Summary – You have always been called arrogant. Vader fic.
Disclaimer – In the interests of money-saving, I'm just going to say that George Lucas owns it all!
Notes – This is part of my return to SW fic, whether it will be triumphant remains to be seen. Do not ask me why this is in second-person. I like to experiment, all right?

Please take the time to read and review!

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You have always been called arrogant, right from when you were small. "Think you're better than us, do you, Skywalker? You're not. You're just as low as the rest of us slaves," a boy, a few years older than yourself once said in the dusty streets of Mos Espa, just days before your first pod race. And you were arrogant that day, your chest puffed out. When you crashed just minutes into the race you knew humiliation, but you were also strengthened. You would come back and you would show them all. You would be victorious.

And you were. But you did so winning not for yourself, but someone else. The day you won it was for the Jedi, and it was for her, your wife, not yet by law – for you were both too young for such formalities – but in heart and in soul. You knew it had been written in the stars, so you did it for her. You loved her. For her, you knew you could win the race. For the Jedi you knew you had to. However, you never knew that the stakes that Boonta Eve would be higher than any Watto could hope to bet upon. That day you stacked your odds against the galaxy. Your arrogance allowed you to believe you would win.

You have always been proud. Never once have you seen the point of being humble. It is nothing more than pretence, hypocrisy, a lie perpetrated by those who think they are better than other beings. A trademark of the Jedi Order. They say that pride is a fault, a downfall, because it leads to the dark side, and they never notice the pride that they practise. If you must think of yourself as being humble, then you have defeated the purpose, because the moment you recognise it in yourself it ceases to be humility, and instead becomes false modesty.

You have never been modest; you know that. Why? Because in your heart, you know if you tried it would be false. You have always taken good care of your looks, because as a Jedi appearances are important. It is so much easier to trust someone that is clean and neat, and isn't wearing their dinner from two nights ago down their front. On this you and Obi-Wan have always been in accord. And yet your care of your looks was never arrogance, it was pride. You were a handsome man, and had many admirers, but you've never really paid them much attention. Your real pride, and arrogance come from your abilities.

You are more powerful than any other Jedi ever born, than any other Sith who has ever existed. This you have been told since you were nine-years-old, a tiny boy, who could not get warm, and was afraid of the beings who stared at you with dispassionate eyes. The hand that sat lightly on your shoulder belonged to man who had never had coldness in his eyes, and he was the one who believed in your power, your abilities. He knew who you were. Or rather, what you were.

They all knew what you were. Or they thought they did. Some thought you were a saviour – he who will bring balance to the Force – others thought you were destruction and death rolled up in a cute little boy with blond hair and blue eyes. The rest dismissed you as being nothing more than an extraordinary being dredged up from the fringes of society, dark places that they would rather not admit existed, and should be sent back to where you came from. They did not like the reminder of what they were, and what they were not.

Another man saw more than anyone, and he sat back to shape you through the years. A Force-strong boy would never have served his ends, but an angry young Jedi with too many secrets was a different story. Like any master politician he put you right where he wanted you and off you went to do his bidding before you even knew that it was his bidding. Power can mean so little if you do not wield it.

Once you thought yourself invulnerable, but that was a lie, because you lost everything. You lost a hand, you lost a soul and you lost a heart. You lost a brother, a father, you lost a wife, and you lost a child, children.

Here you lose your life, the one thing that managed to cling to you, though it was the one thing you wished you would have let go, long, long ago.

You have been defeated, although you never let yourself know – not until you faced a young man that had the eyes that had once entranced a Senator. Your son stood and faced you with a steady gaze and you reflected that he was his mother's child, because no son of yours would have met his fate so bravely, with such conviction. By then there was enough of the shreds of yourself pulled together to admit that you were afraid, you were a coward, you were weak and most of all you were a slave. You're no better than the rest of us, Skywalker, no better at all.

But your son is, and you found yourself irrationally wishing there was some way to make sure he stayed that way, even though you knew such thoughts are in vain. You hoped he would die. You're not better than anyone, but you want your son to be and you knew that if he faced the Emperor he would not. Yet you still took him because you were proud and arrogant and trapped.

You have never been free. Freedom wore an outfit that you could not afford. You liked the illusion for a while, but as with all things in your life it was fleeting and when its fragile beauty faded, the lie was worse. You know now that the cage was of your own choosing. This knowledge is unhelpful, but the truth, when it came to you, cut deep anyway. Once you could have been free, but then you thought yourself trapped, lost, and by the time you realised this untruth you really were.

You have a daughter, who is as brave as her mother, as brave and as strong as her brother. She is not here right now, and this you regret, because you know her absence is your fault, and that were she here, she would not look at you with any love. She is strong and stubborn, beautiful and courageous. Such magnificence is matched only by her twin. You wonder how the Force could create such wonderful people from your own flawed self. You doubt what you see before you. The boy has your eyes, this you can see, even through the lenses that provide you with sight. He has his mother's soul, his mother's heart, and you feel yours break. Until now, you had thought that you had lost such an organ long ago, burned to ash by Mustafar's lava.

When you at last look upon your son's face, you know it is a mirror, and you see everything you have done to wrong him, and you know that you could not make amends to him if you lived a thousand years: you would not even make a dent in the debt you owe him. Certainly, these last few minutes aboard this dying machine could not hope to cover your travesties. Yet his eyes ask for no such reparation, only for your love. Had your heart not been broken moments before, it would shatter now.

You are a monster, a beast, a foul creature, and now as your breath dies away you can admit it to yourself. You have been proud. You have been arrogant. You have not been a husband, nor a father, nor a brother, nor a son.

Despite all this you have been redeemed. As the last of your breath stutters from your lungs, you let go of the galaxy, knowing that for all you have lost, you have still gained a son, and for now that is all that matters.

You are at peace.

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Honest thoughts and opinions mean the world to me.