I had some free time tonight, and I thought of everyone who had left me such lovely reviews... and then I felt horrible for the gaps between updates. So I'm updating now, in the middle of the night, because I want to show you some love! Thanks for the reviews - let me know what you think of this chapter! And please forgive me for taking so long. All I can say is full time job WHY :0

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I love you.

The words hung in the air between them, filling the room with tension. Padme's fingernails were biting into her palms as she struggled to string a few words - any words - into a comprehensible sentence. "I-" she began, floundering for how to continue. "Well it's just-" Her throat closed up of its own accord and she suddenly felt as though she was back in Bail's office with a blaster to her head. Her heart was pounding and terror was rising like flood waters ready to engulf her. It was one thing to admit long-hidden feelings when you were about to die. That was a release. To admit them when you had the rest of your life ahead of you… that was a truly terrifying proposition. It was a risk Padme had never taken before, and the consequences, one way or the other, loomed before her, shadowy and terrifying.

Vader regarded her as intensely as always, searching her face as though he could read her thoughts there. His expression shifted when her words faltered. "You're afraid," he whispered, contracting his brows in confusion. "Why are you afraid?"

He took a few steps closer, and knelt so his eyes were level with hers. "You meant it when you thought that you loved me - I was in contact with your mind and you can't lie through that kind of mental connection." She realized that he was thinking out loud since she had been temporarily struck dumb. She stared at her hands.

"Why did you send me that thought, Padme? You can't lie through mental communication, but you don't have to broadcast thoughts either. I wouldn't have heard it if you didn't mean for it to be heard."

Padme drew in a shaky breath, resigning herself to the fact that they were going to have to have this conversation. This long-awaited, long-dreaded conversation. The conversation she had been afraid of since she felt the first stirring of affection in her heart toward the man in front of her, the conversation she had vigorously denied would ever take place when she first recognized her pronounced preference for this man. She loved Anakin. And there was no way for her to maneuver out of the fact that he now knew this beyond a shadow of a doubt. Now they had to deal with it. She wished fervently that she had never told him.

"I," she began quietly, unable to meet his eyes. "I thought I was going to die-" She felt the air tingle as he grew angry at the thought. "-and I wanted to make sure you knew before I lost the chance to ever tell you. If I had known how things would turn out, I wouldn't have said anything." She glanced at his eyes, which were unfocused and staring into some distance she couldn't see. "I would never have said anything - I would never have burdened you with that - if I had known-" she trailed off, her eyes going wide as his gaze returned to her with the speed and ferocity of a nexu trainer's whip. His eyes were blazing.

"Burdened me?" She couldn't make out if he was angry or just shocked. He leaned towards her, taking hold of her upper arms. "How could you think-" he cut himself off and stared at her. His gaze was searching and intense, though Padme couldn't quite divine whether he was searching her or himself. He sighed.

"Padme, if I had had any idea that you felt this way, I would have done this a lot sooner." He leaned forward and kissed her.

She should have known by now that he did nothing by halves. Padme had never been so soundly kissed in her life. She was beginning to feel lightheaded when he finally drew back, leaning his forehead against hers. "A lot sooner," he repeated, smiling mischievously at her. Padme couldn't help but smile back.

She brushed her fingers against his face - he looked so beautiful with that look of joy in his eyes - but gently distanced herself from him. "We can't," she whispered, trying not to feel the sting of bereavement that was already threatening at the edges of her mind. "How could it possibly work?"

She forestalled his indignant protest by laying a finger against his lips. "Listen to me. Would the Emperor even allow you to have a relationship?"

She clearly perceived the cloud that fell over his features when she said this. But he rallied and quickly responded. "He knows that we're friends. I think I could get him to agree to let us marry-"

"Marry?" Padme felt as though her voice had risen two octaves by the time she finally squeezed it out of her constricting throat.

Vader looked at her with wary concern. "Are you alright? You don't need that medic, do you?" His hand started drifting to the commlink again.

