In the early, bloody days of the Empire, when most of Vader's time was taken up with finishing the work that Order 66 had begun, he'd thought the lack of a command to find and destroy Obi-Wan Kenobi was an act of mercy by the Emperor.

Now he knew better. Palpatine didn't believe in mercy.

Obi-Wan's final words on Mustafar, etched forever in his mind by the perfect recall the Jedi had taught him, drove him. "You were my brother, Anakin," Obi-Wan had said. "I loved you."

Past tense.

Because he'd not been worth loving any longer.

And when the man who knew him best didn't think he was deserving of love…that changed everything. And after Padmé…well, there really hadn't been a point to trying to climb out of the abyss he'd thrown himself. So like a petulant youngling, Vader had lashed out.

But he was no mere child. And the power he wielded changed the universe to reflect his own monstrous image.

Vader took all of his rage and fear and despair and spread it across the galaxy. The legends of Kenobi and Skywalker disappeared from the bedtime tales for younglings, replaced by whispered stories of a hulking being in black that read minds and would come for them if they didn't eat their vegetables or listen to their elders.

Vader pretended that it didn't bother him. He became the most visible symbol of the Galactic Empire, his red lightsaber delivering the new version of justice to the now-reviled Jedi who remained after the initial purges.

He pretended that didn't bother him either. That he didn't hear Obi-Wan's voice lecturing him still, or see Padme's eyes full of disbelief and disappointment dancing in front of him as he gazed out at the new galaxy.

There was only a Sith Lord now—only the shadows and the endless pain, the power and the pull of the dark side. Anakin Skywalker had been consumed forever in the fires of Mustafar.

Or had never existed at all.

It was harder to pretend that didn't bother him.

Decades passed and what had seemed like an unspeakable, unthinkable atrocity at the beginning became almost commonplace. Vader enslaved whole species, exterminated populations, and stood by passively as an entire planet was destroyed.

Obi-Wan finally came out from his hiding place and Vader smote him down, taking the fury he had carefully honed over the years to show his old teacher who was truly the master of the Force. He tried to ignore that familiar smirk at the end of their final confrontation, to suppress the memories of a thousand battles on a hundred interchangeable worlds, of a time when they'd been two sides of a credit chip, lives forged as weapons to fight the darkness.

He was a lifetime away from the pathetic slave boy Obi-Wan had picked up on Tatooine. He was a new weapon—a better weapon than the Jedi could ever have devised.

Vader had always been good at seeing his own version of things.

And then word had circulated back about the pilot who killed the Death Star: a farm boy from Tatooine.

Named Skywalker.

And suddenly a lifetime wasn't enough time to escape from his past, and two entire galaxies weren't big enough to hide in.

It didn't mean he wasn't trying to pretend nothing had changed as he stomped through the hallways of the Executor while the flagship closed in on Bespin.

"We'll beat the Falcon by at least an hour, my lord," an officer informed him. Vader nodded. "Prepare my shuttle. I will meet with Calrissian personally." This sort of …persuasion…he excelled at.

"Very good, my lord," the officer squeaked, passing the order on.

Matters had been arranged to everyone's satisfaction—Vader would get what he had come for and Calrissian would get to see another tomorrow—and Vader was settled comfortably in a conference room for a half hour before he came face-to-face with an older version of the teenager he'd loathed in high school.

His opinion on Solo's character didn't improve much when Solo tried to shoot at him. After a tedious moment of posturing the prisoners were separated from each other for interrogation—Solo protesting to the end that he'd never met someone named Rory Gilmore, not that it mattered so terribly much—and then Vader went to check on the progress of the interrogation droid against Leia Organa.

He ignored a traitorous part of his brain that kept naming the device Clyde.

Organa's eyes flashed with the fire he remembered from the Death Star when she saw him. "I won't tell you anything," she spat. "Not about the Rebellion, and not about Luke."

"I didn't believe you would," he replied, gesturing for the droid to continue its task.

She glared at him and clamped her mouth shut to stop any screams from escaping. But through the Force—and Vader could hardly believe what he was feeling—she was crying out in pain.

For Luke.

And suddenly those brown eyes were much more familiar.

Hauntingly familiar.

Padmé familiar.

Vader rocked back against the wall of the cell, staggered by the implications, then pressed the button a bit frantically to open the door.

"Take Solo down to the carbonite facility," he snarled at the nearest Stormtrooper. "It will be easier to transport him to the Emperor that way."

"What of the girl?" he asked.

"She can watch it happen," Vader replied distractedly.

It was better than being tortured, he told himself as he stalked down the hallway. It was better than being killed.

Force help him. He had a daughter, too.

The Emperor could never find out about this.

For the first time in decades as his mind whirled with questions, Vader began thinking about protecting someone other than himself.

That gesture alone didn't bring a Sith Lord back from the dark side, of course. It was less than a step in the right direction. It was an infinitesimal shift.

But it was a shift.

And somewhere in the fathomless depths of the Force, a long-dead Jedi Master smiled. "Come on, Anakin," Qui-Gon whispered. "Remember."