AN: Oh my gosh! 1000 apologies to you my readers. real life has been so crazy. aaahhh! Well I have been sitting on this chapter for 2 months now. And one before that was too full to even think about the next chapter. I hope you like it.

AN2: I own nothing. All the Characters are totally GL I just want a different fate for Anakin and Padme.

Chapter 16

Vader rushed through the house and up the stairs to their room. The sight that greeted him was not a good. Padme lay on the bed neither looking at anything nor seeing anything. Her hair, that was usually soft and full of curls, was matted and stringy. Her usually youthful skin was pasty and as pale as death. Jennifer came in with some soup and gasped when she saw him but she suddenly burst into tears. "I am so sorry, My Lord. I can not help her. I have tried but she just lays there barely eating only sleeping. I can not wash her hair any more. She is too weak to hold herself up. Can you help her?"

"I will try, Jennifer." he said so softly she barely heard him. Then he turned to look at her and saw that she too was pale and fraught with worry. "You go to bed now. You will not have to care for Padme again until I leave."

Jennifer knew she was dismissed though Vader never actually told her to go. She was glad to leave the room, though later she wondered at the fact that Vader did not seem angry with her. He had seemed almost distraught as he was looking at Padme.

Vader sat down beside Padme and took her hand in his. She did not respond. He kissed her hand but still nothing. "Padme, can you look at me?" he asked in a tender voice that he had not used in long time. Still nothing. Vader crawled in bed with Padme and because he was travel tired he soon fell asleep.

He woke up in a different room though. At first he did not know where he was but he soon figured out that he was at the lake house in the bedroom he had slept in before he and Padme had been married. Why am I here of all places and how did I get here? Vader wondered. Padme was no where to be seen, but he heard noises outside the house so he ventured from the bed and went out to the porch. What he saw really confused him? The sight that greeted him from the porch was a very young Padme and a boy Anakin. They were engaged in conversation, but the strangest thing was that Watto's shop seemed to have come outdoors. It was nothing but the counter with Anakin sitting on it and Padme standing there, but he would recognize that place wit his eyes closed. "By the force, what is going on here?" Vader yelled.

"Well I should think you of all people should know what dream was, Vader." Vader jumped at the voice almost as much as he jumped at who said it. Qui Gon.

Qui Gon was standing behind him looking as calm as always. Vader on the other hand was not so calm. "How?….. Why?….. What….." was all he really could get out though many more words were running through his head.

"Vader you want to know how to make Padme better, Right?" Vader just shook his head. "Well. I am here to help guide you. No I am not alive. You can only see me in dreams."

"Master Jinn why are you helping me? I am a Sith."

"I know that. Why do you think I called you Vader? Now hush and watch."

Vader turned back to the scene before him. Anakin was declaring to Padme that he would one day marry her. She laughed at him but as she laughed he noticed something happening in the ground off to her left. What he saw was a plot of the land suddenly appearing to be a freshly plowed plot of ground. Padme never took notice to the magical plot. She walked back into the house and as she walked her clothes changed her from a handmaiden to the Queen. Vader followed her into the house which became the palace and time went by. Vader checked the magical plot but nothing happened. Padme went through her duties and clothes suddenly began to change again and she was no longer queen but senator. Years past and still nothing happened in that plot of ground. Then a taller much older Anakin came to her apartment. Though the inside of the Lake house appeared as Padme's Senatorial Apartment the outside was still the same. Vader looked out the window but something had changed in the plot of ground. A beautiful red rose had sprung up in the ground. Padme also seemed to notice the rose bush at the same time he did but she turned her back on the window. "Do you see Vader her love for you is what made the rose grow? Her life was full but you brought love to her. Something she never had considered before. She had even thought it an impossible thing in her life. She did not expect it and was not ready for it. So she chose to ignore it."

"I remember." Vader said dully. "It probably would have been better for her if she had kept turning her back on it."

Qui Gon said nothing he just motioned for Vader to watch. Padme could not ignore that plot of ground forever because that flower bloomed and produced many roses too many to ignore. She turned and acknowledged those flowers of love and suddenly the whole garden was filled to over flowing with flowers. It was spilling out on to the ground surrounding the trees and house until the place was overrun with the smell of roses. Vader suddenly realized how different their loves were. Oh he loved her and he loved her fiercely. He too had a rose bush (only one though) he had tended it carefully all through those 10 years of their separation. It struggled at times but it lived. Then seeing her had made his bush blossom into a wonderfully full bush. But he could barely touch the most beautiful thing in his life without being fiercely pricked by a thorn. It seemed that all of his fears and all of his love was wrapped up in that one bush. Soon the thorns started taking over the whole bush until now it was nothing but thorns. "Does she still love me like this?" Vader asked.

"Watch and you will understand what makes Padme like she is right now."

These were not very encouraging word from Qui Gon. But what could Vader do but watch?

AN3: I hope to be writing the next chapter within the next 2 days. The dream sequence just became too big to write in one chapter.(Plus I got too tired to write more.)