Three

Abeloth was accustomed to waiting.

Then again, time held very little meaning for one who had lived for centuries. She had been privileged to witness the birth of stars and had observed the last explosive bursts of light just prior to their deaths. She had been present when the galaxy was still in its early formation and had begun its slow, creeping stretch across the dark expanse of space. There was not a single corner of that star splattered tapestry that she did not know with intimate familiarity. After all, she had searched every corner of it relentlessly for millenniums in her avid quest to be reunited with her family.

Waiting and the time that passed with it was an infinitesimal thing. Besides that, the waiting would benefit her in the long term. She could always look forward to the proverbial push and pull that waiting brought because it would invariably force her beloved children back into her circle again, even if only for what often seemed like a brief instant. She would wait patiently for that seismic shift in the Force again and again, a shudder strong enough to shake the bonds of her eternal prison and allow her to stretch out beyond her confinement to command any sentient pinpoints of light that dared to cross beyond shadows. And when she did, her children would feel her presence again…and they would always come.

True, their reasons for seeking her out were painfully misguided. They were more preoccupied with imprisoning her rather than embracing her. Their father had succeeded in poisoning them against her. He had convinced them that she was not their Mother any longer, but their the enemy and a threat. They could not recognize that everything she had done, every sin she'd committed had been spurred by her infinite love for them! There was nothing she would not do to remain by their side for eternity.

But her children had become spoiled. Ungrateful. Degenerate and obscene in their fervid devotion to one another because their father had failed to bridle them properly. And, worst of all, her children became determined to lock her away from everything for all eternity, to restrict her to an existence of perpetual loneliness and infinite need. But even in the face of so much betrayal and disrespect, she had felt gratitude…because she could see them again, touch them. She could remember what it felt like to be loved by them.

In recent times it had felt as if they were always with her. They came again and again, and each fleeting reunion was glorious…but very recently there had been nothing from them at all. Their light had suddenly become inaccessible to her in the Force. They were hidden from her now. He had finally succeeded in ripping her beloved children away from her for good. So, this last time when her bonds were compromised and she had started her meandering ooze out from deep within the infinite prison that held her, reaching far beyond her confinement to touch the physical world beyond, there had been no one to stay her hand. And this time…Abeloth intended to consume everything in her path.

She used the hapless bodies of those foolish enough to venture into her world as her vehicle across the endless stretches of galaxy. Her aimless wanderings eventually led her to a verdant planet called Naboo. Centuries ago, humans had migrated to that paradisaic haven and colonized it, pushing aside the indigenous race there to establish themselves as the dominant species. In the thousands of years that had followed that egregious usurpation, Nabooians and Gungans had found a way to peacefully coexist with one another, but the old resentments continued to fester like a rotting sore. That wound had reopened with the latest galactic conflict and now the planet was slowly becoming a hotbed for civil strife once more as the Gungans sought to reclaim their home world. It was a common theme happening across the galaxy.

Abeloth was eager to foment that chaos. It would be a ridiculously easy endeavor too, the beginning of something much greater. Unfortunately, her chosen vessel wasn't necessarily an ideal one. Though the Mind Walker she'd selected for this journey was capable in the Force, strong and seasoned, she lacked the supple agility of a younger body. She had none of the brute strength that Abeloth had come to appreciate over the years. But she was innocuous enough, and she would surely go unnoticed, which would serve Abeloth's plans very well.

This was her element after all, her reason for existence. She had earned her title very well. Bringer of Chaos. She could foresee the anarchy, and it fueled her, delighted her. The anticipation of the havoc she would unleash drove away the continual loneliness that was her constant companion. And Abeloth had convinced herself that it would be enough, could be enough…until the girl. She had not anticipated the girl.

Skywalker.

At first, she had considered taking the child as a vessel or even consuming her life force just had done to countless others over eons of time. But this time, she hesitated to strike. Not only because she could sense immediately that Leia Skywalker was incredibly strong in the Force for someone so young, but also because there was something about the child that she instantly recognized. There was an odd kinship there, a bond that felt natural and effortless. Abeloth wanted to rationalize the lure she felt, to understand the reason for the instant connection she had to this human child. And then Leia had offered Abeloth something precious, something that she had lost so long ago that she'd become convinced that she would never have it again.

