Fourth installment

boredmasterjedi, thank you and I'm glad you're liking the story so far. Hope this chapter can measure up.

"But I do love thee! And when I do not love thee, chaos is come again."

- Othello, Act III by William Shakespeare

She slept for days.

Vader had attempted to consult his master while he and his wife recuperated in the apartment in Coruscant but to no avail, there were things of Imperial importance that had to be addressed. Vader was frustrated at the sudden lack of communication, but mildly understood. In her time in the Senate, Padmé had gone home with work; official documents, meetings over the holo, vetoing or passing bills…it had never been very enjoyable to watch her work. Vader could vaguely recall Anakin shifting through the papers, creating a mess of it when he'd accidentally toppled her coffee table. He also recalled the sound scolding the boy had gotten.

For now, Vader would have to play Padmé's progress by ear and depend on the medidroid.

Next to him on a large bed covered over with a comforter, a down blanket and several sheets and pillows, was his wife. She was curled into the fetal position holding her stomach as though her abdomen gave her pain. The medidroid wasn't able to confirm anything, at least not until she was awake. So Vader kept vigil at her bedside in a large, dark red chair. He rarely left save for communicating with his master, his daily sanitizing regiment or keeping an eye on the news and current events in the front room.

Overall, the apartment granted to Vader was expansive and met all their needs. A hyperbaric chamber was being installed in the apartment next door where it would connect with this apartment, but until then, seeing as Vader was unwilling to leave his wife's side, he wouldn't be able to remove his helmet. For sanitizing purposes to wipe away sweat and grime and to keep his helmet clean, there was a makeshift pressurized chamber beneath the apartment building where medidroids tended to him.

His prosthetics were poorly matched to him and they ground against his bones painfully. He had to suppress the pain using the Force. It made it difficult to wield a lightsaber he later discovered. His movements were sluggish and mechanical. There was no finesse or grace to a sweep of his lightsaber. There were only harsh, chopping movements that seemed equivalent to a vibroaxe swing.

His frustration had caused him to meditate. Hardly a favorite pastime but as his wife was still recovering, he wouldn't take any chances.

Now, he sat near her bedside with his hands on his knees. His master had adhered to the medidroids' advice of regaining his strength and so there were no orders, yet. He simply had to wait and watch his wife while her body struggled to maintain a proper core temperature and overall rhythms of her body. A medidroid was placed close by to monitor her progress.

At different intervals, she dreamt. Vader watched the minute movements of a finger, the flutter of her eyes. All these things, he remembered them from when they'd shared a bed together. He could remember how she would twist her legs in the sheets and steal them from him. He recalled memories of her rolling onto part of his pillow, so close next to him that their eyelashes would touch.

He had no skin with which to touch her, he couldn't lie down beside her and she would not wake up to his face, not ever again.

He scowled but the pull of the skin of his lips caused him pain so he had to let his facial expression melt into a stern, neutral one beneath his mask. The anger that simmered beneath remained; coiled like a serpent laying in wait before a bird's nest.

He would never touch her, not without leather and metal and wires between them.

With her alive, where would they be after they reconciled? He was still her husband but would it only be in name? With his limitations, there would be no tenderness and comfort here. What would there be for them? Having her at his side was of the most importance but Vader was not as disillusioned as he had once been. Physical touch had been a requirement in their marriage – Skywalker's marriage. Now that he could feel nothing what would Padmé have to say of it?

Anakin had been able to touch and feel and know her body as well as she had. Vader fell short of being able to share such intimacy. Inadequate, not just as a Sith lord now, but in the rank that any male species could hold anywhere.

Obi-Wan.

It always, always came back to him.

His master and supposed friend turning on him, all of when he'd only tried to protect his wife. Slicing his limbs off and leaving him to burn and crisp under the fires of Mustafar. He'd left him to inhale the poisonous gases and wheeze desperately for his breath. Brother indeed. Now with the resurrection of his wife, there was a want behind the ability to be able to feel without using advanced sensors. The need had always been there to be rid of the pain and to be able to have his own body.

There would be no soft, lingering kisses at his pulse point or the whisper of a tongue tracing the shell of his ear. Gone were the lazy days spent lounging on the sofa eating biscuits and drinking wine, or tender mornings under the sheets talking about nothing in particular.

His facial nerves were in constant pain. He couldn't breathe without aid from his pressurized helmet. Nothing would bring back those times. Nothing would allow him to truly be husband to his wife again and he would forever live with that frustration and humiliation.

Kenobi.

He would suffer as Vader had suffered and then he would die.

He heard a sharp inhale to his left and he turned towards it. He gazed at his wife whose fingers were curled awkwardly into the dark brown sheets beneath her. Her eyes had locked onto his form and a noise came from the back of her throat while she turned on her side to face him. There was fear of the unknown, but none that she was unwilling to conquer.

Old feelings of pride rose up in Vader. A Queen of Queens.

She opened her mouth and tried to speak but coughed dryly. Vader reached for a cup with a straw in it and held it for her. She gazed at it warily. "It's water." He spoke and the static, electronic tone of his voice served to fuel the anger that lay beneath.

