Archive of Our Own

Luke’s X-Wing fighter sped down the trench with Darth Vader and his TIE pilots in pursuit. 'Luke, trust me,' I told him through the Force. And Luke did. He switched off his targeting computer. He concentrated and reached out into the Force. He could sense my presence and I showed him a vision. He could see where the exhaust port was, he could see clearly how he would launch the proton torpedoes and he could feel himself pushing them into the port with the Force. He knew it would happen. Luke trusted easily. He never questioned the good in people. I sense, I know, that he will never lose his trust in me, even when he realizes that I wasn’t always completely honest with him. He will understand that I always did what I thought was best.

Luke’s father, Anakin, did not trust easily. Probably because his early life and Luke’s were very different. But like his son, Anakin did trust me once. It didn’t last. Already as a child, Anakin had seen some of the worst that people could do. His cynicism had been hard to contradict. When his trust, in me or in anyone, was tested, even if what we did we believed was for the best of intentions, his trust could be shaken. His doubts were then exploited, until he was told that everyone he cared for had betrayed him and somehow he was able to believe it. Trust is something that he now thinks no one is worthy of. The Sith rule by fear.

I don’t think anyone who loved him really ever betrayed him. I know I never did. Not even in my recent death at the hands of Darth Vader, the Sith Anakin had become. He found my final actions confusing because they did not conform to the image he had of me by then. I was no monster out to destroy him. I was a fragile old man, no threat to him at all. He could sense that my purpose there was not to destroy him. I had come to show him something. Then I surrendered willingly. I smiled. I looked at the boy, then I looked at him. He struck and I vanished, but my consciousness remained, now immortal.

Vader was utterly confused by what Anakin felt. He should have enjoyed destroying me, but instead, he was sad that I was dead. It took all his strength to turn his sorrow back into hate. But then something strange. I was dead, I should have faded into the Cosmic Force. But he still sensed me. How was that possible? Then he reached out to me and I drew him through the Force to the boy.

He could hear Luke’s voice in the Force. 'Ben! Don’t go! I haven’t ever known anyone else like me! Please don’t be gone, I need you!' Anakin realized that it was a voice that he recognized, and his confusion grew. He felt that he had sensed the boy’s presence before. It would not be until later that he would identify this young man with the voice that he’d heard as he lay his head against his pregnant wife’s stomach all those years ago. The voice he’d thought he had dreamed. But here it was, and this voice in the Force was growing ever louder, calling to him from the Light Side. For the first time since he surrendered himself to becoming Darth Vader, Anakin felt tempted by the light.

Even though I never willingly betrayed Anakin, I do admit my own part in losing his trust. When Anakin was young, I told myself that I would never lie to the boy and that I would never hurt him. I swore it. To be worthy of trust, one must always be honest to be honorable. At the beginning, as a Jedi, I kept my mind open to him, he could connect with my feelings through the Force easily. Anakin was not always open and parts of his mind were hidden. Still, I never pried. He had been a slave, he had often had his free will taken from him and had been hurt through no fault of his own. I did not want to see some of the darkest things he held in his mind, but encouraged him instead to let them go so that he could be free of the pain. I didn’t give him commands the way some masters would have. Although he could be disobedient and disrespectful of authority, he was usually just questioning whether or not there was a better way to do things. I always answered his questions. I did listen, despite what he said to the contrary. He was smart and eager to come up with solutions. They were usually very good solutions, too. At the Jedi Temple, he questioned matters of the Jedi Code or principles of the Order. Some didn’t like it, they felt that it meant he was not really committed to the Jedi. I always pleaded for them to show compassion for him and try to understand that his life had been unorthodox and that he needed a patient hand. Then I’d give him a chance to explain himself. I’d explain myself. A lot of the time, I learned as much from him as he did from me. That was why we were such good friends. Losing his friendship hurt.

We trusted each other because we understood each other. We always shared a common purpose, even if we were sometimes at odds about the best methods. But there were times that our understanding was tested. When, because of his experiences, he simply couldn’t accept my point of view. When he didn’t understand something I’d done, he questioned the image he had of me. I admit, there were times when I lied to him. Or when I was unfair. Or when I was too rigid in my views. Or when I asked him to do something that he knew was wrong. Or when I hurt him. His mother’s death drew him away from me. Then there was the Rako Hardeen mission. Then Ahsoka. Then that cover-up about the clone army. Then asking him to spy for the Council. Then coming to Mustafar to destroy him. When summed up in such a fashion, it seems like I did become everything Anakin accused me of being at the end. By Mustafar, he hated me. But my hand was forced on all those occasions until I had no other choice. At least, not that I could see.

Even on Mustafar. On Mustafar, we came into conflict, I couldn’t prevent that. My duty as a Jedi to protect the galaxy from the Dark Side required it. But at the desperate end, I did have one last choice left to make. I could, should, have killed Anakin, I knew he was dangerous. I had to hurt him, even though I had sworn never to do so. I betrayed my vow and I saved my own life. If I hadn’t, he’d have killed me. I could have let him and kept my honor intact. I did not kill him or accept death, both would have been preferable options for a Jedi. I did neither. My fall into disgrace was seemingly complete. I had lost everything. I asked myself why I did what I did. I barely recognized myself.

Master Yoda seemed to think that I had made my decision not because of my Jedi training, but merely because of who I was, that some things were more important to me than duty. And that my decision was pivotal in fulfilling my purpose. True, I have lost everything, even my physical life. But Master Yoda told me when I was at my lowest point, feeling my deepest loss, that when we lose things, hope remains to find something else. He assured me that I hadn’t lost myself, that all the things I was, I would be again. If Anakin still exists, I believe that Luke will be the one to save him. And it was my decision to leave Anakin alive and to stay alive to save his children that will make that possible. I hope Anakin still exists. I have so missed him all these years.

--

A Family

Anakin was nine years old when he came to the Jedi Temple to live with me. We stepped off the Jedi transport ship from Naboo and a temple speeder took us home. My flat was the one I shared with Qui-Gon. As a newly elevated knight, I would have been entitled to move into my own quarters. Nevertheless, now that I had a new padawan, I didn’t see any reason to give up nice rooms.

The first few days were hard. Qui-Gon’s things were still there and we had to pack them up. As we went through his meager possessions and decided what to do with them, I reminisced and told Anakin stories about my master. I told him what a great Jedi Qui-Gon had been. How much I admired him. How connected he and I had been. How important it was for people like us to have connections with other wielders of the Force. I was one of the first Force wielders Anakin had ever met, the first he had had a chance to get to know. We easily developed a close connection.

