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Published:
2020-01-11
Completed:
2020-04-03
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2/2
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What candles may be held

Summary:

The confrontation on the second Death Star goes devastatingly wrong.

Notes:

This story was inspired by this fantastic artwork by thebixo on tumblr. This idea has haunted me for a very long time, I have no idea why. Upon seeing the reception it got on tumblr, I decided to post it here too. I hope you enjoy.

Many thanks to SpellCleaver for suggesting me title ideas from Anthem for Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen.

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
— Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

One moment there was light and screeching power and horrifying screams, a hand held out towards him, a boy sobbing and pleading for help.

The next there was silence.

Vader blinked, disoriented, a weight sinking in his stomach as his eyes adjusted to the loss of the blinding light. Darkness entombed the room once more, and for a second there was relief in it.

Then, through the clearing smoke, his eyes fell on the shape of the boy lying curled up next to the shaft.

The Emperor let out a long and heavy sigh. His gaze too was set on the young Jedi, a sad smile on his lips, something like pity in his eyes. The darkness around him, however, was moving in triumph and satisfaction, a sinister celebration that suffocated Vader.

Luke was still and silent.

No, Vader thought, staring at his son. No, that cannot be.

He was just unconscious. He was still alive, he must be, his heart couldn’t have stopped…

“What a shame,” the Emperor said. His words were quiet, so quiet after the deafening sound of Luke’s agony, and Vader barely heard him over the haunting echoes in his head. “You were right, my friend. He had great potential. It grieves me that he couldn’t be made to see reason.”

Empty words, false words. His lie rang through the Force, so dissonant with the absolute victory he felt, the thrill of power he was still high on.

Vader saw red. Devastating rage inflamed his mind and the blood in his veins. Before he could think, a lightsabre was in his remaining hand and its green light plunged into the Emperor’s guts.

He didn’t get to desecrate his son’s death that way, didn’t get to call Vader friend after murdering his child before his eyes, didn’t get to smile about it –

Vader slashed at him once, twice, thrice more, overwhelmed by horror and outrage. The Emperor’s remains fell to the ground before he could raise his hands to attack, next to Luke’s body, and that was already too much. Vader kicked them into the shaft.

Then he deactivated the lightsabre, and there was silence again, heavy and stifling.

Luke was still lying on the deck. His eyes were closed, his mouth slightly open, his face too pale in the cold starlight. He looked so very thin and small in his dark, charred outfit.

The weapon slipped from Vader’s fingers, and he fell to his knees next to his son. His respirator was too loud in his ears, the only sound in the room.

Luke’s own chest was motionless. He was lying on his side, his limbs slack and curled up, loosely recalling the way he had held them around his torso in a desperate attempt to protect himself from excruciating pain. His features had loosened, but not enough to get rid of his frown or the pained curl of his lips.

He didn’t look asleep nor peaceful. It was all too obvious what had happened to him, the gruesome and humiliating death he’d suffered.

And yet he had been so brave until the very end.

Vader’s hand hovered over him, wanting to touch him but barely daring to do so. His fingertips lightly trailed the angry black and red burns coming from his neck upside his jaw and spreading on his cheek. They brushed damp hair from his sweat-glistening forehead, then strayed to caress his cheekbones, his nose. Even his fingers bore marks of the lightning’s damage.

But Luke’s eyes, his brilliant blue eyes who saw him as deeply as Padmé’s had, remained hopelessly closed.

A whimper escaped Vader. He bent forward and grasped his son’s shoulders, holding him tight, his handless arm helplessly slung across the boy’s abdomen while he brought his forehead close to Luke’s in a desperate embrace. He wanted to feel his warmth, wanted to hold him and protect him like he should have done all these years.

But the prosthetics were unfeeling, his face trapped behind his mask. Luke didn’t react to his display of affection, his body cooling minute after minute.

He was dead. He was dead, and it was all Vader’s fault.

Lead dropped into his guts, a vice clamped around his lungs, his throat constricted painfully.

I will not turn, and you will be forced to kill me.

Vader had known it would end this way. He had known, and tried to convince himself it didn’t matter, that Luke only held importance as an apprentice and a tool. He’d wanted to believe there was still a chance to turn him, even when confronted with his son’s quiet assurances and his warnings of what would happen.

Luke had tried to tell him, and Vader hadn’t listened. He’d led him to his death and Luke had let him, had walked into it with his head held high, hadn’t turned away from his fate while his father stood by and watched him die.

He closed his eyes against the terrible images seared into his brain. Luke’s screams, his spasms, his tears, his desperate calls for help, his hand reaching out taut and strained towards his father.

He hadn’t even really known him, he realised as he beheld the motionless face resting upon his chestplate. His thumb gently stroked Luke’s hand, as if it could bring him comfort even where he was now. He had never seen him smile, never heard him laugh, never asked him about his dreams and passions and childhood memories.

And now he would never have the chance.

This is the happiest moment of my life.

How much he had wanted this. How much he’d imagined he would love his child and wife, how happy he had thought they all would be. He hadn’t let himself think of these dreams in so very long, hadn’t realised a part of them still lived in a corner of his heart, revived when he had discovered Luke’s existence.

Luke, his bright, spirited, reckless, Rebel son. Luke who had been only twenty-three when he died, even younger than his mother. Vader would have given him the world; instead he had taken him to slaughter.

All of it was ashes now.

He supposed he should go on; find his second child, make amends to her, continue to live for her sake and in honour of Luke’s sacrifice. But he couldn’t find the energy for it. He didn’t want to destroy her like he had destroyed everyone else he had loved.

