Narrator's POV

Faster than he believed to have ever flown his Starfighter before, Anakin zoomed through the night of Coruscant, similarly to the way the horror rushed through his veins and pulsated his head, throbbing in his ears and whispering to him all the bad things that he could possibly come home to.

Everything he could've ever imagined to have been the worst outcome was what he prepares himself for as he speeds practically in the wrong hyperlane, speeding past angry Coruscant residents as they honk at him, flying by with a whiz of a blur. He was close to snapping his own mechanical hand, wrapping it tightly around the handles of his fighter as his anger increased. His hatred for Demetrious and his fear of what he was to arrive back to at his apartment had completely taken over Anakin, replacing him with a distraught, anxious man who had anger, who had hate, who had fear.

In every minor crevice of his mind was a voice of someone he cared about, speaking to him in a way someone would speak to a child. A vulnerable, afraid child.

Don't let your personal feelings get in the way, lulls Obi-Wan, Anakin's dedicated and trustworthy Master. Anakin grits his teeth when his words fly through his mind in a combusted form with Qui-Gon's voice.

Anakin... Anakin... says the Jedi Master's voice, the symbolic and hearty tone now in a whisper, coaxing him to release his anger.

He couldn't.

Then came his beloved wife Padmé's voice, music to his ears. I truly, deeply, love you...

"No!" Anakin screams through gritted teeth, his anger ripping and tearing through his tough outer shell. He couldn't help himself now; he was aggravated, infuriated, more irate than he'd ever been. His wife's voice pulled something out in him; his fear. His terror for wanting to see her when he got home, his terror of knowing she might not be there.

He was full of anger for anyone who ever dared lay a hand on his family; full of hatred and worry.

But above all, he was terrified. Guilt and horror clouded his mind, sunk his stomach and caused him to be overwashed with nausea and the impulse to break something, to destroy something... someone.

It was sickening, the way he saw himself now, rushing to get home to what might be an empty apartment where there should be life.

Where he needed there to be life.

But with every foot his speeder took in the night of Coruscant, looming closer and closer to his apartment, his heart throbbed in his ears, his forehead condensed with sweat and his stomach churned over and over, all leading up until the apartment came into his view.

His eyes reflected with anger and fear as he parked his fighter with a trembling hand, shaking tremendously and horrifically as he bolts from the speeder, rushing into the veranda.

As though his worry couldn't be worse, his heart sunk inevitably low when there were no lights on in the veranda.

"Padmé!" his voice chokes out, low but choked, raspy and showing hints of tears. In all honesty, he was on the verge of them, fighting back the burning impulse behind his eyes that threatened so strongly to take over.

He hears no response, and enters his apartment without thinking. His head darts one way and the other, scanning the hallway for anything that told him someone, anyone was here... yet, nothing.

No, please, no! His thoughts, in the tone of his once strong and healthy voice, ring through his ears and soul, telling him the worst of what could come.

He had nothing to tell him not to worry; the voices dissipated with his fear, his anger.

Until Padmé appears from around the corner in a nightgown, her hair loose around her glowing face, looking as though something had disrupted her slumber.

"Anakin?" she mumbles, her eyes still adjusting to the sudden light she walked in upon.

He doesn't let her dare say another word and instead brings her into his chest, her ear pressed against his raised and quick heartbeat. Nothing had felt so good in that moment as he wrapped his muscular arms around her, refusing to let her go for moments on end as he rests his head upon hers, kissing it lightly while a tear slips from his eye. He blinks, resisting any other tears, and at last lets her go.

He can't think straight, walk straight nor speak straight as he looks at her, fear clouding his eyes and confusion washing over hers.

"Padmé," he chokes out, and her eyes widen at the sound of his unhealthy voice, "I'm - so glad you're okay. Are - are the children here?" He glances over her shoulder and mutters, "Oh, please tell me they're here - "

"They're here," Padmé whispers, and Anakin sighs of relief, still looking jittery and skittish. "Ani, is - is everything okay? What - what's wrong?"

He ignores her question and circles around her, storming to their bedroom quickly. "Anakin?" she calls after him, following him back to the room.

He begins to walk to the closet, but she throws her arm out in front of him. It slaps across his faintly-burnt tunic and stops him. "What are you doing?" she asks, her voice a shrill whisper as she hopes desperately Anakin hadn't awoken the sleeping children.

Anakin looks at her in her clouded eyes, the same look he gave her when he told her he was lost. When he told her he wanted more, and he knew he shouldn't. But this lasts a split second, this look, then it fades. He turns from her and grabs handfuls of clothes from the closet, tossing them onto the bed.

He snaps in the midst of what he's doing, "You have to leave. You can't stay here."

She knits her eyebrows, watching her frantic husband throw item after item onto the bed, not stopping.

"What do you mean?" she asks, daring to take a step forward. He doesn't seem harmful, he seems distraught. Panicked over something that worried Padmé, though she considered it might just have been nothing.

She balls her fists and rubs her eyes, still adjusting to the light. She looks at him again in confusion. He takes a breath, jagged and rough as he tosses another dress of hers onto the bed, "You have to take Luke and Leia with you. It isn't safe. You have to leave. Now," he stammers, his voice bold and almost starting to scare Padmé.

By now, she was horrified, and she mentions this as she steps forward again, nearing the closet. "Anakin, you're scaring me," she soft-speaks, her voice beginning to sound brash and quiet.

He looks up at her from shoving the clothes into a bag and blinks. She catches a tear slip down his cheek and bites her tongue to keep from crying herself. Something was really bothering him.

