Chapter Text

The medbay aboard the Redemption thrummed with the low hum of life-support systems and the faint vibration of the ship’s engines. Sterile air, sharp with antiseptic, clung to your skin, undercut by the subtle ozone buzz of medical droids gliding through their tasks. Your boots clicked against the durasteel deck, each step a counterpoint to the rhythm of your routine. A hot shower in your cramped quarters had burned away the fog of sleep, followed by a bitter gulp of caf in the mess, its aftertaste still sour on your tongue. You cradled a datapad under your cybernetic arm, its cool weight a familiar anchor as you scanned patient charts. CX-3, the ward’s ever-cheerful droid, whirred past, servos humming as it distributed breakfast trays with mechanical precision. The clink of metal on duraplast echoed faintly, blending with the murmured conversations of recovering soldiers.

The ward was quiet – too quiet. A few lacerations needed stitching, some plasma burns required salve, but nothing taxed your skills as the Rebellion’s premier cybernetics specialist. Empty beds lined the walls, waiting for the inevitable. You tried to ignore the knot twisting in your gut, tighter than usual, a premonition you couldn’t shake. High Command’s briefing haunted you: the second Death Star, nearly operational, orbiting Endor. Worse, the Emperor himself would soon oversee its completion - his first known whereabouts in years. The news had settled over the fleet like a shroud, heavy with unspoken fears. Those pristine beds would soon cradle the wounded, or worse, remain empty. You pushed the thought down, focusing on the present. In war, you clung to these fleeting lulls; they were the only shield against despair.

You were calibrating a neural interface for a patient’s prosthetic leg, fine-tuning the synaptic relays with a micro-tool, when a voice cut through your focus. “Hey, Doc. Got a minute?”

Your head snapped up, a smile tugging at your lips before you could stop it. Luke Skywalker leaned against the doorway, straw-blond hair tousled as if he’d just climbed from an X-wing’s cockpit. His sky-blue eyes carried that infuriating warmth, a light that pierced the frigate’s sterile gloom. Dressed completely in black, he radiated quiet confidence, softened by his boyishly radiant smile, that made your pulse quicken despite yourself. Was it his Jedi aura, or just… Luke? You’d wondered before, and the question never quite left you.

“Luke Skywalker,” you said, setting the datapad down with a playful arch of your brow. “Hero of Yavin, gracing my ward? I heard you’re just passing through on your way to Endor.”
His grin faltered, a shadow flickering across his face as his gaze dropped to the floor. Endor’s weight seemed to pull him somewhere distant, somewhere heavy. Guilt pricked you, you hadn’t meant to dim that light. Before you could backtrack, he met your eyes again, his smile returning, though it didn’t reach his eyes.

“Yeah, just passing through,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Sorry for dropping in unannounced, but… my hand’s acting up. Took a hit in training, and it’s sluggish - fingers aren’t responding right. I’d rather not head to Endor with it glitchy. Can’t see anything wrong, but…” A faint blush crept up his cheeks, and you bit back a grin. That sheepish charm was a weapon, and he wielded it well. You gestured toward the treatment room, already moving. “If cybernetics were that simple, I’d be out of a job, stitching cuts or slathering bacta. CX-3 would never forgive me for stealing its thunder. Come on.”

Luke followed, settling onto the exam table with an ease that spoke of familiarity. This wasn’t his first visit. You’d rebuilt his prosthetic hand after the crude model he’d arrived with - a stopgap from his duel with Darth Vader on Bespin. Limbs, whether flesh and blood or metal, and lightsabers don't mix well, and you’d patched his hand more than once. As you powered up the diagnostic scanner, its soft hum filling the room, you caught his gaze: distant, almost mournful. His body was here, but his mind was elsewhere - likely on Endor, or something deeper. To lighten the mood, you asked the question that had nagged at you for months.

“Can I ask you something?” you said, keeping your tone casual as you probed the hand’s neural connectors. He nodded, silent, so you pressed on. “Are you related to the Jedi General Anakin Skywalker? The ‘Hero with No Fear’ from the Clone Wars?”

His head jerked up, his expression unreadable - bittersweet, laced with nostalgia and a raw, unspoken pain. You’d been a child during the Clone Wars, but Anakin Skywalker’s legend loomed large. holonet broadcasts had crowned him the galaxy’s golden hero: daring, reckless, with blue eyes that captivated a generation. Your older sister had plastered her room with his holos, giggling over his exploits with her friends. When Luke joined the Rebellion - blond, blue-eyed, with the same surname, an unmatched talent for flying and wielding a lightsaber - the coincidence felt too stark to ignore.

Luke’s voice was barely above a whisper. “Yeah. He… I’m his son.”

Your hands stilled on the scanner, surprise flickering through you. “His son?” You ran the math. The Jedi had been eradicated over twenty years ago, around the Empire’s rise. Luke must have been born just before or after his father’s death.
“Ive never met him or see him in real or anything like that,” you said, resuming your work to mask your pause. “But the galaxy did. He was everywhere on the holonet. My sister is a few years older than me, full-time pubescent at the end of the Clone Wars. She had this life-size cardboard stand-up of him that she had put together herself from pictures on the holonet and printed out - first thing you saw when you walked in. Think she was half in love with him.” You smiled at the memory, a rare fragment of a childhood unscarred by war. Luke’s lips curved, but the sadness in his eyes deepened.

“Sounds like you saw more of him than I ever did,” he said softly.

The weight of his words sank into you. He’d never known his father, only inherited his legend, pieced together from strangers’ stories. He seemed lost in thought, so you reached for a screwdriver, shifting the mood. “Sorry,” you said, your voice gentle. “Fathers’ shadows can obscure the light.”

His eyes snapped to yours, curious. “You speak from experience? Famous father who was anything but a dad?”

You laughed bitterly as you focused on the screws. “Not famous, no. Not a Clone Wars hero. But my father’s an Imperial officer.” You glanced up, gauging his reaction to the confession that you are the daughter of an Imperial. Not many people know this about you. High Command as a matter of course, your closest friends, your coworker Jano and now Luke Skywalker. You smiled gently and continued, “You learn to live with that kind of legacy. At least your father was just a heroic Jedi, not serving evil incarnate.”

Luke’s body stiffened, his face paling as if struck. You checked the scanner, thinking you’d hit a nerve in his hand, but the readings were normal. His expression was… sickened, almost. You raised an eyebrow. “is everything okay?”

He nodded quickly, dragging his flesh hand over his face. “Yeah, sorry. Just… the stress of the last few weeks.”

You softened, brushing your hand over his arm, the warmth of his skin grounding. “Of course. I’m sorry this war seems to rest on your shoulders sometimes -Pilot, Jedi, Death Star destroyer, the only rebel to faced Vader in a duel and live. That’s a hell of a résumé for your age. But High Command shouldn’t forget you’re still just one man.”
He fell silent, and you thought he’d let the topic drop. But then he leaned forward, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “Well, would you go out with someone with that kind of résumé? I haven’t forgotten our last chat, Doc.”

Right, you had almost managed to suppress your last conversation with him. You’d talked about synthetic skin models for his prosthesis, and about why Leia was into a Show-off like Han Solo. You’d told him that Leia had always had... a rather peculiar taste in men. Though, to be fair, you probably shouldn’t have been one to talk. Just a few days earlier, you’d kicked out the last guy who’d been more than a one-night stand, after he’d shared his “vision of life,” which involved him becoming a famous starship designer while his wife stayed home to take care of the house and their three kids.
Maybe it hadn’t been very kind of you to laugh in his face. But the fact that a nearly forty-year-old guy, working as a ship mechanic for the Rebellion and having never designed anything in his life, dreamed of making it big while you were expected to give up your medical career to raise his brood - it was just too much not to laugh. And after a grand total of six weeks of “dating,” if you could even call it that. Things in bed hadn’t gone well either. Well… only for you. He had always seemed to get what he wanted - quickly and not exactly satisfying for you. So you didn’t exactly cry yourself to sleep after kicking him out of your life.

Yeah, during your last conversation with Luke, you’d been noticeably frustrated with the male species. And Luke had suggested that the two of you, apparently the only ones of your respective genders still in full possession of their faculties, should just go out with each other. You couldn’t shake the feeling that Leia had at least encouraged him to say that. And honestly? You found it unbearably sweet.

You grinned, matching his playful tone. “Luke Skywalker, aren’t I a bit old for you?”

Nearly a decade his senior, you found him undeniably attractive, but the age gap made anything serious feel… impractical. No one said, of course, that it had to be anything serious. But after your dating life had been one disappointment after another in recent years, you weren’t sure if you wanted any more “just for fun” liaisons… or megalomaniac ship designers who want to force you into patriarchy. So, the flirtation with the jedi was a welcome reprieve from war’s grind.

His blush deepened, but his grin held. “Is that a no? Not even for the guy who blew up the Death Star? Could be a noble act for the Rebellion.”

You laughed loud. He's got something, you have to give him that, “I’m a two-Death-Stars kind of girl. Take out this new one, and I’ll consider a date.”

His eyes sparkled. “Deal.”

You turned back to his hand, opening the access panel to inspect the internal components. The scanner had pinpointed the issue: a damaged servomotor in the index finger, likely from the training hit, causing sluggish response, and a misaligned neural relay disrupting signal clarity. You worked in silence, your movements precise as you replaced the servomotor with a spare from your kit and recalibrated the relay with a delicate adjustment tool. The faint whir of the motor resetting filled the room.
Luke’s gaze drifted, his eyes unfocused as he stared at the bulkhead. You’d seen him focused, playful, even haunted, but this… this was different. Your fingers paused on the relay, concern creeping in. He wasn’t just distracted - he was gone. You finished the repair, sealing the panel, but your eyes kept flicking to his face, searching for a sign of what pulled him away.

In the end, curiosity won out. “Your turn: what’s got you so distracted? You’re here, but your mind’s light-years away.” He was somewhere else entirely, and the weight of it pressed against your chest. Was it Endor? The Emperor? Or something deeper, tied to the Force you couldn’t begin to understand?

He hesitated, then sighed. “Endor. The mission. It’s bigger than anything we’ve faced. And I can’t shake the feeling I’m walking into something I might not walk out of.”
Bingo.
You wanted to promise he’d be fine, but the words felt hollow against war’s reality. You couldn’t promise him that. You just hoped that his feeling wouldn’t turn out to be a premonition that came true. The goal was so close... It couldn’t all have been for nothing. Luke couldn’t lose. What kind of Force would allow someone as kind-hearted and pure as him to lose against absolute evil?

But then you remembered: that’s not how the galaxy worked

Instead, you rested your prosthetic hand on his shoulder, its coolness steady against his warmth. “You’re Luke Skywalker. If anyone can come back, it’s you.”
He smiled, faint but real. “Thanks, Doc.”

You tested the hand’s functionality, satisfied with the smooth response of the fingers. The scanner’s hum faded as you powered it down. But Luke’s words lingered, a quiet prophecy. The second Death Star loomed, and with it, a reckoning you couldn’t yet name.

Chapter Text

“KriffKriffKriff.”

The sky above Endor burned with the burning colours of victory.  But even though he was partly responsible for it, he couldn’t bring himself to think even remotely positive thoughts. Panic was all that filled his mind.

 In the wide cockpit of a stolen Imperial shuttle, Luke Skywalker gripped the armrest, his knuckles blanched. Sweat matted his blond hair to his forehead, and his jaw clenched, every muscle coiled with a desperation that bordered on dread. The shuttle’s engines thrummed but they were drowned out by a sound that clawed at his nerves: the ragged, mechanical wheeze of a failing respirator from the med-bay behind him.

His father lay strapped to a stretcher, his towering frame overwhelming the narrow cot. His black suit was a non-functioning wreck; torn and ruptured where it had absorbed the Emperor’s deadly wrath.Luke had pried off the helmet to save him, exposing a scarred, ghostly scalp. With trembling hands, he’d secured a breathing mask over Vader’s face, its transparent plasteel fogging with each labored breath. The mask’s seal hissed faintly, a fragile barrier against death. The portable medical unit’s monitors flickered erratically, red warning lights pulsing like a heartbeat. Each beep was a countdown, each shallow breath a defiance of the inevitable. His father was dying, and Luke felt it in his bones: a tether fraying, a presence slipping through his fingers.

His trembling hand fumbled for the comm unit. A shrill, insistent beeping erupted from the unit’s control panel, the sound piercing the cockpit’s din; a medical alarm signaling critical failure. Luke’s heart lurched, his gaze snapping to the med-bay before he forced himself to focus. “Hey Doc,” he rasped, voice raw with exhaustion and urgency. “I’m calling in a favor.”

Your voice crackled through the static, calm but edged with alertness, slicing through the fog of his panic. “Skywalker. You sound like a Star Destroyer used you for target practice.”

A laugh broke from him, sharp and fleeting.. “Close enough. Let’s just say I did a thing. You know: blew up a Death Star. Again. Which means, technically, you owe me a date.”

A pause, and he could picture you: brow arched, lips twitching with that wry smile that always disarmed him. The shrill and alarming beeping echoed through the comm link. “Luke, if you destroyed that thing, you’re not supposed to still be on it.”

“Yeah,” he muttered, his gaze flicking to the med-bay’s dim glow, where the beeping persisted, a relentless reminder of time slipping away. “About that…” He switched to the auxiliary camera, angling it toward the stretcher. The grainy screen stuttered but held: a colossal figure in black armor, a scarred head partially obscured by a breathing mask, the respirator’s labored hiss cutting through the comm like a death knell.

Your voice sharpened, each word deliberate, as if testing the truth. “Luke. Is that…?”

“Yes,” he cut in, the weight of the revelation heavy on his tongue. “I need you, Doc. Now. He’s dying.”

There was no mistaking the steel in your response. “He better does. He’s fucking Darth Vader.”

“I know,” Luke whispered, his voice cracking under the strain. “And… he’s my father.”

The docking ramp of the Redemption was pure chaos. The Rebels had managed to storm the Executor and take it into custody after the Death Star had ceased issuing orders and could no longer be reached. But that also meant, conversely, a flood of wounded, many of them critically, who now arrived here or were on their way, in urgent need of help. Luke stumbled from the Imperial shuttle’s ramp, his face streaked with grime and sweat. Behind him, Vader’s stretcher hovered,  its repulsors stuttering under the weight. The sight of the Dark Lord, his suit of armour clearly recognisable, froze the support crew in place. Eyes widened, breaths hitched, and a wave of fear rippled through the hangar.

“Is that-?”

“Darth Vader?!”

“He’s alive?”

“How did you manage that, Skywalker?”

“Take the shot!”

Blasters snapped up, barrels trembling in the hands of soldiers whose courage buckled under his father’s  legend. Luke lurched forward, planting himself between his father and the crowd. “Stand down!” he roared, the words reverberating through the bay, a shield of will holding the chaos at bay. “He’s no threat. He can’t even move.”

“Stand down?!” a crew member bellowed, his blaster shaking, eyes wild with fury. “That’s the Emperor’s butcher! He’s killed thousands - our friends, our families!”

Luke’s eyes blazed, unyielding, his voice steady despite the tremor in his hands. “And if we kill him here, now, we’re no better than the Empire we swore to destroy.”

The moment hung on a razor’s edge, blasters still raised, fear and rage crackling like static. Then you arrived.

You’d barely had time to throw on your medcoat, its hem flapping as you sprinted from the ward, one glove half-on, your datapad clutched under your arm. Your hair was a hasty knot, strands escaping as you shoved through the crowd. The alert had come minutes ago: Skywalker has returned. Medical emergency on board. Unknown critical patient.

Unknown? your ass.

The moment you broke through the throng, you stopped dead, your breath snagging in your throat.

Even near death, Darth Vader was unmistakable. His armor, scorched and fractured, still loomed like a specter of annihilation. The breathing mask, fogged with each shallow exhale, clung to his scarred face, its seals hissing faintly. The portable respirator sputtered, each labored breath a groan of failing machinery, punctuated by the unit’s incessant beeping. His exposed skin was deathly pale, a canvas of burns and scars that spoke of decades of torment. But it was Luke’s face that struck you hardest: his eyes, raw with a son’s desperation, pleading not as the Rebellion’s hero but as a son fighting to save his dad.

“Make way!” you barked, your voice cutting through the din. “You - yes, you with the blaster - lower it now, or I’ll use it to give you a new cybernetic jaw.” The man blinked, stunned, and complied, his weapon dropping. The crowd parted, their murmurs fading under the weight of your presence.

You dropped to one knee beside the stretcher, your scanner humming to life as you assessed the damage. The readings were a medic’s nightmare: collapsed lung, third-degree burns caused by surges of electricity, severe internal bleeding, and a neural interface teetering on catastrophic failure. His cybernetic limbs were fried, their circuits fused by electrical surges. The medical unit was a threadbare lifeline, and the breathing mask’s respirator was minutes from collapse. Yet, impossibly, he clung to life.

“You know, ordinary guys bring flowers or wine to the first date. You’re bringing me the worst case in the galaxy ” you muttered to Luke, your voice low, meant for him alone.

He managed a ghost of a smile, exhaustion carved into every line of his face. “I thought you would like a challenge.”

“Not when they come with a rap sheet longer than their own damn flagship,” you shot back, but your hands were already moving, deft and precise. You adjusted the breathing mask’s oxygen flow, stabilizing it for now, and silenced the unit’s piercing alarm with a quick recalibration. The pulse monitor Luke had rigged,  a crude but ingenious setup, held steady. “Nice work keeping him alive this long. Didn’t know you moonlighted as a med-tech.”

“Had to learn fast,” Luke said, his voice strained, eyes never leaving his father’s still form.

You didn’t look up, your focus locked on the scanner’s grim data. A tech behind you whispered, disbelief thick in her voice, “You’re really going to help him?”

Your jaw tightened, but your tone was iron. "I took an oath. I don’t choose my patients, I save them. And if you actually did your damn job instead of just staring, you'd see that there are plenty of Imperials, right now coming in and getting our help. Because we're not the Empire." You turned to the med-droids, your orders sharp and unyielding. “Triage room three. Prepare for full emergency surgery and respiratory override. Get the neuroregenerator online - now! And someone fetch the cybernetic interface kit with the saw from my lab; I fear we need to rebuild half his systems from the ground up. But first, I need to know exactly what we’re dealing with here."

The droids whirred into motion, their servos humming as they guided the stretcher toward the bay. You glanced at Luke, who hadn’t moved, his gaze fixed on his father’s broken form. “You’re with me,” you said, softer now, your voice a tether to pull him from the edge. “I might need your Force to hold him down. The emergency ward is completely overwhelmed right now, which means we’ll be on our own for now... I hope you’ve got a strong stomach.”

Luke nodded, his expression resolute despite the tremor in his hands. “Thank you, Doc.”

You raised your hand and shook your head. "No premature thank-yous, Skywalker. That brings bad luck. And judging by the first scan of your father, that's the last thing he needs right now."

The race to save Darth Vader began. A battle against time, biology, and the weight of a galaxy’s sins.

But yes: you like challenges .

Chapter Text

Emergencies had never been your specialty. They were different from cybernetics in every possible way: loud, chaotic, crushing under time pressure.

But the moment you stepped into the emergency OR, your medical instincts kicked in. “Seal the room! Full sterilization, vitals on the holo, surgical trays at both ends. He’s on life support, set up a manual respiratory override, now!” The droids whirred into motion, their servos clicking as the table hissed open, mechanical arms locking Vader’s stretcher in place. With a groan of durasteel, his massive body settled.

“Vitals incoming,” CX-3 announced, its photoreceptors glowing as it synced with the monitors.

You glanced at the holo-display, and your breath caught, sharp and cold. “SpO2 at 34%. Blood oxygenation critical. Pulse… erratic, arrhythmic with prolonged pauses. Secondary systems are compensating, but they’re failing.” You swept your scanner over Vader’s frame, each layer of the readout peeling back a new layer of horror. “All four limbs are prosthetics, full replacements, upper and lower. The connection points are… catastrophic. Necrotic tissue, fused with the cybernetics. This is….”

Luke, at your shoulder and flinched, his face ashen. His eyes, usually so bright, were shadowed with something raw: grief or recognition. You spared him a glance, your voice clinical, though it trembled at the edges. “The prosthetics are crude, high-voltage neural fusions. Whoever did this didn’t care about longevity or comfort. They’re bolted into bone, wired into nerves that are barely functional. And there’s worse.”

You angled the scanner toward Vader’s chest, the holo weaving a grotesque map of his ravaged interior. “Lungs are necrotized, collapsed into a fibrous mass. No diaphragm, no bronchial tissue. His breathing is entirely mechanical.” Your voice tightened as you traced the scan upward, following the line of fused vertebrae. “His spine’s artificial, durasteel struts bolted into the cranial base. Implants in his brain. Surgical ports at the skull, behind the eyes. This armor isn’t just life support; it’s wired into his nervous system. It’s keeping him alive, but it’s trapping him. And killing him. Slowly, considering how long he's been in there.” The black behemoth had been spreading fear and terror among the rebellion for more 20 years. You couldn't even begin to imagine what it must have been like to live in this abnormality for that long.

Luke’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “If we remove it…”

“He possibly dies,” you said, grim. “And if we don’t... electrical burns, internal strain, organ failure: he dies anyway.” You stared down at Vader, his armor a scorched carapace, fused with flesh in a grotesque mockery of life. Beneath the ruin, there was a man, and Luke’s quiet desperation to save him anchored you against the weight of what you were about to do.

You straightened, your voice sharp. “I need the rotary micro-saw, magnetic clamps, and a neuro-stabilizer syringe prepped. The connections both here and there suggest that there must be an assistance system somewhere that can remove the suit. But by the time we've cracked it, he'll be long dead. …So I would say: We’re opening the suit ourselves.” You turned to the droids, your orders unyielding. “Lock down the grav-field. If he twitches, I want him pinned.”

Luke’s hand grazed your arm, his touch hesitant. “Doc, are you sure? The suit’s - ”

“No choice,” you cut in, meeting his gaze. “I’m the best shot he’s got at the moment. You keep the Force ready in case he wakes. We can’t afford mistakes.”

He nodded, stepping back, his hands flexing as if summoning the Force to steady himself. The bay grew quiet, the only sounds the rhythmic beep of monitors and the faint hiss of Vader’s breathing mask.  You positioned yourself at his side, gripping the micro-saw with your cybernetic hand, its whine rising as you adjusted the blade’s depth.

You took a breath, steadying yourself, and made the first incision at the collar joint. The blade bit into fused metal, sparks spraying like miniature comets. The suit resisted, its durasteel alloy denser than anything you’d encountered, but you leaned in, guiding the saw with precision honed from years of cybernetic surgery. The monitors held steady - barely. SpO2 crept up to 36%, pulse still erratic but present. You exhaled, focusing on the chest plate, where the electrical burns were worst, the armor melded with flesh in a grotesque fusion.

It took what felt like an eternity, with sweat pouring down your forehead and blurring your vision, but you finally managed it: the breastplate was open along the length of his torso. You breathed a sigh of relief and laid the saw down.Now the sawed-open breastplate just had to come off. Shouldn’t be too hard. Just pretend it’s your usual routine - getting into the Emperor’s enforcer’s pants. Or, you know… his suit.

You slipped your fingers beneath the edge of the piece you'd just sawed open, ready to lift it. But something was wrong. The breastplate didn’t come free; it moved only a few millimetres before catching on something… stuck from the inside? Your face drained of color as the realization struck - just a moment too late.

Suddenly, all hell broke loose. The monitors screamed a shrill alarm as Vader’s body convulsed. The table groaned under his weight, the grav-field flickering. His chest heaved, the breathing mask fogging rapidly. His eyes snapped open – blue, molten, devoid of reason, burning with a primal fury that stopped your heart. A guttural growl rumbled from his throat, and the air thickened, a force coiling around you like a noose.

Before you could react, an invisible grip seized your throat, crushing your windpipe. Your feet lifted from the floor, the saw clattering onto the table before being swept off by your reflexive, kicking legs. The Force, raw,  and unrelenting, poured from Vader a violent instinct flaring in the wake of pain or terror. Or simply a defence mechanism against anyone who tried to rip out his suit and organs. From that perspective, you almost couldn’t blame him. But only almost. 

Your vision blurred, spots dancing as your lungs burned for air. The monitors wailed, vitals spiking into chaos.

“Father, stop!” Luke shouted, lunging forward, his hands outstretched. The air shimmered as he pushed back with the Force, a desperate counter to Vader’s chokehold. Sweat beaded on his brow, his face contorted with effort. Vader’s power, even in this broken state, was a tidal wave, overwhelming Luke’s resistance, but his Force push clawed at the edges of the invisible grip, loosening it just enough for a ragged breath to scrape through your throat. Your hands scrabbled at your neck, your cybernetic fingers still useless against the crushing vise, but the slight give let you move, let you think.

Panic surged, but your training held. Your eyes darted to the surgical tray, spotting the neuro-stabilizer syringe; enough sedative to drop a rancor. With a choked gasp, you lunged, your fingers trembling as they closed around the syringe, vision swimming with dark spots. You plunged it into the port at Vader’s neck, your thumb slamming the plunger with every ounce of strength left. “Stay down,” you rasped, voice barely audible over the roar of blood in your ears.

His body slumped back against the table. The crushing grip of the Force vanished, and you collapsed to the floor, choking on air, your throat raw and burning. Luke staggered, catching himself on the edge of the table, his breath ragged and uneven. The droids’ alarmed beeps filled the silence, but your focus was on the monitors. The vitals flatlined - no pulse, no respiration. The breathing mask stilled, its fog no longer spreading.

“No, no, no,” you hissed, scrambling to your feet. “You’re not getting away that easily, you bastard. Cx-3, defibrillator to 200, now.”

Cx-3 extended its integrated emergency paddles and pressed them against the partially opened suit, its photoreceptors flicking toward Luke. “Organic lifeforms,” it said calmly, “please remove any limbs from the table or the patient.”

In a panic, Luke yanked his hand back.

“Clear!”

The shock jolted his body, the table rattling, but the monitors stayed flat. Luke’s voice broke behind you, raw with desperation. “Doc, please…”

Cx-3 was preparing to deliver a second shock when a sudden whir rose from deep within the suit.A concealed panel on the chestplate pulsed, glowing faintly as a low electrical hum vibrated through the air.

Then…The monitors flickered to life. A faint, erratic pulse. Another. Then a slow, steady rhythm. The breathing mask hissed, rebooting with a soft exhale, and fog crept once more across the inside of the visor. You froze, eyes locked on the holo-display. Vader’s vitals were stabilizing: still weak, but steady. Still alive.

You exhaled, your voice unsteady. “The interface… it has its own defibrillator. Military-grade. Integrated straight into the core.”

You shook your head, still staring at the readouts.“I’ve seen ICDs before…but this? This is something else. This entire construct… it autonomously controls everything: his breathing, his vitals, his heartbeat. Built to drag him back from death itself.”

You slumped back, your breath hitching. “We’re not done.” You turned to the droids, your orders crisp despite the adrenaline flooding your veins. “Recalibrate the grav-field. I’m resuming the suit extraction, but the interface stays connected for now. I need to study its functions, find a bypass. Prep a second sedative syringe and keep the neuroregenerator on standby.”

You proceeded with the extraction, each cut a delicate dance to avoid disturbing the interface that pulsed like a malevolent heart at Vader’s core. The remaining armor yielded reluctantly, its blackened durasteel peeling back in jagged shards that screeched against the blade, revealing a tableau of horrors beneath. The flesh exposed was not merely fused to metal but seemed to have grown into it, a grotesque amalgamation where skin, scorched and leathery, merged seamlessly with plasteel plates, the boundaries blurred by a lattice of scar tissue.  You noticed with a chill that the majority of his body bore the hallmarks of severe burn injuries, haphazardly patched with synthetic skin grafts that had long since failed. The synthskin, poorly applied and inadequately maintained, had deteriorated into a patchwork of necrosis, black and gray patches weeping a foul, viscous fluid that reeked of decay and chemical rot, exacerbating the infections festering beneath.

Capillaries, inflamed and distended, snaked across the surface, pulsing weakly, some ruptured and oozing a viscous, dark fluid that smelled of rot and burnt circuitry. Nerves, raw and exposed, were threaded with hair-thin wires that sparked intermittently, as if protesting each incision. These neural filaments, crudely spliced into the suit’s circuitry, twitched with every vibration of the saw, sending faint tremors through Vader’s unconscious form. You traced one wire with the scanner, bile rising as the holo revealed it burrowing deep into a nerve cluster, its insulation frayed, exposing the nerve to constant, low-grade electrical shocks. You felt sick.

Bones, where visible, were a sickly yellow, drilled through with anchoring bolts that anchored the prosthetics and armor. These bolts, rusted and pitted, wept a steady trickle of pus, the infection so entrenched that the surrounding tissue had blackened, sloughing off in wet, putrid clumps when brushed by the surgical tools. Each bolt was sunk into marrow, the bone itself cracked from the strain, held together only by the suit’s unyielding grip.

 The interface, left untouched, was a web of plasteel tendrils that pierced his heart, liver, and intestines, each tendril tipped with micro-sensors that pulsed in sync with his faltering vitals. You zoomed the scanner in, and the holo showed the heart itself - encased in a cage of synthflesh and metal, its muscle tissue riddled with micro-tears from the constant pressure of the interface’s grip. Tubes, slick with bile, snaked from his stomach and intestines, diverting waste into a filtration system embedded in the suit, but the seals were corroded, leaking a foul, greenish fluid that pooled in the abdominal cavity, fostering a slow, relentless infection.

The lungs, or what remained of them, were a collapsed mass of necrotic tissue, artificially inflated by the suit’s bellows, each mechanical breath forcing air through passages clogged with scar tissue and fluid, a process so inefficient it was a miracle he breathed at all. You paused, your cybernetic hand trembling as you adjusted the scanner, mapping the interface’s connections. To remove it now would be to tear out his organs, to unravel the fragile thread keeping him alive. You needed time -time to decipher this cruel machine, to find a way to bypass its grip without killing the man.

As the droids whirred back to work, you glanced at Luke. His face was ashen, his eyes fixed on his father, a storm of fear and hope swirling in their depths. You couldn't bring yourself to take away that spark of hope with the results you had just obtained. In all your years in medicine, you’d never seen anything this extreme… and never in someone who still had a pulse.

 You caught his gaze, your voice dry but deliberate. “You win.”

He looked up, confusion flickering across his face. “What?”

You continued, wiping sweat from your brow with the back of your hand. “Our little contest about who has the worse father. You’ve clearly won - by a long shot.”

Luke’s lips twitched, a ghost of a smile breaking through his exhaustion. “Not sure I wanted to win that one.”

You snorted, returning to the monitors, your hands already moving to stabilize Vader’s oxygen flow. “Too late, Skywalker. You’re stuck with the title.”

But despite your dry remarks to lighten the situation, one thought wouldn’t leave your mind. You didn’t say it out loud, but...

No one deserves this level of medical torture that you continued to reveal with every cut and every scan, not even Darth Vader in your opinion. This wasn’t oversight. It was deliberate. Meticulously planned and designed.

You couldn't imagine for the life of you that the Empire would go to such lengths to punish or torture a single enemy. This took effort. Engineering. Intention. There were simpler methods that required much less effort.

But Vader wasn’t an enemy.

He was second-in-command.

So why… why would they do this to him?

Chapter Text

If someone had told you a week ago that after the final battle over Endor, after the emperor had finally been destroyed, you’d be treating only one patient in the critical hours that followed, you probably would’ve laughed in their face. 
And if that same person had gone on to say that this patient, despite having 
- all four limbs replaced by prosthetics fused to necrotic and infected tissue, 
- third-degree electrical burns, 
- severe internal bleeding, 
- and a neural interface controlling virtually everything, heartbeat, vitals, respiration, on the brink of catastrophic failure; 
- with a heart so overstrained it could give out at any moment,
- lungs reduced to rotting masses; 
- a spine reconstructed from durasteel struts; with infections festering and oozing pus from rusted bone anchors; 
- a gastrointestinal tract atrophied from decades of toxic intravenous nutrition,  
- with an oxygen saturation barely scraping the 40% mark, 
- a systolic blood pressure in the basement at 48 mmHg, 
- a lactate level of 22 mmol/l, 
- and a respiratory rate that is barely measurable, 
would not only still be alive, but none other than Darth Vader  AND Luke Skywalker’s father - you probably would’ve had them institutionalized for a full-blown psychotic episode.

Yet here you were, in the one of the main emergency operating theater, standing over the galaxy’s most feared man, your cybernetic hand steady despite the storm in your chest. The sterile glow of the med bay cast harsh shadows across Vader’s broken form, his body a grotesque tapestry of flesh and metal laid bare by your earlier incisions. The suit, or what remained of it, lay in jagged, blackened shards around the table, its durasteel husk peeled back to reveal a man ravaged by decades of torment. The interface, that cruel web of plasteel and circuitry at his chest, pulsed faintly. Above him, the suit’s critical systems - respirator, filtration units, and neural relays - hung suspended on reinforced cables, swaying like a grim mobile. Their faint hum was a lifeline, keeping his organs functioning while you fought to save a man who, by all rights, should have been dead long ago.

Luke stood at your shoulder, his face ashen, his blue eyes locked on his father. The monitors beeped erratically, their holo-displays painting a dire picture: SpO2 still teetering at 40%, pulse arrhythmic, blood pressure barely holding. The lungs, those collapsed, necrotic masses, were a ticking bomb, their artificial inflation via the suit’s bellows growing less effective by the minute. The interface itself was fraying, its circuits sparking intermittently, threatening to give out entirely. You’d stabilized him for now, but “stable” was a generous term for a man whose body was a patchwork of medical atrocities.
Your hands moved with precision, adjusting the oxygen flow to the breathing mask strapped to Vader’s scarred face. The mask’s plasteel fogged with each laboured exhale, its seals hissing faintly. You’d removed most of the suit’s armor, cutting away the chest plate, pauldrons, and greaves with the rotary micro-saw, each incision a battle against durasteel and fused flesh. The prosthetics were your next target, their charred connectors and necrotic tissue a breeding ground for infections that could kill almost as fast as his failing lungs. 

Luke’s voice broke the silence, hesitant but curious. “Doc… all this…,” he said, gesturing to the cables and humming devices overhead. “Is it really necessary? What’s it all doing?”

You didn’t look up, your focus locked on the scanner as you mapped the neural connections in Vader’s right arm prosthetic. “I know, it looks horrible, but if I unplugged any of this, he’d be dead before you could blink.” You pointed to the respirator unit, its bellows pulsing rhythmically. “That’s forcing air into what’s left of his lungs. Without it, they collapse completely and permanently. The neural relays,” you tapped a bundle of sparking wires tethered to the interface, “are keeping his brain talking to his prosthetics and organs. If they fail, his nervous system shuts down. And that would be catastrophic. If it goes down for too long, his neural connections will begin to die. Rebuilding them, if even possible, would be unimaginably complex and labour-intensive. And that defibrillator in the interface?” You nodded to the glowing core at Vader’s chest. “built to shock his heart back if it stops. It saved him once already when he flatlined. If he crashes again, it’ll hopefully try to bring him back.”

Luke’s brow furrowed, his gaze flicking to the interface’s glowing core. “And that… thing on his chest… does it have to stay there?”

You exhaled, your voice grim. “That’s the heart of it all. Literally. It’s a life-support computer, wired directly into his heart, lungs, and intestines. It controls his vitals, his breathing, even his heartbeat. The tendrils are embedded so deep, removing them would tear out his organs. And it’s failing. The circuits are degraded, sparking out. We’re on borrowed time. So, to answer your question: For the moment, yes. But if he survives this, it will have to be bypassed and removed sooner or later. Whatever caused the electrical burns fried it pretty badly.”

He stared at his father’s ravaged body, unblinking, as if he could will it back to life through sheer force of will.

“That was the emperor,” Luke murmured, his voice barely above a whisper, heavy with remorse. His gaze remained fixed on the interface, its tendrils snaking into Vader’s chest like a parasite. “He used Force lightning on me. It… electrified me. The pain was,” He swallowed hard, his throat bobbing. “unbearable. I begged him to help me. That’s when… something in him shifted. He came back. He lifted the emperor and hurled him into the reactor shaft. Took the full surge himself. That’s what caused the overload in his system.”

The weight of his words settled over you, a shroud of guilt that seemed to age him beyond his years. In the med bay’s harsh light, Luke looked impossibly young: boyish, vulnerable, his blond hair matted with sweat, his eyes pleading for absolution. You wanted to lift that burden, to shield him from the galaxy’s cruelty, but words felt inadequate against the truth of what lay before you.

Your hands paused over the scanner, its holo-display flickering with grim data. “Luke,” you said softly, your voice cutting through the theater’s sterile silence. “He did what any father would. Well, any dad who doesn’t commit galactic genocide on the clock might’ve acted sooner, sure. But still: protecting your child is the most natural thing in the galaxy. And honestly, it’s probably the best thing he’s done in the last twenty years. Maybe even in his entire life. Hold onto that.“ 

Luke’s response was a distracted nod, a faint “Mhm” that carried no conviction, his eyes still locked on his father’s still form.

You set the scanner down, your cybernetic hand steady despite the ache in your chest. “Hey. Look at me.”

His head snapped up, those exhausted, desperate blue eyes meeting yours. In them, you saw the saviour complex that defined him: a Jedi’s heart, boundless and breakable, forever reaching for redemption, even at his own cost. It made him extraordinary, but it also left him open to the galaxy’s sharp edges, to manipulation, to pain. If you could, you’d armor that heart against every wound it didn’t deserve.

“The lightning made things worse, no question,” you said, your voice firm but gentle. “It fried circuits, deepened the burns. But it didn’t cause this. His condition was already a death sentence; palliative, if we’re being clinical. The organ failure, the infections, the necrosis… these are the scars of decades. Neglect, malpractice, torture. If he weren’t here, under our care, he’d be gone in days. Weeks, at most. Maybe months, if he’s as stubborn as you are.”

And yet, a quiet part of you wondered: How long has he endured this decay? By every medical metric, Vader should’ve died years ago. His survival defied logic, you didn’t voice that thought. 

Luke nodded again, this time with a flicker of resolve, though his gaze drifted back to his father, drawn like a moth to a dying flame.
You turned back to your work, adjusting the scanner to map the interface’s connections, its tendrils glowing erratically. He was silent for a long moment. For several minutes, you worked in silence, the only sounds were the soft hums and beeps of the monitors and the equipment you and the droids were using to fulfil your tasks. Then, something else seemed to catch his attention, and you were relieved that his focus was shifting back to practical matters - away from the ethical dilemmas that had no satisfying answers.

“What about… sustenance? Food, water? With the suit, the mask… how did he eat? He must need something, right?”
You shook your head, your scanner now tracing the gastrointestinal tract, its holo revealing a stomach and intestines so atrophied they were barely recognizable. “He hasn’t eaten solid food in…,well probably not since the suit was put on him. Twenty years, maybe more. The suit’s been pumping intravenous nutrition through this.” You pointed to a thin tube snaking from the interface, its contents a sickly yellow. “It’s a high-calorie, high-protein slurry, but it’s toxic long-term. His liver’s riddled with fibrosis from it, scar tissue building up, shutting it down. The kidneys aren’t much better. His body’s been running on this junk for so long, it’s a miracle he’s not in total organ failure.”

You saw the horror on his face. He clearly wasn’t used to the kind of horror medicine sometimes revealed. Softening your tone, you continued with your explanations. “The suit’s designed to keep him alive, not healthy. Whoever built this didn’t care about quality of life. Just function. And the medications…” You adjusted the scanner, pulling up a chemical analysis of the fluids coursing through the interface’s ports. “He’s on a cocktail of stimulants, painkillers, and anti-inflammatories, but I can’t tell the exact compounds yet. The delivery system’s encrypted, and the dosages are erratic. Too much, and it’ll fry his system; too little, and the pain alone could kill him. I need to decode it before we adjust anything.”

You turned to the right arm prosthetic, preparing to remove it; a procedure that demanded precision to avoid further damage to his already compromised system. The prosthetic was a hulking mass of scorched durasteel, its servomotors fried and its outer casing cracked from electrical surges. The connection point at the upper arm was a nightmare: blackened synthetic skin had fused with the metal, forming a grotesque seam that wept pus and viscous, dark fluid. The smell hit you like a physical blow: rotting flesh mixed with the acrid tang of burnt circuitry.
You began by sterilizing the area, spraying a high-potency antiseptic that hissed as it met the infected tissue. The scanner’s holo-display mapped the neural connectors: a tangle of hair-thin wires spliced into nerve clusters, their insulation frayed, sparking faintly with each of his  shallow breaths. The bone anchor, a rusted durasteel bolt sunk into the humerus, was surrounded by blackened, necrotic tissue, the infection so entrenched it had spread into the marrow. You’d need to remove the prosthetic, clean the site, and treat the infection before it spread further.

“CX-3, hand me the neural decoupler and the cauterizer,” you ordered, your voice steady despite the bile rising in your throat. The droid whirred, its servos clicking as it extended the tools. You started with the neural connectors, using the decouple to sever the wires from the nerve clusters. Each wire required a precise cut to avoid triggering a feedback surge that could fry his  nervous system. Fortunately for him, your cybernetic hand moved with inhuman accuracy as you disconnected the first wire, then the second, each one sparking faintly as it came free. The holo-display showed the neural signals stabilizing, but the readings were still erratic.
Next, you tackled the synthetic skin on his upper arm, using a scalpel to peel back the blackened, leathery layer. It came away in wet, stringy clumps, revealing inflamed capillaries and oozing sores. The smell worsened, and you adjusted your breathing to short, shallow inhales through your mouth, focusing on the task. With the skin cleared, you exposed the bone anchor: a pitted, rusted bolt that had fused with the surrounding tissue. You switched to the micro-saw, its high-pitched whine filling the room as you cut around the bolt, carving through necrotic bone and scar tissue. Sparks flew as the blade met metal, and you adjusted the depth to avoid damaging the underlying muscle.

The bolt came free with a sickening crunch, trailing strands of blackened tissue. The remaining stump was a mess: inflamed muscle, ruptured capillaries, and a steady trickle of pus. You cauterized the bleeding vessels. The holo-display showed the infection markers dropping slightly, but the risk of sepsis remained high. You instruct CX-3 to monitor it closely and to start systemic antibiotic therapy immediately.

Luke, still watching, looked increasingly unwell. His face had taken on a greenish hue, his breath shallow as he watched you peel back layers of horror. “Doc,” he said, his voice strained, “is it… okay if I step out? Just for a minute. Need some air.”

You glanced at him, noting the sweat beading on his forehead. “Go,” you said, not unkindly. “You’ve seen enough for one day. I’ve got this.”
He nodded, gratitude flickering in his eyes, and slipped out of the theater, the door hissing shut behind him. You didn’t blame him. Even for a med, this was a lot.
---
The corridor outside the operating theater was a sharp blast of cool air against Luke’s sweat-slicked skin. He sagged against the durasteel wall, knees trembling, fighting the nausea clawing at his throat. The stench clung to him; a sickening cocktail of rot, chemicals, and scorched metal, but it was the sight that seared his mind: his father’s body, a grotesque ruin of flesh and steel, its bone anchor dripping pus, necrotic tissue peeling away in blackened clumps. The horror of it overwhelmed him, a visceral assault he couldn’t unsee.

How had it come to this? Why had no one intervened? How had his father, Anakin Skywalker, the Hero with No Fear, become… this?

A shout snapped him out of his thoughts. “Luke!”

He opened his eyes to see Han striding toward him, Leia at his side, her face a mask of worry and frustration. Chewbacca loomed behind them, while R2-D2 and C-3PO trailed at a slower pace, the droid’s golden arms flailing as he muttered about “reckless behaviour.” 

Luke straightened, forcing a weak smile, but his friends weren’t buying it.

“Where the hell’ve you been, kid?” Han’s voice was rough with relief and irritation. “We thought you were dead! You vanish after the Death Star goes up, no comms, nothing, and now you’re here, looking like you just crawled out of a Sarlacc pit?”

Chewbacca let out a low, rumbling growl, his eyes narrowing as he sniffed the air, catching the faint stench of decay clinging to Luke. Leia stepped closer, her gaze raking over him, searching for wounds. “Luke, what happened?” she asked, her voice tight. “Why didn’t you come to us? Are you hurt? We were terrified when we heard you were the first to arrive here. We thought…” Her words faltered, her eyes glistening with unspoken fear.
She looked him up and down, her eyes scanning his body carefully for even the smallest sign of injury. 

Luke ran a hand through his sweat-matted hair, his throat tight. “I’m sorry. It’s… complicated. The emperor, the Death Star - it’s finally over. He’s gone. But..there’s something else.”

Leia’s eyes narrowed, her voice sharp. “What aren’t you telling us?”

Before Luke could answer, Leia’s gaze flicked to the small window in the operating room door. She froze, her breath catching as she saw the unmistakable silhouette on the table: the massive frame, the interface’s glowing core, the cables suspended above. Her face paled, realization dawning.
“Luke,” she said, her voice trembling with a mix of disbelief and anger. “You… you actually did it. You saved him. You really saved Darth Vader.”

Luke shook his head, his expression heavy with conviction. “Not Darth Vader, Anakin Skywalker. He turned back, Leia. He killed the emperor to save me. I felt it: the dark side lost its hold. He’s back. My father - our father.”

Leia’s hands clenched into fists, her eyes blazing. “Don’t you dare say that!” she snapped, voice cracking. “He’s not my father. He’s a monster. The emperor’s enforcer, the man who hunted us, who destroyed Alderaan, who stood by while my real father was obliterated with my planet. How can you defend him?"

Han, bewildered, glanced between them. “Hold up. Vader’s your what? Kid, you’re gonna have to run that by me again.”

Chewbacca growled, his head tilting as he tried to make sense of the conversation, while C-3PO’s photoreceptors widened. “Oh my! Darth Vader, the father of Master Luke and Mistress Leia? This is most irregular!” 
R2 let out a series of binary chirps and whistles when Luke dropt the Name Anakin. C-3PO looked down at him. “What are talking about? What do you mean, you know him? Your circuits must have suffered a severe malfunction, R2-D2. Who in the galaxy is Master Anakin supposed to be? And why are  you only mentioning it now?”

Luke sighed, exhaustion weighing on him. “It’s true. He is Anakin Skywalker….or rather: he was it a long time ago. But now he is back. He’s… he’s not what you think, Leia. There’s good in him. I’ve seen it. I felt it.”

Leia whirled on him, her voice sharp. “Good? Luke, he’s killed Hundreds of thousands! He tortured our friends. He tortured me. He cut off your hand. And you’re telling me you brought him here, risking everything, because you think there’s good in him?”

“I know there is,” Luke said, his voice steady despite the pain in his eyes. 

But before he could say another word, it burst out of Liea, her face twisted, torn between grief and fury. “I don’t give a goddamn shit about Anakin Skywalker… That thing in there is Darth Vader, and I can't comprehend that you're risking your life, all our lives, and the rebellion not just by saving him, but by bringing him here.”

Han raised his hands, trying to quell the storm. “Alright, let’s breathe. Luke, you’re saying Vader’s in there, and he’s your…dad? That’s a lot to swallow. But why’s he on the table? What’s going on?”

Before Luke could respond, a new voice cut through the corridor, calm but commanding. “That’s a question we’d like answered as well.”

Luke turned to see the High Command approaching: General Airen Cracken, his expression stern; General Jan Dodonna, his eyes narrowed with suspicion; Admiral Gial Ackbar, his Mon Calamari features unreadable; and Mon Mothma, her presence a quiet force. “Skywalker,” Mon Mothma said, her voice steady, “we’ve been searching for you. We feared you hadn’t survived.”

Luke cursed himself silently. He should’ve sensed their approach through the Force, but his connection felt unsteady, fractured by exhaustion and emotion. Do Jedi ever master this instinctively? he wondered, longing for Ben’s guidance. But now wasn’t the time for such questions. The High Command’s expressions, ranging from curious to wary, told him they’d overheard enough to grasp the situation’s gravity.

Mon Mothma stepped forward, her voice measured but firm. “Is this true, Luke? Is Darth Vader… your father?” Disbelief could be heard in her voice, but also something else... something Luke couldn't quite put his finger on. 

Luke met her gaze, unflinching. “Yes. And he’s in there. Doc’s fighting for his life right now. A life he sacrificed for me. I brought him here because he turned against the Emperor. He saved me, he killed the emperor and I’m sure he can help us further bring the Empire down.”

Dodonna’s voice was sharp, cutting. “This is insanity. Vader’s a war criminal, responsible for countless atrocities. If he’s here, he should face execution, not treatment.”

Ackbar’s deep voice rumbled. “I understand your conviction, Skywalker, but the risk is immense. What if he’s manipulating you? We all know the rumors surrounding his psychic abilities.”

Luke’s voice rose, his passion cutting through their doubts. “I know what he’s done. I know the blood on his hands. But aren’t we supposed to be better than the Empire? We’ve welcomed countless defectors into the Rebellion - people who now fight for the same cause. He’s my father, and there’s good in him. He could be the key to ending this war. I’ve led us to victory twice - against the first Death Star, and now the second. All I’m asking in return is that you trust me… and maybe help me to keep him alive.”

Mon Mothma’s gaze softened, but her tone remained pragmatic. “You’re suggesting we invest significant resources into a man who’s been our enemy for decades. Even if he survives, what guarantee do we have that he’ll cooperate?”

Before Luke could answer, the OR door hissed open, and you emerged, medcoat stained with blood, pus and antiseptic. Your hair was a tangled knot, eyes shadowed with fatigue, but they sharpened as you registered the High Command’s presence. The corridor’s attention shifted to you, a mix of curiosity and apprehension in their gazes.
The crowd in the corridor turned to you, their expressions a mix of curiosity and apprehension.

Mon Mothma addressed you directly. “Doctor, we need a status report on the patient.”

You wiped your brow with the back of your cybernetic hand, your voice steady despite the chaos. “He’s critical but stable - for now. His condition is unlike anything I’ve ever seen... Lungs nearly collapsed, sustained only by mechanical bellows. Liver and kidneys failing. The suit’s interface is keeping him alive, but it’s degrading. His body is riddled with infections, and the neural connections are a nightmare. We’ve removed one arm prosthetic, cleared the necrotic tissue, and started antibiotics, but the infections are rampant. His lungs could collapse completely at any moment, and the interface might fail before we can bypass it.”

Cracken frowned. “Can he survive?”

You hesitated, choosing your words carefully. “Survival is… conceivable, but it’s a long shot. We’re looking at multiple surgeries, cutting-edge cybernetic replacements, and organ regeneration or replacement therapies. Months of treatment, likely years. He’s a medical enigma, pushing not just the boundaries of human endurance but the very limits of what modern medicine understands.”

Dodonna crossed his arm, his unrelenting stare bore into you, his tone scornful. “And you’re suggesting we go through all this effort- and what must be an enormous cost- for Darth Vader? Why not just let nature take its course? We’re not killing him… we’re just letting him die.”

You met his gaze, unflinching. “Neglecting aid is a crime on some worlds, General, and it violates the medical oath I swore. I trust Luke, and you should too. You doubted anyone could hit the Death Star’s exhaust port. You doubted anyone could defeat the emperor. Yet here we are. If anyone can turn Vader to our cause, it’s Luke.”

Mon Mothma raised an eyebrow. “We’re facing enormous challenges: forming a new government, hunting down what’s left of the Imperial military, and there are still going to be a lot of wounded in need of medical care. The costs-”

You knew exactly what she would say. The costs wouldn’t be justifiable, not by any reasonable measure. If he survived, his treatment would span nearly every field of medicine and require specialists at the top of their game.

Qualified medics were few and far between among the Rebel forces, often replaced by outdated or malfunctioning droids. But Vader’s case was far beyond the capabilities of a standard medical droids. Creative solutions would be needed. So you cut in, your voice sharp with conviction, even though what you were about to say had only occurred to you less than an hour ago, when you took a closer scan of Vader’s lungs. “I have a solution regarding the cost:  Vader’s condition has been a legend-shrouded mystery in medical circles for decades. His breathing mechanical, loud - even though artificial lungs are a standard procedure these days. No one knew, or could even begin to guess, what lay beneath the suit. What kind of injuries had led to it. All we ever saw was a life-support system disguised as armor, worn by someone who had single-handedly slaughtered entire battlefields. Well, now that I’ve seen beneath the suit, I can confirm: He’s kind of a medical miracle. Every expert in cybernetics, organ regeneration, and neural interfaces would kill for a chance to study him. Scientific curiosity will outweigh cost. I know specialists, colleagues, and mentors, who’d treat him for free just for the chance to publish their findings. We give them access, and they’ll come. They’ll bring their expertise, their equipment, and their teams. It could save him without draining the Rebellion’s resources.”

The corridor was silent, the weight of your proposal sinking in. Mon Mothma’s expression softened, a flicker of respect in her eyes. “An unconventional approach, but potentially viable. You’re certain these experts would agree?”
“I’d stake my career on it,” you said, your voice steady. “I know them. They’re the best in their fields, and they’d see Vader as the case of a lifetime.”

Leia erupted, her voice molten with rage. “You can’t be serious, Doc, Mon! You’re actually considering saving that monster? Darth Vader doesn’t deserve anything but a painful death. He wouldn't hesitate for a damn second to kill every single one of us."

You turned to her, startled. You’d known Leia for years, since she was barely a teenager, and understood the deep scars Alderaan had left, her hatred for the Empire a fire that never dimmed. But this outburst was raw, almost unhinged, unlike her usual composure.

Mon Mothma’s gaze was sympathetic but firm. “Leia, I understand your pain. But Vader could be a singular asset against the Empire. If Luke is right, he might help us neutralize Thrawn, even dismantle the Imperial infrastructure - Coruscant’s command, military operations, codes. Palpatine’s death was just the start. We face immense work, and Vader’s position in their hierarchy makes him invaluable.”

Ackbar nodded. “If he can provide intelligence on Thrawn, it could shift the tide. But we need security protocols, containment measures.”

“Agreed,” Mon Mothma said. “He’s a prisoner of war, which means he’s entitled to medical treatment. We’ll approve the treatments under your proposal, Doctor.”  Then she turned to Luke. “But he remains a high-security prisoner until he’s stable enough for interrogation and proves his willingness to aid us. Don’t hold false hope, Skywalker; he’ll face trial for his crimes, one way or another. This decision reflects our trust in you, and his cooperation could mitigate his sentence.”

Luke nodded, relief flooding his face. “Thank you. I won’t let you down.”

Leia’s fists clenched, trembling with fury, but she said nothing. She spun on her heel and stormed off, her footsteps echoing down the corridor.

Before anyone could say more, the operating room door hissed open again, and CX-3’s photoreceptors glowed as it delivered a chilling announcement: “The patient is regaining consciousness.”

Your heart lurched, adrenaline flooding your veins. “Shit,” you muttered, already moving. “Luke, with me. Now.”  Given the amount of sedatives in his system, he was probably completely out of it and disoriented, never mind the fact that he shouldn’t even be awake at all. But in this state, he could pose a serious threat, not least to himself. Hopefully, his Force abilities were weakened enough for Luke to counter them.
You sprinted back into the theater, Luke at your heels, the corridor’s chaos fading behind you. The monitors were a cacophony of alarms, the holo-displays flashing red. Vader’s vitals were spiking: pulse erratic, SpO2 dropping to 35%, respiratory rate faltering. The breathing mask fogged rapidly, its seals straining as his chest heaved. His eyes were open, unfocused but aware, burning with a clarity that sent a chill down your spine.

Luke rushed to his side, his voice trembling but firm. “Father, it’s me. You’re safe. We’re on a medical bay. You’re hurt, but we’re helping you. Just… stay calm.”
Vader’s gaze flicked to Luke, and for a moment, you thought he might respond. His lips parted beneath the mask, a rasp escaping as he struggled to speak. You leaned over him, your scanner humming as you checked the interface’s connections, your heart pounding. He was far more conscious than he should have been, given the sedative dose you’d administered. The suit’s stimulants, still pumping through his system, were likely overriding the neuro-stabilizer.

“Luke…” Vader’s voice was a guttural whisper, raw and broken, barely audible over the monitors’ wail. “You… should have… let me die, son.” 

You stared at him, stunned. Had you heard that right? And if you had - did that count as an advance directive? And as a genocidal mass murderer, he didn’t exactly have a say in the matter, had he? not while Luke was battling so fiercely for his life on the other side, or? 

There was no time to make an ethical decision of that magnitude.

The monitors screamed, a new alarm piercing the air. The holo-display flashed a critical warning: Left lung collapse. Respiratory failure imminent. The bellows stuttered, unable to compensate. Vader’s chest spasmed, the mask’s fog thinning as his oxygen levels cratered. His eyes fluttered, consciousness slipping as his body convulsed.

“Kriff” you shouted, hands flying to the emergency kit. “CX-3, prep the endotracheal tube and ventilator! Luke, hold him steady with the Force, I need his chest still!”

Luke’s hands shot out, face contorted as he channeled the Force, pinning Vader’s thrashing form. You grabbed the intubation kit, hands steady despite the chaos. “His lung’s collapsed,” you said, voice clipped as you worked. “The bellows can’t keep up. I’m intubating him - now.”

You tilted Vader’s head back, exposing his scarred throat, and inserted the laryngoscope, its light illuminating the airway. The tissue was inflamed, scarred, but you navigated carefully, sliding the endotracheal tube past the vocal cords. Vader’s body jerked, a reflex, but Luke’s Force grip held firm. You secured the tube, connecting it to the ventilator, which hissed to life, forcing air into his remaining lung. The monitors stabilized slightly, SpO2 creeping to 40%, but the interface sparked ominously, its tendrils flickering.

You exhaled, tension easing a fraction, and glanced at Luke, who looked shaken, his hands still outstretched. “What… what happened?” he asked, voice raw.

You adjusted the ventilator settings, eyes on the monitors. “His respiratory system failed completely. The left lung collapsed, and the bellows couldn’t compensate. I had to intubate him; put a tube in his airway to force air into the right lung. The ventilator’s keeping him breathing, but it’s a temporary fix. The interface is degrading, and if it completely fails, we’re in deeper trouble.”

Luke nodded, his gaze fixed on his father’s still form, the ventilator’s rhythmic hiss a grim reminder of how close they’d come to losing him.

You took a deep breath and brushed your hair back from your face with the back of your hand. “So…Any clue how we can get our hands on his medical records?"

Chapter Text

The question hung between you like a storm cloud.
How could you possibly get your hands on Vader’s medical records?

You’d stabilized him for now, but without a full understanding of his medical history - every procedure, modification, and treatment he’d endured - you were navigating a minefield blind.

Luke’s voice broke the silence, tentative but probing. “Do we really need his medical records? You’ve handled everything so far: kept him alive, responded to every crisis. Can’t we just… keep going?”

You glanced at him, noting the exhaustion etched into his boyish features, the faint hope in his eyes that you could somehow outmaneuver fate without more complications. Setting the scanner down, you leaned against the surgical table, pulling your mask down. “Luke, I’m flying blind here. Every move I’ve made: intubation, antibiotics, removing that prosthetic, has been a calculated guess based on what I can see. But your father’s case isn’t just unique; it’s a labyrinth of death. The suit’s integrated so deeply into his biology that one wrong cut, one misjudged adjustment, could kill him. I need to know everything: what surgeries he’s had, what alloys are in his prosthetics, what drugs the suit’s been pumping into him, how his neural interfaces were wired. Without that, I’m gambling with his life.”

Luke’s brow furrowed, his gaze flicking to his father’s still form. “But you’ve already figured out so much. The infections, the lung collapse,”

“Those are symptoms,” you cut in, voice sharp but not unkind. “Treating them is like patching a leaking starship in hyperspace. It holds for now, but the hull’s still cracked. His condition predates Endor by decades. The necrosis, the organ failure, the suit’s degradation, they’re the result of years of procedures, some of which might’ve been experimental or deliberately harmful. If I don’t know what was done to him, I can’t predict how his body will react to treatment. For example, the stimulants in the suit: are they standard or custom? If I lower the dose, will his heart stop? If I don’t, will they burn out his nervous system? And the prosthetics in his spine: standard durasteel or some Imperial alloy that rejects bacta? I need his records to map the damage. Otherwise, we’re playing sabacc with a rigged deck - against us.”

He nodded slowly, the weight of your words sinking in. “Where do we even start? The Empire’s not exactly forthcoming with their files.”

You straightened, a spark of realization igniting. “The Executor.”

The word hung in the air, heavy with possibility. When the Death Star exploded, its reactor overload sent out an electromagnetic pulse. Luke had been incredibly lucky to get away so quickly with the stolen shuttle, and the Redemption was far enough to avoid the pulse, but it fried every ship in range, including Vader’s flagship. The Executor went dead: weapons, shields, propulsion, blasters, everything. The Rebels stormed and seized it.

There was one thought you couldn’t shake: Vader’s suit took a beating in combat on numerous occasions, and he was always on that ship. They had to have maintenance protocols, repair logs, medical records - something to keep him operational. His flagship would’ve been equipped for it.

Luke’s eyes widened, but scepticism lingered. “The Executor’s impounded, offline. Even if the records are there, how do we access them? Even though I’m a damn good pilot, I can’t navigate a Super Star Destroyer alone, and slicing into Imperial systems isn’t quite my specialty.”

You were already in motion, pulling down your mask completely and taking off your gloves. Both landed in the bin on the way to the holoscreen, which was mounted on the wall opposite the operating table. You set up a secure channel. “We hopefully don’t need to do it alone.”

Your fingers danced across the controls, and moments later, General Crix Madine’s hologram flickered to life, his weathered face stern but attentive. As former Imperial turned Rebel general, Madine had for sure an encyclopaedic knowledge of captured Imperial personnel and assets.

“Doctor,” Madine said, nodding. “Skywalker. What’s this about?”

You wasted no time. “General, its important: I need the highest-ranking officer from Vader’s flagship - someone with clearance, someone who knows its systems. Who do you have in custody?”

Madine’s eyes narrowed, but he tapped at a datapad off-screen. “One Moment,”

Several minutes passed as he silently scrolled through his datapad. You noticed Luke next to you shifting restlessly, rocking back and forth on his heels.

“You’re in luck. Admiral Piett was injured during the Executor’s capture but survived. He’s in a holding facility on Endor’s surface, awaiting transfer. Highest-ranking officer we took alive from that ship; Vader’s right-hand man.”

Bingo. 

You exchanged a glance with Luke, a flicker of hope passing between you. “Piett,” you repeated, pulling up his file on your holopad. The data scrolled across the screen: born on Axxila, Outer Rim; served in the Axxila anti-pirate fleet; rose through Imperial ranks under Tarkin; promoted from captain to admiral under Vader, skipping multiple ranks; longest-serving admiral under Vader’s direct command. A survivor, then: sharp, adaptable, and likely privy to the Executor’s inner workings. “Can you transfer him to the Redemption? We need to speak with him immediately.”

Madine hesitated, his gaze flicking between you and Luke. “Piett’s a high-value prisoner. Moving him requires clearance, and he’s not exactly cooperative. What’s the urgency?”

Luke stepped forward, his voice firm. “It’s about-”

Before he could get the words out, you stopped him: “We’re after the medical records of some Imperial officers - and everything that might give us an edge over Grand Admiral Thrawn. Order from Mon Mothma”

At once, Madine’s reservations disappeared. “Thrawn, huh? I’ll authorize the transfer, but he’ll be under heavy guard. Expect him within the hour.” The hologram flickered out, leaving you and Luke in the theater’s sterile glow.

Luke shot you a look like you’d just kicked a baby ewok.

You rolled your eyes and then turned away from the holo table. “Oh, come on. That wasn’t lying, that was strategic truth-bending. Madine can’t stand your father. He’s been through hell at the Empire’s hands. I’m not about to tell him this mission is to save Darth Vader. You want him to throw us in the brig?”

Luke didn’t say anything else and followed you back to the operating table.

While you calibrated the scanner for the removal of the right leg prosthesis, Luke stood by, lost in thought, uncertainty lingering. “You think Piett will help? He’s an Imperial. We know Vader isn’t exactly known for his kindness toward his officers. I doubt he scored high in the popularity polls.”

You slipped a new pair of cloves and a mask back on and positioned the scanner carefully over his leg. “CX-3, I’ll need the saw and the cauterizer, please.”

Your gaze flicked briefly up to Luke. Then, quietly, almost to yourself, “Honestly, I don’t know… Working under Vader was, from what we know, either a fast track to promotion, or a direct path to an early grave. Most officers only lasted long enough to climb a few ranks or gather the credits to get reassigned. Piett served directly under Vader for four years as an admiral. Say what you will about ambition, but to keep a position like that, you need sharp instincts and skill. Same goes for anyone who worked with Tarkin. He knew the risk in terms of Vader. And he still stayed. You don’t do that unless you’re either delusional - or loyal.”

Firmus Piett had known this day was doomed to be a spectacular catastrophe from the moment it clawed its way into existence, though calling it a “day” was generous when it had stretched into a gruelling 36-hour slog of unrelenting misery.

Sleep deprivation? That was just another Tuesday under Lord Vader’s command, a familiar ache woven into the fabric of his existence. He’d outlasted every other flagship admiral who’d dared to serve the Dark Lord, dodging Force-choked fates and surviving the galaxy’s most unforgiving superior. No, a few missed hours of shut-eye didn’t rattle him. But this? This was a special kind of hell, brewed just for him, and he could smell its rancid bouquet from light-years away.

The first whiff of trouble came when Lord Vader swept off the Lady, bound for the Death Star with that ominous silence that clung to him like a second cape. Piett’s gut had churned, a seasoned officer’s instinct warning him that something was wrong. His suspicions solidified when word trickled through the ranks: Luke Skywalker, the Rebel pest they’d chased across the cosmos with every ship, credit, and blaster the Death Squadron could hurl, had done the unthinkable: The boy hadn’t just been caught; he’d surrendered, strolling into Imperial custody like he was delivering a kriffing holo-invite, handed straight to Vader himself.

Piett’s instincts screamed disaster, but he’d clamped down on the unease, barking orders from the bridge with the icy precision that had kept his neck uncrushed for years.

Then came the silence: deeper, colder, more sinister than any he’d known. No transmissions from Lord Vader, no cryptic commands from the Emperor. Just static, crackling like the galaxy’s cruelest practical joke. Piett stood rooted on the Executor’s bridge, staring into the void where the Death Star loomed, its sleek menace a silent promise of annihilation. His crew’s nervous glances mirrored his own dread, but he held firm, projecting the unshakable calm of a man who’d stared down worse. Or so he thought.

The final nail in this coffin of a day came when the Death Star exploded. Not a tactical retreat, not a controlled demolition; a cataclysmic eruption of fire and debris that lit up the Endor system like a second sun. The reactor’s overload unleashed an electromagnetic pulse that hit the Executor like a sledgehammer, frying every system in its path. Weapons, shields, propulsion, blasters, even the kriffing caf machines - gone. Consoles sparked, screens went black, and the Lady, the Empire’s pride, became a 19-kilometer paperweight drifting in the void. The Rebels, conveniently out of the pulse’s range, didn’t even break a sweat. Their boarding parties swarmed the ship, cutting through the disoriented crew with the ease of a vibroblade through bantha butter.

Piett fought to the bitter end, rallying his officers, directing desperate counterattacks in corridors choked with smoke and blaster fire. He barked orders until his voice rasped, wielding a blaster with the grim determination of a man who knew surrender wasn’t an option, not under Vader’s shadow. It didn’t matter. A stray bolt clipped his foot, blasting three toes into oblivion, the pain a white-hot roar he barely registered through the adrenaline. Rebel soldiers overwhelmed him, wrenching the blaster from his hands, shackling his wrists with mag-cuffs that bit into his skin. A harried Rebel medic slapped a shoddy bandage on his mangled foot, muttering about triage, and Piett was left to limp through his defeat, blood seeping through the dressing with every step.

Now, trailing a smug Rebel operative through the sterile corridors of the Nebulon-B frigate Redemption, Piett’s mind was a storm of calculations and curses. The summons had been specific: - Admiral Piett, by name - plucking him from his cell on Endor’s surface like a prized trophy. Shoved onto a shuttle with no explanation, he’d endured the pilot’s pointed silence, the hum of the engines a mocking reminder of his fall. The Redemption’s hangar buzzed with chaos: medics carting wounded Rebels, soldiers hauling captured Imperials, the air thick with bacta’s antiseptic tang and the faint ozone of fried circuits. His escort, a wiry human with a blaster slung low, led him through the frigate’s maze, past triage stations and guarded cells, to a conference room that reeked of impending doom.

The door hissed open, and Piett’s stomach plummeted to the deck. There, under the harsh glow of overhead lights, stood a woman in a medcoat, the sleeves pushed up far enough for her cybernetic arm glinting in the glow of the ceiling lights like a warning. Beside her, unmistakable despite the years of grainy holos and tactical briefings, was Luke Skywalker - Rebel, Jedi, pilot, the bane of the Empire’s existence, and the singular obsession of Lord Vader.

Piett’s day, already a masterclass in catastrophe, had just swan-dived into the Sarlacc pit of his worst nightmares.

Admiral Firmus Piett was… smaller than you’d imagined. Not frail, but compact, his frame dwarfed by the imposing legacy of the Executor’s command. Yet his bearing was impeccable:  spine straight, shoulders squared, the dignified poise of an officer unbroken by defeat or pain. His limp betrayed his injury, a subtle hitch in his step that your trained eye diagnosed instantly: a blaster wound to the foot, likely missing toes, poorly bandaged and seeping. Deep shadows carved hollows beneath his eyes, testament to days without sleep, his thinning hair combed back with military precision, usually hidden by an officer’s cap. Despite his exhaustion, his gaze was sharp, intelligent, scanning you and Luke with the practiced scrutiny of a man who’d survived Vader’s wrath.

You gestured to a chair. “Admiral, please, sit.”

Piett’s eyes flicked to the seat, then back to you, his expression unyielding. “I’ll stand, thank you. Why am I here?”

You glanced at your datapad, pulling up his file, and read aloud, your voice steady. “Firmus Piett, born on Axxila, Outer Rim. Began your career in the Axxila anti-pirate fleet, where your skill and intellect caught the Empire’s eye. Served under Grand Moff Tarkin, then Lord Vader, rising from captain to admiral, bypassing multiple ranks. Longest-serving admiral under Vader’s direct command - a remarkable feat, considering his… reputation. An impressive résumé, Admiral.”

Piett’s face remained impassive, his voice clipped. “Flattery won’t loosen my tongue, Doctor. What do you want?”

You introduced yourself, your tone professional but warm. “I’m the chief cybernetics specialist aboard the Redemption. And this-” you began, gesturing to Luke, but Piett cut you off, his gaze locking onto the Jedi.

“Luke Skywalker,” he said, voice flat. “Rebel. Jedi. Pilot. Responsible for destroying the first Death Star - and I presume, the second?”

You blinked, surprised. Luke raised an eyebrow, but Piett’s lips twitched faintly, a ghost of amusement. “Logical deduction,” he explained. “Call me paranoid, but I doubt it’s just a coincidence that the second Death Star went up in flames right after you decided to turn yourself in - after we spent years chasing you. And I’ve seen enough holos and reports to recognize you. Now, for the third time: why am I here?”

You exchanged a glance with Luke, assessing Piett’s candor. Before diving into Vader’s condition, you needed to gauge his loyalty, his perspective. “Admiral, why do you think you survived so long under Vader’s command? What was he like, from your view?”

He raised his eyebrows sceptically. “You’ll forgive me if I’m less than cooperative. It’s been, what - twelve hours? Since you took my ship, killed my commander, and tore through my crew. And now you want to talk about Vader’s management style? If this is your Rebellion’s idea of priority, your political future looks bleak indeed."

You glanced up from your datapad, offering him a calm, professional smile.
“Fortunately for all involved, political decisions aren’t up to me or Commander Skywalker. Admiral, your current position is… less than favourable. Cooperation might serve both you and your crew better than resistance. I assure you; our reasons will soon become clear.”

Piett’s eyes narrowed, but he answered, his voice measured. “Lord Vader was… exacting. Efficient. He was Supreme Commander of the Imperial Army, leader of the Death Squadron, for a reason. Many feared him, and not without cause. He was harsh, yes. But his actions, punishments, and executions, they were always justified. Laziness, incompetence, ignorance, misconduct - none of it was tolerated, and all of it was punished. Sometimes too harshly, perhaps, but I won’t presume to judge his motives. What I can say is this: He wasn’t corrupt, not like most Moffs or admirals who lined their pockets. He didn’t favour officers from noble houses or take bribes from wealthy families. He demanded excellence, but never more than he gave himself. He led from the front - fought alongside us, took risks others wouldn’t. For all this I highly respected him. He was more….a force of nature than an actual man.”

The loyalty in his voice was unmistakable, a steadfast devotion that bordered on reverence. You glanced at Luke, a silent nod passing between you. This was the leverage you needed.

Luke stepped forward, his voice steady but urgent. “Admiral, we need your help. Vader’s alive, but he’s critically injured. We’re trying to save him, but we need his medical records- likely stored on the Executor.”

Piett raised an eyebrow, doubt lacing every word. “Forgive me if I find it difficult to believe that your intentions are purely altruistic. Why should-”

Before he could finish his sentence, Luke’s revelation burst out of him. “Because I’m his son. He sacrificed himself to save me, killed the Emperor, but he’s dying. We need those records to keep him alive.”

At the word son, something flickered in Piett’s eyes - You would call it. . . triumphant?!

You leaned forward, puzzled. “You’re the only one who doesn’t look shocked.  Why is that?”

Piett’s lips quirked, a wry amusement breaking through his stoicism. “I’m not an idiot, Doctor. Lord Vader’s obsession with Skywalker wasn’t just professional. The Death Squadron’s resources  - fleets, bounties, probes - all focused on you,” He shot Luke a glance that was half scolding, half amused. “marked alive only. Astronomical sums, and he executed bounty hunters who dared harm you. When Fett delivered your name, Vader’s rage cracked the ships viewport. It was personal. I suspected… something deeper.”

You and Luke exchanged a startled glance.

Piett continued, his tone almost conversational. “The officers had bets, you know. Some thought you were his lover - absurd, given your age and his… condition. I wagered on son. Given that Vader and the Inquisitors all but eradicated the Jedi, it’s clear you were never given a full Jedi education. But… you definitely inherited some strong genes: your flying style, your Force abilities, the lightsaber and fighting style - And Vader’s insistence on capturing you unharmed? That wasn’t strategy. That was a father.”

You stifled a laugh at the lover theory, but Luke’s face flushed, a mix of shock and embarrassment. “Bets?” he muttered, incredulous.

Piett shrugged. “Kept morale up. I won.” His amusement faded, replaced by curiosity. “The Emperor’s death, though… that tracks. Vader was loyal, but he hated him. Every visit to Palpatine left him injured - bacta tanks, repairs. He never spoke of it, but I saw the toll.”

Your pulse quickened. “Bacta tanks? On the Executor?”

Piett nodded. “His quarters had a medical suite: bacta tank, droids, maintenance for his suit. He required regular treatment, especially after combat or… audiences with the Emperor.”

You leaned forward, heart racing. “And medical records? Would they be stored there?”

“Likely,” Piett said, his tone cautious. “His suite was restricted, high security. Logs of treatments, suit repairs, modifications, they’d be in the system, assuming the EMP didn’t corrupt the data.”

“Can you access them?” you pressed.

Piett hesitated, his gaze flickering to Luke, then back to you. “The Executor is completely offline. You’d need engineers, slicers, a whole crew to get it back up. Then I’d have to march into Vader’s quarters, break through every access lock he’s ever set, and hope the whole system doesn’t fry me first.”
He gave a tense laugh that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I can slice, sure. But slicing into Lord Vader’s private files? That’s not something I do casually. He’d sense it. And I’d prefer not to spend my last moments being Force-choked from across the galaxy.”

You smirked. “Given his current state, Admiral, I’d say you’re safe from Force-related consequences.”

His gaze flicked to your neck. The turtleneck sweater wasn’t quite enough to hide the unmistakable marks that Vader’s Force grip had left behind. His lips thinned in a dry, unimpressed line.
“Yeah. Right.”

You tugged the collar a bit higher, offering a crooked smile. “Well, long-distance Force choking isn’t really on the table right now.”
You cleared your throat. “Although I’d advise against trying to rummage through his underwear.”

He stared at you, brow furrowing slightly, as if caught somewhere between laughing and being sick. “Well... I’ll do my best to restrain myself.”

You chuckled, then cleared your throat and forced yourself back to focus. “Alright, how about we strike a deal? You help us save your Supreme Commander, and in return, you earn his favor; maybe even his thanks, if he’s feeling generous. In exchange, I’ll put in a word to keep you stationed here instead of being tossed back into detainment. We’re short on people who can slice through Imperial systems. You’d be useful. Of course - strict supervision goes without saying.”

You gestured to his foot. “And I’ll treat your injury, properly, not that shoddy field dressing. You’re missing at least two toes, maybe three. I was going to offer anyway, but let’s call it incentive.”

His gaze shifted to his foot: a ridiculous boot far too big, paired with a bandage so filthy it barely qualified as medical.

“And one more thing,” you said, turning slightly to retrieve the cardboard cup from the table behind you. With a calm gesture, you placed it in front of him. “We have caf.”

Piett blinked at the cup, sighed as if offended by its very existence. Then gave a short, resigned nod, before he reached for it. “Fine...But we will need a few men, and your word that Lord Vader’s… interests are protected.”

“You have it,” Luke said, his voice firm.

While Luke and Piett prepared to depart for the Executor with a small team of Rebel pilots and mechanics, you returned to the operating theater, the weight of Vader’s condition pressing against your chest.

You’d already removed the leg prostheses, a grueling ordeal that had pushed your skills to their limit. The legs were a grotesque monument to decay, far worse than the right arm’s horror show. The arm’s necrotic tissue and rusted anchors had been bad, but the legs were a catastrophe, their condition a brutal testament to the suit’s and its owners’ relentless demands. The sheer weight of Vader’s armor - dense durasteel designed for intimidation and combat - had crushed the connection points over decades, exerting unrelenting pressure that the arm’s lighter load never approached. Each step he’d taken, each battlefield he’d dominated, had ground the prosthetics into his skeleton, degrading the interfaces into a festering ruin.

The durasteel plating on the left leg had been worn to a brittle sheen, pocked with dents and warped by the armor’s mass, as if it had been hammered by a starship’s hull. The right leg was a nightmare, its surface fractured and corroded, scars of countless battles etched into the metal. Servomotors had seized, rusted into silence, while others screeched with erratic hums, their bearings pulverized by years of strain. The interface points where flesh met machine were a septic disaster: inflamed tissue bulged around the anchors, oozing a black, viscous sludge that reeked of gangrene and chemical rot. Necrotic skin had fused with the synthetic coating, a grotesque amalgamation embedded with grime, as if the suit had clawed into his body like a living parasite. The lower femoral anchor on the right leg had dislodged, its bolts rusted and skewed, grinding against the bone with each ventilator-driven breath. The knee joints, where prosthetics met femurs, were cesspools of infection, the stench of decay so potent it had lingered in your mask hours after the procedure. That this man had even been able to stand - let alone walk - was beyond your medical and logical understanding.

Removing the legs had been a surgical marathon. The neural connectors, frayed wires spliced into nerve clusters, had sparked violently, threatening feedback surges that could’ve fried his nervous system. The bone anchors, corroded durasteel bolts sunk into femurs, were fused with necrotic bone, requiring precise cuts to avoid shredding viable tissue. Pus and blood had poured from the stumps, the infection so entrenched you’d irrigated each site with gallons of saline-antibiotic solution, the smell forcing you to breathe through clenched teeth. Cauterizing the bleeding vessels had been a race against sepsis, the laser’s sizzle drowned by the monitors’ wails. Now, both leg stumps were thickly bandaged with antiseptic, the dressings a temporary bulwark against the infections threatening to spread to his pelvis. The procedure had left you drained, but there was no time to rest.

You turned to the second arm, its prosthetic a marginally less catastrophic wreck than the legs but still a grim challenge. The durasteel casing was cracked, spiderwebbed from impacts, its servomotors stuttering with a low, grinding whine. Neural connectors sparked faintly, their insulation frayed, threatening to short-circuit the interface. The anchor point at the shoulder was a festering wound, synthetic skin sloughing off in blackened clumps, revealing inflamed tissue and a rusted bolt that oozed pus. The smell of rot mingled with burnt circuitry pierced your mask, and you adjusted your breathing to shallow inhales, focusing on the scanner’s holo-display as it mapped the neural web.

You were calibrating the scanner when a voice sliced through your focus, cold and resonant, not in the air but inside your head

You’re treating a lost cause.

You flinched, heart hammering, eyes darting around the theater’s sterile confines. No one else was here; just you, CX-3, and the sedated Sith Lord. Your gaze snapped to Vader, his intubated form motionless beneath the ventilator’s rhythm.

“Lord Vader… was that you?” A stupid question, who else could it be? But your mind reeled, scrabbling for reason in the impossible.

His eyes cracked open, a sliver of molten blue locking onto yours with a force that stole your breath. Your pulse roared. He wasn’t supposed to be awake. He couldn’t be awake; not with the sedatives flooding his system, not intubated, his vocal cords silenced. Yet those eyes  - Luke’s eyes, stripped of warmth and kindness -   but with a predatory chill that stripped you bare.

“How…” you stammered, voice a whisper. “You’re speaking through the Force? In my head?”

A beat, then a thought struck: Can it work both ways?

Yes, it can.  came his reply, a deep baritone smooth and untouched by the mechanical rasp he’d used with Luke. It was a voice unscarred by struggle, a shadow of the man he might’ve been, and it sent a shiver down your spine.

Okay. That was… unsettling. Speaking out loud suddenly seemed much safer than thinking, even if it probably didn’t make a difference to him.

You respond differently than expected.

You arched a brow, sarcasm sharpening your expression as you picked up the microsaw. “Well, I think my capacity for shock and awe has been maxed out for the day, my Lord.”

Silence, heavy and oppressive, but his eyes pinned you. You risked a glance, meeting his gaze, and instantly regretted it. Those eyes were a void, cold and calculating, forcing you to drop your focus to the scanner, heart racing.

 “What did you mean by ‘lost cause’?” you asked, voice steadier than you felt.

A scoff echoed in your mind, dark and cutting.

You’re a physician. You know exactly what I mean. You’re throwing time and effort at a soon to be corpse.

You tightened your grip on the saw, forcing your hands to move, adjusting the scanner’s settings.

“Not dead yet, my Lord.” His title created a steady distance that somehow gave you a sense of security.

His voice turned colder, a vibroblade in your skull.

If this broken body doesn’t fail, your High Command will execute me. You’re wasting resources on a cause long lost.

You didn’t flinch, though his words stung. “We’re not the Empire,” you said, voice firm. “We don’t execute prisoners on a whim. High Command’s suspended your trial for now to let you recover. Under heavy security, of course. You’re still a prisoner of war.”

Another scoff, this one tinged with grim amusement.

Good to know. Otherwise, I might’ve strolled out of here.

His bandaged stumps twitched faintly, a mocking gesture that sent a chill through you. You hid a wry grin behind your mask, the tension easing a fraction.

His voice darkened, slicing through the levity.

And yes, you’re not the Empire. Not yet. But you will learn - either to abandon your mercy and those heroic moral ideals, or you’ll collapse faster than you think. And it won’t be the Empire that destroys you. It’ll be your own people.

You paused, brow furrowing. “What’s that mean?”

If your leaders don’t execute me, the public will riot, he said, flat and inevitable. You can’t afford that. With the Emperor gone, I’m the galaxy’s top target. Death list’s headliner.

You weighed his words, their truth sinking in, but your hands kept moving, switching to the -cauterizer. You irrigated the arm’s anchor point, the stench of rot overwhelming, and began severing neural wires with the decoupler, each cut a delicate dance to avoid a surge.

 “You can still do good, my Lord. Grand Admiral Thrawn and what’s left of the Empire remain a serious threat to the Alliance. You could help us defeat them. It wouldn’t undo what’s been done, but... it might soften the mob a little.”

His scoff was sharp, dripping scorn.

It won’t. It might placate Mothma, maybe Ackbar. But the people? Tell me, Doctor: how many on this ship would slit my throat if they walked in now? Because I killed their father, mother, child, friend, commander? Stretch that across the galaxy and you’ll have an idea of how slim my chances are of earning some kind of unprompted absolution. Most people aren’t capable of putting the greater good above their own selfish interests.

Your jaw clenched, and before you could stop, your tone turned razor-edged. “Like you, burning the Empire’s fleet to hunt your own son for years?”

Too sharp.

You realized your mistake the moment it happened, when a white-hot spike of pain shot through your head and made you flinch. It vanished as fast as it came, but it had hit hard enough to throw off your grip. The cauterizer slipped, just slightly, but it was enough to catch one of his still-functioning nerve clusters.

His body jerked in pain, a muffled groan trapped by the tube.

You froze. “Maybe,” you muttered tightly, “you shouldn’t mess with the brain of the person currently sealing your exposed nerve endings.”

You flexed your shoulders, refocusing, severing the last wire with a spark. The pain must’ve been hell. Cauterizing exposed nerves with a heat source that intense would have sent most people into shock. And that was on top of everything else, injuries so deep and layered you could barely begin to comprehend them.

A little more gently now, you continued. “I’m sorry. You’re not supposed to be conscious. Whatever they are pumping through your suit must’ve been serious shit if you’re still awake after all the sedatives we’ve given you.”

Upping the dosage would be dangerous. The dying interface tethering his body together might not survive another cardiac arrest.

His voice returned, faint but ironclad. Don’t apologize. Pain is…an old, but familiar friend.

You studied the infected prosthetic anchor point, how the skin around it had turned necrotic. You followed it upward, watching where it transitioned to blistered, burned flesh, ripped and laced with layers of old, brutal scarring.

Well. Hard to blame him for the attitude, considering pain was apparently on his shortlist of companions.

You paused, meeting his gaze briefly, then resumed cleaning the site, slicing away blackened tissue. His next words shifted the air.

As for the other matter: I gave two decades to a cause that lied to me - kept the truth about my children buried. So yes: I have no regrets about using every Imperial resource at my disposal to find my son. Not one. And I don’t mourn what’s been lost. Not the Empire. Not It’s Emperor.

With an ugly crack, the connection pod gave way, and the prosthetic came off.
Pus and blood spilled out toward you, and he flinched visibly, a raw sound of agony caught in his throat - muffled entirely by the breathing tube.

You gave him (and yourself) a moment to recover before continuing.

“So… maybe appealing to your altruism is a waste of time. But what about your children? There’s still a lot you could do for them.”

Apparently, you’d struck a different kind of nerve. His gaze snapped back to you, and it took effort not to recoil.  Never show weakness in front of a predator.

You held your ground and kept your voice steady as CX-3 carefully began extracting what remained of the prosthetic.

“You’ve done a lot for your son. But you also have a daughter who, with all due respect… isn’t your biggest fan by now.”

Luke’s revelation in the corridor had hit like a turbolaser. After you commented on Leia’s odd, emotional reaction in the corridor, he’d told you that she was his twin sister. Which meant she was also Vader’s daughter.

Apparently, the galaxy really was a small village - and this was one hell of a family.

You couldn’t blame Leia for her hatred. She had every right to be furious. Everything had been taken from her, and the only one left was, of all people, the man who’d fathered her. Poor Leia.

He didn’t answer, eyes on the ceiling, silence heavy. You resumed cleaning the stump, when his voice cut through, impatient.

Where is he?

You frowned. “Who?”

Luke, he said, irritation bleeding through. He’s not here on the ship. Where is he?

You didn’t ask how he knew - the Force was a well of unnerving tricks. “On the Executor with your admiral, hunting your medical records.”

A pause, then surprise. Piett?

You nodded, then remembered, and quickly lifted your hand instinctively, as if that would somehow stop him from doing anything rash. “Please, no long-distance Force-choking. I had to promise him he’d be fine.”

His icy blue eyes shifted to you, and his tone sounded…was that amusement?

You shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep, Doctor. But don’t worry. I’ve no intention of harming him. And in my current state, I doubt I could reach that far anyway.

You exhaled, tension easing.

 Can you contact my son?

You nodded, uncertain where this was going, but perhaps he could help them access the data.

Tell him to check my meditation pod.  Right side, hidden compartment. Datapad and stick drive. He should bring both with him.

You blinked, puzzled. “Okay….What’s a meditation pod?”

Piett will know. Give them to the Princess. If I die, I want them end up in her hands. She’s clever enough to open them…and use what’s inside.

Your confusion deepened, but you nodded silently.
His use of the term “Princess” struck something in you. There was weight behind it, even if his voice didn’t show it. He didn’t call her Leia. He didn’t call her daughter.
Not like he called Luke son.

He closed his eyes and said nothing more, likely too exhausted from the procedure to continue.

You returned to your work in silence, finished bandaging the final stump, the theater’s sterile hum a stark contrast to the chaos in your mind.

Stepping into your office, you initiated a holocall to Luke, the grainy projection flickering to life. His boyish grin and his warm gaze were a relief, a stark contrast to Vader’s piercing gaze.

“Recon team, status?” you asked, voice dry.

“Yeah, Doc, so far, so good,” Luke replied, his grin widening. “Just reached the medbay. Took forever to get the ship online. The Lady’s a real diva.”

A low grunt of disapproval sounded - Piett, clearly unamused.

You smirked. “She’s a Super Star Destroyer class, Skywalker. Housing a quarter-million souls isn’t exactly a light freighter’s gig.”

Luke laughed. “This thing’s a real beast, Doc. Massive doesn’t cover it. You could wander for days and never find the exit. If someone wants me gone, just drop me here - I’d be lost forever. Total labyrinth.”

You believed it. The Executor’s scale was obscene, a floating city of 19 kilometers. Logistics alone would’ve been a nightmare.

 Luke’s expression sobered. “How’s my father? Everything alright?" His voice was thick with concern.

“Your father’s... stable. As stable as he can be under the circumstances. I actually had a... chat with him. Charming fellow, really.”

The sarcasm dripped, and Luke winced, apologetic, while Piett’s amused grunt echoed.

“He had a request,” you continued. “In his meditation pod, right side, there’s a hidden compartment. Datapad and stick drive. He wants them brought back.”

You heard a faint whimper behind Luke, and he turned his head slightly - Piett looked far from thrilled about the idea of poking around in that ominous pod.

Luke turned back to you. “Yeah, of course. We’ll get them. How is he doing, really?”

There it was again. That concern. Genuine concern. The kind only a son could have.
You wondered if Vader even realized how lucky he was -how rare it was to have someone speak about him with that kind of care.

You had seen a lot of people die, some of them quiet, lonely deaths. You’d been their last human contact. People who hadn’t necessarily done anything to deserve such an end. Just ordinary souls who got unlucky.

You doubted Vader could truly grasp what kind of miracle he had in Luke.

“He’s... well, I can’t say ‘good’ without lying. But he hasn’t lost his bite. And honestly? I’ll take that as a good sign.”

Luke’s expression softened, touched with guilt again. “I’m sorry. For whatever he might’ve said to you... And thank you for taking care of him, Doc.”

You gave him a gentle smile. “Well, I’m doing it for you, Skywalker. Happy to help.
But if he gets back on his feet and that... sunny disposition of his returns  for good, we might have to negotiate what you’re blowing up next to save the galaxy.”

He laughed. “Deal, Doc. We’ll try to wrap things up here quickly. Hang in there till we’re back.”

The holo flickered and vanished.

You exhaled slowly, already feeling the weight of the next task ahead.
First up: finding a suitable pulmonologist. And, as it happened, you had just the person in mind.

Chapter Text

Objectively, a lot of things should’ve had priority right now: like showering, sleeping, maybe eating or drinking something that wasn’t caf-based...

But first and above all, you needed a pulmonologist, someone with expertise in organic and cybernetic respiratory systems, and you needed them yesterday. The Rebellion’s medical staff was stretched thin, overwhelmed by the flood of wounded from Endor, and none had the specialized knowledge to tackle Vader’s lungs. You needed help, and you knew exactly who to call, even if the thought made your stomach twist with dread.

Dr. Vara Kade. Brilliant pulmonologist, former colleague, and the unfortunate recipient of your drunken tirade at the last medical conference you’d attended together. You hadn’t spoken since, and the memory of your gin-fueled outburst still burned with embarrassment. But Vara was the best in her field, with a private practice on Coruscant catering to the galaxy’s elite. If anyone could save Vader’s lungs, it was her. You just had to convince her to board a Rebel ship and treat the Empire’s most notorious warlord without asking too many questions upfront. Yeah, should be an easy task.

The holoprojector in your office hummed to life, its blue glow casting flickering shadows across your blood-streaked medcoat. You punched in Vara’s private frequency, your hand trembling slightly. The call connected, and after a few agonizing seconds, Vara’s image materialized, sharp and polished as ever.

She was seated in a sleek office, her dark hair pulled into a flawless bun, her tailored suit a stark contrast to your dishevelled state. Behind her, a panoramic window showcased Coruscant’s glittering skyline, a reminder of the life she’d chosen: luxury, prestige, and patients who paid in credits, not gratitude. Her hazel eyes narrowed as she recognized you.

“Well, well,” said Vara in a gentle voice, but one that betrayed a hint of mistrust. “If it isn't our favourite cybernetics expert. To what do I owe the honour?”

You forced a grin, leaning into the holocam with what you hoped was disarming charm. “Vara! You’re looking radiant as ever. Coruscant treating you well? I bet you’re sipping vintage Alderaanian wine with your feet up, saving senators’ lungs by day and dazzling the elite by night.”

Her eyebrow arched, unimpressed. “Cut the bantha fodder. You’re calling me at-” she glanced at a chrono on her desk, “ungodly hours, looking like you just crawled out of a medbay explosion. What do you want?”

You kept your smile plastered on, though it felt brittle. “Can’t I just reach out to an old friend? Catch up, swap stories, maybe discuss a… fascinating case I’ve got on my hands?”

Vara’s eyes narrowed further, her suspicion deepening. “A case? I thought you were working for the Rebellion. Your cases are blaster burns and X-wing crash victims. Nothing that would require my expertise. So what do you really want?”

She leaned back in her chair, arms crossed, a faint smirk tugging at her lips. “And don’t think I forgot your little performance at the Chandrila conference. What was it you called me again? ‘Rum-chasing, money-hungry floozy,’ wasn’t it? Real classy.”

You winced. The memory struck like a stray blaster bolt. “Okay, yes. I may have had a few too many drinks that night. And I might’ve been… mildly frustrated that you and the others get to run your shiny chic private clinics while I’m out here dodging Imperial patrols and stitching up rebels for free.”

You held up a hand before she could cut in. “But water under the bridge, right? I’m sorry, Vara. Truly. You’re brilliant. And I need that brilliance now.”

You could honestly throw up right then and there at your own hypocritical sycophancy. The words tasted like ash, and you hated yourself for how easily they came out. But you needed her.

Always keep your goal in mind. Swallow your damn pride - just this once.

She snorted, clearly unmoved by your half-hearted apology. “Mildly frustrated? That’s putting it mildly for someone who torched their own future. You could’ve taken the scholarship. Built your own practice. But no; you chose to live like some criminal nomad in the dirt. That doesn’t give you the right to judge the rest of us for our careers.” She leaned forward slightly. Apparently, she’d had enough of playing the moral crusader.  “Spill it. What’s the case?”

With all your strength, you bit your tongue, hard enough to taste blood, as you transmitted the anonymized medical data, hoping to hook her curiosity. You nodded toward the datapad visible on her desk. “Check the file I sent. It’s a respiratory case, unlike anything you’ve seen. I need your expertise to make sense of it.”

Vara sighed, picking up the datapad with the air of someone indulging a child. Her fingers danced across the screen, pulling up the scans and vitals. You watched her expression shift: first boredom, then curiosity, then outright disbelief. Her brow furrowed, and she zoomed in on the holo of Vader’s lungs, then scrolled through the data.

“This… this can’t be right,” she said, her voice low, almost accusatory. She looked up, eyed you sceptical. “Either these data are corrupted, or your patient’s already dead.”

You leaned closer to the holocam, voice earnest. “The data’s accurate, Vara. I swear it. He’s alive, barely, but alive. I intubated him myself a few hours ago when his left lung gave out. The ventilator’s holding, but we’re on borrowed time.”

She stared at you, incredulous. “This isn’t…this is a medical impossibility. Why me?” She probably thought you wanted to ruin her record by giving her some unsolvable, half-dead cases... or even worse: ones that you sabotaged yourself.   

“Why not handle it yourself? The only chance I see here is the application of an artificial lung. You’re the cybernetics queen. Or why don't you ask Dewsynn? He's almost just as good as me, and as far as I know, you're on good terms with him. So why me?”

You rolled your eyes at the snide reference to your profession. To her, you were little more than a glorified mechanic; a wrench-wielding tech tinkerer patching up broken machines that happened to bleed. Never mind the fact that you both completed the same basic medical studies, sat the same brutal exams, even pulled all-nighters over the same anatomy charts.

“My specialisation is in external cybernetics, as you well know. I could build him a lung, technically, but the case is too serious, too delicate, for me to let ego override caution. and…”

You hesitated, the mention of Jardevo Dewsynn twisting your gut. “I can’t ask Dewsynn,” you said quietly. “His wife died on Alderaan four years ago. He’s… not in a place to take this case. It could lead to a conflict of interest.”

Vara frowned, confused. “What does his wife have to do with it? Dewsynn’s already been treating patients for years again. Unless…” Her eyes narrowed, a spark of realization flaring. “Unless the patient’s Imperial. Is he?”

You nodded slowly, your expression guarded. “He is.”

She leaned forward, voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “How high up? Dewsynn wouldn’t bat an eye at some random stormtrooper, so this guy’s got to be big. How high?”

You didn’t answer immediately. Instead, you stared up at the ceiling tiles as if the answer might be etched there, anything to avoid her gaze.

Finally, with a crooked smile you replied: “How high can you look?”

Vara’s jaw tightened as she processed your words. The galaxy was buzzing with news of the Emperor’s death, confirmed hours ago by Rebel intelligence and was now spreading throughout the galaxy. Coruscant was surely one of the first to be informed.

Her eyes flicked back to the datapad, scanning the data again: the mechanical bellows, the interface’s military-grade complexity, the sheer scale of the injuries. Her face paled, realization dawning like a slow-motion explosion.

“You can’t be serious,” she breathed, looking up at you.

You nodded, keeping your tone calm but firm. “I’m dead serious. He’s hanging on by a thread. I need you, Vara. You’re the best pulmonologist I know.” and whom I can consult on this matter you added ironically to yourself.  

She huffed, a mix of disbelief and indignation. “You’ve got some nerve."

Her eyes narrowed, but you could see the gears turning. Vara was ambitious, and the lure of this level of academic glory was hard to resist.

“Where are you?” she asked, voice cautious. “I’m not flying blind into some Rebel hideout.”

You shook your head, keeping it vague. “That’s classified for now. But I’ll send coordinates to a small moon; neutral territory. Someone will pick you up and bring you here. Full security, no questions asked.”

Vara stared at you for a long moment, her expression unreadable. Then she sighed, tossing the datapad onto her desk. “Fine. I’ll look at him. But if he’s too far gone, I’m not wasting my time or risking my record. And you owe me - big time.”

You grinned, relief flooding you. “Deal. You’re a saint, Vara. I’ll have the coordinates sent within the hour.”

She rolled her eyes, muttering, “Saint my ass.” The holocall flickered out, leaving you alone in the alcove’s dim glow.

You exhaled, sagging against the console.

So, pulmonologist: check. That wasn’t too excruciating, right? Just had to grovel to a woman who probably still dreams of tossing you into a trash compactor. No big deal.

Now for the rest of the galaxy’s finest: a cardiologist to wrestle his synth-caged heart, a hepatologist to salvage his sludge-ravaged liver, a neurologist to untangle the sparking mess of his brain-wired suit… and a psychiatrist? With injuries this severe, standard protocol would involve having a psychiatrist take a look… but let’s not push our luck. We’ll save the deep dive into his psyche for when he’s not one bad beep from flatlining. Baby steps - keep the guy breathing before you try to fix his inner child and get Force-choked for your troubles.

You’d better move fast. Luke and Piett would be back soon, lugging whatever medical data they’d scavenged from the Executor’s databanks. And if you were going to play host to the medical elite, you’d damn well need to know Vader’s chart like it was tattooed on your eyelids. Nothing screams “professional” like fumbling through Darth Vader’s medical history while the crème de la crème of medicine glares at you, wondering why they left their cushy clinics for this Rebel circus.

Piett’s voice was a strangled whisper. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

You didn’t look away from the screen, your focus laser-sharp despite the horror unfolding. “Spit bowls are in the second drawer on the left, Admiral,” you said, voice clipped. “Don’t you dare upchuck on my terminal.”

He swallowed hard, but remained firmly seated, his eyes averted. You couldn’t blame him. The scene was a nightmare, a tableau of suffering that made your medical training scream in protest. Unfortunately for Piett, you still needed him. His Imperial codes as admiral, his ability to navigate and crack through the encrypted archives… Without that, there was no way to access the files.
A patchwork of twenty years’ worth of meticulously documented medical history wasn’t something you could just condense into a neat summary. So, the two of you sat silently before the holo-projection, which revealed the first file; just the opening chapter in what could only be described as a medical chamber of horrors: a blackened, charred body on an operating table, writhing in agony. No legs, just stumps cauterized by heat. One arm was a cybernetic prosthetic, sparking intermittently, while the other ended in a severed and cauterised stump, just like the legs... The patient’s face was unrecognizable, a mask of burns and raw tissue, eyes squeezed shut against the pain.

A droid rolled into the frame. Its voice was clinical, devoid of empathy. “The patient has expressed a desire to terminate life. Initiation of the euthanasia protocol”

Your breath hitched.

A shadow loomed into the holo’s frame. A figure in flowing robes, his face hooded but unmistakable even in the grainy footage. Emperor Palpatine. Your stomach dropped as he let out a low, chilling chuckle, the sound echoing like a death knell. “No,” he said, with a voice of commanding clarity “Continue the procedure. His survival is of utmost priority.”

The droid’s head tilted, its tone unchanging flat, clinical. “Sir, the survival probability for injuries of this severity is below three percent. Ethical protocol prioritizes palliative pain reduction.”

Palpatine’s hand waved dismissively, his voice sharp. “Override the protocol. I require him alive. Begin the integration now.”

You froze, disbelief crashing over you as you watched the next few minutes.

The droids obeyed, their appendages resuming their work with mechanical precision. Plasteel plates were fused to the charred torso, wires threaded into raw nerves, sparking as they connected. Vader’s screams intensified, raw but cut short through his injuries. It seemed that the visible burns were not the only problem. The damage continued inside…

 The suit was taking shape, not as a life-support system but as a cage, built around a man who begged for death.

You forced yourself to watch, bile rising in your throat. The holo faded as the droids sealed the chest plate. The terminal beeped, signalling the end of the file, but the silence that followed was deafening. Piett sat rigid, his face ashen.

You leaned back, your voice low, trembling with fury. “They didn’t sedate him. They didn’t even try to ease any pain. They just… built that thing around him while he screamed and…What kind of monster does that?”

Pain is…an old but familiar friend.

“Okay, that was fun,” you said, sarcasm dripping from every word. “Now I know how he got the suit. Great. But I still don’t have an answer to the real question: Why?”

You had been sure the initial data would give you something to work with. Either a glimpse of him before the suit - or the medical rationale behind it. But instead, you got neither.

All you’d seen was torture. A complete disregard for every ethical principle civilized medicine was supposed to uphold.

Piett stared at you, visibly shaken. “What? What do you mean? We saw everything. Everything; much more than I ever wanted to,” he added in a whisper, his voice thin with lingering dread, as if even recalling it might summon the images back to life.

But you shook your head, jaw tight. “No, we saw how. What I’m asking is why. Why the suit? Why that monstrosity, instead of a cybernetic lung, or organ replacements, or literally anything else that didn’t involve sealing a man into a walking prison, complete with an eternal soundtrack of mechanical breathing for the rest of his life? What caused the burns? Where are his limbs?”

There were numerous reasons why artificial lung transplants could be out of the question. Rejection reactions, damage to other organs, religious objections...If there was a legitimate medical reason not to use artificial lungs, then you needed to know that now - before Vera walked in here wielding her scalpel and academic paper.

Because right now, you had no answers. Just a legacy of trauma dressed up as survival.

You turned to Piett, your voice sharp with urgency. “Check the subfiles again. Is there anything there? An operation report? A medical history? A patient file, something like a comprehensive survey of his health? Anything?”

Piett’s eyes, shadowed with exhaustion, flicked to his datapad. His fingers trembled as he navigated the encrypted archive, the weight of each file a palpable burden. “Give me a moment, Doctor,” he murmured, his voice strained. The terminal hummed, its decryption algorithms grinding through Imperial security codes. After a tense pause, he tapped the screen, and a new file loaded: a detailed report on the injuries sustained on Mustafar, a vulcantic planet located in the Atravis sector of the galaxy's Outer Rim Territories.

“Here,” he said, voice barely above a whisper. “This… this outlines the initial incident. The injuries that led to… to the suit.”

You leaned forward, eyes narrowing as the report filled the screen. The clinical language was a stark contrast to the horror it described:

Amputation of three limbs via lightsaber, resulting in complete loss of upper and lower extremities. Third- and fourth-degree burns covering 90% of the body surface area, caused by direct exposure to molten lava. Severe chemical and thermal burns to the internal respiratory tract, including trachea, bronchi, and lungs, resulting in total necrosis. Multi-organ damage secondary to hypovolemic shock and systemic inflammatory response.

“This… this is catastrophic,” you muttered, scrolling through the surgical logs. “But it doesn’t add up. Even with the tech available twenty years ago - bacta tanks, cybernetic lungs, tissue regeneration - no one would stuff a patient into a suit like that, especially not immediately after the incident. Burns this severe require weeks, months of stabilization. Bacta alone would take time to debride and regrow tissue before fitting prosthetics. And yet…”

You had seen what they did instead: The prosthetics weren’t fitted, they were hammered into raw, burned stumps, the suit’s plasteel plates fused to skin that was little more than ash. The bellows, a crude relic compared to Clone Wars-era lung implants, forced air through passages too damaged to function, ensuring constant pain with every breath.

You shook your head, disbelief warring with rage. “This makes no sense. None of it. They had the tech; cybernetic lungs were standard for Clone troopers with organic injuries. Why build a suit that’s basically a torture chamber? Why not stabilize him first?” Your voice rose, trembling with the weight of the question.

Piett didn’t answer, his gaze fixed on the datapad, his expression a mix of nausea and dread. You turned to him, frowning at his worsening pallor. “Piett, you look like you’re about to keel over. What is it?”

He swallowed hard, his throat bobbing as he extended the datapad with a trembling hand. “Here,” he rasped. “I… I think I found what you wanted. A patient file. A survey of… of his medical history.”

You took the datapad, your eyes scanning the screen as a new file opened. The header was stark, clinical: Patient Profile. The details followed in a neat column:

Birth Name: Anakin Skywalker.

Age: 23 at time of incident.

Gender: Male.

Height: 6’2” (prior to limb amputation)

Current status: 3’8”

Blood Type: O.

Weight: 88 kg (prior to limb amputation),

current status: 48 kg, variable due to cybernetic integration.

Origin: Tatooine

 Relatives: Mother: Shmi Skywalker, Father: Unknown.

