Beru offered to take the twins, without question. They were family, they were in trouble, and that was all the Tatooine woman needed to know. Once that was settled, Padmé sent her children to pack their things. They were excited to be making a surprise trip to visit their aunt and uncle, and Padmé's guilt only grew as they hugged Ahsoka and Rex goodbye and raced Artoo up the ramp of a nondescript Alliance ship.

As the initial excitement over going to see Beru and Owen calmed, the twins began to pick up on their mother's apprehension. Luke abandoned the copilot's seat, where he and Leia had been pretending to fly (and bickering every other minute about which direction to turn), and climbed into Padmé's lap. She tried not to think about how, next time she saw him, he might be too big to sit in her lap.

"Mama? Are we really going to see Aunt 'Ru and Uncle Owen?"

"Yes. You two are going to stay with them for a while, while I go back to Yavin."

"How long's a while?" Leia asked.

"I don't know. It could be a month, it could be a year. It could be many years, kraytling."

Both twins stared at her in dismay.

"Whole years? And you and Aunt 'Soka and Uncle Ben and everyone won't be there?"

"I'm afraid so, loves. It's dangerous for you to be near me. You'll be safer with Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen.

"Why's it dangerous?" Leia asked. "How come it wasn't before, but it is now?"

"Because your father knows about us. If he finds you, he might want to teach you to be Sith, and make you hurt people. He might hurt you."

Either that, or hand them over to Palpatine, and let him teach them. Twist them. Torture them. She ground her teeth at the very thought. Never. Sheev Palpatine was never going to get his hooks into her kind, trusting children. Not while there was breath in her body, or any of their other guardians'.

"But what if we were nice to Dad?"

"I don't think it would matter."

"How do you know? You always say we can't know something 'less we try it." Luke twisted around to stare at her with tooka eyes. "Can't we try? Please?"

He was so innocent, and she hated to trample on that innocence, but she couldn't let him foster such dangerous ideas.

"I did try," she said, softly. "A long time ago. It didn't work."

"But can't we try again? Everyone always says not to give up when things don't work the first time."

"There's giving up, and then there's acknowledging reality." She tucked her arms around him as the ship jumped into hyperspace. "Life isn't like your book of fairytales, love."

"Well, it should be!"

"I know."

They were too young to be facing this facet of reality, too young to understand all the whys and hows. Too young to learn the specifics of the horrors their father had perpetrated. She'd told them he had helped to kill the Jedi, but it was a distant, nebulous thing for them. It was bad, of course it was bad, but it wasn't personal, and they didn't know the details. They were too young, still, for those. She debated telling them that their father was, in fact, the enemy whose name was a curse among the Rebels on Yavin—but decided against it. They were very much their parents' children, with her own stubbornness and Anakin's combined, and she didn't trust them not to concoct and attempt to carry out some nuna-brained scheme to bring their father back, if they knew which individual to target.

Starkiller growled as a piece shifted out of place, and the whole stack he had been trying to put together fell apart. His hands weren't strong enough to get the screws tight so things wouldn't slip when he tried to attach other things, and he wasn't good enough with the Force that he could use it to hold one thing while he used his hands to do the attaching. He wished he could go get one of the engineers who oversaw the Executor's construction to help him. They would probably know how to fix his friend! But Vader, of course, had forbidden him to speak with or even be seen by any of them. No one was allowed to know about him, because Vader didn't want his own master to find out. Which meant the only person Starkiller could go to for help was Vader himself.

He gave up on repairs and took out the crystal his master had given him. It was a Jedi's crystal, all light and warm in the Force.

Ick, Starkiller thought. Stupid, squishy, light thing. But the longer he held the crystal, studying the way the light flashed in it as he turned it back and forth, the less the lightness bothered him. The soft, warm feeling stirred up hazy memories from when he was little. He couldn't remember any faces, or voices, or names, or even what he had been doing at the time, but there was a feeling of being all wrapped up in sunlight, and someone there, someone who loved him and kept him safe, and wouldn't let anything hurt him. It must have his been his master, because he'd never known anyone else. [What had happened, that Vader had stopped loving, or even liking him? What had Starkiller done to make Vader see him as nothing but a disappointment?]

Something wet plinked on the crystal.

Go away! Starkiller told his un-Sithly thoughts. His cheek felt wet, but he didn't wipe it off, because that would mean acknowledging the tears. I don't need all that stuff anyway.

