"How is the child?" he asks, hands clasped tightly behind his back as he walks up to the incubator. The warm cocoon of glass and recording screens. Within is the small, bright body that has screwed up his whole life. He almost hates it. No, he does hate it. He hates that stupid bundle of blue cloth and tiny heartbeat as much as he hates the man who came before it. He hates the kriffing baby as much as he needs it. To keep it close and protect it. See it breath and know that it still lives.

"Healthy, despite everything," a medic tells him. No sympathy or emotion at all, really. Just the same dead eyes of those devoted to the cause (or just bored out of his mind) as the rest of the officers. Or the ones who don't have that gleam of dark desire to posses and control. Which is almost as common as the others.

"Good," he replies and tried not to reach out and touch it with his mind. The child is going to be his master's new apprentice: it would be best not to get too attached.

Too bad the baby doesn't have those reservations. As soon as he's close enough, bent over and peering down at the infant's face, those blue eyes open and a small, gummy smile spreads across it's chubby cheeks. Vader swallows and hopes there is nothing on his face. Something is spreading across his chest while the prickling sweat of fear and metal bite of panic sits in his jaw. He knows he isn't shaking, but it feels like the tension that keeps his whole body taught is going to rip him apart.

The baby just smiles wider and waves a limp hand at him.

Darth Vader almost lets his head hit the glass top of the incubator. He was cursed. That had to be it: this baby was already a cheeky asshole. He would never get away from Obi-Wan. Never.

He leaves before he does something stupid, like brush his hand over its head or touch its mind with the Force.

His life sucks.

Three weeks pass slowly and with a lot of panic. Things change rapidly for Darth Vader as he prepares to raise and care for a child. First of all, he is moved from his little haven on his Star Destroyer to the bones of an incomplete Death Star. He suspects it had something to do with his presence intimidating the work force into working faster to complete the weapon versus it being for the wellbeing of his new charge, but he says nothing. His new quarters are spacious and have two big sleeping rooms and a common room connecting them to a large fresher and room that was supposed to be an office but is turned into a place for all his projects and droids. It's the best they can do for him, but it's better than living where he had been. A shudder had raced down his spine at the thought of a newly crawling infant finding its way into that room so intense that he had almost thrown up again.

Of course, one cannot just become a guardian to a child and have no knowledge of childcare. So Darth Vader had been enrolled in lessons for new parents and taught how to change diapers and feed infants. Given instructions on when to teach it how to potty train all the way how to know when the baby was ready to crawl. He had been so embarrassed that he had actually flushed. He had even cursed at Sidious for the lessons and having them taught by a witch of a nursemaid instead of a droid. Luckily it had only made the only Emperor cackle with cruel mirth instead of punishing the younger Sith for his insolence.

Would have been hard to care for a 'newborn' with his own injuries.

Through all of this, Darth Vader would wake in cold sweats, half remembered nightmares and badly suppressed memories clouding his mind. He'd be left gasping and shaking for hours as he tried to force the knowledge of just how many children he killed. Pushing harder and harder against the thing that had once been him just so he could have a few hours peace. What he did was in the past, and while he would never be clean of it, he could at least pretend it never happened. Right? Right.

So he was sick to his stomach most days and terrified out of his mind for all the rest of them as he waited.

He remembered waiting to be a father with Padmé. Granted, he only had a few weeks to think about it before everything happened, but he had been happy about it. He wanted to be a father then- to be a dad. And it wasn't as though he didn't want to be a dad now, he's just having a lot of reservations about it this go round. Mostly because of the little fact that this child is the clone of his former master and not a product of his love with his wife. Also, there is the fact that he is a Sith Lord and travels the galaxy to find his real former master in order to kill him along with the rest of the Jedi. Add in a few bounty hunters and a good dose of Rebel Fighters and you have a very dangerous life.

And that's just him. Now imagine it all with a baby in the mix. He couldn't. Not really.

But then, Darth Vader hasn't really thought of much beyond the mantra of 'oh shit, oh shit, oh shit ohshitohshitohshit!' for the past three weeks.