Notable Medical History:
– Sustained a leg fracture at age 11

– Loss of his right lower arm in a lightsaber duel at age 19

Below was a biographical summary, a chillingly detached account of a life:

Admitted to the Jedi Order at age 9; Passed trials, trained as Padawan under Obi-Wan Kenobi; Married Padmé Amidala, Senator of Naboo, at the age of 19; Became a Jedi Knight at the age of 20; Was assigned Jedi Ahsoka Tano as his Padawan at the age of 20; General in the Clone Wars, distinguished service in multiple campaigns.

Your eyes skimmed the military accolades, but one phrase, buried in the early history, stopped you cold:

Enslaved by the Hutt Cartel on Tatooine from birth until age 9. (Initial ownership: Gardulla the Hutt. Subsequent ownership: Watto, Toydarian junk merchant.)

You froze, the words searing into your mind. Anakin Skywalker, the Hero with No Fear, the Jedi prodigy, and also Darth Vader the Empire’s brutal enforcer - had been a child slave on Tatooine? The revelation was a gut-punch, a piece of the puzzle you hadn’t expected.

 Piett’s trembling hands and wide eyes told you he’d read it too.
“A slave,” you murmured, voice low.

You shook your head, forcing the thought aside. “For now, we need more on the suit’s integration. Keep looking for operation reports, maintenance logs, anything on the neural interface.”

Piett nodded, his movements sluggish as he returned to the terminal.
What followed was a merciless plunge into a cabinet of medical atrocities: holo after holo, file after file, a relentless chronicle of suffering masquerading as treatment. Surgical logs detailed invasive procedures with no anesthesia, lab reports charted infections left to fester, medication adjustments pushed stimulants to toxic levels to keep Vader functional despite his pain. Hours bled together, each revelation a fresh wound to your medical ethics. You scribbled notes furiously, your hand trembling from the fury building in your chest.

Then, a new holo flickered to life, and the room seemed to grow colder. Darth Vader strapped to an operating table, his black armor gleaming under harsh surgical lights. For once, a human doctor stood beside him, a rare presence amid the swarm of droids. You felt a flicker of hope. maybe this was a moment of actual care, a break from the cruelty. But the hope died as a surgical droid’s voice cut through the silence, cold and mechanical.

“Analysis and scan complete. Diagnosis: Severe fractures of the upper cervical spine, involving both the atlas (C1) and axis (C2), complicated by instability and nerve compression. Urgent recommendation: Immediate immobilization and surgical stabilization, followed by bacta immersion to prevent spinal cord damage.”

The doctor, a wiry man with a face like weathered duracrete, interrupted, his voice clipped and devoid of empathy. “We’ll fix the fractures with durasteel bolts. Direct order from the Emperor: Lord Vader is expected back on the battlefield within the next hours.”

You sat frozen, your breath catching as the droid’s appendages moved to the helmet. They worked with eerie precision, releasing the seals with soft hisses. The helmet lifted, revealing Vader’s face, or what remained of it. His skull was chalk-white, a ghostly canvas devoid of color except for the deep, bruised circles under his eyes, so dark they seemed to merge with the jagged scar slicing across his cheekbones. Another massive scar, thick and puckered, ran from his forehead to the back of his scalp, a brutal testament to some prior trauma. His eyes, molten sick yellow, stared blankly at the ceiling.

Why were his eyes yellow? Just hours ago, they’d been blue.

His expression held one unmistakable emotion: absolute resignation, as if he’d long since accepted that suffering was his only constant.

Piett’s voice was a choked whisper. “Stars …”

You didn’t respond, your eyes locked on the holo. The droids began their work, drilling durasteel bolts into Vader’s cervical vertebrae with a sickening whine. No anesthesia, no sedation, just the raw grind of metal against bone. Vader’s jaw clenched, a faint groan escaping through gritted teeth, but he didn’t scream. Not this time. The resignation in his eyes was worse than any cry, a silent surrender:

You slammed your fist on the console, the clang echoing in the alcove. “A double neck fracture, and they just… bolt it together like he’s a droid? No spinal repair, no stabilization, just ‘get him back to the battlefield’?”

Piett flinched, his hands gripping his datapad tight. “Lord Vader’s injuries were always… expedited.  I saw him return to duty with wounds that would’ve killed most men. It always seemed as if he was indestructible....I once saw him jump from the hangar bay of the Executor straight down onto a battlefield on the planet’s surface, because his TIE fighter was damaged and the shuttles were taking too long." You looked at him, eyebrows raised, as if you must have misheard him.

"We were flying as low as a Super Star Destroyer of this class could, but even then, it was still several kilometres above the ground. I thought he’d be crushed on impact. But instead… he hit the ground like the fist of the gods themselves. And then he walked into the fight - without missing a beat. I thought always it was his strength…”

“Strength?” you snapped, your voice trembling with rage. “You watched him jump out of a ship without hesitation - falling kilometres through the air, no parachute, no safety mechanism - Just a freefall into a warzone. And it never once occurred to you that maybe this man wasn’t particularly attached to living?  Maybe surviving was just a consequence, not the goal. And the medical staff? They strapped him down, drilled bolts into his spine, and sent him back to kill for them. They didn’t care if he lived, they cared if he fought.” You dragged a hand through your hair, forcing yourself to breathe. “What else is in this file? Any follow-up scans?”

Piett tapped the datapad, his movements sluggish, as if each file drained a piece of his soul. A report loaded, detailing the procedure’s aftermath. The durasteel bolts stabilized the fractures but caused chronic nerve compression, leading to persistent pain and reduced neck mobility. The spinal cord showed micro-damage, increasing the risk of paralysis with each mission. The doctor’s notes were chillingly curt: Patient compliant. Returned to active duty. Increase in pain medication unnecessary.

You leaned back, your voice low and bitter. “Unnecessary. Of course. Why ease the pain of a weapon?”

You scribbled a note for the neurologist you’d need to recruit.  Your hand shook as you wrote, the image of Vader’s resigned face burned into your mind.

You were fairly certain that this was what had ultimately led to most of his spine being reconstructed with artificial durasteel struts. That and the sheer weight pressing down on it. The suit and prosthetics alone weighed well over 100 kilograms. On top of that, the proportions were completely thrown off by the prosthetics, which in turn had a direct impact on the spine: according to these records, Anakin Skywalker had stood at just 6’2. Vader, the way he’d been laid out on your table, had easily been 6’9 before you removed the prosthetics. The reconstruction with artificial durasteel struts, of course, had been adapted to that absurd height - something you definitely needed to keep in mind when designing the new prosthetics.  If you even made it that far.

One thought burned itself into my mind

“He is a weapon. Nothing more…”

Piett’s eyes met yours, questioning, almost pleading. “What?”

You shook your head, voice low and laced with bitter incredulity. “To your Empire, he was never a person. From day one, he was just a weapon. It didn’t matter if he broke, if he bled, if he begged to die. A weapon gets patched up, bolted together, and sent back to kill. No agenda, no choice, no say in his own treatment…”

You paused, the question clawing at you, raw and unanswerable. “Why? Why did he let them do this to him for decades?”

This was just one of the many, many questions that had opened up to you in the past hours - and which, in your mind, could never be pieced together into a coherent puzzle.
Anakin Skywalker - Jedi Knight, unrivalled in skill and fame, a war hero who’d plucked countless souls from the Clone Wars’ jaws. But now each puzzle piece you uncovered revealed also a part of a deeper portrait:  He’d been a husband. Not some skirt-chasing hotshot with commitment issues. So no, Luke and Leia hadn’t been the accidental fallout of a random hookup, as you’d half-assumed in your more cynical moments.

A husband. A father.

You leaned back, the chair creaking under you, as Vader’s sharp words echoed in your memory: “I gave two decades to a cause that lied to me - kept the truth about my children buried…” He’d known about his children, or at least suspected, only to be fed lies by the Empire - or Palpatine himself.

Jedi Knight. War hero. Husband. Father. All of that - by the age of twenty-three. Quite a lot of responsibility, considering that at twenty-three, you were mostly skilled at killing houseplants, forgetting to do your laundry and sleeping with morons who couldn’t spell “commitment” if their lives depended on it.

But for Anakin Skywalker apparently, juggling war, politics, and fatherhood wasn’t enough - he also trained his own Padawan and managed to look immaculately put together for every Holonet appearance, even with blood and dirt still drying on his boots.

And then… what? He’d snapped, shedding his light to become a brutal killing machine, a shadow carved in durasteel with no will of his own?

You shook your head, the thought curdling in your gut. No, “no will of his own” was a lazy lie. You’d seen the Rebellion’s grainy surveillance holos: Darth Vader, a one-man maelstrom, scything through battlefields with a crimson blade, bodies piling at his feet. He’d commanded Death Squadron, seven Imperial-class Star Destroyers and the Executor as flagship, a fleet of over half a million souls bending to his will. And the name “Death Squadron” wasn’t earned by accident. That kind of power, that ruthless efficiency, screamed an independent agenda, a sharp mind, capable of carrying out complex operations for two decades.

He wasn’t just Palpatine’s puppet, dancing on strings. Not completely, anyway... And that made it all the more baffling. What could shatter a man so brilliant, so fierce, into a monster who served a tyrant who laughed at his screams? With the raw, Force-fuelled might he wielded, why hadn’t he fought back against the unspeakable torment of that suit, those operations, that prison of pain? The questions swirled, a nebula of contradictions you couldn’t chart, each one deepening the mystery of the man on your operating table.

Why did he endure it?
It would’ve been easy for him - trivial, even – even without his limbs to destroy the droids, to kill the doctors. Palpatine couldn’t have been present at every procedure, every repair.
So why did he let it happen?
Why did he allow them to do that to him?

Then, like a blaster bolt from the dark, shame crashed over you, cold and suffocating. Your breath hitched, your cybernetic hand freezing on the datapad. The terminal’s glow blurred as your thoughts spiralled inward, a torrent of guilt and self-reckoning.

Why is he putting up with all of this now?

Because of the same reason that kept you going.

Luke. It all came back to Luke. Every choice, every action, every sleepless hour spent fighting for Vader’s life - it was all for him. “I’m doing it for you, Skywalker,” you’d told him, half-joking, half-earnest... When you’d intubated Vader, when you’d sweet-talked Vara and the other into joining this mad crusade - it wasn’t for the patient, to save a life.

 It was for those blue eyes, that unshakable hope, that Jedi heart you’d wanted to protect. You’d seen Luke’s pain, his desperate need to save his father, and you’d made it your mission.

But when Vader had rasped, “You should have let me die, son,” what had you done? No - what had you thought? You’d dismissed it, your mind flashing to his atrocities, the blood-soaked legend of Darth Vader. He doesn’t get a say, you’d told yourself, not after what he’s done, not while Luke’s fighting for him. His words were delirium, a warlord’s whim, irrelevant against his son’s plea. You’d pushed forward, adjusting the ventilator, calling in specialists, driven by Luke’s hope and your own stubborn resolve.

It’s one thing to be a father, to set aside your own death wish for the sake of your son’s hopes.
It’s another to be a doctor, and to judge the life of your patient through a moral lens… and act on it.

And another realization hit: you were no better than the Empire. They’d stripped Vader of agency, turning him into a weapon for their own ends, ignoring his pleas for death, bolting his broken body together for battle.

And you? You’d prioritized Luke’s wishes, the Rebellion’s strategic gain, over the man on the table. You’d seen him as a challenge - but not as a person with a choice. You’d denied him also the one thing Palpatine never gave him: autonomy.

The shame was a physical weight, crushing your chest. How could I miss this? you thought, horrified. You’d sworn an oath to save lives, to honour patients’ wishes, yet you’d bulldozed over Vader’s, blinded by Luke’s faith and your own ego. The holos - his screams, his resignation, the Emperor’s voice - flashed in your mind, a damning mirror of your failure.

Your resolve hardened, a quiet vow forming in the storm of your thoughts. Before Vara or the others arrived, before anything else happened: you had to act.

You blinked, the alcove snapping back into focus. Piett was watching you, concern etching his weary face. “Doctor? Are you alright?”

You set the datapad down, your voice steady despite the tremor in your chest. “Hold off on the next file. I need to check on the patient.”

The door of the operating theatre hissed shut with a finality that echoed your resolve.
The sterile air was thick with the tang of antiseptic and the rhythmic hiss of the ventilator attached to the patient on the table. His massive frame, stripped of its prosthetics, was a haunting silhouette: no limbs, only infected stumps; his torso a patchwork of scars and burns beneath a web of cables and monitors. The neural interface at his chest pulsed faintly, its tendrils a cruel tether to his ravaged organs, sparking intermittently like a dying star.

The weight of the past hours pressed against your chest.

CX-3 whirred softly at Vader’s side, its appendages deftly changing bandages and cleaning the raw wounds left by the removal of his prosthetics and their anchor points. The stumps oozed viscous fluid, the infection markers still dangerously high despite your antibiotic barrage. The droid’s photoreceptors glowed red, its movements precise as it irrigated the sites with saline. You paused, watching the meticulous work, your heart pounding. Vader was intubated, the endotracheal tube snaking from his scarred throat, rendering speech impossible. But he’d “talked” to you before. This should work the same.

You stepped closer, your boots soft against the sterile floor, and stopped at his side. The monitors beeped steadily: SpO2 at 40%, pulse erratic, fever at 39.2°C. His face, pale and scarred beneath the breathing mask, was slack, eyes closed, but you sensed a presence, a coiled power beneath the fragility. You hesitated, then gently placed your hand on his shoulder, the contact grounding you against the storm of your thoughts.

“Lord Vader,” you said softly, voice steady despite the knot in your throat. “Can you hear me?”

His eyes snapped open, molten blue and icy cold, locking onto yours with a ferocity that stole your breath. You knew his eyes were irreparably damaged. The suit had compensated, replacing much of his vision with enhanced optical lenses, even improving it beyond normal human capacity. So technically, it was impossible for him to see you clearly. But you had a vague suspicion that the Force played no small role in allowing him to perceive his surroundings with uncanny clarity, despite the extensive damage to his sensory systems. But nevertheless, his gaze was a blade, piercing through your defences, and you froze, heart lurching.  You yanked your hand back, stammering, “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you. I just… I need to speak with you.”

What do you want, Doctor?

The Force carried his words, sharp and unyielding, and you shivered, the intrusion again both alien and intimate.

You swallowed, steadying yourself. “I’ve found specialists,” you said, voice low but firm. “The best in their fields: pulmonology, cardiology, neurology. They’re coming to treat you, to tackle your lungs, your heart, the interface. But before they do, I need to… set something right.”

You glanced at CX-3, its appendages still probing a wound. “CX-3, finish up later. Leave us.”

The droid’s photoreceptors swiveled, its voice flat. “Doctor, wound care is incomplete. Infection risk-”

“Out,” you snapped, pointing to the door. “Now.”

CX-3 whirred in protest but complied, rolling out with a soft clank. The door hissed shut, sealing you alone with Vader. His eyes followed you, unblinking, a predator’s stare despite his broken state.

You turned back, meeting his gaze, and took a deep breath, “I’ve gone through your medical files,” you began, voice steady but heavy. “also your medical history. With injuries as severe as yours, then and now, medical ethics demands we follow the patient’s wishes. That doesn’t always mean ‘life at all costs.’ Sometimes it means palliative care, pain reduction, letting go if that’s what’s chosen.” You paused, the words harder than you thought, “I’m sorry, Lord Vader. I’m sorry your wishes were ignored – after the incident on Mustafar, and… here. I ignored you, too.”

His voice lashed out, sharp and venomous.

Spare me your pity, Doctor. I have no need for it.

 The Force carried his anger, a cold wave that made your skin prickle.

You shook your head, voice firm despite the lie you felt in your bones. “It’s not pity.” The words rang hollow, and you cursed yourself for the flicker of compassion you couldn’t suppress, the ache for the man who’d endured decades of torment.

His voice cut through again - colder, more precise.

Do not lie to me. I sense it in you - your pity. You read ‘slave’ in a file, watched holos of my repairs, and now you paint me as a helpless victim in your mind. You understand nothing of me, nor what I have done, what I am capable of.

His eyes burned, a storm of rage and defiance. Your idealistic morals are wasted here. Find another to save with your sanctimonious code.

You flinched, his words a blaster bolt to your resolve. Your voice wavered, stumbling over itself. “That’s not- that’s not what I meant. I’m not trying to– medical ethics isn’t about judging patients, or their actions. It’s about–”

Enough, he interrupted, the Force-voice a whip-crack. What do you want? Speak plainly or leave me to my fate.

You took a deep breath, steadying your trembling hands, and met his gaze. “I see the irony of your situation, my lord. No arms, no legs, one lung barely functioning, every vital organ and sense battered beyond reason. And yet, you’re likely the most dangerous being on this ship, capable of killing me with a thought. To be so powerful, so helpless, all at once - it must be… unbearable.” You paused, choosing your words carefully. “I wronged you when I intubated you, ignored your wish to die because Luke begged me to save you. I won’t do that again. I’m giving you something you apparently haven’t had in decades: a choice.”

You reached into your medcoat, pulling out a syringe filled with a clear, lethal dose – enough and much more to stop his heart twice, just in chase. You set it on the table beside him, the clink of glass against durasteel echoing in the silence.

“If you want to let go, to die here, I’ll make it painless. Gentle. I’ll ensure your children know it was your choice – not mine, not Luke’s, not Leia’s, not the Rebellion’s, not the Emperor’s. But if you want to live, to fight through this with us, with the specialists I’ve called, it’ll be a long, brutal road. I need to know it’s your choice, not someone else’s agenda, which brings the risk of turning you into a weapon again. Because you’re too dangerous, too powerful, to be anything but your own man.”

You let the words hang in the air for a moment, then added, quieter.  “Frankly, I don’t care if your will to live is about being there for your children, or about defeating what’s left of the Empire, or simply because you’re tired and want peace for once in your life. But I have to know it’s yours. That it’s your decision. Not Palpatine’s. Not ours. Because if you let yourself be turned into a weapon again - this time, it’s on me.”

He looked at you. Long and hard.
And this time, you could hold his gaze. You didn’t look away.

“So, tell me: Do you want to live? I’ll tell you right now - I can only vouch for what happens here, in this room, under my care. What the Alliance decides, what the High Command wants, or how your trial ends… that’s out of my hands. It’s not my place to judge what you’ve done. That responsibility lies with others.”

Compared to the weight of judgment, giving him back control over his own life felt almost like a relief.

“Or do you want to go? Here and now. Given your past, there are many people who’d argue you don’t deserve a peaceful death in a hospital bed. Maybe they’re right. But after everything I’ve seen today, every bit of medical torture stitched into your skin, I think easing your passing might be the only thing I can offer that doesn’t feel like a crime.”

His eyes held yours, unblinking, a frozen sea of blue that seemed to see through you. You stood taller, meeting his gaze, the weight of his presence no longer crushing you. “I don’t care why you choose,” you continued, voice unwavering. “So, my lord. what’s it going to be? Live, and face a fight harder than any battlefield? With operations and therapies – not repairs. Or let go, here, now, on your terms?”

His gaze shifted, slow and deliberate, to the viewport above the operating theatre, where observers could watch from the gallery. You followed his eyes, heart lurching as you saw Leia Organa standing there, her face a mask of cold resolve, her dark eyes fixed on her father. She couldn’t hear you, soundproof glass ensured that, but her presence was a silent storm, emotions unreadable. You hadn’t yet given her the datapad and stick Vader had entrusted to you, meant for her. What was she thinking, staring down at the man who’d haunted her life?

Vader’s eyes lingered on her, his expression unyielding, a strange, iron resolve etched into the lines of his scarred face. Then his gaze returned to you, and for the first time, you found it… bearable, almost easy, to meet those icy blue eyes.

The coldness, the hardness, was still there, but something else flickered beneath - a spark, a shadow, a choice unmade - until it wasn’t.

Chapter Text

There weren't many spots aboard the Redemption where Leia could slip away unnoticed. Most medical compartments were under surveillance or secured by access control. The haunted look in her eyes lingered in your memory, and it gave you a convenient reason to deliver the datapad and stick Vader had intended just for her.

However, there was one place aboard that had no access restrictions and offered plenty of opportunities to hide.

The hangar was a chaotic expanse, its high ceiling crisscrossed with gantries, the air alive with the clang of wrenches and the growl of engines. Mechanics swarmed over X-wings and shuttles, sparks cascading from welders, while droids weaved through crates, their beeps swallowed by the din. In the far corner, the Millennium Falcon loomed. Han Solo’s voice rang out, laced with irritation, as he sparred with Chewbacca over a sputtering hyperdrive panel. “Chewie, I swear, the motivator’s solid! It’s that blasted flux capacitor actin’ up!” Chewbacca’s roared rebuttal, an angry torrent of Wookiee indignation, unmistakably showed he had a rather different perspective.

Your gaze swept upward to the upper railings, a lattice of walkways overlooking the frenzy. There, alone on a narrow perch, sat Leia. She was curled in on herself, knees tucked to her chest, arms wrapped tight, her dark hair spilling loose and catching the hangar’s faint glow. Her eyes were locked on the ships below, but her face was a void, adrift in a private abyss. She seemed diminished, not the Rebellion’s unyielding heart but a woman fractured by grief, the same desolate stillness you’d seen on the platform.

You ascended the metal stairs, your boots’ soft clangs lost in the hangar’s roar, and approached her quietly. The railing was cold under your cybernetic hand as you tested her awareness. She didn’t move, her stare fixed on the Falcon’s flickering lights. You eased down beside her, legs dangling over the edge, the hangar’s clamor a distant pulse. “Hey, Leia,” you said, voice gentle, threading through the quiet between you. “You holding up?”

She didn’t answer at first, her silence a weight heavier than the noise below. Then, with a slow shake of her head, she murmured, “No. I’m not.” Her voice was raw, a frayed thread, and her eyes stayed on the ships, distant as stars. “You know…I thought… if I saw him without that mask, his… truth, it would fix something. That I could let go of what he did; to me, to Han, to Alderaan. That the nightmares, the screams, would stop haunting me.” She swallowed, her jaw tightening. “But they’re still there, louder than ever.”

You stayed quiet, giving her space to unravel, the hangar’s din a backdrop to her confession. She turned her head, meeting your gaze, her dark eyes glinting with a pain that cut deeper than blaster wounds. “It’s absurd, isn’t it? I’ve faced him before many times; during Senate sessions, on the Death Star, in battles, across holo-screens. But when he looked at me today, it felt… different. Like he saw me, really saw me, for the first time. Not as a rebel, not as a prisoner, but as…” Her voice faltered, the word choking her. “His blood, his daughter. And that’s what makes it worse.”

She drew a shaky breath, hugging her knees tighter. “I wasn’t ready for that. Not the Vader I knew, the monster in black, but… a wreck. No limbs, scars, tubes, barely alive. I thought seeing him like that would make it easier to bury the pain. But it doesn’t. It’s like staring at a shattered mirror, and I hate that I see… something human. How can someone so ruined, so crippled, still have done what he did? To me, to my friends, to my home?” Her voice cracked, raw with grief. “Alderaan’s gone because of him and Tarkin. My father, my real father Bail, the man who raised me, who loved me - he’s dead because of them. Where’s the justice in that? Why does a man as good as Bail have to die, while a man as cruel and broken as Vader gets to live?”

The words hung heavy, a wound laid bare. You let them settle, the hangar’s noise, Han’s curses, Chewbacca’s growls, fading into a dull roar. “I don’t know,” you said at last, voice steady but soft. “There’s no justice out there, not the kind you’re looking for. The galaxy doesn’t balance scales like that.” It was true: over your years as a physician, you'd seen a ceaseless stream of pain and injustice. Individuals who inflicted cruelty out of pure malice or hunger for profit, yet somehow always escaped punishment. Meanwhile, innocent souls, good, vulnerable beings who had committed no crime other than merely existing, suffered terribly, lost those they loved, or were left mortally wounded, traumatized, forever changed. Children who saw horrors no eyes should witness, their bodies shattered, limbs torn from them… No, justice had no place in this galaxy.

Leia’s lips twisted, a bitter smile flickering. “Luke loves him already, doesn’t he?” she said, voice laced with equal parts awe and frustration. “He sees a father, a hero, some spark of the war hero Anakin Skywalker. I want to feel that, for his sake, to believe there’s something worth saving. But I can’t forget. I can’t unsee the interrogation droid, my own screams, Han frozen in carbonite, the moment Alderaan…” She trailed off, her eyes glistening, and looked away. “Bail was my father, in every way that mattered. Vader took him from me, and I can’t and will never forgive that.”

The Falcon’s lights flickered below, Han’s voice rising in a new spat with Chewbacca. You reached into your medcoat, fingers brushing the datapad and  stick Vader had given you. They felt like anchors, their unknown contents a risk…help or salt in her wounds. You pulled them out, the datapad’s screen blank, the stick’s metal glinting faintly. “He wanted you to have these,” you said, holding them out. “I haven’t looked at them, don’t know what’s inside. Could help, could hurt. But they’re from him, for you.”

Leia’s gaze snapped to the items, a flash of surprise piercing her guard. She hesitated, her fingers hovering, then took them, her touch light as if they might burn. She turned the datapad over, her expression a mix of dread and curiosity. “Why?” she whispered, almost to herself.

You shook your head, voice calm but earnest. “I don’t know. But I’ve seen his files, Leia. He’s done monstrous things, no question, but he’s also been broken, in ways I can’t unsee. There’s no ‘galactic justice’ to make sense of it, no ledger to square Bail’s loss with Vader’s life. Just choices, moment by moment. From what I’ve seen, you and Luke… you’ve shaken something in him, stirred a change. I don’t know if it’s enough, or where it’ll lead, but it’s there. Maybe these,” you nodded to the datapad “are part of it. Maybe they’re his way of trying.”

Leia’s thumb traced the datapad’s edge, her face a battlefield of doubt and defiance. “Trying,” she echoed, voice sharp with scepticism. “Can a man like him try? After Alderaan, after everything? Luke believes it, but I…”

She trailed off, her eyes distant. “I had a father. Bail taught me to speak, to stand, fight, to love. Vader tore that away, and now he’s… what? My blood? My burden?”

You leaned forward, elbows on your knees, your cybernetic arm catching the light. “He’s both, maybe: blood and burden. And you don’t have to forgive him, Leia. No one gets to demand that. Not even Luke. But you’re here, trying, for Luke, for yourself. That’s more than most could do. If you want to see where this change in him goes, that’s your choice. If you don’t, that’s yours too. Either way, you’re not alone in it.”

She met your gaze, her eyes searching, a flicker of something softer beneath the steel—gratitude, perhaps, or resolve. “As destructive and full of hate as I am right now, Luke is overflowing with too much hope and love, if you ask me.” she glanced down at the datapad, “I’ll… look at these. For Luke, maybe. Not for him.”

You nodded, letting the moment breathe, the hangar’s noise swelling around you. Han’s voice spiked, railing against a “shoddy conduit,” and Chewbacca’s growl rattled the air. Leia’s gaze drifted back to the Falcon, the datapad clutched in her hands.

You returned to the lab, the door hissing open to reveal its sterile cocoon of whirring consoles and polished durasteel. You settled at your workstation and pulled up the schematics for a new cybernetic lung. The challenge was daunting - Vader’s lungs were a scarred wasteland, his body adapted to decades of decay. Connecting a cybernetic lung meant navigating rejection risks, misaligned neural pathways, and tissue that had forgotten how to heal. Vara and her team were docking, with the insight you already possessed regarding Vader's medical condition, you'd been able to prepare some preliminary groundwork for her.

The lab door hissed open, breaking your focus. Luke stepped in, his blond hair mussed, blue eyes bright but edged with hesitation. At least he looked a lot better than the last time you'd seen him. The grime from Endor that had dried onto his face and suit was washed away, and the dark circles under his eyes suggested he’d finally managed to find a moment’s sleep. He lingered by the entrance, hands fidgeting, the soft hum of his prosthetic hand slicing the quiet. You glanced up, flashing a wry smile. “Skywalker, you here to see if I’ve turned your dad into a housekeeping droid yet?”

Luke’s lips curved, a nervous chuckle slipping out. “Not quite. I hate to ask, since you’re already swamped and you just fixed this thing before I ran off, but…” He lifted his right hand, the synthetic skin scuffed from the Death Star fight. “Could you take a look? Since the Emperor’s Force lightning hit, it’s been… off. A slight tremor, maybe.”

You leaned back, stretching with a satisfying crack of your neck. “A tremor? Lucky you, I could use a breather from this lung riddle. Fixing a hand’s a breeze compared to grafting cybernetics onto twenty-year-old scar tissue.” You nodded to the exam table, quietly relieved to tackle something straightforward. “Hop up. Let’s see what Palpatine’s light show did to your wiring.”

Luke settled onto the table, his tension easing as you rolled your chair closer. You grabbed a vibro-scalpel and diagnostic probe, your cybernetic arm moving with effortless precision. As you sliced into the synthetic skin of his hand, peeling it back to expose the durasteel frame and circuits, you caught Luke’s gaze drifting to your own arm. The bare durasteel, stretching from shoulder to fingertips, gleamed without synthetic cover, its servos a quiet symphony of engineering. You’d seen that look before, curiosity laced with restraint and felt a question simmering beneath his shy demeanor.

You arched an eyebrow, smirking. “You know you can always ask, right?” you said quietly.

His gaze shifted upward, meeting yours for just an instant. His cheeks flushed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to stare. It’s just… why no synthetic skin? Doesn’t it feel… strange, keeping it exposed like that?”

You spun your chair to grab a clamp. “Strange? Not a bit,” you said, meeting his gaze with a playful grin. “Synthetic skin’s handy sometimes; say, for a soft touch on someone’s skin or certain… movements.” You winked, letting the innuendo hang, and Luke’s blush deepened, his smile caught between embarrassment and amusement. “I keep a stash for those moments, don’t worry.”

You leaned closer, probing a scorched circuit in his hand, the diagnostic light glinting off charred connections. "I lost my arm when I was eight. My first prosthetic came with synthetic skin, looked lifelike, almost 'normal'. The doctors said it would take months to sync, but my body rejected it. Not medically, just...." You paused, searching for the right way to explain. "When kids lose limbs and need prosthetics, there are usually two paths: most of them adapt faster than adults ever could. They’re resilient. But sometimes it goes the other way, especially after serious trauma." You paused for a moment to reach behind you for another screwdriver.
"We kept going back to the doctor because I was in pain. Pain that shouldn’t have been possible. They even turned off the pain receptors to be sure, but it was still there. Very real." You found your thoughts wandering, back to that day. The memory still vivid, still breathing in your mind.
"I remember it clearly. Even for Coruscant, the trip to the clinic felt ridiculously long. And my father… he was so angry. Hated spending his vacation time dragging me to yet another appointment. On this day however, they peeled the skin completely off to troubleshoot, and suddenly, the phantom pain was gone. I saw the raw durasteel, what it was built to do, and for the first time, I felt free. It moved like an extension of me, not a costume. So I told them to ditch the skin.”

You raised your arm.  “This isn’t my real arm, and I don’t pretend it is. It’s the best tech out there, but I’m not hiding what’s changed. I found peace embracing it. And the kids I treat? They see mine and feel less like they’re broken. It’s not about blending in…it’s about owning who you are.”

Luke’s expression softened, a quiet awe in his eyes. “You make it… powerful.”

“It can be,” you said with a shrug, turning back to his hand. “Depends on how you carry it. Losing a limb isn’t something shameful. In most cases, it’s not something we chose. Of course, we’d prefer to have our real arms or legs back, but a prosthetic isn’t a flaw. It doesn’t need to be hidden. People will stare; they always do. Sometimes out of curiosity, sometimes pity, sometimes judgment. But the key is learning to live beyond their gaze. They’ll judge you either way, with or without a prosthetic. And honestly, life is too short to bend yourself into what others consider normal. Besides, while the arm needs regular checks, it allows me to do far more precise work, especially in my line of work.”

He seemed to think about your words for a moment, watching you as you worked your way through each receptor. After a pause, he spoke. "Yeah, you’re right. I guess I just need more time to come to terms with it. That trauma you mentioned-"

He gave an awkward smile, his cheeks tinged red in a way that made him look disarmingly young. "I mean… I still haven’t really gotten over the fact that my own father chopped off my hand and then casually dropped the whole ‘I’m your dad’ thing right after."

You chuckled quietly. "Yeah, not exactly winning Father of the Year with that one. But you’ve got a point: as long as your arm stays tied to that moment, it’ll always be just that: a link to your trauma."

Your probe traced a circuit, pinpointing the issue: a cluster of fried connections, seared by the Emperor’s Force lightning. The damage was subtle but enough to disrupt neural feedback, causing the tremor. You swapped the probe for a soldering tool, muttering, “Palpatine’s zap roasted these circuits. A quick rewire, and you’ll be back to Jedi acrobatics.”

As you soldered, a thought struck, clear and piercing. Vader’s neural interface had been crippled by that same Force lightning on the Death Star. His limbs had gone dead, leaving him trapped in his armor. You’d seen the wreckage when you removed them: charred tendrils, fused connectors, a system that collapsed under electrical surge. Why craft a suit like his – an armor built to withstand everything - so fragile to electricity?

You paused, tool steady, recalling the suit’s dissection. Its durasteel plating  was a fortress: fireproof against lava’s heat (what a bitter irony), proof for vacuum survival, resilient to blasters, bombs, and rockets. Rebellion intel logged failed assassinations - explosives, snipers, a rigged starfighter crash - that left Vader with “minor” damage, his suit shrugging off assaults that’d shred a platoon. He could’ve waded through a reactor meltdown and walked out scorched but upright. Yet Force lightning, a single surge, had dropped him like a droid with a cut power cell.

Your mind snagged on a file from the Executor’s archives, glimpsed amid decrypted horrors. A report from Grand Moff Tarkins star destroyer, that was sent to the Executor regarding an alleged “hunting accident” involving both Vader and Tarkin. According to the report, Vader had been struck by a massive bolt of lightning, which had nearly incapacitated him entirely. Whatever the method, the report was clear: Tarkin had initiated it.  He understood precisely how a lightning strike would affect Vader.
He knew.
And if he knew, then so did Palpatine.

The realization struck just as hard as the lightning that had taken Vader down.. Palpatine hadn’t designed Vader’s suit to save him; he’d woven a kill switch into its core, a deliberate chink to cripple his enforcer if he ever rebelled. The Empire’s Fist, terror of the stars, armored against blasters, bombs, vacuum, even lava - except the one weapon Palpatine wielded with relish: Force lightning. The suit wasn’t a triumph of cybernetics; it was a shackle, ensuring Vader could be grounded with a spark. No cybernetic lungs, no optimized prosthetics - because Palpatine didn’t want a healed apprentice. He wanted a weapon, mighty yet muzzled, bound to pain and control.

You exhaled, setting the soldering tool down, your gaze drifting to the lung schematic. That was no medical necessity for the suit; it was sabotage. A new lung, new limbs, could free him, if his body could handle the shift. Knowing there was no underlying medical issue gave you a surprising sense of relief - the odds were starting to look much better.

You looked at Luke, his brow creased with concern. “You’re awfully quiet,” he said, voice tentative. “What’s up?”

You leaned back, folding your arms. “I think, I cracked why your dad’s suit tanked on the Death Star,” you said, voice low. “The Emperor’s Force lightning fried his neural interface, killed his prosthetics, left him stuck. And it wasn’t a glitch; it was built in.” You nodded to the holo-display, the lung model glowing. “That suit’s a tank: fireproof, waterproof, shrugs off bombs. Vader’s walked through assassination attempts that’d flatten a fleet. But electricity? One jolt, and he’s done. I found a file which indicates that Tarkin once used lightning strikes to exploit the same flaw. Tarkin knew, which means Palpatine did.”

Luke’s eyes widened, horror dawning. “You mean…”

“Palpatine rigged a kill switch,” you said, voice hard. “A way to drop Vader if he got out of line. No new lungs, no decent prosthetics - just a heavy, pain-racked cage to keep him tame. The Emperor didn’t want an equal; he wanted a weapon he could shut off.”

Luke’s face drained of color, his hand tightening, the tremor faint. “That’s…All that suffering… just to control him?”

You nodded, jaw set. “Medically, there’s no reason for that suit. A cybernetic lung’s tricky - his body’s been fighting necrotic tissue for years, so rejection’s a risk, and the neural connections are a mess, but it’s doable. Same with new limbs, burns, organ damage. The tech’s there. Palpatine just chose pain over progress to keep him leashed.”

Luke’s gaze fell to his hand, circuits exposed like veins. “Why didn’t he resist? With the Force, his strength… why let Palpatine do this?”

The question hung, heavy and unvoiced in your own mind. Why hadn’t her shattered that prison? He could’ve crushed droids, slain doctors with a flicker of will. Yet he’d borne decades of agony, a weapon molded to his master’s hand. The answer was a void, a missing piece in his fractured being, and you held your tongue, unwilling to deepen Luke’s pain with your own unanswered doubts. His toxicology profile could suggest a contributing factor—but it wasn’t sufficient. Not on this scale.

You picked up the soldering tool, focusing on his hand. “Let’s fix this tremor,” you said, voice calm despite the storm within. “One step at a time, yeah?”

As you set about replacing the destroyed circuits, Luke’s gaze drifted. You, too, were lost in thought, though at least you could focus on the task at hand. It didn’t take long before you managed to reconnect the receptors and pull the synthetic skin back into place.

Luke flexed his fingers, the synthetic skin resealed, and shot you a grateful grin, his blue eyes bright with relief. “Feels perfect,” he said, a touch of awe in his voice. “You’re incredible with this, you know.”

You waved off the praise. “Just keeping your lightsaber hand in fighting shape, Skywalker. Try not to tangle with any more Imperial zappers, alright?”

 Your grin faded as your commlink flashing with an urgent message:

 Brainstorming session, Conference Room 3, now. Doctors and High Command re: Lord Vader’s status.

Your brow furrowed, confusion sparking. High Command? Involved in a medical briefing? What did they want with Vader’s case? You tapped the commlink, confirming attendance, and stood, medcoat swishing. Luke, still flexing his hand, looked up, concern etching his face. “What’s that?”

“No clue,” you muttered, snatching your datapad. “High Command’s sniffing around your father’s case. Brainstorming with the other specialists, apparently. You coming?”

Luke nodded, rising, his expression a mix of curiosity and unease.

The conference room was a stark shift from the lab, its long durasteel table ringed by specialists locked in a fierce debate as you came in. The air crackled with tension, voices clashing, datapads aglow with scans and charts.

Vara stood at the head, her tailored suit crisp, hazel eyes sharp as she pointed at a holo of Vader’s lungs. “This here shows complete necrosis,” she snapped, voice cutting through. “Organic repair is impossible. A cybernetic lung is our only option, but integration’s a gamble with this tissue damage.”

Dr. Joren Thal, a grizzled neurologist with a whirring cybernetic eye, leaned back, arms crossed, his gravelly voice thick with doubt. “Integration? His neural pathways are a mess. The interface data sent shows severe degradation; any new implant could trigger failure.”

The cardiologist and one of your former mentors, Dr. Kael Vorren looked like he was about to leap at Vara’s throat. His face was flushed a deep red, suggesting the argument had been going on for quite some time already.

You and Luke slipped in, the door hissing shut. The experts barely noticed, their debate a maelstrom of expertise and ego. Vara’s gaze flicked to you, narrowing. “About time,” she said, voice clipped. “We’re neck-deep in chaos. What’s your take on the lung integration? Can his body accept a cybernetic lung?”

Before you could respond, a holo-projector flared, bathing the room in blue light. High Command’s faces materialized and the room stilled, the specialists trading wary looks. Mon Mothma’s voice was calm, commanding. “On behalf of the Alliance, allow me to express my sincerest gratitude for your efforts, ladies and gentlemen. However, we are here today to emphasize the urgency of our current situation, especially in light of ongoing fleet movements. Lord Vader may be critical to our strategy. When will he be ready to speak with us?”

Your stomach lurched, indignation flaring. Speak? He was barely alive.

Luke stiffened, his hand clenching, his voice clear. “My father’s not ready for that. He’s fighting to survive.”

Out of the corner of your eye, you noticed the doctors around the table exchanging surprised glances as Luke revealed his familial connection to the patient.

You stepped forward, voice hard, cutting through the holo’s static. “With respect, Senator, but Lord Vader in no state to talk. Accelerating the procedure now carries a high risk of fatality.”

Mon Mothma’s brow lifted, but Ackbar spoke, his voice a deep rumble. “Doctor, I understand your situation. You are speaking from a medical perspective. But the Empire’s remnants are mobilizing. We need him to provide information as soon as possible.”

“Provide Information?” you snapped, anger rising. “He’s not a databank you can query.”

You closed your eyes and bit your tongue.

You understood. Politics was her responsibility; medicine was yours.
It was crucial - strategically and morally - that the remaining Imperial forces be eliminated. For the greater good of the galaxy. And you couldn’t afford to forget that to them, Vader was still a danger. A massive one. Tolerated only under the condition that he proved useful.
Now was not the time to let personal emotions rise to the surface.

But then, suddenly, it came to you. You realized how you could turn this entire game to your advantage.

With a neutral voice, you turned back to the holotable. “What I meant was this: maybe we should start by pulling the tube from his throat and making sure he doesn’t suffocate the second we do - if you want anything clearer than a death rattle out of him.”

You let the silence hang, the blunt reality settling like ash, then continued, calm and clinical. “And there’s something else we must not ignore if we expect him to be of any tactical use.”

With a flick of your wrist, you transferred the relevant files from your holopad to the central projector. The documents expanded into large-scale displays:  The toxicology report, delivered less than an hour ago, a scrolling list that froze the specialists in their tracks.

Vara’s eyes widened, her polished composure fracturing as she leaned forward. Thal choked mid-sip on his caff.  

You continued evenly, your voice detached. “This is Lord Vader’s toxicology report, which just came in. For those of you without medical training, allow me to break it down: his suit has been pumping seventeen different substances into his body, continuously. Opiates, stimulants, sedatives, testosterone; completely arbitrarily combined, with no regard for interaction effects or long-term systemic consequences.”

You pointed toward the bottom of the screen, your tone sharpening slightly. “And this is kouhunin: a synthetic neurotoxin based on the venom of kouhuns, an arthropod species native to the jungle world Indoumodo. The droids had to dig deep into archival material to identify it. This neurotoxin is one of the most potent anesthetics known to us; and it is absolutely not approved for human use.”

Kael muttered under his breath, “Stars preserve us…”

Vara’s jaw clenched, a rare flicker of dread breaking her stoic facade.

Mon Mothma raised a single eyebrow in quiet alarm, her voice calm but pointed across the holofeed. “Can you explain that, Doctor? What does it mean? for the patient?”

You nodded, calling up another holo: two neural scans suspended side by side in the air, their differences stark as a battlefield. “This,” you began, pointing to the first, “is the neuroactive scan of a healthy forty-five-year-old human male. No abnormalities. Neuronal networks are clear, stable, well-ordered.”

Then you gestured toward the second scan. A chaotic mess of overstimulated emotional centers, atrophied brain regions, dense surgical scarring, and chemical disruption sprawled across the holo, a neural map warped by decades of torment. Even a layperson could see it was wrong, a mind twisted into something barely human. “This is Lord Vader’s scan taken while he was conscious. These drugs can amplify violence, disorientation. They can also suppress resistance and reasoning. And with absolute certainty: They burn out his organs.”

You looked straight at the senators and officers on the holofeed, your voice unwavering. “I assure you, esteemed members of High Command: any one of you, or us, on a cocktail like this… …would charge straight into committing genocide. Or at the very least, give it a try.”

Thal cleared his throat, his eyes never leaving the scan. “With all due respect, Doctor,” he said quietly, his gravelly voice subdued, almost reverent, “I doubt any of us would even survive this level of toxication. No question. The fact that he’s still alive tells us something remarkable - his body must have adapted over decades. Frankly, it’s… fascinating.”

You nodded, turning back to the projection of High Command. “He needs to be weaned off. Carefully. It’s a tightrope. Withdrawal symptoms mimic organ rejection: fever, seizures, toxic shock, it can also lead to psychosis. He’ll need constant monitoring. Precisely calibrated dosing.”

Your tone grew firmer as you concluded: “This chemical cocktail, no matter how long he’s been on it, damages cognition. If we want strategic insight from him - real insight - our best option is to get him clean in body and mind.”

Dr. Yadlea Merrin, a hepatologist with a nervous habit of adjusting her glasses, piped up, voice quivering: “We can’t operate with this in his system. The liver’s failing, kidneys are shot. Detox is essential.”

Vara’s lips thinned, her gaze icy. “The lungs are the bottleneck. No oxygen, no surgery, no detox. He suffocates, and we’re arguing over a corpse. I’m not gambling on a maybe when he’s got hours, not days.”

Yadlea’s face flushed, her datapad slamming onto the table with a clatter. “You’re gambling with his heart! The strain of surgery, the new lungs, the detox - it’s too much. He’s already on the edge.”  She spun to Kael his theatrical air subdued by the tension. “Kael, back me up. The arrhythmia’s spiking. Surgery now is a death sentence.”

Kael shifted, his hand pausing mid-gesture, his voice cautious. “The heart’s synth-caged, holding - for now. But Yadlea’s right; the stress of a transplant could push it over. We need stabilization first.” He glanced at Vara, wary. “Though… without lungs, stabilization’s a moot point.”

Vara’s eyes narrowed, her voice dropping to a cold, measured edge. “I’ll only perform the transplant if the heart’s function is verified. No indications of failure, no surgery. I’m not risking my procedure on a faulty pump. But the lungs come first, or there’s no patient left.”

Yadlea’s hands clenched, her voice rising, a mix of anger and desperation. “Verified function? That’s not enough! The new lungs will demand more oxygen, more blood flow. Add detox, and the heart’s done. You’re ignoring the systemic load because it’s not your organ.”

Her gaze flicked to Vara’s eyes, and you saw it too - a glint of indifference, a clinical detachment that chilled you. Yadlea’s voice cracked with fury. “The research community will shred your kriffing work if he dies because you bulldozed past the consequences. They’ll call it reckless, Vara, and they’ll be right.”

Vara’s posture stiffened, her response sharp and calm, a blade wrapped in silk. “I’m here for the lungs, Yadlea. The rest is your problem, and Thal’s, and Vorren’s. If you wanted the spotlight, you should’ve picked an organ half the galaxy doesn’t even have.” Her words landed like a slap, the room’s air growing heavier.

Luke’s hand tightened, his concern for his father palpable, his gaze flicking to you, a silent plea for resolution. The argument was spiralling, threatening to derail the fragile plan to save Vader, and you knew you had to act, not just to settle the dispute but to make a decision that could mean life or death.

You raised a hand, voice firm but even, cutting through the venom. “Enough. Both of you.” The room stilled, eyes turning to you, Vara’s icy stare clashing with Yadlea’s flushed glare. You leaned forward, elbows on the holotable, the toxicology report’s list glowing beside Vader’s chaotic neural scan. “You’re both right, and that’s the problem. The lungs are failing - without a transplant, he’s maybe dead by tomorrow. But the chemical load’s a ticking bomb, and surgery could detonate it. We can’t ignore either, but we can’t fix both at once.”

You met Vara’s gaze, holding it, acknowledging her urgency without yielding. “Vara, you’re correct: the lungs are the immediate threat. No oxygen, no patient, no detox. But Yadlea’s not wrong.” You turned to her, her glasses fogging slightly, her anger simmering. “The heart’s at its limit, and detox is critical. If we transplant without a plan for the chemical load, we’re rolling dice with his life. Undergoing two organ transplants concurrently would be unsurvivable for him.”

Yadlea opened her mouth, but you pressed on, voice steady. “Here’s the decision: we proceed with the lung surgery first, but not blindly. Kael, you’ll run a full cardiac stress test before Vara scrubs in - verify the heart’s capacity under simulated surgical load. If it’s unstable, we delay until you stabilize it, even if it’s just hours. Vara, you and me will prep the cybernetic lung, but you don’t cut until Kael signs off. Yadlea, you’ll start a pre-surgical detox protocol; microdose reductions, just enough to ease the liver’s strain without triggering withdrawal. We monitor every second, with droids on standby for seizures or rejection signs.”

You glanced at Thal, his cybernetic eye still. “Thal, you’ll map the neural interface for the lung integration, ensuring it won’t spark out mid-surgery. We’re threading a needle here - lungs first, detox second, heart and liver next. It’s not perfect, but it’s the only way to keep him alive long enough to have a chance.”

Vara’s jaw tightened, but she nodded, her indifference masked by professionalism. “Understood. Take me to your workspace,” she said coolly, her gaze unimpressed. "If what you have even qualifies as a lab. I’ll prep the lung. Kael, I need your cardiac data within the hour.” Her voice was crisp, but her eyes betrayed a flicker of grudging respect.

Yadlea’s shoulders slumped, her anger deflating, though her gaze lingered on Vara, wary. “Fine,” she muttered, adjusting her glasses. “I’ll draft the detox protocol. But if the heart falters, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She turned to her datapad, already tapping out calculations, her nervous tic returning.

Kael exhaled, his flair creeping back. “I’ll run the stress test. If the heart’s shaky, we’ll know before the first incision.” He glanced at Vara, a hint of a smirk. “No heroics, Kade.”

Mon Mothma’s voice cut in once more. “Now that we have a plan, could you estimate when Lord Vader might be able to communicate with us?”

You met her holo-gaze, unyielding. ““A week. Absolute minimum.”

Ackbar’s eyes narrowed, but he nodded. “Understood. We’ll adjust. Keep us informed.”

The holo faded, the room exhaling.

The specialists scattered, their voices a buzz of planning. You lingered, the brain scan’s scars glowing.

Hopefully, that was the right decision.

Fourteen hours in, with only four of them spent sleeping, you stood at the scrub station, water cascading over your hands, the rhythmic scrub of bristles against your skin grounding you amidst the chaos of preparing for Vader’s lung transplant. Vara was beside you, her movements precise but laced with an edge of irritation, her tailored suit replaced by crisp surgical greens.

As you adjusted the water flow, a dry remark slipped out, your voice cutting through the hum of the scrub station. “I did warn you about talking to him, you know.”

Vara shot you a sideways glare, tugging her surgical gloves on with a snap that betrayed her annoyance. “Oh, he’s an absolute charmer, isn’t he?” she muttered, her tone dripping with sarcasm. “A radiant beacon of warmth. I’m overjoyed I’ll only deal with him unconscious from now on.”

You snorted quietly, rinsing your hands and shaking off the excess water. “Count your lucky stars. Most don’t get the luxury of seeing him sedated. Took the anesthesia droids forever to calculate the proper dose. Fingers crossed it doesn’t backfire”

Vara rolled her eyes, snapping her cap into place over her bun. “Oh, joy. Truly blessed. Let’s get moving; if I never hear that wheezing again, I’ll die happy. Now let’s install those lungs and keep him breathing just long enough for the Rebellion to squeeze some intel out of him.”

You adjusted the monitor settings on the nearby console, your cybernetic arm moving with fluid precision. “Don’t tempt fate, Vera. He’s got a knack for defying odds; good and bad.”

The two of you turned toward the operating table in sync, a practiced rhythm born of necessity. Vader lay motionless, intubated, his scarred torso a patchwork of burns and surgical scars under the harsh surgical lights. The ventilator’s hiss was a steady pulse. The cybernetic lung prototype awaited in a sterile cradle. It was a tightrope, but you were ready; just another day saving the galaxy’s most volatile patient.

A few rooms away, the surgical suite’s sterile hum gave way to a heavy, oppressive silence in the medbay waiting area. Leia sat motionless on a bench, elbows on her knees, hands clasped so tightly her knuckles blanched. Before her, on a low table, lay the datapad and stick.

Luke sat beside her, his posture tense yet patient, his blue eyes filled with understanding and quiet, brotherly encouragement. R2-D2 rested quietly at his feet, his dome tilted slightly, silent for once. Han Solo paced near the door, his restless energy filling the room, his scuffed boots scuffing the floor.

He stopped pacing, gesturing vaguely toward the door. “I should probably give you two a minute,” he said, his voice gruff but gentle. “Family stuff, y’know.”

Leia’s voice was quiet but steady, her eyes still locked on the table. “Stay.”

Han paused, brow raised, his usual smirk absent. “You sure, Princess?”

“We’ve been through all of this together,” she added, her gaze unwavering. “We face the rest of it together too.”

Han didn’t argue, sinking into the seat beside her with a nod, his hand brushing her shoulder briefly. Leia’s fingers hovered above the stick, then reached out and picked it up, the metal cool against her palm. She hesitated, her breath catching, then looked at R2-D2. “Can you read it, Artoo?”

The droid gave a soft beep, extending his data port with a whir. Leia inserted the stick, her heart pounding.

The screen lit up, and the holo flickered to life. A woman appeared, graceful and heavily pregnant, seated in a sun-drenched room. Her simple gown flowed over her round belly, her hair braided in elegant loops, a loose curl brushing her face. She glowed, her hand resting gently on her stomach, her smile radiant.

Leia recognized her instantly: Padmé Amidala, the senator whose speeches her father had made her study, whose courage had shaped her own.

Luke tilted his head. Han frowned.
"Okay, and… who’s that?"

Leia rolled her eyes, her voice thick with emotion. “That’s Senator Padmé Amidala, you nerfs. My father – Bail – showed me her Senate speeches a hundred times. She was my role model.” Her voice faltered, realization dawning. Her father hadn’t just wanted her to learn politics; he’d wanted her to know her mother, to see Padmé’s strength, her grace. Warm tears welled up, spilling over as she whispered, “He wanted me to know her…to know my mother, our mother”

Luke’s breath caught, his eyes locked on the holo. “Padmé,” he murmured, the name a reverent acknowledgment of their mother. Han’s jaw dropped, his usual quips silenced, his gaze darting between the holo and Leia.

A voice came out of the off. Unfamiliar, but light. Warm. Almost teasing.

 “Okay… now sit still. Artoo’s recording.” Leia gasped softly, her hand flying to her mouth. Luke froze, his eyes widening, his breath hitching.

It was him.
Anakin Skywalker.
There was no mistaking the affection in that voice

“So little one,” Anakin continued, “I want this on record, so you can see what I saw. Because someday, when you’re old enough to be annoying and stubborn like me, I’ll show this to all your annoying little friends - this, your first cry, your first step, your first potty, all the things you’ll find way more embarrassing than your old parents.”

Padmé rolled her eyes, her laugh bright and melodic, filling the room with a warmth Leia had never thought she’d associate with anything connected to Vader.

 “Oh, Force, Anakin. I look huge.”

“You look perfect,” he said, his voice soft but firm, laced with adoration. Leia’s breath hitched, her eyes narrowing as she leaned closer to the holo. “His voice…” she whispered, trembling. “It’s so…No wonder no one suspected.”

Luke nodded, his gaze fixed on the holo, his voice barely audible. “It’s like a different person. But it’s him.”

Padmé shook her head, a playful smile tugging at her lips, and knelt beside R2-D2, speaking into his lens. “Alright, little one,” she said, her voice teasing, “if you inherit your father’s melodrama, may the Force have mercy on me.” She leaned closer, mock-whispering, “But let me tell you something about life: it’s not fair.”

Before she could fully stand, the holo flickered and cut off abruptly, leaving only silence. Leia and Luke exchanged startled glances, the unfinished scene lingering like a ghost.

“What happened?” Leia asked, her brow creasing. “That can’t be the end.”

Luke leaned toward R2-D2, his eyes narrowing. “Artoo, where’s the rest of it?”

R2-D2 emitted a low, hesitant beep, his dome swiveling. A faint holo-projection sputtered, revealing fragmented data; clearly sabotaged.

“Someone tampered with it.” Leia said, her voice edged with suspicion.

Luke crouched beside R2-D2, pulling the repair stick from his belt, a slender tool with a faint glow at its tip. “Hold on, Artoo. Let’s fix this.” With steady hands, he connected the stick to R2-D2’s data port, adjusting the tool’s settings to bypass the corrupted segments. Sparks flickered as the stick hummed, rerouting the damaged circuits.

Leia knelt beside him, her eyes fixed on the droid. “Come on, Artoo, you’ve got this.”

After a tense moment, R2-D2 chirped triumphantly. The holo sprang back to life, seamless now. Padmé stood, her tone light and teasing. “While I look like a bantha in a bedsheet, he still looks like this.”

The holo panned to Anakin, standing barefoot on polished stone, wearing only soft black pants. His lean, sun-kissed body gleamed like sculpted bronze, his cybernetic arm flexing subtly. A mischievous grin lit his face, dirty blonde hair catching the sunlight, his posture confident, almost graceful - a stark contrast to the broken figure Vader became.

Luke’s grip on the repair stick loosened, his eyes locked on the image of the father he never knew. Sadness shadowed his features. “He didn’t want to see himself that way,” he said softly, heavy with empathy. “He couldn’t face the man he once was.”

Han let out a low whistle, breaking the silence. “Damn. That’s Vader? Guy was a walking holoposter.” Leia elbowed him sharply. He raised his hands, grinning. “Hey, just sayin’. I’d be pissed too if I went from that to…you know? An asthmatic crippled droid.”

Luke’s hand found Leia’s, squeezing gently, his gaze locked on the holo, speechless. Padmé’s voice continued, warm and playful. “I’m betting you’re a boy, little one. You’re kicking like you’ve got a lightsaber already.”

Anakin laughed, stepping closer, his hand resting on her shoulder, his voice tinged with quiet certainty. “A girl,” he said, his eyes softening. “I feel it... She’s going to be fierce.”

Padmé raised an eyebrow, her smile skeptical but fond. “A girl, huh? We’ll see, Jedi Skywalker. Either way, they’re going to drive us crazy. And we will love every moment of it. I just can’t wait to finally leave this war behind and simply be a family.”

Anakin pulled Padmé into his arms, his lips brushing her forehead in a gentle kiss. “I love you,” he murmured, fierce yet tender, addressing both her and the unborn child. “Both of you. I can’t wait to meet you, to be a family.”

Padmé nestled against him, her smile radiant. “We’re so excited, little one. You’re going to be so loved.” The footage cut off, the holo fading to darkness, leaving the room in profound silence.

R2-D2 emitted a series of sad, warbling beeps, his dome tilting. Luke frowned, leaning toward him. “What’s wrong, Artoo?” The droid beeped mournfully.

Leia’s hand tightened around Luke’s, tears streaming down her face. “That… that was them. Our parents. So different from...him.”

Luke’s voice was soft, steady. “He wanted you to see our mother, Leia. To know her.”

She could no longer hold back the tears. Emotions were a strange, untameable thing.
When Alderaan was destroyed, no tears had come - only shock, and a rage so profound it hollowed her out.
But now…
The man she had hated more than anyone had just given her the greatest gift she could imagine.

Padmé Amidala was her mother.

She had always wondered, quietly, secretly, who her biological mother was. But she had never asked.
She hadn’t dared - not out of disinterest, but out of loyalty. Out of love for Breha, the mother who had raised her with infinite grace.

And the fear that had haunted her ever since learning who her real father was…
That Vader had… done something monstrous. That her mother had suffered. That she had been conceived through cruelty.
Those fears had not come true.

She and Luke had been born out of love. Pure, undeniable love.

Luke squeezed her hand, his empathy a quiet anchor. “Try the datapad,” he said gently. “I don’t think it’ll hit like the stick. At least not in the same way.”

Leia took a slow breath, wiping her eyes, and picked up the datapad. The screen blinked to life; then froze.

Security code required.

 She tapped past it, testing, but nothing happened.

Luke leaned in, thoughtful. “Try 1138? It’s always somewhere.”

Han snorted, leaning back. “What about ‘1234’? Vader ain’t exactly a numbers guy.”

Leia shot him a look, her diplomatic edge returning. “He designed encryption to choke planetary networks, Han. He’s not using ‘1234’.”
Han leaned forward, elbows on the table, his voice low. “We could find someone to crack it open. A slicer with enough guts.”

Leia shook her head, her braid swaying slightly. “No. The security’s too tight. One wrong move, and it wipes itself clean.”

She adjusted the interface, her fingers steady on the controls. The screen flickered, but nothing new appeared; no prompts, no clues, just the same locked data staring back. She exhaled sharply, leaning back. Her eyes flicked to the data stick resting beside the pad, its sleek surface catching the dim light. It must have had something to do with him wanting her to get both things at the same time.

Her mind churned. Anakin Skywalker, young and unguarded, his smile wide as he looked at Padmé Amidala. The way he’d gazed at her, like she was the center of his universe. Padmé, with her quiet strength, her elegance. A Senator from Naboo, a beacon of hope and reason.

Naboo. Leia’s thoughts snagged on the word. She frowned, her fingers tapping the edge of the table. Padmé’s homeworld. A place of beauty, of peace. But also… something else. She reached for her own pad, pulling up a galactic database, her movements deliberate but quick.

Naboo wasn’t just Padmé’s world. It was Palpatine’s, too. The Emperor himself, born and bred in the shadows of that same serene planet. If Padmé was light, then Palpatine was the opposite. A void of cruelty, ambition, darkness.

And Anakin ...Vader caught between them. His love for Padmé had been his anchor, once. But Naboo wasn’t a place he’d return to easily. Not after everything. Not with her buried there, a reminder of what he’d lost, what he’d become.

Leia’s pulse quickened. She hesitated, then input the numbers. Her fingers flew across the pad, entering coordinates from memory.

The interface chimed softly. Access granted.

She stared at the unlocked data, her breath catching. It was so simple, yet so impossible. Well, of course a masochist like Vader would want to keep his pain front and center.

Han raised an eyebrow, leaning closer. “How’d you pull that off?”

Luke, watching quietly, gave a small nod, his eyes warm. “It makes sense now. He left it for you to figure out. I never would’ve gotten there.”

Leia didn’t answer. Her gaze lingered on the data stick, on the ghost of a smile in that holo. She felt the weight of it, the connection, but pushed it aside. There was work to do.

The screen unlocked with a chime, and Luke’s eyes widened. Han whistled. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

Leia’s breath caught, a flicker of triumph loosening the knot in her chest. The encryption dissolved, and the holo-interface flared, revealing a financial dashboard that stole the air from the room. Routing coordinates, access passkeys, and authorizations cascaded across the screen - dozens of the Empire’s shadow accounts: black-budget war funds, secret senatorial payouts, ghost-fleet provisions. A bold line stood out:

 PRIMARY ACCOUNT HOLDER: SUPREME COMMANDER. CONTROL: 62% of Centralized Imperial Fiscal Structure.

The numbers were staggering - trillions, perhaps quadrillions of credits - fueling the Empire’s war machine. Weapons programs, starship fleets, propaganda, bribes, smuggling lanes - all laid bare, with Leia holding the key.

“This isn’t just money,” Leia whispered, her voice trembling. “This is… power.”

Luke leaned closer, awe in his voice. “We could cripple the fleets, the warlords, without these funds, they’d collapse.”

Han grinned, mischief glinting. “Or buy off half the loyalist admirals before they fire a shot. Maybe fund a few fancy weddings.” He winked at Leia, who ignored him, her mind racing.

Her diplomatic instincts surged, fingers hovering over the screen as she scrolled. “Relief for war-torn systems,” she murmured. “Recovery for displaced colonies. Bribes to secure defectors. Disarming holdouts. This could rebuild the galaxy… or end the war.”

And just like that, the dice were rolled anew.

And Leia hated that it was Vader, of all people, who had left this to her.

Chapter Text

The surgery had stretched across nearly fifteen gruelling hours, a marathon of precision and peril that tested every ounce of your skill. Twice,  Vader’s life had teetered on the brink, his vitals plummeting at the most critical junctures: when the neural interface was severed from his heart, lungs, and pathways. Both times, your team had clawed him back from the edge. The cybernetic lung had been successfully transplanted and, against all odds, was initially accepted by his body. For now, it relied on a light ventilator, a temporary "jump start" to stabilize the integration, but early signs were promising. The procedure was a success, though the road ahead remained treacherous. Because the surgery had placed such immense strain on his body, he was kept under anaesthesia in the bacta tank for a few more hours. It gave you the chance to attend to other matters.

You sat in your office, a half-eaten sandwich lay forgotten on your desk, crumbs scattered across a datapad displaying schematics for his new prosthetic arm. Your stylus hovered over the design, tweaking the neural connectors to optimize feedback without overloading his already compromised pathways. The work consumed you, each adjustment an extremely delicate matter that requires precise calculation, so you barely noticed the door hiss open until a sharp clack jolted you from your focus.

Vara stood in front of your desk, the surgical green replaced again by her tailored grey suit, her hazel eyes glinting with a mix of mischief and challenge. She’d placed a glass container beside your sandwich, its contents unmistakable: a black, leathery mass suspended in formaldehyde. Vader’s excised lung, a grotesque relic of his decades-long torment. You raised an eyebrow, pushing the sandwich aside. “I’m trying to eat here, Vara.”

She smirked, leaning against the desk, her arms crossed. “Well look at you, living the dream. Most medics would kill for the luxury of eating right next to their work.”

You shot her a glance, unamused. “It’s a sandwich. Not a spa day.”

Your eyes rested on the jar again, quietly fascinated. You’d seen the lung during surgery, of course -raw, pulsating faintly, a pitiful remnant of organic tissue struggling to function. There’d been no time to study it then; Vader’s vitals had crashed, demanding every second of your attention. Now, preserved and still, it was both repulsive and mesmerizing.

Vara rotated the glass, the formaldehyde sloshing gently. “Fascinating, isn’t it?” Her voice was low, almost reverent. “Can you even imagine someone like Vader surviving with this pathetic lump for so long?”

You gave her a sharp look, your sandwich forgotten entirely. “Someone like Vader? No one should survive with that. It’s a miracle he was breathing at all.”

She tilted her head, her expression calculating. “Physicality matters. A frail, meter-tall scholar glued to a desk might’ve eked out a life with this and a suitable ventilator. But two meters of muscle and durasteel  in active combat? It’s absurd. His body’s been running on spite and life support.”

She paused, her gaze softening slightly. “You should get some fat on him, by the way. That low body fat percentage isn’t doing his new organs any favors. Transplants don’t play nice with a frame that lean.”

You nodded absently, your mind already racing. Easier said than done. Vader’s system was a toxic wasteland; substances from opiates to kouhunin had been pumped into him for decades, wreaking havoc on his organs. Flushing that out was priority one, and then you’d have to reintroduce nutrition to a man who’d been fed intravenously for twenty years. “Yeah,” you muttered. “One step at a time.”

Vara’s eyes flicked to your holopad, lingering on the intricate arm schematic. She raised an eyebrow, her tone shifting to curiosity tinged with suspicion. “Why the deep dive on him? I mean, I get it: he’s a medical unicorn. But this?” She gestured to the detailed design, the countless annotations. “That’s a surprising amount of personal effort for a guy like him. Sure, people exaggerate. Holonet, rumors, all that. But now that I’ve met him myself? Let’s be honest: you know he lives up to the hype. Absolute bastard. Now just a bastard with premium lungs.” Her grin widened, a glint of her pulmonology triumph shining through. “I’ve got the holy grail of lungs in this jar, but you? You’re acting like he’s your pet project. Do you even have any other patients right now?”

Her words stung, though you hid it behind a scoff. “Of course I do,” you replied, a touch defensive, though her words struck a nerve.

Your mind wandered to the children’s ward, where you’d been just fifteen minutes ago: the one place you never allowed yourself to delegate, not even to your co-worker Jano. Not because you didn’t trust him, Force knew he was more than capable, but because the kids kept you grounded. Their resilience. Their unfiltered trust.

You thought of Niaanna, the young Twi’lek girl who grinned bravely as you adjusted her prosthetic leg, her lekku twitching with pride. That small, fleeting moment reminded you why you did all this. Why the sleepless nights, the impossible patients, were worth it.

But her question about Vader lingered, sharp and unavoidable.

 Was she right?

Of course she was. Your hyperfocus on him wasn’t just medical curiosity - it was something you couldn’t fully articulate.

You leaned back in your chair, stylus tapping against your cybernetic arm. “I don’t know,” you admitted, your voice quieter now. “At first, it was for Luke, the blonde boy in the meeting room. He’s terrified of losing…not the Empire’s Butcher, but his father. I wanted to help a son, not a war criminal.”

You paused, your thoughts drifting to the files you’d pored over. “But now… the more I learn, the less I understand him. Every file, every scan, adds another layer to the puzzle. His…” You trailed off, unsure how much you should reveal about what you had learned about him. It was none of Vara's business, and you were pretty sure she didn't care anyway.

“It’s a mess I can’t untangle. He’s an enigma, and yeah, maybe my brain’s latched onto solving it. You get that, don’t you? The itch to crack a medical mystery?”

Vara wrinkled her nose, unconvinced. “Medically, sure. He’s a cybernetic goldmine - any scientist would salivate. But this?” She gestured to your holopad, then to you. “This goes beyond medical curiosity. You stood up to the Leaders of the Rebellion for him, like he’s some dying orphan. I don’t get it. The guy’s a terror. Parents scare their kids with his name.”

She leaned closer, her grin turning wicked. “You know, your taste in men was always questionable back at university. But Darth Vader? Come on, even you can’t be that desperate out here in the Rebellion.”

She’d always been a high-society girl, drawn to men she deemed “high-class”: senators’ sons, corporate heirs, men with polish and pedigree. To you, they were just rich, arrogant assholes. Seen in that light, Vader might actually fit her type, assuming he’s not flat broke. Not that you’ve audited his assets, but considering he casually handed his daughter a few billion credits - reparations for two decades of ghosting, a light torture session, and, oh yes, the total annihilation of her home world - he’s probably not scraping by. No, money doesn’t buy happiness - but it sure makes for a luxurious apology card.

Her teasing about your taste in men hit a little too close to home. She always did enjoy taking potshots at your romantic track record, and sure, most of it was well-deserved. You didn’t mind jokes, until they stopped being jokes and started sounding like summaries. Your love life was less “a trail of broken hearts” and more “a crash course in bad decisions.”

You rolled your eyes. “He’s a patient, Vara, not a prospect,” you shot back, your tone laced with sarcasm as you flicked a crumpled napkin at her. “If anyone’s got a type close to his, it’s you: swap your Coruscant Investment Fund for a lightsaber, and you’re halfway there. Too bad he’s not your brand of pretty,”

Then, you hesitated, searching for the right words. “I think people tend to forget he’s a person. I…made the same mistake. The legend, these horror stories bury everything else. But there’s still emotion, willpower, pain. As a doctor, I can’t ignore that. It’s my job to protect his interests, like any other patient.”

Vara laughed, her voice dry and amused. “Maybe you missed your true calling. Psychiatry, not cybernetics.” You rolled your eyes and gave her a flat look.

She shrugged. “Hey, all I’m saying: if you’re gonna play therapist, maybe don’t start with the final boss.”

Then she picked up the container, cradling it like a prize. “I’m keeping this charming relic for study. And you continue to puzzle the galaxy’s scariest puzzle. Just don’t lose yourself in it."

After a moment’s hesitation, she added. “You’re way too good a cybernetics specialist to crash and burn on something like Darth Vader."

You raised an eyebrow, half amused, half questioning.

She shrugged. “What?”

You couldn’t help the grin tugging at your lips. “That might be the nicest thing you’ve said to me since we reconnected - scratch that, ever.”

She smirked too. “I may not be some altruist working for galactic welfare, but I have high standards. So yeah, feel flattered.”

And somewhere deep down, you knew she was right - in her own, twisted little world. You took it as a compliment… and quietly hoped you wouldn’t need to consult Vara again anytime soon.

The corridors were a blur as Leia sprinted through them, her boots echoing against the durasteel floor, her breath sharp and controlled despite the storm raging in her chest. Luke kept pace beside her, his presence a steady anchor, though his quick strides betrayed the same urgency that drove her. The datapad clutched in her hand felt heavier than its sleek metal frame warranted.

Her mind churned, torn between fury and dread, as they approached the conference room where High Command awaited.

The door hissed open, revealing a long durasteel table ringed by the Rebellion’s leadership. Mon Mothma stood at the head, her serene composure a stark contrast to the tension radiating from Admiral Ackbar, General Madine, General Dodonna and the handful of other officers present. Their eyes turned to them, a mix of curiosity and expectation, as the siblings stepped inside. The air was thick with the weight of impending decisions, the holo-projector in the center of the table casting a faint blue glow across their faces. Leia’s grip on the datapad tightened, her knuckles whitening as she fought to steady her voice. She could feel Luke’s gaze on her, quiet and supportive, but it did little to quell the turmoil within.

Mon Mothma stepped forward, her expression calm but inquisitive. “Princess Organa. Commander Skywalker. We weren’t expecting a summons from you at this hour. What matter is so urgent that it required an emergency session of High Command?”

Leia set the datapad on the table, its metallic clink sharp in the silence. “This,” she said, her voice steady despite the knot in her throat, “contains access to the Empire’s war funds. Trillions of credits - maybe quadrillions. Routing coordinates, access passkeys, authorizations. It’s the financial backbone of their fleets, weapons programs, and shadow accounts.” She tapped the screen, bringing up the dashboard she’d unlocked in the medbay. The numbers glowed in stark clarity.  The room seemed to hold its breath as the officers leaned forward, their eyes wide with shock.

Admiral Ackbar’s large eyes blinked rapidly, his gravelly voice breaking the stunned silence. “This is… unprecedented. How did you obtain this? The security on such accounts would be impenetrable.”

Leia’s jaw tightened, her heart pounding as she braced for the question she’d dreaded. Her gaze flicked to Luke, standing beside her, his blond hair catching the holo’s light, his expression calm but expectant. She could lie - claim a slicer’s breakthrough, a defector’s betrayal, anything to avoid the truth. But the weight of that choice pressed against her, a suffocating pressure that threatened to crack her resolve. Lying to High Command could protect her reputation, her career, the carefully crafted image of Leia Organa, Princess of Alderaan, daughter of Bail and Breha. But it would mean denying Luke, denying the holo of Padmé Amidala, denying the truth that burned in her chest like a brand.

Vader. The man who’d destroyed Alderaan, murdered Bail, her real father in every way that mattered, and her mother Breha, just to only to shock her with the revelation that Senator Padmé Amidala was her biological mother. The thought of him as her blood made her stomach churn, a visceral hatred that hadn’t dulled since the moment she’d learned the truth. He would never be her father. Bail’s gentle guidance, his warm laughter, his unwavering belief in her - these were the roots of who she was.

Vader’s shadow couldn’t touch that. If he died tomorrow, it would be justice, a cleansing fire for the galaxy’s wounds. Yet the datapad in her hand, his “gift,” was no small thing. It was power, leverage, a chance to end the war or rebuild worlds. And it came with a cost: the truth.

Her eyes met Luke’s, and his smile, soft, radiant, filled with a love and familiarity that transcended their shared blood, cut through her turmoil like a beacon. He believed in her, in their shared heritage, in the mother they’d glimpsed in that holo, radiant and fierce.

Padmé Amidala, Senator of Naboo, a woman whose courage had shaped Leia’s own, even if she hadn’t known it until now. To lie would be to betray Luke, to deny Padmé, to bury the truth of her family under the weight of her hatred for Vader. Her political career, her reputation as Bail’s daughter, could crumble under the revelation. A princess of Alderaan, revealed as the daughter of the galaxy’s greatest monster? The scandal would be relentless. But the alternative - hiding it, carrying the secret alone - was a heavier burden.

She took a breath, her voice steady but laced with a quiet resolve. “Darth Vader gave it to me,” she said, the words cutting through the room The officers froze, their faces a mix of disbelief and confusion. General Madine’s brow furrowed, his hand pausing over his datapad.. Leia pressed on, her gaze unwavering. “He gave it to me because he’s…my father. Biologically. Luke and I… we’re his children.”

The room erupted into a cacophony of gasps and murmurs, the officers exchanging stunned glances. She could only hear bits and pieces, but it was enough to give her a corresponding number of stitches. Each time, she flinched.

“…Vader’s daughter?” Madine’s words carried a mix of shock and scepticism, as if the revelation defied the galaxy’s natural order.

Leia’s spine straightened, voice steady despite the weight of all the eyes. “It was a shock for me too. You all know how I feel about Vader: I’ve spent my entire life fighting what he represents. Bail Organa was my father. He loved me, raised me, shaped everything I stand for. Nothing about Vader changes that.”

She could feel the weight of their stares, their unspoken fears. The fear that her blood, Vader’s blood, would poison her soul, that she might someday become what he was. That fear was powerful. But it was misplaced.

She closed her eyes for a moment, gathering every ounce of authority she possessed to speak in a calm but resolute voice.  “I know what worries you. I do. That Vader’s legacy might take root in me. But genetics aren’t destiny, and a father is only part of the equation. In learning about my heritage, I also discovered who my biological mother was: Senator Padmé Amidala. She carried Luke and me, gave us life. So, if you fear Vader’s darkness in me, remember this: I also carry the legacy of one of the greatest defenders of the Republic.”

The murmurs and whispers swelled again. She saw the disbelief in their eyes; the shock etched into every face.

Her voice grew firmer. “I know this is a lot to take in. It was hard for me to accept at first, too. Honestly, it still feels like some kind of fever dream. But this-,” she tapped the datapad, voice tightening, “this is real. He gave it to me. And I’m telling you, whether we like the source or not, we have to deal with what’s on it.”

The room fell silent, the weight of her words settling like dust after a blast. Luke’s hand brushed hers, a fleeting gesture of support that anchored her. She glanced at him, his blue eyes warm with pride, and felt a surge of strength.

Mon Mothma, who had been suspiciously quiet, her serene expression unreadable, finally spoke. Her voice was calm, measured, but carried a depth that silenced the room. “I believe you, Leia.” She stepped forward, her gaze softening as it met Leia’s. “I knew Padmé Amidala. We served in the Senate together, before the Empire’s rise. She was fierce, brilliant, a beacon of hope in dark times. And she was close to Bail Organa - closer than most knew.”

They recognized the subtle edge in her words: an acknowledgment that Bail Organa had shielded Padmé’s child by claiming her as his own.

Her voice sharpened as she spoke again. “Her death was a great tragedy - for the Republic, and for the cause of freedom. We attended her funeral… and believed her child had died with her.
And now, to learn that a part of her still lives on, standing before us today, brings me profound gratitude.”

Mon Mothma’s eyes held Leia’s, a quiet warmth breaking through her usual reserve. “You resemble her, you know. Not just in your features, but in your strength, your resolve. Padmé would be proud of you for this - for your courage in telling the truth, even when it costs you. It’s what she would have done.”

Leia swallowed, nodding slightly, her voice steady despite the tears prickling at the edges of her eyes. “Thank you,” she said, the words soft but firm.

General Dodonna raised a hand a subtle but firm gesture to steer the conversation back on track. “Let’s focus on the practical. Assuming this intel is genuine, we’ll have to verify and secure it immediately. Our slicing teams can follow the financial trail, but we must assume Imperial overseers have been alerted. Every second counts - we’re likely already behind.”

Mon Mothma nodded, her expression unreadable but attentive. “Agreed, General. Speed is critical. We’ll assign our best cryptographers and slicers to authenticate the passkeys and routing codes. Leia, you mentioned coordinating with the intelligence team. I’d like you to lead this effort, given your familiarity with the data.”

Leia inclined her head, her diplomatic instincts overriding the churn of emotions. “Understood. I’ll assemble a team within the hour. We’ll start with the shadow accounts, they’re the most volatile. If we can lock those down, we’ll cut off funding to the Empire’s black-ops programs.”

Ackbar’s barbels twitched, a sign of his cautious approval. “A sound approach. But we must also discuss allocation. If these funds are as vast as you suggest, we face a strategic dilemma. Do we use them to directly attack the Empire, disrupting their supply lines, bribing their officers, funding our own fleet expansion? Or do we prioritize humanitarian efforts, rebuilding worlds like Ghorman or Ralltiir?”

General Madine’s scepticism resurfaced, his tone clipped. “Winning hearts and minds across the galaxy is noble, but it’s a long-term investment. We’re at war. Every credit we divert to relief is a credit not spent on X-wings, proton torpedoes, or shield generators. If we don’t crush the Empire’s remnants now, there won’t be a galaxy left to rebuild.”

Leia’s eyes flashed, her voice sharpening. “With respect, General, this isn’t just about ‘winning hearts and minds’. People are suffering - every minute. It’s our duty to help them. And besides, winning hearts isn’t just noble, it’s strategic. The Empire rules through fear. If we show the galaxy, we can rebuild what they’ve destroyed, we erode their legitimacy. A single relief shipment could turn entire systems to our cause. We can fight and rebuild. We don’t have to choose.”

Luke nodded, his voice gentle but resolute. “Leia’s right. The Force flows through hope, not just strength. If we use these funds to show the galaxy a better way, we’ll inspire defections, uprisings, entire fleets turning to our side. The Empire’s soldiers aren’t all loyalists; many are conscripts, trapped by circumstance. Give them a reason to believe in us, and they’ll break ranks.”

Mon Mothma’s lips curved into a faint smile, a rare break in her stoic demeanor. “Well said, both of you. A Reminder of the balance between pragmatism and principle. I propose a dual strategy: allocate a portion of the funds to immediate military needs. The remainder will go to targeted relief efforts, prioritized by strategic value. The suggestions of Ghorman and Ralltiir are noted. We’ll also consider Outer Rim systems where Imperial control is weakening. General Dodonna, can your team draft a preliminary allocation plan by tomorrow?”

Dodonna nodded, already scribbling notes on his datapad. “Yes, Senator. We’ll cross-reference the financial data with our intelligence on Imperial vulnerabilities. If the shadow accounts are as extensive as Princess Organa suggests, we could fund simultaneous strikes across multiple sectors while supporting relief efforts.”

The room’s tension eased slightly, the prospect of actionable plans grounding the officers’ unease. But General Madine’s voice cut through again, his tone measured but pointed. “There’s still the matter of… perception. Princess Organa’s revelation about her parentage is explosive. If this leaks, it could undermine her credibility, the Rebellion’s unity, even our alliances. The galaxy sees Vader as a monster. We start tying her to him, even as his daughter, and people start wondering if we’re building another Empire in prettier colors. We can’t let that happen.”

Leia’s heart sank, the weight of her decision crashing back. She’d known this question was coming, but hearing it aloud stung like a blaster bolt. Her fingers twitched, itching to clench into fists, but she forced them to remain still. “I’m aware of the risks, General,” she said, her voice low but unwavering. “I didn’t make this choice lightly. But lying to you would’ve been a betrayal of everything we stand for. If the truth comes out, I’ll face it. I’ve faced worse.”

Mon Mothma’s gaze softened, but her voice carried a pragmatic edge. “General Madine raises a valid concern. Perception matters in war, especially one fought as much in hearts as on battlefields. For now, this information remains classified. Only those in this room will know the full truth. If – when - it becomes necessary to address publicly, we’ll frame it carefully With particular emphasis on the heroic deeds they’ve accomplished in the name of the Alliance. We’ll need a coordinated strategy to manage any leaks. Leia, I trust you’ll work with our communications team to prepare for that possibility.”

Leia nodded, her mind already racing through potential scenarios.

Mon Mothma placed a gentle hand on Leia’s shoulder, her voice low but resolute. “You carry two legacies, Leia. The galaxy will remember which one you chose to uphold.”

Leia didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she looked at Luke, at the calm, unshakable hope in his eyes, and felt something stir in her chest.

Maybe this was what hope looked like. Complicated, sometimes painful, but still alive.

“We don’t need to be defined by what made us,” she finally said. “Only by what we choose to build.”

You sprinted through the Redemption’s corridors, your medcoat flapping against your legs. You’d been so wrapped up in drafting his new arm that time had quietly slipped away from you. Vader’s wake-up protocol was imminent, and you couldn’t afford to be late. But as you skidded to a halt outside the freshly prepared recovery suite, flanked by two heavily armed soldiers, you realized your rush had been unnecessary. The door slid open, revealing CX-3 wheeling Vader’s unconscious form into the room. His massive frame, draped in a sterile sheet, was still and silent, the bacta’s sheen fading from his scarred skin.

The soldiers nodded politely, their blasters held at ease but ready. You returned the gesture, a quiet gratitude warming you. Guarding Vader couldn’t be an easy post; Luke must have scoured the ranks to find men who didn’t harbour personal vendettas against the man responsible for so much death. Their presence was a small but vital shield, ensuring no one acted on grudges while Vader lay vulnerable.

 You stepped inside, the door hissing shut behind you, sealing the room in sterile calm.

CX-3 rolled up beside you with a soft mechanical hum, extending a data chip from one slender arm. “Vitals update: oxygen saturation at 92 percent. Heart rate stable at 68 bpm. Neural activity elevated, consistent with waning sedation. Cybernetic lung integration proceeding without signs of rejection. Subject remains unconscious.”

You took the chip and plugged it into your datapad, scanning the readings while murmuring, mostly to yourself, “Not out of the woods, but better than expected.”

The numbers confirmed it. Gas exchange was finally stabilizing. The interface readings were smooth. Considering he had twice gone into cardiac arrest, this was almost miraculous.

You nodded. “Thank you, CX. Administer the flumazenil, 0.2 milligrams IV push. Slow infusion over two minutes.”

CX-3 tilted its head slightly in that vaguely inquisitive way only droids could mimic. “Understood. Beginning administration. Please prepare for potential neuromuscular response within 90 seconds.”

The drug would take effect gradually, rousing Vader from his induced slumber within five to ten minutes. You used the time to prepare your instruments, arranging a stethoscope, pulse oximeter, and a handheld neural scanner on a sterile tray. As you worked, your gaze drifted to Vader’s face. Chalk-white skin, no longer the ashen gray of near-death, stretched taut over sharp cheekbones. Scars crisscrossed his features - burns, surgical lines, and faint keloids mapping decades of trauma. A light oxygen mask covered his nose and mouth, its transparent surface fogging faintly with each exhale, delivering a 40% FiO2 mix to ease the new lung’s workload. The sheet was pulled tactfully over his shoulders, concealing the absence of limbs.

As you set the syringe down, a faint movement caught your eye. Vader stirred, his head shifting slightly, a low groan escaping through the mask. The flumazenil was taking effect, pulling him from the depths of sedation. You paused, one hand resting on the bed’s edge, watching as his chest rose and fell with a steadier rhythm. His throat and larynx, meticulously reconstructed during surgery, were now again capable of normal speech, though the process would be painful and unfamiliar at first. The intubation had left his vocal cords inflamed, and the neural relays to his diaphragm were still adjusting to the new lung’s demands. Speaking would be a strain. But possible - with effort.

His eyes fluttered open, a piercing blue that locked onto you with startling intensity. The steel-hard gaze carried a weight that made your pulse quicken, though you masked it with a grin. “Hello there.”

His sparse eyebrows snapped together, a glare so immediate it almost startled you. The cold, icy stare was laced with something close to offense, as if your words had struck a nerve you couldn’t fathom. He groaned, eyes squeezing shut, pain etching lines across his face. “Don’t… say those words,” he rasped, his voice low and scratchy, each syllable a laboured effort. “Ideally never again.”

You raised an eyebrow, half-amused, half-baffled. “Which ones? ‘Hello there’?”

The glare returned, sharper now, though his head jerked too quickly, eliciting a pained grunt. “Yes. Those… Never again in combination. At least five other words… in between.”

You bit back a chuckle, grabbing your stethoscope and easing the sheet and gown down to expose his chest. “I must admit, these are some of the strangest post-transplant recovery rules I’ve ever had to memorize.”

He flinched at your touch, obviously recoiled from your hand. It wasn’t gloved; and it was likely the first time you'd touched him skin to skin. Something about it made him visibly uncomfortable, considering he hadn’t even flinched this way when you had torn the prosthetic connections out of his rotten flesh.

You didn’t comment it, focusing instead on the stethoscope’s cold diaphragm against his chest, listening to the clear, bilateral breath sounds. No wheezing, no crackles; just the steady whoosh of air through the cybernetic lung’s synthetic alveoli.

“Since we’re… speaking,” he said, his voice flattening to a monotone, “I assume… the operation was successful?”

You lifted the stethoscope, meeting his gaze. “The lung’s expanded fully. Breath sounds are normal, oxygen saturations at 92%. Your breathing’s stable.”

To underscore the point, you gently removed the oxygen mask, letting him draw his first unassisted breath in decades - hospital-sterilized, filtered air, but air nonetheless. His eyes widened, a flicker of something raw crossing his face as he inhaled, the sensation unmarred by the pain that had defined his existence for twenty-three years.

“Just breathe,” you said gently, knowing too well how deeply pain had carved itself into the simple act of inhaling. The sensation of suffocating, over and over, only to survive and repeat... it must have been torture.

“So tell me, my lord,” you asked, watching his expression closely, “would you call this a success?”

He didn’t answer right away; but he didn’t need to. The wonder in his eyes, the subtle lift of his brow, the visible relief said more than words ever could.

You replaced the mask, adjusting its flow to 30% FiO2. “We nearly lost you twice,” you continued, your tone clinical but warm. “Your heart faltered when we severed the neural interface, but it kept fighting. The mask is temporary, just to optimize saturation while the lung settles. Feeling weak and speaking in bursts is normal, expect that to improve over the next few days, assuming no rejection.”

You ran a series of tests with practiced ease. The pulse oximeter confirmed stable oxygen levels. The neural scanner showed no aberrant spikes, though his cortex was still adapting to the new lung’s feedback.

As you adjusted the scanner, his raspy voice broke the silence. “Where… is Luke?”

You glanced up, your grin widening as you set the scanner aside and checked the monitor’s EKG trace: sinus rhythm, no arrhythmias.

“Luke and Leia went straight to High Command,” you said with a smirk. “Not sure what you loaded onto that stick, but Leia looked like she got slapped and hugged at the same time. And that datapad trick? Nice touch. The Rebellion’s buzzing, pretty sure Command doesn’t know whether to scream or strategize.”

A mischievous glint sparked in his eyes, catching you off guard. It was a flicker of something human, playful even, a stark contrast to the cold menace you’d braced for. “Good,” he rasped, his voice scratchy but tinged with a rare lightness. “Let them… squirm.”

You raised an eyebrow, half-amused, half-intrigued, as you adjusted the IV line’s flow rate, ensuring the saline flush was clear. “You seem awfully cavalier for someone who just handed over several trillion credits.”

He exhaled, the mask fogging briefly, and his gaze drifted to the ceiling, the glint in his eyes fading to something more contemplative. “It was not mine,” he said, his voice low and deliberate, each word punctuated by a slight pause to conserve breath. “The Empire’s war funds. As Supreme Commander… I had access. They are better in … Leia’s hands.”

You couldn’t help but smile, a quiet warmth spreading as you tapped a note into the datapad: Patient alert, speech improving, no signs of respiratory distress.

He gave you a questioning glance.

“You called her Leia,” you said, keeping your tone light as you checked the neural scanner’s output. “Last time, it was ‘the Princess.’ Sounded like…some sort of defence mechanism, if you ask me - keeping her at arm’s length in a pretty hopeless situation, facing a daughter you didn’t know you had, who, let’s be honest, isn’t exactly your biggest fan. Calling her by her name now? That could be a sigh of progress.”

Vader’s sparse eyebrow arched, his gaze sharpening with a mix of irritation and sardonic amusement. “Aside from the minor detail that Leia is her given name….and she's not technically… a princess these days; I would… applaud your psychological insight,” he rasped, his voice dripping with sarcasm, “if I had… hands.”

You chuckled, the sound slipping out before you could stop it, as you pulled up the schematic for his new prosthetic arm on your datapad. The design glowed in holographic detail, its neural connectors meticulously mapped to compensate for his damaged pathways. “Working on that,” you said, your tone playful but professional as you gestured to the schematic. “I’m designing your new prosthetics, but it’s not a simple plug-and-play. Your neural pathways and nerve endings are a mess: decades of that suit’s shoddy wiring and Palpatine’s Force lightning did a number on them. We’re talking severe axonal degeneration, scar tissue blocking synaptic relays, and a cortex that’s been rewired to handle constant pain signals. If we try to integrate new limbs too fast, we risk overloading your system; think seizures, feedback loops, or complete neural shutdown.”

You zoomed in on the schematic, pointing to the micro-regulator you’d added to modulate neural feedback. “The regulator here will stabilize the signal flow, prevent overstimulation. It’s untested, but the sims look promising: 95% integration success rate in models with similar neural damage.”

Vader’s gaze flicked to the hologram, his expression unreadable but attentive. The mischievous glint was gone, replaced by a quiet intensity as he processed your words.

“The old prosthetics were brute-force engineering; functional, but designed to keep you dependent, not optimized. The new ones will be better: faster, more responsive, with tactile feedback loops to mimic natural sensation. But your nerves need time to adapt. We’re going limb by limb, starting with the right arm. Each integration will take weeks, with constant monitoring to avoid rejection or neural burnout.”

You set the datapad down, picking up a handheld neurostimulator to test his sensory response. You applied it gently to his shoulder stump, watching the monitor for cortical feedback. A faint twitch in the EEG confirmed the nerves were still responsive, though the signal was weak. “Feel that?” you asked, keeping your tone neutral.

He looked at his shoulder, unimpressed. “A… prickling?”

“Good,” you said, making a note. “That’s your nerves not being completely dead. The stimulator’s helping them reconnect, but it’s going to feel strange for a while. We’ll keep these sessions daily to prep for the arm.”

You paused, glancing at him.

You know that it must be quite a lot for him right now, so soon after waking up from a lung transplant. But there was one topic you couldn't avoid: detoxification. The surgical anaesthesia and painkillers were masking the withdrawal symptoms, but the substances that had poisoned his system for decades were no longer being administered. His body, dependent on that chemical cocktail, would soon rebel.

You sat on a stool beside the bed. “There’s something other we need to talk about. And unfortunately, it can’t wait,” Opening his toxicology report on your datapad, you began to explain. “The drugs that were pumped through your suit into your system - they’re very heavy-duty. Not meant for long-term use. Were you aware of this?”

His eyes told you that he was. At least as much as someone without formal medical training could be.

You continued, your voice steady. “Your liver’s barely functioning, your kidneys are scarred, and your neural pathways are a mess from chronic overstimulation. Now that we’ve stopped the infusions, withdrawal is inevitable.”

His gaze sharpened, though pain dulled its edge. “What is to expect?”

You leaned forward, choosing your words carefully. “It’ll be rough. The anaesthesia and painkillers we gave you are keeping you comfortable now, but as they taper off, symptoms will hit. Expect muscle aches, nausea, tremors, and sweating -standard for opiate withdrawal. The stimulants will leave you fatigued, maybe disoriented. Kouhunin’s the wildcard; it’s a potent anaesthetic, and its absence could trigger seizures or psychosis. Your neural scans show hyperexcitability in the amygdala and prefrontal cortex, so we’ll monitor for emotional volatility. We’ve started a detox protocol but titrate slowly to avoid toxic shock.”

You paused, letting the weight of it settle. “Fever, seizures, even organ rejection are risks if we push too fast. We’ll use droids to monitor your vitals 24/7; EEG for neural activity, EKG for your heart, and regular blood panels to track liver and kidney function. The first 72 hours will be the worst. After that, if we’re lucky, the symptoms will plateau.”

Vader’s jaw tightened, his eyes drifting to the ceiling. “Don't bother yourself or the droids with it...I have endured worse.”

You nodded slowly, acknowledging the steel behind his words, but not softening the reality. “I don’t doubt that. But this isn’t a question of endurance anymore; it’s a question of precision.”

You leaned forward slightly, letting your tone sharpen. “From what I can tell, it’s always been about slapping on the next patch, pushing you back into battle, no matter the cost. Pain was secondary. Damage was ignored. But that’s not what we’re doing here. No more battlefield fixes. We’re trying to actually heal you.”

You tapped the datapad beside you, the scan flickering faintly. “The lung is just the start. Detox will be next, and it’s going to be brutal. Then come the new prosthetics, the neural recalibration, the cardiovascular support, organ regulation. This won’t be fast. It won’t be easy. And if we get careless, we could destroy everything we just rebuilt.”

Your voice softened, but didn’t waver. “Suicidal ideation is not uncommon in cases involving prolonged trauma and chronic pain like yours, my lord. But you chose to stay. That means something. So please, no more of this ‘life is an unfortunate consequence’ vibe, okay? You’ll need to trust us.”

His gaze flicked back to you, a shadow of scepticism in those blue eyes. Trust was obviously a foreign concept to him, but he said nothing, his silence a grudging acknowledgment.

You stood, checking the monitor one last time. His heart rate had crept up to 72, likely from the pain or the weight of your words. “I need to be able to trust that if something is seriously wrong, you won’t just bottle it up.” you said.

The possibility of seizures was one thing, manageable with medication.

But psychosis? That was a wildcard, especially for a man with his power. The thought of him losing control sent a chill through you. You reached for your neck, where the marks from his outburst were still clearly visible. The equipment - the monitors, the ventilator, the bacta tanks – could be replaced. The people? Not so easily.

 If his Force abilities surged unchecked, the consequences could be catastrophic. Sedatives? Restraints? None felt adequate against a man who could crush durasteel with a thought. You opened your mouth to broach the subject, then faltered, unsure if it was even wise to voice the fear aloud.

He did it for you. His steel-blue eyes, sharp despite the haze of painkillers, fixed on you with unnerving clarity. “You’re… afraid,” he rasped. A statement, not a question.

Your pulse quickened, a flush of irritation mingling with unease. He was using the Force; probing your emotions, your thoughts, or whatever currents he sensed in the air. You’d felt it before, a subtle pressure at the edges of your mind. You set the datapad down, meeting his gaze with a steady one of your own, though your hand gestured vaguely into the air as if the answer hung there. “This,” you said, your voice firm but tinged with frustration, “exactly this is what worries me. You, reading me like an open book. It’s not just your body we’re try to manage here.”

He didn’t respond, waiting, his gaze demanding clarification.

You took a breath, steadying yourself as you leaned against the medbed’s railing, your cybernetic arm clicking faintly. “I'm trying to decide whether I should be worried. Not just for you.” you said, your tone measured but direct. “But about you. About the Force. If withdrawal hits hard, there’s a chance you could lash out. Deliberately or not. We’re on a ship, my Lord. A medical frigate, not a battle cruiser. We’ve got patients, medics, crew, hundreds of lives. If you lose control …” You trailed off.

Vader’s eyes narrowed, a shadow of something, defiance, perhaps, or wounded pride, crossing his face. His jaw tightened, the scars on his cheeks pulling taut. “You think… I would endanger… this ship?” The edge in his tone was unmistakable. “I am… not a mindless beast.”

You held his gaze, unflinching, though your mind raced. His force control was legendary, but so was his destructive power. The files you’d studied were one thing, but even the Rebel massacre reports painted him like some walking apocalypse -  someone who could flatten a room with a single thought. Piett had suggested the Executor had seen its fair share of temper tantrums.

The neurotoxic effects of the drugs had suppressed his neural autonomy for years. Withdrawal could unravel that fragile balance, and the Force, unbound by a mind in chaos, was a variable you couldn’t quantify. You glanced at the EEG monitor, its steady alpha waves a thin reassurance against the storm you feared.

“I don’t think you’re a beast,” you said carefully, adjusting the stethoscope around your neck to give your hands something to do. “But I’ve seen your scans. Your amygdala’s hyperexcitable from years of kouhunin exposure. Your prefrontal cortex, responsible for decision-making and impulse control, is scarred from chronic overstimulation. Psychosis could mean hallucinations, paranoia, or worse, and with your abilities…” You paused, choosing your words with precision. “A single uncontrolled surge could crush this room. Or worse. We’ve got kids in the ward two decks down. Medics who’ve never held a blaster. “

You both knew that if it ever escalated, blasters would be as futile as breath against durasteel.

“I believe you want to stay in control. But withdrawal isn’t about willpower; it’s chemistry. Your brain’s been rewired by those drugs, and we’re pulling the plug on them. If the Force becomes a factor…”

You hesitated, your fingers tightening around the stethoscope, then pressed on. “For prevention, we could use Force-suppressing measures maybe, before psychosis becomes a risk. It’s not ideal, but it could protect you…and the ship.” The suggestion felt heavy, almost wrong, as it left your lips, and you braced for his reaction.

Vader’s gaze darkened, his eyes glinting with a cold intensity that made the room feel smaller. The monitor beeped softly, showing a blood pressure spike: 118/76, a sign of stress but not yet critical. “Force-suppressing measures... Cuffs? Would be a curious choice, considering I no longer possess hands… Perhaps a collar?” bitterness coating every syllable. “Add a few shocks to ensure compliance? Like the Zygerrian slavers?”

His voice dropped, low and venomous. “You would place me… in chains?”

The weight of his words hit you like a physical blow, and you realized your mistake. His history, his childhood as a slave on Tatooine, made the suggestion more than clinical. It was a wound, raw and personal. You hadn’t considered it, not fully, and the oversight left you stammering. “I…I didn’t mean it like that,” you said, your voice faltering as you raised a hand to diffuse the tension. “It’s not about control, it’s about safety, for everyone. Maybe I could ask Luke if he could perhaps find other Force-suppressing options. Ones that don’t feel quite so much like slavery."

Mentally, you were already pinging Luke’s comm, but the expression on Vader’s face stopped you cold.

He appeared to be wrestling with something inside him. His gaze, always sharp and unwavering, flickered, just slightly, but enough to betray something close to pleading. “No… please, don’t,” he rasped, voice low and hoarse.

He swallowed with visible effort before speaking again. “My son would come running… if you asked. If you told him, it would be the best option to use Force suppression. He… cares about you.”

You felt heat rise to your cheeks, and suddenly, your boots became the most fascinating thing in the room.

To your relief, he didn’t comment on it. Instead, he continued. “The Force is essential… To cut me off… would be,” He trailed off, his gaze drifting to the ceiling, the oxygen mask fogging with a slow, deliberate breath.

You processed his words, your mind reeling. You thought about how he had managed to communicate with you while intubated; how, despite the heavy sedation, he remained alert and had focused on you with startling clarity, even through a damaged cornea.

 The Force wasn’t just a weapon or a tool for him - it was how he perceived the world.

 The files had detailed the devastation of Mustafar: eyes burned, corneas scarred, leaving him nearly blind without cybernetic enhancements; ears damaged, auditory nerves frayed, rendering him dependent on the suit’s audio relays. Without limbs, without natural senses, he’d been left with nothing; nothing but the Force to navigate his surroundings.

He interrupted your thoughts, his voice cutting through with a sharp edge. “Your thoughts are too loud,” he said, his eyes narrowing with faint annoyance. “and to clinical. It is not… just perception. The Force is much more. You would not… understand.”

You bristled slightly, the irritation of his mind-reading flaring again, but you leaned forward, undeterred. “Then explain it,” you said, your tone calm but insistent as you set the stethoscope down and checked the EEG monitor: beta waves slightly elevated, a sign of heightened alertness. “Help me understand. If we’re going to keep you stable, I need to know what I’m working with.”

Vader hesitated, his scarred face tightening, the oxygen mask fogging with a slow exhale. His gaze drifted, not to you but to some distant point, as if weighing whether to share something so intrinsic. “The Force,” he began, his voice low and halting. “It’s not a tool, not in the way you think about it…It’s a tether. A lifeline; My meaning, My pain, my survival, my identity. Without it… I’m not broken - I’m gone. There is nothing left of me….To sever it would be to unmake me.”

So, it wasn’t just a tool or a sense - It was the one thing that had held him together when his body and mind were torn apart. His words sank in, and you leaned back, processing the weight of them.  But his explanation wasn't the only thing that influenced your thoughts.

His words reverberated through your thoughts. Please don’t

He could’ve just squashed you like a bug, you guessed. But instead of using the force, he had asked, genuinely, not take it away.  It was the first time you’d heard anything from him that wasn’t commanding, dismissive, indifferent, or suicidal. This mattered to him. More than life or death, it seemed. To take it away would’ve been worse than killing him; it would be erasure.

You exhaled slowly, your hand rubbing your temple, the gesture a reflex to ground yourself against the storm of thoughts. The monitor beside the bed beeped softly, its screen displaying stable vitals: oxygen saturation at 93%, heart rate at 75 beats per minute…The numbers were a lifeline, a tether to the clinical reality you knew how to navigate.

 “Okay,” you said softly, meeting his gaze. “No Force-suppressing. We’re keeping you stable, monitoring everything. Just… let us know if it starts to slip. And be aware that I’ll be checking on you every hour,” you warned, levelling him with a firm look, “and if necessary, I’ll flood your bloodstream with enough sedatives to put you out for days.”

You didn’t voice the unspoken truth: in his current state a sedative overdose could be lethal. You didn’t need to. The slight narrowing of his eyes, the faint tightening of his jaw beneath the mask, told you he understood the stakes.

He gave a slow, exhausted nod, the oxygen mask shifting slightly as his head settled back against the pillow. “Understood,” he rasped, his voice scratchy; each word a deliberate effort that betrayed the toll of speaking.

You stepped to the bedside; your movements deliberate as you gently pulled the sterile sheet back over his shoulder. The gesture was clinical but intentional, a small act to shield a body that had been stripped of so much. “Now rest, my Lord,” you said, your tone firm but not unkind, “The next few days will be brutal. Save your strength.”

You turned toward the door, your cybernetic arm whirring faintly as you gathered the tray of instruments. The weight of the conversation clung to you, a tangle of clinical duty and something less definable. You were halfway to the exit, the door’s frosted panel revealing the silhouettes of the two soldiers standing guard, their blasters a silent reminder of the fragile balance you were navigating.

“Doctor…” His voice, low and raspy, stopped you.

You turned, your hand hovering over the door controls, your heart giving a small, involuntary lurch. His eyes were half-open, the steel-blue softened by fatigue but piercing with an intensity that made the room feel smaller. “Thank you,” he said, the words almost lost in the quiet. “For… that.”

The gratitude was so unexpected, so human, it caught you off balance - again. A grin tugged at your lips, a spark of warmth breaking through the clinical detachment that had carried you through the conversation. You tilted your head, your tone light but laced with a playful edge. “A please and a thank-you from you. In the same day?” You raised an eyebrow, letting the moment breathe. “Careful, my Lord. People might start thinking you’re not the terrifying monster you’ve spent years convincing the galaxy you are.”

Vader’s lips twitched, a faint, almost imperceptible curve that was as close to a smile as you’d ever seen from him. A low, amused chuckle rumbled from his chest, barely audible, strained by his fragile vocal cords but unmistakably genuine. The sound was startling, a fleeting glimpse of the man beneath the myth, and it sent a ripple of warmth through you. You shook your head, the grin lingering as you tapped the door controls. “Get some rest,” you said, your voice softening, a trace of camaraderie slipping through. “We’ve got a long road ahead, and I’d rather not have to sedate you for being stubborn.”

The door hissed shut behind you, sealing the suite in silence.

Chapter Text

Pain was  a constant shadow that had clung to him for decades, but this…
This was new. 

A wildfire tearing through what little remained of his flesh. He lay pinned to the medbed in the  recovery suite, his body a traitor, trembling with a fever that burned beneath his sweat-slicked skin. Sweat beaded on his scarred brow, trickling into the crevices of burns and surgical lines that mapped his face like a shattered world. The oxygen mask pressed against his nose and mouth, its faint hiss a mocking echo of the respirator that had caged him for twenty-three years. 

Each breath was a victory, the new cybernetic lung drawing air without the searing agony he’d known, but the relief was drowned by the storm raging within. His muscles twitched with a relentless tremor, his shoulders and neck aching with a deep, grinding pain that no amount of will could silence. Nausea churned in his gut, a sour tide threatening to rise, and every pulse of his heart felt like a hammer against the fragile cage that held it. 
Clearly, the doctor’s warnings hadn’t been an exaggeration.

