Pain had been something Vader had learned to live with every day since Mustafarr and until it had gone he had not realised just how much pain he had been in, or that the lack would make him feel like something was missing. His whole body was numb, and he did have a whole body once more. Hands the colour of cave-fish lay by his sides and beneath the bedcovers he knew there were toes the same almost dead colour.
The surgery had been radical. Even more of his damaged flesh had been sacrificed as the droids medic sliced back into his arms and legs to prepare the sites for the cloned limbs. There was a dull ache in his chest where he had been opened up like a gutted fish and had much the same process done, except that once gutted his damaged organs had been replaced with yet more cloned tissue. His lungs had been the main problem, though even with the best technology it was still simpler to replace the heart as well, but other organs had been affected by his years in the suit.
Now the healing was up to him. The cloned tissue was not truly part of him yet, the heart pumped his blood, the lungs oxygenated it, and this blood flowed through his new limbs but it was all attached to him rather than being him. Vader knew that if he could see the Force surrounding him that it would abruptly stop at shoulders and knees where the new limbs began as it had where his old metal limbs had begun. The difference was that at least these new limbs and organs had some signature in the Force, it just was not Vader's signature yet.
With yet more of his flesh lost Vader could feel that he had lost yet more power in the Force. To make matters worse he could not move, where his nerves and those of the limbs joined they would need to grow together. Someone without the Force would have been bed-bound for months as nature took its course but Vader hoped to shorten this time considerably, even if as well as trying to heal those limbs he would also have to be trying to blend the cloned flesh's Force signature into his own. Leia's help would be all that made this practical.
Alone Vader knew that he would still have been able to heal himself in body and in Force, but alone this would have taken too long. With Leia to help he would far sooner be healed enough to defend himself, especially since it had been confirmed that Mara Jade was indeed dead and had joined Luke in the Sarlaac when her corpse was dumped overboard.
Being so vulnerable, so helpless physically and in the Force, was something Vader was still having trouble with though. Memories of how powerless he had been as a slave were haunting him and making him reluctant to sleep rather than enter a trance. Fear of death was actually something new to him, he had never worried about dying but only about failing or of losing others. Being paralysed and barely able to float a cup of water across the room and to his lips was frightening, but not as frightening as the alternative.
In many ways it would have been simpler to give up his damaged body entirely. To use the technique the Emperor had stolen from the Jedi and which Darth Vader had taken from his master in his turn. Discovering that the Emperor knew a means by which his apprentice could have been reborn with all his power had shaken Vader's loyalty. Discovering a rumour that the Emperor had used this a means to be able to execute Bevel Lemisk, the Death Star's designer, more than once without losing his services had been even worse.
Palpatine had claimed more than once that Vader could not be spared long enough to have his wounds healed, and Vader had always known this was a lie and an excuse. Finding that it was possible to be transferred to a new body within minutes had proved the lie.
There was a drawback though. For however long it took for your spirit to travel from one body to the next you would exist only in the Force. The Dark Woman on Cophrigin and, so much more recently, Yoda in the hyperbaric chamber had proved that dead Jedi could also still exist in the Force. How many Jedi had Vader slaughtered over the years? How many Jedi might still survive as a spirit and unite to drag Darth Vader's spirit down to oblivion if given the chance? How much would Vader's own fear of that possibility be enough to affect the transfer?
Thanks to Leia this had not needed to be risked, and Vader was grateful for that.
She had taken to the training with all the intelligence Vader would have expected from her mother's daughter, and with all the questioning of statements he should have expected from his. However reasonable it had seemed when he was the Padawan to try to explore the implications of what Obi-Wan was saying and to try to show he was listening by asking, hopefully, insightful questions it seemed less reasonable when you were the one being questioned. He had said though that by training Leia he would be able to remind himself of what it was to be a Jedi so by challenging almost every statement and making him justify it she was being helpful in that regard.
There was a long way to go in her training still. In the month since she had accepted his offer she had learned much about how to draw on the Force and how to use it, but that knowledge was narrowly focussed on what was needed immediately.
The door hissed open, spilling light from the corridor into the darkened room, and Vader barely had time to recognise Leia's force signature before a feeling of emptiness fell over him. His perceptions narrowed to physical, suddenly the feeling of the sheets on his skin became more vivid as it became so much more of what he could feel. Leia crossed to the bed, light glinting off her eyes as tears she couldn't understand began to form. Her resolution was firm though.
"If you are going to kill me," Vader said calmly, looking up at her, "then you must make this look completely accidental."
"What?" Leia replied, her grip shifting in her pocket on the injector of poison.