“Until Qui-Gon, I didn’t think there was anyone else like me,” he said as he folded Qui-Gon’s old quilt. “Now I’ve met lots. But I don’t know if I like all of them.”

“Well, because of your connection, you trusted Qui-Gon. You could sense he wasn’t deceiving you. You’ll get to like more of the Jedi once you get to know them. Not all of their thoughts are nice, no one’s are. But Jedi keep their minds open because we have no need for secrets among us. It is only against opponents that misdirection should be used as a tool.”

“I can tell what the Jedi are thinking, and some Jedi aren’t totally honest. Master Yaddle is in love with Master Yoda, but she pretends not to be,” Anakin smirked.

I laughed but was finally able to get out the words, “Anakin, you can’t read people’s thoughts without permission. Although Jedi aren’t supposed to have secrets, if someone is keeping something private, we should respect that and allow them to have their dignity until they choose to share it.” Then I lowered my head and shook it, “Poor lovesick Master Yaddle.”

Anakin nodded. Then he looked curious, “Master, there seem to be a lot of rules here. Have you always been here at the temple?”

“Almost as long as I can remember,” I said softly. I had only the faintest memories of my early life. Some images or feelings.

“Did you have a family?”

“I suppose,” I was trying to think of a way to change the course of the conversation. I knew I had a family, though. I remembered that feeling, being loved. They’d called me ‘Ben'. I remembered that.

“So why didn’t they come here with you? Why don’t you go and visit them?” I knew what he was getting at. He was hoping I would let him see his mother some time.

“Anakin, the ability to use the Force is powerful. We’re not the same as other people. With these powers, we can do so much good. The Jedi mission is to use our great power for selfless purposes. We use our abilities to help the most people we can, not just those we love. But our powers can be dangerous. Especially for small children. We might not mean to hurt anyone, but we have to be taught to be in control, to not act on bad feelings like fear or anger. We have to learn how from people like us. So we leave our families and we Jedi take care of each other. Our families understand that we have to go somewhere else for our own good, and for the greater good. It’s a different kind of family in a way.”

“I didn’t have the Jedi,” Anakin lowered his brows defiantly, “I wouldn’t have hurt anyone.”

“It’s not always that simple. Anakin, did you ever do something to hurt someone by accident? Even without the Force?”

“Yes. I had a part I was making come loose from a lathe and hit Watto one time.”

“Right, you didn’t mean to, but someone was hurt. What happened?”

“He hit me with a stick. A lot,” he admitted.

Not a good example, I realized. I was still learning how strange his slave’s life had been. I tried another subject, “Who taught you that it is wrong to hurt people on purpose or would stop you if you tried?”

“My mother. She always said that the only thing we should do when we have a choice is to help others. We weren’t allowed to keep anything for ourselves anyway, so there was no point in being greedy. We couldn’t even keep those we loved with us if they got sold or something. So she said that we have to help everyone we can, whenever we can. We should treat everyone like family.” He looked so small as he sat there, hugging the quilt to his chest. “I never wanted to hurt anyone on purpose. I don’t see why anyone would want to. That’s why what the Jedi are doing is right. We use our powers to protect people from people who want to hurt them.”

“Well,” I said gently, “Yes, actually.”

He smiled weakly, “I had a dream that Mom’d have a family. She’s going to be really happy.” I worried that he still pictured himself as a part of it somehow.

“That’s good, Anakin,” I sat beside him and patted his shoulder.

“I’m glad for her. She’ll get to have a family. Like you and me,” he stood and placed the quilt in the box I had been packing and looked back at me.

I was surprised by what he’d said about us, but I nodded. There would be time to explain Jedi rules against attachments later, I thought. I tried never to let him speak of his mother again.

What he described, I knew was a vision. Force visions are clear images of the past, present, or future. We can sense that they are real. They can tell us something that has occurred, was occurring, or would occur, but what we see is open to interpretation. We cannot know how what we see will come about. Force visions are an ability that usually starts to appear to us as dreams. Typical padawans developed the ability in the late teenage years. It is not until a Jedi grows more powerful that waking visions can be seen. Anakin had had dream visions before, since he was seven, I believe. But when he was young, they were always of good things.

Later, they turned frightening. He was nineteen and his powers were increasing more rapidly than any being the Jedi had ever seen. It was making him impatient in his questions. He wondered why everyone couldn’t see the things he could. He had the abilities of masters who had been Jedi for decades, his strength in the Force could be overwhelming. For much of his life, the Jedi Council kept ordering testing for him, to see what he could do. It was stressful on him, I know. If you listened to him at the time, you’d have thought that ‘damn-chosen-one-poodoo’ was all one word.

The new visions were nightmares. His mother was a captive. She was being tortured and abused. From what I understand, the Tuskan raiders have a custom of taking sacrificial victims for sacred rites that they conduct over their holy month. Everything he told me about them sounded inhumane and cruel. Sand people did not see other beings as fully sentient, so they did not have much empathy for any but their own kind. Horrors like that were nothing to wish on anyone, especially someone good. Anakin just couldn’t find any peace.

“Dreams pass in time.” That’s actually what I said. We both knew that his mother probably had been or would be tortured to death. That bothered me, but in the way that people’s suffering bothered me in general. The Jedi knew that beings died and they faded into the Cosmic Force. It was nothing to be sad about. His mother’s death was nothing personal to me. After all, I’d never seen his mother. I didn’t understand what he felt. I thought I was helping Anakin get through his pain the way a Jedi would. To let go. Only his pain mattered to me.

When we were assigned to provide security for Senator Padme Amidala, he seemed to be completely distracted by her and I welcomed his change of focus. A boy’s first crush. This I could deal with. This I could understand. When Qui-Gon and I had been assigned to protect a Mandalorian duchess named Satine Kryze years before, I had experienced a similar obsession. It was funny to see Anakin watching Padme with his youthful longing, the way I had looked at Satine. I laughed at him he way Qui-Gon had laughed at me. Padme dismissed Anakin as a child in the first ten seconds. He’d get over the heartbreak in time, I told myself.

Unfortunately, that was not the end of it. The visions continued, and Padme, not understanding the Jedi Code, told him that it would be wrong to not try to help his mother. Padme admitted her mistake to me after Geonosis. She said she was sorry because his mother had died and all she had done was to cause Anakin more pain. I understood why she had tried to help him. She understood how he was feeling when I didn’t.

Anakin seemed to accept his mother’s death, though. He came back from escorting Padme to Naboo seeming happier than he had ever been. He didn’t express anger at me for how I’d kept him from his mother. I believed that Anakin’s Jedi training had given him the strength to let go of the pain. In truth, he had just adopted Padme’s point of view that attachments weren’t wrong. I blinded myself to their relationship, in hindsight it wasn’t like they had hidden it well. I told myself that with his mother gone, Anakin would never have to feel conflicted about family again. I never acknowledged the fact that what he did instead was create a new family, our little family during the war.

