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His eyes are closed as he submerges his X-Wing below the water. It will be the last great display of Luke Skywalker’s Force ability, and he will not see it. He can sense it, feel the water filling the ship’s lungs and choking its engines.
Better this way, he reckons. His X-Wing is a relic of a younger time, a younger man. It ferried him across the stars, survived countless scrapes with TIE fighters.
The galaxy has fallen apart, and a new generation will be sitting in the cockpits of X-Wings, watching as friends and comrades die, laughing as they narrowly escape death themselves. Poe Dameron, who Luke had once held in his arms on Echo Base, a tiny, red thing with jet-black hair, was apparently leading a squadron himself.
He felt like vomiting.
He opened his eyes. There it was, the drowned corpse of his ship. Even from this height, he could still see the slot where mechanics used to lower in Artoo. He closed his eyes again, took a deep breath.
Artoo. The droid would forgive Luke. Eventually. He had left Artoo with part of a map, some half-crazed fantasy that the galaxy may still have need of him. The fantasy had left him as he navigated alone to Ahch-To.
He was not a young man, as his body so often reminded him. In all his travels, he had not yet found a Force ability that could fully stop the slow, methodical march of time. Once, he could have made the long journey with ease, and still find energy to spare. Once, the thought of flying into the Unknown Regions, to the first Jedi temple, a place he had only visited in visions, would have thrilled him.
There was only one thing left to do now. Cut himself off from the Force, and wait for death to finally claim him. It would take constant effort to maintain. Ahch-To was a place teeming with the Force, an isle of strange music and strange creatures. The planet had twin suns-an irony he may have laughed at once. He found no joy in it now. The planet was too far away from its suns for any dry heat or sandy dunes, things that could have offered him some nostalgic comfort. Rather, it was a wet planet. Cold, and wet, with salt sprays and mossy, craggy rocks. The kind of weather that chilled your very bones, that offered you no escape from its dreariness.
He sat on a rocky outcropping, watching the little birds as they squawked closer to his X-Wing, curiosity overtaking their fear. The Lanai, the nuns who had been guarding this place for millenia, hardly took notice of his presence. They seemed to know his intentions, and left him to it.
Hmph. Better for it , he thought. He wondered how long the creatures lived. Time worked differently here. It was a place that had aged thousands of years, and yet not at all, where one could live thirty lifetimes in a day, where one could remain the same until the end of time. There was one person, maybe, who could have figured out how it really worked, how the island’s clock ticked, who could sync themselves to its beating heart. But she was long gone.
He took a bite of his ration bar, one of his last. Food seemed ample enough, thankfully. Not like the marshes of Dagobah, where he learned to be grateful for slimy frog stew. He didn’t mind fish. He could survive on fish.
He finished the bar, set it aside, and closed his eyes, steadied himself.
Yes, this work would take constant maintenance. Truthfully, though, the act itself would be the easiest thing in the world.
“Don’t do this.”
He opened his eyes. A noise escaped his throat, part laughter, part groan. “Go away.”
“Son.”
What a sight they must make. His father always appeared to him as younger. Not the old man he had died as, bitter and sad, but during the Clone Wars; young, handsome. He understood why. He doesn’t want to remember Darth Vader either. He wondered if the Lanai could see the twenty-something war hero lecturing his son, a man now in his forties.
“Father, please. I’m not changing my mind.”
Luke had forgiven his father, yes. He would always fight for his goodness, yes. But it was in moments like these he wished desperately to speak to his mother, to be comforted by her. He had always respected his father. He even liked his father, sometimes. But he did not want to hear Anakin Skywalker’s thoughts on this matter.
“Then at least let me spend these last few moments with my son.”
Luke blinked. His father’s face may never have aged, but his eyes had. He looked tired, like he had on the Death Star.
They shared that, at least.
Anakin sat next to him. Luke glanced again at his submerged X-Wing.
He left Artoo behind. Artoo, who was the only one left who had known his father during the Clone Wars. Who would recognize the ghost seated next to him.