"I - I'm sorry," he chokes, "But it isn't safe here anymore. You have to take the children, and go to Naboo - "

"Ani, at least tell me why it isn't safe..." she whispers, nearing him delicately, gently, softly. She brings her hand to his chest, touching him lightly, batting her eyelashes sadly before him.

He looks down on her, his height overwhelming, and he swallows. "Demetrious," he croaks, bringing a shaking hand to her curls and stroking them behind her ear. He brings his voice to a whisper, and leans closer to her like he did the day after the Chancellor's rescue, the day they saw each other again at long last. "She wants Luke."

Padmé's eyes search his, darting back and forth from one eye to another. She scanned him for any source of a lie, but she could tell he was telling the truth. She bites her lip at a loss for words, letting Anakin speak again. "She - she wants him for his power, as an apprentice," Anakin chokes out, in the best voice he could manage that wasn't a sob.

Padmé slides her hand from his chest up to the back of his neck and rubs it gently, her fingers locked in his waves of hair as she twirled them anxiously, her warm hand still against his tensed neck. "How do you know?" she asks, wondering if she even dared to know.

He holds her petite head in his flesh hand now, trying to prevent his hand from shaking any more than it already was. He's silent for a moment, which increases the tension in Padmé, but he continues.

"She... she told me. On Kamino."

Padmé swallows hard and shakes her head like she did when she was worried, afraid. "We - we can't let her take him," she chokes, a sob working its way to the front of her throat.

"I know," Anakin responds sternly, coldly. He was afraid too. "I'm not gonna let that happen, Padmé, I promise you."

She nods now, curling her lip as she cries. She embraces him now, pressing her head against his chest as he tries with all his might not to break out in a sob.

She pulls away after a short time and snaps back to reality, looking in his eyes intensely. "We... have to go now," she murmurs, her eyes darting beyond Anakin to the bed where he frantically tossed her clothes. In this instant, she didn't care whether he messed a dress or two of hers, perhaps wrinkling it. He was worried, and so was she.

"You need to," he stutters, releasing his arms from around her and beginning to leave the room.

He stops in the doorway when Padmé starts, "Anakin - you have to come with us."

He let out a shallow breath, turning to her and mustering lowly, "Don't ask me to do that. You know I can't."

"But Anakin - "

He doesn't let her finish, and instead leaves the room to retrieve his children. He intended they would go to Naboo, somewhere they would be safe. Demetrious didn't know Padmé was from Naboo and probably wouldn't think to check there, her home planet... or would she?

Anakin didn't know. All he did know was that it was much safer there than Coruscant, and if being without them for an extended amount of time meant a guaranteed safety, he was willing anything.

His children rested soundly, unaware of everything that was going on. They were barely half a year old, still very little and confused about the world, but Anakin sensed how special they were. And he knew very well just how important they were to Demetrious, especially Luke. How important they could be. He knew that from her eyes, his children meant everything - more power, higher authority, someone to mirror the iron fist rulings of the Empire - someone she needed.

Luke could potentially grow to be someone very important, very strong willed and strong-minded, and he would be used for the Order, not the Sith. Anakin couldn't bear the thought of Demetrious taking his son from him, separating their connection and their bond that Father and Son would always have.

No. He would never let anything happen to them. He wouldn't be able to live with himself.

When he retrieved the children, thankfully joined by Padmé eventually, he realized how much it would truly hurt to be without them for so long. But he knew they would be safe on Naboo, away from harm, away from Demetrious.

Once he had realized that Kyla was just a monster now, everything came together for him. She was gone; this Demetrious was just another Sith Lord with Kyla's face. Not her soul anymore, not her heart. But with every step he took, every new movement to protect his family, he envisioned everything he had told her in the past.

His padawan had met his children. His padawan knew where they lived, where they thrived. She knew their names, how old they were, when they born. She could sense their power. Their qualities that made them who they would turn out to be.

Just thinking back upon everything he had told Kyla, everything she had encountered regarding his babies, made his stomach flip on a continuous loop. How could he have been so stupid to be so open with her?

Then he thought he shouldn't blame himself for that. Anyone would've done the same thing; trusting their padawan with their personal life. She had no one to tell that she trusted more than Anakin himself, but now that she had completely turned against Anakin, she still withheld the knowledge of his secret family...

... and could tell the whole galaxy.

He couldn't risk being expelled from the Order. Padmé couldn't risk being kicked off the Senate. Neither of them had even thought about Kyla's knowledge, how much she really knew about them - and now that they did, it hurt. It hurt with a pain they did not yet recognize because it was uncanny, unrealistic. Untruthful. Maybe Demetrious only wanted his children for their power, not to expose them to the galaxy.

The thing that hurt Anakin the most was that, no matter how dead Kyla Valero might have been, she would prove herself to be truly gone if she were to expose Anakin's family.

He prayed she would never do such a thing.

But he knew she would.

He knows she will.

A/N: Brief chapter, I know I know. However, things are a bit boring as of right now, and they're going to stay this way unless I kick something up a bit...

So don't be surprised if the next chapter starts somewhere, oh, I dunno, two or three years later?

It's a big jump, but the main thing we're focusing on is the age of Luke and Leia. If they're just babies when everything breaks loose, it wouldn't be as exciting as it would be if they can talk, if they can understand more about what's going on.

So, if I do boost the next chapter by saying *Two years later* or so, just know that everything BESIDES the babies' age are basically the same. Meaning nothing really happens with Demetrious' Empire, Padmé and the children are still safe, nobody undergoes any real physical changes (lol) and so on, so forth.

BUT I'm still not sure if I'm going to do anything major like that just yet.

Thanks for reading!

- Claudia