Part 5: Played by Fate

After hours of a drugged sleep, Vader awoke. The air burned his lungs. The light was unbearable, and a crushing sensation tightened around his chest. He felt he was being choked. Instinctively, he tried to raise his hands to his neck, but found that his arms were bound to the operating table.

His arms were bound to the table...

One of his arms was probably just ash in the Mustafar wind by now. The other was a melted scrap of metal, beyond any repair. Both useless because of that treacherous rat, Kenobi. But even so; his arms were bound to the table.

How long had he been unconscious? His skull felt like it was collapsing over his brain.

The droids were still working around him. But what were they doing? They had obviously given him new prosthetic arms. And legs, he noticed suddenly, which were also bound to the table.

The medic droids had rebuilt him completely.

He momentarily wondered what he looked like, but then realized the droids were not finished with him yet. The mechanized medics moved from one side of the room to the other, bringing back types of black garments and fitting his new limbs into them. Soon they had him clad in a sort of full body armor, all black from neck to toe.

A black armor, how poetic.

But it wasn't just armor, he could feel as much. What more was it, then? He decided not to think about it. His head was throbbing and whatever was left of his muscles was smoldering under the black material. He thought he was still on fire.

Kenobi; he would kill him! He would hunt him down like a wolf hunts a rat and rip his throat from his neck with his bare hands. If it was the last thing he did, he would see Obi-wan whimpering at his feet and crying for death. The rotten Jedi cut him down like a piece of meat and fed him to the fire to burn alive. He would full heartedly return the deed, and do the same to him. No, he would do worse, so much worse. Kenobi would suffer like no man had suffered before, or would ever suffer again. He would beg for the flames of hell rather than the hands of his former Padawan. Vader silently vowed to reclaim every last bit of his pain from the Jedi Master. Nothing would stop him from quenching his thirst for vengeance.

All through his line of thought, he felt a growing sense of trepidation and disgust coming from the void of his mind. Seeing his captor's thoughts, Anakin's anger began to boil once more. Vader's mind images were revolting. Anakin's hot fume grew the more the dark lord thought of hurting Obi-wan.

Vader snorted. "I sense I'm disturbing you, Skywalker, with my silent little dreams?" he asked through their void disdainfully.

Anakin did not reply. Instead he took control over his anger, and turned away from the dark lord's gaze, wishing to be swallowed by the emptiness of their mind.

Vader hissed furiously, but left the Jedi retreat this time. There was no use in pursuing him now.

"You would do well, my brother," he continued threateningly, "to banish your sympathy for our old master from your head."

Anakin turned back and stared at him unafraid. "And you, Darth, would do well to rethink where you're placing your trust and allegiance," he answered his oppressor.

Vader thought of striking him then, but held himself back. It was the worst time to chastise his other half. "Just wait, Skywalker," he said, sounding like a parent lecturing to a child, "Soon, you will come to see just how wrong you are about the Jedi."

Anakin turned away again, and the procedure continued, unaware of the conflict within the patient. The droids fitted him with the rest of the armor. The air was still heavy to their throat, and as a mechanical arm moved up above his face, Vader understood what the armor was for. The mechanical arm held a mask, in resemblance to a black skull.

Anakin saw it and realized its purpose as well. It was what you keep him and Vader alive, what would tie him to the Sith for the rest of his life, what would become the symbol of his fall from the Light, and what all the galaxy would see instead of his true face. In horror, he watched as the mask descended towards him. He knew once it reached his face, any trace left of him would be lost forever. He would become unrecognizable, faceless, nothing but a memory in the people's mind. Anakin Skywalker would truly die once that mask buried his face beneath it. Panic gripped him.

Please stop, he begged the machine holding the mask, Please don't—

Vader saw nothing but relief nearing him, nothing but the promise of air to ease his scorched lungs. He only saw survival in the mask. His eyes opened wide, urging the mask to reach him faster. And finally, it fell over his face, sealing tightly.

Then they both heard their first hiss of breath, echoing within the mask.

Obi-wan held the baby close to him, looking down anxiously at his mother. Padme's breathing was uneven and broken between sobs. He could feel her life slowly slipping away of her body, while he stood by, just watching her.

Padme felt a tear run down her cheek as she looked at the baby in Obi-wan's arms. He had those same eyes, Anakin's beautiful eyes. Luke was his father's tiny mirror image. Looking at her son, she could see her Ani so clearly in him. It was torture not to be able to see her baby without seeing the husband she'd lost just hours before. She wouldn't be capable of raising him the way a child so special as him should be raised. The mother would only bring pain to her son were she to sty with him, and he would her.

