Hello everyone - I couldn’t just leave it there, so I thought I’d put a bit of a farewell speech at the end, seeing as I’ve never written such an epic fanfic in my life before, and have never had such a popular one, either.

First of all, just a big thank you to you all for managing to read it (unless you happen to be a person like my younger sister, who reads the last page of a story first, then reads the rest, in which case, I’m thanking you in advance). “Eclipse” admittedly started life as a one-off experimental chapter, inspired by several things, but most of all the excluded scene of “Dooku interrogates Padmé” from the bonus “Attack of the Clones” DVD disc. I remember being in a rather bad mood at the time, and I just wanted to write something dark and different - I was trying to think of a way of putting a ‘fanciable’ Dooku on the screen, and thought that it would be a challenge to write a credible scene where the man won Padmé round in a rather sensual way. So I went about writing an alternate interrogation scene, removing all the characters but Dooku and Padmé, and seeing what I could do with them. Once I re-wrote the scene - which is basically this story’s first chapter - that was going to be it; I’d done my little thing and that was that. But I couldn’t leave it there - curiosity asked me what would really happen next.: Where would this all go? And so, enticed by this twisted mystery, I went about discovering the rest of the story. And now, in the words of Gandalf, ‘We come to it at last’ - the end. I published the first chapter on the 25^th January 2003 - you can do the math to work out how long it has taken me to finish. It’s been an on-and-off project, but it hasn’t really left my mind at all for the past two and a half years and has become an inseparable part of my life, consuming me at all times. I’ve had nights where I’ve had to leap out of bed to write a new idea, or I’ve listened to a harmless piece of music, only to be inspired to mould my story to it. If nothing else, I think writing this story has really made me realise the sheer scope of George Lucas’s vision - how the man has come up with his immense story is beyond me; this has been a mere fan fiction and, I can tell you, I’ve been mentally exhausted by it! It truly is much more difficult to create something than it is to criticise it, and I have nothing but the deepest of respect for Mr. Lucas. His films may not please everyone, but they are monuments to his imagination and creativity, and he has inspired me to push myself to the limits in creating my own little “Star Wars” altraverse.

The story has gone from being a short alternate ending to “Attack of the Clones” to being a full-blown bridge between the traditional Episodes II and IV. It’s been rather dark and incredibly risqué, but I do hope that you can see that I haven’t used these taboo situations for the sheer Hell of it; there is reasoning behind each move Dooku made on Padmé, and the same with the evil Anakin of the story’s latter half. And I’ve had to go into the pits of the darkness to be able to come back into the light, so that you can recognise the contrasts.

I’ve got to know my Dooku quite well over the past couple of years and I’m going to miss him. I’ve been carrying him around with me for so long that it’s going to be a tearful separation when I go to put him back into George Lucas’s toolbox, from whence he came. The same goes for Grievous, who turned out to be a little different to his canon counterpart, moody Anakin, sensitive Obi-Wan, eccentric Master Yoda, ingenious Lord Sidious, and of course, Padmé, who has never been a great favourite of mine, but who was my original tool for bringing out Serenn’s villainy, and ultimately for bringing out a whole spectrum of emotions and changes in him. I thank her for letting me put her through so much and apologise to her for having to leave her with such a sombre finale.

What else is there to say? Thank you again to ALL you readers and I hope you found the ending satisfactory. I‘m again sorry for not getting this finished prior to “Revenge of the Sith”, but hey… that was a pretty awesome film and it did help push me along a little more. :)

I must give a few extra thanks to a certain few people who have contributed, with or without knowing, invaluably to my story:

Firstly, thank you to a certain Evil Sith Lady who kindly allowed me to christen my Count Dooku ‘Serenn’ - she came up with the name originally, though she spelt it with one ‘n’ and two ‘r’s, but I couldn’t imagine calling him anything else now!

Thank you also to Skywalker Blue, who I lost around chapter 15 - your reviews were the greatest of inspirations at the start, and I doubt I would have had such gusto for this project without you.

Thanks to both PadawanHAB (who keeps changing her name, so I’m not sure who she is right now) who wrote “Firestorm” and to Kelly B. who wrote “Succumb”, which are two stories that have helped inspire me in one way or another. Also thanks to Riley who wrote the Harry Potter fanfic “Pawn to Queen”, which, though incomplete, also helped to inspire me in several ways; PtQ is a tale about another twisted union, albeit in another fan-universe.

Thanks to Blitzen, who beta-read some of my early chapters - you helped me see some early errors in my writing, and have helped me to improve my writing style on top of that. (I think, anyway.)

Thank you to Kynstar, who’s always been a great supporter of my work and who reviews pretty much as soon as I post each chapter, and the same goes out to my good friend Gabe, who’s as crazy about Dooku as I am (it‘s my turn to have him now, Gabe!). Further thanks go out to Merrymoll who, again, I seem to have lost somewhere along the way (due to a certain Patrician, I believe) and whose own work helped give me the kick to carry on with mine, both my old “A Test of Faith” fanfic and this substantially larger one. Silverwolf47 deserves a mention, too, because she’s been here practically since the beginning, and I admire such loyalty in readers.

I must bow down in respect to Cael Fenton whose enormous and in-depth reviews of some of my chapters have been a huge help to me, and will be a great reference point for me when the Big Edit eventually happens; I’ve never had such intellectually advanced reviews! I bow down to you.

And finally, great thanks go out to Padawanmage who has been a very generous and kind friend - far greater a friend than I deserve - and who has always been ready to write an essay on my each and every chapter, as well as being one of the few people, along with Cael, who’s had guts enough to point out my errors to me; I don’t like to admit when I’ve done something wrong, but I do need to know. Thank you so much.

All that‘s left for “Eclipse“ now is the BIG edit, but I can’t guarantee that’ll be done anytime soon.

Anyway, my final thanks, and I hope to see you all around again soon. If you have any further questions or quibbles about my story, don’t hesitate to contact me - I’ll try and help you out as best I can. My email address is available via my About Me page , or you can find me on Live Journal.

MTFBWY, always!

--Grace (AKA Jurious)