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Time moves immaterial. Day and night are one and the same.
Mountains rise and fall; oceans swell and flood the horizon.
He is at peace, but the afterlife storms around him. (He prefers it that way.)
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He meets his mother in a wide field with an endless sky. Wildflowers perfume the air and bend in the wind with the tall grass.
They sit together. He stares at the clouds drifting by. She fingers the petal of a small blossom.
“I never wanted for much, but a garden would have been wonderful.”
“I should have brought you to Naboo, mom. Everything grows there.”
I was free there, second only to the stars. You would have been too.
She shields her eyes from the sun to look at him, “I had my own life with Cliegg, Anakin, as you had your own with Padmé.”
He feels scars pull as he frowns. Her left hand catches his right. It is understanding.
The sky darkens; the stars draw close.
“Luke was a good son to Owen and Beru.”
As I was not to you and Cliegg, he thinks. He wants to ask how Leia was for the Organas, but he knows the answer. (All their silhouettes move in the distance.)
His mother continues thoughtfully, “Luke did his chores, learned how to gather the harvest, visited the family graves –”
She pauses, looking upward.
“But he loved when they told him stories.”
Anakin sees the man who hangs the stars, next to the curling tail of a dragon; never seen on Tatooine. He directs his mother’s attention to it.
“I have new ones to tell you.”
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The earth smells damp. Trees tower; columnar and majestic as the Temple once was.
He walks with purpose alongside his master, in and out of the trees.
“The Force did bring me to you for a reason. You were to come out of obscurity to change the course of the Jedi.”
Anakin ducks under a low branch, “If you hadn’t died, maybe I wouldn’t have ended them.”
It is not an accusation.
“No.”
Qui-Gon stops short. Anakin waits.
“It was never to be. I was only to bring you to the Jedi, give you what encouragement I could, but I was never to see your training through.”
Qui-Gon resumes his long strides.
For some time, Anakin thought he possessed the same clarity of mind as to be certain of what was and what wasn’t. Now, even in death, he feels unfocused and confused, like the boy who chased this man into the morning suns years ago.
He calls after the other man, walking quickly to catch up. “Could I have done it, could I have changed the course of the Jedi without slaughtering them?”
Qui-Gon does not turn, only keeps moving to some destination.
“Yes.”
The answer would have filled Anakin with shame were he alive.
A clearing opens up to the sky. Anakin sees dark clouds over the tops of the trees; thunder rumbles.
Qui-Gon stops again, “This new Order – your children, your apprentice – they will bring back the Jedi, following your intended course. They could not have done it without you.”
Leaves open as the rain rolls towards them.
The rest of the Order in the shadows of the trees, but he only sees Qui-Gon’s pride.
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Vader hated Kenobi. Hated a dead man; hated a man he didn’t know.
He’d recognized the presence before their final meeting, but there was a remoteness to it that did not match the man Vader cursed nightly. The remoteness is still there, but it is more serene than isolated.
Ben Kenobi is shed; Obi-Wan Kenobi is reunited with those he loves.
Anakin cannot find the words to atone for the utter ruin brought on so many. He remembers every second when he thought of nothing but Obi-Wan’s pain, misery, and death.
(Brothers can still kill each other.)
Mountain air is sharp in his lungs. He will not fly again (he does not need it), but he can climb towards his best home.
Anakin charges ahead; Obi-Wan slowly follows.
Anakin stops, taking in the ever-shifting world.
He cannot see his brother’s beloved, but she is not far behind. (They cannot be parted now.)
Obi-Wan rests a hand on his shoulder.
“It wasn’t you, it was Vader.”
Dryly, “You’ve started to believe your own lies, haven’t you?”
Obi-Wan chuckles.
Anakin continues, “I suppose I’m grateful you believed them that much. Letting Luke down almost as much as I did… well, we Skywalkers don’t like following your orders, do we?”
“No, you do not, although I’m glad I was wrong.”
He looks Obi-Wan in the eye, but cannot stop his voice from breaking.
“I’m sorry. It does nothing, but I need to say it anyway. I need to tell Satine too, where is –”
Obi-Wan hugs him tightly, winding him.
It is forgiveness.
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It takes time to accept Padmé is not the person he left over twenty-four years ago. He did not think of her, until too late.
She has hard lines around her eyes and mouth (easy smiles soften them); she has grey streaks (light burnishes them bright with the rest of her hair).
He wonders when she died.
They lie on the shore, waves lapping quietly. They are suspended in days as they were when they were young and whole.
Dark gives way to dawn.
He breaks the silence.
“Why don’t you hate me?”
“I did hate you – or rather him. It was hard to separate the two sometimes.”
He winces; says nothing. Her words do the work of a thousand blades. He hated Obi-Wan for years, for if he had hated her, thought of her, it would have killed him.
“I hated him when my arms were emptied of our children; hated him when he tortured Leia, when he attacked Luke. I hated him because he used them as bait time and again and broke them.
“But hate didn’t do me any good, Anakin. Luke saw what neither of us would; Leia anchored him and you are returned to me.”
She rises, illuminated by the pink and golden hues. She wades into the sea, beckoning him.