He found the crystal in the Force and poked at it with the dark side. The crystal just sat there. Starkiller thought of the pile of parts behind him that used to be his friend. He thought of Vader, of his coldness and indifference and his refusal to see anything his apprentice did as sufficient. The way he had told him he could keep PROXY, if he could fix him. Vader knew Starkiller couldn't fix him.

Imagining his master standing in the middle of the crystal, Starkiller shoved all his anger and hurt at it. He pictured them sharp, like vibroblades that would pierce the kyber and make it bleed. But they just shattered and melted when they came close. He tried again, and again, but to no avail. The crystal's song took on a quality like a resigned sigh, and—

Starkiller saw a hangar, full of old starfighters. Near one that was painted yellow, a young man watched a Togruta girl wielding a green lightsaber. He looked like the Jedi PROXY had used to make the new training module that had gotten him in trouble.

"Nice one, Snips," the Jedi said, as the girl finished her kata with a flourish. Envy prickled under Starkiller's skin.

The girl beamed. "Thanks, Master."

Was this her crystal?

And then she was all grown up, but still smiling, as she turned off her blade, took hold of Starkiller's hand, and hauled him up from the mat.

"I win. You did well, though, for a learner." She tugged on the little braid behind his ear. "Maybe Skyguy will let me give you some tips on using that grip."

A gloved hand came to rest on Starkiller's shoulder, and he looked up in alarm, expecting to be met with Vader's wrath for failing to defeat one lone Jedi, but it wasn't Vader—it was the young man from before, also older now.

"Don't get discouraged, little one," he said. "Someday, you'll be her equal."

"Really?" Starkiller asked. "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure, Padawan."

Padawan. He was the Jedi's apprentice.

The spell was broken. The crystal was just trying to trick him into turning to the light side. It was playing on his weaknesses, trying to get him to forget the dark so he wouldn't bleed it.

You can't fool me!

He was really mad, now, because he might have fallen for the trick, lulled by the feeling of familysafeproud which the vision projected—and he was scared, too. He couldn't even begin to imagine his master's fury if he actually fell for the light side. Fear amplified his anger, and he brought both to bear against the crystal. Instead of a vibroblade, this time he imagined a huge star destroyer crashing into it headlong. The crystal wailed.

The Togruta's face contorted in pain, and the older Jedi's gentle pride vanished in an instant, replaced by a snarl as he ignited his blade and adopted a threatening stance.

"Stop that!" he shouted. "You're hurting her!"

The man was almost as intimidating as Vader, now. Starkiller quailed, but he soon mustered up courage afresh and continued his assault against the crystal.

You're just a vision. You can't stop me! You can't hurt me!

The vision faded, and he opened his eyes slowly. He felt all tired and used up, like he had just come through an unusually taxing saber training session. And for all that, the crystal still shone with a blue glow.

Kriff! he thought, viciously.

But wait—

Looking closer, he saw a purplish tinge in a few places on the kyber's surface. He hadn't been able to bleed it, but at least it had become bruised. The observation brought a little thrill of triumph. Finally! He had made something work. (A bit.) Maybe, if his master saw it, he would see that Starkiller was really trying to be a good apprentice, and would give him just a tiny bit of help with PROXY.

Now he just had to find a way to contact him. A mouse droid ought to be able to help with that. There was no shortage of them around, helping with various menial tasks involved in the Executor's construction.

"Your mama just needs a few minutes," Padmé heard Beru telling the twins as she herded them inside the farmhouse. "She isn't going to leave without saying goodbye."

The door closed after them, and Padmé trudged across the sand to Shmi Skywalker's grave, a short distance away. The Lars had removed the upright gravestone not long after her and Obi-Wan's arrival, years ago, and the spot was now marked by a low stone in the sand, unassuming, embellished only with a series of glyphs. Padmé wasn't well-versed in the Tatooine glyphs, but these three, she knew. The love and security that was family. A sense of strength and holding out against the winds. Selflessness. Even from her brief, long-ago acquaintance with her mother-in-law, she knew the description to be accurate.

Selfless. A person could be selfless, and in so doing could inadvertently set disaster in motion. If Shmi hadn't given her son to the Jedi—what then? Would he have grown up safe under her aegis? Would he have managed to free them both? Would he have been there to fend off the Raiders, keep Shmi alive, and in so doing have prevented his own spiral into darkness?

What if, by leaving her own children, Padmé was somehow poising them to fall into the very situation she was desperate to avoid?

"They'll be okay."

She turned to see Beru a few feet away, Artoo beside her.

"They're good kids."

"So was Anakin," Padmé said, not without bitterness, and Artoo gave a mournful whistle.