Padme closed her eyes and wept some more, wept for the life she was robbed of with her children and the man she so loved. For all her pain, for all her sorrow, she solely blamed that decrepit Palpatine, the evil man who had stolen her beloved from her. But Anakin was not lost. Somehow, she could still feel him in her heart. Beneath all that hate and anger that Palpatine had created, her Anakin was still there. She just knew it in the deepest of her soul.

She locked stares with Obi-wan, and gasped for air to speak.

"Obi-wan," she whispered faintly. Her voice sounded so weak, even to herself. She then knew she wouldn't survive her broken heart. She knew she was dying.

The Jedi leaned over her and listened. Dear Obi-wan, she thought, my dear, old friend. Please, don't give up hope.

Padme gasped again. "There is good in him," she said to him, before gasping once more. "I know...I know there is...still."

Her voice was so sure, so hopeful. Obi-wan just nodded, not knowing how else to respond to that kind hope. All strength left her, and her head slid on its side. With one last lifeless murmur on her lips, Padme's heart finally gave out on the pain she never should have suffered.

Obi-wan stared agape at the unmoving body. How could this be real? Padme was gone. Padme Amidala was gone.

In that instant, Luke wailed desperately, sensing the departure of something important to him. There was the first loss the child felt in his life, of so many more that would come. But this one, thankfully, would not remain with him forever. Time would erase it from his infant mind, along with any other memory of his parents. And that, thought Obi-wan, was best for him and his sister; to forget and live outside of this awful moment.

Obi-wan tried to soothe the crying baby, while he himself felt tear welling up in his eyes.

Every six seconds. He'd memorized the rhythm already. Every six seconds, the mask released a wisp of pure oxygen in his face, which Vader inhaled hungrily, keeping them both alive. One breath every six seconds, so ten identical breaths every minute, that would be his only existence from then on.

After the mask had sealed around his face, Anakin had let himself go numb in Vader's control, unable to do nothing more. He lay at the bottom of the void, watching as the medical droids finished their labor. And all the while, he felt a cold feeling growing colder in his chest.

Suddenly, he felt his heart freeze, like it was struck by a bolt of lighting. Every inch of him howled in mad agony, like he had never suffered before. Nothing around him was real but the pain, and the fire dying out in his heart. He couldn't even scream or cry out. He couldn't do anything. Feeling half of him was being ripped away mercilessly, he tried to shut his eyes close, but it seemed Vader didn't feel what he felt. The dark lord didn't even notice his distress. The room began to darken, but only to him. Shadows blanketed everything.

He thought he was dying. Perhaps Vader had discovered how to kill him. Desperately, he reached into the Force seeking relief, but it only became worse, and worse still.

"No, Padme!!!"

She was dead! He could feel it. She was dead! His vision had come true? What of their child? He reached into the Force again, searching desperately for his child's presence. But there was nothing. Nothing!!! He'd truly lost everything now. He had lost his Padme already, but as long as she was safe—

But she was dead! And the baby? There was nothing. He was nothing. He had nothing left.

"No, no, No!!!"

A moment later, he was unconscious.

"Lord Vader."

His Master's aged and hoarse voice called to him. He opened his eyes, and saw everything was behind in a thick shade of red. He supposed it must've been the mask's visor.

"Can you hear me?" the Emperor continued, sounding truly concerned.

For a moment, Vader wondered if he could even speak inside the mask. His lips were torn, but he answered Sidious.

"Yes, Master."

His voice was mechanical, like the rest of him. He must have a synthesizer. It was a lifeless voice, the voice that would belong to a droid. He never would have imagined a voice like that was his own.

The black claded man looked around the dark room. "Where is Padme?" he continued, slowly turning to face the Sith Master. "Is she safe? Is she alright?"

Palpatine did not reply right away. He thought silently for a moment how to best use the answer. Then decided to tell his appretice just as it was.

Moving closer to the half man, half machine, he answered slowly. "It seems, in your anger, you killed her."

Time stopped for Vader. Killed her? "I—I couldn't have! She was alive! I felt it!"

A low moan emanated from within the mask, a growl sound that couldn't have come from a human being. The dark lord lashed out with everything he felt, and the entire room began to quake. Some of the glass and instruments were crushed by the sheer power radiating from Vader's pain.

Killed her? How could I—

The bonds holding him to the operating table were chattered against his vicious strength, and he pulled himself free, groaning and growling like an animal.

Killed her?!

She couldn't be dead! She wasn't supposed to die! His vision was not supposed to come true! He was going to save her. But he killed her instead? What about their baby? Had he killed him as well? He killed his own family. He was a monster! A hideous monster!

"No!!!"

His screams tore through the Center and through the Force, adding to the screams of the dead on that day.

The Force was screaming. Obi-wan pressed Luke closer, and shut his senses to it. He would hear no more screaming that day.