Companionship. Leia Skywalker wanted to be her friend. This curious, intuitive, little girl who reminded so much of the son she had lost…

Abeloth wanted to keep her. To possess her. To mold Leia Skywalker into what she needed most…someone who would remain at her side throughout eternity. She would never leave her, not like those who had so callously abandoned her in the past. Leia had become her singular focus. The girl belonged to her now, and she would not lose what was rightfully hers ever again.

She would never let her go.

There was a growing disturbance in the Force.

That niggling sense of dread had been steadily growing within Anakin since his return to the physical world. He had mostly been able to distract himself with the ongoing war that had been taking place in the galaxy, but now that the Rebellion had succeeded, he could no longer ignore the shift he was feeling…nor could he attribute it any longer to the civil unrest that had been plaguing the galaxy. This was something else, something sinister…

While most everyone else across the galaxy was gratefully anticipating a much-needed respite after years of bitter conflict, very few people had discerned what Anakin Skywalker did. There were darker times ahead. He could feel them gathering like a wall of thunder clouds heralding an approaching storm. What had begun as a small ripple in the Force had now become a steady stream and was threatening to become a raging torrent with each passing day. He was understandably concerned, as were the remaining Jedi masters who sensed the same disruption that he did.

But, while they pondered over the expanding malevolence in the Force, those masters were ill-equipped to address the looming threat due to in-fighting among them. There were some who asserted that the darkness should be attributed to Anakin and his mysterious reemergence into the Force. Others, however, believed that he had reemerged to combat it. Their fundamental differences over it had essentially split the Order in two. Meanwhile, Anakin simply wanted to be left alone to reacquaint himself with his wife and children. But he was beginning to fear that might not be possible after all.

Great expectations were already being placed upon his shoulders. Many of the Jedi who had emerged from hiding or self-imposed exile had only done so when they learned of his return. Sadly, the Jedi's numbers had been depleted severely in the years during Preet's reign. The Order had been left irreparably fractured, just as it had been in his first timeline. The genocide wasn't quite as complete, but the Jedi Order was altered significantly, nonetheless. His return had only fractured things further.

The days of unified philosophy among the Jedi were gone. Too many were questioning the wisdom and righteousness of the Order now, as Anakin had once done himself. They were all traveling different paths now and had been for some time. While there had been some who had hidden themselves during the conflict and others, like Obi-Wan and Ahsoka, who had chosen to stand their ground and fight, there were yet more Jedi who had chosen to withdraw from the Force altogether. Not even Anakin's return had been enough to prompt them back.

He didn't blame them either. Had Anakin had the option of retreating from the Force, he would have done so too. But he did not have the luxury of removing himself. The Force was all around him, threaded into every cell, tissue, and organ. It flowed through him. He was its conduit, a facilitator, the physical manifestation of all it was and could be.

That truth had taken him some time to accept and had required much meditation on his part. Acceptance still required meditation. Likely it would remain a requirement for the remainder of his life. But, at the onset of his return, acceptance had been the last thing on Anakin's mind. He had wanted to leave Mortis, and all that he had experienced there, in the past. He didn't even want to think about it.

Those first three days following the battle of Hoth had made that endeavor an easy one. Though it had been mostly filled with strategic planning and logistics, he'd been gifted with the opportunity to spend most of his time with Padmé and Luke as a family. And it had been glorious.

Anakin had marveled, not only at the incredible young man his son had become, but also over how capable a warrior and mother that Padmé proved to be. His wife and son were like forces of nature, refreshing and fierce all at once. They weren't perfect, and it quickly become clear to Anakin that Luke held a measure of unexpressed resentment towards his mother that was very reminiscent of the same feelings he'd harbored towards Obi-Wan as a boy.

Luke loved his mother profoundly. Anakin had no doubts about that. But he also didn't believe she understood him, or that she could readily accept the person he eventually wanted to become. And, for that reason, he often viewed her as his obstacle rather than his ally.

He was intimately familiar with that push and pull. Anakin had been looking forward to helping his son navigate those complicated feelings, to guiding Luke towards appreciating at 12 what Anakin didn't value until he was well into his early twenties and married with a child of his own. He had been eager for the chance of parenting both his children. When the time finally arrived for him to face off with Wilhuff Tarkin in that final battle, that desire had been his sole motivation for taking his former ally into custody…that and spending the remainder of his life with Padmé. But it was around that time that everything started to go sideways.

