AUTHOR'S NOTES: Darth Sidious is even more twisted in the comics, and I absolutely hate him. His genetic and cloning experiments are truly nightmarish; I wrote this in that spirit. Can occur at any time canonically between the end of ROTS and the beginning of ANH. Please read and review! Make sure to read through to the end.
He is in pain. Such mind-numbing pain. One would think he would be accustomed. But the light is still burning. That is all that matters.
Obi-Wan.
Obi-Wan!
He is here. Obi-Wan will care for the light now that he no longer can.
~0~
As with many of his Master's dealings, he remains unaware of the forces that have been set into motion until they have become nascent.
There is a fire burning. Its embers are low but bright. He feels it long before he knows it is there, smoldering like some insouciant spark, unnoticed and harmless until it bursts into an inferno. All it takes is activation energy and the fuel of his life force to make the reaction self-sustaining. By then, his fate is sealed; the initial combustion has long since taken place.
He is to let it burn, or so the Master has commanded until it has consumed or exhumed him.
It is an honor, or so he is told, to become both kindling and tinder; his hatred, his anger, the dying remnants blackhole that was once a supernova, the fuel with which to taint a brighter star. In its ascendance, it shall take his place amidst the cold blackness of space.
It is the will of his Master.
Like Darth Plagueis before him, Darth Sidious, too, shall play Prometheus.
And he, he, the tool, the servant, shall be the Pramant, the tool with which his Master shall create the fire. Nobody ever asks tools what they desire. Nobody ever asks them how they feel. Whether they grow sick, or sore, swollen, or saddenedwith their labors.
No, tools, like slaves, are only kept so long as they are useful.
He is a hearth and a sacrifice, a home for the growing conflagration, and a willing victim of his hunger. Slowly, it burns brighter and brighter; not even the gravity of a black hole can consume its light. It eats at the kindling, hungry for more, its flaming scorching the vessel that would keep it contained.
His life-force is a fragile cord, feeding that fire which the Force has conceived. His ever-cunning Master devised the assurance that to cut the cord would be to extinguish himself. Should the fire burn out, his Master promises they shall try again. And again. Until the Master has burnt the last of his timber.
And so the vessel carries on. He carries on.
Day by day, just a little more sluggish. Only a little more clumsy. Because, he is yet useful, and there is work to be done.
Until his use is at its end.
He feels it as surely as his Master sees and delights in breaking his beast of burden, his impudent war horse hobbled as its life is drained away.
Unlike Hephaestus, bound by lameness to the forge of the gods, he hates the fire, the fire that will spell his destruction. At the Master's bidding, he seeks to taint it with his anger, his hate, his darkness. But the fire. The fire does not hate him back. Instead, the tongues of its flame reach for him, caressing him. Bringing rays of light to the dead star that had heretofore done nothing but consume them.
The black hole begins to collapse upon itself, unable to contain the light it carries.
His Master is displeased.
The endothermic process is all but complete when the Pramant rallies and flees the hand of Prometheus. The fire it carries is drawn elsewhere, one flame drawn to another; it is dimmer, but still a mighty furnace. He is so tired, so weak, so expended, and yet the flame urges him to rise.
Safety. It whispers. Peace. Healing. The host can do nothing but obey.
In a barren desert on Tatooine, the two fires meet, their white heat a contrast to the black chasm of his heart. Perhaps the desert makes them burn all the brighter. Heat is light, and light is heat. The light within him blazes so brightly, it is nearly blinding. Even Obi-Wan cannot help but draw near, fear overridden with horror at the strange result of Sidious' abomination. It is burning him up, consuming him, pushing its way to the surface, glowing beneath his very flesh.
The dimmer fire of Kenobi draws near to where he has fallen and reaches out with shock, pressing his palm to the mantle, then cupping the hearthstone to feel the fury of the flames distended within. And then he understands:
Vader's second Master has also set him on fire, so that a new Phoenix may be born. A new bird for Sidious' iron cage.
Without question, Kenobi caresses the flame tucked deep inside. Without a word, he brings the tired vessel into his home and gives it a place to rest.
Days pass as fulminations of lightning begin to crack the firebox, before either quite knows it, the hearth is crumbling, the flames having been so fed and so nurtured as to melt the stone that contained them. It is suffocating. Dying, just as the hearth collapses around it, snuffing it out.
No! His mind roars. The gentle flame. It cannot die. He cannot let the light be extinguished!
This must be why it brought him thus. To the open air of an empty planet, and to the ignition source called Obi-Wan Kenobi. Oxidant, accelerant, it needs air, it must breathe!
