Author's Note: So, we've reached the part in this series where Part 1 has finished, and we'll be moving into part 2 now. But, there is two parts to this interlude: the part you're about to read, and then the Misadventures of Boba Fett as he tries to protect Darth Vader's Extremely Reckless Children (TM). Originally this was just going to be one long-ass interlude, but I wanted to at least give you all something to read as I work through the monster of a chapter that will be part 2. Part two is already at like, 2,000 words and I've only written the beginning. So, hopefully I can have that out and published before school resumes again, but with work, I'm not sure how likely that is. We'll see though!

Additionally, y'all should definitely go see Rogue One. It's a bit of a choppy movie, the editing isn't super fantastic, but I don't really know, y'all. It made me feel things, more than any other Star Wars movie has. I cried like 5 separate times in the theater the first time I watched it, and like three times the second time. It's gripping, and emotionally riveting. So go see it! Vader has like 2 scenes in it, but it's already changed a bit of how I write him. I had to actually go back through this chapter and do some editing. So, hopefully y'all enjoy this one and I hope it holds you over to the chaos that will be the next chapter!

Interlude

When consciousness went, nearly all that I had called myself went with it. It was as if my whole soul had been one tooth, and now that tooth was drawn. I was a gap. And now I thought I had come to the very bottom, and that the Force could tell me no worse.

"He is very lucky you brought him to us when you did. The backup life support systems had just failed. Another ten minutes, and he would not wake again."

Piett let out a breath. "So he will make a full recovery then?"

Ko Sai tilted her head. "That is not for me to say. The position he is in now is a most difficult one. Due to the trauma he has received, both his mind and his body have tried to shut down. He does not yet realize he is safe. And for that, he has become comatose."

Piett felt the blood drain from his face. "C-comatose? Can't you cloners fix that?! I thought this was one of the top medical facilities in the galaxy!"

Ko Sai stared at him, slow and even, her mouth pressed in a thin line.

Piett quailed. "Ah. Forgive me, I. This puts me in quite an unfortunate position."

Ko Sai blinked, and cast her gaze back towards the operating room. "It is understandable, Admiral. Many living beings are quite often given to the violence of sudden emotion. However, to awaken him from his coma could potentially damage him mind. He shut his mind away from his body to protect himself. To force his mind back as it is now, could irreversibly damage him." Ko Sai's expression gentled. "Additionally, we are still operating on him. Waking him now could end very poorly."

Piett made a soft noise in the back of his throat. "I… see. Thank you for your time, miss."

Ko Sai dipped her head in acknowledgement. "You are most welcome, Admiral."

Piett hesitated. "Can I… when will I be able to see him?"

"The Lord Vader did not wish for you to gaze upon him during his last round of checkups. It is only natural for us to assume he does not wish to be seen as he is now either." Ko Sai held her head high, daring him to fight her.

"…ah." Piett nodded, more to himself than the Kaminoan. "That is… understandable. Will you contact me as soon as he wakes?"

Ko Sai smiled, just a small thing, the very corners of her lips curling upwards. "But of course, Admiral. We feel it would be remiss to do otherwise, given the frantic nature of your hovering."

Piett resolutely ignored his burning ears as he turned away and resumed his pacing.

Obi-Wan stood, ghostly fingers pressed to the glass of the bacta tank, Anakin's-

Vader's-

Anakin's broken frame suspended, still as death in the chamber.

"Oh, Anakin," he whispered, faint, shattered. "I am so sorry, my friend. I am sorry for what my pride has wrought. If only I had just… listened to what you begged of me. Had I focused less on the code and more on what the Force called for me to do…"

He sighed, dropping his head to rest his forehead on the glass, staring up at the burn scars that littered Anakin's body, still, after all the years.

"This is my fault," he rasped out, his voice cracking. "I let this happen. I let you become like this, I let you live like this. Because I couldn't… I couldn't…" He shuddered in a breath. "Oh, Anakin."

Inside the tank, Anakin-or-maybe-Vader, did not move, his breathing rasping in, and out, slow and steady.

Obi-Wan stared up, eyes tracking along the face he had thought lost to him for so long. Even with minor reparations, before the bacta had really done its work, the sharp line of his jaw still stood out, untouched by the years, the divot in his chin still strong and firm. Scars tracked along the left side of his face, bright, angry, and ragged. His gaze caught on the scar that spliced his right brow, an old relic from the Clone Wars, from Ventress, that time had not forgiven him for.

Obi-Wan found himself tracing the lines of his former friend's features with his fingers onto the glass of the tank.

His head held no hair, though the Kaminoans had mentioned in passing that some, if not most would probably regrow, given enough time in the bacta tank. His broad shoulders had grown, in muscle and mass, the weight of his armor and the prosthetics heavy on his body.

But.

Regardless of how he would heal, the damage had already been done.

And that damage, the blood of his brother was on Obi-Wan's hands.

"You cannot carry all of the blame yourself, my dear padawan." Qui-Gon's voice cut through his musings.