--

A Warrior

Anakin and I were standing side by side at the new Central Command base on Coruscant. I, General Kenobi, and my padawan, Commander Skywalker, had been assigned to our first campaign. We were waiting for the shuttle to land with my new clone battalion, the 212th. The ship descended from the sky, touched down, and the ramp lowered. Anakin was grinning. Come to think of it, he had had a permanent grin on since he'd returned from Naboo. And what can only be described as a restless exuberance. It was getting distracting. He punched me on the arm. I turned to look at him beside me and frown. He could be so juvenile.

My clone commander approached and removed his helmet. “CC-2224, Commander Cody, reporting for duty, General,” Cody saluted.

“Su cuy’gar, Al’verde,” I bowed as did Anakin beside me. I had met Commander Cody when I had first discovered the cloning facility on Kamino, right before the war. The Kaminoans had given me a tour. Cody was their top Leadership Academy graduate. We had bonded over our love of Mandalorian culture. He had been trained by Mandalorian warriors, while I took it as a more…personal interest. Ah, Satine! In any case, the Commander spoke Mando’a excellently.

“Su cuy’gar, Jetii Kenobi,” he bowed his head slightly.

I indicated Anakin. “This is my padawan, Commander Skywalker,” I told Cody in Basic. I didn’t want Anakin to be left out of the conversation.

“Ner vod,” Anakin addressed Cody politely. It meant literally, ‘my brother’. Figuratively, it meant something like swearing an oath of loyalty and friendship to an ally. I had told him a bit of what I’d learned about clone culture. Anakin had evidently been learning the language to better interact with them. The boy constantly surprised me. His pronunciation needed work, but even Cody seemed impressed.

Anakin and I were side by side for much of the war. I became famous as a strategist who was a master at misdirection and outwitting his opponents. Anakin was quickly known for his feats of bravery that were positively spectacular. He was elevated to knight and general almost immediately, I insisted on it. I wanted us to have the same experiences during the war, not to keep him as a subordinate. We shared Jedi missions, military campaigns, everything. We even had some strange adventures. We were captured by pirates and chained to Count Dooku once, in hindsight, we both found that hilarious.

We kept the same apartment at the Jedi Temple and had a close group of friends. He had a talented apprentice, Ahsoka. It made me proud to see him as a teacher. We still saw Padme often, she was proving to be a trustworthy ally to the Jedi. Even the clones who commanded our units, Cody and Rex, were close friends.

Anakin and I could read each other better than anyone we knew. He never outright lied to me, he just continued to keep some things private. I was used to it. I had never lied to him. Then came the Rako Hardeen mission. There was a plot to kidnap the Chancellor and we had captured the engineer of the plot, Maralo Eval. (Ahsoka thought that name was hilarious. So juvenile!) We desperately needed to know the details of the plot. We needed to know if the Separatists, our opponents in the war, were involved. If we could catch the Separatist leader, Count Dooku, at something as diabolical as hiring criminals to abduct the leader of a sovereign state, we could convince hundreds of worlds to leave the Separatist Confederacy. We knew Dooku committed acts of barbarity to accomplish his ends, but Separatist systems didn’t believe the stories, saying they were just Republic propaganda. They accused us of equally barbarous actions. The stakes for the war were high. So I volunteered myself for the mission because it was my plan. It was dangerous, but I thought that I was the only one who had the skills and wits to accomplish it. There was just one problem. I had to pretend to be dead. That involved lying to Anakin. My focus on the mission won out and I honestly didn’t think about what it would do to him.

I thought that Anakin’s reaction would make my ‘death’ believable. Ahsoka was with him when he witnessed it. She said she had never heard him scream like that. She said he wouldn’t let go of my body, that she was afraid that he was going to hurt the medics who came to collect me. He was not being the calm, collected Jedi that he should have been and he was raging publicly. She worried about the concern on the faces of the passers-by. The Republic’s citizens trusted the Jedi because they knew that they could rely on our training to keep us from losing control of our powers. Anakin was looking dangerous.

“Master!” she said she finally shouted and placed her hands on his face to give him her strength and soothe him, letting the light side of the Force flow between them. “Look at me! We have to go!” He calmed and let her lead him home. Ahsoka stayed with him as much as she could, but even she had to eat and sleep. She said that she mediated with him, to try to help ease some of his burden. But that it only made her angry, too.

Padme told me that she had been afraid. Before the funeral, she had gone to our quarters to find him and had seen the fixtures in the living room look like they had all imploded. The aftermath had been cleaned and repaired by the time I returned, so I never saw it.

Anakin didn’t speak a word until after my funeral. As my only apprentice, he was ‘torch bearer’, the chief mourner in the ceremony. In a traditional cremation like Qui-Gon had, the torch bearer brings the fire and sets the body alight. The Jedi Temple had incinerators for that. Anakin just stood at ‘my’ head. At the funeral, some of the Jedi reported that they had felt cold.

Anakin and I had always acknowledged our willingness to die for our duty. Yet, countless times, he had taken impossible, sometimes foolish, risks to save my life. Master Yoda had always said he had a problem with letting go of those he cared for.

I had to disguise myself as my supposed murderer, Rako Hardeen. The plan was to get put into prison and get myself recruited by Eval to help in the kidnapping plot. Anakin and Ahsoka found me once the Council told them where ‘Hardeen’ was hiding.

Anakin grabbed me and addressed the man he thought had killed me. “Get up you filth!” He picked me up and pinned me against the wall. “If it was up to me, I’d kill you, right here,” he raged. Seeing his face, I was a little worried. Ahsoka didn’t even look like she would stop him. “But lucky for you, the man you murdered would rather see you rot in jail.” As a Jedi, I couldn’t help but be proud of how he handled the situation, under the circumstances.

So I went to prison. Prison was actually a fascinating experience, from an anthropological perspective. The society was savage, so it was critical to establish dominance through violence and to have alliances, or you were setting yourself up for abuse. The clone guards seemed to accept this. From what I knew about clones, their early lives in the cloning facility had been similar. One of the strangest things I noticed about my prison stay was the young Boba Fett. He had been raised in the facility with the other Jango Fett clones, he was one technically, but he was different from them in many regards. His upbringing had been different from theirs. He did not have their rapid aging or the rigorous conditioning the other clones had. He had been brought up as a son by his father. My clones had told me that they all knew Boba growing up, but that he usually treated them with disdain. They were forced to leave him alone. Now that Boba was in prison, the clone guards kept him in, but they still seemed to defer to him. They even protected him. They couldn’t hurt him, it was against their programming. He acted like a spoiled brat of a young prince kept within palace walls.

