Heyo! Been a minute! Quick reminder, I do not own Star Wars or anything written below. My ideas loosely follow a mixture of cannon and legends, so if something isn't completely accurate to either of those, I don't want to hear it. I create the story, you enjoy it. Or don't. Thanks!

Death and Life

Death was quicker than he expected. There was a flash of bright light and a void suddenly surrounded him. It was warm, he decided. Comfortable. More than he deserved. Vader hadn't had time to think about what would happen to a small speck of Durosteel armor when the beam of death had redirected and destroyed the space station. Death was the only logical result. His body had been destroyed.

"Did she survive?" He wondered aloud. He hoped he hadn't killed his daughter. A low hum filled his entire being. Warmth up his spine. It felt, in a way reassuring and familiar. Something told him his question had just been answered.

"She is alive?" He questioned once more. It was strange how his voice sounded. It was rough and deep. Reminiscent of his last years as a jedi. He sounded like Anakin. At this moment he realized he felt no pain. For twenty years his suit provided him with constant pain. It seemed he was free.

Warmth once again made its way up his spine, this time seemingly making it to his brain. The warmth filled him with a vision. A scene appeared before him. At first it was dark. This was a familiar darkness, however. One he knew very well. This was the darkness of space. There was a pulsing to his left. Strange. He followed it, willing himself forward. His eyes widened. There seemed to be a person floating out here.

"Leia!" He called out. Vader willed himself forward. Another pulse illuminated the space around him. There she was. She seemed asleep. Frozen in time. A moment passed before Vader recognized the tell-tale evidence of breathing. He sighed to himself in relief. He took a moment to study the orb that she seemed to be encased by.

Did I do this? He thought. Warmth flashed through his body. He now recognized this as an affirmative. Relief flashed through him. Somehow Leia was safely encapsulated in a forcefield of raw force energy. It seemed that she was the only survivor. The station had been vaporized.

There was movement to his right. Only then did he take notice of the planet of Alderaan. Ships were pouring out of the planetary shield that surrounded the sphere. Likely a search for survivors, he thought. Only the Alderaanians would be concerned with survivors of a station that had meant to destroy them.

She will be safe? He wondered again. A warm affirmation touched his spine. It was feeling more and more familiar every time he felt it. The scene washed away and was replaced by visions. The visions rapidly passed through his mind. Leia being found by a strange freighter. Her meeting a young man named Luke. His old master teaching them. Finding out they were brother and sister.

Vision after vision flashed through his mind. He lived a lifetime in minutes. He watched Luke and Leia train under Obi-Wan and Yoda. They became powerful force users. They overthrew the empire. The republic was restored. Battle after battle was watched. Friends died. Families were destroyed. Leia's son turned to the dark side. He destroyed the new jedi order. The newly found balance was destroyed. He could no longer stand to watch.

It's time to go, it told him, you no longer belong here. The statement was not spoken to him aloud, but rather he felt it in his bones. He knew this being. Whatever was communicating with him was familiar.

The scene before him fell away. The void once again surrounded him. Who are you? He thought. There was no answer, only that familiar touch of warmth. A memory filled him. It was a memory of him saving a child. One he did not recognize. Passion filled him. Warmth and happiness. There was the answer.

You are the force? He thought. A positive warmth filled him. The light? He thought. A cold feeling filled him. It was dread. Fear. Desire. This he was very well acquainted with. The dark side.

"You're here too, huh?" He asked softly. It seemed the dark side was inescapable.

Another strange feeling gripped his body. He couldn't explain how, but he knew his question wasn't the right one.

"It's the both of you" He whispered?

Another strange feeling. Not quite. The force decided to try a different form of communication. The void melted away and suddenly he was in a large room. It was akin to an office, with shelves holding books that went up higher than seemingly possible. There was a large desk with a man sitting at it. The man was old, and was staring down at a book. Next to him on the desk was a mask. This mask was one he knew well from his studies into the dark side as a Sith Lord. It was the mask of Revan. He had listened to some of the Sith's holocrons on force storms. A devastating and powerful act of the force that he thankfully was never able to reproduce.

This Revan seemed to be different. His armor was scuffed and battle hardened. Gray hair flecked his scalp. He was an old man. Vader was entranced. A feeling of serenity, but also dread came off of him.

"Hello, Vader." Revan spoke, not looking up.

"Darth Revan", Vader spoke. It seemed that the Sith could see Vader. Strange.

"I am no longer a Darth, Vader." Revan spoke, "Just as you are no longer Darth Vader. Neither are you Anakin. You have risen above both of those names."

