Until the Day I Die

Author's Note: First off, this is a very dark fic. There's an open-ending, and the universe may eventually become happy, but that's only because I couldn't give it a tragic, depressing ending. Lol.

Also, this is a gift request by Superstary56 on ao3, so if you're wondering why I wrote something like this, you now know. :)

But on that note, it was fun to play with the Force Dyad bond with Anakin and Obi-Wan. Listen. I don't care what anyone else thinks. They're a Force Dyad, and that is now my headcanon (with supporting evidence in canon), and it will be appearing in my other fics too, now. You're welcome. ^-^

This is also part of the Star Wars Playlist Challenge hosted by Riftwalker on ao3. The song Until the Day I Die by Story Of The Year really fits this fic. Lol. And it's also part of the Obikin 2023 bingo (platonic only for us, of course. :)

WARNING: Major character death, suicide, suicide attempts, depression, general darkness. This is a very dark fic. Read at your own risk.

To Superstary56: I hope that you like this... very dark, angsty, and tragic story. Lol. But you did ask for it. ;)

~ Amina Gila

The stifling, choking heat and toxic gas makes it hard to breathe, but Anakin is past caring. If he wasn't so blinded by his fury, he might feel something akin to fear at his current location, standing precariously on the edge of a platform floating over a lava river. Any sane person, including Jedi, would be afraid.

But he is past fear now.

All he feels is a raw, blinding fury. For so long, he has taken the criticism, the distrust, the pain, but he can't do that anymore. He's tired of it, tired of being subject to Obi-Wan's every whim, tired of being pushed around and hurt, again and again. He's pushed back his pain, his resentment, his anger for years, but it's all bubbling over now, given freedom by the Dark Side which now courses through his veins, filling him with fire.

Anakin wants to make Obi-Wan hurt as he has hurt for so many years. He wants to push Obi-Wan until he breaks, until he reacts, until he shows emotions, if indeed he has any, for all Anakin sees in him is disapproval and anger. It grates on him, incensing him further that even now, Obi-Wan will still treat him as an ignorant, stupid child who knows nothing, who can do nothing except fail. He wants to be seen, accepted. (He wants to be good enough, but what does that even mean anymore?)

"Don't try it!" Obi-Wan yells, standing opposite him on the bank of the lava river, lightsaber gripped tightly in his right hand.

He is foolish for thinking that he has the high ground, even if he doesn't realize it. Anakin gathers the Force, leaping through the air, vaulting cleanly over Obi-Wan's head, high enough that he can't reach him with his blade – not that he would... do that. (Obi-Wan wouldn't. Obi-Wan would never truly hurt him... would he? He is afraid of that possibility, of Obi-Wan trying to kill him, but way deep inside, he just can't imagine it. Obi-Wan wouldn't. Obi-Wan protects him, takes care of him. He wouldn't hurt him.)

Anakin is swinging towards him before he's even hit the ground, fully expecting his old master to turn and block him as he has every time before. This is – he doesn't know what this is really; he isn't really thinking about what this is, about what they're trying to truly accomplish by beating each other up. He isn't really thinking at all.

Perhaps he should have been.

Obi-Wan's blade does not block his, and Anakin instinctively tries to pull back, to not carry it through to completion, but the momentum is too much, and the blue blades slices deeply across – through – Obi-Wan's back. With a cry, the Jedi Master crumples to the ground, unmoving, as his spine is severed. The injury is too severe, too extreme, and Anakin stands frozen for a moment, unable to move, unable to process, much less accept, what just happened.

"No," Anakin croaks out, his lightsaber falling from his fingers and thumping onto the ground as he scrambles to Obi-Wan's side. "No."

Obi-Wan is lying half on his side, half on his back, and a quiet groan of pain escapes him when Anakin grabs his shoulder. His eyes are unfocused though, and no matter how much Anakin grasps at his Force signature, his presence is rapidly weakening, fading.

No. Nonono.

"Obi-Wan," he calls frantically. "Obi-Wan. Master, please."

What –

He –

What did he do?

Oh Force. Please. No. This can't be happening.

It is happening. It's happening right in front of him. Obi-Wan is –

What did he do?!

This is his fault. If he hadn't – if he had – Something. Anything. He – what – It doesn't seem real. None of it seems real, but the Force doesn't lie to him. It never has.