I broke out of prison with Eval and the bounty hunter, Cad Bane. We made our way to Nal Hutta. How Anakin found me, I have no idea. As I said, he constantly surprised me. He nearly tore our ship apart, causing us to crash. He came after me ferociously, I was nearly certain he was going to lose control. He was actually raising his lightsaber to cut me in half when Bane came to my rescue. It was somewhat flattering how much Anakin wanted to avenge my death, I must admit. Distressing, but flattering. I was reasonably certain it was going to get me killed. Anakin fought off Bane and came after me again. I grabbed ahold of him and I dared to reach out to his mind through the Force so that he would know it was me. “Anakin, don’t follow me.” I whispered and used the Force to knock him unconscious. I wasn’t sure how I was going to get Bane to leave him alive, but Ahsoka arrived just in time to protect him, while we ran to our disabled, but working, ship.

I don’t know how Anakin took it when he was finally told the truth. I only know how he reacted when he finally saw me again. That was on Naboo, after we had thwarted the plot to kidnap the Chancellor. I walked up to him, still in my disguise as Hardeen.

“You look terrible,” he barely looked at me.

“Being a criminal is not easy work,” I joked.

“If I had known what was going on, I could have helped you.” He was extremely relieved to have me alive, I sensed. But he was angry, “Too bad the Council didn’t trust me.”

I stopped in my tracks. He was blaming the Council, but evidently he was not including me with them. He couldn’t picture me deliberately deceiving him. “Anakin, it was my decision to keep the truth from you,” I touched his shoulder. He shrugged off my hand roughly. “I knew if you were convinced I was dead, Dooku would believe it as well.”

He turned, his face livid. “Your decision?”

I couldn’t meet his gaze. “I know I did some questionable things, but…I did what I had to do.” Finally, I looked at him, “I hope you can understand that.” Suddenly, I didn’t just look like scum, I felt like it too.

“You lied to me!” he accused, “How many other lies have I been told by the Council?” The Jedi Council had always been a focus for his distrust of authority. Yet he still thought I was honorable, just misguided. “And how do you know that you even have the whole truth?”

It took some time after that for us to recover from the tension between us. He avoided me while he spent his time in training with Ahsoka before returning to the front.

--

A Jedi

Ahsoka Tano was fourteen years old when she was assigned to Anakin as a padawan. She came to meet us on Christophsis. They were only six years apart in age. I thought it would teach him about respect if he were to be in a position of authority but was not given much deference. She was snarky with him from the beginning. She was perfect.

When he was younger, Anakin had very little in the way of understanding for other children or young people. He thought that they were silly, he thought he was better than them. I could relate, I had had little patience for people my own age when I was growing up. In terms of his abilities, Anakin was not wrong, he was far ahead of his peers. It mostly fell to me to keep him humble. He certainly did not thank me for pointing out his flaws, but at least he respected me as his mentor.

We were on campaigns in the Outer Rim for much of the early war, so it was months before we had to see to arrangements for Ahsoka’s living situation. After a disastrous mission on Felucia, all three of us went back to the Temple for a time. I asked Anakin what his plans would be.

“I’m not going anywhere, why?” He was sitting in the kitchen cracking jerba ribs to get at the marrow. He talked as he gnawed.

“Well, I just thought that now that you have a padawan, you might take new quarters.” In truth, I didn’t mind if he stayed. I was accustomed to his being there.

“Eh. I helped her arrange for a small room of her own. She said she’d rather have her space. I don’t think she wants to live with me. I don’t think she even likes me,” he confessed.

“What would make you say that? Do you have some problem working together?”

“Well, I mean, we work together fine. She’s really good. But every time I try to do something normal with her, like sit down for lunch or something, she gets really quiet. And moody. She’s offended by everything. When do teenagers lighten up?”

“Dealing with teenagers can be an ordeal,” I feigned sympathy. Anakin had only turned twenty a few months before and raising him through his teenage years had felt like a trial on par with any I had faced to become a Jedi Master. I had joked with Mace about submitting it as one of my trials to the Council. He said that he would have voted to approve it.

I ran into Ahsoka when she was doing security detail in the Jedi Archives. I often spent my free time there. “How are you enjoying your new quarters?” I asked her.

“They’re okay, I guess.” She looked bored, as teenagers often do.

“Why didn’t you want to live with your Jedi Master? That is the more typical arrangement.”

“I don’t know, I guess I just don’t want to bother him. He’s really busy and he trains all the time. I’d just feel like I was a nuisance.”

“Well, then I guess you win. I’m stuck with him. I was hoping to get a reprieve. Watching him eat is terrifying,” His table manners were simply awful.

She knew. “Ugh, he’s all yours.”

Ahsoka was indeed talented, but lacked in self-assurance at first. Thankfully, Anakin’s confidence rubbed off on her. He trained her to be as dedicated as he was and to share many of his convictions. As a student, Ahsoka even made me proud. She understood Anakin in some ways I couldn’t. He learned as much from her as she did from him. She helped him to see himself in a new light, as someone who was admired and looked up to. This imbued him with a sense of responsibility for his behavior. It inspired him to be more considerate of others, more worthy of admiration. Even his manners improved.

Then Ahsoka disappeared on Felucia. The death toll in the war had been high. The risk of losing your friends was omnipresent. But Anakin insisted that he could still feel Ahsoka’s presence in the Force. He knew she was alive, but he was helpless to find her or protect her. He was practically panicking. By the end, though, as the great Jedi he was then, Anakin was able to calm himself and resign himself to the reality that Ahsoka’s fate was out of his hands. He had humility enough to admit that he was not all powerful.

Miraculously, Ahsoka made it back alive. Yoda told me that he overheard a conversation between them after she made it back home.

“Ahsoka, so sorry I am.” (I realize this was probably not how they sounded, but this was how Master Yoda recounted it.) Anakin had apologized to someone?

“For what are you sorry?”

“For letting you go. Get taken, I let you. My fault it was.” Anakin angry at himself, rather than someone else? Strange.

“No, Master, your fault, it was not. ”

“Paid more attention, I should have, tried harder, I should have.”

“Everything you could, you already did. Everything you had to do. When alone out there, I was, had only your training, I did. And the lessons you taught me. And because of you, survive I did. And not only that, able to lead others I was, to survive as well.” She made him feel strong, not weak, she didn’t criticize him. She respected him. She taught him how to respect someone. As his master, these were lessons I couldn’t teach.

