AN: SO SO SO SORRY I've been so negligent of my fanfics. Getting hold of a computer got harder and harder and harder, but guess what, now I've FINALLY got a new computer!
"Father and Son"
By EsmeAmelia
Chapter 55
The next morning, after some more coaxing from Han, Leia went to see Anakin in the bacta tank, accompanied by her brother and her fiance. She stared through the glass at the bobbing body, not speaking, her eyes glazed as if in a trance. Han gripped her upper arm, but she gave no sort of response. In fact, she didn't respond to anything - not Han squeezing her arm, not Luke touching her shoulder, not even the medical droid explaining what was wrong with Anakin in incredibly complex terms that Han couldn't understand.
Han felt like he should say something to at least snap her out of this silence . . . but what should he say? Should he reassure her that he was here for her? Should he try to convince her once again to open herself to their father? Should he try to perk her up somehow?
In the end he said nothing. He only kept hold of her arm.
. . . . . . . . .
Two weeks later.
"Anakin . . ."
Anakin turned around. The chancellor was striding up to him, his robes swirling around him, his handsome face smiling like a proud father. "Anakin . . . why have you turned away from me?" he said in his sweetest voice.
"Master, what are you talking about? I would never turn away from you."
"Oh, but you have, Anakin. You disobeyed me. You shunned my teachings. I offered you the love of a father and you spat in my face."
"No . . . master . . . I didn't!"
He turned and ran . . . but then he found himself staring into a pair of beautiful brown eyes he knew so well.
"Ani . . . you didn't save me."
"Padme . . . I tried . . . I tried."
"You didn't save me. You promised you would save me."
"Padme . . . please . . ."
"WHY DIDN'T YOU SAVE ME?"
Awareness swam into Anakin's head, but it was awareness of nothing but silence. Cold, stone silence. A complete nothing silence. Silence and darkness. Swirling darkness. No . . . not darkness . . . colors . . . as if he were facing a bright light with his eyes closed.
Were his eyes closed?
Yes . . . they were. He tried to open them only to find that his lids felt stuck together. He stretched his eyebrows, further up . . . further up . . . further up . . . and then his eyes met a blinding light. Instantly they closed again.
Where was he? The piercing light had followed him behind his eyelids in the form of large bright spots. He tried to move . . . but again something hindered him. Where were his arms? Where were his legs? A sickening sense that he had been here before entered his head.
Slowly, carefully he opened his eyes again. His eyes were weak, a baby's eyes, but they could make out the blurs of figures hovering over him, doing something to him.
His arms . . . his legs . . . he couldn't feel them attached to his stumps. Then suddenly there was a jolt of pain in his right leg's stump, as if something were being drilled into it.
Which meant . . .
No. He couldn't be here again. Not here.
His eyes closed again, his mind desperate to conjure up somewhere else, anywhere else. Coruscant, maybe. Or Naboo, Naboo would be nice. Even Tatooine would be preferable to this.
Father, it's all right. You're going to be fine.
The words brushed his mind so lightly that he hardly registered that his son was attempting to send him soothing thoughts. His son . . . his son was here? Though his mind was still cloudy, Anakin made an effort to reach out with the Force and see where Luke was.
He felt Luke's presence right next to him. Han was with him, along with . . . the Alderaaan princess? What was she doing here?
Sister? So, you have a twin sister.
Anakin would have jumped back had he been able to move. This was why the princess always made him think of Padme, this was why he always felt hesitant to kill her. She was his daughter. Padme's daughter.
Struggling through the swimming in his head, he reached out with the Force, focusing on Leia, his daughter, feeling anger, tremendous anger, as well as great resentment. And something else . . . confusion, maybe . . . or perhaps bewilderment at what she was observing.
A second jolt of pain, this time in his left leg stump, confirming that he was indeed being reassembled. Again. The bright light that shone over him would soon be extinguished in redness. Then he remembered his last request to his sons. To see them with his own eyes . . . they hadn't honored his wish. No, they had decided to save him instead.
As if he was something worth saving.
He bit down on the breathing mechanism in his mouth, part of him hoping that it would break under his teeth and leave him without air, but he could have no such fortune. Why, why were his children so foolish? Did they think he wanted to live on with everything he'd done, trapped in the thing in which he was once more being enclosed?
He opened his eyes again, cursing that horrid light. His eyes moving in the direction where he felt his children, but they could make out nothing more than three blurry figures, no more distinct than the figures he assumed were medical droids.
Never would he see them with his own eyes.
. . . . .
Leia gulped as she looked down at Vader, at her father. The mask was coming down on him now, sealing in that deformed face, transforming it once more into the cold, black face she hated so much.
"Why do they have to put him back in there?" Han was muttering, his hands behind his back as he stared at his father.
Leia looked at her fiance. "Well, you wanted to save him, didn't you?"
"Yeah . . . but . . ."
He didn't finish his sentence, but he didn't need to. The forlorn look on his face was enough to tell Leia that he was imagining being trapped in that suit.
"He didn't want us to save him," he said after a few moments.
Leia sighed. "Neither did anyone else."
"Including you?"
Leia flinched, knowing what her answer would be if she were being completely honest. She swallowed hard. "Han . . . you know he'll have to stand trial, right?"
"What?" Han snapped up to face her.
"You heard me," said Leia. "He is a prisoner and must be tried."
"Dammit, Leia!" Han exclaimed. "The guy saved our lives and you wanna try him like a criminal?"
"He is a criminal."
"Well, technically," Luke said without looking up from their father, "everything he did was legal because he was doing the bidding of the Emperor."
Leia brushed her teeth over her lip. "The other Rebels won't settle for that, you know it." She looked at her fiance, who still wasn't meeting her eyes. "Think of it, Han. If we just let him go, that puts him in danger of being lynched by the people. A trial is the best way to protect him."
"And if the Rebellion sentences him to death?" Han snapped.
Leia breathed deeply. "Han, I'll do what I can to save him."
Han grabbed her shoulders. "You promise?" His eyes were pleading like a child's.
Leia looked into his eyes, sincerity in her voice. "I promise."