The room was a blur of dim blue light and sterile walls, the monitors beeping with a rhythm that grated on his frayed nerves. Tubes snaked from his torso, tugging at scars as old as his sins, and the sheet draped over his limbless frame felt like a shroud, heavy with the weight of his vulnerability. The withdrawal was a beast, clawing at him from the inside, leaving his body to scream. The Force, his constant tether to the world, flickered erratically, a pulse that both anchored and betrayed him, threatening to slip from his control as his mind teetered on the edge of chaos.
The medical droid at his bedside, whirred softly, its sensors blinking like cold, unfeeling eyes. Its metallic arm adjusted the IV drip, delivering a feeble trickle of some meds to blunt the symptoms, but the drugs were a whisper against a hurricane. His heart pounded too fast, the monitor’s beeping a taunting reminder of his fragility. Nausea surged again, and he clenched his jaw, fighting the urge to retch, the sour taste of bile rising in his throat. The Force pulsed, a raw, untamed current, and he gripped it tightly, using it to feel the room- the hum of machines, the distant footsteps of medics, the soldiers outside the door - anything to keep himself grounded.

He was stronger than this. He needed to be. 
 He –

A voice sliced through the haze, soft but piercing, familiar in a way that twisted his gut worse than the nausea. 
“Hello, Anakin.”

His eyes snapped shut, a low groan escaping his raw throat, the sound scraping against his reconstructed larynx. “No,” he rasped, each word a blade of effort, his voice barely audible over the mask’s hiss. “No. Please… be a hallucination.”

He forced his eyes open, only to find the translucent figure of kriffing Obi-Wan Kenobi seated at the foot of his bed. The Force ghost shimmered in the dim light, robes pristine, beard neatly trimmed, his expression a maddening blend of sorrow and serenity. Confronted with withdrawal that felt like his organs were trying to burn their way out of his body, the sight hit him like a lightsaber to the chest, dragging him straight back to Mustafar. To flame and betrayal. To pain that had never truly left.

 Obi-Wan’s gaze held his, unwavering, and his voice was calm but firm. “You know I’m not a hallucination, Anakin.”

Vader’s lips curled into a sneer, the effort sparking a sharp pang in his chest, the monitor beeping as his heart rate spiked to 122 bpm. “Don’t… call me that,” he growled, his voice a gravelly rasp, each syllable a battle against the pain searing his throat. “And get… the kriff out. You couldn’t have waited for a less catastrophic moment….to haunt me, could you?”

Obi-Wan’s expression didn’t falter, his ghostly form unmoved by the venom in his tone. “I didn’t come here to haunt you. I’m not your enemy.“ He leaned forward slightly, hands folded in his lap, the faint glow of his presence casting eerie patterns on the durasteel walls. “I came to tell you, how proud I am, Anakin. Luke was right: You’ve turned from the dark side, broken free of its chains. That’s no small feat.”

Vader’s sneer twisted into something darker, a hoarse, bitter laugh cracking in his throat before dissolving into a coughing fit. Pain rippled through him, nausea rising fast. He clenched his teeth, the mask fogging as he fought for control. “Proud?” he hissed, venom lacing every syllable. “You made me this. Every moment of agony…every breath scraped through fire; it’s all your legacy. So, forgive me….Master, if your pride means nothing to me but the stench of Bantha shit.”
It was an indescribable relief to finally speak freely, to use his own voice again, without having to worry about which words might be mangled or distorted by the voice modulator.

Obi-Wan’s gaze softened, but his voice held a quiet resolve. “You know there was no other choice back then. I couldn’t let you continue down that path. Not after what you’d done.”

Vader’s chuckle was cold, mocking, though it cost him another stab of pain, his muscles cramping as the tremor intensified. The monitor blared.

“No choice?” he rasped, his eyes blazing with a fire that belied his broken body. “You cut off my limbs, stood there… and watched me burn. A mercy stroke… would’ve been kinder. And yet, despite everything….it achieved nothing. You failed to stop me.”

Obi-Wan’s expression flickered, a shadow of guilt passing over his translucent features. “If I had ended it then, you would never have known your children. And you would have never fulfilled the prophecy. The events on the Death Star proved it. The Force guided you to this moment, Anakin.”

Vader’s laugh was a jagged, bitter thing, cut short by a wince as a fresh wave of pain lanced through his torso. The EEG spiked briefly, a warning of neural instability. 
“Your Prophecy,” he sneered, his voice thick with derision. “The Jedi’s… fairy tale. If I’d known you hid my children from me….I’d have made your death… slower. More painful. Yours and Bail Organa’s both.”

Obi-Wan’s gaze didn’t waver, though a trace of sorrow deepened the lines around his eyes. “We hid them to protect them, Anakin. Their potential was too great, too dangerous to fall into the dark side’s hands. You must see that.”

Vader’s chest heaved, the oxygen mask fogging as he fought to steady his breathing, the nausea cresting again. “Protect them?” he rasped, his voice breaking with a mix of rage and pain. “"You let Luke grow up on that…. gods forsaken dustball of a planet. And you would have left Leia…to never know her real family.”

Obi-Wan leaned closer, his voice calm but urgent. “Leia has great strength in her, but also much hate and despise. You’ve seen it. She will come you, Anakin. The time will come, and you must be ready. You must guide her, to keep her from the dark side’s pull.”

Vader’s laugh was a harsh, choking sound, cut off by a spasm of pain that curled his shoulders inward, his face contorting. “Guide her?” he spat, his voice trembling with effort. “She hates me… rightly so. And that’s your doing, Obi-Wan. And your… dualistic nonsense - I’m done with it. I won’t poison my children… with that garbage.”

He turned his head, wincing as the movement sent a fresh wave of pain through his neck, and addressed CX-3, his voice hoarse but commanding. “Droid. Contact the doctor. Tell her… I’ve changed my mind. The Force-suppressing measures…I’ll take them.”

Obi-Wan’s ghostly form shimmered, his voice soft but insistent. “Anakin…”

Vader’s eyes blazed, his breath coming in heavy, ragged bursts, the oxygen mask fogging rapidly. “I’ll do… anything,” he rasped, his voice thick with exhaustion and defiance. “to make your Force-damned ghost… disappear.”
CX-3’s sensors blinked, its metallic voice cutting through the tension. “Transmitting request. Estimated response time: five minutes.”

In the meantime

You hurried through the corridors, the sharp clack of your boots echoing off the durasteel walls. Your datapad vibrated in your hand, flashing urgent alerts: Vader’s heart rate at 105 bpm, blood pressure 150/90, EEG showing erratic beta waves teetering on the edge of a seizure. As soon as the readings showed even the slightest escalation, you were in motion. The withdrawal was hitting hard, and you would rather arrive a minute early than late to avoid possible harm to the patient or his environment.

Someone called your name. 

Yadlea Merrin jogged to catch up, her lab coat pristine despite the late hour, her glasses glinting under the corridor’s harsh lights. Her nervous habit of adjusting them was in full force, just as it always was when she faced a socially challenging situation.

So, you knew whatever was coming next definitely wouldn’t be a friendly chat.

She clutched a datapad, its screen glowing with Vader’s latest blood panel. Her voice, usually precise, carried a tremor of concern. “I’ve been reviewing his medication orders: risperidone, neuroquil, clonidine, gabapentin? It’s aggressive. His liver and kidneys are on the brink. Why the heavy antipsychotics?”

You kept your pace brisk; your mind split between her words and the urgent vitals on your datapad.

“Well…to prevent psychosis?” you said, your tone measured despite the urgency driving you forward. You didn’t mean to sound smug, but from your perspective, it really should’ve been obvious. “Not just for him, but for the ship. If withdrawal triggers a psychotic episode, we’re not just dealing with hallucinations. We’re dealing with the Force.”

Yadlea’s eyes widened, her fingers pausing mid-tap on her datapad as she struggled to keep up with your stride. “The Force?” Her voice was sceptical, as if it were a theoretical concept rather than a tangible threat. “You mean… what? Moving things? Throwing objects?”

You let out a grim chuckle, the sound sharp with exhaustion as you rounded a corner. “Ever seen him use the Force, Yadlea? Or any Jedi, for that matter?”

She shook her head, adjusting her glasses with a nervous flick, her steps faltering slightly. “No. It’s… I assumed it is some kind of... I don’t know. A magic trick? Like Floating objects, that sort of thing.”

You tapped your datapad, pulling up a classified file as you walked. “Vader doesn’t just make things float. He’s crushed starfighters, ripped apart bulkheads, destroyed entire ships with a thought. If his control slips, we could take catastrophic damage.”

Providing her with a brief glimpse into what might go horribly wrong wouldn't do any harm and could hopefully expedite this discussion. It wasn't that you disliked Yadlea - in fact, you respected her expertise deeply and on a personal level, you enjoyed chatting with her. But under no circumstances did you want to bring her into the room with Vader; the risks were too high, and you couldn't bear the thought of putting her in that volatile situation.
Her face paled, her glasses slipping as she gripped her datapad tighter, as the horrifying video unfolded on yours: Vader, with those two mercilessly accurate arm sweeps ripping through a shuttle's durasteel doors as if they were tissue paper folded outward, and in the same brutal motion, utterly demolishing the terrified soldiers who'd barricaded themselves in a vain attempt at survival.

. “Stars…” she murmured, her voice barely audible over the corridor’s hum.

You pressed on, your voice firm a as you approached the corridor where his room was located. “A psychotic episode could mean telekinesis, choking, destroying anything. I’m not risking the ship.”

The cost, if truly measured, would not lie in steel and tech - but in the countless lives swallowed by the void.

Yadlea’s fingers resumed their nervous tapping, her brow furrowing. “And why is he still on total parental nutrition?  Bilirubin’s at 2.1 The TPN is wrecking his liver. You placed a gastrostomy tube during the transplant. Why not use it?”

You sighed inwardly, anticipating the question all too well - it had been inevitable. Indeed, you had utilized the surgical procedure to insert a gastrostomy tube, primarily because you were acutely aware of the profound toxicity that twenty years of TPN had inflicted on his organs, a complication that would have surfaced regardless. And having cautiously wagered that Lord "I've-Endured-Far-Worse" wouldn't abruptly adapt to conventional nutrition without incident, you deemed the gastrostomy tube a prudent, forward-thinking contingency measure... That said, given the current withdrawal symptoms ravaging his system, you were reasonably certain his stomach wouldn't retain even vita paste at this stage.

“The PEG was a precaution, but his gut’s atrophied after twenty years without food. Enteral feeding now would cause spasms, maybe aspiration. And with the withdrawal hitting him hard, he’s already vomiting, or he will be soon. Acid and bile are bad enough for his new esophagus. TPN’s a necessary evil for three days, until the worst is over.”

Yadlea frowned, her voice soft but insistent. “But gastric acid’s corrosive too. Why not a trickle feed to ease his liver?”

You gradually pushed harder to wrap up the conversation for good, your patience fraying at the edges. Already, you could spot the two guards pacing vigilantly outside Vader's room, their shadows a grim reminder of the volatile storm waiting within. “We’re using pantoprazole and pH-Kolto paste to protect his esophagus,” you said, checking the blood panel - creatinine at 1.8 mg/dL, stable. “We’ll start normal feeding soon, slow and steady. For now, TPN’s the safest bet.”

Her shoulders slumped, her fingers tapping nervously. “I want his liver scans tomorrow. I need to know the damage.”

“Done,” you replied, managing a gentle, reassuring smile despite the knot in your stomach. “But I can’t let you anywhere near him, Yadlea. You’re incredibly brilliant, but you’re also... too sensitive for what he might say or do. He can be….overwhelmingly intense, even outside of withdrawal; it’s not a risk I’m willing to take with you.”

You’d even warned Vara herself about chatting with him directly, and she possessed remarkably thick skin, forged from years of high-stakes surgeries and unyielding ambition. Yadlea, however, was worlds apart - profoundly sensitive, burdened not just by deep-seated complexes and relentless self-doubts, but also by the shadows of depression that could overwhelm her on her worst days. No way in the nine Corellian hells were you going to be the one responsible for unleashing Vader’s brand of ‘intensity’ on her; you’d seen enough medbay meltdowns to know that’d end in tears - or worse, a transfer request.

Her cheeks flushed, and she huffed, adjusting her glasses. “I’m not that fragile. But fine, just the scans.” 

With these words, she finally relented, and you exhaled in relief, thankful you'd managed to sidestep the mess so quickly, if only temporarily.

You were almost there. Just a few more meters - and then...

You almost slammed into Luke at the final corridor junction, his vivid blue eyes lighting up with concern the moment they locked onto yours, shadowed by unspoken fears.

"Doc, you alright?" he whispered urgently, his soft tone edged with tension as he eyed the datapad clutched in your grip. "I was en route to see my father. The Force is restless around him. It’s... stirring. I just wanted a quick look. Squadron's gearing up for a test run on those new X-wings."

You mustered a steady smile, your heart racing in sync with the haste propelling you onward. "Vitals are elevated," you replied evenly, not wanting to spike his anxiety. "Heading there now. Likely the detox flaring up."

Luke opened his mouth to reply, but your comm buzzed sharply - CX-3's robotic timbre slicing in: "Doctor, the patient requests Force-suppression protocols."

Your eyes met Luke's, mirroring alarm in his dilated pupils. 
Trouble. 

You picked up speed, Luke syncing his steps with yours in shared haste. "CX-3," you barked into the device, "send vitals and brain scans to my datapad immediately."

Data streamed in as the recovery suite loomed. You halted at the entrance, peering through the viewport: Vader stared intently at his bed's end, conversing fiercely with... nothing? Scans materialized: no delta surges, just chaotic beta and theta patterns hinting at intense brain activity, short of psychosis. 

"This is… strange," you muttered, glancing at Luke. “He’s talking to someone, but the scans don’t show hallucination markers; no delta waves, no cortical disarray.” 

Luke leaned closer to the window, his expression softening as he peered inside.

“It’s okay,” he said, his voice calm but tinged with a quiet awe. “I see who he’s talking to. It’s Ben - Obi-Wan Kenobi, my…our old master. He’s a Force ghost. I’ve seen him before, during my training on Dagobah. He’s not a hallucination.”

You blinked, processing the words, your gaze flicking between Luke and the empty air beyond the glass. A Force ghost? Your mind reeled, grappling with the concept - a Jedi master, long dead, manifesting to speak with Vader... As if he weren't already the weirdest patient you'd ever patched up - even without throwing in magical invisible Force ghost masters to the mix.

Before you could respond, Luke’s comm chirped, and he glanced at it with a sigh. “That’s Wedge. I’ve got to go.  Ben’s a good man, Doc. He means father no harm.”

A sudden crack raced across the glass, loud and deliberate. You stared at it, one eyebrow arching slowly in suspicion. 

Just because someone means no harm doesn’t mean they don’t cause it. Maybe it was for the best that Luke left. The last thing Vader needed in his condition was two emotionally charged Force sensitives overwhelming him in the middle of withdrawal.

 “I’ve got this,” you said, forcing confidence into your voice. “If anything goes south, I’ll comm you. Go.”

Luke hesitated, his smile warm but fleeting, then turned and jogged down the corridor.

You took a breath, steeling yourself, and pushed through the door, the hiss of its mechanism loud in the sterile silence. The recovery suite was dim, the blue light casting stark shadows across Vader’s medbed. His massive frame, draped in a thin sheet, was tense, sweat glistening on his scarred face, his chalk-white skin flushed with fever. The oxygen mask fogged with each ragged breath, and his muscles trembled faintly, a sign of the withdrawal’s brutal grip. The monitors blared, heart rate 125 bpm, blood pressure 155/94: warning of mounting stress.

Your eyes flicked to the foot of the bed. You saw nothing but air, but the weight of Vader’s gaze, steel-blue and piercing, told you whatever it was, it was there. 

You squared your shoulders, your voice firm but measured. “Hello, Mr. Jedi Master Force Ghost,” you said, addressing the empty space with a touch of defiance. “I can’t see you, but I know you’re there, and I’m sure you’ve got plenty to discuss with your former student. Luke said you meant no harm. But you're clearly stressing my patient. So, I told High Command, and I’m telling you now: come back in a week, at least. You’re endangering his recovery, and I can’t allow that.”
Honestly, you feel like a mother scolding the invisible monsters under her child’s bed.

Silence hung heavy, the monitors’ beeping the only sound. Then Vader coughed, his body seizing with pain before a strained breath escaped him. “Yes, she is...She’s fixing what you broke, so let her do her job and just…leave already."

His eyes darted to the foot of the bed, then back to you, a faint flicker of relief in his gaze despite the pain etching his features. “He’s gone,” he rasped, his voice scratchy and laboured. “You… were fast. Too fast.”

You moved to his bedside, checking the monitors; temperature 39.6°C, EEG showing persistent beta wave spikes.

“I was already on my way,” you said, your tone calm but firm. “Your vitals started climbing before CX-3’s call. What’s going on? You said you’d never agree to Force-suppressing measures, and now you’re asking for them? Talk to me.”

You had to know if you were still in immediate danger, or if the disappearance of his Force ghost master had banished the threat for good.

He exhaled, the mask fogging, his jaw clenching as a tremor shook his shoulders. “Kenobi,” he rasped, his voice thick with irritation and pain. “He thought… to lecture me. About the Force. About… Leia. Keeping her… from the dark side.”

You frowned, catching the telltale signs; his face paling beneath the fever’s flush, his lips tightening, the slight hitch in his breath. You’d seen it enough in withdrawals to know what was coming. Moving quickly, you grabbed a kidney basin from a drawer, its metal cool in your hand, and pulled a syringe and a vial of pH-Kolto paste from another. 

He followed your hurried movements with glassy, tired eyes. “What are you doing?”

You removed his oxygen mask, before you drew up 10 ml of the gel and connected it to the gastrostomy tube. “This will neutralize your stomach acid,” you said, your voice steady as you administered it through the PEG tube. “Gastric acid and bile are corrosive, and your reconstructed esophagus and larynx can’t handle that right now.”

Before he could respond, his body convulsed, a gag rising in his throat. You held the basin under his chin just in time as he retched. 

“Opiate withdrawal,” you said, your tone clinical but gentle. “It triggers nausea, even with no food in your stomach.”

He looked shockingly put-together for someone who'd just hurled into a basin you had to hold up for him - on account of the whole no-arms situation. Then your mind wandered back to those endless records you'd slogged through with Piett, and realization settled in: after all those brutal procedures and slapdash fixes, he'd probably surrendered whatever shreds of dignity and shame he had left ages ago. 
Poor Piett - you seriously doubted he'd ever manage to meet his Supreme Commander's eyes again without picturing... well, this. Mental note: Swing by and check his foot once you're out of here, you thought while setting the basin aside, instructing CX-3 to monitor for aspiration.

 Then, gently, you placed your cybernetic hand on his forehead, the cool durasteel a contrast to his fever-hot skin. He didn’t flinch, his eyes closing briefly as the cold metal seemed to ease the heat. His muscles trembled, he bit down hard, jaw locked against the tremor - but the chattering wouldn’t stop.

Gods, he was practically burning up. The fever had climbed to 40 degrees by now. Worried, you glanced back to check the values flickering across CX-3's monitor for signs of rejection reactions. Confronted with the sudden withdrawal of so many substances AND a new organ, his body responded with the only logical answer for itself: a stress reaction that attacked his immune system and sent the temperature soaring. But you could breathe a sigh of relief - there were no rejection reactions for the time being. 

However, his current stress levels weren’t doing him any favors. According to his file, the injuries he sustained on Mustafar had been inflicted by none other than his former Jedi Master. Best not to prod that wound. Instead, you opted for a safer route - something that might both answer him and steer him away from the edge. 

“So,” you said, your voice light but curious, “the dark side of the Force… it’s evil? And as Sith, you used it? And the light side’s good, then? That’s what the Jedi used and taught? Sounds awfully dichotomous.” 

That was already all you'd picked up about the Force from Luke. That his father had torn himself away from the dark side of the Force. And that the Jedi lived according to the light side of the Force. In your ears, that sounded quite... simplified.

He snorted, a faint, amused sound that dissolved into a wince as pain lanced through him. “It’s… simplistic. The Jedi and the Sith call one end light, the other dark. Good, evil. Made constructs… morality imposed on something… beyond it. The Force is a spectrum… layered, complex. You can anchor yourself to one side until you’re blind…or drift so far into the other that you forget who you are. Fixating on extremes… that’s the flaw. Jedi, Sith - they both claim truth. Now that I've walked…both paths and belong to neither, I can say this with certainty: Both… are wrong.”

You leaned closer, intrigued despite yourself, adjusting the IV drip to ease his pain. “And the dark side is … stronger?”

 There had to be a reason why he switched from Jedi and the light side to Sith and the dark side back then, right? And why someone who had lost arms, legs, and all lung capacity still managed to mercilessly slaughter all remaining Jedi. From that point of view, the dark side had to be stronger in your imagination.

He shook his head, a faint grimace twisting his lips. “Not stronger, but… consuming. It feeds on pain, rage… despair, and strengthens them. For decades… I used it to move this broken body, to endure the suit. It was fuel… but it emptied me. Now…” 
He trailed off, his gaze distant, fever-bright eyes clouding. “Now I am… a shattered shell. On stumps… helpless.”

Your mind flashed to that moment in the emergency room - his Force grip crushing your throat, his raw power leaving faint marks you could still feel. Your hand drifted to your neck, and his eyes followed, darkening with a flicker of guilt.

“I owe you an apology, Doc,” he rasped, voice rough but genuine. A pause. “Harming you was never…. my intent.”

Ah, there it was: the classic withdrawal delirium kicking in. His brain had been yanked free from all those markers, guidelines, and chains in a single instant, forcing it to emotionally and cognitively reboot like some glitchy droid.

 
You grinned. "I think that's the fever delirium talking out of you, my Lord."

He snorted with amusement, but you saw the pain slice through him, his eyes pinching shut briefly as he inhaled sharply, regaining control before locking eyes with you again. "No. Believe it or not…. I'm well aware of the Rebels' propaganda about me, but I don't strangle my subordinates…without cause. And You're far too skilled for that. You'd be stunned by the sheer incompetence and foolishness…I'm encircled by."

You shook your head; your voice unable to hide the amusement.  “I don’t doubt that. And for the record: you're not helpless. Far from it. But I get what you're saying - The dark side seems like a drug. Overwhelming. Addictive. A kind of negative deluxe fuel to keep going but at the same time it takes as much from you as it gives. I can understand why the pull is so strong when all you have left is…well, pain and suffering. But I think you’re stronger than that.”

Your hand brushed your neck again, a reflex, and you gave a wry smile. “And you’ve got plenty of strength without it, trust me. That chokehold? Not exactly weak.”

He exhaled, a faint chuckle escaping, though it cost him a wince. 

You pressed on, your voice softening. “I get why you’d choose it, though. The suit it controlled every breath, didn’t it? No way to adjust, to ease the panic. Suffocating, over and over, just to survive and repeat. For so many years… that’s horrific. That dread, that helplessness,” 
You swallowed. The memory of the unimaginable panic that had shot through you when you couldn't get any air and spots danced before your eyes. Choking might go relatively quickly compared to some other ways of dying, but the panic and fear... could turn a few minutes into an absolute eternal hell. “is utterly terrifying. Not as bad as burning, maybe, but I can see why you’d prefer to choke your enemies...or incompetent subordinates.” 

His eyes, fever-bright but startlingly clear, met yours, a flicker of something passing through them. “You’re… clever,” he said, his voice carrying an undertone you couldn’t quite place. “Too clever for your own good… when it needs to be quick… I break necks and crush skulls too.”

You smirked, catching the dark humour, though you knew it was no jest. “Noted,” you said, your tone light.

Your thoughts flicked to Leia. So, his Master feared she might fall to the dark side. Was she even Force-sensitive? You’d never seen her use it, at least not directly. But maybe she didn’t know yet herself. Maybe, since discovering her… heritage, she simply hadn’t had the time or courage to explore it. 
Maybe she simply doesn’t want it.

You remembered how lost she’d looked in the hangar: sitting there alone, sadness and fury woven tightly across her features. With what you’d just learned, you could understand where that fear came from. There was substance to it. But was it justified?

She was fierce, yes. Quick to anger, sometimes. But cruel? Malicious?  No. She’d never hurt someone out of hate. She wasn’t like him.
Was she?

He was following your thoughts. You were sure of it, because the heart monitor suddenly stuttered, its rhythm quickening like a silent alarm. Your eyes darted to the readout. Spikes. Rising stress levels. Danger signs.

His voice cut through the stillness, low and hoarse. “Every bit of her fury is aimed at me - and why shouldn’t it be? Kenobi stole her away. Hid her from me. All those years.”

Somewhere to your left, you heard a metallic creak, groaning under pressure. The monitor at your side flickered ominously. 
A cylindrical glass container on the side table cracked, a hairline fracture spiderwebbing through it.

Wrong topic. Definitely the wrong topic.

“She has too much of me in her,” he went on, eyes distant now. “That fire. That fury. Luke… Luke is Padmé through and through. But Leia…she walks the edge. And her hatred for me,”
He paused. The air around him buzzed with raw energy - strong enough that even you could feel it. “it could drag her down.”

The canister exploded; glass shards scattering across the floor with a harsh crack.
You jumped. 

Behind you, the monitor twisted violently on its hinge, collapsing into a tangled mess of wires and bent frame.
The creaking turned into a grinding wail - metal under stress. The pressure was rising fast. That was most certainly a sound no one wants to hear aboard a ship - especially not out here. In Space.

Guilt.
As corrosive as anger. Maybe worse.

He was losing his grip. The Force, unchained, rippling with every tremor of regret.

You leaned closer, into his line of sight. Anchoring him. Giving him something real to look at.
“Hey,” you said softly, voice calm but firm, “Leia’s strong. She’s always been. And I doubt she’s going to fall apart over a few daddy issues. And believe me, I know what I’m talking about: I’ve got a father on the Imperial side too, and we didn’t exactly part on good terms.”

Sure, your dad hadn’t tortured you or stood by while your planet exploded. But you had no doubt he’d have cheerfully frozen at least a couple of your past relationships in carbonite, given the chance.

You gave him a pointed look. “Back then, you thought you’d lost everything, didn’t you? She hasn’t. She’s got friends. Family, even. She’s got Han. She won’t fall to the dark side. And if she stumbles - well, we all will help her back up. Leia is her own person. She is not inevitably doomed by your legacy, I promise. I know her.”

CX-3 passed you a wrapped ice pack, which you pressed gently against Vader’s burning forehead. He let out a low, relieved groan and closed his eyes.

“But that’s only possible if we all make it out of this in one piece and this ship doesn’t fall apart around us. So maybe let’s think about something else, yeah?”

Your thoughts scrambled for a distraction, something halfway sensible. Only one thing popped into your head, and it was the one you’d been trying not to think about since your last conversation.

“So … how did you know Luke…’cares about me’?” you asked, quirking a brow. “Far as I know, the two of you haven’t exactly had time for long father-son heart-to-hearts about women.”

The flicker in his eyes told you enough; he appreciated the shift in topic, the redirection of his thoughts.  With noticeably less emotion, but still the same strained effort in his voice, he went on. 
“His thoughts are still… unguarded. I can follow them like a holo-telenovela. He needs practice…if he wants to keep his mind to himself…. Leia leaves him in the dust there.” A pause, then a drier note crept in. “And unless there’s another ‘brilliant and stunning doctor’ ...caring for me that I somehow haven’t noticed, I’m fairly certain, he meant you, Doc.”

Warmth flooded your face, and you looked away in a hurry, acting as if the datapad had just become the most fascinating thing in the galaxy.  Well, who would’ve thought? The Butcher of the Empire making someone blush.

“I wouldn’t mention it, if I didn’t know… you already knew.” His lips twitched, a faint, mischievous curve that seemed alien on a face so ravaged by pain, and the amusement in his gaze deepened the flush creeping up your cheeks. Your expression must have been as revealing as a holoscreen, betraying thoughts you’d rather keep buried.

You averted your gaze, focusing on the monitor’s EKG trace - sinus rhythm, no ectopic beats- and tried to mask the feeling of being caught with a scoff.

“Yeah, well… he asked me on a date,” you said, tone light but laced with something defensive as you adjusted the IV drip for the umpteenth time, making sure the meds kept dulling his pain. “Right before he left for the second Death Star. I told him I’d go on one, with the condition that he blow up that Death Star too. Figured a little motivation couldn’t hurt…” 
You gave a half-shrug, eyes still fixed on the screen. “But then he traded the date for saving his dying father, so…”

Of course you knew Luke had only been joking. It’s not like you actually trade dates or yourself for favours.
You just wanted to tease him.

Vader’s eyes narrowed, the faint smile lingering, a spark of humour cutting through the pain etching his features. “You’ve… thought about it,” he rasped, his voice teasing despite the effort it cost him, a wince tightening his jaw as a tremor shook his shoulders. “You can’t fool me.”

Your cheeks burned hotter, and you busied yourself with pulling up his latest blood panel to avoid meeting his gaze. 
Luke’s boyish charm, those earnest blue eyes, that infectious optimism - yes, you’d thought about it, more than you’d admit to anyone, let alone his father. He was cute, undeniably, with a heart so pure it seemed to light up the room. But the idea of anything more was a tangle of complications.

 “Okay, fine,” you muttered, your voice half-exasperated, half-amused as you set the datapad down. “Luke is… lovable, okay? A great guy, brave, all that hero stuff. But he’s so damn young. The age gap, his whole Jedi mission, it’d make anything serious messy. And besides, he’s off saving the galaxy full-time. And I’m here full-time, trying to patch up what’s left. Maybe just… You know, something casual, no boundaries, just… having fun?”

The words tumbled out before you could stop them and you froze, your eyes widening in horror. You’d just implied casual sex with Luke Skywalker. To his father. Darth Vader. 

Your hand flew to your forehead, rubbing your temple as a groan escaped. “Gods, I can’t believe I just said that to you,” you muttered, your voice thick with embarrassment, your cheeks practically glowing. 
“Let’s just... pretend that never left my mouth, okay? This is officially the strangest conversation I ever had with a patient.”

Vader snorted, a low, amused sound that dissolved into a cough, his face contorting as pain lanced through him. The monitor beeped, heart rate ticking up to 88 bpm, but the faint curve of his lips held, a rare glimpse of humanity in a man who’d been a legend of terror. “You… underestimate him,” he rasped, amusement lingering in his voice despite the strain.

You shook your head, a reluctant smile tugging at your lips as you checked the EEG.
“Look, Luke’s got a heart of gold,” you said, softening your tone as you leaned closer, “Too pure, too good. And I bet all I have: way too inexperienced for something casual. If I went for it … I’d probably hurt him, break that big, open heart of his. I don’t want that. Imagine burning out this star - who will then rise to save us all? I’m not about to be held responsible for the galaxy falling apart just because Luke Skywalker needed to go get drunk in some cantina.”

 Your hand brushed your neck, where the faint marks of Vader’s Force grip lingered, and you gave a wry chuckle. “Besides, I’ve heard your family doesn’t exactly handle emotional distress well.” 

There was a kernel of truth in it, wasn't there? Luke was young - stars, barely in his  twenties, with that wide-eyed optimism that could light up a black hole. He was all heart, pure and unscarred in ways you envied, the kind of guy who'd rush into a firefight to save a stranger without a second thought. Imagining something serious with him? It felt... mismatched. You'd seen too much grit in the medbay, patched up too many broken bodies and shattered minds, to not worry about dragging someone like him into your orbit. He deserved someone who could match his light, not dim it with the cynicism you'd built up like scar tissue. 
And yet, as you thought it, a niggling voice in the back of your head whispered: Maybe Vader's right. Maybe you're underestimating him. 

Luke had faced down the Emperor, turned his father back from the dark side - hell, he'd survived growing up on Tatooine, which was basically a sandbox of despair. If anyone could handle emotional chaos without imploding, it was him. But still... the idea of complicating things with the galaxy's golden boy? It made your stomach twist, not unlike the nausea you could see flickering across Vader's features as he shifted slightly, his stump of a shoulder twitching involuntarily.

 His eyes gleamed with a mix of amusement and exhaustion, the fever making them glassy but no less piercing.  He was in your head again. Obviously. That smile gave him away. Smug bastard.

Clearing your throat to shake off the embarrassment, you decided to pivot before he could comment on your internal monologue. "Anyway, aren't Jedi supposed to live celibate lives or something? Like, no relationship, no fun -strictly lightsabers and lofty meditations?"

Vader's head tilted slightly, the movement costing him visible effort; a bead of sweat trickled down his temple, pooling at the edge of a scar that twisted like a river delta across his cheek. He regarded you with those fever-bright eyes, his voice emerging as a rough rasp, strained but curious. "How... did you come to that conclusion?"

You shrugged, trying to play it casual as you checked the monitor - his heart rate was still elevated at 85 bpm, blood pressure hovering at 130/85. Better than earlier when he was visited by his master, but still too high. 
"I don't know. Growing up, Jedi always seemed like these hot warrior monks to me: noble, mysterious, kicking Separatist droid ass while looking all stoic and untouchable. Hot, but, you know, untouchable. Like, 'Admire from afar, but don't even think about it, because they're too busy with their Force stuff and wars to bother with... well, bothering.'"

His eyebrows arched, or what remained of them, the scarred ridges rising in clear amusement, even as a wave of nausea seemed to hit him; his throat bobbed, and he swallowed hard, his face paling further under the medbay's harsh lights. The humour in his gaze was unmistakable, though, a spark of dry wit cutting through the haze of discomfort. It was almost endearing, in a twisted way - Darth Vader, the galaxy's bogeyman, looking like he was fighting back a chuckle while battling what looked like the mother of all hangovers. 

"Hot... warrior monks," he echoed, his voice laced with ironic amusement, though it cracked slightly on the last word, betraying the toll the fever was taking. His chest rose and fell unevenly, the new cybernetic lung whirring faintly as it compensated.

Of course, he’d seen the images in your mind when you’d spoken - knew exactly which Jedi you’d been thinking of. You’d been too young to grasp the politics back then, too sheltered to understand the Clone Wars. What you did remember were your parents’ hushed arguments in the next room... and your sister, hopelessly obsessed with Anakin Skywalker. She’d spent her days glued to holo-footage and her nights deep in Holoweb archives, devouring obscure romance novellas written by excitable fangirls who treated the war-torn Jedi Knight like he was some tragic, brooding hero.

You grinned despite yourself, leaning against the bed’s rail with your arms crossed, careful not to jostle any of the tubes snaking across his torso. "Yeah, well, don't let it go to your head. Or what's left of it." 
But curiosity gnawed at you, overriding the humour. "Seriously, though, how does that square with you having a wife and kids? That doesn't exactly scream 'celibate monk.'"

Vader's expression sobered, the amusement fading as he drew a slow breath, the mask hissing softly. You watched closely, his vitals dipped a fraction, the nausea evident, but he seemed determined to push through, his voice gaining a measured strength. "Emotional attachments... were forbidden among the Jedi. They thought, it would lead to fear, jealousy, anger... paths to the dark side. For most, separating physical intimacy from emotional dependency was... impossible. As it was for me back then." 

He paused, his eyes distant, as if reliving some ancient regret, his fingers - well, the stumps of his arms - twitching faintly at his sides. The monitor beeped a warning for a brief spike in his cortisol levels, the withdrawal amplifying every emotional ripple.

You nodded slowly, piecing it together, your mind flashing back to the files you'd pored over, the forbidden romance, the hidden marriage. It humanized him in ways that made your job both easier and infinitely harder. Here was a man who had once loved so fiercely it fractured a galaxy…now reduced to a fevered wreck, gasping for breath, yet still sharp enough for his dry wit to land squarely on you.

It shouldn’t be that easy. It really shouldn’t. But it was. Somehow, talking to him like this felt… comfortable. Too comfortable.

"But Luke..." Vader continued, his voice rough but steady, "is no true Jedi. The Order is extinct. I ensured... that cult would not persist." There was a bitter edge to his words, laced with something like triumph, though his body betrayed him, a shudder ran through him, the fever making his scars stand out in stark relief under the lights.

You frowned, tilting your head as you absorbed that. "From what I've pieced together of your story, though, the Jedi were right about emotional attachments leading to the dark side. I mean, look at... well, everything. It seems logical to me: cut off the risk at the source, right?"

He snorted, a sharp, amused huff that turned into a slight cough, his body tensing as nausea rolled through him again. You reached instinctively for the basin, but he waved it off with a subtle Force nudge, the air rippling faintly. 

"The art... lies in balance," he rasped, his tone instructive, almost paternal, despite the strain etching lines deeper into his face. "Not in clinging to the light... or falling to the dark. There are no purely 'good' or 'bad' emotions. Every being harbours a spectrum - joy, fear, love, rage. The mastery... is in controlling them with thought, not suppression." He shifted slightly, wincing as the movement pulled at his scars, but his eyes locked onto yours with conviction. "Luke... masters this better than I did at his age. I am certain."

You weren't convinced, not entirely. The whole "thoughts over matter" philosophy sounded like wishful thinking, especially in a medbay where biology ruled supreme. You'd seen too many patients’ willpower their way through pain only to crash harder on the other side. 

"Thoughts controlling everything? Sounds a bit... optimistic," you said, injecting a wry humour to lighten the mood, even as you eyed his rising temperature on the monitor. 

"Thoughts... can move galaxies," he murmured, his voice a low rumble that sent a peculiar chill down your spine.

Before you could retort, he closed his eyes, his breathing deepening into a deliberate rhythm. The room seemed to still, the air thickening with an invisible energy that made the hairs on your arms stand up. You glanced at the monitors, your jaw dropping as the numbers shifted in real time: heart rate dropping from 85 to 72 bpm, blood pressure easing to 118/78, even the fever ticking down to 38.6°C. His tremors subsided, the nausea seeming to recede as his face relaxed, the tension melting away. 

What the kriff... you thought, completely baffled, your scientific mind scrambling for an explanation. Force meditation? Whatever it was, it worked. His vitals normalizing before your eyes, the cybernetic lung humming more steadily, the EEG waves smoothing into a calm alpha state.

You were enthralled, a spark of genuine excitement bubbling up despite yourself. This wasn't just recovery; it was mastery, a demonstration that blurred the line between mind and body in ways your medical training had never prepared you for. But you didn't want to interrupt—hell, if this kept up, it might shave hours off his withdrawal misery. 

"CX-3," you whispered to the droid hovering nearby, its photoreceptors glowing softly, "monitor him closely. Alert me if anything changes - vitals spike, fever rises, anything."
The droid beeped affirmatively, its appendages whirring as it adjusted a sensor. You backed toward the door, your mind still whirling with his words as it hissed open. Balance, control through thought... could it really be that simple? You pondered it in the corridor's quiet hum, the idea lingering like an echo - profound, unsettling, and oddly inspiring. 

If thoughts could move galaxies, what else had you been underestimating?

Chapter Text

Three days.

Seventy-two hours of brutal, relentless hell that had pushed every limit you thought you knew. Three days of monitoring vitals that spiked and crashed like a ship caught in an asteroid field, of watching Vader's body wage war against itself as decades of chemical dependency clawed its way out of his system. Three days of barely sleeping, of living on caf and adrenaline, of standing ready with sedatives and of praying he wouldn't receive any more emotionally devastating visits from former Force ghost masters.

You'd learned afterward that Vader had been using Force meditation to stabilize his vitals during the worst episodes. A private mind palace, some kind of refuge where he could retreat and center himself. It couldn't be maintained indefinitely and left him exhausted, but those brief respites had probably made the difference between pulling through or not. You were still fascinated by how much of a physical difference these meditations made, something your medically rational mind couldn’t quite grasp.

But he'd won. Somehow, against all odds, he'd pulled himself through.

The worst of the withdrawal had passed. His fever had broken yesterday morning, his tremors had subsided to occasional twitches, and the nausea that had kept him retching into basins for hours at a stretch with dry, painful heaves that brought up nothing but bile and stomach acid, had finally eased. The cybernetic lung showed no signs of rejection - in fact, it was performing better than your most optimistic projections.

His resilience and capacity for recovery were simply incredible.

And of equal importance: the ship remained intact, without any significant damage. No crushed bulkheads, no twisted metal sculptures born from Force-fuelled rage. Just some manageable collateral damage: destroyed monitors, shattered containers, and blown light fixtures that you'd quietly had CX-3 replace before anyone could ask uncomfortable questions.

He’d been doing so well, given the circumstances, that you’d even gotten a solid five hours of sleep last night and had finally finished your masterpiece, ready for its big debut today.

Now, as you bounced around your office like a caffeinated Porg, gathering tools and calibrating instruments, you felt a familiar thrill building in your chest.

Today was the day. Vader's new prosthetic arm was finally ready for installation.

You'd spent every spare moment of the past days perfecting it, working through the night while he fought his demons in the recovery suite. The neural interface alone had taken two solid days to design, each microscopic pathway mapped and remapped to compensate for the decades of damage to his nervous system. The servo motors were military-grade but whisper-quiet, the durasteel framework both lightweight and nearly indestructible. Most importantly, you'd integrated a full sensory feedback system - temperature, pressure, texture, even pain receptors calibrated to his specific neural patterns. On Dr. Thal's recommendation, you hadn't activated these features to their full capacity yet, but the capability was there, waiting to be gradually enabled as his nervous system adapted to the new connections.

It was, without false modesty, a work of art.

The prosthetic lay on your desk, gleaming under the office lights, its fingers slightly curled in a resting position that looked almost organic. You had intentionally left the durasteel uncovered by synthetic skin. Partly because you assumed Vader had little interest in cosmetic masking, and partly because the texture of his scarred, burned tissue would be extremely difficult to reproduce accurately. Attempting it would have felt like a hollow, almost derisive gesture of forcing normality onto someone far removed from conventional appearance.

You cursed under your breath while rifling through a drawer of surgical tools, searching for the calibrator. Your cybernetic arm whirred softly as you sorted through the implements, each one meticulously arranged for the delicate work ahead.

The door hissed open behind you, and you glanced over your shoulder to see Jano stride in, his medcoat wrinkled from a long shift in the children's ward. His dark hair was more dishevelled than usual, and there were tired lines around his eyes that spoke of too many hours of work and too little sleep. He'd been covering your regular patients while you'd been practically living in Vader's recovery suite, or glued to your desk finishing his prosthetic, so you felt a stab of guilt for the extra burden you'd placed on him.

His gaze immediately locked onto the prosthetic, and he let out a low whistle of appreciation. "Well, well," he said, settling into the chair across from your desk with the easy familiarity of someone who wasn't just your colleague, but one of your closest friends for the better part of the last decade. "That's some pretty impressive tech you've got there. Is this for him?"

You rolled your eyes, though he couldn't see it with your back turned as you continued packing instruments into a sterile case. The way he said 'him' with that particular inflection - like Vader was some nameless Identity rather than a patient - grated on your nerves more than you cared to admit.

"He has a name, you know," you said, your tone deliberately neutral as you sealed the case and turned to face him.

Jano raised an eyebrow, his expression caught somewhere between amusement and exasperation. You could practically see him biting back whatever sarcastic comment had sprung to mind.

After a brief pause, you added, "And yes, the arm is for Vader."

Jano nodded slowly, leaning forward to examine the prosthetic more closely. His fingers hovered over the neural interface ports, careful not to actually touch the sterile surface. You could see his medical training warring with his personal opinions as he took in the sophisticated engineering, the countless hours of meticulous work that had gone into every component.

"Don't get me wrong," he said finally, his voice carrying that careful tone he used when he was about to say something he knew you wouldn't like. "This is incredible work. The neural mapping alone must have taken you days. But isn't this... well, a lot of wasted effort?"

You paused in your packing, a micro-sensor slipping from your fingers to clatter onto the desk. "Wasted effort?" you repeated, your voice tinged with disbelief.

Jano raised his hands defensively but pressed on. "Look, I get that you're doing your job. But we're talking about Darth Vader here. Given everything he's done, everything he's responsible for... I mean, most people would say that basic bridging prosthetics would be more than sufficient. Y'know, the basics to get him shuffling to the scaffold on his own two feet. Or... stumps. Whatever."

You knew his opinion on this matter. The two of you had already fought this battle when Vara had arrived to perform the lung transplant. But that procedure had been life-or-death;  without it, Vader would be dead by now.

But this was something else entirely. This was about quality of life, about dignity, about things that were harder to justify when your patient happened to be the galaxy's most notorious war criminal.

The standard bridging prosthetics that patients received while waiting for custom replacements were functional at best. Crude steel and plasteel constructs with basic motor functions, no sensory feedback, no fine motor control. They were meant to provide basic mobility - walking, lifting, grasping - but nothing more sophisticated than that. Sure; they were a far cry from the nightmare that had been bolted into Vader's bones for twenty years, but they were still a pale shadow of what a properly designed prosthetic could achieve.

You turned to face him fully, your expression serious. "His nerve damage is so extensive that standard bridging prosthetics wouldn't work at all," you explained, your tone taking on the clinical precision you used when teaching residents. "The neural pathways where his old connection points were are essentially dead tissue. The standard models don't have the deep interface capability needed to bypass that damage. He wouldn't be able to lift the arm, let alone use it for anything functional."

You gestured to the sophisticated neural interface you'd designed, its delicate filamenst gleaming like black thread. "I had to create pathways that could reach deeper into his nervous system, bypass the scar tissue, and establish new connections with healthy neural clusters. It's not just about luxury; it’s about basic functionality."

Jano's expression remained sceptical, though you could see him processing the technical aspects of what you were saying. He'd always been good at that - separating the medical reality from the emotional complexity.

"But the sensory feedback system?" he pressed, pointing to the intricate web of micro-sensors embedded in the prosthetic's fingertips. "The temperature regulation, the pressure sensitivity? Come on, Chief. That's not about functionality. That's about..."

He trailed off, but you could fill in the blanks. Comfort. Dignity. Humanity.

You moved past him to grab the prosthetic, carefully wrapping it in sterile cloth before placing it in a specialized transport case. Your movements were sharp, efficient, but he could probably hear the edge in your voice when you spoke.

"Have you ever lost an arm?" you asked, your tone taking on a slightly snippy, rhetorical quality as you secured the case's latches. "Have you ever had to live with a prosthetic that provides no sensory input whatsoever? No way to tell if you're holding something too tightly or too loosely, no way to feel temperature or texture or pain?"

Your cybernetic hand flexed unconsciously as the memories surfaced - one long year spent with nothing but a basic bridging prosthetic after losing your arm. They’d said you were still in the middle of a growth spurt, that it wasn’t worth doing the work twice. And besides, the wound at your shoulder where the arm had been severed had refused to heal properly despite endless bacta treatments - not well enough to install a functional interface anyway.

The cruel irony of losing your dominant arm, your dominant hand, and having to relearn everything while a crude prosthetic - basic as it was - made switching to your other arm nearly impossible. One year of crushing objects you’d meant to hold gently, of embarrassment and awkward incidents in school because you kept grabbing things either too tightly or not tightly enough, of only knowing you were holding something if you looked down to see it in your grasp. A year of isolation born from not trusting half your own body - the constant reminder that it lied to you, every second of every day.

You pushed the memory aside and brought your attention back to the present moment.

Jano sighed, giving you that look he always got when he thought you were being deliberately difficult. "You know I haven't."

"Have you ever lost all four limbs?" you continued, shouldering the case and gathering your remaining tools. "Had to depend on droids or other people for literally everything? To feed you, to wash you, to help you with basic bodily functions?"

He rolled his eyes, letting out an exaggerated, theatrical sigh. "Alright, alright, I get it. You've made your point."

You moved past him toward the door but paused to look back at the prosthetic case. "Even if he is executed," you said quietly, your voice losing some of its defensive edge, "after everything I've seen, everything I've learned... he deserves to feel something again before that happens. At least once."

Jano's expression softened slightly, though the scepticism didn't entirely leave his eyes. "You know that ninety-five percent of the galaxy would disagree with you on that," he said, but his tone was gentler now, more teasing than confrontational. "The other five percent are probably uncivilized barbarians and lower life forms who've never heard of Vader and probably just poke at your masterpiece with a stick, call it shiny, and get ready to burn you as a witch.”

You snorted, adjusting the strap of your equipment bag as you headed for the door. "I don't care what they think," you said, your voice carrying a note of finality. "And you're naive if you think uncivilized barbarians and lower life forms only make up five percent."

The door hissed open, and you stepped into the corridor, leaving Jano behind with his doubts and perfectly reasonable concerns. But as you walked toward Vader's recovery suite, your mind wandered to an uncomfortable place.  The question that had been haunting you for days pressed against your thoughts with renewed force: Did he deserve this? Did Darth Vader, butcher of the Empire, merit the kind of care you were giving him?

The arguments warred in your mind as your boots echoed against the corridor floor. On one side lay the undeniable truth of his crimes - hundreds of thousands of dead by his hand, entire systems reduced to ash, children orphaned, families destroyed. The fear he'd inspired across the galaxy wasn't built on myth; it was earned through decades of methodical brutality. How many had begged for mercy and found none? How many had suffered because of his choices?

But then there was the other side, the one that made your stomach turn with its own brand of horror. Twenty-three years of systematic medical torture. A young man burned alive and rebuilt as a weapon, denied even the dignity of a quick death. Decades of deliberate suffering designed not to heal but to control, to break him down until nothing remained but obedience and pain.  Not that this absolved him of his guilt - he clearly wasn't some murderous puppet dancing on strings. His actions were far too calculated, too intentionally destructive to be excused so easily. But everything you’d uncovered about his psychological and physical state, the substance abuse, the years of dark‑side indoctrination, had undeniably shaped his terrifying effectiveness instrument of terror.

Did suffering cancel out suffering? Could twenty-three years of agony balance against the deaths he'd caused? Or was that kind of arithmetic impossible - grief and pain that couldn't be weighed on any scale?

And then there were the harder questions, the ones that made your head spin with their implications.

How many others had been medically treated, brought back from the brink of death, fitted with the latest cybernetics, only to go on and spread destruction? Was it a doctor's moral responsibility to grapple with their patient's past? And if so - what about the potential consequences of their future? How far did the medical oath extend? Where were its ethical boundaries?

There had to be a point where you drew the line, leaving ethical debates outside the treatment room; otherwise, treating a patient would become nearly impossible.

Your cybernetic hand tightened on the case handle as a sudden realization struck you, one that surprised you with its clarity: It didn't matter to you whether his past actions justified or excluded any notion of "deserving" treatment.

Anyone could change. Sometimes even by 180 degrees, as Vader had so dramatically proven.

What mattered to you was what he would ultimately do with the prosthetics you were enabling him to have. Whether he would use this chance meaningfully - assuming he was granted one that didn't end directly on a scaffold. Whether the choice to turn from the dark side would hold, or whether you were simply giving a butcher better tools.

What mattered were the choices he would make, not the ones he had made before.

And maybe, just maybe, that was enough.

The recovery suite's door hissed open, and you stepped inside, immediately noticing the change: Vader sat propped up against the raised bed, his posture straighter than you'd seen since his arrival. His chalk-white skin still bore the pallor of someone who'd spent two decades sealed inside a helmet, and the withdrawal had left its marks - hollow cheeks, dark circles under his eyes, a thinness that spoke of his body's recent battle, his skin was drawn even more taut over the raw battlefield of muscle and bone.

But there was something different about him now, an alertness that hadn't been there before.

Your eyebrow arched as you took in the most significant change: the oxygen mask lay discarded on the bedside table; the clear tubing coiled like a shed skin.

"Well, well," you said, setting down your equipment case with a soft thud. "Look who's feeling rebellious today."

Vader's lips curved in what might have been a smile. When he spoke, his voice was clear and unbroken, flowing without the halting pauses that had marked his speech during the worst of the withdrawal. "The mask felt unnecessary. I can breathe perfectly well without it."

You pulled out your stethoscope, moving to his bedside with practiced efficiency. "Mind if I verify that claim? Call it professional paranoia."

He didn't object as you positioned the cold diaphragm against his chest, listening to the steady whoosh of the cybernetic lung. The sounds were clean, bilateral, with none of the crackling or wheezing that would indicate complications. His oxygen saturation read 94% on the monitor; You gave a short huff; something caught between disbelief and amusement... His rapid recovery was almost impossible to believe, and yet you were gradually running out of ways to be surprised by him. He felt like a living case study, one that seemed to break every known law of physics.

"Alright," you conceded, looping the stethoscope around your neck. "If you feel up to it, you can leave the mask off. But if I see those numbers drop even a fraction..."

"Understood," he said, and you caught the faint note of satisfaction in his voice. The simple act of breathing unencumbered was clearly a victory he'd been anticipating.

You couldn't contain your excitement any longer. Moving to the equipment case, you carefully lifted out the prosthetic arm, its durasteel surface gleaming under the medical lights. "Speaking of victories," you said, cradling the limb like a newborn, "I have something for you."

Vader's eyes widened slightly, the first genuine surprise you'd seen from him. His gaze tracked every detail of the prosthetic - the articulated fingers, the seamless joint work, the neural interface ports that gleamed like tiny stars.

“Normally,” you went on, placing the arm onto a sterile tray beside the bed, “I’d wait much longer after a lung transplant and withdrawal before attempting something like this. Not that there’s much medical literature on ‘post‑transplant prosthetic installation after decades of chemical dependency’ to draw from. But since standard bridging prosthetics won’t work for you, and I have the vague suspicion you’d like at least some autonomy back…” You paused, meeting his gaze. “I thought we could start today.”

His voice was quiet, almost reverent. "You cannot imagine how right you are about that, Doc."

Your expression sobered as you pulled on surgical gloves, the latex snapping against your skin.  “Now comes the unpleasant part. I had to remove the anchor points and neural interfaces from your old prosthetics; the hardware that connected directly to your nervous system. Those anchor points need to be reset, and new neural pathways established.” You paused, weighing your next words. “Normally this would be done under general anaesthesia. But your nerve damage is so extensive that I don’t know how deep I’ll have to go to get a proper response, and anaesthesia could interfere with the neural mapping.”

Vader's expression didn't change, his voice matter of fact. "You're saying this will be painful."

"Excruciating," you confirmed bluntly. "I'll be drilling into flesh, muscle and bone, threading neural filaments through scar tissue, essentially rewiring your nervous system from the inside out."

You paused, studying his expression. "I could give you a light sedative. It would dull the pain without interfering with the neural feedback I need to map the connections properly."

He regarded you with those steel-blue eyes, utterly calm. " That won’t be necessary. Proceed."

You'd expected as much. After watching him weather everything without a whimper, this feels almost routine. Still, your stomach twists as you prepare the anchor probe; this isn't surgery, it's excavation.

"Alright," you murmur, more to yourself than to him. "Let's get this done."

You position the bed's armrest extension, securing his right shoulder stump in the padded cradle. The tissue is still healing from debridement, red and vulnerable where the old prosthetic had gouged channels into bone and flesh. The anchor tool gleams in your hand: a slender probe tipped with a micro-drill and neural stimulator, designed to bore into flesh and bone and thread filaments into nerve bundles. Standard for high-end cybernetic installations, the probe maps neural pathways in real-time using biofeedback to avoid dead zones. But with Vader's damage it would be some kind of trial and error.

"CX-3, initialize neural monitoring array," you instruct, checking the probe's calibration. "I need continuous feedback on synaptic activity and tissue resistance."

"Neural monitoring active, Doctor," CX-3 responds, its appendages extending to position additional sensors around Vader's shoulder. "Baseline readings established. Tissue density shows extensive scarring at depths of twelve to fifteen millimeters."

Starting shallow, you spray the surface with local anaesthetic, the sharp hiss filling the quiet room. You know it won't help much with nerve damage this extensive, but protocol is protocol. The probe pierces skin first with a wet pop as it breaches the epidermis, blood welling immediately in a dark crimson bead that traces down his pale flesh.

"Surface penetration confirmed," CX-3 announces. "No neural response detected. Recommend proceeding to fascial layer."

Vader's breath hitches, sharp and controlled, his face tightening just a fraction. His eyes narrow almost imperceptibly, jaw setting as he stares fixedly at the ceiling tiles.

"Entering fascial layer," you announce, though your voice is steadier than you feel. The probe pushes deeper into muscle fascia, vibrating faintly as it grinds through fibrous scar tissue that shouldn't exist in these quantities. The tissues part unnaturally, layers fused together by decades of inflammation and poor healing, revealing raw nerve endings buried under blankets of necrotic tissue.

"Tissue resistance increasing," CX-3 reports, adjusting the probe's frequency. "Scar tissue density at 300% normal parameters. Adjusting drill speed to compensate."

A low grunt escapes him, barely audible, his chest rising and falling more rapidly now. But he doesn't move, not a millimeter, his gaze locked on some invisible point above him as if he's willing his consciousness somewhere far from this room.

"Neural activity still negative," CX-3 continues its clinical commentary. "Probe depth now fifteen millimeters. Approaching bone interface."

You push the probe further, the bio-steel tip now scraping against what remains of his humerus with a sickening grind that reverberates through the tool and into your bones. Marrow oozes in viscous red strings, mixed with debris from his original implants: flakes of rusted durasteel from the Imperial horrors that had been bolted into his skeleton.

"Bone contact established," CX-3 announces. "Foreign material detected. Adjusting suction to maximum to clear debris field."

Blood flows more freely now, soaking through the sterile field despite the suction tube's constant pull. The metallic scent grows thick in the recycled air. Vader's teeth are clenched so tightly you can hear them grinding, a vein pulsing visibly in his temple as sweat beads on his chalk-white skin. The pain must be radiating through phantom limb pathways, nerve memories of an arm that no longer exists screaming in protest.

"Still no synaptic response," you mutter, consulting the scanner's readout.

"Confirmed, Doctor. Neural pathways show extensive damage. Recommend probe extension to search for viable tissue clusters," CX-3 advises, its sensors tracking every millimeter of your progress.

The probe delves deeper still, hair-thin filaments extending like invasive roots into the neural cluster, probing for live axons amidst the wasteland of dead tissue. The monitor beeps erratically: false starts where scar tissue blocks signals, forcing you to retract and readjust with nauseating precision.

"False positive on pathway seven," CX-3 reports. "Scar tissue interference. Recommend retraction and approach from alternative vector."

Each withdrawal produces a wet sucking sound as tissue reluctantly releases the probe, fresh blood bubbling up from the deepening wound. His face contorts now, lips peeling back in what might be a silent snarl, breath coming in ragged bursts that would fog his discarded oxygen mask if it were still in place.

"Probe at maximum safe depth," you announce, sweat beading on your own forehead now. "CX-3, any viable targets?"

"Scanning for residual neural activity," the droid responds, its sensors working overtime. "Possible cluster detected at current depth plus two millimeters. Low probability but... wait. Faint bioelectric signature detected."

The filaments extend their last millimeters, searching desperately for any spark of viable nerve tissue. For a moment, there's nothing: just the steady beep of monitors and the wet sound of your probe moving through damaged tissue.

"Contact imminent," CX-3 warns. "Bioelectric activity spiking. Prepare for-"

Then contact. The filaments latch onto a surviving neural bundle with an electric jolt that arcs visibly through the connection. Vader's entire body convulses, his back arching clear off the bed as the first signals his shoulder has felt in decades suddenly fire through pathways long thought dead. He inhales sharply, every muscle in his torso spasming involuntarily.

"Neural connection established!" CX-3 announces triumphantly, its sensors lighting up like a celebration. "Synaptic activity confirmed. Signal strength at sixty-seven percent of normal parameters."

The neural monitor erupts in a cascade of readings, synaptic links finally establishing after twenty-three years of silence. But the cost is written across his features: fresh sweat sheening his scarred skin, a barely perceptible tremor in his clenched jaw, his breathing shallow and controlled as he fights to process sensations his brain had forgotten how to interpret.

"Got it," you breathed, watching the scanner light up with neural activity. "Connection established."

You repeated the process with the remaining anchor points, each one a small battle against scar tissue and nerve damage. By the time you finished, both you and Vader were slick with perspiration, and the surgical tray looked like something from a battlefield medic's nightmare.

"The hard part's done," you said, wiping blood from your cybernetic hand with a sterile cloth. "Now we attach the prosthetic."

You pulled a wheeled stool beside the bed and began unpacking your tools with the methodical precision of a ritual. "Fair warning," you said as you began connecting the delicate neural interfaces, "I've disabled the sensors for temperature, texture, and fine tactile feedback for now. On the neurologist's recommendation - we don't want to overload the pathways on the first try. But you should still have significantly more sensation than your old prosthetics provided."

As you worked, bending over the intricate connections with a micro-manipulator, you could feel Vader's gaze following your every movement. It was an odd sensation - being watched so intently while performing your work. Most patients either looked away during prosthetic installation or closed their eyes entirely, unable to watch the mechanical limb being grafted to their body. But his steel-blue eyes followed every adjustment, every precise twist of your tools, with the kind of intense focus you’d expect from him when poring over battle plans.

The silence stretched between you, but it wasn't uncomfortable. If anything, there was something almost companionable about it - the quiet concentration of shared purpose. The only sounds were the soft whir of servo motors as you tested each connection, the occasional metallic click of tools against the prosthetic's durasteel frame, and the steady rhythm of the monitors tracking his vitals. Your cybernetic hand moved with practiced precision, each finger adjusting connectors that were barely visible to the naked eye, while your organic hand held the prosthetic steady.

You were suddenly hyper‑aware of his unwavering gaze, fixed on every movement of your hands. By all rights, it should have unsettled you - being observed with such intensity. But strangely, it didn’t. There was no criticism in his eyes, no judgment, only the quiet, concentrated interest of someone truly engaged in what you were doing.

"Neural coupling seven-alpha shows minor resistance," you murmured, more to yourself than to him, as you fine-tuned a particularly stubborn connection. Your breath fogged slightly in the cool air of the medical suite as you leaned closer, adjusting the micro-manipulator's grip to get a better angle on the problematic joint.

You were just tightening a neural coupling when his voice cut through your concentration. "That connection is incorrect."

You paused, looking up at him with raised eyebrows. "Excuse me?"

"The blue filament," he said, his tone matter of fact. "It's offset by approximately two degrees. It will cause signal degradation in the tertiary motor pathways."

You looked more closely at the connection, pulling out a precision measuring tool. He was right - the deviation was barely visible to the naked eye, but it was there. A mistake that would have caused reduced fine motor control, possibly even feedback loops that could damage the neural interface over time.

"Sharp eye," you murmured, making the correction with careful adjustments. But as you worked, your mind was racing. That level of precision, that instant recognition of a flaw in cybernetic engineering... it would take years of training for most specialists to spot something like that.

You finished the adjustment and sat back, studying him with new curiosity. "You seem to know quite a bit about engineering."

A ghost of a smile played at the corners of his mouth. "Astute observation."

Well, this was hardly what you’d ever have expected. Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith, passing his free hours tinkering with machinery? It clashed completely with the image you had of him, something so… well, grounded and practical, rather than mystical and steeped in the Force.

Your mind flashed to your ex-boyfriend, who worked as a mechanic in the hangars. He'd mentioned Vader's starfighter once, his voice filled with awe and professional jealousy. Though he had been doomed to admire it from a distance - while simultaneously cursing it for regularly ruining his work and costing good men, you still remembered how much his genuine excitement had astonished you. After all, it was rare for high‑ranking Imperials to climb into a starfighter themselves.

"One of my... friends mentioned that your TIE fighter was something special. Custom work."

His smile became more pronounced. "The TIE Advanced x1," he confirmed. "Mechanics and flying have always been my greatest passions. In recent years, the x1 was the only outlet I had for either."

You frowned, connecting another neural pathway as you processed this information. "But a TIE fighter, even a custom one… that's relatively crude engineering compared to the work in prosthetics."

He shrugged, the movement barely perceptible. "Prosthetics are no more delicate than droids. The principles are largely the same."

Your hands stilled on the connections. "You know about droids too?"

You’d thought he couldn’t surprise you anymore. But here he was, surprising you all over again.

 But another thought gnawed at the edge of your mind. If he understood mechanics this well, if he could spot flaws in cybernetic work at a glance, then he must have known exactly how crude and deliberately harmful his suit had been. The shoddy wiring, the painful interfaces, the systems designed to cause suffering rather than function efficiently.

The realization crept in gradually, but it was enough to make you stop in your tracks for a moment. He'd known, and he'd endured it anyway. Why?

From what you'd gathered - someone with his level of mechanical knowledge could have done something about it. A man who could build his own starfighter and spot microscopic flaws in neural interfaces could certainly have reprogrammed medical droids to perform proper maintenance. You assumed that it wouldn't have been particularly complicated for someone of his abilities - a few lines of code, some careful modifications to existing protocols. He could have improved his own condition, eased his own suffering, made the suit at least marginally more bearable.

Instead, he'd chosen to live in agony for two decades.

The question burned in your mind, but you couldn't bring yourself to voice it. Not yet.

Instead, you focused on the final connections, the delicate work of linking the prosthetic's neural network to his damaged nervous system. This was the moment of truth - the interface that would determine whether all your work had been worth it.

"This is going to hurt," you warned, your finger hovering over the activation switch. "Are you ready?"

He gave a single, deliberate nod. "Do it."

Upon engaging the neural interface, Vader’s body convulsed sharply. His back arched off the bed, every muscle tensing as his nervous system re‑established control over a limb it had not properly commanded in decades, considering the fact that the old neural connections were anything but functional for controlling an arm. His teeth clenched, jaw muscles standing out like cords, but he rode out the wave of sensation without a sound.

When the initial shock passed, you began the calibration exercises. "Try moving your fingers," you instructed, watching both the prosthetic and the neural readouts. "One at a time, start with the index finger."

The metal finger twitched, then curled slowly into a controlled movement. Vader stared at it with something approaching wonder, his breathing shallow as he processed the sensation.

"How does it feel?" you asked, monitoring the neural feedback on your scanner.

"Strange," he said quietly, his voice rougher than usual. "I can... feel the movement. Not completely, but more than..." He flexed the finger again, watching it responds. "It's been so long since I could really feel my hand move that I'd forgotten what it was like."

You nodded, making notes on the calibration. "The sensory feedback is still limited - we'll gradually increase it as your nervous system adapts. Try the middle finger now."

Each digit responded to his commands, the movements growing smoother with each attempt. You watched his face as much as the prosthetic, noting the subtle shifts in his expression - surprise, concentration, something that might have been relief.

"The thumb," you instructed. "That one's usually the most challenging."

The prosthetic thumb moved with surprising grace, and Vader's eyes widened slightly. "I can feel... pressure. When it touches the palm."

"Excellent. The pressure sensors are working perfectly." You smiled, genuinely pleased with the results. "Now try picking up this stylus."

You placed a simple writing implement in his palm, watching as the prosthetic fingers closed around it with careful precision. Vader's breath caught as the pressure sensors registered the contact.

"I can feel its weight," he said, wonder creeping into his voice. "Its texture. Not perfectly, but..." He lifted the stylus, staring at it as if it were a miracle. "It's real."

"How's the grip strength? Too tight, too loose?"

He adjusted his hold experimentally, the servos whirring softly. "It feels... natural. Controlled." His gaze met yours, and for a moment, the hardness in his eyes softened. "I had forgotten what it meant to simply hold something and actually feel it without using the Force."

The simple statement carried such weight that you had to look away for a moment, busying yourself with the scanner readings. "Try lifting your arm to shoulder height."

The prosthetic rose smoothly, the servo motors nearly silent. Vader stared at his new hand with something approaching wonder, flexing the fingers and watching the play of light across the durasteel surface.

"What other mechanical talents are you hiding?" you asked as you ran him through additional range-of-motion tests. "I'm starting to think you've been holding out on me."

His expression grew thoughtful, almost nostalgic. "I can repair virtually anything with moving parts. It's always been a talent, something I learned  from an early age. Podracers, starships, environmental systems, droids..." He paused, and something shifted in his expression - a hint of warmth you'd never seen before. "I built the droid you may have seen tagging along with Luke, C‑3PO when I was a child. For my mother, to help around the house."

You couldn’t stop yourself from chuckling in surprise.

The image was so absurd - nine-year-old Vader tinkering with a protocol droid while his mother tried to get it to do useful work around their humble home. The mental picture of the galaxy's most feared enforcer as a small child, earnestly programming etiquette subroutines, was almost too much to process.

"I have to admit," you said, still grinning as you fine-tuned another neural connection, "I never would have expected you to build such a... well, doctrinaire droid. In my imagination, a combat droid would have been more your style. Something that could actually fight instead of reciting proper dinner conversation protocols."

Vader's lips twitched with what might have been amusement. "Combat droids were illegal on Tatooine. The Hutts preferred to handle violence personally." He paused, watching you work with those unnervingly perceptive eyes. "Besides, my mother needed help with translations for her customers, not battlefield assistance. "Though I discovered that installing the personality matrix of a protocol droid and the practical skills needed for household maintenance are somewhat mutually exclusive. You can program him to speak six million languages and achieve the personality of a prissy etiquette instructor, but getting him to wash dishes or clean floors effectively? That's another matter entirely."

As you ran him through additional range-of-motion tests, adjusting servo calibrations and monitoring neural feedback, a thought occurred to you. You found yourself smiling as you fine-tuned another connection.

"You know," you said, glancing up from the delicate work, "as a child, I absolutely despised droids."

Vader's eyebrow arched slightly, his attention focused on you as you continued the installation.

" Getting my final prosthesis was supposed to be a relief, but instead it came with constant pain and an endless string of useless doctor’s visits." you continued, your voice taking on a rueful tone as you tested another neural pathway. “When the synthetic skin finally came off and the phantom pain subsided, I could confront my new reality for the first time pain‑free with real sensory feedback, and I felt utterly relieved. … Until I went back to school. That lasted three days.”

You paused to secure another connector, then met his gaze. “Kids can be cruel. At school, they used to joke that my mom had cheated on my dad with our house droid - apparently that was the reason I was half‑droid.”

You snorted softly, shaking your head at these memory’s as you returned to the calibration work. "The fact that said droid was the one who picked me up from school every day - completely oblivious to my tears and humiliation - didn't exactly help matters."

Your aversion to droids began to fade in high school as the teasing nicknames gradually disappeared. By the time you reached the later semesters of university, it was gone entirely. You were allowed to take on more practical tasks and came to rely on medical droids, learning to truly value the work they performed.

For a long moment, Vader said nothing, his unnervingly perceptive gaze fixed on your work. When he finally spoke, there was a contemplative weight to his voice. “Most of my life, I’ve valued droids over humans,” he said quietly. “Precisely because of the ignorance you just mentioned.”

You looked up from the prosthetic, curiosity piqued by his tone.

“They don’t judge you,” he went on, his eyes unfocused. “They feel no fear, hold no preconceptions or prejudices. They can simply share the same space without…” He broke off, a faint glimmer of amusement tugging at his scarred features. “…without losing control of their bowels or desperately trying to hum awful ballads off‑key in their heads.”

You blinked, caught off guard by the specificity of that statement. "I'm sorry, what?"

" Some officers," Vader explained, his tone matter of fact as you continued testing the prosthetic's range of motion. "They believed that filling their minds with noise, usually off-key renditions of awful pop songs, would prevent me from reading their thoughts."

You couldn't help but grin as you adjusted another servo motor. "Did it work?"

"More or less," he admitted, and you caught what might have been dry humour in his voice. "I could still access their thoughts easily enough, but subjecting myself to their mental caterwauling was hardly worth the effort."

That made you laugh outright, the sound echoing in the sterile room as you completed another calibration test. The mental image of fearsome Imperial officers frantically humming children's songs to themselves whenever Vader entered a room was absurdly entertaining.

"I have to say," you said, still chuckling as you ran him through additional range-of-motion tests, "I can't imagine you ever having the patience for C-3PO, not even as a child. That droid never stops talking. All that fussing and protocol babble."

Your mind drifted to the golden protocol droid you'd occasionally seen around the ship, fussing over Luke and Leia with endless streams of commentary and dire predictions. The thought of young Vader enduring that constant chatter while trying to program the droid was almost comical.

"You're not entirely wrong," he admitted, his tone growing drier. "I was quite relieved to eventually... saddle my wife with that particular burden."

You looked up from the prosthetic, curiosity piqued by his phrasing.

Catching your questioning gaze, he went on. "She had an astromech droid which was of limited use to a senator who spent most of her time in diplomatic chambers rather than starship cockpits. Meanwhile, I was stuck with a protocol droid whose idea of helpful conversation involved seventeen different ways to address a Corellian dignitary." His voice carried a note of long-suffering patience. "So, at our wedding ceremony we exchanged droids."

Your hands stilled on the connections. " Well, the fact that this is the most romantic thing I’ve heard about marriage in the past year rather speaks volumes about my love life." You shook your head with a faint smile before resuming your work. “And your wife didn’t want to annul the whole thing that very evening?”

Vader's lips curve further, a rare, genuine smirk that transforms his scarred face for a fleeting second, making him look... human. "She was better suited to handle his... tendencies. And I preferred a droid that didn't calculate the odds of my death every five minutes."

That made you laugh again, shaking your head as you returned to the neural connections, when the door suddenly hissed open.

Mon Mothma stood in the doorway, her serene composure intact but her eyebrow raised in polite inquiry at the scene before her. Her gaze immediately fell on Vader, searching and assessing, and you could see the shock that flickered across her features despite her diplomatic training. Even with your accurate medical reports, she clearly hadn't been able to truly imagine what lay before her - the skeletal frame, the absence of limbs, the patchwork of scars that mapped decades of suffering. You quickly composed yourself pulled your mask down as you stood.

"Senator Mothma," you said, clearing your throat and trying to regain some professional dignity. "I apologize, but I told High Command that he wouldn't be available for questioning for at least another week."

Mon Mothma stepped into the room, her movements graceful and deliberate. "I'm not here in my capacity as a member of High Command," she said quietly. "This is... a personal matter."

You looked between her and Vader, uncertainty flickering in your chest. Vader met your questioning gaze and gave a barely perceptible nod.

You turned away, busying yourself with helping CX-3 collect the scattered surgical tools and move them to the adjoining supply room for sterilization. But you remained within earshot, your attention split between organizing instruments and monitoring the conversation behind you.

He fixed her with an expectant gaze, his eyes cold and calculating.

Mon Mothma hesitated, a rare display of uncertainty from someone known for her unshakeable composure. When she finally spoke, her words came slowly, as if she was testing each one before letting it escape.

"When Luke and Leia came before High Command several days ago and told us the most incredible story imaginable - that you were not only Luke's father, but Leia's as well - none of us believed them initially. We assumed... we thought perhaps you had used some form of Force manipulation, altered their perceptions somehow."

You could feel Vader tense behind you, though his vitals on the monitor remained steady.

Mon Mothma took a step closer to the bed. "But then Leia began speaking about her mother." Another pause, heavy with memory. "And I suddenly remembered something. We had met before, you and I."

 Vader’s brows lifted in mild puzzlement. “Yes,” he replied with deliberate care, as though expecting her to recognize the obvious at any moment. “We’ve met plenty of times, whenever the emperor forced me to attend those dreadful meetings. It’s just that back then… well, I was wearing the suit.”

You gave a small, amused snort at the unintentionally humorous answer.

The senator cast you a chiding look before facing him again. “No, I mean face to face, as we are now. Before the suit.“ She studied his scarred features intently. "Do you remember?"

The silence stretched long enough that you began to wonder if Vader would respond at all. When Mon Mothma started to turn away, his voice stopped her.

“Your senatorial introduction ceremony on Coruscant. You wore a long‑sleeved blue gown,” he said softly. “It was your first major diplomatic event since joining the Senate. You were quite nervous, especially when you accidentally dipped one sleeve into the Naboo sea‑flower sauce during the reception. Padmé helped you clean it out in the ladies’ refresher.” His tone carried a striking precision, as though the memory was etched perfectly in his mind even after all these years. “I was there as Padmé’s security detail. You thanked me for covering for you and coming up with an excuse.”

Mon Mothma closed her eyes, her composure finally cracking slightly. When she opened them again, there was something like grief in her expression.

"It really is you," she whispered. "Anakin Skywalker. I can barely... you're completely unrecognizable." Her expression carried a mix of shock and something like closure, as if seeing him with her own eyes had finally settled a question that had been gnawing at her since Luke and Leia's revelation.  "What happened to you?"

"Well, you could say, the last few years have been…eventful." Vader replied, his tone deliberately cryptic.

Even with your back to them, you could hear his vitals spiking. Honestly, for someone with her rhetorical and political experience, that had been pretty tactless.

You finished organizing the last of the instruments and returned to the main room, immediately sensing the tension that had settled between them like a fog. Mon Mothma was studying Vader with the intense focus of someone trying to reconcile conflicting realities.

"Are you finished, Senator?" you asked politely but firmly, stepping between Mon Mothma and Vader's bed with deliberate purpose. " He needs to rest. The arm installation has taken quite a toll on him today."

Mon Mothma's gaze lingered on Vader for a moment longer, something unreadable flickering across her usually composed features, before she nodded. "Of course."

You escorted her toward the door, your steps measured and professional, but the moment you were in the corridor, she gestured for you to walk with her. Her movements were graceful but purposeful as she led you away from the guards posted outside Vader's room, far enough that even their enhanced audio pickups wouldn't catch the conversation.

The corridor's recycled air felt cooler after the recovery suite's controlled atmosphere, and you found yourself hyper-aware of every sound - the distant hum of the ship's engines, the soft footfalls of crew members going about their duties, the almost imperceptible whisper of Mon Mothma's robes as she walked beside you.

"That was masterful work in there," she said once you were well out of earshot, her voice carrying the kind of quiet admiration that made you straighten unconsciously. "Keeping him alive through…well, everything. It’s nothing short of miraculous."

"Thank you," you replied, though uncertainty crept into your voice. Compliments from Mon Mothma were rare and never given lightly, which meant this conversation was heading somewhere you probably wouldn't like.

She stopped walking, turning to face you fully. In the corridor's harsh lighting, the lines around her eyes seemed more pronounced, as if the weight of leadership had carved itself into her features. "But I need to give you a warning."

The gravity in her voice made your pulse quicken, a cold knot forming in your stomach. "A warning about what?"

"About him." Mon Mothma's gaze was steady, unflinching. "Anakin Skywalker, before his fall to the dark side, possessed a remarkable charisma. A talent for inspiring loyalty, for making people believe in him, follow him into situations they might otherwise avoid. He could make you feel like you were the only person in the galaxy who truly understood him, who could see past whatever darkness surrounded him to the man beneath."

With one hand on your hip, you arched a doubtful brow. “All of that, just from the sleeve‑and‑sauce dilemma? I’d call that an impressive read on people.”

She gave you a look that left no doubt she didn’t appreciate your sarcasm. “I was close friends with Padmé Amidala, we served together in the Republic Senate.” Her tone softened, her gaze distant as memories took hold. “She never admitted it outright, I imagine because of what it might have meant for him among the Jedi Order. But gods, she was utterly in love with him. It was impossible not to see. And I witnessed how the Jedi treated their golden hero. He inspired people, made them believe in him. There was this… effortless heroic aura about him, something that stirred loyalty in men and won women’s hearts with ease.”

Uh‑oh. You had a sinking feeling about where this was going.

"Well," you said, forcing a tight smile, "it's a good thing he's completely unrecognizable then, isn't it? According to your own words."

Mon Mothma's expression didn't change, but something flickered in her eyes. "That laughter I interrupted when I entered his room," she said quietly. "Can you imagine when someone last laughed like that in Darth Vader's presence? When was the last time anyone found him... charming?"

The question hit like a cold splash of water. You opened your mouth to respond, then closed it again, suddenly aware of how easily Vader had made you laugh, how comfortable you'd become in his presence.

"He's a patient," you said finally, though your voice lacked its earlier conviction. "I'm simply doing my job."

"I'm sure you are," Mon Mothma agreed, her tone remaining gentle but carrying an edge of steel that reminded you why she'd survived the political machinations of both the Republic and the Empire. "And you're doing it exceptionally well. But that doesn't make you immune to his influence."

You felt a flash of irritation, your cybernetic hand clenching involuntarily. "You're suggesting I can't maintain professional objectivity?"

"I'm suggesting that very few people could, when faced with what you've been through." Her expression softened slightly, but her voice remained firm. "You've seen him at his most vulnerable. You've saved his life. You've studied his past, seen glimpses of who he was before. It would be natural to develop some form of emotional attachment."

The words stung because they carried a grain of truth you'd been trying to ignore. You thought of Jano's concerns, of your own internal questions about when you'd started defending your actions related to him.

"Even if that were true," you said carefully, "it doesn't change anything. My job is to heal, not to judge, senator."

"And that compassion, that dedication to healing, is exactly what makes you vulnerable to him." Mon Mothma stepped closer, her voice dropping to barely above a whisper. "You need to remember something else about him, something you must never let yourself forget, no matter how human he seems in those unguarded moments."

You lifted your chin, meeting her gaze with as much defiance as you could muster. "Which would be?"

Mon Mothma's eyes narrowed slightly, recognizing the challenge in your tone. When she spoke again, her voice carried the weight of someone who had seen too much, lost too much, to ever forget the cost of misplaced trust.

"He's also a monster."

Chapter Text

The data center hummed with the constant chatter of dozens of analysts, code breakers, and intelligence officers hunched over their terminals. The cacophony of voices, clicking keyboards, and beeping alerts created a symphony of barely controlled chaos that made your head spin. You paused in the doorway, scanning the maze of workstations until you spotted a familiar figure sitting rigidly upright at a terminal in the far corner, his posture so perfectly military it stood out like a beacon among the slouched and casual Alliance staff.

Admiral Firmus Piett sat with his back straight as a durasteel rod, his fingers moving across the keyboard with precise efficiency while his eyes tracked the scrolling Imperial codes on his screen. Even from across the room, you could see the slight tension in his shoulders, the way his jaw was set just a fraction too tight. Around him, Alliance personnel chatted casually with their neighbors, leaned back in their chairs with their feet up, and generally displayed the kind of relaxed discipline that would have given any Imperial officer nightmares.

A grin tugged at your lips as you watched a young Rebel analyst lean over to Piett's workstation, gesturing animatedly at something on the screen while balancing a half-eaten sandwich in one hand and a cup of caf in the other. Piett's expression remained professionally neutral, but you caught the almost imperceptible twitch of his left eye as the analyst accidentally dropped a crumb onto his pristine keyboard.

You made your way through the maze of desks, dodging rolling chairs and stepping over the occasional data cable that had been carelessly left strewn across the floor. The controlled chaos was so different from the sterile precision of Imperial facilities, and you could practically feel Piett's discomfort radiating across the room.

"Admiral," you called softly as you approached his workstation, not wanting to startle him. "Time for your follow-up appointment."

Piett looked up from his screen, relief flickering briefly across his features before he composed himself. "Doctor," he said, his voice carrying just a hint of gratitude as he began shutting down his terminal with methodical precision. "Perfect timing."

As he gathered his few personal belongings – a stylus, a small datapad, and what looked like a well-worn technical manual – you noticed his movements were careful and deliberate, favoring his injured foot just slightly. The prosthetic toes you'd fitted him with were functioning well, but you knew the adjustment period could be challenging.

"Having trouble adapting to our... unique working environment?" you asked, your tone deliberately innocent as you watched him navigate around a pair of analysts who were having an animated discussion about the merits of different cantina bands while completely blocking the walkway.

Piett's lips pressed into a thin line as he stepped carefully around them. "It's certainly... different from what I'm accustomed to," he said diplomatically. "Though I suppose effective results matter more than procedural adherence."

You bit back a laugh as you led him toward the exit. Through the transparent partition, you could see one of the senior analysts had his feet propped up on his desk while he tossed pieces of some snack food into the air and tried to catch them in his mouth. Each successful catch was met with cheers from his colleagues.

"I can imagine," you said dryly. "Must be quite the culture shock after years of Imperial precision."

"Indeed," Piett murmured, his gaze following yours to the impromptu snack-catching competition. "Though I must admit, their unorthodox methods seem to produce surprisingly effective results. We've cracked more Imperial codes in the past week than I would have thought possible."

The corridors felt blissfully quiet after the data center's chaos, your footsteps echoing softly against the durasteel floors as you made your way to your medical station. Piett walked beside you with the measured gait of someone still adjusting to new prosthetics, though his movements were much smoother than they'd been in the days immediately following the surgery.

"How's the foot feeling?" you asked as you palmed the control to your office door. "Any pain, stiffness, or unusual sensations?"

"Significantly better than expected," he replied, settling into the examination chair with visible relief. "Though I confess I'm still adjusting to the difference in sensation. It's remarkable how much I'd taken natural proprioception for granted."

You gathered your diagnostic tools, pulling up his medical file on your datapad while you prepared for the examination. "That's completely normal. Your brain is essentially relearning how to interpret signals from that foot. It can take months for the neural pathways to fully adapt."

As you knelt to examine the prosthetic attachment site, you noticed the healing was progressing excellently. The synthetic skin had integrated well with his natural tissue, and there were no signs of infection or rejection. You ran the scanner over the connection points, watching the readouts confirm what your visual examination had already suggested.

"Looking good," you murmured, adjusting one of the pressure sensors with a micro-tool. "Range of motion is excellent, and the neural integration is progressing ahead of schedule. You'll be dancing a jig in no time."

Piett's eyebrow arched at that, a hint of dry humor creeping into his voice. "I think we can safely say that dancing was never among my talents, even with all original equipment intact."

You chuckled, making notes on your datapad while you tested the flexibility of the prosthetic joints. "Well, in that case, you'll be walking with distinction instead. How's that?"

"Much more achievable," he agreed, then paused as you moved to check the sensation feedback. His voice took on a more careful tone. "Doctor, if I may ask... how is Lord Vader progressing? I heard the arm installation was successful."

There it was – the question you'd been expecting. Piett's loyalty to Vader was unwavering, even in captivity, and you knew he'd been worried about his former commander's condition. You looked up from your work, meeting his concerned gaze.

"He's doing remarkably well, actually," you said, genuine warmth creeping into your voice. "Better than I dared hope. The lung transplant was a complete success, and he's adapted to the new prosthetic faster than any patient I've ever seen. His recovery has been..." You paused, searching for the right word. "Extraordinary."

Relief flickered across Piett's features, though he maintained his professional composure. "That's... excellent news. Lord Vader has always possessed remarkable resilience."

You continued your examination, testing the responsiveness of the neural interfaces while your mind wandered to Mon Mothma's warning. The senator's words had been circling in your thoughts for days now, creating an uncomfortable dissonance with your own experiences.

Mon Mothma hadn't used the word "manipulation" directly, but her warning about Anakin Skywalker's charisma, his ability to make people see him in a favorable light, her pointed reminder that you weren't immune to his influence – it all amounted to the same thing: Be careful, you're being manipulated.

The thought irritated you more than it should have. You'd like to think you had enough experience with patients to avoid being so easily swayed, but still... the irritation stemmed from something deeper. The image you'd had of Vader before – built from press reports, Rebellion intelligence, the whispered horror stories that followed his name across the galaxy – didn't quite align with the man you'd gotten to know in your medical bay.

It wasn't that the two versions contradicted each other entirely. It wasn't as if you had some harmless, injured kitten on your operating table. The capacity for violence was still there, barely leashed beneath the surface. You'd felt it firsthand when his Force grip had nearly crushed your windpipe. But somehow, the legendary monster and the actual patient refused to merge into a coherent whole in your mind.

And then there was the most troubling realization of all: you were starting to enjoy spending time with him. The thought made your stomach twist with unease. It wasn't uncommon for you to develop a rapport with certain patients - medicine was, after all, a fundamentally human profession. But Darth Vader? From everything you'd observed, absolutely no one had enjoyed spending time with him since he'd become known by that name. Even his own officers had seemed to regard him with a mixture of fear and barely contained dread.

So what did that make you? Had you been manipulated? The possibility gnawed at you because it would make perfect strategic sense. After all, it would certainly be advantageous to win over the doctor responsible for keeping you alive and restoring your limbs. A few shared jokes, some displays of vulnerability, maybe a glimpse behind the infamous mask – it would be…a useful manipulation, really.

You found yourself studying Piett's expression, wondering if he might offer some clarity that could settle the growing unease in your mind.

"Admiral," you said slowly, your hands stilling on the prosthetic as you chose your words carefully. "You've served under Vader longer than anyone. In your opinion... would you describe him as manipulative?"

Piett's eyebrows shot up in surprise, his gaze sharpening as he studied your face. "Manipulative?" he repeated, as if the word itself was foreign. "I'm not certain I understand the question, Doctor."

You sat back on your heels, setting your tools aside as you met his gaze directly. "Someone suggested to me that Vader might possess a certain... charisma. An ability to influence people, make them see him in a more favourable light than perhaps they should. I was wondering if that matched your experience."

For a long moment, Piett was silent, his expression cycling through confusion, consideration, and something that might have been amusement. When he finally spoke, there was a definite note of disbelief in his voice.

"Doctor, with all due respect, I believe whoever told you that has never actually met Lord Vader." He shook his head slowly. "Manipulative is perhaps the last word I would use to describe him. If anything, he suffers from the opposite problem – a complete inability to engage in even the most basic diplomatic niceties."

You leaned forward, intrigued. "What do you mean?"

Piett's expression grew thoughtful, his gaze distant as he accessed years of memories. "Lord Vader is many things: brilliant, ruthless, terrifyingly effective, but subtle is not among them. He has a rather unfortunate tendency to state uncomfortable truths with devastating directness, regardless of the diplomatic consequences. In my experience, a little more manipulation and a little less 'I choose to accept the consequences of my actions' might actually serve him well."

The corner of his mouth twitched upward slightly. "I've watched him inform admirals that their strategies were 'pathetically inadequate,' tell Moffs that their governance was 'criminally incompetent,' and suggest to the emperor himself that certain policies were 'counterproductive.' None of these statements were inaccurate, mind you, but they hardly demonstrate manipulative charm."

You found yourself smiling despite the seriousness of the conversation. "That does sound more like the Vader I've gotten to know."

"Precisely," Piett continued, warming to his theme. "Lord Vader is not what you’d call… subtle. The only thing one might classify as manipulation is his use of the Force to influence another’s mind. But even that lacks subtlety, it’s a direct, overwhelming push rather than any kind of delicate persuasion."

The idea that the Jedi could manipulate a mind through the Force was common knowledge even when you were young. Back then, most people treated it with reverence, a sign of the Order’s extraordinary abilities. But after the fall, the narrative shifted. Admiration gave way to mistrust, the skill recast as evidence of hidden control. You had always seen such accusations as simplistic propaganda, yet the core remained true: Force-users could reach into the mind. You didn’t know how deeply. Would the intrusion feel alien, wrong somehow or would it be impossible to tell?

He studied your expression carefully. "If I may ask, what prompted someone to give you such... warnings about Lord Vader's supposed manipulative nature in the first place?"

You hesitated, suddenly feeling uncomfortable about discussing Mon Mothma's concerns. "It was meant as a warning, I suppose. Someone fears I might be... manipulated by him." You flicked your hand as if brushing away an insect. " Utter nonsense, born out of the fact that he made a remark I found amusing and I laughed.”

"Amusing?" Piett repeated slowly, as if testing the word. " I can’t recall a single occasion when anyone described speaking with Lord Vader as amusing... Alarming, certainly. Unnerving, on occasion bewildering. But amusing?"

You felt warmth creeping up your head at his reaction. You didn’t share the true reason you’d been laughing when Mon Mothma entered. The story of him swapping droids on his wedding day felt too private - too much like a glimpse you shouldn’t give away. "Well, he did tell me how those alarming, unnerving, bewildering conversations sometimes manifested in the other party, apparently through desperate mental singalongs. Pop songs, ballads… anything to keep him out of their heads."

Piett's expression shifted to one of mild embarrassment mixed with professional resignation. "Ah. You've heard about that particular... strategy." He paused, his gaze sharpening as something seemed to occur to him. "Though I must say, I also have never once heard anyone laugh in his presence. That he shared something with you that brought you amusement is... remarkable."

The warmth intensified, and you found yourself suddenly fascinated by the prosthetic components you were adjusting. "Well, it wasn't exactly a stand-up routine," you said quickly, trying to deflect attention from the implications. "More like... observations about Imperial protocol."

Piett's lips twitched with what might have been a grin. "Well, I prefer a more... sophisticated approach…When Lord Vader is present, I focus on practical matters: reviewing supply requisitions, calculating hyperspace coordinates, mentally cataloging the planetary systems in our current sector." His tone grew more thoughtful. "If those resources become exhausted, I move to Jump calculations for theoretical routes, resource allocation formulas, tactical formation mathematics."

You stared at him with genuine admiration. Maintaining that level of mental discipline in the face of stressful, even lethal, situations, while others seemed on the verge of wetting themselves, was nothing short of remarkable."That's... impressive. No wonder you lasted so long under his command."

"Survival requires adaptation," Piett said with characteristic understatement. "Lord Vader respects competence and efficiency. Providing him with a mind focused on useful data rather than nervous static seemed... prudent."

A faint grin tugged at your lips as your fingers probed the give and stretch of the synthskin. "And judging by the outcome, it seems to have worked rather well."

"Well enough. Though I suspect he was always aware of the attempt. The difference is that my mental exercises actually served a productive purpose. He could access my thoughts and find useful strategic information rather than..." Piett's expression grew pained. "Rather than someone's off-key mental rendition of 'Shadows and Starlight'"

It had genuinely made you smile. At the same time, you couldn’t help but be impressed by Piett’s strategic mind. For all his unassuming appearance, there was a great deal more going on beneath the surface. It must have taken considerable willpower and discipline to maintain such orderly, coordinated thoughts with Vader’s respirator hissing just behind you.

You hesitated, then decided to voice the question that had been weighing on your mind. "The person who tried to warn me about him... they also said that he's a monster. But I'm getting to know him better, and I..."

You trailed off, uncertain how to articulate the growing confusion that had been eating at you for days. The stories that circulated through the Rebellion painted Vader as something beyond human comprehension – tales of battles that resembled massacres more than military engagements, where a single individual had carved through rebel lines like a one-man army. An unstoppable force that slaughtered without mercy, without remorse, cutting down soldiers and civilians alike in his path. The accounts made him sound like a rabid beast let off its leash, killing almost without reason or strategy, driven by nothing but bloodlust and cruelty.

But then there was the man lying in your medical bay. Limbless, barely clinging to life with organs that should have failed decades ago, feared and despised not just by his enemies but apparently by his own people as well. Someone who had received neither adequate medical care nor basic human decency from those he served. A man who enjoyed tinkering with machines and flying, who in another life had traded droids with his wife like wedding gifts and had been loved by everyone around him.

They were two extreme legends standing in opposition to each other: the saint who had been the galaxy's golden hero, and the monster who had become its greatest nightmare. Vader was presumably somewhere between those extremes, but the unsettling truth was that you saw neither version when you looked at him

"How do you see it?"

The words hung in the air between you, and you watched Piett's expression grow contemplative, his gaze turning inward.

 When he spoke again, his voice was careful, measured.

"That," he said slowly, "is a considerably more complex question."

You waited, sensing he was working through his thoughts, choosing his words with the precisionof someone who understood the weight of what he was about to say.

"What defines a monster, Doctor?" he asked finally, his tone taking on an almost philosophical quality. "Is it the nature of one's actions, or the circumstances that drive them? Is it intent, or simply outcome? These are not merely academic questions,  they strike at the heart of how we judge not just Lord Vader, but anyone who has participated in warfare."

You settled more comfortably in your chair, recognizing that this conversation was going to require time and careful consideration.

"I've heard the term 'monster' applied to Lord Vader countless times," Piett continued. "Usually by people who have never met him, never served alongside him, never seen him make the impossible decisions that command requires. It's easy to call someone a monster when you're safely removed from the realities they face."

His voice grew quieter, more reflective. "Among the officer corps, there were endless theories about what Lord Vader truly was beneath that suit. Some believed he was no longer human at all – a droid, perhaps, or some kind of Force-created aberration. Others whispered that he was sustained purely by dark magic, or that he was the emperor’s puppet, incapable of independent thought."

Yes, you knew all those rumours and tall tales. They circulated freely within the Rebellion as well. Some claimed he was six metres tall; others insisted he had no solid body at all and that the suit was the only thing holding him together. Each story more absurd than the last.

Piett's gaze met yours directly. “Before we went through his medical files,” An involuntary shudder rippled through him, his expression briefly contorting as if he’d bitten into something sour, before he mastered himself once more and pushed the memory aside. "I had the... unique experience of seeing Lord Vader without his helmet. Just once, in his meditation pod aboard the Executor. It…changed my perspective."

You leaned forward, drawn in by the quiet intensity in his voice.

"All those mystical theories, all the whispered fears about what manner of creature he might be, they vanished in an instant. What I saw was infinitely more disturbing than any supernatural horror could have been." Piett's voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "I saw a man. Horribly scarred but undeniably flesh and blood. A man who had committed acts of terrible violence while trapped in a body that was itself a monument to violence done to him."

The silence stretched between you, heavy with implication.

"That realization," Piett continued, "forced me to confront a much more uncomfortable truth. It's easier to dismiss the actions of a monster. Monsters, after all, cannot be expected to behave as we do. But when you understand that those same actions were committed by a human being, with emotions, thoughts and feelings, however damaged... the moral questions become infinitely more complex."

You found yourself nodding, understanding beginning to dawn.

"Did Lord Vader kill innocents? Yes. Did he sometimes order actions that resulted in civilian casualties? Undoubtedly. Did he execute subordinates for failure? More than once." Piett's voice was unflinching in its honesty. "But were these the actions of a man who took pleasure in cruelty, or of someone following what he believed to be necessary commands in service of a greater good?"

He paused, studying your expression. "Let me pose a question, Doctor. Is your Luke Skywalker a monster?"

The question caught you off guard. At first, the phrase “your Luke Skywalker” caught you off guard, colliding rather awkwardly with your confused musings about a possible involvement with Luke. Then it dawned on you that he’d meant your Luke Skywalker as in the Rebellion’s, not yours personally. Then the question itself gave you pause. Who, in all the galaxy, could seem less like a monster than that pure-hearted boy with those hopeful blue eyes? "What? Of course not."

"Are you certain?" Piett's tone remained mild, but his gaze was intent. "He destroyed the Death Star, did he not? A space station that housed approximately one and a half million military personnel and over two hundred thousand civilians. Families, Children. People who had no voice in the Empire's policies, who were simply trying to make a living in difficult circumstances."

Your mouth opened, then closed as the implications sank in. You knew it. Everyone did. Yet it seemed no one wished to put it into words as the cheers rippled through the ranks. Yes, the families, the children bore no guilt. But then, the children of Alderaan had not been guilty either, only unlucky enough to have been born there.

"By this count," Piett continued relentlessly, "Luke Skywalker is responsible for more civilian deaths than Lord Vader personally committed in the entire war. Does that make him a monster? Or do we excuse his actions because he believed he was fighting for a just cause?"

The comparison hit you like a physical blow. "That's... that's different. Luke was trying to save lives, stop the Empire from-"

"From doing exactly what he himself did?" Piett's voice remained gentle, but his point was surgical in its precision. "Trust me, Doctor, I know what I’m talking about: plenty of people served the Empire for what they thought were the right reasons. Honour, duty, conviction. Of course, there was also corruption and ambition, and those spread easily when they took root at the very top. But a vast number of individuals believed they were bringing order and stability to a chaotic galaxy. Skywalker believed he was fighting tyranny. Both were convinced their cause justified the deaths they caused. Both killed from a distance, never having to look their victims in the eye. So I ask again – what makes one a hero and the other a monster?"

You sat in stunned silence, your mind reeling as the carefully constructed moral certainties you'd built around the war began to crumble. Yes, perhaps it was morally simpler to press a button and erase a million lives than to drive a blade through the chest of a single child. But the suggestion lurking beneath such reasoning…

You doubted Vader had ever derived pleasure from the slaughter of civilians or innocents. Nor did you imagine him grieving for them. He seemed… numbly neutral and that was horror enough. Yet you knew the thought behind it, the larger design he, Luke, you yourself, all of you clung to… so long as the act served the “right” side.

"I'm not saying this to excuse Lord Vader's actions," Piett said, his voice softer now. "He has done terrible things; made choices I could never make myself. But the label of 'monster' implies something inhuman, something that acts without moral consideration or capacity for change. And that... doesn’t fit him."

He shifted in his chair, his gaze growing distant. "For years, I watched a man who never slept, never rested, never seemed to take a moment for himself. No hobbies that weren't related to the war effort, no friendships, not even acquaintances that weren't strategically necessary, no pleasures that weren't immediately functional. He existed in constant pain, constantly fighting just to breathe, and he channelled all of that suffering into service to what he believed was a righteous cause."

Piett's voice took on a note of something almost like pity. "If he was a monster, Doctor, he was a monster of the Empire's making. And perhaps... perhaps that's the most tragic thing about all this. The mere thought of what a man of his abilities and talents might have achieved under the right guidance."

The weight of his words settled over you like a heavy blanket, forcing you to reconsider everything you thought you knew about morality, justice, and the nature of good and evil.

"You've given me a lot to think about," you said finally, your voice barely above a whisper.

Piett nodded, then seemed to shake himself back to the present moment. "I apologize if I've been too philosophical. It's simply... I think after all he deserves better than to be dismissed as a monster."

Lost in throughs, you finished the final adjustments to his prosthetic and made notes in his file, but as you prepared to conclude the appointment, Piett cleared his throat hesitantly.

"Doctor, if I may... I have a rather personal request." His formal composure cracked slightly, revealing genuine concern beneath. "I was wondering if you might be able to inquire about one of my... colleagues. General Maximilian Veers. I haven't heard anything about his fate since the battle, and I find myself quite concerned."

Something about the name stirred in your memory….General Veers – the Butcher of Hoth, responsible for the devastating Imperial victory that had cost the Rebellion so dearly. But something else tugged at your memory, another connection that made you pause.

"Veers," you repeated slowly. "We have a Veers in our ranks. A pilot – Zevulon Veers. Is there any connection between the two?“

Piett's expression softened. "His son," he confirmed quietly. "They... they haven't spoken since Zev defected to join your cause. Maximilian has always been torn between his duty to the Empire and his love for his boy."

"I'll make some inquiries," you promised, your voice gentle. "See what I can find out about his status."

Relief flickered across Piett's face. "Thank you, Doctor. That... that means more to me than you know."

You finished the examination in thoughtful silence, your mind churning with questions and uncomfortable revelations.

Back in your, you slumped into your chair, staring blankly at your holoscreen as Piett's questions circled like vultures in your mind. What defines a monster?

Needing distraction, you  began searching the HoloNet databases. If Mon Mothma's warnings were based on memories of Anakin Skywalker, then perhaps understanding who he had been would help you make sense of who Vader was now. Your memories of that time were vague and distorted. You had been too young to hold a clear image of him in your mind. The cardboard cutout in your sister’s room was probably the most intact relic, but your child’s eyes saw only the cringe-worthy infatuation of a teenager, embodied in a man who was likely idealised as the sort of thing girls were supposed to find attractive. You started with the obvious searches: "Anakin Skywalker," "General Skywalker," "Clone Wars Skywalker," "Jedi Skywalker."

Nothing.

You tried variations, different combinations, alternative spellings. Every search came back empty, as if Anakin Skywalker had never existed at all. Someone had been thorough – criminally thorough – in erasing every trace of the man Vader had once been. You had a creeping suspicion about who might have been behind such a comprehensive purge, and it made your stomach twist with a mixture of anger and sadness.

Then inspiration struck. Mon Mothma had mentioned a specific event; a senatorial introduction ceremony. Such events were always photographed, documented for the official record. If you couldn't find Anakin Skywalker directly, perhaps you could find him in the background of someone else's story.

You refined your search: "Padmé Amidala," "Mon Mothma," "Senatorial introduction," "Coruscant ceremony." The computer hummed for a moment, then displayed a collection of official photographs from various diplomatic events.

There – the third image made your breath catch.

It was a formal shot from what appeared to be an elegant reception. Mon Mothma stood in the foreground, wearing the blue gown, her young face bright with nervous excitement. Beside her, the stunningly beautiful Padmé Amidala smiled warmly at the camera, every inch the composed senator and former queen. But it was the figure in the background that made your heart skip a beat.

You zoomed in, enhancing the image until the background came into sharp focus. There he was – Anakin Skywalker, standing at attention near a pillar, his gaze fixed on Padmé with an expression of such tender devotion it was almost painful to witness.  From what you could make out, he appeared to be wearing the kind of outfit Jedi Knights had worn during the Clone Wars: layered brown leather tabards over a dark tunic, tall boots, and what might have been light armor plating along the shoulders and forearms. A wide belt circled his waist, and you thought you could just make out the hilt of a lightsaber hanging at his hip. Even through the grain of the image, none of it hid the striking lines of his face: the strong jaw, the perfect bone structure, the  dark-blonde hair that seemed to catch the light.

For a long moment, you simply stared. This was the man Mon Mothma remembered - young, beautiful, radiating the kind of effortless charisma that made hearts flutter and heads turn. Even in this candid moment, caught off-guard by the photographer, he possessed an almost ethereal quality that seemed to glow from within.

You called up another image from your files: a recent medical scan of Vader's facial structure, overlaid with the measurements you'd taken during his treatment. The bone structure was identical; those were the same blue eyes, though now cold and sharp as ice rather than warm as a summer sky. The strong jaw remained, though now hidden beneath scars that mapped two decades of suffering.

But everything else... The golden hair was gone, burned away and never regrown. The soft curves of youth had been carved away by pain and time, replaced by sharp angles and hollow cheeks. Most heartbreaking of all, that expression of love and hope had been replaced by a carefully constructed mask of control that rarely slipped.

You leaned back in your chair, staring at the two images as understanding crashed over you like a wave. Mon Mothma's warning suddenly seemed less like wisdom and more like the cruel trick of memory and perception. She had seen charm and charisma in that beautiful young face – how could she not? But when confronted with Vader's scarred features, the same directness that had once seemed earnest now appeared manipulative. The same intensity that had once been compelling was now threatening.

The realization made you angry – not at Mon Mothma, who couldn't be blamed for human nature, but at the cruel injustice of it all. How easy it was to see nobility in a perfect face, and how quickly that same nobility became suspect when housed in damaged flesh. How readily people attributed virtue to beauty and vice to ugliness.

You thought of Piett's words, his description of a man who had served without rest or respite for twenty years, channelling unimaginable pain into what he believed was righteous purpose. You thought of the moment in the medical bay when Vader had thanked you – simple words that had carried such weight precisely because they came from someone who had forgotten how to expect kindness.

The monster was crumbling before your eyes, revealing something far more complex and infinitely more tragic underneath.

You closed the images, but the contrast remained burned in your memory. Somewhere between that shining  young Jedi and the scarred man in your medical bay lay a story of transformation so complete it defied easy understanding. And for the first time, you began to wonder if the real monster wasn't Vader at all, but the system that had created him and  that had so readily accepted his suffering as the price of their goals.

Leia straightened her shoulders, drawing herself up to her full height as she finally found the courage to face him. Her heart hammered against her ribs, but she forced her voice to remain steady and formal.

"Lord Vader," she began, her tone carefully controlled and diplomatic. "I have come to speak with you about certain matters that require our immediate attention. There are things that must be said, and I believe it would be beneficial for both parties if we could address them directly and honestly."

" Spill it, princess."

Leia blinked, momentarily thrown off balance by the response. But she pressed on, determined to maintain her composure.