“Know what to say, I do not.”

“I do. Thank you, Master.”

“You’re welcome.” Master Yoda said Anakin actually said it humbly.

On her own, Ahsoka became a brilliant military commander and a famous Jedi. We all foresaw a bright future for her, even she did. We called her back from Cato Nemoidia with Anakin to investigate a terrorist bombing at the Jedi Temple. Ahsoka and Anakin were full partners by then, working easily, side by side. They were quickly able to discover that the bomb was planted in a temple worker. They arrested his wife for feeding him the explosives. What happened next was completely unexpected.

Ahsoka went to visit the woman in prison. Then the woman was Force choked to death with Ahsoka the only other person in the room. She was arrested and put on trial by the Jedi Council. We, the Council, questioned her abilities, her feelings, her loyalty, her actions, until even she couldn’t defend herself. Then we expelled her from the Order and turned her over to a military court. Master Yoda and Master Windu presented the Council’s decision over Anakin’s protestations. As a member of the Council, I had voted against expulsion, but the Council always presented its decisions unanimously. I had to stay loyal to my duty despite my personal feelings or my trust of Anakin and Ahsoka.

“She’s innocent!” Anakin roared at me after the Council decision. I was as sure of that as he was.

“Anakin, keep your voice down, we don’t want to do it, but we don’t see any other choice. Ahsoka’s trial has to be seen as a fair one. We have to have transparency, the Jedi cannot afford to be seen as secretive. The Republic won’t trust us. Support for this war and for us is eroding every day that it continues,” I hissed. “A woman was murdered!”

“You know Ahsoka didn’t do it! You could have spoken up.”

“I did Anakin. We all did. No one on the Council really believes that Ahsoka has done anything wrong. But we have to have faith in the system, that she will be found not guilty and that we can put this behind us,” I waved my hand in a calming gesture.

“But she could be imprisoned, or executed!”

“Anakin, there is nothing else we can do.”

“Speak for yourself!” he stalked off. Part of me was worried he was going to try to help her escape. Part of me hoped he would.

Ahsoka was put on trial, before the Chancellor, for treason and murder. Watching from our seats in the courtroom, the Jedi Council wore gray faces. It was a clear injustice, something our order demanded that we fight against, but our loyalty to the Republic made us helpless to rectify it. The Republic that we had sworn to serve was becoming unrecognizable. Then at the last minute, Anakin walked in and saved us from ourselves. He had found the real culprit, a padawan who had turned to the Dark Side. She had committed the acts because of her outrage about what the war was making the Jedi Order into. She said our order was becoming what it should have been fighting against. She confessed to framing Ahsoka.

We invited Ahsoka to return to the Order, after we had made her doubt everything she believed in, even herself. She rejected the Jedi. She rejected Anakin, even though he had never lost his faith in her. He didn’t speak to me for a while. He didn’t even come home to the Temple for a few weeks. Nevertheless, when he finally came home, he seemed recommitted to his duty.

We were working together as partners better than we had in a while when I talked to him a few months later on Utapau. He confessed to missing Ahsoka, but he said he did not understand her decision.

“It was a surprise decision to all of us,” I admitted.

“It was wrong, she’s a Jedi, she belongs with us. She’s one of us!”

“She made the decision, Anakin.”

“Well, what choice did we give her?” He’d said ‘we’. He grouped himself with the Order, even then. “The moment there were any suspicions about her loyalty, the Council turned their back on her.” He was right.

Representing the Council, I tried to concede that. “I will grant you, mistakes were made. But she chose to leave.” She chose to leave. That’s what I told him. I placed the fault with her. I was trying to protect him, I saw that he blamed himself because he believed he had done something to make her want to go. Losing Ahsoka had made Anakin unable to see himself as worthy of admiration anymore. He hated what he saw. Eventually, I convinced him to agree with me and blame her for making a selfish decision. It was easier. It made me feel better too.

--

A Brother

Anakin and I were generals in an army made up of clones, clones who had been created and raised for one purpose only, to fight a war so that citizens of the Republic didn’t have to. These men had no families except each other, no attachments to anyone who would be concerned about them. They had been taught their whole lives that their purpose was duty. That giving their lives to the Republic was a noble calling. They were proud to be selfless. Their loyalty and dignity made it difficult not to admire them. For me at least. Most people did not know what to make of them.

When I had discovered the cloning facility, I had only been permitted to speak to one clone, Cody, who eventually became my clone commander. He assured me that he and his brothers were content with the life they had been given and that they were devoted to serving the Jedi and the Republic, to whom they were grateful for creating them.

After Geonosis, I gave the Jedi a briefing on the clones, before we generals selected our clone commanders and our units were organized. Anakin was just back from Naboo, he arrived at the briefing eating some kind of fried stick-shaped food wrapped in a paper cone. “What is that?” I asked him as the rest of the Jedi filed in.

He stuffed the last two in his mouth with his prosthetic right hand and crumpled the cone and wiped his hands on his robe. “Lylek straws,” he said as he chewed.

I wrinkled my nose. Fried bits of gigantic insects from Ryloth. The boy had the worst taste in food I had ever seen.

I began my briefing once the Jedi had been assembled in the small amphitheater style room. A hologram of a clone soldier appeared above the conference table. I explained the basics of clone physiology. They were made to be sturdy, strong, and disease resistant. They healed fast. They had accelerated aging, so the present maximum age for a clone was ten standard years, but they had the bodies of men of thirty and were quick learners. No one was sure how long they could live. None but the recent veterans of Geonosis had ever left Kamino, but they had been educated about conditions on other planets. Their primary education was in military skills and loyalty classes, as far as I knew.

“So are they fully sentient?” Master Kcaj asked. He hadn’t met a clone yet. It was a valid question. Since these were engineered creatures, we really couldn’t be sure if they were sentient according to how we defined the term. They were a new type of being and the Jedi and the Republic would have to decide how to classify them legally so that we could decide on our policy on how to treat them.

“Actually, I was impressed with how intelligent they are,” I told him, “They have free will. Creative thinking is considered to be their advantage over droids. I don’t believe they are mindless drones.”

“The living Force, they possess, like all life forms,” Master Yoda added.

“But they were made artificially, no matter how much they seem like creatures with self-awareness, you cannot ignore the fact that they are unnatural things,” Master Krell was very conservative in his views.

“They’re people!” Anakin shouted, standing up and walking out of the room. Master Windu gasped slightly and looked at me. It was a serious breach of protocol for a padawan to speak in a gathering of this sort. He was supposed to be watching and learning. But even Mace knew what had made Anakin angry.

