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Your name is Obi-Wan Kenobi.
You are a Jedi Master.
You are probably one of the last Jedi Masters alive. Everyone else is dead and it's all because of your former apprentice.
No, you remind yourself, Palpatine was the mastermind of this atrocity. He was the Sith Lord who destroyed the Jedi and ended the Republic. But the fact remains that there is a Temple full of dead children and it wasn't his hands who did the killing. It was Anakin.
Anakin, who is desperately trying to pull himself with his one remaining arm out of range of the deadly inferno behind him. Anakin, who is screaming at you that he hates you until his agony becomes too much and he just screams wordlessly. Anakin, who is burning alive as you watch from the higher ground.
The smart thing to do would be to take Padmé and leave before Palpatine's forces arrive. The merciful thing to do would be to kill Anakin and put him out of his misery. But you can't bring yourself to do either.
Jedi are not supposed to form attachments but you did anyway. Even after everything that he did and everything that happened over these last few nightmarish days, you still love him more than anyone else in the galaxy.
Which is why you can't let him die.
He is still screaming and trying to fight you off but you manage to pull him out of the flames and get him onto the ship. By the time you bring Padmé on board he has slipped into unconsciousness.
There are Jedi techniques that can assist with healing but you never learned them. You reflect that maybe all you are good for is destroying things and that's why you have a dismembered apprentice strapped down in the hold of Padmé's ship.
You set a course for the nearest place with medical facilities, Polis Massa, and hope that you won't be instantly shot upon arrival.
His name is Anakin Skywalker but he keeps insisting that his name is Darth Vader. Other than curses, that’s about all he says to you.
You were initially worried that he would use the Force to try and hurt you or someone else, but he’s still in so much pain that he spends a lot of time unconscious. The medic droids tell you that you probably got him out just in time: any longer and his respiratory system would have been so damaged that he would have needed a mechanical respirator for the rest of his life. Even so, there are burns over nearly 70 percent of his body and he is nowhere near stabilized enough to consider prosthetics.
You want to spend as much time as you can at his side but you also know that Padmé is in labor and you can probably be more useful there. You can’t believe you missed so many obvious signs that she and Anakin were lovers—married, in fact—and, if you’re being honest, you’re a little upset that neither of them confided in you about it. Jedi rules be damned, Anakin needed that kind of stability in his life, and if you had known earlier you could have done something to help.
Something is going wrong with the birth and amid the waves of her pain you can sense through the Force that Padmé is too brokenhearted to fight as hard as she should to stay alive. She keeps calling for Anakin and the droids say that it’s better to wait until they know more about his prognosis before telling her anything, but you tell her anyway: he’s alive, he’s going to live, which means that she needs to live too because they are going to need one another in order to get through what happens next.
You hope it helps. You think that it might.
Their names are Luke and Leia and they are perfect.
You haven’t been around any children younger than the age they are when they are brought to the Jedi Temple, and you didn’t think it was possible for the twins to be so small. Everything about them is just so tiny and you can’t keep yourself from staring at them like they are some kind of impossible creatures, even though every single human (and most other beings) who ever lived started out like this.
You realize that you have just picked up a new pair of attachments.
Padmé has an extremely close brush with death but survives. She is still very weak and most of her attention is taken up by the twins, but she still asks about Anakin. She wants to see him, she wants to show him their children, but no one thinks that is a good idea, even you. Anakin is still too volatile, the medic droids say; he keeps breaking the medical equipment using the Force and swearing that he is going to kill you. Padmé says that she wants to see him anyway. You look at the bruises that Anakin left on her neck and remember the fate of the younglings in the Temple and don’t know how to tell her that Palpatine has twisted his mind so badly that he might attack his own family.
You propose a compromise: it is easy to set up a short-range holo transmission between her wing of the medical facility and his. You warn Padmé that Anakin is still in fairly bad shape and that he might not act the way she is expecting him to act. She says that it doesn’t matter; she believes there is still good in him.
To say that Anakin is not happy to see you is a massive understatement, but the medic droids have finally figured out a way to sedate him enough that he can only cause minimal damage. He still tries to choke you with the Force but he can’t quite focus hard enough to do it, and he abandons the effort entirely when you hold up the communicator and explain why you brought it.
You told him earlier that Padmé was alive but you aren’t sure that he believed you. When she appears in front of him, projected in blue and white, his emotions flare so strongly in the Force that it’s as if he is feeling every possible emotion all at once.
He’s still wearing a temporary respirator over his nose and mouth to control his breathing until he is ready for an intensive course of bacta therapy, but you can hear him fighting its attempts at pushing the air in and out of his lungs in a steady rhythm. You worry that he’s going to hurt himself but you realize that he is actually too overcome at the moment to do anything.
You can tell that he isn’t sure what to do with all of these feelings and the sensation gets even worse when Padmé shows him Leia and Luke. She reassures him that she is all right, that their children are all right, that the horrible vision he had never came to pass. He begs her to come to him but she says that he needs to get better before she can see him in person. His confusion turns to anger when he realizes that she isn’t just talking about his physical injuries, which is when he remembers that you’re still there.