And the niggling wish to just hold his new charge in his arms again. He's been watching the baby laugh and cry and search for him in that glass box whenever he has a free moment to just breathe, and the frustration of not being able to pick him up and clutch the thing closer to him is getting to him. And everyone else.

So when the time comes to decide if the baby is ready to be removed from his confinement is a rather tense time for the medical staff on the half finished space station. Any longer and they are certain the mild manners of their resident Sith Lord is going to snap and they are going to loose at least one of their staff. So they wait with bated breath as the medical droid Vader put in charge of the infant's development and health (they aren't stupid and know that he trusts he droid more than him. Also, let him deliver bad news).

Med trills and beeps in soothing tones at the baby, cooing softly to his happy giggling. Checking blood pressure and oxygen levels as it scans for any sort of anomaly. Completely oblivious to anything besides the human infant in its care. Let alone the tension running through the Sith's shoulders.

Finally, after twenty minutes of tests and more tests and a lot of waiting, Med looks up and trills a soft apology to the man. A hard and steely expression sets over his face but he says nothing and simply nods. Before he can leave, however, Med chirps his acceptance to let the baby be held by his new guardian. Popping the ballon in the room near instantly.

Darth Vader held the baby like his life depended on it. In some ways the infant's life did depend on it, but it was more than that. It was as though some sort of channel had been opened between them and the child release an excited burble of laughter the same time as the man sighed in soft relief. An almost smile on his lips as he brushed synthetic skin along the red fuzz of the small head. Blue eyes met blue eyes and the baby gurgled and kicked his legs out in excitement.

If anyone noticed the soft whisper of "My son," escape the lips of their Lord, they wisely kept their mouths shut.

Two more weeks passed before Med declared the baby to be ready to leave the incubator for good, though the droid insisted that it be allowed to preform daily check ups. Darth Vader couldn't exactly say no, of course, as the droid belonged to him and resided in his new chambers now that the child wasn't in the MedBay. Though, he was just happy to have the child out from beneath anyone else's eyes and keep it all to himself. To ferret it away and protect it from everything that was the Empire and his his life as a Sith.

He's sitting on his bed with the child cradled carefully in his arms when Med finally asks the question he's been avoiding for the past five weeks.

"What is his name?"

It's an innocuous question. If the situation were any different. He thinks about naming it a great many things. Perhaps, if it had been a girl, he would have named it Shmi or Padmé. Though the idea of Sidious sliding either name off his poisonous tongue makes him ill and one of naming him after his former master makes him want to cry. Stupidly, he thinks, as he is a Force Forsaken Sith Lord. He does not cry over a name. He just doesn't.

But almost.

Instead, he's been trying to think of other names. Of ones that mean things to him or to his life, but all he can come up with are names of dead Jedi and former friends. Of brothers who were destroyed just because of their DNA or people he saved as the Hero with No Fear. And none of them seem to fit, so he tried to think of names from StewJon or from Tatooine since it's his son and not Obi- It isn't Kenobi. But he just can't think of it. Five weeks felt like a lifetime when he wanted to hold his son in his arms again but five weeks feels like the blink of an eye when it comes to naming the poor boy.

So he tells Med to give him the night to decide, knowing he wont have a name by then. He holds his son in his arms as he sit on his bed in nothing more than sleep pants so he can feel the boy's skin against his own flesh and let the baby hear his heartbeat as he sleeps. Lists off names to the happy child to get his opinion but only gets scrunched expressions of mirth or disgust. Well, he assumes it's one or both of those things. It's only five weeks old and he really isn't sure how long until human babies are capable of expressing whole thoughts. Their bond through the Force isn't very helpful, either.

He stays up all night and thinks about it. Debates over it with the baby. Agonizes over it with the flagging and harshly ripped off edges of his old bond with his former master. Cries about it despite what he just told himself about being a Sith Lord. Weeps when he finally figures it out.

In the end, when Med returns the next morning to find the two curled up on the pillows and Darth Vader brushed gentle fingers through the fine hair atop the boy's head, there is only one name he can think to give the boy.

"Anakin."

Karma is a bitch and when Darth Vader finally meets her, he's going to sock her right in the goddamned face.