The Falcon continues to travel through hyperspace, heading back towards what remains of the Rebel Alliance after the fight over Coruscant. Han and Chewie still mourn, while Anakin is heartbroken and still in denial.

"Um... Anakin? Ain't ya gonna eat?"

Anakin did not reply, still kneeling next to Luke's bed, obsessively smoothing his son's blanket. Occasionally he would coo at the forever sleeping form, treating the fallen son as if he were an infant.

Han stepped closer and tapped the older man's shoulder. The older man jumped in trepidation, then blocked himself in front of Luke's corpse, as if protecting his deceased son. Anakin only let out a sigh of relief when he realized it was Solo.

Han asked again; Anakin mumbled a quiet no. "I'm not hungry," he mumbled, turning back to his son in a slightly rude manner. Fatigue was evident on the former Sith's face. Soon, Luke's limp head was lolling in Anakin's one-armed cradle.

Han frowned, and dared himself to look at the body of his friend and brother-in-law. Though it still hurt to see Luke's lifeless form, he had to admit Anakin was taking care of his son's body to near perfection, though it was with a mindset addled with disbelief. He turned to look back at Anakin, who had set Luke's head down, and returned to smoothing out his son's blanket.

Han knelt next to Anakin and put a hand onto the elder man's shoulder. "Well, do ya think Luke's gonna want you to starve yourself?"

Anakin refocused himself on Solo, met his gaze with his devastated, unfocused eyes. At first, he was quiet in contemplation. Then he slowly shook his head. "No," he muttered. He turned his head back to Luke, his thin, cracked lips trembling in a quivery smile. "I don't want my baby to worry. I'll... I'll eat... Yes... I'll eat..."

Solo stood up and waited for Anakin to follow suit. However, Anakin had much difficulty pushing himself off the ground, perhaps, Han concluded, to his weakened body, added with age. He did not know how old his father-in-law was, but from his looks, he was on the road to soon becoming an elderly man. (Well, he was quite crinkled already, though perhaps that was from the stress of being the Empire's second-in-command.)

Solo helped Anakin stand, and together they staggered to the table. Anakin's metal feet skittered on the floor of the Falcon as he limped, and the man had trouble keeping up with Solo's pace.

Han slowed down.

It took a while for them to arrive at the table. Anakin winced as he saw the food, bile rising in his throat. However, Han didn't seem to notice his companion's reaction, and helped the older man settle down on a seat. Anakin swallowed at the panic that was building in his chest.

Han raised an eyebrow. "Well, whaddya waiting for?"

Anakin nodded and gulped down a little morsel but began to groan. Pretty soon he was clutching at his chest, his face scrunching up in agony. The man fell to the floor, gasping at the scarce oxygen flowing into his ruined lungs, trying to suppress the bare contents of his stomach from spewing out from his mouth-

On all threes, he desperately crawled towards the refresher-

Han heard Anakin's violent vomiting.

He made his way to the elder man's side, kneeling onto the floor next to Anakin, patting him on the shoulder, trying to ignore the small pool of undigested bits of food that lay nearby.

Wrinkling his nose at the putrid smell, Han asked, "Do you wanna try again?" A calloused hand squeezed the man's arm. Behind Han, Chewie roared, offering encouragement.

Despite Solo's efforts, all Anakin did was slowly turn his head away and hoarsely mutter something unintelligible. Shakily, he got up, and the hunched form began tottering towards where Luke and Leia rested.

Han seethed in frustration. Impatiently, he yelled, "Ya haven't slept an' ate for days! Look, we're all mournin', 'kay? Do ya think I don't care? She was my wife! What makes you-"

Anakin had already disappeared, and with his deafness, it was more than likely that the man hadn't heard Solo.

Han sighed, collecting himself from his outburst. Despite previous... feuds and mutual loathing, he was concerned for his father-in-law's rapidly deteriorating health.

Leia rested in her biological father's lap as the aging man tended to her infected hand. Anakin was sure his daughter was in terrible pain and had insisted on wrapping bacta patches over the wound. "There, sweetheart... is it better?"

Anakin was, to no surprise, met with silence. Leia's face was devoid of life.

With a shaking hand, Anakin brushed away a thread of oily brown hair from her face. Then his hand began running through her tangled weave, acting as a comb, stroking the messy strands with care. It was tedious work, as her sweat had dried and stuck the hair together, matting it down.

Solo approached Anakin, debating whether he should apologize for his earlier outburst. Closing his eyes, he refrained from looking at the corpse of his dead wife. Anakin did not acknowledge Solo as the man sat down next to him.

Another bandage was applied onto Leia's marred body.

"Anakin, we're running outta supplies. Could ya cease with all that stuff?"

Anakin did not respond.

Han felt that burst of sorrow once more as he mustered the courage to glance at his wife's cold body. She's... gone. Just like that.

"Anakin. She's not coming back."

Anakin shook his head, "my daughter's alive. She's simply quite tired. I do not want her to be in pain when she wakes."

"I said, SHE'S NOT COMING BACK!" Han fumed, tears threatening to trickle down from his reddened eyes. His breath came shakily as he lunged forward, trying to rescue her corpse away from her father's reach.

"NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO, SHE'S NOT COMING BACK!"

Carrying Leia in his arms, Han strode away from Anakin, his head bowed as he silently wept. Behind him, Anakin tried to chase Solo and save his daughter from her husband's wrath, but the frail man immediately collapsed to the floor when he tried to stand. The man moaned, trying to support himself with his single hand. His breathing wheezed and rattled, his lungs collapsing. Chewie came to Anakin's side, helping the man unsteadily rise from the ground.

"Chew-... Chewbacca... I must... tend... to my... my children..." Anakin panted, his voice faltering, his lungs screaming for air. Chewie howled in disagreement.