“This is drastic, Luke,” Anakin said, after a moment. “Cutting yourself off from the Force-”
“I see no other way forward.” This was not something he took lightly. It had come to him during meditation. He had plenty of time on the long flight from Ossus, and even before he was Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master, legend , he found the vast expanses of hyperspace comforting. It was easy to ruminate on the universe when the stars streaked around you.
The names of his dead students beat against his heart, dark and foreboding.
Hennix. Tai. Voe. Each syllable a bass drum, each name another failure.
“Do you know their names? The children from the Temple?” He did not need to specify which ones.
Anakin nodded. “There was one. Reva. She came after you when you were a child. Otherwise, no. I can’t remember their names. Only their faces.”
He saw his student’s faces too, bloody, half-charred, smoking. And the smell. Yes, he had warned his students against violence; had told them their lightsabers were only to be used in self-defense. Truthfully, his warnings were a desperate plea. He had hoped they would never have to smell it, the smoking, putrid, sickly-sweet smell of burning flesh. It was the smell of Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru, burning on Tatooine. It was the smell of his right hand being ripped from his body, seconds away from when his father first revealed his true self. It was the smell of his father’s corpse, burning as the rest of the galaxy celebrated. Now, it was the smell of his greatest failure.
Ben had accompanied him on enough adventures to know his weaknesses. When he called down the lightning storm, it triggered that rising feeling in his belly, a dreadful familiarity. He could do nothing but submit to the pounding in his head as his body convulsed involuntarily, as his legs gave way and he fell to the ground. His nephew’s lip curled in victory, and Ben started down his dark path.
When his seizure broke, he was greeted by that smell, the sight of ash and smoke, his life’s work razed to the ground, and the burning corpses of children, the only children he ever had. Rage narrowed his vision, and all he could think of was driving a lightsaber through his nephew’s heart.
His nephew. Leia’s son. That was who he wanted to kill.
He thought of her as he studied his father’s face. Leia, his sister, Anakin’s daughter, who he had tortured mercilessly, never sensing the shared blood between them. He couldn’t see his daughter, but he could commit genocide in her name.
He was disgusted. He was angry. He was confused, in a way he hadn’t been for a long time. He felt half a child again, wondering why tears pricked at his aunt’s eyes when she spoke of his mother, or why his uncle grumbled with distaste at his father’s name.
Of course his father appeared to him now. His anger was his father’s anger. And his father had a way of opening old wounds, of cutting through scar tissue. No wonder Leia never forgave him. Even now, he was a hard man to forgive.
There was only one way forward.
He had to make it stop. He couldn’t trust himself anymore. His mind wasn’t what it was.
Not for the first time, he envied the dead. His father did not have to endure a human body any longer.
“Did you ever speak to Ben?”
“You know I didn’t.” Anakin rarely appeared to anyone besides Luke. His father paused. Then-
“Do you think it would have changed things?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. It seems he idolized Darth Vader. And I missed it.”
“It’s not your fault,” Anakin insisted.
“My seizures have been getting worse.” Easier to speak facts, rather than stories. “I tried to contain his darkness. I thought I could. It wasn’t enough.”
“It was enough for me.”
“And it wasn’t for him.”
“You place too much on yourself.”
“Because too much has been expected of me!” Luke’s voice thundered against the rocks. “Luke Skywalker, the great Jedi Master. Your son.” He hissed out the word, the great burden of his life. “Truthfully, Father, what would you do? If it was your apprentice?” He barked out a laugh. I wish Ben was here. How many times would he think that same sentence in his life?
“I don’t know,” Anakin answered honestly.
“Of course not.” He held his head in his hands, felt tears well in his eyes, more from frustration than anything. “I am glad you’re here, Father. But you will not sway me from this path.”
His father blinked, nodded. “I am proud of you. Both of you.”
“Thanks,” Luke grumbled half-heartedly. He felt too old and too young all at once.
What was there left to say to his father? It had been twenty years since he last saw him in life, and they had plenty of time to speak to one another. He had yelled at his father, raged at him for all of the hurt he caused. He cried to his father, about the ones he had lost.
What a curse our blood is . He could call down the heavens, commune with a thousand generations of Jedi masters, but he couldn’t speak to the ones he needed most. His mother, his aunt, his uncle, his wife, they were all lost to him, sand slipping through his fingers.
