Author's Note: See first chapter for disclaimers.

Everybody: I am SO sorry for the dearth of updates. I've been moving back to school and starting classes, and I just haven't had time to write. I'll try to hurry up and get back on the ball here. Not very many more chapters to write in this. – Kaitie

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Darth Vader smiled.

Finally, four years after being knocked into that infernal lava pit, he had the chance to face Kenobi and exact his revenge. It felt good.

He decided to rub it in a little. "So, Kenobi, it comes to this. Soon you will be smoldering in pieces on this hangar floor."

Kenobi did not answer. They met in the middle of the hangar and stopped a couple of feet apart. Vader lit his saber, but let his arm hang at his side. He wanted to enjoy this, to prolong it. Kenobi was responsible for the destroyed shell of a body he inhabited, for the destruction of his whole life, for the loss of his love…

Thinking of her death made him angry, and he drew on the darkness eagerly, while shunning thoughts of her. He directed the anger at his former Master. "I wonder if I can get you to beg?" he said nastily, smirking behind his mask.

Kenobi looked at him with calm eyes that seemed almost sad. "Do not be so certain of your victory, Darth." He too lit his lightsaber.

Vader took a moment to study his former master. Kenobi had aged much in these four years, he realized. The brown hair he remembered was liberally sprinkled with gray, and his face was heavily lined. He just stood there, relaxed, older, quietly contemplating Vader – and Vader thought of Qui-Gon.

The thought startled him into making full eye-contact with Kenobi. Not that Kenobi could know this, of course, because of the mask…or could he? A myriad of emotions passed through Kenobi's eyes – calm, sadness, memory, regret –

And Vader put an end to it. Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, her – all were past, all that existed was now, and his revenge. "I am no longer your darling Padawan, Kenobi. No longer the gifted boy that saved your incompetent self from getting blown to smithereens." His voice was rising. "No longer the boy you ripped from his mother and home." They were circling now, neither having yet raised his lightsaber. Kenobi remained silent.

Vader, on the other hand, was now shouting. "No longer the recalcitrant Padawan whom the Jedi spat out when he trespassed the Jedi Code. No longer the heartbroken…" He broke off, even now not trusting his voice to speak of her or her death. He savagely thrust aside the weakness. "No longer Qui-Gon's sacred trust to you. After I kill you today, when you meet him in the hereafter, you can tell him just how horribly you failed!"

Kenobi's eyes had never left his own, never broken their calm. "Perhaps you are no longer these things, Darth," he said. "But then who are you? Every living being must have a soul, and the boy, the young man you are renunciating – he was your soul, Vader. Are you truly a machine now? Or is Anakin, my friend…" His eyes seemed to bore through the mask and bare Vader's mind. "Or is Anakin still there, somewhere?"

Vader forced himself to focus, to control the thunderclouds of rage, to channel them into the Dark Side. If he truly lost control of himself, Kenobi might be able to find a loophole in his defenses. "Anakin is dead!" he screamed. "I am Darth Vader – your nemesis!"

He whipped his lightsaber up and swung it at Kenobi's head. "Prepare to die!"

The two blades clashed between them.

Kenobi looked up into the mask, seeking something. He was keeping his composure somehow. "Darth, you may very well kill me here today. But I have one question for you, before you try."

"What?" Vader spat. "A Dark Lord does not give answers to feeble old men." And yet, as he looked down into Kenobi's eyes, now so very sad, he felt his anger begin to ebb a bit. He was reminded of years ago, when he'd first come to Coruscant. Many nights he'd wake to find his master on the terrace outside their apartment, just standing there and gazing into the sky…it was never spoken of, but Ani had known that his master was grieving Qui-Gon.

"So much anger…" Kenobi murmured, drawing Vader out of the weak memory.

Their blades still hummed together in the space dividing them. Vader knew he should just strike now, but somehow he was curious as to what Kenobi wanted. "Your question, old man! Before I dispose of you!"

Kenobi just looked at him a moment, gaze gentle. He sighed. "What would Padme think, should she see you now, Anakin?"

Mistake, Vader thought fleetingly, as the rage boiled fiercely ever higher within him. "Never speak of her!" he screamed. Enough of this play-acting. Kenobi would die now.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

A/N: Yeah, it was the done and re-done Vader/Kenobi confrontation scene. I hope you like it.
Like it or hate it, though, review and let me know! - Kaitie