Chapter 4 - Bound
Images flash through Vader's mind, as hard as he tries to block it out.
Flashes of a young, red-haired boy. Growing up on Naboo. His father is... horrible to him. His mother blindly supports everything his father says and otherwise, ignores him entirely.
The boy has younger brothers and sisters – but all they do is fight with one another and him, even if he's particularly close with the youngest girl.
Cosinga yells at him for making her look low-class the few times he tries to help her with her hair.
And then a Muun comes, talking business at first, but subtly encouraging the idea the boy has considered for so long – he will never, ever be free so long as his parents live, no matter how old he is. There is only one way out.
And Vader knows desperation like that, knows it like he's known nothing else his entire life.
Cosinga plans to send the boy away, but they start arguing in the cockpit of the ship. Cosinga says he wishes he killed him as a baby and the boy snaps, killing him with the Force. His mother comes in and tries to intervene and he Force-chokes her. He damages the ship's controls by mistake and it starts crashing. He tries to get the ship under control before it goes down but it's too late. The only one who gets out of that wreckage alive is the boy.
All his siblings are dead too, even if he stays with the youngest girl and holds her motionless, blood-covered hand until the medics come to drag him away.
But there is no going back from that. He has to make what he did worth it or he killed his siblings for nothing. Vader knows that so well it's unspeakable, for he did the same thing, didn't he? He killed Padme and his child and it's not the same as a sibling but it's no better.
The red-haired boy has nothing but the Muun now, who soon becomes his Sith master. "You shall now be known as Darth Sidious."
He's far from a pleasant Sith master, even if he is... perhaps not as bad to him Sidious has always been to Vader. Or is he?
He also straps him down and experiments on him whenever he so chooses –
The very same way Sidious made Vader into an experiment, an abomination.
Sidious grows older, grows into the Sith Lord he is today and starts killing without remorse. He kills Plaguies in the end, so he can finally be free. But he never will be free from his fear.
And then he finds a blonde-haired child.
The child, Anakin, looks up to him and Sidious sees the perfect apprentice in him. And he does care for him on some level, even if it's entirely twisted and made to be all about himself. But most of all, he sees himself in him.
Vader can see why now. It's all he can do to struggle to shut off the memories as he feels the rest of the life sucking into himself. He always sees flashes of the lives of those he consumes.
But it's not usually this vivid. Maybe it's because he had a bond with Sidious.
The flashes haunt him endlessly and become something he sees alongside his own nightmares. He can't breathe. He shouldn't be capable of feeling like he can't breathe when he doesn't need air anyway but it his non-existent heart is pounding, and he can't think or – He can't anything.
What did he do?
Sidious threatened Ahsoka. He was going to kill her. He – he did deserve his fate. But Vader still betrayed him. He never realized they had so many – similarities. He never realized there was anything left of Sidious that did care for him. He never realized that he was anything more than a monster, even if he'd known it on some level, because believing a Sith inherently evil simply because they're a Sith is one thing of the Jedi way that he never understood.
And now Sidious is gone but all he can feel is an overwhelming, smothering guilt. He just –
If Sidious deserved to die, what does that say about him? Not that he doesn't already know that he did. But –
"Anakin!" Ahsoka's frantic voice finally breaks through his thoughts and he slowly turns to look at her, trying to drag himself out of the memories still burning through his mind.
"Snips," he murmurs. Only for panic to come rushing back to him full force because he's killing her. The way Sidious did with his own little siblings. They really are the same, aren't they? If he ended himself right here and now – he probably could if he destroyed the holocron – then Ahsoka would be safe, and... "Are you well?"
"For now. We need to go."
Go?
Well, Sidious is gone. He has no idea what he's supposed to do now. But he hasn't felt this lost in his life. If this is what being free means, he has no idea how to even – do it. Ahsoka is here, though. She'll help him with that. He can be what she wants him to be, if he can't be anything else. Or he can try.
"To where?"
"I've been thinking... that if there's any way to reverse this, it's going to be through something.. unnatural. You brought me back to life once. There has to be a way to do the same for yourself."
Vader turns to look at her slowly. She really wants to bring him back, doesn't want to let him go. And he can't – blame her for that. Even if he thinks it would be for the best if he were gone. "I do not know if I am ... worth all that." He'll live for her if that's what she wants – dying would mean losing her – but he doesn't know what to think.
"Of course you are!" she insists, scowling fiercely, then pauses as she studies him, "Is... something else wrong?"
"I saw Sidious' life. He is – no more a monster than I am." And he just killed him. Horribly. He doesn't think it's actually that painful but that doesn't – Ugh.
Sidious helped him for years when one else did and he just killed him.
"That can't be true," she argues fiercely, "He's killed billions. He started the war. All those deaths are on him. You haven't done a fraction of that. All you've ever tried to do is help."
