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During his last moments, Darth Vader thought of Obi-Wan Kenobi. With his son above him, eyes shining with tears, Vader could only rage that if not for Kenobi’s treason, he would have watched this boy grow up. Would have been the one to train him, love him, and hand him a lightsaber. Most of all, he hated that deep down, he was grateful that his old Master had told Luke that his father had died.
“I know there’s still good in you,” Luke said, trying to grasp Vader’s prosthetic hand, now unfeeling and truly dead since his body could no longer support the mechano-wires attached to his frayed nerves.
There was mostly hate in Vader, and only a little room for regret. He reached into his connection to the Force, half delirious, and begged for one last opportunity to take revenge against his old Master. Take revenge again. The last thing Vader saw before his awareness faded was Obi-Wan Kenobi’s tear streaked face framed by lava and smog.
Then he woke up, gasping for breath. No respirator, no mask, so he scrambled around, looking for clues as to where Luke might have taken him. He did not have long before his body failed. Had Luke convinced the Rebellion to spare him? For what? He had nothing left. With Kenobi gone, he didn’t even have the hope for revenge to keep him going. Already, he felt. . . what did he feel? Where was his pain, his ever present companion for the last decades?
He was not alone in the Force. A training bond tied him to. . . who—Vader retched. He didn’t want Sidious’ poison in his head, corroding and feeding on his connection to the Force. Even if the bond felt soothing, like a warm embrace, Vader knew that to be rancid shit. The only bond that had felt anywhere close to this had been his bond to kriffing Kenobi, and that too had been a lie. Vader withdrew into himself, isolated the bond, ready to shred it. And then he froze.
It was Light. Pure Light. Sidious would combust if such Light ever touched him. Even he couldn’t fake something like this. Vader look down at—his. . . legs? He had legs? Breathing fast, he touched his thigh, right above his knee. He had a flesh hand. Pain laced through him, but it was just a phantom lightning strike. He had knees. He had two flesh hands. Beside his bunk, his old lightsaber hummed a calm, welcoming song. Skywalker's old lightsaber, the one Luke had wielded.
A door burst open.
As Vader gasped for breath, Obi-Wan Kenobi barged into the room, lightsaber in hand, ready to ignite.
“Anakin?” he asked, taking a decisive step forward. Ah-nah-kin. The way only he used to say it. “What happened?”
Vader shrank bank against the wall of the bunk where he laid, trying not to dry heave, panicked and exhilarated because for the first time in literal decades, he was not in pain.
“Anakin!” Kenobi put his lightsaber back in its holster at the same time as he reached for Vader’s shoulder. “Did you have another nightmare?”
Vader looked up at him, gaped like an idiot at his old Master, at the clean-shaven, young face and light blue-gray eyes. For a moment, perhaps an eternity, Vader froze and simply stared, drinking in the sight. Crisp and clear, the world almost too bright when seen with undamaged eyes. He curled his hands into fists to suppress the urge to reach out and touch. His face, his neck, his stupid coppery hair, everything.
Slowly, Kenobi straightened up, squared his shoulders, and adopted a Jedi’s perfect posture. His forehead and the corners of his luminous eyes were entirely smooth. Kenobi had to be in his early thirties at most. Younger, probably. Vader imagined reaching through the Force and crushing his traitorous throat. No, that would be too quick a death for him. Vader would choke him slowly; he would have enough time to stare at those hateful eyes as Kenobi realized that he’d been discovered. Even then, Kenobi would experience only a fraction of the despair that Vader had been forced to endure.
“Anakin?”
“Yes,” said Vader, mind whirring.
The only 'nightmares' Kenobi would be talking about where the visions of Vader’s mother’s death. Which meant that he was still having them. Which meant that his mother was still alive. Which meant that Anakin could still save her. He jumped to his feet.
