Author's Note: So I wrote myself in a corner and I apologize for the delay. Hopefully, I can take up the threads of this rambling wish fulfillment and give Anakin and his family some happiness … eventually.
He dreamed of her.
"Anakin, please come back to me," she cried as he had rarely seen her cry.
Night after the night the force spoke to him. And he feared, that like all his other dreams, this too would prove true. This was more than him temporarily leaving in a vain quest to get protection for his family. Padm é was grieving.
So the force was telling him that he would soon die. He would be separated from his family yet again. Part of him wanted to fight the force. After all, why should he allow these visions to rule his life? Why should he accept death?
But the force wasn't calling for Padmé's death. It wasn't menacing the lives of Luke or Leia. This time, the vision promised his own death.
The man clung with one hand, holding on to life with his charred and mutilated body, persevering even when the people who mattered were torn from him, even when he had shattered everything he cared about with his fear, now dreamed of his end.
He wasn't afraid of his death. He wanted to spend time with his family, now that he had found them again. But really, he could accept death this time – as long as his family remained safe.
No he didn't want Padmé to cry, hated to break her heart again. But perhaps, if he could destroy Sidious, if he could make his death count, then the tears he caused his beloved would be not worth it, never worth it, but better than the tears he had caused two decades ago.
And really wasn't death all that was left for his failing body and sordid past? In the bright new world his daughter hoped to create, no one would accept him or leave him be. And how could he condemn Padmé to live with fear? How could he force her to abandon everything for him. Yes, she was willing to give up nearly everything for love. But he had spent too long transformed into someone else. He could never undo the atrocities. He could never unlearn his belief in a more efficient government even if that meant dangerous compromises of principle. So there would be no real place for him in that new world. Not if he wanted his family to be part of that growth.
He was Darth Vader. He was the Chosen One. He was Anakin Skywalker. If the force demanded this, perhaps it was the price for Padmé's return. And really, wasn't it better that the children have a mother they could be proud of, then a father the world loathed? Perhaps it was time for him to complete the force's mission. And really, he had wanted to kill Emperor Palpatine, his one time friend and cruel master, for quite some time.