The Millennium Falcon is soon arriving at the remnants of the Alliance fleet. While Han is slowly moving on with Chewie as emotional support, Anakin still refuses his children's deaths.
The world spun. He was so dizzy... everything whirled... his head was bursting, ticking on a timer for explosion...
He had collapsed to the ground, the shock coursing through his body, the world spinning faster for a few moments. He felt a rush of blood, pounding a harsh beat into his eardrums. But... but he could not feel any pain, he was so numb... And he had lay there, wheezing, his thoughts swimming in murky, thick water...
Hollow eyes stared up at Han Solo as the man attempted to help Anakin onto an empty bed. "You gotta eat somethin'," Anakin thought he heard Solo say. He wasn't sure- everything was so blurry, and those words that came from Solo's mouth seemed slurred and vague, blending into the chaotic, indistinct background. The callous lights of the Falcon radiated around the ship, burning into his eyes- reddened, strained eyes that swelled from days of grief. Yet the burning felt like nothing; maybe it was all that torture he had gone through in the past two decades.
He has tried to consume foods, but every attempt was a failure that resulted in regurgitation, or, more commonly, puking. It was a waste of effort to swallow the bile down; it was not worth the agony to eat in the first place. Nor could he rest; sleep was plagued with nightmares of the past and the horrors of his children's deaths. He refused to sleep, he couldn't sleep- sleeping brought unbearable pain, emotional pain that he, despite countless years of abuse, still could not endure. He knew his dear boy Luke would not be happy with his decisions, but surely, his son would understand his father's worry.
Luke! He had not tended to the young boy today yet. He had been lying on the floor, too weak and exhausted to get up, only staggering forward now with Solo's support. I-I must... go... see my son...
With as much force as he could muster, Anakin pushed Solo's support away. Anakin thought he heard a gasp and a refusal, but he wasn't sure. All he knew was that Luke must be lonely right now.
His son cannot be lonely unless he preferred temporary solitude. His son cannot be unhappy, unless if he wished to be. His son cannot be unloved and not cared for, unless if he desired so. His father would not allow him to be hurt.
Anakin instinctively blocked Han away with the Force, though his powers had waned from starvation and the effort was a struggle. Once he made sure Solo could not pass the barrier, at least until he got to Luke's room, Anakin staggered towards where his son awaited. Every breath, every footstep was a further toil; he wheezed from the exertion, his muscles aching from malnourishment.
"You know, you're probably not as strong as you used to be," Luke's worried voice echoed through his mind. There had been a frown on his beautiful, seemingly immature face. Yes... now he was even weaker than when he fell attempting to do a one-armed handstand.
Still, he stubbornly carried on towards his son's room, relishing the memories, chuckling in warmth and gratitude at Luke's concern for his father. It felt good to love, and it felt good to be loved, even if he was not worthy of such feelings from his Precious One.
It only took a few steps before Anakin collapsed to the floor once more. He took a shuddered breath, then propelled himself forward, determined to make it to Luke. Han stared wide-eyed, baffled at just how Anakin was doing all this.
Anakin's arm gave in, and his upper body smashed into the ground. His heard his chest rattle and he could feel the burning in his lungs. I... must...
Arm violently shaking, he propped himself back up, his chest heaving, his body on the verge of crumpling down. Luke...
A few centimeters. Another push forward. A few more centimeters. Wormlike, he inched towards Luke's bed, clawing at the floor, his mind knowing that his son must be lonely. Anakin grabbed onto the sheets once he reached the bed, and with great resolve, managed to lift himself next to Luke. His baby was asleep, his angelic face ever so peaceful. Gasping for breath, Anakin pulled his son close, and shakily cradled him like a newborn. Feeling Luke's cold body, Anakin closed his eyes and, with a smile, protectively wrapped his arms around his son and buried his forever beautiful face into his chest. The father's nose poked into Luke's hair, affectionately nuzzling and admiring it, and quivering fingers playfully pinched his pale cheeks. When he finally caught his breath, Anakin lovingly asked Luke, "Now, now... Who's the prettiest child in the galaxy?"
Oh, his son, his beautiful son...
Why was his body so cold? Why did he not smile when his father cuddled him? Why was there no spike of joy in the Force? Why was there no response to his father's infinite affection?
Why was his body so, so cold?
Luke's cold body, lying limp in his embrace.
Luke's dead body, his delightful face, set with no emotion, save the peace and silence of death.
Luke's luminous soul, his precious light, crushed underneath the Darkness; ruthlessly destroyed into shards, inhumanely scattered away like ashes and dust in the wind.
When he lifted the corpse from the pool of blood where it had rested, when his son's limbs dangled lifelessly, when he did not open his bubbling, infant-like, glossy blue eyes, when there was no naive grin on his colorless, cracked lips, it had hurt so much... so much...
And his darling Leia... Her corpse, lying in the same fashion, left to rot in that dark, clammy room.
Bile rose up his throat, threatening to spill out of his mouth. Nausea made the world twist and twirl, and he had to reach out with his stump to steady his quivering body. And the wretchedness came at him like tidal waves, flooding his heart, consuming his being...