Anakin snarls at you to get out. You leave the communicator in the room with him and go wait outside, listening through the door as they both continue to plead with one another to let them help.
When Padmé finally says goodbye and ends the transmission, you return to retrieve the communicator. You wish that you didn’t have to, because being able to talk to his wife regularly would probably be helpful, but you also know that if you leave the device with him he will figure out a way to contact Palpatine and bring the Empire—because that is what it is called now—down on all of your heads.
As you head back to see Padmé, you realize that she called him Anakin when they spoke and he never corrected her. She may be right that there is still good in him after all.
Yoda might be the wisest Jedi alive (not that there is much competition anymore) but you refuse to agree with him about Anakin.
Yoda thinks that now that Anakin has embraced the Dark Side, it is too late to bring him back. You disagree vehemently. Yoda doesn’t know him like you do; you probably know Anakin better than anyone else except Padmé, and you know that he is still deeply conflicted over what he has done. Yoda wasn’t there the most recent time you came to take the communicator back from Anakin and found him crying: his entire body wracked with sobs as his eyes tried and failed to produce tears. Yoda doesn’t understand that even though Palpatine turned him against the Jedi and filled him with hate, Anakin still loves his wife and still loves his family.
Yoda doesn’t approve of attachments and you argue that Anakin’s attachment to his loved ones might be the only thing that will save him.
Yoda warns you that once Anakin is mobile again, it is almost certain that he will try and return to Palpatine’s side. You counter that Anakin still has a long way to go before he even reaches that point, and by then you and Padmé will certainly have gotten through to him. Yoda says that you are jeopardizing the entire future of the Jedi and you snap back at him that the future of the Order is going to need every Jedi it can get, including Anakin.
You are getting increasingly angry and because of that it takes you longer than it should to realize what he is implying: he thinks that Anakin should die.
You growl at Yoda that if you see him anywhere near Anakin’s room, it isn’t the Sith that he will need to be worried about—it will be you.
Anakin still says that he wants to kill you but at least he has stopped actually trying.
It’s enough progress that you and Padmé agree that it is probably safe for her and the twins to visit him. You stay nearby, close enough to intervene if he loses control; he glares at you when he sees you but for the most part his attention is focused on his family.
You can tell that it’s winding him to do it, because he still needs the respirator occasionally, but he keeps breathing on the skeletal metal fingers of his hand in order to warm them up enough to touch his children without making them uncomfortable. He is fascinated by them, by the fact that they are something he helped create, by the fact that they are part of him. You see how startled he is when Luke opens his eyes and Anakin sees his own blue eyes staring up at him. Leia already has a surprising range of facial expressions and her father actually laughs at one point, saying that he’s seen that exact look on Padmé’s face when she’s annoyed with him.
For a few moments, he almost sounds like the Anakin that you used to know, until he looks at you and you see the same look of hate he gave you on Mustafar. He tells you to leave but Padmé reminds him that your presence here is part of the deal: if you go, she and the twins go too. He hisses that the two of you are conspiring against him, but as time goes on he says it less and less.
The turning point happens when you are out of the room. Apparently Anakin used the opportunity to plead again with Padmé to escape with him back to the Empire, back to where he could protect her and their children. As you near the door, you hear her say that, given all of the horrible things Palpatine ordered him to do, does Anakin really think that Luke and Leia would be safe around the Emperor? That Palpatine wouldn’t raise them to be angry and hateful and loyal to him alone? That he wouldn’t threaten to hurt Padmé or the twins in order to keep Anakin in line?
You stay hidden outside, which means that you can’t see Anakin’s reaction, but you still feel it through the Force: the sudden abyss of horror as he realizes that his wife is right: Palpatine won’t protect anyone. Palpatine was using him. Palpatine lied to him and Padmé and everyone else.
The hatred that you felt from him before returns but this time it isn’t directed at you. The twins wake up and begin crying and you all realize at the same time that they must be Force-sensitive. Then Anakin does something that you haven’t seen him do in what feels like an eternity: he brings his anger under control.
What is left is rock-hard certainty. When you step back into his room, Anakin tells you and Padmé that he knows what to do next: he is going to kill the Emperor.
You sent Yoda away from Polis Massa a while ago, but you contact him again and tell him the plan. He is extremely skeptical but agrees to go along with it because at this point the alternative is hiding away somewhere until Luke and Leia are old enough to be trained as Jedi. He tells you that the twins’ safety should be your top priority, as they are the future of the Jedi, but you know what he is not saying and you tell him to go to hell.
You help evacuate Polis Massa and then you and Anakin set about tearing the facility apart. It is supposed to look as though he finally managed to escape his restraints and went on a rampage before contacting the Emperor. The facility has more than a few cadavers in storage and you put them to good (if gruesome) use, dressing them up as patients and medical personnel, accompanied by as many broken droids as you could find.
You are still seething over your last conversation with Yoda, which makes the task of ripping things apart with the Force oddly enjoyable. After about an hour of this, you catch Anakin's eye while smashing a bacta tank, and realize from his expression that you're tapping into something that you probably shouldn't be using.