"I want you to understand the full extent of the damage your actions have caused. Not just to the Rebellion, but to individuals, to families, to entire worlds that -"

She stopped mid-sentence, her hand shooting to her hip in a sharp, angry motion. "Could you please stop that?" she snapped suddenly, her carefully practiced diplomatic facade cracking.

"Stop what?" came the genuinely confused reply.

Leia threw her hands up in exasperation. " Quit pulling those ridiculous faces. Vader would not be looking at me with that kind of... that ridiculous bedroom eyes! Tthis supposed to be serious!"

Han's face broke into a slow, roguish grin as he leaned back against the curved booth seat of the Millennium Falcon's main hold. "You’re sure about that, Princess? Far as I can tell, you’re the only one here who’s had a peek under that mask. Maybe he’s hiding a real smoldering heartthrob under all that breathing gear."

Leia's mouth fell open in complete horror. "Han Solo, that is the most disgusting, absurd, absolutely revolting thing you have ever said!" Her voice rose to a near shriek. "We are talking about my biological father here, and I cannot believe I just had to say those words out loud, so could you please, for the love of all that's holy, take this seriously?"

Han's grin faltered immediately, his hands coming up in a gesture of surrender. "Whoa, okay, sorry. You're right, that was... yeah, that was way out of line." He paused, then couldn't resist adding with a smaller, more sheepish smile, "But you gotta admit, you're pretty hot when you're angry. It's part of your charm."

Leia stared at him with an expression that could have melted durasteel, her brown eyes flashing with dangerous fire. "Han..."

"Right, right. Serious. Taking it seriously." He straightened up, wiping the grin from his face with visible effort. "Sorry, I know this is important to you."

With an exasperated sigh, Leia resumed her restless pacing across the Falcon's cramped main hold, her boots clicking against the deck plating in an irregular rhythm that matched the chaos of her thoughts. She would start toward the forward section, pause mid-stride, turn sharply on her heel, and march back toward the rear compartments, only to repeat the process moments later.

"I just need to figure out how to confront him without actually murdering him," she muttered, more to herself than to her audience. "Luke would never forgive me if I strangled his precious father with my bare hands."

Chewbacca, who had been quietly observing from his seat across from Han, let out a low, amused rumble.

"Yeah, Chewie's got a point," Han said, settling back into his chair and watching Leia's agitated movements with renewed concern. "Maybe we should work on your approach."

"Okay," Leia announced suddenly, spinning to face her small audience. "What if I just walk in there and tell him exactly what I think of him? No preamble, no diplomatic niceties, just..." She gestured sharply with her hands, as if she could somehow capture her fury in the air. "Just the truth. That he's a monster who destroyed my world and tortured me and-"

She stopped, her face contorting with frustration. "No, that won't work. That's just... screaming at him. I don’t imagine he’ll be particularly impressed by that."

Another sharp turn, another aborted attempt at finding the right words.

Han raised an eyebrow, his voice carrying its usual sardonic edge. "Princess, you've been wearing a hole in my deck plating for the past hour. Maybe try sitting down and-"

"I can't sit down!" Leia snapped, whirling to face him. "How can I sit down when I'm about to confront the man who... who..." Her voice caught, anger warring with pain in her expression. "Do you know what it's like, Han? To find out that the person who tortured you, who stood by and did nothing while your entire world burned, is your father?"

Chewbacca let out a low, sympathetic growl, setting aside his bowcaster to fix Leia with his eyes.

"Chewie's right," Han said, his voice softer now, the sarcasm replaced by genuine concern. "You don't have to do this, you know. Nobody's forcing you to go see him."

Leia's laugh was bitter, edged with hysteria. "Don't I? My brother is in there right now, probably reading him bedtime stories and talking about family reconciliation while that... that creature lies there playing the role of the repentant father." She resumed pacing, her hands clenched into fists. "Sweet, innocent Luke. He sees the best in everyone, even in him."

"I wouldn't exactly call Luke innocent after everything he's been through," Han pointed out, though his tone remained gentle. "Kid's seen more action than most seasoned generals."

"He is innocent," Leia insisted fiercely. "At least when it comes to this. He didn't watch Alderaan die. He didn't feel the interrogation droid's needles." She shuddered, wrapping her arms around herself. "He was unconscious when they froze you in carbonite. He didn't have to stand there helpless while the man who claims to be his father potentially condemned the man he loves to death."

The words hung in the air, raw and painful. Han's expression softened further, and he swung his legs down from the table, leaning forward with obvious concern.

"Come here," he said gently, reaching out to pull her onto his lap. Leia didn't resist, settling against him with a shaky exhale as his arms wrapped around her protectively. "For what it's worth," he murmured against her hair, "I love you too."

He held her for a moment, then added with characteristic bluntness, "But you know, Luke's not exactly untouched by your dear old dad either. Last I checked, chopping off your kid's hand isn't exactly Father of the Year material."

Leia let out a bitter laugh, her head resting against Han's shoulder. "You're right. I keep forgetting that Luke has his own scars from him. Physical and otherwise."

"Hey," he said quietly. "You know that worked out, right? I'm here, I'm fine, and that bastard got what was coming to him when the emperor fried his circuits."

C-3PO chose that moment to interject, his voice carrying the pompous helpfulness that was his trademark. "If I may, Princess Leia, effective communication often requires establishing common ground with your conversational partner. Perhaps you might begin by acknowledging shared experiences or mutual concerns?"

Leia stared at the droid with barely concealed incredulity. "Shared experiences? What exactly do Darth Vader and I have in common, Threepio? A fondness for torture devices?"

"Well," C-3PO continued, oblivious to the dangerous edge in Leia's voice, "you are both highly intelligent individuals with strong leadership qualities and deep convictions about-"

"He's a war criminal!" Leia exploded. "I'm fighting for freedom and justice! How is that common ground?"

C-3PO's head tilted slightly, his photoreceptors dimming with what might have been confusion. "Perhaps... you both care deeply about Master Luke?"

That gave Leia pause. She stopped pacing, her expression cycling through anger, frustration, and something that might have been grudging acknowledgment.

"I suppose," she said slowly, "that might be... relevant."

The words hit Leia like a physical blow. She stopped pacing abruptly, her face cycling through a dozen emotions in rapid succession. Something crystallized in her expression – not anger this time, but a deeper, more painful realization.

"Luke," she whispered, and suddenly everything clicked into place. "that's it, isn't it?"

Han frowned, leaning forward with concern. "What's it, sweetheart? You okay?"

But Leia was already moving toward the boarding ramp, her expression set with sudden, terrible clarity. "I'm sorry, I have to... I know what I need to say now."

"Leia, wait-" Han called, but she was already disappearing up the ramp, leaving her three companions staring after her in bewilderment.

_____

The door to Vader's recovery suite hissed open without ceremony as Leia strode through it, her diplomatic protocols abandoned in favour of raw necessity. The two guards stationed outside started to protest, but she brushed past them with the imperious authority of someone accustomed to being obeyed.

The medical bay was dimmer than she'd expected, the harsh lights softened to accommodate a patient's rest. Vader lay propped against the raised bed, and if "better" was even a term that could be applied to his condition, then he looked marginally improved from the last time she'd seen him. The skeletal gauntness had eased slightly, though he remained frighteningly thin beneath the medical gown. His skin had lost some of its deathly pallor, though the network of scars across his face and scalp remained stark and brutal.

His eyes – those unsettlingly familiar blue eyes – tracked to her immediately, sharp and alert despite his physical condition. There was no surprise in his expression, as if he'd been expecting this confrontation.

"Princess," he said, his voice still rough but no longer the mechanical rasp she remembered. "I wondered when you would come."

Leia planted herself at the foot of his bed, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. All the diplomatic speeches she'd rehearsed, all the careful words about accountability and justice, dissolved in the face of the raw pain that had been eating at her for days.

"You never saw me," she said, her voice tight with controlled fury. "All those years chasing Luke, tearing apart the whole kriffing galaxy for your precious son, and you never once recognized me as your daughter."

Vader's expression didn't change, but something flickered in his eyes – acknowledgment, perhaps, or guilt.

"The interrogation on the Death Star," Leia continued, her voice growing stronger. "You were torturing me for information, and I was your daughter. On Cloud City, when you were setting your trap for Luke, I was right there. At the carbonite chamber when you froze Han, I was standing three meters away from you, begging, and you never... you never saw me."

Her voice cracked slightly, but she pressed on. "I thought it was because I was a girl. I thought you were just another…patriarchal asshole who only cared about having a son to carry on your damn legacy. But I saw the recording…. You didn’t just expect a daughter, you were happy about it."

She took a step closer, her brown eyes blazing with hurt and anger. "So why? Why didn't you recognize me? Why was Luke so important to you that you could sense him across the hole damn galaxy, but I could be in the same room with you and you felt nothing? Why didn't I matter enough for you to see?"

The questions hung heavy in the air, years of pain sharpened into a single, wounding accusation. Vader’s gaze did not waver, but for the first time since she’d stepped into the room, a subtle crack marred his controlled facade.

He opened his mouth, drawing in a careful breath as if to explain, but Leia cut him off with a sharp gesture, her voice rising with barely contained fury.

"Don't," she snapped, her brown eyes blazing. "Don't you dare try to rationalize this or make excuses. You want to know what you are to me? You're nothing. Less than nothing. You're not my father and you will never be anything more than the scum who destroyed everything I ever loved."

The words poured out of her like molten metal, each one forged in the furnace of her grief. "I had a father. A real father. Bail Organa was everything a parent should be: loving, kind, patient, wise. He taught me everything I know about leadership, about justice, about standing up for what's right. He shaped who I am, formed my ideals, gave me the strength to fight for something bigger than myself."

Her voice cracked, but she pressed on relentlessly. "And that wonderful, incredible man is dead. Just like my mother Breha, just like my friends, my teachers, even old Keph the fruit vendor who always had his stand outside the palace gates and would slip me a jogan fruit when he thought no one was looking."

As she spoke, something invisible and electric began to fill the air around her. The transparisteel window started to vibrate with a low, harmonic hum, and the glass on Vader's bedside table began to tremble, sending tiny ripples across its surface.

"All of them, pulverized to atoms," Leia continued, her fists clenched so tightly her knuckles had gone white. "And I have to ask myself every single day:  could it have been prevented? Would my father still be alive if you had seen in me what you saw in Luke? Would my mother, my world, all those innocent people still be breathing if you had recognized your own daughter when she was screaming for mercy in front of you?"

The Force was flowing through her now in torrents, fed by years of suppressed grief and rage. The vibrations in the window intensified, and medical equipment throughout the room began to hum with sympathetic resonance.

"The question is eating me alive," she whispered, her voice dropping to something barely above a growl. "I have to know. Why him and not me? Why wasn't I worth seeing?"

Vader's eyes widened slightly as he felt the Force surging around her like a storm. "Leia," he said quietly, his voice carefully modulated, "you need to calm yourself. Your emotions are-"

"DON'T TELL ME TO CALM DOWN!" she exploded, and in that moment the glass shattered like a bomb had gone off inside it, sending crystalline fragments spinning through the air. The monitors around Vader's bed developed spider-web cracks across their screens, and somewhere in the wall, metal groaned under impossible stress. CX-3 emitted a grating, mechanical groan before its monitor began spitting out erratic streams of data. Moments later, with an ominous crunch, the screen went black, a thick crack splintering across its surface. Its photoreceptors flared once - then went dark.

Vader closed his eyes, his scarred face drawing tight with what might have been pain or resignation. When he opened them again, there was something different in his expression; a weary acceptance that seemed to age him decades in the span of a heartbeat.

"I did not recognize Luke immediately as my son," he said quietly, his voice cutting through the electric tension that still crackled in the air. "When he destroyed the first Death Star, all I sensed was a pilot strong in the Force. That alone commanded my attention. I had spent twenty years hunting down and eliminating Force-sensitive individuals."

Leia's breathing was ragged, but she forced herself to listen, her anger still radiating outward like heat from a forge.

"I unleashed bounty hunters to uncover his identity," Vader continued, his gaze fixed somewhere far beyond her shoulder. "Boba Fett returned with only a name: Skywalker - and in that single word, I understood. The strength in the Force, the defiance… he was the child I had long believed dead. In that moment, I knew the emperor had deceived me for decades. From then forward, finding Luke was all that remained."

Leia's voice was sharp as a vibroblade when she spoke. "So that's it then? I'm not strong enough in the Force? Not worth your attention because I can't move objects with my mind or sense things across space?"

Vader shook his head slowly, the movement clearly causing him physical discomfort as the neural connections in his new prosthetic registered the strain. "No. Luke is not necessarily stronger than you in the Force. He simply has different... strengths and uses them differently than you do."

The monitors continued to emit soft warning beeps as hairline fractures spread across their surfaces. Vader's voice grew quieter, more introspective.

"That was why I failed to penetrate your mental defences during the interrogation on the Death Star. Even with the drugs, even with all my skill, I could not reach you. You had constructed barriers of such strength that they resisted me completely. Your command of the Force is no less than Luke’s, it is merely… different. More refined. More defensive."

Leia frowned, confusion cutting through her anger. "I don't understand. If I'm that Force-sensitive, if I have these abilities, why didn't you sense them? Why didn't you recognize what I was?"

The question seemed to cause Vader physical pain. He was quiet for a long moment, his jaw working as if the words were being dragged from him against his will. When he finally spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper.

"Because I did not want to see. I could not bear to look at you closely enough to recognize what you were."

"What do you mean?" Leia demanded, stepping closer to the bed.

Vader's eyes closed again, and when he spoke, the words came out like a confession torn from his soul. "When I look at you.. All I can see Padmé. And the pain... is more than I can bear."

Leia felt the breath leave her lungs as if she'd been struck. "What?"  She had seen the holo of Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala - her biological parents. In it, the man who had fathered her was unmistakably capable of emotion; it was there in every glance, every flicker of unguarded warmth, in the absolute love he radiatde toward his wife—even in the brief moments the recording preserved. And though she knew that the man in that holo and the figure standing before her had once been the same, she could not bring herself to believe that Darth Vader possessed anything resembling feelings. Because… how much more horrifying was it to imagine committing all those atrocities without being some clinical, picture-perfect psychopath.

"Do you remember your introduction to the Imperial Senate?" Vader asked, his voice distant and haunted. "Your first major speech as Alderaan's representative?"

The sudden change in topic left Leia reeling. "I... yes, but what does that have to do with-"

“You wore a deep red gown,” Vader continued, his voice taking on an eerie precision as he recalled details no one should have been able to remember. “Blood-red, with silver threading along the bodice. Your hair was arranged in an elaborate style, braided and twisted into loops at the base of your neck, with small silver ornaments woven through. Exactly as your mother wore it during her own senatorial addresses.”

Leia's blood turned to ice. "How do you know that? You weren't there. I would have remembered-"

"I was there," Vader said quietly. "I left moments after you began to speak."

"I don't understand," Leia whispered, her earlier rage giving way to a creeping dread.

Vader's scarred lips moved as he began to recite, his voice taking on the cadence of oratory: "'Esteemed colleagues, I stand before you today not merely as a representative of Alderaan, but as a voice for all those who believe that true strength lies not in the power to dominate, but in the wisdom to serve. Our galaxy stands at a crossroads, and the choices we make in these chambers will echo through history...'"

Her eyes went wide with surprise. Those were the exact words she had rehearsed, hundreds of times, again and again, in her nervous anticipation.

His voice faltered, softer now, touched with something raw. "Those were your mother’s words. She spoke them once to the Republic Senate, almost exactly as you did. And when I saw you: your clothes, your hair a mirror of hers, I believed Bail Organa was trying to resurrect her image. To mould you into a twisted shadow of the woman I had loved and lost so long ago."

He looked at her then, really looked at her, and Leia saw her own pain reflected in his eyes, magnified a thousandfold. "I was furious at what I saw as a mockery of her memory. I refused to see what was directly in front of me."

His voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "The Force shows me so much. Across star systems, through time itself, I can see the threads that connect all living things. But all that power meant nothing when it mattered most. Not when she was dying, not when my children needed me to find them. You can see everything and still be blind to what matters most."

Leia stood frozen, her mind reeling as pieces of a puzzle she didn't know existed clicked into place. "Since then, you've been avoiding looking at me," she said, the words coming out flat and emotionless.

"Yes," Vader admitted. "I see you, but I do not allow myself to look at you.... it reminds me of every failure, every moment I was too weak or too blind to save the people I was supposed to protect. The pain of failing Padmé consumes me every time I'm forced to acknowledge you. Then, I thought it was only a figment of my imagination. Today, I know how much more truth there is in it."

A heavy silence fell between them. Leia noticed, with a clarity that felt almost surreal, that Vader's gaze had drifted away from her again, settling on some neutral point on the wall behind her head. Even now, as he confessed his failures, he couldn't bring himself to look at her directly.

Just like that day in the observation deck before his surgery, when their eyes had met and she'd felt his anguish like a physical blow. He had seen her then  -really seen her -and the pain had been written across his face like an open wound.

"Look at me," she commanded, her voice steady despite the chaos in her heart.

Slowly, reluctantly, Vader's eyes met hers. In them, Leia saw decades of guilt, self-loathing, and a grief so profound it threatened to drown them both.

"Did you kill her?" she asked, the question coming out calm and direct despite the way it tore at her throat. She didn’t have to say the name; they both knew. The question whether he had killed her biological mother had been smouldering within her for weeks.

Vader was quiet for a long time, his gaze growing distant as if he were looking back through decades of pain and regret. When he finally answered, his voice was hollow.

"No. Not directly." He paused, drawing in a shuddering breath. "But I could not save her, even though that was all I ever wanted to do. If I had not fallen to the dark side, if I had died on Mustafar as I should have... she would probably still be alive."

Leia's voice was quiet, emotionless, like ice. "You should be dead. Not her, not my father, not all the good people who didn't deserve what happened to them."

The silence that followed was deafening, broken only by the soft whisper of the ship's life support systems.

Finally, Leia spoke again, her voice carefully controlled. "Luke sees something in you that I don't think exists. We both know you're only alive because my brother is desperate for a father." She paused, her gaze boring into him. "You don't have to look at me. Ever again, if that's what you prefer. Because to me, you'll always be nothing more than a source of pain – a burden I have to carry for Luke's sake."

She turned toward the door, her movements sharp and decisive. "Spend whatever's left of your miserable existence helping the Alliance destroy the Empire. Be a father to Luke, or a teacher, or whatever it is he needs you to be. But I'm warning you now: if you hurt him, if you destroy him the way you destroy everything else you touch, I will kill you with my own hands."

She had almost reached the door when his voice stopped her, speaking her name in a tone she had never heard before – broken, pleading, human.

"Leia."

She froze, her hand on the door control, but didn't turn around. Her shoulders were rigid with tension, every muscle in her body coiled like a spring.

"There are no words in any language I know that could excuse what I have done to you," he said quietly. "And I know you would not want to hear them even if they existed. But that does not mean I am not... infinitely sorry. I will spend whatever time remains to me trying to atone for even a fraction of the debt I owe, if not to you, then to your cause."

For a moment, Leia stood perfectly still, processing his words. Then, almost imperceptibly, she nodded – the first gesture she had made toward him that wasn't filled with absolute hatred and rejection.

Without a word, she activated the door control and walked out, leaving Vader alone with his regrets and the scattered fragments of the shattered glass that had held his water.

The monitors continued their soft beeping, their cracked screens casting fractured light across his scarred face as he stared at the empty doorway where his daughter had stood.

The second prosthetic arm sat heavy in its case as you made your way through the Redemption's corridors, your mind already running through the installation procedure. It had been just over a week since you'd attached the first arm, and Vader's adaptation had exceeded even your most optimistic projections. The daily neural stimulation exercises were paying off spectacularly - his control over the prosthetic had progressed from tentative movements to fluid precision that made your professional heart sing with pride.

His first meeting with High Command loomed in just a few days, and you were determined that he'd face them with at least some measure of dignity restored.

You were so focused on mentally reviewing the neural mapping sequences that you almost walked right past the nurse hovering anxiously near the junction to Vader's corridor. She was wringing her hands, shifting her weight from foot to foot in that universal dance of someone who desperately needed to say something but couldn't quite work up the courage.

"Doctor?" Her voice came out as barely more than a squeak, and she cleared her throat before trying again. "Doctor, could I... could I speak with you for a moment?"

You stopped, adjusting your grip on the prosthetic case as you turned to face her fully. She was one of the newer additions to the medical staff - Kayla, if you remembered correctly - with the kind of earnest dedication that hadn't yet been worn down by the realities of wartime medicine.

"Of course," you said, trying to keep any impatience from your voice. "What's the issue?"

She fidgeted with her datapad, eyes darting between it and your face as if the device might suddenly provide her with the right words. "It's about... about Lord Vader's nutritional protocol."

Your eyebrow arched slightly. You'd spent hours discussing the transition from TPN to oral nutrition with Yadlea, carefully mapping out a gradual progression that would allow his atrophied digestive system to adapt without causing additional stress. The plan had been meticulously documented in his care file, starting with easily digestible Vita-paste before moving to more substantial fare.

"What about it?" you asked, genuinely puzzled. "The protocol is clearly outlined in his chart. We're starting with Vita-paste, three times daily, small portions to begin with."

Kayla's face flushed, and she looked down at her feet. "Yes, Doctor, I know. That's... that's actually the problem."

You waited, but she seemed to have lost her nerve entirely, staring at the floor as if it might open up and swallow her. After a moment, you prompted gently, "Kayla? What's the problem with the nutritional protocol?"

She took a deep breath, the words tumbling out in a rush. "The serving droid won't deliver to his room anymore."

You blinked; certain you'd misheard. "I'm sorry, what?"

"The serving droid," she repeated, her voice gaining strength now that she'd started. "The one that handles meal distribution for this wing. It delivers to every other patient, but it just... skips Lord Vader's room entirely. Like it doesn't exist."

Your mind immediately went to technical malfunction. The medical droids were reliable, but they weren't infallible. "Have you reported it to maintenance? Could be a simple programming glitch."

Kayla shook her head vigorously. "We tried that first thing. They sent it for diagnostics, but..." She paused, seeming to wrestle with how to phrase what came next. "The technicians can't find anything wrong with it. And when they try to reprogram the delivery route, the changes just... don't stick."

Now that was interesting. You shifted the prosthetic case to your other hand, genuinely intrigued. "The programming won't hold?"

"No, Doctor." Kayla's voice dropped to barely above a whisper, as if saying it too loudly might make it more real. "And I know how this is going to sound, but I swear it's like the droid's been... programmed that the room doesn't exist. It's currently in maintenance, but they have more pressing issues to deal with."

You raised an eyebrow, amusement tugging at the corners of your mouth despite yourself. "He only has one functional hand. How exactly would he reprogram a droid?"

Even as you said it, though, you knew the answer.. Because why would anything involving Vader ever be simple?

Kayla looked profoundly uncomfortable, her gaze fixed somewhere over your left shoulder. "I know it sounds crazy, Doctor, but-"

"No," you interrupted, surprising her. "Actually, it sounds exactly like something he'd do." You couldn't quite keep the mix of exasperation and amusement from your voice. The man had spent decades as the emperor’s enforcer, commanded entire fleets, struck terror into the hearts of billions, and now he was using his talents to... avoid eating hospital food.

Kayla seemed to take your acceptance as permission to continue, the words coming faster now. "We had to draw straws to see who would handle manual delivery, and..." She winced. "Juna drew the short one. She's in there now, but Doctor, I'm worried. Could you maybe... could you authorize a second droid? Or perhaps consider switching him back to PEG feeding?"

"I'll handle it," you said, already moving toward Vader's room. "And Kayla? In the future, if something seems off with his care, come to me immediately. Don't wait."

She nodded rapidly, relief evident on her face as you continued down the corridor. But nothing could have prepared you for what you saw when you peered through the small window in Vader's door.

Juna stood beside his bed, holding a tray of Vita-paste, her expression completely blank. Not the blank of someone lost in thought or tired from a long shift, but the eerie, hollow blank of someone whose mind was somewhere else entirely. Her eyes stared at nothing, unfocused and glassy, while Vader's intense blue gaze remained fixed on her face.

His voice was low, hypnotic, each word deliberate and weighted with the Force. "You don't need to bring me food."

Juna's lips moved, repeating in a monotone that sent chills down your spine: "I don't need to bring you food."

"I am adequately nourished," he continued, his tone carrying that same measured cadence. "You should attend to the other patients."

"You are adequately nourished. I should attend to the other patients."

"You will leave now and forget this interaction."

"I will leave now and forget this interaction."

As Juna turned toward the door, moving with the mechanical precision of a droid, you pushed it open and stepped inside, one eyebrow arched so high it was practically reaching for the ceiling. The nurse walked past you without acknowledgment, still carrying the tray, her glazed eyes seeing nothing.

You smoothly transferred the prosthetic case to one hand and plucked the tray from Juna's unresisting grip with the other, watching as she continued out into the corridor with that same unseeing stare.

Well. That was certainly one of the more... obvious uses of Force manipulation you'd witnessed.

Vader wasn't looking at you. His attention had already returned to whatever lay on the bed table before him, pointedly ignoring your presence with the kind of deliberate focus that told you he knew exactly how much trouble he was in.

That's when you noticed what he was actually doing, and suddenly the droid's reprogramming made perfect sense. CX-3 lay disassembled on the table, her central housing opened to reveal a maze of circuits and processors. Several appeared to have blown completely, leaving black scorch marks across the delicate components. Vader held one of your micro-tools you'd apparently left behind during a previous visit, using it with his prosthetic hand while simultaneously employing the Force to manipulate tiny screws and cables with a precision that should have been impossible without a full surgical setup.

He answered your unspoken question without looking up, his voice carefully neutral. "Leia was here."

Those three words explained everything - the damaged droid, his refusal to meet your eyes, the defensive wall he'd thrown up around himself. You could imagine exactly how that visit had gone, and your heart ached for both of them.

You decided not to push that particular wound. Instead, you set the tray on the bedside table with a deliberate clink and said mildly, "I'm going to have to ask you to stop reprogramming our service droids. And definitely stop mind-controlling our staff."

He continued working on CX-3's circuits, his tone dismissive. "The effect is temporary. She'll have no memory of this interaction, and it will serve her purposes as well as mine. I imagine she's quite content to pretend I don't exist."

You had to admit, if only to yourself, that he had a point. Most of the medical staff would probably volunteer to have their memories of treating Darth Vader wiped clean. Still, that didn't make it acceptable.

You sighed and settled into the chair beside his bed, studying his profile as he worked. Even in concentration, you could see the tension in his jaw, the careful control he was maintaining over his expression. Whatever Leia had said, it had cut deep.

"I know another lecture after Leia's visit is probably the last thing you want to hear," you began, keeping your voice gentle but firm, "but it's still my job. I know Leia and terrifed nurses  might not be the best conversation partners to ease you back into normal life. But on the other hand, that’s exactly the point: in life, you usually don’t get to choose who you have to interact with. And using the Force to choke or manipulate your way out of every unpleasant conversation, that’s about as far from normal life as it gets. And normal social interaction is just as important for your recovery as normal food."

He didn't even acknowledge that you'd spoken, his attention laser-focused on threading a nearly invisible wire through a circuit board.

You leaned forward, counting off on your fingers even though he wasn't looking. "Natural stimulation of the gastrointestinal tract. Less invasive than PEG feeding with lower infection risk. Preservation of swallowing and oral functions. Improved nutrient absorption and reduced systemic stress. And ultimately?" You paused, watching for any sign he was listening. "Better quality of life. Psychological benefits. Integration back into what passes for normal life among us mere mortals. That's what we're trying to give you here - as normal a life as possible. Right?"

Still nothing. He might as well have been alone in the room for all the acknowledgment you received.

Fine. If he wanted to play it that way...

You reached out and deliberately placed your hand - your flesh and blood hand - on the edge of CX-3's housing, right where you knew he'd need to reach next based on the repair sequence. Your fingers rested lightly on the metal, warm and undeniably present.

He froze mid-motion, his prosthetic hand hovering inches from yours. For a long moment, neither of you moved. Then, finally, he looked at you.

The exhaustion in his eyes was bone-deep, the kind that sleep couldn't cure. It was the weariness of someone who'd been fighting for so long they'd forgotten what peace felt like.

"I imagine it's difficult," you said softly. "After decades of existing so far from anything resembling normal life, without ordinary social interactions or mundane needs like eating or sleeping, completely exposed and on death's door, surrounded by people you were recently fighting... a normal life is probably the last thing you care about."

Something flickered in his expression - surprise, perhaps, that you understood.

"I've seen how you react to physical contact," you continued, keeping your voice gentle. " The one time I accidentally touched you without my gloves on was enough. Your reaction told me everything I needed to know. You're not used to it anymore.”

In the recordings you and Piett had reviewed, no organic being had ever touched him directly, skin to skin. The doctors merely stood by; it was only the droids that laid hands on him. Otherwise, he’d been shut away in that black coffin, isolated from the rest of the galaxy.

His jaw tightened, but he didn't look away.

"Physical contact is essential," you said. "Right up there with food and sleep in terms of basic human needs. I know how strange it must be, confronting real food after twenty years of intravenous feeding."

"I've forgotten what food tastes like," he said quietly, his gaze distant.

You nodded, unsurprised. "Starvation is also a form of self-punishment."

His eyes snapped back to yours, sharp and assessing. Something unspoken hung in the air between you - a recognition, perhaps, of patterns neither of you wanted to examine too closely.

Instead of pursuing that thread, you shifted topics. "The monitors show you're barely sleeping."

"I don't need it," he said, returning his attention to CX-3's repairs.

“That’s nonsense,” you countered. “Everyone needs sleep. Even you. And those Transition cybernetic implants that are currently letting you see? They’re not built for continuous use. They need to come out when you sleep, or they’ll irritate your corneas.” The angry red rims around his eyes were proof enough of his stubborn refusal to rest.

As you watched him work, that persistent question surfaced again in your mind. Did a monster look like this? Act like this? No, you didn't think so.

Palpatine had been a monster - you were certain of that. You'd only seen him a few times when you'd still lived with your family, when your father had been invited to official functions. But those glimpses had been enough to understand what the emperor truly was. 'Manipulative monster' seemed almost inadequate to describe him. Yet he'd always remained the invisible puppeteer - people only ever saw and condemned the puppet.

"I am not a puppet," Vader said suddenly, having followed your thoughts. "I may have been commanded by Palpatine, but it was still my hand - my own controlled and directed hand - that held my lightsaber and drove it through men, women, and children."

A moment of silence stretched between you. You knew he was trying to shock you, to drive you away with the brutal truth of his actions.

"I agree," you said calmly. "You're not a puppet on strings. But you're also not a droid, and you're certainly not a weapon. We literally just talked about this."

His gaze slowly, thoughtfully, lifted to meet yours.

"You're a person," you continued. "A person who has done terrible things and suffered unspeakably. But none of that strips away your status as a living, feeling person. And you need to stop denying yourself that."

You leaned forward slightly, your voice taking on a fiercer edge. "You agreed to walk this path with me. But along with physical resilience, that requires incredible psychological work. It's easy to neglect the mind when facing injuries as severe as yours - the body goes into emergency mode, only registering the highest priority issues. The body can survive longer without food and sleep than without oxygen, and certainly without physical contact. But we don't want to just survive. We want to live."

You gestured broadly, encompassing the medical suite and everything beyond it. "I won't operate some machine kept barely functional just so High Command can extract information. That violates every principle of my ethical code. I want to give you something that hasn't mattered to you or those who treated you for so long: quality of life."

Your voice softened slightly. "You said it yourself - thoughts can move galaxies. Imagine what thoughts a genuinely healthy mind could produce. So I'm asking you: stop treating yourself like a machine. Because I don't make machine parts. I make prosthetics for real people."

You reached for the case containing the new arm, pulling it out with a flourish. "So here's my offer," you said, your tone shifting to something almost playfully sweet. "One arm in exchange for eating your breakfast?"

He looked at you with one raised eyebrow, scepticism written across his scarred features. "Have you actually tried that substance?"

You couldn't suppress a grin. "Vita-paste? Oh yes. It tastes exactly like what I imagine liquefied plastoid would taste like."

A sound escaped him that might have been a snort of amusement. "Then -"

"Because it's a necessary evil," you interrupted. "Your digestive system needs to relearn how to process solid food gradually. After a few more days of this delightful cuisine, once your mouth, oesophagus, and stomach have adapted, we can move on to real food."

He studied you for a long moment, something unreadable in his expression. Then, with the air of a man facing execution, he reached for the spoon and took a half-full bite of the Vita-paste.

His face contorted for just a moment - a flash of such comedic disgust that you had to bite your lip to keep from laughing - before his customary control reasserted itself. But it was too late; you'd seen it, and a giggle escaped despite your best efforts.

Your thoughts drifted unbidden to the holo you'd seen of him, young and unmarked by tragedy, and how much more expressive his features had been then...

He caught the thought, of course, and his expression hardened immediately. He threw the spoon back into the bowl with a metallic clang and fixed you with a cold, calculating stare.

"Ah," he said, his tone dripping with disdain. "So that's where today's idealistic proselytizing comes from."

You blinked, genuinely confused. "What?"

"You're confused by what you see now versus what you thought you knew," he said, his voice taking on a mocking edge. "Spurred on by Mon Mothma's little lesson, you went searching for Anakin Skywalker and found him. You saw a handsome face and can't reconcile it with what's before you now, so you search for explanations. You're no better than Mothma - she sees a monster, you see a victim."

He leaned back slightly, his scarred features twisting into something between a sneer and genuine pain. "I've told you before and I'll tell you again: I have no use for your pity."

You considered his words carefully, then nodded slowly. "You're right about some of it," you admitted. "I am confused because what I knew of Darth Vader beforehand - the actions, the stories, the glimpses of terror - and what I'm learning now about your actual character... they conflict in some ways. And yes, Mon Mothma's conversation made me more confused and curious."

You met his gaze steadily. "But you're wrong about the rest. I don't see a victim, and I don't pity you for what I've seen."

He gave you a look of pure disbelief.

"Well, you’re not the pretty sunnyboy hero these days," you said, shaking your head. "But beauty’s subjective and, in the end, meaningless-"

"Only people who are conventionally average in appearance make speeches like that," he interrupted, tone dry as his attention went back to CX-3’s repairs.

You stared at him. "Conventionally average? Wow… thanks for that, I suppose."

A short, humourless laugh escaped him. "You’re conventionally attractive. People like that, like the comfortably rich, tend to trivialise what they have. They don’t define themselves by beauty or wealth, so they toss out lines like ‘Beauty is relative” “Beauty is fleeting.’ ‘Money doesn’t buy happiness.’ But those words are only easy when you still have enough beauty or wealth to make them meaningless."

He set down the micro-tool, his prosthetic hand flexing unconsciously. "I know what I'm talking about. Beauty never personally mattered to me - until it was suddenly gone. It took years before I could look in a mirror without shattering it."

His voice took on a philosophical quality, though tinged with bitterness. "Let someone conventionally wealthy lose all their money, and you’ll see: monye alone may not bring happiness, but losing it certainly brings misery. Often only loss reveals something’s true value. You’d realize how much your appearance shapes your daily life and interactions only if it changed to its opposite. The ugly or the poor understand beauty and money’s importance because they are constantly reminded they lack them."
He picked up the tool again, making a precise adjustment to a circuit. "And the other extreme? Those who base their existence on appearance or wealth also understand their value. They always crave more, and the thought of losing it is unbearable. It’s those in the middle - the average ones, who lie to themselves."

You considered his words, an uncomfortable prickle of recognition stirring in your chest. "So, you're saying we should value beauty and wealth more highly?"

"No," he said sharply, setting down the micro-tool with more force than necessary. "Those values could not be more irrelevant to me. What irritates me is when people trivialize them without genuinely considering what they're implying to those who lack them. It's thoughtless at best, cruel at worst."

You thought about that, turning his words over in your mind, and it annoyed you to find a kernel of truth in them. When you told yourself that beauty was fleeting and subjective, what did you really picture? The gradual accumulation of wrinkles, perhaps some grey streaking through your hair, the slow softening of features that came with age. Normal aging. The kind everyone experienced, the kind that could be faced with dignity and grace.

It was, you realized with uncomfortable clarity, a form of self-soothing. Everyone ages, beauty fades naturally, we're all in this together. But what if the loss wasn't so gentle? What if it wasn't the slow march of time but a sudden, violent theft?

What if you burned the way he had? Hair gone completely, not just greying but destroyed at the root. Skin not just wrinkled but ravaged by flames, twisted into a landscape of scars that no amount of makeup could hide. You'd seen enough severe burn victims in your career to know the reality - even with bacta, synthetic skin, cosmetic procedures, some damage couldn't be undone. Some losses were permanent.

The thought made something cold settle in your stomach. You'd like to think you'd handle it with grace, that your medical training would give you perspective, but you knew better. You'd seen the way burn victims struggled with their reflections, the grief in their eyes when they caught sight of themselves. That kind of loss wouldn't be easy to bear.

"For what it's worth," you said finally, "I didn't think Darth Vader was vain."

He snorted with amusement. "I haven't been vain for a long time. But it's easier to let people look at a black mask and fear it than to see the scars and be constantly confronted with disgust, pity, and revulsion."

"I don't see any of that," you said honestly, and you knew he could sense your sincerity.

He nodded slowly. "You're a doctor. You're confronted with disgusting things all day long."

That made you laugh. "That's not what I meant. Sure, you're not a conventionally handsome pretty boy anymore. But I don't find your scars disgusting or ugly, and they don't evoke pity in me. They're evidence of everything you've experienced and survived. They don't make you beautiful but...interesting."

You paused, considering. "And I don't see you as a victim either. Or a monster, while we're at it."

He raised an eyebrow questioningly. "No? Then what?"

You leaned forward thoughtfully, and without really thinking about it, traced a prominent scar on his upper arm with your real hand. The scar ran from his shoulder down to where flesh met metal - the metal you had given him.

You felt him flinch involuntarily, though he tried to suppress it after your earlier observation about his reaction to physical contact. The muscle tensed impressively under your touch, and you found yourself fascinated by the interplay of muscle, skin, scar tissue, and prosthetic integration.

"Something far more complex," you said finally, your fingers still ghosting over the boundary between organic and synthetic, "that I'm still trying to understand."

The room fell silent except for the soft hum of medical equipment and distant footsteps in the corridor. Your hand remained on his arm, neither of you acknowledging the contact but neither pulling away either. It was a moment suspended between professional boundaries and something else entirely - something neither of you had words for yet.

Finally, Vader broke the silence, his voice rougher than usual. "The Vita-paste is getting cold."

You glanced at the forgotten bowl, then back at him, a small smile tugging at your lips. "I'd say that would improve the taste, but we both know that's impossible."

"Indeed," he agreed, but he picked up the spoon again, this time managing to suppress his disgust as he took another bite.

You began unpacking the prosthetic arm, laying out your tools with practiced efficiency. "The neural mapping for this one should go more smoothly," you said, falling back into the comfortable rhythm of medical explanation. "Your nervous system has already adapted to the first prosthetic, which should ease the integration of the second."

He swallowed another spoonful of Vita-paste with visible effort. "How long before the meeting with your High Command?"

"Three days," you replied, beginning the preliminary scans of his left shoulder stump. "They've scheduled it for midday, and for whatever reason, they've demanded my presence as well." You couldn't quite keep the annoyance from your voice. "Maybe they want your physician there to answer questions about your medical status, capabilities, limitations, prognosis... the whole diagnostic parade."

Although that was nothing more than speculation. In reality, the meeting left you with a faint knot of unease in your stomach. But you would find out soon enough why they wanted you there.

"Ah," he said, and you caught something in his tone that you couldn’t place "That's... logical."

You glanced up from your work, noting the subtle relaxation in his shoulders. "You're pleased about that," you observed. It wasn't a question.

He didn't deny it, focusing instead on choking down another spoonful of Vita-paste. "Having someone present who actually understands your medical situation rather than speculating about it seems prudent."

You recognized what he wasn't saying; that he'd prefer having you there, someone who'd seen him and hadn't flinched. It was a vulnerability he'd never admit to directly.

"Well, you're stuck with me either way," you said, returning to your scans. "Though I should warn you, my patience for political manoeuvring is limited."

That was putting it mildly, and it wasn’t hard to see, not for someone who could follow your thoughts as easily as he did. The political rhetoric, the endless negotiations, the manoeuvring and debating… You understood why it mattered, but politics had never been your domain, any more than an operating room would be a politician’s.

"I'm aware," he said dryly. "It's one of your more tolerable qualities."

You looked up from your preparations, surprised by what almost sounded like a compliment. He was focused on taking another bite of Vita-paste, pointedly not meeting your eyes, but you caught the faintest curve at the corner of his mouth.

"Careful," you warned, returning to your work with a small smile of your own. "Keep saying things like that and people might think you actually like having me around." You paused, then added with exaggerated dryness, "First I'm 'conventionally average attractive,' now I have 'tolerable qualities.' At this rate, by next week you might even upgrade me to 'adequately competent.' I'm not sure my ego can handle such effusive praise."

"An intolerable misconception," he replied, but there was no real bite to the words.

"Oh, absolutely intolerable," you agreed with mock seriousness. "Imagine the scandal if word got out that the fearsome Darth Vader actually tolerates his doctor's presence. Your reputation would never recover." You glanced at the partially reassembled droid on his table, noting the nearly completed repairs. "Now, if you're done pretending you don't appreciate my sparkling personality, you might want to finish putting CX-3 back together. I can't install these anchor points properly without her monitoring the neural feedback, and you're about two circuits away from completion."

He looked down at the droid, then back at you with what might have been mild surprise that you'd been tracking his repair progress. Without a word, he returned to the delicate work, using the Force to thread the final wires into place while you began laying out the surgical instruments for the anchor point installation.

As you began the delicate process of preparing the neural interfaces, you found yourself thinking about complexity - about the layers of person beneath the legend, the humanity beneath the monster, the man beneath the machine. Vader was all of these things and none of them, existing in some liminal space that defied easy categorization.

"You're thinking too loudly again," he complained, though it lacked his usual irritation.

"Then stop listening," you countered, beginning the first incision.

"Impossible," he said, and you weren't entirely sure he was only talking about your thoughts.

Chapter Text

Three days later…

You adjusted the neural interface scanner for what had to be the fourth time in ten minutes, your cybernetic fingers moving with practiced precision even as your organic hand trembled slightly. The readings flickered across the display:  elevated cortisol, heightened neural activity in the amygdala, stress hormones spiking despite the cocktail of medications flowing through the IV line.

"Your readings are elevated again," you murmured, not quite meeting those piercing blue eyes that seemed to see through everything.

Vader lay propped against the raised medical bed; his towering form caught between the stark vulnerability of a patient and the unyielding intimidation he carried even in weakness. The fresh cybernetic arms you had fitted gleamed under the harsh medbay lights, their polished black plating a jarring contrast to the pale, ruined flesh glimpsed where the thin hospital gown failed to conceal his chest. Along his spine, the neural ports flickered faintly as he shifted, betraying a pain he refused to voice.

"I am adequately functional," he said, the words carrying that familiar dismissive edge that made you want to shake him.

You straightened from the scanner controls, crossing your arms as you fixed him with a look that had made seasoned medical officers reconsider their life choices. "Your stress indicators suggest otherwise. Your neural pathways are firing at levels that would leave most beings unconscious."

The truth was you were nervous too - almost as nervous as on the day Luke had called you into the hangar to treat the most feared war criminal in the galaxy.

Today felt different. Today, the Alliance High Command would finally meet with Vader properly, not just to assess his medical condition or extract information, but to determine his fate and usefulness in the galaxy's new order.

Your own anxiety was bleeding through in ways you couldn’t quite control. The bioscanners didn’t lie: his elevated vitals mirrored the cortisol spike already coursing through your system, a cruel reminder of how easily tension infected the room.

"I'm stressed because you're stressed," you admitted, setting down the stylus and moving closer to his bedside. "And before you dismiss this as irrelevant: your body may have survived decades of abuse but rejection reactions and neural overload with the new prosthetics are still very real possibilities. We're in uncharted territory here."

The prosthetics were finely crafted, designed with a level of precision far beyond what the Empire had ever allowed him. Where once crude, painful interfaces had been deliberately designed to cause suffering, these new limbs integrated seamlessly with his nervous system. But integration was a process, not an event, and his body was still learning to accept them.

"And the cybernetics are not my only concern. Your body cannot simply shrug off the decades of substance dependency just because the acute withdrawal phase has ended," you continued, checking the readings on his hepatic function. "The neural pathways that the suit’s systems carved into your brain chemistry; those take time to heal. Months, possibly longer. Stress, for example the kind triggered by a meeting with the highest political leaders deciding over your life, or… everything else, should actually be avoided in your current state, if there’s any risk of it leading to a complete overload of your systems."

You couldn’t bring yourself to say the word death. In that moment, you understood how fiercely you resisted letting it pass your lips when it was tied to his future. The medical reality of death was something you lived with daily, a constant shadow. Both of you knew a single complication could end him tomorrow. That part you could endure, you could name it, work against it, fight it. But the other threat, the one hanging over him like a blade: the will of High Command, the silent spectre of an execution order - you could do nothing against that. You knew, just as he did, that its likelihood was far from negligible. Yet you wouldn’t name it. You told yourself it was because you couldn’t stand the thought of your efforts and resources being wasted. But deep down, you knew it was more than that, even if you couldn’t, or rather wouldn’t name it yet.

Vader's expression remained neutral, but you caught the almost imperceptible tightening around his eyes. Pain. Always pain with him, whether he acknowledged it or not.

"Are you experiencing severe pain right now?" you asked directly, moving to stand beside his bed where you could better read the micro-expressions that crossed his scarred features.

"It is manageable," he replied in that infuriatingly dismissive way that you'd come to recognize as his standard deflection.

Without breaking eye contact, you slowly lowered yourself until you were at his eye level, your hand coming to rest on the bed's railing. The position put you close enough to see the pale flecks in his irises, close enough to catch the faint scent of the antiseptic gel that helped maintain his prosthetics.

"Your vitals say otherwise," you said quietly, letting a note of gentle challenge creep into your voice. "Your pain receptors are firing at a level that would leave most beings screaming. Even at the highest dose I can give without risking dependency or further damage to your organs, the medication barely dulls it, does it?"

For a moment, something shifted in his expression. The mask of stoic indifference slipped just enough for you to glimpse the exhaustion beneath it, the bone-deep weariness of a man who had carried agony as a constant companion for far too long.

He made a sound - not quite a laugh, more of a bitter exhalation. "It was... simpler when the pain served a purpose," he said finally, his voice dropping to something almost confessional. "When it could be channelled, transformed into strength through the dark side. Now it simply... is."

The admission hung between you like a bridge you weren't sure either of you should cross. You found yourself studying the sharp angles of his face, the way the overhead lighting cast shadows in the hollows of his cheeks and emphasized the network of scars that mapped his suffering across his skin.

"Pain without purpose is just suffering," you said softly, surprising yourself with the gentleness in your voice.

You straightened and moved to the pharmaceutical dispenser, your fingers dancing across the controls as you authorized a stronger analgesic – one you typically reserved for the most extreme, the terminal cases. "Just this once," you murmured, more to yourself than to him. "For what we're both about to endure."

The medication hissed softly as it integrated with his IV line, and you watched his vital signs begin to level out almost immediately. The relief that crossed his features was subtle but unmistakable.

"You're not the only one facing High Command's visit with... reservations," you said, returning to his side with what you hoped was a reassuring smile.

Vader tilted his head slightly, a gesture that somehow managed to convey both curiosity and the faintest hint of amusement. "Explain."

You settled onto the edge of the chair drawn up beside his bed, close enough that you could feel the faint shift of air each time he drew in a laboured breath. The proximity was grounding, and yet your hands still sought the steady frame of the armrest as if you needed something solid to anchor yourself. The weight of the upcoming meeting pressed heavy across your shoulders.

"It's like…" you hesitated, eyes dropping to your datapad as you searched for the right words.. "Like being a child who's built a prize-winning sandcastle on the beach. You know it’s impressive, probably the best work you’ve ever done, but it’s also fragile. And now there’s a horde of other children about to flood the beach, and you just have to hope they won’t, whether by malice or accident, kick it to pieces."

"As much as I despise your… sandcastle metaphor," he murmured, something in his tone tugging your attention from the datapad. "I suspect you sell yourself short when it comes to building, Doc. You have achieved something remarkable, and it will certainly not be undone so easily by a few children."

The way he says it; low, measured, with an undertone of something that sounds almost like admiration, sends an unexpected flush of warmth through your chest. You blink, caught off guard by the compliment and the intensity in his gaze. There's something in his expression that you can't quite name, something that makes the air in the room feel suddenly charged.

Before you can formulate a response, before you can even fully process what just passed between you, the door chimes and slides open with a soft hiss.

"Father? Doc?" Luke's cheerful voice carried the warmth that seemed to radiate from him wherever he went, but it also carried the unmistakable note of concern that had become his constant companion since discovering his parentage.

You sprang back from his bedside as if you'd been caught doing something far more intimate than simply checking on a patient, your face burning with embarrassment that you couldn't quite justify. The rational part of your mind knew that Luke couldn't have heard your conversation, couldn't have witnessed the charged moment that had passed between you and his father, but guilt settled in your stomach anyway.

"Luke," you managed, smoothing down your medical coat with hands that trembled slightly. "Yes, everything's fine. I was just running some final assessments before the meeting."

Luke's blue eyes, so different from his father's pale gaze yet somehow equally penetrating, moved between you and Vader with the kind of perceptiveness that reminded you he was no longer the idealistic farm boy who had first challenged the Empire.

"How are you feeling, Father?"

"Adequate," Vader replied, and you had to admire his ability to slip back into that mask of composed indifference so effortlessly.

You busied yourself with checking the equipment one final time, grateful for the distraction even as you remained hyperaware of the two Skywalkers behind you. "He's stable enough for the meeting," you said, turning back to face them with your most professional expression firmly in place. "Though I am concerned about the additional stress this will place on his system. His body is still adjusting to the new prosthetics, and excessive strain could trigger rejection responses or neurological complications."

The words were directed at Luke, but you couldn't help the way your eyes kept drifting to Vader, searching for any sign of how he was processing what you'd said. You were offering him an out, a medical excuse to limit or postpone the interrogation that was about to begin, but you weren't sure if he'd take it.

Luke stepped closer to his father's bedside, his hand hovering uncertainly over Vader's shoulder before finally making contact. The gesture was tentative, careful, as if he still expected to be rejected or rebuffed. "The Alliance leadership just wants to discuss the current situation, Father. They're not here to... to put you on trial or anything like that. Not yet."

"Not yet," Vader repeated, and there was something almost amused in his tone. "How reassuring."

Before Luke could respond to the dry sarcasm, the door chimed again, this time with the authoritative tone that indicated official visitors. Your stomach dropped as the panel slid open to reveal exactly the delegation you'd been dreading.

Mon Mothma entered first, her serene composure intact despite the momentous nature of this meeting. She was followed by Admiral Ackbar, whose large eyes immediately fixed on Vader with an expression of carefully controlled wariness. General Crix Madine came next, his weathered face betraying nothing, though you noticed how his hand unconsciously drifted toward where his sidearm would normally rest. Finally, General Dodonna stepped through the threshold, completing the quartet of Alliance leadership that would determine Vader's fate.

The reactions were impossible to miss. Ackbar’s eyes widened, the translucent membranes flickering in an unconscious tic of alarm as he absorbed the sheer extent of Vader’s injuries: the lattice of scars across his scalp, the pallid tone of skin long denied sunlight, the bulk of machinery hidden imperfectly beneath the folds of the medical gown. Madine’s lips pressed into a hard line, his jaw flexing once as though he were forcing himself not to comment. Dodonna, usually stoic, faltered; his brows lifted in an involuntary flash of disbelief before his features settled into something graver, tinged with unease.

Mon Mothma, however, did not startle. She had already confronted the sight days earlier, and now her composure held. Still, for a fleeting second you caught the faintest mozion  at the corner of her mouth, an emotion impossible to name before her mask of statesmanship slid firmly back into place. The room suddenly felt too small, the air too thick with tension and unspoken history. These were people who had spent years fighting against everything Vader represented, who had lost friends and family to his actions. Now they stood in a sterile medical bay, confronted with the broken remains beneath the legend.

"Lord Vader," Mon Mothma began, her tone polished with the formality of long years in politics. She advanced with deliberate composure; hands folded before her. "We appreciate your willingness to grant us this audience."

"As if I had much choice in the matter," Vader replied, though his tone lacked any real bitterness. "I assume you did not come here merely to assess my medical progress."

"No," Mon Mothma agreed, her tone even, her hands folded neatly before her as the others arranged themselves in a loose semicircle that managed to feel both protective and faintly hostile. "We came to express our gratitude for the transmission of the Imperial banking coordinates. That information has already proven invaluable to our relief efforts across the Outer Rim."

You found yourself studying Vader's reaction to her words. His expression remained neutral, but something in his posture suggested that their gratitude meant less to him than they might expect.

"Those coordinates were not a gift to the Alliance," he said, tone stripped of any pretence. "They were given to Leia. What the Empire hoarded should serve those it once exploited. The accounts were ...one might say extensive."

"Extensive enough to fund our reconstruction efforts for years," Admiral Ackbar interjected, his gravelly voice carrying notes of both appreciation and suspicion. "Which raises questions about how much the Empire truly extracted from the systems under its control."

"More than you can imagine," Vader replied. "And that brings us to why you're really here."

Mon Mothma inclined her head, her voice steady. "We need your counsel, Lord Vader. With the emperor gone, the Empire has been broken and splintered into fractured remnants. Yet these fragments still threaten galactic stability. Grand Admiral Thrawn in particular has proven… elusive."

At the mention of Thrawn's name, you noticed a subtle shift in Vader's demeanour. Not fear, exactly, but a sharpening of attention that suggested the blue-skinned admiral commanded a respect that few others had earned.

"Thrawn," Vader said, and the single word carried weight. "Yes, I imagine he would be your greatest concern now."

"You've worked with him," General Madine said, speaking for the first time since entering the room. "What can you tell us about his strategic mindset?"

Vader was quiet for a long moment, his gaze growing distant as if he were sifting through decades of military experience. When he spoke again, his voice carried the authority of someone who had commanded fleets and conquered systems.

"Thrawn is not like other Imperial officers," he began, his words measured and deliberate. "Most commanders rely on fear, overwhelming force, or political manoeuvring. Thrawn studies his enemies as an artist studies a masterpiece: every brushstroke, every choice of colour, every cultural nuance that reveals the mind behind the creation."

You found yourself leaning closer despite your intention to remain professionally distant. There was something almost hypnotic about watching Vader’s tactical mind at work, catching the subtler edge of what had once made him one of the Empire’s most feared commanders. It fascinated you all the more, knowing your own father served under Thrawn.

"He will not attack where you expect," Vader continued. "He will not waste resources on symbolic victories or ego-driven campaigns. Every move he makes will serve multiple purposes, and by the time you recognize the pattern, he will have already achieved his primary objective."

"And what do you believe his primary objective is?" Mon Mothma asked.

"Restoration," Vader said without hesitation. "But not of the Empire as it stood. Thrawn is too astute to mimic Palpatine’s mistakes. He will pursue something more refined, more enduring: an Empire that can outlast a single ruler and impose stability even in the face of future enemies."

The implications of his words settled over the room like a heavy blanket. You watched the Alliance leaders exchange glances, seeing your own concerns reflected in their expressions. An Empire led by Thrawn could be far more dangerous than anything they had faced before.

"He has access to significant resources," Admiral Ackbar observed. "Intelligence suggests he's managed to consolidate several Imperial fleet remnants under his command."

"Resources, yes, but more importantly, he has patience," Vader replied. "Thrawn will not rush into open conflict until he is certain of victory. He will probe your defences, test your responses, gather intelligence about your capabilities and weaknesses. When he finally moves against you, it will be with overwhelming tactical superiority."

"Then how do we counter him?" Dodonna asked, his weathered face grave with the weight of command.

Vader's lips curved in something that wasn't quite a smile. "You study him as he studies you. Thrawn's strength is also his weakness; his reliance on understanding his enemies through their culture and art. He believes that by analyzing what a species creates, he can predict how they will fight."

"And can he?" Luke asked, speaking up for the first time since the meeting began.

"Often, yes," Vader admitted. "But understanding and predicting are not the same as controlling. Thrawn excels at exploiting patterns, but patterns can be broken by those willing to act outside their nature."

You watched the interplay between father and son, noting how Luke hung on every word while Vader seemed to grow more animated as he delved deeper into strategic analysis.

"However," Vader continued, his tone growing more serious, "theoretical knowledge will only take you so far. To truly understand Thrawn's current capabilities and intentions, I would need access to intelligence about his movements, his current fleet composition, the territories under his control."

"That intelligence is limited," Mon Mothma said carefully. "He's proven remarkably adept at concealing his operations."

"Then you need sources within his command structure," Vader replied. "Officers who served under him, captured personnel who might provide insight into his current strategies. Without such intelligence..." He paused, considering his words. "You would be fighting blind against an enemy who sees everything."

The room fell quiet as the leaders absorbed his assessment. You could see the weight of responsibility settling on their shoulders, the crushing awareness that the war was far from over.

"There are... certain members of my former command staff who might prove useful in this regard," Vader said eventually, his gaze briefly meeting yours before returning to Mon Mothma. "Admiral Piett, for instance, has demonstrated considerable tactical acumen. His insights into Imperial command structures and strategic thinking could prove invaluable."

You thought of the conversations you’d had with Piett in the recent weeks- through his treatment, through the endless review of Vader’s data - and a grin crept across your lips before you could stop it. The man's loyalty to Vader had been absolute and his tactical mind was undeniably sharp. If Vader trusted his judgment in matters of strategy, perhaps the Alliance should consider it as well.

"We'll take that under advisement," Mon Mothma said diplomatically. "For now, we need to address the immediate situation. Lord Vader, Commander Skywalker has indicated that you're willing to cooperate with the Alliance in an advisory capacity. Is this accurate?"

The question hung in the air, and you found yourself holding your breath as you waited for his response. This was the moment that would determine everything:  his future, Luke's hopes, the Alliance's strategic advantages. The monitors around his bed continued their steady beeping, marking time as seconds stretched into what felt like hours.

"I am willing to provide counsel regarding Imperial military doctrine and strategic capabilities," Vader said carefully. "My knowledge of Imperial fleet movements, command structures, and tactical preferences may prove useful in your efforts to stabilize the galaxy."

"And Thrawn specifically?" Admiral Ackbar pressed.

"Thrawn is… unique," Vader allowed. "He wages war as though it were both science and art. Where I drew on the Force and overwhelming strength, he relies on intellect, patience, and flawless preparation. His tactics are nearly impenetrable, which makes him a formidable opponent."

"That will not be easy to counter," Dodonna said gravely, his weathered features tightening.

"Yes," Vader confirmed. "Particularly with the Alliance's... limited resources and preference for decentralized command structures. Thrawn excels at exploiting exactly those kinds of organizational weaknesses." He paused, his gaze moving across the assembled leaders. "However, I am willing to provide what assistance I can, assuming you're prepared to consider tactical approaches that may conflict with your established methods."

You could see the leaders processing this information, weighing the implications of facing an enemy who is unpredictable. The magnitude of the threat was becoming clearer with each revelation.

"What would you recommend as our primary strategic approach?" Mon Mothma asked.

Vader was quiet for a moment, his gaze turning inward as he considered the question. "Thrawn will expect you to act like rebels - to rely on quick strikes, hit-and-run tactics, decentralized command structures. Your victory at Endor was achieved through precisely such methods. He will plan accordingly."

"So we should do the opposite?" Luke suggested.

"Not necessarily," Vader replied, his attention focusing on his son. "But you should be willing to act contrary to your established patterns when the situation demands it. Thrawn's greatest weakness is his assumption that species and cultures are fundamentally predictable. Prove him wrong."

The conversation continued, diving deeper into tactical analysis and strategic planning. Still, you found yourself fascinated despite your attempts to maintain professional distance. This was a side of Vader you hadn't often seen before: not the mystical Force user or the broken patient, but the military commander who had brought entire star systems to its knees.

His insights were devastating in their precision: He spoke of supply lines and fleet positioning with the casual expertise of someone who had orchestrated countless campaigns. When he described potential scenarios for Thrawn's next moves, he painted pictures of military genius that left the Alliance leaders looking increasingly grim.

"The most likely approach," Vader said, his voice taking on the cadence of a lecture, "would be a series of seemingly unconnected strikes designed to test your response capabilities. Thrawn will want to understand how quickly you can mobilize, how effectively you coordinate between different fleet elements, how your command structure handles unexpected threats."

"Testing us," Madine muttered.

"Constantly," Vader confirmed. "And each test will be designed to reveal specific information while simultaneously weakening your overall position. Thrawn doesn't waste moves; every action serves multiple strategic purposes."

"And how do we counter that?" Ackbar asked.

"You give him false information," Vader replied. "Let him study you but ensure that what he learns leads him to incorrect conclusions. Make him believe you're weaker than you are in some areas, stronger in others. Force him to üplan for an enemy that doesn't actually exist."

The complexity of what he was suggesting began to sink in. It wasn't just military strategy; it was psychological warfare on a scale that required thinking several moves ahead of one of the galaxy's most brilliant minds.

"That level of deception would require intimate knowledge of how Thrawn's mind works," Mon Mothma observed.

"Yes," Vader agreed. "Which brings us back to the question of intelligence sources and strategic consultation. This is not a war that can be won through inspiration alone."

After a long pause, Mon Mothma straightened in her chair, her expression returning to its diplomatic neutrality. "Lord Vader, your cooperation in these matters will be noted favourably when your case comes to trial. The Alliance is committed to justice, but we also recognize that justice must be balanced with practical necessity."

"A trial," Vader repeated, his tone giving nothing away.

"Yes," Mon Mothma confirmed. "You must answer for your actions during your service to the Empire. However, your assistance in bringing peace to the galaxy will certainly be taken into consideration during sentencing."

You studied Vader's reaction, trying to read the subtle signs that might indicate his thoughts. Did he expect execution? Life imprisonment? Or had he simply accepted that his fate was no longer in his own hands?

"I understand," he said finally, inclining his head slightly in acknowledgment.

Luke's hand tightened on his father's shoulder. "The Alliance isn't the Empire," he said firmly, addressing the room rather than Vader specifically. "We don't execute prisoners without due process. And Father has already proven his commitment to helping us. He killed the emperor. He saved my life. He didn't have to provide those banking coordinates, but he did it anyway."

Luke’s passionate defence of his father sent complex emotions swirling through your chest. You admired his loyalty, his determination to see the good in everyone, but you also worried about the position he was putting himself in. How much of his own credibility was he willing to stake on his father's redemption?

"Your faith in your father is noted, Luke," Mon Mothma said gently. "And it's precisely that faith that gives us hope for a different kind of justice than the Empire provided."

She turned her attention to you, and you felt the weight of official scrutiny settling on your shoulders. "Doctor, we need your assessment of Lord Vader's current condition and prognosis for recovery."

You straightened, calling on years of medical training to provide a clear, professional summary. "Lord Vader's condition has stabilized significantly since his initial treatment. The cybernetic integration is proceeding within acceptable parameters, though full adaptation will require several more weeks of careful monitoring."

"And his long-term prognosis?" General Dodonna asked.

"With continued medical support and proper rehabilitation, I expect him to regain full mobility and functionality," you replied. "However, the decades of substance dependency and physical trauma have left lasting effects. He will require ongoing medical supervision and periodic adjustments to his prosthetic systems."

"In other words," Admiral Ackbar said bluntly, "he remains dependent on Alliance medical resources."

The political implications weren't lost on anyone in the room. Vader's need for continued treatment provided the Alliance with leverage, a form of insurance against betrayal that didn't require guards or prison cells.

"His dependency is medical, not political," you said firmly, feeling compelled to defend your patient's dignity. "He requires specialized care that few facilities in the galaxy can provide. That's a function of his unique medical needs, not a deliberate constraint."

"Nevertheless," Mon Mothma said, "it provides a certain... stability to our arrangement."

You caught the slight tightening around Vader's eyes and realized that he understood the situation perfectly. He was trading his knowledge and strategic expertise for continued existence, with his medical needs serving as an unspoken reminder of his vulnerability.

"The Alliance council has reached a preliminary decision," Mon Mothma continued. "Lord Vader will be granted provisional status as a strategic advisor, with restrictions on his movement and activities. His trial will be postponed indefinitely, pending resolution of more immediate threats to galactic stability."

"In other words," Vader said with characteristic directness, "my usefulness has temporarily outweighed my crimes."

"Your value to the Alliance extends beyond mere strategic knowledge," Luke said quickly, his voice carrying the fervour of someone desperately trying to reshape the narrative. "You've proven that redemption is possible, that even the darkest souls can find their way back to the light."

The platitudes slid from Vader as easily as blaster bolts once slid from his armor.  He regarded his son with an expression that was equal parts fondness and exasperation, as if Luke's optimism was both his greatest strength and most frustrating weakness.

You sensed an undercurrent of Force-borne communication between father and son, a tension that spoke of fundamental disagreements about the nature of redemption and the path forward. Luke's jaw tightened slightly, and you realized that their philosophical differences ran deeper than simple family reconciliation.

"For now," Mon Mothma said, deliberately pulling the focus back to practicalities, "we require weekly intelligence briefings on Imperial capabilities and possible threats."

Then her attention shifted to you. "Doctor, you will provide weekly medical reports on his state. These meetings are meant to measure his progress, and his continuing worth as an advisor."

"Acceptable," Vader interjected, the word cutting through before you could have voiced a protest.

The formal conclusion of the meeting felt anticlimactic after the tension that had built throughout the discussion. As the Alliance leaders filed out of the room, you caught Mon Mothma's parting words to Luke.

"Your father's cooperation is appreciated, Luke. But don't mistake pragmatic alliance for forgiveness. The galaxy has a long memory, and justice delayed is not justice denied."

Luke's shoulders sagged slightly as the door sealed behind them, leaving the three of you alone in the sudden quiet of the medical bay. The weight of what had just transpired seemed to settle over the room like dust after an explosion.

"Well," you said finally, your voice sounding artificially bright in the aftermath, "that went better than I expected."

"Did it?" Vader asked, turning those penetrating eyes back to you. "They have decided I am more useful alive than dead. For now. That is hardly a ringing endorsement of my prospects."

"Father," Luke began, but Vader held up a cybernetic hand to forestall whatever reassurance was coming.

"I am not a fool, Luke. I understand the nature of our arrangement. My knowledge purchased temporary reprieve from justice, nothing more." His voice carried no bitterness, only the flat acceptance of someone who had long ago stopped expecting mercy from the universe.

"It's more than that," Luke insisted, moving to stand directly in his father's line of sight. "You chose to help them. You chose to turn against the emperor. That has to count for something."

"Does it?" Vader asked quietly. "Can decades of service to the Empire be balanced by a single moment of choice? Can the destruction of worlds be undone by providing banking coordinates?"

The questions hung in the air like accusations, and you found yourself studying both men as they grappled with concepts that had no easy answers. Luke's faith in redemption was admirable, but Vader's scepticism might be more realistic.

"I should check your prosthetic connections," you said finally, breaking the silence before it could become too heavy. "The stress of the meeting may have affected the neural interfaces."

As you moved to gather your diagnostic equipment, you heard Luke's voice drop to a more intimate register. "Father, you don't have to carry all of that alone anymore. The past is the past, but what you choose to do now, that's what matters."

"The past is never truly  past, my son," Vader replied, and there was a weariness in his voice that spoke of burdens that could never be fully set down. "It lives in every scar, every destroyed world, every life cut short by my hand. Your faith in me is... touching. But do not mistake survival for redemption."

You paused in your preparations, struck by the raw honesty in his words. This wasn't the Dark Lord speaking, nor was it your patient. This was simply a man confronting the weight of his own history.

"Maybe redemption isn't something that happens all at once," you said softly, surprised by your own boldness in entering their conversation. "Maybe it's something you build, day by day, choice by choice."

Both turned to look at you, and you felt heat creep up your neck under their combined attention. You hadn't meant to speak.  Professional distance, remember?

 But something about Vader's quiet despair had compelled you to respond.

"The doctor speaks wisdom," Vader said, and there was something in his voice that made your pulse quicken. "Though I fear the construction project may prove more challenging than the architect anticipates."

The reference to your earlier conversation sent warmth spreading through your chest, a reminder of the charged moment you'd shared before the meeting began. Luke's presence made such moments impossible now, but the memory lingered between you like a shared secret.

"Architecture is my specialty," you found yourself saying, meeting Vader's gaze with more confidence than you felt. "I'm very good at building things that last."

The corner of his mouth twitched in what you were learning to recognize as his version of a smile, and you felt something settle in your chest- a dangerous warmth that had nothing to do with professional satisfaction.

In the last few weeks, sleep had become your enemy aboard the Redemption. The endless cycle of tending to Vader’s injuries, monitoring his integration with the prosthetics, and adjusting his medication had left your body hollowed out by fatigue.

 But tonight, exhaustion won. It pulled you down through layers of consciousness until you floated in that liminal space where the mind's defences crumbled and truth emerged wearing the mask of fantasy.

The transformation began subtly. Your cramped quarters expanded like breathing, walls retreating into shadow while the narrow regulation bunk beneath you softened, widened, became something decadent. Fine linen - when had you last felt fabric like that? - slid cool and smooth against your bare skin with each micro-movement. The perpetual chill of recycled air that usually had you burrowing under thermal blankets was gone, replaced by perfect temperature that made you realize you were completely, gloriously naked.

You were so drained, so worn thin, that the dream seemed to take on a strange solidity, more real than anything you had known in sleep before - or at least, none you could remember.

Its just a dream, your medical training supplied helpfully, cataloguing the impossibilities even as your body responded to phantom sensations with very real arousal. REM sleep, heightened activity in the limbic system, decreased prefrontal cortex function leading to-

The clinical assessment shattered as hands materialized from the darkness: large, warm, devastatingly real in their exploration of your ankles. Not phantom touches but deliberate, purposeful, mapping the delicate architecture of bone and tendon with an appreciation that transcended mere lust. These hands knew anatomy, understood the body's secret geography of pleasure, and they intended to chart every inch.

They moved with tortuous slowness up your calves, fingers spreading to encompass muscle, testing give and resistance, occasionally pressing into pressure points that made your breath stutter.

Your thighs parted without conscious volition, some primal part of your brain overriding whatever remained of propriety. The hands accepted the invitation but refused to be rushed, tracing patterns on the inner skin that had you biting your lip to stifle sounds you didn't recognize as your own. Higher, closer, but never quite where you needed, building anticipation until every nerve felt exposed and singing.

How long had it been since another’s hand had given you that kind of touch? Since your own had? The last time you had sought out even the smallest flicker of pleasure, of release, was lost to you, buried somewhere your dream-clouded mind could no longer reach.

The ship’s familiar sounds had faded; no distant hum of engines, no muffled voices from the corridor, no periodic announcements over the comm system. Instead, there was only your breathing, increasingly ragged, and underneath it something else. That particular quality of silence that preceded storms, pregnant with electricity, making the fine hair on your arms stand despite the warmth.+

When those hands finally gripped your hips; firm, possessive, thumbs finding the hollow where bone met flesh, you arched off the bed with a gasp that echoed in the dream-space. But as the grip tightened, flesh seemed to give way to metal; warm skin morphing into durasteel. Cybernetic fingers, unyielding and cold, pinned you in place. There was strength there, controlled but undeniable, the kind that could shatter or worship with equal ease. They held you steady as weight settled over you, solid and inescapably male, the steel of his body a paradox of both terror and desire.

Vader. The name formed in your mind but refused to pass your lips, the impossibility of it too vast even for a dream.

His mouth found your breast without preamble, wet heat closing over the peaked nipple with an intensity that had you crying out. No gentle exploration, no tentative testing; he sucked hard, tongue flicking against the sensitive bud while his hand claimed its twin, rolling and pinching with exactly the right pressure. You'd forgotten, or perhaps never known, that your breasts could be this sensitive, each pull of his mouth sending electricity straight to your core.

Your palms brushed over the scarred skin of his bare scalp, the ridges and furrows undeniable. Real. Far too real.

You pulled, not to push away but to hold him there, and felt rather than heard his groan vibrate against your flesh. He switched sides, lavishing the same intense attention on your other breast while his hand kept the first stimulated, never allowing the sensation to fade.

"Please," you heard yourself whisper, the word emerging without thought or intention. Your hips rolled upward, seeking friction, finding the hard length of him pressed against your thigh. The size of him made you gasp; thick, hot even through whatever barriers remained between you, pulsing with need that matched your own.

"Please what?" His voice came then- low, raw, the first sound he had made in this dream. It was the same deep rasp you had grown so accustomed to in waking life, a tone that scraped at your nerves and yet, to your shame, you realized how much you wanted to hear it. "Tell me what you need. I want to hear you say it."

This is wrong, some distant part of your consciousness protested. The power dynamic, the ethics, the sheer impossibility-

But it was just a dream. Here, neither duty nor responsibility existed. Here, the throne belonged to yearning and to passion.

"I need you inside me," you gasped, the words torn from somewhere deeper than thought. "Please, I can't- it's been so long, and I need-"

His kiss silenced you, nothing tender about it. This was claiming, possession, his tongue invading your mouth with the same intensity he'd shown your breasts. You could taste darkness on him, smoke and ozone and something metallic that should have been concerning but only made you moan into his mouth. For a fleeting moment, you wondered if it was a kind of narcissism arousing you so fiercely; your own handiwork turning you on, the metal you'd installed in him now tangible in this intimacy, its cool alloy lingering on your tongue  and pressing firmly against your body through his embrace.

His hand tangled in your hair, holding you in place while he plundered, and you gave as good as you got, biting his lower lip hard enough to draw a hiss.

"So passionate," he breathed against your lips, and you could hear the smile in his tone. "Doc, with your fire that hides until it blazes. Do you realize how you look when resolve grips you? When your gaze sharpens and you meet a challenge head-on? 've imagined this, imagined you, coming apart beneath me with that same intensity."

His fingers found your entrance, sliding through wetness that would have embarrassed you in waking life but here only made you spread wider, shameless in your need. Two fingers of cold metal pushed inside, unyielding as forged steel, the hardness stark against the vulnerable heat of your body, curling to find that spot that made you see stars.

"So wet," he observed with clinical detachment even as his fingers worked you ruthlessly. Those words eased you further, because you knew the real Vader could not yet feel sensations like wetness through his prosthetics; the receptors still had to be activated. But soon, your logical mind was pushed aside.

"Your body knows what it needs even if your mind resists. Tell me: when did you last allow yourself this? When did you last put your own needs before duty?"

You couldn't answer, could only writhe as he added a third finger, stretching you, preparing you while his thumb found your clit with unerring accuracy. The dual stimulation was overwhelming, pleasure building too fast, too intense after such a long time without any touch.

"That's it," he encouraged as your walls began fluttering around his fingers. "Let go. Let me see you fall apart."

But just as you teetered on the edge, he withdrew, leaving you empty and gasping with loss. Before you could protest, he was positioning himself, the broad head of his cock pressing against your entrance. Even in the dream, even prepared, the size gave you pause.

"Look at me," he commanded, and suddenly there was light; not bright but enough to see ice-blue eyes boring into yours, enough to see scars mapping pale skin, enough to see the intensity of his focus entirely on you. "I want to watch you take me. I want to see your eyes when you realize you were made for this."

He pushed inside slowly, inexorably, stretching you beyond what seemed possible. Every inch was exquisite torture, your body struggling to accommodate him even as it welcomed the invasion. When he finally hilted himself fully, buried to the root, your bodies joined as completely as physics allowed, a moan tore from your throat -raw, unfiltered, laced with awe. "Oh gods... you feel so incredible," you gasped, the words spilling out in a breathless stutter, your voice trembling with the intensity of it. The fullness was intoxicating, a perfect stretch that bordered on too much yet hit every nerve just right, sending sparks of ecstasy dancing along your spine. You felt complete, as if every empty space within you had been claimed, filled by him alone. Your hips shifted instinctively, grinding against him to savour the depth, and a fresh wave of pleasure crashed over you, making your vision blur at the edges.

"Doc," he breathed, holding still despite the tremor in his arms that betrayed his control. "You feel perfect. Like you were crafted specifically for me."

When he moved, it was with the same deliberate precision he brought to everything: calculating angle and depth, watching your face for reactions, adjusting until he found the exact motion that had you keening. Then he was relentless, each thrust driving deep, hitting spots inside you that made you scream.

Your legs wrapped around his waist, heels digging into his lower back, urging him deeper, harder with each desperate buck of your hips. The rhythmic slap of flesh against flesh echoed through the dream-space, a primal cadence punctuated by your increasingly frantic moans and his harsh, ragged breathing, deep pulls of air that rumbled from his scarred chest like distant thunder. The air between you felt charged, thick with the scent of sweat and arousal, every sensation amplified in this subconscious realm where boundaries blurred and desires ran unchecked.

His cybernetic hand found your throat then, not squeezing but resting there possessively, the cool metal of his palm a stark contrast to your heated skin as he felt your pulse race wildly beneath it. The touch sent shivers racing down your spine, heightening the intensity, reminding you of the power he wielded - even in vulnerability, even in this dream. It was intimate, claiming, and you arched into it instinctively, your body craving the dominance laced with that rare glimpse of tenderness you'd seen in his eyes during his recovery.

"Mine," he moaned, the word escaping on a low, raw vibration that wasn't a question but a declaration, his voice unfiltered and rough, carrying the weight of years unspoken. "Say it. Tell me you're mine."

"Yours," you gasped, the admission tumbling out too far gone in the haze of pleasure to consider the implications, your mind a whirlwind of need and surrender. The word felt like a release, a confession that bound you tighter to him. "Please, I'm so close, I need-"

Before you could finish, his cybernetic hand slid from your throat, trailing a cool path down your side until it gripped your hip firmly, fingers digging into your flesh with unyielding strength. He adjusted his angle just slightly with that hold, tilting your pelvis upward in a calculated move that made every subsequent thrust strike deeper, more precisely. The shift was electric, sending jolts of ecstasy radiating through you, your inner walls clenching around him in anticipation.

You gasped at the change, your back arching involuntarily, heels pressing harder into his lower back as pleasure spiked sharp and unrelenting. The adjustment was masterful, intimate, a reminder of his mechanical expertise even in passion. Once the angle was set, his hand didn't linger; it slid smoothly from your hip, gliding down between your sweat-slicked bodies with deliberate intent to find that sensitive bundle of nerves. His thumb pressed against your clit, circling with a pressure that teetered on the edge of too much; rough and insistent, the cool alloy of his cybernetic digit contrasting with the heat of your arousal, sending fresh shivers racing up your spine. The sensation built the tension to an unbearable peak as he continued to drive into you, each powerful thrust synchronized with the rhythmic press of his thumb, amplifying everything until your moans turned into desperate pleas.

"Vader," you gasped, the name finally slipping past your lips like a forbidden confession, a desperate prayer, a sweet damnation that echoed in the void around you. It felt right, inevitable, as if uttering it sealed this moment into something more than fantasy.

"Again," he demanded, his voice a guttural growl, eyes locking onto yours with that piercing intensity, daring you to hold back.

"Vader!" The cry came louder this time, your voice breaking as his thumb redoubled its efforts on your clit, pressing harder in sync with his rhythm. Each movement built upon the last, a seamless escalation that left no room for breath or thought -only the overwhelming spiral of sensation coiling tighter within you.

The orgasm built deep in your core, a relentless pressure starting there and spreading outward like a shock wave through your limbs, your nerves alight with fire. You could feel it approaching like a storm front on the horizon: inevitable, devastating, a force you both dreaded for its power to shatter you and craved for the release it promised. Your breaths came in short, ragged gasps, body trembling beneath him, every muscle tensing in exquisite anticipation as the dream-space seemed to pulse in time with your racing heart.

"That's it," he encouraged, voice dropping to a deep, raw bass. "Let me feel you surrender completely. Show me what lurks beneath that professional composure."

When it hit, it was with the force of a proton torpedo, completely destroying what remained of your control. “Oh fuuck yes… I’m going to come.”

Your eyes rolled back, and you did scream his name as your body convulsed beneath him. This climax was almost painful in its intensity, muscles clenching and releasing in waves that seemed endless, vision whiting out at the edges.

He drove into you through it, prolonging the sensation until you were sobbing with overstimulation, until pleasure and pain became indistinguishable.

 "Oh gods... I'm cumming," he finally groaned, the announcement raw and unfiltered, his voice breaking with the admission; a rare crack in his composure that made your heart stutter.

You felt it - the incredible rush as he pulsed inside you, his release flooding you in hot, thick spurts that filled you completely. Each throb sent fresh waves of sensation through your oversensitive walls, the warmth spreading deep, making you gasp at the intimacy of it. It was overwhelming, perfect: the way he claimed you from within, marking you in a way that felt primal and profound.

Afterward, in that floating space that exists in dreams, you lay entangled with him, his mechanical hand traced lazy patterns on your cooling skin while his other hand tangled in your hair, and you could feel your  both hearts slowly returning to baseline.

"This is just a dream. This doesn't change anything," you murmured against his scarred skin, tasting salt on your lips.

"No," he agreed. "But it changes everything."

The paradox should have bothered you, but dreams have their own logic. You were already fading, being pulled back toward waking, toward the narrow bunk and the endless demands of rebellion.

"Will you remember?" he asked, and there was something vulnerable in the question, something that didn't fit with either version of him you knew.

"Will you?" you countered, already knowing the answer. This was your dream, your subconscious rebellion, your secret shame made manifest.

The last thing you felt before waking was his lips against your forehead, gentle in a way nothing else had been, and his whispered words: "Every moment, until the stars burn cold."

You woke gasping in your quarters, sheets tangled around your legs, body flushed and aching with phantom sensations. Your fingertips traced the lines of your own body, part of you bracing to find yourself uncovered, naked beneath the weight of the dream.  Between your legs, however, the wetness was real, the lingering pulse of orgasm still making your thighs tremble.

From your chronometer, only an hour had passed, but you felt as though you'd lived entire lifetimes in that dream. You could still feel the contrast of metal and flesh against your skin, still hear that voice rumbling through your bones.

You pressed your palms against your eyes, trying to dispel the images, but they were seared into memory now. Not just the physical aspects, though those were vivid enough to make you blush in the darkness, but the emotional ones.

"What the actual fuck," you whispered to the darkness, pressing your palms harder against your eyes, hard enough to see phosphenes burst behind your lids. Your medical training tried to rationalize it: stress-induced parasomnia, your exhausted mind processing the intensity of the past weeks in the most inappropriate way possible. But clinical explanations didn't help when you could still feel the phantom sensation of his scarred lips against yours, still hear that deep voice commanding you to-

No.

You sat up abruptly, the recycled air of the ship raising goosebumps along your arms. The chronometer's green glow mocked you: 0347. The dead of night cycle, when even the Redemption's usual bustle faded to distant engine hums and life support whispers.

Your bare feet hit the cold durasteel floor with a shock that helped ground you slightly. Without overthinking it - because overthinking had clearly led your subconscious down this catastrophic path- you grabbed your medical coat from its hook, throwing it over your sleep clothes. The familiar weight of it should have been comforting, but the fabric sliding over your sensitized skin only reminded you how thoroughly your dream had affected you.

The corridors stretched before you like a maze of shadows, emergency lighting casting everything in harsh angles and deep pools of darkness. Your footsteps echoed softly, the sound bouncing off bulkheads in a rhythm that matched your still-elevated pulse. The ship felt different at this hour; almost alive, breathing around you with its mechanical lungs.

You'd made this journey to Jano's quarters so many times it had worn grooves in your memory. After that disastrous surgery where three pilots bled out despite your best efforts. After diagnosing terminal cases in soldiers barely old enough to shave. After countless nights when the weight of being responsible for so many lives threatened to crush you. Whenever one of your exes left you high and dry again or when a date spiralled into disaster before you’d even finished your drink. But never for this. Never because your subconscious had decided to cast your patient, your severely injured, vulnerable, entirely dependent patient, as the star of an erotic fantasy that would make a Zeltron blush.

Three rapid chimes at his door -the wait felt eternal, each second stretching as you shifted your weight, acutely aware of how thin your sleep shorts were beneath the coat. Muffled cursing filtered through the door, followed by the distinctive sound of someone stumbling into furniture.

When the door finally hissed open, Jano looked like he'd been assembled by someone working from a vague description of a human. His dark hair defied several laws of physics, one eye remained determinedly shut, and his clothes appeared to have been selected by random chance—inside-out shirt, mismatched sleep pants hanging precariously low on his hips.

"Is this an actual medical emergency, or are you just being dramatic again?" His voice carried that particular roughness of interrupted sleep, but beneath the grumpy exterior, you caught the fondness that came from years of shared trauma, friendship and terrible hospital caf.

"For someone who has shift in less than one hour, you look like you've been run through a meat grinder," you shot back, pushing past him before he could object. His quarters enveloped you in familiar comfort: organized where yours was chaos, personal touches that spoke of a life outside the medbay. The faint scent of his aftershave mixed with the ever-present antiseptic they all carried like cologne.

He groaned, shuffling toward his kitchenette with the coordination of someone operating on muscle memory alone. "Fine, come in, make yourself at home, steal my sleep. What catastrophe couldn't wait until a reasonable hour?"

You began pacing, your bare feet silent on his floor, hands wringing as anxiety crawled up your spine like a living thing. The words stuck in your throat, how did you even begin to explain this without sounding completely unhinged? You watched him fumble with the caf maker, the machine beeping in protest before reluctantly starting its cycle.

"I'm chronically undersexed."

The silence that followed could have been measured in geological time. Jano froze mid-reach for his favourite mug, the one with 'Galaxy's Okayest Doctor' printed on it, and turned to stare at you with both eyes now fully operational.

"You woke me up at three-kriffing-forty-seven in the morning to tell me you need to get laid?" Disbelief sharpened his tone, though his lips twitched with suppressed amusement. "Well, as you know, I’m gay. So, unless you’ve suddenly had a revelation about your gender and, in the same breath, undergone gender reassignment surgery, I don’t know what you expect from me. Why aren’t you knocking on Luke Skywalker’s door instead? The boy practically trips over his own lightsaber every time you walk past."

Heat flooded your face, creeping down your neck in a wave of mortification. Your fingers twisted in the hem of your coat as you forced the words out. "That wouldn't work because I just had a dream where his father was fucking me into next week."

The spray of cold caf across his counter was almost artistic in its coverage. Jano choked, coughed, wheezed, his face turning an alarming shade of red as he pounded his chest. "I'm sorry, could you repeat that? Because I could have sworn you just said-"

"I'm not repeating it." You crossed your arms defensively, the coat shifting to reveal more of your sleep clothes. "You heard exactly what I said."

The laugh that erupted from him started in his chest and exploded outward, his whole body shaking with mirth. He gripped the counter for support, tears streaming down his face as he gasped for breath between bouts of hysteria.

"This is NOT funny!" you hissed, your voice cracking with embarrassment. Your entire body felt like it was on fire, shame and residual arousal creating a cocktail of misery that made you want to flee back to your quarters and hide under a blanket forever.

"Oh, but it is," he wheezed, wiping his eyes with trembling hands. His shoulders still shook with suppressed laughter as he properly started the caf maker. "Your taste in men has always been questionable—remember Director Krennic’s nephew? Or that smuggler who turned out to be married to three different people? But this?" He gestured grandly, nearly knocking over the sugar container. "This takes the crown. Darth Vader?"

Your face achieved temperatures that shouldn't be possible without spontaneous combustion.. "You're missing the point entirely!"

"No, no, I think the point is that you want Darth Vader to-"

"He's my PATIENT!" The words exploded from you with enough force to cut off whatever crude gesture he was about to make. Your hands clenched into fists, nails digging into your palms. "Do you understand how unethical this is? The power dynamic alone… it's a complete violation of every medical oath I've ever taken. I can't have these thoughts about someone under my care!"

The severity in your voice finally penetrated his amusement. Jano's laughter gradually subsided to occasional chuckles as he poured two cups of caf, the rich aroma filling the small space. He handed you one, the heat of it grounding against your palm, before guiding you to his small couch.

"It's just a dream," he said, settling beside you with his own cup. Steam rose between you like a peace offering. "Your subconscious processing stress in weird ways. Not like you acted on it."

You collapsed deeper into the cushions, the worn fabric familiar from countless late-night conversations. "A dream that he'll probably see the moment I walk into that room." The thought sent fresh panic spiralling through you. You could picture it perfectly: those penetrating eyes locking onto yours, his expression shifting as he plucked every sordid detail from your mind like pulling threads from fabric. "Kriffing Force. He reads my thoughts like I read his medical charts."

"Ah." Understanding dawned on Jano's face, his expression shifting to genuine sympathy. He set his cup on the low table, leaning back to study you. "That's... yeah, that could be awkward."

"Awkward?" You clutched the caf like a lifeline, the ceramic warm against your palms. "It's a disaster. How am I supposed to maintain professional boundaries when my subconscious is apparently writing pornographic holonovelas?"

A moment of contemplative silence, then Jano tilted his head with scientific curiosity. "Does he even have the equipment for that?"

The caf nearly ended up in your lap. You stared at him, jaw dropping at the sheer audacity. "Are you seriously asking me that right now?"

"Well, yeah." He made a vague gesture downward, his expression a blend of genuine medical interest and barely suppressed mirth. "You said he lost all his limbs. When you said 'all,' I thought maybe that meant... you know, all five."

With a sharp exhale, you set the mug down on the nearest table before pressing your palms over your eyes. The conversation had officially descended into absurdist territory. "I cannot believe this conversation is happening."

"Come on," he prodded, leaning forward with the enthusiasm of someone about to hear classified intel. "You've seen him. During surgeries, examinations. You must know."

"Why are we discussing Darth Vader's anatomical completeness at oh-four-hundred in the morning?"

"Because you brought it up! Literally!"

You slouched until you were practically horizontal, the coat falling open to reveal your thin sleep clothes. The admission burned on your tongue, but Jano would never let it go if you didn't answer. "Yes, fine. He has... the necessary anatomy. More than adequately, if you must know."

Jano let out a low whistle that would have been appreciative if it wasn't so infuriating. "More than adequate, huh? How much more are we talking-"

"FOCUS!" You smacked his arm, the contact sharp enough to sting your palm. Your face felt like it might actually catch fire. "This is serious! I can't face him today. Not with this in my head. He'll take one look at me and know exactly what my treacherous brain conjured up."

The panic was real now, clawing at your chest. You could already imagine the scenario- walking into his room, trying to maintain professional composure while he lay there, knowing. Would he say something? Would he just stare at you with those intense eyes, letting you squirm in your shame?

"So what do you want me to do about it?"

You turned to him with your most pathetic expression. "Cover Vader for me today? Please? I'll take all your shifts for the next week, handle all your patients-"

"Oh, you mean the patients you've been neglecting for weeks while playing personal physician to the Empire's former enforcer?" The teasing was gentle, but it hit its mark.

You fixed him with a glare that could have sterilized an entire surgical suite.

He sighed dramatically, throwing his hands up in surrender. "Fine. ONE day. That's it."

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" You launched yourself at him, relief flooding through your system like the best painkiller in the galaxy. His familiar warmth, the scent of his soap, the solid presence of someone who knew all your worst parts and still tolerated you- it all combined to make you feel marginally human again.

"Yeah, yeah." He patted your back awkwardly before pulling away to grab his holopad. "Now, walk me through exactly what I need to do for tall, dark, and mechanically enhanced."

You switched immediately into professional mode, the familiar territory of medical procedures providing blessed refuge from emotional chaos. "Right. Check his arm prosthetics first thing, the neural connections have been fluctuating, probably needs recalibration. Monitor his lung function hourly; we're still watching for rejection signs even though the transplant seems stable. Make sure he actually eats-"

Jano's eyebrows climbed toward his hairline. "Eats? What, does he need someone to make spacecraft noises to get the spoon in his mouth?"

"He's not a fan of the vita-paste," you explained, remembering the subtle but unmistakable distaste on Vader's scarred features. "Texture issues, I think, though he'd never admit it. Long story, but you might need to convince him that proper nutrition is non-negotiable for healing."

"Of course he's a picky eater on top of everything else." Jano pulled out his holopad, making notes with practiced efficiency. "Anything else I should know? Any other... special preferences I should be aware of? Does he like his blowjobs deepthroat or all over the face?"

Your jaw dropped so fast you nearly dislocated it. The sheer inappropriate audacity of the question short-circuited your brain for a solid three seconds before indignation kicked in. "I'm going to murder you in your sleep."

"You'd miss me too much." He handed you his patient roster on another holopad, his grin absolutely insufferable. "Here, enjoy dealing with the senator who's convinced his prosthetic finger is giving him the wrong sensation when he’s doing certain….movements downstairs, the pilot whose cybernetic eye keeps 'glitching' but really just needs to stop installing bootleg software, and - oh, your favourite - little Mirae from the paediatric ward needs her neural interface adjusted again. You know, the ward you haven't visited in three weeks because you've been too busy playing with your new Imperial toyboy?”

You took the holopad with considerably less enthusiasm, already dreading the mundane complaints after weeks of complex surgical challenges. "Still better than explaining Darth Vader why I'm projecting X-rated thoughts about him."

"You know," Jano said thoughtfully as you headed for the door, his voice taking on that particular tone that meant he was about to say something annoyingly insightful, "most people just deal with workplace crushes by avoiding the break room. But you? You had to go and develop feelings for the galaxy's most notorious-"

"It's NOT feelings!" You whirled around in the doorway, the coat flaring dramatically with the movement. "It's stress! And exhaustion! And... and hormones!"

"Sure, whatever helps you sleep at night." His grin widened impossibly. "Though apparently, sleeping is exactly the problem."

You made a gesture that would have gotten you expelled from medical school and stormed toward the door, your bare feet slapping against the floor with satisfying emphasis.

"Hey," he called after you, his voice softening to something genuine. "It really will be okay. Dreams are just dreams. Even Force users can't hold our subconscious against us."

You paused at the threshold, managing a weak smile over your shoulder. The knot in your chest loosened just a fraction. "From your mouth to the Force's ears. And Jano? If you mention this to anyone-"

"I know, I know. You'll use me for prosthetic practice. Now get out of here. Some of us still have two hours of sleep to salvage."

As the door hissed shut behind you, sealing you back into the corridor's chill, you clutched the holopad with your new patient assignments and tried very hard not to think about ice-blue eyes and cybernetic hands. The emergency lights seemed less ominous now, more like guides leading you forward rather than harsh judges of your inappropriate subconscious.

You had rounds to complete, patients to treat, and absolutely no time to analyze why your mind had decided to fixate on the one man in the galaxy who was completely, utterly, catastrophically off-limits.

At least Jano would handle today.

Tomorrow, you promised yourself. Tomorrow you'd face him again, armed with professional distance and absolutely no memory of that dream.

You were an excellent liar, even to yourself.

The dream had changed nothing.

The dream had changed everything.

Chapter Text

The paediatric cybernetics ward assaulted your senses before you'd even fully crossed the threshold: a kaleidoscope of controlled chaos that somehow felt more alive than any other section of the medical facility. Cheerful murals sprawled across every available surface, their pastel star systems and dancing cartoon droids waging a valiant war against institutional sterility. The air carried that particular cocktail unique to children's wards: antiseptic sharp enough to sting your nostrils, underlaid with something indefinably young, perhaps the lingering sweetness of the flavoured nutrition supplements they used here.

"DOCTOR!"

The chorus hit you like a physical force, small bodies launching themselves from beds and chairs with the kind of enthusiasm that made your chest constrict with something between joy and guilt. Those with functioning prosthetics led the charge while others wheeled or hobbled with determination that would have shamed most adult patients. Tiny hands grabbed at everything they could reach: your coat, your legs, the medical bag that swung dangerously as you tried to maintain balance against the onslaught.

Three weeks. You abandoned them for three weeks.

"Zeek said you forgot about us!" Six-year-old Jules tugged at your sleeve with fingers that clicked softly against the fabric, the prosthetic's pressure sensors still slightly miscalibrated in their enthusiasm settings.

"Did not!" Zeek's protest carried from his bed, where neural interface cables still snaked from the ports behind his ears like metallic dreadlocks. The boy's face scrunched with indignation as he sat up straighter. " I said that Dr Reeves said that you are totally into this cute boy who convinced you to fix his dad who's actually a super scary wizard with evil magic powers who won't let you leave!"

Jano, you're a dead man walking.

"You're all important," you managed, attempting to distribute hugs equally among the grabbing hands while plotting your colleague's demise in increasingly creative ways. Sina, a Twi'lek girl with bilateral leg replacements wrapped her arms around your waist, her lekku twitching with pure joy.

The weight of their affection pressed against more than just your body. It lodged somewhere beneath your ribs, a reminder of responsibilities beyond the gravitational pull of room seven and its infuriating occupant. These children needed you present, focused, not lost in wildly inappropriate dreams about cybernetic fingers and that particular way his voice dropped when he-

Stop. Just stop.

K0-Z1, the ward’s resident droid, affectionately nicknamed Kozi by the children, rolled forward with a smooth whirr of servomotors, its photoreceptors flashing a soft green as it surveyed the bustling group. The voice that followed was firm yet warm, carrying the kind of practiced authority only long service in a children’s ward could instil.

“Alright, children, that’s enough. Let the doctor through, she’s here to see Mirae,” K0-Z1reminded them, modulating the tone to just the right register between command and comfort. “And you all know Mirae needs it extra quiet during her adjustments.”

The crowd dispersed with theatrical reluctance, though not without extracting promises that you'd check on each of them before leaving. Your path to the corner bed felt like walking through a minefield of expectant faces, each one a small reminder of time lost to a different patient entirely.

Mirae sat rigidly upright in her bed, her gaze fixed on the wall with the kind of fierce determination that looked wrong on an eight-year-old face. Dark hair fell in neat braids adorned with colourful beads; K0-Z1’s work, clicking softly with each minute movement like a gentle percussion accompaniment to the ward's ambient noise.

Two months since the accident. Two months since the amputation. Zero steps taken. But given the scale of her trauma - losing not only her legs but her parents as well - those missing steps were all too understandable.

"Hey, sweetheart," you said softly, settling onto the stool beside her bed with practiced ease. Your medical kit clinked as you set it down, a familiar sound that made her small shoulders tense like approaching thunder. "Heard you've been giving the physical therapy team a run for their credits."

"I don't need their help." The words came out hard, brittle. Still not looking at you, her small hands twisted the sheets into knots that matched the one in your chest. "I don't need anyone's help."

"Mm-hmm." You pulled up her chart on your datapad, the numbers painting a picture of technical perfection that mocked the reality before you. Every reading optimal, every interface connection flawless. The prosthetics should feel like extensions of herself by now, as natural as breathing. Instead, this brilliant, stubborn child remained earthbound by something no diagnostic could measure. "Well, how about instead of help, we call it... adjustments? Like tuning an instrument. Even the best musicians need their instruments tuned sometimes."

That earned you a glance; huge brown eyes carrying too much pain for someone who should be worried about schoolwork and friend drama, not neural interface rejection. "It's not the same."

"No," you agreed quietly, pulling on examination gloves with the soft snap of synthex that made several children look over with curious interest. "It's not. Want to tell me what feels different while I check the neural connections?"

You lifted her right leg with the utmost gentleness, noting the way she flinched despite the complete absence of pain. The prosthetic was near flawless, its frame concealed beneath layers of synthetic dermis that made it indistinguishable from a natural limb. At a glance, no one would ever know where flesh ended and technology began. Yet that seamless perfection seemed to estrange her even more; she rejected it not because of how it looked, but because of what it represented.

Your fingers found the neural interface port just below her knee, muscle memory guiding you through connection checks while your mind processed the subtle feedback. Your cybernetic hand interfaced directly with her prosthetic, data streams cascading across your internal display in patterns you'd learned to read like poetry.

"Everything feels..." Mirae struggled, her face scrunching with the effort of translating sensation into language. "Fake. Like I'm wearing something. Not like it's me."

"That's actually really good feedback." You made notes one-handed, the other maintaining connection with her prosthetic as you parsed through miles of neural pathway data. "The neural mapping might need adjustment. Sometimes our brains are too smart for their own good; they know something's changed and refuse to accept the new signals, even when they're perfect. Stubborn things, brains. Almost as stubborn as eight-year-old girls who won't let anyone help them."

The ghost of a smile flickered across her face before disappearing back into determined stoicism.

"Can you fix it?" The question came out small, hope wrapped in protective layers of indifference.

"We're going to try something different today," you said, pulling out a specialized calibration tool that looked deceptively simple for something that could rewire neural pathways. "Instead of forcing your brain to accept the prosthetic signals, we're going to teach the prosthetic to speak your brain's language better. It might tickle a bit."

The work required absolute focus, microadjustments measured in fractions of millimeters, each one potentially the difference between acceptance and rejection. Your world narrowed to bioelectric feedback patterns, minute muscle responses, the way Mirae's breathing shifted with each recalibration.

"Doctor?" Mirae's voice pulled you back. "Do you... does your arm feel fake?"

Your hands paused in their work. "Sometimes," you admitted, looking at your cybernetic limb as if seeing it for the first time in years. "Especially when I first wake up, there's this moment where my brain forgets and expects flesh instead of metal. But then I remember that this arm lets me do things I never could before; like interface directly with other cybernetics to help kids like you. It's different, not less than."

"But you're brave and strong," she whispered, the words carrying the weight of absolute truth in her child's worldview. "I'm not."

"Sweetheart, you are brave and strong, you're eight years old and dealing with something most adults couldn't handle. That's not just brave, that's-"

Doc.

The voice sliced through your concentration with surgical precision; deep, commanding, that particular baritone that no longer carried mechanical modulation but somehow felt even more invasive in its raw humanity. Your hand jerked infinitesimally, nearly disrupting the delicate calibration.

Of course. Of fucking course he chooses now.

Doc, where are you?

The Force, apparently, believed in neither professional boundaries nor appropriate timing. You fought to keep your expression neutral as Mirae watched you with growing concern, those too-knowing eyes searching your face for signs of what had changed.

"Sorry, sweetie, just need to... concentrate for a second." You refocused on the interface with deliberate intensity, trying to construct mental barriers against the intrusion. The way he said 'Doc' in that telepathic voice, it resonated differently than spoken words, seeming to vibrate through your bones in a way that was disturbingly reminiscent of-

Absolutely not. Not while treating a child, you depraved excuse for a medical professional.

I'm working, you projected back, loading the thought with as much professional ice as you could muster. Other patients exist, you know. Some who actually appreciate medical care.

What could possibly-

 The pause felt loaded, his attention sharpening like a blade focusing through your connection, reading your surroundings through senses you didn't fully understand. You're with children.

Yes, the paediatric cybernetics ward. Remember those? Small humans who need medical care.

And then, another ripple of thought, edged with confusion: Why are there so many children on a medical Rebel frigate?

You exhaled through your nose, pressing the back of your glove to your brow as if to ground yourself. Because wars don’t spare the small ones. Some are the children of Alliance personnel, caught in the crossfire. Others… your throat tightened, but you forced the words out anyway, war orphans. They end up here because there’s nowhere else for them to go.

The shift in his mental presence was subtle but unmistakable, not softer exactly, but... less aggressive. Like a predator deciding the prey wasn't worth the energy expenditure. Your replacement is incompetent.

Dr. Reeves is perfectly capable of handling routine checks. You made another micro-adjustment to Mirae's interface, pleased when her toes wiggled without prompting. He's been my colleague for years and has excellent credentials.

He called me 'dude.'

You had to bite your lip hard enough to hurt to keep from laughing out loud.

And that's a medical emergency?

He also suggested I should 'chill out' about the nutrition requirements. The mental voice dripped with enough disgust to corrode durasteel. And his hands shake.

Everyone's hands shake around you. You're terrifying. The thought escaped before you could censor it, chased immediately by a wave of mortification.

A pause. Then, unexpected You're not afraid of me.

The observation hung between you, weighted with something you absolutely were not equipped to examine while surrounded by injured children. Your fingers continued their work on autopilot, muscle memory taking over while your mind raced through possible responses, each one more dangerous than the last.

I'm busy with patients who actually appreciate medical care, you deflected, coward that you were. Patients I've neglected for weeks because someone requires constant supervision despite being perfectly capable of basic self-care.

I did not request constant supervision. The injured pride in that mental voice almost made you smile. You chose to prioritize-

Medical necessity. You were dying. Repeatedly. You finished the last adjustment on Mirae's right leg, moving to the left with movements that felt too normal for this surreal conversation. Now you're stable enough for standard care.

Another pause. You could feel him processing. The children's chatter created a backdrop of normalcy that made the telepathic conversation feel even more like you'd slipped into some parallel dimension.

You sound like you miss me, my lord…

Hardly, he shot back, I simply prefer competent medical care to amateur fumbling. Whatever is bothering you so much that you-

I'll be back tomorrow, you interrupted before he could finish that extremely dangerous thought. Try not to traumatize Dr. Reeves too badly.

No promises.

The connection severed abruptly, leaving an odd hollowness in your thoughts, like a tooth freshly missing. You realized your hands had stilled completely, frozen over Mirae's prosthetic as your mind reeled from the interaction.

"Doctor? Are you okay?" Mirae's worried voice snapped you back to the present with jarring clarity.

"Perfect, sweetie. Just thinking about your adjustments." You resumed working with renewed determination, pushing all thoughts of room seven to the darkest corners of your mind. "How does that feel now?"

Mirae cautiously flexed her ankle, eyes widening with surprise. "It... it feels less weird?"

"Good. We'll do this in stages, okay? Your brain needs time to adapt." You sealed the interface ports with practiced efficiency, then pulled off your gloves with perhaps more force than necessary. "Want to try just putting weight on them today? Not walking, just standing while holding the parallel bars?"

She bit her lip, fear and hope warring across her expressive face. "Maybe?"

"See? You are brave." You squeezed her shoulder gently, feeling the bird-fragile bones beneath your fingers. "Remember, different doesn't mean-"

The ward doors slid open with enough force to make everyone jump, the hydraulics protesting the rough treatment. Jano stalked through like a man who'd wrestled a rancor and come out the distinct loser. His usually immaculate hair stuck up in diffrent directions, his medical coat bore suspicious stains that looked disturbingly like vita paste and his expression promised murder in several creative variations.

He spotted you, locked eyes with laser focus, and stalked over with the determination of a man on a mission.

"Kriffing hell," he muttered, just loud enough for everyone to hear. "Your patient-"

The children immediately perked up at the drama. Nothing entertained them quite like adults acting foolish.

"Dr. Reeves said the k-word!" Zeek announced gleefully. "That's ten credits in the swear jar!"

"Twenty," Rese corrected. "He said two on the way in!"

"It's for charity," you reminded Jano sweetly, trying not to laugh at his dishevelled state. "The Children's Prosthetics Fund thanks you for your contribution."

"Your patient," Jano ground out through clenched teeth, his finger pointing at you with accusatory precision, "is the absolute worst sentient being I've encountered in five years of practice. And I'm including that Hutt who literally tried to eat me."

"What happened?" You couldn't quite keep the amusement from your voice, which only made his glare intensify to solar levels.

"What happened?" His voice pitched higher with indignation. "He called me 'nurse.' Not once, not twice, but seventeen times. Seventeen! I counted!"

