The noise of her own shoes, clanking around the spacious mansion, above the deadly silence, was enough to make her want to rip her hair out. So she stopped pacing, but with nothing else to do she could only think and think about what she wanted to erase from her mind forever.

They are coming, she reminded herself, and when they come, I will ask and I will accept whatever the truth might be.

But her head was growing dizzy, and the nagging pain at the pit of her stomach would slash like a twisting knife at her insides. She tried to remember the last time she had been at peace, but even this brought more pain. It seemed like happiness was a dreamy passed thing, which she was never to experience again.

"Are you sure you don't want to eat something?" the voice coming from the hooded figure asked. He had been quiet for so long she had forgotten he was there with her. "I never saw you look so pale and frail, dear. You are half a corpse already, but if you came back from the dead, I don't see why you should try to jump back into the grave."

The voice spoke those cruel words without an ounce of emotion. The tone of that voice was so eerily familiar, one that she had conversed with for countless hours before. There was a change in it that completely baffled her, though; the voice had become rancid with more than just age. The voice was like everything else in the galaxy… a nightmare version of a thing once known.

"I never died," Padmé said. "And I'm starting to think I never will."

"Hm, what a curious thing to say. Why?"

Padmé had been looking at the shiny floors, at the tall ceiling, at the beautiful walls… finally she turned to face the Sith. You can't hurt me. I can't feel more pain than I do right now…

"Perhaps I am a type of ghost, sir. Weapons don't seem to affect me as they used to."

"No? You don't even need to eat then?" he grinned, barely showing sharp teeth and a wrinkly chin. "What ails you then? You met with Vader, I hear? You stayed… at Mustafar! Of all places! How incredibly ironic. How very shameless of him! Did he tell you what happened there two decades ago?"

"We-we didn't get to speak much," Padmé looked down again.

"Right… Well when he arrives, that should be the first thing you ask him. I wonder if he would lie or be brave enough to tell you what we did."

"How can you be sure he is coming here to Naboo?"

"It was the place where he found you again, and where you keep coming back. Of course, if that's a meeting you want to avoid, take my offer. Come to the Palace. You once belonged there, didn't you?"

"I'm sure it's much changed by time and the Empire… isn't it?"

Palpatine let the hood fall, exposing his disgusting face.

Padmé stood straighter; she held his hateful, mocking glance. A nightmare… it is a nightmare! How can this be real?!

"You may say that," he said, laughing in between his sentence.

All the pain that had been accumulating in her stomach went back to her chest, and then her throat, so when she tried to speak she couldn't.

Monster, what have you done?

Palpatine cackled nastily.

Padmé reached clarity for a second. Then she walked out the hall running like crazy; his cackles ringing in her ears still.

Go away! She wanted to scream. Let me get away!

The walls all around belonged to her. It was her home. Yet Varykino turned into a labyrinth, a confusing maze where she did not know what way to turn and go. Her breaths were more shallow and quick. She stopped to gather her breath and she almost choked.

"Hhhhh," she breathed loudly. "hhhhhgg," she breathed, holding her chest. "hhhhhgggg," the Sith breathed behind her.

Please no. She wanted to scream and she couldn't.

"Padmé," Vader said, "what's the matter? What happened just now?"

Padmé stood; she banged her head on his arm, as if to see if he was really there before her. She made a face of pain, for smacking that metal.

"Calm down, are you alright, mother?" Luke said appearing next to her.

Her heart skipped a beat.

"You look as if you saw a ghost," the princess of Alderaan said. "Or as if you're one yourself—"

A little astromech droid beeped some things.

Padmé started coughing as if she might choke. She would have fallen to her knees if not for Luke. He helped her sit and then put a hand over her shoulder, trying to comfort her.

"Please stop," Padmé gasped, her eyes shut closed. "I can't do this…"

"The emperor," Vader said. "He was… he's here?"

Luke ignited his lightsaber and Leia got her blaster ready.

"Your Highness, stay with her. Luke, let's go and find him! Droid, stay with them," Vader ordered R2-D2 without turning to see him.

Padmé saw Vader and Luke move away, a blurry sight until they disappeared.

You're going the wrong way, she could have said. He's in the main dining hall. You're going the opposite way…

She then turned to look at the princess, expecting the usual contempt and impatience, but Leia was staring at her in a very odd way… Her eyes searched Padmé's face but she didn't know what Leia was trying to find.

Vader and Luke returned some time after that, completely unscathed.

"He escaped," Luke said, exhausted.

"He just left," Vader said, angry.