You're not sure what to do with that realization but then Anakin gives you the closest thing to a smile that you've had from him in weeks and you no longer care what you might be doing. Maybe it's true that all you are good for is destroying things.
On the other hand, Anakin is still alive, so there is at least one thing that you managed to not completely destroy.
Anakin Skywalker returns to Coruscant as Darth Vader, in name if not in reality.
You probably should be worried about the possibility that Palpatine will twist Anakin back into his minion but you and Padmé know better. Anakin’s relationship with the Light Side of the Force might be a little tenuous at the moment, but using the Dark Side doesn’t automatically mean loyalty to other Dark Side users. Besides, Anakin hates Palpatine more than he hates the Jedi.
Padmé takes the twins to Alderaan and secretly helps Bail Organa and a few others gather the remains of the Committee of 2000 to oppose the Emperor. It takes time, but it is time that Anakin needs in order to arrange things on Coruscant so that the galaxy doesn’t descend into total anarchy the moment that Palpatine is dead.
Padmé jokes that she wished she could have seen her funeral on Naboo in person. Making her facsimile appear to still be pregnant was a nice touch, you think. Palpatine will probably use that against Anakin, to try and break his spirit with the accusation that Anakin killed his wife and unborn child, unaware that Anakin knows that he is lying.
You are supposed to stay on Alderaan with the others but you go to Coruscant instead. You aren’t supposed to be there, not just because the Empire will kill you if you are found, but because any hint of Jedi involvement in Palpatine’s assassination will just incriminate the Order further. Once Palpatine is dead, however, the Empire is going to be like a ship falling from orbit and you have been on enough crashing ships with Anakin to know how he tends to act in those situations. There are too many ways that this can go wrong.
Everything on Coruscant looks like a horrible parody of itself. You try not to look too closely at the remains of the Jedi Temple, which is being torn down to make a palace for the Emperor. You keep out of sight and keep your Force presence hidden while you monitor what used to be the Chancellor’s office.
Anakin is dressed in black and wearing a fairly terrifying mask; if you didn’t know him, you would assume he was a completely loyal Sith apprentice. He knows the timing of events, that the confrontation with the Rebellion—because that is what it is called now—will happen any minute now, but he isn’t making a move against Palpatine and you start to realize that something is going wrong.
It turns out to be you.
Palpatine’s guards try to seize you and fail, but the damage is already done: they know that you are here. You can either flee or stay and you know that it’s not really a choice: Anakin is here and you can’t leave him behind.
The Emperor’s response is predictable: he orders Anakin to kill you.
You know that you are about to die: it is what Anakin has wanted ever since your fight on Mustafar, after all. You aren’t even sure that you don’t deserve it.
Anakin draws his lightsaber and approaches you.
And hesitates.
Palpatine begins to goad him, telling him that you are a traitor, that you cared nothing for him, that you need to die just like all the other Jedi.
You can see that it is starting to work but then Palpatine takes it one step too far and says that, if it hadn’t been for you, Anakin’s family would still be alive.
His false apprentice turns and slashes the Emperor’s throat.
You don’t make a move. You know that Palpatine’s death hasn’t made you any less likely to die here as well.
You know that Anakin is considering a lot of things at the moment, not just your fate. The Emperor is dead and Anakin was his most trusted lieutenant and could very easily take his place. Power over the entire galaxy is right there and he could use it to do whatever he wanted. But you also know that he is thinking about Padmé and his children and what they would think about him carrying on Palpatine’s work.
Quietly, he asks you why you came back. You tell him that you couldn’t just stand aside and watch him burn.
He considers that for a moment, then deactivates his lightsaber and asks you if you have a ship nearby.
Your name is Obi-Wan Kenobi and you live in a Republic again.
The mess takes a long time to clean up; it is amazing how much damage Palpatine was able to do in the few months that he was Emperor.
The Senate gets back to work and elects Bail Organa as Chancellor. He doesn’t seem to enjoy the role and his first action in office is to demand legislation imposing term limits and a vast reduction of the Chancellor’s powers.
The Jedi are no longer criminals but they still aren’t particularly popular or trusted, so the survivors that went into hiding continue to keep a low profile. You hear somewhere that Yoda is trying to rebuild the Order in a more remote location.
Padmé, Anakin, and the twins stay on Alderaan. You know that Padmé is itching to return to public life, but she is technically supposed to be dead and, more importantly, so is Anakin. Either he is the butcher of the Temple or the assassin who killed the Emperor and, either way, vanishing is probably a good idea.
Leia and Luke are growing up and you can tell that Padmé and Anakin are already overwhelmed by the idea of having two toddlers that can use the Force. You offer to help and Padmé accepts.
Anakin is not quite as comfortable with the idea. He warns you that even though he isn’t a Sith, he isn’t a Jedi and will never be one again. You say that you aren’t entirely sure that you are a Jedi either. Somewhere between the war and the Sith and the bloody horrors on Coruscant, something in you changed just like it changed in Anakin and you don’t really know what you are anymore. Jedi are not supposed to have attachments and you are living proof of why, because something in your heart has warped so badly that you care more about a single family than you do about thousands of murdered Jedi.
Whatever the future holds, though, you aren’t walking away.