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ANAKIN'S REDEMPTION
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A few messages before the chapter begins:
To Mina: Nope, I definitely am not the first to write a story with Anakin surviving ROTJ. The comment at the beginning regarding someone stealing this story refers to a girl who joined a fanfic site that I'm part of and took most of the plot of this story and also from two other authors on the site. I wrote the comment in case someone has read hers first and thinks I was the one who stole from her...as you will see in my feedback, Anarexia Streetwalker can back me up on this. (Thanks ASW!)
To anyone who read the original on AA: I've since updated, added some extra parts and chapters, changed a few things.
To answer Padmeonpaper's question: Since my story is AU I'm not worrying too much about what happens in the novels. As far as I'm concerned, in ROTJ they pulled down Palpatine's statue in Coruscant and the Empire no longer has control there, so that's how the Rebels were free to fly in there. In this chapter you will see the Rebellion have already gained power in Coruscant anyway, the Empire crumbled without Palpatine unlike in the EU where they struggle on for decades. Oh, and you'll have to wait a little longer before Anakin meets Threepio! ;) Thanks!
To Jedi Master Arie Skywalker: I am SO enjoying your story and thankyou for reading mine!
Thanks to everyone who has commented for the nice reviews! You guys rock!
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CHAPTER FIVE – Regeneration
Anakin sat patiently while the medical droid examined his burned face and body.
"Can you help him?" asked Luke.
"Yes," said the med droid. "This should be a simple procedure. We will remove the scarred skin and place him in the bacta. His own skin will regenerate in a matter of weeks."
"And my limbs?" questioned Anakin.
"We have the latest in bio-organic limbs. We can attach them to your nerves, they will look, move and feel like ordinary body parts.
Anakin smiled nervously. "What do you think Luke?" he asked his son.
"I say go for it, Father," encouraged Luke.
Anakin felt nervous. After more than twenty years of living as an inhuman machine, he would finally become a normal person again.
"Are you ready sir?" asked the medical droid.
"Yes."
The droids began to remove the suit from his body. The respirator was taken away, the various monitors and tubes extracted. They carefully severed the mechanical limbs.
"We are taking you to the operating theatre sir," the droid informed him.
"Thankyou," said Anakin. They wheeled him out through the hallway, where Luke was anxiously waiting. He audibly gasped when he saw his father, nothing more than a heavily scarred torso.
"It's okay son," Anakin comforted him. "Not long now, you'll see what a handsome devil I really am!"
Luke laughed, breaking the tension. "Good luck Father."
Anakin was sedated and the medical droids set about removing all his burned flesh, leaving him a livid red mass of veins and muscle. He was immediately rushed to the bacta room and lowered into the tank.
Luke was allowed to go in and see him. His knees almost gave way when he saw his father's condition. Anakin was completely skinless, a gruesome figure of exposed flesh. Luke felt sick to his stomach and had to turn away. He used a Jedi calming technique to settle himself for a moment. If the bacta worked, he would have his true father back.
"We are using a special enhanced form of bacta for your father," the med droid explained to Luke. "It is filled with stem cells, which will attach to your father's skin and mould themselves to his DNA. This will help them to recreate his true face." Luke nodded, not really understanding the technical aspects but he did comprehend that it should give his father back his old looks.
Inside the bacta tank, Anakin dreamed.
"Medically, she is completely healthy. For reasons we can't explain, we are losing her."
"She's dying?"
"We don't know why. She has lost the will to live. We need to operate quickly if we are to save the babies."
"Babies?"
"She's carrying twins."
"Save them, we must. They are our last hope."
Anakin stood in the medical center, seeing everything as clearly as if he was really there. He looked around in confusion.
Was this a memory?
Or a dream?
Lying on the table was Padme. Anakin ran to her crying "Padme! Padme!"
She couldn't hear him.
"Don't give up, Padme," Obi-Wan was telling her.
Obi-Wan? What is he doing here?
Anakin had seen this before...it was his nightmare...the one where Padme...
A medical droid held up a baby.
"Luke . . ."
Luke? "Luke! My son!" cried Anakin. He turned back to his wife desperately."Padme, it's me, I'm here!"
She did not hear. Padme's face contorted in pain once again as a second child was delivered.