She drank and attempted to take the cup from him but weak muscles faltered. She pulled away from the water, and tried again. "Where…am I?"

"In my apartment at Coruscant," Vader spoke with his head still turned down at her. Padmé looked at him for a long moment while her brows scrunched in confusion. "You've been asleep for three days," he added. He was unnerved and irritated by the scrutiny he normally wouldn't have stood for.

Padmé stared at him and her sleep-laden gaze cleared. "Who are you?" her throat was dry and so it was just above a whisper.

Vader nonetheless heard her. "I've been told that you need rest and that you are not to strain yourself under any means. Your body is still adjusting." He stood and suddenly was a giant above her.

She craned her neck to follow him. Her lips thinned when he made to turn away from her. She gathered what little strength she possessed and raised herself to sit up on arms that quivered tremendously with the effort. Her breathing became labored from her exertion and Vader found himself hesitant to dismiss her so easily in the face of her will. "Who are you?" she pressed raggedly. Her nostrils flared and a sweat began to break out upon her temples.

Vader turned to her and found fear in her eyes. Fear of him, but mostly it was fear of the unknown. She was very much out of her element and it frightened her much more than she let on. The proud, stubborn attempt to not show him any fear was just so…Padmé. At once, her regal form annoyed him but sent a curl of want through him. It was what Skywalker had once called her "Senator face".

At the tail end of such a thought came a question: "Who was she expecting to wake up to?"

"My name is Darth Vader."

Padmé didn't fly into accusations or stupidly try running away or snarl unpleasantly at him. She remained calm though she couldn't hide the tremble in her chin.

"Vader. You call yourself Vader."

"It is my name," Vader could feel some puzzlement from her. He watched the quiver in her arms get stronger and the clear sheen of tears gather at the corner of her eyes. All the while her body continued to betray her weaknesses, Padmé remained firm.

"What have you done with my husband?" she whispered. The fear in her eyes grew. Her words were laced with dread like poisoned wine.

Vader felt his being hum in response to her agitation. "Skywalker is gone."

At her sharp inhale and the pale color that stole away what little color she'd gained back, Vader contemplated calling for the medical droid.

"Are you the reason for his – his…absence?" she stumbled while she blinked away gathering tears.

"He is not simply absent, Padmé. He is gone. He does not exist." Vader took no prisoners. Not even for her. Not on this. It was too integral to how they would be defined. Kenobi had likely told her his Sith name but not the true meaning of it. There would be time enough for her to get used to Vader instead of Skywalker. He didn't want to stress her out unnecessarily when she clearly needed to recover completely to even stand.

Padmé's arms could no longer support her. They trembled once more before she collapsed against the plethora of pillows stacked behind her. She blinked in pain and Vader moved to the intercom to call the medical droid. "R7-N9, the patient is awake."

"Yes sir. Permitted to give protocol checkup on patient?"

"Granted." Vader hadn't had time to cut the link off before he heard his wife speak again.

"Where," she swallowed against her grief, "Where is my baby?"

Vader froze. The true terror that had wormed into her voice didn't mollify him; rather, it caused an ache that was unfamiliar to Vader but something Anakin was accustomed to. There were many things Skywalker was accustomed to that Vader couldn't compete with. It added fuel to the flame.

"Dead. The umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck during the birth." Vader paused when he heard nothing from Padmé.

"A boy? I have…had a boy?" he had never heard her sound so broken before.

"He was a stillborn," he confirmed indirectly. Even as he started turning toward her, he heard a keening wail build in her throat.

She had turned her face into her pillow and the small hands clutched weakly as the sheets gathered around her frame twisted under her grip. She screamed again and tears slipped down. "You lie!"

"No. Not about this." He answered. For not the first time, he felt regret at not being able to save what had never been and what couldn't be saved. He came to stand at her side and a gloved hand hovered above her shoulder. It never came down.

"Nonononono," she murmured her mantra into her pillow. "It must be a mistake, there's a mistake or you're lying –"

"I am not lying." He snapped. "Your child was an organ donor."

"I never – I don't remember signing, I had no documents – I don't even remember…" her incoherent sentences were without end because she seemed to not remember it. Vader listened and the more he did, the more he understood. Padmé could remember Polis Massa and going into labor obviously. She did not remember that she had died.

He would have to ask his master about that, because Sidious had conveniently left that little tidbit out.

"I questioned the whereabouts of the child…I was told he was an organ donor and had been transported to the lab after his confirmed death."

Padmé turned her face away. It would make no sense to her. She cried into her pillows and was losing whatever water she'd drank earlier. Where there had been loud, throat-clawing howling in her loss, there was a resigned, deeper sense of sorrow that filled her and the room she occupied. This wasn't saying goodbye. This was the unwillingness to acknowledge that "goodbye" even existed here.

In her grief and silent sobs, where Anakin would have held her and cried with her, Vader stood at her side silently. In the twilight of Coruscant's orbital mirrors, he stayed with her until the droid came to do a routine health check on its newly awakened patient.

Even while the droid did its duty, he stayed outside the room and only reentered when the medical droid left. She was still curled into her fetal position with the back of her fist pressed against her mouth.

Vader sat down in his chair at her side and remained there.