Maybe. Maybe but – "And I always failed. The same way he did."
"Not always," she argues stubbornly, looking up at him, "Once, you told me that we're part of a legacy. And that means I am everything you taught me. Everything you are."
He knows where she's going with this. And he can't... say that she's wrong. Not truly. Because it is the truth. If there's something good in Ahsoka, then...
But it was Anakin who trained her, not him.
All he wants is that light back, though. If there's a chance this hunger could stop eating him alive, no matter the option, he'll take it.
"Alright," Vader condes finally, trying to shake the memories of Sidious' childhood from mind. He still can't help thinking for a wild moment, that it's so unfair that everyone will always hate him - even if he hates him, him himself. "What do you have in mind?"
"What about going back to Mortis?"
**w**
Vader didn't even believe returning to Mortis was going to be possible, but... here they are. Except the place feels dark and empty now, lifeless. Like the galaxy. Like Vader himself.
Still, it feels like he's walking into the past, a ghost of something long gone. It's afternoon now, and the plants are bright, vibrant green though something about them seems duller tan when he was last here.
He misses Obi-Wan so fiercely for a moment it's enough to take his breath away. And it makes him want to cry and rage and scream all at once.
He's not here physically exactly but something about the sheer brightness of the Force makes him feel like he's about to become more one with it than he already is and less like he needs to eat every shred of life surrounding him. "Do you have something in mind?" he inquires, looking to Ahsoka.
"The Well of the Light Side, maybe?" she suggests.
They start moving together.
Morai is flying overhead and he pauses a moment, to watch her. When she first started appearing near Ahsoka after Mortis, it hadn't taken long to figure out what she meant. It felt like... a sign, that they were where they were supposed to be, regardless of what was happening. Regardless of how dark things seemed. And – Vader had still seen her sometimes, even after he was away from Ahsoka, and even after he became this. And that means – something.
A quiet sign from the Force.
The waves of it around him are becoming awash with Light. It's all he wants to feel but when he tries to reach out towards it, it –
He doesn't know how to call on it anymore. Everything feels calm but it feels like it's crawling inside of him and instead of writing out the hunger, it's making it worse. He feels like he's drowning. Like he's being ripped to shreds and he's going to drift away, because –
He's a being of the Dark Side that shouldn't exist. Of course anything Light would just destroy him.
Oh, Force.
He never even –
He's so, so hungry. Food, he needs –
No, that's Ahsoka.
He tries to fight it but it feels like he's drowning.
He hears Ahsoka yelling for him but he can't focus on anything anymore. Needs to get out.
Food.
No.
He didn't know he could pass out in this form, but the next thing he knows, he's... floating somewhere adrift of his body, somewhere gray and fading out into nothing. He can see a glowing white walkway starting to form underneath him, amidst a blur of black and blue in the ground.
What –
He is dying?
Is he really dead now?
But Ahsoka –
He can't do this to her. Even if all he wants is this freedom, if that's truly what this is.
"Anakin." The voice that calls his name this time isn't Ahsoka. It's something deep and warm and so pained at once. And so familiar.
He spins around. "Master Qui-Gon?" the word escapes his mouth faintly, sounding strangled.
He looks the same. Vader saw him on Mortis last time but he thought it was a vision. Now, he's almost certain it's real. Because he's somewhere in the Force itself.
And all he can feel is a wild, smothering shame. Because this is the man who brought him to the Jedi, who gave him a life, and look where that ended for Qui-Gon's people. He should say something but he doesn't know what.
"I have watched you all these years," Qui-Gon says, something pained in his gaze, "And I know why you and Ahsoka cane here."
The use of her name jars him unreasonably. Because that – Qui-Gon has watched him. He's sensed it so many times. And does that mean he's watched Ahsoka all along too? That all the times he told Ahsoka about Qui-Gon, all the while knowing they would never meet each other, it wasn't fully true because Qui-Gon had, in a way?
"I am – sorry," he blurts, in a rush, "You took me to the Jedi and I – failed. Failed to be what I was meant to be. You were right to have warned me that I may not make it. I should not have accepted. I should not have come with you."
"Anakin," he interjects, "Mistakes were made on all sides of what happened. Perhaps you were too old to be the kind of Jedi the Council wanted, but you were not too told to find your own way, had you... known how to. That was not something you were ever taught."
Qui-Gon doesn't... blame him? That doesn't seem quite right. It's not possible.
"All I have done is caused pain. I do not – "
"But you seek the Light now. That counts for something." Qui-Gon moves a little closer. "I do not regret bringing you from Tatooine, Anakin. I never could."
Anakin.
That's not his name. It's not but he doesn't quite have the strength to tell Qui-Gon that.
He wants back what it meant to be him but he can't have it back. He can't.