"I can damn well try," Obi-Wan grumbled, his eyes not leaving the body of his friend.

Qui-Gon just sighed. "The blame rests with us all, and with Anakin as well. Whoever he is when he wakes, whoever he decides to be - there will still be blame with him. Regardless of how we treated him, whatever justice we did or did not do for him, he was still an adult, fully conscious of the decisions he was making when he turned. And even if he was somehow to be absolved of the guilt of turning, he still made the decision to help commit not just one, but several genocides. He has done terrible things, of his own desires, and you cannot blame yourself for those."

"But if I had just listened-"

"I will not have you needlessly tear yourself to shreds. Not now, Obi-Wan. Search the Force, padawan. You will know that which I say to be true."

Obi-Wan made a noise in the back of his throat and didn't look up.

Qui-Gon sighed again, shifting from where he had appeared. "I understand you wish to place the responsibility solely on yourself, so you can tell yourself that everything would be different if you had tried harder."

Obi-Wan didn't respond.

"You realize that there were too many factors involved in his fall for you to take all the blame, yes?"

Silence.

"The old Jedi temple sat atop the ruins of an old Sith temple. Did you know that? The lingering Darkness from the Sith polluted our visions and our minds. We could sense the presence of the Dark Side, forever near, but we could never pinpoint it. The Emperor used that to his advantage, and then began to sink his claws into all those he thought would be useful. He began to take advantage of Anakin. From the time we brought him to the temple, the Emperor worked to turn him. From the age of nine, he had worked to mold his mind."

"If I had paid more attention to him! If I hadn't kept my head up my kriffing ass about the kriffing code and just listened-"

"Obi-Wan. You were grieving still, for those first few years. I was remiss in how I treated you, at the end. My last words to you, my padawan were, 'train the boy', or something to that effect, if I remember right, yes?"

Obi-Wan did not look up.

"You were mourning your teacher, you were struggling with the sudden burden of leadership and the weight of oncoming war. You were still young. You still had some to learn. And most of all, you were still human, no matter how much you wanted to pretend you weren't. You were hurting. You are allowed to do that you know."

"Release it to the Force." Obi-Wan forced out.

"It wasn't your fault, Obi-Wan."

"Release it to the Force."

"You knew I was always an unconventional Jedi. Quite frankly, I can't believe you were so quick to disregard the lack of total respect I had for the Council and the Order. That's not my point though. You are not to blame for the actions of others."

Obi-Wan hissed out a breath. Then another.

Another.

Inhale.

Exhale.

In.

Out.

"Qui-Gon. Please. Just... go."

A muted feeling of disappointment, and Qui-Gon vanished.

The silence of the recovery room felt suffocating.

Obi-Wan breathed out, fingers splayed against the glass. "Anakin… I am so sorry."

His former friend remained silent, motionless, hovering on the brink of death.

The temple loomed over him again, it's columns clean and crisp against the grey of the Coruscanti sky, tall, dignified, imposing.

He flexed his fingers one, twice.

And he started up the stairs.

His feet felt heavy, clunky and enormous, but the still of the temple swallowed the sound of his footsteps. Even the dust hardly dared to rise in his trail.

His hand brushed the smooth marble of a column, his finger catching on a nick in the stone. Across the hall, the holos flickered to life, the faces of ancient Jedi Masters and Jedi Knights memorialized as examples for the future. Behind their holo stands, murals decorated every wall, most just decorative designs, but some complex scenes of battles, of meditation, of negotiation, only a tile missing here and there.

He walked forward, following the path that haunted him in the nightmares he refused to acknowledge, the twisting of the corridors a route he knew by heart.

At last, and again, he stood at the entrance to the hall.

The hall.

The ground remained torn, deep gouges carving through the floors, the carpentry shredded and burned in places, the tapestries on the walls marred, the columns crackling, groaning and turning inwards, on the verge of collapse.

Anakin Skywalker stepped from the shadows, coming to stand at his shoulder.

"This is the evidence of where we tore our soul out. This room will always remain like this until we accept what we have done. To the innocents, and to ourself."

Through the hush of the temple, he could hear the ring of the screams of younglings.

Anakin's voice softened, just so. "It is a crime more heinous that we can comprehend right now, but we must accept it. We must accept that this is what we did with our own hand. Only then can we begin to repent."

The air reverberated as the force swelled, the columns cracking and groaning, buckling inwards, the Dark Side stretching, reaching outwards, and Vader rose from the shadows at the other side of the hall.

Vader hissed in a breath.

And out.

Inhale.

Exhale.

"You know the truth of the tale of Darth Plagueis. To become death is to master it. We did that which we had to. But, in the end, it was the weakness in our spirit, in our soul that failed us. That failed Padmé."

Anakin made a noise to his left, standing up straighter, the resolve of the Jedi falling like a shroud around him. "Holding tight to the truth we know in our soul was not a weakness. Padmé believed we were good until the very end. Had we remained grounded in the light, we could have served her better. She believed it so."