As those unsettling memories reasserted themselves, Anakin was unsuccessful at tamping down the tide of emotion that came with them. The instant that the fear, rage, and confusion flooded him, he lost his concentration and abruptly crashed into the cobbled stone beneath him with a bone-rattling thump. Anakin grunted at the impact, jarred but unhurt, and pushed himself upright with a rueful sigh.

He had taken to meditating in the gardens during the midday when he knew Padmé, and the children would be preoccupied with the rest of the Naberrie brood because he sensed how much the exercises unnerved his wife. Out of respect for her, he no longer traversed Padmé's thoughts, but he didn't need to either.

Padmé was obvious in her discomfiture. She said it was because she wasn't having difficulty coming to terms with the idea that he could levitate now. Anakin, however, suspected that it was much more than that. There were times when he would catch her observing him with a pensive look, as if she was trying to puzzle out exactly who…or what he was now. The irony of it all was that Anakin was wondering the same thing.

For weeks, he had deliberately pushed the question from his mind and heart. Instead, he focused on what was immediate. He assisted his wife in amassing an army. He kept himself preoccupied with the rebellion. He became reacquainted with old friends. There had been so much to do and so much happening all at once that it had been easy to distract himself, to convince himself that what had happened on Mortis no longer mattered. Anakin might have been successful at remaining in that state of denial indefinitely had it not been for that final battle. After his confrontation with Tarkin, it became impossible for him to lie to himself any longer.

When the volatile wave of battle crested and it became apparent the Imperials were going to fall, Anakin and a small band of rebel soldiers had forcibly boarded Tarkin's ship with the intent of arresting the general. Per Padmé's orders, the objective was to take the man alive. Tarkin had been expecting the move. He had shrewdly set his battleship on an automatic self-destruct sequence while he and his remaining men scrambled to the escape pods to jettison themselves to Endor's surface. Strangely, Anakin had been able to see that plan unfold clearly, as if Tarkin had personally given him the details. In a manner of speaking, he had because Anakin could peer quite clearly into his mind.

While his comrades had been baffled to find the ship seemingly unmanned and then had quickly devolved into panic when they realized it was set to explode, Anakin had been alarmingly calm. None of it had felt beyond his control, and he suddenly realized that it wasn't. In that instant, time had slowed to an excruciating crawl from his perspective. Everything and everyone around him seemed as if it had been cemented in time and suspended mid-motion.

He had strolled through the bowels of Tarkin's massive battle destroyer, observing the dozens of escaping Imperialists with a clinical detachment where they were frozen in mid-flight, each man in varied poses of poised escape. To Anakin, his pace had felt luxurious, as if he had all the time in the world to make his way to the lower deck of the ship where the escape pods were housed against the vessel's flank on either side, rather than mere minutes. But he knew he had to be moving at speeds that were undetectable to the naked eye.

He found Tarkin rooted in place among a flurry of his men, his body half turned as he prepared to step into his own pod, his features twisted, mouth half open as if he were in the middle of barking one, last command. And then, without warning, they were all in motion again, but Anakin was in the center of it all. Within seconds he held every man present aloft in an invisible chokehold, but Anakin's eyes had been trained directly on Tarkin as he swiftly crushed the trachea of every man present. After he'd dropped their lifeless bodies back to the ground, he turned his attention to those who had managed to flee.

The escape pods that were already on their way to Endor's surface then exploded mid-flight and burst into brilliant pinpoints of light without being fired upon by a single rebel. The mechanized countdown heralding the ship's eventual destruction abruptly stopped. And it all happened without Anakin needing to lift a finger at all. He had simply willed it all to occur…and it did. The realization left him trembling. Lying to himself about what he had become became an impossible endeavor after that, though Anakin did try very hard.

When questions arose as to how the battle had ended so decisively in their favor or how the ship had been disarmed so quickly, Anakin had fabricated a tale about quick thinking and Force ingenuity that seemed to satisfy most of the men who had been present with him on Tarkin's ship…everyone except Obi-Wan Kenobi. In typical fashion, both in his past and present, his old master had been able to easily see past his flimsy half-truths just as he always had. But the difference between that first timeline and the one that had become his reality was that Obi-Wan had finally grown bold enough to call him out on it rather than keep silent.

"What happened out there?"

"I already told you. I disarmed the ship. Tarkin intercepted me, and we had a confrontation."

"I know what you told me. I also know that you're lying."

"Well, that's rude."

"But true, nonetheless. Surely, we're well past keeping secrets from one another."

"Do you tell me everything, Obi-Wan?"

