A/N: Hello everyone! Welcome back! I am trying to stick to a schedule, and to that end here's your next chapter. Thanks to everyone who followed favorited, and especially REVEIWED for their continued support of this fic. I love you all.

CoolCatGames: I technically do have a schedule, but I am weeks (or more) late so often that when I do finish chapters early I often want to get them out early to give you guys a present for being patient with me the rest of the time. Sorry, and I'll try to do better in future. I hope you are enjoying my rambling nonsense masquerading as a plot, and I hope I continue to hear from you for a long time to come. Enjoy! Rumor: The Father's role for him was to stay on Mortis and control the Son and the Daughter after he died. Given that the entire family was killed by the end of that arc, I would say that role is now defunct. However, Anakin is every bit as powerful as he ever was, and he is still the Chosen One, meant to restore and preserve balance in the Force. What that role will look like going forward… well, who can say. I know this probably isn't quite the answer you were looking for, but I hope it helps without giving spoilers. Reader: I'm so glad I was able to improve your day! Ch 16 I did wrestle with the wording at the end of that chapter a bit. Yes, he absolutely remembers every second of Mustafar. So there's some realization that things couldn't have gone the way he was told, a lot of plain old trauma, and some denial that he could have done that. He loved Padme, worshiped the ground she walked on; she could have stabbed him without him even dreaming of hurting her. The fact that Vader, that HE, could have done that is inconceivable to him. And mostly he just wanted to hear someone say that they believe in him and that no, he wouldn't do that, whether it was true or not. Ch 17 You'll find out this chapter! Read on…

I do not own Star Wars or its characters. SEASON 7 OF CLONE WARS IS HERE! and it is glorious. Filoni should be in charge of everything, that is all. Take note Disney.


Chapter 18


Ahsoka waited until Rex left to address the mirror. She didn't want to embarrass Anakin, after all, but this needed to be dealt with sooner rather than later. "Hey, are you okay?"

He smiled mildly at her, "Of course, why?"

"You took the mirror out of the bathroom."

The smile faltered, and he glanced over at the offending item. "What do I need a mirror for, Ahsoka? I don't have hair to deal with, I haven't shaved in twenty years… and besides, why would I want to look at this-" He trailed off, looking ashamedly away from her as if he had said too much.

Ahsoka's heart melted, and she walked over towards her old friend.

Anakin drew back slightly and cast his gaze briefly down as she placed her hands on either side of his face to examine the damage.

It was scarred and ravaged, rough and ridged under her fingers, his ears were horribly burned, and all his beautiful golden curls were missing. But underneath it all his features were as symmetrical as they had ever been, thanks to better treatment his skin was starting to look merely pale and untanned rather than ghoulishly white, and his eyes were every bit the brilliant sapphires they were before.

Those eyes nervously came back up to hers as she studied his face. Ahsoka smiled at him. "It's really not that bad."

His voice was quiet with emotional pain. "You hate looking at it. I can feel it every time you see me."

"I don't care what you look like, Anakin. I know how much it must have hurt you. That's what I hate."

He needed something more than words, she could tell. Some action to prove to him she didn't find him repulsive. Ahsoka put her hand on his shoulder and leaned down to kiss his cheek. "This is temporary, okay? A few more months and you'll be fine." She paused. "You already look better. I think the treatments are working."

It wasn't quite true, it had only been a few days after all, but the smile she got in response made the white lie worth it. "Do I?"

"Yeah. You'll be fine. Just give it time."


Blast it, Father. Luke couldn't help thinking as he walked down various corridors. It had to have been him; Father was the only one in the Empire who would be that determined to capture him alive. He needed to talk to him; if his bad decisions were going to continue to haunt them, the least his father could do was give him the courtesy of an explanation.

Father could tell him what the bounty was, at least, and why it was put out at all. Perhaps he would even know who this bounty hunter was that had attacked Han. Regardless, it was the only lead he had.

