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“Hello again, Rey,” Anakin says. The girl turns around.
“Hello,” she says. “What are you doing here?”
“Anakin laughs.
“It’s the first chance I’ve had to get you alone,” Anakin says. “I don’t want you spinning in circles and questions. That doesn’t turn out well… so, any questions?”
“Who am I?” Rey asks. “Was Kylo telling the truth.”
Anakin sighs.
“Well, I guess you could say you’re my sister,” he says. “Your parents, or, at least, the people who raised you… my grandson’s story was largely true. He just forgot to mention that your biological father is the Force.”
Rey shoots him a disbelieving glance.
“That’s not possible.”
Anakin just shrugs.
“I had trouble believing it, too,” he says. “Especially compounded with the title of Chosen One.”
“What…”
Anakin just shakes his head.
“Well, this is still going better than Bespin,” he mutters (though it’s not hard to be better than Bespin as far as familial reveals go) before saying loud enough to be heard by the living, “Like I said, I guess you could say you’re my sister. You’re not the only Force Baby.”
Rey hmms.
“I… I almost saw something in the mirrors, on Ahch-To,” she says. “Was that you, then?”
Anakin nods.
“Yes,” he says. “It was… but you aren’t meant to tie yourself to the past, Rey. That was the undoing of me, and the Jedi, and my son… learn from it, yes, but not repeat it.”
“So what does Darth Vader think of the Jedi, then?” Rey asks.
Anakin sighs. (Good enough at ignoring the Vader title, now, that it doesn’t make him flinch visibly.)
“They were stupid,” he says. “My Fall was one mistake of many. They took young children from their parents, treated passion as a curse and love as a tool of destruction… without my Master, and my Padawan, my Fall May very well have been a much simpler thing… Luke reformed the Jedi Order, but he had no idea how deep their mistakes ran, and, when he did finally confront it, he couldn’t take it.”
“How did Kylo Fall?” Rey asks, and that one is honestly too many issues to think about, but he’s here to explain, not to make the Force ripple with his trauma.
“Many people made bad calls,” he says. “That’s typically the start. Captain Solo and General Organa cared for him lovingly, and Snoke, like… Sidious, Snoke grew close to him… then he was sent to the Jedi Academy, and the other Students were cruel, until they became lackeys. They thought that Luke might give him preferential treatment, which Luke would never do… hilariously, Kylo thought the same, and i belive that he may well have already been a spy when i warned Luke… but, out of respect for General Organa, I kept my distance.”
He knew the feeling, but Kylo had hungered for what Snoke offered in a way that Anakin couldn’t understand.
“And… the day he Fell?” Rey asks. Anakin sighs.
“A very cruel trick that Snoke picked up from the Sith,” he says. “Luke… I hadn’t wanted to tell him, and he’d reacted… negatively , to sensing Snoke in Ben’s mind. And that was with barely scratching the surface… now, Kylo is paying the price for Snoke’s death.”
“What price?”
Anakin laughs, sarcastically.
“That,” he says. “Is a complicated question. Snoke established, very young, a… very terrible thing called a Leach Bond, exactly as terrible as it sounds. When they break, well… I had one, once, with Sidio- the Emperor. It can break your mind.”
And What was left of his body.
Rey sighs.
“Of course,” she says. “Can… can he really still be reached?”
Anakin just looks away, the golden future seeming less likely and harder to believe by the day.
“I used to hope so,” he says. “I doubt it, though… But, on a happier note, I can semi confirm your own success, and that of the Resistance.”
Rey sighs.
“But there are so few of us,” she says.
Anakin smiles.
“Don’t worry,” he says. “More are on the way… and, there’s one more thing I need to tell you.”
Rey sighs.
”What?” She asks. Anakin laughs.
“Don’t worry,” he says, “It’s not a bad thing.”
And he shifts his form to the one she’d known as a child.
Rey stares.
”…Ani?” she asks. Anakin sighs.
”I’m sorry,” he says. “I tried to help as best as I could. But I hope that I taught you enough…”
”I’ve missed you,” Rey says. Anakin just smiles. “I never truly left you, Rey. You just didn’t need me anymore.”
Rey smiles.
”Well, thank you, Ani,” she says.
Anakin laugh.
”You’re welcome, Rey,” he says. “And You’ll see me again soon.”
And, for now, he returns to the Force.