Feelings came in flashes-guilt, anger, sadness-but they left just as quickly. He struck his nephew down, but he couldn’t kill him. Not because he didn’t want to. Because when he saw Ben Solo trembling beneath him, bleeding, clutching to his weapon, he didn’t feel anything at all.
He walked away from his nephew and his band of fanatics, leaving them to their smoking wasteland. He left behind the droid who had been his closest friend. He left behind his twin, the woman he shared a womb with. He left behind Han, his brother.
He looked at his father, who was gazing out across the sea, at the twin suns setting. He understood why, as Darth Vader, his father wore a mask. Like his son, he had never perfected the ability of hiding his emotions. His father wasn’t Obi-Wan, the great diplomat, as comfortable in a seedy bar as a grand stateroom. And he certainly wasn’t Padmé Amidala. He had never seen a picture of his mother where her smile reached her eyes. All that was left of her was stiff formality.
A ghost with tears in his eyes was a strange thing.
“I always loved the water,” Anakin said. His voice sounded like an old man’s, rickety, weary. “It seemed so inviting.”
He knew his father was thinking of Varykino Villa, where he and his mother had married. He had been there himself-like his father, he visited Varykino as a young man, idealistic and in love. When he and Lottie were smuggled into Naboo, intent on liberating the planet, they landed on Varykino’s secluded shores. They were greeted with a palace in disrepair, a haunted house masquerading as an insurgent base. He too, had spent long hours gazing at the water, dreaming of a life he could have lived without war.
Luke followed his father’s eyes. The suns had finished their journey below the horizon, and Ahch-To’s waters had turned black and blue.
How easy would it be, to slip into the blackness, dash his head against the rocks, let his mighty Skywalker blood mingle with the water, return to the primordial place where his father was conceived. Perhaps he could be young again, like his father. Perhaps he could see his wife again. Perhaps he could meet his mother.
“It’s time,” Luke said, voice clear despite the howling wind. “Goodbye, Father.”
“Goodbye, son.” His father’s eyes met his. Tears fell down Luke’s cheeks.
Luke closed his eyes.
This will be the hardest part, he lied. After this, things will be easier.
He saw stars whizzing before him, lines of spacetime burning blue against the darkness. His physical body dissolved, and he was nothing and everything all at once. A golden cord of light unspooled from his core. It wove itself into the very fabric of the galaxy, light and darkness in equal measure.
He reached out. The island roared, a great and terrible sound. Images flashed before him, too many to count, too many lives, too many memories. Rocks began to tumble off of the cliff. His father’s apparition is nothing more than another star blowing past.
Luke Skywalker inhaled creation and exhaled destruction. Stars and golden light and terrible darkness danced around him. He touched the part of the cord attached to himself.
For one last moment, he allowed himself to feel.
A young student smiles as the rock next to them begins to lift. Luke looks on in pride. His nephew looks on in envy, unable to lift his own.
There aren’t enough painkillers on Echo Base. When Shara Bey gives birth, Luke can hear her screams from the hangar bay. When Poe Dameron enters the galaxy, crying as passionately as his mother, an entire army sighs in relief.
The cords of light shook, as if plucked, the strings of a harp. He watches his wife’s skirts twirl around her as she dances to the music of the universe, a tune which only she seems to hear. They are on a planet called Ossus. She is nineteen. He is twenty. Time slows. It speeds up. It stays the same. It does not matter. Lottie hikes up her skirts, and begins to run towards the house, her beaming, lopsided smile sharp and comforting as moonlight. They are half-wild here, letting their hair grow long and their touches linger. They have never been happier.
A wizard drops off a boy in the desert. The man and woman promise to love him, and they will. The wizard nods. For the first time since Polis Massa, Luke’s cries soften when Beru holds him. He knows he is safe.
The Jedi have ripped a family apart, but what choice did they have?
They could only make the best of what they were given.
“Luke.” Leia’s voice was raspy, tired.
“Leia,” he said, breath trembling. “I’m sorry.” You deserve better. Better than all of this.
He reached for the weapon at his belt, ignited its green flame. He grasped hold of the cord, and cut.