"I have no secrets from you, my friend. Ask me whatever you wish. You can trust me, Anakin."

Shockingly, Anakin hadn't required much more prodding than that. Truthfully, he had been bursting with the need to unburden himself to someone, and Obi-Wan was literally the only person he could trust with a secret of such magnitude. As much as he loved Ahsoka, she and Padmé had grown as close as sisters in the ensuing years. Though he was grateful that their bond was so strong, he also knew that Ahsoka's first loyalty would be to his wife. If he told her, Ahsoka would insist on revealing the truth to Padmé immediately and Anakin knew he wasn't ready for that. Obi-Wan, on the other hand, would be more inclined to give him the room to breathe while he processed, even if he did disagree with Anakin's choice to keep silent.

And so, without reserve, Anakin had revealed to Obi-Wan everything that had transpired on Tarkin's ship, including how the experience had left him anxious and bewildered and a little frightened. Not surprisingly, after a few demonstrations for Obi-Wan to confirm that he was, indeed, altered, Obi-Wan had absorbed Anakin's confession with relative calm and a fair bit of curiosity. He had circled Anakin slowly, observing him as if for the first time while stroking his beard with a wonder-filled expression.

"I find it all quite fascinating."

"You literally just ran me through with a lightsaber and it did nothing, and that's your response? It's 'fascinating'?"

"I can't say that I'm surprised."

"You're not?"

"You feel very different in the Force. I'm not the only one who has noticed."

"Ahsoka too?"

"And Master Yoda. He and Master Windu have discussed the matter at length."

"Why didn't you say anything to me?"

"I suppose for the same reason that you didn't say anything to me."

Anakin wasn't quite prepared for Obi-Wan's disclosure that the Son had forewarned both he and Ahsoka about his otherworldly transformation while on Mortis. Obi-Wan had quickly explained that, at the time, he had been convinced that the ominous precautions that the Son had offered to them were merely an attempt at manipulation, spurred by his desire to retrieve the dagger of Mortis. It was only after speaking with Anakin and fully grasping just how irrevocably his experience on strange world had changed him, that Obi-Wan realized in hindsight that the mysterious celestial had been telling the truth after all. Of course, knowing all of that had provided very little solace for Anakin. If anything, the revelation left him feeling frustrated and helpless…two emotions that he thoroughly despised.

"Are you telling me that the dagger is the only way for me to undo all of this?"

"According to the Son. Yes. However, I would caution you to take his counsel with a grain of salt. I suspect he was a notorious liar."

"That's not the point! It would have been great if you could have mentioned this to me earlier!"

"You needn't sound so annoyed! He wanted us to murder you with it! You'll forgive me for being reluctant to go through with that!"

"You couldn't tell me this before we destroyed the planet and the dagger along with it?"

"If you'll recall, that was not something we planned, Anakin!"

He could recognize now that he had been unfair in blaming Obi-Wan, but at the time, he had been drowning in utter powerlessness and Obi-Wan had proven an easy scapegoat. Back then, Anakin couldn't see a clear path to reason. From his perspective, his one means of undoing all that had been done had been lost to him eternally. And he had known, despite the incredible feats he had accomplished, that there was no way for him to go back and undo what had been done. That was one of the few things that were beyond his capabilities now.

Anakin had mourned deeply when he thought about how Padmé and his children would be affected. He couldn't even allow himself to imagine the prospect of watching them grow older and older until eventually they faded away and became one with the Force while he remained for eternity. The thought of eventually losing them that way, and possibly repeating the cycle generation after generation had been too much to bear. So, Anakin did what he did best when presented with responsibilities he did not want…he decided to ignore them. Obi-Wan, predictably, had balked at that plan.

"Anakin, don't be ridiculous! You can't just pretend that nothing has happened!"

"I'm not pretending. It's simply not a priority for me."

"Not a priority? You are an immortal Force god! What could be of greater priority?"

"Padmé, Luke and Leia. They are the greatest priority. They are what matters! I want this time with them. I've lost enough already!"

"You don't think that eventually Padmé will realize something is…unique…about you when you fail to age? This is not a secret you can keep!"

"I'll deal with that when I must!"

"Anakin! You're not thinking rationally right now!"

"All Padmé wants is to live an ordinary life! A quiet life! I am going to give that to her, Obi-Wan."

"How can you possibly do that when nothing about you is ordinary?"

