Not revised this time, but totally rewritten.

***

Rebirth of the Light: Chapter 1

***

He could hear someone crying.

That wasn't anything unusual. Everywhere he went now, there was nothing but pain. Nothing but tears and shattered beliefs, faith brought to the edge and pushed over to drop into the dark pit that waited below.

The wailing continued.

Someone was in pain – great deal of pain – and the voice sounded familiar. There was a metallic tinge to it that had not been there before, a harshness that was new. But still, the voice rang in his ears, and he felt himself being pulled towards it…

Vader awoke with a gasp, and for a moment of complete incoherence, struggled against the machinery that surrounded him. Wires seemed to wrap around him, the course sheets became twisted under his ruined body. The clear ceiling to his sleep cubical was pressing down on top of him, crush the very breath from his lungs! He had to get out! He had to –

A semblance of coherence returned to him in a rush.

He was in his sleep cubical onboard his new flagship. The wires were there to monitor his vitals, not to entangle him. His lungs worked fine. Proof of that was the constant, harsh expulsion of breath, the suck and wheeze of every inhalation, regardless of how he occasionally forgot and struggled against the machine.

He was alive.

Alive.

Vader lay back in what passed as his poor excuse for a bed and stared up through the clear ceiling to the bulkhead above. The darkness of his personal quarters should have been a comfort. Anywhere else on the ship, anywhere in the entire Imperial fleet even, he felt the eyes of his officers on him. Staring in horror at the sight of him. At the monstrosity that was their commanding officer.

Alive? Vader scoffed. He wasn't alive. Blood pumped through his veins and air circulated through his lungs. The Force still hummed through him, diminished though his contact with it was. By the most technical of definitions he was alive.

And he desperately wished he wasn't.

With a forceful shove, Vader pushed down that worthless self-pity and began the process of extracting himself from the cubical. If he was awake, he might as well get some work done.

But what had awoken him?

As he reached up to place the mask over his features, his pale skin on his own flesh-and-blood hand brushed across his cheek. A hot trail of wetness made him jerk in surprise.

No! It had been a dream, and a dream only! He was no so weak now as to cry out in his sleep. He was a Dark Lord of the Sith! He would persevere through the torment that was his ruined body, through the betrayals he had suffered, the agony of so much loss. And he would come out stronger, more resilient.

Drawing on the Darkness, Vader pushed down the crushing despair he felt rising up within him and rose from the cubical, mask in place.

For a long moment he stood, once again making the adjustment to being in the suit. The red-tinged vision always gave him pause, the feel of mechanical legs in place of those Kenobi, his old master, had taken from him. Through some bit of luck, he had escaped with his left arm undamaged. But now, after months in the confines of the suit, it felt just as withered as the rest of his body.

The Darkness was eating him from the inside out.

I deserve this, a traitorous part of him whispered. I made my choice. I can live with the price. But I don't want to. Force help me, I didn't want this.

Vader ignored that tiny, insignificant voice. There were things to do. There was an Empire to build, and order to restore to the galaxy. There was no time for self-pity, or doubts, or lingering guilt and ever-increasing regrets. There was nothing but the Darkness, and his duty to the Emperor.

With a harsh inhalation and a furious flutter of his cloak, Vader turned and strode from the room. He would make his rounds on the bridge, let the men see him, let their fear sooth away the after-effects of the dream.

In the shadows, a form began to take shape.

***

"Milord, it is an honor to have you join us on the bridge this morning."

Vader, standing at the viewport with hands clasped behind him, didn't even bother to turn to address the officer. He had had enough of camaraderie among the troopers of the Clone Wars. Had had enough of it alongside fellow Jedi. Now he just wanted to be left to his smoldering emotions.

"I am interested only in the report you have for me," he glanced briefly at the man to determine his rank. "Admiral."

The other man gulped, and nodded. Vader had been among the fleet, serving as Supreme Commander of Imperial Forces long enough to build a rather terrifying reputation. Add to that the fury that seemed to roll off him in waves, and it did not take much to engender the proper emotions in those around him.

Fear. Disgust. Loathing.

The last they knew nothing about, their paltry attempts at despising him amounting to nothing in comparison to the cold, hard ball of self-hatred that rested where Vader's heart had once been.

"You're very melodramatic."

Vader froze, his eyes nearly bulging out of his head. With a lethal slowness, he turned to face the trembling officer beside him.

The little man, looking no more than early twenties, already had a sheen of sweat on his forehead, and looked to be knocking his knees together. He licked his lips, glancing around him as though hoping some other unfortunate had come up behind him while he wasn't looking. But there was no one there but himself.

"What," Vader inquired quietly, feeling the Darkness gathering around him in a fever pitch, "did you just say?"

"I-I said we're in the – uh – in the Thanatia system, Milord."

Thanatia? He had never heard of it. It was worthless, insignificant. He would crush it, as he crushed everything else he touched. He would crush this shaking little man beside him, who insulted him and then lied to his face.

"Don't hurt him. Let go of your anger. Come to me.

Vader paused. That had not come from the officer. The voice was too soft, to light, like a breeze disturbing still air. He stilled the rising of his hand, the call of the Force to seal shut the officer's windpipe.

"What," he asked again, his vocorder managing to carry his curiosity through the wires, the Darkness receeding, "What did you just say?" The man was going to think he had gone deaf. This was absurd. The dreaded Dark Lord of the Sith could not appear to have hearing problems.