"Nursing is a noble profession," you said mildly, finishing your notes on Mirae's chart while trying not to laugh at the vita paste slowly sliding down his collar. "Many of our best colleagues are-"

"That's not the point and you know it!" Heran his hands through his already destroyed hair, making it worse somehow. "He did it specifically to irritate me. Every time I corrected him, he'd wait exactly thirty seconds and do it again. 'Nurse, the neural connections appear adequate.' 'Nurse, your calibration technique needs work.' 'Nurse, perhaps you should consider a career change.'"

Several children giggled openly now. You pressed your lips together hard enough to hurt, fighting the laughter building in your chest. "He…what?"

"Oh yes." Sarcasm dripped from every word like acid. "Apparently, my 'nervous disposition' would be better suited to mixing drinks in a cantina. He said and I quote 'At least then your shaking hands would serve a purpose.'"

"He's in pain," you offered weakly, though your shoulders shook with suppressed mirth. "Chronic pain makes people-"

"He ate nothing." Jano interrupted, gesturing wildly with both hands, his fingers splaying out as if to encompass the full scope of his outrage, nearly knocking over a nearby tray of medical supplies. The clatter of shifting instruments drew a few more curious glances from the children, who were now fully invested in the unfolding drama, their small faces alight with the thrill of adult chaos. "Nothing! Just sat there with those creepy blue eyes, judging my entire existence while refusing basic nutrition. Like I'm some incompetent server at a cantina, not a kriffing doctor! And as I was about to leave the room, a considerable amount of his vita paste magically landed on my freshly washed coat. And he has the audacity to sit there and stare stoically as if nothing had happened.”

The ward seemed to hold its breath around you, the cheerful murals on the walls suddenly feeling out of place against the backdrop of Jano's tirade. You wiped at your eyes, tears of mirth blurring your vision, the laughter finally breaking free in short, stifled bursts. But beneath the humour lurked a thread of unease: Vader's refusal to eat wasn't just stubbornness; it was a symptom, a holdover from years of mechanical sustenance, his body still rebelling against the vulnerability of normalcy. You'd have to address that, coax him through it with the same patience you'd shown these children.

"I'll talk to him," you promised, your voice steadier now as you dabbed at your damp cheeks with the back of your hand, the salt stinging slightly against your skin. The words carried a weight you hadn't intended, a reminder of the pull that drew you back to room seven time and again, even as you lingered here in the safety of the paediatric ward. "Tomorrow. The next -"

"Oh no. No, no, no. Talk to him as much as you like." Jano shook his head vehemently, his wild hair flopping with the motion, strands sticking out at even more improbable angles. He planted his feet firmly, crossing his arms over his chest in a stance that screamed finality, though the effect was somewhat undermined by the vita paste dripping slowly down his sleeve. "I'm never going near that man again. He told me my medical degree was clearly a clerical error and suggested I request a refund from my university."

"Jano-" You started, reaching out a hand to placate him. The children were watching with wide-eyed fascination now, some leaning forward in their beds, others whispering excitedly, the ward's usual hum of activity subdued by the spectacle.

"You know," he interrupted again, his eyes narrowing with that mischievous glint that always preceded his most outrageous comments, the kind that made you regret ever confiding in him. From the sly curve of his lips, you could tell he was about to veer into territory utterly inappropriate for your young audience, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper that still carried across the room. "When he arrived here and you had taken his medical history, and I told you that he was 'every cyberneticist's wet dream' -believe it or not, girl. But I didn't mean that literally. And now that I've gotten to know his unique charming manner and also had to look at the minefield that was once supposed to be a body, I have to ask again."

 He held his hands in front of him, palms facing each other, and slowly pulled them apart, increasing the distance between them with deliberate, exaggerated slowness, his eyebrows arching suggestively. “How much more is more than adequate to balance out this dazzling personality in such over-engineered packaging? Be glad it was a dream, or he probably would’ve punctured your uterus. Seriously.”

Your face ignited instantly, heat blazing up your neck to set your cheeks aflame. You opened your mouth; nothing. Closed it. Tried again; still nothing. The words deserted you completely, leaving the remark to hang there like a primed thermal detonator.

The younger children blinked in puzzlement, while the older ones already wore the beginnings of knowing smirks.

"What’s a uterus?" piped up one of the younger children, a wide-eyed boy with a freshly installed neural interface, his voice high and innocent, cutting through the tension. A ripple of giggles followed from the others, while your flush deepened, mortification twisting in your gut.

“Dad said that’s where all evil comes from.” Pina offered cheerfully.

"Jano, there are children here," you hissed through gritted teeth, your voice low and urgent, shooting him a glare that could have melted durasteel. Your heart pounded, a mix of embarrassment and anger surging through you, how dare he bring that up here, in front of them? But beneath it lurked a flicker of something else, a reluctant amusement at his audacity, the way he always knew how to push your buttons with surgical precision.

But he didn't seem to hear you at all, lost in his own theatrical reverie, his gaze drifting upward as if consulting the stars for wisdom before snapping back to you with renewed vigour. "I have to give him credit for one thing; he really is a big guy. Even without legs, he looked quite... impressive in stature, the muscles... goodness, not bad at all. If he's proportional to the rest of his body, then I can imagine why he makes your thighs go weak."

"HE DOESN’T -" You caught yourself mid-shout, the words dying in your throat as you became acutely aware of your young audience, their rapt attention turning the moment into a spectacle. The ward felt smaller suddenly, the colourful murals closing in, the beeps of monitors amplifying in the awkward silence that followed.

"Right." Jano's grin turned evil, a predatory curve that promised no mercy, his eyes sparkling with mischief as he dabbed futilely at the vita paste on his coat with a handkerchief, the fabric absorbing the stain rather than removing it. "It's about your completely professional interest in his medical care. Which is why you're hiding in paediatrics instead of dealing with his charming personality yourself."

"I'm not hiding. I'm treating patients I've neglected." The defence rang hollow even to your own ears, your hands busying themselves with updating Mirae's chart on your datapad, the holographic display flickering under your fingers as if mocking your attempt at composure. The children watched with unabashed interest, some leaning in closer.

"Uh-huh." He pulled out the handkerchief fully now, wiping at his coat with exaggerated swipes, the motion drawing more giggles from the kids. The stains smeared further, turning into abstract patterns that only added to his dishevelled look.

"You survived," you pointed out, your tone shifting to something lighter as you finished the chart entry, the datapad beeping its confirmation. "That's more than most people who annoyed him in the past could say."

"Barely. My ego may never recover." He stood with exaggerated difficulty, his knees popping audibly as he straightened, making a show of clutching his back like an old man after a long day in the mines. The children laughed outright now, the sound bright and infectious, easing the lingering tension in the air. "I'm going to the actual cantina now. The one where they serve alcohol instead of insults about my medical competency."

"Thank you for trying," you said sincerely, catching his arm as he passed, your fingers wrapping around his sleeve, the fabric sticky with residue, and giving it a gentle squeeze. Despite the teasing, the frustration, you knew he'd stepped in for you out of friendship, taking the brunt of Vader's ire so you could have this reprieve. "I owe you."

"You owe me so much more than you can possibly imagine," he muttered, but the squeeze he returned to your hand was affectionate, warm, a silent affirmation of the bond that had carried you both through countless shifts and crises. "Next time you're in desperate need of a clitical hit, tell your subconscious to choose someone less homicidal."

"JANO!" The exclamation burst from you, sharp and scandalized, your eyes darting to the children who were now whispering among themselves, their curiosity piqued by the unfamiliar term.

"What's 'clitical' mean?" asked Ly, her head tilted in innocent confusion, her cybernetic eye whirring as it focused on you.

"And why do you need to be hit?" chimed Gustave, his brow furrowed in earnest concern. "Hitting someone is bad after all."

You nodded vigorously, agreeing with the boy's moral stance even as heat crept back into your cheeks, your mind racing to navigate the minefield Jano had laid. "Yes, hitting is very bad," you said, your voice firm but gentle, crouching down to their level so you could meet their eyes directly. The ward's floor was cool against your knees, the faint vibration of the ship's engines thrumming through it. "Dr. Reeves was just... joking. He meant a different kind of 'hit,' like... like when something surprises you in a good way, or makes you feel better. Not actual hitting. We never hit people, right?"

The children nodded solemnly, some still looking puzzled but satisfied enough with the explanation to let it drop, their attention shifting as the moment passed. You shot Jano a withering glare over their heads, but he was already turning toward the door, his shoulders shaking with silent laughter.

Satisfied with himself, he started toward the exit, his steps lighter now, the dramatic flair returning as he paused at the threshold, the doors hissing open with a soft pneumatic sigh. But before he could make his escape, Zeek piped up innocently from his bed, his voice carrying across the room with perfect timing: "Doctor? Is the cute boy going to save you from his evil wizard dad?"

"Actually," Jano turned back with a wicked grin, pivoting on his heel like a holodrama villain revealing the plot twist, his eyes gleaming with unrestrained glee, "plot twist! The wizard used his evil magic powers and now Doc likes HIM way better. The cute boy better step up his game if he wants to-"

"SHUT UP!" The words exploded from you, fuelled by a surge of mortified frustration, and in a flash of impulse, you grabbed the nearest soft medical supply - a rolled bandage from the nearby cart - and hurled it at his head with impressive accuracy, your cybernetic arm lending extra precision to the throw. The bandage unfurled mid-air like a streamer, sailing true toward its target.

He dodged with a theatrical lean, the bandage bouncing harmlessly off the doorframe as he laughed outright, the sound echoing down the corridor as he fled, the doors sliding shut behind him with finality. The ward erupted in giggles, the children delighted by the chaos, their earlier questions forgotten in the excitement.

"Dr. Reeves has a VERY active imagination," you told the fascinated children firmly, your voice raised slightly to cut through the laughter, as you retrieved the fallen bandage, rolling it back up with quick, efficient motions. Your face still burned, but you forced a smile, turning the moment into a lesson in exaggeration. "And he's leaving. Now."

The doors remained closed, sealing away Jano's retreat, but his parting shot lingered, stirring the pot of curiosity among your young charges. "But is it true?" another child asked eagerly, a girl with twin prosthetic arms leaning forward in her bed, her eyes sparkling with the thrill of gossip. "Do you like the villain now?"

The question hung in the air, innocent yet piercing, and for a moment, you froze, the bandage halfway rolled in your hands. Thoughts flooded unbidden: Vader's scarred face softening in rare moments of vulnerability, the way his presence filled a room like gravity, pulling you in despite every rational warning. The dream resurfaced in fragments and you shoved it down, deep into the recesses where professional boundaries were supposed to hold firm. And you could hardly deny that the pull had always been present, albeit hidden beneath the guise of professionalism in solving a complex case, both physical and psychological.

"Who wants to see the new holo-game I brought?" you said loudly, pulling it from your bag with exaggerated enthusiasm, the device's sleek casing gleaming under the lights as you activated it, holographic figures springing to life in a burst of colour and sound. The distraction worked like a charm, the children clamouring forward, their questions dissolving into excited chatter as they gathered around, small hands reaching for controls, prosthetics whirring with eager movements.

But as you set up the game, guiding their play with gentle instructions, helping Mirae into her mobility chair, your mind kept drifting, pulled inexorably toward room seven. To ice-blue eyes that had somehow seen into your thoughts even from a distance, piercing through walls and duties alike. To the way he'd said you weren't afraid of him, like it mattered, like it was a revelation he hadn't expected. The ward's joyful noise faded around you, the children's laughter a distant hum, as you wondered not for the first time, what it would mean to face him tomorrow, with Jano's teasing words echoing in your ears and that unspoken…whatever thrumming just beneath the surface.

The next day….

You weren’t surprised by his mechanical skills, you had seen them firsthand. What surprised you was..

“You actually asked him to fix something?” you said, raising your brows at Kessa. “You asked him?”

Kessa had the grace to look a little sheepish. “Well, I saw him fix the cleaning droid so easily, and the kriffing protocol droid has been malfunctioning for weeks. The tech department keeps saying they’ll get to it when they have time, but…” She shrugged. “I thought, what’s the worst that could happen? He says no?”

“Right…” you muttered.

“He did a great job,” Yara interjected with a grin. “Fixed it better than new, according to Kessa. And now he’s apparently working on the anaesthesia droid.”

You didn’t know what to think. On one hand, it was… positive? He was engaging with something, being productive, even helpful in his own gruff way. It suggested he was finding ways to occupy his mind, to feel useful during his recovery.

On the other hand, he was still a patient. A patient who less than two weeks ago had been actively dying. Who had undergone traumatic surgical reconstruction and was still in the earliest stages of healing. He should have been resting, not running an impromptu droid repair service.

"How long has he been at this?" you asked.

Kessa's large eyes blinked thoughtfully. "Since early this morning? I brought him the protocol droid around 0700, and he was already working on the cleaning droid."

Wonderful. So instead of resting, he's been fixing droids for hours.

“Thank you for letting me know,” you told them, though you weren’t entirely sure whether you felt grateful or more stressed than before. “I’m heading to check on him now.”

"Good luck, Doc," Yara said with a knowing smile that makes you wonder what expression is on your face.

Time to see if this strategy actually works.

You pressed the door control.

Immediately, your carefully constructed plan nearly crumbled under the assault of sensory overload. The room looked like a droid workshop had exploded in a controlled detonation: components scattered across every available surface, transforming the sterile medbay into a makeshift engineering lab. Circuit boards gleamed under the harsh overhead lights, their intricate pathways of wiring and chips laid out on the floor in precise grids; power cells hummed faintly, stacked in neat towers on portions of the bed; motivator units and photoreceptor arrays sprawled across the bedside table like dissected organs; and what appeared to be half of a droid's processing core rested in the center, its crystalline matrix exposed and flickering with residual energy. The air carried the sharp tang of solder and ozone, mingling with the underlying antiseptic bite of the medbay, creating a heady atmosphere that spoke of focused industry rather than convalescence.

And in the center of this organized chaos sat Vader.

His cybernetic arms moved with focused precision as he worked, the durasteel gleaming under the lights, their hydraulic whispers accompanying each adjustment. In his hands was what looked like the primary neural processor of the anaesthesia droid, its delicate filaments dangling like exposed nerves.

The droid itself lay open beside him like a patient mid-surgery, its chest cavity exposed, circuits and wiring visible in the stark medical lighting, a tangle of multi-coloured cables spilling out like entrails from a vivisected creature. He didn't look up when you entered, too absorbed in whatever anomaly he was examining in the processor unit, his scarred brow furrowed in concentration, the play of shadows accentuating the deep ridges across his face.

Right. Strategy. Now.

Some Lovers Try Positions That They Can't Handle. Scaphoid, Lunate, Triquetrum, Pisiform, Trapezium, Trapezoid, Capitate, Hamate. The carpal bones of the wrist.

The words looped in your mind, a rhythmic anchor to pull you back from the edge of distraction, focusing on the neural pathways of prosthetic integration rather than the way the muscles in his shoulders flexed with each precise movement.

"Good morning," you announced, impressed that your voice came out steady, carrying across the room without a tremor. You stepped further inside, carefully navigating the scattered components, your boots crunching faintly on a loose wire casing. "Are you the new station mechanic, or did I walk into the wrong room?"

He looked up then, those starring blue eyes fixing on you with immediate intensity, piercing through you like a diagnostic scan, reading every micro-expression, every subtle shift in your posture. The gaze held for a beat too long, and you felt the familiar prickle at the base of your skull; his Force presence brushing against your thoughts, not invasive yet, but probing, as if testing for cracks in your mental armour. “You might very well be in the wrong room,” he said at last, voice low and edged with dry irony. “If my recollection is correct, this room was never intended for kindergarten teachers. But perhaps the Alliance has changed its policies.”

The retort is sharp, dry, and you recognize it for what it is: payback for your absence yesterday.

She Looks Too Pretty, Try To Catch Her. Superior Lateral, Thoracic, Pectoral, Thoraco-acromial, Cephalic, Humeral. Tributaries of the axillary vein.

"Believe it or not, I have other patients besides you," you replied, moving further into the room and carefully stepping around a cluster of scattered motivator units, their faint energy hum vibrating through the soles of your boots. The scent of heated metal lingered here, a testament to his recent welding work. "Shocking, I know. Though apparently you've been busy recruiting work from the nursing staff."

"The droids were incompetent. I corrected the issue." He turned his attention back to the processor in his hands. "This one's dosage calculation accuracy is off by point-three percent. In certain circumstances, that could be fatal."

"I wasn't aware droid maintenance was part of your recovery plan." You set down your datapad on a clear spot of the bedside table, pulling out a sterile drape from your kit, the fabric unfolding with a crisp snap that cut through the room's ambient hum.

"I wasn't aware hiding in paediatrics was part of your treatment protocol, Doc." The words were delivered without looking up, but there was an edge to them, a subtle probe that tested your reaction, as if he were dissecting your motives with the same precision he applied to the droid parts.

Touché.

You spread the drape over a section of the bed, creating a sterile field amid the mechanical clutter. "Well, while you're been playing mechanic, I have actual medical work to do. I need to examine your right leg; specifically, I need to see how the stump is healing."

Old People From Taris Eat Spiders. Occipital, Parietal, Frontal, Temporal, Ethmoid, Sphenoid. Bones of the cranium.

Vader carefully set down the processor, arranging it with precision among the other components. His expression remained neutral, but you caught something in his eyes, maybe resignation, maybe just acceptance of the inevitable.

"Proceed," he said simply.

You approached the bed, clinical detachment firmly in place, or trying to be, as the proximity forced you to confront the reality of his form up close. The bed shifted slightly under your added weight as you leaned in, positioning yourself for clear access, close enough that you could feel the residual heat radiating from his skin, a stark contrast to the cool air of the room. Close enough that you were acutely, painfully aware of his presence, the massive frame that dominated the space, the scarred expanse of his chest rising and falling with measured breaths, the faint scent of medical ointments mingling with the metallic tang of his cybernetics. Your brain desperately tried not to make any connections to last night's dream, the phantom sensations of those durasteel hands on your body, but the effort only heightened your awareness, a tension coiling in your gut.

Cyber Rejection Response: Signal Disruption, Tissue Necrosis, Neural Overload, System Purge. The mantra shifted to the darker side of your field, a reminder of the horrors you'd witnessed in failed integrationsa, flesh blackening around implant sites, nerves firing in endless loops of agony, bodies convulsing as organic and mechanical waged war.

"I need to remove the bandaging," you informed him, reaching for the compression wrap on his right stump.

He nodded, and you began carefully unwinding the layers. The fabric was clean, no signs of drainage, which was a good sign. But you wouldn't know the full picture until you could see the tissue itself.

The last layer of bandaging came away, and you had to work very hard to keep your expression neutral.

Implant Integration Interface: Bone Osseointegration, Neural Weave, Tissue Fusion, Rejection Nullification.

The stump looked... worse than you'd hoped, a grotesque tableau of healing and decay that twisted your stomach with a mix of professional concern and visceral revulsion. The surgical site itself was holding, the sutures gleamed like dark threads against the pale, grafted skin, integrating with a reluctant tenacity, but around the edges, particularly near the posterior aspect where the muscle tissue was thinnest, the telltale signs of tissue breakdown sprawled like invading shadows. Small patches of discoloured flesh marred the surface, grayish-black islands of death amid the pink of viable tissue, their edges irregular and weeping a thin, viscous fluid that carried the faint, sickly-sweet odour of necrosis; a cloying rot that infiltrated your nostrils, evoking images of forgotten battlefields where bodies lay unburied. The dead zones pulsed faintly with the rhythm of his heartbeat, surrounded by inflamed veins that throbbed like corrupted circuits, struggling to supply blood to areas already lost, the skin cracking in places to reveal underlying layers of sloughing muscle, blackened and slick, as if the flesh were melting from within.

More necrosis. It wasn't just surface level; as you probed gently with gloved fingers, the tissue gave way with a wet, yielding squelch, a chunk detaching in a stringy clump that clung to your glove like congealed oil, exposing raw, oozing subdermal layers where infection could take root, turning the stump into a breeding ground for sepsis. The way the body turned against itself, cells dying in silent rebellion, spreading like a dark plague through what should have been a site of renewal, stirred a deep unease, a reminder of cybernetics' brutal underbelly: the fragile line between augmentation and annihilation, where a miscalibrated implant or neglected wound could cascade into systemic failure, flesh sloughing off in necrotic waves until only bone and regret remained.

"How bad is it?" Vader asked, his voice carefully neutral, betraying no pain or concern, though you caught the subtle tension in his frame, the way his remaining muscles coiled as if bracing for verdict.

"Manageable," you replied, because it was manageable, not ideal, a clinical assessment that downplayed the grotesque reality before you. "Some necrotic tissue has formed. It's not unexpected given the extent of the original damage and the limited blood supply to the area. But it needs to be removed, or it'll continue to spread, festering deeper, potentially compromising the bone itself."

You reached for your medical kit, pulling out the debridement instruments: scalpel with its razor edge catching the light, forceps gleaming coldly, sterile gauze ready to absorb the inevitable ooze. The tools felt like extensions of your will, familiar anchors in the face of this medical horror. "This might be hurt," you warned, positioning yourself beside the bed, your knee brushing against the mattress as you leaned in closer.  Close enough that you're acutely, painfully aware of his presence. Of the way the bed shifts slightly under your weight as you lean in. Of the fact that you're positioned near his lap, your focus directed at his thigh, and your brain is desperately trying not to make any connections to -

Rotator cuff muscles: SuprasMiraetus, InfrasMiraetus, Teres minor, Subscapularis. SITS.

Focus. The necrosis. Remove the necrosis.

You steadied your hand, bringing the scalpel to the first patch of dead tissue, the blade hovering for a breath before descending. The key was precision; remove only what's necrotic, preserve the viable margins, avoid nicking the throbbing vessels that bordered the decay. The scalpel bit into the blackened flesh with a soft, yielding resistance, like cutting through overripe fruit, and as you excised the section, a bead of dark, viscous fluid welled up, carrying the intensified stench of rot; sweet and metallic, like spoiled meat fused with burnt wiring. The dead tissue peeled away in a slick layer, revealing raw muscle fibres frayed and discoloured, pockets of pus glistening like corrupted lubricant, the bone beneath peeking through in places, its surface mottled with early signs of erosion.

Branches of the facial nerve: Temporal, Zygomatic, Buccal, Mandibular, Cervical. To Zanzibar By Motor Car.

Vader remained still, his breathing controlled, but you sensed the tension in him, the way his cybernetic arms flexed slightly, as if channelling the pain into mechanical restraint. His composure was clinically astonishing, the kind of stoic immobility rarely seen outside heavily sedated patients, especially given the acute nociceptive surge that excising necrotic tissue inevitably provoked.

"Your thoughts are... remarkably structured today." he observed, his voice breaking through your concentration, a deep timbre that resonated in your chest despite the clinical barrier you clung to.

Your hand didn't falter, years of training kept it steady, but internally you were screaming.

He's listening. He's following your thoughts.

"Focused," you replied shortly, carefully peeling away a section of necrotic tissue that clung stubbornly, threads of dead muscle snapping like overtaxed wires. "Complex procedures require mental discipline."

Cranial nerves: Oh, Oh, Oh, To Touch And Feel Very Green Vegetables, AH!  Olfactory, Optic, Oculomotor, Trochlear, Trigeminal, Abducens, Facial, Vestibulocochlear, Glossopharyngeal, Vagus, Accessory, Hypoglossal.

“Focused,” he repeated, the word weighted, tinged with curiosity. “Normally your mind isn't  so… focused, nor so repetitive with medical lists and terminology.” His gaze lingered, a brief pause stretching in the charged air. “You are imitating Piett’s method.”

Of course he noticed. Of course.

“I don’t know what you mean,” you said, moving to the next area of necrosis. The tissue here ran deeper, demanding more careful dissection. “I’m simply reviewing the procedure in my mind as I work.”

Cyber Limb Calibration Codex: Haptic Harmony, Neural Nexus, Servo Synchronization, Biofeedback Balance-

But in that moment of concentration, you made the mistake of glancing up, just a flicker, a habitual check to gauge his pain response, to ensure his vitals weren't spiking into dangerous territory. Your eyes caught on the contraction of his upper arm musculature, the massive bicep flexing involuntarily as a ripple of tension coursed through him, likely from the sharp tug of pain radiating up from the stump where your scalpel worked. The muscle bunched and released, cords of sinew standing out in stark relief against his pale, scarred skin, a testament to decades of brutal conditioning beneath that life-support suit.

Damn, you had to admit, Jano wasn't wrong. The musculature was impressive, a testament to resilient biology carved by years of conflict. Even through the white fabric, the definition of his abdomen was striking, the muscles shifting with each breath and pulling your gaze downward before you could stop it.

Heat bloomed in your cheeks, a traitorous warmth that had nothing to do with the medbay's controlled temperature, And which once again made you grateful for the mask on the lower half of your face. and you snapped your eyes back to the stump, forcing your focus onto the necrotic edge you were excising, the blade trembling ever so slightly in your grip, not from nerves, but from the sheer effort of redirection.

 Quickly break off, you commanded yourself, diving back into the mantra like a lifeline. Cyber Rejection Response: Signal Disruption, Tissue Necrosis, Neural Overload, System Purge-

 But it was too late; the lapse had been a crack in your armour, and he, with his kriffing Force-honed senses, had seen it; the fleeting look, the unwilling flicker of attraction that echoed in your mind.

A low rumble escaped him, not quite a chuckle but close, the corner of his mouth twitching upward in what could only be described as a grin; rare, predatory, laced with a satisfaction that made your stomach flip. "You're gawking, Doc." he said, his voice a deep, resonant drawl that carried an undercurrent of amusement, the words hanging in the air like a challenge, his eyes gleaming with that unsettling intensity.

You felt the flush deepen, spreading down your neck, but you didn't falter in your work, the scalpel sliced through another stringy layer of dead tissue with deliberate precision. "I'm just checking your vital parameters," you retorted, your tone aimed for clinical detachment but landed somewhere closer to defensive, the lie thin even to your own ears.

"Hmm." The sound conveyed a universe of scepticism, his gaze followed your every move, those blue eyes tracked the scalpel's path as you carved away the dead, revealed the pulsating vitality beneath; veins throbbed desperately around the voids, muscle twitched in protest. "And yesterday? Where was your focused mind yesterday when I was left in the hands of Dr. Reeves?"

There was something sharp in his tone, not quite anger, but definitely irritation, a possessiveness that sent an unwelcome thrill through you, even as you focused on the horror before you.

You glanced up at him briefly before turning your focus back to the necrosis. "I had other patients who required my attention. Dr. Reeves is as a competent physician-"

"Dr. Reeves," Vader interrupted, "spent ten minutes explaining the function of a bacta pad to me. In exhaustive detail. As if I haven't been kept alive by medical technology for two decades."

Despite the tension, despite everything, you almost laughed; that sounded exactly like Jano, thorough to the point of being condescending, especially with patients he wasn't sure how to handle, his nerves manifesting in over-explanation.

Muscles of the anterior thigh: Quadriceps femori rectus femoris, vastus lateralis, vastus medialis, vastus intermedius. Sartorius. Iliopsoas.

“He means well,” you offered, carefully excising another section of dead tissue. The forceps gripped, the scalpel cut, healthy tissue beneath slowly being revealed. “He’s not just thorough, but actually a rather entertaining colleague… when he isn’t being downgraded to Nurse Reeves, terrified with dire career prophecies, or pelted with vita paste. Most people don’t appreciate that sort of treatment.”

Vader’s baritone cut in, smooth and unyielding. “Most people also do not enjoy being confronted with a brand-new physician whose trembling hands all but broadcast incompetence. His flight instinct might as well have been stamped across his face.”

You exhaled sharply, removing the final clinging fragment with a precise slice, the scalpel grating against a necrotic edge that crumbled like charred flimsy, revealing healthy pink granulation tissue beneath, glistening with fresh blood. “Most people probably react to you the same way. And for the record, most people also aren’t such difficult patients that they transform their recovery rooms into mechanical workshops while I’m absent for one single day.”

"I was bored."

You furrowed your brow in irritation at this simple statement. "Boredom isn't a medical necessity."

"Isn't it? I disagree. Forty-eight hours of nothing but staring at walls and enduring insufferable medical so-called ‘professionals’ explaining basic concepts to me and calling me ‘dude’ while they try to persuade me to swallow this unbearable gruel."

Cardiac conduction: SA node, AV node, Bundle of His, Bundle branches, Purkinje fibers. Generates rhythm 60-100 bpm normally.

"Well, forgive me for ensuring you had medical coverage," you replied, working on a particularly stubborn section near the bone, the blade scraping with a faint, bone-chilling rasp. “Next time I’ll leave you to your own devices. The droids you keep repairing can surely handle the necessary medical procedures, provided you program them correctly.”

"They might. I've certainly seen enough of it from the patient perspective."

You paused, glancing up at him. His expression was neutral, but there was something in his eyes, a darkness, a weight of memory. Twenty-three years in that suit. Twenty-three years of constant medical monitoring of being maintained rather than healed. That was precisely the reason you were here, carving away necrosis yourself, rather than leaving it to CX-3. Human interaction was important if he wanted to reconnect with the normal outside world and you'd seen in his medical records how the droids had cut into him, and you could see even now, in the lines of his face, that those treatments had most certainly left their mark.

Don't engage emotionally. Stay clinical. Coagulation cascade: Intrinsic pathway: XII, XI, IX, VIII. Extrinsic pathway: VII, tissue factor. Common pathway - X, V, II to IIa, I to Ia. Final product: stable fibrin clot.

"Yes, well," you said, returning your attention to the necrosis, your tone softening into something almost conciliatory, "let's make sure you don't end up back to being mistaken for one of them."

The last significant piece of necrotic tissue came away cleanly, revealing healthy pink granulation tissue beneath. You examined the area carefully, checking for any remaining dead tissue, any signs of spreading infection.

Tissue perfusion assessment: Color: pink indicates adequate perfusion. Temperature: warm is good. Capillary refill: less than 2 seconds normal. Turgor: elastic is healthy.

The stump looked good now, better than you'd feared, the horror excised, leaving a landscape of potential: healthy tissue pink and vascularized, ready for the next step, though the craters from the deeper necrosis would require vigilant monitoring to prevent recurrence.

.

But there was a problem. The issue wasn't just necrosis; it was mobility. Or rather, the lack thereof. The stump had been essentially static for weeks, the tissue healing but also stiffening, contracting into rigid scars that could limit function. Unless you left him to float 24/7 in a bacta tank (which might solve more than a few of your current concerns but would also isolate him from the outside world even more completely than the suit ever had) without regular movement the risk of further necrosis increased exponentially. Dead zones would bloom like malignant code in a corrupted program. The muscles needed to work, the tissue needed to flex and contract, the blood needed to flow, or the horror would return, creeping back with insidious persistence.

Skeletal muscle requires movement for optimal perfusion. Static tissue = reduced circulation = ischemia = necrosis.

You sat back slightly, considering. The original plan was to fit the prosthetic later this week, after ensuring adequate healing. But the developing necrosis changed things. Waiting might cause more damage.

"The tissue needs movement," you said, thinking aloud, your voice cutting through the quiet hum of the room. "The stump has been too static. Without regular mobilization, we're going to keep developing necrotic patches. The muscle needs to work, the skin needs to stretch and contract, the blood needs to circulate properly, or we'll be chasing decay indefinitely."

Biomechanics of cybernetic grafting: Load-bearing osteo-stimulation, Muscle vector alignment, Vascular network optimization, Adaptive strain prevention.

Vader watched you with those penetrating eyes, his scarred face impassive but attentive. "And your solution?"

"We could wait, do gentle range-of-motion exercises, gradually increase activity over the next week." You paused, running through the options in your mind, weighing the risks, the creeping necrosis versus surgical intervention. "Or we could accelerate the timeline. Set the anchor point interface for the prosthetic today, begin integration immediately. It's more aggressive, but it would provide the stimulus the tissue needs, preventing the necrosis from returning."

The anchor point, the permanent mounting interface that would allow the prosthetic to attach directly to the bone, a fusion of organic and mechanical that could turn this ruined stump into a functional limb. The prosthetic itself could be fitted tomorrow, and he could begin using it within days.

Osseointegration: Direct bone-implant contact. Provides superior force transmission. Requires precise surgical technique and adequate bone quality-

"Risks?" he asked, and you appreciated that he was thinking like a strategist, evaluating options.

"Pain, obviously. But you're in constant pain either way, and the necrosis is at least as bad. Risk of infection, though we'll manage that with antibiotics. Potential for implant failure if the bone quality isn't adequate, but I reviewed your latest scans: the femur should hold. The main risk is doing too much too fast, but given the alternative is progressive necrosis..." You trailed off, letting him draw the conclusion.

He considered for a moment, his gaze distant, probably analyzing variables you couldn't even comprehend. Then he nodded. "Proceed with the prothesis."

"I'll need to get the surgical kit and CX-3," you told him, standing and brushing off your pants. "The procedure itself will take about an hour. We'll need to manage pain carefully, but you should be able to have the prosthetic fitted by tomorrow."

"Acceptable."

You gathered your equipment, already mentally running through the surgical protocol. Local anaesthetic, maybe light sedation if he needed it, though you suspected he wouldn't accept it.

Cyber Sync Sequence: Signal Calibration, Synapse Mapping, Servo Alignment, Stability Integration.

You were halfway to the door when it slid open.

Luke stood in the doorway, looking uncertain. His blue eyes flicked from you to his father, assessing the situation. "Is this a bad time?" he asked, and there was a hopeful note in his voice, like he was wishing the answer was no. "I wanted to speak with my father."

You glanced back at Vader, who was watching his son with an expression you couldn't quite read. There was something there: complexity, maybe wariness, definitely intensity.

"It's fine," you told Luke, stepping toward the door. "I need to get some equipment anyway. I'll be back in about fifteen minutes."

Luke stepped aside to let you pass, offering a small smile. "Thanks, Doc."

You nodded, then paused, looking back at Vader. "Don't move around too much. I just removed necrotic tissue, and I'd prefer not to restart any bleeding."

"I'll try to restrain myself from acrobatics," he replied dryly.

Hemostasis maintenance: Minimize movement, monitor for bleeding, apply pressure if necessary, clotting factors will stabilize within minutes.

You left them to their conversation, whatever that might entail. Father and son, a relationship so complicated it made your own family dynamics look straightforward. The door slid shut behind you, and you leaned against the corridor wall for just a moment, letting out a long breath.

Vader refocused his attention on the work below, ignoring the throbbing pain caused by the cutting away of the necrotic tissue. It was easier to ignore the pain when he had something to focus on. He could feel his son's presence in the Force: bright, hopeful, infuriatingly optimistic - like sunlight trying to pierce through blast shields. The boy stood there hesitant, watching him work. The anaesthesia droid's neural processor sat in his hands, its circuitry laid bare. A simple problem cascading failures in the logic gates, poor soldering on the primary connections. The kind of incompetence that made his jaw tighten with irritation. Twenty-three years in that suit taught him patience born of necessity. But tolerance for poor craftsmanship? That, he never learned.

Luke shifted his weight, the movement small but audible. Still watching. Still waiting for... something.

"You seem to be settling in well," Luke finally offered, and the attempt at levity fell flat in the sterile air of the medical bay.

Vader's hands didn't still. Another connection repaired, another circuit realigned. "It gives me something to do," he replied, his voice carrying none of the warmth his son clearly hoped for. "I haven't been still this long in twenty years." Not since the suit. Not since constant movement, constant action was the only thing that kept the pain manageable. Stillness meant focus. Focus meant feeling. Feeling meant- He cut off that line of thought with the precision of a scalpel.

Luke nodded, the motion jerky, tense. The boy's presence in the Force shifted; anxious energy coiling tighter, thoughts churning with words he wanted to say but didn't quite dare. Vader didn't need to peer into his son's mind to know what was coming. The thoughts were practically screaming themselves: The Jedi. The Order. Rebuilding. Legacy. Always the same song. Always the same desperate hope.

He set down the processor with calculated care, each movement measured. "Luke-"

"I'm leaving for Ahch-To today." The words tumbled out in a rush, as if saying them quickly might make them easier. "I've received intel: there might be old connections to the Jedi Order there. Maybe even intact writings. Ancient texts."

Something cold and sharp twisted in Vader's chest. He closed his eyes, exhaled through his nose, a harsh sound that the suit would have masked but his new lungs, still adjusting, could not quite soften. When he opened them again, he fixed his son with a look that had made admirals reconsider their life choices.

"You would be better served," he said, each word deliberate, "forgetting the Order entirely. Find your own path in the Force, Luke. Your own understanding." He paused, let the weight of experience colour his tone. "And even if you do find something on that rock, you likely won't be able to do anything meaningful with it."

Luke's chin lifted; that stubborn set Vader recognized, had felt in his own jaw countless times. "Ahsoka said she'd help me."

The name hit him like a sandstorm on Tatooine. Merciless, painful, unavoidable. Ahsoka.

His hands stilled completely now, the droid forgotten. For a moment, just a fragment of time, he was back in that temple, her white lightsabers crossed against his crimson blade. Her voice rang out through the collapsing hall: I won't leave you. Not this time. His reply, filtered and ragged through a ruined voicecoder, folded into the memory like a verdict: Then you will die.

But she hadn't.

Snips. Who stopped being Snips a long time ago. Who had turned away from him, even though he had fought so fiercely for her. Whom he had believed to be dead for so long.

Vader stared into the middle distance, seeing nothing of the medical bay, everything of the past. When he spoke, his voice was flat, factual. "Ahsoka Tano is not a Jedi."

It wasn't meant as an insult. It was simple truth; the truth she told him herself before their blades met, before he tried to kill her.

"No." Luke's voice was soft but firm. He moved closer, positioning himself so Vader couldn't avoid his gaze without being obvious about it. "But you are, Father."

Vader's exhale was sharp, irritated. He looked away, jaw clenching. "It's not that simple-"

"But it could be." Luke cut him off, and there was an earnestness in his voice that made something in Vader's chest constrict painfully. His son stepped even closer, blue eyes bright with conviction. "I know you probably carry tremendous guilt about what happened to the Order. About your role in its destruction. But this is your chance, your destiny. You can make it right."

Destiny. Always destiny. As if the word itself held power instead of being chains dressed up as purpose.

Vader tried to respond, his tone sharpening. "The Order is fine where it-"

"We could do it together." Luke's words spilled out faster now, tumbling over Vader's attempt to speak. "Open a school. Guide young Force sensitives, teach them, give them what the old Order tried to provide. Honor those teachings, carry them forward. Build something new, something better."

"Luke-" Vader's voice carried more edge now, a warning that the boy either didn't hear or chose to ignore.

"Ahsoka told me about the Chosen One."

Luke's expression, radiant with pride so pure and uncomplicated... It felt like a blade between his ribs.

"You proved it, Father. When you destroyed the emperor, when you turned back to the light; you brought balance to the Force. Just like the prophecy said. You are the Chosen One."

The Chosen One. The title that became a noose. The expectation that became a prison. The destiny that led to...

"Together, we could," Luke continued, the words flowing like he'd rehearsed this speech, like he'd been building to this moment. "We could make everything right again. Give Force sensitive children a real hope, a real future. Rebuild the Order properly this time, learn from the mistakes."

"Luke, you need to-" Vader tried again, but his son was lost in the vision now, in the dream of what could be.

"You just need to officially announce your comeback, your rehabilitation." Luke's hands gestured, emphatic, imploring. "As Anakin Skywalker. The galaxy, High Command, everyone would see you differently, if you came forward with genuine remorse, with the will to make amends. As Anakin Skywalker, who was manipulated by the dark side, by the emperor himself for decades, who was-"

"ENOUGH!"

The word tore from Vader's throat, not quite a shout, something deeper, more primal, and the Force exploded outward from him in a wave of pure, concentrated power.

Too much. Too much naive hope. Too much blind idealism. Too many pretty lies wrapped in a dead man's name.

The entire room shuddered. The viewport fractured instantly, thousands of hairline cracks spider-webbing across its surface like a shattered mirror. Medical equipment rattled violently on their mounts. The droid components scattered across the bed leaped into the air and clattered back down in disarray. A monitoring device crumpled inward with a screech of tortured metal, its casing folding like paper in an invisible fist.

Luke froze, his eyes wide, his presence in the Force suddenly small and still.

Vader turned toward him, or as much as the monitoring leads across his chest and the freshly treated stump would allow. When his voice came, it was cold enough to flash-freeze atmosphere.

"You would do well," he said, each word precisely enunciated, "to abandon your naivety and your fairy-tale fantasies about the Jedi Order. About 'Anakin Skywalker.' About 'the Chosen One.'" He leaned forward slightly, "Forget them, Luke. And quickly. Because reality is far less forgiving than your idealistic delusions."

Luke's mouth opened, but no sound emerged.

"The Order was not the dreamlike paradise you imagine." Vader's voice carried decades of bitter experience. "You mourn something you never knew, chase an echo of something that never truly existed. You spent barely three years learning the basics of the Force; jumping around a swamp with a senile Jedi Master, listening to his drivel about balance and the light side and cosmic harmony."

Yoda. Who was wise, yes. Who was powerful, yes. But whose power and wisdom had been of no use when it really mattered.

"But if you want the truth?" Vader continued and there was something savage in his tone now, something raw. "That same enlightened Jedi Master who taught you, who was so wise, so devoted to the light, was also the one I turned to when I was barely older than you are now. When I was sick with fear that my pregnant wife would die in childbirth. When I needed help, needed guidance, needed anything that might save her."

Luke's face has gone pale.

"Do you know what he told me?" Vader's lips twisted into something that might be a smile if smiles could cut. "To let go. To rejoice for those who transform into the Force." His voice dropped, became something quieter but no less lethal. "This, after I had given everything to the Order. My life, my power, my very identity - all sacrificed on the altar of being their Chosen One, their weapon, their tool."

It was but one of many failings that, to his mind, had rendered the Order more a weight than a strength, but for him, it remained the most personal and far-reaching of all. The silence stretched, broken only by the faint hum of damaged equipment and the soft patter of small debris still falling from the force wave's impact.

"So no, Luke." Each word was final, immutable. "The Order can rot in whatever hell hosts the spirits of failed institutions. And I will walk voluntarily and gladly to the gallows before 'Anakin Skywalker' makes some grand comeback performance, all remorse and atonement and theatrical redemption for the masses."

He held his son's gaze, let him see the absolute certainty there. "Anakin Skywalker is dead. And you would do well to accept that."

Luke stood frozen, his mouth slightly open, his Force presence a maelstrom of emotion: shock, hurt, confusion, denial, all swirling together in a tempest Vader could feel even without trying.

You hadn't meant to eavesdrop.

Really, you hadn't.

But CX-3, in what could only be described as prophetic efficiency, had intercepted you halfway down the corridor with the surgical kit and prosthetic already in tow, its photoreceptors glowing with that unflappable droid certainty as it presented the items like a gift from the stars. The sterile bundle felt heavier than usual in your arms, the cool metal of the anchor implant pressing through the wrapping against your cybernetic palm, sending faint haptic feedback up your arm, a ghost sensation that your brain still struggled to interpret correctly even after twenty-five years. It cut your equipment retrieval time in half, which meant you were back at Vader's door far sooner than expected, standing in the dimly lit corridor like some kind of medical statue while voices filtered through the door panel.

You shifted your weight, and the soft squeak of your boots on the durasteel floor felt deafening in the quiet - surely loud enough to announce your presence. The door's control panel glowed a soft blue, its ready light pulsing gently like a heartbeat, tempting you to press it and end this excruciating moment of indecision. But something held you back; a prickling at the base of your skull, that instinctive hesitation when you knew you were intruding on something raw and private. Something that, once witnessed, couldn't be un-witnessed.

Luke's voice drifted through first, and even muffled by the door panel, you could hear every note of that unyielding hope that defined him. That dangerous, beautiful optimism that could rally a rebellion or shatter a heart - possibly both simultaneously. " We could do it together…Open a school. Guide young Force sensitives, teach them, give them what the old Order tried to provide. Honor those teachings, carry them forward. Build something new, something better."

Move. Just move. Take three steps back, make some noise, clear your throat, drop something - anything.

You told yourself you were just waiting for an appropriate moment to enter, letting the tension inside dissipate naturally so you wouldn't walk into the middle of an emotional minefield. But deep down, in that honest part of yourself that you tried not to examine too closely, you knew that was a lie. A flimsy, transparent excuse to justify the pull of curiosity, the need to understand…. The man who'd become somehow more than just another patient, more than just another body to fix.

Don't. The internal warning came sharp and clear. Don't go down that path. Not now. Not ever.

And then-

"ENOUGH!"

The word detonated like a thermal charge, reverberating through the door panel and into your chest with physical force. The air seemed to thicken instantly, charged with an invisible energy that made your skin prickle and the fine hairs on your arms stand on end. Your cybernetic arm's sensors went haywire, warning lights flashing in your neural interface as they struggled to process the sudden electromagnetic spike. The door shuddered in its frame - a low, grinding groan of stressed metal that sent vibrations through the deck plates beneath your feet, and then you felt it.

A Force wave.

Even through the reinforced bulkhead, it hit you like a physical blow; a wall of pure power that pressed against your sternum, drove the air from your lungs, made your teeth ache and your vision blur for a split second. You'd felt echoes of the Force before, working around Luke, sensing the subtle shifts in atmosphere when he was deep in meditation or practice. But this…this was different. This was a supernova where they'd been candle flames.

You took a moment to steady yourself, to process what had just happened. And then you heard him - Vader, his voice laced with more venom and bitterness than you had ever heard before.

He spoke of the Jedi Order, of a Master who had failed him… of shattered trust, of betrayal wrapped in the robes of wisdom. His words dripped with a bitterness that cut deeper than any blade.

You shouldn’t be hearing this. These were wounds not meant for you, confessions that felt stolen, torn open by the weight of his fury and grief. And yet you could not turn away.

It wasn’t until he declared, “Anakin Skywalker is dead. And you would do well to accept that,” that you finally found the will to open the door.

The room revealed itself in fragments of destruction. The air tasted of ozone and heated plasteel, that particular combination that meant expensive equipment had died violently. And in the center of this carefully contained destruction stood Luke, frozen mid-motion like he'd been caught in carbonite, his chest still heaving with the effort of not destroying more.

His eyes locked onto yours with that piercing intensity and for a heartbeat, you saw everything: hope fracturing against reality like glass under pressure, love and disappointment tangled so tightly they'd become one emotion without a name. His black tunic hung askew, the fabric bunched at his shoulders as if he'd been physically restraining himself from... what? Embracing his father? Striking him? Both?

Oh boy.

Guilt hit you with all the subtlety of an orbital bombardment. Two nights ago, you'd had the most spectacularly inappropriate dream abou this father, with hands mapping your body with mechanical precision, that voice dropping to frequencies that made your spine liquid, his mouth-

Branches of the facial nerve: temporal, zygomatic, buccal, marginal mandibular, cervical. Anterior cerebral artery supplies the medial frontal and parietal lobes. The caudate nucleus is part of the basal ganglia

You yanked your gaze away from Luke's too-knowing eyes, focusing instead on cataloguing the damage. At a rough guess, certainly fourteen thousand credits worth of monitoring equipment reduced to scrap. Three wall panels would need repairs. CX-3 hovered behind you, its photoreceptors flickering in what you'd learned to recognize as algorithmic distress, probably calculating repair costs down to the last credit.

The silence had weight, pressing against your eardrums like rapid decompression. Vader sat with the stillness of a man who'd learned to make himself into stone; massive frame rigid, scarred profile turned toward the fractured viewport as if the cracks held some fascinating pattern only he could decode. Every line of his body radiated do not engage, from the set of his jaw to the precise angle of his shoulders.

Luke stood across from him, fists clenched so tightly his knuckles had gone white, the tendons in his forearms standing out like cables under strain. The Force, even without sensitivity, you could feel it, that electric charge that made your skin prickle and your teeth ache, swirled between them like an invisible storm system, all pressure and potential violence.

"Now I have to ask," you said, stepping carefully over what had once been a perfectly calibrated biorhythm scanner, the crunch of components under your boot obscenely loud, "if this is a bad time?"

Luke moved toward the door fast enough to create a breeze. As he passed you his presence in the Force brushed against your consciousness like fingers trailing across water.

Thank you.

The thought wasn't yours, delivered with such gentle precision you almost mistook it for your own relief.

You've given us both an exit.

He paused in the doorway, silhouetted against the corridor's harsh lighting like something out of a propaganda holo, and looked back over his shoulder. His jaw set with the kind of determination that had destroyed Death Stars and defied emperors.

"You're wrong, father" he said, quiet but immovable as bedrock. "And someday, you'll realize that."

Then he was gone, the door sealing with mechanical finality that seemed to echo:

  conversation over, damage done, please proceed with your regularly scheduled medical crisis.

Really, kid? Had to get that last parting shot?

The tension didn't dissipate with Luke's exit, it simply changed frequency, shifting from acute to chronic, from lightning to radiation. Vader had already returned his attention to the droid components scattered across his work tray, cybernetic fingers selecting a damaged processor with the kind of focus that suggested this was easier than acknowledging what had just happened.

But his movements had changed. Where before they'd been methodical, now they carried an edge, not violent exactly, but aggressive in their precision. A circuit board snapped into place with unnecessary force. The micro-welder ignited with a hiss that sounded almost angry, its blue flame reflected in his eyes as he applied it to a connection point that probably didn't require quite that much heat.

"Is everything okay?" The question escaped before your self-preservation instincts could throttle it, your hands already moving to set down the surgical kit with practiced efficiency.

He snorted; a sound that carried twenty years of exhaustion compressed into a single exhalation. "My son clings to naive ideals and heroic fantasies that will destroy him. He should abandon them. For his own sanity, if nothing else."

You picked your way through the debris field while CX-3 hummed anxiously behind you, its manipulator arms already extending to begin damage assessment. Your instruments found their places on the bedside table in familiar patterns: scalpel catching the light like a promise, clamps arranged by size with military precision, the anchor point implant still cold from storage, its durasteel surface reflecting fractured light from the damaged viewport.

"It seems to me," you said, activating the sterile field generators and watching their blue shimmer establish a clean zone, "that Luke has constructed a very specific version of who his father should be. The Jedi Knight from the stories and legends. The Hero with no fear from the Clone Wars." You paused, fingers tracing the implant's surface. "That construct is... colliding with reality."

Understatement of the year.

He answered nothing, stubbornly focused on the work before him, each motion edged with unnecessary force. That faint aggression was the only sign he’d even registered your words at all.

"He wants to be a Jedi," you continued, keeping your voice carefully neutral, clinical almost. "His father is famous for destroying the Jedi. He wants-"

You searched feverishly for another way to phrase it, some gentler angle, some less dangerous path. But none came to you. Some truths demanded to be called by their name, however sharp the edge of the words. "Anakin Skywalker."

The micro-welder didn't pause, but something in the quality of Vader's stillness shifted; a frequency change you'd learned to read like vital signs. His attention remained fixed on the processor, cybernetic fingers making adjustments too small for baseline human precision.

"Anakin Skywalker is dead."

His words were final, leaving no opening for reply. You counted five heartbeats in the steady hum of the life-support systems before you dare anyway.  “For good?”

Because you wanted that for Lue, this impossible boy who looked at ruins and saw foundations. And maybe…you wanted it for Vader too. This man who carried his past like shrapnel too deep to extract, each movement a reminder of wounds that would never fully heal. You were certain it would be easier for him to strip away Darth Vader, to lay that name down and bury it. Because deep inside you knew, as surely as he did, that the galaxy would never allow him to forget. He would never know peace, not unless he went into exile. But if he had the chance to live with his son… to shed that weight, that history, that name that filled so many hearts with dread at the mere sound of it.

His head snapped up, fixing on you with an intensity that made your lungs forget their function. For three heartbeats, you thought you'd overstepped, crossed into territory marked with warning signs in every language.

But then his gaze dropped back to his work, and when he spoke, his voice had that careful emptiness that took more effort than emotion, a deliberate void, a surgical absence.

"Anakin Skywalker betrayed his Order. His brothers and sisters in arms. Masters who raised him from nothing." The micro-welder moved with mechanical precision, creating perfect joins that would outlast organic tissue by centuries. "He marched on the Jedi Temple with the 501st Legion."

The blue flame danced across metal, each pass perfect, methodical. Hypnotic in its precision.

"He killed every Jedi in that Temple. Council members he'd known since childhood. Knights he'd fought beside at in countless battles. Padawans who'd looked up to him." A pause, minute but significant, the welder hovering above its target. "Younglings. Children so small they couldn't properly hold a training saber."

Oh. Suddenly it became clear; why his voice had shifted yesterday, why it had carried that strange distance the moment he knew you were on the children’s ward.

"He…" Another hesitation, longer this time, the kind that meant he was deciding whether words should exist, whether saying them gave them more power or released some of it.

Then he looked at you, really looked at you and you had never seen such a combination of agony and merciless hardness in a single gaze. Pain and steel, suffering and absolute unbreakable will, somehow coexisting in those eyes that had seen too much and carried every moment of it. The scars around them deepened with the weight of memory, pulling at the damaged skin.

"He Force-choked his pregnant wife to unconsciousness."

The words fell between you like stones into still water, creating ripples that would never quite settle. "Even though she still loved him. Even though, despite everything he'd done, every death on his hands, every choice that led him further into darkness, she only wanted to save him."

His hands stilled completely on the droid components, the welder going dark. When he spoke again, his voice was different; quieter, somehow more final, carrying the weight of absolute certainty.

"Anakin Skywalker died that day. On Mustafar, in the flames and the lava and the smoke." He didn't look at you, his gaze fixed on something far beyond the fractured viewport, beyond the broken equipment, beyond this room entirely. "He died because he could not have lived with what he had done. The guilt..."

A pause, barely perceptible, but you caught it. The slight catch in his breath, the minute tightening around his eyes.

"would have destroyed him. Anakin Skywalker was weak. He would have broken under the weight of his own sins, shattered like glass, and there would have been nothing left. Not even fragments worth salvaging."

Ego death, the clinical part of your mind supplied, even as the rest of you reeled from the implications. Psychological fragmentation as survival mechanism. The self cannot process the trauma, so it dies and something else takes its place. Complete dissociative break.

But that felt inadequate, reductive.

Sometimes, you thought, throat tight, the worst punishment is being forced to keep living.

The silence that followed felt absolute, the kind that occurs in surgical suites when everyone holds their breath during the critical moment of a procedure.

He's not just explaining. He's warning you. Warning Luke. Warning himself.

The realization pressed down inside you, heavy and suffocating in its certainty... This wasn't just trauma-induced dissociation or a coping mechanism. This was a man who'd performed psychological surgery on himself, excising the parts that couldn't coexist with what he'd done. Anakin Skywalker hadn't been murdered or suppressed or transformed; he'd been mercy-killed by the only person who had the right to make that call.

And Luke wants to perform a resurrection.

And suddenly one thing became crystal clear: You had been wrong. Completely, utterly wrong.

You had spent all this time believing that Darth Vader would never find peace in this galaxy. The weight of his crimes, committed in the Empire's name, seemed too heavy to bear. You had thought, perhaps as naively as Luke, that somewhere beneath it all, Anakin Skywalker could exist free from that burden. After all, few people knew what Vader truly looked like under the suit. And with the argument that Palpatine had systematically tortured him into submission, both medically and psychologically... rehabilitation wouldn't be easy, but it would certainly be possible.

But now you understood that something could weigh far heavier than the hatred of an entire galaxy: the hatred one carries within oneself.

What good would all the forgiveness in the universe do if you couldn't forgive yourself?

The realization hit you like a physical blow. Anakin Skywalker could only live as a free man because he would carry his prison within himself every moment of his existence. And he wouldn't simply become "Anakin Skywalker, Jedi Hero and Clone Wars Veteran" again. No. He would be Anakin Skywalker, Jedi Hero who fell to darkness and dragged the entire galaxy down with him, only to claw his way back to the light and beg for forgiveness.

And people would have expectations. Expectations laced with doubt, with hidden agendas, with that persistent what if lurking in the back of their minds. Someone who had fallen once could always fall again... couldn't they?

As harsh as it sounded, Vader's words had shocked you far less than they probably should have.

Why?

Killing defenceless younglings, children who looked up to you with that wide-eyed heroism, and laying hands on his own pregnant wife were among the most repulsive acts of brutality you could imagine a normal man committing. But Darth Vader wasn't a normal man, not like Anakin Skywalker had been, at least not by that measure. His legend had twisted him into something far worse in people's minds: a monster, a beast.

 And yet, it was strangely unsettling to see that this beast struggled with expectations and disappointments, especially those of his own children, just like anyone else might.

It would have shattered you, hearing this before everything that had happened here: that Anakin Skywalker, the model Jedi Knight, the war hero, the parade-ground poster boy, had strangled his pregnant wife and slaughtered younglings. Your expectations of him had always been that: pure, flawless character and perfection. But the other way around... you'd known all along who Vader was. That he had countless lives on his conscience: men, women, children. Families. Cities. Planets. A galaxy’s worth of ghosts trailing behind him, never silent. Your expectations of him had been... bluntly put, laced with terror and revulsion from the start. Hearing the Imperial butcher confess that he'd strangled pregnant women and killed children... well, surprise, surprise.

Yet, over these last weeks, you'd learned there was so much more lurking behind that facade of terror and death. A far more complex construct, where each piece simultaneously made more sense and less, layering contradiction upon contradiction until the whole picture blurred into something achingly human.

You suddenly understood how infinitely much the expectations with which you viewed a person truly mattered.

Of course, you could not give a damn what expectations others had of you.

But... what about the expectations you held of yourself?

The expectation of being a good doctor. Or a good father... What happened when your own internal standards became entangled with what others expected of you?

You shifted on the stool, the metal creaking slightly under the movement, and found yourself speaking before you'd fully formed the thought.

"I know what it's like to struggle with expectations." The words emerged softer than intended, your voice carrying the weight of memories you rarely examined. Your organic fingers found the bed's railing, tracing the cold durasteel edge. "My parents had their plans. Career trajectories mapped out before I could walk, social connections cultivated like investments."

A bitter laugh escaped before you could stop it. "But that was just... ordinary family pressure. Garden-variety disappointment when their daughter chose battlefield surgery over the prestigious Core World hospitals they'd selected."

Don't make this about you. This isn't about you.

But somehow the words kept coming, drawn out by something in his stillness, the way he listened without judgment.

“I can’t imagine…” You faltered, searching for language that could even begin to hold the weight of it, watching his hands guide the micro-welder with mechanical precision. “The Chosen One. Whatever that actually means in practice, the title alone implies an impossible burden. And then Hero with No Fear…” You shook your head slightly. “It seems people expected from you nothing short of unreachable greatness. To be the shining Jedi Knight. The victorious war hero. To save the galaxy. To bring balance. To teach a Padawan. To win a war…”

Each expectation dropped into the silence like a stone into water, ripples of implication spreading outward.

"For a twenty-three-year-old expectant father trying to navigate a marriage and a war simultaneously? That's not pressure, that's a psychological crushing mechanism designed to destroy anyone human enough to feel it."

His hands stilled. The micro-welder hovered above the droid's exposed circuitry, its blue flame casting sharp shadows across the scars that mapped his jawline. Three heartbeats passed. Four. Then the work resumed, but you'd learned to read his body language over these weeks; the minute tension in his shoulders, the deliberately controlled breathing that meant he was processing something difficult.

"And now..." Your voice dropped lower, intimate in the medical bay's quiet hum. "Now you're a father watching those same impossible expectations reflected in your adult son's eyes. Watching him try to reconstruct you into that legend, that myth he's built from narratives, his own imagination and old war stories."

The muscle in his jaw jumped, a tell you'd catalogued weeks ago, filed away with all the other involuntary responses that betrayed his emotional state. The micro-welder's flame wavered as his hand tightened fractionally around its grip. Something about that tiny loss of control, that crack in his perpetual composure, drove you forward past every professional boundary you'd carefully maintained.

Your hand moved without conscious thought, fingers slipping across the curve of his thumb into the cold geometry of the mechanical palm...Through the bare metal you felt the faintest tremor ripple through him at the unexpected contact.

He stopped working entirely. The welder clicked off with a soft pneumatic hiss, and he turned to look at you with an expression of pure question; not anger, not withdrawal, just genuine uncertainty about your intent. Those blue eyes searched yours with an intensity that made your chest tighten.

Say it. Someone needs to say it.

"You don't have to be Anakin Skywalker." The words came out fierce, protective in a way that surprised you. Your grip on his hand tightened slightly, thumb unconsciously tracing the raised line where surgical scars met healthy tissue. "Not if you don't want to be. Not for Luke, not for the Alliance, not for the ghost of the Jedi Order. You get to decide who you are now."

The look he gave you was multilayered, surprise flickering through first, then something that might have been gratitude, and something you could quite place. When he spoke, his voice carried a roughness that had nothing to do with damaged vocal cords.

"I wish," he said slowly, each word carefully measured, "that my son shared your perspective."

Luke. Right. Luke, whose desperate need for family had crystallized around an idealized father-figure, whose optimism sometimes bordered on wilful blindness. Luke, who looked at Vader and saw only the potential for Anakin Skywalker's resurrection, not the man who actually existed in this moment.

“He will.” You heard more conviction in your voice than you would have expected.  Your thumb was still moving against his - when had that started? - and you forced yourself to stop, to release him, though your hand lingered a heartbeat longer than necessary.

“He just needs time. Both of you do. Time shared, time to see each other as you really are. Not the legend. Not the Chosen One. Not Darth Vader, the emperor's enforcer. Not the perfect Jedi father he’s imagined.”

You let a faint grin slip across your lips. “Just… a dad. Complicated and flawed and trying to figure out how to exist in a galaxy that barely has a framework for what you are now.”

The sound he made might have been a laugh, sharp and brief but carrying genuine humour, the kind that came from recognizing absurdity rather than finding joy. It rumbled through his chest in a way that made something flutter beneath your ribs.

Stop noticing things like that. Stop it right now.

"To be fair," he said, setting the welder aside with deliberate precision, "it's not exactly simple to establish a paternal relationship when your children are already adults. When one has constructed an entirely fictional version of you based on propaganda and desperate hope, while the other has valid reasons to want you dead based on extensively documented reality."

The laugh burst out of you before you could stop it, genuine and slightly helpless, the kind that came from recognizing painful truth wrapped in dark humour. "Yes, well. Family is something everyone has to either grow into or develop survival strategies for. Sometimes both simultaneously."

The corner of his mouth twitched; not quite a smile, but close enough to count as one in his restricted emotional vocabulary. The scar tissue pulled differently when he allowed that minute expression, creating new patterns.

Stop. Cataloguing. His. Expressions.

The moment hung, charged with something you didn't want to name. His eyes held yours a beat too long, and you could see him processing something, filing information away with the same methodical precision he applied to mechanical repairs.

Professional distance. Reestablish professional distance immediately.

You stood abruptly, the motion sending your chair rolling back with a squeak that shattered the moment's tension. Your hands found the fabric of your medical coat, smoothing non-existent wrinkles with practiced efficiency. "Speaking of survival strategies, we need to set that anchor point. The sooner we get your leg properly integrated, the sooner we can avoid any more tissue degradation at the connection sites."

Osseointegration procedure: Prepare surgical site, local anaesthetic application, periosteal elevation, careful drilling to avoid thermal necrosis, implant insertion with precise torque control

The familiar litany of procedure steps grounded you, pulled you back into the safe realm of medical practice where everything had protocols and predictable outcomes.

"Lie back," you instructed, your voice shifting into the authoritative tone that brooked no argument. "This is going to take approximately an hour, and I need absolute stillness during the drilling phase. One involuntary muscle spasm at the wrong moment could compromise the entire integration."

He set aside his droid components with obvious reluctance, his fingers lingering on the half-assembled processor board as if the mechanical work had been providing some kind of meditation, some escape from the weight of more complex thoughts. But he complied, settling back against the bed's raised surface with controlled movement.

CX-3 hummed closer, its instrument tray extended like a chrome benediction, photoreceptors brightening as it registered the shift from maintenance to medical procedure. "Surgical implements prepared and sterilized, Doctor," it announced with what you swore was enthusiasm. "Shall I begin monitoring vital signs?"

You pulled on fresh sterile gloves, the synthex snapping against your wrists with familiar finality. Your fingers ran through the instrument check.

“Ready?” you asked, drawing the mask up over your face even as you held his gaze before the procedure began.

You were already reaching for the local anaesthetic injector when his voice caught you again, deeper somehow, carrying an undertone that made your hand pause mid-motion.

"Doc, one more thing."

The unexpected shift in his tone, softer, almost hesitant, made you look up from your instruments. Something in his expression had changed, the clinical detachment replaced by something rawer. The harsh lines of his scarred features seemed to soften in the sterile light.

"Thank you." The words came quietly, weighted with more than simple gratitude. "Not just for... this." His gaze flicked briefly toward his leg, then returned to your face with an intensity that made your breath catch behind your surgical mask. "For everything. It's quite... nice, to be not only tolerated but…actually wanted. As who one actually is."

The word slammed into you, sending heat flooding through your chest and down into places that had no business responding during a medical procedure. Your fingers went slack around the injector for a split second before muscle memory kicked in, tightening your grip before you could drop the instrument entirely.

He knows. Oh Force, he knows.

Thank the gods for surgical masks. Behind the sterile barrier, your face was performing what you could only describe as 'facial acrobatics' as the implications crashed over you like a tsunami. The mask hid your expression from his penetrating gaze at least partially, but it couldn't hide the way your pupils dilated, couldn't conceal the slight tremor that ran through your hands.

The dream. How? He saw the dream. Somehow, impossible as it seemed, he knew exactly how …. how you'd arched beneath him, how you'd -

"I..." you started, then stopped, your voice catching on the simple word like a medical droid with a corrupted vocal processor.

Get it together. You're a medical professional, not some hormone-addled adolescent.

But even as you tried to ground yourself in clinical routine, his words echoed in your mind with devastating precision.

You tried to look at it logically. He’d said, ‘It's quite... nice, to be not only tolerated but…actually wanted. As who one actually is.’ That could just as easily have been a response to your own heroic declaration  ‘You don’t have to be Anakin Skywalker. You can be whoever you want to be.’

Right? That had to be it.

Unless… unless he truly could see into your mind. Beyond the surface thoughts. Beyond the walls you had so carefully built; walls that, in truth, were riddled with cracks and forever slipping into the forbidden territories of your corrupted subconscious. Was such a thing even possible?

You nearly made a mental note to ask Luke - and immediately abandoned the idea. Because no, there was no reality in which you would ask Luke Skywalker if his father could peer into your head and catch a glimpse of the subconscious smut reel you never signed off on.

But what if he had looked into your head yesterday? Was it possible to reach into your mind without you noticing… and from a distance?

You’d have to ask Piett.

“You’re… you’re welcome,” you managed at last, the flatness betraying your scramble for words. Perfect. Absolutely flawless. As if ‘you’re welcome’ isn’t the dumbest, clumsiest answer you could have chosen. “Let’s move on and set this anchor point correctly.”

This will definitely be a very... interesting hour.

Chapter Text

Anatomy of Want

"Say it again," Jano said, each word precisely articulated. "What exactly did he say?"

The groan that tore from your throat carried the weight of seventy-two hours of increasingly surreal existence. Your head dropped forward onto the table between your folded arms with a thunk that rattled both cups, sent ripples across the dark liquid surfaces like miniature seismic activity. The cool metal pressed against your forehead felt almost medicinal, as if maybe sustained contact could leach out the chaos currently residing in your skull.

Neural pathway overload. Cognitive dissonance approaching critical mass. Recommended treatment: find the nearest airlock and consider your options.

From your position of self-imposed exile on the tabletop, you lifted your head just enough to meet Jano's eyes. Your cheek remained pressed against your forearm, and you were acutely aware that you probably looked like something that had crawled out of a medical waste disposal unit.

"'It's quite nice,'" you repeated, your voice muffled by your arms and carrying all the enthusiasm of someone reading their own autopsy results, "'to be not only tolerated but actually wanted. As who one actually is.'"

The words hung in the air like a confession at a tribunal, each syllable weighted with implications you absolutely did not want to examine.

Jano's eyebrows climbed toward his hairline in an expression you'd catalogued over years of friendship as 'oh, this is fascinating and you're completely screwed.' His fingers drummed against his cup in a rhythm that probably matched your elevated heart rate, the bastard always could read your vitals without instruments.

"And what was his tone?" Jano pressed, leaning even closer, his voice dropping to that particular register that meant he was in full diagnostic mode. "Suggestive? Knowing? Teasing?"

"I don't know!" The exclamation burst out sharper than intended, loud enough that a Bothan officer two tables over glanced in your direction before quickly deciding your breakdown wasn't worth the entertainment value. Frustration bled through every syllable as you straightened slightly, one hand coming up to rub at your temple where a headache had taken up permanent residence and apparently started charging rent. "Vader-typical? Deep, measured, like he's reading tactical reports except the tactical report is apparently documenting my complete psychological unravelling in real-time?"

Your fingers found the warm ceramic of your cup, tracing its rim in nervous circles. The heat seeped into your palm grounding you momentarily in physical sensation before your brain spiralled back into chaos.

"Vader-typical," Jano repeated slowly, like he was tasting the words, testing their weight. "So basically impossible to read because the man's emotional range extends from 'menacing stillness' to 'terrifying anger' with no middle ground?"

"Yes! Exactly!" You rubbed your temples.  "He could've meant anything. Could've been completely innocent, or- or- "

"Or he knows about the dream," Jano finished, his tone matter-of-fact, clinical, the kind of voice he used to deliver difficult diagnoses to patients who weren't ready to hear them.

Your organic hand spasmed around the cup, knuckles going white.

Acute stress response. Fight-or-flight activation. Elevated cortisol. Tachycardia. Probably visible pupil dilation. Get it together.

"I don't know," you said, but the words came out smaller this time, thinner, like they'd been stretched too far across too much anxiety and lost structural integrity in the process. Your gaze dropped to the dark surface of your caf, watching the faint steam curl upward in patterns that looked almost like question marks. "Maybe? Can he even do that? See into someone's head from a distance without them noticing?"

Remember Piett's strategy. Hyperspace calculations. Boring technical details. But what if that only works for people without-

Your stomach dropped approximately three levels through the deck plating.

"Can I ask you something?"

The question came gentle, but you'd known Jano long enough to recognize the particular tone that meant he was about to perform invasive surgery on something you'd rather leave untouched.

You nodded, too tired to do anything else, your head feeling like it weighed approximately the same as a capital ship.

"Do you want him?"

Your mouth felt open. Then closed. Then opened again like some kind of aquatic creature desperately gulping for oxygen that wouldn't come, your jaw working through configurations that produced exactly zero words. The question slammed into you with all the subtlety of a surgical mallet to the sternum, disrupting cardiac rhythm and probably causing some minor internal bleeding in the process.

"I- what?" The word barely qualified as language; more sound than meaning. "That's- I can't- "

Your brain attempted to boot up several response protocols simultaneously: shock, outrage, deflection, humour, honest consideration. The system crashed. Rebooted. Crashed again.

"How dare you even- " But the outrage died somewhere between your brain and your mouth, replaced by something far more dangerous: actual, genuine, mortifying consideration.

Your face must have done something spectacular- some combination of expressions that cycled through horror, denial, reluctant contemplation, and back to horror- because Jano's features shifted from concerned to knowing in the span of a single heartbeat. That particular look that meant he'd just confirmed a diagnosis he'd suspected but hoped wasn't true.

Oh no. Oh no, no, no-

"Jano, that's- " You scrambled for solid ground, for professional protocols, for literally anything that could build a defensive wall between you and this line of questioning. The words tumbled out in a rush, each one piling onto the last like a barricade constructed under fire. "Do you have any idea how unethical that would be? Doctor-patient relationships have clear boundaries for very good reasons. The power dynamics alone make any kind of- and he's traumatized, recovering from decades of- I mean, the psychological vulnerability involved in his situation makes the very concept of- "

Stop deflecting. Stop hiding behind ethics codes.

"The potential for exploitation is- " you continued, gaining momentum, your voice rising slightly as you built your case like you were presenting to a medical board. "And even setting aside the immediate ethical violations, there's the question of informed consent when someone's in a compromised mental state, not to mention the professional liability, and the fact that any relationship formed under these circumstances would be fundamentally unequal in terms of- "

"Hey." Jano's voice cut through your increasingly frantic lecture with the kind of gentle firmness he used with patients in denial about terminal diagnoses. One hand lifted from his cup, palm out in a gesture of peace. "Listen to me for a second, okay?"

You fell silent, though your jaw remained tight enough to crack teeth, your entire body thrumming with nervous energy that had nowhere to go.

Jano took a deliberate sip of his caf, the motion slow, giving you time to remember how to breathe. When he set the cup down, his expression had settled into that particular blend of pragmatism and compassion that made him such a good physician- the ability to deliver hard truths without cruelty.

"There are basically two options here," he continued, his tone shifting into that straightforward honesty that you'd come to both love and hate over the years. "Either he doesn't know about the dream; in which case, I can guarantee you that Vader's going to pick up on your behaviour."

He leaned back in his seat, cradling his cup between both hands like it was a prop in a lecture.

"The man lived twenty-plus years as the emperor's enforcer," Jano continued, each word carefully placed. "He navigated Imperial politics, which from what I understand makes our medical hierarchy look like a children's playground. He commanded fleets, managed resources, dealt with ambitious admirals and scheming bureaucrats and men who’d sell their own mothers for rank," His dark eyes pinned you in place. "You really think he got there by being oblivious to people's reactions?"

Point. Valid point. Dammit.

"He'll notice something's off," Jano said with absolute certainty. "And honestly? He'll probably say things specifically to see how you respond. Test the waters. Figure out what's making you act strange." He gave you a meaningful look. "For a bastard like him, that’s foreplay - or whatever counts as fun in his world.“

Your stomach did something complicated that probably violated several laws of physics.

"Or," Jano continued, holding up one finger, "he knows about the dream."

The words landed like a surgical blade finding a nerve cluster.

"In which case?" He made a gesture like he was physically pushing something away from himself, brushing invisible debris off the table. "Stand up, adjust your crown, dust yourself off, and keep moving forward. Don't make it weird by acting weird about it."

"I can't just- casually dismiss- " You started, but the protest sounded weak even to your own ears.

"Because you're too involved," he interrupted, but not unkindly. "Too fixated."

The words made you go still in a way that had nothing to do with conscious choice and everything to do with sudden, unwelcome recognition. Like when a diagnostic scan revealed something you'd been carefully not looking at, and suddenly it was there, unavoidable, demanding attention.

Fixated. Unhealthy preoccupation with a specific object or person. Obsessive focus that interferes with normal functioning.

"I'm not- " you started but couldn't finish. Because maybe you were. Maybe you'd been so deep in the forest of this case that you'd lost sight of the fact that it wasn't just a case anymore.

Jano leaned back in his seat, his expression softening into something gentler. "Look, I can guarantee you one thing: Vader is, whatever anyone else says about him - still just a man."

The statement hung there, simple but profound.

"And as a man myself," Jano continued, "I can tell you with absolute certainty that he knows sex dreams are usually irrational. Completely arbitrary. Most of the time they have literally zero connection to reality or actual desire."

He paused to take another sip, and you caught the slight curve of his lips that meant he was about to say something outrageous for emphasis.

" I had a dream last week about being a pleasure slave for the Hutts," he said with the kind of casual delivery that only seven years of friendship could produce. "Complete with the collar, the chains, the works. It was disturbingly detailed."

Despite everything, despite the anxiety and confusion and mortification, you felt your lips twitch.

"Does that mean I'm going to strip naked and throw myself into slavery?" Jano's eyebrows rose. "Absolutely not. It means my brain was processing something, probably that horrible documentary about trafficking rings we watched last month, in a weird, metaphorical way that my subconscious decided required disturbing sexual imagery."

He set down his cup with a soft clink against the table.

"Brains are stupid sometimes," he concluded. "They mix things up, create bizarre scenarios, process fears and anxieties through the least appropriate channels possible. It's just how they work. So even if he does know about the dream..." Jano's voice dropped slightly, more serious now. "Then what?"

You stared at him, confusion evident in the slight furrow between your brows.

"Seriously, walk me through it," Jano pressed. "Let's say, worst-case scenario, he saw the whole thing. Every detailed, inappropriate moment. Then what actually happens?"

"I- " Your brain tried to construct a response and came up empty. "I'd die of mortification?"

"Okay, but after you don't actually die because embarrassment isn't fatal despite how it feels?" Jano's expression held steady, patient. "What does he do? Because I met the guy, remember? Spent a delightful morning having my entire medical degree questioned."

You winced sympathetically.

"And you know what I noticed?" Jano continued. "He's absolutely capable of being a complete bastard when he wants to be. Cruel, even." He paused, his gaze sharpening on your face. "But with you? He's different."

"Different…how?" The question came out quieter than intended.

"He tolerates your presence in a way that he clearly doesn't tolerate anyone else's. And yes, he says things that could be interpreted as teasing, but..." He tilted his head slightly, considering. "Since I know you’re not a masochist, I have to assume it’s because he’s treating you differently. On purpose. Because honestly, I can’t imagine you finding it fascinating if he spoke to you the way he’s spoken to me."

Differential treatment. Behavioural modification based on specific individual. Indicates... what? Recognition? Respect? Interest?

"So let's think about this logically," Jano continued, his voice taking on that lecturer quality he got when walking students through complex diagnoses. "What happens if you transfer him to another physician because of your professional boundaries? Not me, thank you very much, but someone else. What do you think happens then?"

You opened your mouth, but he was already continuing, steamrolling through your attempted response.

"I'll tell you exactly what happens," Jano said, and there was certainty in his voice, the kind that came from understanding human behaviour patterns. "Vader will burn through one doctor after another. He'll either refuse treatment entirely, because let's be honest, the man's spent twenty-three years being maintained by machines, he's probably got complex feelings about medical care, or he'll intimidate them so thoroughly that they won't actually do anything meaningful."

His fingers drummed against his cup, a nervous gesture you recognized.

"He'll deteriorate slowly," Jano continued, his voice dropping into something more somber. "The grafts will start failing without proper maintenance. The prosthetic integration will degrade. Infections will set in because nobody's monitoring closely enough." He paused, letting that sink in. "And you..." His finger lifted, pointed at you with his cup still cradled in his palm. "You won't be able to watch it happen. You'll see the reports, notice the declining vitals, know that it's preventable, and it will eat at you."

The accuracy of that assessment made your chest constrict, your breath catching slightly.

He's right. You know he's right. You'd override the transfer, force your way back into the case, make it worse.

"I know you," Jano said softly, and those three words carried the weight of years. "I've watched you run yourself into the ground for patients you barely know."

He leaned forward again, his expression intense.

"So what do you think? Would you'd just... let Vader deteriorate because of professional ethics?" His eyebrows rose. "No. You wouldn't. You'd find a way back into his care, and then everyone would know it wasn't really about professional boundaries, it was about something else."

He's not wrong. You'd find a justification, manufacture a reason…

"As long as it's really just about the dream?" Jano shrugged, the gesture deliberately casual. "In my professional opinion, everything's fine. Dreams are weird, brains are stupid, nobody's responsible for their subconscious being a creep."

He took another sip of caf, and you watched the way his expression shifted, became more serious, more concerned.

"What he’ll notice," Jano said, leaning forward, "is how you act about it. And honestly? Even behind that whole ‘doctor-patient professionalism’ façade, your reaction is… pretty extreme.“

You let your head fall onto your arms, face buried. "Don’t say it."

"Oh, I’m saying it," Jano replied without mercy. "You’ve been obsessed. For weeks. And before you start yelling about professional ethics, I mean that medically. You've demonstrated classic hyperfixation patterns. This case, this patient, this walking contradiction he represents for you."

Hyperfixation. Intense concentration on a specific interest. Difficulty disengaging. Neglect of other responsibilities.

Oh.

"You've had complete hyperfocus on trying to decipher something that nobody has dared to even look at sideways for twenty years," Jano said, his voice gentle but unflinching. "The medical mystery of how someone survived in that suit. The engineering challenge of his prosthetics. The psychological puzzle of his trauma and recovery. You've been consumed by it."

He paused, giving you space to process.

"You work late hours reviewing his scans. You've memorized his medication schedule down to the minute. You personally oversee every aspect of his care even though you have an entire staff of qualified physicians." Another pause, weighted. "I've watched you and I've never seen you like this before. Even for you, this is extreme. "

Your fingers curled against your arms, tension radiating through your shoulders.

"So honestly?" Jano's voice dropped into something almost compassionate. "It wouldn't surprise me if your brain- pumped full of overdoses of caffeine and running on maybe four hours of sleep a night for the past three weeks- confused professional obsession with private passion."

The words hung in the air between you, heavy with truth you didn't want to examine.

"Or maybe," he added quietly, carefully, like he was handling something volatile, "it wasn't confusion at all. Maybe your brain was processing what your conscious mind wouldn't let you acknowledge."

The cantina noise seemed to swell around you; conversations, laughter, the hiss of the caf machine, the clatter of utensils against plates. All of it suddenly too loud, too present, too much.

"You don't have to justify yourself to me," Jano said, and there was genuine warmth in his voice now, the kind that came from years of friendship weathering worse storms than this. "The Universe knows we're both spectacularly bad at choosing our..." He made a vague gesture. "Whatever. Terrible decision-making all around."

Despite everything, you felt your mouth twitch.

"But you need to ask yourself something," Jano continued, his tone shifting again, becoming more serious. "And I mean really ask it: Do you want him?"

"I- " You lifted your head slightly, your hair falling across your face in disarray that probably made you look like you'd been electrocuted. "That's not- it's not that simple- "

"I'm not asking if it's simple," Jano interrupted gently. "I'm asking if it's true."

"But the ethics- "

"Are important, yes. But they're also in this specific case a shield you're hiding behind." His gaze held steady, unflinching. "You're using professional standards as a reason to not examine what you're actually feeling."

Psychological defence mechanism. Intellectualization. Avoiding emotional processing by focusing on abstract principles… maybe you shouldn't choose that to internalise as distraction.

"I'm asking," Jano said slowly, "not because I'm worried about professional boundaries. I mean, yes, they exist for good reasons, but also... we're in the middle of nowhere on a jury-rigged medical frigate where half the equipment barely works and we're making up protocols as we go. Professional standards kind of took a hit around the time the Empire fell."

His hands gestured vaguely, encompassing the cantina, the ship, the entire chaotic situation.

"I'm asking because Vader is dangerous."

The shift in his tone made you look up properly, meeting his eyes.

"I know that," you said, the words coming out with a sigh, half-hearted in their conviction. "The whole galaxy knows that. There's a reason people are terrified of him- "

"No." Jano's voice cut through your response with unusual sharpness, his expression hardening. "I don't think you do know. Not really. Not in the way I mean."

You stared at him, something cold settling in your stomach.

"He's not just a war criminal," Jano said carefully, each word weighted with gravity. "He's a war criminal who's also a prisoner of war. In a few months, maybe six, maybe eight, depending on how long the Alliance takes to establish proper tribunals, he's going to stand trial."

The cantina suddenly felt colder, the noise more distant.

"And with his record?" Jano continued, his voice dropping lower, more serious than you'd heard it in months. " Execution isn't far-fetched. It's probably the expected outcome."

Your breath caught, sharp and sudden, like you'd been punched in the chest.

"High Command iss keeping him alive right now because he's useful," Jano continued, merciless in his pragmatism. "He has intelligence about Imperial remnants, about Thrawn's strategies, about things the Alliance needs to know. But once that usefulness expires?" His shoulder lifted in a slight shrug. "Why would they keep him alive? The political pressure alone-"

"He saved Luke," you interjected, but even you could hear how weak it sounded. "He killed the emperor."

"Which might get him life imprisonment instead of execution," Jano said. "Maybe. Maybe. If he's incredibly lucky and the tribunal is feeling generous." His gaze held yours, steady and unyielding. "But realistically? He's probably going to die. If not from a death sentence, then from an assassination. Someone who lost family, someone who wants revenge, someone who thinks the galaxy is better off without him."

The cold in your stomach had spread, seeping through your chest, making it hard to breathe properly.

"So I'm asking you to think really carefully," Jano said softly, his voice gentle now despite the harshness of his words. "And I mean truly sit with this and consider it: Do you want to get involved with a dead man walking?"

The question hung in the air like a death sentence itself.

Your hands had gone col  and you realized you were trembling slightly.

He's right. You know he's right. The Alliance can't afford to show mercy. Not to him. Not after everything.

But the thought of Vader standing trial, of him being led to execution…

No. Don't think about it. Don't-

Your gaze dropped to your wrist out of habit, checking the time display more to escape Jano's knowing eyes than anything else.

"Kriff!" The word exploded from you as you shot to your feet, the movement so sudden that your chair scraped backward with a harsh screech that drew attention from nearby tables.

Your hands were already grabbing for your medical kit, slinging it over your shoulder with practiced efficiency despite the way your fingers fumbled slightly, adrenaline making you clumsy.

"What?" Jano looked genuinely startled by the sudden transformation from emotional crisis to action. "What's wrong?"

"I'm late!" You were already moving, weaving between tables with the kind of speed that suggested imminent medical emergency. "I have an appointment; the neurologist is meeting me at Vader's room in- " You glanced at your chrono again, your stomach dropping further. "- approximately five minutes."

"Wait, what appointment?" Jano called after you, confusion evident in his voice. "What neurologist?"

"The prosthetic interfaces!" You threw the words over your shoulder, already halfway to the exit, dodging a server carrying a tray of food. "They're not giving the signal output they should be; the neural mapping is off, there's definitely something wrong with either the pathway integration or potentially something in the brain itself affecting motor signal processing, and  Thal is supposed to be running diagnostics."

You reached the cantina doors, slammed your palm against the control panel.

"Good talk!" Jano's voice carried across the cantina, and you could hear the smile in it, that particular blend of amusement and concern and affection that had characterized your friendship for longer than you cared to calculate. "Really worked through some important things there!"

"Shut up!" you shot back without heat, already stepping into the corridor.

"Think about what I said!" His voice followed you, louder now, definitely drawing attention from other patrons. "Especially the dead man walking part! That's kind of important!"

Several people at nearby tables were definitely staring now.

"I hate you!" you called back, but there was no venom in it.

"You love me!“ Jano’s voice carried through the closing gap. "It’s my curse! Now go save your murder cyborg so he can actually walk again!"

"He's not my- " But the doors sealed with a pneumatic hiss, cutting off your protest.

The corridor stretched ahead of you, stark and utilitarian in that way that military vessels could never quite shake no matter how much the  Alliance tried to make them feel less like flying coffins. Your boots hit the deck plating in a rhythm that was faster than a walk but not quite a jog, that particular pace medical professionals perfected somewhere between residency and their first mass-casualty event.

Do you want him?

Jano's question circled in your mind like a malfunctioning diagnostic protocol, refusing to complete its cycle, just looping endlessly through the same corrupted data.

What did that even mean? Want. Such a small word for something so catastrophically complicated.

Your medical bag bounced against your hip with each step, the familiar weight grounding even as your thoughts spiralled. The smell of recycled air filled your lungs- that particular blend of antiseptic, machine oil, and the indefinable something that came from too many people breathing the same oxygen in too small a space.

Want.

The word could mean so many things. Want as in desire? Want as in need? Want as in that inexplicable pull toward something that logic said you should avoid but every other part of you seemed determined to investigate despite all evidence suggesting it was a spectacularly bad idea?

You navigated around a maintenance droid without breaking stride, your mind cataloguing the question from every angle like you were preparing a differential diagnosis.

What would you even want from him?

Here you were. A competent physician in your mid-thirties who'd survived medical school- barely, some semesters- survived your specialist training, your assistant year where you'd learned more about coffee as a food group than you'd ever wanted to know, survived the war with its endless parade of injuries that still sometimes replayed behind your eyelids when you tried to sleep, survived countless patients and impossible cases and the kind of medical emergencies that made textbooks seem quaint.

And somehow, somehow you'd managed all of that without ever once tangling yourself into such a morally ambiguous, ethically questionable, professionally inadvisable situation.

Your shoulder brushed the wall as you took a corner too sharp, the slight jar bringing you back to physical reality momentarily before your thoughts dragged you under again.

Yes, fine, your choice in men had been...questionable. More than questionable. Jano had an entire mental file labelled  "Terrible Taste in Partners" that he pulled out whenever you needed humbling or he needed entertainment. You could practically hear a dozen psychiatrists salivating at the thought of analysing your dating history and tracing it all neatly back to your childhood trauma and unresolved parental dynamics.

But at least none of those men- as far as you knew, and you really, really hoped your knowledge was accurate- had been murderers or war criminals.

Well.

Okay, Gavinc.

Your jaw clenched at the memory.

Gavinc, who'd tried to hand you over to his uncle after discovering you worked for the Rebellion. . Who’d apparently believed family loyalty outweighed the minor detail that you’d been sleeping together for three months. Who’d looked genuinely bewildered when you called him a bastard and broke his nose with your cybernetic fist on the way out of his apartment.
Who would've guessed the name Krennic wasn't that common?

But even Gavinc, Imperial relative, betrayal, attempted arrest and all, even he didn't come close to Vader.

Not even in the same category. Different sport entirely.

Vader wasn’t the "I-shot-people-for-the-Empire-because-I-thought-we-were-the-good-guys" stormtrooper variety of problematic.  He was the "body-count-too-high-for-individual acknowledgment-so-we-summarise-it-under-mass-atrocities-and-genocides" level of moral catastrophe..

Can you really grasp that? The full weight of it?

Your pace slowed slightly as you really tried to process the scope, the same way you'd try to conceptualize numbers too large for human brains to properly parse. The death toll. The cities. The planets. The families torn apart, the children orphaned, the-

A technician squeezed past you in the corridor with a muttered "Excuse me, Doctor," and you realized you'd stopped walking entirely, frozen mid-stride while your brain tried and failed to comprehend the magnitude of atrocity contained in one man's history.

You forced your feet to move again.

What would you do, you asked yourself with brutal honesty, if one of your friends, for example Ynnena, came to you with someone like that?

Ynnena, who still thought people could be fixed with patience and affection. You’d probably stage an intervention, confiscate her holopad, and recommend psychiatric evaluation.

And yet here you were, trying not to think about the sound of his voice.

You'd seen enough reality documentaries about women who fell for the absolute worst scum of the galaxy. W Women who thought they were exceptional, immune, destined to be the ones who finally reached the broken man behind the atrocities. Women who thought they could change them, fix them, save them from themselves.

Fix him.

The thought made you pause again, this time at a junction where the corridor split toward medical. A group of pilots passed, their voices loud and cheerful, celebrating something. You waited for them to pass before continuing.

Is that what this is?

On one hand...yes. Obviously, it was a fix-it project. That's literally what you'd been doing for weeks. Fixing him. Repairing the damage done by decades in that suit, reconstructing tissue, integrating prosthetics, solving the massive biological puzzle of how to keep someone alive who by all rights should have died on Mustafar.

But that was different from what those women in the documentaries meant. You were fixing his body, his physical components, the mechanical and biological systems that comprised his corporeal form. You weren't trying to fix his soul or his moral compass or his fundamental character.

You weren't trying to redeem him- that wasn't your job, wasn't even in your skillset.

Your steps had brought you closer to your familiar territory, and something in you settled slightly as the chaos of your thoughts began to organize into more coherent patterns.

Honestly, you don't think his soul needs fixing. Not by you anyway.

Yes, clearly he needed some refresher course in How to Live and Converse in Normal Society 101. The man’s conversational skills had all the grace of a rusted droid suffering a firmware meltdown. But that just needed practice, exposure, time to readjust to interacting with people who weren't either terrified of him or trying to use him for their own ends.

Everything else...

He'd fixed that himself, you realized with something like certainty. Before you ever met him.

Because you couldn't imagine- literally could not construct a mental scenario- where you would get along with the Vader who slaughtered younglings in the Temple. The Vader who cut off his own son's hand. The Vader who served the emperor with mechanical precision for two decades.

That version of him would have terrified you in a way that transcended professional composure or ethical obligation. Sooner or later, you’d have reached your limit: flight, freeze, collapse. The body’s natural response to a predator.

But that wasn't who you'd been treating for the past three weeks.

Which was exactly why he fascinated you so much it sometimes felt like an obsession, a mystery that demanded solving even when you knew you probably shouldn't look too closely at the answer.

The Vader you'd come to know- through conversations about prosthetic calibration, through his dry humour, through moments of unexpected vulnerability mixed with that ever-present danger- didn't match the monster from the stories. The creature parents invoked to scare children into obedience, that haunted the galaxy's collective consciousness.

He wasn't a teddy bear wrapped in cotton candy. Far from it. He still had bite, still had that edge that could cut through your composure and make you second-guess yourself. Even in his devastated physical condition, he'd managed to make you, and Jano, you thought with grim amusement, stand at attention with nothing but the force of his personality and that penetrating gaze.

But he wasn't the merciless, senseless killing machine the tales painted either.

So in a way...yes. He'd fixed himself. Or at least made enough repairs to the damaged parts that he could function as something other than a weapon. The turn away from the dark side, the choice to save his son, killing the emperor,  that had been his repair work, his own hands rebuilding something from the wreckage.

Which still doesn't make him someone you could casually introduce to your parents without risking forced institutionalization.

The thought was so absurd it almost made you laugh. The mental image of bringing Vader home to meet your family- No. That was not a scenario that ended well for anyone involved.

Which brings you back to the question: What could you potentially want from him?

Your pace slowed to something more appropriate for a doctor approaching a patient's room rather than someone fleeing their own thoughts.

The simplest answer would be sex.

Your face heated immediately at the thought, grateful no one was around to see the reaction.

But why? Because of a dream your overtired, overworked, overstressed brain had conjured? Hardly. Dreams didn't work like that- Jano's Hutt slave scenario was proof enough of that. They were processing mechanisms, metaphorical representations, random neural firings arranged into narrative form by a brain that hated chaos.

There had to be more factors. More variables in the equation.

The dream was just...a mirror. A reflection of what you imagined it might be like based on how you'd come to know him. Your subconscious painting a picture with the pieces it had been given: his intensity, his control, the contrast between mechanical precision and raw humanity.

But your logical brain knew that wouldn't be reality. Real intimacy was messy, awkward, full of miscommunications and physical logistics that dreams conveniently edited out.

Still.

Physically he's remarkable. You could acknowledge that clinically, professionally. A medical marvel. His survival alone was worthy of journal articles, but the adaptation, the way his body had compensated for the suit's torture while maintaining enough function to make him one of the most dangerous beings in the galaxy-

You're stalling. Get past the professional interest.

Right. Past that.

The truth was that the prosthetics didn't scare you off. The opposite, really; you'd built your career around cybernetics, understood them in a way that made them familiar rather than foreign. And the scars...you hadn't lied when you told him they didn't make him beautiful, but they made him interesting.

And interesting is so much more...interesting than beautiful.

Beautiful was safe. Beautiful was easy, demanded nothing from you except aesthetic appreciation. Interesting made you think, made you wonder, made you want to understand the story written in scar tissue and damaged flesh.

But there was more. Wasn't there?

Even though you keep trying not to think about it.

The more you learned about him, not the legend, not the propaganda, but the actual person currently existing in in your ward, the more fascinated you became. And it wasn't just the medical mystery or the physical marvel.

He stimulated your intellect outside of medicine, something that hadn't happened in years. Most of your conversations, even with friends, inevitably circled back to work because that's where your expertise lay, where you felt confident contributing. But with him...you discussed philosophy, strategy, history. He challenged your assumptions, made you defend positions you'd taken for granted, forced you to think critically about things you'd accepted as obvious truths.

And frustratingly, he was often right. At least partially. At least enough that you couldn't dismiss his points even when you wanted to.

He made you laugh too, once you'd internalized his particular brand of dry, cutting humour. That deadpan delivery that took some time to recognize as jokes rather than criticism. The unexpected moments of levity that caught you off-guard precisely because they came from someone so associated with fear and brutality.

And all of those meta-level points are dangerous.

Because they provided too much of the answer to "Why?" while only making "What?" more complicated.

Which was insane when you thought about it.

With Luke - sweet, heroic, hopeful Luke who fit every box on the "suitable partner" checklist- you’d onöly ever been able to imagine sex without boundaries. Simple attraction. Mutual interest. Simple physical attraction and mutual interest, uncomplicated by history or moral ambiguity. A man you could, theoretically, explain to people without watching their expressions freeze. But…. You thought he would be the type to confuse compassion for connection, to mistake sex for love.

But with Vader...a man who you could say with reasonable certainty had Force-choked at least one woman he'd been intimate with into unconsciousness while she was heavily pregnant with his children...

Force, the irony.

Because now you weren’t sure you wouldn’t be the one to blur the lines.

You weren’t sure you could keep it simple….

Although, to be fair, nothing involving Vader had ever qualified as simple, medically, morally, or otherwise.

The logical part of your brain was screaming. The professional ethics portion of your consciousness was filing complaint after complaint. Every rational instinct you possessed was waving warning flags so red they could be seen from orbit.

Looking at everything you knew- his history, his crimes, his current status as a prisoner of war awaiting trial, the very real possibility of execution that Jano had forced you to confront- he was a textbook definition of a red flag. Multiple textbooks. An entire library devoted to warning signs and terrible decisions.

And yet.

And yet his gaze triggered something in you that Luke had never managed. Not even when Luke had openly flirted, offered that boyish smile that probably worked on ninety percent of the galaxy, looked at you with clear interest and availability. None of it had ever made the world fall away quite the way his father’s gaze did.

Nothing. Or at least, nothing substantial enough to overcome the sense that he was more like a brother, a friend, someone you cared about but couldn't see that way no matter how much more sense it would make.

But Vader? One look from those blue eyes and something in you responded, a pull you couldn't explain away with logic or professional interest or any other comfortable rationalization.

Why can't you choose who you're attracted to?

It would make life so much simpler if desire worked like a medical protocol, following predictable pathways with consistent outcomes. Choose the appropriate partner based on rational criteria, execute the relationship according to established parameters, avoid unnecessary complications.

But instead you got.. this. Whatever this was.

Your comm vibrated against your wrist, startling you out of your spiralling thoughts.

Luke's name flashed on the display.

Perfect. Absolutely perfect timing.

You stared at the screen for three full seconds, a fresh wave of guilt crashing over you before you'd even opened the message.

[1347 CST]
Luke: How’s Father?

[1349 CST]
You: Good so far. Status is stable -  right leg prosthetic is installed.
Have a meeting with him and a neurosurgeon in a few minutes to look at his spine -  the leg isn’t getting enough signal feedback, but it’s nothing serious 😉
I think we’ll have it fixed quickly.

[1350 CST]
You: What’s going on with you? Successful Jedi hunting? 😏
(not like your dad hopefully 😜)

[1352 CST]
Luke:  Hehe 😅Actually yes! We found a temple, or at least what’s left of one.
Ahsoka is helping me read the inscriptions. Maybe we’ll find something tomorrow 🤞✨

[1353 CST]
Luke: Keep me updated on Father and I’ll give you Jedi updates? Deal?! 😁

[1354 CST]
You : Deal 🙂

You stared at the screen for a moment after sending the message, that guilt intensifying into something physically uncomfortable.

Just moments ago, you were philosophizing about why his father turns you on more than he does.

And Luke had no idea. Still thought there was potential there, still looked at you with interest that you were apparently never going to reciprocate because your brain had decided to fixate on the worst possible alternative.

You need to talk to him when he gets back.

The resolution formed clearly, cutting through the guilt and confusion. An actual concrete decision, something you could control.

Be honest. Well, not completely honest- there were details that would serve no purpose except to make everything infinitely more awkward- but honest enough. He deserved to know where he stood with you. Where he didn't stand.

It would be uncomfortable. Potentially painful for both of you. But letting him continue hoping for something that wasn't going to happen would be worse in the long run.

Later. Deal with that later.

You took a breath, forced yourself into professional mode, and covered the last few meters to Vader's door.

No pressure.

Your finger pressed the control.

The door slid open with its familiar pneumatic hiss.

Here we go.

 The door slid open with its familiar pneumatic hiss, and whatever professional composure you'd managed to reconstruct in the corridor immediately faltered.

Vader sat propped against the raised bed, his attention fixed on a holopad hovering just above his lap with the kind of focus that made the rest of the room disappear. Blue light from the display washed across his scarred features, casting shadows that shifted and danced as data scrolled past at speeds that would give most people motion sickness. His cybernetic fingers moved with practiced precision, swiping through screens faster than your eyes could track the content.

"Run out of droids to repair?" you asked, setting your medical kit down on the bedside table with perhaps more force than necessary, the metallic clank punctuating your attempt at casual normalcy.

His gaze flicked up to you, and something in his expression shifted, not quite a smile, but close enough that you recognized it as one in his limited emotional vocabulary. That slight curve at the corner of his mouth that meant he was either amused or about to say something cutting, and you'd learned to tell the difference by the subtle crinkle around his eyes.

This one was amusement.

"Your High Command has assigned me a task this morning.“ he said, his voice carrying that particular note that suggested interest rather than obligation. "Apparently, I am to assemble a task force from what remains of Death Squadron to assist their analysts in tracking Thrawn’s fleet. Which means I now have to identify officers loyal enough to me that they won’t defect to him at the first opportunity."

A faint pause. "A challenge, to say the least."

His fingers resumed their rapid swiping through the holopad, personnel files flashing past in a blur of faces and service records.

You moved around the bed, preparing your instruments with practiced efficiency, laying out the neural interface cables, checking the calibration on your diagnostic scanner, pulling up Vader's latest vitals on your datapad. But your eyes kept drifting to that holopad, watching profiles flash past faster than you could register even basic information like names or ranks.

Curiosity won out over professional distance. You settled onto the stool beside his bed, angling yourself so you could see both him and the display.

"So, who are you choosing besides Piett?" you asked, trying to catch a glimpse of names as they flew past. Impossible. Your enhanced optical implants could track faster than baseline human vision, but even they struggled to keep up with his processing speed.

He made a sound somewhere between a grunt and a chuckle, low and resonant in his chest. "I don't know yet."

But his hand kept moving, dismissing candidate after candidate with barely a glance. Whatever criteria he was using, he'd internalized it to the point of instinct.

Your last conversation with Piett surfaced in your memory, the admiral's carefully controlled hope in his voice when he'd asked about General Veers.

"What about General Veers?" The words came out before you'd fully thought them through, but you pressed forward anyway. You looked into his status after Piett asked about him. You were still waiting for confirmation, but he's alive. Probably in an Alliance holding facility somewhere.

Vader's hand stilled mid-swipe. He turned to look at you; one eyebrow raised in an expression of skeptical inquiry that would have been amusing if it wasn't also slightly intimidating.

You shrugged, affecting casualness you didn't quite feel. "Piett mentioned him. Asked if I'd heard anything. And I mean, who doesn't know about General Veers and his AT-ATs??"

Vader's expression didn't change, but something in his Force presence shifted. Consideration. He looked back at the holopad, his fingers moving with deliberate precision to pull up a specific file.

General Maximilian Veers stared out from the holographic display, his expression stern and competent in that way Imperial officers seemed to cultivate like a second skin. The service record scrolling beneath his image was extensive- decorated veteran, tactical specialist, responsible for the successful breach of Echo Base during the Battle of Hoth.

"Veers is certainly among the top candidates," Vader said, his voice carrying a note of... something. Respect? As close as he seemed to get to it, anyway. "He's capable, adaptable, and unlike many Imperial officers, he actually earned his position through competence rather than political manoeuvring."

You watched him study the file for a moment longer than the others before he swiped onward, returning to that rapid-fire assessment pattern.

"Why are you going through them so fast?" The question emerged before you could stop it, curiosity overriding caution. "I mean, wouldn't some of these people want to trade imprisonment for a chance at useful work?"

Your hand gestured vaguely at the holopad, encompassing the dozens of files he'd dismissed in the past two minutes.

"Surely some of them- "

"To want something," Vader interrupted, his voice dropping into that particular register that made the word feel weighted, significant, "is not always enough."

To want something is not always enough.

The words slammed into you like a physical blow, Jano's question detonating in your mind with the force of a thermal charge.

Do you want him?

Your heart stuttered in your chest, then kicked into double-time, your pulse suddenly loud in your ears. The medical monitoring equipment behind Vader beeped steadily, tracking his vitals with mechanical precision, but you were acutely aware that if anyone hooked you up right now, your readings would be screaming cardiovascular distress.

Tachycardia. Acute stress response. Elevated blood pressure. Get it together.

Vader's attention shifted from the holopad to your face, those blue eyes focusing on you with the kind of intensity that made you feel like he could see through skin and skull directly into the chaos of your thoughts. The holopad's glow cast half his face in shadow, highlighting the topography of scar tissue, the sharp angles of his bone structure.

"Why- " Your voice came out rough, and you had to clear your throat, try again. "Why wouldn’t wanting be enough?"

Why did you phrase it like that? Why did you make it sound like-

He interrupted before you could stumble further into dangerous territory. "There are other aspects to consider,“ he said evenly, "aside from motivation."

Yes. Like the aspect where you’re on a shortlist for execution and I, for the first time in my life, am actually worried about maintaining professional or at least sexual boundaries around a mass murderer.

Oh stars, why are you even thinking this?

"For instance," he said, a flicker of dry amusement curving his mouth, "the necessary skills and experience concerning Thrawn’s fleet movements."

Right. That was what you were supposed to be discussing.

He looked down at the holopad as if the matter were trivial, but then his eyes lifted again, straight to you. Whatever he was thinking, it wasn’t in the words. It was in the look he gave you. Something in your chest clenched hard enough to steal your breath.

And then the door hissed open with terrible timing.

CX-3 rolled through first, its photoreceptors brightening as it registered your presence, a cheerful chirp emanating from its vocoder that felt wildly inappropriate for the moment. Behind it came Dr. Joren Thal, his medical coat crisp and professional, his cybernetic eye whirring softly as it focused and refocused, adjusting to the room's lighting.

You practically launched yourself off the stool, the movement too fast, too obvious, your boots hitting the floor with enough force to send a slight jolt up through your legs. The stool rolled backward from the momentum, coming to rest against the wall with a soft thunk that seemed to echo your internal mortification.

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Why stop there? Maybe hang a sign around your neck that said "Attention! Inappropriate patient contact" for clarity

"Dr. Thal," you managed, forcing your voice into something resembling professional warmth despite the way your pulse was still hammering against your ribs. "Thank you for coming."

Thal nodded, his attention already shifting to Vader with the kind of clinical assessment you recognized- categorizing, noting details, building a diagnostic picture from visual data alone. His cybernetic eye whirred audibly, its aperture adjusting with mechanical precision as it processed everything from the scarring to the monitoring leads to the visible prosthetic interfaces.

"Lord Vader," Thal said formally, inclining his head in a gesture of respect that managed to be both professional and cautious. "I appreciate the opportunity to consult on your case."

Silence.

Vader simply stared at him, his expression utterly blank, his eyes cold enough to flash-freeze atmosphere. No acknowledgment. No greeting. Not even a nod. Just that penetrating stare that had probably made admirals reconsider their career choices on a regular basis.

So much to basic social skills.

You waited, counting heartbeats. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

Nothing. Just that unblinking, glacial stare that seemed to lower the room's temperature by several degrees.

Thal shifted slightly, his posture remaining professional, but you caught the minute tension in his shoulders, the way his fingers flexed once against his sides- autonomic nervous response to perceived threat.

Right. Okay. Moving on.

"So," you said brightly, perhaps too brightly, gesturing toward Vader's legs with determined professionalism, "the right leg prosthetic is fully installed and integrated. The left has the anchor point interface set, ready for prosthetic attachment in the next few days."