"Don't say anything to her! Or to Ahsoka! Swear it to me!"

"This is an incredible gift! And a very powerful one! You need guidance."

"I'm seeking your guidance."

"You need something more than I can give you! This is beyond even Master Yoda's wisdom. Perhaps if you sought the Father's counsel, he could help y—,"

"—No! He has taken enough from me. I won't seek him out. Never again."

Although Anakin had suspected that Obi-Wan wanted to push the argument further, he had thankfully let the matter drop when he recognized that doing so would only make Anakin become more obstinate. Besides that, Anakin suspected the true root of his old master's concern. It was the same concern he had himself. The limitless power that he had searched for nearly a quarter of his entire life was finally his. Would he eventually allow such raw, infinite greatness to corrupt him? He had in the past, and when he had stood to lose much less.

Now that he was immune to death, could he really accept that those he loved weren't immune to it as well? Would he seek to change that? Could he change that? And, if he could, how far would he go to accomplish his goal? What would he sacrifice? Anakin didn't want to contemplate the answers to those questions…didn't want to consider the lengths to which he might be driven if he allowed his fear to twist and pervert his reasoning.

And so, he put it out of his mind. He pushed it aside, despite Obi-Wan's continual pestering to the contrary, and pretended that none of it mattered at all. He focused on his wife and his children and tried valiantly to ignore the growing shift taking place in the Force. But day after day, that undertaking was becoming more and more difficult. Anakin knew that very soon he would have to reconcile himself with the truth…one way or another.

"What are you doing on the ground?" Anakin glanced up to see Padmé rushing towards him, her pretty features clouded with concern. "Did you lose your balance?" she asked fretfully as she assisted him to his feet. "Are you hurt?"

"No, I didn't lose balance. I lost my concentration," he answered with a self-deprecating smile, "And I'm not hurt. You're cute when you worry."

"Lost your concentra…?" Padmé trailed off with a befuddled frown before understanding dawned a split second later. She regarded him with a bland expression. "You were floating again, weren't you?"

"Not floating. Meditating," he emphasized.

"Either way, not at all inaccurate," his wife mumbled somewhat testily.

He started to tease her about having a sassy attitude, but it was then that Anakin realized that she was alone. He craned a glance behind her, as if he expected Luke and Leia to emerge from the hedge mazes that surrounded the gardens. When they didn't, he asked, "Where are the children?"

"Luke is practicing his lightsaber forms and Leia has taken herself off to parts unknown once again."

Anakin frowned. "Should we be worried that she keeps isolating herself this way?"

He had been asking the same question in varying refrains for the past week now. Leia was polite and unfailingly respectful to him, but she was distant and almost secretive. Her shields remained constant, but she had erected them not only against him but also against her brother. Luke was being shut out too, a fact Anakin knew agitated his son greatly because it was something that Leia had never done before.

Finding the answers that he needed was within his reasonable reach. It would be a simple thing to delve down deep into Leia most inward thoughts and discover the source of her turmoil, but Anakin refused to do that. His daughter would not welcome such an invasion of her privacy and any chance he had of winning her trust would be destroyed. For that reason, Anakin behaved very tentatively with her, choosing to keep his distance and wait for her to come to him instead.

She had yet to do so.

Padmé seemed to believe Leia was "going through a phase" that would soon pass. Their daughter, she had explained to him, had a naturally suspicious nature. Leia did not give her trust easily, and she tended to be fiercely protective of the people she loved. She was inclined to attack any perceived threat. Padmé theorized that it was likely that Leia still mostly viewed him as an outsider and, because of his growing closeness to her and to Luke, she saw him as an interloper who was disrupting her family unit.

While understandable, that explanation hardly filled Anakin with comfort. He also wanted desperately to believe that was all that it was, but he continued to feel disturbed, and he didn't fully understand why. His senses prickled with impending danger and doom, as if he were being left exposed to a surprise attack. He didn't have a good feeling about any of it. Unfortunately, Anakin couldn't be sure if he had true cause for worry or if he was projecting due to his avid need for his daughter's acceptance. He decided to get Padmé's perspective on the matter.

"It's not you. It's her. She thinks you're trying to replace her, Anakin," she told him, "She's never had to compete with anyone for my attention before. She'll come around when she realizes that loving you doesn't mean that I love her any less."

"You never had a relationship with anyone else in all that time I was gone?"