And stumbled because he hardly remembered how to control a body made of flesh. Kenobi reached for him immediately. Gritting his teeth, Vader let the man hold him and focused on his limbs. He wiggled his toes, flexed his calves, and had to hold back tears. His muscles responded beautifully, without even a whisper of pain. Force. And his hands! The linen of Kenobi’s tunic was wonderful under his palm, his Master’s warmth comforting and so alive. Vader reached up to touch the skin of his neck, desperate to feel another living being. He couldn't suppress a grin when Kenobi's pulse brushed against the pad of his thumb.
"Anakin!" said Kenobi, his cheeks growing pink. But he didn't pull away. Vader could squeeze his neck, choke him and feel his terror, both in the Force and with his flesh and blood.
Vader had no time for that. He forced himself backwards, took a few steps, and then strode out of the room. Kenobi let him, though he stayed close, as if expecting Vader to trip over his own feet. How much could he feel through the bond? Vader blocked it ruthlessly, taking advantage of decades of isolation as a Sith Lord as he looked around. He heard Kenobi gasp as his one bond completely closed off without warning. Take that, traitor.
They had to be on a ship, likely on a mission. Force help Vader figure out which one. He went to the door, intent to find the cockpit. He needed to change course to Tatooine. How far away where they? Did they have enough fuel? No matter. There were fuel stations.
“Anakin!” Kenobi followed him out. “At times like these, it’s crucial that you meditate. You must achieve balance.”
Vader ignored him and assessed his surroundings—a couple of droids, one a med-droid, two more bunks, and a single kitchenette. This was a standard Jedi diplomatic ship, practically unarmed. Kenobi was no threat yet; Kenobi might be kriffing Skywalker’s wife—would fuck Skywalker’s wife one day—but he was still a consummate Jedi hypocrite who would never attack a man’s back. Trying not to get lost in wonder at the smooth, automatic response from his flesh limbs, Vader turned towards his monitor.
“Anakin!” Kenobi bleated at him. “Why are you shielding like this?”
“Is a man not allowed his privacy?” snapped Vader.
“Of course,” Kenobi tried to placate.
Vader looked at the date. He couldn’t suppress an explosive, relieved sigh. She was still alive. His mother was still alive. Padme was still alive. It wasn’t too late.
“But when did you learn to shield so well?” asked Kenobi.
Right. Skywalker would not master shielding for years yet. There was no explanation Vader could offer and he could hardly leave that link open, so he ignored Kenobi’s question altogether. “I’m going to Tatooine,” he declared.
“Anakin,” said Kenobi, and he had the nerve to sound exasperated. “You are a Jedi Padawan and your Master is in the middle of a mission.” Stupid, perfect Coruscanti accent.
“Fine, I quit,” said Vader, relishing the profound shock that overtook Kenobi’s placid expression.
A second later, the neutral Jedi mask was back. “Anakin,” Kenobi started.
“I’m going to save my mother,” said Vader. “You’re not more important than my mother, Master.”
Kenobi stood frozen, maybe for a life time. Vader felt him scrabble at their bond like an anxious child, a little annoying and insufferably Light, but weak. The Light was so fucking weak. Then Kenobi nodded, almost to himself. Over the bond, which Kenobi could not shield effectively, Vader felt his master release a burst of panic to the Force. Before he consciously decided to do it, Vader absorbed the energy through their bond. Kenobi blinked, but didn't seem to notice anything in particular. The strength of his emotions felt like some kind of energy to Vader. He didn't have the words to describe it, couldn't even tell if it was a positive or negative rush. It certainly wasn't something he'd learned to do as a Jedi, and he'd shared no Force bond in his time as a Sith. He refused to call the intermittent links he had with Sidious bonds.
It wasn't something he cared to consider at that moment.
“I also felt. . . something through our training bond,” said Kenobi.
“All right,” said Vader, glaring down at the controls. He wished Kenobi would fight—because then Vader would have the perfect excuse to kill him.
“Thus, I agree that it would be prudent to visit Tatooine,” continued Kenobi.
Vader looked up at him.
“Why are you sitting at my station?” asked Kenobi, projecting amusement. Or trying to.
Vader tried to imagine how he would have responded once, how Skywalker would have responded, to playful banter from Kenobi. It would have been easier to picture the result of trying to hold Sidious' hand for comfort. Wordlessly, he stood up and switched to the other station.