"He went to the Palace," Padmé said, once more drained and calm. "And he's expecting me."

"Are you crazy?" Leia said. "We need to leave this planet immediately. He's going to send squadrons of troopers here—"

"I can't leave," Padmé said. "I would be brought back anyways, so what's the point?"

They all stared at her.

I'm not crazy. I'm not— I simply can't keep doing this over and over again. Oh how do I stop it!

"We're leaving," Leia said, staring at Luke. "Now."

Luke stared at his mother. "Please come with us. I swear I will keep you safe this time. We will figure out what happened to you… please come with us."

"Us?" Padmé questioned.

Darth Vader shrugged his shoulders. "I agree with them. You will not be safe if the emperor knows your whereabouts."

"I'm not scared of Palpatine. He is a man of reason… well," even she felt ridiculous saying that; "he used to be. I talked to him. He brought me home—"

"And how did he find you?" Vader said. "I understand if you're confused but you need to be reasonable, Padmé."

I have always been reasonable…

"I want to see something."

She gave Luke and Leia an apologetic look, and then she started walking, taking no note of what they said. She felt Vader's red eyes on her; his big steps behind her; his loud respirator in her head.

She found her bedroom once more and immediately moved to the balcony. The nature outside was the only thing unchanged by time, and it somewhat soothed her troubled soul. She heard the faraway waterfalls, smelled the sweet flowers over green fields. The moons and the stars were barely visible, as the grey clouds moved around in the sky.

"Why did you follow me?" she said, "You should have left me alone this time."

"Yes," Vader agreed. "I should have. But I wanted to ensure the boy and the princess would find you in time."

"I don't see how they can help me. I don't see how I can be helped."

"I think they are the only ones who can."

"The princess hates me. You saw her push me to my death in that rebel station."

"I'm sure she'll come to her senses when she realizes who you are."

"She should hate me more if she did… and she'd be right."

"You hold no blame in what happened."

"I was a senator. How come I didn't do anything to prevent the Republic from falling?"

"You did more than anyone then."

"Clearly not enough."

"The Jedi Order falling was completely out of your control, and their failure ensured the rise of the Empire."

"I can't imagine the Jedi being defeated," she said, more to herself. "I think of all the masters in their temple, and the knights and apprentices… and it just doesn't make sense. They were the biggest power in the galaxy… when I think of them dying… it scares me beyond reason. What kind of evil was unleashed before them?"

She stared down at Vader, as if the answer was plain.

"What did you do to Anakin?" she said and her voice shook at the mention of his name.

She closed her eyes shut, trying to keep tears from falling.

"Your husband—" Vader started with effort but she interrupted.

"MY husband?" she spat as if the word offended her. "Say his name, why don't you? The word husband is meaningless to me. Say Anakin."

"I refer to him as what he was to you. He was your husband, and you were his wife and that can't ever be erased or changed."

"Was he my husband? Was I really his wife? I never knew him as a lover, beyond a few kisses and nervous first confessions of love. I didn't live with him," the words came in bitter growls, as if they burned her throat. "Padmé Amidala lived through a bloody war amidst that marriage? And she carried Anakin's son? Which Padmé is that? Certainly not me. She died assassinated. She knows pain I never knew. I know pain she never will. Am I really that woman? Am I a wife? Am I a mother? No. I am nothing and I just want all this to be over."

She thought for a moment she would cry, but her eyes remained dry, and she stood there exhausted, truly sick of life itself. There wasn't even ache in her chest, she felt nothing, and that was worse than any desperate pain could ever be. What did that hollowness mean? She truly thought that if her life were to cease at that moment… she wouldn't care.

"I could die right now and it would be the best thing that can happen to me."

"Shut up," Darth Vader finally spoke.

She opened her eyes, but she couldn't turn to see him; that would bring emotion back into her.

"Did you really say that?" she giggled bitterly. "It sounds so odd from your unhuman voice."

"It sounds like someone you once knew."

"What happened in Mustafar? Palpatine said I should ask you that."

Vader was quiet for a moment. "I killed you. And the child. Or I thought I did… I've realized I was wrong."

"How?"

"I think Luke and Leia should be here to tell you."

Padmé stared at him. This stops now. "Go and call them then."

Vader nodded. He took a few nervous steps and then he was gone. Padmé had decided that she needed to know the truth. She just couldn't wait anymore. The pieces of information she knew were a foggy mist in her troubled mind and they were likely to drive her to insanity if she didn't put them together.

Vader returned to the bedchamber with Luke and Leia where they found a completely empty room.