Hey, guys! Sorry it's taken me a bit longer to update. I've been ridiculously busy. I had FIVE DAYS to rehearse for an entire, full-length show, and we had rehearsals every day until at least midnight. It was insane. But we preformed finally, and it magically came together at the last minute and turned out to be amazing! Ha, ha!

But enough about me.

Here's the chapter.

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Don't panic.

Padmé Naberrie Amidala Skywalker repeated the mantra over and over in her head. Do not panic, Padmé. You have been trained to accept the foreign, the unfamiliar. You can do this.

Yeah, right.

She felt the strange urge to slap herself. By the Force, why was this turning out to be so difficult? It was Ani, for Force's sake. Anakin Skywalker. Her husband. The same man. The same man.

After a very long moment, she managed to turn her eyes back towards the imperious figure in front of her, to the man encased entirely in a black suit of armor. To a man whose limbs were fake and whose body was falling apart. To the man she'd known for thirteen years. Her best friend, her confidant, the love her life, her husband, and the father of her unborn child.

"Anakin," she choked, feeling tears pricking in the corner of her eyes. She forced herself to endure the horrid noise of his artificial breaths, the metallic whoosh of air that sounded like it belonged to a droid, not to Ani.

This was the first time she had seen him. The surgery had taken far too long, and she had spent countless hours pacing about just outside the operating room, tense and anxious. And now, here he was, standing in front of her, a thing she did not recognize and a thing she did not like.

"Padmé," he replied very slowly, his mechanical voice deep and menacing, and totally different from his real, soft voice. She briefly saw his shoulders sag almost imperceptivity, his back hunch up, recoiling from her. "Padmé, say something," he pleaded. "Anything."

What could she say? It was horrid. There was no sugar-coating it. "Anakin, I don't know what to say," she admitted, her voice small and with a desperate edge to it.

His body seemed to shrink under her gaze. "I'll leave," he bit out, and made to exit the room, but she launched forward and grasped his upper arm, the alloy limb swathed in dark leather.

"No!'" she protested. The last thing she wanted was for him to think she was disgusted by him. She had to reassure him, to make him see that she still loved him with every fiber of her being. "Don't go," she requested softly. "Please, Ani."

He was still for a long moment, unsure and tentative. "That name-"

"Is who you are," she cut him off immediately, not wanting to hear his protests. "You're Anakin Skywalker, the man I love. You always have been and you always will be. No matter what happens." She did not take her eyes from those black orbs. She stared straight ahead, unwavering, and dared him to challenge her.

He was silent.

After a long moment, he finally spoke, stepping away from her. "It was you who decided to put me in this suit." It was not a question; it was an accusation. And she saw no point in lying.

"It's temporary," she assured him. "Your DNA has been sent to Kamino. As soon as new limbs and lungs can be cloned, it will come off." She smiled weakly. "I promise." Without waiting for him to comment any further, she stepped towards him again and carefully placed her hand on his shoulder. Stroking the soft leather, she asked, "Does it hurt?"

For a few tense seconds, his metallic breathing was the only sound that could be heard in the room. "Yes," he replied finally, his voice pitching low in what she assumed was an attempt to speak softly.

She shut her eyes against the onslaught of images that assaulted her; images of flesh shriveling and burning, flames crawling up a limp body, marring perfect skin…

"I'm so sorry," she murmured, her voice thick with emotion.

She felt his gloved hand come up, briefly, fleetingly, and touch her cheek, so quick that she wondered whether or not it actually happened. "How can you stand to look at me?" he mumbled almost incoherently, and moved away. "To touch me?"

Padmé frowned. "Because of how you look now?" she questioned. "Ani, you know that doesn't matter to me-"

"No," he bit out, and then turned his masked face away from her. "After…what I did to you…on Mustafar."

Oh…that.

Truly, after everything that had happened since then, she'd almost forgotten about it. However, it was obvious that he hadn't, and likely he wouldn't for a long time. "Anakin," she addressed him, using the soothing voice that had always managed to calm his demons. "I hated you for it at first, but after watching what happened to you…well, I can't be mad at you for anything."

"So that's why you're still here?" he choked out. "Pity?" She imagined his face screwing up into anger, his nostrils flaring and his blue eyes narrowing.

"No," she refused, and then thought better of it, and decided to be honest with him. "Yes…partly, anyway." She stepped closer, and again reached out and touched his shoulder. "But I'm mostly here because I love you," she admitted softly. "And because I need you." She took a deep breath. "Everything I know is gone. Democracy has been shattered, and the Senate is in shambles. The Jedi are dead. All I have left is you, and I don't intend on letting you go."

For a long moment, he seemed to absorb her words. He turned his body half-way around to face her, and his hand came up to rest upon her cheek again. "I'm not forcing you to stay," he told her, and she could tell that he hated conceding it. "You are free to leave. I'd understand-"

"Didn't you hear what I just said?" she challenged him. "I'm not going, Anakin. I won't leave you; I can't." She looked deep into his eyes—or, where she imagined his eyes would be—and spoke forcefully. "I love you," she told him. "And I will continue to say it until you begin to believe it."

He faltered for a moment. "Things won't be the same, Padmé," he informed her. "I'm not a Jedi anymore. It can't just go back to the way it was."

"I know," she told him. "But as long as I'm with you, none of that really matters."

She loved him. She would stay with him. And soon, she hoped, he would begin to believe it.

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To be continued…