"Pellaeon is not convinced by the merits of restoring the Republic, he saw too much of the old Republic's failings," Vader continued, "and Piett didn't have any choice as when I made my impetuous attack on the Emperor I also tarred those associated with me as traitors. If either of them think I have been assassinated they will damn the Alliance as incompetents. If either of them think you killed me they will damn the Alliance as murderers."
Leia looked at Vader for a moment, wondering what he was trying to accomplish.
"You must keep Piett and Pellaeon loyal to the Alliance," Vader said, "they are too valuable to be lost, and would be even more dangerous as foes. Remember they would demand a full forensic examination of my body so you would have to be careful."
"Why are you giving me this advice?" Leia asked, "Are you trying to remind me of the consequences so I will spare you?"
"If you feel you must kill me then so be it," Vader replied. "I will not argue with the will of the Force, but the will of the Force does often not take account of mortal concerns. I ask you only to be careful that you not act with haste and create problems that would be difficult to solve."
Leia looked down into Vader's eyes, looking for deceit and fear and not finding it. She had seen from Luke's example that you could train yourself to become a Jedi, she was not sure what Luke had done after Bespin but had Luke encountered someone capable of training him then surely that Jedi would have come with him to Bespin to help? It had seemed so much like justice that once Vader had awoken her power and shown her where his datafiles on the Jedi and the Force were that she should kill him for his crimes.
But the will of the Force, if that was what it was that was screaming in her mind, did not want Vader dead. Quite the contrary, ever instinct she had was telling her that killing him would be wrong. With reluctance Leia relaxed her focus.
Vader felt the Force return to him and for a moment visions of smashing Leia into the wall danced in his mind. However much he could feel he deserved death his survival instincts still wanted to react to the attack with bloody violence. Relaxation techniques forced his temper back down, that and the memory of what had happened when he had struck out in anger at Leia's mother.
"Your ability to block the Force is most impressive," Vader said, after making sure his voice remained calm, "it was as seamless as the bubble created by a Ysalamiri but not as clumsy or as random."
Leia nodded. When Vader had told her what she would be training to do and of the existence of the Ysalamiri she had asked why those could not be used instead. Vader had admitted he had considered it but had asked Leia if she would not think it strange if she saw a bubble of darkness approaching her. When Leia had nodded Vader had said it was possible to use a Ysalamiri against a Force user, but they would have to be distracted to not notice the Force-null bubble approaching them and that within that bubble nobody could use the Force.
If the Force was being blocked by another Force-user though then that block could be set up and dropped at the creator's command and be focussed to only affect those that should be affected, though the person doing the blocking would be vulnerable while they concentrated. Leia's newly trained ability to block the Force was important to the ultimate plan and important in the shorter term.
"Serenity and concentration are both important and related," Vader continued, feeling how conflicted Leia was over what she had just done. "Only when you are at peace with your decision, when you are certain of yourself and your actions, can you focus your entire will. Beware arrogance though, it can seduce you into false certainty."
"You mean by that I was being arrogant?" Leia asked, one eyebrow raising as she locked her gaze with the bedridden Vader.
After a moment Leia broke the staring match. Being so certain of what she had learned and so certain she could train herself could be self-confidence or it could be unfounded arrogance.
"It is something we will both have to be beware of," Vader admitted, "both the Jedi and the Sith can be arrogant. The Sith are certain of their own will and their manifest destiny to rule, which can blind them to alternative ideas. The Jedi are, or were, subtler in their arrogance and fell into a different trap. When you are certain that you can hear the will of the Force, that you have the insight to see the best possible solution to all problems, then if someone acts differently are they not acting foolishly?"
Vader paused until Leia nodded to show she was following the logic.
"And," Vader continued, "if someone is acting foolishly then do you not, as someone wiser, have a duty to prevent those actions? How far is a Jedi justified in going to prevent what he or she considers foolish actions, how far is a Jedi justified in feeling that their connection to the Force makes them better able to judge whether actions are foolish or not? Does it matter to the person having the solution imposed on them whether this is through the intimidation of the Sith or the stubborn cajoling of the Jedi?"
"People need the freedom to make their own mistakes," Leia said firmly.
"I agree," Vader replied, "I would not have agreed when I was your age, in fact when I was your age I was already Darth Vader and in that cursed suit. Even a few years before that when I was told the same thing by a very wise and beautiful Senator I did not agree. Over the years though I have recognised the folly of my youthful idea that everything could be made right if someone wise told everyone what to do."
Leia stared at Vader for a long time. What he was saying seemed plausible on the surface and she was relieved that he seemed to feel that way. He was telling her too much though what she wanted to hear, she could sense that he was keeping things hidden and she was concerned that his apparent conversion was not as sincere as he wanted to suggest.
Vader could feel Leia's distrust but was not surprised and did not resent it. He did not entirely trust himself so it seemed fair that she also did not.