“I will contact the Council and let them know they will have to send another team to Gawana,” said Kenobi, as he took his seat.
Gawana. Small jungle planet well within the Imperial—the Republic—core, notable only because their wealthy, feline/humanoid ruling family owned a series of mines father out in the Mid Rim. They’d been staunch Republic loyalists, and thus it had been one of the earlier worlds Vader had been ordered to cleanse. The Empire's planet-killing weapons had not been perfected yet. Vader had been forced to deploy to the planet itself, still reeling from his injuries, both physical and emotional. Some Gawanan faces hunted him for years, their screams serenading him through nightmares of countless other battlefields.
Vader didn’t have the faintest memory of what mission he’d completed there with Kenobi. Either Skywalker had been bored out of his skull, or Kenobi had ordered him to stay in their rooms meditating during some truly tedious diplomatic meetings. There had been many missions like that. Skywalker had rarely meditated and instead spent the time reading, either programming or engineering, or desperately trying to catch up to his peers back in the Temple in all the subjects that had he was behind in. Comparative anthropology. History of the Old Republic. Diplomacy. Philosophy of the Force. Basic Laws of the Republic. Fucking Basic literature. Kriffing poetry. How he'd tried to get into that stupid poetry banthashit, all because Kenobi was a poetry snob.
He passed the pad of his thumb over the tip of his Padawan braid, once again caught in the vortex organic sensations. It was midway down his chest. There were years left of growing to do.
Over on his seat, Kenobi was alerting some Temple secretary or other that he wouldn’t be going to Gawana at all. Vader listened with half an ear despite knowing that he should fucking pay attention. It didn’t matter. Kenobi had always been met with utmost trust by the Jedi. If he said that he couldn’t waste time with some stupid diplomatic mission, then of course he couldn’t. He would be respected and supported without question. Which was why it was his fault that Vader’s mother had died. Ultimately, it had all been his fault.
Kenobi didn't try to engage him in real conversation on the way to Tatooine. Vader wavered between relief and consternation. They'd been friendly, hadn't they? Vader would have swore that Skywalker and his Master wasted hours bickering about the need for meditation, or holodramas, or assorted missions and how they should have gone. Why wasn't Kenobi worrying at the blocked bond, nagging Skywalker to lower his shields? All he was doing was meditating, often tucked away in his cabin
Vader meditated as well, marveled at how much cleaner and intense his connection to the Force was from Skywalker's intact, healthy body. He bet he could shatter buildings like this, force volcanoes to erupt, choke out entire battalions of even Mandalorians. Sidious would be flattened like a Nal Hutta flea. Was it because he had more Midichlorians in an intact body? Or was it just because he didn't have Sidious' parasitic presence attached to his spirit?
The strength didn't help his emphatic insight at all, much to Vader's irritation. He tried assessing Kenobi's feelings through the bond, but with his own shields so heavy, all he could sense was vague distress and spiritual pain. Assessing Kenobi's cognition or intentions would be impossible without violating his mind so roughly that it would alert him that something was wrong. Not to mention, it would damage him to face a full Sith mental assault unprepared.
It didn't matter. What mattered was that they were going to Tatooine. Vader would save his mother.
Vader grimaced as they disembarked on Tatooine, unprepared for the desert’s searing heat and blinding sun. He savored the warmth, despite old memories of cooking under this planet’s furious twin suns. No slave could ever afford the number of layers needed to protect themselves from such heat, and Vader’s human skin had not tanned easily. Did not tan easily. Vader told himself to endure the heat, even enjoy it if he could manage it. He refused to miss the suit. Even pulling the hood of his Jedi robe over his head was a bit suffocating.
“Do you recall your former owner’s name?” asked Kenobi.
As if that was the sort of thing a slave would ever forget. “Watto. He owns a junkyard in Mos Espa, near the slave arena.”
Kenobi gave him a stony look, as though Vader had been the one to device the sport of slave gladiators.