He finally reached his father's new quarters and waited for the door to open. Unsurprisingly, Father and Ahsoka were huddled together in the center of the room like always, less than two feet apart as if there wasn't the entire floor to stand on and multiple places to sit.

"Do you mind if I borrow him? I need to speak to him alone."

Father spoke, still regarding Ahsoka. "I think it's about time for me to go to the medbay anyway." Something unspoken passed between them, then Ahsoka smiled at him before turning and walking from the room.

The hoverchair made a faint buzzing noise as his father moved past him into the hall. "Come with me, we'll talk on the way." He continued slowly moving down the hallway, and Luke had no difficulty keeping up. "You're tense. What's going on?"

Luke explained what Han had told him, about the Force user on Rishi and about the bounty that the Empire evidently had out on him specifically. "Was it you?" He finished. "Did you put a bounty on me? I couldn't think of anyone else who would be that determined to capture me alive."

Father sighed. "Yes. It was me." He paused. "I put it out after Besbin. I have found success with the guild before and thought they might be able to bring you in more easily than me. I hadn't heard anything from Karga. I didn't realize anyone picked it up."

"Well, this one seems pretty determined." A bit of Skywalker snark leaked into Luke's voice; rare for him, but born of complete frustration with the situation and the fact that Vader was apparently still hunting him even after ceasing to exist.

The other man looked thoughtful. "Hm, yes, a Force sensitive bounty hunter. Unusual. Did he get a good look at her or her gear? I might know her, especially if she recognized my name."

"No. It was dark, she wore a helmet and Han doesn't know enough about lightsabers to give a good description. All he said was that she was tall, not human, and the sabers were green."

"Green? That would imply a Jedi." Surprise was evident in his father's voice. Surprise that was unsurprising, given that all the Jedi were meant to be dead. "Huh. I don't know who that could be."

Luke had really hoped that this lead would give him more information than this. "You're sure you have no idea? No one contacted you? Not for an advance payment, or more information?"

"No." Luke felt a brief flash of amusement from the other man. "I'm not sure you understand how these bounties usually work. They complete the job, then Karga arranges the meetup, then they deliver the bounty and collect their payment. She wouldn't know I was involved."

"And you can't cancel it?"

"How? I'm supposed to be dead. And I'm not exactly instantly recognizable. I arranged the whole thing through Imperial channels anyway. I'm sorry, but cancelling the bounty isn't really an option."

Luke stopped, whirling emotionally to face him. "But why put a bounty on me at all? Why do any of it? You hated the Emperor, he tortured you and forced you to kill for him, why would you deliver me to him? Why would you let him subject me to that? Did you not care for me at all?"

His father awkwardly turned the chair to face him, "It was the only way to save your life."

The young man stared at him, "What are you talking about?"

Anakin carefully rose from the chair, drawing to nearly full height as he rested his hand on his son's shoulder, as much for support and balance as connection as he stared emotionally into the young man's eyes. "He told me that you were my son and ordered your death in one breath. I… managed, with some creativity, to convince him to let me turn you instead." He paused. "I knew, once convinced that it was possible, that he would not be able to resist the temptation of replacing me. Of an apprentice younger, uncorrupted, loyal…" – He swallowed, something unreadable in his eyes as he regarded his son— "and whole. With his blessing I would have more room to work towards my own plans, and he would not see his demise until it was too late."

"But… but you could have refused…"

Anakin chuckled darkly. Even after all this time, even after seeing what the Emperor was capable of and the resources at his disposal, Luke still did not understand. "The Emperor is… was… not a man you could say 'no' to, my son. Besides, I was not his only servant. He would have only sent others after you, and they would not be as kind as me."

Luke was still processing the things he had just learned, but also coming to his own revelations, "That's why you asked me to join you on Besbin, isn't it. You wanted my help to kill the Emperor."