You moved to the foot of the bed where Vader's right leg extended, the prosthetic limb on full display. Pure durasteel and advanced polymers, servo joints and neural interface points, power conduits threaded through the framework like artificial veins carrying electrical impulses instead of blood.

And without wanting to sound vain about your own work, but it was an absolute masterpiece.

Professionally speaking, of course.

The craftsmanship was extraordinary. Each joint articulated with precision that would make most medical-grade prosthetics look like crude approximations. The hydraulic systems were miniaturized to the point of elegance, tucked seamlessly into the structure without sacrificing power or range of motion. The neural interface points gleamed like polished gems where they connected to organic tissue, their placement optimized for maximum signal efficiency with minimal invasive footprint.

Focus. You're here to diagnose signal degradation, not admire your own work like some kind of narcissistic engineer.

Your cybernetic hand found the primary connection point, fingers interfacing with practiced ease. The familiar sensation of data streaming directly into your view- bioelectric signals, motor control feedback, pressure sensors, proprioceptive data. But the readings were wrong. Off by enough to notice immediately.

You adjusted your interface, diving deeper into the diagnostic data, watching numbers scroll. You pulled up the raw data on your holopad, to visualize them for Thal.

"Motor control signals reading at sixty-three percent of expected baseline," you said aloud, your voice slipping into that clinical detachment that made complex medical situations feel manageable. The words helped organize your thoughts, transform the cascade of data into actionable diagnosis. "Sensory feedback is present but degraded; approximately forty percent efficiency."

Your free hand moved to Vader's knee, pressing gently to test muscle response while your cybernetic arm continued its deeper interface with the prosthetic's systems.

"He can move the leg, demonstrate motor function," You gestured slightly, and Vader obliged by flexing the ankle, extending the knee, movements that looked fluid enough to untrained eyes but carried subtle stutters, minute delays that spoke of signal interference. "but the precision and responsiveness are significantly below what this prosthetic's capable of providing."

You adjusted your interface connection, rotating your wrist slightly to access different diagnostic channels, updating with new streams of information as you cycled through system checks.

"Neural pathway integrity shows no degradation at the interface sites." Your fingers traced along the connection points, feeling for heat buildup, for any physical signs of rejection or inflammation. Nothing. "The prosthetic itself is functioning perfectly; all systems nominal, calibration accurate, no hardware issues detected."

Your thumb scrolled through diagnostic logs on the datapad, cross-referencing against expected performance parameters you'd programmed during installation.

"Which means the problem isn't at the connection point," you concluded, looking up from the screen to meet Thal's gaze. "It's upstream. Somewhere between the motor cortex and the interface, the signals are degrading."

Thal moved closer, his cybernetic eye whirring as he leaned in to examine both the prosthetic and your datapad readings, his expression shifting into that particular focus doctors got when facing a puzzle that engaged every diagnostic instinct.

"Fascinating," he murmured, his organic eye narrowing as he processed the data. "The interface engineering is remarkable, truly exceptional work. But you're right, the signal loss is definitely originating from the biological side of the equation."

Thal nodded absently before he said. "I'll need a comprehensive neural scan. Full spinal and cranial mapping to identify where the signal degradation is occurring."

"CX-3," you called over your shoulder, "initiate a full neural scan- spinal column and cranial structures, highest resolution available."

"Affirmative, Doctor." The droid rolled forward with its scanning equipment extending like mechanical arms, photoreceptors glowing brighter. "Please remain still. The scan will take approximately ninety seconds."

The hum of the scanner filled the room, a low thrumming that vibrated through the deck plates and made your teeth ache slightly. Blue light washed over Vader's body in sweeping patterns, each pass building a three-dimensional map of his internal structures.

You watched the data compile on Thal's holopad, the intricate detail of Vader's nervous system rendering in real-time: the artificial spinal column with its neural interface points, the cortical implants clustered around his brain stem, the extensive network of connections that had kept him functional inside that suit.

It was beautiful in a terrible way- human neurology forced to integrate with mechanical systems, organic tissue adapting to foreign materials, the sheer stubborn persistence of biology refusing to give up despite every reason to fail.

Thal studied the scan with that same focused intensity Vader had been applying to personnel files, his cybernetic eye tracking through layers of data, his organic one narrowed in concentration. His fingers moved through holographic displays, isolating specific areas, enhancing resolution, building a diagnostic picture.

"Mm," he said after a long moment, the sound thoughtful and slightly grim.

"The most probable explanation," he said, his voice shifting into that careful, measured tone doctors used when delivering news that walked the line between manageable and catastrophic, "is a combination of spinal compression and cortical damage creating a cascade effect in signal transmission."

He gestured toward the holographic display that CX-3 had projected above its scanner array, the three-dimensional representation of Vader's spine rotating slowly in the air like an anatomical ghost. The artificial vertebral segments glowed slightly brighter than the surrounding tissue, each one a testament to extensive reconstruction.

"Here-" Thal's finger traced through the hologram, highlighting specific segments. "Your artificial vertebrae are compressing the spinal cord at multiple points. Not severely, the compression is relatively minor at each individual location, but the cumulative effect is significant." His finger moved up the spine, indicating five, six, seven points of contact. "Each compression point creates signal degradation. It's like..." He searched for an analogy. "Like water flowing through a pipe that has multiple partial obstructions. The water makes it through, but the pressure and flow rate decrease with each obstacle."

You leaned closer, studying the indicated areas. The compression was visible once he pointed it out, minute misalignments where the synthetic segments didn't quite match the organic spacing, creating pressure points that would bottleneck nerve signals trying to pass through.

How did I miss that? Because you were focused on the interfaces, on the prosthetics, not on the foundation they were built on.

"And here-" Thal's attention shifted upward, his finger moving through the hologram to the brain itself, which rotated with unsettling beauty, its complex folds and structures rendered in crystalline detail. "Extensive cortical scarring. Primarily concentrated in the motor cortex regions, but with scattered damage throughout the prefrontal areas as well."

He zoomed in on a section, and you felt your stomach drop.

The scarring was extensive, dense networks of damaged tissue that showed up as darker regions against the healthy gray matter. It looked like someone had taken a soldering iron to neural tissue, leaving behind paths of destruction that branched and intersected like corrupted circuitry.

"This pattern is consistent with neural implants," Thal continued, his professional tone not quite masking the underlying horror at what he was seeing. "Particularly older models that weren't designed with biocompatibility as a primary concern. The implants themselves would have caused some damage during installation and integration, but the majority of this scarring appears to be from..."

He paused, his cybernetic eye flickering as he cross-referenced data. "Electrical trauma. Repeated electrical trauma. High voltage, sustained duration, targeting the neural tissue specifically."

Force lightning. He was describing Palpatine’s Force lightning without saying the words.

The room seemed to contract around that unspoken truth.

He pulled back from the scan, turning to face Vader directly.

"I can fix it. The procedure would be complicated;we'd need to decompress the spinal interfaces, probably replace several of them entirely with lower-profile alternatives, and address the cortical damage with targeted regeneration therapy. But it's absolutely doable."

Doable. As in invasive spinal and neural surgery on someone whose nervous system has been systematically traumatized for two decades.

Vader studied Thal with an expression you couldn't quite read, his eyes narrowed slightly, his Force presence- you'd learned to sense it, that pressure against your consciousness- sharpening.

"Have we met before?" Vader asked, his voice carrying that dangerous edge that meant he'd noticed something off, something that didn't fit his expectations. "You seem... familiar."

Thal's composure cracked for just a fraction of a second- a micro-expression that flashed across his face before his professional mask slammed back into place. His cybernetic eye's whirring intensified, a tell you filed away automatically.

"No, my lord," Thal said, the words coming too quickly, too precisely practiced. "I don't believe we have."

Then he was turning back to the scans, already talking, filling the silence with technical details about surgical approaches and recovery timelines and post-operative protocols, the words tumbling out like he was trying to bury something under an avalanche of medical terminology.

"The decompression would require- "

A wet, gasping sound cut through his explanation.

Thal's hands flew to his throat, his eyes going wide with shock and the beginning of real fear. His mouth worked, trying to pull in air that wouldn't come, trying to speak around a constriction that was tightening with mechanical precision.

Your head snapped toward Vader.

He sat utterly still, one hand raised with his fingers curled in that particular gesture you'd seen in old holovids, old reports, old nightmares. His expression was focused, intense, his eyes locked on Thal with the kind of attention a predator gives prey.

Oh fuck-

"Vader!" Your voice came out sharper than you'd intended, shock bleeding through your professional composure. "Let him go! What are you- "

"Dr. Thal knows considerably more than he's admitting," Vader said calmly, his voice eerily conversational despite the fact that he was currently choking a man with invisible Force. "His behaviour is suspicious. His body language suggests deception. His surface thoughts are practically screaming that he's hiding something."

Thal made another desperate gasping sound, his face beginning to turn red, his cybernetic eye's whirring becoming erratic.

"I want to know why," Vader continued, his hand tightening fractionally. The gesture looked almost casual, like he was merely closing his fist around something tangible rather than squeezing a man's throat from across the room. "And I want to know now."

"Okay!" The word burst from Thal in a desperate wheeze, barely audible around his constricted airway. "Okay, okay- "

The invisible grip released.

Thal collapsed forward onto his knees with a sound between a gasp and a sob, his hands flying to his throat, gulping air in ragged, painful breaths. His whole body trembled, his cybernetic eye flickering as its systems tried to compensate for the autonomic distress.

You were moving before conscious thought caught up, dropping to your knees beside him, your hands automatically going through assessment protocols:  checking his neck for physical damage, counting his pulse, noting the way his pupils dilated with shock and lingering fear.

"Are you hurt?" Your fingers pressed gently against his throat, feeling for crushed cartilage, for any structural damage that would require immediate intervention. "Can you breathe properly?"

Thal nodded shakily, still gasping but managing to pull in fuller breaths now, each one sounding painful but functional. His hands trembled against the deck plating.

"Talk," Vader said from the bed, his voice carrying absolute authority despite the fact that he was the patient in the medical bay, despite every power dynamic that should have existed. "Now."

Thal closed his eyes, his whole body sagging with something that looked like defeat mixed with relief- the relief of a secret finally being exposed, of not having to carry the weight anymore.

When he opened them again, his gaze lifted to meet Vader's with a complicated expression: fear, yes, but also guilt, and determination, and something that might have been desperate hope.

"My father," Thal said, his voice rough and damaged from the Force choke but pushing through anyway, "was one of the first physicians – humanoid physicians - assigned to your care after…your accident. Dr. Corin Thal. You probably don't remember him, "

Oh. Oh no.

"He worked on your neural implants, your cortical interfaces." Thal's hands curled into fists against his knees. "I was already a practicing neurologist at the time, trying to make a name for myself in the field. But I always lived in his shadow. The great Dr. Corin Thal, famous. Brilliant. Pioneer in neural reconstruction. When the emperor personally selected him to oversee your medical treatment..."

A bitter laugh that turned into a cough. "It was supposed to be the pinnacle of his career."

The hologram of Vader's brain still rotated slowly behind you, suddenly taking on a more sinister context.

"He kept detailed records," Thal said quietly, and there was something broken in his voice, something that spoke of years carrying knowledge that corroded from within. "Journals. Medical logs. Technical specifications. Everything documented with obsessive precision because that's what good doctors do: they document, they learn, they improve." His hands curled into fists against the deck plates. "Except what he was documenting wasn't medicine. It was torture. Methodical, calculated, scientifically optimized torture dressed up in medical terminology."

Your hand had stilled on Thal's shoulder, your entire body frozen as the implications crashed over you like a wave.

"Palpatine didn't want healing," Thal continued, and each word seemed to cost him something. "He wanted control. Neural modification, not for function but for monitoring. For direct access to your nervous system. Implants designed specifically to induce pain on command, to override voluntary motor control, to ensure complete dependency." His voice cracked. "And my father... he did it. He followed every order because refusing meant death. He told himself he was buying time, looking for ways to minimize the damage, trying to preserve what he could, but..."

The silence stretched, broken only by Thal's laboured breathing.

"He couldn't live with it," Thal finished, and the words fell like stones into deep water. "The guilt. The nightmares. Knowing what he'd done, what he'd helped create.“

 A long, shuddering breath. "He took his own life. Left behind all those records. Every procedure. Every modification. Every carefully documented horror."

Thal's cybernetic eye finally lifted, meeting Vader's gaze for a brief, agonizing moment that seemed to stretch into eternity.

"I've studied those records for years," he said, and there was something like confession in his voice, like this was an absolution he'd been seeking without knowing where to find it. "Read them so many times I can recite sections from memory. The extent of the neural damage. The sophistication of the control systems. The way each implant was positioned not for optimal functionality but for maximum monitoring and pain induction." His throat worked. "The calculated cruelty of it. The way medicine was weaponized into an instrument of subjugation."

He looked at you now, his expression carrying a complexity of emotions you couldn't fully parse; shame, determination, desperate hope.

"When you sent me those initial scans," he said softly, "I recognized the signature patterns immediately. The specific implant configurations, the cortical scarring locations, the particular approach to spinal reconstruction, they matched my father's documentation exactly. Down to the placement protocols, the interface designs, the modifications that made no sense from a functional standpoint but perfect sense from a control standpoint."

You saw Thal's throat work as he forced out the final confession.

"I knew who you were treating the moment I saw those images. And I agreed to consult because..." He stopped, started again. "I thought maybe I could... wash away some of my father's guilt. Or at least try to repair what he broke. Minimize the suffering he helped inflict. Give back some of what was taken."

A bitter, self-deprecating sound. "Make amends for sins that weren't even mine to atone for."

Vader stared at him for a long moment, his expression unreadable, his Force presence radiating something cold and cutting.

He looked at him, gaze level and unreadable, the kind of calm that felt more dangerous than rage.

When he spoke, his voice was stripped of all emotion, no warmth, no humour, no forgiveness. "How touching," he said evenly. "The son seeking redemption for the father’s sins. How very noble. How very pointless."

"It's not pointless," you heard yourself say before you'd consciously decided to speak. "He's trying to help. Trying to make things better."  You turned from Thal to face Vader, your hands still resting on the neurologist's shoulders, feeling the tremors running through his frame.

"Luke isn't responsible for your actions." He didn't commit your crimes. He doesn't carry your guilt."

The words came out fierce, protective in a way that surprised you. But you pressed forward anyway. "And Thal isn't responsible for his father's actions either."

Your gaze held Vader's, refusing to back down despite the part of you screaming that confronting him was dangerous, that he'd just Force-choked someone for the crime of hidden intentions. "He's here now, offering to help. Offering his expertise to fix damage his father caused. That has to count for something."

Vader's expression remained glacial for a long moment, his eyes studying you with that penetrating intensity that made you feel simultaneously exposed and examined.

Then something in him... shifted. The cold fury bleeding out into something closer to exhausted acceptance. His hand made a movement like ward off an insect, the gesture dismissive rather than threatening.

"Fine," he said, the word carrying more weight than its single syllable should contain. "Proceed with your redemption project if it salves your conscience. But understand this, Doctor,"

His gaze sharpened again, pinning the neurologist in place. "If you make a mistake during that surgery, if I even suspect you're doing anything other than your absolute best work, you'll discover exactly why the emperor needed control over my nervous system.“

Comforting. Very comforting threat there.

Thal swallowed hard but nodded, pushing himself unsteadily to his feet with your help. His hands were still shaking slightly, but his voice came out stronger now, steadier.

"Day after tomorrow," he said, looking at you rather than Vader. "I'll need to prepare the surgical suite, gather the specific implants we'll need for replacement, run through the procedure with my team."

"I'll coordinate with medical staff," you confirmed, helping him toward the door. "0800 hours?"

"That works." He paused at the threshold, glancing back at Vader with an expression you couldn't quite parse. "I won't let you down, Lord Vader. Either of you."

Then he was gone, the door sliding shut behind him with mechanical finality.

Silence settled over the room like a physical weight.

You stood there for a moment, your back to Vader, trying to process what had just happened, trying to categorize it into something that made sense within the framework of normal medical practice.

He Force-choked a doctor.

During a consultation.

Because he could sense hidden intentions.

Your hands moved automatically, reaching for your medical kit, pulling out instruments for routine examination even though your mind was still reeling.. The familiar motions grounded you, gave your body something to do while your brain caught up.

"You know," you said, keeping your voice deliberately casual as you approached the bed, "there are other ways to resolve concerns about someone's motivations. Ways that don't involve asphyxiation."

Vader watched you prepare your instruments, his expression unreadable.

"I could sense his deception from the moment he entered," he said, his voice carrying that particular tone that meant he was explaining something obvious. "His body language, his autonomic responses, his thoughts: all of them screamed that he had ulterior motives. In my experience, ulterior motives regarding my person typically lead to assassination attempts, not offers of assistance."

You attached the neural sync pad to his arm, the faint crackle of static bridging the contact between metal and skin. Your fingers brushed over the rough scars, and you tried to keep your expression neutral, even as his words sent a surge through your chest that the monitor would no doubt record.

Just like Jano said. He reads people.

Your hands moved through the examination sequence on autopilot: checking blood pressure, listening to heart and lung sounds, assessing reflexes- while your mind raced through implications you didn't want to examine.

So when you sat too close to him earlier, when your heart rate jumped at his words about wanting not being enough, when you asked that question that came out far too loaded with subtext-

He noticed. He probably read every single reaction.

Fuck.

"Your vitals look good," you managed, proud that your voice came out steady despite the way your hands wanted to tremble. "No concerning changes from yesterday's readings."

You pulled back, making notes on your pad with perhaps more focus than strictly necessary, using the screen as a shield between his penetrating gaze and your probably-very-revealing expression, as suddenly your com vibrated against your hip again, and you had to think of Luke again.

Sweet, hopeful Luke

Searching for Jedi artifacts. Chasing his dream. Looking for answers in ruins while his father sits here among his own ruins.

You found yourself speaking before you'd fully formulated the question, the words escaping like they'd been building pressure and finally found release.

"Can I ask you something?"

Vader's gaze shifted to you, one scarred eyebrow rising fractionally in an expression you'd learned to read as sardonic amusement. "You usually do. With or without permission."

Fair point.

You didn't acknowledge the comment, instead pulling your stool closer and sitting down properly, your hands finding each other in your lap, fingers interlacing in a gesture that might have been nervousness if you'd been paying more attention to your own body language.

The question felt heavier than it should, weighted with implications you weren't ready to fully examine, with Luke's hopeful face and Vader's bitter certainty from the argument you'd overheard.

"Would it really be such a bad thing?" The words came out quieter than intended, almost tentative. "If Luke opened a Jedi school. If he tried to open a school, to rebuild the Order."

The silence stretched, weighted with your unanswered question still hanging in the air between you. You rolled the stool to check the left leg, checking for any signs of infection or rejection.

When Vader finally spoke, his voice came quiet, thoughtful, carrying an unexpected weight.

"Would it be so terrible," he asked slowly, "if he didn't?"

You paused, your fingers stilled against the cool metal of the interface port, confusion evident in the slight furrow between your brows.

The question caught you off-guard, coming at the problem from an angle you hadn't expected. You'd been asking whether the Order had been terrible. He was asking whether its absence would be.

"I... I don't understand," you said carefully, refocusing on the examination because your hands needed something to do. "Force-sensitive people need training, don't they? Guidance? Otherwise, the abilities are dangerous, uncontrolled..."

"Are they?" He looked at you, and there was something sharp in his gaze, challenging. "The vast majority of Force-sensitive beings don't suffer from being Force-sensitive. Quite the opposite, in most cases."

You connected your cybernetic arm's data port to the left leg's diagnostic socket, watching data streams stroll, but your attention remained fixed on his words.

"The Force flows through them naturally," Vader continued, his tone taking on that particular quality of someone explaining a fundamental truth that others consistently misunderstood. "Without question, without conscious effort. It makes them faster, more aware, more perceptive. It guides them in subtle ways; instincts that prove correct, reflexes that save their lives, intuitions that lead to the right decisions." His hand gestured vaguely. "But it doesn't burden them. It doesn't require extensive guidance or institutional control."

"Signal output on left interface reading at thirty-eight percent," you said aloud, so that CX-3 could log the data even as your mind tried to keep up with his argument. "Even worse than the right side. Definitely confirms the compression issue."

Vader didn't acknowledge the medical commentary, his attention fully on the  debate.

"Extensive training like the Order provided," he said, each word precisely placed, "only makes sense if Force-sensitives genuinely suffered from their abilities. If the power was a burden they couldn't manage alone, if it required institutional intervention for their own safety and wellbeing."

You moved to test the proprioceptive feedback loops, your hands working automatically while your brain engaged with his logic.

"But that wasn't why the Order trained people," Vader continued, and something dark edged into his voice. "They trained everyone with even the smallest Force signature, not for those individuals' benefit, not to help them manage a difficult gift, but to serve the Order's purposes."

"Proprioceptive response at forty-one percent," you murmured, making notes.

"They created weapons," Vader said flatly. "Trained children from infancy to be warriors, operatives, whatever the Order needed. The Force only becomes truly dangerous when it's instrumentalized, weaponized."

A pause, weighted. "As I rather thoroughly demonstrated."

You looked up from your examination, meeting his gaze. "But the training also taught control. Discipline. Understanding?"

"At what cost?" The question cut through your protest. "Yes, they received training in the Force, in meditation, in lightsaber combat. But what benefit did that actually provide to the individual being trained?"

His hand gestured, encompassing abstract concepts. "The Order demanded absolute devotion. Complete dedication. No emotional education, emotions were dangerous, to be suppressed rather than understood. No love, no family, no real connections outside the Order. The Jedi were everything. Your entire identity, your entire existence, defined by an institution that claimed ownership of you from infancy."

You disconnected from the diagnostic port, coiling the cable with hands that wanted to shake but didn't. "They could leave, couldn't they? If they wanted to quit, walk away-"

"And then?" Vader's eyebrows rose fractionally. "Then what?"

The question hung there, and you realized with uncomfortable clarity that you didn't have an answer.

"Your entire life," Vader said quietly, "you've known nothing but the Order. You've been trained to dedicate yourself to the Force, to the Jedi Code, to institutional service. Finding your way in the real world becomes..." He searched for the word. "Challenging."

You pulled out the reflexive response tester and pressed it against the thigh interface, watching for the muscle contractions that should have occurred.

Nothing. Barely a twitch.

"You have no money," Vader continued his inexorable logic. "Mostly no profession that translates to civilian life. Possibly no friends or family outside the Order to turn to for support. You're alone, equipped with skills that might be useful in certain contexts- combat, negotiation, perhaps investigation- but that don't justify a viable career path."

"Combat skills transfer to security work," you countered, moving the tester to different points, documenting the failure of response at each location. "or security-"

"You mean enlisting as a soldier again," Vader interrupted, his tone dry.

The reflexive tester beeped its completion, the results painting a grim picture across your optical display. You set it aside and reached for the dermal regeneration scanner, anything to keep your hands busy while your mind wrestled with arguments you didn't want to acknowledge.

"But… not all Jedi were warriors, were they?" you ventured after a moment, calibrating the scanner and letting its hum fill the silence between you. "There must have been…others. The ones who handled ancient records, or worked in the medical wings? Not everyone was sent out with a lightsaber, right?"

Vader tilted his head slightly, the motion small but unmistakable. "A fair point," he conceded. "No, not all Jedi became Knights. There were the Service Corps: healers, agricultural specialists, diplomats, archivists… a variety of functions that supported the Order’s broader aims."

The scanner swept over the damaged tissue, its faint blue light casting sharp reflections over the blackened edges of his prosthetic connectors. His voice deepened slightly as he went on.

"Yet even they were bound by the same vows. Every initiate, no matter their field, devoted their life entirely to the Order. There was no leaving it behind. In the millennia of its existence, only a handful ever walked away of their own accord." His gaze dropped briefly to the readouts on your pad, though you suspected he wasn’t really looking at them. "And those who did were regarded not as people who chose another path, but as failures. Either of their own discipline, the Order’s or of their Master’s training."

"And Luke's proposed school," Vader continued, his voice taking on a sharper edge, "embodies all of these problems with none of the institutional infrastructure that at least made the old Order functional."

You ran the scanner across the surgical sites, watching the cellular activity patterns. "He wants to do it better. Learn from the mistakes-"

"He is," Vader said with devastating precision, "barely trained himself. Three years of instruction, most of it while actively fighting a war, learning from a Jedi Master who'd been in exile for decades and taught through cryptic lessons and swamp aerobics."

Despite everything, you felt your mouth twitch at swamp aerobics. The scanner detected your slight movement, recalibrating automatically.

"What qualifies him," Vader pressed, "to train small children? To take younglings with developing abilities and shape their understanding of something he himself barely comprehends?" His gaze pinned you. "He's practically still a beginner. How do you teach what you don't truly understand?"

"He understands enough to-" You started, but the protest died as you actually thought about it.

Luke had destroyed a Death Star, yes. Had faced Vader and the Emperor and survived. Had developed considerable Force abilities in remarkably short time. But understanding how to use the Force and understanding how to teach it were surely entirely different skill sets. When you’d just finished medical school and completed your first solo operation, your immediate reaction had been to throw up; not to instruct students on how to implant a cybernetic eye. You’d simply been grateful the patient was still alive afterward.

"Cellular regeneration at the graft sites looks good," you said, documenting findings with perhaps more focus than necessary. "No signs of necrosis returning. Tissue integration holding stable."

"And even if he could teach the Force," Vader continued relentlessly, "what about everything else children need to learn? Reading, writing, mathematics, history, science- all the foundational knowledge required to function in society?" His scarred brow furrowed. "Does Luke plan to provide a complete education, or just Force training? And if just Force training, what kind of adults does he imagine producing? People with abilities but no context? Power without understanding?"

You moved to examine the cybernetic arms, checking the servos and joint interfaces, running through standard maintenance protocols while your mind chewed on his arguments.

" The old Order at least had resources," Vader continued. "Which brings us to another critical question."

He flexed his fingers as you tested the servo response, metal joints moving with precision your scanner confirmed as optimal.

"Training children costs money," he said. "Significant money. Housing, food, medical care, educational materials, facility maintenance, the expenses compound rapidly with each additional student." His gaze fixed on you. "Who pays for Luke's school?"

You tested the left arm's grip strength, noting the pressure readings. "Once it's ready, the New Republic would probably-"

"Yes." The word came sharp, cutting. "Exactly like the old Order. And do you understand what that entails?"

You did, suddenly, the implication crystallizing with uncomfortable clarity. Your hands stilled on his arm.

"The Jedi fought for the Republic," you said slowly. " They worked for who funded them."

"Served as generals, diplomats, operatives. For centuries," Vader confirmed, "the Jedi lived in massive wealth. Occupied an enormous temple on Coruscant, maintained facilities across the galaxy, had access to resources most planetary governments would envy." His voice hardened. "And in exchange, they sold their allegiance. Sold their abilities. Made the Force itself partisan."

"Left arm servo response within normal parameters," you murmured, documenting readings while your mind grappled with the implications. "All mechanical systems functioning optimally."

"Why is that necessarily bad?" you asked, looking up from your scanner. "If the Republic represented justice, if they fought for good cause-"

"Did they?" Vader's counter came swift as a blade. "Who decides what constitutes justice? What makes a cause 'good'?"

You opened your mouth, then closed it, the answer not as obvious as it should have been.

"When the Jedi came to Tatooine," Vader said, and something in his voice shifted, became more distant, like he was seeing through the walls into memory, "my mother asked them if they could take me. Free me. Give me a better life."

His jaw tightened, a muscle jumping beneath the scarred skin.

"The Jedi told her they weren't there to free slaves. They'd only come because their ship was damaged, stranded accidentally while pursuing political interests for the Republic." His hands curled slightly, servos whining. "They..."

He stopped, lost in whatever memory was playing behind those blue eyes, his gaze fixed on something far beyond this room.

You waited, your scanner forgotten in your hand, watching him wrestle with something that had teeth.

Then he seemed to physically shake himself, a small motion that rippled through his shoulders, pulling himself back to the present with visible effort.

"They took me because they believed I was the Chosen One," he said, his voice flat now, clinical, all emotion scraped away leaving only facts. "Useful to their prophecies, their purposes. They could have freed my mother with minimal effort, they had the resources, the influence, the capability."

A pause, weighted with decades of accumulated bitterness.

"But they didn't. Left her to her fate. Abandoned her to slavery because freeing her served no institutional purpose." His gaze refocused on you, sharp and clear and cutting. "That is what partisan Force use looks like. Jedi making decisions based not on compassion or justice, but on political interest and organizational benefit."

You felt something cold settle in your chest, spreading outward like frost crystallizing across glass. "I didn't know- "

"Most people don't." Vader interrupted. "The Jedi cultivated an image of benevolent peacekeepers, wise diplomats, selfless servants of justice. But I saw them for years- saw them fight battles, make decisions, perform actions that had nothing to do with the impartiality the Force actually requires."

You set down your scanner and reached for the neural interface tester, needing something to do with your hands while processing this, while your mind tried to reconcile the mythology you'd grown up with against the reality he was describing.

"The Force isn't partisan," Vader continued, his voice taking on an almost lecturing quality, like he was explaining fundamental physics. "It flows through all living things, through every object, through everything in existence without discrimination or judgment. Life, death, growth, decay- all part of the same energy field."

You pressed the neural tester against the interface ports on his right arm, checking signal integrity at the connection points. The device hummed softly, sending test pulses through the neural pathways.

"The Jedi were nothing more than a powerful cult," Vader said, and the words landed like a verdict. "They imagined themselves possessing the only true understanding, the only legitimate authority, the only correct path."

You finished the neural test on his right arm, watching the readings populate across your pad. The signal integrity was significantly better than the legs, ninety-two percent efficiency on motor control, eighty-seven percent on sensory feedback, but still not optimal

"And at their core?" His voice dropped lower, taking on an edge that was somehow both bitter and coldly analytical. "The Jedi Order was consumed by the same ambition, pride, and arrogance that destroyed me. The same flaws they claimed to have transcended through their precious enlightenment."

You found yourself just sitting there, datapad forgotten in your lap, caught by the intensity in his voice.

"The entire High Council," Vader continued, his gaze distant now, seeing something beyond the medical bay's walls, reaching back through decades to a memory that still carried sharp edges. "Those who considered themselves the oldest, the wisest, the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy. Every single one of them sat in assembled formation in the Supreme Chancellor's office, discussing political decisions."

His cybernetic fingers flexed once against the bed's railing, a subtle tell of tension.

"Debating war tactics. Advising on military strategy and Republic policy. And not one of them," Vader said, his voice carrying something that might have been dark amusement if it wasn't threaded through with such profound bitterness, "not a single member of that vaunted Council could see that they were sitting across from a Sith Lord."

The statement hung in the air like a detonation.

"Palpatine sat there in plain sight," he continued, relentless in his deconstruction. "Meeting after meeting. Deceiving them not only about his Force signature, but also about everything else. About the Clone Wars being orchestrated entirely by him from both sides. About the Separatist movement being his creation. About every battle, every campaign, every strategy being designed from the beginning to destroy both the Republic and the Jedi Order."

Your breath had gone shallow without you noticing, your chest tight.

"Luke's holy Master Yoda," and there was definite mockery in the way he said it, "who lived for nine hundred years and trained Jedi for centuries, who prided himself on perception and wisdom. Also Obi-Wan…" He paused, letting it sink in. "Neither of them saw it. None of them did."

His gaze refocused on you, sharp and penetrating.

"Because they were blinded by their own certainty. Their absolute conviction that they understood the Force better than anyone, that they represented moral authority, that their way was the only way." His voice dropped into something quieter but no less cutting. "Pride. Arrogance. The exact same hubris that consumed me.; And like me, it led directly to their fall."

You opened your mouth, then closed it. Opened it again.

What do you even say to that?

The silence stretched, filled only by the soft hum of medical equipment and the distant vibration of the ship's engines through the deck plates.

"There's one more thing," Vader said, breaking the silence with unexpected gentleness in his tone, like he was approaching something delicate. "Do you have children?"

The question came so casual, so conversational after the weight of everything else, that it took you a moment to process what he'd asked.

"I-…no." The answer emerged automatic, reflexive. "No, I don't."

"But you know people with children," he continued, and it wasn't quite a question, more a statement inviting confirmation.

"Yes," you said, watching him carefully, trying to understand where this was going. "Of course. Lots of them."

Vader nodded, as if this was exactly what he’d expected. "Then consider this scenario," he said, his voice adopting that deliberate, measured tone that always signalled he was building toward a point. "You’re a parent. You have an infant child, perhaps a few months old, perhaps a year. Happy, healthy, developing normally."

You reached for the tissue regeneration scanner, needing something to do with your hands, and began running spot checks on previously examined sites, more for the motion than any medical necessity.

Vader continued. "One day a stranger appears at your door. Someone you've never met, claiming to represent an ancient organization. He tells you that your child has special abilities: gifts that require training, guidance, institutional control."

The scanner hummed softly against his shoulder, green light tracking across scarred tissue.

"This stranger," Vader said, "informs you that he's taking your child. That your infant will be raised by his organization, trained in their ways, taught their philosophy." A pause, weighted. "And that you will never see your child again. They belong to the Order now, not to you."

Your hands stilled completely, the scanner forgotten mid-motion.

"Now tell me, Doc," Vader's gaze held yours with penetrating intensity. "Do you think those parents you know, the ones in your paediatric ward, your colleagues and friends with families, anyone you can think of, would willingly agree to those terms?"

You thought about it. Really thought about it.

Jano with his niece and nephew; the way his entire face transformed when they visited, how fiercely protective he became when anyone so much as looked at them wrong. The parents in the paediatric ward who practically lived beside their children's beds, who would argue with you over pain medication dosages, who'd fight anyone or anything that threatened their kids.

Your own parents, for all their faults, for all their attempts to control your career path and social connections, they'd never have given you away. Not to anyone. Not under any circumstances.

"No," you said flatly, the word carrying absolute certainty. "I don't know a single parent who would willingly give up their child under those conditions. Not one."

Vader nodded slowly, as if you'd confirmed something he'd already known. " When my wife told me she was pregnant, I knew from the very first moment that I would never give this child, these children, to the Order. And yet, during the Clone Wars, the Jedi Order numbered over 10,000 Jedi.." His scarred brow furrowed. "How do you imagine that happened?"

The implication hit you like cold water, washing over your skin in an uncomfortable wave of realization.

"The Jedi had their... methods," Vader said, his voice carefully neutral in a way that suggested volumes. "Their means of persuasion. Yes, of course: there were also orphans who had lost their families, or poverty-stricken families who willingly gave them away for a supposedly better future.  Some parents gave up children voluntarily- convinced by institutional authority, by promises of better lives, by the prestige of having a Jedi in the family, even if they would never see them again."

He paused, letting that sink in.

"Others," he continued, "were more reluctant. But the Order had considerable political power, military authority, galaxy-wide reach. They rarely encountered obstacles they couldn't overcome when they wanted something."

His gaze held yours.

You swallowed hard, something sick churning in your stomach as the implications crystallized.

"You're saying they took children against their parents' will."

"I'm saying," Vader corrected with precision, "that an organization with the political backing of the Republic, with legal frameworks supporting their actions, with Force abilities that could influence minds and perceptions, such an organization rarely heard the word 'no' when they identified a Force-sensitive child they wanted to recruit."

The scanner in your hand felt suddenly heavy, and you realized you'd been holding it motionless against his shoulder for who knew how long. You resumed the scan mechanically, the motion giving your hands something to do while your mind reeled.

"Not every case was coercion," Vader acknowledged. "Some parents genuinely believed their children would have better lives with the Jedi. Some cultures viewed Force sensitivity as a blessing, an honour to give a child to the Order." His expression darkened. "But the system itself was built on removing children from their families. Permanently. Irrevocably. That was the foundation, take them young enough that they remember nothing else, that the Order becomes their only family, their only loyalty."

You finished scanning his shoulders and moved lower, checking the integration sites along his torso where cybernetic components interfaced with organic systems. The tissue here was always delicate, always prone to complications.

"So your answer to whether Luke should rebuild the Jedi Order," you said slowly, organizing your thoughts, "is that training people extensively in the Force creates more danger than letting them develop naturally. That institutional control is the problem, not the solution."

"Training people extensively in the Force," Vader confirmed, "means significantly more risk,  for themselves and for everyone around them, than would exist through natural, unguided development." His gaze held yours. "Most Force-sensitive beings live entire lives never knowing they have abilities, never requiring training or institutional guidance. They're just... slightly more intuitive than average. Slightly faster reflexes. Slightly better at reading situations."

He gestured vaguely with one cybernetic hand. "They don't need an ancient organization to control them. They don't pose any danger to themselves or others. The Force flows through them naturally, helpfully, without requiring intervention."

"But people with stronger abilities-" you started.

"Are better served," Vader interrupted, "by learning to understand and accept their abilities as part of themselves, not as something requiring institutional management and control." His voice took on an edge. "I was the one with the strongest Force signature ever recorded, and no one even knew until I was nine years old. It never bothered me. In fact, it helped me. My reflexes were faster, my senses sharper, it made life easier. It wasn’t a burden then. It became one only after I joined the Order. They didn’t accept me out of compassion or a desire to help; they did so because they believed I was the Chosen One. Before that, they had refused me because I was too old, too attached, too different. It was never about me. It was about the Force they thought they could mold and command.“

You moved the scanner to check the lower integration sites, the areas where his artificial spine connected to organic systems. The tissue here was always the most complicated, the most prone to rejection.

"And even if we imagine the absolute ideal scenario," he continued, his tone edged with weary scepticism, "Luke builds his school entirely on his own; no financial foundation, no institutional support, sustained only by his strength and conviction. He trains only those children who truly suffer under the weight of their abilities, or those who have no family to turn to. He teaches them, guides them, imparts whatever fragmented wisdom he can glean from the ancient ruins he scavenges for knowledge…" Vader paused, his gaze darkening. "But what happens when he takes in a child who is already powerful in the Force, too powerful, and at the same time so deeply traumatized that they become a danger? To the others. To themselves. To him. Does my talented, naïve, half-trained, well-meaning son truly possess the ability to guide such a child? To recognize the danger before it consumes everything?"

You knew what he meant before he even finished speaking. He wasn’t just talking about Luke, or about some hypothetical child, he was talking about himself. And you had no idea what to say. You knew what trauma did to children, how it twisted growth and turned every attempt at help into a careful balancing act. It took more than a good heart and noble ideals to reach them,  to give them the support they needed. It took training, experience, the hard-won knowledge of when to push and when to back off, when structure helped and when it became another prison.

And Luke...

Luke had none of that. Just optimism and determination and the kind of faith that could move mountains but might shatter completely when faced with a child whose trauma manifested as violence, as rage, as power that couldn't be controlled because control itself felt like another form of abuse.

"What's the alternative?" The question emerged before you could stop it, your voice carrying more desperation than you'd intended. "What happens to that deeply traumatized child if-"

"The alternative," Vader interrupted, his voice gentle but firm, cutting through your spiral with the precision of someone who'd already thought this through from every angle, "is that my son doesn't burden himself with the potential guilt of failure and the accompanying despair."

The words stopped you cold.

Because that was it, wasn't it? That was what mattered to him.

Not some hypothetical traumatized Force-sensitive child who might or might not exist. Not the abstract question of how to properly train the next generation. Not even the philosophical implications of institutional Force use versus individual connection.

Luke. Protecting Luke from the specific kind of devastation that came from trying to save someone and watching them fall anyway. From believing you could fix, save someone and discovering too late that you'd only made things worse. From carrying the weight of a student's descent into darkness and knowing, knowing in the deepest parts of yourself that maybe if you'd been better, stronger, wiser, more patient-

He's trying to save his son from becoming him.

"Luke wants to rebuild something he imagines as noble," Vader said quietly. "A beacon of hope and justice and cosmic balance. But he's chasing a myth. The reality of the Jedi Order was far more complicated, far more compromised  than the sanitized version that survived in stories and propaganda."

He paused, his gaze drifting to the new installed viewport.

"So yes," he continued, his tone shifting into something more contemplative, almost professorial. "The Force only truly becomes dangerous when it's instrumentalized and institutionalized; no matter which side does it. Light or dark, Jedi or Sith, the moment you try to codify it, constrain it, shape it to fit an ideology..."

His cybernetic fingers flexed once, a gesture that seemed unconscious.

"It's no longer seen for what it actually is. It becomes a tool. A weapon. A means to an end rather than an end in itself."

He's speaking from experience. Not theory. Experience.

You found yourself leaning forward slightly, caught by something in his voice, not passion exactly, but certainty born from painful understanding.

"I can judge that fairly well," Vader said, and there was dark humour threading through the words now, self-awareness that cut like a scalpel. "I was a poor Jedi, too emotional, too attached, too desperate for validation and recognition. I broke half their rules just by existing, and the other half through deliberate choice."

A pause, weighted.

"And I was an even worse Sith." The admission came out flat, factual. "But I'm a rather... decent Force user." The words were chosen carefully, precisely. "Because that's what the Force is, after all: it flows naturally through me. No philosophy constraining it. No doctrine telling me what I should or shouldn't feel, what I can or can't do with it. Just raw connection, unfiltered and immediate."

Your breath caught slightly at the implication.

He's saying he's more powerful now. More connected. Without the Jedi restrictions or the Sith corruption - just... him and the Force.

"The scans all look good," you said, retreating into clinical safety because you didn't know what else to do with everything he'd shared. "Tissue integration is strong, cellular regeneration within normal parameters. No signs of rejection or infection. Mechanically, you're healing well."

You disconnected your equipment and began organizing instruments back into your kit with methodical precision.

"Once we address the neural pathway issues," you continued, keeping your voice professionally neutral, "you should have full functionality. The surgery should resolve the signal degradation problems."

"Good," Vader said simply.

But his gaze remained on you, penetrating, assessing, like he was trying to determine something. Whether you believed him? Whether his arguments had landed? Whether you understood the weight of what he'd shared?

You didn't know. Weren't sure what you believed anymore, your comfortable assumptions about Jedi nobility and institutional benevolence thoroughly shattered by an avalanche of uncomfortable truths.

The silence stretched, weighted with things unsaid, revelations that couldn't be unheard, truths about institutions and power and stolen childhoods. You stood, already collecting your equipment, organizing instruments back into your kit with the kind of methodical precision that came from needing something, anything to anchor yourself.

"You believe in my son."

The statement came quiet but penetrating, not quite a question, more an observation that demanded response.

Heat crept into your face. Something in his tone, in the particular way he'd phrased it, in the weight of his gaze- there was more behind this than simple parental concern.

What does he want you to say?

"Yes," you managed, keeping your focus on coiling the interface cable with perhaps more attention than strictly necessary. "He's an exceptional man with extraordinary abilities, isn’t he?"

When he answered, there was something almost sardonic in his tone. "Yes. He is remarkably talented. Exceptionally strong in the Force." A pause followed, heavy with something unspoken. "I spent years convinced that bringing him to the dark side was the best path forward. That only through that training could his incredible potential be fully realized."

Your hands stilled on the cable.

"But now..." Vader's voice dropped lower, became more contemplative. "I don't believe his life should be wasted chasing ideals. Trying to rebuild something that was fundamentally broken, serving institutional purposes rather than his own fulfilment."

You looked up at him, meeting those ice-blue eyes that seemed to see too much, understand too clearly. "What do you want for him, then?"

Vader's shoulder lifted in a slight shrug.

"I don't know," he admitted, and there was something almost vulnerable in the confession. "What any parent wants, I suppose. For my son to be happy. To find purpose and meaning that actually serves him rather than some institutional mandate or inherited expectation."

You set down the cable, your hands finding each other in your lap, fingers interlacing in a gesture that might have been nervousness if you'd been paying attention to your own body language.

"Sometimes," you said carefully, choosing words like you were navigating a minefield, "the people we love have to make their own choices. Even when those choices are difficult to watch. Even when we can see potential dangers or outcomes they might not." You met his gaze. "What makes someone truly happy, what gives their life real meaning, that's something only they can determine for themselves."

Vader regarded you with that penetrating intensity that made you feel like he was reading layers beneath what you'd said, parsing subtext you weren't sure you'd intended.

"Even when," he said slowly, deliberately, "one knows it could potentially end badly?"

The question hung in the air between you, and suddenly  with absolute, crystalline clarity,  you understood this conversation wasn't just about Luke anymore.

The room seemed smaller suddenly, the space between you charged with something electric, dangerous, weighted with implications that made your pulse hammer against your ribs. His gaze held yours, unflinching, and you found yourself locked in an unspoken exchange, a conversation conducted entirely through eye contact and weighted silence and the particular way the air felt thick, hard to breathe.

He's not talking about Luke. This is about-

Oh force.

Recognition slammed into you with the force of a physical blow. Jano's question echoing in your mind: Do you want him?

"Yes," you heard yourself say, your voice steadier than you felt. "Even then." You were the first to break eye contact, your gaze dropping to your holopad like it contained the secrets of the universe, your fingers suddenly finding its surface fascinating enough to require your complete and undivided attention.

"Sometimes you just have to trust that the person knows what they're doing. What they want. That they're capable of making their own choices even knowing the risks."

"What if," Vader pressed, and his voice had dropped into a register that made something flutter beneath your ribs, "one has already seen where that path leads? Already experienced the consequences. And simply wants to protect-"

"Luke isn't you," you interrupted, forcing yourself to look up, to meet his gaze even though it felt like staring into something that could burn away your iris. "You can warn someone. Share your experience, your concerns, your perspective on the dangers." You swallowed. "But ultimately, they have to make the experience themselves. We don't learn from other people's mistakes, not really. We have to make our own."

The silence that followed felt profound, stretched too tight, ready to snap.

You stood abruptly, the motion sending your stool rolling backward with a soft squeak that seemed deafening in the charged quiet. Your hands moved automatically, organizing your kit, checking equipment, anything to avoid the weight of his attention. The adapter for the neural scanner slipped from your slightly trembling grip and landed on his bedside with a muted tap. You reached down to retrieve it, grateful for the excuse to move, to focus on something mechanical, something safe. Your fingertips brushed the cool metal -

When suddenly his hand closed around your wrist.

Not forcefully, the pressure was careful, controlled, his cybernetic fingers cold against your skin. The  contact froze you mid-motion, stopped your breath in your chest, sent your pulse skyrocketing into territory that probably registered on nearby medical monitors.

Tachycardia. Acute stress response. Fight or flight activation. Except you're doing neither, just standing here like your nervous system forgot how to function.

You looked down at his hand; durasteel and neural sensors, technology you understood intimately, had worked with for years, suddenly feeling entirely foreign and overwhelming. Then up, slowly, meeting his gaze.

His expression was serious, intense, that particular combination of vulnerability and determination that you'd learned meant he was about to say something difficult.

"I wish I could tell him..." A pause, his jaw tightening fractionally. "That it's dangerous. Very dangerous." The grip around your wrist tightened for a brief moment, not painfully but too significantly to be accidental. "And that the danger is probably not worth the risk."

Your mind spiralled through interpretations; was he still talking about Luke? About the Jedi path? Or about something else entirely, something that involved the way his thumb was unconsciously tracing a small circle against your pulse point, feeling your heart rate hammering beneath your skin?

 Is he warning you off? Warning himself? Both?

You managed a smile; small, uncertain, but genuine. "Luke knows that" you said softly. "He has eyes in his head. He's not stupid. He understands the dangers of what he's attempting, even if he's choosing to pursue it anyway."

The ambiguity was intentional. Necessary. Because you weren't entirely sure anymore whether you were talking about Luke or something far more personal, far more dangerous.

Vader held your gaze for another heartbeat, two, three- some calculation happening behind those blue eyes that you couldn't quite parse. Then his hand gently released your wrist, and you couldn't help but notice the sudden feeling of regret that came over you.

"Rest," you instructed, your voice coming out steadier than you felt, slipping back into clinical authority like armor. "The surgery day after tomorrow is going to be extensive. Multiple stages, significant trauma to the spinal column and neural pathways. You'll need all your strength."

You reached the door, your hand hovering over the control panel.

"And eat your meals," you added, allowing a hint of familiar exasperation to creep into your tone, trying desperately to claw back some normalcy. "Actual food. Not just pretending to eat while CX-3 isn't looking. Your body needs proper nutrition for healing, not just sheer stubbornness."

You didn't wait for his response, couldn't, really, not when your pulse was still hammering and his words were echoing in your mind and you needed space to think, to process, to figure out what the hell had just happened.

The door hissed open, and you stepped through into the corridor's relative safety.

But you felt his attention on you all the way to the threshold, a weight that didn't lift even after the door sealed behind you with pneumatic finality.

You leaned against the corridor wall for exactly five seconds, allowing yourself that brief moment of complete loss of composure, your chest heaving like you'd run a marathon instead of just having a conversation.

That was not just about Luke. That was definitely not about Luke.

He knows. He knows…. And he's- what? Warning you? Warning himself? Testing to see if you'd back off?

Or...

The alternative possibility made your stomach flip.

Or inviting you to make a choice with full awareness of the consequences.

"Fuck," you whispered to the empty corridor, the word barely audible but carrying the weight of weeks of accumulated tension and denial and very carefully maintained professional boundaries that were apparently made of tissue paper.

Your com vibrated in your pocket- probably Luke again, checking in, asking for updates, being his characteristically sweet and optimistic self.

You pulled yourself together through sheer force of will, pushed off the wall, and started walking. One foot in front of the other. Back to your quarters. Where you could process this in private. Where you could have a complete breakdown without witnesses.

Where you could figure out what the hell you were going to do about the fact that Darth Vader- war criminal, prisoner, patient, Luke's father, Leia's father, dead man hopefully soon to be walking and headed for possible execution- had just made it abundantly clear that whatever was happening between you wasn't one-sided.

And that he was giving you the choice of what to do about it.

With full awareness that it was dangerous.

Very dangerous.

And probably not worth the risk.

Your feet carried you forward on autopilot while your mind replayed every moment, every word, every weighted pause and meaningful glance.

And somewhere in the chaos of your thoughts, one thing crystallized with absolute clarity:

You were in so much trouble.

Chapter Text

The comm message had come through while you were finishing morning rounds, its cheerful ping cutting through the routine medical updates:

"Hey! Just landed in the hangar with the Falcon. Going to check on my father later. Want to grab caf first?"

You'd stared at the message for five minutes straight, thumb hovering over the reply field while your stomach twisted itself into complicated knots.

A thousand questions spun through your mind: Why was Luke arriving with the Millennium Falcon? Did that mean Han and Leia were here too? Would he notice what had been happening in the meantime? Had anything actually happened? Not really….and yet enough to solidify your resolve: You needed to talk to Luke. Had to talk to him before this situation spiralled any further out of control.

Still with that queasy feeling in your stomach but slightly more conviction in your fingers, you typed: "Docking bay twelve? I'll be there in twenty."

His response was immediate: "Perfect! See you soon :)"

The smiley emoticon made your chest ache with guilt.

He's so genuinely good. So unfailingly kind. And you're about to break his heart…well, or at least significantly disappoint him, because you've developed catastrophic cravings for his emotionally devastated war criminal father.

This is fine.

Everything is completely fine.

You found him exactly where you expected: standing at the base of the Falcon's boarding ramp, waiting for you.

But he wasn't alone.

A Togruta stood beside him, striking in that effortless way some people had, where presence alone did all the work.
Her outfit was practical, hovering somewhere between military and civilian: muted earth tones, worn from use. It was the kind of attire that spoke of someone who’d seen combat, but no longer answered to anyone’s chain of command. Two lightsabers hung at her hip.

The ship loomed behind them both, its battered exterior somehow both decrepit and magnificent.

Luke looked up as you approached, and his entire face lit up with that smile that had probably made half the Rebellion fall a little bit in love with him. Warm. Genuine.

"Hey!" His voice carried pleasure and genuine excitement as he waved you over. "Perfect timing! I wanted you two to meet."

Oh good. Social niceties. Exactly what you need right now when you're about to have one of the most awkward conversation of your adult life.

You crossed the remaining distance, forcing your expression into something professionally pleasant despite the anxiety currently rioting through your nervous system.

Luke gestured between you with the enthusiasm of someone who genuinely loved introducing people he cared about. "Doc, this is Ahsoka Tano. She was my father's Padawan during the Clone Wars. Ahsoka, this is the doctor I've been telling you about, the one who's been working miracles with my father's recovery."

So, this was Ahsoka Tano. His former apprentice. You’d read about her in his medical files, and Luke had mentioned her more than once, practically glowing every time, thrilled to have access to someone who had actually known Anakin Skywalker and the Jedi.

Ahsoka inclined her head slightly, one fist pressed briefly to her chest in greeting. Her expression was warm, but her eyes carried that particular quality of assessment that suggested she was evaluating you on several levels at once. "It’s good to meet you, Doctor," she said. "Luke’s been singing your praises for weeks."

You returned the nod and managed something that might have passed for a smile. "Less working miracles," you said dryly, "and more treating one. There’s a difference."

Ahsoka's mouth twitched with amusement, a smile breaking across her features that suggested she appreciated the distinction.

Then her eyes met yours fully, and you suddenly felt uncomfortably exposed.

That particular sensation of being seen; not just physically but deeper, the way Force-sensitives could apparently just look at you and understand things you very much did not want understood. Her gaze was penetrating without being invasive, assessing without judgment, but carrying enough weight to make you feel like she could see straight through every carefully maintained professional façade.

"How is he?" Ahsoka asked, and there was something in her voice…concern mixed with wariness, hope mixed with old hurt. "Anakin. How is he doing?"

"Good," you said automatically, then caught yourself. "Well. Good as long as you don't call him Anakin."

Ahsoka's eyebrows rose fractionally.

"He goes still by Vader," you clarified, falling back into clinical summary mode because at least medical facts were safe territory. "The usual post-surgical complications: recovering from major brain surgery, waiting for his fourth prosthetic limb to be installed, generally impatient and irritated about being confined to a medical bay for weeks."

The description brought an unexpected laugh from Ahsoka, genuine and carrying notes of recognition that suggested she knew exactly the kind of impatient, irritated patient he would be.

"That sounds like him," she said, and there was affection underneath the words despite the wariness. "Always hated being still. Being helpless."

Her expression shifted then, something more serious settling across her features. "Can I-" She paused, seeming to weigh her words carefully. "Can I see him? I know it's probably not protocol, but..."

She wanted to see him. That was definitely interesting: someone besides Luke and you who willingly came close to him and might even give him a chance at something resembling social interaction. The only question that remained was whether he wanted to see her as well.

"Not right now," you said, and tried to keep the professional detachment in your voice. "The surgery took a significant toll. He needs rest, time for the neural integration to stabilize. But," You paused, considering. "once he's recovered more. I'll ask him if he's willing to see you."

Ahsoka nodded slowly, understanding flickering across her expression. "Thank you. I-" She stopped, then continued more carefully. "How is he? Really. Not medically. But... as a person."

The question hung heavy in the air between you. You could see that asking these questions wasn’t easy for her. She struck you as someone who tended to be cautious with new people, but her curiosity about her old Master seemed to outweigh that learned restraint.

"What do you mean?" you asked, stalling for time while your brain scrambled to figure out how to answer that without revealing too much about exactly how much time you'd been spending thinking about your patient's personality.

Ahsoka's expression gentled, but her eyes remained sharp. "The last time I saw him, he was trying to kill me. He was…" She paused, pain flickering across her features. "he was lost. Consumed by the dark side. I saw what he'd become and I…I couldn't reach him."

She took a breath. "Based on what Luke's told me, he's apparently come to his senses. Returned to who he was, maybe. Or at least someone less..." She gestured vaguely. "homicidal. And from what I understand, you spend the most time with him. So, I'm asking: what's he actually like now?"

Come to his senses. Right.

Because that's definitely an accurate description of recovering from having your brain systematically tortured for two decades.

Something sharp and defensive flared in your chest, protective instinct you had absolutely no business feeling for a patient, let alone this particular patient.

"'Come to his senses' is a bit reductive," you said, and heard the edge creep into your voice. "Considering what we found when we opened his skull. The deliberate neurological torture built into every system. The pain feedback loops designed specifically to cause maximum suffering. He wasn't just 'lost to the dark side', he was actively being driven insane by his own cybernetics for probably over twenty years."

Ahsoka looked at you for a long moment, that uncomfortable sensation of being Force-scanned returning with intensity. Her expression was thoughtful, assessing, reading layers you weren't consciously revealing.

"So you think he was tortured into submission?" she said finally.

It wasn't quite a question. More like a statement wrapped in inquiry; testing your response, trying to gauge whether you were one of those people who reduced everything to simple cause and effect.

"If you're asking whether I think the suit and the systematic psychological and physical torture are responsible for Darth Vader's actions," you said, meeting her eyes directly, "then I'm afraid I have to disappoint you. I don't think it was that simple. "

You paused, organizing your thoughts into something approaching coherence rather than defensive rambling. "I think it was certainly a significant, and not to be underestimated factor in his overall mental state," you continued. "But I also don't think he was some 'poor innocent manipulated prisoner in himself because of the dark side who's now fought his way back to the surface after twenty years of bad Force influence, the way some people seem to want to believe."

The fact that both people who seem to want to believe exactly that are currently standing in front of you…well. You'll just leave that implication hanging in the air.

Ahsoka's eyebrows rose with genuine surprise. "Oh? What do you think, then?"

You shrugged "A complex mixture of many factors," you said. "Unbearable pressure and expectations from all sides. Maybe fear of the future. The War." Considering the fact that expected infants and war rarely match up in a future plan. "Manipulation from the right people at the right moments. Physical and psychological torture. The dark side pulling at him when it was the only thing left that felt like power, like control…yes, certainly. All of that."

You took a breath. "But also a certain character that was necessary for it to work," you continued, and your voice carried quiet certainty. "There are plenty of people who would have thrown themselves on their own lightsaber before they'd use it to kill innocent children. So yes: he's endured significantly more pain and suffering than anyone else I know. But he's not an innocent victim which was forced into his actions. What he did was too severe, too deliberate for that."

Ahsoka stared at you, genuine incredulity and something other you couldn’t quite name flickering across her features. "And yet you still treat him?"

You shrugged again. "It matters less to me what he did than what he wants to do now. That despite everything, despite the pain, despite the easier paths available, he chose to be better. Every day."

You met her eyes directly. "And I think that's worth significantly more than someone who just 'came to their senses,'" you said, and heard the edge in your voice, the way it referenced her earlier phrasing with something approaching scorn.

Shit. That came out more pointed than intended.

"Sorry," you said, though you weren't entirely sure you meant it. "What I mean is: his recovery isn't just about 'coming to his senses.' It's about undoing decades of systematic torture and relearning how to exist without constant pain and being better because he chose it. Because he actually wants to live a real life and not just endure an existence. "

And he's brilliant and damaged and complicated and nothing like what you expected and you're absolutely not supposed to be this invested in defending him to people from his past.

You stopped, realizing you were rambling again, and tried to organize your thoughts into something coherent.

"How is he?" you repeated Ahsoka's original question, buying yourself time. "Once you get past the first four hundred layers of trauma and defence mechanisms..."

What is he actually? How would you characterize him?

'Friendly' would be inaccurate. 'Nice'…well, just no.

You searched for adequate words, trying to capture the complexity of the man you'd been treating for weeks, the brilliance, the unexpected humour, the careful vulnerability, the way he looked at you sometimes that made your breath catch-

"Interesting," you said finally. "He's... interesting."

Understatement. Massive understatement. But at least it's honest without being catastrophically revealing.

Ahsoka watched you for a long moment, and something shifted in her expression, understanding mixed with what might have been knowing amusement. She nodded slowly, and you got the distinct impression she'd heard significantly more in that answer than you'd intended to reveal.

"Interesting," she repeated, and there was definitely amusement in her voice now. "That's... actually probably the most honest assessment I've heard."

She glanced at Luke, who'd been watching this entire exchange with careful neutrality.

"I see why you like her, Luke," Ahsoka said, and there was warmth in her voice now.

You cleared your throat, desperately needing to redirect this conversation before it ventured any further into uncomfortable territory.

"Luke," you said, turning your attention to him with probably more intensity than necessary. "Can we talk? Privately? Just for a few minutes?"

Luke's expression shifted, that immediate understanding that something important needed to be discussed. He glanced at Ahsoka, who nodded with the kind of easy acceptance that suggested she understood the need for privacy.

"Of course," Luke said. "Ahsoka, do you mind?"

"Not at all." She smiled, already stepping back toward the Falcon. "I'll go help Han with whatever he's currently cursing about. Nice meeting you, Doctor."

"You too," you managed, watching as she disappeared up the boarding ramp with a natural fluid grace that was enviable.

Luke gestured toward the quiet corner of the docking bay you'd spotted earlier, away from foot traffic, partially shielded by cargo containers.

"So," he said gently, and there was understanding in his voice that made your chest tight. "This is one of those conversations."

He knows. Of course he knows. You were about to confirm something he’d already figured out.

"Luke, I-" You stopped, cleared your throat, tried again. "I need to be honest with you. Fair. You deserve that much."

"You don't have to-" he started, but you held up a hand.

"No, I do. I do have to." You met his eyes directly, forcing yourself to maintain contact. "You've been... you've been wonderful. Kind and patient and everything anyone would want. But I can't-"

The words tangled in your throat.

"I can't reciprocate," you forced out. "I value our friendship. Genuinely, deeply value it. But that's all it can be. Friendship. I'm sorry."

Luke's expression softened even further, and he pushed off from the cargo container, moving closer with that gentle care he probably learned from Jedi training or possibly just from being fundamentally decent.

"Hey," he said softly. "It's okay. You don't owe me anything. I knew it was a long shot anyway-"

"Don't," you interrupted, because you couldn't let him think this was about his inadequacy. "Don't do that. This isn't about you not being enough. You're…stars, Luke, you're probably the best person I know. It’s about me," you continued. "About where I am right now. About..."

You trailed off, unsure how much to reveal.

Luke watched you for a long moment, his expression unreadable. Then something shifted in his eyes, understanding mixed with something else. Something that looked uncomfortably like he'd just figured out a puzzle you very much did not want solved.

"There's someone else," he said quietly. Not a question. A statement.

Fuck.

You felt your face heat despite every attempt at professional neutrality. "I'm not…it's not-"

Lie. You are lying. Badly. He can sense it through the Force, can probably feel every spike of guilt and desire and confusion currently rioting through your nervous system.

"You don't have to explain," Luke said, but his eyes carried that particular quality of understanding that suggested he'd already drawn conclusions. "I'm not asking for details. Just... confirming what I'm sensing."

What you’re sensing. Right. Because the Force was apparently the galaxy's most invasive emotional polygraph.

"It's complicated," you managed, which was possibly the understatement of the decade.

"Most things worth feeling are," Luke said, and there was a wisdom in his voice that seemed older than his years. "The Force connects people sometimes in ways that don't make logical sense. Creates bonds that reason says shouldn't exist."

He was talking about his father. About the connection they shared, about how he felt drawn to redeem someone logic says is irredeemable.

Your stomach twisted with anxiety at the thought that Luke had just realized exactly who had captured your catastrophically inappropriate attention.

"Luke…" you started, suddenly desperate to know what he was thinking, what he'd concluded.

But he held up a hand, his expression shifting into something carefully neutral-diplomatic mask firmly in place.

"You don't have to tell me who," he said gently. "That's your business. I just..." He paused, choosing words with exceptional care. "I just hope you're being careful."

He knows. He doesn't know specifics maybe, but he knows enough. Knows it's someone inappropriate, someone complicated.

"I'm trying to be careful," you said, which wasn't a lie but also wasn't entirely true. "I'm trying to think about consequences. But some things are harder to control than they should be."

Luke's expression softened into something that looked like sympathy mixed with concern. "I know. Believe me, I know how that feels."

He stepped closer, and before you could react, he pulled you into a hug, brief, brotherly, carrying none of the romantic tension that might have existed before.

"Whoever this is, he is a very lucky man," he murmured near your ear, quiet enough that only you could hear. " Just… Be sure you won't get hurt." He paused, and you felt him take a breath. "And that you won't hurt him. Some people, some connections…they're fragile in ways that aren't obvious until they break."

He pulled back, hands on your shoulders, expression serious but not unkind.

"And if you ever need to talk," he added, "about anything-I'm here. No judgment. Just here."

He knows. He absolutely knows or at least suspects strongly. And he's choosing kindness over confrontation, which somehow makes it worse.

"Thank you," you managed, voice rough with emotion. "Luke, I…thank you. For understanding. For being…" You gestured helplessly. "for being you."

He smiled, smaller than before, sadder maybe, but genuine. "We're still friends?"

"Always," you said immediately, because that at least was uncomplicated truth. "Always friends."

"Good." He squeezed your shoulders once more, then released you. "Now go do whatever you need to do. And try not to beat yourself up too much about being human. It happens to the best of us."

Being human. That was certainly one way to describe it.

You managed something resembling a smile, nodded, and turned to leave before the conversation could get more revealing.

He was fine. He was going to be fine. Luke Skywalker was apparently the most emotionally well-adjusted person in the entire galaxy.

Unlike you.

The thought cut off as you passed one of the internal hangar access points, the massive blast doors currently open to allow cargo transfer. The distinctive whine of repulsor engines filled the air, and you recognized the sound pattern immediately: that particular pitch and rhythm that belonged to the Drifter's Promise, Captain Montyl Temen's light freighter.

Oh.

Your pace slowed without conscious decision, drawn by the prospect of-

"Doc!" Montyl's voice carried across the hangar bay, warm and familiar and edged with that perpetual flirtation he deployed like a particularly ineffective but charming weapon system. "There she is! The most brilliant, most beautiful medical professional in the entire Alliance fleet. Tell me you've been counting the days until my return."

You reached the edge of the loading area, fighting back a smile.

Fresh food. Real, actual, non-reconstituted, non-synthesized, honest-to-Force fresh food.

Crates of it. Vegetables with actual texture variation, protein that didn't come in standardized blocks.

Friuts. Multiple varieties. Colours that existed in nature rather than food lab simulations.

"Captain Temen," you said, unable to keep the anticipation from your voice as you moved closer to peer into the nearest crate. "Please tell me you've brought something that doesn't taste like recycled nutritional paste."

He leaned against his ship's loading ramp with practiced casualness, his flight jacket worn but serviceable, his expression carrying that particular smugness that came from knowing he'd exceeded expectations. "Stopped by Naboo on the way back from the Mid Rim run. They're practically drowning in produce this season-something about optimal growing conditions and surplus trade agreements."

His eyes tracked your movement as you circled the cargo, cataloguing contents with the same focus you'd apply to medical supplies. You knew this game. Montyl flirted with literally every sentient being capable of understanding Basic, and possibly some who didn't. It was harmless, reflexive-the verbal equivalent of a nervous tic combined with genuine friendliness.

The key difference between Montyl and other was: He never pushed beyond casual banter. Never made you uncomfortable. Never expected anything beyond a smile and some verbal sparring.

Which made him oddly... safe. Refreshing, even.

"So," he continued, gesturing expansively at the crates, "what brings Redemption's chief miracle worker down to cargo receiving? Surely not just my devastatingly charming personality?"

"Your devastating charm is merely a bonus," you replied with practiced sarcasm, though you couldn't quite suppress your smile as you examined a container of what looked like actual, leafy greens. "I was hoping to intercept some of this before it disappears into the general food distribution system."

"Ah." His expression shifted to something resembling theatrical concern. "Doc, are you asking me to circumvent proper military supply protocols? To engage in potentially unauthorized requisition activities?"

"It's for a patient," you said, which wasn't technically a lie. "Someone with... specific nutritional requirements. Complex medical situation. The synthesized rations aren't working."

Montyl's expression softened-and this was why you actually liked him despite the constant flirtation. Underneath the swagger was someone who genuinely tried to help, who understood that sometimes rules needed flexibility when people were suffering.

"Medical necessity," he said, nodding slowly. "Yeah, okay. I can work with that." He moved to one of the larger crates, selecting items with surprising care-variety of colors, textures, sizes. "How bad are we talking? Post-surgical recovery? Severe trauma?"

"Something like that," you hedged, because it wasn’t exactly a lie. Just not the whole truth, either.

He pulled items systematically, creating a pile with the efficiency of someone who'd done this countless times. "Here-this should give you a good variety. Mix of nutrient profiles, different textures. Should help with the psychological aspects too, you know? Real food does something for morale that lab-grown stuff never manages."

Exactly. Maybe actual food will help with the constant low-grade nausea, the psychological aversion to eating that comes from associating nutrition with pain and mechanical necessity rather than pleasure or satisfaction.

Then he paused, glancing at you with a considering expression, and pulled out a smaller container from a specialized cooling unit-barely larger than a food preservation unit, carefully sealed with what looked like climate-controlled organic wrapping.

"And this," he said, his voice carrying genuine pleasure at being able to provide something special, "is for you, Doc."

Oh. Oh no.

"Montyl-"

"Ves’tahl Fruit," he interrupted, and the flirtation had dropped from his voice entirely, replaced by simple generosity. "From the deep forests of Rodia. I remembered you mentioned once that they were your favourite, that you hadn't been able to find them since you joined the rebellion."

Your throat tightened unexpectedly.

He remembered that? You'd mentioned it once, maybe twice in passing conversation months ago during a cargo delivery.

The container was beautiful in its simplicity-organic preservation that allowed the fruit to continue its natural essence-absorption process, maintaining optimal flavour development. Ves’tahl Fruit was notoriously finicky, requiring specific atmospheric conditions and careful handling to prevent premature decay.

And he brought you some. Went out of his way to acquire something rare and difficult to transport just because you'd mentioned liking it once.

"Thank you," you managed, your voice coming out rougher than intended. "Montyl, that's... that's incredibly thoughtful."

He shrugged, but you could see the genuine warmth in his expression, the quiet satisfaction that came from making someone's day better. "Can't have our best doctor subsisting on nothing but military rations and caf, can we? Need to keep you in top form."

He grinned then, the flirtation sliding back into place like a comfortable mask. "Besides, maybe you'll think fondly of me next time I need medical clearance for something."

"I always think fondly of you," you said, accepting both containers and balancing them carefully against your medical bag. "Even when you're outrageously overcharging the Alliance for basic supply runs."

"That hurts, Doc." He placed a hand over his heart in mock offense. "I provide premium services. Fast, reliable, with exceptional customer relations."

And he did. He might flirt out of habit, but he’d never once failed a delivery for the Alliance, never price-gouged in a crisis, never treated you as anything but a professional who graciously endured his charm offensive.

"Thank you," you said again, more seriously this time. "Really. This will help. You're a good man, Montyl Temen."

"So I've been told." His grin returned, incorrigible. "Usually right before someone asks me to do something dangerous or vaguely illegal."

You laughed despite yourself, shifting the containers to a more secure grip. "Goodbye, Montyl."

"Until next time, Doc. Try not to work yourself to death before I get back."

His cheerful wave followed you out of the hangar bay, and you found yourself smiling despite the weight of both containers and the complicated knot of anticipation building in your chest.

Your pace quickened as you approached your medical bay, muscle memory carrying you through the final turns while your mind wandered to the surgery, to the discoveries that had left even Thal temporarily speechless.

Three days ago. Seventy-two hours since you'd opened Vader's skull and confronted again the reality of what the Empire had done to him.

The neural interface ports had been the first shock; not their existence, you'd expected those, but their number. Seventeen discrete connection points drilled directly into his cerebral cortex, each one linking his organic neural tissue to the suit's control systems.

But that hadn't been what made Thal go absolutely still over the surgical field, his cybernetic eye zooming in and out rapidly while his organic one remained fixed in an expression you'd never seen before, something between scientific fascination and bone-deep horror.

"Are you seeing this?" he'd asked, his voice carefully controlled in that way people used when they were trying very hard not to lose their professional composure.

You'd been seeing it. Had been staring at it for a full thirty seconds while your brain tried to process the implications.

The scar tissue.

Not the surface scars, those were extensive enough; Laceration scars and thermal damage creating patterns across his skull that suggested his head had been partially on fire at some point. No, the internal scarring. The adhesions. The way his dura mater had essentially fused to portions of his skull in irregular patterns that spoke of repeated trauma, inadequate healing, and deliberate, calculated cruelty.

Someone had performed surgery on him. Multiple surgeries. And they'd done it badly.

Not incompetently, that would have almost been better. This was precision work done with adequate skill but with little or no anaesthesia, minimal healing time, and absolutely zero concern for his comfort or long-term neurological function.

The surgical logs you'd accessed from the Executor had mentioned "cranial modifications" and "neural integration procedures," but the sterile terminology had given no indication of the reality. Of the fact that they'd essentially vivisected him while he was conscious, awake, aware, and quite possibly screaming into the suit's respiratory system that wouldn't allow him even that small release.

Thal had spent the first thirty minutes of the surgery cataloguing every abnormality, every deliberate cruelty embedded in the neural architecture, and you'd watched his expression shift from clinical detachment to something approaching fury.

The pain receptors had been deliberately sensitized-modified to ensure maximum discomfort from the neural interface connections. The pleasure centres had been systematically disconnected from any positive stimuli the suit might provide. Even basic proprioception had been compromised, forcing Vader to constantly fight against his own body's feedback systems just to maintain basic motor control.

You'd known it was bad. Had suspected from the medical records and the physical examination that the suit was designed to hurt him. But seeing the evidence laid out in neural pathways and scar tissue, seeing the precise and deliberate nature of every modification…

That had been different.

Thal had been utterly silent for the remainder of the procedure, his hands moving with their characteristic precision while his expression suggested he was working very hard not to think too much about what he was seeing. You'd caught him twice just staring at particularly egregious examples of deliberately inflicted damage, his cybernetic eye recording everything while his organic one reflected something that looked suspiciously like rage.

Good. Someone should be angry about this. Someone should look at what was done to him and feel fury rather than satisfaction or indifference.

The actual surgical repair had taken twelve hours: careful removal of the damaged interface ports, microsurgical reconstruction of the neural pathways they'd compromised, and delicate placement of new, properly designed connections that would allow him voluntary control over his prosthetics without the constant pain feedback.

The spinal work had been even more delicate: decompressing the interfaces that had exerted constant pressure on the nerve bundle, replacing several entirely with lower-profile alternatives that would sit flush against the vertebrae instead of digging into surrounding tissue. Each interface had required precision calibration to maintain neural connection without the crushing force that had characterized the original installations. You'd mapped every compression point, every area where bone had begun to deform under chronic pressure, every nerve pathway that had been systematically traumatized by interfaces designed to hurt rather than help. The new systems distributed load across broader surface areas, used advanced materials that responded to biological feedback rather than fighting against it.

Twelve hours of precision work, with Thal occasionally muttering technical observations that barely concealed his emotional reaction to what they were fixing.

The post-operative monitoring had shown promising results; neural integration proceeding within expected parameters, no rejection of the new interface systems, and most importantly: significant reduction in the chronic pain signals that had been a constant presence in his baseline readings.

But the discoveries had left you both shaken in ways that had nothing to do with surgical complications and everything to do with confronting the reality of institutionalized torture hidden beneath medical terminology and technical specifications.

He'd lived with that. For years. And he'd still functioned, still led armies, still made strategic decisions while his own nervous system was actively trying to tear itself apart from deliberately inflicted pain.

The thought was terrifying.

The door's security panel blinked green as your credentials registered, and you'd already started mentally reviewing your testing protocol when the door slid open and-

What the..?

Vader sat propped against the raised bed, but instead of resting like he absolutely should be three days post-op from major spinal and cortical surgery, he was engaged in what appeared to be a high-level strategic briefing via holographic projection.

The blue-tinted figures of several individuals materialized in the space before him: Admiral Piett, instantly recognizable even through the holographic distortion. His posture was ramrod straight, shoulders squared in that particular way that screamed military discipline, but there was tension in the set of his jaw. Tension in the way his hands clasped behind his back just a fraction too tightly to be completely at ease.

Piett was nervous. About the briefing itself or about seeing Vader again, even if only through a holo transmission, after learning far more about his Supreme Commander’s medical history than any officer ever should have? Information that had stripped away the myth, leaving him face to face with the awful truth beneath it: something human, fragile, and never meant for him to see.

General Veers stood to Piett's left, and where Piett radiated barely concealed anxiety, Veers was all controlled competence; the kind of officer who'd commanded ground forces through impossible situations and emerged victorious through sheer tactical brilliance and unshakeable calm. Surprisingly, he didn’t seem to mind seeing his Supreme Commander without the iconic suit, unlike the rest of the crowd, who were partly staring quite unabashedly. His bearing was impeccable, his focus absolute, and for just a fraction of a second, you found yourself thinking of his son Zev, who was so different from hhis father.

You shoved the thought away with practiced efficiency. Not now. Not relevant. Focus.

There were also several Alliance officers present whom you didn’t recognize. Apparently, they were the data specialists assigned to collaborate with Vader’s task force in analyzing and categorizing Thrawn’s movements.

Mon Mothma's voice filled the room: "-the intelligence suggests Thrawn has relocated significant resources to the Bilbringi shipyards. Three Star Destroyers confirmed, plus construction facilities for TIE Interceptor production. Our projections indicate he's planning something substantial."

Vader's voice, deeper and carrying more authority than you'd ever heard in real life, cut through with surgical precision: "He's consolidating. Thrawn doesn't scatter resources; he masses them at strategic chokepoints where they can serve multiple purposes simultaneously. Bilbringi gives him production capability and a defensive position that-"

His gaze flicked toward you as you entered, the movement so slight you might have missed it if you weren't specifically watching for signs of neurological function.

Peripheral vision intact. Spatial awareness functional. Reaction time... immediate. Good signs. Excellent signs, actually.

"…forces the Alliance to either commit significant fleet strength to dislodge him or allow him time to build up reserves," he finished without missing a beat in his analysis, his attention already back on the holographic display. "Thrawn understands that time is his most valuable resource right now. Every day the Alliance spends debating strategy is another day he can strengthen his position."

Piett's holographic form leaned forward slightly, and you caught the way his jaw tightened before he spoke. "Recommended approach, my lord?"

Vader's cybernetic fingers moved through holographic display controls with practiced efficiency that shouldn't be possible given the fact that he'd only recently regained full neural connection to those prosthetics. The interface responded instantly to his commands, tactical overlays shifting across the star map with fluid precision.

Show off. You were showing off your recovered motor control and you absolutely knew it.

"Blockade the supply routes," he said, his voice carrying the kind of certainty that came from decades of work experience. "Don't engage directly. Thrawn expects direct confrontation; he's prepared for it, probably eager for it. He wants the Alliance to commit forces to a siege because he's already calculated seventeen different ways to turn that into an advantage."

His fingers traced routes across the holographic display, highlighting hyperspace lanes with the kind of intimate knowledge that suggested he'd memorized trade route data decades ago.

"Instead, strangle his logistics. Cut off supply lines here, here, and here." Three points lit up on the display. "No supplies mean no construction, no repairs, no sustained operations. Thrawn is brilliant, but even he can't manufacture resources from nothing."

Mon Mothma's voice carried a note of consideration. "The blockade would require-"

"Sixteen frigates minimum," Vader interrupted without hesitation, and you would bet actual credits he'd already run the calculations before this briefing even started. "Rotating shifts to maintain coverage without exhausting crews. You'll also need reconnaissance craft. Fast, manoeuvrable, equipped for long-range scanning to monitor for breakout attempts. He'll try to force a corridor within two weeks once the supply shortage becomes critical."

He was in his element. This is what he was beyond the medical crisis, beyond the trauma, beyond everything you've been focused on for weeks. A strategic mind that spent decades commanding fleets and reading opponents with the same precision you apply to diagnostic scans.

And gods help you, it was compelling to watch.

General Veers spoke up, his holographic face serious, his voice carrying that particular timbre of someone who'd seen enough war to respect his enemy's capabilities: "Thrawn will anticipate the blockade strategy. He may have already prepared countermeasures. The Grand Admiral doesn't leave blind spots in his planning."

"He will," Vader agreed without a trace of defensiveness. "And he'll have three contingency plans minimum, possibly as many as five depending on how much intelligence he's gathered on current Alliance fleet capabilities. But anticipating something doesn't negate its effectiveness if executed properly with adequate discipline."

He manipulated the display again, pulling up fleet position data that made Piett's shoulders relax slightly, recognition, perhaps, that Vader had already done his homework.

"Piett-" Vader's attention shifted, and you saw the admiral straighten infinitesimally. "You'll coordinate the blockade. Your experience with supply line interdiction during the Anoat campaign makes you the logical choice. I want daily reports on Thrawn's response patterns."

"Yes, my lord." Piett's voice carried quiet satisfaction, the kind that came from being trusted with significant responsibility.

Vader turned his attention to Veers. "I want reconnaissance on all potential supply routes, not just the obvious ones. Thrawn will try unconventional approach vectors, possibly through the Doldur Sector or around the Kibilini Edge. He's used both before."

Veers nodded, his expression thoughtful. "We'll need authorization for deep-range patrols."

"You'll have it," Mon Mothma interjected. "I'll coordinate with Admiral Ackbar on resource allocation."

The briefing continued for another few minutes; discussion of fleet positions, resource allocation, reconnaissance protocols, the kind of high-level military strategy that reminded you, uncomfortably, that the man currently occupying a medical bay had once commanded the Imperial Navy's most elite forces with a level of competence that had made him legendary.

And terrifying. Don't forget terrifying. 

Mon Mothma's closing words carried careful neutrality that probably fooled no one who knew her well: "Thank you, gentlemen. Your insight continues to prove valuable to our efforts. We'll implement the blockade strategy and update you on progress."

"One more thing," Vader said before she could disconnect. "Thrawn will test the blockade within forty-eight hours of its establishment. Small probe, likely a single fast courier ship attempting to break through at the weakest point. Don't commit significant resources to intercept, it's reconnaissance, not a genuine supply run. He's testing response time and force allocation."

A pause. Then Mon Mothma's voice, carefully neutral: "Noted. We'll be prepared."

The holographic figures flickered out of existence.

Silence settled over the room, broken only by the steady beep of monitoring equipment that you'd learned to tune out weeks ago and the soft whir of CX-3's servos as the medical droid registered your presence.

You stood there for a moment, containers of fruit still balanced in your arms, and simply looked at him.

Vader met your gaze with an expression that suggested he knew exactly what was coming and had already resigned himself to it.

You moved further into the room with deliberate calm, setting the containers down on the bedside table with careful precision, -not quite slamming them, but definitely making your point about their weight and your opinions on patients who conducted military briefings three days post-op.

"So," you said, your voice carrying that particular blend of professional disapproval and studied casualness that you'd perfected over years of dealing with non-compliant patients. "Strategic military briefings. That's what we're calling adequate rest and recovery now?"

CX-3 rolled forward, its photoreceptors brightening in what you'd learned to interpret as the droid equivalent of eager anticipation. "Good morning, Doctor. The patient's vital signs have remained stable throughout the recovery period. Neural activity patterns suggest-"

"Exceptional healing progression, yes, I'm sure they do," you interrupted, pulling your medical scanner from your bag and powering it on with movements that were perhaps slightly more aggressive than strictly necessary. "I'm also sure that 'exceptional healing progression' doesn't typically include 'conducting high-level strategic planning sessions while sitting upright for-" you checked your chronometer, "-approximately forty-seven minutes straight."

Vader's expression remained neutral, but you caught the slight shift in his posture that suggested he was weighing his response options.

Don't even try it. I've dealt with more stubborn patients than you, though admittedly few who could crush my trachea with their mind.

"The briefing was scheduled days ago," he said finally, his voice carrying that measured tone people used when they knew they were technically wrong but were going to present their reasoning anyway. "Cancelling would have left the Alliance exposed, an appearance of weakness at a politically sensitive juncture."

You aimed your scanner at him, watching the preliminary readings populate across your datapad. "Ah yes. Political sensitivity. The ultimate justification for ignoring medical advice."

"Doc-"

"No, no, I understand completely," you continued, moving around the bed to get a better scanning angle. "Why prioritize things like 'neurological recovery' and 'not straining recently repaired spinal interfaces' when you could instead be demonstrating your strategic value to people who are already well aware of it?"

Your scanner completed its initial assessment, data streaming across your datapad in patterns that your enhanced optical processing parsed automatically even while you maintained your carefully calibrated expression of professional disapproval.

And-

What.

You stopped mid-motion, staring at the numbers.

"Something concerning?" Vader's voice carried just a hint of tension, the kind that came from someone who'd learned that unexpected silence from medical professionals rarely meant good news.

"No," you said slowly, scrolling through the data again because the results were-

"The opposite, actually." You looked up from your datapad to meet his gaze. "Your cognitive function is reading at 98% efficiency compared to baseline human norms. Reflex response time is actually faster than average. Neural pathway integration shows-"

You trailed off, running the assessment sequence again because surely there had to be some error, some calibration issue that would explain-

"CX-3," you said, keeping your voice level through sheer force of will. "Cross-reference these readings with yesterday's baseline assessment."

"Certainly, Doctor." The droid's photoreceptors dimmed briefly as it accessed archived data. "Comparison indicates improvement across all measured parameters. Synaptic response time has decreased by 0.37 milliseconds. Neural pathway efficiency has increased by 8.2%. Cognitive processing shows no degradation, no signs of post-surgical confusion or memory consolidation issues that typically manifest following invasive cortical procedures."

"That's..." You searched for adequate professional terminology and came up empty. "That's not supposed to be possible."

Vader's mouth twitched, not quite a smile but close enough to count in his limited emotional vocabulary. "Is that your official medical opinion, Doc?"

"My official medical opinion," you said, moving closer to the bed, "is that you're either a fascinating outlier who's going to revolutionize our understanding of neurological recovery, or the Force is doing something that makes conventional medicine look quaint."

You pulled out your penlight, a habit from years of neurological assessments even though your scanner had already verified pupil function. "Track the light with your eyes. Don't move your head."

He complied, his gaze following the beam through a series of patterns -horizontal, vertical, diagonal, circular - with perfect precision. No lag. No overcorrection. No tremor or hesitation that would suggest compromised neural control.

Flawless.

The permanent cybernetic lenses you'd installed were integrating beautifully, synthetic replacements that no longer required nightly removal like the temporary ones he'd been using. These were designed to remain in place permanently, interfacing directly with his optical nerves to provide full visual spectrum.

"How's the visual clarity?" you asked, switching off the penlight and pulling up the optical integration readings on your datapad. "Any distortion, colour aberration, or depth perception issues?"

"None," he said, and there was something in his voice - quiet satisfaction, maybe relief.

"Distance focus? Close reading?" You continued down your checklist. "Any strain or fatigue after extended use?"

"All functioning optimally." His eyes tracked your movements with the kind of precise focus that suggested the cybernetics were working better than biological vision.

Good. That's exactly how it should work. The lenses are reading his neural signals and responding before he's even consciously aware of making the decision.

"Squeeze my hands," you instructed. You felt his fingers close around yours with measured, controlled pressure. Firm but not crushing. Perfectly calibrated. "Good. Now alternate pressure. Right, left, right, left."

He executed the sequence without variation or fumbling, the kind of motor control that should take weeks to reestablish after the kind of surgery you'd performed.

"Touch your nose with your right index finger," you said, withdrawing your hands and trying very hard to ignore the way the brief contact had sent your pulse rate climbing. "Then your left. Alternate three times."

He completed the action without the subtle tremor or coordination issues that plagued most post-operative patients, his movements fluid and precise.

"CX-3," you said, perhaps more sharply than necessary, "run a proprioceptive assessment. Standard protocol."

"Of course, Doctor." The droid extended a sensor array, positioning it near Vader's cybernetic arm. "Patient, please close your eyes and indicate when you feel pressure at each point of contact."

You watched as CX-3 conducted the assessment, touching various points along Vader's prosthetic limbs while he identified each location with perfect accuracy. The neural interfaces you'd installed three days ago were functioning not just adequately but optimally, providing sensory feedback that most cybernetic systems couldn't match even months after installation.

"Proprioceptive function is within optimal parameters," CX-3 reported. "Sensory integration shows no signs of neural lag or phantom sensation interference."

Because of course it does. Because apparently conventional recovery timelines are just suggestions when you’re Darth Vader.

"I need to check the surgical sites," you said, moving to the side of the bed where you'd have better access to his head and neck. "The incisions should be responding well to the bacta treatment, but I want to verify there's no inflammation or rejection response."

Vader tilted his head slightly, giving you better access to the base of his skull where the primary incisions had been made. The surgical sites were clean.

"The incisions are healing exceptionally well," you murmured, gently palpating the tissue around each site to check for any signs of fluid accumulation or inflammatory response. "No swelling, no heat, no indication of infection or rejection. The tissue integration is-"

You stopped, your fingers hovering over one particular spot where the new neural interface had been installed.

"The Force," Vader said quietly, and you realized you'd been staring at his skull for an uncomfortably long time. "It accelerates cellular repair. Not dramatically."

That was remarkable. That was fascinating. That's also going to make every single recovery timeline you've ever learned completely useless for this patient.

You withdrew your hands, making careful notes on your datapad while your brain tried to reconcile conventional medical knowledge with the reality of what you were seeing. His recovery had been extraordinary all along, but this? You had the feeling that the Force, or whatever it was, had kicked into high gear in his brain.

"That's going to significantly complicate my ability to provide accurate prognoses," you said finally. "If I can't predict recovery timelines, I can't properly plan rehabilitation protocols or anticipate complications."

"Is that a problem?" He watched you with that particular intensity that suggested genuine curiosity rather than challenge.

Was it? Was it a problem that your patient was healing faster than should be possible? That he was defying every conventional expectation you have?

"It's... an adjustment," you admitted. "I'm used to dealing with variables I can quantify and predict. The Force introduces elements that don't follow standard biological principles."

"Welcome to my existence," he said dryly.

You huffed out something between a laugh and a sigh. "Fair point."

CX-3 rolled closer, extending a scanner toward Vader's spinal interface points. "Doctor, shall I run the standard post-operative spinal assessment?"

"Yes, please." You stepped back slightly to give the droid room to work, watching as it methodically checked each connection point where you'd decompressed the interfaces and performed regenerative therapy.

"The spinal decompression sites show no signs of inflammation or fluid accumulation," CX-3 reported. "Neural pathway regeneration is proceeding at approximately 3.8 times the standard baseline rate. Interface integration appears stable."

3.8 times baseline. Of course. Why would anything about this be normal? It certainly explained how he’d been able to all but march straight back into battle after surgeries that should have kept him bedridden for months.

"Run a pain sensitivity assessment," you instructed. "I want to verify the modifications we made to the pain receptor pathways are functioning correctly."

CX-3 extended a specialized probe-designed to deliver controlled stimuli at varying intensities while monitoring neural response patterns. "Patient, please indicate on a scale of zero to ten the sensation level at each point of contact."

You watched the readings on your datapad as CX-3 systematically tested each interface point, comparing the responses to the baseline data you'd collected before the surgery.

The difference was staggering.

"Pain receptor sensitivity has decreased by 73%," CX-3 announced. "Neural response patterns indicate normal proprioceptive feedback without the amplification present in previous assessments."

73% reduction. From constant, deliberate torture to something approaching normal human sensation.

"How does it feel?" you asked, meeting Vader's gaze. "The difference. Is it-"

"Better," he said simply. "Significantly better. The constant background noise is gone. The sensation of the cybernetics is..." He paused, seeming to search for words. "Present. But not painful. I can feel them as part of my body rather than causing constant distress."

"Good," you managed, your voice coming out rougher than intended. "That's exactly what we were aiming for."

You cleared your throat, making final notes on your datapad while fighting the completely inappropriate swell of emotion that wanted to surface.

Professional distance. Maintain professional distance. You were his doctor, not his-

Not his anything else. Just his doctor.

"The results are exceptional," you said, your tone carefully neutral. "Better than exceptional, actually. You're recovering at a rate that makes me want to write a paper on Force-enhanced neurological healing, except I can't because it would probably be too obvious who the patient is…"

You focused on your datapad, reviewing the scan results with practiced efficiency, making notes about recovery progression and projected timelines that you already knew would be obsolete within days because apparently the Force had opinions about neurological healing.

"You're emotional," Vader said suddenly, his voice quiet but carrying an edge of observation that made your spine straighten. "More than usual. Something's happened."

Shit.

You didn't look up from your datapad, fingers continuing to tap notes that you weren't actually processing anymore. "I'm fine. Just concerned about your recovery parameters and the variables I can't-"

"Doc."

The single word, spoken in that particular tone that suggested he wasn't buying your deflection for a second, made you stop typing.

He knew. Of course he knew. He probably knew the moment you walked through that door

You still didn't look at him. "It's nothing.“

You felt it then. That particular sensation of something brushing against the edges of your consciousness, not invasive, not forceful, but present. Like someone reading the cover of a book you were holding rather than opening it without permission.

"You spoke with Luke," Vader said, and it wasn't a question.

Your fingers stilled on the pad. For a long moment you considered denying it, deflecting again, maintaining the professional boundaries that were already so thoroughly compromised they might as well not exist.

"Stay out of my head," you said instead, but the words came out half-hearted, lacking any real conviction or heat. More automatic response than genuine protest.

Vader didn't apologize. Didn't even acknowledge the request. Just watched you with those pale eyes that saw entirely too much.

"Yes, I spoke with Luke." you admitted finally.

"And?"

The single word hung heavy in the air between you, weighted with implications neither of you were quite ready to address directly.

You busied yourself checking CX-3's readings, adjusting sensors that didn't need adjusting, anything to avoid meeting his gaze. "And I told him that he's…" You paused, searching for the right words. "That he's a wonderful person. Kind, genuine, exactly the sort of man any sensible woman would be lucky to-"

"But not you," Vader finished, his voice carefully neutral.

"But not me," you confirmed quietly. "I told him we could be friends. Good friends. But that's…that's all it would ever be."

Silence. The kind of silence that felt like the space between thunderclaps, charged with electricity and the promise of impact.

You continued your unnecessary adjustments to the medical equipment, avoiding his gaze with the dedication of someone who knew looking directly at him right now would be catastrophically unwise.

"Look at me."

Nope. Not happening. Looking at him means confronting things I am absolutely not ready to confront.

"Doc."

His voice carried that particular quality of command that probably made admirals snap to attention, but you were a civilian and a doctor and therefore theoretically immune to military authority.

Theoretically.

You looked at him.

His blue eyes were fixed on you with an intensity that made your breath catch, his expression unreadable but carrying weight underneath; questions, calculations, something that looked uncomfortably like concern.

He watched you for a long moment, and you forced yourself not to look away despite every instinct screaming at you to flee back to the safety of clinical detachment.

"Why?" he asked finally, his voice soft but carrying an edge that suggested the question mattered more than his careful tone indicated.

Because Luke is too good for this galaxy and definitely too good for me. Because he deserves honesty and truth and not someone who's-

Who's what? Who's what exactly?

Someone who apparently would rather sleep with his father than with him.

You huffed out a breath, breaking eye contact to focus on adjusting your datapad settings with unnecessary precision. "Because Luke is too good for this galaxy," you said, and your voice came out rougher than intended. "Too good, too kind, too genuinely decent. And he's definitely too good for me."

You paused, fingers stilling on the pad.

"And because he deserved the truth," you continued quietly. "He deserved honesty. Not someone leading him on when I knew it would never…when it couldn't-"

You stopped, the words tangling in your throat.

Another silence. This one heavier than before, weighted with things unsaid.

"That's not the answer to my question," Vader said after a moment, his voice still soft but carrying something underneath; certainty, maybe, or the particular kind of knowing that came from reading between lines you hadn't meant to write.

The truth of what he meant stood between you like a physical presence. Enormous. Undeniable. Impossible to ignore no matter how determinedly you tried.

He knew. He knew exactly why you turned Luke down.

And he wanted you to say it. To acknowledge it. To put words to the thing neither of you have been willing to name.

Absolutely not. Not happening. You're not doing this.

You set the datapad aside with deliberate precision and moved to sit on the edge of the medical bed, not close enough to touch but closer than professional distance would dictate. Close enough that you could meet his eyes without the safety of physical space between you.

You looked at him directly, holding his gaze despite the way your pulse was climbing.

"Well," you said, and your voice carried a note of finality that suggested this particular conversation was over whether he liked it or not. "Tough luck. Because that's the answer you're getting."

His eyes narrowed fractionally, not anger, exactly, but something that suggested he recognized the deflection for what it was and was calculating whether to press the issue.

You didn't give him the chance.

"Besides," you continued, deliberately shifting tone into something lighter, something that felt safer than the emotional minefield you'd been navigating, "I brought you something."

You stood, moving to the medical cart where you'd set the containers of fruit, grateful for the excuse to break eye contact and put physical space between you again.

"Actual food," you said, lifting the containers and turning back to face him with what you hoped was a professionally appropriate expression rather than the emotional chaos currently rioting through your nervous system. "Real, actual, non-nutrient-paste food. Thought you might appreciate something that doesn't taste like medical necessity."

Your gaze drifted to the containers you'd set down earlier: the larger crate of mixed fruit and the smaller, more carefully protected vessel containing something you'd originally intended to keep for yourself but were now reconsidering for reasons that probably warranted professional concern.

"I'm not happy with your current food intake," you continued, moving to open the larger crate. The seal hissed as you broke it, and the scent of actual fruit filled the medical bay, sweet and slightly tart, carrying notes of growing things and living ecosystems rather than the sterile uniformity of synthesized nutrition. "Station rations are going down better than vita paste, yes, but you're still barely consuming enough calories to maintain basic function, let alone support recovery from major surgery."

The crate's lid folded back to reveal the carefully packed selection Montyl had assembled-a rainbow of colours and textures that looked almost obscenely vibrant against the medical bay's utilitarian surfaces.

"You're recovering from trauma that would kill most people," you said, pulling out the first specimen: a meiloorun fruit, round with an orange and yellow rind. "Your body needs resources to rebuild tissue, maintain immune function, support the absolutely ridiculous rate at which you're apparently healing through Force-assisted cellular regeneration. Resources you're not providing because apparently you've decided nutrition is optional."

Vader's expression remained carefully neutral, but you caught the slight tension in his jaw that suggested incoming protest. "I don't require-"

"Oh, I'm sorry," you interrupted, your voice dripping with enough sarcasm to corrode durasteel. "I forgot. You're Mister I-Need-Nothing-And-No-One, the great and terrible Force demigod who apparently subsists entirely on ambient energy, sheer determination, and…." you paused for effect, "probably a significant percentage of stubbornness not to die."

CX-3 rolled closer, its photoreceptors brightening with what you'd learned to interpret as droid curiosity. "Doctor, shall I prepare nutritional analysis of the specimens?"

"Not necessary, CX," you said, reaching for a small knife from your medical kit. "I'm operating on the sophisticated medical principle of 'it's fruit, it won't kill him, and frankly anything is better than watching him treat every meal like a personal insult.'"

You began cutting the meiloorun with practiced efficiency, removing the fibrous core, sectioning it into bite-sized portions that wouldn't require excessive chewing for someone whose jaw had spent two decades locked behind a mask.

The flesh was pale and slightly translucent, releasing juice that smelled faintly of citrus and something sweeter like nectar. You popped a small piece into your mouth to verify it wasn't somehow contaminated or spoiled, and the taste hit your tongue with unexpected intensity.

Oh, that is good. That is actually really good.

"You know," you continued conversationally while you worked, arranging the pieces on a clean medical tray you'd pulled from the sterilization unit, "most of my patients appreciate when I go out of my way to source actual fresh food in the middle of a supply-starved military campaign. But I suppose that would require admitting you have basic biological needs like everyone else."

Vader watched you work with an expression you couldn't quite parse: something between amusement and consideration, like he was trying to decide whether your insubordination was irritating or entertaining.

A pause. Then…was that a smile? An almost-smile? The corner of his mouth twitched in a way that suggested he was fighting one.

Victory.

You finished sectioning the meiloorun and set the pieces on the tray, then reached for another specimen: a jogan fruit, oblong and deep purple, its skin already splitting slightly to reveal the translucent golden flesh beneath. The knife moved with practiced precision, separating segments, removing the small seeds that could be a choking hazard.

"The fruit will be easier on your system than protein or complex carbohydrates," you explained, shifting back into professional mode even as you continued preparing the variety. "Your digestive system has been processing solid food long enough now that the acid content shouldn't cause problems. And honestly, the vitamin content alone will help with cellular regeneration and immune function."

Next came a Chandrilan tangfruit, bright orange with skin that peeled away easily to reveal segments of translucent, jewel-like flesh. You separated the sections carefully, removing any seeds or tough membranes.

Then a cluster of Naboo berries: small, deep red, bursting with tiny edible seeds that released juice when you cut into them. A Bith melon slice, yellow-green and aromatic, requiring careful peeling to avoid the bitter pith beneath its thin skin. A section of sugarplum, purple-black and fragrant, its flesh so soft it barely needed cutting.

One by one, you prepared the variety Montyl had selected, and Vader watched your movements with that intense focus he seemed to apply to everything: like you were performing surgery rather than basic food preparation. His gaze tracked your hands, the way you handled each piece, the care you took to make everything easy to eat.

Why does having him watch you do basic tasks feel so... intimate?

"Try this one first," you said, offering a piece of the meiloorun. "It's mild, not too sweet, good starter option for someone whose taste buds have probably forgotten what real food is like."

He reached for it with his cybernetic hand, the movement still cautious despite weeks of practice with regained dexterity and placed it in his mouth with the kind of careful deliberation usually reserved for potentially hazardous materials.

He's treating fruit like it might explode. Darth Vader, terror of the galaxy, approaching a piece of fruit like it's a thermal detonator.

You watched his expression change as he processed the taste and texture. His eyebrows drew together slightly, his jaw working methodically as he chewed, and then-

His face did something complicated. Not quite a grimace, not quite satisfaction, something in between that suggested he was having trouble categorizing the experience entirely.

The silence stretched.

"Well?" you prompted, fighting back a smile.

"It's..." He paused, visibly searching for adequate descriptors. "Adequate."

Adequate.

He just tasted actual fruit for probably the first time in over two decades and his assessment is 'adequate.'

You had to press your lips together hard to keep from laughing out loud. "Adequate," you repeated, your voice carefully neutral. "High praise indeed. Truly, your enthusiasm is overwhelming."

"What else would you call it?" he asked, and there was definite confusion in his voice, like he genuinely couldn't understand why you were suppressing amusement.

"Delicious? Sweet? Refreshing? Any descriptor that suggests actual enjoyment rather than grudging tolerance?" You picked up a piece of the jogan fruit and held it out. "Try this one. It's different; sweeter, more floral notes."

He accepted it, and this time you watched more carefully as he processed the flavour. His eyes widened fractionally, pupils dilating slightly, a physiological response to pleasure stimulus that he couldn't quite control.

"Better?" you asked.

"...Yes," he admitted, though his tone suggested he was reluctant to concede the point. "Significantly better. Less..." he waved his hand vaguely, "...aggressively present."

"'Aggressively present,'" you repeated, reaching for a piece of the meiloorun yourself and biting into it. The juice burst across your tongue, bright and sharp and alive in a way synthesized food could never manage. "That's one way to describe flavour, I suppose. Very technical. Very medical."

You caught his gaze tracking your mouth as you chewed, watching with that same intense focus he'd applied to the fruit preparation.

Stop. Stop noticing that he's noticing. This is a nutrition intervention, not-

Not whatever your stupid brain was trying to make it.

He took it, chewing with deliberate care. His expression didn’t shift at first, but the slight narrowing of his eyes betrayed him.

"An intriguing choice," he said finally, tone flat. "It tastes like something that’s trying too hard to exist."

You couldn’t help the laugh that slipped out. "Too much acid?"

"Too much ambition," he countered. "It should decide whether it wants to be fruit or weapon."

"Noted. No tangfruit. Here…" You offered him a piece of sugarplum. "This one's mellow. Sweet but not overwhelming."

He accepted it more cautiously this time, like the tangfruit had taught him to approach your offerings with healthy suspicion. But when he bit into the sugarplum, his expression shifted into something that looked almost like relief.

"Better," he confirmed. "Much better."

You continued through the variety you'd prepared, watching his reactions with growing amusement and something warmer, something that felt dangerously close to affection as he provided completely unfiltered assessments of each option.

The Naboo berries: "Too many seeds. Annoying to navigate."

The Bith melon: "Tolerable. Texture is strange but not unpleasant."

Another piece of jogan fruit: "This one is acceptable. More of this."

A slice of something yellow and tropical from the Inner Rim: "Sweet. Very sweet. Possibly too sweet? No, acceptable level of sweetness."

He was like a child trying foods for the first time, except he was a forty-five-year-old former war lord with a kill count that would make most people's skin crawl, and you were sitting here finding it endearing.

The cognitive dissonance should be more disturbing than it is.

You ate pieces of each fruit yourself, both to verify quality and because…well, because it was good fruit and you weren't going to waste it. The flavours burst across your tongue, each one distinct and complex, and you found yourself making small sounds of appreciation that were probably not entirely professional.

You bit into another segment, this one richer, its sweetness layered with something almost floral. The flavour bloomed across your tongue, and before you could stop yourself, a quiet, unguarded sound escaped; soft, content, the kind of involuntary sigh that slipped past when you forgot to keep your guard up.

When you looked up again, he was watching you.

Not casually. Not even with that detached, analytical focus you’d come to expect from him. This was different.

Sharper. Closer.

His gaze traced the path of your lips as they closed around the fruit, lingered on the slight curve of your mouth when you chewed, on the faint shift in your expression as the flavour changed.

There was something almost tactile in the way he looked at you, as if sight alone were inadequate and his mind sought to fill in what his hands could not. The muscles along his jaw tensed imperceptibly, a small tell against an otherwise composed façade.

It was awareness of something deeper - raw and unguarded.

Something in his throat moved. A deliberate swallow, heavier than it should have been. His breath hitched, subtle but perceptible, before he forced his attention elsewhere….anywhere.

It landed on the smaller vessel.

"And what," he said, voice low but edged with forced nonchalance, "is that?"

Before you could answer, his cybernetic hand moved, metal fingers extending toward the smaller container; smooth, purposeful, but almost too quick, like the motion was meant to fill the silence.

"Don't touch," you said quickly, pulling the container closer to yourself with protective urgency.

His expression shifted into something between offense and genuine curiosity. "Why? It's just-"

"It's not 'just' anything," you interrupted, settling the container carefully on your lap where he couldn't reach it without literally going through you. "This is very special. My absolute favourite, actually."

And you were going to save them for yourself. Were going to pair them with wine and solitude and the pretense that you deserved something beautiful. But instead, you're here, about to share them with a man who probably hasn't experienced anything 'beautiful' in decades.

Vader's sceptical expression didn't change. "Special. Right. That's what everyone says about specialty produce before you discover it tastes like-"

"They grow in only one place," you continued, ignoring his cynicism entirely. "Deep in a rainforest on Rodia. Completely wild, can't be cultivated, can't be farmed, can only be harvested if you're willing to trek through about thirty kilometres of some of the most hostile terrain in the galaxy."

You began unsealing the container. "And here's the complicated part," you said, watching him watch you. "The fruit has this property where it immediately begins to decay. I'm talking within seconds the moment it comes into contact with anything non-organic. Metal, plastics, synthetics, even most fabrics. Touch it with a cybernetic hand?" You gestured to his prosthetics. "Instant rot. Completely inedible."

His eyes narrowed. "That's... remarkably inconvenient from an evolutionary standpoint."

"Extremely inconvenient," you agreed. "Which is why they have to be harvested by hand, organic hand, no droid work and transported in these."