“The start point for pod races is close by too,” Vader added, only because he knew how much his old Master had hated those as well.
“Very well,” said Kenobi. “That would be our most logical starting point.”
He started walking and Vader followed behind him, quietly. Better to let Kenobi take the lead, as Vader needed time to think. To meditate, even. Vader had been thinking the entire way to Tatooine, and he had to admit that he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do. If the date on his comm was accurate, and there was no reason to suspect otherwise, then he his body sixteen standard years. Kenobi was twenty-seven, practically an infant. From his point of view, it hadn’t been too long since Anakin had been shorter than him. Could Vader really kill a man for a crime he had yet to even conceive?
Well, of course he could. But would it be satisfying? Would Kenobi care if Vader mentioned Padme? Could he be made to understand what he’d done? Force. Vader had not even reunited with Padme yet, much less married her. With some horror, he realized that he couldn’t quite remember what Padme had looked like, besides the fact that she had been beautiful, elegant, and brunette.
“Anakin, are you feeling better?” Kenobi asked the moment that the biting wind subsided. “You’re still quiet.”
“Not the best time to talk, Master,” said Vader, trying to adopt what little he remembered of Skywalker’s speech patterns. “Or do you fancy swallowing sand?”
“As if you’d let something as trivial as the weather to keep you from chattering away,” said Kenobi.
That was true, wasn’t it? Or it had been. Once, Vader would have talked Kenobi’s ear off, and Kenobi would have listened to it all with the patience of a perfect Jedi. Maybe he’d used the annoyance as a form of meditation. Vader should probably try and mimic Skywalker’s foolish adolescent behavior, but the truth was that he hadn’t felt the need to act in any particular way in years. Decades. He’d been nothing but a towering specter in the end, his function little beyond terrorizing the Emperor’s enemies. It had been easy, boring, an insufficient distraction from his pain and hatred. All those years he'd spent, decades all wasted, remembering Kenobi's vengeful expression in Mustafar.
Maybe if this Kenobi grew a beard, then murdering him would bring Vader some satisfaction.
No one paid them any obvious mind when they entered Mos Espa’s main district, though a few armed guards made brief eye contact. Vader found himself looking down and hunching his shoulders, the meek shroud of a slave’s body language seeping back to him like poison. He slid beside Kenobi, inwardly cursing because the man was broader than Vader remembered, and stood with oblivious confidence.
Vader grabbed his elbow and stepped in front of him. “Stay behind me and follow my lead,” he ordered, then added a belated “Master.”
“Of course,” said Kenobi. “Do warn me of any peculiar local customs.”
Vader blinked. That was logical. Why would Kenobi fight him? Why was Vader expecting him to?
Muscle memory carried Vader through Mos Espa’s dusty streets, Kenobi following close behind him. The eerily familiar sounds assaulted Vader’s ears—babbling in multiple languages, whirring motors, the whoosh of hide whips striking slaves, thankfully from behind walls and fences. Surveillance droids flied over them, scanning for chips of runaways at even intervals. A couple of times, Vader had to grab Kenobi’s elbow to keep him from rushing to aid whatever unfortunate sentient had pissed off their owner. They were there on a mission.
“That sounded like a child, Anakin,” said Kenobi.
“It’s against local customs to tell someone how to manage their property, Master,” said Vader, though it made him. . . nauseous. It took a few moments to identify the sensation. For so long, he’d been sustained by bacta and his all consuming hate.
Watto’s junkyard brought back another wave of long-buried memories. His mother teaching the names of various screws and bolts, occasional clients throwing snacks at him. . . or kicking him out of their way. The stink of Watto’s pipe, his mother rocking him to sleep, a beautiful human girl visiting during a rare, cool afternoon. Padme. She’d worn a brown tunic and her thick hair in braids; Vader still could not quite picture her face. His eyes grew damp and he gasped. It would stupid for a human to waste fluid out in Tatooine.
Kenobi laid a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. An attempt at comfort. It’d been so long that Vader almost ignited his lightsaber in self defense. He checked his mental shields, but no. . . they were still air tight. Kenobi had seen his distress because it was obvious without the suit.
