Oh but friend, where would we start?

Canon?  BECAUSE CANON IS PRETTY BAD.

But no, we can do better.

The AU where Vader is the one to walk away from Mustafar and he goes to Padme and takes her in his arms and his Darkness and kisses her and says “anything, anything for you, my angel” and she is faced with a choice: use this weapon who’s come to her hand and trying to save the galaxy from him by conquering it, or take her children, soft fragile corruptible things that they are, and run as far as she can, hoping that the galaxy will be able to save itself while she saves them?

The AU where Anakin, small and alone and barely not-a-slave for more than a breath, has a vision on the ship traveling back from Tatooine, and wakes up screaming his throat raw for…something, and Padme comes and tries to take him in her arms and comfort him–a child-queen responding to the fear of a child-Jedi–and he flinches away like she’s lit him on fire?

The AU where they return to Coruscant and Anakin is turned away, and they go to Naboo and Qui-Gon dies and Anakin is turned away, and away, and away, until he’s lost and powerful and scared and angry, and Padme comes and takes his hand and stares at the Jedi and says “he is Naboo and I will buy out his contract and he will be free” and, surrounded by her handmaidens that night, realizes that she’s responsible for training him how to not drown in the Force and how to be kind and how to be gentle and how to be a free person?

The AU where they’re at war with the Separatists and some rageful clone from the 501st abandons his brothers and turns on his General and does what they had all agreed not to do, and goes to the Jedi Council and says “Skywalker has broken the Code,” and Anakin is cast out, disowned by the Jedi, disgraced in the army, distrusted by Obi-Wan, and Padme may be everything, but even Padme is not enough to replace all those people?

The AU where Padme is what breaks Vader in a whole other way, held like a threat over his head, like a promise just before his fingers, like spun crystal ready to be broken between Sidious’ fingers at any moment?

The AU where nothing changes except that Vader, burned and trapped in a torture-suit and broken to the will of his latest Master, feels a burst of power in the Force and he knows that power, he knows that mind, it’s Padme, Padme is alive and she will understand/forgive/hate/save/kill him, because Padme is stronger than he ever could have been, and Vader tears across the galaxy only to find…children, two children, a baby girl with Padme’s dark curls and his angry stare, a baby boy with his sandstorm-dust locks and her sweet smile, and they are his/hers/theirs/no one’s, but where is Padme?

Or.  Well.  There’s always the AU We Do Not Speak Of.  

Surely emotion is not wicked at its core, young Padme says, surely not, and she reaches out, learns to shape the Force with her passions and her loves and her rages and her laughs, and it is warm and rich and wild and vicious and everything she is (and surely this cannot be the Dark Side), and when she stands on the Tatooine sand and meets a boy who shines like a sun, some part of her mind (the part that’s seen people die because their vaunted politicians took too long to see them suffering, the part that’s seen wars start over petty arguments and diplomatic differences, the part that looks around Tatooine and thinks look at all these suffering people, if only I had the power to save them) says yesssss.  And she reaches out and she takes his hand and she stays in touch and she assures him that no, emotion is not wrong, love is not wrong, Attachment is not wrong, he is not wrong, and one day…oh, one day he comes to her, wild-eyed, with the words of another person on his tongue and talk about Sith, and she does her research and she thinks look at all these suffering people, if only I had the power, and…

Well.  Padme only wants to help.  Surely the ends justify the means.  Surely this cannot be Dark, if it’s to save starving children and wounded soldiers and slaves.

And the Empire rises under the command of its Empress and her iron fist, Darth Vader.