"They've had an easier life," Beru reminded her. "You know that as well as I do. They've never had just one person to rely on for everything and to love them. They haven't had to worry that their world could be sold away in a blink. And there's just as much of you in them as there is of Ani. And just as much of her," waving a hand toward the stone, "and your parents, and everyone they've ever been close with. Not to mention, they're their own people. They'll be okay, Padmé."

"But what if they're not?"

[Good outcome statistically less likely if with you,] Artoo replied. [Senator : trouble :: Pilot : unconventional landing.]

Padmé wasn't sure whether to feel reassured by the astromech's evaluation, or insulted.

"Promise you'll call me if there's the slightest sign of trouble," she said to Beru.

"I promise."

With a heavy sigh, and a heavier heart, Padmé started back to the house. It was time to say goodbye.

Luke and Leia clung to her as she held them close and delivered last-minute instructions.

"You mustn't use the Force, not even to talk to each other, because nobody's here to shield you. You mustn't spar outside, or mention Jedi, or the Republic. These are dangerous things for children to know. And there will be absolutely no podracing. Ever. Am I understood?"

"Yes, Mama," Luke said. He sounded far too docile.

"But that doesn't mean we can't build a racer, right?" Leia prodded.

"If you don't build it, you can't be tempted to use it."

They both pouted, and Padmé tried not to wonder how long it would be before she received a call from Beru, inventorying their various broken bones and lacerations. Prevention being preferable to a cure, she amended her statement.

"No podracers. Period. No more creative ways of pulling out loose teeth, either. And take care of each other," she added, softening. "I love you."

Luke buried his face in her hair and refused to let her go. "Stay! You can stay, and do the rebellion stuff here like you used to."

"No, I can't. It's not safe for me to be with you, remember? And I need to work with people on the base, and in the field. But I'll call as often as I can."

She kissed his cheek and gently pulled him off of her, passing him to Beru so she could give Leia a hug, as well.

"Promise you'll come back?" Leia asked.

"Nobody knows the future, love. Maybe I'll come back here, or maybe you'll come to Yavin again, instead."

Thus, she stooped to playing the evasive politician with her own children. But it was better than lying outright and making a promise she might not be able to keep.

Lieutenant Piett, on his way to the officers' mess at the end of his shift, was accosted by a young technician outside Devastator's main communications center.

"Ah, Lieutenant?" she began, nervously, "we have a bit of a situation."

"What situation?" Piett asked, immediately envisioning Rebel saboteurs, Lord Vader on a rampage, or perhaps an impromptu inspection by His Imperial Majesty Himself.

"Some kid somehow contacted Devastator's comms center. And he keeps saying he wants to talk to Lord Vader. What should I do? Should I notify…?"

The technician shifted, fingers twitching at her sides.

Tell the kid to stop wasting the Navy's time, was Piett's first thought—but a child had been able to acquire Devastator's frequency, and that was not something to be easily dismissed.

"I'll handle it," he told the frazzled technician, who looked immensely relieved. "Redirect the call to my comm."

He then went to an empty storeroom and turned on his commlink. A dark-haired boy popped up above the holoprojector.

"I need to talk to Lord Vader," he informed Piett. "I told the other person, but she wouldn't help."

"That would be because children aren't supposed to be able to contact Lord Vader's flagship," Piett replied.

"Well, I only did because I need to talk to him," the boy insisted. "I need him to tell me something!"

"How did you manage to contact Devastator in the first place, child?"

"Got a mouse droid to help me."

A mouse droid. Piett shook his head. Could Imperial security really be so lax that a miscellaneous mouse droid was able to access Devastator's contact information? Unlikely. There had to be a better explanation. When he thought of the political games and (rumored) backstabbing that dominated the upper ranks… Corellian hells, this could be some higher-up's power play to make a rival look the fool. Give said rival's child access to Devastator's comms, drop some hints that Admiral X was a little careless, that they left confidential information lying around… it was unfortunately plausible. There were certainly officers in the Navy who would feel no qualms about using a child to get a leg up in a power struggle.

"Look," Piett said, softening a bit, "I don't know who put you up to this, but it could be someone trying to make one of your parents look bad in front of their superiors. Just go, tell your—"

"I don't have parents!" the boy exclaimed. "And nobody's making me do anything! I need to talk to Lord Vader because he's my master and I'm his apprentice and—"

The rest of the sentence became lost in the overwhelming sense of dread which dropped over Piett like a stage curtain. The young lieutenant suddenly came into an excellent understanding of what novels mean when they say that so-and-so wishes the floor would open up and swallow them. He had no desire to become in any way involved in, or even privy to, anything relating to his arcane commander's personal affairs. While he didn't know much about the Sith, he knew to stay out of the way if he wanted to stay alive, and that was really quite enough, thank you very much. He needed no further education.

