Chapter Text
The heat of Mustafar burned his skin and reminded him he was alive, and the man who called himself Vader pulled himself to stand in the ash. He shut his eyes, and the darkness and the quiet noise of the planet soothed his racing heart, slowed his heaving breaths.
For a moment he was almost at peace. The sounds of battle had silenced, and his blood had stopped rushing in his ears, and his head was no longer spinning with emotion. He could tell himself he was calm, for once, that the emptiness he felt now was serenity.
Vader opened his eyes again and his gaze fell to the corpse at his feet, and then turned towards the landing pad. He remembered two ships, and now only one remained.
The one the Jedi had come in. Obi-Wan had taken Padme’s ship. He’d taken Padme.
He hadn’t seen them coming, in that moment his thoughts had been only on his wife. The sound of her voice, begging him not to do what he’d already done, not to burn the man he was to embers, not to fall so he could save her.
In his mind Vader saw the pair of them—Obi-Wan and Yoda—framed by the light of the ship at their backs. So sure they would kill him.
There was that familiar rage, roiling in his blood so that when he knelt down to drag the body from the ash, the pain of his burned limbs didn’t stop him. The Jedi Grand Master had been an almost worthy adversary, but even he was no match for the strength Vader’s rage has given him.
A rage that made him want to burn Yoda, burn the Jedi who had come for him, who had taken his wife and child away from him. He had killed one of them, and he would kill the other if he had to.
The small amount of fear for Darth Sidious he held in the pit of his stomach only seemed to make his emotions whirl further out of control. He could taste it on his tongue when he looked up to see the glimmer in the sky of an approaching ship.
It’s that sight that made him feel the weight of the body in his hand and sobered him, allowed him to feel the pain of seared flesh for the first time. Vader began to push his aching, protesting body to climb the mountains of loose ash before him.
He made it to the landing pad in time for Sidious’s ship to touch down before him, hissing and winding down as the hatch opened, and his new Sith master made his way out flanked by two clone troopers.
To Vader, Darth Sidious was terror personified.
Maybe not at first glance, when he looked like nothing more than a wise old man who wanted the best for the Republic. Maybe not even now as he made his way towards Vader, terrible and cloaked in black. But Vader knew the things he had done. He knew the false faces he’d used to win the public’s favour, to pull himself to power. Now, Vader even knew that those faces had been used against him.
Vader threw the Grand Master’s body at the approaching Emperor’s feet and he squared his shoulders. He was sure the man in front of him must have heard those treacherous words he spoke to Padme. If he had heard, and if he could feel the fear that Vader had shoved away, he wasn’t making it obvious.
He stood there for the too long moment that Sidious didn’t say a word, and he was certainly a sight to behold.
Parts of his robes had burned away to reveal ash-blackened skin, soot stuck to his wounds and to the blood that flowed from them, and he held so tightly to his tension that his body ached. He was sure that tension was the only reason he was still standing.
Then, Sidious smiled an awful smile.
“Good, my apprentice. Good!” He gestured, and the troopers collected Yoda’s body from the ground, and Sidious brought a hand down painfully on his shoulder.
“He took Padmé.” Vader was barely containing his urgency, and Sidious gave his shoulder a harsh squeeze that was probably meant to be comforting. “I have to go after her.”
“My boy, I will need you by my side. Now that those corrupt Jedi are out of the way, there is much we need to do in order to restore peace—“
“I will go after her. Obi-Wan will not take her from me.” To Sidious, this sounded like a threat.
“Lord Vader,” He began, stressing the name so it stuck in Vader’s ears. “She is the one who brought this Jedi to you. The Senator betrayed you.”
“No.” Vader shook his head. “ No, the Jedi corrupted her, I can still save her. I will save her.”
Sidious let out a small breath, and with such practiced patience, his hand slid so it sat between Vader’s shoulders and ushered him towards the ship. He let out a sigh that sounded just so, and was silent for exactly the right amount of time. “She is gone, Vader. Perished.”
“She was alive, I felt it.” Vader’s feet stopped, and he turned to face Sidious with a burning gaze. Such convictions in his words and his stance that he couldn’t be urged to go any further. He wouldn’t believe it. He couldn’t. Look at what he’d done to save her life; It had been only for Padme, it couldn’t all be for nothing.
“It seems…” The Emperor paused, and he took a small step towards the ship. Had Vader been thinking about it, he might have thought that Sidious was afraid of him. “In your anger, you killed her.”
Vader reached through the Force. It was jarring to find nothing there within his reach. No Obi-Wan—cut off from him now, no doubt. No Padme, who had always been there to settle his racing thoughts. He searched for her desperately, but there was no heartbeat, no breath in her lungs. He could not find her exquisite presence in the Force.
Sidious was right.
For a moment, he was not a Sith. Nor was he a Jedi. For this short, agonizing moment Vader was only a man, and his heart burned in his chest. It made a noise so loud he had to open his mouth and let it out, and he raised his hand and the Jedi’s abandoned ship lurched back with a groan. Its feet screamed as it slid backwards on the landing pad, and he heard the sudden silence of it falling, and the bubbling of the lava eating through it. Vader wished that had been him.