The container opened fully, revealing what looked like living plant pods nestled inside. They were beautiful in their strangeness: deep green vessels that pulsed with barely perceptible bioluminescence, their surfaces covered in tiny, breathing pores that opened and closed in rhythmic patterns.

Like they're breathing. Because they are breathing. Living transport for living fruit.

"These are transport pods," you explained, gently touching one with your organic fingertips. "They're cultivated specifically for this purpose: to carry the Ves’tahl Fruit without contaminating it. Each pod is selected for particular characteristics because, and this is the really fascinating part: the fruit absorbs essence from everything organic it touches."

You carefully opened one pod, its leaves peeling back to reveal a single fruit nestled inside like a jewel in a living case.

"The pods have to be selected based on what flavour profile you want. Different plants impart different notes. And the handlers have to be careful too, whatever they touch, whatever's on their skin, the fruit takes some of that essence into itself. Integrates it into the taste."

The fruit itself was unlike anything in the other crate. It was maybe the size of a small plum, with skin that seemed to shift between deep blue and soft violet depending on how the light hit it. It gave off a subtle glow, bioluminescent like the pod that had protected it, and the scent that wafted up was complex enough to make your mouth water immediately.

"So," you said, meeting his sceptical gaze with something approaching mischief, "we have four hands between us, but only one that can actually handle this without destroying it."

You lifted the fruit from its pod with careful reverence, holding it up to the light so he could see it properly. The bioluminescence intensified slightly, responding to your body heat, and patterns appeared across its surface; almost like tiny constellations forming and reforming in real time.

It looks like it's made of tiny stars.

Vader looked at it with profound scepticism. "That," he said flatly, "does not look like something designed for consumption. That looks like something that might be sentient and possibly poisonous."

You rolled your eyes with perhaps more drama than was strictly professional. "It's fruit. It's perfectly safe. It's also absolutely delicious and you're going to appreciate it, I’d stake my entire medical license on that.“

But Vader just raised an eyebrow, his expression suggesting he was torn between amusement and continued scepticism.

You brought the fruit closer, holding it between your organic thumb and forefinger, and extended your hand toward his face in clear invitation.

He continued to look sceptical.

Very sceptical.

Like you were offering him a small, glowing explosive rather than food.

Fine. Fine. If he wants to be stubborn about this like a spoiled child...

You moved your hand slowly through the air toward his mouth, making exaggerated swooping motions like you were piloting a spacecraft through an obstacle course.

"Requesting docking clearance," you said solemnly, making the fruit do a barrel roll. "Neeowww. Open, or I’ll open fire. Pew Pew."

His mouth opened.

Probably to tell you exactly how absurd you were being, but the moment the opening appeared, you seized the opportunity and swooping the fruit forward with one final, triumphant spacecraft noise.

"Landing sequence initiated…"

Your fingers touched his lips.

The sound effect died in your throat.

Oh.

The atmosphere shifted so fast it gave you whiplash, from playful to something else entirely in the space between one heartbeat and the next. Your fingertips rested against his scarred lower lip, the fruit barely inside his mouth, and he'd gone completely still.

His eyes were locked on yours.

Blue. Intense. Burning with something that made your breath catch.

The heat of his mouth radiated against your skin. The wetness. The intimacy of the contact that had started as a joke and somehow transformed into something far more significant.

Pull back. You should pull back. This is-

But you couldn't move. Your hand remained frozen in place, fingers touching his lips, and the moment stretched into something that felt simultaneously infinite and devastating.

Then he closed his mouth around the fruit -slowly, deliberately- and his lips brushed against your fingertips with unmistakable intent.

Electricity shot up your arm.

Your core clenched involuntarily.

Professional distance. Maintain professional distance. This is just nutrition therapy that got slightly weird. That's all. Nothing significant is happening here.

Except everything significant was happening here and you both knew it.

He pulled back fractionally, giving you space to withdraw your hand, and you did; too quickly, your fingers tingling where they'd touched his mouth, your face flushing with heat that had nothing to do with the medical bay's temperature controls.

"That was..." you started, your voice coming out rougher than intended.

"Admittedly delicious," he finished, but his voice had dropped lower, rougher, carrying undertones that made your spine liquid.

"I was going to say 'creative nutritional intervention,'" you managed, looking down at the remaining pods to avoid meeting his gaze, "but yours works too."

You needed something to do with your hands. Needed to establish some kind of normalcy after that moment of….whatever that was. Your fingers moved to open the other pods, revealing two more fruits nestled in their living transport vessels.

"So how are you supposed to eat these if-" you started to say, the question rhetorical, not actually expecting an answer.

Then one of the fruits lifted out of its pod.

Just... floated up into the air between you, hovering there with gentle, controlled precision.

Oh.

A second fruit followed, rising from its organic cradle and drifting through the air with that same careful deliberation.

One fruit drifted toward you, stopping a few inches from your face in clear offering. The other remained suspended near his hand, waiting.

You stared at the floating fruit, then at him, then back at the fruit.

"That's..." You searched for adequate words. "That's not fair. That's cheating. You're using Force powers to bypass the non-organic material restriction."

His mouth curved into something that was definitely a smile; small, but genuine. "Is there a regulation against Force-assisted fruit consumption?"

"There should be," you muttered, carefully plucking the fruit from where it hovered near your face. "I'm going to file a complaint with the medical ethics board. 'Patient uses mysterious energy field to manipulate food.' It's practically a safety violation."

And also fascinating. And beautiful in its own way. And you want to know everything about how it works.

You bit into the fruit before he could, partly because you were curious and partly because you needed a moment to process what was happening. The taste hit your tongue and-

Oh stars....

Complexity. Layers. Sweetness that wasn't cloying, floral notes that didn't overwhelm, something underneath that tasted like summer and rain and every good memory you'd tried to preserve through years of war. The essence-absorption property meant you could taste the pod it had been stored in, green and alive and growing things.

You closed your eyes involuntarily, savouring it, and when you opened them, Vader was watching you with that same intensity from before.

"Well?" you asked, gesturing to his hovering fruit. "Are you going to eat it or just admire your Force powers?"

He guided it to his mouth without using his hands, the fruit floating with perfect control until it touched his lips, then disappeared as he closed his mouth around it.

His expression shifted, eyes widening fractionally, a small sound of appreciation that wasn't quite a moan but close enough to make your pulse jump.

"That's..." He paused, clearly trying to process the complexity. "That's extraordinary. Different from the others. More..."

He trailed off, his gaze distant, like he was trying to catalogue every nuance.

"How does it work?" you asked, genuinely curious now, seizing on something safe to discuss that didn't involve the weird tension building between you. "The Force. How does it feel to move things like that?"

Deflection. You're deflecting. But it's also a legitimate question and you really do want to know.

He considered for a moment, his expression thoughtful. "It's not like telekinesis in the way most people imagine it. Not just... pushing or pulling with invisible hands. It's more like..." He gestured vaguely. "Like extending your awareness into the object. Understanding its mass, its composition, its relationship to everything around it. Then encouraging it to move along the path you've perceived."

"Encouraging," you repeated. "You make it sound philosophical."

"Some would argue it is." His tone held a dry edge. "My former master would have called using it to float fruit a desecration of sacred power. I can practically hear the lecture, something about corruption, decay of Jedi ideals, and the importance of maintaining dignity."

You laughed, unable to help it. "Well, your master sounds like he needed to lighten up. What’s the point of mystical powers if you can’t use them for convenience once in a while?"The  corner of his mouth almost shifted, "That was approximately my reasoning. It did not go over well."

The moment felt fragile. Intimate in a way that had nothing to do with physical contact and everything to do with glimpses of humanity, of the person he'd been before the suit, before the Empire, before everything burned.

Then his expression shifted slightly, something passing across his features too quickly to identify.

"The first one tasted better," he said quietly, his gaze meeting yours with unwavering focus.

Your mouth went dry.

"That's..." You swallowed. "That's maybe the essence-absorption property. The first one had more... direct contact with organic material before consumption."

Smooth. Very subtle. He definitely doesn't know you're talking about him being able to taste you.

But his eyes said he knew exactly what you were talking about.

The air between you felt charged. Heavy. Like the moment before a lightning strike when every hair on your body stands on end in anticipation of something electric and possibly dangerous.

"I liked it better," he said, his voice dropping lower. "The added complexity."

Your heart was hammering. Your face felt hot. Your body was responding to the tone in his voice, the way he was looking at you, the implications hanging heavy between you like a physical presence.

This is inappropriate. This is so far beyond appropriate. You need to establish boundaries, maintain professionalism, remember you're his doctor and he's your patient and this can't-

But you were already moving. Already reaching for the last fruit in its pod, carefully extracting it with your organic hand, the bioluminescence intensifying as it responded to your touch.

"One more," you said softly, and your voice came out breathier than intended. "We should... you should try one more. To confirm the comparison."

What are you doing? Stop. This is a terrible idea.

But you didn't stop. You brought the fruit toward him, no spacecraft noises this time, no playful deflection, just slow, deliberate movement that felt like crossing a threshold you weren't sure you could step back from.

His eyes tracked your approach, pupils dilating in that automatic response to arousal that you absolutely should not be noticing right now.

Your hand reached his face.

He opened his mouth, slowly, maintaining eye contact, the gesture somehow more intimate than anything that had come before.

You placed the fruit between his lips, your organic fingertips touching the scarred tissue, feeling the heat and wetness, and-

His tongue touched your fingers.

Not to take the fruit, he'd already closed his mouth around it.

No, this was deliberate. Intentional. The wet heat of his tongue pressing against your fingertips for a fraction of a second longer than necessary, tasting your skin with clear purpose.

Every nerve ending in your body lit up simultaneously.

Heat flooded through you, sudden and overwhelming and completely inappropriate. Your core clenched hard, arousal slamming into you with devastating intensity. Your breath caught audibly, your lips parting as your brain struggled to process the cascade of sensation.

Wet heat. Deliberate contact. The way he's looking at you while he does it like he knows exactly what effect he's having.

His pupils were blown wide now, almost consuming the blue of his irises. His breathing had changed; deeper, more controlled, like he was using every ounce of discipline to maintain composure.

He's as affected as you are. He wants this. Wants you.

He can feel what you're feeling right now. The arousal. The want. The completely inappropriate desire that's flooding through your system.

And you could see it in his eyes: recognition. Understanding. Agreement.

He wanted this too.

Your mind supplied images, detailed, vivid, thoroughly inappropriate images of what else that mouth could do, how those scarred lips would feel against other parts of your body, whether his tongue would be as deliberate and controlled in other contexts, whether he'd use the same focused intensity to-

His tongue moved against your fingers with deliberate, sensual precision; not just tasting the fruit but tasting you. The heat of his mouth, the way his lips had closed around your fingertips, the pressure of his tongue exploring the ridges of your fingerprints with focused intensity.

Your breath came shallow and quick. Your core clenched again, harder this time, arousal building with devastating speed. The dream - gods, the dream flashed through your mind with vivid clarity. His mouth on your skin. His tongue mapping territories far more intimate than your fingers. The way he'd looked at you in that dream, with the same burning intensity he was showing now.

His tongue traced along the pad of your index finger, the sensation was so unexpectedly intimate, so devastatingly erotic, that you couldn't suppress the small sound that escaped your throat, something between a gasp and a moan that echoed in the quiet medical bay.

This is..

You wanted..

His mouth. Everywhere. You wanted his mouth everywhere on you. Wanted to know if he'd use the same focused precision, the same deliberate intensity, on your-

The door slid open.

The sound registered somewhere in the periphery of your awareness, faint and irrelevant, because your whole consciousness had collapsed to a single point: the searing contact of his tongue hot against your skin. The quiet, devastating certainty in his eyes that he knew exactly what he was doing. The overwhelming cascade of arousal that was making it very hard to remember why this was a very bad idea.

"-and I really need to speak with-"

Leia Organa stopped mid-sentence.

Mid-step.

Mid-thought, probably, judging by the way her expression completely blanked out.

Your head snapped toward the door so fast something in your neck gave a sharp protesting jolt. Your hand jerked back from Vader's mouth with enough force to be audibly painful, your entire body going rigid with shock.

Oh no.

Oh fuck.

Oh gods, no no no no-

Leia stood in the doorway, frozen, her eyes wide with something that looked like horror mixed with profound confusion mixed with the dawning realization that she'd just walked into something she absolutely did not want to have knowledge of.

All three of you stared at each other.

Nobody moved.

Nobody spoke.

The silence stretched heavy and horrible and charged with mutual what the actual fuck is happening right now.

And then you moved.

Abort. Abort mission. Extract immediately. Tactical retreat is the only viable option here.

You launched yourself off with enough velocity to qualify as a flight response, your feet hitting the floor with an audible thud, and-

Oh Force you're laughing. Stop it.

You were actually laughing. A high-pitched, slightly hysterical sound that definitely doesn't help the situation but apparently your nervous system had decided this is the appropriate response to catastrophic professional disaster.

"Well," you said, the words tumbling out too fast, pitched too high, carrying the unmistakable edge of panic poorly disguised as humour. "To be fair: of all the people who could have realistically walked through that door, you're definitely the last person anyone would have expected."

Great. Excellent. That makes everything better. Pointing out how unlikely this specific disaster scenario was definitely improves the situation.

Neither of them reacted.

Leia stood frozen in the doorway like she'd been hit with a stun bolt, her expression still locked in that configuration of horror-confusion-dawning-comprehension. Her mouth had opened slightly, but no words were coming out. Her hands had clenched into fists at her sides, tight enough that her knuckles had gone white.

Vader had gone absolutely still - that particular kind of stillness that screamed awareness of extreme danger, like a predator who'd just realized they were caught in a trap. His expression had shifted back into that perfect mask of control, but you could see the tension in his jaw, the slight widening of his eyes that suggested he was just as blindsided by this as you were.

You spun toward the bedside table, grabbing for your medical bag with movements that were too jerky, too frantic to count as professional. Your both hands were shaking -actually shaking- as you tried to gather the scattered containers of fruit and transport pods.

Where's the- did you bring-  no, that's still on the-

Your hand swept across the surface, knocking over a container, sending one of the living transport pods rolling toward the edge. You lunged for it, overcorrected, and your hip collided with CX-3's chassis with enough force to send pain shooting up your side.

"Oww fuck, sorry CX,"

The droid beeped in what might have been concern or confusion or possibly mechanical judgment about your current state of complete disaster.

You crouched to retrieve the pod that had fallen to the floor, your face burning so hot you thought you might actually combust from sheer mortification, and tried to shove everything into your medical bag without any organization or care for proper storage protocols.

Fruit. Pods. Scanner. Datapad. Where's your datapad? Did you even bring your datapad? Why can't you remember basic inventory when your entire career is actively imploding?

"Doctor," CX-3 said in its characteristically cheerful tone, "your medical scanner is still on the-"

"I see it, thank you CX," you interrupted, grabbing the scanner and shoving it into your bag without bothering to power it down first.

You straightened too fast, head rush making you sway slightly, and nearly tripped over your own feet as you tried to navigate around the medical equipment you'd somehow scattered across the floor.

When did you-  how did-

there's fruit everywhere.

There were living plant pods on the floor. Your professional equipment is mixed with exotic produce like some kind of demented farmer's market disaster.

Still neither of them had moved.

Still neither of them had said a word.

Which was somehow worse than if they'd started yelling. The silence was so much worse.

You clutched your medical bag against your chest like some kind of inadequate shield and turned toward the door, which meant turning toward Leia, who was still standing there like a monument to betrayed trust and absolute horror.

Just go. Just walk past her and go and deal with the consequences later when you've had time to figure out what the fuck you're going to say.

But your feet wouldn't move.

Because three days.

He had major brain and spinal surgery three days ago.

And Leia was the absolute last person he should have to deal with right now. She hated him. Legitimately, viscerally hated him for everything he did, everything he represented, everything he destroyed.

You turned back, your bag clutched against your chest and forced yourself to meet Leia's eyes, which was possibly the hardest thing you'd done all day, and that included admitting you were attracted to her father.

"Please," you said, and your voice came out rougher than intended, carrying genuine desperation beneath the nervous energy. "Please show mercy."

Leia's expression flickered: surprise breaking through the shock, confusion about what you meant, anger that you were asking her for anything right now.

"He had major brain and spinal surgery three days ago," you continued quickly, the words tumbling out before you could second-guess them. "Neural pathway reconstruction, cortical interface replacement, extensive regenerative therapy on tissue that had been systematically damaged for decades. His system is still integrating. And it would be…"

You swallowed hard, aiming for professionalism and missing by several star systems. "Would be a real shame if all that surgical work got undone because he had an aneurysm from stress."
Excellent. A medical joke. About your patient dying. While you’re technically committing an ethics violation.
Well done, Doctor. Ten out of ten.

Leia’s mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.

Her eyes tracked from you to Vader to the scattered evidence of what had been happening; the fruit, the transport pods, the intimate positioning of everything that screamed this was not a routine medical assessment.

But before she could respond, before either of them could say anything that would make this situation exponentially worse, you were moving again.

Out the door.

Into the corridor.

Away from the disaster you'd just created the conversation you'd just abandoned them to, the consequences that were definitely, absolutely, catastrophically coming for you.

She was alone with him.

Alone.

In a medical bay that smelled of bacta and antiseptic and something else, something organic and sweet that she couldn't quite identify. Fruit, maybe. The scattered evidence suggested fruit, though why there would be exotic produce scattered across a medical bay was a question Leia wasn't sure she wanted answered.

Because she knew why. She'd seen why. She'd walked in on exactly why, and now she was standing here trying very hard not to process what her eyes and the Force both confirmed.

The door had sealed behind the doctor, behind her supposed friend, who had just fled like a criminal caught mid-crime, leaving Leia alone with the man who'd destroyed her world.

Literally destroyed her world. Stood by and did nothing while Tarkin obliterated Alderaan and everyone she loved.

And that same man had just been-

No. She wouldn't think about it. Wouldn't replay what she saw. Wouldn't acknowledge the implications of her friend's fingers in his mouth, the way they were looking at each other, the tension in the room so thick she could taste it.

Leia's hands were still clenched at her sides, tight enough that her nails were digging crescents into her palms. Her jaw ached from how hard she'd been gritting her teeth. Her entire body felt like a live wire, charged with fury and confusion and the terrible, nauseating awareness that she'd just witnessed something she could never unsee.

She'd been explaining to the guards outside. Just explaining why she needed to speak with the prisoner? Current strategic asset? Whatever sanitized terminology the Alliance was using this week to avoid calling him what he actually was.

War criminal. Murderer. The emperor’s enforcer who spent two decades crushing hope and destroying lives.

She'd been mid-sentence when she'd heard the guard's comm chime, heard the clearance approval, watched the door slide open-

And walked into a scene that her brain still couldn't fully process.

Vader - Darth kriffing Vader, terror of the galaxy, the black-armoured nightmare who'd haunted her worst memories, sitting in a medical bed like some kind of invalid. Which he technically was, she supposed.

But that wasn't what had stopped her cold.

It was her. The Doctor. Her friend. Her confidante since childhood. One of the very few persons she actually trusted.

With her fingers in his mouth.

His tongue on her skin.

Both of them looking at each other like…

Like…

Leia's stomach twisted with nausea that had nothing to do with physical illness and everything to do with the betrayal currently threatening to choke her.

The Force had screamed at her when she'd opened that door. Not danger, she knew what danger felt like, had been learning to recognize it through Luke's patient instruction. This had been different. This had been want. Raw, desperate, mutual want crackling between them like electricity before a storm.

The sexual tension was so thick she could’ve cut it with a vibroblade

And then the doctor had seen her. Had jerked back like she'd been caught doing something catastrophically wrong, because she had been, and fled with that horrible nervous laugh that suggested complete psychological breakdown.

Leaving Leia here.

Alone.

With him.

She needed to say something. She'd come here for a reason. Had something important to discuss. Couldn't let what she'd walked in on derail the entire purpose of this visit.

But the words wouldn't come. Her throat felt tight. Her mind kept replaying the image, his tongue on her fingers, the heat in his eyes, the intimacy of the moment that no amount of medical justification could explain away.

Vader watched her with that careful neutrality. His expression gave nothing away. His body language remained controlled despite whatever vulnerability her interruption had caused.

Like he was waiting. Like he knew she was going to say something, and he was already preparing his defences.

"What," Leia said finally, her voice coming out rougher than intended, carrying more emotion than she'd meant to reveal, "did I just walk in on?"

There. Direct question. Forced confrontation. Made him acknowledge what happened rather than pretending it was something innocent.

Vader's expression didn't change, but something flickered in his eyes-discomfort, maybe, or the particular kind of resignation that came from knowing there was no good answer to that question.

"I'm not entirely certain myself," he said, his voice carefully measured. "You'd have to ask the doctor for specifics."

Deflection. Coward's answer. Pushing responsibility onto someone who just fled rather than facing the question directly.

Leia felt fury spike through her chest, hot and acidic and demanding outlet.

"Don't," she said, the word sharp enough to cut. "Don't you dare try to deflect this onto her. I have eyes. What I saw was pretty kriffing clear."

She took a step closer, her hands finally unclenching only to gesture sharply at the scattered evidence around the room, the fruit containers, the transport pods, the intimate disarray that screamed this wasn't routine medical care.

"And it wasn't just what I saw," she continued, her voice rising despite her attempts to maintain control. "It was what I felt. The tension in this room, like you were seconds away from….Like if I'd been a few minutes later, I would have walked in on something I couldn't process, not even in my worst nightmares or with the most expensive therapy in the galaxy."

Because that was exactly what it had felt like. Raw sexual tension thick enough to choke on. The kind of atmosphere that left no doubt about where things were heading.

Vader's jaw tightened fractionally, the only sign that her words had landed.

"I don't know what you think you-" he started, but Leia cut him off.

"Can you sink any lower?" The question erupted before she could stop it, fury and disgust and betrayal all tangled together into words that wanted to wound. "My brother has interest in her. Your son. Luke actually likes her, genuinely, sweetly likes her, and you're what? Seducing her? Manipulating her? Using her for-"

"She has no interest in Luke," Vader interrupted, his voice flat but carrying an edge that suggested this topic was unwelcome.

Of course he knew that. Of course she'd told him. When? How long had this been going on? How many conversations had they had that crossed from professional to personal to-

To whatever the fuck she'd just walked in on.

Leia laughed; a sharp, bitter sound devoid of humour.

"Why do you think that is?" she asked, her tone dripping with sarcasm and accusation. "Care to venture a guess about why she suddenly lost interest in my kind, decent, genuinely good brother?"

The implication hung heavy between them.

Because of him. Because he happened. Because she'd apparently lost her mind and decided the war criminal was more interesting than a genuinely good, decent, appropriate man.

Vader's expression remained carefully neutral, but his eyes had gone colder, that particular kind of cold that meant he was angry but controlling it with the discipline of decades.

"I haven't-" he started, then stopped, seeming to reconsider his words. "I am not manipulating her."

She felt the truth in his words. And somehow, that made everything so much worse.

"You actually-" She stopped, unable to articulate the thought because giving it words would make it real. "She's my friend."

The statement came out flat, factual, but carrying weight underneath.

"I know," Vader said quietly.

"She's one of the best people I know. Brilliant. Dedicated. Genuinely good in a galaxy that's done everything possible to crush that kind of goodness out of people."

"I know that too."

"And you," Leia gestured at him with sharp, angry movements. "You're…you're-"

She stopped, because what was he? War criminal didn't capture it. Monster felt inadequate. The man who destroyed her world and tortured her and stood at the emperor’s side for two decades-none of it seemed sufficient to articulate the impossibility of what she'd just witnessed.

"I'm aware of what I am," Vader said, and there was something in his voice, resignation, maybe, or the particular kind of tired acceptance that came from decades of self-awareness. "You don't need to remind me."

Leia wanted to argue. Wanted to list every crime, every atrocity, every reason why what she'd walked in on was categorically wrong on every possible level.

But the words died in her throat because she could see it in his eyes; he already knew. Every single argument she could make, he'd already made to himself. Every condemnation she could voice, he'd already internalized and accepted as truth.

Which somehow made it worse rather than better.

"Does Luke know?" she asked instead, because that seemed safer than confronting the central issue directly.

Vader's jaw tightened. "No. And I'd prefer-"

"Oh, you'd prefer," Leia interrupted, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "You'd prefer your son doesn't find out you're having -whatever this is- with the woman he has an interest in. How considerate of you."

"It's…" Vader stopped, seemed to be choosing his words carefully. "complicated."

"Complicated," Leia repeated flatly. "That's what you're going with? Complicated?"

"Yes."

The simple, unapologetic answer was somehow more infuriating than any excuse would have been.

"I will never understand it," Leia said, and her voice had shifted from fury into something more contemplative, more confused. "The appeal. What you supposedly offer that makes intelligent, accomplished women lose their minds."

She gestured at him, at his scarred face, his prosthetic limbs, his damaged body that spoke of decades of violence and torture.

"But I'm seeing a pattern now," she continued. "There's a woman: unfathomably talented, brilliant, witty, accomplished. Everything anyone could want. And she transforms into a drooling mess over someone who is so far below her league that the distance can't be measured in standard units."

Vader's expression had gone very still.

"My biological mother," Leia continued, her voice carrying an edge now, cruel precision designed to wound, "at least got some…aesthetic benefit from her catastrophic lapse in judgment. But now…." her gaze swept over him, deliberate and disdainful, "I cannot begin to imagine what she sees in you, what could possibly be worth throwing away her career and any trace of self-respect for."

Vader made a sound; low, rough, almost like a laugh but devoid of humour.

"That," he said, his voice carrying bitter amusement, "makes two of us. Believe me, I'm as confused about this as you are."

Leia stared at him, trying to parse what he'd just admitted.

He doesn’t understand it either? He doesn’t know why she was interested?
That was almost self-aware. Almost humanizing.
And she didn’t want to see him as human right now. She wanted to see him as the monster. The villain. The person who had destroyed everything she loved.

Vader's expression had shifted into something harder now, the brief moment of vulnerability passing as quickly as it had appeared.

"What do you want, Leia?" he asked, and his voice had gone flat - not cruel, exactly, but carrying clear impatience. "You didn't come here to discuss my apparently inexplicable appeal to my physician. What is the actual purpose of this visit?"

Leia took a breath, trying to center herself.  The reason she gathered every ounce of courage to walk through that door in the first place. The reason that had taken weeks to build up to. Weeks of staring at that holo recording

 It had taken weeks to work up the courage to come here. Weeks of telling herself she was being ridiculous, that there was no reason to seek him out, that she could handle the situation entirely on her own.

And then today - apparently at possibly the worst possible moment ever - she'd finally forced herself to move.

"I've been researching," Leia said, forcing her voice into something approaching professional neutrality. "My mother's family. The Naberries on Naboo."

She watched his expression carefully, looking for any reaction.

Nothing. His face remained impassive, though his eyes had sharpened slightly, attention focusing with that particular intensity that suggested he was suddenly very interested in where this conversation was going.

"They're still alive," Leia continued. "My mother's parents. Her sister. Nieces. Family I didn't know existed until I started digging through."

Family. Real blood family beyond Luke. People who knew her mother, who loved her, who mourned her death and never knew her children survived.

"I want to visit them," she said, and the words came out more vulnerable than she'd intended. "I want to…meet them. To learn about her from people who actually knew her as a person rather than just a political figure."

Vader's expression remained unreadable, but something had shifted in his posture, subtle relaxation, maybe, or the particular kind of tension that came from unexpected emotional territory.

"I knew," he said quietly. "That they were alive. I-" He paused, seeming to choose words carefully. "I never contacted them. It seemed... inappropriate."

Well, she thought dryly, that was certainly one way to describe it.

"I don't know what you want from me," Vader continued, and there was genuine confusion in his voice. "Regarding your visit to Naboo. Permission? I have no authority over your movements. Blessing? I have no right to give or withhold such things."

Leia swallowed hard, her hands clenching and unclenching at her sides.

"Do you have-" She stopped, cleared her throat, tried again. "Do you have any documentation? Any evidence of everything? Your marriage to my mother. Her pregnancy. Anything that might help me prove…"

That she was actually her daughter. That she had a right to claim connection to this family. That she wasn’t just some impostor trying to capitalize on her fame and name.

Vader raised an eyebrow, a gesture that would have been almost comical if the situation weren't so painfully serious.

"What?" he asked, his voice carrying dry sarcasm that reminded her uncomfortably of how she sounded when she was being deliberately cutting. "Did you think I carried a marriage certificate around in the suit? Along with a positive pregnancy test for convenient verification purposes?"

Of course not. That would be absurd.

"Even if I had," Vader continued, his voice softening fractionally, "it wouldn't prove anything. Documentation can be forged. Testimony can be fabricated. The only real proof would be genetic testing, which I assume you've already considered."

Yes. Obviously. But showing up on Naboo demanding blood tests to prove that she was the daughter of Padmé Amidala sounded completely Insane.

"I know," Leia said, and she could hear the frustration bleeding into her voice. "I know I could do genetic testing. But I don't want to show up like some kind of delusional person demanding proof. I wanted…I thought maybe there was something…"

She trailed off, unsure how to finish that sentence.

Evidence that wouldn't make you look crazy. Documentation that would smooth the way.

Vader watched her for a long moment, his expression difficult to read.

"Your mother was buried under the pretense of pregnancy" he said finally, and his voice had gone very quiet, not quite gentle, but carrying less of the harsh edge that usually characterized their interactions. "Her family knew about the pregnancy. They prepared for her funeral knowing she carried a child."

Yeah, well… that was kind of the problem. After twenty-three years, showing up and saying you were the child she was meant to be buried with… not exactly something she’d ever imagined dealing with.

"But if you need proof," Vader said, his voice shifting back into something more pragmatic, "genetic testing is available. Quick. Definitive. You could have results within hours if you had access to samples from any confirmed family member."

Leia nodded slowly, processing this information.

She reached into her jacket pocket, her fingers closing around the small holo-projector she'd been carrying for weeks. The one she'd watched so many times she could recite every word, every gesture, every moment of joy captured in those few minutes of footage.

"The holo recording you gave me," Leia continued, keeping her voice neutral with effort. "The one of-" She paused, forcing herself to say it. "Of you and my mother. When you were…together."

Vader's jaw tightened, but he said nothing. Just watched her with eyes that carried too much weight, too many memories compressed into silence.

"I wanted to ask," Leia said, and the words felt strange in her mouth because why was she asking permission from him? Why did his approval matter? "If I could show it to them. Her family. As proof that Luke and I are...that we're her children. That we're-" She stopped, unsure how to articulate the complexity of what that recording represented.

Evidence that Padmé Amidala had loved someone. That she'd been happy, however briefly. That before everything went to hell, there had been something good.

Vader watched her for a long moment, his expression unreadable.

"You already have it," he said finally, his voice carrying careful neutrality. "I gave it to you. You don't need my permission to share it with anyone."

It wasn't quite the answer she'd expected. Not permission, exactly, but acknowledgment that whatever authority he might have once claimed over that memory was forfeit now.

"I know I don't need permission," Leia said, feeling oddly defensive.

"Then why are you here?" Vader asked, and there was no accusation in his voice, just genuine question.

Why was she here? To inform him? To seek approval she didn't actually need? To make sure he understood she was reclaiming her mother's memory from his shadow?

"Because it felt-" Leia stopped, searching for the right word. "appropriate. To tell you. Before I shared something that belonged to you both."

"Of the people in that recording," he said, his voice carrying flat pragmatism that didn't quite mask something deeper underneath, "only two are still alive: you and your brother. Everyone else…" He paused, and something flickered across his features. "everyone else is gone."

He met her eyes directly, and there was something in his gaze that looked uncomfortably like grief, though whether for Padmé or for his own lost humanity, Leia couldn't tell.

"Show it to them," he said quietly. "Her family deserves to know. Deserves to see that she-" He stopped, jaw tightening. "That she was happy. Once."

Leia nodded slowly, feeling the conversation shift into slightly less hostile territory. Not comfortable, exactly, but no longer crackling with the same fury that had driven her entrance.

The silence stretched between them-less combative now, but still heavy with everything unsaid.

Then Leia pursed her lips, feeling resistance coil in her chest at what she needed to say next. It displeased her -actually physically displeased her- to say something positive about or to him. But Mon Mothma had been explicit in her instructions, and Leia was nothing if not dutiful to her responsibilities.

"There's something else," she said, and heard the reluctance in her own voice. "From High Command. From Mon Mothma specifically."

Vader's attention sharpened fractionally, the subtle shift of someone preparing for potential threat.

Leia forced herself to continue, the words tasting wrong in her mouth.

"High Command is…" She paused, searching for the right phrasing. "surprisingly satisfied with the cooperation regarding Thrawn."

It physically hurt to acknowledge it. To admit that he'd been useful. That his insights had actually helped the Alliance understand the threat they were facing.

"That combined with" Leia's jaw tightened. "providing access to the Imperial military accounts and…" She could barely force the next words out. "killing the emperor has made them currently quite…mild. Regarding you."

The last part came out clipped, each word carefully measured to avoid sounding like approval.

Vader's expression remained carefully neutral, but she could see the surprise in his eyes. The genuine shock that he was receiving anything resembling positive acknowledgment.

"I want to be absolutely clear," Leia continued, her voice hardening. "This is not a pardon. Nothing about your legal status has fundamentally changed. You're still accountable for everything you've done."

She let that sink in, watching to make sure he understood.

"But," she continued, and the word felt like a concession she resented making, "the Alliance is currently in the process of establishing itself as the galaxy's political centre." She gestured vaguely. " We're dealing with a thousand different crises. Planetary governments demanding representation. Imperial holdouts causing problems across multiple sectors. The logistics of transitioning from a rebellion to an actual government."

Vader listened without interrupting, his expression giving nothing away.

"Which means," Leia said flatly, "that your tribunal has been suspended until further notice. We simply don't have the resources or political bandwidth to conduct a proper trial right now."

She watched his reaction carefully, but his face remained impassive.

"The Alliance is establishing a new political base on Chandrilla," Leia continued. "It'll take some time to prepare the necessary infrastructure, but once it's ready, the Redemption will set course there."

She paused, feeling the next part stick in her throat like a physical obstruction.

"Luke was able to convince High Command to place you under house arrest. Under his supervision." The words came out more bitter than intended

Vader's eyebrows rose fractionally, the first genuine surprise she'd seen from him.

"Which means," Leia forced herself to continue, "that once this ship arrives on Chandrilla and the proper security protocols are established, you won't be a prisoner behind locked doors. You'll be permitted to move freely within a designated radius. Under surveillance, obviously. With restrictions. But not confined to a cell."

The implications hung heavy between them. Freedom, however limited. Trust, however cautious. A future that extended beyond imprisonment and execution.

"But you need to understand something," Leia said, and now her voice carried steel: the Princess of Alderaan meeting the former imperial enforcer on equal ground. "Luke vouched for you. With his life. He put his entire reputation, his standing with the Alliance, his future, everything on the line for you."

She took a step closer, holding his gaze.

"I sincerely hope," Leia said, and each word was carefully enunciated, "that you appreciate what he's done. That you understand the magnitude of what he's risking. And that you conduct yourself accordingly."

The threat underneath was clear: betray Luke's trust, and there would be consequences that extended far beyond legal prosecution.

Vader held her gaze for a long moment, and something shifted in his expression, not quite vulnerability, but closer than she'd seen before.

"I understand. And I have no intention of-" He stopped, jaw tightening. "I won't betray his trust."

Leia laughed, a short, cutting sound. "You mean not again? Not like when you were busy tasting the woman he happens to be interested in?"

Vader’s face hardened; the muscles along his jaw tightened so that for an instant the mask of composure looked brittle.

Leia stepped forward until the distance between them felt deliberately small. "If you misuse his trust in this, if you cross that line, then you won’t just disappoint him. You’ll lose everything he’s granted you. I will see to it that whatever scraps of a life you cling to are stripped away. Politically, physically, wherever you rely on people, I will make sure there’s nothing left to rely on. Clear?"

"Yes," he said, low and certain.

The silence that followed carried weight, an unspoken acknowledgment of terms, an understanding of what was at stake.  It wasn’t agreement, not yet, but it was closer than the open hostility that had defined them before. Closer, despite, or perhaps because of the fiery threats she’d made out of love and loyalty to Luke.

"All the details will be clarified over the next few days." Leia continued, falling back into bureaucratic language because it felt safer than the emotional minefield they'd been navigating.

Vader nodded slowly, and she could see him processing the information, calculating implications, adjusting to a future he probably hadn't expected to have.

"Thank you," he said finally. "For delivering the message. And for-" He paused, seeming to choose his words carefully. "for Luke's advocacy."

Leia felt her jaw tighten at the gratitude in his voice.

"Don't thank me," she said sharply. "I didn't argue for this. Luke did. I would have been perfectly happy leaving you in a detention cell until we could arrange a proper trial."

"I know," Vader said, and there was something in his voice that suggested he genuinely did understand her position. "But you're here. Delivering the message. Ensuring I understand the terms. That counts for something."

"It counts for duty," Leia corrected coldly. "Nothing more."

But even as she said it, she knew it wasn't entirely true. She could have sent the message through official channels. Could have had Mon Mothma or another Alliance representative deliver the news. Could have avoided this conversation entirely.

But she'd come herself. Had made the choice to face him directly.

Which meant something, even if she wasn't ready to examine what.

"Is there anything else?" Vader asked, and his tone suggested genuine question rather than dismissal.

Leia thought about the holo recording clutched in her jacket pocket. About the trip to Naboo. About meeting family she'd never known she had. About the conversation with  her friend that she was absolutely dreading.

"No," she said finally. "That's everything."

Leia hit the door release and stepped into the corridor, leaving him alone in the medical bay surrounded by scattered evidence of whatever had been happening before her interruption.

The door sealed behind her with mechanical finality.

She stood in the empty corridor, her heart still racing, her hands still shaking slightly with residual adrenaline and fury and the overwhelming confusion of having just had one of the strangest conversations of her life.

But she couldn't suppress a certain glimmer of hope that had taken root within her. She may finally get the chance to meet her real family.  And maybe she'd finally understand who Padmé Amidala actually was beyond the legend. Beyond the tragedy. Beyond the woman who'd made the catastrophic decision to love Anakin Skywalker.

The next day….

The corridor to Vader's room felt approximately three times longer than usual, which was probably less about actual distance and more about the fact that every step sent a fresh spike of agony through your skull.

This is what you get for drinking half a bottle of Corellian whiskey with Jano. This is what you deserve.

Your head throbbed with the kind of hangover that suggested your brain had been replaced with broken glass and regret. The lights in the corridor, standard issue, designed to be easy on the eyes, felt like they were specifically calibrated to cause maximum retinal damage. Your mouth tasted like something had died in it, been resurrected, and died again.

Professional. You're a professional. Professionals don't show up to install critical cybernetic prostheses while actively dying from self-inflicted alcohol poisoning.

But here you were, datapad clutched in one hand, medical kit in the other, trying very hard to project an image of clinical competence while your body staged a full-scale rebellion against yesterday's decisions.

Yesterday.

Don't think about yesterday. Don't think about Leia's face when she walked in. Don't think about where your fingers were or what you were about to do or the way he was looking at you or-

STOP.

You'd woken up this morning on your bathroom floor, which was already a bad sign, with Jano's concerned face hovering above you and a revelation crystallizing through the hangover fog with uncomfortable clarity:

This couldn't continue.

Whatever this was….whatever complicated, catastrophically unprofessional thing had been building between you and your patient, it needed to stop.

Now. Immediately.

 Before it destroyed your career, your friendship with Leia, and whatever remained of your rapidly deteriorating sense of professional ethics. More importantly, Vader depended on you. He needed your full competence, your objectivity, your control, if he ever wanted to stand on his own two feet again. And there it was, the unignorable truth: the power imbalance that made relationships between doctors and patients not just dangerous, but wrong.

Vader was your patient. Full stop. End of discussion.

The fact that he was also a war criminal with surprising depth and unexpected humour and hands that could probably-

Stop. Patient. He's your patient. You don't have unprofessional thoughts about patients. You especially don't have those kinds of thoughts about patients who are war criminals with complicated family dynamics and a redemption arc still very much in progress.

You'd showered. Consumed approximately a liter of water and three stims. Put on fresh scrubs and your most professional expression. Looked yourself in the mirror and made a promise:

Today, you would be the Chief Cybernetics Specialist. Not the disaster of a human being who'd been seconds away from-

Don't. Finish. That. Thought.

The door to the medical bay loomed ahead. You took a breath, which sent another spike of pain through your skull because apparently breathing was now a hostile act, and hit the access panel.

The door slid open.

Vader looked up from the holopad he'd been reviewing, and his expression shifted through several emotions in rapid succession: surprise, calculation, something that might have been concern, and then careful neutrality.

"Doc." His voice carried a note of genuine surprise. "I wasn't expecting you. I was afraid I would have to accept Dr Reeves again."

You stepped into the room with as much professional dignity as you could muster while your brain tried to actively escape through your eye sockets.

"Yes, well." You set your medical kit down with careful precision, avoiding looking directly at him. "I've already made you wait long enough for your fourth prosthesis. No point delaying further."

Professional. Clinical. Exactly zero acknowledgment of yesterday's catastrophe.

CX-3 rolled forward, photoreceptors brightening with what you'd learned to interpret as the droid equivalent of enthusiasm. "Doctor! Excellent timing. The patient's neural integration readings this morning show optimal parameters for prosthetic installation. Shall I prepare the surgical field?"

"Please." You busied yourself reviewing the specs on your datapad, grateful for something to focus on besides the way Vader was watching you with that particular intensity that suggested he was calculating approximately ten different things you really didn't want him calculating.

The silence stretched between you, weighted with everything you were determinedly not acknowledging.

"How are you feeling?" Vader asked finally, his tone carefully neutral but carrying something underneath. Concern? Amusement? It was hard to tell through the pounding in your skull.

"Fine," you said, perhaps too quickly. "Standard pre-procedure assessment protocols. CX-3, I need the final prosthetic leg brought from storage. Standard cleaning protocols, full sterilization."

"Of course, Doctor."

You moved through the preparation routine with practiced efficiency, letting the familiar rhythms of medical procedure ground you. Sterilize instruments. Review neural integration points. Check compatibility matrices. Verify connection protocols.

Focus on the medicine. Medicine is safe. Medicine is what you're good at. Medicine doesn't involve catastrophically poor decisions about war criminals and tongues and-

"Doc."

His voice cut through your methodical preparation, quiet but carrying weight.

You didn't look up from the tray of surgical instruments you were arranging with unnecessary precision. "Mm?"

"You don't have to avoid looking at me."

Yes, I do. I absolutely do.

"I'm not avoiding anything," you said, your voice coming out clipped and professional. "I'm preparing for a complex surgical procedure that requires my full attention."

"Of course."

The dry amusement in his tone made it clear he didn't believe you for a second, but thankfully he didn't press the issue.

CX-3 returned with the final prosthetic leg secured in a sterile transport container. You spent several minutes running final diagnostics, checking neural interface points, verifying structural integrity, all things you'd already verified twice before but were now verifying again because it gave you something to do besides acknowledge the bantha in the room.

Or rather, the memory of your fingers in his mouth that was currently taking up all available mental space despite your best efforts at professional compartmentalization.

"Alright," you said finally, pulling on sterile gloves with sharp, decisive movements. "Let's get this done. CX-3, position the patient for optimal access to the left leg integration point."

The bed adjusted with mechanical precision, angling Vader's body to give you clear access to the empty socket where his final prosthetic would be installed.

You'd done this three times already. Three successful installations with minimal complications and excellent neural integration. This should be routine by now.

Except it's not routine because nothing about this patient has ever been routine and you're currently operating on about four hours of sleep or rather: passing out and a hangover that could kill a bantha.

"This is going to hurt," you said, falling back on clinical directness because at least medical facts were safe territory. "Probably worse than the previous installations because this is the final major neural connection and we're integrating with pathways that were only recently reactivated during surgery. Your nervous system is going to protest. Loudly."

Vader nodded, his jaw already tightening in anticipation. "Understood."

"I can increase the pain management dosage-"

"No." His voice carried finality.

Of course. Of course you're going to insist on doing this the hard way because apparently suffering is just how you operate.

"Your choice, my Lord," you said crisply, tugging your surgical mask into place with a little more force than necessary. "But don’t say I didn’t warn you."

You positioned yourself at his left side, CX-3 hovering nearby with the prosthetic suspended in its sterile field. The cybernetic leg gleamed under the medical bay lights, the final piece of reconstruction that would restore his mobility.

The neural interface was already installed, had been for days, in fact, carefully integrated into his existing neural architecture. Now it was just a matter of connecting the prosthetic to those prepared pathways and activating the connection.

Should be straightforward. Should be simple. Just align, lock, activate.

Except nothing about this patient has ever been straightforward.

"Ready?" you asked, hands already moving to guide the prosthetic into position.

"Ready."

You took a breath, immediately regretted it as your hangover protested, and began aligning the prosthetic with the interface port at his hip.

The connection points slid together with practiced precision, magnetic locks engaging with soft clicks that resonated through the prosthetic's structure. You'd done this three times already. Knew the sequence. Knew the angles. Knew exactly how the pieces fit together.

Your hands moved with automatic efficiency, checking each connection point, verifying structural integrity, ensuring proper alignment before the crucial final step.

"CX-3, verify connection integrity."

"All connection points secured, Doctor. Neural pathways ready for activation."

Here we go.

"Activation on my mark," you said, your finger hovering over the control interface. "Three. Two. One. Activating."

The prosthetic hummed to life.

For a fraction of a second, nothing happened. The neural pathways lighting up, electrical impulses beginning to flow, systems coming online in the careful sequence you'd programmed-

Then the full connection hit.

Every nerve ending in that interface suddenly firing at once, e years of atrophied neural pathways forced to reconnect with prosthetic systems, sensory input flooding back through channels that hadn't processed full sensation in decades.

The sound that tore from Vader's throat wasn't quite a scream, but it was raw and visceral and spoke to pain beyond what anyone should have to endure.

His entire body went rigid, muscles locked in spasm, hands gripping the bed frame with enough force that you heard the metal creak and deform under the pressure.

And then..

It's done. The activation sequence is complete. The pain should start receding now as his nervous system adjusts to the new input.

But watching him fight to control his breathing, seeing the lines of agony etched across his features, knowing the magnitude of what he'd just endured…

Your hand moved without conscious thought.

Reached out. Pressed gently against his thigh in a gesture of comfort and compassion, fingers settling on the muscle there in silent acknowledgment of what he'd just survived.

It's over now. The worst is over. Just breathe. Just-

His hand shot out and grabbed yours, not painfully, but with enough force to communicate intensity. Your eyes met his, and the weight in his gaze nearly stopped your breath.

Pain. Yes. But also something else. Something that had nothing to do with prosthetic installation and everything to do with where your hand was currently resting on his thigh. You’d stopped so high that you would’ve only needed to lift your thumb, just slightly, to brush against something that definitely wasn’t covered under the scope of professional conduct.

Oh.

Oh shit.

That's- that's not-

you weren't-

He squeezed your hand deliberately, and his eyebrow rose in a slow, unmistakably suggestive arch. The expression on his face shifted from pain, wracked endurance to something that looked uncomfortably like dark amusement despite the agony he was actively experiencing.

Then he released your hand.

You jerked back like you'd been electrocuted, face flooding with heat that had nothing to do with your hangover and everything to do with mortification so intense it threatened to collapse you into a singularity.

 Thank every deity in the galaxy for surgical masks because otherwise he'd see exactly how red your face just went.

You rolled your chair backward with more speed than dignity, spinning to face away from him while your brain short-circuited somewhere between professional horror and the kind of embarrassment that caused psychological damage.

You weren't-  it was just-  You didn't mean-

Except his expression made it very clear what HE thought you meant.

Or what he wanted you to mean.

Or-

STOP THINKING.

"CX-3," you said, and your voice came out remarkably steady considering your internal crisis. "Remove all installation mechanics once neural pathways reach one hundred percent synchronization."

"Acknowledged, Doctor."

You heard the final power increase, the soft chime indicating full neural integration, Vader's controlled breathing as the pain finally began to recede.

You focused on removing your surgical gloves with excessive care. Then your mask. Then organizing your thoughts into something approaching professional coherence rather than the scrambled mess of mortification and inappropriate awareness currently occupying your brain.

He's your patient. This was a medical procedure. The hand placement was accidental. The fact that he responded with- that doesn't mean anything. It was pain-induced delirium. Or dark humour. Or-

Or he was making it very clear that he noticed. And didn't mind. And possibly wanted-

Stop.

You heard CX-3 working behind you, the soft mechanical sounds of installation equipment being removed, sterilization protocols activating, the medical bay returning to standard configuration.

You turned around.

The words "We should run a few basic tests to verify-" died in your throat.

Because Vader was moving.

Not shifting position in bed. Not adjusting his weight.

Moving.

He'd swung his legs, both of them, including the one you'd literally just installed five minutes ago, over the side of the bed and was in the process of positioning himself to stand.

"What the-" Professional vocabulary deserted you entirely. "What are you doing?!"

He glanced at you, and his expression carried the kind of determination that probably made admirals nervous. "Standing."

"Like hell you are!" You moved toward him instinctively; hands raised in the universal gesture of stop right there. "It's been five minutes! Five! Your neural integration needs time to stabilize before you put any weight on that leg. You could damage the connections, cause pathway confusion, risk-"

"I've been lying helpless in this bed for weeks," Vader interrupted, his voice carrying quiet intensity that cut through your medical protests like a vibroblade. "Unable to walk. Unable to stand. Unable to do anything except exist like a stone while everyone else makes decisions about my body."

He met your eyes directly, and the weight in his gaze made your breath catch.

"I am going to stand now," he said, each word carefully enunciated. "Whether you approve or not. There is nothing you can do to prevent it."

His tone made it absolutely clear: this wasn't a request. Wasn't a discussion. This was happening.

You swallowed hard, recognizing that particular quality of certainty.

He means it. He's actually going to do this and there's nothing-

Wait. Yes there is.

"Fine," you said, and heard the resignation in your own voice. "Fine. If you're going to be reckless and stupid and completely ignore medical advice, then at least do it under proper supervision."

You moved to position yourself directly in front of him, close enough to intervene if-when-this went catastrophically wrong.

"Take my hands," you instructed, offering both even as your brain screamed that this was a terrible idea. "Slowly. Support your weight gradually. Let the neural integration stabilize before-"

He took your hand, his grip firm and controlled, and stood.

Just... stood.

No hesitation. No wobbling. No struggle.

One moment he was sitting. The next he was standing, and you were staring directly at his chest because suddenly he was there - a wall of muscle and presence and sheer physical mass that seemed to fill all available space.

You had to tilt your head back. Actually tilt your head back to see his face.

Oh Gods.

You'd known, intellectually, that he was tall. Had reviewed his physical specifications countless times. Height: 202 centimeters. Mass: 122 kilograms of muscle and cybernetics.

But knowing something intellectually and experiencing it physically were entirely different things.

He towered over you. Not just tall but massive - broad shoulders that blocked your view of the rest of the medical bay, chest width that suggested he could probably bench press a speeder, presence that felt less like a person and more like a natural phenomenon.

Your brain, already compromised by hangover and mortification, produced exactly one coherent thought:

Fuck.

"Wow," you heard yourself say, and your voice came out slightly strangled. "You are really a... big guy."

Did you just-

did you actually just-

Professional. Very professional.  Bravo, rhetorical genius.

Stop staring at his chest.

His mouth twitched in unmistakable amusement. "I've heard that before."

Of course he has.

"Right," you said, trying desperately to recover some semblance of professional dignity. "Well. We should…you should take this slow. Very slow. Step by step. I'll walk directly in front of you in case-"

In case you fall and I can somehow magically catch over 120 kilograms of muscle and cybernetics. That's a great plan. Excellent medical thinking.

He took a step.

Then another.

His movement was fluid and controlled, the new prosthetic integrating with his gait like he'd been walking on it for years rather than seconds.

He grunted, the sound carrying dark amusement. "No offense, Doc, but if I fall, there's not much you could do about it. I'd flatten you."

The casual acknowledgment of your comparative fragility should not have sent a thrill down your spine.

Should NOT. That is NOT an appropriate response to being told your patient could accidentally crush you.

He seemed to consider this for a moment, the genuine physics of over 120 kilograms of falling mass meeting your considerably smaller frame, and then his hand moved to gently but firmly push you aside.

Not roughly. Not dismissively. Just... repositioning you out of the danger zone with the kind of casual strength that reminded you exactly how strong he actually was.

And despite everything -despite your professionalism, despite your hangover, despite the catastrophe of yesterday and the mortification of five minutes ago- you felt something warm unfurl in your chest at the gesture.

But that warmth lasted approximately three seconds before your medical brain caught up to what you were actually seeing.

He was walking. Not just walking…moving with a level of coordination and balance that should be impossible this soon after installation. The neural integration should still be establishing, should still be-

Wait.

"You're using the Force," you said, and it came out somewhere between accusation and realization. "To walk. You're using the Force to compensate for the neural integration."

Vader didn't stop moving, just continued his careful circuit of the medical bay while he considered his response. "I've been doing this for twenty years," he said finally, his voice carrying matter-of-fact acceptance. "In the suit, I couldn't walk without it. The prosthetics were too crude, the neural interfaces too imprecise. The Force was the only way to maintain mobility without…"

He paused mid-step, jaw tightening at whatever memory had just surfaced.

"without falling," he finished quietly.

Twenty years of constant Force use just to perform basic locomotion. Twenty years of never being able to simply walk without conscious supernatural intervention.

The magnitude of that, the exhaustion, the concentration, the never-ending requirement to maintain conscious control over something that should be automatic…

You didn’t even want to imagine it. Couldn’t imagine it.

"The prosthetics I made are different," you said, and heard the fierce certainty in your own voice. "Better. More sophisticated neural integration, more precise sensory feedback, actual proprioceptive capability that matches biological function."

You moved to stand directly in his path, meeting his eyes with an intensity that matched his earlier determination.

"You don't need the Force to walk anymore," you said. "You just need to learn how to walk without it. How to trust the prosthetics to do what they were designed to do."

He stopped, looking down at you with an expression that suggested he was weighing your words against decades of ingrained habit and survival instinct.

The silence stretched between you, weighted with challenge and possibility and the fundamental question of whether he could trust your engineering over his own Force-enhanced control.

Then something shifted in his expression. Something that looked uncomfortably like recognition that this mattered to you. That your professional pride and medical expertise were invested in these prosthetics functioning as designed rather than as Force-assisted crutches.

"Alright," he said finally. "Show me."

You felt your breath release in a rush you hadn't realized you'd been holding.

"CX-3, run a full gait analysis," you instructed, pulling out your datapad. "I want complete proprioceptive readings and neural integration metrics."

"Acknowledged, Doctor."

Vader stood still for a moment. You could see the concentration on his face as he did something with the Force, withdrawing it from active use in his movement. His stance shifted subtly, weight distribution changing as the prosthetics took on the full burden of support without supernatural assistance.

Then he took a step.

It was less fluid than before. Slightly more hesitant. His balance wavered fractionally before the neural integration compensated, servos adjusting with micro-movements that wouldn't be visible without your medical training.

But he didn't fall.

Didn't stumble.

Just... walked.

Another step. Then another. His gait improving with each movement as the neural pathways established themselves, as his brain relearned patterns of movement it hadn't used in over two decades.

It's working. The prosthetics are actually working without Force assistance. He's walking on engineering alone.

You watched the readouts on your datapad, proprioceptive feedback flowing smoothly, neural integration stabilizing, sensory input processing without lag or confusion.

"How does it feel?" you asked, voice soft with something that might have been professional satisfaction or might have been something more complicated.

Vader paused mid-stride, his expression thoughtful as he clearly inventoried the sensations flowing through the prosthetics' neural interfaces.

"Strange," he said finally. "The sensory input is more... precise than anything I've experienced. I can feel the pressure of my weight distributing across the foot. Small variations in balance that I've been compensating for with the Force for so long I'd forgotten they existed."

He took another step, and you saw the subtle adjustment in his posture as he processed the feedback.

"It's not biological," he continued, his voice carrying careful analysis. "But it's closer than I expected. Closer than I thought possible."

That was the entire point. That was what you’d been working toward; prosthetics that didn’t just replace lost function but restored it with a precision approaching natural sensation.

Professional satisfaction warred with exhaustion and hangover and the complicated emotional mess of the past twenty-four hours, and you decided that professional satisfaction could win this round.

"That's enough for today," you said, because he'd been standing for less than ten minutes and you could already see the subtle signs of fatigue in his posture. "You've exceeded all reasonable expectations for initial mobility, but your body is still recovering from major surgery. Sit down before you hurt yourself."

You expected argument. Expected him to push further, test boundaries, insist on continuing because apparently recklessness was a core personality trait.

Instead, he just nodded and moved back toward the bed.

He sat with the kind of controlled descent that suggested his muscles were protesting but he was too disciplined to show it. His legs, both now fully installed and functional, extended in front of him with mechanical precision.

"Satisfied?" he asked, and there was dry amusement in his tone.

"Barely," you said, already pulling up post-procedure protocols on your datapad. "CX-3, run a full diagnostic on all four prosthetic limbs. I want complete neural integration readings and structural integrity verification."

"Of course, Doctor."

You busied yourself with medical readings while very carefully not thinking about anything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours. Not thinking about Leia's face or your fingers or his expression or the fact that he'd just walked for the first time in weeks and you'd been there to see it. Or that you still had a very unpleasant conversation with Leia to have.

Professional. You're being professional.

This is fine.

Everything is fine.

It wasn't fine.

But at least you were pretending with dignity.

Chapter Text

The medical bay's perpetual hum had become a special form of torture all its own.

Not the excruciating, designed-for-suffering torture of his suit nor the hellfire of Mustafar consuming flesh until even the air scalded his lungs, though that particular baseline of agony had established a reference point that made most other discomforts laughably trivial by comparison. No, this was subtler. More insidious. The kind of torture that came from enforced stillness, constant monitoring, and the maddening proximity of something he wanted with an intensity that bordered on physical pain.

Also, unprecedented sexual frustration after two decades of forced celibacy, but that was a separate issue.

Well, maybe some kind of related issue.

Fine. It was the same issue, and he was lying to himself by pretending otherwise.

Vader lay on the medical bed, staring at the ceiling panels with their uniform off-white sterility, and tried to inventory exactly how far he'd fallen. Quite far, he decided with grim self-awareness. Though apparently there were still lower depths to explore.

The Force thrummed around him like a great beast stirring in its sleep, its currents brushing against his awareness with far too much clarity. Freedom from the helmet meant freedom from the filters that had once dulled everything: emotion, intent, desire. Now the Force spoke plainly.

Including thoughts that were decidedly explicit.

Very explicit.

Extraordinarily, almost impressively explicit, actually. Though in retrospect, perhaps that shouldn't be surprising; she did spend her days intimately familiar with biological systems. Apparently that knowledge extended to creative applications.

He'd felt it already a few weeks back when she'd been installing his prosthetics. The way her attention had lingered fractionally too long on the musculature of his torso. The spike of interest when her fingers had traced the neural connection points, professional touch betrayed by the acceleration of her pulse, the subtle shift in her breathing patterns, and thoughts that were absolutely not appropriate for a medical examination.

The Force didn't lie. Couldn't lie, really. It simply was, reflecting truth whether one wanted to perceive it or not.

And the truth was that his doctor, his brilliant, sharp-tongued, devastatingly competent and, regrettably, stunning doctor, wanted him.

Wanted him in painfully precise ways he could not ignore.

Ways that burned, now that he had no armour left to hide behind.

It would be easier if he could deny it. If desire were something he could still crush beneath discipline and will.

But he wanted her too.

Wanted her with a desperation that felt almost foreign in its intensity. Twenty-three years of systematic suppression had dulled most physical desires to background noise, easily ignored in favour of survival and Palpatine's endless machinations. The pain feedback loops built into every system had been remarkably effective at crushing anything resembling normal human drives. Sexual desire had seemed as distant and irrelevant as childhood memories of Tatooine's twin suns.

Until it wasn't.

Until she'd walked into his medical bay with that particular combination of competence and compassion, treating him like a patient rather than a monster. Until she'd argued with him, challenged him, forced him to engage with something other than guilt and self-recrimination. Until she'd looked at him and seeing past the scars and the history and the weight of his crimes, and somehow still decided he was worth the effort.

And apparently worth some very creative mental imagery involving his tongue and various anatomical locations.

The first stirrings of desire had been easy to dismiss. Natural physiological response to stimulus, neurological pathways reactivating as the pain feedback systems were dismantled and proper hormonal regulation was restored. Clinical. Explainable.

Except it wasn't clinical anymore.

Now he was acutely, painfully aware of every interaction. The way her cybernetic hand moved with unconscious grace, technology and flesh working in seamless integration. The sharp intelligence in her eyes when she analysed medical data, that particular focus that suggested nothing else in the galaxy mattered except solving the problem in front of her. The dry humour that surfaced when she was tired or frustrated, cutting observations delivered with deadpan precision that made something warm unfurl in his chest despite everything.

Even her mannerisms captivated him. The slight bite to her lower lip when she focused intently. The articulate, expressive gestures that accompanied her arguments.
The faint, involuntary shifts in her expression when she lied or bristled, signals he had learned to read with disquieting accuracy.

She was beautiful. Brilliant. Impossible.

And he wanted her so desperately it physically hurt.

Which brought him to his current predicament.

Vader's gaze shifted to CX-3, positioned near his bed with its photoreceptors gleaming in the ambient light. Monitoring. Always monitoring. Heart rate, respiratory function, neural activity, stress indicators; every biological function tracked and logged with mechanical precision.

The droid was efficient. Helpful, even, in its cheerful, systematic way.

It was also the reason he was currently experiencing a level of sexual frustration that would have been comedic if it weren't so genuinely maddening. And possibly grounds for justifiable homicide. Droidicide? He wondered if there was a legal term for destroying a medical droid out of sheer sexual frustration.

Two decades of forced celibacy meant his body had apparently decided to make up for lost time with extraordinary enthusiasm. The restoration of proper hormonal function combined with actual desire for a specific person rather than vague physiological urges had created pressure. Significant pressure. Catastrophic pressure.

The kind of pressure that made him contemplate, with absolute sincerity, whether destroying a droid was an overreaction or simply the most logical course of action available.

The kind of pressure that demanded release.

Which would be fine - embarrassing perhaps, but manageable - except for the small matter of constant electronic surveillance.

He glared at CX-3 with genuine animosity.

The droid continued its monitoring with oblivious contentment, photoreceptors glowing softly as it processed data streams. Utterly unaware that it was approximately thirty seconds away from being forcibly disassembled by sexual frustration.

This was his life now. Darth Vader, scourge of the galaxy, terror of the Rebel Alliance, defeater of Jedi…thwarted by a cheerful medical droid and his own body's enthusiastic rediscovery of sexual function.

The mighty had fallen indeed.

He could feel it now, that insistent ache low in his abdomen, the subtle tension in muscles that hadn't experienced this particular kind of arousal in over two decades. It had been building for hours, worsening every time his mind drifted back to her. The memory of her fingers on his chest during the examination. The way she'd looked at him when discussing the prosthetics' functionality, pride and something else flickering in her eyes. The curve of her mouth when she smiled, rare enough to feel like victory when it appeared.

His internal command to stop thinking about this was not helping. His body disagreed with impressive insistence, making an extremely compelling counterargument that involved significantly less thinking and significantly more action.

The practical solution would be straightforward. Privacy. Mechanical motion. Release. Basic biological function that most adults managed without particular difficulty.

Except privacy was a luxury he didn't possess.

CX-3's monitoring would detect the inevitable spike in heart rate and respiratory function. The droid's programming would probably interpret rapid physiological changes as potential medical emergency and immediately alert her.

She would be here in moments, ready to address whatever crisis the monitors indicated. And she would find him in a state of disrepair, desperately attempting to address biological needs while thinking about her in exceedingly specific ways.

Leia’s words echoed through his mind with surgical precision. Disgust, disappointment; an impressive combination, delivered with flawless clarity.
And, to be fair, she had a point.

He'd already sunk to impressive depths. Twenty-plus years as the emperor's enforcer, responsible for atrocities that would take lifetimes to even begin to atone for. The destruction of Alderaan - not directly his hand on the trigger, but his presence on the Death Star making him complicit. The torture of his own daughter, unaware of their connection at the time but hardly an excuse for the cruelty he'd inflicted.

And now he was lying in a medical bay, recovering from surgery, experiencing sexual frustration intense enough to seriously contemplate dismantling a medical droid just to have ten minutes of unmonitored privacy to jerk off while thinking about his doctor, who happened to be the same woman his son was interested in.

Apparently, there were still unexplored depths of depravity available.

But the plan had obvious flaws.

First, his luck had never been particularly reliable. If something had even the slightest chance of going wrong at the most inconvenient moment, it generally did. The universe seemed to take a certain pleasure in ensuring his suffering remained consistent. Which meant that the instant he managed to secure any measure of privacy, someone would inevitably walk through that door.

And the hierarchy of worst-case scenarios was disturbingly clear.

Luke: Embarrassing. Potentially traumatic for both of them. Would require a conversation neither of them wanted to have. Might destroy what fragile relationship they'd managed to build.

Or Doc walking in while his thoughts were explicitly focused on her: That scenario made his stomach twist with mortification even in hypothetical form. She'd probably request transfer to another patient. He'd have to live with the memory of her expression - horror? disgust? pity? -  for however long he had left.

Absolutely not.

Unchallenged in first place: Leia. That possibility alone was enough to kill any arousal more effectively than a bucket of ice water dumped directly on his lap. His daughter's disgust and disappointment were already crushing weights on his conscience. Adding this particular humiliation to their already catastrophic relationship seemed like an efficient speedrun to ensure she never spoke to him again. Which, given that she barely spoke to him now, would be an impressive achievement in the field of terrible life choices. Going from “minimal horrified acknowledgment of your existence” to “complete refusal to share the same space station” required true dedication to catastrophic decision-making.

The torture, then her planet… oh yes. And freezing that smuggler in carbonite—regrettably, he’d survived that.  And now the possibility of her catching him jerking off to not only his doctor, but also her friend and the woman her brother was interested in.

Definitely Father of the Year material.

No. Dismantling the droid was not a viable option, despite its immediate appeal.

The risk-to-benefit analysis was catastrophically unfavourable. Ten minutes of relief versus the potential for permanent psychological scarring and relationship destruction? Not a trade he was willing to make.

Which left him exactly where he'd started: lying in a medical bay, experiencing sexual frustration that intensified every time his mind wandered back to her, unable to do anything about it except exercise increasingly strained self-control. And he possessed formidable self-control. He could maintain focus through injuries that should be fatal. Could function on minimal sleep and maximum stress for extended periods. But this was testing limits he hadn't known existed, because it wasn't just physical. That would be manageable; uncomfortable but straightforward, a matter of biology and chemistry that time would eventually resolve.

No, he realized, with a kind of sinking certainty, that he wanted her. Not just the obvious parts, though those were admittedly compelling and occupied far too much of his processing capacity. No, this was worse. This was the kind of wanting that came with specificity. Details. A comprehensive list of reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with the curve of her hips or or her idea of using his tongue.

Her mind, for instance. That sharp, analytical intelligence that could dismantle complex medical problems with surgical precision, but more than that: could challenge him. It was... infuriating. Stimulating.  He'd forgotten what that felt like. Being treated like his mind mattered beyond its capacity for tactical destruction. Having someone care enough about his reasoning to actually engage with it, to push back, to make him defend his positions with something more substantial than intimidation or rank.

Also, her compassion that coexisted with pragmatic ruthlessness, choosing to treat him despite understanding exactly who and what he was. The way she approached his catastrophic anatomy like a particularly interesting engineering challenge rather than a horror show. The dry humour that surfaced during their conversations, observations delivered with deadpan timing that suggested she saw through his defences with uncomfortable accuracy.

The way she looked at him sometimes, when she thought he wasn't paying attention. The subtle softening of her expression, clinical assessment giving way to something warmer. The lingering touches during examinations that lasted fractionally too long to be purely professional. The spike of want he felt through the Force, unguarded thoughts that made it abundantly clear she was experiencing the same impossible attraction.

He wanted all of it. The brilliant mind and the terrible jokes and the way she looked at him like he was a person instead of a monument to failure and war crimes. Wanted her arguments and her professional competence and the particular way she said his name or “my lord”, which always evoked a desire in him to grab her and...

She was perfect. Too perfect. Everything he didn't deserve and couldn't have.

And yet she wanted him anyway.

That knowledge sat in his chest like hot coal. Uncomfortable. Impossible to ignore. Making everything worse because it transformed this from one-sided frustration into mutual impossibility. If she didn't want him, this would be simpler. Painful, perhaps, but clean. He could maintain professional distance, focus on recovery, accept that some things were simply beyond reach.

But she did want him.

The Force confirmed it: Desire mixed with confusion, attraction warring with professional ethics, want complicated by awareness of how catastrophically inappropriate the entire situation was.

And somehow that made everything infinitely more frustrating.

Because knowing she wanted him meant this wasn't just his problem. It was theirs. A shared impossibility that neither of them seemed capable of resolving or walking away from.

Which brought him back to the question that had been circling through his mind for days now, gaining urgency with each interaction: what did she want from him?

He knew what she wanted physically; the Force was explicit about that, thoughts unguarded enough to leave little doubt. But beyond that?

What could she possibly want from him that made sense?

He had nothing to offer. No future. No redemption that could balance the magnitude of his crimes. His survival hinged entirely on the Rebellion's need for intelligence about Thrawn and remaining Imperial forces. Once that usefulness expired, so probably would he, either execution or imprisonment, both equally permanent solutions to the inconvenient problem of Darth Vader's continued existence.

He was forty-five years old, physically devastated, carrying guilt that should have crushed him under its weight decades ago. His body was more prosthetics than flesh, held together by cybernetics and his sheer stubborn refusal to die. His daughter hated him - justifiably. His past was literally written in the blood of billions.

Not exactly an appealing prospect for….well, anything beyond a criminal trial.

And yet she wanted him anyway.

That truth kept returning, insistent and undeniable. She knew everything. Had read his medical files. Understood the extent of the atrocities. Treated his injuries with full awareness of how he'd acquired them. And still, somehow, looked at him with something other than fear or disgust.

Maybe that was the appeal. Not despite his brokenness, but because she understood it. Because she was a doctor, trained to see past the surface horror to the human underneath.

Or maybe - and this thought made something uncomfortable twist in his chest --maybe she just saw something in him that he couldn't see himself.

So…what was he? Certainly not Sith anymore. But also, definitely not Jedi; he'd rejected that path, rejected Luke's attempts to resurrect it, rejected the neat binary that insisted he must be one or the other. He was something else. Something undefined. Trying to find balance in the Force after decades of being yanked violently between extremes. And she seemed remarkably unconcerned with defining him. Didn't care whether he was Anakin or Vader or some uncomfortable amalgamation of both. Just treated him as whoever he was in the present moment: damaged, dangerous, trying to figure out what came next.

Maybe that was what he wanted too. To be seen as he was rather than who he'd been or who others wanted him to become.

So, the only thing he really knew was: The attraction wasn't one-sided, wasn't just him projecting desperate desire onto the first person to show him genuine care. It was mutual. Complicated and orobably catastrophically ill-advised.

But real.

He could feel it every time she entered the room. The way the air seemed to shift, becoming heavier, harder to breathe. The way his awareness narrowed to her presence with focus that felt almost like the Force but was actually just attention. Complete and consuming attention to another person in a way he couldn't remember experiencing since….

Padmé.

The name hit him with brutal force.  He'd been deliberately avoiding that comparison, refusing to examine the parallels too closely because they were terrifying in their implications.

He'd loved Padmé. Loved her with an intensity that had ultimately destroyed them both. That desperate, consuming need to prevent her death had driven every catastrophic choice, led him straight into Palpatine's trap, resulted in her actual death and two decades of a waking nightmare.

Loving Padmé had broken him.

So perhaps it was for the best that whatever part of him had once been capable of love was gone. Love had died with Anakin on Mustafar and been buried with Padmé on Naboo, and no amount of medical intervention or Force-assisted rehabilitation was going to resurrect it from whatever grave his former self occupied. But the trajectory of his desire, the way it was developing with alarming speed and specificity, carried enough resemblance to that old catastrophe to be deeply, dangerously familiar. And aimed at a woman who should run screaming in the opposite direction rather than looking at him with want in her eyes.

This was insane.

The thought was remarkably clear amid the chaos of conflicting desires and self-recrimination. This entire situation was insane. He was insane for even contemplating the possibility. She was insane for wanting him despite having full access to his medical and criminal history.

Which still didn't make the wanting go away.

The memories of their interactions played through his mind with unfortunate vividness, each one adding fuel to the fire of frustration burning through him.

She'd brought him fruit.

That should have been unremarkable, part of her campaign to get him to actually eat rather than subsist on minimal nutrition and stubborn refusal to acknowledge basic biological needs. She'd grown increasingly insistent about his dietary habits, moving from pointed comments to direct intervention.

He should have refused. Should have maintained whatever dignity remained. Should have recognized the danger in the intimacy of the gesture.

Instead, he'd opened his mouth.

Decades of military strategy. Defeated some of the greatest Jedi of the age. Helpless before a woman with fruit.

The first piece had been fine. She'd placed it between his lips with efficient precision, her fingers barely making contact, her expression focused on the task rather than any deeper implications.

But then her thumb had brushed his lower lip.

Just for a moment. A fraction of a second of skin-to-skin contact that shouldn't have registered as significant.

Except it did.

Because her thoughts had slammed into him through the Force with the subtlety of a Star Destroyer dropping out of hyperspace at point-blank range. Unguarded. Explicit. A flash of want so intense it had made his breath catch and every nerve ending in his body suddenly stand at attention.

The second piece of fruit had been worse. Or better. Definitely more complicated.

This time when she'd brought her hand to his lips, he'd been aware of every sensation with painful clarity. The warmth of her skin. The faint tremor in her fingers that suggested her composure wasn't as complete as she pretended. The way she'd leaned forward slightly, close enough that he could smell her; antiseptic and something uniquely her own, subtle and utterly intoxicating. Something warm. Human. Alive in a way that the suit had denied him for so long he'd forgotten what it felt like.

He'd taken the fruit from her fingers slowly, deliberately letting his lips close around her thumb for just a heartbeat longer than necessary. Tasting not just the fruit but her; the salt of her skin, the slight tang of whatever medical solution she'd been working with earlier, the warmth that felt like coming home after decades in the cold. And then… he just didn't let go. His tongue traced along her index finger, slow and deliberate, mapping every ridge of her fingerprint, the delicate webbing between finger and thumb. The fruit was good; sweet, with a wide variety of flavours, perfectly ripe. But she was better. So much better. Like that first breath of real air after the mask came off. He could taste her pulse beneath the skin, feel the slight tremor in her hand, and some dark, possessive part of him wanted to keep tasting, keep taking, until she understood exactly what she was doing to him.

Her thoughts had been screaming at him through the Force.

His mouth. His tongue…. what would it feel like to have his tongue everywhere.

The images that followed had been extremely detailed. Remarkably specific. And Force help him, he wanted to do exactly that.

Wanted to taste every inch of her skin. Wanted to make her gasp the way she had when he'd deliberately let his lips linger. Wanted to discover every place that would make her breath catch and her control shatter. Wanted to hear again that sounds she made when she lost that careful professional composure completely.

Wanted to put his tongue exactly where she'd been imagining, and several other places besides.

Force, yes, he would happily put his tongue anywhere she wanted. Everywhere she wanted. He'd crawl across broken glass for the privilege. Two decades of deprivation meant he was prepared to be very, very thorough about it if given the opportunity.

Which he absolutely should not be given.

But that didn't stop the wanting.

He'd nearly done it. Had come terrifyingly close to just grabbing her wrist, pulling her onto the bed, and saying fuck it to consequences and professional boundaries and the approximately hundred different reasons why this was the worst idea in the galaxy.

His hand had actually twitched toward her. He'd felt the Force responding to his intention, ready to assist if he gave the command.

But he hadn't.

Because Leia had walked in.

Perfect timing, really. Absolutely impeccable. His daughter, who already hated him with the fire of a thousand suns, had chosen that precise moment to appear in the doorway, her presence in the Force sharp and cold. One look at her expression and any thoughts of acting on his baser instincts had evaporated.

So instead of pulling Doc onto his bed and thoroughly ruining at least her live, he'd watched her flee with that careful professional composure barely intact, while Leia stared at him with an expression that clearly said she'd rather be anywhere else in the galaxy.

How (un)fortunate that this wasn’t the end of his misery.

The problem was that controlling himself was becoming increasingly difficult when she kept touching him; professionally, medically, entirely appropriately, and his body kept responding like a man who'd been starving for contact and had finally been offered a feast.

Two decades in the suit. Two decades of nothing but pain and machinery and isolation. And now every casual brush of her fingers felt like a lightning strike, every accidental touch echoed in places that had been dormant for so long he'd half-forgotten they existed.

This was going to be a problem.

Was already a problem.

Was likely to become a significantly larger problem if he didn't figure out how to be in the same room with his doctor without his body staging a full-scale rebellion against common sense and professional boundaries.

The last few days had only made matters worse. With both prosthetic legs now fully integrated and functioning, he had rejected the slow path: weeks of carefully staged physiotherapy, gradual milestones, and the thinly veiled humiliation of needing help to do what had once been effortless. So, she had retaliated in her own way: by insisting on monitoring every step he took, every shift of weight, every tremor of effort. Instead of her orbiting his bed like an overqualified moon while he lay immobilized, she now marched beside him across the room, scrutinizing him with the same quiet precision she gave to every medical procedure she oversaw.

And all he could think about was the fact that he was finally standing opposite her, no longer helpless beneath her hands. And how ow small she was. Granted, most people were small compared to him, and she was probably tall for a woman. Still, it offered him an entirely new perspective… on her as a person, and on whatever passed for their relationship. Between her medical protocols, they talked. A lot. She was astonishingly curious and completely fearless, therefore entirely without filter when speaking to him. And he enjoyed every moment of it far too much. It made her feel… closer. More equal. And blurred the line between doctor and patient even further.

The door hissed open with its characteristic pneumatic sigh, and Vader's attention snapped to the entrance with the kind of instant focus that decades of survival had made automatic.

She strode in with that particular determined energy he'd come to recognize: the one that meant she had a plan and had approximately zero interest in hearing objections. Her cybernetic hand carried her datapad, the other held what appeared to be …fabric?!

"Up," she said without preamble, depositing apparently some mismatched clothes on his bed. "We're going for walk. But longer this time. Different route. Out of this room."

Vader eyed the clothes, then looked up at her with suspicion that bordered on resignation. "Where?"

"Does it matter?" She crossed her arms, one eyebrow rising in challenge. "Your mobility needs testing in varied environments. Multiple surfaces, different stimuli, extended duration. Standard physical therapy protocol."

"You're deflecting," he observed, voice flat. "Which means I won't like the destination."

Her expression shifted into something that might have been amusement or might have been determination wrapped in medical authority. "Get dressed. We're wasting time."

He stood slowly, deliberately, watching her carefully for any sign of what she was planning. Nothing. Her thoughts were frustratingly guarded this morning, shielded behind professional focus that suggested she knew exactly what she was doing and had no intention of revealing it prematurely.

The medical gown shifted with the motion, and he watched her eyes track the movement with the kind of focused attention that was definitely not purely clinical.

He reached for the gown's fastening. Paused. Met her gaze with deliberate intensity.

" Were you planning to remain there and watch me take this off?" he said, voice dropping into a lower register that he knew from experience had effects. "I don't typically require assistance undressing."

Her breath caught. Just slightly. Just enough that he felt it through the Force.

"I'm your doctor," she said, with a smug grin that suggested she was winning some internal battle he wasn't fully privy to. "I've seen your organs from inside out, my lord."

Right. Excellent point. Since there was probably no part of or in him that she knew better than he did himself, possibly including parts he'd been deliberately ignoring for decades or didn't know anything about in the first place. It was a weird idea that one could still maintain something like sexual interest in that situation.

She looked at him expectantly, as if she wanted to hurry him along.

Vader took his time. He undid the few hooks that held the medical gown in place and let it slide to the floor. Not rushing. Just standing there, letting her look, watching her reaction in return.

Her gaze travelled across his chest, mapping scars and muscle with what he generously characterized as medical assessment. Down, where she lasted a tick too long on his abdominal muscles. Lower still, with the kind of focused attention that had absolutely nothing to do with professional evaluation.

And there she was: staring.

Good.

Let her look. Let her understand exactly what she'd been thinking about in such explicit detail.

He knew himself that he was...well-endowed. When he'd been young, he'd taken a kind of pride in it. The stupid, uncomplicated pride of a teenage boy who'd discovered he had genetic advantages in certain departments and had assumed this mattered in the grand scheme of the universe. Which, given how his life had turned out, was possibly the most hilariously misplaced confidence in retrospect. Over the last twenty years, it had become completely meaningless. Hard to take pride in anything anatomical when your entire body had been reduced to a life-support emergency held together by spite and machinery. Now it seemed to be relevant again. Which was simultaneously gratifying and deeply absurd, that after everything, after decades of being nothing more than a killing machine, after all the death and destruction and catastrophic life choices, his cock apparently had opinions about his doctor and vice versa.  Which was why, at that moment, he was quite glad that Mustafar hadn't burned this part of his anatomy away. Scarred, yes, because apparently nothing about him was allowed to escape that volcanic nightmare without documentation, but functional. Still his.  And judging by the look in her eyes…she really didn't have a problem with his scars.

The sexual tension in the room had gone from simmering background radiation to something almost tangible. Thick. Heavy. Making the air feel charged with possibility.

Her professional composure was cracking at the edges. He could see it in the way her fingers had curled into fists at her sides, the acceleration of her breathing, the flush that had spread from her cheeks down her neck. Her thoughts through the Force were fragmentary but intense: appreciation, want, the desperate attempt to maintain professional distance while her body was making extremely unprofessional suggestions.

Vader reached for the clothes she'd brought, his movements unhurried, enjoying her reaction far more than was probably appropriate given his current situation.

The moment he started pulling on the clothes, the spell broke.

The pants were too short. Inexplicably short. They ended midway down his calves, giving him the appearance of someone recently rescued from a flood. The shirt was too tight across the shoulders, straining against muscle in a way that might have been uncomfortable if it weren’t so thoroughly ridiculous. And the final piece, a gray poncho-like thing with yellow stripes, shapeless and uncertain of its own purpose, draped over him with all the elegance of a tarp thrown over cargo.

He looked ridiculous. Absolutely, comprehensively ridiculous.

She was grinning. Actually grinning, with undisguised amusement lighting her eyes.

"I'm sorry," she said, not sounding sorry at all. "Clothing donations out of a container. We don't exactly have a wardrobe department sized for... well. You. This was the best I could find on short notice."

Vader stared at her, then down at himself, then back at her.

He had terrorized the galaxy for over two decades. He had commanded fleets. He had inspired fear in beings across countless star systems.

And now he was wearing flood pants and a grey tent with yellow stripes.

Apparently, he could always sink lower.

"You're enjoying this," he said flatly.

"Immensely," she agreed, still grinning. "Come on. Time to test those prosthetics properly. Let's see how you walk when you're not just circling your medical bay."

She turned toward the door, clearly expecting him to follow.

Vader looked down at his outfit one more time. Dignity was overrated anyway, he thought grimly, and followed her out into the corridor.

The corridor outside his medical bay was bright. Too bright, after weeks of contained medical lighting. He blinked against the sudden change, his prosthetics adjusting automatically to the shift in balance and movement as he stepped across the threshold.

The ship's main corridor stretched before them, bustling with activity: crew members moving between stations, droids gliding past with supply crates, the constant background hum of a functioning capital ship.

Several people did double-takes as he emerged. No one said anything. They just stared, openly and confused, as if they needed to completely recalibrate their understanding of reality. As they continued down the corridor, crew members universally discovered that elsewhere had become absolutely fascinating. Walls, data pads, maintenance panels, all suddenly requiring intense scrutiny.

"They're terrified of you," she observed mildly, like she was commenting on the weather rather than widespread psychological trauma.

"Good," he replied automatically, then reconsidered as another crew member nearly walked into a bulkhead while staring. "Though possibly the outfit is undermining that somewhat."

She laughed; actually laughed, the sound surprising and warm and doing things to his chest that had nothing to do with a possible cardiovascular problem.

She agreed. " Possibly. Though I have to say, you're pulling off the 'crisis couture' look better than expected."

"Crisis couture," he repeated flatly. "Is that what we're calling this catastrophe?"

"Fashion is subjective."

"Fashion is not this."

She looked him up and down with theatrical consideration, then smiled with obvious mischief. "Interesting critique from someone who spent two decades in the same outfit. Tell me, did that suit come with seasonal variations, or was 'menacing black' the only option in your wardrobe?"

He made a sound that might have been a scoff, or a laugh, buried too deep to admit to.
He countered. "It was efficient. Intimidation rarely requires colour coordination." He countered.

She walked beside him, matching his pace, her data pad in hand but her attention clearly on his gait and movement patterns.

"How does it feel?" she asked, professional voice firmly in place despite what had happened approximately two minutes ago. "The prosthetics, I mean. Walking on different terrain, different surfaces."

He focused on the sensations flowing through the neural interfaces. "The sensory feedback is more complex. Vibrations from the deck plates. Subtle variations in balance as the ship adjusts course."

He paused, processing. "It's more than I expected."

"Good…" she said, making notes on her pad. "That's exactly what we're aiming for. Your brain is relearning proprioception: spatial awareness, balance, the subtle feedback that tells you where your body is in space. The more you walk, the more those pathways strengthen."

They walked in comfortable silence for a while longer, passing through maintenance corridors and storage areas, his prosthetics adapting and adjusting with each step.

"How's the stamina? Any fatigue? Discomfort?" she asked eventually, professional assessment mixed with something that sounded suspiciously like casual interest.

He took inventory of his body's status. His legs were handling the movement well, better than expected, actually. The neural integration was becoming more intuitive with each step, requiring less conscious thought to coordinate and more automatic response. Like his nervous system was finally remembering that legs were supposed to work without requiring a tactical briefing for every movement.

"Surprisingly good," he admitted. "Though I suspect you'll tell me that's enough for today shortly."

"Maybe," she said, but she was smiling. That particular smile that suggested incoming commentary he should probably brace for. "Or maybe I just want to test Darth Vader's legendary stamina by myself." She gave him a cheeky grin from the side, and he snorted with amusement despite himself.

"Careful, Doc," he said, voice dropping into that lower register. "That sounds dangerously close to a challenge."

She looked entirely too pleased with herself. "I was just commenting on your recovery progress."

"Of course," he replied, grinning despite himself.

She led him in a different direction, deeper into the medical wings, still wearing that satisfied smile like she'd won something. And then the murals started appearing.

Cheerful, brightly coloured paintings on the walls. Simplified star systems rendered in pastels. Cartoon creatures engaged in adventures that probably made sense to their young artists. Hand-painted designs behind protective transparent seal, clearly children's artwork preserved with care.

No. Absolutely not.

Vader stopped walking.

She turned back, her expression carefully composed but her eyes carrying understanding. Knowing. As if she'd anticipated this exact reaction.

Of course she did. She planned this.

"Any Problem?" she asked, voice mild.

"I'm not going in there." The words came out flat, dropping into that old register he’d once used to end discussions with terminal finality. The one that had made Imperial officers pale and Jedi Masters prepare for combat.

It bounced off her like blaster fire off durasteel.

"Yes, you are." she said calmly.

"No." The Force rippled outward with the word, unconscious emphasis making nearby lights flicker. A passing crew member took one look at the scene and suddenly remembered urgent business elsewhere. "Find another route. Test my mobility somewhere else. Anywhere else."

"Vader-"

"No."

The word came out harder, sharper, carrying decades of refusal and the weight of crimes he couldn't face. His hands clenched into fists at his sides.

She didn't flinch. Didn't step back. Just stood there watching him with that infuriating calm that suggested she'd prepared for exactly this resistance.

"You owe me." she said quietly.

Vader stared at her, caught completely off-guard by the simple statement. "What?"

"You owe me." She repeated, stepping closer, her voice dropping but losing none of its determination. "I've neglected my other patients for weeks because of you. These children…" she gestured toward the entrance now visible ahead, "I've barely seen them. Barely had time to properly manage their care because I've been exclusively focused on your recovery."

"That's not-" he started, but she cut him off with a look.

"I'm not complaining. You needed that level of care. The medical complexity of your case required complete focus. But now?" She crossed her arms, settling into that stance he'd learned meant immovable determination. "Now you're stable enough for standard monitoring. Which means I can actually attend to my other responsibilities. Including these children who've been waiting patiently for me to have time for them again."

Vader processed that, his mind automatically cataloguing the argument's structure. She wasn't asking. Wasn't pleading. Was stating facts and making him face the reality of resources he'd consumed.

Clever. Very clever.

"Give me half an hour of walking through the paediatric ward while I check on my patients. That's all I'm asking. Surely you can manage that." she continued, her voice softening slightly.

"Why?" The question came out rougher than intended, confusion mixing with something uncomfortably close to fear. "What could you possibly hope to achieve by bringing me here?"

Her expression shifted, still determined but carrying something gentler underneath. Understanding, maybe. Or compassion for a man standing at a threshold he'd spent decades avoiding.

"The children need to see that extensive prosthetic augmentation doesn't mean helplessness," she said carefully. "You're walking. Functioning at a level that should be impossible for someone with four replaced limbs and the neurological damage you sustained. They need to see that it's possible. That their prosthetics don't define their limitations."

The realization should have felt insulting. Reductive. Being turned into a teaching tool for children's benefit. Instead, it felt complicated in ways Vader couldn't quite name. She was using him as an example. A demonstration. Living proof that extensive cybernetic replacement didn't mean the end of capability.

"Also, I need to clear up Jano's story. Apparently, the children have decided I'm trapped by an evil wizard who won't let me leave, and the dramatic speculation is getting out of hand." she added, and now her mouth was definitely curving with amusement.

Vader stared at her. "What?"

"My college Jano, you meet him: Dr. Reeves, he told them I was working with a 'cute boy's scary wizard father who has evil magic powers,'" she explained, fighting a smile. "They've constructed an entire narrative where I'm some kind of prisoner needing rescue. It's sweet but also making my job harder when they keep asking if I'm being held against my will and whether they should alert security."

He opened his mouth. Closed it.

"Evil wizard," he repeated flatly, his brain refusing to engage with the absurdity.

"With magic powers. Apparently, you're very evil and very magical and keeping me locked in a tower. The details get fuzzy after Toku'le started adding embellishments about dragons and Zombie soldiers." she explained.

He had been the Emperor’s fist for twenty years. Supreme Commander of the Imperial fleets. And somehow reduced to an evil wizard in a children's story. The universe had a remarkably cruel sense of humour.

"Half an hour," she repeated, her voice gentle now. "Just walk with me. Let them see you're not actually an evil wizard holding me captive. Let them see that someone with extensive prosthetic work can function normally. That's all."

Vader looked toward the ward entrance. The cheerful murals seemed to mock him, bright colours and simple joy completely at odds with the darkness of his history. Beyond those doors were children. Small. Fragile. Innocent in ways he'd destroyed.

You will forgive Lord Vader. He is sensitive on the topic of children.

Palpatine's voice echoed from years past, mocking and knowing. Sensitive because he'd thought his own child died. Had killed other children thinking it would somehow save his family. Had committed atrocities in the name of a future that crumbled to ash before it could begin.

How did anyone look at him and not see blood coating every surface of his hands?

Her hand touched his arm, gentle, grounding, pulling him back from the spiral threatening to drag him under. "I wouldn't ask if I didn't trust you." she said quietly, and the words carried more weight than they should.

Vader looked down at her hand on his arm, cybernetic fingers on cybernetic limb, technology meeting technology with perfect understanding. Her faith felt unearned. Undeserved. Dangerous in its implications.

She was asking him to trust himself. Which was significantly more than he was capable of.

" Half an hour. Then we leave."" he said finally, voice rough.

Her face transformed, relief and warmth and something else he didn't dare name. "Thank you."

She moved forward, her hand slipping from his arm to lead the way. Vader followed, each step feeling like walking toward execution.

The doors hissed open.

The paediatric cybernetics ward exploded across Vader's senses with overwhelming immediacy. Colours first, bright, aggressive, cheerfully defiant colour covering every available surface. Murals sprawled across walls in pastel star systems and cartoon droids engaged in adventures that bore no resemblance to actual warfare. The ceiling featured a painted galaxy of simplified constellations, each one labelled with names that were probably meant to be educational but came across as endearingly incorrect. Sound next; children's voices layered over each other in excited chatter. Laughter, high-pitched and genuine. Medical equipment beeping with routine monitoring. The gentle background hum of environmental systems trying their best to maintain comfortable temperature and air quality.Smell underneath it all, sharp antiseptic and bacta that stung his nostrils, underlaid with something sweet.. And something else, indefinable. Something young. The scent of children who hadn't yet learned that the galaxy was cruel and unforgiving.

And then…

"DOCTOR!"

The chorus struck him; loud, sudden, impossible to ignore. Small bodies launched themselves from beds and chairs with all consuming enthusiasm. Tiny hands grabbed at everything they could reach: her coat, her arms, her medical bag. She laughed, warm and genuine, distributing hugs with practiced efficiency. This was what she was like with them. Completely present. No professional distance. Just pure affection and care.

Vader stood frozen at the entrance, hyperaware of his size in this space clearly not designed for someone like him. The children were so small. Fragile in ways that made his cybernetic hands feel like weapons rather than tools. Most sported prosthetics, arms, legs, varying degrees of integration. Some moved with confidence, others with careful hesitation. All of them alive. Chattering. Happy, somehow, despite whatever trauma had landed them here.

She was surrounded now, small bodies pressing close, voices overlapping in excitement:

"Did you bring the new holo-game?"

"Can you check my arm? The shoulder joint keeps clicking weird."

"Zeek said you would never come back."

"Did NOT!" protested a voice from one of the beds. "I said Dr. Reeves said you were helping a super scary wizard!"

Vader watched her field questions with practiced ease; her entire demeanour transformed: Warm. Open. Completely focused on each child's needs with the kind of attention that suggested they were the only thing that mattered.

She was absurdly good at this. The children adored her. Leaned on her. And she cared for them in return; deeply, sincerely, beyond anything required by her job.

Then one of the children noticed him.

A small human boy, maybe six years old, sitting in a hoverchair with one new installed cybernetic leg. His eyes went huge, mouth dropping open in surprise.

"Whoa, you are BIG." the child exhaled, awestruck.

Silence rippled outward like concentric circles in water. More children turned to look. Vader braced himself for the inevitable terror; for recognition, for screams, for the kind of fear his presence usually inspired in anyone with functional survival instincts.

It didn't come.

The children stared at him with curiosity. Fascination. Like he was something interesting rather than something to flee from.

"He's REALLY big," another child observed with innocent bluntness.

"Look at his arms!" A Twi'lek girl pointed with unchildlike directness, her lekku twitching with interest. "Those are prosthetics! Like Doc's. They look super cool!"

"His LEGS prosthetic too!" someone else exclaimed with growing excitement.

"FOUR prosthetics total!" The announcement came from an older boy with obvious awe in his voice. "That's SO many! That's more than anyone! Even more than Kev'n has!"

"Kev'n only has three," another child confirmed. "This guy has FOUR. That's like, a record or something!"

Vader found himself staring at them, his mind completely unprepared for this reaction. They weren't afraid. They were impressed. Looking at his extensive augmentation not as evidence of damage or monstrosity. Children with prosthetics themselves. To them, he wasn't the emperor's enforcer. Just someone who also lost pieces and kept going.

"Are you the wizard Dr Reeves told us about?" asked a little girl with a cybernetic eye.

"He doesn't look like a wizard though," a small Rodian girl observed thoughtfully.

Several children nodded in agreement, apparently having developed strong opinions about wizard aesthetics based on limited data points.

Doc stepped forward, her hand coming to rest on Vader's arm in silent support.

"This is the patient I've been working with for the past few weeks. Remember how I explained I was helping someone with very extensive prosthetic integration?" she said carefully, choosing words with obvious deliberation.

Understanding dawned across multiple small faces.

"THAT'S why you haven't visited!" one of the older children exclaimed. "You weren't trapped by an evil wizard; you were just fixing him!"

"Dr. Reeves said the wizard was using dark magic to keep you prisoner," another child added, sounding almost disappointed by the mundane reality. "He said you needed rescuing. Are you SURE he's not secretly evil?"

Vader felt his mouth twitch despite himself. Being interrogated about evil wizard credentials by children who barely reached his waist.

Doc was fighting a smile, her professional composure cracking at the edges. "He's definitely not an evil wizard," she assured them. "Just a patient. A very complicated one, but still just a person who needed medical help, like you do."

"Why do they call you wizard then?" the girl with the cybernetic eye asked suspicious.

Vader crouched slowly, bringing himself closer to their eye level. The movement was smooth; prosthetics adjusting automatically, neural feedback absolutely perfect. The children leaned in immediately, no fear whatsoever at his proximity.

He reached out with the Force: gentle, careful, controlled with the kind of precision he usually reserved for delicate mechanical work. A small stuffed creature lifted from a nearby table, floating through the air with lazy spirals.

The children gasped in unison, pure delight written across their faces.

"He made it FLY!" one child shrieked. "Without even touching it!"

"MAGIC!" another exclaimed. "He really IS a wizard!"

"Not magic," Vader said, keeping his voice level and calm despite the surrealism. "The Force. It's an energy field that connects all living things. Some people can sense it, manipulate it, use it to affect the physical world without direct physical contact."

He made the toy orbit slowly between the children like a miniature moon, watching their fascinated expressions.

"Many people who don't understand it think it's magic," he explained carefully.

The children watched with rapt attention; several reaching out to try and touch the floating toy as it passed near them.

"Can you make OTHER things fly?" one asked eagerly.

"How many prosthetics do you have?" another chimed in.

"Why don't yours have synthetic skin like mine do?"

"Are your eyes real or cybernetic too?"

And then, from a tiny human girl who clearly had no concept of personal boundaries: "Is the doctor in love with you?"

Vader's brain stuttered to a complete halt.

Through the Force, he felt Doc's embarrassment spike like a solar flare, her face going impressively red even as she tried to maintain professional demeanour.

"Dr. Reeves said the cute boy liked her but that you stole her," another child added with helpful innocence. "He said she likes you better now because of your wizard powers making her fall in love."

"That is not how the Force works," he said, exhaling slowly. "It influences many things. Love, or rather: someone's feelings are not part of it. However… would you like to see what the Force does control? How many objects do you think I can lift at once?"

The distraction worked like a thermal detonator in a combat situation. Enthusiasm exploded through the ward as children started pointing at different objects, shouting requests, completely forgetting the previous line of devastatingly uncomfortable questioning.

So, Vader started making things float: stuffed bantas and toy ships, building blocks and holo-recordings. Even the medical supplies scattered across the station: scissors, stethoscopes, fabric bandages, handheld scanners, stools and waste bins lifted obediently into the air.  The children shrieked with delight, jumping and reaching and laughing with unrestrained joy that felt alien after decades of inspiring only terror.

When had he last used the Force like this? For entertainment. For happiness. Not violence or control or manipulation or killing, just play. To make someone laugh instead of scream.

A memory of Padmé stirred, warm and devastating. He forced it back into the depths where it belonged.

More children brought toys, each wanting their favourite included. Vader obliged, adding more objects until a small constellation of playthings and medical equipment drifted overhead like a miniature solar system. Some rotated slowly. Others swooped in gentle arcs. All moved with precision that kept them safely distant from collisions.

Absurd. Using abilities that once destroyed Jedi and toppled governments to entertain children with floating toys. But watching their faces, these pure joy, unrestrained wonder, complete trust that he wouldn't let anything fall wrong, twisted something in his chest. Something that hurt and felt warm simultaneously.

Making children happy instead of orphaning them. Happy. Because of him.

From the corner of his eye, Vader noticed movement at the ward entrance. Dr. Reeves stepping through and immediately freezing at the sight before him.

The other doctor's face cycled through expressions in rapid succession: shock, disbelief, concern, horror, and something that might have been impressed terror. His eyes widened as he took in the scene, then he moved quickly toward Doc, his stride carrying urgency. Vader focused just enough Force-attention to hear their whispered conversation while maintaining the floating toy constellation.

"Have you lost your MIND?" he hissed, quiet but desperate. "That's Darth Vader. DARTH VADER. In the children's ward. With actual children. What if he-"

Doc interrupted him, voice calm and certain in ways that made Vader's chest constrict. " Trust me. I wouldn't have brought him here if I didn't know exactly what would happen. Look at him."

Vader kept his attention apparently focused on the toys, making them swoop and dive in patterns that drew delighted gasps. But he was acutely aware of their scrutiny, of Dr. Reeves visible doubt warring with her absolute confidence.

"LOOK at him," she repeated, softer. "He's not going to hurt them. Watch how he's controlling everything. The precision. He's being more careful with those toys than most colleagues are with expensive equipment."

Some mocking inside joke that got past him. Jano did watch, his expression gradually shifting from terror to something like reluctant wonder.

She really had calculated this. She knew the children wouldn’t be afraid, unburdened by bias, driven only by curiosity. And somehow, she also knew that he wouldn’t do anything. Why would he? He had no reason to harm these children, none. But the amount of trust she placed in him, so easily, so naturally, was staggering. He doubted anyone else in the galaxy would trust him so blindly.

His attention was pulled away from that dangerous line of thought by Doc moving toward a bed in the corner, isolated from the main group, curtained partially for privacy.

A girl sat rigidly upright in the bed. Eight, maybe nine years old. Dark hair in neat braids adorned with colourful beads; someone's careful work, probably a medical droid judging by the precise symmetry.  She sat alone, staring at the wall with fierce determination that looked profoundly wrong on such a young face. Her presence in the Force was heavy. Grief and loss and pain radiating outward in waves that felt far too large for such a small body. Trauma screaming into the Force with intensity that made Vader's carefully maintained shields strain against the assault.

This one had lost someone. Someone important. Recently enough that the wound was still raw.

Doc settled beside her bed with practiced ease, pulling out diagnostic equipment.

He had seen her before, glimpses through the Force, surface images in Doc’s mind whenever she tried to distract herself by running through difficult cases. She occupied Doc’s thoughts more deeply, in a way that caught his attention. The problem child. The one not responding to standard treatment. The one who wouldn't walk despite perfectly functional prosthetics.

A medical droid wheeled forward eventually, the ward's resident unit based on how the children called out "Kozi!" in greeting. Its cheerful voice announced lunch time with the kind of upbeat tone that only droids could maintain indefinitely.

The children groaned in dramatic disappointment but dispersed toward their beds with theatrical reluctance. Vader lowered the floating toys carefully, setting each down with Force-assisted precision that ensured nothing broke or fell wrong. The last stuffed creature settled gently on its designated shelf just as the droid began distributing meal trays.

Vader approached Doc's position by the girl's bed. "Have I fulfilled my duty as entertainment coordinator?" The words came out dry but carrying a hint of something that might have been amusement.

Doc looked up, and her expression made his chest do complicated things. Warm. Genuinely warm. Pride and affection and something else mixing in ways that felt dangerous again. "You were amazing. Thank you for doing that." she said softly.

The warmth in her expression made his chest constrict. She was looking at him like he'd accomplished something worthy of praise. Like entertaining children with flying stuffed toys  somehow balanced the scales against the younglings he'd slaughtered in the Temple, the Jedi children he'd hunted across the galaxy, the countless families the Empire had destroyed while he stood by and enforced Palpatine's will with mechanical efficiency.

Gratitude. She was offering him gratitude for playing with survivors when he'd spent twenty years creating orphans.

The absurdity would be amusing if it weren't so painful.

The girl chose that moment to look up at him. The assessment in her brown eyes felt uncomfortably perceptive for someone so young, like she could see past the prosthetics and scars straight into the darkness underneath.

"Does it hurt?" she asked, nodding at his legs. "Aren’t you embarrassed they look so… obvious? So people can tell?"

The real question.

Vader lowered himself carefully onto the stool beside her bed, bringing himself to eye level with deliberate precision.  Through the Force, he could read the layers of her trauma like pages in a book: a building falling, her mother dying, the crushing weight, the moment when everything shattered. Physical pain mixing with emotional devastation mixing with survivor's guilt mixing with grief too large for a child's mind to process.

She watched her mother die. Felt her legs being destroyed. Living with both losses simultaneously.

"What's your name?" Vader asked gently, keeping his voice level.

"Mirae," she whispered. Then, with sudden directness: "What's yours?"

Darth Vader.

The name that inspired terror across the galaxy. The name that mothers used to frighten children into behaving. Couldn't exactly tell a child that.

His jaw clenched involuntarily. She was clearly old enough to have heard his name; old enough to recognize it, to understand at least some of what it meant. To know that Darth Vader was something to fear.

From his peripheral vision, he caught Doc's expression: knowing, amused, curious about how he'd navigate this particular trap.

Vader thought rapidly, turning options over with tactical assessment.

Then…Not idealb - definitely something he'd never expected to use again, but appropriate.

"My mother used to call me Ani." he said slowly, carefully.

Mirae's face transformed instantly: the first real grin she'd probably had in days. Amusement lighting her features with unexpected brightness.

"But that's a girls name!" she giggled, delighted.

Despite everything, Vader felt his mouth curve slightly. "It can be," he agreed. "Names are flexible that way. They mean different things to different people depending on context."

Something shifted in Mirae's expression. Pain flickered across her face, naked and raw.

"My mama used to call me Mi," she said quietly. Then, even quieter: "I miss her."

Vader glanced at Doc, who nodded slightly; silent confirmation that yes, this was the problem preventing recovery.

"I miss my mother sometimes too," Vader said, surprised to find the words genuine despite decades of trying to bury that particular pain. "Mothers are special. The best people in the galaxy, usually."

Mirae looked up at him with those too-old eyes, searching his scarred face for truth or comfort or understanding. "Did your mama die too?"

Vader swallowed against sudden tightness in his throat.  "Yes. She died in my arms when I was young. Older than you, but still young. And I still miss her sometimes. She was an incredible mother, and sometimes I'm still angry that she died, that the galaxy took her away before I was ready."  

Mirae was quiet for a long moment, small hands twisting the sheets into knots. "I saw my mama die," she whispered finally. "Pirates attacked our house. Destroyed everything. I couldn't do anything, and my legs got crushed and…"

Her voice broke. Vader felt the wave of grief through the Force: raw, overwhelming, absolutely devastating in its intensity.

"How do you deal with it?" Mirae asked desperately, tears threatening. "It hurts so much, and the legs feel wrong. Nothing feels right anymore. Everything's different and scary andI just want my mama back and I want to go home, but that’s impossible. And the legs don't work right even though the doctor says they're perfect. How do you just... walk around like it doesn't hurt? Like you don't care that your legs look so..." she gestured at his obviously mechanical prosthetics, "weird and scary?"

Weird and scary. Because his didn't have synthetic skin. Because they announced their artificial nature to anyone looking.

Vader leaned forward slightly, making sure she was looking at him, really hearing him.

"You learn to live with it," he said, keeping his voice honest and level. "You have to learn to live with it. There's no other choice, really. That's a hard truth, but it's truth nonetheless."

He paused, letting that sink in.

"Losing someone you love, losing your mother….The pain doesn't go away. But it's getting better. You learn to carry it. Learn to keep walking despite the weight. Because that's what mothers want: for their children to keep living, even when it's hard."

