Mine Alone

Chapter 3

Padmé's view on Anakin -- ROTS.

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How can this be? How is it possible for my life to be falling apart so completely in a matter of days? It has not been long at all since Anakin returned to me after months away and Obi-Wan comes to me with these accusations! He tells me that Anakin has turned to the dark side. How can that be? My Ani?

It's a lie, it has to be. I don't know why, but he is lying to me. He has to be, because my Ani would never....

The Tusken Raiders. I recall his rage from that day not too long ago and shudder as I change clothes. I'll go to him, that's what I'll do. I'll go to him and he'll tell me it's all wrong, that none of it is true....

But I remember so many little things that support Obi-Wan's words. The impatience I've seen, the arrogance and the anger. Yes, I've witnessed the anger.

My hands falter and I pause a moment to stroke my belly and force my resolve to strengthen. It's all a lie. My Ani would never do those things and I'll prove it to myself. I'll go to him on Mustafar and he'll hold me like he always does. He'll run his hands along my back in a gentle caress and shake his head. I'll see nothing but love in his eyes as he tells me Obi-Wan lied. My Ani will tell me that nothing has changed between us and around us and that I'm being silly, letting these pregnancy hormones get the better of me.

...the women and the children...I slaughtered them like animals....

I don't understand. How is it possible? Ani is my rock, the one I cling to. He can't be what Obi-Wan says, because if he is....then what is left? Democracy has died, slaughtered like those Tusken Raiders that day. I cradle my head in my hands during the trip, my temples throbbing with tension. The baby is active, kicking and twisting and no amount of gentle pats stops it.

What if it's true? The idea is abhorrent, but I consider it anyway. If Obi-Wan told the truth, then what happens now? I don't know. I can't bear to think on it long, so I set my hopes on my imaginings. A lie, that's all it was.

I cannot help from running to meet Ani the second the ramp is down.

He holds me and for a moment, I think I'm right, that all will be well between us. Liberty may have died, but we will always have each other. He will get me through these uncertain times. Then his words sink in and I can only stare at him with disbelief for what I'm hearing. I try to talk sense into him, but he isn't listening, he doesn't hear. Please, Ani, your love and nothing else! Listen to me!

There is a greedy fervor to his voice that makes my skin crawl. No. No, this is all wrong. It can't be. I don't understand! It's truth, all of it. The inconceivable has become my reality. Where is my Ani? Where is the gentle man, the good man, the man I love? I thought I saw him for a moment....

The impossible arises: He is choking me.

I feel pressure, my throat closing. Oh Ani, please stop!

In those few seconds, I see our lives together. I hear my rational words to him by the fireside and my impulsive pledge to him when I'd thought we were to die. We had lived that day and I had willingly joined with him in a second lie. We could be happy. We could make our love work. That second lie I told us both finally rips apart under the stress of what is before me. There was no happily ever after. He had put truth to words when he said it would destroy us.

How did we come to this pass? We were so hopeful; I was so hopeful.

I was his and his alone and he chokes me? He believes the worst? Ani, no! My eyes are opened at last to the darkness inside him, the veil of ignorance I'd pulled over my face torn free.

My eyes close and consciousness leaves me. When I wake, it is to a twilight state, neither here nor there, sleeping or waking, and trapped in this nightmare. The pieces of my world crash about me in slivers and jagged boulders. Pain takes me.

I sob, aware that time has come to have my baby. Our baby. Mine and Anakin's. Obi-Wan is with me and I sob a bit more to think that he was right. My Ani had done those things. How could it have come to this?

Two? I'm birthing twins? Joyous to be sure, but the reality does not bolster my flagging will. How strange to want to live, to see my children and fight for my Ani, yet at the same time have no will at all. It's as though I'm alive now on borrowed time and it is quickly running out. A sense of urgency takes me. I can actually feel the strength leaving my limbs. My legs slacken, my hips relax. It's like a wave sliding up my body and I am drawn to memories of swimming on Naboo. The peace, the cradling embrace of the water around me....

I have to tell Obi-Wan. I have to tell him the certainty I still hold after all that has transpired.

Don't give up on Anakin. He's still good. He is. Make him see, Obi-Wan.

I try to say the words, to get them out, but the wave crashes over me. I am being forced from my body and have a fleeting moment of remaining consciousness.

I believe in you, Ani. I was yours and yours alone. I love you.

And then, I can't breathe.

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Chapter Four:

Anakin's view -- ROTS

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Nothing and no one will take her from me. That was the vow I made to myself on our wedding day. I would be her everything. I would protect her and keep her from harm, my cherished wife. I did cherish her. The memory of her kept me going, companioned me in the late night hours.

What have I, Anakin, done? Even now I cannot comprehend. It hurts to much to think that I....

I once told her that when I wasn't with her I couldn't breathe. How unknowingly prophetic those words said by a fireside! My chest aches, my lungs burn and what have I now? I have a suit that keeps me alive, cybernetic limbs that are awkward to me and memories of her that haunt my waking and sleeping hours. I don't rest, but when I do, I dream of her disbelieving face and those eyes begging me to stop.

What have I, Anakin, done? No, not me. Not me, no. I'd never hurt her. What have I, Vader, done?

I could breathe, but she couldn't. I took her breath from her with a squeeze of my hand. Hurting her, killing her.

I put my head in my hands. When the hour is late and the fiery rages I feel have temporarily cooled, my face is wet with tears for what my end has become. Would that I could be an innocent child once more, unaware of the things that later came to define me. I want to go home and I can't. Home is denied me. This is my life, who I have become, whether I wish it to be or not.

This is my fate, to feel the aching loneliness of life without her for the rest of my life. The years stretch out before me, icy and long. I cannot be Anakin and Vader both, for how can Anakin live with what he allowed Vader to do? Let me die, Vader. Rise in my place and erase me, for I do not wish to remain without her.

I did everything for her. She was mine and I threw her away. She was mine alone....

And now I am alone through no actions save my own. I killed her and to be without her.....

I can't breathe.