Hello, everyone!

Yeah I know, this has been a long time coming. I originally promised this during the summer (technically it's still summer, but you know what I mean). Had a June target date and I missed that date. I'm usually decent with deadlines but ya know, things pop up. I'm writing a couple other stories in lieu of Star Wars at the moment, and also grad school started.

However, I was able to strike inspiration while it was hot and came up with this little one-shot. For those of you who need a quick refresher, this scene is an extension of the chapter Ye Shall Have Peace, numbering 56 on the chapter list (it's actually 52) when Anakin and Padme put the infant twins to bed.

I posted this as an attachment to the Last Hope story because I didn't feel like posting it as its own story. It's more or less a bonus scene.

I hope you enjoy!

Confession

"Because in his timeline, I fell to the dark side. I joined the Sith and became a monster known as Darth Vader."

Anakin had little idea what to expect after speaking those sentences into existence. The silence rang for eons as Padme looked at him expectedly to continue. He was so used to giving short, vague, deflective answers to difficult questions, he found that to do otherwise was like speaking in an unknown language.

"I…I…"

Padme settled into a more comfortable position on the ottoman, retreating a bit to give her husband the space to say what he needed. She gave his a hand an encouraging squeeze. But this had nothing to do with spatial awareness.

"I can't…"

"Yes, you can," Padme said with emphatic passion. "I know it's hard, but you can."

The old tripwire in Anakin's brain was set off by this statement. She was trying to make things better; rationally he knew that. But she didn't witness herself murder hundreds of innocent children, slaughter thousands of compatriots, and choke her own spouse. Only a person unlucky and damned in equal measure could. The burden of knowledge separated husband and wife from mutual understanding.

"Forget it," he mumbled.

Padme pulled him back down to the couch when he tried to leave.

"Let's not go backwards."

Anakin leaned back on the couch and raised his head up to the ceiling in frustration. "This isn't helping."

"You can't just say something like that and not provide an explanation," she reasoned firmly.

"Trust me, you don't want to know."

"If my husband, the man I love, fell to the dark side, I absolutely want to know why."

He saw that the unflappable politician had come out. She planted her position in the ground and would not be moving from it. Anakin tried to dig out of the hole he'd dug for himself.

"This isn't…you don't…I…um…"

The young Jedi was crushed by the sight of disbelief in Padme's eyes. The thought of her beloved Anakin Skywalker becoming a monster overwhelmed her capacity for astonishment. A part of him didn't want to ruin that beautiful innocence…the other half, his cold rationality, realized he had to.

Let go of your fear.

He switched his position from leaning backwards to forwards, head hanging over his knees in shameful sobriety.

"You were dying. Or at least…I thought that was going to happen." He ran both hands through his tangled hair. "In Luke's time, you were eight months pregnant by the end of the Clone Wars. One night, I received a vision that you lost your life during childbirth."

He didn't see Padme's reaction but Anakin sensed the explosive emotional shock that rippled through her body.

"Oh, Ani."

"I was afraid, lost, confused…and desperate. Desperate to save the person I loved the most. Palpatine told me he had the power to stop death. He offered me a place at his side…and I took it."

Padme moved to hug him, but the sensation of her touch caused Anakin to jump up as though he'd been burned by a hot stove.

"Don't," he almost snapped at her, which caused that doe eyed, heartbroken look on her face to become sadder, which in turn fueled the vicious cycle of self hatred. "You shouldn't comfort me."

Tears welled in Padme's brown orbs. "Anakin you're my husband, how could you think I wouldn't try and help you?"

"Because of what I did!" he shouted back, his fear now awakened like a frightened animal. "Because I betrayed you! I betrayed the Jedi! I betrayed everyone!"

It was a good thing the sound dampeners were on in the nursery, or else the twins would have been awakened by his powerful outburst.

"You made a mistake," Padme said, ceasing her attempts at touch. "A mistake made from being in an impossible situation."

"That's not a mistake! It was evil!" Anakin shot back at her. He waved his mechanical hand for comical effect. "What do you think this is?! A garden club on Naboo?!"