The boy, unfortunately, seemed intent on giving it to him anyway.

Piett considered ending the call, ignoring the young nuisance, and hoping he went away. This plan lasted all of two seconds, at which point he realised that, if Lord Vader ever found out what he had done, he might be even more furious with Piett for failing to inform him that his apprentice required his attention. Caught between a rock and a hard place, Piett attempted to supersede.

"Your master is a very busy individual, I'm afraid," he said. "Perhaps I might be able to help you?"

After all, from what limited knowledge he had of children, he knew that they often plagued their guardians with questions about how the world worked. He could answer such questions.

The boy brightened.

"Do you know how to fix droids?" he asked, hopefully.

At this, Piett's own hopes plummeted into the depths. He was going to have to face the krayt in its den, after all, for his knowledge of droid repair extended only as far as have you tried turning it off and back on?

"I—no, I'm afraid I do not."

He considered enlisting the aid of one of the ship's many engineers or mechanics—but quickly scrapped the idea. He couldn't drag another person into going behind their commander's back.

The boy planted his hands on his hips. "Then I still need to talk to my master."

"Very well," Piett sighed. "Leave your commlink on, and I will inform Lord Vader."

Ignoring the beginnings of a headache, Piett tucked the comm into his pocket, straightened his shoulders, and set out for the bridge.

"My lord."

Lieutenant Piett's apprehension was matched only by his determination.

"What is it, Lieutenant?" Vader inquired, as curtly as ever.

"A confidential matter, sir. Devastator has received a call, which it was judged might require your immediate attention."

"Judged by whom?"

Piett remained outwardly steady under Vader's formidable gaze, but the Force gave the lie to his composure.

"Myself, sir."

Another example of the young lieutenant's initiative, Vader observed, with approval.

"Come."

He led Piett to his office. Although the Force grew rife with the lieutenant's nervousness, he maintained his calm façade, even as Vader closed the door and turned to face him directly.

"You may speak freely, Lieutenant Piett."

"My lord, the communication is from a boy claiming to be your apprentice. He—"

He broke off as a slight pressure made itself known around his throat. Fear crept into his eyes, but he raised his chin and continued, a trifle haltingly, "He said that he required your assistance."

Vader did not release him, but neither did he strength his grip. While his first reaction had been to extinguish the young man before he could, intentionally or otherwise, leak word of Starkiller to Sidious, a moment's reflection gave him cause to reconsider. It would not be utterly ruinous for his Master to learn that he had taken a secret apprentice; he had not made very much progress in training Starkiller, and he could find another apprentice, if Sidious required him to prove his fealty by eliminating the boy. He could, therefore, use the existence of Starkiller as a test of Piett's loyalty—for loyal men would be an absolute requirement in days to come, when he would usurp the throne for his Empress.

"You were correct, Lieutenant. This is indeed a confidential matter, and your discretion has been noted. I trust it shall continue."

Piett, silently awaiting his execution, hastened to hide incredulity as Vader released his hold.

"You have my word, sir."

"Good. Give me your commlink."

Piett stifled a cough, handed over his comm, and withdrew with a sharp salute, leaving behind an impression of joint relief and confusion in the Force.

Vader turned the comm's holo back on.

"Apprentice."

"Hello, Master." Starkiller bowed.

"If I had intended for you to contact me, I would have provided you with a comm. Your existence, particularly as regards your position as my apprentice, is not to be known."

"I thought it would be all right, since it's your ship."

"My ship is crewed by the Empire's military, to a member of which your existence is now known. If my Master learns of you, he may order your removal. Prepare yourself for the possibility."

Starkiller's eyes widened, and his lips parted in a silent oh that reminded Vader for some reason of the boy from his dreams. [Luke? Was that Luke he had seen, and talked to? Could it be?]

"Why did you call my ship?" he asked.

"Because I need help."

"You expect me to aid you?"

"No, Master. But my kyber is a little corrupted now, so I… I thought maybe…. All the droid-fixing manuals are too complicated, and how am I supposed to fix PROXY if I don't know what they're talking about?"

"I have neither time nor desire to teach you the intricacies of engineering." Vader must have still been softened from thinking of Luke because, before he quite realised what he was about, he found himself adding, "Look for holos. They will be more intelligible, and the 'net is full of them."