"Thanatia, Milord. We've arrived." The younger man continued to shake, realizing now that not only had he obtained the much-unwanted attention of his commanding officer, but the pitying eyes of every other being on the bridge.

"Come to me."

Vader stared down at the man. He briefly wondered if this was some sort of prank. Certainly there had been the occasional joke among the clone troopers and their Jedi generals. Could the Imperial forces be so insolate as to believe the same could be had with the Sith?

But he dismissed that thought almost immediately. Something else was going on here.

"Come to me."

And then he felt it. A tug, coming from deep inside him. A strong, indescribable yearning. The Force was slowly wrapping itself around him, urging him forward somehow, pulling at the very fibers of his soul. It was disconcerting, and for a moment, Vader attempted to fight it.

The hold on his tightened.

And yanked.

"Come to me."

Vader turned away from the officer, who looked like he was about to collapse right there on the bridge, and gazed out the view port. Follow…to where? There? Vader stared down at the spinning green and blue orb that was the single inhabitable planet in the system. It hung lazily in space, as though ignorant of the sudden danger presented by the Imperial fleet.

There. There was where the Force was calling him to.

What in the galaxy was happening to him? First the dream, and now this childish urge to take a pointless joyride down to some worthless planet? The fleet was in this system only to assure that now Republic renegades were using the space to gather a fleet of this own. There was nothing here, no sensors had picked up ships in the area. They should leave, push onward to the next system, covering as many as they could before the Emperor called him back to Imperial Center.

"Come to me."

Vader cursed aloud, making a number of the men on the bridge jump.

"Get a shuttle ready for departure." He barked, turning from the sight of the planet and storming down the walkway.

The officer he had been unintentionally tormenting managed to squeak out, "Milord?"

"The fleet is to continue on with their assigned reconnaissance. I will rejoined you when I have…taken care of something."

He vanished through the bridge doors a moment later, and as one, the crew released a sigh in relief. For now, the danger had passed.

They did not know they would never have to stand in the presence of Darth Vader again.

***

"Come to me."

Vader growled as the landing gear engaged and the shuttle rocked as it settled into place on the crest of a hill. The entire landscape was made of hills actually, rising and falling in between patches of dense forest and the occasional lake. The entire planet seemed to be one huge prairie, occasional disturbed by massive oaks and hamlets.

His sensors had picked up a major city, but it boasted only limited technology, and no spaceport to speak of. The villages that had passed under his ship as he slowly came down through the last level of atmosphere looked to be quiet, and primitive by his standards. There had been farms, and a few herds grazing among the hills.

The place reeked of the Lightside of the Force.

"Come to me," the voice – or voices, Vader thought he could hear more than one now – continued to whisper. They were familiar. They had a similar hum to them as the rest of the Force, a quiet buzzing in the back of his head that had only now gained enough pitch to make it through the rest of the noise.

Had he been hearing these voices before? They were familiar enough. Perhaps he was only now close enough to this strange planet to hear them above everything else.

"Be quiet," he order, irritation rising up inside him at their constant babble. "I'm here, aren't I? Now what is it you want?"

Another bout of the same refrain had Vader grinding his teeth in annoyance, before unstrapping himself from the pilot's seat and making his way out of the cockpit. Down the boarding ramp and out into the cool air he could neither breath nor feel, Vader felt the Force continue to pull at him, leading him away from the ship.

There was only one thing for it. If he had come this far, he would press onwards. He would discover whatever it was the voices were leading him to, he would deal with the situation in the appropriate manner, and return to the fleet.

His master would not be pleased when he learned Vader had gone chasing off after voices.

The tug led him down the crest and over after hill. This one was slightly higher, and from it, Vader could gaze off in the direction the Force was urging him.

"Come to me!"

And that was when Vader felt it.

The feeling blossomed inside him, a itching, burning, desperate sensation the likes of which he had not felt in months. It was a bright, brilliant pain that jabbed hard at his inner core, delivering a shock to his entire system, so that he sucked in a great gasp of air, fighting the regulator. Something inside him awoke, startled to be standing here, on this unfamiliar planet with that presence so close.

Padme!

It was a presence he had not felt in some months. Not since that near-fatal encounter on Naboo, before the duel with Kenobi that had left him almost crippled.

It was his wife. And she was in pain.

Before he knew what he was doing, Vader was down the hill, speeding across the plains in a rush of exhilaration and fear. The distance meant nothing to him – the Force was his ally and before long, there ahead of his appeared a house, nestled in between an oasis of oaks. The entire area seemed covered in a dense, invisible fog, as though someone was manipulating the Force to hide the house and the beings within it.

But Vader could see through it, could sense his wife and others inside. He was literally breathing in her pain.

"Come! Now!"

With a roar, lightsaber in hand, Vader was through the main entrance, through the common room, down a hallway, the Force and his own inner demons propelling him forward. A moment later, he burst through a door, the red of his saber casting the scene before him in its ghastly glow.

The room's occupants froze as all eyes in the room turned to stare at him.

In turn, Vader stared at the tiny woman reclining on the bed. She lay on her back, the bulge of his stomach a strange addition to her form. Her hair was slick with sweat, dark rings under her beautiful russet eyes, an aura of pain and wariness hanging over her like a shroud of death.

But there was no mistaking her.

"Padme," Vader breathed, and stepped into the room.

***

Caslia