"No," Luke insisted, "you're coming with me. I will not leave you here. I've got to save you!"

"You already have, Luke," Anakin replied sharply. His lungs weren't taking in air properly. He knew it was only a matter of moments before he wouldn't be able to breathe at all and then it would all be over for him. Before he could get another word out, his son stopped him.

"No, that's not good enough!" Luke said, pulling him more upright, "Not for me! And it shouldn't be for you either! I'll make sure you live through this and atone for what you've done." He put Anakin's helmet back on carefully, and used the force to pull his father onto the ship.

With his mask back on, Anakin could feel his lungs struggling to fill with air through his damaged suit. He always knew if he ever stood up to Palpatine it would mean paying for it with his life.

Luke piloted his shuttle away from the death star just before it exploded into oblivion above Endor. He navigated through the debris with ease and attempted to make a connection to Leia through the force. He could sense her anxiety from where he was, but he quickly put her at ease with his own force sensitivity.

When Luke landed the ship away from the Ewoks and the celebrations, he turned and tended to his father still struggling to breathe in the back of the ship. He was propped half upright on a bed in the medical bay, and could barely move his electronic limbs.

"Where are you hurt?" Luke asked. He pulled away Anakin's chest plate to see most of the wires were fried.

"You shouldn't worry about me," Anakin insisted, his breath wheezy, "the rebel leaders will want me dead, Luke."

He quickly said, "I have spare wires in here so you can breathe again. I'll have to work on properly upgrading your suit later. I'll make it less cumbersome." He quickly put together a new wiring system in place and Anakin could feel his lungs filling with air and giving him life. He almost didn't want them to. Getting electrocuted had melted some of his metal components directly into his flesh. Pain was an understatement. He couldn't move even if he really wanted to.

Once Luke was finished piecing him back together and put his pain at ease, he stood up over him and asked, "Would you like to meet my sister?"

"Does she know who I am?"

"No," he said, "but I'm going to tell her, and fair warning, she isn't going to be happy about it. You'll understand why once you meet her." He paused before he left and said, "Sit tight."

Anakin could only groan in frustration at hearing those two words as he watched him leave the room.

Outside, Luke met up with Leia. She gleefully hugged him and said, "You're alright! I knew it! I knew you managed to get off of that horrible death star alive!"

"The emperor is dead!" Luke exclaimed. He hugged her tight and brought her in close away from everyone else celebrating in the distance. "Leia, I have to tell you something."

"What is it?"

"You know we're related, right," he explained, "you understand we're twins?"

Leia looked him over, confused. "Yes, I'm aware of that now. What's your point, Luke? Why are you pulling me away from the party? We should be celebrating! We get to live our lives how we want to now! We get to rebuild the republic!" She jumped up and down in excitement, ready to pull him back and join everyone else.

He made sure they were out of earshot of everyone, which wasn't hard considering the celebrations were only getting louder as the excitement spread. "Last year," he confessed, "I learned a horrible truth. Darth Vader is my father."

She pulled away from him, not sure what she just heard. "What are you saying, Luke!?"

"Darth Vader is our father, Leia," he repeated seriously, "before he was the monster who's been terrorizing the galaxy for the last 24 years, he was a jedi knight! He was a hero during the clone wars."

"What are you talking about!?" she demanded, looking him over as if he had lost his mind.

Luke continued, "He wasn't always like this. I don't know what happened to make him turn to the dark side-"

Leia shook her head and stepped away from him. "The dark side?" she gasped, "Don't make excuses for that moster! He tortured me, and stood by as my parents were murdered, and he shoved Han into carbonite! What makes you so sure he's our father?"

"His real name is Anakin Skywalker," he answered calmly, "and I want you to meet him to see him for yourself-the real him, not what the emperor turned him into."

"You want me to meet him!?" she asked, "I don't care what his real name is! Don't tell me you spared him!"

He explained, "Leia, he can go trial for his crimes. He knows everything about the empire! The emperor is gone, and the death star is destroyed, but there are hundreds of storm troopers and many more imperial officers throughout the entire galaxy ready to march on contingency plans as we speak. With his help we'll be able to track them all down and finish this once and for all."

"With his help?" she nearly choked, "After everything he's done why would he help the rebellion?"

"He wants a family," he insisted gently, "he wants us. You'll be able to feel that as soon as you look at him with your own eyes. Come with me and meet Anakin Skywalker for the first time. Haven't you ever wondered about your birth parents?"