"Leia."
Anakin stared in wonder at the tiny girl. So this was how it happened.
The image started to fade. Padme was struggling to breathe.
"...there is good in him..." Her voice sounded far away.
"Wait! Wait, Padme, I'm here! I'm back Padme! I'm sorry! Wait!"
She was gone. He was standing in a grey room. There was nothing in it except for two baskets.
Anakin looked inside. His two babies were there.
For a moment Anakin forgot his agony over Padme. His children! He had missed out on seeing them like this.
"Hello son," he told the boy, stroking his arm. Luke's tiny hand grasped Anakin's finger. Anakin smiled in awe, admiring his baby son.
The girl began to cry. Anakin went to her and tried to soothe her. "Shh, Leia, don't cry. Daddy's here."
But she screamed louder, and louder. He couldn't make her stop. The more he tried the worst it became.
He stood over her, rocking the basket. "Leia, Leia, don't cry! It's Daddy!" The baby became hysterical. There was a look of terror in her tiny eyes.
Her screams filled his ears.
Suddenly she was not a baby anymore. She was a grown woman, still screaming. He was still standing over her, but this time with an Imperial Interrogation Droid.
He was torturing her.
"No! No, stop! Leia, I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"
He wanted to wake up.
But he couldn't.
Luke watched over Anakin's treatments with an almost father-like concern. He rarely left the treatment centre, preferring instead to stay by Anakin's side. Slowly he saw improvements. Anakin's skin slowly replenished during the bacta treatments and he became less terrifying to look at. Still, it broke Luke's heart to see his father as such a pitiful, limbless creature. He seemed so small and helpless, floating there. It became harder and harder for Luke to remember his father as Darth Vader. How could this small, broken man have ever been the evil conqueror?
As weeks passed, Anakin's face developed into something recognizable. His hair had started to grow, sandy blond much like Luke's, but wavier like Leia's. The skin on his torso and what was left of his arms and legs was becoming smooth and natural. As days and weeks passed, he looked more and more like a normal human being.
Finally, the bacta treatments finished and Luke was able to look at his father's face for the first time. He was a handsome man, in his mid forties, with a long jawline and a cleft chin similar to Luke's. There was a definite resemblance, though Anakin's face was not as round and boyish as Luke's. His eyes were deep set, with dark eyebrows. Anakin's eyes blinked open, revealing his blue eyes, the only part of him Luke recognized from his former, burned appearance. "Hello Luke," said Anakin groggily. "Did everything go okay? How do I look?"
"You look great," Luke assured him. "Now we just need to get you some arms and legs!"
"These are the latest model bio-organic prosthetic limbs," the med droid informed them. "Not only are they completely life like, but they are stronger and more durable than the previous models."
"Thankyou," breathed Anakin. "Well Luke, this is it. I'll be walking out of here a new man."
"I look forward to it," grinned Luke.
The droids set about attaching the limbs to Anakin's four stumps. Luke remembered all too well the process of having an artificial limb attached. He looked down at his right hand and flexed it. For some reason it made him want to laugh, thinking that the man who gave him that hand was now sitting in front of him getting his own limbs replaced. It brought home to Luke how alike they really were. It was a warm thought, yet also frightening. Somewhere at the back of Luke's mind there was always the danger of the dark side. His father was a great man, yet had somehow become a twisted, evil machine. And Luke himself had almost succumbed to it there in the throne room. What if next time he didn't have his father's love to pull him back? It worried Luke greatly. He planned to ask Anakin after his surgeries to help him to understand the dark side, and how to better fight it.
Anakin awoke with a strange feeling in his arms and legs. It took him a moment to remember where he was. He lifted his head and raised his right arm. There at the end of it was a new forearm and hand. He watched in amazement as he moved the fingers. "It works!" he said to himself.
"Incredible, isn't it?" said Luke, standing by the door. "I couldn't believe it when I got my hand, it felt and moved just like the real thing."
"Yes," said Anakin. "I can feel with it again. Do you think I can walk yet?"
"I'll call the med droid and find out," said Luke.
The med droid came in and examined Anakin. "The limbs seem to have attached nicely. It will be a little painful at first, but I encourage you to begin walking to aid the neuroreceptors in reconnecting and working as normal.