"No! No, I'm fine," Padme sputtered, trying to regain her composure. "I just thought you said that you wanted to marry me-"

He looked slightly uncomfortable, but not at all unsure. "I did."

Padme stared.

Vader started to look alarmed. "You… don't want to marry me. Is that it?" He started to stand up, hurt clouding his previously brilliant eyes. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable." He withdrew to the wall of transparisteel, locking his eyes and his focus onto the constant stream of traffic outside.

Padme regarded his back and tense shoulders as she tried to untangle her thoughts.

A marriage proposal. From the second-in-command to the Emperor himself. From a Sith Lord (whatever that meant, precisely…). No, she thought suddenly and with a strange clarity. From Anakin. The tightness in her chest vanished along with the complications which had given her pause. For the first time in many, many years, Padme realized that she wanted something. She wanted to be with this man. Forever, if possible.

What do you want, Padme? His words, from so long ago it seemed, echoed out of the depths of her mind and at last she had an answer.

Rising from the chair, she swept quietly across the distance between them and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Anakin," she began quietly. He looked at her, and the grief and disappointment in his eyes convinced her that she was making the right decision. "I love you. And if you really want to marry me… then I will marry you." She smiled a timid smile.

His reaction was as sudden and intense as a supernova. His face nearly split with the force of his smile and she was swept into his arms so swiftly that she barely had time to blink before his arms were around her. He kissed her again and again, smiling all the while. She couldn't help but smile back. His happiness had always been infectious. But then… this wasn't just his happiness that she was feeling. There was a joy all her own slowly building in her chest, like a long dormant bud finally producing the most brilliant flower.

Padme felt really and truly alive.

The events of the night had been emotionally exhausting. Vader couldn't even remember the last time he had experienced that number of emotions in such a short span of time. There had been terror when her life was in danger, shock when he heard her thoughts, pain unimaginable when he thought she had rejected him, and finally… finally, there had been the most explosive joy he had ever felt.

To love and possess love in return was the single most intoxicating sensation he had ever experienced. He was still floating in a sea of euphoria long after he had seen her back to her apartment. She loved him… she loved him… it was inconceivable, unbelievable - and it was absolutely true. His face split into a smile for the hundredth time that night. Morning, he corrected himself as he glanced at the streaks of pink and gold appearing above and between the towering structures of the Coruscant cityscape. He had made his way to his own apartments, barely aware that any time had passed. For the first time in a long time, his mind was so captivated by the present that he could not think of the past or even of the future.

Joy - such a foreign feeling - had made its way to the very center of his soul it seemed, and was peacefully emanating outwards. It was… amazing. He had never, not even once, considered that anything like this might happen to him. After Palpatine had informed him of his great destiny and set about preparing him for life as the Emperor's right hand, he had dreamed only of power. Power, it had seemed to him, would provide the happiness he had so desperately craved. But as the years passed, he found that the hopes for anything other than misery had faded into nothing. He had begun to hope for power with the sole aim of gaining control. If he could gain that, then he would no longer have to bear being dirt under someone else's foot, the way he had been his entire life. Any thought of happiness had long since evaporated under the burning heat of life's sun. But then, like a shimmering mirage of an oasis in the sunbaked desert, she appeared. But she was no mirage. Padme was the most real thing in his life. And he loved her desperately.

He loved her desperately enough to attempt the impossible and risk the worst fate imaginable. The euphoria faded a little as the first hint of fear trickled back in. With the sunrise came a return to reality. Palpatine - and his possible wrath - had to be faced.

Vader clenched his fists and turned to regard the Imperial Palace in the distance. Dark and severe against the brightening sky, its spires stabbed upward, casting long shadows across the city below. His resolve did not waver, but his fear spiked at the thought of Palpatine waiting for him there. He had no idea how he would react. Padme's face materialized in his mind once more, shoring up his courage. It didn't matter - it had to be done.