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"What is this?"
The question slips from his hidden, scarred lips. Darth Vader prides himself on being knowledgeful and unshakeable. But this? He has no words, and a part of himself is horrified.
"Ah, this is my gift, my apprentice," his master, slaver, Palpatine coos in his oily voice as he lifts a pale, disfigured hand to point into Vader's chambers. "You have been ever so loyal, and I have given you a most thoughtful gift."
The woman - no, girl - in the room trembles, the thin white dress that clothed her doing nothing to warm her up. She had dark brown hair, her face painted white with red dots on either side of her cheeks and upper lip.
She looks just like his Angel, when he first met her. He stares into the stolen visage of his wife.
"How?" He half-demands, half-asks between every loud mechanical fuelled breath.
Palpatine turns to him, his smile full of yellow teeth and yellow eyes. Under his hood, he looks like a child's nightmare come true. He seems pleased with himself.
"I employed the Kaminoans and their cloning techniques. She is yours to use as you see fit. Maybe you will finally father a child from her womb." Palpatine says, poison in his voice. He is not subtle with wanting a mouldable heir, be that from his own failed genes or through Vader.
"Thank you, my master." Vader says, looking down at Palpatine. Palpatine nods, already turning away, his red clothed guards following at his heels like puppets.
He turned to look at the girl, who was shaking with terror. "Master," she bowed and Vader's heart, one he thought destroyed years ago, burned away in fire and betrayal, throbbed in pain at her submissive actions (Padme would have never bowed to anyone, even when her planet was in peril).
He raised a hand, pointing at the girl. "No, I am not your master." He said, using his long stride to cross the room, looming over the terrified clone.
"I was made for you," she whispered. "Made to satisfy your every needs, to be a humble servant, mother of your children."
Vader froze. Did Palpatine think so little of him that he would force himself on a young girl, clone or not, to try to replace his lost family? Disgust rose in the back of his throat, and Vader tried not to snarl in anger, lest he terrify the clone further.
"What is your name, young one?" He instead asked, voice booming even when he tried to soften his tone.
Her dark, young eyes stared up into his through a red haze. "My name is PA-1."
"Would you like a name, young one?" He asked, watching as she bit her lip in thought.
"If you allow it." She finally answers, and Vader vows to change it. He will not have anyone who looks like his Angel be cowed.
"How would you like...Angel?"
"Angel?" She asked, her eyes finally gaining a spark that Vader will try to feed. He will not be a slave master. He will not. Not to a clone of his Padme. She nods her head, smiling, cheeks creasing and raising the carefully painted red dots on them. "My name is Angel. What is your name, if you are not 'Master'?"
Vader paused. "In public, my name is Darth Vader. But in private, my name is Anakin. Anakin Skywalker."
Angel beamed at him, and it was like he was a child all over again, asking the strange girl if she was an angel from the skies. He hoped Padme would approve of his treatment of her clone. Angel was a gift, yes, but Vader - Anakin - liked to think it was from Padme herself.