Just another quick update while I sort through plot points.

He wished he could contact his children. That bond of blood, their mutual training in the force, might let him speak to Luke. He hated not using the force. He was felt robbed of everything he had tried to be, less of a man than the wreck Palpatine drew from the burning ground of Mustafar. Anakin glanced at Padmé, sleeping on the bunk, looking pale and unmoving like the holo from her funeral procession. He would not, could not do anything to put Padmé in jeopardy. He would find another way.
…

"We could compare our medical records."

"Why are you still harping on this, Luke. Vader lied."

"He told me to search my feelings. Leia, what do your feelings tell you?"

"It's impossible Luke."

"What if he's telling the truth?"

"He's not. I remember my mother, my real mother."

"You do? What was she like?"

"I have just the one memory. She seemed so beautiful and so very sad. But she would never have had a child with Darth Vader. Let it go, Luke."

"The force won't let me. It's like when I saw Han tortured on Bespin." Luke paused seeing the pain on Leia's face. He continued more gently but still emphatically, "Those visions were the truth and somehow, much as I don't want it to be true, the force is telling me that we're connected, all of us."

"It doesn't change anything." We still have to find Han. We still have to fight the Emperor and …"

"Say it. You think we have to kill Vader, too. What if we can save him?"

…

He kissed her and she closed her eyes.

He drew back.

Padmé's lashes fluttered open, "Anakin, what's wrong?"

"Do you hate seeing me like this so much?"

"Yes."

He removed his arms from about her waist. "You can get up now."

She twined her arms around his neck once more and kissed his pale, scarred cheek. "I love you in spite of what you've done and what you look like. But being with you like this is torture. I want to be with my husband, to be able to lie next to him, to be able to continue this the way we used to, and I don't understand why you haven't..."

"Stop bringing that up. It's not an option right now."

"So this is all we have? I could accept that if there were no medical way, but there have been so many technological advances. One of them… Ani, I love you and I want to be with you. Why are you keeping these barriers between us?"

"It's just for a little longer. We'll find Luke and Leia. We'll-"

She stood up then. "There will always be a reason to delay, Ani. I thought you wanted me. Maybe, that was just the man you used to be."

...

Nothing. Months of playing word games with Palpatine and nothing. He had flown to Vjun and back to access the library at his private retreat. He had made plan after plan for breaking into Palpatine's secret hoard and stealing the old Sith Lord's holocrons. He had searched for artifacts from the Jedi library. And while Palpatine's cache remained elusive, none of the avenues he could search answered his questions or calmed his fears.

Although Padmé had returned eventually, their argument increased his growing frustration. Of course he wanted to be with his wife. Their time together marked the happiest moments of his existence. He loved her and a great portion of that love was a desire to be together physically. But they had no time. He couldn't wait while doctors tried to repair him, if they could. How long would he have Padmé with him? How long could she exist, if exist it could be called, in her strange state? The answers must be in the force. Bound as she seemed to be with his use of the force, could he use it to bind her to him forever?

And as for the rest of his family, they, too, remained beyond his control. For a time, he had thought he might buy Luke from his temporary captors. However, his son had escaped again. Then, he had learned definitively of the threat Xixor posed to not only Luke, but also to Leia. Xixor was no longer an issue. Palpatine might curse at no longer being able to divert himself pitting apprentice and crime lord against each other, but Vader would allow no one to threaten his children.

Jix had mentioned Solo was at last hanging in Jabba's palace. It seemed he would be forced back to Tatooine. Why was the universe determined to send him back to that forsaken ball of sand time and again?

…

"I wish we could contact General Kenobi."

"Don't you trust me?"

"Of course I do, Luke. "

"Good. I want to talk to him, too."

"About Vader. I know." She stood up. "Well, then, I'll see you in a few days. And if not…"

"I'll come and get you."

"Right."

…

He arrived at Jabba's palace only to be told everyone of importance was out on Jabba's sail barge taking the prisoners to the Saarlaac. He jumped into a skyhopper, Padmé quickly settling her petite form in the seat next to his, and together they raced across the sands. As he drove, he couldn't help flashing back to another time he raced to rescue one he loved. He had failed his mother. That day he had broken his own moral code and been glad. Padmé had comforted him. He looked at the two lightsaber hilts hanging from his belt. His world had tilted and now he, like General Grievous, was the armored amalgamation of machine and being wreaking havoc. Only he had never stood for chaos – even when rebelling against the typical Jedi way. He had never tried to destroy purely for destruction's sake.

...

He saw his daughter dressed in a bit of metal and fabric chained to that repellent green mass. He had thought nothing could increase his hatred for sleemos like Jabba. Apparently the force was determined to prove him wrong yet again. Vader vowed that Jabba's life would be measured in minutes – no in seconds.

And then he was distracted, the force telling him Luke was in more immediate danger. He turned scanning the crowd.

Vader sensed the Emperor's Hand moments before she was about to shoot. He tensed at further proof of Palpatine's treachery. First the evil old man had told Xixor about Luke, leaving his son vulnerable to the crime lord's plots. Now, he had sent his Hand to murder his child.

Vader was used to thinking fast. Padmé however was faster. His wife leaped behind the red-haired dancer and threw the girl off-balance. The assassin twisted back ready to deal with this interruption in her usual deadly manner. Padmé, however, floored Mara Jade with a punch to the chin. Good. Padmé was unharmed, Mara Jade was out cold, and was that R2D2 who had given his son a lightsaber?

Vader turned his attention back to Leia. In the interim, she had wrapped her chains about Jabba's neck and was strangling her captor. Vader stealthily made his way to her and using his lightsaber severed the chain from her neck before gutting the nearly dead creature.

She whirled around and nearly fell back into Jabba's bloated corpse. "What are you doing here?"

….

A.N. Thank you everyone who has read, reviewed, or put this story on your alerts. I really appreciate it.