“An—”
Watto chose that moment to appear, thank the Force. If Kenobi had started lecturing him about balance and other Jedi nonsense, Vader would have beheaded him.
“Ah! Customers!” Watto buzzed over to them, a blank void in the Force. “What can I do for you gentle. . . you Humans?”
“Yes,” said Kenobi.
Vader left them to the no doubt tedious conversation that would ensue. Watto wouldn’t recognize him, might not remember him even after prodding, but that didn’t matter. Vader knew where he needed to go to find his mother. He looked around the junkyard, swimming in a vortex of confused memories. Was this home? The first time he’d come back here, he’d been too frantic to pause and reflect. He picked up a rusting screwdriver wedged between two clay pots. His favorite when he was a child, for some reason he couldn’t quite remember. He slipped it under his sleeves, though it was old and would be incompatible with his Skywalker’s newer equipment.
“That fellow is little old Ani?” he heard Watto asking.
“Yes,” said Kenobi. “We are looking for his mother and would appreciate your assistance.”
Vader continued looking around. Garbage mostly. He remembered Watto as a figure larger than life itself, his absence in the Force making him seem even more terrifying, not that Skywalker had understood what he was sensing at that age. Or not sensing. He went on to another aisle and grabbed a couple of tubes of ultraviolet protection cream, wondering why Watto even had this particular merchandise. Not like his skin was susceptible to sun burns.
“Anakin!” he heard Kenobi call. “Where did you go?”
Vader went to find him, hoping that he could fake the appropriate level of anticipation while Kenobi informed him that his mother had been sold to a farm. Or maybe Skywalker would have been angry? Had Watto known that Owen Lars freed and married her? Just something else that didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.
As was his habit, Kenobi asked his Padawan to drive the speeder to their next destination—the Lars moisture farm. This was a dance that Vader sunk into smoothly and with more fondness than he cared to examine. Kenobi stood before the beat speeder and huffed before glancing at his Padawan.
“Can I drive, Master?” asked Vader, deliberately pitching his voice higher. “Please.” Kenobi despised driving or piloting any vehicle, and they both knew it.
“Yes, Anakin, you may,” said Kenobi, with a theatrical sigh. “You will be careful, of course.”
He would not be, and they both knew that too. Vader hopped on the speeder and forced himself not to tense when Kenobi got on behind him. Kenobi would not attack. Across the bond, he was a calm, warm presence.
The Lars moisture farms was relatively far from Mos Espa proper, which his mother would have liked. Vader couldn’t explain how he knew that; even Skywalker had not remembered her much, just gentle hands running through his hair, disinfecting scrapes, cradling him on her lap when the vastness of the Force was too much for him to handle. Without anyone to bond with, young Skywalker had almost lost himself in the Force. Often. Truly, it was a miracle that Watto hadn't left him out in the desert one of the many times he'd been catatonic, buffeted by the whims of the Force. What Shmi must have endured to ensure his safety. For all Vader knew, she'd been glad to be rid of him.
They saw the Lars farm’s moisture vaporators before seeing the modest farm itself, a series of gleaming spires standing in front of Tatooine’s suns. Vader glided to a halt as his heart pounded in his chest. Suddenly, he was certain that the moment he knocked on that door, he would wake up in the bacta tank. That Sidious would wake him, laugh at him for indulging in such a pathetic fantasy while recovering from one of his frequent fits, and order him to destroy some insignificant speck of dust out in the galaxy, guilty of nothing except hosting some hopeless Rebellion cell.
Once again, Kenobi patted his shoulder. Vader gritted his teeth and refused to check his shields yet again. They were pristine. Kenobi was just that observant.
“Let’s go,” said Vader.
Despite his bluster, he said nothing when Kenobi went a step ahead of him. It was the protocol, or so Vader tried to convince himself. Kenobi was the Jedi Master—Knight, at this point. But most relevantly, he was Skywalker’s Master, and thus it was proper to let him speak for them. Kenobi was the diplomat, famous for his impeccable manners and tact. It made sense for him to take the lead, and Vader would kill him soon anyway. None of this would matter.