Leia glanced at him and finally said, "Fine, I'll talk to him this once but I'm not making any promises for the future. As far as I'm concerned my parents are dead."

He nodded. "I understand."

Luke entered the room first, carefully. He had no idea how either one of them would react to meeting each other. "Father," he said nervously, "this is my sister." He motioned for Leia to come up from behind him.

Of course they recognized each other immediately. The rebel Princess Leia of Alderran was Anakin's daughter all along? She had Padme's eyes, and his own smile. How did he not notice it before?

Leia looked him over slowly and said, "You're not the same man."

Luke asked, "What do you mean? It's him."

"You feel different," she explained, "before you were just a machine...but now..." she didn't even know how to describe what she sensed in him. Was the force trying to tell her something? "Now you feel like an actual person inside that suit. Not an angry monster."

Anakin said calmly, "My killing of the emperor does not change the last 24 years."

"No," she said angrily, "no it most certainly does not! It doesn't change the fact that you captured me, tortured me, held me back as that hideous admiral killed my parents-my real parents-and how you captured and tortured and sent Han off for a bounty!" She huffed on the brink of tears. "Don't get me wrong, I'm glad the emperor is dead now, but it's mighty late of you to have found your humanity after all this time! You're no father of mine that's for damn sure!" She turned and marched away.

"Leia!" Luke shouted after her.

"Let her be, Luke," Anakin commanded, "she merely spoke the truth."

Luke said, "I'll talk to her later. For now, I think your suit needs some upgrades. Then, we're going to talk to the rebel council. R2!" He turned and the droid wheeled himself into the room to assist.

"R2D2?" Anakin asked, looking the little droid over. It couldn't be the same one who helped him win in the clone wars. What were the odds?

"You know this model?" Luke asked, "He's the reason I joined the rebellion in the first place, but that's a long story."

R2 beeped away excitedly.

"R2, it is you," Anakin said fondly. "He helped me win many battles during the clone wars," he answered, "and before that he was your mother's droid on Naboo."

"What?" he asked, "Are you serious? You're older than I thought, R2. I haven't wiped his memory since I joined in the fight against the empire. I always feel bad for droids when we do that to them."

Anakin replied, "During the entirety of the clone wars I never wiped him either. R2, do you remember me? It's Anakin." It still felt so foreign for him to say his own real name.

R2 beeped away and brought up a recording of 9-year-old Anakin in Watto's shop, sitting on his countertop. "Are you an angel?"

"Don't show him that!" Anakin slapped R2 hard.

He fast forwarded to Anakin when he was older and getting closer to Padme on their time on Naboo together. "Is that..." Luke hesitated. He hadn't heard nearly as many stories about his mother growing up. "She's my mother, isn't she?"

"That's her."

R2 showed the wedding they had later.

"What was her name?"

"Padme Amidala Naberrie."

Luke asked, "What happened to her? Where is she now?"

"That's a very long and painful story."

The celebrations went on long. Even after his suit upgrades, Anakin remained near ship and hidden away from the crowds. He knew he wasn't wanted around the rebellion. He looked up at the fireworks in the distance as Luke went off to party with his friends. He knew the entire galaxy was about to discover he was alive, and no one was going to be happy about it.

Eventually it became time to reveal himself to the rebels. "You have to be in cuffs," Luke said before they felt the ship together, "otherwise they'll likely fire at you without any recourse."

"These are nothing to me," Anakin replied, "I could break them in my sleep."

"I'm sure," he replied, "but how about you don't go bragging about that in front of the entire rebellion leadership council? Here." He snapped them onto his father's mechanical wrists and lead him to the rebel base.

Anakin could feel everyone's stare on him as he was guided to the rebel leaders. How had he become this? When exactly did everything go wrong? Did it start at the beginning of the war? If he had stopped Master Windu from dying, would any of this had happened? His thoughts raced through the last 30 years of his life, back to before the clone wars had begun.

In front of the rebel leaders, Mon Mothma took the lead, surrounded by everyone else including a few familiar faces such as Admiral Akbar.

"Lord Vader," Mon Mothma said coldly, "Luke Skywalker here has brought it to our attention your life could be useful to us to stop the remaining empire. Otherwise we would have sentenced you to death already." She was hoping the threat would intimidate him at least a little, but his soulless suit showed no signs of wavering.

