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The Jedi Temple, in Ben’s humble opinion, was the shining jewel of Coruscant city.
Built over a thousand years ago at the peak of a tall hill, it had stood the test of time, its proud flags waving high through wars, famine, disaster, and destruction as the city grew up around it. Though it had been besieged by many enemies over the course of its life, never once had it fallen. It was the home of Ben’s people, whose walls were littered with pockmarks and scratches, a history a millennia in the making. Generations of Jedi had walked its halls, laughing, playing, hurting, dying. Living their lives. This place, to Ben, was holy.
I regret to report that both our Jedi Order and the Republic has fallen…
…sometimes, Ben could still hear the screams. When he walked these hallowed halls, sometimes he could still picture them as they had looked, hung with the symbol of the Empire. Splattered in carpets and tapestries of red. Corpses on the ground, wailing- dying- fingers twitching-
Ben closed his eyes, bracing against the memory. He gathered the light side around him, centering himself. He said a prayer, holding tight to his own Force-signature as a man lost at sea would hold to a piece of driftwood. After a moment, those memories went away.
He opened his eyes to the walls of his old apartment, the one he had shared with Qui-Gon and then Anakin, more than twenty years ago. No- three years ago. The war was over, and Palpatine was gone, and with that, the Empire would never be.
Ben hadn’t thought of those dark times in months, at this point. He was trying to move on. Building a life here, in the past, with his new name Ben, where he was not hunted and did not spend his days wondering what he would eat tomorrow- trying to move on involved letting go of these things.
But he had been plagued with these old haunts more and more often in the past week. Today was the worst it had ever been. He had been interrupted by nightmares every time he closed his eyes, and so, giving up, he had come out here into the common area of the apartment, sitting at the little kitchen table with a single solitary lamp illuminating him, and the darkness pressing in all around.
Above him, the lights flickered.
Ben took a deep breath, inhaling the steam wafting from his tea, wrapping his hands around the mug.
“Any moment now,” he muttered to himself, and got up to putter over to his room. Carefully, he fished a few very important documents out from the stack he had accumulated there, holding them, careful not to crease them. After placing the papers on the kitchen table and grabbing a pen, Ben sat down once again and resumed his midnight vigil. He was in no particular hurry, only sipping at his tea as the minutes ticked by.
Anakin was asleep in the other room. More accurately, he was supposed to be asleep. But the Force was throbbing all around Ben, swirling with those long-ago painful, traumatic memories, and Ben knew that neither of them would be well rested the following morning.
The darkness thickened to such a degree that it was difficult to see, even with the lamp, but Ben refused to be afraid. After all, no parent should fear their own child.
The lamp hissed, popped, and flickered once again. Ben, unfazed, took another sip from his tea. He blinked.
When he opened his eyes again, Anakin was in front of him.
“You always did have a flair for the dramatic,” said Ben.
The boy’s mouth was open, nearly gaping, and when he breathed he pulled the air through his chest in such a way that it made a harsh, grating sound. He gripped the edge of the table with both hands, so hard that the wood cracked, splintering under his grip. His eyes were a blazing, glowing, terrible Sith-yellow.
“You,” said Anakin, shoulders heaving. A bit of spit fell from his open mouth, and he wiped at it with the back of his wrist, angrily, with jerky movements.
“Me,” said Ben calmly. “I will not insult you by asking if you are alright. We both know you have very little time in that body.”
“You old bastard,” said Darth Vader. “I cut your head off. I won. I won that fight.”
“Yes, you did win,” said Ben. “But not that day. You won when you bent your head to Sidious. You won the moment you raised a hand against your fellow Jedi- when you murdered my family, all my friends, almost everyone I loved. You won when you stole our children and had them tortured into Inquisitors…you won, Vader, completely and thoroughly. Is that what you want to hear?”
Vader said nothing. He coughed and choked on his own breath instead.
“Why did you do it?” said Ben when the coughing fit had passed. He didn’t change the tone of his voice- he could have been asking about the weather. “I have always wanted to know. Truly, it seems to me that your life took a turn for the worse after that…you lost your freedom, your health, your wife, your children…was victory worth it, my son?”
“Do not call me-” Vader choked again. “Do not- you don’t have the right.”
The silence was deafening. Ben’s composure cracked, just a little- his face twisted momentarily.
“No,” said Ben, voice shaking. “You’re right. I suppose I don’t.”
“Where were you twenty years ago?” said Vader, heaving. “Thirty years ago? When I was him?” He slammed his metal hand into his own chest. “Where were you when I needed you? You could have- with a few words you could have- turned it all around- you could have-”
Ben, stricken, rose from his chair, but Vader flinched so far back that he was forced to retake his seat. Slowly, as if by mutual truce, they returned to their positions- Ben sitting down, with his fingers curled around his mug, and Vader leaning against the other side of the table, both hands gripping the edge.
“I hate you,” said Vader, roughly. “…That’s why I did it.”
