Characters/Pairing: Anakin/Padmé (implied)
Rating: PGish
Summary: Darth Vader's beginning...
You awaken disorientated from a nightmare of pain and fire, enclosed in metal and plastic, trapped and momentarily unable to move.
"Lord Vader, can you hear me?" An insidious voice sounds in your ruined ears and for a moment you wonder how you can still hear.
"Yes, my Master," you reply, and your voice sounds utterly alien to you. It is deep, synthesised and entirely not your own, and you are afraid. And then you remember, for how could you have forgotten? "Where is Padmé? Is she safe, is she all right?" You are frantic to know, but your new voice cannot betray such emotion and you are beginning to realise all you have given up.
His words freeze what blood is left in your veins. "I'm afraid she died. It seems in your anger you killed her."
And your physical pain pales into insignificance next to the sheer agony that blossoms in your heart. "I couldn't have! She was alive! I felt her! She was alive! It's impossible!" You can't believe him, but you would know, surely, if she still lived, wherever in the galaxy she was hiding. There is a gaping, aching void in the part of you where she once was, and you know his words to be true. You take a few stumbling, halting steps forward, stiff and unsteady on your feet, and you scream your denial in your artificial, emotionless voice. "No!"
And you know that it has all come to nothing. All of this you did for love of her, and she has turned away from you, betrayed you to your former Master, and now she is dead. She, and your unborn child, all you ever truly wanted, gone for ever. Now all that is left to you is darkness.
Title: Light
Characters/Pairing: Anakin/Padmé (implied)
Rating: PGish
Summary: ...and his end.
The boy lifts away your hood and disengages the mask that has covered your face for so long, and finally you see with your own eyes once more. You see him clearly for the first time, and you feel the pain that has been your constant companion these twenty years slip away a little. He looks a little like you, or like you when you were his age; but his mother's gentle spirit shines from his eyes. You only wish you could see his sister before you die...your daughter. She would be the image of Padmé, you think, dark hair and eyes and a smile that could halt the stars in their paths across the sky.
Padmé. You did not kill her after all, and the relief is a sweet balm upon your soul. She lived to give birth to your child - your children, although you know by the emptiness you felt when you first awoke in this shell that she did not survive long afterwards. But she found peace, and you think that you might find it too, at long last. It has been a long time since you felt the Force so benevolent, but now it is calling you to become one with it at last.
You look upon your son with pride in your tired eyes, and he is the last thing you see as your spirit finally leaves the broken shell of your body. He has succeeded where you failed, and through his victory you are able to turn back to the light at last, the Emperor's dark hold upon you finally broken. Your pain is gone and the light is so very bright you think it would blind you, if you still needed your eyes to see. You are redeemed at last.