As a crimson blade ignites, it carves a bloody crescent through which shall slip the embers of the fire. And Obi-Wan is there to greet it, sparking it back to life.
The combustion is complete. And he has failed his Master. The star remains untainted. A perfect gibbous sun. Untouched by the black hole's gravity.
Oh, he has never been so glad of failure!
And as the light retreats, it grows smaller and smaller, until it shrinks and folds into the shape of new life wrapped in white blankets. And all he can do is watch and bleed.
This is the end. The black hole is gone. All that is left are the glimmers of the supernova that once was Anakin Skywalker, and the light of that now familiar star, who, till now, has been naught but a glow inside his mind.
In the fatal afterglow, Kenobi touches him, holds him, and speaks to him softly, the words punctuated by the crackles of the new inferno, the one that shall be free as wildfire. It is so familiar. And he is so tired. He forgets why he gave it up in the first place.
He sleeps and then awakens, cool water is held to charred lips, and he drinks it deeply, gratefully as it slakes his scorched throat. On Tattooine, it is an unthinkable generosity. How long has it been since water passed his lips? It feels so good. It feels so right. Like kerosene on a bonfire.
Obi-Wan has burned the core of him, but he burned it now with healing, rended pieces soldered together with undue care and tenderness.
The old man whispers of triplet suns rising like raiments on his skin, their rays warming his pale flesh. A new birth and an old.
It is too wonderful to be true.
Then he hears them, their voices ringing in the Force.
Burn! They beg. Rage! Blaze and join our light!
For the first time since he could remember, his Master had been wrong. The fire did not burn out what was left of his star.
It has only reignited it.
~0~
Anakin comes to him. No. Not Anakin. This monstrosity. This mechanical monster. Darth Vader. He comes to him in the middle of the night. A tiny whisper that draws the hermit from his bed. The older man steps beyond the walls of his self-imposed prison, and he finds a black-shape on the dune hills.
It twists in the Force with all the rightness and wrongness of his former charge.
But there is something strange.
Another presence. Another…being. Not precisely cognizant. But aware. Alive. He senses its power, its raw thrumming energy. And he gasps to find it centered in the black behemoth looming like death upon his hillside.
Help it begs, though it is little more than an impulse, not yet conscious words. Safe. Declarative. Heal. Questioning.
Before he can make sense of it, Vader crumbles. The silhouette slumping uselessly into the sand.
On pure conditioning, the man who was once called Obi-Wan Kenobi runs to him. Saber drawn, but loosely held. This is no trick. Tricks were never in Anakin's nature. They are less so in that of Vader. Vader has not come for him, but to him. This is…unprecedented. World-shifting. Kenobi feels it, the way he suddenly stands balanced on a knife's edge, looking down at the strange double being that is collapsed within the sands.
Two minds reach for him, one begging for life, the other, death. In his confusion, Kenobi reaches back. He feels the wrongness there. It is something unnatural. A perversion. And yet, so full of light. Light like how Anakin used to feel, when, oh, so many years ago, he, too, was young and innocent.
The respirator wheezes, struggling to breathe despite the lack of exertion. In fearful fascination, Obi-Wan places a hand to the breastplate, searching and finding the working whir of the machinery.
But then his eyes shift lower, and widen. Unbidden, he extends a trembling hand. A shiver of something terrible and wonderful races like electricity through his fingers as he traces the source of his fascination beneath the plastoid girdle. His mind goes white with its power, the raw, untapped potential, speaking without words of its might and magnitude.
Its roots are deep in the well of Anakin Skywalker, not Vader, no, the darkness, the darkness has not watered it. Kenobi feels it. Feels its tendrils burrowed into the depths of his being, drawing, pulsing, its leaf and stalk filled with traces of light, and warmth, and him. The thought it almost too much to bear.
Even through the armor, he can feel his old apprentice's heart laboring. Faltering. The strain is clearly altogether too much. How he managed to get there, Kenobi will never know. But the Jedi will not ignore the pleas of Safety, Healing, and Peace echoing from the innocent.
He wonders if the blazing spark knows whether it asks for itself or for its progenitor. It matters not. And yet, still, he wonders.
He does not speak.
He does not need to.
Already, he understands.
It is not far to his cavern. Yet Vader struggles every step they take. The mechanisms of his limbs are creaking; they have fallen into disrepair. With a surge of righteous rage, Kenobi realizes they have become extraneous. Unnecessary maintenance on an obsolete machine whose only remaining purpose is the creation of its replacement.
And so the Jedi takes him into his home.
