An idea I came up with a few days ago, but I'm just now starting it. I'm not sure how long this will be, but I'm likely to cap it at or before ten chapters...depending on whether or not my inspiration keeps up. For reference: when I'm talking about "Vader," I mean "Anakin who went back in time." When I just say "Anakin," it means the canon Anakin whose destiny is about to get royally butchered.

Summary: Darth Vader, formerly Anakin Skywalker, is the Chosen One whose destiny is to bring balance to the Force. He is so powerful, and so steeped in the mysterious abilities that the life-energy gives him, that his death is very much the opposite: he travels back in time. Returned to life as Anakin Skywalker, how will the galaxy be affected by the presence of two Chosen Ones?


He doesn't know what's going on. One second he's staring at his son, dying, the pain leaving his body at long last; in the next instant, there's black darkness. From that point on, all he knows is that he's woken up on Tatooine. He's free of his mask and armor, no longer burn-coated or vulnerable to almost any force of nature. Strangely enough, he feels at peace with himself.

He looks just like he did on the day before Obi-Wan destroyed him, dressed in black robes of near-royal finery and with a dark handsomeness to his body. The scar is still there as well, on the upper right side of his face. His omnipresent scowl is nowhere to be seen, replaced instead by a broad smile. If this is a dream, or the netherworld of the Force, perhaps it won't be so bad after all. He stands, feeling phantom pains in the joints that he's grown used to being mechanical, and wants to laugh out loud. Perhaps the ancient civilizations of the splintered Intergalactic Republic, from which the human species had migrated to this galaxy and spread like wildfire, were right about the afterlife. Maybe you just lived out your death like you would do with your life!

A woman enters through the door of the room, then, and all thought of that stops. "Mother." The word is near-silent, but Shmi Skywalker's ears pick it up just as easily as the warnings of a desert storm.

"Young man." She raises an eyebrow at him, realizing that he's not actually that much younger than she is right now...or, at least, he doesn't look it. "Who are you talking to?"

"You." He responds, trying to come up with some plausible reason why his own mother wouldn't remember him. "But...I wonder what happened? One minute I was dying, and now I'm here. What year is it?"

Her response shocks him: it's the same year as...

"Oh, Force. Please tell me I didn't somehow go back in time. Please."

"Why? What year should it be?"

"...more than forty years later than it is. Please, mother, you have to believe me!"

"Even if I did, what would Anakin...younger Anakin...think?"

That presents an interesting problem. His presence hasn't erased his younger self's, so what does that mean? How should he approach the child who is him, the him who is a child? What course of action is right or wrong, or is there a "correct" answer at all? And what about the others who would no doubt come? Considering his luck, today would be the day that Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, and Padmé show up.

He hears them outside of the room and mentally groans; he just had to tempt fate, didn't he?

"This is how we'll do it, then." He offers up. "I'm his older brother, who's been serving Jabba the Hutt until recently. I went into his service before Anakin was born, and you named him after me."

It's incredibly distant from being a solid plan, particularly because he knows Qui-Gon Jinn to be far more than a non-observant Jedi who does his business and is blind to all else. It's all that Vader can come up with, however, because he has neither the time nor the patience to do anything else.

"Anakin, there's actually someone here to see you." Shmi calls, and her young son looks up at her with confusion.

"Who would be here?" He asks, in all his childish innocence, and Vader has to suppress a small smirk. Did he really sound like that when he was younger?

"It's your older brother. He's been let go from Jabba the Hutt's service, and I thought that he'd died. You're actually named after him."

Vader steps out, a soft smile on his face as he sees his younger self. "Hey, Anakin. I'm Anakin." That's when he does a head-count; Qui-Gon, a young Obi-Wan, Padmé, a younger version of Padmé, and his smaller self...wait a minute, what the hell? Why are there two-

He stops his train of thought while it's still boarding, forcing himself to not draw the red-bladed lightsaber that he can feel on his hip. That Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan have no doubt already seen, or sensed, because of a careless moment in his entry.

"Hey, Anakin. I'm Anakin." His younger self responds, with no mocking intent behind his voiced words.

"Why don't you introduce me to your friends?"

The boy perks up, but looks at Qui-Gon first. As the man nods, Vader allows himself to smile inwardly; the Jedi Master already trusts him, but is still wary. He's seen through the hastily-constructed lie, but doesn't much care one way or another so long as his apprentice or the Naboo royals remain unthreatened.