Nor did he want to leave his son.

He remained kneeling there, holding him close against his chest, wordless and motionless in the depths of grief. No tears came to his damaged eyes. He was too shocked still, too stupefied, unable to make sense of the terrible truth.

Luke was gone, and the world was silent.

He didn’t even notice the bright explosion as everything around him burnt, too.

Chapter 2

Notes:

I found this in my files today, and realised I completely forgot to post it! I was planning on writing one more chapter between the last one and this one, but it never came, so have the thing I already wrote instead.

Chapter Text

Anakin blinked, and without transition realised he was in a completely different place. It was much brighter, but somehow his eyes didn't have to adapt, and unlike anything he'd ever known, so much he couldn't know how to describe it. It was... nondescript was the most apt way to put it; the air felt temperate, the ground neither warm nor cold, the landscape flat, with the horizon all around him.

What struck him most was that it felt at all.

He looked down with wonder at his flesh hands, rubbed them on his free face, ran them through his hair. It was stunning, overwhelming; he supposed there should be elation too, but he didn't think he would ever be capable of such an emotion again.

He didn't deserve this. He had never imagined such an afterlife, for he supposed that was what it was; he'd always pictured his consciousness dissolving into oblivion, which would have been far more fitting for a wretched being such as he was.

The only solace was that if he was here, then it meant his mother and Padmé must have found peace, too; then Luke –

He didn't know if it was the sound of softly, barely audible shuffling feet next to him, or just the feeling of a presence in the Force that made him rise his head; but he did, and it took his breath away.

(His natural, organic breath.)

There he was. His wonderful, beautiful, brave, kind and undeserved son. Anakin's breath caught in his throat once more, drinking in the sight while thinking he shouldn't have the right to lay eyes on him at all.

Luke looked as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. The scars on his face had disappeared, and his head was tilted to the side, a small smile on his lips and soft melancholy in his eyes. He wore the light robes of the Jedi of old, and all his being suffused peace. Not contented and performed peace like the inhabitants of the Temple had sported at all times, but the relieved and joyful kind that came after the end of great suffering.

The robes suited him, Anakin thought, more than anyone he'd ever seen.

He wanted to fall on his knees, to beg him for forgiveness, to send him back to his friends and the life he'd so cruelly torn from him. But Luke seemed to have caught on his thought before he moved, for he held out a hand with an alarmed look, then reached out to take Anakin's hands in his own.

“Father, please,” he said, and Anakin's heart tightened at the haunting memory the words awakened. “Don't. It's all right. It's all over now.”

Luke's hands were warm, both of them were warm, and Anakin could do nothing but clasp them in his own.

“Luke...” he whispered, but he was unable to say anything else. What words could express the extent of his guilt? What empty platitudes could he offer one he'd so grievously wronged?

“You came back,” Luke said, his smile so blinding Anakin wanted to look away from it. “You came back to me. That's all I ever wanted.”

“But much too late,” Anakin cut him off. “How can you ever forgive me after everything I've done to you? How do you not hate me?”

“I'd already forgiven you,” Luke answered, his voice grave and serious. His words should have been a balm on Anakin's soul; instead they just wounded him more, ashamed of the unwarranted faith his son was placing in him. “I came to save you. I knew the risks when I surrendered. I am just glad I was right about you.”

Anakin wanted to say more, to push him away, to explain all the reasons he shouldn't be so trusting – for it had lost him, for trust in Anakin had always been his loved ones' downfall. But Luke pulled back before he could with a glance backwards, and Anakin mourned the loss of his touch.

“I'm not the only one who's happy to see you. I imagine you'll be glad to reunite with them,” he said, looking at the ground.

Anakin's heart missed a beat when he recognised the two silhouettes walking closer. Padmé and his mother were wearing the same loving smiles as they looked at him, as they extended their arms towards him, and he wanted nothing more than to run into their embrace.

But something held him back. He glanced at Luke once more. The young man was still smiling, but he seemed more subdued as he watched the two women approach with something like wistful longing in his eyes.

All of a sudden Anakin understood. Luke's desperation to save him, his insistence to make Anakin leave the shell of Vader, the pride when he declared himself a Jedi like his father before him, his incomprehensible forgiveness and joy at seeing him here, when by all reason he should have despised him.

What use were guilt and remorse, if all they did was hurt his son even more?

He stepped forward and took Luke in his arms, as he'd longed to do ever since discovering his existence, ever since he'd first learnt he lived in his mother's womb. Luke seemed startled but soon hugged him back with great strength, holding on to him as tightly as he could.

Anakin closed his eyes, awed and overwhelmed by the onslaught of emotions that crashed over him like a tide. He could feel Luke's body, so warm and solid in his arms, could smell his hair under his nose. He laid a kiss on the top of his head, felt Luke hold him tighter in response, burying his face in the crook of his neck. Anakin felt his heart about to burst.

“My son,” he whispered. “My dear, dear son. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. You were so brave.”

The words kept tumbling from his lips now that they had began, all the words of apology and comfort and love he'd held back before. He stroke the back of Luke's head and ran his fingers through his hair, revelling in this closeness, in Luke's miraculous presence. His son had broken down, his body shaking in great sobs in his embrace; there were tears running down Anakin's cheeks, too.

Never, even in his wildest dreams, had he ever dared hope for something like this.

Two other pairs of arms came around them, adding their warmth to the reunion. Anakin closed his eyes, melted in the embrace of the two most important women in his life, his child in his arms.

He felt complete and peaceful at last.