"I'm well aware," he replied, "I will show you where all the hidden empire bases are, and even the contingency plans the emperor had."

"Why should we trust you?" she demanded harshly.

Admiral Ackbar said, "Lord Vader could easily be leading us into the trap. I believe it's in our best interest we don't trust him."

Anakin explained, "You trusted me once, Gial, during the clone wars. 'Vader' is merely a title. My real name is Anakin Skywalker."

The people who didn't gasp, looked around in confusion. The war veterans in the room were all shocked, but the younger ones in the room didn't understand why.

"That can't be true," Mon Mothma insisted, "Master Kenobi told us Anakin Skywalker died trying to stop you from killing Senator Amidala."

Anakin spat, "Obi-wan lied!"

Admiral Ackbar asked, "How can you be Anakin Skywalker? We need proof. Take off your helmet and show us your real face."

He explained, "My looks have altered to the point where I am completely unrecognizable. Obi-wan cut off all my limbs and left me on fire to die alone on Mustafar at the very end of the clone wars."

Luke interjected, "We have R2D2 with us. He was there." He gestured to the little droid as he rolled himself in front of the crowd.

He projected the footage he recorded of that day. Anakin force choking Padme, the fight between Obi-wan and him starting, and then going all the way over to above the lava as C3PO helped an unconscious Padme on board the ship. Then came the moment of truth, Obi-wan had cut off Anakin's limbs and left him to die alone in his own misery.

Anakin finally used the force to take his helmet off and revealed his scarred over skin. Everyone was shocked, but now they knew what he said what true. He quickly placed it back on.

"General Skywalker," Admiral Ackbar said.

"The war is long over, Gial Ackbar," he replied.

"I don't understand," Mon Mothma said, "why your sudden change of heart? You've been terrorizing the galaxy for decades!"

Anakin only had four words to answer. "I have a son." He now knew he had a daughter too, but he fully understood the relationship with her was going to be much more tense and decided not to out her in front of the entire rebellion.

Mon Mothma looked at Luke and said, "You mean...you're his son?"

"They're both named Skywalker!" someone said in the crowd. There were gasps all around.

"That's right," Luke said, "we're related."

Mon Mothma said, "Luke, I'm sure you likely want to have a proper relationship with Lord Vader...General...your father, but the galaxy won't be so forgiving. His crimes of murder, enslavement, economic planetary collapse, torture, among many other heinous acts, cannot be undone or go unpunished."

Luke said, "I'm not asking you to absolve him of guilt. All I'm asking is for everyone to give him a chance. I'll take the tandem oath, and if he ever kills anyone ever again or even threatens to do so-we'll both get the death penalty!"

"Luke!" Anakin scolded.

"What?" Mon Mothma asked as the room erupted into anxiety.

Leia said in horror, "Luke, you're not actually willing to lay down your life for the likes of him, are you?"

"I'll do it!" He insisted.

Anakin said, "I forbid it. You shouldn't be tied to me for the rest of your life."

He replied, "I've made up my mind, Father. It's only up to the council to decide if it'll be so."

It was an old custom, one from over 1,000 years prior. If someone were deemed dangerous and a threat to society, but too worthy to be killed by governing forces, their lives were to be forever intwined with an innocent but willing party. It was supposed to cause guilt in the criminal, and make them rethink their life. The two must remain within half a klick of each other or both face the severe consequences, although after a decade or so of no crimes committed the rules usually loosened.

Mon Mothma managed to get everyone to calm back down. She asked, "Luke Skywalker, do you honestly wish to remain within a half a klick of Darth Vader at all times for the rest of your life?"

Anakin said, "No-"

"Yes," Luke insisted, not looking at him. "I'll modify his suit too, so he doesn't look so..." he was at a loss for words for a moment, "terrifying."

The decision had been made. Anakin Skywalker was to live and hunt down all the remaining imperials still loyal to the emperor, and he did so in the upgraded suit Luke gave him.

Anakin could still grow hair on most of his head, but his helmet was so limiting he knew there was no point in growing it out. With Luke's modifications he actually could, and it was still dark blonde with no grays yet. He got a new visor to see out of, made clear so people could actually see his true blue eyes and not the terrifying gold he sported for so long-although hidden under his mask for decades. His arms and legs were made lighter and faster than ever. He switched over to a more red and black color scheme rather than simply matte black.

A lot of work needed to be done, but he was ready to do it. Only time would tell how the galaxy would fair with the emperor gone for good...