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Chapter 20
Anakin jumped out of white sand and swung around on his feet. The black sky with red flecks for stars stirred over his head. Glowing white cracks spread through the world, and light seeped through and began to claim the darkness. The nightmares pounded at the far fringes of the world but didn't reach him.
A familiar presence made him turn. Qui-Gon sat on his knees in the sand, hands settled on his thighs, eyes closed. Anakin looked down at his hands—still a child's hands.
Anakin dropped his hands to his sides and frowned at Qui-Gon. Normally, Qui-Gon seemed much farther away, much easier to expel from the world inside Anakin's head. His presence had become steadier. Something had changed.
"Am I dead?" Anakin asked.
"No," Qui-Gon said, but he hesitated. He looked Anakin straight in the eye. "Not yet, anyway. Your heart stopped, but you have many doing their utmost to save you."
Anakin wasn't sure he cared either way.
"Is Obi-Wan okay?"
"He has a few bumps and bruises, but that's nothing unusual for him. He should be fine." Qui-Gon smiled.
Anakin glanced around the strange world that twisted in black and white. The light was brightest around Qui-Gon, who sat in a patch of white sand in air that radiated warmth from the Force. So different from the darkness that wrestled with the light around Anakin.
"Was this some kind of test?" Anakin asked. "To see what I would choose?"
"Perhaps," Qui-Gon said, though the doubt in his voice suggested he thought not. "Or perhaps it was meant to guide you to the correct path."
Anakin moved before he realized he was doing it. He shuffled through the white sand and closed the wide gap between him and Qui-Gon. He sat on his knees, same as Qui-Gon, and set his hands on his thighs. His eyes dropped to the space between them.
"I almost chose wrong," Anakin said. "Again."
"Almost and did are two very different words."
"It doesn't matter. The intention is still in me." Anakin's head sank at the realization. Despite all his efforts to be and do better, he found himself in the same place as before. "I'm still just… dangerous."
"That word has burdened you for many years." Qui-Gon sighed. "I wish the Council had taken the time to see what I saw in you. I saw your fear, but I did not see danger. I saw the boy on Tatooine who rescued a foreigner because it was the right thing to do. I saw the boy who invited home weary travelers in danger of a storm, who spoke of compassion and helping others, and who risked his life to provide strangers with a way home. You have always had a great light in you, Anakin, and a great potential for good. Your compassion for others is a great strength, not a weakness."
Anakin snorted and shook his head. Even in this lifetime, he had slaughtered the Tuskens without mercy. He had killed or threatened with death countless people in the war. He was angry, violent, and full of hate. It was not phenomenal that he became Darth Vader. Rather, it was the trajectory of his entire life. Any good in him was the oddity, the outlier that didn't make sense.
"Anakin," Qui-Gon said, with a unique twist of gentle and stern. "You have within you the ability to see and know deeply an individual's irrefutable, infinite worth… and that is a strength that few others possess."
"Jedi value all life," Anakin said. "We are taught to kill only if absolutely necessary and to preserve life at all costs."
"Yes, but it isn't the same. You see the individual first." Qui-Gon smiled, but it was tired. "You don't weigh the individual against the greater good… To you, even one life has always been worth living and dying for. And now you have learned to perceive that the greater good is made up of many individuals, many sons and daughters, all of equal value and worth. Your sense of compassion has grown and made you that much stronger."
Anakin shook his head and rolled his eyes away. White and black raged against each other for space in his mind. Light against all-consuming darkness.
"Your past as a slave opened your eyes to compassion in ways few others will ever understand. You love and fight for the lost, forgotten, and weak because you empathize in ways others cannot." Qui-Gon let out a long breath and dipped his head, closing his eyes. "In all our good, we Jedi have failed in this… We've been complacent and detached. We love, but we do not love deeply." He returned his focus to Anakin, and softness touched his words. "Not so with you. When you see people hurting, your first instinct is to help. When you see their pain, your first reaction is always: me, too."
"If I am so compassionate," Anakin said with a sharp edge to his words, "why am I so bad? Why am I so hateful, angry, and afraid?"
"Do you know why you take on the appearance of a child in this place, Anakin?" Qui-Gon waved his hand about before settling his knowing gaze on Anakin. "This world is a world of your own making—so why are you trapped in that body?"
Anakin shrugged. Did it matter?
"You wear the body and clothes of a child slave because this is where you remain," Qui-Gon said. "For all the worth you see in others, you fail to see it in yourself. You view yourself as something worth discarding. Tell me, have you ever felt good enough?"
