"Did you ever really care about me?"
"Yes. Yes..."
Emperor Palpatine opened glowing yellow eyes, pondering the fragment of vision from another future. To care was a Sith's greatest weakness, and yet, it was one to which he could not help succumbing, from time to time. Maul, Anakin – both of them representatives of his greatest successes and greatest failures. Two apprentices, wildly powerful, delightfully strong – both eliminated by the same Jedi. Or nearly so, in Lord Vader's case – the boy yet lived.
Another tortured yell, echoing through the ReCon Center, gave proof of that fact. Emotionless droids welded new arms and legs onto the badly burned body – not the mediocre prosthetics originally intended for his injured apprentice, but top-of-the-line bionics. The boy was in utter agony, the Dark Side roiling and seething throughout the medical arena. As usual, Darth Sidious drank it in with pleasure, but Palpatine felt just the faintest twinge upon seeing young Skywalker – Vader – writhing in such eclipsing pain.
Because he cared. The cutting-edge technology used in the replacement limbs, the willowy-pale heads bending over the opened chest cavity, the careful meshing of organic nerves and electronic sensors – because he cared. He'd already lost one son to Kenobi – he wasn't willing to lose another. An anguished scream cut through his reflections, and he slipped into the Dark, whispering into the Force. The pain will make you strong, my boy. Use it. Emerging from his momentary meditation, he turned to the droid in charge of the rest.
"You will stay abreast of all bionic technology," he ordered. "Lord Vader's prostheses are to be updated whenever there is a significant breakthrough." Without waiting for the droid's affirmative, Emperor Palpatine turned to leave the ReCon Center. After all, his new Empire wouldn't run itself.
The two lines in italics at the beginning belong to DarthRuinous, from her superb AU story A Night For Opera And Everything Else.