She Was My Wife
Author: LVB
Summary: Vader contemplates on the love he still harbours for his wife. Oneshot.
Spoilers: Maybe a bit for Ep 3; set inter-trilogy
Rating: PG
A/N: This is similar to the Vader piece in For the Love of Lady Skywalker. This fic has been slightly modified in accordance with the suggestions of the reviewers. Sorry it took so long. Deepest thanks to all those who reviewed this story.
She was my wife. Not just a woman I had grown particularly attached to; not some unworthy concubine there to bid away the long hours between fighting in the Clone Wars. She was not a crush. She was not a figment of my own twisted imagination. She was real. She had been my wife.
Under a Nubian sunset I had stood beside her. I had looked into her eyes. I had silently pledged my heart and my soul to her that day. I took her hand and she took mine; my mechanical hand, and we were bound together in secret. We were unified for all eternity. No longer two souls, but one, dwelling side by side in attracted bodies. We were bound together that day by the Holy Man. In secret, we shared the one name that bound us forever; Skywalker.
Lord and Lady Skywalker. Jedi and Senator Skywalker. But no; only in secret. We performed a show each day. Going through the motions. We hid the glances. We hid our love. A fleeting look here and a subtle touch there. Nevertheless, she and I were bound by matrimony. Perhaps not in name but always in spirit. Always and forever.
'Til death do us part!
I'm so sorry, my dear wife. For the monster I have become. For the unforgivable acts I have done and for the many more I will do. You are in my mind now, as you always have been, since you walked into my life that day on Tatooine. That force-forsaken desert planet on the outer rim. Dead to the world. A petty slave boy, worthy of nothing.
Your love saved me, wife. I would never admit it now, as I hide away in this mechanical suit, shut off from the world. I loved you, wife. I still love you.The pain is fresh in my heart every day. That fateful day repeats over and over in my mind, never easing up. It is my constant punishment. Every night since that day I have dreamt about you. I find no solace; even in sleep.
Sometimes I begin to dream of something; someone else. But you always appear. You sit there with a look upon your face. You scream in unison with my victim. Your face twists into a face of anguish, and suddenly I'm killing you all over again. My hands are raised into the air and your body levitates just above me. I can feel the Force pulsating through my good arm. Your face, wife. It is twisted; in pain. Your face.. It is turning red; no air can get through to your lungs. I am going to kill you.
Then it stops and you just lay there, wife. I hold you. I place a gentle kiss on your rosy lips but alas. Nothing. Not a breath, not a smile, not a single skerrick of life. You're cold, my love. Your body feels like ice. Not that I could ever feel it again. My hands are covered in blood. Your blood. You bleed, wife.
Not a wound in sight, but your blood still coats my hands. It is fresh and warm. Your warm blood flows out of your icy cold body. I shiver. You are dead, wife.
Again.
There is no end to this nightmare. Every night, no matter whom I dream of, your face is there in the end. I can find no forgiveness, no solace, no redemption for this sin I have committed. A thousand Jedi Purges would never be equivalent in my heart to the pain and agony I felt the day you died. I would rather watch the Younglings die by my saber any day. Feel their young blood trickle over my mechanical arm over and over again. Plunge my saber into the back of my Master Windu every day. I could at least tolerate that. I could feel their lives destroyed by my own hand. I could let myself hate. Over and over again, I'd love that kind of punishment.
But no.
The Force is never too kind to those who use it for their own benefit, my wife. I am tortured each and every night with you. I cannot escape. The Nubian sky could shine down again, I could slowly make love to you like the night our child was conceived. I could get down on my knees and pledge my love to you, over and over again. That could be tolerable. But not like this, wife. Not like this.
The end image is burnt into my mind. Your eyes are open. And they're looking straight at me. Your blood flows, your body is frozen. But your eyes…your beautiful, chocolate brown eyes. They look straight at me, wife. I could close them but to no avail, ever. They would open again. And they would look at me. Your hear would cease to beat, your lungs cease to expel or retrieve the air. Your mind at an end. Dead.
But Everytime, you do not stop. Every single damn time, wife. You say it to me.
"Anakin?"
You said it. You said it for the last time. Perhaps if it were my new name you could have uttered, I would be at peace.
Vader.
But no, wife. It is the name of your husband that betrayed you. Not the monster he has become. Not the man you used to love. The look in your eyes said it all, my beautiful wife. I betrayed you. I had thought you to be the betrayer. But no, all that time you stayed good and true to him.
You loved him, my wife. You loved him right until your last breath. You had thought you had seen him when you died. You voice uttered that final name…the name of your long dead husband.
I had heard you cry, my love. Floating, dying, limbless and barely connected to the Force. But I had heard it, loud and clear. You called his name out. Obi-Wan must have told you I had died. For I could feel your pain emanating throughout the Force. I was not dead. He was dead. You had loved him. You had truly loved him.
I am him now. I wear the face of your husband. But I am your widowed man, wife. I felt your death as he would. As your husband. As your love. And now, I sit here. A shell. A broken man. A broken monster. I am not him. But I feel his pain.
Tonight, I feel a stir in the Force. It is the ten year anniversary of her death. I am not the husband she had loved. I am not the husband she had sung to sleep at night. I am not the husband she made love to. I am not the husband that fathered her dead child. I am not the husband whose name she uttered whilst the blood poured out of her dead, cold body that night. I am not her husband.
But tonight, I will hold a single rose for her memory. Because I am not her husband…but she was my wife.