Starkiller blinked. Cocked his head. Blinked again. "Really?"

Vader shut off Piett's commlink.

Not long after her ship entered hyperspace again over Tatooine, Padmé's old comm chimed. Anakin. She was going to have to answer sooner or later, if only to convince the tiny part of her that still wanted to deny the truth. [Maybe silence the part of her that so desperately wanted to help Ahsoka in her quest.] At any rate—she was alone, now, and the twins were safe. She pulled out the comm. It was time.

"Artoo, would you see if you can trace a code, please?"

[Affirmative.]

He rolled over and connected to the device.

"Thank you."

Padmé took a breath, released it, and stood before her holoprojector. Shoulders back. [Hands clasped behind her to hide their trembling.] Mask of serenity in place. Amidala. Before the light could stop flashing, she turned on the comm and stood face to face—mask to mask—with her husband.

He broke the silence that gaped between them.

"Padmé—"

"Anakin."

His hands clenched at his sides.

"That name no longer holds any meaning for me."

"What?" Sith adopted new names, she knew, but she had yet to hear of a Sith completely denying their former identity.

"Anakin Skywalker was foolish, and weak."

"Was? Are you trying to tell me you're not Anakin?" She really wished her voice hadn't wobbled a little at the end of the question.

"I destroyed him." The synthesized voice grew a little quieter than usual, and the inflection a little different, as if he was trying to speak gently. "I am what remains."

Padmé didn't know what to say to that. You're delusional. Or, You're seriously telling me that anytime Anakin did something reprehensible, that was you, not him? Or maybe just, Anakin Skywalker, stop trying to shift the blame to someone else and take responsibility for your actions! In the end, she settled for a simple question.

"Why did you call me?"

"You are alive."

No thanks to you, she thought, fighting to keep her expression neutral. "I am."

"Kenobi hid you from me."

"I hid from the Empire," she corrected.

"There is no reason to continue. There is nothing to stand between us, now."

"You don't think your actions as Palpatine's right hand stand between us?"

"What I do, I do for the good of the Empire. You will come to understand this."

"The good of the Empire is to the detriment of the entire karking galaxy!" Padmé shouted. "How can you fail to see that? What you do, you do for the sake of your own petty vengeance and your doglike devotion to that snake on Coruscant!"

"You overestimate the degree of my devotion. These many years, Padmé, I have had no reason to do other than follow him, but now—"

"Now? Just because I'm alive, now you have a reason to turn on him? Nothing else was enough?"

"Padmé… come with me. Join me, and we will rule the galaxy together, as—"

"As what, Anakin. As husband and wife? Don't make this more of a farce than it already is. I don't even know if you and I still legally married, to say nothing of—anyway, I don't think Naboo has legal precedent for a situation this kriffed-up."

"That is of no account. Our word will be law."

"Our word? Have you forgotten that I am completely opposed to your cause? That, every day, I am fighting to return democracy to the galaxy and to give each of its citizens a voice, while you do nothing but silence them?"

"Where is the purpose in having a voice which no one will hear?" Vader demanded, and oh—he might deny his identity, but Padmé remembered every line of that belligerent stance, had seen it more times than she could count. "Many voices will be lost in the crowd, or they will simply be ignored by those in power."

"Like you?" she asked.

"Like the feeble, squabbling Senate!"

"I—" She shouldn't let herself be sidetracked into arguing politics, especially when it was the same argument they had had so many years ago, but it hurt less than delving into personal matters. "Fine! There's no such thing as a perfect system, but at least we tried! We tried to be fair, and now the Alliance is learning from the Republic's mistakes. I told you that before."

"Anything the rebels devise will be cumbersome and prone to failure. But the galaxy would not need to speak, with you to speak for it."

"Even if being a dictator weren't counter to my every value, it only takes one shot from a blaster, one sip of poison, one explosive charge, to turn a benevolent dictatorship into a reign of terror. How does that fit your picture of order and security?"

"I will protect you."

That was enough to push her frustration to the edge of outrage. "Like you protected me before? Tell me, if I were to speak for the galaxy, what would you do when I inevitably said something you didn't like? Would you try to silence me again, like you did on Mustafar?"

"No! I would never—"

"Don't finish that. You hurt me once. There is every reason to believe you would do so again."

"Padmé—I never intended—"

Vader reached out toward her, and though she knew it was a gesture of supplication, still her hand went instinctively to her throat. She yanked it down and slapped at the holo of his glove.