"I don't understand." Vader started.

"It's rather easy to understand, my friend. The force sent you to me because it cannot speak to you any further than to agree or disagree. That warm feeling you have felt is affirmation. The Cold, dark feeling is negative. I have studied the force for thousands of years. I understand it better than anybody. It is my companion and my friend."

"How?" Vader asked.

"I achieved what nobody has before, and the force rewarded me for it. Upon my death, I lived on in the living force. Neither dead or alive. In my time in this in-between between life and death, I've come to a very simple yet powerful conclusion. There is no light or dark side."

"That's impossible. I have felt both. They feel like different powers."

"No, Vader. You are wrong. They are different sides to the same coin. It is ok that you don't fully understand. Just understand. The Dark and the Light side are both one power. One that created you to make everyone understand. To destroy notions of light and dark, because they don't exist. The force is one being. Light and Dark are notions created by human beings to further causes. They do not exist. Your purpose was to destroy these notions. You were given power to do this, but you failed." The force rang between them. They were both filled with sorrow. It was once again communication. Revan sighed and spoke again.

"I was too judgmental. You did not fail; you simply did not know. The force believes that you were failed by it, not the other way around."

"I understand that I failed. I sacrificed myself but it didn't change anything. It was me that failed to fulfill my destiny."

The force hummed in disagreement. There was silence for a time. Suddenly, the force rang out with something unfamiliar to Vader's senses. Revan's eyes widened. "You can't be serious". The force called out again, this time with the warm affirmation that Vader had grown used to. Revan played with the small goatee that adorned his chin. "It could work", the former Sith said.

"What could work?" Vader asked.

"The force is just another force of nature. No different from Gravity or time. They all have certain sways over one another. My time is long since passed. I could never hope to reach my time, nearly three thousand years in the past. It would destroy the fabric of space-time." Revan spoke.

"I'm sensing a but here" Vader said amusedly.

The force tingled with what Vader swore was amusement.

"It could work" Revan stated aloud. "If we were to insert you into the years before order 66, you could help to change things. There wouldn't be any devastating changes to time-space. It's worth a shot".

The force hummed a positive agreement. Hope bloomed in Vader. A chance to go back and change things. It was far more than he deserved.

"It's settled." Revan said. "That's what we'll do. Go off then, Vader but be warned. This is your last shot at your destiny."

The room washed away again and suddenly he was back in the void. He felt the force wrap around him like a blanket. Power filled his body and suddenly he was aware of feeling. Pain crept through his body as he felt as if he was being crushed. The pressure was so great that he felt like passing out.

He felt a tug in his chest, and suddenly he was falling. Colors flashed through his vision. Space appeared before him, bending and dropping with him as he fell. His eyes fell on a spot of light somewhere below him. It was rapidly growing in size and shape, and he was headed right for it. He slammed into it and slowly melted into it. He was slowly being squeezed through a bit of light in the void around him, and through the light he saw a forest. After a few seconds, his form passed through it and he fell once more towards a now obvious forest floor. He thumped on the ground and was surprised when the wind was knocked out of him.

Being in a suit that regulated his breathing, he hadn't had the wind knocked out of him since his fight with Obi-Wan on Mustafar. It was during that moment he realized that he could breathe. Color surrounded him as he coughed for a few seconds, trying to remember how to breathe. After a few seconds, he had it figured out and was breathing normally.

His senses were overloaded with sound, smell, and sight. He observed the scenery around him and was filled with familiarity. These woods were familiar. He had been here before as Anakin, and later as Vader. They were the woods outside of the capitol of Naboo. He reached out with the force and was immediately overwhelmed. Never had he been able to connect with the force so quickly. As a precaution, he shadowed his force presence in the way that Sidious had taught him. He grinned. Power surrounded him like never before. The force was in every fiber of his being. He got to his feet and tested out his legs. His REAL legs. These legs were made of flesh. He glanced at his hands and realized that they too were flesh and bone. He was whole once more.

He reached out to feel the presences of other force beings to get a gauge of when he exactly was. The force was clearer than ever before. His mind went into shock when he found the other force sensitives. There were so many. In fact, It had been nearly three decades since he had felt so many force beings in the galaxy, and that was when he was a padawan. Two shone more brightly than the others. They were very close. When he focused on them, his eyes widened. He knew these presences rather well. At once, he knew exactly what time period he was in.

He was on Naboo, and judging from Obi Wan and Qui-Gon Jinn's force presences, the invasion of Naboo had just begun.