"There is something I once taught Obi-Wan," he goes on, and Vader tries not to flinch at the name. Something in his Qui-Gon's gaze looks haunted as he catches the movement. "That if we cut off everyone whose choices differ from our own, we would stagnate and cease to learn, cease to grow. We must let people choose their path, and let them go as they see fit, but always leave a door open for them to return. Despite what others may call them, no one is ever truly lost. There is always hope in the Force."
His eyes are burning with tears even if he shouldn't even have eyes anymore, since he's barely physical. "But – how could you say that now? After... everything I have done?"
"Because what you did was never all your choice and I think on some level, you know that. And it is never too late to make better choices."
"What would you have done?" Vader asks desperately, "When the Jedi were committing treason and turning on the Republic?"
"Had I stilled lived then, I cannot say," Qui-Gon admits, "The Jedi were losing their way. They were no longer following the Force, which is why they found the fate they did. But Sidious was wrong too."
"I know," he whispers, "That's why I did not know what to do. And he offered me power. Strength the Light never gave. I could have... helped so many more." But he didn't. In the end, all he did was destroy.
"There were no right choices, then. None that would not have ended in disaster," Qui-Gon replies softly, "The most I can tell you know is that it matters which side we choose. Even if there will never be more light than darkness, even if there will never be no more joy in the galaxy than there is pain, for every action we undertake, for every word we speak, for every life we touch, it matters. I don't turn toward the light because it means someday I'll "win" some sort of cosmic game. I turn to it because it is the light."
The words carry so much meaning. More than – he knows what to do with. Maybe there's still hope for him. Is that even possible?
"Even if what you do changes nothing?" Vader asks miserably.
"Yes. It still matters, even if you fail. And you haven't failed, Anakin. When I told you long ago that I believed you would face your demons and save the universe, I meant it. And you have."
Has he?
He did kill Sidious. Even he just feels unspeakably horrible about it. He wishes there was another way that didn't lead to constant death. Sometimes, it feels like that's all the Sith and the Jedi ever cause.
"I do not... know what to do," Vader admits finally. If there's anything left to speak of, considering that he doesn't know if he's even alive anymore.
"That is not something for me or anyone to tell you, Anakin," Qui-Gon replies, "It is an answer you must seek from the Force alone."
Cryptically unhelpful right now but – he's probably not wrong either. It feels like that's something Vader's long since lost the ability to even do anymore, with how he's had to blindly follow Sidious. And the Jedi Council before that.
"But am I even... alive anymore?"
Qui-Gon's expression is sad. "You are... close to passing on. But there may still be a chance."
There has to be, because even if he wants to be gone and free, he can't do that to Ahsoka. Where is she right now?
Where is he, for that matter?
He reaches out with the Force, blindly trying to find her. He can still feel her rose-petal of a Force presence far away and most of all, he can feel her pain.
He tries to latch onto that, tries to yank himself back towards her.
There's a flicker of their surroundings and the next thing Vader knows, he's standing... somewhere back on Mortis, though the surroundings look have faded over with the walkways of white against blue. Ahsoka's kneeling on the ground, shaking.
Crying.
She freezes when he reappears though, looking up. "Master?" she asks, voice broken.
She thought he died.
He can tell that just from looking at her.
He tries to move closer but there's something – something blocking him.
The barrier between life and death.
"I'm here, Ahsoka," he replies, heart aching. They're – about to be separated.
It somehow never occurred to him how death will mean being away from her. Even if it would keep her far safer.
"Why can't I reach you?" she demands shakily, trying to move closer. Her eyes are still wet and it's gutting.
"It's the barrier between life and death, but I – " He pauses, looking to Qui-Gon who's still standing there. "Is there something that we can do?"
Ahsoka slowly turns to look at him, as though registering him for the first time. "Who are you?"
"He's Master Qui-Gon," Vader explains.
Her eyes widen in shock. "But you're – gone. How am I seeing you here?"
"I preserved by consciousness in the Force, and here on Mortis, anything is possible," he replies, smiling at her for a moment.
"Then it has to be possible to bring Anakin back," Ahsoka says stubbornly, "Right? He brought me back before."
"He used the life of the Daughter to do it. There is... no other way to bring another back."
And there's no one's life they'd take just for that. It was entirely different with the Daughter, when she was dying anyway. But this means that maybe it really is impossible. Maybe...
Ahsoka looks desperate but then something suddenly lights up in her gaze. "I'm bonded to the Daughter, aren't I? That's why we still see Morai. Because her life force was stronger than mine so there's... more than just mine inside of me now. And Anakin is still here – not fully but he's not gone the way I was. Can't we do something? I don't – "
He doesn't want this to hurt her, whatever they decide to. But there's no point in reiterating that. Not unless she starts suggesting something good and truly insane.