Vader scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest. "That belief did not bode well for her, as we can attest now."

Anakin fell silent, his teeth clicking together as he snapped his jaw shut.

Inhale,

exhale.

Vader sighed out a long burst of static, the vocoder warping. "This trivial discussion leads us nowhere. We are here because our Master has betrayed us. We must determine where and what we must do from here. Regardless of the decision, the Emperor will pay for what he has done."

Anakin pinched the bridge of his nose. "We were betrayed, yes. But it wasn't this most recent time. Our apprenticeship to Sidious has been a betrayal from the beginning. A betrayal of who we are. Can you not remember all those looks that held for just too long? The way he whispered the right words to drive us to fury, anger, to alienate us from the Jedi?"

"Dopa-maskey, dopa-meeky, poodoo." Vader snarled.

Anakin laughed, harsh and bitter. "That's rich, coming from you, slag."

Vader stiffened, then let out a rush of air in a hum of dark amusement. "It appears that we are doomed to be a slag regardless of where we turn then. Perhaps we had nothing better than this for us in our life."

"I am not a slave." Both Vader and Anakin turned to look at him.

It was the only truth he knew still, even here, at the end of things.

He clung to it.

Anakin gave him a sad smile. "Perhaps not in your mind. But we have always worn chains, all our life. You can't deny that."

Vader remained silent, but his head tilted forwards in silent acquiescence.

Anakin settled one hand on his shoulder – flesh, solid, whole. "We were betrayed, yes. We were misled. We were used and we were deceived, but that does not excuse us from what we have done." He pulled his arm away to wave at the rubble on the floor, the pillars about to collapse. "Killing younglings, killing innocents, was never the way. And in order to move forward, in order to be whole, we must accept that, and work to redeem ourselves."

Vader raised himself to his full height, the edges of his cape curling into darkness, his presence a stain against the white marble walls. "We have nothing to repent for. The Jedi kidnapped children, taught lies and forced slavery. Regardless, after the execution of Order 66, they would have been ended by troopers. Better a quick and painless death with a lightsaber than a slow death by blaster."

Anakin shook his head, too even, too calm. "That wasn't for us to decide. We are mediators of the Force, we should not force out will on it,"

"The Jedi made us their slave, with different chains than we were used to, so we saw it as freedom. We know it was a lie." Vader paused, his harsh edges of his presence softening, the outline of his frame muting just so. "Besides. The Jedi would have hated every part of who we were, once they knew the truth about us and our family. They would have taken our children. If Luke is Force sensitive, then so must be Leia. They would have robbed them from us, and made them slaves, too. They hate who we are now, even more than they would have, had they known the truth. We cannot go back." There was a broken crack to Vader's words.

Anakin fell silent for a while. Then, "Of course we can't go back. There is no changing what we have done. We cannot change the past, and we cannot cling to it, except to learn. We must go forward. It is the only way." The line of his shoulders firmed and his stance hardened. "If not for us, then for our children. We owe them, and we owe their mother, that much, at the very least. Think of Luke and Leia."

Vader snarled. "We do. Our need to protect them is why we hang here, in this half-existence, between the Force and the waking world. Or have we already forgotten what we suffered to reach this point!"

Anakin and Vader fell silent.

"I don't regret it." He spoke up at last. He raised his chin, making eye contact with Anakin and Vader, daring them to argue against him.

But.

But,

Anakin just smiled, as Vader rumbled in amusement.

"Of course we don't. They are our children. They are ours, and we will do whatever we must to protect them." Vader spoke softer than he ever had before. Then, the edges of his frame grew ragged and harsh again, as the darkness moved closer around him. "The only way to do so is to remain in the Emperor's shadow. Only as the disciple of that great evil can we understand, predict, and protect our children."

Anakin's easy posture evaporated, and he turned on Vader. "Only the light can defeat the dark, and we know this." Anakin grabbed his shoulder, pulling him to look Anakin in the eyes. "Please, the only way we can save our children is by returning ourselves to the light."

Vader reached out, sudden, lurching, desperate, his limbs sparking, creaking under the harshness of movement. "Reality is not solved by pretty and convenient metaphors. We know the only way to protect our children is by overthrowing the Master. It is and always has been the only way!"

He closed his eyes, tight, as Vader and Anakin's frantic voices rose and rose and rose and rose and rose and rose into a higher and higher whine, blotting out everything.

A sound like thunder, and then-

Silence.

He opened his eyes.

His hands were blurred by the outline of thick armor, mismatched metal and flesh beneath durasteel gauntlets.

On the wall to his left, a mural of the slaughter of the younglings, his face a strange mutation of Anakin Skywalker's and Darth Vader's. The children bore the faces of Luke and Leia.

A chill clawed up his spine, violent and sudden.

On the wall to his right, a mural of Luke and Leia, relaxed, laughing.

Happy.

Free.

He closed his eyes, and breathed out the rust.

Thanks for reading! Please review - your reviews help keep me posting! Stay tuned for part 2, hopefully coming out soon!