Anakin had been a slave. His early reality had been that he was born to a life of servitude, through no fault of his own, and that he was sentient enough to be aware of his condition. This made him question the institution, whether or not it was right, whether or not there was another way, whether or not he should fight to have a choice about his life. Because of this, I believe he understood the clones better than any of us.

I found him at home after the briefing wrapped up. He was just staring out the window of our small living room, with his arms crossed. The transparisteel was covered with a few spider-webs of cracks.

“Anakin…I know that debate upset you,” I began softly.

“I just can’t believe they were even discussing it,” he lowered his head and shut his eyes as if in pain.

“We have to have discussions, we cannot just act on things without looking at all the options and opinions.”

“Some things are not matters of opinion, some things are just right or wrong. How would you like it if someone questioned whether or not you were fully human, whether or not you were as good as they were? How would you like it if somebody didn’t consider you worthy of respect or dignity?”

“You certainly gave the Jedi something to think about,” I told him, without anger.

He turned, his gold plated prosthesis flashed as he uncrossed his arms, “What did they say?”

“Our official policy will be that the clones are sentient beings. We will treat them as we treat any sentient beings. Under our commands they will be allowed complete free will, we will encourage individuality and self-expression. I think they have a lot of potential, but have not been given much freedom. It will be fascinating to see clone culture develop. Master Plo Koon was really interested in some of their institutions.”

“What are they like? I only ever met the few on the battlefield. We didn’t have much time to talk,” Anakin and I sat on opposite couches. I put my datapad down on the low table.

“You know, it is the strangest thing, their people have only existed for ten years, but their little society seems to be rich with traditions.” I spent the rest of the afternoon telling him what I had gathered about clone culture.

When we finally led the clones on campaign, Anakin always acted as if he was one of them. He ate what they ate, he learned their jokes, he even participated in their Invented Rituals of Competition. I always tried to discourage IRC’s with my men, since they could cause injuries and make them unfit for duty. On Muunilinst, Anakin and Boil, one of the men from the 212th, had a contest to determine who could take the most slaps to the face. Anakin had to use his left hand. The contest was over when someone flinched or asked for mercy. It had gone on for over an hour when Cody caught them. The next day, Boil could barely get his helmet on and Anakin had a swollen jaw. But they had done their punishment together, cleaning duty on the camp latrines. We could hear them laughing the whole time, recounting the best moments of the competition. Some other men hung around and listened to them. Anakin called the clones his brothers and they loved him for it.

In battle he would also go out of his way to save clones, even when it went against orders. I asked him once after a disciplinary hearing why he kept disobeying the Jedi Council, if he understood that the clones had a duty and that our mission to serve was the same? He told me quite eloquently, “To consider the clones as full sentients means something besides just respecting them. It meant that we, the Jedi, serve them, like we do all sentient beings in the galaxy. We must protect them selflessly as a part of our mission.” I did pass on that interpretation to the Jedi Council. It made for a slightly uncomfortable silence. The questions the war was bringing up caused a lot of uncomfortable silences.

When Anakin became a general, he was responsible for selecting his own Clone Commander. I wondered what kind of a choice he would make, but I was sure it would be as unorthodox as he was. When I first met Captain Rex, it was before Christophsis. Rex was not even an academy graduate yet when he was conscripted. So his rank made some, like Cody, believe that he was unworthy of the position at first. Rex was somewhat shy and quiet, until we began to discuss military matters. He was extremely confident, smart and serious, like Cody. Those two got along famously after that. Still, I noticed differences develop between them over time.

Where Cody and I kept each other at somewhat of a distance, Anakin treated Rex as a foster brother. He hung around with him aboard ship, he dragged him to watch pod races in cantinas, he took him on every mission he could. They enjoyed eating and drinking together, which most Jedi did not do at first with the clones. Whenever he was at the Jedi Temple, Anakin invited Rex to share meals with us in the Jedi commissary. The two of them would sit there among hundreds of Jedi and they would put this foul smelling rancor sauce on their meals, sharing the bottle between them. After seeing them together, the other Jedi began to follow suit and spent time with their clones socially. Master Plo and I actually visited 79’s, the clone bar. A bit rowdy, but the drinks were good.

Rex was around me so much that I began to accept him as family, too. I did have more occasion to speak to Rex socially than any other clone, I admit I felt closer to him than Cody. Cody was more private, he had a harder shell. Rex had become much more relaxed around us once he realized that it was acceptable, adopting some degree of Anakin’s cavalier confidence. They shared the same sense of humor. Their conversations often made me and Ahsoka laugh. Anakin and Rex were friends, their differences never mattered to them.

Rex also shared some of Anakin’s ideas. When he arrived from Kamino, he was devoted to his military duty, but he already had strong opinions about the value of his brothers’ lives. Rex and Anakin both believed that sometimes orders were wrong and that some things mattered more than duty. This was a dangerous thought to have as a clone.

In contrast to the Jedi, the Republic had legally defined the clones as property, to be utilized and disposed of at the discretion of the government. The Binks-Palpatine Military Creation Act was very clear on this point. Clones were forbidden from things like consuming substances not provided by the government (including both food and drugs), leaving bases without permission, accepting money from other work besides the military, owning property, and fraternizing with civilians. If a clone was found guilty of any of these offenses, he could be jailed or found to be defective and euthanized. Nevertheless, most of these rules were not strictly enforced and local authorities would turn clones over to their commanders for punishment. The commanders, being clones themselves, would be tolerant and give light sentences. The most a clone could expect usually was a night in the brig, but even this was only used in severe cases. The system had worked out so far. Yet, the danger was there.

On the way back to Coruscant from the Battle of Kamino, I overheard Rex and Anakin discussing clone mistreatment heatedly. I knew Captain Rex to be a tough clone, he almost took pride in how much discomfort he could tolerate. It surprised me that he was aware of what a shabby life clones were getting in comparison to other beings in the galaxy.

“We’re just men, after all. So what if we want to have a little fun? I don’t want to have to worry about going to the police station just because some brother had a drink or smoke, or talked to a girl, and they feel like giving him a hard time. Normal people are allowed to just stumble home in peace. You would not believe how much of my shore leave is taken up with stupid disciplinary paperwork. Why are we forbidden from eating and drinking non-military rations anyway? Restaurants and bars have to pay a fine if they serve us. Sure, we can go to 79’s or places like that, but only because they’re owned by the Hutts. The Republic would be afraid to clash with them, so they leave those places alone. But who knows what kinds of things those places are fronts for? They’re full of nothing but drugs and professional girls. I hate drinking in a place where I feel like a criminal. It’s enough to make me feel like a second-class citizen.”

