Chapter Text
"Father, I can't." Luke's words are fraught with despair.
"Luke, you know what I've been through, what the dark side does." Anakin beseeches quietly, watching his sons profile with concern.
"But this is different." Luke sounds so young, the way he might have as a child had Anakin known him then. But the man before him is aged, weary. It seems cruel that Anakins form should appear young in contrast, resembling the visage he possessed before Darth Vader took over, before Luke was born.
"It is no different. The mercy is that you were spared from witnessing firsthand some of my more deplorable actions..." the words hang ugly in the air. “I wish I could have saved you from that anguish, saved you both from it.”
"I can't face what Ben has done, it's my fault." Luke's blue eyes seem to age him more than the lines forming at their corners.
“You know this isn't true, son. If anyone is to blame it's me… and my weaknesses. They plagued me in my life and now in death as well....” Anakin cannot shield the bitter tone in his voice. “Ben is misled by my folly, my darkness. What I renounced for the sake of your life and light is lost on him entirely.... I've tried to reach him, pull him towards his true potential."
"I cannot bear this." Luke cries suddenly, his voice cracking.
Anakin seats himself across from Luke, uncertain how to proceed. Anakin knows he hadn't truly been a father except for in his dying moments. These feeble attempts at parenting in his ghostly youthful form seem a paltry trick. He wishes for so much more for his son, to be so much more. Anakin folds his hands in his lap and leans forward.
"I will continue to reach out to Ben. He has faith in me, though misguided and altered it is there. I remain hopeful." Anakin needs Luke to know he means it.
Luke remains somber. "Then you do what I cannot." With a weary sigh Luke stands and exits the room. He does not want to be consoled. The weight of the world is on his shoulders and he needs to acknowledge his faults, despite his father’s imploring.
Luke had saved his father, a fact that Anakin still whispers fervently to him time and time again, but who will save Ben? Luke had so far failed in that front and as a result the younglings had died; such senseless death and wasted potential.
Though Luke has left the room, his ache resounds in the force. Anakin knows he is no help in this moment, as irrefutably useless to Luke now as he had been his whole mortal life.