He though darkness was his comfort . . . until tonight.
Mirage
by Yellow Dart Vader
Rated PG
A tall, dark man gazed out his large viewport and watched night fall on Coruscant with a heavy hart. Watched . . . that word no longer held any real meaning to the Sith Lord. His life-supporting suit had robbed him of all five senses at once. In the suit he was now confined to for most of the day, his eyes were nothing more that optical sensors that relayed a pseudo-visual image to his brain.
At times like this, he almost missed his senses. An artificial image just could never be the same as sight. The worst part was that his photo-sensors didn't distinguish color. Everything was some shade of red. Red. Red. Red. He hated red. He had to remember to search out and kill whomever had designed this infernal visual system. If he had designed this infernal suit, he would have added color receptors at least.
As he gazed out the window, the red in his eyes grew darker until it was almost black. He craved the darkness that came as the sun set across Coruscant's horizon. It fueled his already-broken soul. For darkness was his solitude, his comfort . . .
He stepped back and tilted his head. If he could laugh, he knew a sardonic chuckle would have been soon to come. Comfort? As if he even knew what comfort was any more. Since she had left him . . .
No, she hadn't left him. He had lost her because he wasn't strong enough to save her . . .
He pulled his head back in a start. He couldn't keep thinking that she had died because his limited powers in the Dark Side had failed him. It wasn't his fault. She had betrayed him.
Despite that fact, he still loved her terribly. What was left of his heart broke a little each day he spent without her. He hated himself for letting her leave; for being too weak to stop her. Yet she hadn't left him. It had been his fault. He hadn't even really tried to test his newfound powers and try to save her.
In fact, instead of saving her, his newfound powers had killed her. He was the reason she wasn't with him any more. He was the reason his innocent child had never been born.
This wasn't the first time he had acknowledged that he'd killed her, that turning to the Dark Side had been for naught, yet it was the first time he felt his words' true meaning. He wasn't sure why watching the setting sun, something normally so relaxing, had reminded him of everything that he had done wrong.
He had to face the fact that he had killed her . . . that he had killed their baby . . . that he had killed all of the love in his life. That he had killed everything that had ever mattered to Anakin Skywalker. In fact, he had killed the man he'd once been.
Anakin Skywalker. Love. The words were hollow in his head. He took a few steps away from the window and brought his gloved hands to his chest. Ever since that moment when he had found out she had died, his life had ended. He hadn't believed Sideous. He had thought the holo-vids of her funeral procession were nothing more than elaborate forgeries.
But on Naboo, he couldn't deny it. When he saw the large mausoleum, near the lake house where they'd been married, dedicated to Naboo's revered queen and senator and her unborn baby the reality of her death had hit him hard.
The memorials were so heartfelt and so true to her great spirit. He'd watched the holo-vids of her memorable speeches on the senate floor. He saw holos of her as queen revealing her conviction not to let her people amend the constitution to allow her to serve for another term. He saw her speech on the Senate floor denouncing the formation of a great army of the republic. In each of the vids, he saw the passionate spark he'd fallen in love with. And than he would never see again.
Finally, his eyes fell on a holo of her funeral procession, which was located right next to a familiar japor snippet with childish carvings. He realized that she had never taken it off . . . not even as she became one with the Force.
And his heart broke. The great Sith Lord had tried to cry for his wife and baby, and even for the man who was once Anakin Skywalker, but his eyes had no tears. He had no emotion. He had the Force.
Even now, so many months later, he wasn't sure how he kept on living. If it wasn't for this blasted respirator - he pounded at the apparatus attached to his chest protector – he would have surely died with her that day.
Since that fateful moment, he had known only darkness, pain and solitude. Had he forgotten everything else?
Vader couldn't even sigh. His respirator, which rhythmically filled his lungs, assured him of that. It hurt. Everything hurt. He couldn't even blink. His visual sensors were always on, always at full alert. But maybe that was a good thing. For the moment his eyes closed, he was sure he would be faced with everything he had done.
He deserved his pain, though. After what he had done to her.
He tilted his head to the side. He couldn't even really shake it any more. That blasted helmet weighed too much for his partially paralyzed neck to move.
He didn't want to think about her and what he had done to her. But he couldn't stop the thoughts from ravaging his tortured mind. Love. Did he even know what that was? Had he ever known?
He turned away from the window and flicked his wrist for the shades to close. He needed the darkness. He wanted to erase his treacherous thoughts.
As he lumbered through the cold inky blackness of the room, his new prosthetic arms and legs struggling to keep his shell of a body upright, Darth Vader tensed at the realization he was not alone . . . as if his body could tense.
He clenched and unclenched his shoulder muscles, the only muscles he still had. Tension. How he missed that feeling. His metallic limbs straightened and Vader wondered if he would ever feel like this body was truly his.
But the shooting pain was his. It was all his. Every working nerve ending throughout his body had some kind of painful stimulus. He had a sneaking suspicion that his Master had somehow engineered this monstrosity to cause him nearly unbearable, constant pain. Maybe it was what made the Dark Side stronger in him.
He struggled to grasp his red lightsaber against his hip, but he felt the Dark Side's enticing waves relieving his pain and invigorating him with newfound power. His still unfamiliar booming mechanical voice bellowed, "Reveal yourself. There is no use hiding. I can sense that you are here."
He whirled around on his heel with his saber at full alert. He didn't see anyone, but the sensation was all too real.
It was as if someone was behind him touching his shoulder. Gently. Like his lover had once touched him.
He whirled around, but was not quick enough to catch whoever it was. "Resistance is futile," he said. "Reveal yourself."
He felt two small arms wrap around his waist and a hand trace a path along his stomach and chest protector up to his shoulders.
He tried to shake the feeling away. His anger sent tremors through the Force that caused some mechanical parts to fall off a shelf on the wall.
As he spun around, his eyes fell on a shimmering blue image in the distance. "No, it can't be." If he could have whispered, he would have. Instead his words came out in his familiar monotonous boom.
But the shimmering form materialized into that of a beautiful woman. That same beautiful woman had occupied his dreams every night since he had met her when he was just nine years old. It seemed like a lifetime ago.
He hair spilled over her shoulders, down like he had always liked it. He loved that he had been able to run his fingers through its unencumbered length.
Her eyes were bright, and she gazed at his with that curious smile he had fallen in love with at such a young age.
"It can't be," he said. "No!"
Her image stood, just gazing at him in an unblinking, unnatural. Accusing.
"Padmé?"
The ghost still said nothing. Vader wasn't sure if it was a figment of his imagination or a mirage or if she was haunting him.
"You're not real."
A lone tear trickled down Padmé's shimmering cheek.
Vader took a step closer and tried to touch the ghostly figure with his large, gloved hand. But almost as if she was frightened by his sudden movement, the crying mirage faded away.
To the dark room, Vader said, "I'm so sorry."
And he was.
The End.