"So now you're going to ridicule me?" The cutting remark brought out the hardened durasteel in that small but sharp woman, who was on the verge of losing her temper. "I have told you time and time again, nothing you do will ever make me believe that you're evil. For once in your life, please stop pushing me away!"

Anakin sprang up from the ottoman. His mind was a starfighter out of control, spiraling towards the ground.

"I killed you!" he screamed.

Padme's lower lip dropped a little before it was snapped back into place.

"What are you talking about?"

"It was my fault!" he roared. "For all of it! I killed the Jedi, slaughtered younglings…I-I used the Force to choke you!"

Padme shook her head. Anakin so wanted to grab both sides of it and shake until reality penetrated: that the man she loved was a ruthless killer. Her response was both infuriating and predictable.

"You would never."

"I saw it with my own eyes."

"How-"

"Luke had to physically restrain me against the wall and use the Force to show memories of the past!" he said, well aware of how far-fetched it sounded, even by Jedi standards. "That's how far gone I was, Padme! I didn't listen when Luke told me Palpatine was manipulating me, I didn't listen when you tried to bring me back to sanity, and I didn't listen when Obi-Wan told me not to try and fight him on high ground!"

He stopped suddenly, feeling so low and flat that he was incapable of being crushed any further.

"I tried so hard not to lose you and I did anyway."

Padme's gaze never left him for the entire length of his dramatic speech. Then she closed her eyes and let out a breath of resignation. Anakin's heart beat so fast he wondered if another panic attack was about to knock him back to the floor.

She's going to leave me. She's had enough of my bantha shit.

"I need you to listen to me now, Anakin Skywalker. Because if you don't, you will lose me."

Hardly daring to believe his wife wouldn't serve him divorce papers the next morning, Anakin stayed rooted to his spot within the apartment, stiff as a clone shiny.

"I love you. I'll never love another person the way I do with you. Something you did in another lifetime doesn't change that."

Anakin dared to speak. His voice was smaller than he ever imagined.

"Even knowing what I'm capable of?"

Padme lifted herself from the couch, letting the waves of midnight blue fabric touch the floor as she walked over to him.

"I've always known what you were capable of, Anakin. I was there when your mother was killed. I helped clean and bury her body. I heard you admit to massacring an entire village. If that didn't scare me off, nothing will."

She stopped a foot in front of him but did not reach out to rub her hands on his shoulder or wrap them around the neck in that enticing, butter soft way that made his knees go weak. The intensity of her expression was something he'd never forget.

"You're a good man, no matter what deeds you committed in the past. But…" and here was the 'but' Anakin had so feared. The utter disgust that was sure to come. "...if we want this marriage to work, something has to change. Because our current path is one I can't follow."

Fear wrapped its iron chains around his chest, squeezing so tightly breathing became difficult. But when Master Qui-Gon's wisdom came back, the chains fell away.

'Believe in yourself and your family, and you will find true happiness.'

Anakin reached into his pocket and pulled out a holo card, offering it to his wife.

"Obi-Wan gave this to me today at Dex's."

"What is it?"

"Contact information belonging to a therapist. Someone who could…help me."

Padme took the card and activated the small button on the side. Blue lettering shimmered in the dimly lit room.

"Dr. Ganjaal?"

"She's supposed to be one of the best."

Padme placed the holo card back in Anakin's palm and closed it with both of her hands resting on top.

"Ani…please see this person. Talk to them for one day. If not for me…for our children."

Such a request would have elicited skepticism at best and anger at worst in the past. And just as it was with Obi-Wan earlier in the day, part of Anakin was upset. Why should he have to go see a therapist? Why did everyone blame him for everything? Why was he never good enough?!

She's not rejecting you, a warm voice of reason told him. Listen.

The faces of his beautiful children gazing up at him from their cribs melted the anger into a deep sigh. How could he not do everything in his power to be the best father possible to them?

"I'll do it," he said to Padme, wrapping his arms around her. "I promise."

The two held each other for an undetermined length of time, bonds of love holding together lest they break apart and fall into an abyss. Anakin inhaled her scent and she rubbed his back in gentle swirls.

