"Wait." Han stopped them with concern. "Are we sure we want to see this now?"
Leia murmured, "Threepio, go wait by the travelway and make sure no one else comes over."
Threepio complained about the irrelevance of distant memories and waddled away. Luke shifted aside on the mat to give Artoo more room to shine out the holo-image, and Kess lowered from the chair to her knee to watch closer.
Leia gathered her hands at her knees and spoke calm orders to inch Artoo through the memory. She started by asking for the first images of landing on Mustafar on that particular trip, with which they saw Anakin walk away from a fighter and say, "Artoo, stay with the ship," as he pulled up his hood.
By the angle of his shoulders, it had already been a hard day.
Kess put a hand on Luke's arm. Luke reached blindly up to take it and hold it with tension.
There was a lot of nothing after that. The audio was incoherent with the roar of lava processers nearby.
"Artoo, skip forward until you saw another ship land," Leia instructed.
The droid considered that for a moment and flicked out a new image, now looking down from the same spot as a Nubian cruiser landed on the pad below. They watched the little blue image of a pregnant woman run down the ramp and fly into the arms of the man who now rushed back. There was no audio, the roar of the lava processers drowned everything else out, but they didn't need audio to understand what was happening.
She was pleading him, but He continued to insist on some grand plan.
Leia crossed her pregnant stomach with one arm and covered her mouth with the other. Han reached over and petted her back.
Luke covered his mouth too. Kess settled on her hip beside him and curled both arms around his bicep. She was there to support him as equally as she was using him to hide behind for fear of what she was about to see.
In the pale flickering image, She was shaking her head as He was continuing his diatribe. She stepped incrementally backwards as His discipline began to harden. She began to cry and He began to shout, and they both looked suddenly back to the ramp of her ship.
Luke squeezed Kess's arm in his and swallowed hard. An argument. A Force choke. Then Obi Wan Kenobi stepped down the ramp and into view before Anakin released Padmé to collapse onto the deck.
"Oh shit," Han breathed.
The pacing started. The robes came off. They were circling each other.
Luke shook his head and pulled his eyes down. "It's already over. We should—
"No." Leia stopped him. She met his gaze. "We need to see this." She angled her chin to Kess. "She needs to see this."
Luke glanced back to see Kess's equally affected eyes. He took her hand firmly in his. He took a deep breath to brace himself and watch.
Obi Wan ignited first, Anakin a moment later, and the whole thing was a stutter of bright triangles as the lightsabers moved so fast that even Artoo's recorder couldn't keep up with their speed. They were gone through the building's doorway in seconds.
Per the image, Artoo immediately got to work, sneaking around the corner to stay out of the way as the duel carried on into different chambers, but only enough to curl into a different corridor and rush down the pad below. He and Threepio worked together to pick up Padmé and get her back into the ship. They activated the onboard 21B and stayed by her side as the med droid checked vitals and put an oxygen mask over her mouth.
"Play it through." Leia told him, and gathered her wits. She looked at Luke.
And Luke looked back gravely.
Han glanced tentatively back and forth at them both. "Did we learn anything new?"
"She tried to pull him back," Leia said hard, still staring at Luke.
"But why didn't it work?" Luke asked back.
She shook her head, "There's no way we could know that."
"Why did Grandpa ignite first, though?" Kess queried with concern.
"Because he was already gone," Luke squeezed her hand. He shook his head in sadness. "He was already lost and Obi Wan knew it, that's all." He settled and watched the images continue.
With Padmé safe, Artoo rolled back out down to the pad and swiveled around to find where the two Jedi had gone. By now, the triangles of light were stuttering out on a distant heat fin over the river of lava. The memory of Threepio spoke beside him, "Oh dear," as the two droids watched in mechanical horror as the fin broke and fell to the melted rock below.