"This is Qui-Gon, and Obi-Wan! They're Jedi! And then there's these two, the Queens of Naboo! They were going to Coruscant, but had to land here because they need to repair their ship. I was saying that I'm a really good pilot, and I've competed in podraces before, so if I win then they can get the money they need to leave and I'll still have enough left over to buy freedom for mom and me!"

"Oh? That's interesting." Vader's eyes twinkle in the light, catching the elder woman's, and he wants to give a true smile when he sees the recognition in her. "Come to think of it, you wouldn't need to do that. I worked for Jabba the Hutt; just saying that will be enough to get you whatever you need, so long as you don't tell them that I've stopped working for him."

Anakin gives a pout, though he knows that his "older brother" is right about that. "But I really wanted to race! I know that I can win this time!"

"I'm sure you could, little brother. If you're anything like me, you're a great pilot and just kinda good with machines."

The rest of dinner is filled with talk, of lies about what Vader did in Jabba's service.


"Alright, Anakin." Qui-Gon speaks. He is outside, on the house's balcony, with Vader and Obi-Wan. "If that's even your real name."

"It is." Vader cedes. "Though, to be honest, I haven't heard anyone call me that in a very long time."

"Very well then...who exactly are you, and why is it that you're carrying a lightsaber?"

"That is a very long and lengthy tale, Master Qui-Gon Jinn." He drops the man's surname, letting on that he knows more than he was told. If nothing else, it will stall for a few seconds. "It involves you, to a minor degree, and Obi-Wan Kenobi in much more detail. Rest assured, it involves the elder of those Naboo girls as well."

"Get on with it." Obi-Wan demands, and Vader can only help himself to the smile that comes.

"Very well then, Padawan Kenobi...but rest assured, this will take most of the night."

He tells the pair all of his entire life, from the time where they are now until his death. He doesn't care what it might do to the galaxy; he has returned, in all of his fully-human glory...including the arm that Dooku took off so long ago, and yet so far in the future. They are at times confused, mistrusting, disbelieving, appalled, and shocked. When he tells them of how he single-handedly destroyed the Jedi Order, Obi-Wan is ready to slaughter him. Imparting the knowledge of Alderaan's destruction, and of the Death Star, Qui-Gon's eyes are wide.

"I know it is unbelievable. Were our roles reversed, I wouldn't trust a word of it either...and, that having been said, this lightsaber is my only proof that it happened."

He ignites it before turning the power off, and the colored glow is unmistakable: a red lightsaber, the weapon of the Sith Lords.

"Now, with that over, I think I'll get a few hours of sleep before the twin suns start to rise again."

He turns around, walking inside, when he hears the telltale thrum of the Jedi weapon. Obi-Wan charges, attempting to run Vader through, believing that it is his duty as a Jedi to eliminate the Sith Lord that stands in front of him. His blade gets closer, and closer, but never reaches all the way; it's stopped by a wall of the Force, one that Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon combined could not possibly hope to break at this point, and he raises a fist. The Padawan chokes on nothingness for a few seconds before Vader sets his future master down, leaving the teen gasping for breath.

"If you will excuse me, master Jedi, I would like to see my wife." He glances down, giving an apathetic stare before leaving the balcony. He does not revel in his power, as he might have when he was a younger man, but cannot deny that it feels good to set the boy straight as to who is more powerful. "And don't worry. I'll fix the ship by hand if I need to."

He enters into one of the upper floor's guest rooms, where one of the versions of Padmé sleeps. He can tell that this is his Padmé, his wife and only love. She looks as she did in the days before her untimely death, regally beautiful and powerfully in her prime. He lays down beside her, looking at her left hand for confirmation that this really was his wife and that he hadn't been tricked by the near-exactness of her younger self...and he smiles, holding her tightly.

"I'll never let go again, Padmé."

Her only response is to back into him, putting his chest flush against her back.

"I was blinded by pride and fear, and I let my emotions get in the way of my peace. I was angry at my lack of knowledge, trying to save you, but I only became more ignorant towards you and your wellbeing as time went by. I hated that the people I loved all seemed against me, when it was really me who was against the serenity they tried to give me. Everything seemed random and unorganized, disjointed, but I suffered because I couldn't see the harmony of the whole over the chaos of the few. You died because of the Force, but the Force brought us back together. I promise you, I'll never let go again..."

His words bring the ancient Jedi creed to his mind, as well as words which Yoda often said:

Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

There is no emotion. There is peace.

There is no ignorance. There is knowledge.

There is no passion. There is serenity.

There is no chaos. There is harmony.

There is no death. There is the Force.

For the love of all that he holds dear, he cannot allow history to repeat itself.