"The plans that I had then are nothing that I would want for you. They were born of a life spent in hopelessness and darkness. I would not speak of them." Anakin slowly lowered himself back into the chair, feeling tired from the brief time standing. "I… hope you know," He continued, "How deeply ashamed I am of the things I did in his service." His gaze lingered a second too long on Luke's false hand. With it repaired his glove had been abandoned and it was indistinguishable from the other, but Anakin knew. Which hand it was was burned into his memory forever from the awful moment on Besbin.

The boy stared at him, but finally, slowly nodded. "I understand, Father."

"We'll deal with this. She won't get anywhere near you."


Late that night, Leia hurried down the hall on her way back to her quarters. A meeting had kept her late, and she still planned to fully make up to Han for rejecting his advances on Rishi.

A faint blue light seeping under the door from a nearby conference room attracted her attention, as well as a strange… pull… she was sure Luke would call the Force. Curious, she walked over and cracked open the door.

Inside was Darth Vader, standing in front of his hoverchair and leaning on a holoterminal, a star map projected into the air while he carefully studied it.

A place he wasn't supposed to be, looking at databases he shouldn't be able to access, without an escort in sight.

Leia felt frustration rising within her. Instead of enjoying the attentions of her very attractive boyfriend, she was apparently going to spend her night babysitting Luke's stupid pet Sith lord.

She spoke from the doorway. "You're not supposed to be in here."

He didn't look away from the holomap, his fingers and eyes continuing to trace invisible paths through the stars. "I couldn't sleep. Don't worry, someone let me in. It's fine."

She folded her arms and glared, in a way that would have made every Imperial in the fleet blanche in fear at its familiarity. "Why would someone do that."

"He may have had some… persuasion."

Leia stormed over, turning off the map in an effort to get his attention. "You HURT someone to get into an office?"

Vader finally looked at her, a strangely wounded expression on his face. "No! Of course not. He was… weak minded, that's all. A suggestion was all that was needed."

"And I suppose he also told you the password for the holoterminal!"

The terminal flipped back on. "Yes, he did, actually."

She had never heard of such a thing but had little doubt as to how it would be done. "You're not allowed to use the Force. You're not allowed to be unaccompanied and you're not allowed to be in here." Leia paused. "What are you doing anyway? Plotting your escape?"

His gaze was back on the stars. "Plotting our path to Coruscant, actually. Nothing's labeled, but if I know my star charts well enough..."

One sardonic eyebrow raised at his words. "Coruscant? Isn't it a bit early to be planning that?"

"…You should always plan ten steps ahead, Leia… Look! There." The monster pointed, smiling in triumph, and continued, "Admiral Rhyndon and his fleet have been stationed there for six months. He is an incompetent fool, only alive because of his connections, and I am certain we could beat him in an engagement. That would give us an opening back into the Mid-Rim and free reign, at least until they move their forces. That could take ages with the bureaucrats running things."

Leia noticed that he didn't mention who it was that had wanted the man dead. She had her suspicions.

Still, she couldn't help getting a bit caught up in the excitement of planning. "Us? Against an imperial fleet?" She was skeptical.

"Like I said, he's a fool. Besides, it's not a large fleet." Vader paused. "We need to send scouts to make sure he's still there. Maybe Rex could-" He stopped, brow furrowing in confusion and one hand coming up to pinch between his eyes, "I… I mean um, whoever's in charge of that now."

Leia had been about to ask what the next steps in this master plan were, but the pause in momentum broke the spell. Her eyes narrowed and she regarded him suspiciously. "You're planning something. I don't know what it is yet, but I'm gonna find out."

He looked at her, sorrowful, then walked closer and started to reach out a hand towards her, "Angel… I-" The woman stepped back and the hand dropped, a helpless, slightly crushed expression crossing his face. "I'm sorry."

"You don't get to be sorry." She threw the words back in her torturer's face, then turned and started for the door, "This room is restricted; you shouldn't be here. Turn the terminal off and leave. Luke would be upset if they put you in the brig."

