Hey Guys! So sorry for taking so long to get this updated...This fic will get finished, promise! I just got thrown a curve ball the past few months... Thank you all for the reviews, and thanks for all the favorites/follows. It makes me feel good to know so many people like my story! Since ya'll had to wait so long, I made this chapter extra long. From now on, I won't post a fic until I am completed with it... Newbie mistake. Enjoy.

On the night Anakin came back, everything changed. Of course, he did not come back with that intent. His plan had been simple. Watch Padme from afar and wait. Then he would save her, go back home, and live his life out in peace. What he was not expecting was for her to fall victim to an assassination attempt the very first night he took his watch.

He watched her from a neighboring balcony as she went about her nightly routine. She had come home late – later than he could ever remember her coming home before – and went straight into her room and began undressing. She did not even bother drawing the curtains for privacy and a part of him – the old part of him, the one that wrapped love in with jealousy so tightly that it was easy to confuse one with the other, became angry. Here he was, watching her – which meant anyone could be watching her. He wondered if this had always been her habit, even when they had been together, and squashed the thought. It wasn't any of his business. Not anymore.

The other part of him, the good part, the part he had spent months trying to cultivate, felt guilty. Dirty, even. He had no business watching her like this, not really, especially without her consent. It seemed worse that he could feel familiar stirrings begin just watching her and when she undid her hair and began combing it out, dressed only in a bathrobe that she had left open, he had to screw his eyes shut and control his breathing. When he reopened them, he kept his eyes transfixed on the light coming from her bedside lamp. When that light went out a handful of minutes later, he let out a breath and readjusted his seating, getting comfortable for the night ahead.

He was starting to dose when a tendril of warning from the Force grabbed his attention, like a friend tapping his shoulder and pointing. Anakin was on his feet in an instant, scanning into the darkness of the apartment to see what was going on. There. Movement in her bedroom. He leapt from his balcony to hers and, allowing the momentum of that move to push him forward, crashed through the glass door into their – her – bedroom.

Padme jerked awake with a distinct sense that something was wrong. She frowned, staring into the darkness, waiting for her eyes to adjust and trying to decide what had awoken her. A footstep, quiet, but so out of place in a room that only she occupied that it might as well have been as loud as a bomb going off. In an instant she was in an upright position and already reaching for the blaster she kept by her bed... only to have another, much longer blaster be jammed in her face.

"Don't move!" Snarled a metallic voice that belonged to a droid and she froze, staring at the blaster with a growing realization that she was about to die.

There was movement from the corner of her eye and on instinct she turned, just slightly, to see it more fully and that was when her glass door exploded, showering glass everywhere and making her cry out from surprise and fear.

The droid, also surprised, swung its whole body in the direction of the balcony to face the new threat, but it was too slow: it didn't even complete its turn before something crashed into it, hard. Both crashed into the wall with a thud so hard that it caved in. Padme saw that it was a man who came to her rescue as he stood up and picked the droid up by its throat. She winced at the awful, grating sound of tearing metal and wires as he tore the droid's head off. She blinked. He tore the droid's head off… with his left cybernetic hand. The droid pieces fell in a heap onto the floor.

He turned to look at her and for long moments the only sound in the room was the loud, erratic beating of her heart and a distinct roaring in her ears so fierce that it made her feel dizzy. She watched his lips move and the spell was broken, time seeming to jump forward and she cleared her throat and shook her head to rid herself of the noise and managed a shaky, "What?"

"Are you okay?" He repeated. He took a step toward her and then stopped as she recoiled, dropping his hands back to his sides. His voice…. He spoke in Anakin's voice, but that was where the similarities ended. He looked… like a wild man. He was dressed in rags that were so soiled the she wondered how they had not rotted off him. His normally tan skin looked much darker from dirt build up. His face was the biggest change of all. His hair was longer and matted and clumpy in places with twigs and leaves sticking in it at odd angles. He had a beard – a wild, untamed thing – that reached almost to the bottom of his neck. Even his eyes were different. They were Ani's – she had spent too much time staring into them to not be able to recognize them, but now they seemed wider, bluer.

"Ani?" She managed, disoriented in the wake of all the upset of the past minutes. She watched his face twist in a familiar grin that did something in her gut and when he nodded she pulled herself out of bed and launched herself at him. His arms had barely encircled her waist when she pulled away again.

He stank, terribly. She felt her eyes burn from the stench of his unwashed body and focused on breathing through her mouth. He was still staring, wary and expectant and scared, and she felt all the recriminations she had stored up in the past months die on her lips. Obi – Wan had told her that he had been through hell during his captivity. It had been easy to forget that when he left and hurt her so much, but looking at him now, seeing how he had let himself go and how he held himself, she felt it all rushing back - Obi – Wan's grave concern, the way she felt when she had thought she was a widower. It didn't lessen what he had done to her, but for the first time Padme saw how much he needed to be cared for. She reached out her hand with a gentle smile and after a moment of hesitation he offered his flesh hand in response. Lacing her fingers through his tightly, she managed a smile.

"You're back," she said gently. Something she didn't recognize flashed through his eyes. He almost looked…guilty. With his hand still tightly in hers, she turned towards her bathroom door and led him in.

Anakin didn't realize her intent until she turned the shower on. He tried to pull his hand from hers but she grasped his hand tighter and turned to face him.

"You need a bath," she said firmly. He felt himself flush, and his eyes fell to the floor. Of all the ways he had expected this to go, this wasn't it. He had been expecting anger. He had been expecting her to lash out, to punish him for everything. He realized with sudden clarity that he had been hoping for her to punish him in some way and was disturbed to feel so guilty for not being on the receiving end of her wrath. He felt her hands at his waist, wrapping around the fabric of his shirt and the sensation took him back in time – less than a year ago – when he had been stripped of his clothing and beaten as a prisoner, and he flinched and stepped back. He tried to work moisture into his mouth and calm his racing heart. There were many moments of silence as the bathroom filled with steam.