"'kin," Obi-Wan manages to say, blinking at him with unfocused eyes. "N'kin." He's dying, and there's nothing Anakin can do to stop it. Even if he could successfully move Obi-Wan back to the landing platform to get him help, it would never be enough, not with an injury so severe. Moving him would undoubtedly just make him bleed out, and Anakin's panicking far too much to think of something, anything that might help.

(That's not it. There is nothing that he can do. Nothing at all, but he can't accept that.)

"I'm sorry," Anakin chokes out, tightening his grip on Obi-Wan's shoulder as if it could ever be enough to keep him here. He's shaking, and he feels cold, freezing, despite the high temperatures around them. He's probably going into shock. "I'm sorry, Master. Obi-Wan, please, you can't –" die. He can't even finish the sentence, and a strangled sob is torn from him. "Master..." He doesn't know what it is that he wants to say. There's too much, too many things left unsaid, too many things that he'll never (ever, ever, ever, no matter what he does now) get to say now.

Obi-Wan's hand twitches as if he was trying to move it, and he weakly reaches to Anakin through their bond, touching him lightly, fleetingly, before he pulls back, pushing up shields and blocking Anakin out. He wants to push past them, to reach out and take Obi-Wan's Force signature, clinging to it so that it won't fade, but he doesn't have the strength to do it, not when he knows it will be futile.

Is it cowardice to want to hide from the pain his once master is now experiencing? Is it cowardice to not at least try this one thing, even if it will never succeed, if it means he'll feel every bit of the pain Obi-Wan now is? He deserves it. He deserves to feel it. He deserves to live it. He deserves all of it, but he's scared, afraid to reach out and feel it. Hiding doesn't make it any less real and present, but – but –

Obi-Wan's body goes limp first, and his Force signature fades after that, no matter how tightly Anakin clings to their bond, wishing that it was enough, wishing that he was better, that he wasn't destined to destroy everything he touches. Because that must be what it is, right? Everything, everyone he's ever known suffers because of him. It must be because of him. If he wasn't here, if he was dead, if he had never been born, none of this would have happened.

And then, it happens.

Their bond wretches apart, sending waves of agony coursing through his mind, strong enough to take his breath away. He pants weakly, fingers digging into the hot sandy ground as he struggles to hold on, so that it doesn't take him with it. It's hard when it feels like someone stuck a red-hot pole in his mind and started twisting.

It feels like a piece of him was torn out, ripped away, and he's cold all over.

"No," he whispers as his tears begin to fall. "No. Nonono. Obi-Wan!" It's useless to touch the body, to seek out a pulse when he already knows what happened, but he still does it. He still reaches out to brush back Obi-Wan's hair as if that would have any meaning at all for the man who he just murdered. (The man who raised him, who was, and still is, his father, the man who has been his best friend for years and years, the man who always took care of him or at least tried to, even if he wasn't very good at it.)

Anakin just killed him.

He killed Obi-Wan.

It doesn't seem real; he feels entirely disconnected from his entire body, and he couldn't say if he's trembling from shock or heat or cold or –

He can't process it though, can't accept it, and he shakes Obi-Wan's shoulder as if that could somehow bring him back and undo yet another of his stupid mistakes. "You can't – you can't do this to me," he manages to say, as if there's still someone here who can hear him. "Master, please. I need you." His voice breaks.

Grief chokes him, drowns him, but he has nowhere to direct his anger and pain except at himself.

"Obi-Wan!" The scream is ripped from him, and he shatters entirely as his mind finally processes the implications of this, of what happened, of what he lost. (Everything. He lost everything. He didn't know what it would mean to feel like he lost everything until this very moment. Everything else pales in comparison to this moment, to this... feeling.)

Anakin – who even is he anymore? – carefully pulls Obi-Wan closer, into his arms, cradling him in much the same way as he did after – after the Incident. (After the deception, after Hardeen.) He rests his forehead against his master's, feeling the familiar weight of Obi-Wan's body against his, the warmth of his skin, the way he would still feel alive if not for the glaring absence of his Force presence.

He's gone this time, for real, and all Anakin can do is hold him and cry, silently mourning every single choice he did or didn't make. He doesn't have the willpower or energy to get up and move, even if he should, because Padme. She's still back there. It doesn't matter. Nothing short of the end of the galaxy itself can pull him away from where he kneels.

The lava keeps flowing, occasionally splashing up onto the bank, but Anakin doesn't care. He thinks he'd be relieved if it consumed him, drowned him in its fiery depths. It would be oblivion, and he has never wanted that more than he does now.

