Time Retreating

Author's note: This chapter is very short, but it had to be... you'll see what I mean. I would like to say, however, that even though it's short - I'm very proud of this piece. I think it finally evolved the plot to where I want it to be and it set part 4 up nicely. I'm already working on part 4 so you wont have to wait long. Thanks for all those people who have been reading this so far.


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Time Retreating
Part 2

A memory is what is left when something happens and does not completely unhappen.
~Edward de Bono

I stayed there - crouched on the floor of my room sobbing and hugging myself - for a long while. It felt as though I had lost the thing most to dear to me in my life...

You never had it to begin with... An evil voice mocked from within.

I felt empty and cold and, at that moment, I did not know if I would ever feel warm again. The feeling of utter anguish was sickening and it made it difficult to breath. While I had never felt anything as painful... it felt almost familiar. A horrible feeling of loss racked my body - and I could not shake the feeling that I had felt this way before. Scrambling for some sense of what was real, I stood up, and with my violently shaking hands I unlatched the door. Opening them I immediately felt the cold rush of wind begin to dry the tears from my face. I needed that. I needed to feel something that I knew was real. Something that I knew would not be torn from underneath my feet leaving me to feel helpless and confused. I swallowed and stepped out in to the night on to the balcony. The stars shimmered over the lake - and it was beautiful. I slowly walked to the balustrade...

Peering in to the dark water I could see my face and the haunted expression it held. I felt the tears begin to well up in my eyes again as I wondered irrelevantly why all this was happening to me. Why did I look like her? Why? Why were these... dreams? Memories of a life that did not belong to me? ... why was I the one they had chosen to torment? Why had this retreat seemed to dig it’s nails so deeply in to my flesh? None of it seemed fair. I was nothing more than a child and ill equipped to deal with such emotions. I closed my eyes against the sight of my reflection and climbed on to the bottom stone rail of the balustrade. If this damned place and the things that haunted it wanted me so badly... it could have me.

Forever.

I took a deep shuddering breath as I swung my legs over the rail. I opened my eyes to once more peer in to my other set of eyes that rippled slightly in the water... and I was ready to glide in to meet them. If I could not drown in Anakin’s eyes as I had wished... then I would drown in my own.

Padme...

The word rose softly to my ears as though the wind had whispered it to me. I shuddered slightly as an image of Anakin gently running his hand over my arm and back swirled around in my head. The rail I was sitting on... this had been the first place we kissed.

We?

Yes... I had been wearing a bright yellow dress that faded in to pink. My sister, Sola, had done my hair in to a beautiful swirl that wrapped in toward the nape of my neck. Anakin... he’d been wearing his refugee garb up until then. That day he was wearing his jedi uniform... and I recalled quite clearly how handsome I thought he was either way.

My eyes widened as the truth finally settled in...

That first day here at the retreat... I had not imagined the young couple. I was remembering.

My breathing became wild and uncontrollable. I grasped at the rail as I tried to swing my legs back over. I had to think. I had to figure things out... but I was unsteady, and slipped easily in to the cold, dark lake.

As the water enveloped me a rush of memories consumed my mind. Something had opened the floodgates and they would never be closed again. I remembered everything. Our first embrace. Our first kiss. Our first declaration of love. Even the first time we had ever set eyes on each other. He’d been just a young slave boy - and I, a young queen. He asked me that day if I was an angel... I didn’t know that I was to become his angel...

The memories continued to ravage my weak thoughts...

Our wedding day... our wedding night. The image of him gliding gently inside me for the first time was nearly overwhelming. I saw, in my mind, the day that Anakin had to leave me for the first out of many times. We would be forced to spend months and months apart without any solace or comfort in each other. Our love was such a deep burning secret that threatened to consume us in it’s unforgiving flames at all times...

But there were much darker memories as well...

Images of Anakin’s mocking smile and his eyes narrowed angrily at me swam to the surface. There had been times where he seemed to hate me... where he seemed to want to hurt me - just as he hurt inside. Even in the beginning, there had been something ominously dark about him. I had been blind. His descent in to darkness had begun long before Palpatine had aided him down further. I had been his only light, and the thought of losing me pushed him over the edge in the horrible precipice that had sealed both our fates. The sickening feeling of loss had felt so familiar to me, because I had felt it before... the first time I lost Anakin. He was to become Lord Vader... and I was to die.

Anakin Skywalker had been my husband and I had loved him more than anything in all the worlds combined.

Pernea Folari all but faded away... as Padme Naberrie Skywalker was born again.