thing to be doing.

Once more, he escorted her on his arm back to the house, and once more he left her company as soon as they were inside, this time with less words than before. Vader wasn't the only one who noticed the other's distraction. There was something about the softness of his few words today, the slowness of his movements, the gentleness of his hand as he led her to the house that betrayed to her that something was askew.

When he had taken his leave, Aurren once more took to looking about the house. She moved through room after room of opulent grandeur, only to barely let it register in her mind. Her wanderings led her out into the gardens, and she sat on a stone bench to watch the sun set.

She wasn't very concerned with her well being she had a tumult of emotions running through her, but they were ones that she knew very well. They were the ones she had in fact been trying for years to suppress. She took a deep breath and rested her elbows on her knees, her chin in her hands. A few fat tears fell from her lashes into the grass under her. It was time to let these feelings pass. She decided that she was too old to go hiding from her feelings.

Of course it was sad that her parents were murdered, and of course she should have been angry… still be angry. But she seemed to realize now that even though she had once felt that she was being strong by not just letting the emotions roll through her and bottling them up, that was actually the weak way out. It took a much stronger person to fully accept their past and come to terms with it than it did to simply ignore it and put up a front.

So once more, she cried.

From his rooms, the young sith lord stood at his windows and watched her, the setting sun casting a pink glow over her and making the tears on her face glisten. He had told her that he would try not to enter her thoughts, but as she sat there, rather impassive, crying, the urge to know why was overwhelming him. So he listened.

She was mourning. She was finally mourning and grieving for the parents she had lost, the childhood she had lost, and the future- the friendship- the family that she never got the chance to have. And then, her thoughts hit him like a splash of cold water in the face. If he hadn't been a sith, he would have thought it was a wakeup call- the force trying to talk to him through her. The same thought kept cycling in her head. 'It takes a stronger person to face ones fears and emotions, to let them run their course, to appreciate them and the reason you feel them, and then let them go, than it is to simply bottle them up and forget about them.'

He realized quickly that she was thinking of herself. He had felt her emptiness, and through it had understood that she was someone who shunned feelings and emotions out of what she considered necessity. It was something he understood perfectly. Previous attachments in her life had only brought her pain. Therefore, logic implied that if you remove your attachments, you would remove the pain.

'Very Jedi-like in a way…' thought Vader, 'but then again, also very Sith-like…'

But, he could feel her coming around. She had finally accepted her hurt and pain, and he could feel the release she got, simply letting it all out. Even her aura seemed lighter. He watched her until the sun had set completely, and she rose from the cold stone bench in the dark garden and entered the house.

As he paced his bedchamber, a tiny voice whispered in his head. The same one that found it fit to remind him that the Jedi had been right all along, that in the end Palpatine was the Sith and they had good reason to have suspicion of him so many years ago. He ignored the voice at first. He didn't recognize it- didn't want to recognize it. And then it was clear who's it was.

'Why doesn't her logic apply to me as well.'

Though soft and gentle, the voice managed to frighten him. Then there was also the fact that… he couldn't understand how he didn't recognize his own voice.

He thought about Aurren's newfound perception of strength. He wondered what would happen if he simply managed to open up the floodgates and let everything out. Could anything actually be gained by doing that?

A strange notion flitted its way into his mind…it was telling him that she was the reason that he was thinking about Obi-Wan Kenobi. It was her aura of calm, her exceedingly polite way, the glint in her eyes when she was pleased, her constant thanks, the way that she seemed to regard him as a man as opposed to a monster or even a feared leader. He had seen his former master do these very things throughout his time at the Jedi Temple. It must be her…

But damn it, he felt a building kind of… compassion for her. If he felt anything for Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, it was hatred. He had turned his back on him, hadn't he?

Vader was sick and tired of the conflicting emotions. He didn't want to deal with this. He was supposed to be on a sort of vacation, he should be relaxing, not tormenting himself over emotions.

He tore himself away from the window and climbed into his bed, clenching his eyes shut, willing himself into the deep dark clutches of sleep.

On the other side of the house, Aurren sat in the warm kitchen in front of the fading fire. It was getting late and the next day was rapidly approaching. She looked over the data pad Vader had left on the table. He had set out the route for the next day, and she was more than slightly relieved when she found out that he had not yet decided to venture to the other side of the mountain.

Slowly and distractedly, she made her way up the stairs and into her chambers. "Drained" couldn't even begin to describe her physical and emotional state. Even though, she found that she was not sad… perhaps she was even happy. Somehow, after 20 years, it seemed that a long moment of crying had been all it took for her to come to grips with her parents death and her desertion. She felt, in fact, as if she were a new woman.

A smile slid across Aurren Farr's face as she drifted off into sleep. It was as if an entire star ship had been lifted from her shoulders. And that night, Aurren did not dream of blood and wildflowers.