Anakin chimed in, “And why are the military rations so terrible? You know, Padme found out that the factories that make the Republic Nutrition Rations are owned by Mas Amedda’s brother.” Amedda was the Chancellor’s right hand man. The Republic Nutrition Rations that the clones were given to eat were really disgusting.

I hated to admit it, but I agreed with them. The Republic we served had more than its share of flaws. Still, I didn’t want to say it. Sowing discontent could be dangerous on the battlefront. I just hoped that the Republic would treat the clones better once the public realized who the clones were and could appreciate their contribution.

Anakin took the opposite tack, “Stuff them. If the Republic doesn’t respect you, there are ways to help get the point across.”

“Like what, Sir?”

“Like a little rebellion,” Anakin said as he put his arm around Rex’s neck and scraped the Captain’s close-cropped, bleached hair with his knuckles.

While Rex was on leave on Coruscant after that, Anakin invited him to a senatorial banquet at Padme’s to speak to politicians directly about clone treatment. Some of the guests had been really shocked, especially when Padme’s droid served Rex a drink with the guests. Padme then went on the offensive, proposing a bill that would have allowed clones to retire and receive full citizenship after five years of active service. It was voted down before they even allowed time for debate. She fought against the creation of more troopers, saying it was inhumane to keep making lives to serve us. She lost that fight too. Not all rebellions are successful.

When I had first discovered the cloning facility, the Kaminoans said that Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas had ordered the clone army for the Republic. He had endorsed the creation of a Republic Army in the Jedi Council, but the Council had voted it down. He had apparently obtained the funds to order the army himself through a corrupt scheme devised in former Chancellor Valorum’s office. The funds had been obtained by selling arms to Mandalorian warlords and Hutt gangsters who were officially condemned by the Republic. Valorum had evidently wanted the army as well, but did not have the legislative support to create an army legally. Valorum had always maintained that he didn’t know about it, that it had been devised by someone in his office. It was unbelievable but we couldn’t prove it. The Jedi and Chancellor Palpatine agreed that we should cover up these corrupt dealings. To acknowledge them would have eroded public support for the war that had just started, and for the army that we desperately needed to fight it.

When I met Jango Fett, the clone template, he claimed that he had never heard of Sifo-Dyas. He said he was hired by someone named Tyranus. We had no idea who this mysterious person was. Or why they had helped Syfo-Dyas make the army.

The Separatist movement was led by a former Jedi, Count Dooku. He had left the Order honorably a decade before the war, he was granted leave to do so. We hadn’t heard what he had been doing. When he appeared as a politician, we believed that he was merely exercising his right to disagree with the Republic. It was only after Geonosis that we Jedi were sure he’d turned to the Dark Side. Once we knew that, the Jedi could see what kind of a future the Separatists envisioned for the galaxy. We knew that we had to fight to stop it. So we committed ourselves to the war. Imagine how confused we were when we discovered that Dooku, the leader of our enemies, was Tyranus.

More than two and a half years into the war, Anakin and I were on Oba-Diah, in the system where Syfo Dias’ crashed ship was found. He was dead, but the Pikes who admitted to killing Sifo-Dyas, identified Dooku as Dias’ mysterious partner.

Dooku had known there would be a conflict ten years before. He knew it because he had started the Separatist movement then. But why had he conspired to make us better able to fight him? We knew he served the Dark Side, but he insisted a Sith controlled the Republic. It didn’t make sense from our point of view, so we didn’t believe him. We were sure, however, that Sith feed off of conflict and suffering. Apparently, the war had been a plan all along to fuel the Dark Side and make it more powerful.

We took this information to the Jedi Council.

“Know now, we do, that guide the creation of the clones from the beginning, Dooku did. Hmm. Our enemy created an army for us,” Master Yoda looked grave.

“If this was known, public confidence in the war, the Jedi, and the Republic would vanish. There would be mass chaos,” Master Windu declared.

Master Yoda agreed, “Cover up this discovery, we must. No one, not even the Chancellor, may know.”

Anakin winced in anger.

“Valiant men, the clones have proven to be. Saved my life and yours, many times. Believe in them, we must. Win the war swiftly, we must. Before our enemy’s designs reach completion, whatever they may be.” Master Yoda was concerned. If word of Dooku’s plan got out, the clones could have been attacked by the populace or euthanized by the government out of fear. Yoda was trying to protect the clones. Yet, one of the most fundamental principles of the Jedi Order was honesty.

Anakin frowned at me in total disgust.

Right before we’d gone to Oba Diah, Rex had been hanging around the Temple. He said he didn’t want to stay at the base if he was off duty. Anakin told me privately that Rex’s ARC-trooper Fives had been killed by some of his own brothers. Rex needed a break from seeing his brothers’ faces. I actually had to throw them out of the Temple hangar at one point, they were acting so childish it was disruptive. They laughed and smacked each other on the backs as they left together.

--

An Honest Man

Anakin always believed me to be a person of integrity. If I told him something, I honestly believed it. Selfishness was wrong. Lying was wrong. Betrayal was wrong. These things were against the Jedi Code. We saw ourselves as good. We served the light side. Our mission was supposed to be giving of ourselves and taking nothing in return, not even power.

Anakin’s friendship with Chancellor Palpatine had worried me from the beginning. Anakin told me he trusted Palpatine and I had no reason I could give him that proved that Palpatine couldn’t be trusted. The Chancellor had always been honest with Anakin, as far as Anakin knew. The Chancellor even managed to prove to him that the Jedi Council was lying on a few occasions. I think he had been the one to first reveal to Anakin the truth about the Hardeen mission.

The Jedi Council had nothing but our feelings to tell us that something wasn’t right about the Chancellor. And we trusted our feelings. His swift rise and ever increasing power were worrying. We didn’t know how long it would be before he would be able to use his power against us. We were sure he would do anything to stay in office. The Council was afraid that he would go against the Jedi if he ever saw us as threat to him. We were also concerned about his commitment to allowing the beings of the galaxy to be free. He abridged freedoms, but it was always in the name of security during the war. He told us we were protecting people. The Chancellor and the Jedi were allies in the war, but we were concerned about what he would do once the war was over.

Anakin killed Count Dooku during a brazen attempt to kidnap the Chancellor by invading Coruscant. The Separatist leader was dead and their government was unraveling after such a strategic disaster, so we knew the war was drawing to a close. Palpatine controlled the Senate, the Courts, the Banks and he enjoyed the support of most of the Republic’s people. He hadn’t done anything wrong that we could prove, but our position just felt precarious.

