No Way Out
Songfic based upon Phil Collins' 'No Way Out.' Spans from ROTS to ROTJ.
Disclaimer: Neither the song 'No Way Out' nor Star Wars belong to me. They are the property of Phil Collins and George Lucas, respectively.
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Everywhere I turn, I hurt someone
But there's nothing I can say to change the things I've done
Of all the things I hid from you, I cannot hide the shame
And I pray someone, something will come to take away the pain
There's no way out of this dark place; no hope, no future
I know I can't be free but I can't see another way
I can't face another day
I never told you everything, did I? I never told you what happened when my mother died, how I slaughtered the Tuskens, every single one of them in the encampment. I never shared with you about my marriage, so frightened that you would turn me in to the Council…the Council I have now destroyed, along with the Order they led. For my wife, I mindlessly slaughtered Masters, Knights, Padawans, and Younglings, the entire time vowing to myself that I would earn the power to save my wife from dying the death I see in my nightmares. But at the end, she turned on me. You turned her away from me, didn't you? And for that I did the only thing the darkness surrounding me would allow me to do: I attacked her. I tore the breath from her lying throat and choked her until she was close to death…but I could not have killed her! She was still alive; I know it. Yet now, rising from the table where the droids have operated on me from hours, ignoring my agonized screams, my Master has told me that she indeed did die by my hand. And despite the pain of my wounds, that pain is the one that hurts the most. The person I sacrificed everything for is now dead, as well as the little girl I spoke to at night when I would hover over my wife's pregnant belly… Oh, Force, what have I done?
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Tell me, where did I go wrong?
Everyone I loved; they're all gone
I'd do everything so differently but I can't turn back the time
There's no shelter from this storm inside of me, oh!!!
There's no way out of this dark place; no hope, no future
Well, I know I can't be free but I can't see another way
Oh, and I can't face another day
I am alone. Oh, I am surrounded by many other people, indeed, but I am so very alone. My Master is the only one who does not quake in fear as he hears me approach…but why should he cower before me, a broken shell of a man, more than half-machine? He could kill me in mere seconds with the lightning he holds in his gnarled hands. Yet the most painful part is that I am alone because I killed everyone who ever loved me. My wife. My former Master—oh, how frail he looked as he stood before me, holding his saber up and clumsily blocking my blows. It's a wonder he lasted as long as he did. I have no idea why I mourn his loss, the man I once called my brother…after all, it was he who turned my wife against me. It was he who destroyed my body, trapping me in this suit, not even having the mercy to end my pain as I lay on the side of a river of lava burning slowly. Yet I must admit, it can be very hard to be alone for so long, having no one to trust, knowing that the way of the galaxy—even between myself and my Master—is the way of treachery, of betrayal and back-stabbing. And here, I am even more alone, in the cockpit of my TIE Advanced, returning to Imperial Center to report to my Master about the destruction of his prized Death Star by a single Force-sensitive Rebel pilot. He managed to slip through my fingers, due not only to the Force but also to the assistance of that Force-forsaken Corellian freighter. But my Master will not want my excuses. I will consider myself lucky if he does not injure me severely for this outrage. I must know—who was the pilot who managed to pull off that shot? Every pain I must suffer at my Master's hands, I will return to that farkled pilot ten-fold once I catch him!
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Can't believe the words I hear
It's like an answer to a prayer
When I look around I see
This place, this time, this friend of love
I know it's hard but you found somehow
To look into your heart and forgive me now
You've given me the strength to see just where my journey lays
You've given me the strength to carry on, oh!!!
Oh, Luke, you are so much stronger than me. I lay here, defeated soundly by the darkness you only moments ago channeled through you. You felt the power of the dark side, just as I have wanted for you ever since I first learned your name. And yet, here, at the end, with me laying at your feet, unarmed, gasping for breath, hearing my Master telling you to kill me…you have let go. You have felt the power…and you have released it. And in that moment of awareness, I saw the sudden understanding in your eyes. The look you gave me was one that said that you could now understand me, understand the temptation of the darkness I live in. Yet you are so much stronger than me, for you have released it fully. Instead of accepting my Master's invitation to join him in power, you have instead signed your own death warrant, refusing him and throwing away your lightsaber, your only means of protecting yourself. In my mind I hear my former Master's speech about how a Jedi's lightsaber is his life…I suppose Obi-Wan must have forgotten to give you that speech, else there is no way you would have thrown away your weapon so heedlessly. I hear your words: "I am a Jedi, like my father before me." As I rise now, watching my Master punish you for your audacity, I can indeed see the similarities between you and the headstrong young Jedi I once was. I walk weakly to stand behind my Master, watching you writhe in pain. I know the pain you are in, Luke; I have been on its receiving end many times. My Master stops for a moment and, if it were not for my respirator controlling my breathing, I would have sighed in relief. Yet…he is starting again! He could not possibly actually mean to…to kill you, could he? But of course he does. You will not turn, and you have already proven yourself more powerful than me—you are indeed a threat. Yet you stood over me, murder in your eyes, having me at your complete mercy…and you stopped. You refused to take my life. I am your father. It should be me willing to die for you, not the other way around… I hear Padmé's voice in my mind, screaming at me, telling me how much she loves me, begging me to hear her…and I know the only choice I can make. I only pray I am not too late.