And still they fought, insects trying to kill each other as they gripped the huge extender and climbed away from the slashing lava. Artoo and Threepio rushed along the pad to watch the thing float by. Now the droids could only see tiny swiping fans of light flash along the fin's neck all the way to a lava fall.
Luke thought that was it and wanted to hide his eyes, but he couldn't. He was just as surprised as everyone else when both tiny bright sticks bounced back onto distant mining droids hovering along the lava river.
Han set a palm on a knee and cussed under his breath.
More fighting as they floated closer, and Luke began to hope they'd see more. But one jumped to the dark shore, too far away and too distorted by the lava light to be able to recognize which one it was. Then the other one jumped, and the final blow swiped with a circular slice.
Anakin fell to the ground and rolled like a dead rock. Obi Wan backed up.
Was he screaming?
"By the stars, he's still alive," Ashten gasped, recognizing the wriggling bit on the dim landscape just before it burst into bright blue flame.
The whole group reared back. Hands covered mouths. Eyes stared hard. They watched the tiny image of blue flame burn itself out. And still the body was wriggling.
Artoo's capture wavered when the droid panicked over that development. The memory of him and Threepio launched into a predictable argument about what to do next. Despite Threepio's fussing, Artoo rolled back toward the building to wait eagerly for the survivor to return.
As Obi Wan passed by the droid in the holo-image, Luke ordered, "Stop."
The image froze. It was monochrome blue, but Artoo caught a perfect capture of Obi Wan's down-turned face, of his dejected shoulders, and his indisputable expression of grave failure.
The group went deathly silent to stare at it, to absorb the extent of what they just witnessed.
Eventually, Artoo shut off the image and swiveled his head to look at Luke, but he didn't say anything.
All hearts pounded for a full minute more.
"We have proof now," Leia sat up to say.
Luke grimaced over at her. "Proof of what?"
She met his gaze evenly. "That Darth Vader wasn't Obi Wan Kenobi."
Artoo's memories were intact. His diagnostics came up all green, save for a few spots, but Artoo confirmed those blanks spaces were lost during adventures years back. The little droid was in a rush to return to Luke's apartment to plug in and drink up a well-deserved re-charge. He rolled away without them as soon as Luke gave him the permission. In head-shaking silence, the group put away the tools. They dribbled away from what began as a hopeful gathering but ended with new understanding of just how brutal that final showdown had gotten so long ago.
Kess knew Luke needed to meditate this away more than she did. Even though both men were long dead, it was still difficult to watch. It was only slightly easier for her because she didn't have to watch her grandfather get butchered. She learned more respect for all the parties in this story. Obi Wan and Padmé fought so hard to pull him back to the light, but Palpatine had already shoved Anakin Skywalker over the edge.
That night, after shedding only belts and lightsabers before laying down in his dark bedroom, Kess curled tight into him and Luke wrapped tight around her, both squeezing their eyes shut as if that would help fight away the images. They tried to meditate like that for several hours, but they really just laid there. Eventually, they gave up the effort and parted only to strip away an outer layer of clothing and return to the same position under the covers so they could sleep that way too.
Luke drifted to sleep first, but his arms around her were still oddly firm for a person who was unconscious. Kess looked sadly up at his face and recognized that, right now, she was being his tether this time. He wasn't turning to the dark side over this, but his feelings were dark enough to need stability. She settled in and stayed there, eyes wide-awake to recall the holo-capture of Padmé pleading desperately to talk some sense into Anakin.
She could call him that now: Anakin. She saw the man behind the mask now. She saw her usually strong and calm grandfather in his ultimate moment of heartbreak and defeat. And she understood so much more.
Kess wondered if she would have enough power to pull Luke back in case a similar thing ever happened to him. Did she have enough influence to pull her brother back? Her thoughts focused on prevention. Leia was right; they could never know why Padmé didn't succeed. But Kess looked up at Luke's sleeping face and accepted her ultimate duty.
She closed her eyes against his chin and held him tighter so he couldn't drift away.