Anakin raised himself to a sitting position and swung his legs around. With an uncertain smile to Luke, he lowered himself down onto his feet. It took Anakin a moment to gain the correct balance on his new legs. Unlike the old ones, he could actually feel all the way to the ground. It was a peculiar sensation for one who had been numb for so long. He stepped forward much like a small child.
"This may take some getting used to," he said, gritting his teeth through the pain. He took a few more wobbly steps, then rested a moment. He got up and tried again, gaining a little more control. Anakin noticed a mirror over in the corner.
With all his strength, Anakin staggered towards the mirror. He finally made it, and stood and looked at his reflection.
"Oh my…" he said in awe. "I had forgotten…"
Anakin was twenty five years older than he had been when his face had been destroyed, but he still recognized himself. He was still the handsome man he once was, though now slightly more distinguished. He reached up and touched his sandy hair. "Hair," he said to himself, as though he'd never seen it before in his life. "Hands" he said in amazement, turning them back and forth. "I can feel again!" he said excitedly, touching everything.
He turned and grinned at Luke. "I'm back," he said. "I'm really back. All the reminders of Vader are gone. I'm me again."
"I knew you could do it," laughed Luke. "From the moment you told me 'I am your father' I knew you were in there, somewhere under that mask, buried somewhere in all the hatred and anger. I could see you somehow…an echo of Anakin Skywalker, who you really were. I've always known, I guess…everyone told me my father was dead but I always felt deep down that he wasn't. Now I can actually see you with my own eyes. Welcome back Father!"
"Come here you," said Anakin, pulling his son to him and giving him a bear hug. "I owe all of this to you. Thankyou my son."
"No problem," Luke patted his father on the back and laughed. "Let's go back and find the others. Perhaps Leia will accept you better, now that you look like a real person."
"We can only hope," said Anakin, a glimmer of hope in his eye.
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In the time Anakin and Luke had been gone, Leia had successfully set up office in the former Jedi temple and made it her base of operations. The Rebellion were slowly growing into a genuine government as they struggled to pull together the torn galaxy which had crumbled without the iron fist of Emperor Palpatine holding it together.
As Luke and Anakin entered Leia's office she had her back to them, communicating to someone via holoprojector and whoever the unfortunate person was, they were getting an earful.
"I told you I wanted them delivered yesterday. No, I don't want to hear excuses. I expect them on my desk by thirteen hundred. Well get moving."
"Leia's taking over the galaxy again," muttered Luke in amusement.
"It runs in the family," pointed out Anakin. Luke snickered.
"Leia, we're back!" he called. She turned and her face broke into a smile when she saw her brother. "Luke!" She ran toward him. "Have you finished your mysterious project?"
"Yeah," laughed Luke. Leia noticed the tall handsome man beside her brother.
"Hello Leia," Anakin nodded and smiled.
"Hello…I don't believe we've met before?" Leia put on her best diplomat smile and extended her hand.
Luke was trying not to smirk, unsuccessfully. "What's so fu…?" Leia looked at her brother and then back at Anakin. "Wait a minute…where's Vader?" Luke tried very hard to hold in his laugh but spluttered.
"Oh god." Leia immediately snatched back her hand. "It's you." Her smile vanished instantly.
"Wow," said Han, moving forward. "Now we know where you two have been hiding. Hey they really fixed you up pretty good there Vad…er, I mean, Anakin."
"This is how I looked…before," said Anakin. "I was a little younger then of course."
"It's still you," hissed Leia, her face a thundercloud. "This changes nothing. Don't think your pretty boy good looks are going to fool me. You may look different but you're the same person. You're still Darth Vader to me." She stormed from the room.
"Pretty boy?" said Han, staring after her.
Luke shrugged at Anakin. "Oh well. At least she liked you for the first three seconds. That's a start, right?"
Anakin sighed. "I don't think she's ever going to forgive me."
Luke put a hand on his shoulder. "It'll be okay father. She can't carry this hate forever."
Chewie growled a comment. "Master Chewbacca would like to ask you, why do you care so much what Mistress Leia thinks of you?" Threepio translated.
"She's my daughter," Anakin said simply, staring after her hopelessly.