He could have been there for hours – or even longer; he doesn't know or care for anything except the dead weight of Obi-Wan's body against him – before he senses the dark approaching presence of his new master. He knows he should move, but he can't. He can't even bring himself to look away from Obi-Wan.

"Lord Vader," Sidious says, a casual wave of the Force blocking the lava from splashing them, and that is when Anakin realizes how badly his left arm is throbbing. He hadn't even registered it when a drop of lava hit him, burning him. "You have done well."

Normally, he would crave to hear those words, but now, looking into Obi-Wan's empty eyes and touching his cool skin, Anakin just feels sick. "Can you do something?" he begs, desperate beyond reason. "I – I will do anything. I just –" He would carve out his own heart if it meant undoing all of this, if it meant getting another chance, if it meant fixing this.

"He was a Jedi, a traitor." Despite the dismissiveness in Sidious' voice, there's still a note of sympathy, of understanding.

"Please," Anakin whispers, and if he was still capable of feeling something, his heart – what's left of it – might have shattered entirely.

"It will get better," Sidious answers instead. "Get up. This... display is not becoming of a Sith."

Anakin – no, he isn't Anakin anymore; he is... Vader, perhaps. Or perhaps, he is just nameless – can't say how exactly he ended up standing, much less what all led up to him finally agreeing to lower Obi-Wan's body into the lava river to grant him a funeral. And then, they leave Mustafar, though An- he refuses to part with the lightsaber belonging to his former master. It still feels like Obi-Wan, and he craves that feeling, craves the comfort and solace that he can only get from the lightsaber, no matter how mournfully it cries.

He is... nothing. He feels like nothing. He is empty. Completely empty now. Nothing matters. Nothing at all.

By the time they get back to Coruscant, Padme is in labor. Ana- Vader – he is Vader now; he must be, right? Who else could he even be now? – feels nothing. He doesn't even feel afraid at the possibility of her demise. He feels no guilt for choking her. It's as if he's stumbling around in a daze, blind to the world, unable to comprehend anything except the gnawing, gaping hole in his mind that only seems to grow worse. It's a raw, bloody wound, and his every attempt at reaching out with the Force only strains it further.

It feels like... It feels like he's dying.

He doesn't remember collapsing, but when he awakens, Sidious is there, telling him calmly that Padme didn't survive, that he had chosen to save Ana- Vader instead of her. He knows that he should be angry, furious even. He doesn't care. It doesn't even matter to him anymore that Padme died, that he now has twins – Luke and Leia – who scream every time he so much as enters the room.

A part of him is missing, missing worse than a lost limb. Something was ripped out of his mind, out of his very soul, and nothing that his new master does can correct that. He'll slowly wither away until he perishes. He will, right?

His existence is meaningless, purposeless. Nothing matters. He doesn't know what all he does on Sidious' command, couldn't recall it even if he was asked.

Some days, he even hates his very own children for being born, because if they hadn't existed, Padme would be alive. Obi-Wan would be alive. Most days, he hates Sidious. He always hates himself, though. He hates... everything about himself. He hates that he can't be around his children without sending them into a tantrum when they feel how dark and empty he is. He hates how his eyes are an empty yellow, devoid of anything even remotely human; the first time he saw it, he smashed the mirror, cutting himself badly.

By the end of the second month, Vader can't take it anymore. He's hardly eating or sleeping, much less even trying to take care of himself. He takes his lightsaber – his old one, the one he's keeping in a chest with Obi-Wan's under his bed – and ignites the blade through his chest. It hurts, but not worse than he's already been hurting. He would much prefer a fast death to a slow painful one.

He doesn't die.

Instead, when he awakens, he learns that he just missed his heart, and now, he'll be dependent on a respirator for the rest of his life. He thinks about aiming for the neck next time, but the idea of nearly severing his own head makes him... uneasy. Besides, given the implants in his neck and the mask now covering his face so he can breathe, Vader doesn't know if it would really work.

When he goes back... home – it's not home, not really, and it never will be, but it's where he stays with his children when he's on Coruscant – it's to an even more horrifying truth. He could have died, would have died, but Sidious did to Luke what he did to Padme. His son is dead. And his master warns him that should he attempt such a foolish thing again, his daughter will be next.

