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“If I ever see you near me or my family again,” Leia says. “I will find a way to put you in the deepest Corellian hell right where you belong!”
And Anakin… Anakin just sighs. He supposes that he’s not surprised.
Leia has every right to hate him.
But Luke wants him to try, so he does, every time his son calls on him. It’s just… he’s tired.
And he doesn’t even… he doesn’t even bother to give another not-and-never-good-enough apology before fading far away and into the Force.
And he drops. He’s tired. So tired. So many twisting paths of fate that he can’t explain to the living and only scream in frustration as, every day, more and more paths seem to go darker, longer…
Maybe it would be better if he’d just… never existed.
“Is that really what you think, little brother?”
Anakin looks up, for all that there is an up while incorporeal.
“Brother,” he says. The man smiles.
“Hello,” he says pulling a stray lock of curly purple hair behind his ear. “I take it nothing changed with Leia?”
Anakin laughs.
“Why would it?” he asks. “And it’s true. All I’ve done is bring pain to everyone I’ve loved, everyone who’s trusted me.”
His brother laughs.
“Perhaps,” he says. “But perhaps not. Would you like to see?”
…What?
“I have been here for close to 900 years, Anakin,” his brother says. “I know things that you still cannot imagine.”
Anakin hmms.
“Like what?”
His brother solidifies and Anakin takes it as a cue to do the same. His brother holds out his hand.
“Take my hand,” he says. “And I can show you a world where you never existed.”
And Anakin, well… he does wonder…
He takes his brother’s hand.
And the world fades to white.
——•——
He falls to the ground with a thud. Ouch. He hasn’t truly felt anything in… three years. And before that it had been nothing but pain for over 20 years, but… well, now the pain is fading in seconds. He pulls himself to his feet and glares at his brother.
“You could have warned me the landing would be rough,” he says. His brother just laughs.
“I am allowed to have fun, you know.”
Funny. He hadn’t known. Who’d have thought that his own brother had been considered uptight in comparison to Yoda ?
Whatever.
“Where are we?” Anakin asks, gazing out at the water surrounding the dock they had landed on. Clear and blue. And a moon, judging by the planet in the Sky…
“We’re on Rori?” Anakin asks. His brother nods.
“Yes,” he says. “The new capital of Naboo.”
“…What?”
His brother sighs.
“29 years ago,” he says. “The planet of Naboo, already war-torn from over a year of fighting with the Trade Federation that left still-visible scars, was wiped out by the release of a new, airborne strain of the Blue Shadow Virus. The people’s hero, Senator Amidala, died while trying to discover what disease had been plaguing them.”
No…
Anakin drops to the floor.
“She’s still dead?” he asks. His brother closes his eyes, sadly.
“Yes,” he says. “And today is the anniversary. Come.”
And Anakin, helplessly, blank, and broken, follows after him.
Even without him, Padme had died. And MILLIONS of others had, as well.
——•——
“There’s a lot of Imperial symbols everywhere,” Anakin notes. Even more than he remembers from many frequent “missions” to Naboo that had really just been reminders of what he’d done, to keep him in line.
His brother nods.
“The Republic was never there in Naboo’s times of need,” he says. “And the Separatists nearly destroyed them. The Naboo moons are some of Emperor Palpatine’s strongest supporters.”
Are?
“Sidious is alive?”
His brother just shrugs.
“Without you and Luke, he wasn’t destroyed on the second Death Star,” he says. “Nor was there even a need for a second one.”
What?
“The Death Star continues to spread terror,” his brother continues. “And any small, weak rebellion has been destroyed.”
Anakin sighs.
“Is anyone that I loved still alive?” he asks.
His brother sighs.
“The 501st were different troops, with a different General. Captain CT-7567 remained with the 212th,” he says. “Without you, he never became Rex, again. He never investigated the chips when Fives died. Not that Fives ever discovered them in the first place.”
Oh… oh…
Then Anakin sees it. The crowd.
It’s the Empire Day parade.