As she reached the door, his voice sounded behind her, "I didn't give that order. I need you to know that."

She turned back. "What order?"

They didn't need words, a grim look from him sufficed for her to remember Alderaan's destruction.

She crossed her arms, glaring over at him. "Why should I believe you?"

"I told Tarkin not to do it. I told him that you would never willingly betray the Rebellion for any incentive or threat. I didn't physically stop him, and perhaps I should have, and that you are welcome to hate me for, but I told him not to." He paused, "I was the one who let you all escape so we could track the Falcon."

Her doubting, distrustful expression was unchanged. "And what? He disobeyed orders?" No one would disobey Vader, that she was certain of. Such an act would be a death sentence.

"He didn't have to. He was in command." The man paused, and she thought she felt desperation wafting off him. "You were right. About everything. He was holding my leash"

"Really."

"I haven't been in favor in some years." Anakin quietly admitted, his eyes and tone saying much more than his words.

He remembered how angry the Emperor had been when he returned from Malachor, his helmet sliced open and reeking of internal conflict, with no holocron in sight. He hadn't been allowed to leave the Imperial Palace for a month after that, and when he did it was to personally massacre a helpless obscure village to prove his loyalty. His insistence that Skywalker's apprentice had been killed had done little to placate his master. Never again did he regain quite the same status he had previously held, and more and more Tarkin was allowed final say in joint endeavors.

Leia hesitated to leave. "Can I trust you to go back to your quarters, or do I need to escort you?"

Vader's mouth twitched in faint amusement, his thoughts about their size and weight difference and the ridiculous nature of the concept of her forcing him to do anything obvious.

The smile was still threatening to spread further. "No. I can make it."

Leia felt a flare of annoyance and anger at the amusement, but forced herself to respond with icy sweetness- "Good." -Then turned and left.

The man looked back at the map after she had left, smiling wolfishly. "This will be my revenge on you, my master." Anakin thought. "I will tear down your empire to the last brick and smash it into dust, until your life's work is erased from the Galaxy and your existence forgotten. You wanted to live forever, I shall see that even your memory dies."

Maybe he would never be able to fix things with his daughter. Maybe he would never see her genuinely smile at him, or laugh at something he said, or feel her love surrounding him in the Force. And even if he did he had already lost so much time: her birth, her first words, her first steps, her first dance, her first date, her first… everything. But there was still revenge to be had on the man that had taken that from him. And he would have it.


Anakin dreaded returning to his quarters, sitting there, alone, but there was no other option. He could hardly go barge into Ahsoka's quarters, wake her up and ask her to sit with him through the night; she would think him foolish, cowardly. A grown man afraid of dreams and shadows in the dark was nothing to be considered or respected. He had cried and been vulnerable with her so many times; she might even grow frustrated or angry at his continued weakness. And while he had avoided most of the night crew in reaching the conference room, he had been caught there and he knew Leia would not hesitate to have him put in a cell for breaking the terms of his freedom.

And that would upset Ahsoka and Luke, and that would in turn cause a fight which would drive a wedge between them and the Rebellion. That could not happen.

So, going back to his quarters remained the only real option. Perhaps he could work on R2 to pass the time; he was taking advantage of the numerous minor (and some major) repairs to conduct a thorough cleaning. He had already entirely deconstructed the droid and was now methodically going through every piece. Every screw, washer, gear, circuit board, and scrap of metal would be carefully cleaned and checked for damage before the repairs were completed and the droid restored, as shiny and smoothly operational as the day it first came off the assembly line. All efforts at meditation continued to be a failure and Anakin found the work relaxing, he always had. Perhaps it would be enough to silence the voices and hallucinations, to make being alone in his quarters bearable. Perhaps it would be enough to keep him from feeling Obi-Wan's presence, to keep him from feeling like his poor dead friend was watching his every move.

