It's happening again.

I see him laying there, burning under the coruscating fire of my master's dark energy; fire that coursed over his body, his arms, his face, a face that looked so much like my own at that age. And as I stare at that face, a face I've never looked on without the mechanical aid of my visor, another face floats out of my consciousness, a face I once loved, a face I have tried so very hard to suppress.

A face that only brings pain and anger with it; one of the few faces that mattered in my life.

Her face.

Padme.

I couldn't save her, I could never save her, and now it's happening again.

I turn from the face of my son, my son, and look at the disfigured face of my master. It is a face deformed by his own dark greed, a face contorted by the accumulated weight of power and ambition that he's carried around for decades. A face I once called friend, confidante, master. But all that seems different now. Where once I saw a human, now all I see is a shell; where once I saw freedom, now all that is left is a slave.

How could I have let this happen? Other faces swim up at me, and I try to turn away, try to hide from the shame and guilt that they bring, but I can't and the faces keep coming.

The broken and twisted face of my mother as she lays dying in a filthy Tusken encampment.

The face of Master Windu, as I make a choice I will pay for with a lifetime.

The passive face of my friend, my mentor, my brother, as he lowers his guard and allows me to cut him down so others may be saved.

The face of my beloved Padme as she lays strangling within my grip. MY grip.

A voice breaks through my thoughts. His voice. I look over and see my son, arm outstretched, pleading with me on the floor of this battered space station and three words I never expected to hear come wafting through the air towards me. Father, help me, he says, and the shock of those words drives a spike through my heart. Father. Not Vader, or Dark Lord, or Sith. Father. Something I could never be. Something I gave up a long time ago. Something I was forced to abandon.

I turn towards my master, and a sudden boil of anger rises inside me. The dragon I had thought died on the fiery banks of Mustafar awakens once again. I was too young to save my mother, because I was too naïve to realize that death is the way of all life. I was too blind to save my wife, because of hidden stings I never knew were being pulled. I was too far gone to save myself, because, by then, all I had left was my rage and my grief. But I am not too late to save my son. My son. The only tie I have left to Padme, and the past that should have been but was lost.

For once I am not too late to be that which I should have been. Not Dark Lord of the Sith, but simply, Father.

Father.

I made a choice many years ago that changed a universe.

This time I'll make a choice that changes a life.

Just one life. Just the life of my son.

I turn towards my master, the decision already been made.

I hope it's not too late.

May the Force forgive what I have done.