Torn
He was as torn as the poor, naïve boy's perceptions about the intricacies of good and evil.
How desperately he wanted to take the accursed helmet off and see his son with his own eyes, to breathe fresh, wonderfully impure air for the first time in over twenty years. He wanted to defy Palpatine further, die knowing he had fulfilled the Jedi's precious prophecy- even if it was far too late to save the ones who had relied on him to save them from their fate.
Yet in this sudden stroke of desire to die free of Sith restraints, he knew the worst thing that could happen would be to vanquish Vader once and for all, to renounce the Dark side and truly become Anakin once more, to find he couldn't complete the journey. He would never be complete again should he allow his heart to feel emotion once more only to find that emotion crushed if Padmé refused him in the netherworlds.
Padmé. That was the one reason he hesitated, if only for a moment, to show his true, deformed face to his son. Would she despise him for all that he'd done? She had every right to: Sithspit, he'd captured and tortured their daughter as well as cut off their son's arm; not to mention the fact that he had been responsible for thousands of deaths over the twenty-some year period that he had served the Empire.
A cough started to wrack his feeble body and an agonizing spasm shot through the small remainder of him that still could sense pain. He looked up through the red haze of the mask as Vader for one last time and saw his son looking at him concernedly with eyes he knew were Skywalker blue.
Jaw set, Anakin made his choice.
A/N: For those of you who have read my stories/drabbles before, yes, I decided to delve into Star Wars a bit. No, probably not more. To my Wicked readers, please check out my profile Dx (shameless plug over).
To those of you who are lucky enough not to have read my stuff before, I'm a relatively new FFN author (in about early January I started to grace the Wicked section with my horrid stuff) and upon becoming re-interested in the Star Wars universe (though I haven't read the Apprentice or EU books yet :S. I'll check those out during the summer when I have nothing else to do) I read some fabulous stories and decided, hey, why not do a little 300-word drabble. Kay, endless ranting done. Reviews would be marvelous ;D.