Losing Luke is the first thing that actually gets through to him, somewhat, piercing through the numb daze in which he's been trapped ever since Obi-Wan's death. It both pulls him out and pushes him further. He's slipping, further and further, and he knows there's no way back. He doesn't want to find a way back anyway. Since – since the Empire, he has probably killed thousands. Maybe more. It's not like he's kept track; it's not like he even remembers. But he does know that he can't continue on like this anymore. It's too hard.

The only thing that keeps him marginally sane is talking to Obi-Wan. Logically, he knows it's stupid because Obi-Wan is dead – (and who's fault is that?) – but if he pretends that his former master is still there, still listening... it helps a little. It makes him feel a little more real, at least.

Vader doesn't let his fear of something happening to Leia stop him from seeking an end to it all. He just needs to be a little cleverer.

So, he waits and bides his time for a month – is it really a month? Or is it much longer? – before he takes a chance opportunity while on yet another campaign. He feels the incoming missile, fired by remnants of the CIS who are still determined to win "freedom" from the Empire, but he doesn't block it, doesn't even try. The explosion is... awful. He takes the brunt of it, and everything whites out to painpainpain.

He doesn't die.

Again.

This time, he wakes up to a body that he can't even recognize as his own. Not only did he lose all of his limbs, but also, the extensive burns he sustained has forced him to be eternally reliant on an environmental suit. He looks... awful. He looks like a thing out of nightmares, a creature that can't possibly be even remotely human.

(If Obi-Wan was to see him now, would he be afraid? Disgusted? Would he even recognize him anymore? Would he care?)

Every moment is agonizing pain. Every second is torture. The physical pain and the mental pain – pain from the shattered bond that has never healed over and is only getting worse, like an infected wound – rival one another.

At least Leia is still alive. Small mercies, that, when Vader has found a tiny semblance of something he could call affection for her. Too bad it didn't form, or surface at any rate, before he lost Luke. His daughter deserves better than this, better than a parent who has death dogging his every step, a parent who is living half in the grave, a parent who is death's most ardent companion and follower.

Perhaps, if Vader was still capable of logical thought, he might care more about that than he does. As it is, he can barely note that with a detached apathy before another spasm of pain from his broken body blanks out his mind again.

Time blurs together, and he has no idea how long it truly is while he recovers and relearns how to move. Most times, he doesn't even know his own name, who he is as a person – is he even a person, still? He is only aware of the jagged wound within him, the missing piece of his soul that he can often not even identify, the way that he can feel death pulling at him with greedy hands, just waiting to drag him under.

Later, he learns that it took him half a year to recover.

It isn't quite a year since It happened when Vader decides that he can't take it even a moment longer. Everything is torture, and he wants nothing more than to put an end to his miserable existence. He leaves Coruscant without telling anyone, flying to Mustafar, to the place where it all ended and began.

It looks the same as he remembered it, the lava river still flowing, carving a fiery path through the ground, the blackness of the banks. The ground crunches beneath his boots, at least he assumes it does since he can't quite hear it over the constant droning of his respirator. He assumes the lava is just as orange-yellow as it used to be – it's hard to tell anymore, with his lenses tinted red.

He thinks that he can still feel traces of Obi-Wan here, though he knows it's naught but his own imagination. Or perhaps he is merely sensing the residual traces of him in the lightsaber clipped to his belt. He brought both of them here though he doesn't quite know why. Perhaps so that he can put them to rest when he puts himself to rest for all eternity. But he has to make sure that his master can't bring him back; he could not bear it if he was.

Vader stands on the edge of the lava river, staring into it as it flows before turning towards the embankment and calling on the Force. He slams a hand onto the ground, feeling out the cracks and the way he can pull it down. And then, he pushes, cracking the rock beneath his feet, watching as the fractures spread upwards towards the higher embankment. He pulls on them, not flinching as the rock slide cascades down crashing on and around him, trapping him beneath the debris. Soon, very soon, this entire bank will collapse into the river, destroying him.

And he wants it so very badly.

He deserves to feel every bit of the pain, but... he's afraid to. He can't quite imagine actually burning himself to death, so he reaches into his own body, feeling out the implant in the base of his neck which connects his body and prosthetics to his brain, and he crushes it. Almost instantly, after the first wave of agony, he loses awareness of his body. Even if he wanted to move now, he couldn't; he's completely paralyzed.

