Legacy of the Sith
Chapter 18: The Powers of the Mind
Vader heard the words. So faint, so weak, and yet they rang through the dark cave like a bell. The Dark Lord held his breath, made no motion, no sound. Was it just a trick of his overwrought mind? Surely he'd walked too far away to hear Obi-Wan by now, hadn't he?
They were words he'd been longing to hear for years, only he never knew it until just now. Vader had no idea he'd needed to hear them, and had thought, until that moment, that he didn't care one bit about Obi-Wan Kenobi and what he thought of him. But he did! Damn that man! Vader thought in fury. How does he always manage to get through, even now, when I despise him more than ever?
He closed his eyes behind his helmet, and muttered to himself, "You damned fool..." With a metallic sigh, Vader turned around and stomped back over to Obi-Wan. The Jedi Master's eyes were slightly open, and he was still. No breath came from him. Vader shook his head. "You're pathetic, you know that!" Obi-Wan blinked slowly. "Now you're sorry?" To Vader's great surprise, he felt tears threatening to well up. "I'm such a damned fool..."
Obi-Wan wanted to swallow, but couldn't. He could speak no more, which didn't matter anymore since he'd said what he wanted to say. The Force was very much disturbed between the two of them in the cave. It was doing things Obi-Wan didn't know could happen, and Vader didn't understand very well.
But as things were, Vader had to do all the talking. "It must be the power of the mind," he commented, referring to the strains, the threads of the Force weaving around Obi-Wan. "When I went to Tatooine recently, I walked around Mos Espa (in disguise of course). I saw Watto's old shop. I felt my right arm start to crawl, because I had always known that Watto's sensor implant was in that arm.But Obi-Wan, I lost that arm on Geonosis! When I saw the junk shop that my alien master had run, my body remembered it."
Obi-Wan wanted to say something in response. Like he understood what Vader was saying; he'd heard Luke speak of phantom pains in his own right hand. But how could this be in any way relevant to his present situation?
"For thosefive years after our duel, I thought I needed to suffer because I'd killed my wife. When I found out that wasn't the case, I decided that I'dbeen punishedlong enough for what I'd done..." Vader muttered as he started removing his helmet. Obi-Wan was about to try and speak on last time again, asking him what he thought he was about, but when he saw Vader's hair(!) all he could do was gasp.
Which, of course, had required him to draw a breath.
Vader's eyes resembledhot blue stars blazing with his sinister glare. In response to Obi-Wan's expression of half-dead shock, the slightest smirk crossed his perfect, angry lips. "Guess what you just did, Obi-Wan? You just breathed!" Vader slipped his rebreather back on, turning Vader's signature breath back on in order to set a pace for Obi-Wan in a mocking sort of way. Eventually, however, Vader grew bored with amusing himself at Obi-Wan's expense. So he slowly took the rebreather off, like it had been a masquarade all along. "Surprised? I don't know why you should be. Why would I keep myself in that condition, on a rebreather, no less, when the technology that's available nowadays is so extraordinary?This is the armyou had cut off, the left one. I had the medical specialists use my DNA to grow a new one..." Vader took his left glove off, and a pale hand waved at Obi-Wan. "Virtually everything you did to me on Mustafar, I was able to undo, so to speak. Except for the scars that the surgeons couldn't fix, the ones that go far deeper than skin, or lungs. Those scars, my old master, are just now, just right now, starting to heal," Vader reported as he settled down next to Obi-Wan's prone form.
"I can breathe?" Obi-Wan said so softly, it seemed like he'd mouthed the words.
"Hmmm... A little slow on the uptake today, I see," Vader commented. "Very well, let me spell it out for you. You're not dead, Obi-Wan."
Obi-Wan pushed himself up with his hands, until he was able to sit up. "I'm alive! But this wound--"
"Is hardly fatal," Vader finished dryly. "The one thing I don't understand is how such an intelligent person like you are could have fallen for my ruse so completely," Vader mused, shaking his head.
It was such an Anakin thing, that smirk, that head shake. Obi-Wan so wanted to strike Vader, no, Anakin, that his hand was tingling. "I never was dead, was I?"
"Nope," Anakin answered. "Does that wound hurt you? Let me do some Healing for you."
"Absolutely not! Not until you tell me what possessed you to do this to me!" Obi-Wan ordered.