Anakin brutally lurched forward, the last contents of his stomach spilling out onto the bedsheet. The appalling liquid snaked forward, touching the tips of a few strands of Luke's golden hair before his father could urgently push him towards safety from the acid. "I'm so s-sorry, Luke... I'm s-s-so, so s-sorry!" Frantically the man wiped away the small bits of puke with the clean part of the bedsheet. Throwing the sheet away from Luke once he was done, he brought his son's head into the warmth of his chest, smothering him with apologetic kisses.
"I'm so sorry..."
Stiffly, he knelt on the ground, staring at the hideous figure in the mirror. Though his face was washed and dried (he was sure that by now, his insides were going to spill out from his mouth), and the tears had mingled with the water and were wiped away, the blood-streaked eyes still gave evidence to his mourning.
He looked like a mess- a pathetic, sickening lump of mangled flesh.
His cheekbones were pronounced, and the pallid skin over his sunken, heavily scarred stomach was loose. If he could trust his useless eyes, he was sure that the elderly, downcast man in the mirror had paled by a few shades since the last time he observed his revolting facade. His body must be using muscle tissue for energy by now; he could not remember the last time a proper meal could slide down his miserable throat without his body retaliating with a puke and a coughing fit. It's... it's cannibalism to oneself, is it not? His grey, torn lips were the unhealthiest that the man has seen for... for a long time. Even in his past life as Vader, where daily he lived under pitiful conditions, he was usually in better shape than this. His melted ears sent loud ringing to bounce around his skull. Crusted, withered eyelids peeled away, leaning forwards, sagging like his shoulders. Fatigue made his ashen eyelids droop, and those damned blue eyes were more unfocused than ever. Anakin swore those pupils were looking in different directions; was that why everything seemed to come in collage-like pairs?
Yet no more did he care if his disappointing eyes collaborated or not. Inside, he was completely drained, too exhausted to think properly and act with logic. The painful, blinding lights of the ship would riddle his mind with confusion. Was he turning senile? He did not know. All he knew was that nearly all his sanity seemed to have escaped his hindered, agonized mind.
What did a decent meal taste like? He could not remember. He could not remember many good things. His memories have turned into nightmares; alongside, his mind was fading as his body handled infirmity in vain.
Sleep was dreadful. Constantly staying awake was better than the clear memories (unfortunately, they were the only vivid memories that he seemed to hold) of the deaths of his loved ones. Their voices would echo in his prison-like mind, screaming and pleading at him for salvation from their ultimate death...
The fires of the hellish Mustafar, where he saw her last...
Her divine body, limply falling to the ground...
It was his fault! He, the murderer of the woman he loved most, the destruction of her and himself. And... and...
And his children, his dear children... Taken from him in his cruel fate, snatched away without a word, not even a whisper. Gone, just like that. The golden, disheveled mop of hair that radiated in sunlight, that boyish smirk of amusement on his face whenever his father lamely attempted to crack a joke. His twinkling, innocent eyes, his bravery and stubbornness, his care for the man who did not deserve it.
Her thick, dazzling brown hair, flying around like charming ropes in the breezes of his dreams, and adorned like royalty in the holorecordings that he has seen. Her lustrous eyes, her rich, rosy lips. Her timid but firm stature, her commanding yet sweet and reassuring voice, her natural abilities as a magnificent leader; such resemblance that she bore to her brilliant mother.
He loved them with every fiber of his being.
The only joy left in his miserable life, so suddenly vanishing from him, being led into blackness and silence, put into their eternal rest.
He... he could have saved them! Had he... had he arrived faster to that desolate planet, had he been able to sense the danger, his children would still be safe! It's his fault! He should've known that his former Master, the one who had deceived him into all this kark, had one more trick up his sleeve!
If only Palpatine had been killed under his blade, all those years ago... If only he had been able to see through that wizened, ancient crook's deception...
If only.
He would've had such an utterly, drastically different life. His wife would still be alive and hopefully in good health, his wonderful twins – the best thing to ever happen to him – would still be waking up every day and breathing air and laughing and consuming food and water, and there would be no feuds, and he wouldn't've ever hurt them, and he would be happy, and they'd all be happy-
My fault!
He wanted to scream. He wanted to laugh. He wanted to drown himself in hysteria. He wanted to taunt at himself, he wanted to chuckle at his own misfortune. But his mind, his wretched mind, could not allow him so, would not allow him so. The weaponry stabbed into his heart, again and again, once with every unsteady breath. He was trying to cling on, so hopelessly, to the tiny shards, the near-invisible fragments of sanity that his mind somehow still held- and failing to do so.
Somehow, in his despair, there were warm hands wrapped around his back... was it... was it his dear wife? Had she come to take him to a better afterlife? Oh, when he was younger… how direly he had begged that she forgive him, that she does not condemn him to the Mustafar of the Afterlife for his misguided actions. When he was still submerged in the dark, when he could still withstand the agony of dreams, every night, in his few hours of rest, he had dreamt of being with her. Pleading, desperate crying for her, tears brimming his eyes as his anguished, disintegrating voice would croak in a futile attempt for his angel to come back.
Yet never would she satisfy his yearning; never would she return.
And unsurprisingly, the touch did not feel like her, not the softness, the smoothness, the gentleness and comfort of his deceased wife... Just... just the Smuggler, trying to offer consolation to him as he wept. He felt old, so old, his mind and body eroding away with age and lethargy, his bones grating and creaking and fracturing apart with every movement, his lungs refusing to function, his senses diminishing into oblivion...
So old, so heartbroken.