It’s too risky to say any more here.
“You can tell me the rest later,” he says.
The parade is… disgusting and horrifying as people cheer for their local Moff, a different one than he knows from his universe. Stormtroopers parade.
The crowd begins to fill the streets, to go to town center for Sidious’ speech.
“Do you want to watch?”
Anakin sighs.
“We’re already here,” he says. “Let’s see what he’s done.”
His brother sighs.
“As you wish,” he says, but he pulls his hood further down. Not surprising with the xenophobic way the Empire ran. Or, rather, how the Empire runs, here. Anakin grips his hand.
They make it to the square, and Standing behind Sidious is…
“Ventress?”
His brother shakes his head.
“Lady Saziven,” he says. “Or, Lady Conqueror. She was this Sidious’ best option. And, like you, she clings to those she’s loyal to. And she’s not broken, as Vader was.”
Anakin instinctively grabs his left arm where Obi-Wan had cut it, remembers writhing in the dirt at his body was consumed by flames. Far less than he deserved.
Then Sidious speaks.
The speech surprises him exactly none. Same bantha kark that he remembers. The glory of the Empire. The faults of the Republic, the uselessness of rebellion, and the uses of enslaving nonhumans. Especially Twi’lek and non-humanoid nonhumans. He feels sick.
But… he isn’t surprised. Eventually, it’s too much, he pulls on his brother’s hand that he still hadn’t let go of.
“Come on,” he says. “Let’s go.”
——•——
His brother teleports them across the Galaxy to some sort of Inn in the Outer Rim to keep talking.
”You’re Mother was still killed by the Tuskens,” his brother begins. “Though they did live, in this life. I… I am sorry. You know how I died…”
Insanity. After his brother’s brother had died. The humanoid sighs.
“And… I know this doesn’t matter to you,” says. “But Yoda died some years before his death in our timeline. He had nothing to fight for. And, just the same as our timeline, and despite contacting Qui-Gon, he… I couldn’t reach him, and Obi-Wan… you helped him grow in many ways, brother, so he wasn’t on Utapau, when the war ended. He was killed.”
Anakin sighs, looking down.
“At this point,” he says. “With all that you’ve told me… I’m not surprised… and Ahsoka?”
Now, his brother finally smiles.
“Without you, she was apprenticed to Plo Koon,” he says. “When she was wrongfully accused, however, she ran. Nobody found her until after Order 66. In this world, too, she was found by Bail Organa. Han Solo, Chewbacca, and Lando Calrissian Have also found their ways in. The Rebellion has fallen, but it’s set to rise again. All it needs is a little hope.”
…what?
Oh.
“You brought me here for a reason,” Anakin says. His brother’s smile turns wicked.
“Can you do it?”
Anakin just laughs. He’s the best star pilot in the Galaxy. Of course he can.
He’s going to destroy the Death Star.
——•——
Here’s how it goes. First, the Force echoes. A smaller wave of death, but it is one, nonetheless.
Here’s how it goes. A few hours later, Ahsoka Tano finds herself face to face with a human that she doesn’t know, but also does, in a way she can’t describe.
Here’s how it goes. He gives her a data chip, tells her to spread it everywhere.
Here’s how it goes, she does.
It’s a message, and here’s how it begins.
“People of the Empire,” it begins. “My name is Anakin Skywalker, son of a slave and a universe. You don’t know me, but I just destroyed the Death Star. And Force do I have some things to tell you…”
Here’s how it ends.
Hope.
——•——
“Still think that the Galaxy is better off without you?” his brother asks. Anakin sighs.
“I guess not,” he says. “But that doesn’t excuse anything that I did or allowed done.”
His brother laughs.
“No,” he says. “But I failed you in life. At least let us both know that you still did good. And it kept you from wallowing here for a month.”
Anakin smiles. They’d been in the other universe for days, but it had been a month in this, the Core Universe.
“I guess so,” he says.
Then he looks through the future of his timeline.
“I hope so.”