Author's note: Sorry this hasn't updated in so long! This has been a crazy year. Anyway, I'm trying to finish this in a timely manner and I hope you enjoy it. Sorry it's so short.

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars. I do not intend to make any form of profit off of this story.

Chapter 10

Luke dozed in his chair. It had been nearly a day since the Ho'din had agreed to help them, and this was the first opportunity he'd had to sleep in that time. He was enjoying a surprisingly restful dreamless sleep when a hand on his shoulder shook him awake. "Yes?" he asked, rubbing at his eyes.

The Ho'din—he hadn't offered his name and they hadn't asked it—was looking down at him. "He is stable."

"Good!" Luke looked around for Leia, but didn't see her.

"Your sister is already with him. He is not out of the bacta yet."

"But you said he was stable?"

"I have already explained it to your sister. His suit was virtually all that kept him alive. Most of its mechanisms were destroyed, and it will take time to fix them. Additionally, the suit is much too... distinct... for a complete repair to be fully feasible."

Luke's heart sank. "What do you recommend?"

"He needs an environmental suit of some sort, as well as a respirator and prostheses. The one he was wearing previously was not only irreparably damaged, but..." The Ho'din sniffed. "It was of an extremely inferior construct to begin with. A simple bacta treatment at the time of the original trauma might have eliminated the need for an environmental suit if not a respirator, but it is entirely too late for that now."

That came as some surprise for Luke. He had been under the impression, given what he'd heard from Ben and the fact that Vader had been in the suit at all, that absolutely nothing could have been done to repair the initial damage.

The doctor was still speaking. "As a non-human, I do not have access to the best possible equipment for the task ahead through normal channels. However, with some additional funding, I may be able to acquire them through the black market. The cost will not be insignificant, but the equipment itself will be of vastly superior quality to anything that I can provide at the current moment."

"How conspicuous will they be?"

"Either version can be easily concealed with a cloak. That is probably the best you can hope for."

"I'll have to discuss it with my sister. Thank you, though."

The doctor bowed and motioned to the bacta room. Leia was standing in front of the tank, arms crossed. He could see one of her hands--the new prosthetic one, recently replaced with a more permanent model covered in synthflesh--was flexing and relaxing rhythmically. Her face was blank and unreadable, and her presence in the Force was drawn in on itself. "What do you think?"

She didn't jump or in any other way react to his appearance beside her. "We can afford the more expensive systems with money left over for passage off of Corellia."

"Okay. Now what are you really thinking?"

"I'm thinking that I'd appreciate it if you left me alone. Stop trying to get in my head."

"It's fair payback," he said, chuckling softly. "You spent all that time on Coruscant trying to get into mine."

"Shut up," she said, but there was no real malice in it. She sounded tired.

He examined the form floating in the tank. He couldn't see the resemblence to either himself or Leia in his father's features, but it was hard to tell between the medical equipment attatched to him and the old scars that covered him. His skin was ghostly pale from nearly two decades in the environmental suit in between raised faded scars, and the ends of the stumps of his limbs were twisted and raw from the prostheses that had been removed. Luke reached out in the Force and found that his father was still unconscious. "He's stable now. That's a good sign."

"Go. Away." Leia's voice was now quiet. He could feel her anger threatening to boil over.

"Leia--"

"I said, go away." He had to brace himself against the accompanying Force-push that she used to emphasize her words. Before either of them could react further, a flash in the Force caused them both to pause and stare at the tank.

Their father was awake. He was thrashing in the bacta, his eyes wide, reflexively lashing out in the Force and knocking objects off of a nearby table.

The twins held still for just a moment, and then Luke ran off in search of the doctor while Leia stayed and reached out in the Force, trying to soothe him.

Luke could hear Han and Chewbacca just outside of the operating room, talking about something. He didn't bother to make an effort do discern the topic of conversation, though; he had enough on his mind right now. He and Leia were assisting as best as they could as the doctor fitted their father with his new limbs.

The respirator had come first, with Luke using the Force to ensure that air continued to flow in and out of his burned lungs and Leia keeping him in a trance as the doctor worked. At this state, the Ho'din was uncertain about whether or not Vader could survive any anaesthetics that would normally be administered. Next had been the cervical implantation that stabilized once-destroyed vertebrae. With that done, the prosthetics were the next to be fitted. They were of a similar quality with Leia's prosthetic forearm, though without the synthskin. Since he needed to be completely encased in an environmental suit anyway, there was no need for synthskin. Again, Leia and Luke worked together to keep him unconscious.

"It is done. I will prepare the new environmental suit." The Ho'din lifted the goggles that he had worn during the procedure and walked to a hand-washing station.

"Is it safe for us to take him out of the trance?" asked Luke.