The lava seeps up, through the cracks, as the rock begins to crumble, catching his cape on fire. He doesn't feel it as the flames lick upwards, consuming his body and the rocks, reducing it all to ash. Hazily, he wonders what it would look like, if he looks anything like Obi-Wan's body did, a flaming inferno, a bonfire razing the past to dust and ash.

If he was capable of crying, he might, if only out of sheer relief at finding an out.

The rocks shift and crumble, and it's the last sensation Vader picks up on as his body hits the lava river and undoubtedly goes up in flames, the metal of his body and armor melting into the river to join Obi-Wan for all eternity.

That is when his awareness dissipates entirely, and world goes black.

**w**

And the galaxy descends into darkness when a new Dark Lady of the Sith rises to power, crushing the galaxy beneath her foot. The light has been lost, forever, and there is no hope for anyone who dares oppose her.

Eventually, the threads of reality themselves unwind beneath the onslaught of darkness.

The galaxy collapses in on itself, the timeline spiraling into obscurity, as a new galaxy is reborn, one where, perhaps, events will unfold differently.

In one universe, Anakin remembers, in vague flashes, what had happened when he jumped too high, striking down the other half of his soul. In one universe, he makes a different choice when that pivotal moment comes, and even if he ends up limbless, nearly burned to death by the man he thought to save, he still knows it was better than the alternative.

In this universe, perhaps he begins to forget why he made that choice after his Sith master convinces him that what he saw was only a lie, that he should have struck to kill. In this universe, perhaps he will hunt down his once master for years only to face a second, even more emotionally devastating abandonment at his hands. In this universe, perhaps he will, years and years later, kill his once master when they meet again and only then, when it's again too late, realize why he chose what he did.

And in this universe, perhaps he will also get the chance to reunite with his once master once they're both dead and a part of the Force when they will finally be granted the opportunity to make peace and find solace.

But in another universe, on Mustafar, when Obi-Wan appears, Anakin will remember, in vague flashes, what happened last time, and he will be unable to even allow things to get that far.

**w**

It's – he doesn't know what this is exactly because it doesn't feel like a life he lived, but it doesn't feel like a vision either. It feels like something else entirely, a resonance in the depths of his soul that tells him how his life will continue if he walks down this path. And no matter how angry Anakin may be at Padme for betraying him, for lying to him, he cannot raise a hand against Obi-Wan, not after realizing just what he may face, for if Obi-Wan dies, whatever makes him... him will die too.

He doesn't look at Padme, doesn't look at her wide-eyed devastated expression. He has eyes only for Obi-Wan, no matter how angry and disappointed his once master may be.

(He remembers the pain, ceaseless and unending. He remembers his children, Luke and Leia. He remembers the oblivion that came at the end.)

He slowly walks towards Obi-Wan, dropping to his knees in front of him, unclipping his lightsaber from his belt and offering it to him. "Do to me what you wish, Master," Anakin says, "But I cannot fight you." I would sooner die first.

It was a false death before, even though no matter how much of it he remembers, he still does not feel as though he and Obi-Wan are finally being reunited. Perhaps that is only because he died the moment their bond broke. It was a false death, a death that wasn't complete so long as life remained in his body.

In time, he might try to explain to Obi-Wan what he has seen, what he knows, but it isn't something that his once master can understand now, not when everything that transpired is still so fresh in his mind.

"That's it?" Obi-Wan, unsurprisingly, sounds incredulous. "You surrender?"

Or perhaps there's no time like the present, no other way to explain any of this.

"I have seen what will happen if I kill you," he answers. "I cannot go through that." And then, because he can't help himself, he adds, "I would rather die. I would rather that you killed me."

Obi-Wan takes the lightsaber, slowly, disbelieving. "I should," he says, "But I cannot kill you like this. It would be wrong."

Anakin doesn't resist when Obi-Wan cuffs him, securing him inside Padme's ship. He can feel them leaving Mustafar, but he doesn't care. Obi-Wan is alive, and he is alive, and they're a mess, but a fracture can be repaired. The dead cannot be brought back to life.

It's not – it will hurt, it won't be easy, but he can live with that. He can live with that because he actually feels alive. He doesn't feel like he's trapped in a daze, slowly dying bit by bit. This is... good. Well, maybe not good, not yet, but it can be. It can be.

He reaches for his bond with Obi-Wan, clinging to it, letting the warmth and light on the other side reassure and soothe him. Obi-Wan might be shielding, but he still feels alive, and that is what matters most.

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