While wiping away the froth on his lips with his left arm stump, Anakin shook himself free from Chewie's grasp. Leaning on the wall, he gradually took a difficult step forward, then another. On his third step, his left leg gave out, and the man pathetically toppled to the floor. Crawling with his remaining limbs, the broken figure traveled towards the direction of where Luke and Leia lay, tears streaming down his grotesque face.

Anakin's words were no more than defeated mumbles. "Why are you so pale, darling? You must be ill... I'll take you to the medic, I'll take you to the medic..." He repeatedly patted his daughter's shoulder, then stroked her cheeks, the Force around him buzzing with unrequited affection. "My little Leia... it's going to be okay... I'll take you to the medic..."

The tears kept coming, running over the tracks where previous ones had dried.

"Could I braid your hair, my beautiful darling? You look even more angelic when your hair braided." Anakin paused, taking a heaving breath, letting out a raspy, choked chuckle. "Oh, my sweetheart, my priceless jewel, forgive me… it is not possible for you to be more angelic than you already are…"

With the silence of the small form in his arms, Anakin sighed. "Sweetie, I'll hush. I do not want to wake you from your slumber. I know you are exhausted. I hope you are resting comfortably... I'll make you some breakfast when you wake... I hope you will find your new braids adequate and fashionable, darling..." He bent down, brushing her forehead with his scarred lips, a smile forming on his ruined face, stretching his many unhealed wounds. He folded Leia's arms around his waist, pretending he was getting a hug. The exposed flesh on his face burned, and his eyes ached from no sleep, but for now, he was in a delusion, and he was happy, if only temporarily. He wanted to spend as much time with his children as possible.

The tears stopped rolling.

He wanted to stay in his delusion. In his delusion, the pain of losing his little ones, like countless daggers mercilessly stabbed into his heart, was gone.

Leia was lifted into an upright position. Trembling mechanical fingers carefully twirled her hair, turning the loose strands into a braid that his passed wife once wore. The braid when she walked into Watto's shop...

"Are you an angel?"

Her smile, her gleaming eyes... her lustrous body, that halo around her form...

He slowly shifted his barely functional eyes to gaze at his daughter, and whispered in her dead ears with a soft tone,

"Oh, little one... you're an angel..."

Anakin swore there was a slight twitch on her lips- he knew it was there...

But gone in such an instant-

What was she like as an infant? I was away... I had missed those precious moments... Her first words? Her first steps? I would never know, I would never see... I was the destruction of their lives, I am a fool, I am a damned murderer, I tortured her, I tortured her, I hurt her so much, I tortured her I tortured her I tortured her-

So guilty... So kriffin guilty...

Anakin closed his clouded eyes, enclosing himself in that peaceful, familiar, comforting darkness. There was only tranquility as he inhaled, trying to calm his irregular wheezing and ease his nagging remorse, but failing on the latter. He did not notice his son-in-law had sat down next to him until Solo spoke up. Solo's request was hushed and hitched.

"Could I... could I hold her? Just for a lil' while?"

Anakin nodded, marveling at the half-complete braid for a moment before gently lowering her lifeless body into her husband's arms. In a few moments, Luke was being cradled by his father like an infant. There was a noticeable smile on the old man's face, and Han was quite sure that somehow the former infamous Darth Vader was cooing at his 23-year-old son. When he looked closer, it seemed as if there was faked joy in those melancholic, hollow, weary blue eyes.

Leia rested in his arms, her entire body cold in death. Solo's fingers drew on her incomplete but nonetheless gorgeous braid, lingered there for a while, then moved down to caress her colorless cheeks. He remembered their arguments, their passionate kisses...

The late nights, her on his bed, clothes thrown to the side, her fingers tracing his chest...

His wife, vomiting for unknown reasons...

Their bliss as the doctors announced the wonderful news...

With tears stinging his eyes, Han spoke up. His somber voice crackling, he croaked, "ya know... Leia and I were expecting a-" He paused, unable to carry on. Grief overwhelmed the young man.

Anakin abruptly stopped from his cooing. The grin on his face had evaporated as desolation conquered the short-lived exhilaration in his eyes. With his voice in such low, grating rasps, Han could barely hear his disjointed words: "I... I could- could have- have be-been a... a g-grandfa-father?"

At first there were only sniffles as the elder man lowered Luke back onto the white sheets. Then the man, with his violently shaking arm, accidentally dislodged his breathing tube. His lungs collapsed alongside, and he fought for precious air, wheezing and wheezing and wheezing-

A coughing fit wracked through his body. His left leg spasmed. Remaining fingers began to twitch. Han heard something in the distance shatter, and its remnants falling onto the Falcon's ground. Objects surrounding the two began to tremble.

Anakin's head sagged to one side, his hand clutching his heaving chest as his breath shallowed more and more. His unfocused eyes were closed as tears streamed down his face. He gasped, the air refusing to flow into his scorched, dysfunctional lungs.

Han readjusted Anakin's breathing tube; Anakin tried to lift his arm and push the man away, but the metal was so heavy, too heavy...

The universe had collapsed onto his shattered heart, crushing the pitiful remnants into dust...

"Plea- please..." he spluttered, his body curling up, his face burying into his chest, "please, I beg- beg you... let me... let me die... please..."

Solo sighed. To Anakin's surprise, the man then wrapped an arm around his shoulders. Han could not help it- the sheer pain that surrounded the man was unbearable.

In Solo's comfort, Anakin completely broke down.


A/N.

I am perfectly aware that Anakin is currently around 45-46 years. :)

The people that have read my (terrible) one-shots (found on Wattpad) might point out that I sometimes described Anakin as an elderly man. That's because those one-shots take place years apart.

So... um... yeah. Thanks for reading.