"Well, if you're going to be that way..." Anakin made an elegant shrug; Obi-Wan, through his fury, noticed that Anakin's face was even more expressive than it had been before. It was as if he forgot he wasn't wearing the mask. "I felt I had to convince you to do my bidding in some dire manner. So, I told you that you'd be trapped in your own dead body if you tried to kill yourself, or got yourself killed. Don't look at me like that; how was I supposed to know you'd actually believe me? You know, I've heard of hysterical illness, even hysterical pregnancies, but I've never heard of hysterical death!"
"What the hell do you mean, I shouldn't have believed you?" Obi-Wan roared. "This is so typical of you Anakin!" Obi-Wan's limbs, previously numb, like they'd all been "asleep," started to wake up, and the tingling from the blood beginning to run through his veins again made him shudder and forget about the next sentence in his tirade. For the moment. Obi-Wan promised himself that Anakin was going to pay dearly for this...
Meanwhile, Anakin in Vader's black armor worked very hard to suppress an evil grin. "I wonder if you would have really died had I not come back. Han's lightsaber blow did not hit any vital organs. But if you weren't breathing, and your heart wasn't beating... I guess you might have died. Would that be the very first time someone died from thinking he was already dead?" he wondered. "Well, now, you know the truth." Anakin sighed. "I suppose, because of my weakness in being unable to stand your suffering, that it means you won't be training Luke any longer."
Obi-Wan grit his teeth, forcing himself to concentrate on speaking again, despite his pain. "No, it doesn't!" he said.
"You mean you're not going to run and kill yourself the first chance you get?" Anakin sneered.
Obi-Wan shook his head emphatically; after all, he just recalled how he wanted nothing more than life. Now that he had it, with no strings attached, he was not going to cross back into the netherworld anytime soon.
Not with Leia now, suddenly, far more accessible than she had been...
"Oh, let me guess, you're all wrapped up now with this foolish idea of my son's. Bring back the Jedi Order," Anakin said derisively. "Sure, only a young fool like him would try something like that when both his father and his best friend are Sith Lords. I don't think you can get any morecredibility than that, can you?" he asked with sarcasm. Obi-Wan's look became dirtier with each passing second, until finally, Anakin laughed. "You look so cute when you get mad, did I ever tell you? Your eyes narrow like this and you get all flushed in the face. It's adorable! I don't suppose you'd like that Healing now, would you?"
"You've fooled everyone for years! Everyone thought you were permenantly scarred. Even your son thought it!" Obi-Wan growled. "And yes, since you're offering, I've had enough of feeling like this!"
Anakin had the Force ready to go, and it set to work on the lightaber wound in Obi-Wan's midsection. In the meantime, he continued to speak, though in a vague, distracted sort of way. "Hmm... what happened to your leg? Someone used the Force to heal it. Yes! It's Leia. Obi-Wan, she's got her very own Force signature. Like she'd signed her name on your leg cast..." Obi-Wan heard the voice of a proud father that moment...
Proper Healing, done by a Jedi Adept, would not have left such a mark. But Obi-Wan didn't care that Leia's bit of the Force was on him now and forever. "No wonder she thinks she's in love with you. Oh, yes, I know all about that foolishness. That, actually, is how my Apprentice came to be in my service. You see, he found you two kissing on Tatooine. And Han Solo, not knowing you like I do, not knowing how sexually repressed you are, thought that this was a Great Tragedy. Just to clue you in on how angry he is with you, and why." Anakin's Healing was complete, and much to Obi-Wan's relief, he left his leg alone. "Hmph! You're quite welcome, Obi-Wan," Ani remarked when he saw Obi-Wan's brooding expression. "Now, as for your other comments before, yes, I allowed the legend of Darth Vader's scars of battle to continue for many years. After all, Darth Vader without his mask on would be unrecognizable, now wouldn't he? This mask I wear is not the same sort I'd worn when I really was suffering, disabled. Besides, it adds to the mystique, doesn't it?" Anakin put his black helmet back on, and became Darth Vader, Palpatine's mad creation, once again.
"Yes, I supposed if there ever was someone who was a legend in his own mind, it's you," Obi-Wan remarked peevishly.
"Try to be nice, Obi-Wan, I'm baring my soul to you, after all."
"Alright, I suppose I'm glad you aren't suffering any longer. At least not physically," Obi-Wan sighed.