Qui-Gon looks thoughtful. "There may be one way but you both will have to agree it is really what you want."
"What?" Vader inquires, anxiously.
"If you bound one another's lives together, similar to a Force dyad except forced instead of natural," Qui-Gon replies, "Ahsoka's life would feed yours and in turn, once you are alive again, yours will feed her. You will always be connected and once one of you... passes on, even naturally, the other will follow."
That –
Vader can't ask that of her. He can't.
He can't even imagine being alive again period but if he was, he's always lived in so much danger. He wouldn't want Ahsoka to get hurt because of any of his own reckless choices. And yet...
"Ahsoka, you know the danger this could lead to," he cautions finally. But in truth, he could never just say no to her because he knows exactly what it is like to lose everything he cares for, and he could never insist Ahsoka do the same. Because he knows that a life with that level of emptiness isn't something worth living.
She holds his gaze, stubbornly. "I don't care. Whatever the sacrifice, I'm willing to pay it."
"Alright," Vader agrees solemnly, turning to Qui-Gon, "What do we do?"
"That is not something I can guide you on. I never have done such a thing myself," he adds, with the faintest touch of amusement though it quickly fades, "But the Force will guide you."
"Are you always this cryptic?" Ahsoka asks.
Vader laughs.
He can't believe he's even able to at this point but he does.
Qui-Gon smiles faintly at her. "When there is little else I can tell you, yes."
Vader looks away from him, back to Ahsoka. He doesn't know what he's doing but he can guess. He reaches for her in the Force and she reaches back. Even with the barrier between them, they're still able to intertwine their Force presences.
"May the Force be with you," Qui-Gon tells them softly before he fades away, leaving them to focus on what they're trying to do.
"Anakin, this planet is the Force. Use it." Obi-Wan's words from so long ago echo through his mind again and despite all the gutting emotion that brings up, he finds himself following it.
Finds himself reaching deeper and deeper into the Force, letting it vibrate through him in it's entirety until it feels like he's a living embodiment of it himself. Literally.
Ahsoka is doing likewise, as best as she can.
He can feel the way she's trying to feed him life, and for how she's connected to the Daughter, it feels so Light.
He can actually feel the Light Side for the first time since all of this started. He's missed it desperately and a flood of darkness instantly tries to rip it away form him but that's enough for him to tell that if that happens, Ahsoka's going to fail at what she's trying to do. He has to be Light for this to work.
Somehow.
But he's not doing this for himself. Or he'd never be able to do it because he doesn't deserve it. Not after how many he's hurt. He doesn't deserve to just get to come back.
But then he thinks of everything Qui-Gon's told him, how he's still calling him Anakin even now.
How Ahsoka said that she is everything he is – something he once told her.
And he may not be Anakin anymore but after being with Ahsoka for so long, he can't help remembering what it was like to be him.
Obi-Wan wouldn't have killed him if he didn't deserve it though, right?
But – but Qui-Gon said he didn't and that's something. It's – it has to be. He has to at least try. He never wants to feel that cold eating him inside out ever again and that's enough.
The Light floods through him, tentative and not as firmly as he'd like, but he desperately clings to it. Tries not to think of his guilt over everything, just tries to focus on Ahsoka.
Something Light is rewriting him. He's never felt such a sensation in his life but it feels like he's growing brighter himself in every way and the world is starting to spin around him. It feels like he's about to go unconscious from overuse of the Force.
As if that's a shock.
There's a blinding surge in the Force, bright enough to white everything out and then his vision goes dark.
**w**
A warm hand pressing to his cheek is the first thing Anakin feels. He opens his eyes slowly, freezing at how he can feel again. He hasn't been able to feel since – since he died.
Ahsoka is crouched next to him, and her face splits in a smile. "You're finally awake."
"Ahsoka," he rasps, pushing himself up shakily. He can feel the grass under his hands. Both of them.
He looks down slowly. They're both human. He's a person again. Not a monster, a thing that shouldn't even exist.
He doesn't know which of them moves first, but he's pulling Ahsoka into a crushing hug and she's squeezing him hard enough he's pretty sure his ribs are about to break.
He's alive again. Really alive. He –
His eyes are wet with tears as he holds her. Can't believe this is real. It's – it shouldn't be but somehow, it is.
And he's finally back with Ahsoka again and nothing can take them apart this time. He can feel their bond, shining brightly.
"What now?" Anakin asks, still not letting go.
"What do you want to do now?" Ahsoka queries, tilting her head back to look up at him, "I don't know either."
The question floors him entirely. He's never been asked that before and he doesn't know what the answer is, especially now. "I have hurt many," he says quietly, "I would like to start with making it right."
Ahsoka smiles at him again, even her gaze is pained this time. "Then let's do that. Together."
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