Now, he was sure, Anakin Skywalker was officially dead. This man standing before Sidious was Vader completely, finally, frighteningly powerful, and ready to serve a new master all the same.
The flight to Polis Massa had been torturous. Several, shameful times, Obi-Wan had considered turning back, going back for Anakin. He wasn’t sure what he would have done when confronted by him. When he shut his eyes, Obi-Wan could still see the boy who was his apprentice, bowed and swearing allegiance to the man he was sworn to destroy.
Obi-Wan couldn’t feel him in the Force anymore, and he was sure not knowing—sure that knowing Anakin didn’t want to be connected with him anymore—was worse than knowing whatever fate had befallen his old friend.
To steady his thoughts, he would wander back to the medical suite on the Naboo star skiff and find Padme lying there, tended to by a droid. Her pallid skin, her shallow breathing, the sight of her kept Obi-Wan rooted to the present moment and kept his mind on the mission, when it drifted to less pleasant thoughts. Less noble thoughts.
He’d tried to stay by her side since he’d pulled her limp body from the landing pad on Mustafar. He had squeezed her hand and offered her comfort through the birth of her children. He stood where Anakin should have been standing, told her the things Anakin should have been telling her, and then she was gone, as if bringing her children to the world had taken the life out of her.
Obi-Wan had held them in his arms. They had barely weighed a thing, and still somehow they had kept him anchored there, those fragile things. Anakin and Padme’s twin son and daughter, Luke and Leia. He could still hear Padme’s failing breath whispering their names to him. She had used the last of her strength just to look at them.
His heart had broken for those children, and the thought they would never quite understand how loved they had been by parents they never got to meet.
Thoughts of the future made him feel ill.
Obi-Wan Kenobi was terrified. Anakin Skywalker was gone. Padme Amidala was gone. Their children, parentless. Now, Obi-Wan was the very last Jedi. Just like all other things he held dear, he was forced to watch the Order perish.
He could hear the pair of them fussing, just a room away, and he couldn’t bring himself to move from the quiet, dark room he’d sequestered himself into. The ship was en route to Alderaan, to Breha and Bail Organa, to deliver their new-born daughter.
Obi-Wan found himself willing the ship to stay in hyperspace forever. If he could freeze this moment, Obi-Wan thought, he might just have enough time to recover from this devastation.
There in the dark, where he’d found a moment of peace, Obi-Wan felt his hands begin to shake. He felt a sob choke its way free of his throat, and that’s when he realized his cheeks were already wet with tears.
He was the last of the Jedi. There was no code to tell him not to feel. It had never stopped him before, but he tried. Obi-Wan felt thirty-eight years of grief bubble to the surface and spill from him, and when those tears stopped a few minutes later, his chest still ached. He was sure that ache was coming from his soul itself. Sure that nothing else in this wretched universe would bring him joy again.
He felt the ship jostle as they dropped out of hyperspace, and for a bittersweet moment he wanted to chide Anakin for not programming his protocol droid to be a better pilot. In hindsight, trusting C-3P0 to pilot on his own was probably not the wisest of decisions.
Obi-Wan cleaned himself up and shoved his emotions away with a practiced ease, and then he made his way into the cockpit, where he pulled a thick brown cloak around his shoulders. Suspended between glittering stars was a blue and green jewel of a planet. Leia’s new home.
Threepio faced Obi-Wan, and helpfully announced that they had arrived.
It was now that Obi-Wan could finally find it in him to look upon those children, now that they were sleeping peacefully, and that he was about to separate them. If he could manage not to wake them, they might never know they have a sibling hiding somewhere in the Galaxy.
Obi-Wan doubted that very much. These were the children of Anakin Skywalker, they would be strong with the Force, and a formidable threat to the Emperor.
Leia fussed when Obi-Wan lifted her from the cot, but with an effortless instinct he held her to his chest and rocked her, she could feel his steady heart beating through the layers of his singed robes and it lulled her back to sleep.
The weight of her in his arms made Obi-Wan’s heart ache.
He left Luke to sleep without looking back, as the ship docked and the hatch’s hydraulics hissed open. Bail was waiting for them, grave faced, on the landing pad and Obi-Wan quickly ushered him back inside. It wasn’t a long way, but Obi-Wan didn’t remember his feet being so heavy, or ever being so aware of the sleeping child in his arms.
Breha looked graceful as ever, bathed in the ochre light of dusk, and almost immediately Obi-Wan had dropped Leia in her arms. Then, Breha looked as though it had only just dawned on her that she had a daughter.
She and Obi-Wan shared a look that seemed to be a promise. That she would be given the name Organa and everything that came along with it. That Leia would be loved and nurtured and given the best life Bail and Breha could possibly give her.
No words had been spoken between them, but the three of them had understood this was not going to be a leisurely visit. This was business, setting things right, grieving, if there was any time.
“I wish you both the very best.” Obi-Wan took a step back, he gave them a nod and turned towards the door.
