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Death is not what Anakin thought it would be like. Maybe it’s just that he never expected to truly find peace moments before letting go, the first time he’s maybe been at peace in his life. He never expected to have this chance to stand here, watching Luke and Leia, his children, and seeing them happy.
He stays there next to Obi-Wan and Yoda, watching the celebration for a long time.
He helped bring this, finally had the chance to do something to make up for what he’s done. He wanted to live, so he could do – more. Maybe it’s best he didn’t. That way, he doesn’t need to fear about what if he loses control of himself again. He doesn’t know that, until now that he’s within the currents of the Force itself, he could actually… find peace.
As a Force ghost, he can appear in the physical world and go beyond.
As the celebration here is starting to die down and his children start to move off, probably preparing to sleep a little before the fast approaching dawn, he finally drifts away to go to the world… beyond.
He doesn’t know who he’s expecting to see first, standing in a world of shimmering blue and black, with bluish white portals all around.
“Ani,” the voice is soft and guttingly familiar.
Anakin spins around, heart hammering.
“Mom?” He hasn’t seen her in over twenty years. He can hardly breathe, seeing her again.
She looks the way she did back when – form his early memories. Not covered in blood, like when he last saw her.
The first thing that hits him is shame. She was the one who taught him to be kind, who taught him to always care and what did he do with that? He left her to help the galaxy and look how that went.
“Mom,” he repeats again, a million things he’s wanted to say to her for so long rushing to mind and he doesn’t know where to start, “I’m sorry. I – “
“For what, Ani?” He missed her voice so much he could cry.
“I left you there. I failed you – I never came back to save you. And in the end, I left you for nothing. What I did is – “
“I know what you’ve done Ani,” she interjects, voice still soft.
He feels faint and shaky with horror, somehow even while not having a physical form. “You do?”
“The Force may still reveal things, even to those who cannot appear in the physical world.” She takes a few steps towards him. “And I know it wasn’t your choice, Ani.” Of course she’s still accepting. Always infinitely accepting and gentle, the way she always has been. He doesn’t know why he ever feared it might be something else.
“Maybe not everything. But I still did it.” He may have let go but that doesn’t mean he can ever stop seeing in his mind, all the pain he’s caused. Even if he didn’t have a choice.
“When I sent you away, I thought I was sending you to freedom,” his mother replies, “Not to another form of servitude.”
He doesn’t know what to say to that. Because he’s never known freedom before. Not truly. Not until maybe this very moment. He can really understand now, the slave legends about how death is the one true way to finally be free. Usually, the only way.
“You should know, Ani, that I could never blame you for leaving. I wanted you to have a chance. I would rather you have been away and happy, then trapped on Tatooine forever,” she continues.
“Even if that would have been better for the galaxy?” he asks.
“Would it have been?”
His first inclination is to say yes. But then he pauses. He knows there were many he helped by leaving, even if it feels… arrogant now, to take credit for anything good.
“In the end,” his mother speaks again, “After years of a worst kind of slavery that many never see, you were still able to find the strength to do what many never can. You freed yourself and countless others with you. That counts for something, Ani, no matter what may have happened before.”
Anakin nods shakily, eyes stinging with tears. “I missed you, Mom.”
“You’ll never have to again,” she promises softly.
They’re going to be together forever now. It doesn’t feel real, possible. And yet…
He hardly remembers consciously deciding to move but he finds himself running down the walkway to her. She pulls him into her arms. He almost misses when he wasn’t so much taller than her now because she can’t really hold him the same way she used to but at least she’s here. She even feels physical in her own way. It’s not the same as touching but it’s still its own form, on this side of the Force.
“Remember what I always told you, Ani,” she murmurs, “That you had the heart of the sun dragon. That there is nothing you couldn’t do if you set your heart to it.”
He doesn’t remember when he started crying but he breathes out shakily, meeting her eyes. “I remember,” he replies, softly, “I – I forgot for years. I thought your belief in me was… wrong, I guess. But at the end, I – I remembered you said that. And about the sun dragon.” He misses those stories. They were old legends his mother used to tell him before he went to sleep every night but they still helped guide him when he always felt so lost.
His mom smiles up at him. “I knew you would.”
He really has no idea sometimes, how he ever lived without her.
“Tell me,” his mother requests, hand still on his arm, “About what happened after you left. You had an entire new family whom I never got to meet.”
“I wouldn’t even know where to start.” Back during the Clone Wars, after she first died, he could never stop thinking about how much he wished she could meet Ahsoka and Rex. But then he lost everyone in his family and he’d stopped thinking about that altogether.
“Why don’t you start at the beginning?” she suggests. “I also know you had children, but I don’t know more than that.”
“Yeah,” Anakin agrees, “You’re a grandmother now. But I – I don’t really know much about them myself. I never got to know them. But Padme and I named them Luke and Leia.”
“Leia?” his mom asks, “Like the name of the air dragon of Tatooine?”
“I named her,” he offers with a tiny smile, “Padme named Luke.” He’ll never stop wishing he could’ve gotten to raise them. But right now, that they survived and didn’t die by his hand is more than enough. “The one I can tell you about is Ahsoka,” he decides finally, “She was… I would say she was like my sister but I also raised her. I always wished you could meet her.”
“Tell me,” his mother requests.
And he does.
It will be a long conversation. There’s so much he has to catch her up on.
And after that, he has other… ghosts to visit out here. And other people in the physical world to go visit again, even if he doesn’t know if anyone other than Luke will realize that he’s real. It’s still worth trying.
And now, he has an eternity here. Finally, at peace.