Here is the next chapter, as promised. It may not turn out as long as the other chapters, but only because I need it to move my story from one place to another.

My thanks to:

Jedi Knight 13- I'm glad you like it well enough to follow it, and I hope I meet your expectations with this chapter.

Li-Li-ThePinkBookGirl- Your wish is my command; here is my continuation. Please see the note at the end of this chapter.

Disclaimer- Vader is not mine. Star Wars is not mine. If it was, the world as we know it would be changed forever.

xXx

It had been a week since the social function and his girl still hadn't returned from the ward. For two days, Darth Vader had been debating whether or not to go and see her. The resulting tension had been wreaking havoc on the people around him, mechanical gadgets he used every day and various small, breakable objects. He sat at his desk, playing with a pen in one hand, his chin in the other, staring at the paper in front of him and not seeing a word on it. He couldn't keep his mind off her. He pictured her in the infirmary lying pathetically in a starkly white bed, pale as the sheets, eyes closed. She looked very small and fragile in his mind- as if a puff of wind could take the breath from her mouth... permanently. Attendants bustled everywhere but where they were needed; like they didn't see her there, dying.

A snap woke him from his reverie. He looked around, thinking someone had come into the room, but no one was there. He looked back and saw that the pen in his hand had snapped. That had to be the fourth this week.

That was it. He was going to go see her- if only for the sake of his writing implements.

Summoned cloak in hand, Lord Vader strode imperially through the halls with single-minded determination. He hardly noticed the underlings throwing themselves from his path, hurriedly raising clumsy hands into attention. The doors of the infirmary hastened open with a resounding bang. The nurse closest to the door jumped back against the wall, hand to her chest.

She recovered herself. "My lord Vader," she addressed him, with a voice as soft as the white on the walls, "How may we help you?" She picked up a nearby clipboard and made exaggerated attempts at writing normally. Maybe the fact that the pen kept slipping out of her hand gave her away.

"My servant," Vader said simply. He balked at mentioning why he wanted to see her. Maybe because he wasn't entirely sure himself.

The young woman tucked a strand of yellow hair into her crisp cap. "Of course, my lord. Anna!" A tiny woman approached at the sound of her name. A quick conversation in voices too low to decipher took place. Vader shifted from foot to foot, trying not to let his armor make too much noise. What were they saying that made Anna take all of those quick glances at him?

Anna made a small bow to Vader. "Follow me please, sir." Vader followed the girl and the sharp sound of her quick steps. Anna opened a door he hadn't noticed beyond the desk and led him into the main ward. White partitions lined either side of the impromptu hall. In the corners of his eyes, he looked through the divides in the walls of cloth. People lay in white beds- some sleeping, some awake. Their faces flashed by too fast to register, but one thing stood out- no one was smiling. They reached the other end of the ward and Anna held open the door for him. Vader swept through.

This ward was severely white- already his horrid daydream was becoming a reality. This room was just as large as the last ward but with half the beds. Only half of the beds were filled, the rest stood empty. Empty- that was the word to describe this room. Empty of sound, empty of people, empty of life.

Anna directed him to the last bed on the right where her tiny figure lay. The sight was shocking. She lay on her back with her eyes closed, propped up by a mound of uncomfortable-looking pillows. There was so little color in her face that she didn't look so much sleeping as dead. Dark circles bloomed under her hollowed eyes. Her cheekbones stuck out making her look angular and bony. Barely a crease in the sheets to show the body that lay beneath. Thin tubes hung from glass bottles to her exposed wrists. Her wrists looked wrong. It looked wrong that her arm was turned to expose the tender inside flesh. He suppressed the urge to reach out and turn her hand over.

Anna watched his mask warily, eyes searching him for any sign of any emotion at all. He detachedly wondered what she was thinking. Was she afraid? He was nervous in this room. The dramatic irony of his vision was palpable. Anna spoke in a cool voice.

"We dug the glass from her foot and administered the proper antibacterial medication, but the wound was infected and feverish," she said without looking at any sort of reference. "The infection spread through her legs and arms, threatening to invade her heart. We gave her several units of O blood, but we didn't have enough. We're waiting for additional units while her blood test processes." Here, she looked at the girls face with a tender sadness. "She wouldn't be so weak," she said, her voice losing all trace of formality, "but on the second day, she stopped eating. We attempted to force food into her, but it all came back up. Now, we feed it directly into her stomach." She pointed out another clear tube that protruded from her nose and was taped to the other side of her face. "She is on heavy pain killers, tranquilizers, stomach relaxants and anti-infection medication." There was a brief moment of silence after this statement while Anne reached out and tucked a wayward strand of brown behind her patient's pale ear.

Darth Vader didn't know what to say. It was apparent that the staff was doing all they could to help the girl, and they were genuinely concerned for her welfare. He could not fault them for this if he tried, but it only took one look to see that she was dying. For whatever reason, the girl was wasting away in this immoderate sea of sterile white and if something wasn't done, she would soon fade away.

It must have been just then that he decided.

"Have her moved back to my rooms."

Anne froze. Well, not entirely- her jaw dropped, but then it froze. She stared blatantly until Vader made a prompting motion with his hand and then she could only splutter, "But, but, why? How? We have the equipment... what if... if something goes wrong..."

