I. Aboard a Medical Frigate
A few months after the destruction of the Second Death Star, Anakin faces the future.
He wakes to find Mon Mothma sitting beside the bed.
Sleep drops on him unexpectedly these days. The medical staff say that it's perfectly normal, considering the amount of healing his body has to do; he's had eleven surgeries so far, and (they remind him dolefully) won't accept anything but surface nerve blocks for the pain, so. He's gotten used to unfinished conversations, to seeing new and interesting faces in the room.
The Chancellor of the New Republic, though...that's unexpected.
Poised as a dancer in the chair Solo always complains about, wrists crossed gracefully in her lap, she watches him steadily. He's too tired, always too tired, for verbal fencing matches; he waits for her to speak. She is studying his scars, old and new, the oxygen concentrator purring away on the bedrail, the assorted tubes trailing under the bedclothes, the unwieldy temporary prosthetics. Let her look; he is far past caring about the wreckage he made of himself.
He almost falls asleep again before she leans forward. "So," she says. "General Skywalker. How are you feeling?"
He blinks. "I'm...pretty sure I went AWOL a long time ago, Chancellor."
She smiles a political smile. "Be that as it may, how are you?"
"Um...tired most of the time, very comfortable though actually, enjoying eating real food even if it's gruel...but did you really take a shuttle trip over here just to ask me how I am?"
"You can understand my concern over your condition."
"Oh, right." He settles his shoulders against the pillows they use to keep him well braced while sleeping reclined, which seems to help. "Well, I'll be fit to stand trial in a few months, they tell me."
Her face goes still. "There will be no trial."
Deep in his heart, he was expecting this. Still, it's a bit of a shock. "Chancellor, what's the point of all this repair work if you're just going to execute me without showing me off first?"
"Who said anything about an execution?" she snaps.
Oh, kriffing hells, they wouldn't. But then again, they might. "Imprisonment, then? I think I've proven," he says gently, "that no prison can hold me forever. And, uh, I do get bored."
Mothma is glaring at him now. "Agh! She warned me-" She pinches the bridge of her nose and squeezes her eyes shut. "Look. Even if we wanted to put Darth Vader on trial, we would have to do the same to Ekkreth, who helped to found the Rebel Alliance." While he is still floundering over that one, she sweeps onward, regaining the momentum of her dignity. "In the interests of a fair trial, we would have to declassify everything Ekkreth ever did-"
"Now, hold on! I've lost count of the number of people I've personally murdered and you think anybody would accept some cloak-and-dagger games as an excuse?"
"-And if we airlocked Darth Vader, as much as I would like to, we would be murdering the being who maneuvered the Death Star into the kill box. And if we put Vader into prison, we would have to do the same to the longest-serving Clone Wars POW, right after he escaped." She pauses, looking down at him. "So, General, you'll have to deal with life after victory, just like the rest of us. I do hope you feel better soon, and I'm sorry I couldn't make it over here sooner." She rises, brushing her robes into order with her hands, hesitates, bows slightly, and departs.
He stares at the ceiling, letting the tears trickle down his temples. What the hell is he supposed to do now?