“I love you,” Ben croaked, fingers scratching against the mug. “I always have. I always will. But I never knew how to show it. And- in my stupidity, and my arrogance, I did not see how I pushed you away. I did not see who I was pushing you towards.”
“I am not- your failure, Obi-Wan,” said Vader, cracking the table, his eyes simmering in barely-contained…something. Rage?
“Of course you are,” said Ben quietly, sadly. “Of course you are. And I will not take responsibility for the atrocities you have committed, but I was the man who left you with that monster. It was I who left you in Sidious’s tender care, when you were ten, eleven, twelve…it was I who dangled you in front of the lion, unwittingly, yes, but did that matter to the outcome? Of course it didn’t.”
It was getting harder to speak. Ben swallowed. “So now, I…I’ve come back here…in order…in order to…”
Vader looked down at the documents on the table. He looked at the pen set so carefully to the side. His breath dragged in and out of his throat as he leaned down to read it. When he took his eyes off his old enemy, his flesh hand twitched at his side, as if reaching for a weapon that was no longer there.
Ben had stopped carrying a lightsaber- any lightsaber- months ago. Now, he only wore his crystal around his neck. Anakin, after a tense, emotional, and painful council meeting, had willingly surrendered his own. If he was ever allowed to wield one again, it would be after many long years, and likely a repeat stint as a Padawan. It was something they were discussing, along with Padme. But none of that mattered right now.
“…Does it matter why I did it?” Vader’s voice was so low. His metal fingers traced over the words on the paper. His head was bowed. The words came out in fits of whispers, directed at the document. “I wanted to please him. I convinced myself, for a brief, mad, insane moment, that what I was doing was right. I wanted him to stop hurting me, and I thought- maybe if I did what he wanted- he would stop.”
“Oh, Anakin,” Ben whispered, heartbroken.
“You give him a good life,” said Vader, after he had finished reading. His hands shook where they rested on the table. “You give him everything we- everything he ever wanted. Show him what it means to be loved, because we both know I never knew. Maybe then- maybe then he will not be damned the way I am. Maybe then he will know his children.”
“I will,” said Ben, looking Vader in the eye. “I promise you.”
Vader made to turn away.
“Anakin,” said Ben.
The Sith Lord looked back at him.
“I know it is late,” said Ben, earnestly, sincerely. Slowly, he stood from his chair and took hesitant steps forward. “But it is not too late. We are here, are we not? We are here together.”
Ben reached for Vader, closing the distance. He touched him on the shoulder, lightly, tentatively.
“It is too late,” said Vader. “That paper is for him.”
“It’s for you,” said Ben. “He knew there was a chance you might come. He knew what I wanted to offer you. I do this with his blessing.”
“There is no point,” said Vader. “I am dying- I am dead already. I have minutes left. There’s no reason.”
“Even so,” said Ben. “For the few minutes we have. I would like to be your father. I would like-” a tear fell from his eye, and then another, and he wiped them. “I would like you to be my son.”
Vader stared at him, and hesitated, and hesitated, and his yellow eyes took in Ben’s face, the tears, the open expression- it was genuine, and it was hopeful, and it was all he’d ever wanted, come far, far too late, and it was- it was-
And why not?
With shaking hands, Vader reached over, grabbed the pen, and signed his name on the bottom. Anakin Skywalker, it read in unstable, mechanical handwriting so unlike how it had been when he was nineteen. The boy, when he woke the next morning, would not recognize it. But Ben would. Ben would see it for years to come, and remember the man who had signed it.
Adopted.
Vader cracked.
The pen slipped from his grip as Ben barreled into him. When had the tears appeared in his eyes? He held onto Ben, arms encircling him, and he wept brutally into Ben’s shoulder, suddenly gasping, crying, choking. He had lived for so long in that hated suit that he could barely remember how to breathe when it was gone.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered brokenly. “Father, I’m sorry. I’m so- I’m sorry. I was sorry the moment I did it- the moment I-”
“I’m sorry too,” said Ben. “For my part in it. My son.”
The Force was swirling around them both, drawing closer. It wouldn’t be long now.
“I love you,” said Ben, holding Vader close. “I forgive you. Do you hear me? I forgive you.”
“I hear you,” Vader whispered, beginning to slip. His knees buckled, and Ben lowered him to the floor, never letting go of him. “…Thank you.”
*
When Vader fell asleep, only a moment later, there was a smile on his face.
Ben sat there, and cried, and scrubbed a hand over his eyes as the Force began to return to its normal lightness. The darkness thinned out, and the lamp seemed to illuminate more of the room. With infinite tenderness Ben slipped his arms underneath his son, picking him up and carrying him back into his own room, setting him into his bed and tucking him in. Anakin slept peacefully, tear tracks drying on his cheeks.
Tomorrow, he would wake up, and he would be legally, officially adopted, and his eyes would be blue. They would never turn yellow again.