A breath caught in Anakin's throat and strangled him.
"As a slave, your value was defined by how well you performed. A broken tool no longer has value and should therefore be discarded." Qui-Gon stared at Anakin, firm and unwavering. "You feel the need to prove your worth because you believe you do not have any."
"You're wrong," Anakin snapped, but tears stung his eyes. He didn't know why. "I'm arrogant, and proud, and I…"
"I have watched a child shout to the world that he is good enough because the child believed he would not be accepted if he didn't perform. That child's fear of abandonment, of losing yet another tenuous place, only made him that much louder in his attempts to prove his worth," Qui-Gon said. "Arrogance and anger are nothing more than outward displays of our fears and insecurities."
"Why are you saying this?" Anakin blinked back tears. His head hurt. His heart hurt. "It doesn't change anything. It doesn't matter why I hurt anyone. Alderaan didn't care I was a slave. The Jedi I slaughtered didn't care. The millions of people I enslaved or destroyed didn't care."
Something warm and familiar came to Qui-Gon's eyes as he looked at Anakin. Something similar to the way Anakin's mom looked at him, long ago, and sometimes how Obi-Wan looked at him, too.
"I care," Qui-Gon said, in a whisper, but it reached Anakin with the full force of a charging bantha. "Wisdom comes from understanding, Anakin, and so, too, does the potential for growth. You have shown you are capable: you are not Darth Vader today, nor will you be tomorrow, because you chose a different path. You cannot change the past, but you can learn from it. And the future is of your choosing."
Anakin opened and closed his mouth several times, but he could think of nothing to say. He couldn't remove the harm he had done to others in the past: to the Tuskens, to the people he harmed in his foolishness and rage. He couldn't remove the harm he caused from those in the future, either, because they'd seen it. It burrowed in their hearts and minds as though he'd already done it. He had to bear these burdens if only so he could make things right.
He had to make things right. It was the only way.
"Anakin," Qui-Gon said, cutting through Anakin's thoughts with a solemn tenderness. He locked eyes with Anakin. "You are not a slave anymore."
Something cracked inside Anakin. Something broke and fell to pieces. Tears slipped down his cheeks, but he didn't understand why. After he'd been freed, he'd never considered himself a slave.
Had he?
"Freedom will be a beautiful thing for you when you finally embrace it," Qui-Gon said, and his smile went to his eyes.
Freedom. Anakin had been free since he was nine years old. Hadn't he? He stared at the sand.
Light flickered through the darkness around him, chasing some of the shadows away. Visions of the future leaped at him, but the light around him restrained them. So intense, the battle between light and dark in this place. Cracks made of pure light spread across the blood-splattered night, and rays of light peeked through.
"You're doing this, aren't you?" Anakin waved a hand to the sky.
"No. This is a world of your own making. I'm merely passing through."
"Am I dead?" Anakin asked, wondering at the change. The cracks continued to spread, though the black ceiling did not break.
"No. I think you will live." Qui-Gon chuckled and shook his head. His face softened, and the warm grin remained. "Obi-Wan keeps checking on you. He's very worried about you."
Anakin dropped his head and his shoulders. Guilt crawled over him.
"I'm sorry I keep hurting him…"
"Don't apologize. He's learned a lot from you and has come a long way from the hot-headed boy I trained. You helped him grow beyond himself."
Qui-Gon let out a puff of air and crossed his arms, but a light twinkled in his eyes.
"I will acknowledge I would have liked him to come to these conclusions sooner. The way he's coddling you… I remember falling ill once on a mission, and Obi-Wan politely asked if I was dying, to which I said no. He then mercilessly insisted we continue on with our duty and wouldn't allow me to rest for even a moment." The Jedi Master huffed, a mock frown marring his face. "If he goes about fluffing your pillows and other such things, he and I are going to have words later."
Anakin couldn't help but smile.
"Speak to him, Anakin," Qui-Gon said, and his seriousness returned. Kind, but honest. "You don't need to hide anymore, least of all from him. I assure you."
Anakin offered only a hesitant nod.
Qui-Gon smiled and dipped his head. He straightened his back, returned his hands flat to his thighs, and closed his eyes in meditation.
Anakin mirrored him. He allowed himself to sink into the Force. A wave of peace rolled over him, and for the first time in what felt like years, the world in Anakin's mind was quiet.