"And I'm glad you're not writhing around half dead at my feet too. I admit that if I had not been able to fix a lot of the damage that had been done to me, I would not have been able to forgive you as easily."
Obi-Wan's jaw dropped. It was just as Qui-Gon had said when he'd been deliriously half-dead from his broken leg on board the Phoenix! The sly specter had known it all along! Anakin was on the verge of forgiving him! And Obi-Wan had not even known, consciously, that he'd been sorry about what he'd done before today. Subconsciously, he must have known he was sorry all along. Or why would he have exiled himself to Tatooine? Why would he not have joined the growing Rebel Alliance, if he had not been busy punishing himself?
He needed Anakin's forgiveness all along, if only so he could forgive himself, and finally move on. And now, he had it.
Vader backed away slowly, and put his finger to the permenant frowning grating of his mask, as though to keep Obi-Wan from speaking. The hissing breath retreated along with his deep black form, until both were gone.
Keep quiet about what happened in here. This is the lesson of the cave. Neither Luke, nor Yoda, nor anyone else, is to know of what happened here in the cave.
But surely, he must tell Leia about Han Solo's fall to the Dark Side! Surely then, he'd have her heart all to himself, wouldn't he? Now, teaching Luke wasn't a grim task anymore. Now, it was the first step on the long journey towards restoring the Jedi Order. Obi-Wan could sense his Padawan just outside the cave. He leaped to his feet and rushed outside, overjoyed that he was actually able to do so.
"Master? What happened? Why did you go in there?" Luke gasped.
Obi-Wan was about to speak, but then remembered the rule about secrecy fo the cave. "I...well, I suppose I wanted to see for myself." But damn! He needed to tell Luke about Han Solo!
"Master, I know it can freak you out! But just remember; nothing that happens in the cave is real," Luke said.
Suddenly, Obi-Wan's jubilation at his newfound freedom evaporated. "But...But it seemed like everything that had happened really happened! Luke, it did happen!"
Luke bowed his head a bit sympathetically. "I know how real it can seem. But, Master, honest, it isn't. Master Yoda is getting worried; he suspected you might have gone in here, and sent me to get you back out."
"I...can't believe it wasn't real," Obi-Wan maintained stubbornly. Luke said nothing, and Obi-Wan followed him sullenly. Maybe Luke was right; after all, it was pretty unbelievable that Vader was forgiving him, that he was restored to the way he used to look years ago, and of course, Obi-Wan thought bleakly, Han Solo wasn't Force-Sensitive.
"What's wrong? Is something bothering you, Master?" Luke asked with concern.
"Please, tell Master Yoda I'll be right back." Obi-Wan turned around and ran back to the cave. He reached out with the Force. But he could not feel any other presence. Not the familiar Force signature of his former Padawan (and he was very difficult to hide) nor was there that unfamiliar sensation of "Han Solo." Was he going mad?
Dismayed, Obi-Wan sat down on that rock again, not wanting to let go of the feeling that he'd been free for just a few moments. He closed his eyes, the tears of despair threatened to blind him anyway. "Master..." he whispered, "you said he'd forgive me!"
Obi-Wan felt Qui-Gon's presence at once. "And so he has." Obi-Wan opened his eyes to see Qui-Gon seated beside him on the large rock. "You were just there in the cave! Didn't you hear him? He forgave you!"
"But Master Qui-Gon, it wasn't real! There's no hope! I'm a walking-dead monster created by the child you had entrusted me to train. And what's worse, far worse now, is my betrayal of the Jedi Order in my own heart. I have tried denying it, tried to kill it, tried everything I could think of to keep from feeling it, but there's no use. I love her, Master!" Obi-Wan said in quiet anguish.
"Oh, Obi-Wan Kenobi... There you wallow in your own misplaced sense of sin again. I recall you used to get like this on Tatooine, when I visited you. I thought the change in scenery here might have altered that tendency, but I suppose not. If you were only thinking straight, you would realize that your freedon is real. If what happened in the cave had not been real, then why do you have a hole in your robes?" Qui-Gon winked as Obi-Wan gaped, then he dissolved.
Sorry I haven't updated this more quickly, but I'd been fighting off a bad infection for the past few weeks. And incidentally, don't forget the Forum. If people aren't interested in it, then I'll take it down, but I thought I'd give it a shot. I'm planning about 2 more chapters for this story, then it's going to continue into the sequel story, Legacy of the Jedi.