“What about the boy?” Bail asked, and his voice sounded raw in the slightest. Obi-Wan’s was not the only heart broken today.
“I will take the boy to his family on Tatooine,” He said, and paused. “And I will watch over him.”
“I’m sorry about Senator Amidala and Anakin.”
Obi-Wan didn’t turn to face them again, but Bail and Breha could see his head bow ever so slightly.
“I’m sorry, too.” Obi-Wan set off for the ship again, and Bail and Breha—Leia tucked snugly and sleeping in her arms—watched he and Leia’s brother disappear into the atmosphere.
The Empire was already casting a frightening shadow over the galaxy, and there was nothing left for Vader to do but take his place at the head of it.
He still had his clone troops,—with the only notable disappearance clone trooper 7567 and a handful of others—he still had his fleet of star destroyers and each one of those had their own fleet of fighters. Lord Sidious still had his sway, and Vader still had his military mind and his cunning.
He found the role he had taken in this was not much different from his role during the Clone wars. The end of those wars was either a terrible defeat or a great victory, depending whose side you had taken. Sidious had seen them as a means to an end. Vader saw them as something he would rather forget. Forgetting wasn’t such a difficult task for someone who oversaw the running of an Empire.
However, the things he would rather forget had become innumerable very quickly. Anakin’s fears and nightmares had always boiled down to something as simple as death. Anakin had foolishly fought against death, and death won on far too many occasions.
Now, Vader’s dreams weren’t plagued by his fears. He had already faced the very worst of his fears, and somehow he kept on living. There was nothing left for Vader to fear, not even his own death. At times, he thought, it would have been welcome.
His dreams now were plagued with regrets, and betrayal, and failure. Last words screamed at him by a voice he remembered being gentle and rational. The corruption of the Jedi that had spread to his closest friend and the woman he loved. He dreamed about feeling them slip away from him, and about feeling his own heart stopping in his chest.
At least now Vader knew he had nothing left to fear. The thought had hardened him, and now he was mistaken for something cold and calculating, something without a face or a voice. A galaxy-conquering machine.
Vader was made of fire and stone. He was born of it, just like Anakin Skywalker was born of it. It was fire that had come from the mouths of the dragons who lived inside Tatooine’s twin suns. It had pushed him through his slavery, through his training as a Jedi, and through the trial-by-combat that was the clone wars. For Vader, the heat of Tatooine’s twin suns were a quickly fading memory and the dead of space had left him cold.
Now, though, as his feet touched the planet of Naboo he began to remember the warmth the planet had brought him.
It had been just a week since he had learned of Padme’s death—since he had killed her—and already she was being put on display. They had dressed her in blues that reminded Vader of the sea and of silent and still nights on Naboo. Her hair around her face reminded him of watching her brush it on Coruscant. The city lights had twinkled through her curls and reminded him of a star-filled sky, and now it was adorned with silver blossoms that had the same affect.
He watched her pass, and it was only a fleeting moment before her face had disappeared. He had thought, if he tried, he could kiss the life back into her and watch her cheeks turn pink again, and it had taken all his willpower not to reach out and snatch her up from her coffin.
As powerful as he was, he had harmed her enough. To raise a single finger against that woman would have been a sin he could never have atoned for, and he had killed her. What hope did he have of atoning for that? Had he the power to bring her back to life, he would let her sleep.
Padme Amidala would be laid to rest in a tomb Vader thought would only be worthy of her if it was a little grander.
He stood there, terrible and cloaked in black, and bathed in shadow at the edge of the lake. The walkway her coffin travelled over now appeared to float on the water, and it was lit by flickering sunset-coloured flames.
He couldn’t quite see her face through the crowds anymore, but in the spaces between them he could see the light dance over the curl of her hair, over the hands clasped on her round belly, and the japor snipped that rested on it.
The sight of her had thawed him so he felt the familiar burn of tears on his face. When she was finally out of his sight and he shut his eyes, he could still see her anguished expression and feel his grip on her throat.
He didn’t know how long he had waited there before he turned away, towards the dark and quiet streets where the procession had already been, but the crowds that had blocked his view had begun to disperse.
Vader marched through the night-bathed streets and towards the empty square where he’d landed, and within seconds his fighter screamed into the sky.
The star destroyer Executor waited for him just far enough away so it wouldn’t be detected. No doubt the planet’s security had been bolstered for her funeral. Landing and docking his fighter was so familiar he could do it in his sleep.
He made his way, with dignified and purposeful steps through the hangar and to the cockpit of the ship, making no indication he’d just allowed himself the final moment of his humanity.
Heads stayed dutifully, and perhaps fearfully, down as he entered, and he made his way at a deliberate pace to the nose of the ship. There he took a lingering look at the planet below them. Up here, Naboo was painted in blues and greens and whites, frozen still among the stars.
Up here, Vader was cold again.
He sucked in a deep breath, and squared his shoulders and raised his head.
“Set course for Geonosis.” He said, and spun on his heel, and from somewhere behind him he heard one of his servicemen call back obediently,
“Yes, Lord Vader.”