"Don't!" she said, sharply. "Don't think that I would trust you as far as I can fly without a ship."

"What happened on Mustafar was an error—"

"I'll say!"

"It was a rash error of judgement. The blame was not yours; Kenobi turned you against me."

"No!" she snapped. "You did that. Do you think I don't have a mind of my own? You did it when you killed the padawans. You did it when you killed the younglings. Children, all of them. Innocent. Incapable of defending themselves against a full knight. Or a Sith. You did it when you attacked me. Me. I put aside my principles for you, I offered you a chance when I should have given you a dagger between the ribs—and you choked me for it, and my child along with me! Your child!"

"Because you brought Kenobi to kill me!"

"Oh, for— He stowed away in my ship!"

They faced each other in seething silence and stared together into the grave of what might have been. Slowly, the tension ebbed away from the breaking point. Vader shifted, and tried to dismiss sundry uncomfortable thoughts which his wife's words had conjured.

"Our son," he asked, at last, "what is he like?"

Words came before Padmé could stop them. "He's so sweet, and bright."

And kind and mischievous and troublesome and brilliant, and he reminds me so much of you, sometimes, and so does Leia, and I wish—I wish— But it was no good to wish for a future which had been almost a decade in the ground, so she said nothing more.

Vader thought of the boy from his dreams—his sweet, boundlessly naïve innocence, his chatter about flying, his fearlessness as he accepted him as his father. Hey, Dad?

"I want to meet him, Padmé."

The lull broke.

"And there is little I want less," Padmé replied, anger rising again. "I will not have him corrupted by you. I will not have him abused like your apprentice surely is!"

She was as fierce as she had been in the sands of Geonosis or in the Senate, but it was different, this time. This time, she stood in opposition to Vader. He frowned.

"Luke is my son as much he is as yours!"

"I don't think you want to pick that fight." Her voice sharpened to a dangerous edge. "I birthed him. I raised him. I have dedicated my life to toppling an oppressive regime while trying to give him even a halfway decent childhood! While you—you have been at least half the reason I've had to do it!"

"These misguided efforts will make him weak," Vader accused. "You are raising him for a reality which no longer exists, if ever it did."

"And whose fault is that?" she hurled back. The holo in front of her blurred—no, that was her eyes. Stupid damned tears. She didn't want to cry in front of Anakin now. "Whose fault was it that I had to stand by and watch as everything I had ever worked for was destroyed? You could have stopped it. Don't tell me you didn't have the chance."

"I needed him alive. I needed to save you!"

"And that would be why you strangled me, would it?"

"I did not intend—I love you, Padmé. You are my—"

"Your what, precisely?"

"You are mine."

"And that's the problem, isn't it?" she said, with a bitter laugh. "I didn't want you to save my life at the cost of even one other person's, let alone thousands. You didn't think of anyone else, not even me—you only thought about yourself, and how you were afraid to lose me, like you lost your mother!"

She wrestled with herself, trying to hold back another, more ruthless retort. But the time for civility was past. She stared Vader in the eye as she loosed one final barrage.

"That's not love. It's possession. And there's a word for people who are considered possessions, isn't there, Anakin."

Padmé shut her eyes and leaned against the console. Artoo gently bumped her leg.

[Optical units leaking,] he observed, nudging a tissue into her hand with his utility arm.

"Thanks, Artoo." She rested her free hand on his dome.

[Pilot needs debugging. Hijack, shut down, erase virus, fix bad code, restart.]

"I wish it were that easy."

[Organics are unnecessarily complicated,] he blatted.

"You can say that again." She wiped her eyes and blew her nose. "Did you get the code?"

[Obtained. Bantha brains used substandard encryption.]

"I suppose the second most powerful person in the galaxy thinks the threat of his name is better security than any encryption could provide."

Padmé sank wearily into the pilot's seat. The conversation with Anakin—Vader—whoever the kriff he was—had sapped her mental fortitude, and all she wanted was to go home. Not to the base, nor the Lars farm, nor 500 Republica—no. She wanted blue skies and green hills, she wanted to be surrounded by voices speaking with the cadence of her childhood. Most of all, she wanted her mother, and to be told that everything would be okay. And because her willpower was drained to the dregs, she reached out and changed the coordinates in the navicomp.

[What are you doing.]

"Going home."

Not to see her mother—she wouldn't wittingly compromise her family—but just to walk once more beneath Naboo's sky. To see Varykino, and there to lay to rest those empty husks of old hopes which she had dragged too long in her wake.