A mousy brown haired Human boy answered the Kenobi’s knock, and Vader was both irritated and relieved. He had a few more moments to prepare. A few more moments to school his features. Considering that Kenobi had to grab the sleeve of his outer robe and nudge him forward after the boy invited them in, he wasn’t doing a good job. Unforgiving winds blasted against the home. Or maybe the there was a whirlwind raging in Vader’s head and he was about to wake up in the bacta tank. Vader looked around, drinking in the homey atmosphere and clean linens, and tried to center his mind in the Force. He could only manage it by clinging to Kenobi’s Force signature.
Then Shmi Skywalker walked into the living room and all the noise stopped. She held a basket filled with moisture bottles, her dark hair in a loose bun, her face tanned and her expression peaceful. She met Vader’s eyes and dropped the basket.
“Ani?” she said, taking a hesitant step forward.
That finally forced a sob past Vader’s throat. Because that boy was dead, and Vader had killed him. He couldn’t lie to himself while his mother rushed past Kenobi, past the moisture bottles that Kenobi was keeping in the air with the Force, and pulled Vader down for a hug. He—Vader—had killed her son. Kenobi may have wielded the saber, but it had been Vader who had killed him with his profound stupidity, his arrogance.
“Anakin, my Ani!” she said. “You came back!”
Choking on a scream, Vader fell to his knees. Shmi fell with him, cradling his head.
Kenobi used the Force to gently lay the bottles down, and then asked the boy for a tour of the farm. It was a transparent ploy to give Vader—Skywalker a chance to talk to his mother in private that Vader was pathetically grateful for. He didn’t think he had it in him to lie to his mother. He knew he didn’t have it in him to tell her the truth. How would he start? Shmi Skywalker would spit on the man he had become. He had murdered children. He had murdered children in her name.
She didn’t ask him a single question. As he sobbed, she sat next to him and held him, running her fingers through his atrocious Padawan haircut, humming an old lullaby, rocking back and forth as though he were still and infant. Bless her love and kindness. He couldn’t have maintained his mental shields while having a meltdown if she’d asked him anything. He barely managed it as it was.
Vader would have stayed with her until the universe itself exploded, but they were soon interrupted by a man walking into the living room. His Force signature was next to nonexistent and it blared with anxiety at the sight of Shmi on the floor, cradling a stranger’s head on her shoulder.
“Cliegg,” said Shmi. “I want you to meet my son.”
Vader could hear the smile in her voice. He sucked in a moist breath and forced himself to look up. A tall, broad man with a generous beard looked down at them. He reminded Vader of his Master’s face, of what Kenobi’s face would look like in a few years, though the beard was plain brown and rather unkempt. The man tried to smile as he reached for Shmi, the anxiety of his Force signature easing only after she took his offered hand. Vader stood with her, reluctant to let go of the cloth of her apron.
“It’s great to meet you,” said Cliegg. Honest, despite his fear.
Not because he was talking to the scourge of the galaxy. No, he was just anxious for his wife. For the first time since appearing in his past, Vader felt a genuine smile on his lips. His mother had been happy. For the last years of her life, she had been happy. Now that he was back, Vader would ensure that her happy life with Cliegg Lars would be long and plentiful.
Of course, they were invited to stay for dinner. If they’d given notice of their visit, the Lars would have prepared a proper feast for them, with bread and bantha meat cooked to perfection, then bantha milk toffee for dessert. As it was, they had spiced protein cubes with bread and bantha milk. It was the best meal Vader had ever enjoyed, and not only because he couldn't remember the last time he'd had anything other than broth. Through a feeding tube. He gulped down milk, rubbed the bread against the roof of his mouth, all the while trying not to moan with pleasure. Shmi dipped his bread in the milk before passing it to him and Vader almost burst into tears again. A part of him expected that the rich fare would trigger a coughing fit, or worse, but Skywalker's body was brimming with health. His stomach and entrails could handle anything. He didn’t care that Kenobi looked at the scene with a soft look on his hateful face.