I move forward and grab my Master's body, lifting him with my remaining hand while using the stump of my right arm as leverage. I feel the lightning with its familiar pain coursing through me, only this time my Master is not aiming the lightning and it is flowing all over me, not avoiding the circuitry that sustains my life as it normally would but rather flowing through it, shorting out the suit that has kept me living for a little over two decades now. Yet I have never felt stronger in my entire life, for this time I know that what I am doing is right. I am, for one of the few times in my life, acting fully of my own free will. I will no longer be a pawn. Never again.
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I see the path from this dark place; I see my future
Your forgiveness has set me free
Oh, and I can see another way
I can face another day!
I can feel the pain coming off of you as you half-carry, half-drag my destroyed body to the hangar. No one is paying any attention to us; it is now every man for himself as hundreds of thousands of personnel scramble to flee the doomed Death Star before the Rebels can finish it off. I can feel my life fading from me fast. It is pointless for you to be trying to save me, son, can't you see this!? Luke, you must let me go. You must save yourself. I am beyond saving. But you are just as hard-headed as I was at your age and you are now fully dragging me, having stumbled and lost your grip on my body. We finally arrive together at the base of my shuttle's ramp…but the pain and exhaustion are now too much for you and you collapse. I lay against the ramp, trying to control my breathing without the aid of the respirator, knowing that I am falling fast. There is so much I want to tell you, son. Things about your family. Your mother. Your grandmother. Why it is that I became as I am now. I know now that it was no one's fault but my own. Why it has taken me so long to realize this…I only hope that, when the Force takes me, Obi-Wan is waiting for me on the other side. Force knows I deserve everything he can throw at me and more…
I can feel the light side surrounding me, buoying me for the one last thing I can give you: a view of the human who is your father, not the machine that the galaxy knows. You look up at me and I gasp, "Luke, help me take this mask off."
You fight me at first, telling me what I already know, telling me that I will die if you do so…but can't you see, Luke, that I am already dying, regardless of whether the mask stays on or not? Please, Luke, I must look into the eyes of the man who was willing to sacrifice himself rather than destroy me. I owe you not only my life, but also my afterlife. The Force is beckoning me, telling me this truth, telling me that had I died in the darkness my soul would have been forfeit…but because of you, because of your belief in me, I will have the chance to join my spirit with the Force as…as Obi-Wan did. Perhaps I will get to see him again; I owe him more apologies than eternity can grant me time to give, and gratitude for seeing to it that you—and your sister—were kept out of harm's way because I had fallen.
You have given in and I feel first the helmet come off then the mask. For the first time, I am able to look into your eyes—blue, the same as mine!—without being forced to behold you through the red tint of my visor. Certainly I have stared at many holos of you, Luke, while in my hyperbaric chamber on Executor, but none of them compare to seeing your tear-streaked face right before mine, looking over my horridly scarred face before your eyes settle on mine as well. And in your eyes I can see your unconditional love and forgiveness, even for the likes of me. I manage to gasp out what I intend to be the last order I will ever be forced to give in this life, telling you to leave me behind so that you might survive. But you refuse! You give me some rubbish about saving me, even when both of us already know that it is pointless to try and save my mortal body! I smile; usually it hurts so much for me to smile but I cannot feel the pain anymore. I tell you what the Force has revealed to me: that you have already saved me. Due to your love and forgiveness, I have been able to break free of the darkness that has owned me for more than two decades and have been saved from an eternity of nothingness. I tell you that you were right all along: I was never truly fully lost to the darkness; I just wanted to believe myself lost because it was easier than facing up to my crimes. I also tell you to give the message to your sister—a woman who, due to my actions against her personally and the fact that she takes after me more than she would probably ever care to admit, will likely never forgive me.
The Force calls to me, telling me that it is time to let go. It is time to let go of my mortal life, to let go of the broken shell in which I have dwelled for so many years and the pain that has been my constant companion. Knowing that I no longer have a choice, I finally obey Its summons and my spirit releases its desperate grip on my mortal body. I hear my respirator, broken as it was, finally stop and watch you break down over my body. I whisper to you, "Go, Luke; if you don't go now, all will be lost!" I watch as you grab what is left of my body and drag it the rest of the way into the shuttle, settling it down then running for the cockpit. I watch with no lack of fatherly pride as you expertly maneuver the shuttle through the throng of panicked shuttles and fighters also fleeing death's grip… I close my eyes and give myself fully to the Force.
When I reopen my eyes, I find myself in a forest. You are standing there staring at me and I suddenly realize I am not alone: Obi-Wan and Yoda both stand flanking me, smiling at you. Your sister joins you and I smile broadly, rejoicing to see the two of you together and at peace. She obviously cannot see us; she tugs on your arm and you reluctantly turn away from us, returning to the party the native Ewoks are throwing in celebration of this momentous victory. I feel a hand on my shoulder and realize, with no small amount of shock, that it belongs to Obi-Wan. I nearly crumple to my knees when I realize that he has forgiven me, just as fully as you have. A tendril of the Force whispers to me that the war is not yet over—there are still battles left to be fought, both on the battlefield and off of it. But for now, my son, I hope that you will find rest and peace so that you may heal and be ready when the next battle comes. And know that, even if you cannot see me or hear me, I will always be watching over you, my son…my savior.