Chapter 3: flashback
Deep darkness was around him again. Even darker than the night down there on the moon. Space was cold. The last time he had been on Naboo had been cold too. Deadly cold. And colourless, unless you called the red blur he had come to call his eye sight a colour. He had thought that he might learn something there. Something like how come this son of his that he had just seen and talked to and almost touched only days ago breathed and walked and was? He knew her star-ship all by heart, down to the meanest recesses, there was no medical facility of any kind on board; not even emergency supplies. The child could not have survived. And on the video data from Naboo he had been made to watch, she still had that swollen belly of hers. It could not be. He had to go. He had seen their son.
He had arrived at dusk. The place looked dull and old. People, human and gungan hurried away as he passed them by. He hadn't bothered to visit the imperial governor or the queen. He had walked straight to the huge stone monument by the river. A late school group scattered at the sight of him, the dignified teacher's cloak billowing after her as she tried to gather her panicked pupils. Some stories there where about the emperor's mysterious servant that kids should not be told. He had passed the guards with the usual mind trick and made sure that no one would disturb him. He paced slowly around the small plaza underneath the high dome, searching the force, sensing the thousands of people who had been here before. One or two felt remotely reminiscent but most where completely anonymous to him. There he sensed scornfully, the young teacher had stood, while telling her pupils about architecture, history and fight for freedom and peace. She felt oddly familiar but he shoved it away from his mind. He concentrated harder. Older presences came to his mind, as the years flowed backward in his force vision. Regular gatherings were held here. Hatred rose in him as he felt the withered trace of Obi Wan's presence, closer to another trace, the alderaanian senator's, as it appeared to be. It was like looking at fossils. Images, forms, feelings, faces, voices, so clear he could almost touch them, from times so remote he had forgotten almost everything about them, and there they were, distant and dusty like old holos.
He walked through the ghosts to the large stone sitting in the middle of the plaza. It was carved into a face, her face, but designed, unnatural and cold. The carved features were harmonious and no doubt, the handcraft was fine but it was nothing like life. The stone hands were lying on the slightly swollen stone belly. So much for appearances… Her name was engraved in a smaller stone facing the entrance. Yet, he could not bring himself to think that it was her lying there. How could she, since he had not killed her? She had lived to deliver their son, she couldn't be dead. It could not be. Maybe this was all fake. Maybe this tomb was empty. Maybe she was somewhere out there… Suddenly, the pain seared again in his chest. He reached out for support. His mechanical gloved hand grabbed the stone. He sensed something. Faint, terribly faint and distant but still undeniably familiar... Not for the first time of his life, he wished he had never felt the force, whished the thing itself didn't exist at all and that he had been born to a normal set of parents somewhere where people would know nothing of that kind of power. He could find comfort only in the thought that his mask wouldn't let anyone know what his face really was like. Under the lid of stone, there she was, but it was not her, she was gone. Again… Forever…
And yet, as he led the small shuttle towards the Death Star, he knew their living son was sitting behind him, handcuffed and silent, but alive. But of the whole story of life and death, he knew nothing.
You've been walking around in tears no answers are there to get
The boy looked deep in thought too but nothing near his own turmoil. Did he only know what his words had awoken? How much ashes they had shaken? Things older than he was. Things he couldn't have memories of. Unless he had been told. Maybe it had all been orchestrated years ago… But no, Obi Wan could not have told him. Obi Wan was dead. He could not do anything to him anymore. There was no deceit in the boy. The words were genuine. Here was the pain again. Would it ever stop? No advances check could track were the problem was. Pity there had been no one to blame… Except Palpatine himself. But then, it would be quite a stupid thing to do, to destroy one's own right arm, wouldn't it? And if he knew one thing about the emperor after all those years, it was that he was all but stupid.
Poor boy… He had honestly thought that his own sacrifice would be enough to "turn him back"… That those candidly spoken words could undo years and facts. He was blinded, by compassion of course, but this was almost stupidity. Love didn't save people. Compassion didn't ease grief. They only made things more painful and more embarrassing.
Besides, honestly, did the boy have eyes to see? Did he really think that his rebel friends would see things as he did? That they would accept among their ranks he who had been their archenemy for the past twenty years? Just because one idealistic boy told them that his father could be nice when he tried… No. The only way out for the both of them was where they headed. Or it would mean death as traitors for the both of them. This was the only way they had left, no mater how hard it was for loving idealistic young men.
You won't ever be the same someone cries and you're to blame.
