#force ghost!anakin

“Please, there’s no need for that. Besides, I’m not him anymore.”

Confused, Kylo lifted up his head, face furrowed.

“Then why are you here?”

“I was hoping to help you, to rid you of the fallacies in your mind.”

“But I’m following your path,” Kylo argued, getting to his feet. Force, it felt good to be taller than this supposed “Darth Vader.” “I’m learning the ways of the dark side, as you did!” he insisted.

“I did learn the ways of the dark side. But they are wrong.”

“No, no. The light--the light is wrong. I’ve felt it. I’ve seen it.”

“Have you?”

Kylo tilted his head up, proud at what he was about to announce, feeling arrogant, knowing he was right. “In your son, Luke Skywalker. He tried to kill me.”

“A reckless mistake.” He opened his mouth to speak, but “Darth Vader” went on, “It runs in the family. Comes from me, I suppose. Master Obi-Wan always told me I was too reckless, always tried to get me to slow down. And I… I didn’t. I didn’t stop or think or reach out for help. So I Fell.”

“As you were meant to.”

“Darth Vader” glared at him. “No one’s meant to.”

“But there must be balance in the Force!”

“And can you bring that balance, Ben?”

“Don’t call me that! Ben Solo is dead.”

He was ignored: “Can you bring balance through subjugation and death?”

“Where there is life, there must also be death.”

“And you’re the one with the right to bring it into this universe?”

“You did!”

“I was wrong. I brought balance. After pain, and suffering, and loss. I killed the Emperor, Darth Sidious. I saved my son. This man that you pray to, he is not there anymore. Darth Vader is dead. I am Anakin Skywalker, as I always should’ve been.”

He reached out a hand to him, and Kylo gave a slight start as it touched his shoulder. All of this was… too much to take in. This Force ghost had to be lying, had to be a trick, certainly. His grandfather had never been this weak. It couldn’t be true!

“And now you must be Ben Solo again.”

Kylo drew back. “I was never him. What you think you see in me is gone. It’s a lie. As are you.”

To his surprise, Anakin gave an amused smile, and it infuriated him. He almost reached for his lightsaber, wishing to slash him to pieces, but he knew that would never work.

“Oh? And what am I lying about?”

“You’re not him!” Kylo raged, pointing at the ruined mask. “You’re not him, you can’t be him! Darth Vader, my grandfather, was a dark, and powerful man!”

“And what do you think happened to that man!” Anakin cried, stepping forward and blocking Kylo’s view of the mask. “He burned! He lost his wife! He killed his master! He tried to kill his son! Is that what you want? Pain and loss? Are you so ignorant that you think that’s all you’ll know or deserve? Ben--”

“Don’t--”

“Ben,” he insisted, “I know what Snoke did to you, what he’s been doing since before you were even born. You can break free of it, as I did. Where there is dark, there is also light. And it’s out there, right now. It’s in you. Let it pull you out of the dark.”

By now, he felt tears building up in his eyes, and he sat, legs too weak to stand.

“How? How do I escape this?”

“I’ll help you.”

“What can you do?” he asked. “You’re not really here.”

“I am, and I live in you, as Luke does, as Han Solo and Leia do. You’re part of this lineage. You are not alone.”

“What must I do?”

“Very soon you will find a girl, a scavenger. Help her. Listen to her. She is strong in the Force.”

“An adversary,” Kylo muttered, unthinkingly.

“No. A friend. Snoke has cut you off from all you need, and all you once knew. But he is not all there is. With help, with me, and this girl, you can reach your family.”

“I don’t want my family.”

Anakin just gave him a sad smile. “I know, Ben. I know.”

This time, he didn’t have the energy to argue with him about his name. His head was spinning, chest aching. Too much. It was all too much! But he felt what Anakin spoke of: the light. It was there, in that very compartment amongst all the black.

“Let go of the dark side. Become yourself,” Anakin told him.

Kylo had no answer, could only sit there with his fists clenched, breaths coming in near-sobs.

When he looked up, the Force ghost of Anakin Skywalker was gone.

His comlink beeped, but it barely drew him away from all the pain. Still, he had to answer. He took it from his belt, and pressed the button. “Yes?”

“Lord Ren, we found the droid. It’s with a girl.”

A girl.

Kylo raced from the compartment, barely able to contain his wild and savage energy. He made his way for the hangar, ordering on his way there, “Prepare my ship.”

They had of course asked Luke to describe the Ghost to them before, but because of the pale blue of the Ghost's form, it meant the amount of information Luke could gather on their appearance was limited. All he could tell them was that the figure was tall, looked like a young man with long shaggy hair, and there was a scar over his right eye. The description itself did not ring any bells for the Lars family and so with time they learned to accept that Luke had a power they would never understand. Hadn’t Anakin once said about being able to see things just before they happened? Maybe this was just the way it manifested for Luke.

