Echoes and Dreams
Disclaimer: Star Wars does not belong to me. It belongs to George Lucas.
Summary: Vader's dreams are endless. Vader/Padme Amidala.
A whisper. Soft, pained.
"Anakin…"
There is a gasp from him when his body reaches out for the face in his dream. The helplessness is overwhelming when he finally opens his eyes and sees the familiar brightness of a room, until he realizes that it is not a room at all; he is in his pod and he cannot move.
"…Help me!"
It's an echo, words that always ring in his ears as he fights off any immediate response from the plea. The tremor that goes through him is a mimic of things past and long gone, but he wonders why there are still aftershocks when his half-metal body is no longer capable of such a reaction. His dreams no longer plagued him with such despondency, after all, what use were things that he could not control? Mold to his will? Vader is suddenly calmed, but there is a twinge inside of him. It is like a pinch, like the tiny bite of an ant inside his chest that now itched and burned for attention. Vader does not allow it to consume him because he has already been burnt; he is like a dying star that cannot admit defeat and will only grow larger and larger until there can be nothing but fire and ashes. Until there is nothing but fire and ashes.
He closes his eyes and does not sleep for the rest of the night.
"Come back to me, please!" Hands. Her hands are pulling at his robe, trying to eliminate the distance from their bodies until he is flushed close to her and he can feel the roundness of her belly. In that moment, he can feel the familiar tingling of Force signatures connecting and wrapping around his in its chaotic melding. The child is there and is strong in the Force. He can feel the pride in him and the power - yes the power - that flows through him. It is his. Wholly and truly. His alone.
The images blur and shift until he squeezes harder and harder - liar liar LIAR - and she has ceased fighting, body slack against the invisible assault around her throat. He can feel the Force inside her weakening, ever so slowly until he can barely sense it. There is a child - she must pay - in there. His child. She falls to the floor in exhaustion, barely breathing.
He wakens in a howl this time, thin sheets of sweat forming on his forehead. The triviality of a biological reaction is startling to him. He thought his body was as mechanical as his emotions were. In fact, his emotions were gone; there is only anger and hatred. Fear has left him, there is no need for it. He has lost everything since Mustafar and been at the cusp of death.
Vader does not fear. He only kills. As a Sith, he has learned that control is the key to overcoming fear. Death is the inevitable, and as Anakin Skywalker, he had been powerless to prevent it. He watched it happen all around him; felt the slow growing poison once the Jedi filth began teaching him the ways of the Force. He'd been able to dream of them, these deaths. But there was no control; there is only foolish anticipation and regrets. There was nothing Anakin could do, but Vader can avenge. He had sliced through the Tusken Raiders so viciously so they could feel the same agony that had wrought every inch of his mother's life. She had been born a slave and died in Anakin's arms, but Vader made sure that she will triumph and conquer in death. Someday, he will bring her back.
And her.
He does not know what these dreams mean or what they are telling him. He has already lost her. There are no more warnings. There is no more fear. There is only power and the Emperor now. He never remembers her - liar - except in these moments. He can never remember her or the feeling of her warmth.
There is no more feeling. Vader cannot remember love or sorrow. There is only red hot anger and the fire that spreads through him.
"Anakin, you're breaking my heart!"
She is breaking his too. Even now, after everything else, once the Emperor has been thrown into abyss and so close to death. His breathing grows weaker and weaker, and he wonders, if this is how she felt. She is still breaking him and he might hate her for that. He feels like a petulant brat, and tiredly acknowledges the lie that he has spent decades believing.
Everyday, she breaks his heart and she never stops. Her voice, her touch, her warmth is inside him and in whatever is left of his cold angry heart. Though, someday, he always vowed that he will bring her back. He has realized, now, for the first time, that perhaps it is he who will be brought back. To her.
He is propped against the wall, seeing his son's face for the first time. Vader has seen him many times, but never without his mask off, and this might be the happiest that he's felt in a very long time.
"Now go, my son…Leave me…" He utters weakly, unable to say anything else. The thrum of the Force lightening has sapped out whatever strength he had before the confrontation with the Emperor. His body is weak, but he feels stronger gazing into his son's eyes. There is so much of him in Luke, but Vader is not afraid. Luke is a good Jedi, less…rash. Not selfish.
Luke shakes his head, that characteristic Skywalker stubbornness so apparent in him. For all his calm and gentleness there is the firmness in his tone that Vader is familiar with. Padme, he finally allows himself to utter her name. "No. You're coming with me. I'll not leave you here, I've got to save you."
He tries to smile, but it comes out broken. Anakin doesn't know how to smile anymore. "You…already have, Luke. You were right. You were right about me."
He thinks of Leia, a leader and a fighter. His daughter; but he can never meet her as a father, Vader has no family after all. Anakin does, but he ignores that whisper in his mind. He thinks of these two children that he can never know, kept from him by fate. He kept her from them, she never knew them. Guilt wracks him at thought but that is nothing new. There are many things that he will never forgive himself for. That is only one more thing to add to his growing list of crimes, which is filling up with every second that ticks by. There is no more time.
"Tell your sister…you were right," It is his last words to his son. A part of him hopes, as he dies, to see her smiling. He clings to that last thought fervently.
He is always dreaming. That is somehow the only way he can ever bring her back.