Arthur's note: Around three or four years ago, on Fanfiction. Net, I did an Anakin Skywalker time-traveling to the future story. The story was terrible in hindsight. It was a plot contrivance type of story where I forced things to happen to try to add plot twists. In doing my Luke's time travel story, and Vader before that, I wanted to give the story a second chance.

Chapter 1

Alone in the Chamber of the Jedi Council, Anakin Skywalker wrestled with his dragon.

He was losing.

He paced the Chamber in blind arcs, stumbling among the chairs. He could not feel currents of the Force around him; he could not feel echoes of Jedi Masters in these ancient seats.

He had never dreamed there was this much pain in the universe.

Physical pain he could have handled even without his Jedi mental skills; he'd always been tough. At four years old he'd been able to take the worst beating Watto would deliver without so much as making a sound.

Nothing had prepared him for this.

He wanted to rip open his chest with his bare hands and claw out his heart.

"What have I done?" The question started as a low moan but grew to a howl he could no longer lock behind his teeth. "What have I done?"

He knew the answer: he had done his duty.

And now he couldn't imagine why.

When I die, Palpatine had said, so calmly, so warmly, so reasonably, my knowledge dies with me...

'You do know, don't you? If the Jedi destroy me, any chance of saving her will be lost.'

That voice... it was the very being who provided comfort and reassurance to Anakin Skywalker for so many years. Whereas it was the harbinger of doom and destruction for so many, he found himself incapable of thinking about those souls right now. The Clone Wars was a disaster. Sidious was the cause of it...

But it may have been unavoidable anyway. The local governments in the Outer Rim had real grievances with the Republic, and surely, removing Palpatine from the occasion wouldn't just end the war. It would require finding their secret base and ending them once and for all.

Those faces didn't matter to him as much as she did...

It was a secret shame. Jedi were supposed to value the lives of innocents, of all living beings, of staying true to the oath that had defined them for centuries. But Anakin Skywalker had never been the idea of a model Jedi. He had his own family he cared about, people who grew to take residence in his heart. It was selfish, he knew, but Anakin Skywalker felt like he had the right to be selfish.

What had consumed so many Jedi wouldn't consume him. He would stand against the temptations of the Dark Side and emerge triumphant. Certainly, not every Jedi fell to the deceit and deceptions that awaited them down that path.

That had been him a few weeks ago.

So much has changed since.

Everywhere he looked, he saw only the face of the woman he loved beyond love: the woman for whom he channeled through his body all the love that had ever existed in the galaxy. In the universe.

He didn't care what she had done. He didn't care about conspiracies or cabals or secret pacts. Treason meant nothing to him now. She was everything that had ever been loved by anyone, and he was watching her die.

His agony somehow became an invisible hand, stretching out through the Force, a hand that found her, far away, alone in her apartment in the dark, a hand that felt the silken softness of her skin and the sleek coils of her hair, a hand that dissolved into a field of pure energy, of pure feeling that reached inside her—

And now he felt her, really felt her in the Force, as though she could have been some kind of Jedi, too, but more than that: he felt a bond, a connection, deeper and more intimate than he'd ever had before with anyone, even Obi-Wan; for a precious eternal instant he was her ... he was the beat of her heart and he was the motion of her lips and he was her soft words as though she spoke a prayer to the stars—

'I love you, Anakin. I am yours, in life, and in death, wherever you go, whatever you do, we will always be one. Never doubt me, my love. I am yours.'

—and her purity and her passion and the truth of her love flowed into him and through him and every atom of him screamed to the Force how can I let her die?

The Force had no answer for him.

The dragon, on the other hand, did.

All things die, Anakin Skywalker. Even stars burn out.

And no matter how hard he tried to summon it, no wisdom of Yoda's, no teaching of Obi-Wan's, not one scrap of Jedi lore came to him that could choke the dragon down.

But there was an answer; he'd heard it just the other night.

With such knowledge, to maintain life in someone already living would seem a small matter, don't you agree?

Anakin stopped. His agony evaporated.

Palpatine was right.

It was simple.

All he had to do was decide what he wanted.

And Anakin knew what he wanted. The Jedi had never trusted him the moment he came to Coruscant as a nine-year-old boy, staring at him with distrust and alienation. They judged his attachment to his mother, refusing to allow him to save her-even when he'd borderline pleaded for them to do something, anything...

Palpatine on the other hand. He had never lied to him. Have never led him astray. The man was a Sith Lord, but there was surely some sincerity there. He did sure as hell told him some truths about the Jedi, some truths Anakin would have defended adamantly so long ago.

He couldn't go through the pain of losing Padmé, not as he lost his mother, all over again.

It would have been too much to take. A part of him died with her. A part of him that would never be restored. It would have been one thing if she'd died of natural causes, but she was taken from him so cruelly by savages.

He knew what he wanted.

He didn't want to lose his wife.

Lose anyone else.

He had been selfless for so long, staying loyal to the Jedi Code, and what did that cost him? His mother, so many friends throughout the Clone Wars, parts of himself poisoned...

He couldn't do it anymore.

He just couldn't.

A new determination shot through him in at that moment, and Anakin Skywalker turned, tears burning in his eyes. He had to go... stop Windu. He couldn't allow him to kill Palpatine.

To take the one who may hold the key to Anakin's dilemmas away from him.

His choice made, Anakin stepped out of the Council Chambers onto the threshold...

There was a sharp feeling of pain as reality burnt around him, and the floor of the Jedi Temple faded from him to be replaced with images. Images Anakin... knew. He didn't know how to describe them, where they came from, the voices...

'Do you see, Anakin? Do you? Didn't I warn you of the Jedi and their treason?'

'I… can't. I give up. I… I am too weak, in the end. Too old, and too weak. Don't kill me, Master Jedi. Please. I surrender.'

'You came to arrest him. He has to stand trial-'

'A trial would be a joke. He controls the courts. He controls the Senate-'

'You are now one with the Order of the Dark Lords of the Sith. From this day forward, the truth of you, my apprentice, now and forevermore, will be Darth...'

'I loved you too much to see you! To see what you are!'

'Let her go... Let her go.'

'You will not take her from me!'

'"You were the Chosen One! It was said you would destroy the Sith, not join them. It was you who would bring balance to the Force, not leave it in darkness. You were my brother, Anakin. I loved you, but I could not save you.'

'I hate you!'

'I'm very sorry, Lord Vader. I'm afraid she died. It seems in your anger, you killed her.'

Burning pain rippled through, and Anakin's world exploded around him...