The Ghost never spoke to Luke directly, though sometimes it looked like he tried to before looking resigned and resorting to hand gestures. Some more energetic than others depending on how close the boy had been to a nasty accident. Or those Imperial patrols. However, the part about his appearance that sparked something in Luke's brain when he was older were the robes he wore. They looked to those of the man called Ben who lived out in the Wastes.

Ben the Hermit. Ben the Wizard.

For Luke had absolutely seen him do magic, even when the old man refused to acknowledge it. Logically, if the Lars did not recognise the description Luke gave them, perhaps Ben would. While his Aunt and Uncle had been concerned for his mental wellbeing in his youth, Ben had nearly dropped his tea at the mention of Luke’s so-called ‘Blue Friend’. The man seemed to age at least half a decade within the span of minutes as Luke explained his situation and he decided not to mention him again from that point onwards. The Ghost never appeared when he was around Ben anyway.

Having an imaginary friend was not unusual for a child, people reasoned. It was almost expected even, but as Luke got older it became less and less acceptable to be seen to speak to thin air. So he learned to stop talking to his Ghost so obviously or mentioning the Ghost’s presence at all when he saw how uncomfortable it made everyone around him. Instead, he got sneakier, learning new ways to communicate that didn’t require him to give much away verbally or physically. Like taking his time dithering over various components he needed to buy for the farm, his body language caught in clear deliberation while his Ghost gestured unseen to specific pieces the seller had on offer. He’d never steered him wrong on that front so far.

While the spectral being certainly seemed to know his way around a generator he was also there for Luke supportively too. As supportive as a non-verbal and non-corporeal ghost could be. When he was sad or frustrated, the ghost would give him an echo of a pat on the shoulder or sit next to him and listen while Luke bitched about his continued situation on Tatooine. The figure always looked especially commiserating whenever he brought up his desire to leave the dustball of a planet. But he had also been around for Luke's better moods too, pointing out where the pieces of his fighter models went when he got stuck as a child, helping him learn the controls for his first speeder, or just keeping him company while he worked on the farm.

Even if the Ghost could not speak his mind and had the consistency of a hologram, Luke valued his presence anyway. It was nice sometimes to just know that there was someone there. Besides, just because he couldn’t speak verbally didn’t mean they couldn’t communicate. After a fashion.

—----------------

“How did you get that scar over your eye, by the way?” Luke asked, turning a hydrospanner around in his hand as he removed the bolts off of a solar panel he was supposed to be fixing. Technically he could just get a droid to do it, but a sandstorm was preventing him from doing anything outside so he settled for occupying himself in the workshop.

He glanced up to see the Ghost in thought, looking around himself to find items he could incorporate into his explanation. As was the way of their conversations. Luke would ask a question and he would give the Ghost time to visually demonstrate an answer in a rather bizarre game of charades. Sometimes, the answers were less clear than others but Luke had years of practice by this point.

The ghost eventually spotted something he could use to supplement his actions and proceeded to mime punching something, before pointing to a knife on the workbench beside Luke and then drawing a finger up over his eye in a slashing gesture.

“Someone knifed you in a fight?”

A so-so hand gesture followed the young Skywalker's guess, which was thankfully universal for ‘sort of’. Luke’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.

“You got into fights a lot?”

The ghost folded his arms over his chest and grinned a sharp smile. A ‘yes’ then.

“Was that how you died?”

At this, the grin faded a little as the figure's eyes skittered away from Luke’s and the knuckles of one hand subconsciously rubbed against his chest. The boy was about to apologise, feeling bad about potentially offending a ghost, when the spectral man simply nodded. His gaze never left the floor though and Luke went back to what he was supposed to be doing.

—----------------

Sitting on the main entry dome of the Lars’ homestead, Luke watched the binary suns set below the distant horizon, his chin resting on his bent up knees. What he wouldn’t give to be able to watch those stars disappear behind the planet's horizon from space. Once again, it seemed he would have to wait though.

“Hey, Ghost, are you there?”

As if his sigh summoned the man, the next time Luke looked to his right there sat his Blue Friend, hands braced behind him as he let his long legs drape over the edge of the roof. It was never made clear just what the ghost did whenever he was not keeping Luke company, but he did know that he wasn’t glued to his side all of the time. He just seemed to have a knack for appearing whenever Luke needed him or wanted to talk to him. Like now for instance, Luke thought as his friend turned to look at him, already wearing an expression of sympathy. It’s as if he knows. Probably does given the number of times he’s listened to me complain about this.

“Uncle Owen said I couldn’t join the Academy, again.” Luke heaved another huge sigh and let his head hang, “it’s like he’s doing everything he can to keep me here, even though he knows I don’t wanna be here.”