Anakin only looked up when he heard a shuffling sound and started when he realized that Padme was completely naked. Their eyes met and she smiled so sweetly at him that he felt his stomach twist painfully. She reached out her hand again and turned the water off, then turned to face him fully as he tried to keep his eyes anywhere but on her petite form. She walked over to her vanity and pulled out the chair. The wood scraped on the tile, sounding harsh in the all tile room.

"Why don't you sit down?" She said, her voice gentle in the way one talks to a stray on the streets or a child frightened by nightmares. The old Anakin would have bristled at her using that tone directed at him. This Anakin felt embarrassed but walked over and sat down with no comment. He felt her hands on his hair and tensed as a new wave of memories hit him. He focused on breathing and balled his fists tightly, determined not to embarrass himself in front of her again. He felt her tug on a few twigs to loosen them and then spent the next few minutes alternating between massaging his scalp and trying to comb his hair out with her fingers. Finally, he heard her give an irritated grunt and drop her hands to his shoulders. She stared at his face in the mirror with a frown that meant she was deep in thought. He was admiring the way her pale creamy skin contrasted with her chocolate hair when her voice broke his reverie.

"I want to try something." She said and reached down to open one of her drawers, rummaging through. Her hands fell from his shoulders and he twitched in his seat, bothered by the loss of her touch. Finally she found whatever it was she had been looking for and held it out to him for inspection. He took a deep breath and then another. The last time anything mechanical had been anywhere near him, it had been used to hurt. His discomfort must have shown on his face because she pulled away from him a little and placed her hand on his shoulder. He tore his gaze from her hands to look at her eyes.

"It's not going to hurt," she said. "Your hair is so tangled; you're going to have to get a haircut. If you want to do it, I understand - " he cut her off with emphatic shake of his head. She pursed her lips, and it occurred to him that his continued silence must be annoying her. But she nodded and drifted back behind him before turning on the hair trimmer. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. It will be over, soon. He promised himself.

She made quick work of his hair, giving him a short, even cut. As the hair fell away, he was surprised by how much lighter his head felt. After she switched the trimmer off, she spent a few moments massaging his head and he felt himself begin to relax as he closed his eyes. So it was a complete surprise when she stopped what she was doing and threw her leg off his lap to face him. He felt the movement and opened his eyes to see her breasts swaying inches from his face. He jerked back in surprise as he felt another wave of nausea hit him She's too close! His body screamed at him. With nowhere to go he flinched as his whole body went rigid and he screwed his eyes shut, readying himself for a hit that wouldn't come.

He had thought he was healed from his time in captivity. He had spent months knitting himself back together, but now he realized that it had been easy to come to terms with his abuse when he had been fully in control of his environment. Now though – to bear another's touch took a level of trust that sent his pulse skyrocketing and caused a tightness in his chest.

He felt her back away and opened his eyes to see her moving away. He felt the invisible bands on his chest loosen; he met her gaze. She was staring at him with wide eyes, her hand half raised in a protective gesture.

"I was just going to trim your beard." She whispered into the silence. "I'm sorry." He shook his head and cleared his throat.

"It's not your fault," he said reaching out with a shaky hand and grabbing her still raised one. He brought it to his lips and then held it against his cheek. Even that touch sent a cascade of alarm bells ringing inside him, but he forced himself to ignore it and focus on her scent. She switched the buzzer on again and it hummed; Anakin could feel the vibrations that coursed through Padme from her hand. He took another breath and then let her hand drop, sitting back and stretching his neck out for better access. She made quick work of his hair, within a few minutes all that was left was stubble.

She moved away from him and he studied himself in the mirror. Through the reflection, he studied his wife's lithe form as she made her way back to the shower and switched it on again. He was so sure he could walk away, but now he was riddled with doubts. He loved her. Really, truly wanted her happiness. But she didn't seem like the Padme he remembered. It wasn't just her physical appearance, the way her skin was even paler and how he could count every rib. There was something guarded in her expression that he had never seen before. All he wanted was to make it go away.

He rose from his chair and reached down and grabbed the hem of his shirt. In one quick motion he pulled it off of his body and then pulled the pants from his hips, simply stepping out of them when they pooled at his ankles. He studied the wall intently, refusing to look at her as he felt her gaze on him. He didn't need to look at her. Didn't have to see – the Force told him everything that she was feeling. He could feel her horror, her anger and knew his scars must be much worse than he thought. He had grown accustomed to them, but he didn't like to look at them. Looking at them hurt, because it reminded him of why he got captured in the first place. Reminded him of the masked black man. The scars hurt, because not only had it been brutal and violating and terrifying and like experiencing a million different hells all at once, they also reminded him that you could destroy what was on the outside, but nothing could touch the darkness inside.

A wave of warmth washed over him and he screwed his eyes shut, trying to force the tears back. He had left her, and even when he had been here, before that terrible day, he had been so absorbed in himself that he had never really been there. So to feel this outpouring of compassion and love made him feel ashamed. She grabbed his hand and led him into the shower and as she slowly and methodically began to bathe him, he let the tears fall freely.

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The Shadow giggled to itself in the corner, pleased. His plan worked perfectly. The boy was back and right where it wanted him. He was so weak, so pliable – it was in moments like these that The Shadow doubted the boy's abilities to be even a halfway decent acolyte of darkness. No matter. One always needed brawn to for dirty work, and strength – well, the boy possessed that in abundance. Now all The Shadow had to do was wait, to let the darkness do its work. The Shadow never miscalculated. Never.