Anakin was on his way back to his quarters when he spotted something strange. A gold droid was walking the sparsely populated hall, a very familiar gold droid.

"3PO?" How in blazes…

The droid turned around.

Maybe he had been mistaken. There had to be millions of protocol droids in the Galaxy; this one probably just happened to look similar.

"Can I help you, sir?" It seemed strangely confused. "I don't believe we are acquainted. How do you know my name?"

So, it was his droid! It's reaction, however, confused him. "It's me, Anakin!"

"Hm. Strange. I am certain I don't know anyone by that name."

That's weird.

Well… R2 had shown signs of damage. Apparently, C-3PO had fallen victim to the same level of care.

Or lack of it.

"Here. Look at me." He stood and placed his hands on either side of the droid's head, studying it. "Follow my finger…"

It complied, but kept talking, "Sir, I really don't understand-"

Nothing seemed to be wrong with its visual receptors. He interrupted C-3PO's usual chatter, pointing at a man nearby. "Who is that?"

It answered readily, "Why that's Captain Smythe. Quite an excellent fellow if I do say so myself. Why he once-"

Not its recognition matrix, then. The issue had to be internal, something deeper. Maybe software? Either way it clearly needed more rigorous troubleshooting than he could perform in the hall.

"Sir, what are you doing? Wait! HELP! I'M BEING KID-"

He reached behind the droid's head into a small nook for the off switch, "Sorry, 3PO."

Once the droid shut down Anakin quickly hauled it back to his quarters, unscrewed the chassis, and plugged its memory bank into a terminal.

Interesting. Once the dust was cleaned away, closer examination had revealed some replacement parts. None were newer than several years ago, but they were all good quality and of fairly expensive make. Someone had also rearranged several of his more amateurish childhood cord placements and improved the cable management. He knew they had; he knew the inside of this droid better than he had once known his own hand.

Someone had been maintaining it until relatively recently.

Once the relevant screen came up, he put in login credentials to enter with admin privileges. Strangely enough the password worked, and after a brief loading screen the CLI came up.

Running virus detection, a diagnostic, and then an anti-corruption software turned up no issues and no corrupted files, so Anakin opened the file directory. "Okay let's see what's going on with you."

Best guess, it seemed to be a memory issue, so he quickly navigated to the appropriate file. "Okay, no corrupted files… no recognition issues… it's almost like those files were deleted, but that doesn't make sense; that would be years worth of memory…" He had put passwords and security on the droid over the years specifically to prevent that. Oh well, might as well check everything.

He typed the command, then went to work on R2 to give the software time to process and sort that volume of files.

Ordering the memory files by date oldest to newest revealed… "What?"

The earliest file available was dated the day after the Empire's creation. Someone must have gone in that night and wiped the droid's memory banks. Strange, then, that R2 had shown no similar issues.

How had they bypassed the admin password..? Didn't matter. They had.

Anakin frustratedly disconnected the memory bank from the terminal. That was that then. He didn't know why they had been deleted, but there wasn't any way to recover those files twenty years later. Tragically they were gone forever. Still, at least he could do something to help the poor old thing.

C-3PO's memory was starting to fill up, so he grabbed another bank from a nearby box and got started installing it. "Here, this is another ten yottabytes. It's compatible, I think, and it ought to keep you going for a few more years. Now, this is our secret, you understand? I don't think there was anything important on it, but don't go telling people about this." He hadn't thought that he would ever be back here, exercising his ancient skills for scavenging computer parts and electrical equipment, but here he was, installing a stolen memory bank in C-3PO like he had when he was eight.

Strange, the way history repeated itself.

Alright, all that was left now was to release it. Set it out in the hall, flip the on switch, and…

The droid powered on, its eyes lit up, and it started to look around. "Oh, thank the Maker! I'm safe!"

You're welcome, Anakin thought to himself as he closed the door.