Peering through his blonde fringe, he watched the ghost frown at the space between them, his nose wrinkling just a little. He then turned and made a very rude hand gesture towards the courtyard in the crater next to them and Luke snorted. Yeah, he’d felt like doing the same when Owen had told him the bad news.

“I get that he’s just worried, and I do love my Aunt and Uncle, I really do!” Luke insisted, as if he expected the ghost to doubt his words. “But while they might be happy staying here for the rest of their lives, I’m not.”

Frustration bubbled within him and Luke let himself fall backwards to lie against the roof, narrowly avoiding smacking the back of his head against the pourstone and missing the momentary look of alarm on the ghost’s face. The teen blew a raspberry to vent his displeasure at the universe as a whole, staring up at the darkening sky. He’d be a fantastic pilot he just knew it, he already had his skyhopper so why wouldn’t Uncle Owen let him at least try? Aunt Beru seemed to be the most sympathetic of the two, but she never outright disagreed with her husband.

Shoving his hands behind his head, Luke glanced over at his ghost to see a faint smile curling around his mouth. Luke scowled.

“Oh, you think this is funny?”

Raising his spectral gloved hands in a pose of surrender the ghost shook his head and looked back out over the sands. The smile never went away though. Dead people, Luke groused, they never have to worry about such things as being stuck at home I suppose. The thought made him jolt back up right, prior irritation completely forgotten.

“Actually, now that I think about it, where did you come from?”

The ghost turned back to look at him sharply as if the question had thrown him. To be fair, it had taken Luke a bit by surprise as well. He was also slightly sheepish that it had taken him this long to wonder about such a thing. The ghost blinked, eyes shifting a little to either side of Luke’s face before, very slowly, using one hand to point below him. Right into the sand.

“Wait, you come from here?!” He asked, astonished.

In hindsight, Luke should probably have asked this a long time ago, along with the question as to why he seemed to have earned himself a ghost that had been watching over him since his earliest memories. Maybe the Lars homestead was haunted, but even if he was being haunted he’d never felt in danger. Quite the opposite actually, the spectre had always felt protective. Like family. Furthermore, the ghost didn’t seem tied to the homestead either, but rather to his very person; certainly able to travel with him across the desert into town.

A slight head wobble and a single shoulder shrug was the spectre's reply before he sat up a little straighter and looked off into the distance as if searching for something. He clearly found what he was looking for as he threw an arm out to point over in the vague general direction of…

“Mos Espa? Ouch, you didn’t die there did you?”

Luke could have punched himself but the ghost didn’t seem to take offence and instead threw his head back in silent laughter, shaking his head all the while and making his curly hair fall over the place. Apparently, the idea of dying in a place like Mos Espa was hysterical. Perhaps it was, though given the man’s obvious affinity for getting involved in fights, whether he started them or not, Luke thought his guess was a logical one. The ghost clearly disagreed.

He eventually stopped laughing, now curled over his knees in a parallel to Luke’s previous pose as he attempted to get his breath back. Did ghosts even need to breathe? Muscle memory, maybe?

“Alright, alright, I thought it was a possibility, that’s all…”

Gathering himself, the ghost waved a hand towards the stars now beginning to appear in the sky as the overpowering light of the twin suns faded enough for them to shine through. He wore a sad smile now as he waited for Luke to connect the dots.

“Oh, you died out there somewhere? So you did escape this place then,” Luke murmured, stating it as a fact rather than a question but the ghost nodded anyway. He looked almost wistful.

Another question burned at the tip of Luke's tongue and he almost managed to get the words out before a sudden call came drifting up to them from the pit.

“Luke! Lu-uke!” Aunt Beru’s voice, making his name sound almost like a song, broke the thought Luke had been holding onto and he leaned forward to yell back. “Yeah?” “When you’re done sulking, we're about ready to eat. I made that bake dish you like, the one with the mushrooms!”

“I’ll be right down,” Luke called again, before turning to his Spectral Protector and continuing at a normal volume. “Guess they do feel kinda bad. I know that’s a pain for Aunt Beru to make.”

It was a pity, because he really did like that dish, but it was hard to source mushrooms at the market and Owen and Beru always flatly refused to allow Luke to go and scavenge his own. Come to think of it, his ghost always looked particularly ill whenever he attempted to suggest it too. It was dangerous out in the desert, he supposed.

He ruffled the hair on the back of his head in an effort to dispel his remaining irritable energy and stretched his legs out before him with a snap. Allowing one final sigh to escape him, he made up his mind to ‘stop sulking’ as Aunt Beru put it and got to his feet.

“Ah, guess I can handle one more year,” he said, sliding down off the roof to land on the ground with a soft flump. He tilted his head back up to see the ghost peering down at him, still perched on top of the dome with an oddly blank expression. “Thanks again by the way for, y’know, just listening.”

The briefly vacant look morphed into something much softer as he gave a lazy salute and then vanished out against the light of the stars.