The Jedi Council decided that Palpatine needed to be watched, and not by ourselves, but by someone he would trust. They chose Anakin. I begged the Council to let me ask Anakin. Coming from them, he would have refused. He didn’t actually like most members of the Council, never mind trust them. The feeling was somewhat mutual by then. I thought that if I went to him, I could explain the Council’s position. I could make him understand why it was necessary.

“Anakin, I’m on your side, I didn’t want to put you in this situation.” I had been the lone member of the Council that argued against assigning Anakin that mission. I was practically red in the face, I argued so long. No one else agreed with me.

“What situation?” he looked at me like he was weary.

“The Council wants you to report on all the Chancellor’s dealings,” I kept my tone measured, but I was tense. “They want to know what he’s up to.” I walked over to a window and he followed.

“They want me to spy on the Chancellor? That’s treason.” We were not just asking him to be dishonest, we were also asking him to risk imprisonment or execution if he was caught.

“We are at war, Anakin.”

“Why didn’t the Council give me this assignment when we were in session?” I think he believed for a moment that I was acting alone.

“This assignment is not to be on record.” The mission was sounding dodgier and dodgier, I realized as I said it.

“The Chancellor is not a bad man, Obi-Wan. He befriended me, he’s watched over me ever since I arrived here.”

“That is why you must help us. Anakin, our allegiance is to the Senate, not to its leader, who has managed to stay in office long after his term has expired.”

“The Senate demanded that he stay longer.”

“Yes, but use your feelings, Anakin, something is out of place.”

“You’re asking me to do something against the Jedi Code. Against the Republic. Against a mentor, and a friend, that’s what’s out of place here. Why are you asking this of me?”

Anakin had devoted his life to being a Jedi. He had risked so much for it. He had given up so much for it. He had lost so much because of it. Now the Jedi had demanded that he should to become something he despised. And I was the one that was asking.

When we parted on Coruscant, we parted as friends. When I saw him next, it was on Mustafar. He accused me of every terrible thing he could think of. It hurt to know how he saw me, how he misunderstood. Because, from his point of view, I realized he was right. In my ignorance, I had done some terrible things. I couldn’t condemn him to death, even after all he’d done, because I knew that he had been manipulated. We all had. That meant that there was still some part of him that wanted to do what was right, but he had become was too blind to see what was right any more.

--

Before Anakin, in his current state as the Sith Darth Vader, killed me, I had trained by communing with Master Yoda and Master Qui-Gon to manifest my identity after death. When I faced Vader a second time, I would not harm him, I was ready to die. But before I did, I had to give Anakin the once piece of solid evidence I had that his friend the Chancellor, now his master the Emperor, had lied to him. He lowered the shields in his mind for a brief second as we dueled for the last time, and I showed him a vision, my memory of the past, of holding a baby boy beside a dying Padme. He knew this vision was real.

His anger at this vision made Vader lash out, he sliced through me with his light saber and my empty robe fell to the floor. I knew that I would not disappear into the Cosmic Force. I could even hear the two of them, Luke and Anakin, through the Force after I was struck down. Connected to them both, I could hear them clearly, with little interference.

“Noooooo!” Luke screamed. Vader looked at all that was left of me and stirred my robe with his foot, confused. Anakin felt pain at my loss. Then he heard the voice. Vader looked up and turned in Luke’s direction, his mind disoriented. Vader had been hunting Force sensitive beings for nearly twenty years, he reacted by turning to attack Luke when he sensed his presence. The door controls were shot out and the blast door sealed in front of him.

Just in that moment, he heard a voice through the Force again, me this time. 'Run, Luke.'

Luke called to me again. 'Ben?' Anakin, not Vader, was hearing us. Anakin, found Luke's voice familiar.

Later, during Luke’s trench run, Vader told his pilots, “Stay on the leader,” as they chased Luke along the surface of the Death Star. He focused all his attention towards Luke, “The Force is strong with this one,” he said, almost to himself. Because of that strength, he was sure that the pilot and the boy he had seen in the Death Star were one and the same.

As he reached out through the Force, Anakin’s mind was slightly open, trying to figure out who the boy could be and why he was familiar. I sent a vision to Anakin’s mind again. This time of Padme touching baby Luke’s face with the back of her hand. Anakin still thought I was dead, so I startled him. He had to concentrate so hard to keep his focus that he didn’t sense the Millennium Falcon come screaming from behind and blast him off course. As his ship spun out of control, I antagonized him slightly. 'Search your feelings, you know it to be true.'

On Tatooine a few weeks later, Vader hired Boba Fett to research the rebel pilot who had blown up the Death Star. Boba was now making his living as a bounty hunter and was legendary for his ruthlessness. Most people considered him the worst kind of scum and treated him accordingly. He never admitted it, but from where I was, I could sense that he sometimes missed his clone brothers.

Boba brought Vader the news that he already knew while he was aboard a Star Destroyer. Vader just stared out the window and did not turn, “Did you bring me anything of value, bounty hunter?”

“Not much. Just his name. Skywalker,” then Fett turned and left.

Vader kept his gaze out the window. The transparisteel of the ship’s window cracked as Vader said to himself, “Skywalker.” His thoughts raced, the last time he saw Padme alive, Padme’s seemingly pregnant body at her funeral, the trench run, the first time he saw Luke holding Anakin’s lightsaber. “I have a son.” His mind was weakened as he absorbed the pain of that truth. Anakin remembered me, as he knew me before, as I was when he trusted me. He saw me as family. He saw me as a warrior he admired. He saw me as a selfless Jedi. He saw me as a brother. He saw me as an honest man. He could barely live with himself knowing what he’d done to me. It took every bit of his control to banish these thoughts from his head.

With his mind weakened, I knew he would hear me speaking to him from the light side of the Force. 'Anakin, it doesn’t have to be like this. You can come back. Trust me.' I sent an image to his mind. An image of the two of us, sitting on the floor of Qui-Gon’s room. Still, Vader hated me. He knew that I had held his son when he was born, that I had watched him grow, that I had protected him, that I had cared for him, that I had taught him about the Force, that I had saved Luke and called on him to fight the Empire, that Luke trusted me. Family, Warrior, Jedi, Brother, Honest Man. To Luke, I was all these things. But to Luke, Vader was a monster.

Vader’s envy consumed him. “He will be mine!” Vader’s voice in the Force raged at me. His anger welled, “It will all be mine!”

Anakin has not let me in again, his mind is shielded more tightly than ever behind Vader’s mask. But Anakin did have to ask himself how all of this came about. He has already seen his Master’s lies for himself and realized who his enemy is, who his enemy always was. I hope that someday, he will stop letting his anger keep him from me and that he’ll trust me again. Then, he will allow me to show him the way back to the light. Even show him the way to immortality. I have missed him all these years. I look forward to having his company again.