"Then you are only a call away," said Vader cutting across her imperially. "Have the girl removed to my rooms immediately." He turned to go.

"But policy!" she said desperately, "Policy might not allow it..."

"Who is this person, Policy?" demanded Vader with fire on his tongue. "'Policy' seems to forget who is in command of this craft. To hell with your policy. Now, do as I say." His tone left no room for argument.

xXx

Lord Vader was reading two books at one time. He did this, not because he liked to overtax his brain with multitasking, but out of necessity. After the hospital workers had finally gotten their collective acts together and manually moved their patient to the desired location, the nurses involved had given Vader some reading material pertaining to his new duties as caretaker; followed by some serious admonition and several tongue-lashings for refusing to hire out help from the hospital wing, of course.

Five minutes into reading said material, or perhaps only two minutes, Vader realized exactly what he had gotten himself into. He put down the book on basic medicinal medical procedures and went to go find a dictionary. Ten minutes after that, he discovered that most of the words he needed to know weren't found in your average dictionary and he went off to find the proper lingual aid. Two hours later, he is sitting at his desk, reading two books at the same time: the aforementioned textbook and a medical encyclopedia.

On a convenient slip of paper, he had been taking notes on precisely what he was supposed to be doing. He was already scribbling on the back of the page even though her handwriting was relatively small. He looked at a clock. It was about five in the evening and probably time to see if there was any way to get something vaguely nutritional in composition into her body. After a quick consultation with his medical crib notes, he found the proper Tupperware containers supplied by the ward and proceeded into the bedroom.

His bed, which he no longer used, was immense. He was a big man in the first place but add a tendency to move rather a lot while unconscious and a fondness for cover stealing and that equaled the need for a rather ridiculous amount of space. The tiny girl looked almost comical swallowed up in the many black blankets; compiled to sweat the fever out. He considered using her bed at first, but after a moments thought, decided against it. Note to self- find bedding that resembles less a cot and more something with a proper mattress so dependent charge does not injure self in dormant stages.

Vader approached her carefully, hoping his footsteps would awaken her. He put down the plastic tub on the nightstand and looked for the syringe that would allow him to feed her. When he looked again, her eyes were open and she was watching him. Her eyes lacked their usual sharp luster and quick movements. She blinked without hurry and seemed to take great care in focusing on him.

"How are you feeling?" asked Vader kindly. The girl slowly blinked. He decided that perhaps that had been a stupid question.

"Are you hungry?" he asked. She blinked again, but otherwise offered no reaction.

Okay... Easy on the questions, then. He busied himself with putting the mechanism together. "Would you like another blanket?" It was all he could think of to say. Again, that slow blink. He could see in her eyes that she understood him, that wasn't the cause for the lack of response. He might also have said that she was merely tired, but her stare was too intense. Like she was trying to say something...

He watched her for a minute. She held his gaze steadily, blinking intermittently. When she didn't do anything else, he tried one more time. "Are you thirsty?"

She blinked once very deliberately.

He could have slapped himself. Of course she was trying to say something. "So you are hungry, then?"

She blinked once with a hint of a smile in her eyes. The brief sparkle was more than welcome. He hooked up the little machine to the tube in her nose and turned it on. It fed her for a while until she blinked twice rather forcefully. He took his cue and turned it off.

Vader took another look at his sheet while he stowed everything away. Apparently, he was supposed to clean and dress her infected wound three or fours times a day. Now was as good as any time, right?

He clumsily took off the old dressings from her foot and looked at the gash underneath. It had not been a clean cut. The wound was expertly sewed, but one could still see a bit of uneven skin at either end. The surrounding flesh was still an angry red. A damp cloth washed away the old cream nicely and a long q-tip applied the new equally well. Vader picked up a sterile pad and a roll of gauze and prepared to use it, but he stopped. He stared at her foot for a moment.

She had very pretty feet, very small and narrow. Nothing appeared wrong with her foot, aside from the injury in the arch and the remaining scars from the smaller scrapes, but something about its shape made him look a second time. Now mind you, a considerable amount of time had passed since he had taken a good look at his own feet, but he was pretty sure that the bone on top of the foot wasn't supposed to curve out like that. He put down the gauze and fetched the medical book. He flipped through until he found a picture of the bone structure of a foot. No, it was not supposed to look like that. Not only that, but the bone on the outside of her foot was also supposed to be straighter. He brought the book back. He uncovered her other foot and removed the sock. The shape of this foot was similar, but not the same. The bones in the foot were also bent, but they looked more angular and the curve was closer to the ankle. Vader read the text with growing apprehension. He could only come to one conclusion.

"Who crippled your feet?"

xXx

A/N- Ooh, cliffhanger. I apologize most sincerely for the delay of this chapter. I spent so much time trying to get this thing written and going nowhere that I wanted to scream. Finally, I decided that I was trying too hard and so I didn't look at it for about two days. Then I came back and finished the chapter with no effort at all. Of course, I had to wait the obligatory hour and read through it again before posting, but it really only took me half an hour to write three pages.

Oh, and in case you didn't notice- I am not majoring in medicine, so please excuse any inaccuracies in this department. If you know better terms, feel free to tell me what they are- and possibly what they mean/do.

I'm afraid that the next chapter might take every bit as long as this one did. I beg forgiveness in advance.