For hours on end, he does little but sleep, remaining limply where Obi-Wan has deposited him. The light blazes within him, flourishing like a blooming flower, reaching for the sunlight, and yet, Vader is hollow. He is tired. He is resigned. Even the Force around him feels torpid. He does not speak, does not stir, does not move. Were it not for the fluttering awareness in the Force. Obi-Wan would think him comatose.
For hours, he sits and watches the listless being. Even when Kenobi grows so bold as to touch him, there is no reaction beyond the inclination of the impassive helm. But still Kenobi sits, and relishes the way his soul entwines with the echoes of Anakin Skywalker, blossoming in the young and tender shoot.
What any of this means, he does not know. So he meditates and waits upon the Force. He trusts in the Force, that, in its wisdom, it will show him what to do.
When two days have passed, the Jedi sleeps, but he wakes to aching agony. The Force itself wails with the pains of its own labors. Anakin is in pain. Anakin is dying. Dying all over again!
From where he lies, he turns to see Vader stripped and disassembled, a wreck of Obi-Wan's tempestuous making. The helm and armor plating have all been threshed away, leaving naught but the control panel to remain.
It is a horrid and terrible sight unto itself, but there is no time to dwell on it.
Gushes of wet red blend with the hum of a red blade, and then, in one fluid movement, the cyborg is digging, pulling, uprooting the young shoot from where it lies buried.
And Obi-Wan can only watch in horror.
He wants to stop him. To plead sense into the maddened monster. But too late he senses the limpness of Not-Anakin's signature, all bloody and pulpy in the bed of mechanized palms. In despair, the naked, scarred face, all white and shaking, offers the little wilting body to him, like some perverted harvest.
Instinctively, he rushes toward it, all disgust and revulsion forgotten. Two perfect little hands and feet. A face so small and innocent. And a chest that isn't breathing.
Breathe! Obi-Wan commands, his lungs forcing air into the tiny chest. Breathe! He calls upon the living Force, vigorously rubbing the shoulders of the gangly creature, invoking heretical oaths of the Jedi. Breathe! He wails.
And breathe the young one does.
In a fit of tears, Kenobi wraps him in his own blanket, holding the now-shrieking creature close to his chest.
Weary eyes watch him. Fading eyes. Eyes that droop with grim resignation. Blue eyes.
"Anakin," he breathes, "you have a son."
There is a slight smile on the scarred lips. The ragged breathing elongating into what might have been a sigh. Without the layered signature, Obi-Wan can feel him and only him. Pure and simple. This…this is all Anakin. Thin and worn, but still him.
"Dear one…" he whispers with recognition, teary-eyed as he kneels beside the gore-splattered body. Before he quite knows it, his calloused hands cup the scarred cheek before taking him into an embrace.
"Obi-wa…" The man chokes. "M-mast-…" The words die in his throat. But their meaning does not.
A moment passes, and then his eyes roll back, his chest heaving, sucking for oxygen he cannot possibly consume.
Air. The boy needs air! With not a moment to spare, Kenobi returns the mask to his face, slipping it over his nose and mouth just as quickly as he can. He cannot die. Not now. Not when they have only just been reunited!
Even as he cradles the baby to his chest, Obi-Wan turns to the bloody trough ploughed into the arid flesh of his padawan. A desperate feat of a desperate father. With needle and thread, he sews the wound. Each stitch a prayer to the Force or any other deity that will listen. He has lived this nightmare once and relived it every night ever since. He will not be responsible for yet another orphaned child.
For days, Kenobi continues his vigil by the bedside, the loneliness somewhat eased by the company of the mewling babe.
His prayers are rewarded when, at last, Anakin stirs, his eyes fluttering, delicate moans escaping his tattered voicebox.
"Drink…" He commands. But even so, he cannot hide his tenderness as he lifts the cup to desperate panting lips.
"You need to get better…" He whispers. " You have three children waiting for you, now. Did you know that? Three of them, Anakin…!"
He is weeping now. Raindrops watering pale skin.
"No, of course not. But I am telling you now. I have watched over them. All this time. Please, Anakin, come back. Come back to us. Come back to me."
The eyes flutter. Struggling against the light.
As blue eyes look up at him, he sees the source of Sidious' miscalculation. The innate goodness stamped in the core of Anakin Skywalker. The same core from which his children, all his children, were born.
"I—I am… here…Obi-Wan."
And there he remained.
END NOTES: This plot bunny has been running around in my brain for a while, and finally, I just had to get it out. For some reason, Vader has been my muse as of late.