“What happened to Qui-Gon Jinn?” asked Shmi, after they’d finished eating.
“He rejoined the Force. . . passed away, very shortly after taking Anakin from here,” said Kenobi.
“Oh,” said Shmi. “I’m sorry to hear that. He seemed a good man.”
Vader chewed his bread to hide a grimace. Jinn had taken a child powerful in the Force on a fucking whim and left his mother to rot and die, enslaved.
“I was his Padawan—his apprentice, at the time,” said Kenobi. “His last wish was that I train Anakin to be a Jedi Knight. I’ve done my best to honor that wish, ma’am.”
“You have?” asked Shmi.
“Yes,” said Kenobi, with a gentle smile. “Teaching Anakin has been the greatest honor of life.”
Liar. Vader could have choked him, if not for the way Shmi beamed at him, her Force signature singing with happiness and relief. She squeezed Vader’s hand, and he tried to focus on that instead of the shining hue of Kenobi’s paleblue eyes. Fucking smooth talking snake, always drawing everyone around him like a siren. Kenobi had never tried to free Shmi either, always going off about the stupid Jedi code and the dangers of attachment.
“So where are y’all staying?” asked Owen Lars.
“Here, of course!” said Cleigg.
“There doesn’t seem to be a lot of room,” said Kenobi.
“We’ll sleep on the floor,” said Vader, shooting Kenobi a look. They had certainly slept in worse places. Would have slept in worse places. He didn't know how long Kenobi had been taking missions with Skywalker.
Later that evening, after Shmi has produced two futons and several extra blankets before retiring to her room, Kenobi broached the subject of Vader’s shields.
“Anakin, you’re still so closed off,” he said, from his spot beside Vader. Outside, Tatooine’s vicious winds buffeted against the farm’s windows.
Vader didn’t say anything. When would be the best time to eliminate Kenobi? Not at that moment, with his mother a few yards away. He couldn’t desecrate her home like that, or her Ani. He could orchestrate some kind of trip out to the dessert with Kenobi, fabricate some excuse about knowing the spot where his dream visions took place, and kill Kenobi out in the Judland Wastes. Vader could soak the sand with his blood just liked he’d done with the Tusken raiders.
“Anakin.”
“I thought you wanted me to stop projecting,” said Vader. “Master.”
“I want you to excel at all Jedi arts,” said Kenobi. “But there’s a difference between proper shielding and this. . . Anakin, I can’t feel you at all.”
“So what?” snapped Vader, though he knew perfectly well what.
Being alone in the Force was. . . uncomfortable was the mildest way to put it. Force sensitive beings craved connections to other Force sensitive beings, but Jedi allowed Force bonds in very restricted circumstances and between very few people. Masters and Padawans being one of those exceptions. Obi-Wan Kenobi had gone from being a Padawan to having a Padawan in a matter of days. And how wonderful it must feel to be so closely tied to the Chosen One, the most Force sensitive being in the Galaxy. Kenobi had not been isolated in the Force for any significant length of time, and then Vader abruptly cut off his one bond. The man hadn't felt anything close to this since Jinn's death. Vader bit his lips to hide a satisfied smirk.
“Don’t tell me you’re feeling lonely, Master,” said Vader. “That would be unacceptable attachment.”
“Anakin, I am concerned for you,” said Kenobi.
“Don’t be,” snapped Vader.
“It’s my duty to be concerned for you,” insisted Kenobi. “How you felt before we decided to come here, they agony I felt coming from you. . . Padawan, are you feeling better? I do hope that seeing your mother has set your heart at ease.”
Vader sighed. “I do feel calmer now that I’ve seen her,” he said. It was true, but more importantly, he needed Kenobi to shut up. “I would like to rest now.”
Most importantly, Vader would like to plan. He was back in the past, in a healthy body, with exquisite knowledge of who exactly controlled the galaxy. Long term planning had never been one of Vader's strong suits. But that would have to change.