forcearama:

vortexoftime:

forcearama:

lurkingcrow:

forcearama:

lurkingcrow:

forcearama:

*sobs* IT’S THE ONE THING THEY DIDN’T PLAN FOR. Obi-Wan’s got a well-worn spiral notebook he takes with them everywhere that’s got everything from “Faked Own Death, Then Died For Real” to “Escaped Zoo Animal Stampede”, but not one scenario addresses what happens if either of them Go Darksider. 

Obi-Wan fills out a blank page at the end of the notebook later. It’s stained with tears. 

Oh no, we cannot have this! Lets see what I can do to make this less sad…

Nope. I got nothing. Except something to make it worse.

There was a plan. It was written on a folded piece of paper hidden in a secret compartment in the armrest of his council chair. It’s addressed “To Whoever is Left” and contains a meticulously detailed set of instructions to take down Obi-Wan should he fall. There is no message for Anakin. There doesn’t need to be. After all in this scenario he’s already dead.

*recoils from the screen* OH MY GOD WHY. 

DOES VADER FIND IT WHEN THE EMPIRE WAS CLEARING OUT THE TEMPLE??? HE DOES. YOU KNOW HE DOES. 

He does.

He finds it and it’s like that day all over again, like his mind and soul are on fire and he wants to scream but he can’t because WHY!? WHY NOW?! Obi-Wan did not fall for Qui-Gon. Obi-Wan did not fall for Satine. Obi-Wan did not fall for the death of his entire way of life. But he would have fallen for him. WHY!!!? WHY!? Why?…

Kenobi could not have found a more effective way to hurt Vader if he tried.

*buries my head in my hands* AHHHHHHHHH. 

Vader is extraordinarily quiet for the next few days. He barely leaves his room at his castle. He even misses out on a raid of a secret rebel hideout (it was on a very windy planet, too! His cape would have looked AMAZING.) His servants are concerned. Sidious can’t put his finger on what’s gotten into his apprentice.  

Vader knows he should throw the note away. If Sidious ever finds him hanging on to something like this he’ll be getting one hell of a lecture at best. Darth Vader does not care about things like this. He’s moved past it all. Obi-Wan didn’t mean what he wrote, anyways. 

Vader knows Obi-Wan meant it, though. And he knows he – no, Anakin Skywalker, that weak traitorous failure – will never be able to throw the note away. 

Also though, wouldn’t Vader have some thought as to ‘wait, if Obi-Wan fell?’ Obi-Wan didn’t write a scenario for the possibility of Anakin falling. Obi-Wan didn’t write a scenario for the possibility of Anakin falling.

And then Vader realized, his heart clenching painfully, that Obi-Wan only envisioned himself being susceptible to the Dark Side. He hadn’t thought Anakin capable of it, for in his eyes Anakin had been so pure and the centre of light in the galaxy and oh no why was Vader realizing this now it’s too late and suddenly everything hurts again because Obi-Wan had had absolute faith in him and he’d messed up so badly and kriffing Force why had he been such a fool?

(A moment later he finds that he’s back in his meditation pod and there’s something akin to tears stinging his scarred cheeks and it feels as if he’s been punched. The note is held carefully in his gloved hands, and Vader curses Obi-Wan’s slender handwriting as the taste of ash fills his mouth.)

😭 Of course Obi-Wan never wrote anything for the opposite scenario. Anakin wouldn’t fail him. He never has. Even knowing everything people had said to him about Anakin, or warned him about, or even those flashes of intense anger he sees in Anakin’s eyes now and again – the idea is just…inconceivable. He’s the Chosen One.

(I totally subscribe to the idea that while Vader was indeed the Empire’s Unstoppable Killing Machine and largely into the Evil Cause and whatnot, Vader absolutely also had Haunting Thoughts about a LOT OF THINGS FOR A LONG DAMN TIME. Crying in the Vader Pod happened. It did. That whole Last-Minute Light Side Conversion was in the works for a while, however minutely.)