He couldn't fathom that he was the first man that Leia had to contend with in her mother's life. Though he and Padmé had never formally had the discussion, the possibility that she had been romantically involved with others was a prospect that Anakin had secretly contemplated more than once. However, it wasn't something he liked to think about often so pushing for a conversation had never been on his agenda. He didn't begrudge her companionship, but he also couldn't pretend the thought of Padmé with other men didn't make him burn with jealousy.

His wife was a beautiful, passionate woman. It would make sense for her to seek companionship during his ten-year absence. To expect that she would consign herself to a lifetime of loneliness would be incredibly selfish. After all, even he had sought to fill the void her loss had left in his life in that first timeline. He had been so desperate for her presence that, for a time, he'd become obsessed with the idea of resurrecting her from the dead. How could he be angry at her for seeking a similar comfort?

"So," he prodded with a deceptive casualness when she didn't readily answer his question, "was there someone else?"

"Not a 'someone' really, just a few transient relationships that didn't amount to anything," she admitted with hedging reluctance, "They were never anything serious or substantial. I wasn't interested in commitment, and none of them were in my life for very long or spent any time with the children."

"Is that so?"

"I…uh…never stopped grieving for my husband."

"Oh."

"So, Leia has never seen me in love before, if that's what you're asking."

Anakin compressed his lips to keep from betraying the relief and swelling pride he felt right then. "I see," he replied, careful to keep a blithe tone, "I suppose that's good to information to have."

Padmé barely succeeded in concealing her answering eye roll at his predictable show of pride. "That being the case, I'm sure you can understand why this has all been very jarring for her," she said, "Leia likes to the be the center of attention. She does come by that trait honestly."

"Are you trying to imply that I am self-centered, milady?"

"It is characteristic for a Skywalker to act as if the galaxy was formed simply for their good pleasure."

"That is patently untrue and deeply offensive. I'm insulted."

"Whatever you say…"

He pulled her into his arms with a low grunt of laughter over her gentle teasing. "You think I'm overcompensating with her, don't you?"

"I do."

"I want her to like me."

"She will." She rose on her toes to peck a quick kiss to the tip of his nose. "You're very likeable, Anakin Skywalker."

Her reassurance was like a soothing balm to his frayed nerves but still something bothered him about it. "And you're sure that we shouldn't worry about her?"

"I think she's found a friend here," Padmé replied, "which is a good thing. It's about time that she began forming close bonds with people outside of her immediate circle of friends and family."

"But I want to be her friend. I want her to feel close to me too."

"Yes, but you can't force that, Anakin."

"I know that! Why do you think I've been giving her so much space?"

"That's your solution? She avoids you, and you avoid her? How is that supposed to help anything? I hardly think that's the answer."

"Then what is the answer?" he mumbled sullenly.

"You might try having a conversation with her. That would be a fine start."

"What do you think I've been doing for this past week?" he flared before whirling away from her in an impatient huff. Though he was clearly agitated, Padmé was relieved by his flash of aggravation because it felt inherently familiar…something typical of Anakin…his trademark impatience on full display. "She rejects me every time! I don't know what else to do! Whenever I approach her, she looks at me like she just stepped in bantha poodoo!"

Padmé choked out a laugh at his disheartened description despite her best effort to remain straight-faced. "It's not that bad."

"It is not funny, Padmé," he grumbled darkly, "And it is that bad. I didn't think it would be this hard."

She glanced up at him in astonishment, unsure if she should attribute his confession to his usual egotism or misguided innocence. "You really didn't?" She squinted at him in disbelief and breathed out his name in a short, stunned laugh. "You've been gone a decade. What did you expect?"

"I suppose I thought that our connection in the Force would make things easier…that she would be more inclined to trust me because of it," Anakin confessed, "And with you and Luke, it's been so effortless…like we had never been separated at all."

"But you forget that Luke and I had time with you. The three of us were a family before. Leia didn't have that. She's only just beginning to know you, Anakin, and that takes time…whether you have the Force or not."

He regarded her with wounded eyes full of vulnerable uncertainty and that was enough to dispel any irritation Padmé might have been feeling towards him. "What should I do?"

"Be persistent and don't be discouraged by her lack of responsiveness. You have to keep trying. Leia has a tough exterior…but you will charm her eventually. I don't have a single doubt."

"How can you be so certain?" he pouted when she drew him back into the circle of her arms.

"Because, my love, you have always been remarkably proficient at getting Naberrie women to adore you."