"I love you, angel."

"I love you too, Ani."

This was a bad idea.

Anakin stared around the high rise office located in the center of Coruscant's massive shopping district. Finding the building itself wasn't as difficult as walking through the kriffing door.

Fidgeting on a poofy couch with lots of equally poofy pillows (all pink in color), Anakin took turns switching between watching the outside speeder traffic and judging the various items dotting the shelves. A few heart shaped trinkets, suggestive figurines in shapes that left little to the imagination, and scattered holo mags, one which advocated for something called 'empathic mental healing'.

What the hell am I even doing here?

The sparkly opulence and eccentric decor Anakin could live with. But everything here was just so…open. Nothing seemed to be off limits, sacred, or exclusive the way it was in the Temple. Even the Senate building held an air of pretense. Only those of importance were expected to be inside. Well meaning, ethical politicians (yes, he had been convinced those existed) like Padme and Bail Organa still had business to discuss with powerful people across the galaxy.

On a personal level, in spite of having lived in the center of wealth and power for well over a decade, Anakin's minimalist nature stood intact. Being a slave child on Tatooine meant you had to make do with very little and he learned to embrace that mentality. It also meant he acquired a certain distaste for excessive luxurious, loud items. Like everything in this room.

I'm not doing this. I can't do this.

As his leg bounced up and down rapidly, the automatic door to the office opened before he had the chance to act on that flight or fight impulse. A humanoid female with magenta skin and long, flowing purple hair entered the lobby. She wore a modest dress, a gray skirt complete with a simple white blouse and matching blazer. For someone who'd traveled the length of the galaxy for the past three years, Anakin wasn't familiar with the species.

"Anakin Skywalker?"

She had a voice like honey and it helped to calm his anxiety.

"Yeah…" The response came out raspy and awkward and Anakin cleared away the phlegm in his throat. "That's me."

She studied him with a soft but comprehensive expression. Empathetic and analyzing. He wasn't sure how to feel about it.

"Are you nervous?"

"No."

That kind of denial would have won him respect, even accolades during wartime. You didn't show weakness in front of thousands of men who depended on your judgment for survival. He was the 'Hero With No Fear'. Fear was an enemy to be conquered and never . What would Rex and Ahsoka have said if he'd said 'yes' to that question?

'We're depending on you, sir.'

Anakin found himself back in the eccentric lobby of the therapist, who hadn't moved or ceased eye contact since she first arrived. There was no war to be found anymore.

"Yes, you are. I can feel it. But I promise all my clients one thing: no harm will come to you while inside my office."

She gestured to the door to her office as an invitation inside. Anakin knew instinctively that the second he accepted, everything would change. He could charge headlong into battle with millions of battle droids firing at him and yet that sounded preferable to talking about emotions with an unknown entity. And he hated the unknown in all its vague, dark ambiguity.

Just as a surge of anxiety urged him out the door, Luke and Leia popped back into his brain with one simple message: do it for them.

With one small step, Anakin entered the unknown.

Bonus points to anyone who can guess the species of the psychiatrist in question!

Some of you might not like or understand the idea of why Anakin is still acting so distant and volatile. Well I'll cut to the chase, the man has BPD or Borderline Personality Disorder. In other words, the man has some serious issues. That's not going to go away in one fell swoop. It takes years of therapy to help people overcome mental illness of this type. The real change in Anakin is that he's seeing a therapist in the first place. He's avoided becoming Vader, now he's going to learn how to keep it that way.

Anyway, as far as the sequel goes, I thought I'd give a short update: it's in the outline stages right now. I have no plans for it to be anywhere near as expansive as Last Hope, which admittedly, probably went on for a bit too long. I'm still sorting out a few kinks here and there, but I'm also writing for other projects and I think the earliest I can expect for the sequel is sometime next year. I know that wait will be agonizing but it's a miracle I can get fanfic writing done at all right now. Instagram is still 'thewaspwrites' so you can check for updates there or for other projects.

If you're interested in more of these post fic one shots, let me know as well!

Anyway, much love and thanks to everyone who has supported me! :) Rock on!

~TheWasp