I'm baaaaack! Yup, here comes another one of my angst one-shots. Yes, it's about Anakin/ Vader. Who else would it be about?

Disclaimer: Lol, if I owned Star Wars I'd have my own place.

If you read, please review!

Indifference

He'd done it all his life and he'd assumed he could keep doing it. Whenever something bothered him, he could drown it out. Just ignore it. Sure, he'd been taught not to do that. His mother had taught him to face problems, because you could get over anything.

But Shmi Skywalker was gone. Killed by those Force-forsaken Tuskens.

Anakin always assumed he was the way he was because of his personality. But Vader knew otherwise. Vader knew that it was the world, hell, the entire galaxy. The whole galaxy had wronged him and now he was forced to bear the burden. The burden of being emotionless, yet full of pain.

A malfunctioning droid assassin missing a leg. And a heart.

Anakin could always feel the change coming. Ever since his return from the Outer Rim and the mission aboard Grievous' ship that ended in Dooku's death, something had changed within him. He could no longer just drown out the bad feelings and replace them with a straight face. For so long he'd kept everything bottled up and kept himself indifferent. Even when he told Padme` how much he loved her, it came out in a plain voice.

Back when he was a kid, on Tatooine with his mother and his friends, he was always in a good mood. Even Watto could barely get angry at him. His Padawan years were happy, too. Most of it was spent with Obi-Wan, whom he grew to love, and then protecting Padme`, whom he loved more deeply than anyone else.

Then came the death of his mother. He speculated, no, he knew, that the death of his mother had turned him into a feeling-less, indifferent man. The Jedi were like this, too. He secretly vowed to never be indifferent, to always stand out and be heard.

But he had seen too much death. Maybe that's why the Jedi were so feeling-less, because of the war and the deaths.

Like a candle, he burnt out. And Anakin Skywalker was gone. A new candle was lit, but with a dark flame and an evil soul, if Lord Vader had a soul at all.

Slowly, he had morphed from the happy, grinning boy from Tatooine to the indifferent Jedi, to the feeling-less, painless Sith Lord.

Painless wasn't entirely true. He carried the burden of knowing he was responsible for so many unnecessary deaths. Including his wife. Including his brother. Including his children.

Feeling-less wasn't entirely true. Every day, he feared the Force would reap its horrible vengeance, killing its faithful dark servant. Death was the one thing he feared. Fear was the one feeling he felt, along with a small twinge of guilt or anger now and then.

Blocking it out, drowning out the galaxy's problems was no longer an option for the man, no, robot, who ruled right next to the Emperor. Palpantine, Sidious, whoever this evil man was, could be the cause of Vader's troubles.

It was so much easier to blame others, everyone, the whole galaxy, the whole universe, than to accept the truth.

Lord Vader, in the bowels of his dark, twisted soul, knew that it was his fault. All of it. The state he was in, the state the galaxy was in.

As much as he feared death, Darth Vader couldn't wait to leave this world.