"For the moment, yes. This room is sterile." The doctor left the room. Leia and Luke locked eyes and released the trance.

Vader's eyes opened. His pupils were milky, his eyesight damaged on Mustafar. "Where am I?" he asked through the new voice synthesizer in his respirator. He frowned. "Why can't I see? Why can I not hear myself speaking?"

Leia reached out to him in the Force and told him, as best as she could manage, that he was safe and being helped. She turned to Luke briefly. "His eardrums were destroyed on Mustafar as well. Did your precious Kenobi tell you that?"

Luke ignored her words and added his Force-presence to Leia's, assuring his father that everything was fine for the moment. "I don't think Ben knew of the extent of the damage." Ben had known that killing Vader would have been a mercy, and had many times expressed his regret at not doing so, but Luke had enough sense to not bring that up at the moment.

The Ho'din came back into the main operating room with the new environmental suit. It was uniformly gray and anonymous, with a cowl instead of a helmet and a faceplate that resembled a Kel Dor or Gand's environmental mask rather than the menacing one that his original helmet had. The suit itself was fitted with electrodes similar to those in Vader's armor, though without the needles that had injected Vader with chemicals provided by Palpatine. The gray material was nowhere near as strong as the durasteel that had laced the old armor, but it was also many times lighter. The suit's power cells had been exchanged for Vader's old ones, which had been routinely upgraded to allow him to function for long periods of time without recharging them. He made no complaints as the suit was fastened around him. Luke wasn't sure if he kept his face neutral out of a force of effort or because the burned tissue would cause pain if pulled on.

The cowl was next, pulled securely over Vader's skull. The hearing apparatus was implanted securely and turned on, allowing Vader to hear for the first time since Coruscant. The eyepieces were likewise turned on. "How does it feel?" asked the doctor.

Vader's new respirator was much quieter, even if the breathing was still inhumanly regular. He was silent but for the steady noise of his breathing for several seconds. "It's not red."

Luke looked at Leia, perplexed, but her attention wasn't on him. She was trying to hide a smile and tears as she looked at her father.

The doctor seemed not to notice. "No, it's not. There is a helmet that fits over this, similar in design to a Mandalorian's helmet in that the controls for the suit are all inside of it. It will likely take much getting used to after the cruder design of your previous suit. I will be back to fit it in a minute." He bowed and exited the room again, leaving Luke and Leia alone with him.

Leia finally allowed herself to smile. "How does it feel?"

"Very strange. Light. I think... I think this is almost how I felt before Mustafar."

"Is that good?" asked Luke.

Vader turned to face him. It was strange, looking into this blank new face instead of the old one. "I'm not sure. It does not feel as secure, but I do not feel as much of a monster now."

"You were never a monster," Leia was quick to say. "Never."

"I was. I may still be." His quiet breathing continued as he stood and attempted to walk. He was unsteady, but quickly managed. Luke noticed that he seemed smaller in this suit. Not short or insignificant by any means, but less physically imposing still. "I had a vision in the tank."

"What?" Leia was strenuously ignoring Luke, who was trying to make eye contact with her.

"An old teacher of mine. I think that I reached out to him as I awoke. I know where he is... and I think he may be willing to take us in."

"Who?" Luke asked.

"Master Yoda," said Vader. No--not Vader. Anakin Skywalker, returned from the dead. "He is on a planet called Dagobah, and has been there for many years now. He may be able to help us."

"Yoda," exlaimed both twins. Leia sounded horrified, Luke amazed. Obi-Wan hadn't known what had become of Yoda, and Luke hadn't even been sure that Yoda was alive anymore. He felt suddenly thrilled at the thought of meeting his former mentor's old teacher.

"Do we have a way off of this planet?" Anakin continued.

"Yes," said Leia uncertainly. "We hired a smuggler. He has been of great help to us over the past few weeks."

"Weeks," said Anakin, sounding regretful. "I had not realized it had been so long. How is your arm, Leia? Your burns, Luke?"

"I'm good," said Luke. Leia held up her prosthetic and wiggled her fingers in answer.

"That's good." He turned and began walking in the opposite direction, growing more confident with each step. "I realize that I have not been the father that I should have been."

"Father--"

"But I want to be," he said, interrupting Leia. "I would like to be very much. I would like us to be a family. Your mother would have wanted it, as well."

Luke waited for him to say more, but he was silent again. "I'd like that as well," he said, looking at Leia.

Leia looked away, but nodded. "Me too."

The Ho'din came back with the helmet, also plain gray like the rest of the environmental suit. Luke didn't pay attention as he instructed Anakin on how the controls worked. Instead, he sat on his chair and lost himself in thought. Leia sat across from him, watching their father. Her prosthetic hand clenched and unclenched, clenched and unclenched.