Mirae bit her lip, fighting tears.

"Think about what your mother would have wanted," Vader continued gently. "My mother wouldn't have wanted me to give up. Wouldn't have wanted to see me refuse to walk, refuse to live, refuse to keep going despite everything. That's how mothers are: they want the best for us, even when 'best' means doing things that feel impossible."

"You think mama would want me to walk again? Even if it hurts?" Mirae whispered.

He smiled. "I know she would. Because mothers want to see their children live. Really live, not just exist in pain and grief. The pain while walking is only temporary. It will disappear at some point. It will never feel quite like your real legs, but you will be able to walk normally without pain. Doc does an exceptional job with the prostheses."

Mirae's voice cracked slightly. "But it's so difficult. Everyone keeps saying I can do it, that it's not that bad, that the prosthetics work perfectly so I should just walk, but they don't understand-"

"It IS difficult," Vader interrupted firmly, and watched her eyes widen with surprise. "It's extremely difficult. Anyone who says otherwise hasn't lost both legs and doesn't know what they're talking about."

Of course it was hard. It was always hard. Whether you were five or forty-five, losing both legs at once and waking up with prosthetics was never something the body or the mind accepted easily.  Cybernetics might be extraordinary, even surpass natural limbs in function, but they could never truly replace the ones you’d lost.

"Don't be too hard on yourself," he continued. "I'm forty-five years old. I've had decades to adapt to prosthetics, to learn how to function with them, to accept them as part of myself. You're how old? Eight? Nine? You've had weeks, maybe months at most. That's not a fair comparison."

He gestured to his legs with their obvious mechanical nature. "My legs look weird because I choose not to hide them under synthetic skin. That's my preference. Yours are covered, which is equally valid. But neither of us is wrong for how we present our prosthetics to the world."

 Mirae was quiet for a moment, her gaze drifting from his legs upward. She tilted her head, studying his face with the kind of unfiltered curiosity only children possessed. "What happened to your skin?" she asked, her small hand reaching up to gesture vaguely at his face and head. "On your face. And here." She touched her own scalp.

Vader felt the question land with more weight than he'd expected. Not painful, exactly. Just... heavy. He knew that this was inevitable; children asked questions, and his appearance invited them. The rest of him had to decide how honest to be.

"After I lost my legs," he said, voice quiet but matter of fact, "I fell into lava. I burned."

The words hung in the air between them, stark and simple. No elaboration. No dramatization. Just the truth plain and steady. Mirae's eyes went very wide. Her mouth opened slightly, forming a small 'o' of shock and horror. She stared at him for several heartbeats, processing what he'd said with visible effort.

"Did it hurt?" she whispered finally, and there was something in her voice, genuine concern, the kind of empathy that hadn't been taught or forced but came naturally from a good heart confronting something terrible.

The question was absurd in its innocence. Did burning alive hurt? Yes, child, it exceeded every definition of pain the human nervous system was capable of processing. It had been agony distilled to its purest form, suffering made manifest, the kind of torment that should have killed him outright but instead prolonged itself with exquisite cruelty until-

"Yes," he said simply, cutting off that spiral before it gained momentum. "More than anything else."

Mirae's expression crumpled slightly, genuine distress crossing her young face. "I'm sorry," she said, and Force, she meant it. Actually, genuinely meant it, with all the uncomplicated sincerity an eight-year-old could muster.Sorry that it happened. Sorry he'd been hurt. Sorry the galaxy was cruel enough to do that to someone. Just... sorry.

Vader waved his hand dismissively, the gesture as much to deflect the unexpected warmth in his chest as to reassure her. "It was many, many years ago, and at some point: even I had to move on."  He paused, choosing his next words carefully. "Be patient with yourself. The grief doesn't disappear on a schedule. But keep trying, even when it hurt or feels impossible. Especially when it feels impossible. Because that's what your mother would want."

Mirae was quiet for a long moment, processing. Then her expression shifted, became almost mischievous, an echo of the child she'd been before trauma rewrote everything. "Can you make me fly? Like the toys?" she asked, voice small but hopeful.

Vader fought the immediate refusal, because he understood the actual desire behind the question. Through the Force he understood: She wanted to escape the dreadful immobility that had kept her tied to this bed for weeks. Wanted to feel weightless, wanted to escape gravity's constant reminder of her changed body, wanted just one moment where physical limitations didn't exist.

Doc moved closer, pulling a privacy curtain around the bed with practiced efficiency. "Once wouldn't hurt. I won't tell anyone. Medical discretion." she said quietly, meeting his gaze with perfect understanding.

He snorted in quiet amusement and reached out with the Force, gentle and deliberate.

Mirae gasped as she lifted from the bed, her eyes widening in astonished delight. The wonder on her face was almost painful to witness: joy and disbelief mingling as she floated weightlessly above the mattress.

"Try moving your legs," Vader suggested quietly. "In the air where there's no weight, no pressure. Just the motion of walking without gravity fighting you."

At first the movements were uneven, jerky; her body attempting to compensate for weight that wasn’t there, old balance-reflexes firing in anticipation of gravity that never came. But gradually the motions smoothed, the prosthetic legs responding to her neural commands with increasing precision. The neural pathways finally working as designed.

"Doctor!" Mirae called, looking toward Doc with absolute delight. "Look! It's working! The walking is working!"

Doc moved into position below, arms outstretched. "Try walking to me in the air. Just the motions. Let your body remember how." she encouraged warmly.

Her prosthetics responded perfectly now that fear and weight weren't factors. She made slow progress toward Doc, partly her own neural commands, partly his Force assistance compensating and guiding, but the fact that she was trying at all was monumentally significant. She reached Doc's hands and laughed - really laughed, full-bodied and genuine and completely different from the grief-stricken child of minutes before.  For a few minutes, they repeated the sequence: Doc stepped back a few meters, and Mirae floated toward her, walking through the weightlessness one careful step at a time until she reached Doc’s hands. Each time she made it, Mirae let out a delighted giggle, bright and weightless as the air holding her up.

Finally, Vader lowered her carefully back to the bed, monitoring her position through the Force to ensure perfect placement. No sudden weight return. Just gentle settling back into physical reality.

She immediately looked at Doc, eyes shining. "Did you see? It worked! The walking actually worked!"

"I saw," Doc said, her voice suspiciously warm and her eyes definitely too bright. "You did wonderfully, sweetheart."

Then Mirae looked at Vader with shy excitement. "Thank you… for making it work."

He huffed, low and amused. "You’ll still need to walk without my interference at some point."

She nodded. "I’ll try it. I promise."

Doc finished her final notes on Mirae's chart, making small adjustments to the calibration protocols based on what she'd observed during the Force-assisted walking. Vader watched her work with a level of focus that had become unsettlingly familiar, drawn to the unconscious grace of her cybernetic fingers moving across the datapad.

"We should go," Doc said eventually, glancing at the chrono display. "You've been on your feet longer than I have planned. Don't want to push the prosthetics too hard too fast."

Vader nodded, rising from the stool with careful precision. He turned toward the exit, already preparing for the return walk through the corridors and the inevitable questions Doc would ask about his experience with the children.

Small fingers caught the fabric of his poncho-tent.

Vader looked down.

Mirae had reached out from her bed, her small hand clutching the grey fabric with determination written across her face. Those suddenly a little bit brighter eyes carried something urgent, something she needed to say.

He crouched, bringing himself back to her eye level with the kind of automatic response that surprised him. "Yes?"

Mirae glanced toward where Doc was still occupied with her datapad, then leaned forward with the conspiratorial intensity only children could manage. Her voice dropped to a whisper, barely audible even at close range. "I think you ARE a wizard," she said seriously. "But not an evil one. A good wizard. Like in the old stories my mama used to tell me."

Vader felt his mouth curve despite himself. "Is that so?"

She nodded solemnly, her grip on his poncho tightening slightly. "But I won't tell anyone. Because sometimes good wizards need to be secret, so the bad people don't find them."

This child thought he was the hero of the story. Thought he needed protecting from 'bad people' rather than being the worst thing in the galaxy himself. The irony would be amusing if it weren't so painful.

"I appreciate your discretion," Vader said, managing to keep his voice level and serious despite the absurdity.

Mirae smiled, small but genuine, then her expression shifted into something more mischievous. Something that suggested she was about to say something she thought was very clever.  She glanced toward Doc to make sure she wasn't listening, then she whispered "Also I think the doctor really likes you. Like, REALLY likes you."

Vader's brain stuttered. "What?"

"You should kiss her," Mirae informed him with the absolute confidence of eight-year-old wisdom. " My mama always said that boys should never kiss girls without permission. But I'm pretty sure she'd be okay with it."

A child was giving him romantic advice. Wonderful. That was the stage of disgrace he had apparently reached.

"What makes you think she likes me?" Vader asked, genuine curiosity overriding his considerable discomfort with this entire line of conversation.

Mirae rolled her eyes with impressive drama. "The way she looks at you. Adults think kids don't notice, but we do. Duh. It's also pretty obvious that you like her too."

"That's... a very interesting observation," Vader managed finally, because what else could he say? Deny it? Explain that the situation was impossibly complicated? Tell an eight-year-old about professional boundaries and war crimes and the numerous reasons why her suggestion was catastrophically inappropriate?

"But don't do it here." Mirae added quickly, her expression becoming serious again. "The boys think kissing is gross. They'll make gagging sounds and ruin everything. You should do it somewhere private. When it's just you two."

Despite everything, Vader felt himself smile.  "I'll take that under advisement," he said, his voice carrying dry humour that made Mirae giggle softly.

"Promise you'll think about it?" she pressed.

"I promise I'll consider your suggestion seriously," Vader said, which was technically true. He'd certainly be thinking about this conversation for the foreseeable future, though probably not in the way Mirae intended.

She seemed satisfied with that answer, her grip on his poncho finally releasing.

He stood, nodding once to Mirae with the kind of formal acknowledgment he'd once given to respected officers. She nodded back, equally formal, like they'd just concluded important diplomatic negotiations.

Which, in a way, they had.

Doc was waiting by the exit, her datapad secured and her attention now focused on him with obvious curiosity. "Ready?"

"Yes," Vader said, moving toward her with careful neutrality, hyperaware that Mirae was watching them both with the kind of focused intensity that suggested she was looking for evidence supporting her theories. They left the paediatric ward, the doors hissing shut behind them and cutting off the cheerful chaos. The corridor outside felt impossibly quiet after an hour of children's voices and laughter.

She walked beside him in comfortable silence for approximately thirty seconds before her curiosity apparently overwhelmed her professional restraint.

"So," she said, her tone carrying studied casualness that didn't fool him for a moment, "was it as terrible as you were expecting? All the children are still alive. You appear to be alive. Seems like everything went reasonably well."

He considered several responses, ranging from sarcastic deflection to complete denial, before settling on raw honesty. "You brought me specifically because of the girl." he said. Not a question. An observation that should have been obvious from the moment Doc had steered him toward that particular bed with deliberate purpose.

"I did," she confirmed without hesitation. "We've tried pretty much every conventional therapy and approach with her. Nothing's worked. She won't engage with the prosthetics team, won't participate in physical therapy, barely speaks to anyone." She paused, then added with characteristic pragmatism, "I thought it couldn't hurt for her to see someone who also has no legs, who clearly suffered visible trauma, and who's walking around without apparent difficulty."

Vader snorted. "It's not the same. I'm not eight years old. I didn't watch my mother die while my legs were being crushed. "

"No," Doc agreed, her voice quiet. She was silent for a moment, then continued. "But sometimes it can help to see that other people, adults, in this case, are also confronted with very terrible things, and that it's entirely possible to keep going. To function. To find ways to exist beyond the trauma instead of being defined exclusively by it."

Which was either profound insight into therapeutic methodology or a dangerously optimistic assessment of his current status as a functional human being. Possibly both. He'd spent decades being defined exclusively by his trauma, had built an entire identity around it, had let Palpatine weaponize his pain into something useful for the Empire. The idea that he represented evidence of successfully existing beyond trauma was almost funny given that he'd spent twenty-three years doing the exact opposite.

Though he supposed he was walking now. Was here, in this corridor, having spent an hour with children without terrifying them or destroying anything. Was apparently capable of being kind to a traumatized girl instead of just being the walking embodiment of everyone's worst nightmares. Progress, of a sort.

They walked in silence for another moment. When they arrived at his room, Doc stopped, turning to face him with an expression that made something in his chest constrict again.Her eyes glowed with an emotion too honest to hide. It wasn’t professional pride. It wasn’t clinical satisfaction. It was something personal, warm, touched by a tenderness that startled him.

"Thank you," she said, and the sincerity in her voice made that constriction in his chest intensify into something that felt suspiciously like a lump in his throat.

Which was absurd. He didn't get emotional about gratitude. Didn't have that kind of response to someone looking at him with appreciation and warmth and what his Force senses were insisting was genuine affection. Except apparently, he did now, because his throat felt tight and his chest ached and he couldn't quite figure out how to respond appropriately to being thanked for something that had ultimately cost him nothing except an hour of discomfort and the complete destruction of his reputation.

"You're welcome," he managed, voice rougher than intended.

She smiled at that, a real smile, the kind that reached her eyes and made her entire face transform into something that did extremely dangerous things to his already compromised emotional state, and said, "Get some rest. I'll see you tomorrow."

Then she turned and walked away, leaving him standing outside his room trying to process the last hour of events.

He entered his room, the door hissing shut behind him and found himself thinking about the girl's advice. You should kiss her.

Well.
It wasn’t as though he hadn’t been thinking about it for weeks. About that and things far beyond that, none of which were appropriate for innocent eyes or ears. But what held him now was the girl’s certainty.
The way she looks at you…

He thought back to her gaze only moments ago and felt a grin tug at his mouth before he could stop it.

Seen through by a child. Emotionally and mentally disarmed by a woman.

Can you sink any lower?

Or climb higher?

He still didn't know the answer.

But for the first time in decades, he was genuinely curious to find out.

One week later…

The rehabilitation had progressed better than you'd dared hope. His gait was almost natural now, the slight mechanical precision that marked cybernetic movement barely noticeable unless you were specifically watching for it. His proprioceptive feedback was excellent. His neural integration readings showed optimal function across all four prosthetic limbs.

Medically speaking, he was a triumph. A case study that would revolutionize cybernetic medicine if you could ever publish it, which you absolutely couldn't because patient confidentiality was sacred even when your patient happened to be Darth Vader. And because the Force had clearly played a significant part in his recovery, which was… not exactly something you could cite in a peer-reviewed journal.

Still, professionally speaking, he was your greatest success.

Professionally, he's recovered. Everything else is just training and practice now. Rehabilitation he can handle on his own once he's settled on Chandrila.

Which means you're running out of legitimate medical reasons to see him daily.

The Redemption had set course for Chandrila two days ago. The new political district was nearly complete, a sprawling complex where the fledgling New Republic would establish its governmental center. Luke had secured accommodations for himself and his father in adjacent quarters, close enough for supervision but with enough separation to maintain some illusion of independence.

House arrest, they were calling it. A compromise between execution and freedom that satisfied no one but allowed everyone to pretend they'd achieved something resembling justice.

Soon Vader would leave the ship. Would move into that apartment under Luke's watchful protection. Would begin whatever life existed for reformed Imperials in a galaxy still cataloguing the damage they'd caused. And you would return to your regular medical duties. Continue treating the endless stream of patients who needed cybernetic repairs and rehabilitation. Resume the professional life you'd built before one patient had complicated everything.

As always, you followed the habitual path; the route to his quarters had become etched into your nervous system through sheer repetition. The door slid open with its familiar hiss. You stepped inside.

And froze.

Apparently, Luke had finally brought the clothes Vader had immediately ordered after your impromptu trip to the children's ward. The simple black shirt and pants fit him like they'd been tailored specifically to destroy your professional composure. The shirt draped across his shoulders in a way that somehow made his already imposing frame look even more…

Do not finish that thought.

He was sprawled on his bed with the kind of elegant boredom that should've been illegal, one leg bent, the other stretched out, reading something on a holopad. The black fabric shifted with his breathing, and your traitorous mind catalogued exactly how the material pulled across his chest, the way it outlined the muscular architecture.

This was worse than the quite revealing hospital gown. Because clothes implied… normalcy. A future beyond medical procedures and rehabilitation protocols. A man who might exist outside the context of your professional obligation to keep him alive.

He glanced up, and you watched his expression shift; brief surprise at your unannounced entrance, then something calculating as he registered whatever was showing on your face.

Say something. Literally anything.

His eyebrow rose fractionally. Waiting.

Right. Words. You knew words.

"Come with me," you managed, and congratulated yourself on sounding almost professional despite the minor catastrophe occurring in your autonomic nervous system.

His head tilted slightly, that predatory curiosity you'd learned to recognize. "Where?"

The corridor was quiet at this hour. Most of the ship's personnel were either on duty or asleep, following the rotating shifts that kept the ship functioning smoothly. You'd checked the command deck schedule three times, confirming what Jano had mentioned in passing:

Captain Ravik's wife had given birth two days ago. He was celebrating with his crew tonight, a small gathering in one of the observation lounges that had pulled several key personnel off their usual stations. The command deck would be running on droid autopilot and minimal crew for the next few hours.

Not that you expected to pass anyone. You'd timed this carefully.

Despite his size, he followed you almost silently, like an oversized shadow.  His voice carried quiet amusement. "Why are we actually skulking through the corridors like criminals?"

"Shh!" You grabbed his arm, noting with some satisfaction that he didn't even flinch at the contact anymore, and pulled him along. "I don't want anyone seeing us."

"Why?" He allowed himself to be pulled, his tone suggesting he was enjoying your conspiratorial urgency. "Are we doing something we shouldn't?"

Yes. Absolutely yes. This entire plan is catastrophically unprofessional and you're going to do it anyway because apparently, you've completely abandoned every ethical guideline that used to matter.

You shot him a look. "Just trust me. And be quiet."

His mouth twitched in that almost-smile that you'd learned meant he was entertained by your antics but too disciplined to laugh outright. You arrived at the command deck access point, the heavy double doors looming like the sealed heart of the ship.  The deck was restricted to senior officers and essential personnel only.

Good thing you counted as essential personnel.

Your medical clearance card slid through the reader with a soft beep. The door hissed open.

And your breath caught.

The command deck observation window stretched across the entire forward section, massive transparisteel panels that offered an unobstructed view of the hyperspace tunnel beyond. Millions of stars streaked past in elongated ribbons of light, blue-white corridors of distorted spacetime that seemed to flow like liquid illumination.

The hyperspace jump.

Always beautiful. Never gets old no matter how many times you see it.

Whatever Vader had been about to say died in his throat.

You heard it: the sharp intake of breath, the complete stillness as his attention fixed entirely on the view before him. His eyes reflected the streaming light, pale irises catching and refracting the blue-white glow until they seemed almost luminous. He moved forward like someone in a trance, drawn to the observation window by something beyond conscious thought. His hand rose slowly, fingers splaying against the transparisteel as if he could touch the light streaming past.

"We're jumping to Chandrila, our final destination." you said softly, moving to stand beside him.

What you don't say: that you're terrified. That this represents goodbye. That once you reach Chandrila, there's no legitimate medical reason to see him anymore. That house arrest under Luke's supervision means you won't have access. That whatever this is, it ends when the ship docks.

"I love hyperspace jumps. The lights always calm me. Make me feel... insignificant. In a good way. Like whatever stress I'm carrying is meaningless compared to the enormity of the universe." you continued, your voice barely above a whisper.

Small. Temporary. Just one flickering light among millions.

You turned to look at him, studying his profile in the blue-white glow. "Piett mentioned you used to watch hyperspace jumps. Back on the Executor. I thought you might enjoy seeing it again without the red lenses. With your own eyes."

What you don't say: maybe for the last time. Maybe before house arrest becomes something more permanent. Maybe before a tribunal decides that redemption isn't enough and execution is the only justice the galaxy will accept.

You swallowed hard against the thought.

"It's beautiful." Vader said quietly, and there was something in his voice; awe, maybe, or the particular kind of emotion that came from experiencing something simple after years of deprivation. "I'd forgotten... No. That's not accurate. I never forgot. But remembering and experiencing are different things."

His gaze remained fixed on the streaming light, mesmerized.

"The hyperspace jump always gave me a sense of... inconsequence," he continued, his tone carrying unusual contemplation. "That everything we do, all the decisions, the battles, the suffering, it's all ultimately meaningless in the context of the universe's enormity. We're just small, flickering lights in an infinite expanse. Here one moment, gone the next, and the universe continues without noticing."

You took off your medical coat, the white jacket that marked you as Chief Cybernetics Specialist, authorized to treat Darth Vader, and dropped it onto a nearby chair.

"The majority of your medical procedures are complete," you said, and your voice came out steadier than you felt. Professional. Clinical. "Everything else is just rehabilitation and training. That depends on you now, not on medical intervention."

Technically a lie. The fine sensory receptors for temperature and texture discrimination still had to be installed in a few weeks. But that was minor, elective, really. Nothing essential to baseline function. You stood behind him, your heartbeat slamming against your ribs with enough force to qualify as its own medical concern.

"I signed your discharge papers this morning," you said quietly.

He turned then, his eyes leaving the display to focus on you with sudden intensity.

You managed a crooked smile despite the nervousness currently trying to strangle you. "Which means technically…” Your voice dropped lower. "I’m not your doctor anymore."

Not entirely accurate. You're still responsible for follow-up care, still his primary physician until official transfer of care occurs. But it's close enough to truth for the purposes of maintaining your moral integrity.

Or what's left of it.

You moved closer, slow steps that felt both inevitable and terrifying. The hyperspace light washed over both of you, blue-white illumination that made the moment feel suspended outside normal time.

"What do you think?" you asked, and your voice came out barely audible even in the quiet observation deck. You nodded toward the streaming light beyond the transparisteel, toward the cosmic display that had drawn him forward.

But his eyes never left yours.

"It's the most stunning sight I've seen in decades." he said quietly.

Oh.

The silence stretched between you, charged with weeks of carefully maintained distance, of professional boundaries that had been crumbling incrementally with every interaction, every moment of unexpected understanding, every time his eyes had lingered on you just a fraction too long.

 His voice was low, rough. "Doc. We should talk about this."

You blinked at him, then couldn't help the laugh that escaped. "I never thought Darth Vader would be the type to want to talk things through in a situation like this."

A soft huff of amusement rumbled through his chest. "I wouldn't. Normally." His eyes held yours, and something in his expression shifted. "But this is hardly a normal situation, is it?"

No. No, it absolutely wasn't.

"My son-"

"I told Luke weeks ago that I'm not interested in him," you interrupted, keeping your voice gentle but firm. The last thing you needed was this complicated by Luke's feelings.

"That doesn’t change the fact that the lack of reciprocity is only on your side." His gaze remained steady on yours. "And besides... outside of my son, I don't have much left to lose. But have you actually thought about the consequences for you?"

The laugh that escaped you was somewhere between amusement and disbelief, and you shook your head. "I've thought about nothing but the consequences for weeks."

His tone carried a slight edge of dismissiveness "I don't mean the medical ethics. Those codes are… irrelevant to me. I mean what it could mean for you. Professionally. Personally. Politically." He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was quieter, more dangerous. "Getting involved with Darth Vader."

You knew exactly what he meant: If this came to light… the fallout would be nuclear. Mon Mothma’s warning flickered through your mind; her calm voice, her eyes saying far more than her words ever did. And Leia’s expression when she had walked into his room… alarm, confusion, a hint of something bordering on betrayal.

And that would just be the beginning. The easy reactions.

"And?" His voice cut through your spiralling thoughts.

You looked back at him, meeting those pale eyes that had seen too much darkness and were now watching you with an intensity that made your pulse skip.

"And I don't care," you said quietly. "I want this. I want…"

You. I want you. Despite everything. Because of everything. For reasons I can't entirely articulate but feel in every cell of my body.

"I want you." you finished, and the words hung in the air between you; confession and invitation and permission all compressed into three syllables.

His eyes darkened, pupils dilating in the dim light until the pale irises nearly disappeared. For a heartbeat, neither of you moved. The air between you seemed to thicken, charged with something electric and inevitable.

Then he stepped forward-

No hesitation.

No restraint left to pretend with.

His hand slid to the back of your neck, warm and steady, guiding you toward him with a certainty that unravelled every defence you’d ever built. His forehead brushed yours for a single suspended heartbeat - and then his mouth crashed into yours with a hunger that stole your breath and your entire world detonated. Every nerve ending in your body fired at once. Weeks of tension, of careful distance and professional boundaries and desperate restraint, combusting in a single moment of contact that rewired your understanding of what a kiss could be.

His lips were softer than you'd expected. Warm. Moving against yours with the kind of restrained intensity that suggested he was holding himself back, maintaining control even as everything between you threatened to spiral beyond it. You made a sound, something between a whimper and a demand and deepened the kiss, your tongue sliding against his lower lip in explicit invitation.

He responded instantly. The restraint shattered.

His mouth opened against yours and suddenly the kiss transformed into something desperate and consuming. His tongue met yours with skilled precision, sliding, exploring, claiming with the kind of confidence that sent liquid heat flooding through your system.

Your hands moved without conscious direction, sliding up over his chest, over the hard muscle beneath the shirt, tracing upward over shoulders so broad they blocked out the hyperspace light behind him. He was massive. All controlled strength and restrained power.

His hands gripped your hips, firm, possessive, fingers digging in just enough to make you gasp into the kiss. Then they slid lower, curving around to cup your ass with the kind of bold certainty that suggested he knew exactly what he wanted and was done pretending otherwise.

He pulled you against him eliminating every molecule of space between your bodies.

And you felt him.

Oh fuck.

All of him. Every impressive, rigid inch pressed against your stomach through layers of clothing that were suddenly far too many.

You moaned into his mouth, couldn't help it, couldn't control the sound that tore from your throat as your body pressed against his and your nervous system flooded with so much dopamine and oxytocin that you were probably causing permanent neurological changes.

Good. Let them be permanent. Let this rewire your brain because this…this is exquisite.

The kiss turned savage.

His tongue dominated yours, claiming your mouth with the kind of intensity that made your knees weak. One of his hands left your ass and slid up your back, fisting in your hair with enough pressure to tilt your head back, to give him better access, to control the angle of the kiss with devastating precision.

Yes. Force yes. More…

Your hands were everywhere, sliding over his shoulders, down his chest, exploring the ridges of muscle through his shirt while your brain catalogued every detail for later analysis when you weren't drowning in sensation.

Not enough. Need more.

Your body arched against his, seeking friction, seeking relief from the pressure building between your legs. He groaned, deep and guttural, the sound vibrated through your chest and went straight to your core. You could feel it, his control fracturing, the careful restraint he'd been maintaining crumbling under the weight of weeks of tension finally finding outlet.

His hand slid from your hair down your throat, gentle despite the desperation, tracing your collarbone through your shirt.

Close. So close to where you wanted him.

You broke the kiss, gasping for air your oxygen-deprived brain desperately needed, and captured his wrist. Your eyes met his, pupils blown so wide the pale irises had nearly disappeared, and you saw your own desperate need reflected back. Then you guided his hand. Deliberately. Explicitly. Leaving absolutely no room for misunderstanding when pressing his palm against your breast.

"Please," you heard yourself whisper, and your voice was wrecked, desperate, carrying none of the professional composure you'd maintained for weeks. "I want-"

Everything. You. All of you. Right here against the observation window with hyperspace streaking past and consequences that can be dealt with later.

His mouth crashed back against yours, claiming, devouring, swallowing the rest of whatever you'd been about to say. His hand on your breast moved with devastating certainty, thumb finding your nipple through the fabric and circling with exactly the right pressure to make you gasp and arch into the touch. Well... Good thing not wearing a bra wasn't a wasted decision.

Your own hands fumbled with his shirt, seeking skin, seeking contact that was more than fabric barriers and desperate restraint.

His other hand, still gripping your ass, pulled you tighter, grinding against you with enough pressure to make stars explode behind your closed eyelids. You were drowning in sensation; his mouth on yours, his hand on your breast, his body pressed against yours with enough evidence of his own arousal to make rational thought impossible.

You didn't just want him, you needed him.  Right here. Right now. You didn't care who might see. Didn't care what the consequences might be...

Your hand found the hem of his shirt, slid underneath, made contact with bare skin. His muscles flexed under your touch, his breath hitching as your fingers traced upward over his stomach -impressive definition, stars - heading toward his chest.

You could feel it, his control hanging by threads. The desperate need matching your own. The barely restrained hunger that weeks of professional distance had only intensified.

More. You want more. Want everything. Want him out of this shirt and you out of yours and-

Your hand slid higher on his chest, while your other hand fiddled with his waistband.

The door hissed open and reality crashed back like a physical blow.

You jerked apart, stumbling backward, your body screaming protest at the loss of contact, your brain struggling to shift from overwhelming arousal back to anything resembling coherent thought.

Jano stood in the doorway.

His expression cycled through shock, recognition, horror, and finally settled on apologetic mortification that would have been funny under literally any other circumstances.

"I-" He froze, colour draining from his face so fast it looked medically concerning. "Kriff. Sorry. I'm so sorry. I've been trying to reach you on your comm for over an hour. CX-3 pinged the bridge and said you were here."

Your comm. Right. The device you had deliberately silenced and abandoned because you knew interruptions would ruin…well, this.

Your entire body was still vibrating with frustrated arousal. You could feel your heart hammering at dangerous tachycardic rates. Your lips felt swollen. Your nipples were still hard enough to be visible through your shirt, and you were extremely aware that Jano could probably see exactly how affected you were.

"What?" The word came out sharper than intended, breathless and definitely revealing exactly what you'd been doing before the interruption. "What's wrong?"

Jano's expression shifted instantly into professional concern; the doctor overriding the friend who'd just walked in on something spectacularly inappropriate.

"It's Mirae," he said, and you heard the urgency underneath. "Her prosthetic's neural feedback, something's wrong. She's in pain. Screaming. Won't let anyone touch her. I've tried everything I can think of but…"

Professional instinct overrode everything else: the arousal, the frustration, the desperate wish that this moment could have continued without interruption.

"I'm coming." you said, already moving toward the door. You grabbed your medical coat from the chair where you'd abandoned it, shrugging it back on while your brain shifted from whatever the hell you'd just been doing back into doctor mode. "Where is she?"

"Medical bay three." Jano's expression carried apology. "I really am sorry for-" He glanced at Vader, then back to you. "for interrupting. But she's really-"

"I know. It's fine. You did the right thing."

You turned back to Vader, who was standing absolutely still, his expression carefully controlled but his eyes carrying heat that suggested the interruption was as unwelcome for him as it was for you.

"I have to-" You gestured helplessly.

His voice was rough. "I know. Go. I can find the way back on my own."

You nodded once and followed Jano out of the observation deck, leaving Vader alone with the hyperspace light and the ghost of what had almost happened.

The door hissed shut behind you.

Jano kept pace beside you as you moved rapidly through the corridors, his expression carefully neutral but carrying enough subtext to write a dissertation.

"So," he said finally. "That was-"

"Not now." You cut him off, pulling up Mirae's medical file on your datapad while you walked. "Tell me about her symptoms. When did they start? What's the pain pattern? Did you check the interface connections?"

But even as you shifted into doctor mode, even as you focused on the medical crisis ahead, you could still feel it. The ghost of his mouth on yours. The pressure of his hands on your body. The searing, desperate heat that had swallowed the world whole.

A helpless grin pulled at your mouth

Worth it. Whatever happens next, whatever consequences come from that kiss.

It was absolutely worth it

The door hissed shut behind him, and the sound reverberated through the corridor like a punctuation mark on something that shouldn't have been opened in the first place. Vader moved through the dim passageway with measured steps, each one requiring conscious effort to maintain the controlled pace. His body betrayed him with every movement: muscles still taut with unspent tension, pulse elevated beyond what exertion alone could explain, every nerve ending hyperaware.

The taste of her still lingered on his lips.

Vader rounded the corner toward his quarters, his mind still caught in the sensory loop of her body against his, her taste, the breathy sounds she'd made. The sensation of her breast beneath his palm seemed burned into his neural pathways, impossible to ignore or forget.

Two guards stood outside his door in their standard parade rest, though they straightened slightly as he approached. The one on the left shifted his weight and spoke as Vader came within a few meters.

"So, how's the 'physiotherapy' going, my lord?"

The words were delivered with just enough false deference to make the mockery clear, his expression holding a smirk that suggested he thought himself clever. "We've noticed the doctor been real dedicated to your case. Spending all that extra time." His tone took on an edge of crude speculation. "Gotta say, I'd volunteer for that treatment plan myself. Hell, I'd give up a finger for it. Maybe a couple toes. That a damn hot little minx. I bet she's got a bloody tight grip, both with her mechanical arm and her-"

He never finished the sentence.

One moment he was speaking. The next, invisible force slammed him backward into the durasteel wall with enough impact to dent the plating. The metallic clang echoed through the corridor as his feet left the floor, his back pressed flat against the wall.

Vader hadn't made a conscious decision to reach out with the Force; the action was pure reflex, as automatic as flinching from flame. His hand had risen in the gesture before his mind had even processed the movement, fingers curling as rage flooded through him white-hot and immediate.

The other guard fumbled for his blaster, bringing it up with shaking hands. "St…Stand down!"

But Vader barely registered the words or the weapon. His focus had narrowed to the guard pinned against the wall, to the words still echoing in the air between them, to the way this insignificant speck of a man had dared to speak of her like that.

His head was bleeding, a thin line of red trailing down his temple where his skull had clearly hit the wall too hard. His face had gone scarlet, hands clawing at empty air as he tried to grasp the invisible force crushing his throat. But there was nothing to grab. Just pressure, invisible and inexorable, holding him suspended half a meter off the deck plating.

It would be so easy. A simple little motion. Crack. His neck would break with ease, and his foul mouth would never utter such obscenities again.

The thought crystallized with sudden, shocking clarity: he'd been about to kill this man.

Not threaten. Not intimidate. Kill.

For crude words.

The realization cut through his rage. Vader looked at his raised hand, at the guard suspended against the wall, at the other guard with his blaster trained and shaking, at the corridor that had suddenly become a tableau of violence about to escalate, and saw it clearly.

This was the edge. This narrow path he'd been walking since the emperor's death, trying to find balance between what he'd been and what Luke believed he could become. And it was so kriffing narrow. One crude comment and he'd reacted with lethal force, his body moving before his mind could intervene. One moment of offensive words and every shred of control had evaporated like vapor into vacuum.

He wanted her. Wanted her with a vehemence that surprised even him, an intensity that had bypassed two decades of carefully cultivated emotional suppression and hit something primal he'd thought Mustafar had burned away. The memory of her taste, her sounds, the way she'd responded to his touch consumed him. Made him dangerous in ways that had nothing to do with the Force and everything to do with base possessiveness.

Luke vouched for you. With his life. He put his entire reputation, his standing with the Alliance, his future, everything on the line for you.

Leia's voice cut through the moment with the precision of a surgical blade. Her words from their last confrontation, delivered with barely controlled fury.

I sincerely hope that you appreciate what he's done. That you understand the magnitude of what he's risking. And that you conduct yourself accordingly.

Luke. Who believed in redemption with absolute certainty. Who had stood before Alliance leadership and staked his credibility on the possibility that Darth Vader could be something other than the monster everyone knew him to be. Who had looked at his father and somehow still seen someone worth saving.

And Vader had been seconds away from proving his son catastrophically wrong.

The Force-grip released.

The guard hit the deck with a graceless thud, collapsing into a breathless spasm.
His hands flew to his ribs immediately, a broken sound escaping him, confirmation enough that something inside had cracked.

The other guard kept his blaster raised, barrel tracking Vader's movements with the hypervigilant terror of prey watching a predator. His finger was white-knuckled on the trigger, though they both knew it wouldn't matter if Vader decided to finish what he'd started. Given the dent in the durasteel behind him, it could have been far worse.

Vader looked at them both and felt nothing. No satisfaction. No remorse. Just the cold recognition of how close he'd come to crossing a line that couldn't be uncrossed. He walked past them without a word. The door slid open.

Behind him, he heard the guard's shaky breathing, the scrape of boots on deck plating as the other guard moved to help him. Then, barely audible but not quite quiet enough:

"...fucking monster..."

The word followed him through the closing door like a ghost.

Vader stood motionless in the center of the room, surrounded by white walls and medical furniture. The taste of her still lingered on his lips.

That fact should have been insignificant compared to what had just happened in the corridor. Should have been overshadowed by the recognition of how close he'd come to killing a man for words. Should have been buried beneath the weight of nearly disappointing his son after everything Luke had risked for him.

But it persisted. Stubborn. Undeniable.

He could still feel the ghost of her body against his, still recall the exact pressure of her fingers, still hear the breathless sound she'd made when his thumb had circled her nipple. The memory played on loop in his mind with perfect clarity, immune to logic or consequence or the recognition that indulging in it was dangerous.

Dangerous.

That was the word, wasn't it? Not the memory itself but what it revealed about him; about the intensity of his want, about how thoroughly she'd compromised his control, about the narrow edge he was walking between what he'd been and what Luke hoped he could become.

One crude comment and he'd nearly killed a man. That's how narrow the path was. That's how close to the darkness he still walked. The Force itself had responded to his rage before conscious thought could intervene, acting on instinct and possessiveness and something primal he didn't have a name for.

Tomorrow he would have to think about how to handle it.

Tomorrow.

But tonight…tonight he stood in the darkness of his quarters with his palm pressed against cool transparisteel, surrounded by the ghost of her taste and the memory of how close he'd come to crossing a line that couldn't be uncrossed.

Tonight he let himself feel the full weight of walking that narrow edge, of the control it required, of the vehemence of his want that threatened to undermine everything Luke believed he could become.

Monster, they called him.

And in the corridor just moments ago, they'd been right.

But Force help him, even knowing that, even recognizing how dangerous he still was, how narrow the path, how close to darkness, he could still feel the phantom sensation of her against him.

And the want didn't diminish.

If anything, it had only intensified.

And in the darkness, Vader stood alone with his memories and his restraint and the persistent, undeniable knowledge that the path Luke believed he could walk was so much narrower than either of them had realized.

The next morning found you in spectacularly good spirits.

Which, considering you'd spent three hours last night dealing with a screaming eight-year-old's neural feedback malfunction and hadn't gotten to sleep until well past 0500, was remarkable. By all rights you should be exhausted, irritable, running on stimulants and spite like every other overworked doctor on this ship.

Instead, you were practically bouncing through the corridors with enough energy to make the junior medical staff give you concerned looks.

The Redemption's corridors hummed with controlled chaos this morning. The ship had achieved orbit around Chandrila sometime during the night, probably while you were elbow-deep in Mirae's prosthetic interface trying to locate the feedback loop that was causing her agony, and now personnel were everywhere, moving supplies, coordinating transport schedules, managing the massive logistical undertaking of transferring thousands of people from ship to planet.

You weren't among those being transferred. Not yet. The medical staff would remain aboard the Redemption until a proper facility could be established on Chandrila. Which meant you'd be staying here. In orbit. Away from wherever Vader was being housed under Luke's supervision.

Someone called your name.

You turned to find Jano practically sprinting down the corridor toward you, his expression carrying the kind of manic excitement usually reserved for major medical breakthroughs or really good gossip.

Probably gossip. Definitely gossip, judging by the gleam in his eyes.

He grabbed your arm hauled you toward your office with enough force to make you stumble.

"Jano, what the-"

"Not here," he hissed, shooting meaningful glances at the nurses' station where three staff members were absolutely pretending not to watch this interaction while obviously cataloguing every detail for later discussion. "Office. Now."

He dragged you into your office and hit the door control with enough force to suggest violence against inanimate objects. The door hissed shut, sealing you both in the cramped room.

"Okay, what-" you started.

Jano turned to face you, and the expression on his face was…what? Shock? Excitement? Religious ecstasy?

"What happened?" you asked, genuine concern creeping into your voice now because Jano looked like he was about to vibrate out of his skin. "Jano, are you okay? Did something-"

He held up his datapad.

Just held it up. Wordless. His hand actually trembling slightly.

You stared at him.

He stared back, eyes wide, expression communicating just take the fucking pad and look at it.

He shook the pad at you with increasing urgency.

You took it, doubts multiplying with every second of this increasingly bizarre interaction. "If this is some joke, I swear I will-"

The words died in your throat.

You were looking at bank statements. The medical station's accounts. Multiple screens of financial data that you recognized from the monthly budget reviews you were supposed to pay attention to and usually ignored because accounting made your brain want to shut down in self-defence.

But you couldn't ignore this.

Because there, right at the top of the transaction history, timestamped from early this morning….was a transfer.

ANONYMOUS DONATION: 250,000,000 CREDITS

Your brain stopped working. Every thought process simultaneously crashing like a corrupted system file.

Two hundred and fifty million.

"This is a mistake," you heard yourself say, the words coming from somewhere very far away. "This has to be a mistake. Someone transposed numbers or, or there's a decimal point error or-"

"No mistake." Jano's voice carried absolute certainty. "I've checked seven times. Called the bank. Verified the transfer codes. Confirmed the transaction cleared properly through Republic banking systems." He was talking faster now, words tumbling over each other. "It's real. It's actually real. Someone donated a quarter of a billion credits to our medical station and I…"

He stopped, visibly struggling to process his own words.

You stared at the pad, your brain slowly rebooting, thoughts coming back online one by one.

Anonymous donation.

This morning.

But the dawning realization must have shown on your face, because Jano was looking at you now with an expression that suggested he'd reached the same conclusion and was currently reassessing everything he thought he knew about your personal life.

His voice dropped into that tone, the one he used when he was about to say something completely inappropriate. "Tell me you didn't-"

"I didn't!" The protest emerged too fast, too defensive, carrying the unmistakable ring of someone who absolutely did something but was really hoping they could pretend they didn't.

Jano's eyebrows climbed so high they nearly disappeared into his hairline.

"Jano, I swear I didn't-" You stopped, heat flooding your face. "It wasn't- we didn't-"

He was trying very hard not to laugh now, his mouth twitching with barely suppressed amusement. "Did you give Darth Vader the best blowjob in the galaxy last night? Is that what this is? Because I have to say, a quarter billion credits is-"

"JANOUSZK!" You never used his full name unless you were on the verge of combusting. You were scandalized, outraged - your face burning hot enough to leave scorch marks. "That is- absolutely- No! You saw it yourself; it was just a kiss! Nothing else happened."

He paused, eyes narrowing as he did the math.

His voice dropped into mock-seriousness. "That must have been the best kiss in the entire fucking galaxy. I mean, genuinely, historically significant. The kind of kiss that makes poets weep and musicians compose symphonies and-"

You hit him with his own datapad. Not hard enough to cause actual damage, but hard enough to make a satisfying thwack against his skull and interrupt his increasingly ridiculous commentary.

"Ow! Hey-"

"Shut up." You were trying for stern authority but couldn't quite suppress the smile tugging at your mouth. "Just…shut up."

You grabbed the pad, clutching it to your chest while your brain tried desperately to process this new information. You moved toward the door. "I have to go check on something."

Jano called after you, his voice carrying knowing amusement. "I feel like you should know that if you go back for another kiss and more, we might be able to afford our own private hospital. Maybe a research facility. I'm just saying, consider the financial implications before you-"

You extended your middle finger in his direction without turning around, hearing his delighted laughter follow you into the corridor.

While you were thinking about what that all meant, your feet automatically carried you through the corridors. You reached his room and stopped. The door was open.

Two cleaning droids hovered inside, methodically sanitizing surfaces with the efficient precision of machines programmed for a single task. The bed was stripped, linens already removed for processing. The monitors had been powered down. The entire space looked….

Empty.

"Doctor?" A nurse paused in the corridor, noticing your expression. "Is something wrong?"

You gestured at the empty room, your voice coming out strange. "Where is Lord Vader?"

The nurse blinked, clearly confused by the question. "He discharged himself about half an hour ago. Signed all the forms, Commander Skywalker came to escort him to the hangar. I thought...I mean, you'd marked his treatment as complete in the system, so I assumed it was cleared?"

Your hand tightened on the datapad hard enough to make the casing creak.

"It's fine. Thank you." you managed, forcing your voice into professional neutrality.

The nurse nodded and continued on her way, leaving you staring at the empty room.

He left.

He actually fucking left.

Was it a mistake? Did he regret it? Did the kiss mean nothing and you're an idiot for thinking-

No.

You'd felt the way he'd kissed you back. Felt the desperation and hunger and weeks of restrained want finally finding outlet. That wasn't fake. That wasn't regret.

Then why is he running?

Your feet were moving before conscious thought caught up, carrying you rapidly through the corridors.

The hangar was controlled chaos: ships coming and going, supplies being loaded, personnel coordinating departure schedules with the kind of organized urgency that preceded major movement operations.

And there, in the middle of it all, you spotted them. Luke stood beside a mid-sized transport ship, his distinctive profile immediately recognizable even across the crowded hangar. Beside him, dressed in dark civilian clothes that somehow made him look both more human and more dangerous, stood Vader. Hard to miss, mostly because everyone else was going out of their way to avoid getting within ten meters of them.

"Luke!" You called out, slightly breathless, dodging around a maintenance crew hauling equipment.

They both turned. Luke's expression brightened immediately with that genuine warmth he seemed to extend to everyone.  Vader's expression shuttered. Completely. Instantly. Like blast doors slamming closed, sealing away everything that might have been visible a second before.

"Doc!" Luke smiled, though something in his eyes suggested concern. "Is everything alright?"

"I…" You struggled for breath, for words, for any coherent thought through the sudden panic clogging your throat. "I wanted…I need to speak with your father. Just for a moment. About…about possible complications. Medical complications. And I wanted to say goodbye. Properly."

The lie felt transparent, obvious, but Luke's expression showed only understanding.

He stepped back, giving you space, his Jedi courtesy apparently extending to recognizing when two people needed privacy. " Of course. I'll just…check on the flight preparations." He moved away, heading toward the transport's loading ramp, leaving you alone with Vader.

In the middle of a crowded hangar. Where anyone could see.

Where everyone was probably watching because Darth Vader drew attention the way singularities drew matter: inexorably, inevitably, whether you wanted it or not.

He spoke first. "Doc, I need to apologize-" His voice was low, controlled.

"Did I do something wrong?" The question burst out before you could stop it, derailing whatever prepared speech he'd been about to deliver.

His expression flickered in surprise, maybe, or confusion. "What? No. Of course not."

You gestured between you both, frustration bleeding into your voice. "Then why are you apologizing? Why do you look like you're about to board that transport and never look back?"

"Because I have to." The words came out flat, final, carrying the weight of a decision already made and refusing to be reconsidered. "Because this, whatever happened last night, it can't continue."

Your heart was doing something painful in your chest, squeezing hard enough to make breathing difficult. "Why not?"

He was quiet for a long moment, jaw tightening. His eyes met yours, and for a fraction of a second the shutters dropped. You saw pain there, raw and devastating and completely at odds with his controlled exterior.

"Because it's too dangerous," he said quietly. "The last time someone looked at me the way you do..." He faltered, then forced the words out with more force. "The galaxy burned. Everything I touched turned to ash and suffering."

While you were desperately trying to process his words, he continued and there was something almost desperate in his voice now. "I can't risk it. For your sake. For Luke's sake, for Leia's…for everyone who might suffer if I-" He stopped again, seeming unable to complete the thought. "I have to maintain control. I have to stay balanced. And you…" His eyes raked over you once, quick and hungry before he visibly forced himself to look away.

"You make me want things I can't afford to want. You make me forget why distance is necessary. And I can't, I won't risk becoming that again. Not for anything. Not even for...."

For you.

He didn't say it. Didn't need to.

The words hung in the air between you anyway, unspoken but deafening.

You felt something hot and sharp rising in your throat; tears, probably, or the kind of wounded fury that came from being rejected for your own supposed protection.

"So that's it?" Your voice came out harder than intended, anger bleeding through the hurt. "You're just...what? Cutting me off? Pushing me away? We had one kiss and you've decided that's too dangerous so now I get dropped like-"

"It's not like that."

"Then what is it like?" You were getting louder now, forget discretion, forget who might be listening. "Because from here it looks like you're-"

You stopped, breath coming hard, fists clenched at your sides.

This isn't fair. None of this is fair.

Your hand moved without conscious thought, pulling out the datapad you'd been clutching since leaving your office. You held it up between you like evidence in a trial.

"And what the fuck is this supposed to be?" Your voice carried sharp edges now, hurt transforming into anger because anger was easier to handle than the alternative. "What, you can't handle whatever's between us, so you throw credits at me? Make a donation like I'm some kind of…of charity case? Or worse: like I'm some whore who needs to be paid for services rendered?"

His expression shattered. "No." The word was immediate, carrying more emotion than anything else he'd said. "Force, no. That's nonsense. The money has nothing to do with-"

"Then what?"

You were not crying. Absolutely not crying despite the heat behind your eyes and the tightness in your throat. "What is a quarter billion credits supposed to mean? Because I'm a doctor, not a financial analyst, and I don't understand-"

"It's blood money." The words cut through your building rant. "Credits earned through suffering and exploitation and decades of policies I helped enforce. That money was rotting in accounts I haven't touched in years. When they put me on trial they'll confiscate it anyway. I prefer it to be invested in something I consider truly worthwhile."

He stopped, something flickering across his face. "It wasn't payment. I have a lot to make up for at your ward. I destroyed quite a bit of equipment and cost the chief countless hours of work. And I am wearing a significant portion of your inventory in cybernetics."

Some of the fury drained away, leaving behind confusion and hurt and the kind of emotional exhaustion that came from feeling too many things too intensely. "I don't think you understand how money works," you heard yourself say, slightly hysterical laughter edging into your voice. "You can't just...transfer hundreds of millions of credits every time you feel guilty. That's…that's not a normal response to…"

To what?

You blinked hard, forcing back the tears threatening to spill over.

Don't cry. Don't you dare cry in the middle of a hangar bay where half the Rebellion can see.

But something must have shown on your face because his expression cracked, just slightly, just enough to reveal the anguish underneath the controlled exterior.

"Doc, I-"

"Save it." You stepped back, creating physical distance because proximity hurt too much right now. "I get it. You're terrified. You're running. You've decided this is too dangerous and I don't get a say in that decision."

You felt the tears burning behind your eyes, hot and insistent and absolutely refused to give them permission to fall.

Not here. Not now. Later. You can break down later.

He reached for you, unconscious movement, his hand extending before he seemed to register what he was doing and forced himself to stop, to pull back, to maintain the distance he'd decided was necessary.

That almost-touch hurt worse than actual contact would have. You blinked hard, forcing the tears back with pure stubborn will, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing how much this, how much he was affecting you.

But you weren't quite successful. You felt the telltale heat, the slight blur in your vision that meant moisture was gathering despite your best efforts.

And you saw the exact moment he noticed.

Saw his expression crack wider, pain flickering across his face with enough intensity to suggest he was experiencing this as a physical wound rather than an emotional one.

Good. Let it hurt. Let him see what his fucking noble self-sacrifice is causing.

Your voice came out rough. "I have patients. Medical duties. Things that don't involve-"

You. This. Whatever catastrophic mess we've created.

Luke was approaching from the transport, his expression carrying polite concern that suggested he'd noticed the tension but was too well-mannered to directly comment on whatever emotional devastation he'd just witnessed.

"Everything okay?" His tone was carefully neutral.

You managed a smile that probably looked as fake as it felt. "Everything is fine. Just...making sure your father understands his post-operative care requirements."

The lie was transparent enough to be insulting to everyone's intelligence, but Luke had the grace to accept it with a small nod. "I'm sure he'll be careful." He said, and there was something in his voice, reassurance, maybe, or a promise that he'd look after his father even if you couldn't.

You nodded once, not trusting your voice for actual words, and turned to leave.

Made it ten steps.

Say it. You can't just walk away. There are things he needs to remember even if….even if this is goodbye.

You stopped, turned back. The words came automatically, doctor-instinct overriding everything else:

"Promise me you’ll remember what I told you. About the exercises, the check-ups with the mechanics. And above all: adequate nutrition." You'd almost turned away again, almost managed a clean exit despite everything, when his voice stopped you.

“Every moment,” he said softly, “until the stars burn cold.”

The words hit you and everything stopped. Your breath. Your heart. Your ability to process thought beyond pure shocked recognition.

Those words….You'd heard them before.

But where? When? They were familiar in a way that went beyond conscious memory, resonating in some deeper part of your brain that recognized significance even if specifics remained elusive.

Think. Where have you-

Oh fuck. The dream.

The dream you'd had weeks ago. The spectacularly inappropriate, detailed, vivid dream where …where everything had felt so real that you'd woken up gasping with actual physical evidence of your orgasm. The dream you'd convinced yourself was just your subconscious processing attraction. Just neurons firing randomly during sleep. Just a dream.

But those words.

Those specific words had been the last thing dream-Vader had said before you'd woken up. Whispered against your forehead with devastating tenderness while you'd been falling back toward consciousness:

Every moment, until the stars burn cold.

You'd thought about that dream extensively afterward. Catalogued the details with mortifying precision; the heat of his skin, the skilled movement of his fingers, the overwhelming sensation of him inside you. The words he'd said, the things he'd made you feel.

But those last words, you'd almost forgotten them. Let them slip away into the general haze of dream-memory that faded with waking.

Which meant he couldn’t have read them from your mind afterward. Couldn’t have pulled them from a drifting thought or an unguarded moment via the Force.

Which meant...

Your body went ice-cold, then burning hot in rapid succession.

Which meant he was there. Actually there. In the dream. With you. That wasn't just neurons firing randomly, that was-

Can he do that? Can the Force do that? Did he-

You turned around so fast you nearly lost balance.

But he'd already turned away, was already moving up the transport ramp, broad shoulders swallowed by the crowded interior as crew and personnel streamed around him, blocking your line of sight. He disappeared into the ship with a sense of finality that made your chest cave in.

Gone.

The ramp began to retract with a hydraulic hiss that sounded far too much like goodbye.
People moved between you and the transport, carts rattled, voices shouted orders, footsteps echoed. You stood frozen in the middle of the hangar bay. The datapad slipped from your hand and clattered to the floor.

What the fuck just happened?

Chapter Text

You weren't checking your datapad again.

You were absolutely, definitely not refreshing the holonet news feed for the seventy-seventh time today. That would be pathological. Obsessive. The kind of behaviour that suggested someone had developed an unhealthy fixation on a particular topic and lacked the self-control to stop doom-scrolling through increasingly absurd headlines about said topic.

You had excellent self-control. You’d performed microsurgery on conscious patients while they screamed at you, alarms blaring and explosions tearing through the space around you like open warfare. You'd completed complex cybernetic installations under combat conditions with explosions rattling the surgical bay.

You could definitely handle not looking at your datapad for more than - you glanced at the chrono…six minutes.

Pathetic.

Your thumb hovered over the screen. Just one more check. Just to see whether any real news had surfaced beneath the avalanche of speculative garbage that had been drowning every channel since…when actually?

Probably since freedom of the press stopped being a polite fiction after the Empire’s collapse. Apparently, the media felt compelled to compensate for twenty years of silence by vomiting out every conceivable headline, theory, and holo-analysis in one spectacular, overwhelming burst.

Because the galaxy finally saw Darth Vader's real face. And the press pounced on it, carving it up, magnifying it, and plastering it everywhere with commentary that ranged from clueless to outright deranged.

You should stop. You knew you should stop. This wasn't healthy. This wasn't-

What's that?

Your eyes caught a headline so spectacularly absurd that you actually had to click on it just to verify that someone had genuinely published this nonsense:

"EXCLUSIVE: Grand Admiral Thrawn's Secret Alliance with Vader - Love Triangle with Mon Mothma EXPOSED!"

You were reading the opening paragraph, something about encrypted communications and "sources close to the Chancellor" and implications so ludicrous they bordered on performance art, when a voice cut through your concentration.

"Where is Ani?"

You looked up, startled, your brain taking a moment to recalibrate from trash journalism to actual reality.

Mirae stood there; small, focused, supported by nothing but her own resolve and two prosthetic legs that hummed softly as their servos stabilized her unsteady stance. She'd been improving rapidly over the past two months. Today she'd even managed to walk a respectable distance across the room, albeit with the wobble of a child still learning her center of gravity.

Right, this was supposed to have your attention. This unbelievable progress from a kid who, two months ago, wouldn't even tolerate looking at her prostheses, let alone using them. Not the conspiracy theories you'd been doom-scrolling through like an idiot.

CX-3 hovered at her side, photoreceptors adjusting as it tracked her gait. The calibration session had concluded, but your so-called supervision had gradually slipped into scrolling through your datapad while an eight-year-old accomplished a milestone you'd once doubted she'd ever attempt.

Excellent prioritization. Truly stellar medical professionalism.

You watched her now, really watched her, and the surge of pride that hit you was almost overwhelming. Small steps. Careful, deliberate, each one requiring intense concentration. Her face showed the effort: lips pressed together, eyes focused on the floor ahead, hands slightly extended for balance. The prosthetics were responding beautifully, neural integration far better than you'd hoped for after the complications she'd experienced early in recovery.

This. This is why you do this work. This moment right here, watching a child achieve something that should be impossible, watching her face light up with the realization that she can move independently, that she has freedom and agency and-

What had she asked?

Ani…

For a split second, your brain supplied: Who's Ani?

Ohh...Right, she means Vader. Ani, the name he'd given her during that forced visit, apparently deciding that introducing himself as "Darth Vader" to an eight-year-old was a bit excessive.

Stop. Focus. She asked you a question.

You made a show of looking very busy with your datapad, stylus moving across the screen like you were making important medical notations rather than closing out a trash article about imaginary love triangles.

"He's at home. He was discharged about two months ago. He's healthy now. Recovered." you said, tone carefully casual. Professional. Like you were discussing any former patient's post-discharge status and not the man who'd kissed you in hyperspace and then walked away without looking back.

The word tasted wrong the moment you said it. Healthy. As if that concept still applied to someone who would spend the rest of his life dragging around the damage Mustafar inflicted and the emperor perfected. You'd pieced him back together as close to whole as modern medicine and cybernetics allowed. Neural link flawless. Prosthetics overperforming. Organs behaving themselves. Psych profile… tolerable.

You'd signed the discharge papers yourself. Declared him medically cleared for independent living with appropriate monitoring and supervision. You just hadn’t anticipated that “independent living” would mean a sixty-three–day vanishing act.

Mirae took another careful step, her expression thoughtful in that way children get when they're processing information and formulating their next question. You braced yourself. Eight-year-olds were terrifyingly direct, lacking the social filters that adults used to avoid uncomfortable topics.

She did not disappoint.

"Did he kiss you?"

Your datapad nearly slipped from your hand. You caught it at the last second, fingers tightening around the edges with enough force that the durasteel case protested faintly.

What.

"What?" Your voice came out higher than intended, professional composure cracking around the edges.

Mirae giggled at your expression, clearly delighted by your obvious discomfort. "Did he kiss you?" She repeated the question with the kind of patient clarity usually reserved for explaining things to particularly slow adults.

CX-3's photoreceptors swivelled toward you with what you swore was some kind of mechanical interest.

Great. Wonderful. Your romantic life is now being discussed in front of a medical droid and a child.

"I…" You stopped. Recalibrated. Tried to locate your professional voice somewhere beneath the mounting panic. "Why are you asking that?"

Mirae shrugged, taking another step with careful concentration. "I told him he should kiss you. But somewhere private, where you're alone."

She paused, her nose wrinkling. "Because the boys think kissing is gross and make vomiting sounds. It's very annoying. They’re really immature, you know."

Despite everything: the mortification and the confusion and the sudden desperate need to know exactly what conversation had occurred between Vader and this eight-year-old, you felt a smile tugging at your lips.

Mirae had stopped walking now, turned to face you fully, her expression expectant. Waiting. She wasn't going to let this go; you could see the determination in her eyes, the stubborn persistence that had helped her push through the last painful months.

She's eight. You can deflect. Change the subject. Redirect to medically appropriate topics like her gait analysis or-

"Yes." The word escaped before you could stop it. "Yes, he kissed me."

Mirae's face lit up like you'd just confirmed something wonderful. "Did you like it?"

Your professional composure was in full retreat now, fleeing the field entirely. The memory of the kiss hit you with absolute clarity: hyperspace light streaming past the observation deck, his mouth against yours, the careful way his hands had held you like you were something precious, the small sound you'd made when he'd deepened the contact, the way your entire concept of what a kiss could be had been fundamentally recalibrated in approximately ninety seconds.

You were grinning. You couldn't help it. The smile spread across your face without permission, genuine and uncontrolled.

"Yes. Very much," you admitted, and even you could hear the warmth in your voice.

Understatement of the century. That kiss had rewired my neural pathways.

"Are you going to marry him?"

Your datapad actually hit the floor this time, clattering against the medical bay's tile with enough force that CX-3 immediately glided over to retrieve it, photoreceptors flickering with what might be droid concern.

"What? No!" The response was automatic, emphatic, possibly louder than necessary.

Mirae's brow furrowed, genuine confusion crossing her features. "Why not? He kissed you and you liked it." She stated it like a logical progression, A leading to B leading to inevitable C. "In all the holofilms, they always get married after that."

You retrieved your datapad from CX-3 with a murmured thanks, buying yourself a moment to formulate an age-appropriate response that didn't involve explaining that real life was infinitely more complicated than holofilm romance and sometimes men kissed you in hyperspace and then walked away without explanation and left you spending two months obsessively checking news feeds like some kind of pathetic-

"Real life isn't a holofilm." you said gently, kneeling down so you were at her eye level. "Sometimes adults, even when the kissing is very nice, don't stay together. Sometimes they go separate ways."

"But why?"

Because he's a war criminal under house arrest and I'm a doctor trying to build a career and we have no business wanting each other. Because he walked away and I let him. Because whatever was building between us was too intense, too fast, too catastrophic to survive outside the pressure cooker of his medical treatment. Because I don't know why and it's driving me slowly insane.

"Ani has important things to do. And I have important things to do. Like making sure you do your exercises properly and your legs function the way they're supposed to," you said instead, voice measured.

It was a deflection. Transparent enough that even an eight-year-old could probably see through it. But Mirae seemed to consider this, her expression thoughtful.

"If you mmarry him…" she said slowly, working through the logistics, "he could help you at the hospital. He could make patients float instead of using stretchers. That would be very helpful."

The image hit you with unexpected force: Vader in a medical setting, using the Force for patient transport, the sheer absurdity of the Empire's most feared enforcer working hospital logistics. You couldn't help it. You laughed. Actual laughter, the kind that bubbled up from somewhere genuine and surprised.

"I don't think every patient would be as enthusiastic about that as you are," you managed, still smiling. "About the floating or the marriage part."

Mirae looked personally affronted by this assessment, clearly convinced that everyone should appreciate Force-assisted medical care as much as she did.

Your gaze drifted without conscious decision back to your datapad. The screen had defaulted to the news feed, headlines scrolling past in endless speculation. Your thumb hovered over the controls, that familiar urge to refresh, to check, to see if there was anything new.

Movement in your peripheral vision made you look up.

Jano stood in the doorway, arms crossed, expression carrying that particular combination of amusement and concern.

Wonderful. How long has he been standing there? How much of that conversation did he hear?

Judging by the look in his eyes: everything.

Perfect. Just perfect.

Two months.

Two months since he'd walked away. Two months since you'd stood in that hangar bay and watched him choose distance over… whatever had been building between you.

Two months that should have provided clarity, closure, the natural fading of attraction that came with separation and time.

Instead: this. This obsessive checking of news feeds, this unhealthy consumption of every piece of information about him that floated across the holonet - because at least the trash articles sometimes came with images. Holo-stills. Proof he was still there, still real.

 This pathetic pretense that your interest was purely professional curiosity.

You're a mess. A complete disaster. Get yourself together.

But the news had made getting yourself together functionally impossible.

Thanks to Vader's donation, you'd been able to expand the cybernetics department far faster than originally planned. The new hospital in Hanna City was still under construction, multiple wings in various stages of completion, but the cybernetics section was operational. State-of-the-art equipment expanded surgical suites, dedicated rehabilitation facilities. Which meant you'd spent two months being not just a doctor but also an administrator, a project manager, a decision-maker for equipment purchases and staffing and facility design. Exhausting work. The kind that should have consumed all your mental energy and left no room for dwelling on personal complications.

Should have.

It didn't.

Because nothing, not the long hours, not the administrative headaches, not even the genuine satisfaction of watching the department come together, could distract you from what had happened between you and Vader before he'd left.

If anything, the opposite.

Because the galaxy had decided that Darth Vader was now the most fascinating topic in existence, and the holonet had exploded accordingly.

Because approximately three days after his departure, someone had talked.

You'd noticed it first as a ripple, small mentions in fringe holonet channels, the kind of outlets that traded in rumour and speculation. Then larger platforms picked it up. Then the mainstream networks. Within a week, it had exploded into full-scale media frenzy.

BREAKING: Darth Vader Lives  - Insider Confirms Survival After Death Star Explosion

CONFIRMED: Darth Vader Cooperating With New Republic

DANGEROUS ALLIANCE: Alliance Keep Vader Alive

REBEL ICON’S DARK SECRET: Darth Vader Is the Father of Rebel Pilot and Death Star Destroyer Luke Skywalker

Someone had leaked it and it had to be someone with direct access: medical personnel, security detail, military command. The information was too specific, too accurate to be pure speculation. Details about his injuries, his treatment, his relationship with Luke; all of it suddenly splashed across every news feed in the galaxy.

You'd reviewed the timeline obsessively. The leak had occurred almost immediately after that incident with the guard and his discharge from hospital. The one Vader had thrown against the wall with enough force to fracture his skull and crush his trachea.

Revenge? Perhaps. Retaliation from someone injured by the very individual they were assigned to protect. A lucrative story, sold to the highest bidder.

You'd never know for certain. The guards had been reassigned, vanished into New Republic bureaucracy before you could ask questions. But the timing was too convenient. Three days after the assault, the holonet exploded. Someone with grudge and access had decided the galaxy deserved to know.

And the galaxy had responded with predictable hysteria.

During the Empire, he'd been a shadow. A figure of terror whispered about in Rebel briefings, the emperor's enforcer, Supreme Commander of the Imperial military forces. Feared, certainly. But distant. Abstract. More concept than person. The Empire had used him for propaganda, certainly, but he had never been a public figure in any meaningful sense. Not someone who gave speeches or appeared on holonews.

He was something closer to a cautionary tale. A shadow story. A black figure parents and officers alike invoked in lowered voices. A legend people argued about, whether he truly existed at all, or whether he was merely an invention of Imperial fear tactics.

After all, anyone and nothing could be hidden beneath the armour.

And with the ISB probably dedicating entire divisions to suppressing records of Vader’s actions, especially the ones captured on surveillance holos, there was a constant divide: between those who had encountered him and survived, and those who dismissed him as myth, a bit of Imperial showmanship, trotted out occasionally for effect, a symbol more than an actual man.

Now?

Now the holonet was bursting at the seams with content.

Holo-recordings of his actions during the war; footage that had been suppressed under Imperial information control but was now freely circulating. Battle recordings from Hoth, from Vrogas Vas, from dozens of engagements where he'd led Imperial forces with devastating effectiveness. Surveillance captures from Imperial installations showing him in action, demonstrating the kind of combat capability that transcended normal human limitations.

He'd gone from shadowy enforcer to documented horror legend practically overnight.

Except now the horror legend had a face…and a son, and apparently new motivations, and the holonet had collectively lost its mind trying to make sense of the contradiction.

The speculation was endless:

Possible intrigues with New Republic leadership. Multiple articles suggesting he was secretly advising Mon Mothma, feeding her intelligence, positioning himself for political influence. One particularly unhinged piece had suggested a romantic connection between them, complete with "body language analysis" and "anonymous inside sources." You'd laughed out loud at that one. Actual laughter in the middle of your office, alone at your desk at oh-two-hundred while you'd scrolled through news feeds instead of sleeping. The mental image of Mon Mothma engaged in some kind of affair with Vader was so absurd it bordered on comedy.

Then the conspiracy theories about Luke: Was Vader manipulating him? Was the father-son relationship fabricated? Genetic analyses arguing both sides, "experts" weighing in with increasingly elaborate explanations for why this connection might be staged.

And then…

Then someone had made the connection.

Skywalker.

Like the Hero with No Fear and Jedi General Anakin Skywalker... The name that appeared in historical records from the Republic era, usually alongside then-Chancellor Palpatine in contexts that suddenly seemed far more sinister in retrospect.

You'd watched it happen in real-time: the moment the holonet collectively realized. The explosion of headlines:

"BREAKING: Image Analysis Confirms - Darth Vader IS Anakin Skywalker"

"Clone Wars Hero to Imperial Enforcer: The Fall of Anakin Skywalker"

"EXCLUSIVE: Vader's True Identity Revealed - Former Jedi Behind the Mask"

" The Shocking Reason For Skywalker's Fall And Vader's Turnaround: Tragic Love Affair With The Emperor Revealed"

Side-by-side image comparisons: young Anakin Skywalker from Republic-era footage next to recent photographs of Vader's unmasked face. The same bone structure beneath twenty-three years of damage and scarring. Only the eyes differed: one pair filled with conviction, the other hollowed out until they reflected nothing but exhaustion.

You'd stared at those comparisons longer than was healthy. Tried to reconcile the smiling young Jedi from historical records with the man who'd kissed you in hyperspace. Failed spectacularly.

The conspiracy theories had intensified after that. Endless speculation about how this transformation had occurred, what had driven a celebrated hero to become the Empire's most feared enforcer. Analysis of his relationship with Palpatine, suggestions of manipulation and corruption and…

You'd consumed all of it.

Every article. Every analysis. Every piece of speculative trash that crossed your feed. Told yourself it was normal curiosity, professional interest in a former patient's public situation, general concern for-

Liar. You're addicted to this because it shows you him. Because it gives you access to information about his life when he's chosen to cut you out of it completely. Because you're pathetic and can't let go.

Your hand tightened around your datapad, the movement sharp enough that your cybernetic fingers registered the pressure increase. The goodbye played on loop in your memory: the hangar bay, his careful distance, those last words.

Bastard.

The thought carried heat now, anger replacing the initial hurt. Because now you knew - no, you were certain. One hundred percent convinced that he'd been in your dream. The evidence was overwhelming once you allowed yourself to examine it objectively: He'd known the exact words. Words that should have been private, locked in your sleeping mind, completely inaccessible to anyone else. His complete lack of surprise at your suddenly bizarre behaviour. The way you'd been fighting attraction while simultaneously broadcasting want through every microexpression and unconscious gesture. He hadn't been confused or put off or uncertain. He'd known. He'd watched you struggle with professional boundaries while he carried complete information about your subconscious desires.

The smirking. Those insufferable knowing looks. The subtle insinuations that had seemed slightly too specific to be coincidental.

He’d been there. In your kriffing dream. Connected through the Force, because apparently that gave Force users the right to invade your private sleeping thoughts without consent, warning, or basic decency.

The realization made you angry. Genuinely, properly furious in a way that had been building over two months of obsessive analysis. You'd spent kriffing weeks trying to maintain professional boundaries. Agonizing over appropriate doctor-patient conduct, forcing yourself to ignore attraction, building careful walls between personal feelings and medical responsibility. And he'd been watching the entire time. Knowing exactly what you wanted because he'd been literally inside your mind experiencing your fantasies. Probably amused by your struggle. Making subtle comments designed to destabilize you further.

Then he'd kissed you - kissed you with enough intensity to fundamentally rewrite your understanding of what physical intimacy could feel like…and walked away.

No real explanation. No discussion. Just gone.

And you still didn't understand why.

Something had happened between the kiss and the goodbye. Something significant enough to make him choose distance over pursuing whatever connection had been building. The timeline was too compressed for it to be simple reconsideration or cold feet.

You'd gotten part of the puzzle the same day he'd left.

One of the guards had been admitted for treatment: broken ribs, fractured skull, crushed trachea and esophagus. Serious injuries requiring immediate intervention and careful monitoring. The procedure required documentation of how injuries occurred, particularly when they involved personnel assigned to high-security details. The guards' story had been…sparse. Evasive. The kind of careful non-explanation that indicated they were omitting critical information.

"Lord Vader threw him against the wall," his colleague had said, his expression carefully neutral. "Without cause or warning. Just threw him against the wall with the Force."

You'd reviewed the injured guard's chart later, analysing the damage pattern. The injuries were consistent with high-velocity impact against a solid surface…

Something had set Vader off badly enough to lose control. Something that had occurred shortly before he'd decided to walk away from you.

The pieces didn't quite fit together, but the outline was there: provocation, violent reaction, immediate departure, then calculated leak to destroy whatever privacy Vader had left.

You had many questions. And no answers. Just speculation and obsessive news consumption and the growing certainty that you'd somehow become the galaxy's most pathetic example of a doctor with feelings for a former patient.

"You know you can practically watch your thoughts spiralling, right?"

Jano's voice cut into your consciousness with all the grace of a cluster pain: sharp, unavoidable, penetrating straight to the problem area.

You jerked back to the present, wine sloshing dangerously close to the rim of your glass.

He sat across from you on the couch, one leg crossed over the other, dark hair mussed from a long shift. Still in his medical scrubs. You were too, neither of you possessing the energy to change before collapsing into this impromptu drinking session.

He gave you a look, the kind of expression that suggested he'd been watching your slow descent into madness for longer than anyone should be expected to tolerate.

Jano had been your friend since medical school. Had witnessed your romantic catastrophes with the sort of front-row documentation usually reserved for medical case studies. He had been there for all of it: supplying wine, commentary, and the occasional "I told you so," delivered with enough affection to dull the blow. He knew you far too well to be fooled by deflection.

"I don't know what you're talking about," you said, taking a deliberate sip of wine. The lie was unconvincing even to your own ears, but you committed to it anyway because the alternative was admitting that he was absolutely correct.

Jano's grin sharpened into something knowing and slightly wicked. " Right. You’re not fixated on the latest trash news, and you’re absolutely not mentally replaying your conversation with Mirae about whether you’re planning to marry Darth Vader."

The heat that flooded your face was immediate and mortifying. Actual blushing; the kind of physiological response you'd thought you'd outgrown sometime around third-year medical rotations when nothing could embarrass you anymore because you'd seen literally everything the human body could do.

Apparently not.

"Mirae is a child. Children have very simple understandings of romantic relationships. Kiss equals marriage in holofilm logic. It's reductive but age appropriate," you said, going for dignified professional and landing somewhere in the vicinity of defensive embarrassment.

"Uh-huh." Jano wasn't buying it for a second. "And the part where you admitted the kiss was, what was the exact phrasing? 'very much' to your liking?"

You took another sip of wine instead of responding, letting the silence stretch between you. You weren't drunk, not even close, your alcohol tolerance built up through years of medical school celebrations and post-shift decompression sessions, but you were definitely wine-warm. Pleasantly fuzzy around the edges.

Not fuzzy enough to avoid this conversation, apparently.

Jano watched you with that particular look he got when he'd decided something was Important and therefore must be discussed whether you wanted to or not.

"Jokes aside," he said finally, voice dropping into something gentler. More serious. The tone he used when he was actually worried rather than just teasing. "I've never seen you like this. Not about anyone. You've been…what's the best descriptor…obsessively fixated?"

Demonstrating symptoms of attachment disorder complicated by unresolved romantic and sexual feelings? Showing signs of emotional lability and poor coping mechanisms? Engaging in maladaptive behaviours including excessive news consumption and compulsive monitoring of subject's public activities?

All of the above. You're a mess, a complete disaster.

"I've also never been rejected before," you said, and the bitterness in your voice surprised even you. Sharp. Raw. The kind of honest emotion you usually kept carefully controlled behind professional walls. "Turns out I handle it poorly. Fascinating self-discovery at age thirty-three."

Jano watched the movement, didn't comment on it. Just sat there with that concerned-friend expression that made you want to simultaneously hug him and throw something at his head.

"So," he said, voice carefully neutral, "any chance you’ve considered reaching out to him? Or are we sticking with the current plan of self-inflicted silence and aggressive holonet speculation?"

Your jaw tightened so fast you heard your teeth click together. You set down your wine glass with more force than necessary, the base hitting the table with a sharp sound that echoed in the small space.

"Absolutely not."

"Why not?"

"Because…" You stopped. Breathed. Tried to organize your thoughts into something coherent instead of the angry tangle they'd become. "Okay. Let's do a thought experiment. Reverse the roles here."

Jano's brow furrowed slightly, confusion crossing his features.

"Let's say I'm some male doctor who had a female patient who I developed feelings for during her treatment. We had a moment. Something that suggested mutual attraction. And then she explicitly chose to walk away from me. Made it very clear through her actions that she wanted distance, wanted no further contact."

You leaned forward, meeting his eyes directly. "Now, in that scenario, if you were giving me advice, and I told you I was thinking about reaching out to her uninvited, what would you say?"

Jano opened his mouth, but you weren't finished.

"You'd tell me that showing up uninvited would be stalking. That not respecting clearly established boundaries is harassment. That when someone makes their wishes clear through their actions, you respect those wishes. That pursuing contact after explicit rejection is inappropriate, potentially threatening, and demonstrates a fundamental lack of respect for the other person's agency. Right?" you said, each word precise. Clinical.

The silence that followed felt heavy. Pointed.

"That's…" Jano started, clearly searching for counterargument. "That's different-"

You cut him off. "How is it different? Because societal double standards say it's romantic when women pursue and creepy when men do? Because we tell ourselves that persistence in the face of rejection is somehow endearing rather than a violation of boundaries?"

You reached for your wine, took a long swallow that burned.

"Vader made his choice clear." you continued, voice dropping lower. More controlled, though the emotion underneath hadn't diminished. "He walked away. He's had two months to reach out if he wanted any form of contact. He hasn't. That's not ambiguous. That's not 'maybe he's just nervous' or any of the other rationalizations I could construct if I wanted to lie to myself."

The words tasted like acid. True, probably devastatingly true but painful to articulate.

"That's a man who decided he doesn't want me in his life. And I have enough self-respect to accept that decision, even if I don't understand it." you finished quietly.

Even if it's slowly destroying you. Even if you spend every night replaying every moment and trying to figure out what you did wrong.

Jano's expression had shifted into something complicated; understanding mixed with frustration mixed with his own recognition that you were probably right. He picked up his wine glass, swirled the contents without drinking.

His voice carried challenge now. "So, you're just what? Giving up? Accepting that whatever was between you is over without even trying to-"

"Have you thought about reaching out to Pax?"

Jano's expression soured immediately, his whole face transforming into something between annoyed and caught out. "That's low."

"But accurate?"

He made a sound somewhere between a scoff and a growl, setting his wine down with enough force that liquid sloshed over the rim. "That's completely different-"

"Is it?" You pressed the advantage because you were wine-warm and hurting and if you were going to dissect your own poor life choices then you were dragging him down with you. "He told you he needed 'space to figure things out' three weeks ago. Have you texted him? Called? Shown up at his apartment demanding explanations?"

Jano's jaw worked, frustration evident in the tension of his shoulders. "That would be-"

"Exactly." You leaned back against the couch, picking up your wine glass again. "That would be disrespecting his stated boundaries. Not accepting his clearly communicated need for distance. Exactly what you're suggesting I do with Vader."

The silence stretched between you now, but it was different. Less confrontational. More…shared. Mutual recognition of romantic dysfunction, the kind of companionable misery that came from both being disasters in slightly different ways.

Jano's relationship with Pax had been…complicated. Intense chemistry followed by equally intense conflict, a pattern that had repeated itself at least four times in the last year. Passionate reconciliations followed by spectacular breakups, each cycle seemingly worse than the last.

Jano had been doing his own version of moving on. Mostly involving pointed comments about Pax's questionable taste in partners, excessive drinking, and the occasional bitter observation about how people who claimed to need "space" usually just wanted to fuck around.

You watched him process the comparison; saw the moment he accepted that you were right even if he didn't want to admit it. His shoulders dropped slightly, some of the defensive tension draining away.

"We're both disasters." he said finally, reaching for the wine bottle to refill his glass.

"Catastrophic disasters." you agreed, holding out your own glass for a refill. "Should probably be studied for medical journals. 'Case Study: Highly Competent Medical Professionals with Spectacularly Poor Romantic Decision-Making.'"

That pulled a laugh from him; genuine amusement breaking through the frustration. "I'd read that paper. Probably cite it extensively in my own therapy sessions."

Then Jano's expression shifted. That particular look crossed his face: the one that meant he'd had an idea, probably a terrible one, but he was going to suggest it anyway because terrible ideas sometimes sounded appealing when you were wine-drunk and emotionally compromised.

Oh no. Here it comes.

"Okay," he said slowly, pulling out his datapad and scrolling through something with increasing enthusiasm. "New plan. Different approach entirely."

You eyed him warily over the rim of your wine glass. "I'm listening. Against my better judgment but listening."

"Neither of us is reaching out to those respective idiots who walked away. Agreed?" he continued, still scrolling.

"Enthusiastically agreed."

"Instead…" His expression shifts, thoughtful and a little too pleased with itself.  "A buddy of mine, you remember Steve from our rotation at the trauma centre on Corellia?"

You nodded. Steve had been decent, if overly fond of discussing his romantic conquests in excessive detail during lunch breaks.

"He mentioned that there's this new bar that just opened in the entertainment district. Fancy place, actual dress code, the kind of spot where people go specifically to be seen and make questionable decisions with attractive strangers. Aaaand I checked the rotation schedules. In exactly four days, we both have the same evening off. No shifts, no emergency calls, no responsibilities. Completely, totally free," Jano continued, warming to his theme with concerning enthusiasm.

You took a long drink of wine, suspecting you were going to need it for wherever this was headed.

Jano set down his datapad, meeting your eyes with determination. "We get dressed up. Properly dressed up. We're talking clothes that actually fit, makeup, the whole production. We go to this bar. We get irresponsibly drunk on cocktails that cost too much. We flirt with completely inappropriate people. We do everything in our power to delete these idiots from our memory banks."

The suggestion was objectively terrible. The kind of plan that sounded brilliant when you were wine-warm and emotionally compromised but would definitely result in regrettable decisions and morning-after mortification. You should say no. Should recognize this as emotional avoidance rather than actual healing. Should point out that getting drunk and picking up strangers wasn't a healthy coping mechanism for unresolved feelings. Should acknowledge that this was the medical equivalent of treating symptoms while ignoring the underlying pathology.

You reached for your wine glass. Drained the remaining contents in one long swallow that burned down your throat with pleasant heat. Set the empty glass on the table with deliberate precision. Met Jano's eyes.

"Fine."

The word came out sharp, decisive. Wine-fuelled or desperation-driven, you weren't entirely certain which. Possibly both. Probably both. Almost definitely both combined with the kind of poor judgment that came from spending two months in emotional purgatory.

Jano's grin was triumphant, delighted, the expression of someone who'd successfully convinced their friend to join them in mutually assured destruction. "Excellent. This is going to be either therapeutic or catastrophic, and honestly either option is better than watching you pine over holonet trash news articles."

He stood, slightly unsteady, he'd had about as much wine as you, which meant you were both going to feel this tomorrow, and moved toward the door. "I'll send you the details tomorrow once I'm sober enough to remember where this place actually is."

He pauses, then turns back, leaning in to press a brief, familiar kiss to your temple, soft, grounding, the kind of affection that comes from years of shared exhaustion and worse decisions. "Try to sleep. And stop pretending you’re fine." he adds quietly.

"No promises."

He smiles at that, squeezes your shoulder once, and slips out into the corridor.

You close the door behind him and look around the room.  

You should clean up. You should be an adult. Instead, you tap your comm. “FT-4. Cleanup mode.”

The compact housekeeping droid rolls out obediently, optics blinking as it surveys the damage. It whistles softly, judgment-free, but somehow pointed, and gets to work.

Excellent. Delegation is a core leadership skill.

You drift toward the bedroom as FT-4 handles the aftermath, the refresher door half open. Your reflection meets you in the mirror.  You looked… exhausted. Obviously tired. The kind of bone-deep exhaustion that came from overwork and poor sleep and emotional turmoil. Your hair needed attention, pulled back in the practical style you'd adopted this morning and never bothered adjusting. Your uniform was rumpled from the long shift. Your eyes carried shadows that spoke to too many late nights and not enough rest.

Attractive. Very attractive. Definitely the kind of appearance that inspires passionate desire and romantic pursuit.

You stripped off your uniform, leaving it in a heap that you'd deal with tomorrow. Pulled on sleep clothes, soft pants and a worn shirt that was probably older than your medical degree.

Behind you, FT-4 finishes up with a cheerful chirp and retreats.

The bed called to you with siren song intensity. Soft sheets, climate-controlled perfect comfort, the promise of unconsciousness and temporary escape from your own thoughts.

You should fall asleep immediately. You were exhausted, genuinely, deeply tired from the day, from two months of overwork and emotional chaos, from carrying feelings you couldn't quite name and didn't know how to process. Should sink into sleep the moment your head hit the pillow.

But you didn't.

Of course you didn't.

Because your brain had never been particularly good at following sensible instructions, and apparently tonight was no exception. It kept circling back, inevitable as orbit, relentless as gravity, to the same subject that had consumed your consciousness for two months:

The kiss.

The memory played with perfect clarity despite the wine, despite your attempts at mental discipline, despite every reason you had to think about literally anything else.

The moment his mouth met yours-

Fuck.

Your breath caught slightly even now, just from the memory. The careful pressure of his lips against yours, testing, questioning. His cybernetic hands finding your waist with surprising tenderness, pulling you closer with controlled strength that suggested he was being very, very careful not to overwhelm you.

You'd made a sound; something small and needy that you were still slightly embarrassed about, and he'd responded by deepening the kiss. His tongue against yours, exploring with the kind of focused attention that made you feel simultaneously exposed and understood. Like he was learning you, cataloguing your responses, figuring out exactly what made you react.

You'd pressed closer, eliminating space between your bodies, feeling the solid mass of him against you. The way he'd shifted his stance to accommodate your weight, his hands sliding from your waist to your back, holding you like you were something precious.

The way you'd arched into him when his hand had moved higher, when you'd guided his palm to your breast and felt the controlled pressure through your shirt. The small sound he'd made, almost a groan, low in his throat, when you'd encouraged the contact. Permission and demand simultaneously, showing him, you wanted this, wanted him, wanted whatever was building between you to continue building. Your breathing had gone ragged. His had matched. The kiss had intensified into something almost desperate, months of carefully controlled attraction finally released into physical expression.

Heat built in your abdomen; subtle at first, then increasingly impossible to ignore. Your body responding to the memory with familiar want that you'd been trying to suppress for two months with spectacular lack of success.

No. Not doing this. Not thinking about him like this. Not letting yourself spiral into-

But your body had already made its decision apparently. The wine had lowered your inhibitions, dissolved the careful control you usually maintained. The memory of the kiss had triggered physical response that was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.

You were alone. In your quarters. In your bed. No one to witness or judge or know what you were thinking about in the privacy of your own mind.

Gods, you're horny.

Professional. Appropriate. The kind of behaviour befitting a department head and qualified surgeon who definitely does not masturbate while thinking about former patients who explicitly chose to remove themselves from your life.

Except…

Except you're not a department head right now. Not a medical professional bound by ethics and appropriate conduct.

You're just…you. Alone in your bed. Wine-warm and restless and desperately needing some kind of release from tension that's been coiling tighter for months. Just pressure relief. Basic biological need. Nothing more complicated than that. Get this out of your system and then you'll be able to sleep. The rationalization was transparent even to yourself, but you were well past caring about dignity or self-respect.

Your hand slid down your stomach with deliberate slowness, fingertips tracing the path over soft sleep shirt. The touch was familiar, just standard self-care, stress relief.

Except your mind immediately supplied images that transformed the simple touch into something else entirely: His hands instead of yours. Those careful cybernetic fingers that had held you with such precision during the kiss. The controlled strength, the durasteel against your skin. The way he'd touched your breast through fabric: testing, learning, responding to your reactions with focused attention. The way he'd circled your nipple through your shirt, the pressure perfect, making you arch into his touch with a small sound that had made him groan low in his throat.

But it wasn't just the kiss anymore.

The dream surfaced with vivid, visceral clarity. The one where he'd touched you, fucked you, claimed you with an intensity that still made your breath catch weeks later.

Your hand slipped beneath the waistband of your sleep pants, then lower, into your underwear. The first touch sent immediate sensation through your nervous system, pleasure sparking through your lower abdomen.

But it wasn't enough. Not nearly enough.

You shifted, frustrated, yanking your sleep pants and underwear down your legs with impatient movements. Kicked them off completely, letting them fall to the floor beside the bed. The cool air against your exposed skin made you shiver, made everything more sensitive. Your thighs fell open without conscious decision, shameless in the darkness. Your hand returned to the apex of your thighs, fingers sliding through wetness that would have embarrassed you in any other context but here only made you moan softly.

You let yourself remember, not fighting it anymore, not attempting redirection. Just surrendering completely to the memory and letting it fuel the building pleasure.

The dream. 

His weight settling over you, solid and real. The way his hands had gripped your hips, cybernetic fingers digging into flesh with controlled strength. His mouth on your breast, sucking hard while his hand worked the other, pinching and rolling your nipple until you'd cried out.

Your own fingers found your clit, circling with practiced precision. The sensation made your hips lift slightly off the mattress, seeking more pressure.

In the dream, he'd stretched you with his fingers first. Prepared you with methodical attention while his thumb worked your clit, building pleasure until you were begging. Then he'd replaced them with his cock, pushing inside with slow inevitability until you were full, stretched, completely claimed.

Your fingers worked faster, your other hand found your breast, squeezing, pinching the nipple the way he had.

"Fuck," you gasped aloud, hips rolling against your hand.

The fantasy shifted, sharpened: Vader here. Now. Walking into your quarters and finding you like this. Your rhythm faltered for a moment at the thought, then increased. Yes. That fantasy. The one that made heat pool low in your abdomen with desperate intensity.

He'd stop in the doorway, those ice-blue eyes darkening as he took in the sight: you spread open on the bed, fingers working between your thighs, completely shameless in your need.

 Just standing there, watching you fall apart.

"Vader," his name escaped your lips, breathy and desperate. Your hips lifted off the mattress, grinding against your hand with increasing urgency.

Would he just watch? Or would he approach the bed, start removing his clothing while you continued touching yourself for his viewing pleasure? The thought made you moan louder, past caring about volume or dignity.

You'd finally get to see him the way you'd wanted to for months. Not clinically, not as a doctor. But with pure desire, greedy anticipation for what that body could do to yours. The pale skin you'd touched professionally dozens of times. The broad shoulders and chest, muscle moving beneath scarred flesh. Lower…

Your fingers worked frantically now, pleasure building to almost unbearable intensity. Your free hand abandoned your breast to grip the sheets, prosthetic fingers digging into fabric.

"Would you like watching me?" you gasped into the empty room, the words spilling out uncensored. "Watching me touch myself thinking about you?"

In your mind, he'd climb onto the bed, settling between your spread thighs. Those hands gripping your hips with unyielding strength, spreading you wider.

"Gods, I want to feel you inside me again," you moaned, louder now.  Your rhythm increased, chasing the building pleasure with single-minded desperation.

You could almost feel it: the stretch, the fullness. The way he'd fill you completely, hitting spots inside that made you see stars. The controlled strength as he'd drive into you with deliberate precision, watching your face, learning what made you scream.

You moaned into the darkness, hips rolling frantically against your hand. "Please, Vader, I need you to fuck me."

The fantasy intensified: him above you, pale skin and cybernetic limbs and those eyes boring into yours with focused intensity. His hand finding your throat, not squeezing but resting there possessively while he thrust deep.

Your fingers pressed harder against your clit, circling faster. The pleasure coiled tighter in you. "Yes, yes, just like that," you gasped.

Your whole body tensed, muscles coiling tight. So close. Right on the edge.

The fantasy shifted to the moment of his release; the way his control would finally break. That low groan, the announcement rough and unfiltered: "I'm going to cum."

The thought of it, of feeling him pulse inside you, filling you with hot release while you clenched around him-

 "Oh fuck, please, I'm so close" you moaned, rhythm becoming frantic.

You imagined his face in that moment: ice-blue eyes darkening, scarred features contorting with pleasure, that perfect control finally shattering as he came inside you.

The image pushed you over the edge. "Oh gods, Vader!", voice breaking.

The orgasm crashed through you with devastating force. Your back arched completely off the mattress, thighs clamping around your hand as pleasure exploded through your nervous system in waves that seemed endless.

"Fuck, yes, yes" The words tumbled out incoherent as your inner walls clenched rhythmically around nothing, your clit pulsing beneath your fingers. You worked yourself through it, hips rolling against your hand as each aftershock hit. Vision whited out, every nerve ending firing simultaneously. In your mind, you felt him come with you, heard that low groan, felt the hot rush of his release, the way he'd throb and pulse inside you. The intimacy of it, the claiming, the way he'd collapse against you afterward with your hearts racing in sync.

Your rhythm gradually slowed as the waves subsided, sensitivity becoming almost painful. Your breathing came in ragged gasps, chest heaving as you slowly came down. The fantasy lingered for a moment longer: him beside you, cybernetic hand tracing patterns on your cooling skin. The weight of him, the solid reality of his presence.

Then reality reasserted itself with cruel efficiency.

You just masturbated to explicit fantasies about a man who explicitly chose to remove himself from your life. Your professional dignity is now officially dead. Congratulations on achieving new depths of pathetic behaviour.

You removed your hand and stared at the ceiling with grim awareness that you'd solved exactly nothing. The pleasure was already fading, leaving behind the same persistent ache that had lived in your chest for two months. The wine-warmth had dulled slightly, exhaustion finally beginning to overtake your overactive mind.

Your body felt heavy now, pleasantly wrung out in the way that usually preceded actual sleep. The physical tension had released, leaving behind bone-deep tiredness that made your limbs feel weighted. But the emotional ache, the one that had nothing to do with physical need and everything to do with wanting someone you couldn't have, remained completely unchanged.

You rolled onto your side, pulling the sheets up around your shoulders. The darkness felt heavier now, more complete. Your breathing gradually slowed, the combination of wine and exhaustion and physical release finally pushing you toward sleep.

Four days until the bar plan with Jano.

Four days to get your emotional state under control and figure out how to actually move on instead of just pretending while you secretly obsessed over holonet news and masturbated to someone who chose not to be in your life.

Four days to somehow delete Darth Vader from your thoughts and your fantasies. From the space he’d carved into your mind without permission.

And yet, even as sleep dragged you under, even as conscious thought dissolved into that aimless drift between dreams, part of your mind clung to the same question that had haunted you for two months: What happened? Why did he walk away? What could possibly have been worth choosing distance over… whatever we could have been?

No answers arrived before sleep took you completely.

Just the same persistent ache, waiting patiently in your chest for morning to arrive and start the whole cycle over again.

The water was too hot.

He didn't adjust it.

Vader stood under the spray in the refresher of the Chandrila apartment the Alliance had placed him in. The New Republic, now. Near-scalding water pounded against scarred skin and cybernetic interfaces with enough force to suggest punishment rather than hygiene. Steam filled the space in thick billows, condensation running down the transparisteel walls in rivulets that blurred everything into indistinct shapes. The heat sensors in his prosthetic limbs registered the temperature as approaching tissue damage threshold; a helpful little alert his rebuilt nervous system provided.

He ignored it.

Cold water hadn't worked. Weeks of punishing himself with ice-cold showers in some misguided attempt at behavioural correction, as if subjecting himself to discomfort would somehow diminish the want that had taken up permanent residence in his consciousness. It hadn't. If anything, the shock of cold water had only made him more acutely aware of every nerve ending, every sensation receptor, every carefully calibrated interface between flesh and machine.

Hot water, then. Might as well make the self-flagellation literal.

Two months.

Two months since he'd walked away from her in that hangar bay. Two months since he'd seen the hurt flash across her face, quickly masked but not quickly enough, when he'd chosen distance over whatever catastrophic connection had been building between them. Two months since he'd made what he'd convinced himself was the responsible decision, the mature choice, the only option that didn't end with her inevitably getting hurt by proximity to his existence.

Two months of telling himself it was the right call.

Still didn't believe it.

The days had developed their own rhythm, their own structure built from necessity and the sudden overwhelming abundance of time that came with his new 'freedom'. He'd forgotten what boredom felt like - actual boredom, not the mind-numbing torture of existing in the suit but genuine lack of occupation. Twenty-three years of constant missions, constant violence, constant purpose however twisted and destructive. Palpatine had kept him busy, at least. Always another system to conquer, another Rebel cell to eliminate, another demonstration of Imperial might to oversee. The Empire had run on fear and blood, and he had been one of zhe primary supplier of both.

And now…. Nothing.

Well. Not quite nothing. That would be overstating his current leisure. But close enough to make the difference feel absurd.

The apartment helped with that absurdity. Genuinely excessive accommodation for someone supposedly under house arrest; sprawling space in Chandrila's newly constructed political district in Hanna City, all gleaming surfaces and floor-to-ceiling windows with views of the capital's emerging skyline. A giant bedroom that he didn't need, a formal dining area designed to seat at least eight people he'd never invite, expansive living spaces that suggested luxury rather than detention. The kitchen was the worst offender. Absurdly large. Genuinely ridiculous for a single occupant, gleaming counters that stretched for meters, state-of-the-art cooking equipment that suggested someone had designed this space for elaborate meal preparation, enough storage and work area to accommodate a few professional chef driods. It felt less like a kitchen and more like someone had repurposed a diplomatic residence for his use and forgotten to scale down the amenities.

He doubted much deliberate thought had gone into assigning them these oversized apartments. The transition had been rushed, the political upheaval chaotic, decisions made quickly and revised later - if ever. More likely, the Republic viewed the accommodations as temporary. A loan, not a home. Something to house him until his tribunal convened and his fate was formally decided. He wasn't complaining. The extra space meant room for his projects; droid components spread across tables without creating hazardous clutter, adequate workspace for complex assemblies, enough separation that his restored security droid could stand in designated zones without interfering with the actual living areas.

Still. Absurd for one person serving out a sentence.

Luke lived next door. Equally absurdly spacious apartment, from what Vader had glimpsed during his visits. Made sense, strategically: keep the war criminal and his Jedi supervisor in adjacent units, minimize response time if the monster decided to revert to type. The New Republic wasn't taking chances. They'd given him freedom, but they'd also installed enough monitoring and tracking to make escape effectively impossible.

Not that he planned to escape. Where would he go? What would he do? Some ridiculous one-man effort to resurrect the Empire, as the trash holonews liked to speculate? Laughable. Even if he wanted to - which he emphatically did not - his reputation had been thoroughly demolished by his very public role in Palpatine's death and subsequent cooperation with Rebel forces.

The holonews had seen to that.

He should have expected the frenzy. There was nothing surprising about it. An unmasked former Imperial figurehead under house arrest on the New Republic’s capital, personally monitored by Luke Skywalker - Jedi, Rebel icon, and, inevitably, son. The narrative practically wrote itself. Multiple networks running constant coverage, analysis segments, expert commentary from people who'd never met him speculating about his mental state and future intentions.

The first photographs had been the worst.

Some enterprising reporters had managed to capture images of him leaving the apartment complex with Luke; nothing more than a mundane errand to collect droid components from a local supplier, part of Luke’s effort to acclimate him to supervised public movement. The photos had hit the holonews within hours: Darth Vader, the terror of the galaxy, revealed without his mask. Pale scarred flesh, hairless scalp, distinctive burn patterns that made his past trauma visually obvious. The networks had run those images endlessly, dissecting every visible detail, speculating about the extent of his injuries and the nature of his cybernetic modifications.

Within twenty-four hours, everyone in the galaxy knew exactly what he looked like beneath the armour.

The psychological impact of that exposure had been…unexpected. Twenty-three years hiding behind a mask, and suddenly his face was broadcast across every news channel in known space. Strangers recognizing him on sight. People staring with that particular mixture of fear and morbid curiosity usually reserved for particularly disturbing medical procedures or violent accidents.

So…he didn't leave the apartment much.

KX-77 handled most external errands now. The droid qualified as an interesting project, diplomatically speaking.  Vader had acquired the decommissioned KX-series security droid from a military surplus dealer, spent weeks restoring its mechanical systems and installing upgraded programming. The result was functionally perfect: precise movement protocols, enhanced combat subroutines, excellent task completion rates.

Also entirely too much personality.

"Good morning, Lord Vader. Shall I acquire groceries today, or would you prefer another culinary disaster resulting in minor property damage?" the droid would say with what Vader swore was audible sarcasm.

Vader had tried reprogramming the personality matrix. Multiple times. Somehow it kept defaulting back to this…efficient completion of assigned tasks delivered with commentary that bordered on insubordination. He'd investigate the programming glitch eventually. When he had time. Which he had plenty of. But somehow never quite got around to actually fixing.

The droid's commentary on his early cooking attempts had been particularly cutting.

"I must note, my Lord, that this substance appears to violate several health codes and possibly the laws of thermodynamics."

Right. Cooking. That particular learning curve.

It had started as a necessity. Luke had been handling supply runs during the first week: food, basic necessities, items required for establishing independent living. Helpful. Appreciated. But also unsustainable as a long-term arrangement, and Vader needed to figure out how to feed himself. Simple enough, theoretically. Acquire food. Prepare food. Consume food. Basic survival skill that civilians managed daily without incident.

Turns out: not actually simple.

The first problem: determining what qualified as appropriate human nutrition. The suit had handled that automatically for two decades: carefully measured nutrient paste delivered directly to his digestive system, quantities and composition determined by medical algorithms. Actual food required understanding things like nutritional balance, portion sizes, preparation methods that rendered raw ingredients edible rather than toxic.

KX-77 had been zero help. The droid understood security protocols and combat applications. Distinguishing between edible vegetables and decorative plants? Less clear. That first shopping trip had resulted in some truly baffling acquisitions, items that looked food-adjacent but turned out to be cleaning supplies, decorative elements that technically grew on farms but weren't meant for consumption, one memorable instance of purchasing animal feed because it came in packaging that resembled grain products.

Even after that got sorted, after Vader had actually researched human nutrition requirements and provided KX-77 with explicit parameters for food acquisition, there remained the problem of preparation.  A cooking program would have solved the issue efficiently. One installation, minimal oversight, predictable outcomes. Problem resolved.

Unfortunately, with his current level of restricted access to virtually everything, this was easier in theory than in execution. The first program he located appeared promising, until it became apparent that it was designed for Rodians. This revelation occurred shortly after KX-77 attempted to prepare a meal consisting of gelatinous protein matter and something that actively resisted being identified as food. Nutritionally sound. Entirely inappropriate for humans. Unpleasantly viscous.

The second program nearly resulted in a military incident.

Installing what was marketed as a “universally adaptive culinary suite” triggered multiple security alerts. Apparently, the system interpreted the download as an attempt to access encrypted Imperial command protocols, poorly disguised as casserole recipes.
The situation escalated. Military personnel were dispatched. Someone, somewhere, concluded that he was attempting to reestablish Imperial control through baked dishes.

It required an exhausting amount of Luke’s Force-assisted diplomacy to persuade the responding units to stand down.

Luke also offered, calmly, helpfully to acquire approved cooking programs on his behalf. Vader declined. The look Luke gave him suggested this was not the most rational decision.

Nevertheless.

"Maybe…." Luke had paused, clearly trying to phrase this diplomatically. "Maybe you should learn to cook yourself? Instead of trying to program the droid?"

To be fair, he had fed himself before. During his Jedi years, food had been something that appeared when needed: temple kitchens, ration packs, whatever the situation allowed. It had never required particular attention. Those circumstances, however, had relied on a body that still provided useful feedback and a life where improvisation was uncomplicated. Neither condition applied anymore. He also couldn’t simply live on ration bars and prepackaged nutrition, as he might once have done. Doc had disabused him of that notion quickly. His liver and kidneys were too damaged, his stomach too compromised to tolerate that approach for long. Apparently, even he was not permitted to poison himself efficiently anymore.

Nevertheless, the suggestion had felt almost insulting.  He'd commanded Imperial fleets. Coordinated planetary sieges. Managed complex strategic operations spanning multiple star systems. Surely, he could learn to prepare a simple meal.

Turned out: Yes, eventually. With significant trial and error.

The first week had been humbling. Multiple instances of burning things that shouldn't burn and undercooking meat to potentially hazardous levels. The phrase "season to taste" quickly proved meaningless. After twenty years without sensory input, "taste" was not a reliable guide so much as an abstract concept. Recipes assumed instincts he did not have. Techniques described as straightforward required repetition, patience, and a tolerance for failure.

But slowly, with persistent effort, he'd improved. Started understanding flavour combinations, cooking times, the way different ingredients transformed under heat. Found recipes that matched his limited palate, adjusted them based on results, built a small repertoire of dishes he could prepare without incident. Luke had been encouraging. Enthusiastically encouraging, actually, to the point where Vader suspected his son was just relieved to witness him engaging in normal civilian activities instead of brooding alone in his apartment.

"This is really good," Luke had said in the second week, trying what Vader had labelled as mixed vegetable dish; simple preparation, nothing fancy, but properly seasoned and competently executed. Good felt like overstatement. Adequate was more accurate. But Luke had gone back for seconds, which suggested the food was at least non-threatening to his digestive system.

So: Meditation (or at least the attempt), physical training, droid construction, and cooking. His daily routine, the structure that filled hours between intelligence briefings.

The briefings themselves provided intermittent purpose. Three, sometimes four times per week, depending on Thrawn's activities and the New Republic's strategic concerns. Secure conference rooms, uncomfortable chairs, and military personnel who still flinched slightly when he entered despite two months of regular meetings. The format was consistent: intelligence analysts presenting data on Imperial remnant movements, suspected Thrawn sightings, recovered communication intercepts, tactical assessments that required his input. They'd position everything carefully: "what do you think the Grand Admiral would do in this scenario?" - maintaining the fiction that they were consulting an expert rather than interrogating a prisoner.

Vader had stopped correcting them. Let them maintain whatever mental framework made this arrangement palatable. He provided tactical analysis, force disposition assessments, probable strategic objectives based on Thrawn's established patterns. Useful information delivered with enough clinical detachment to avoid appearing invested in either side's success.

Mon Mothma attended most sessions. The newly appointed Chancellor watched him with careful neutrality, her expression giving away nothing but her Force presence carrying permanent wariness. Understandable. She'd known Padmé, had served alongside his wife in the Senate before everything collapsed. She was one of the few present who had encountered Anakin Skywalker as a living person, not merely a footnote in the accounting of Vader’s crimes. Professional to a fault, focused exclusively on relevant intelligence matters. But he could sense the weight of memory every time she looked at him; recognition of who he'd been layered over awareness of what he'd become.

The meetings filled perhaps eight to twelve hours per week. Useful hours. Structured hours with clear purpose and defined objectives.

The rest of the time: empty.

He'd started with meditation. That made sense, strategically: reestablishing his connection to the Force after decades of Sith corruption, learning to touch the Light without flinching, finding balance in a way that neither the Jedi nor the Sith had ever truly achieved. Hours each day sitting in the apartment's small meditation chamber that he'd designated for this purpose, reaching into the Force and trying to understand what he was now that he was neither Anakin Skywalker nor Darth Vader but something unnamed existing in the space between.

The Jedi would have disapproved of his methods. Too much emotion, too much attachment to his children and the life he was trying to build. But the Jedi were dead, mostly killed by his own hand and Palpatine's machinations, so their disapproval felt somewhat theoretical. The Sith would have mocked his weakness. All this meditation seeking balance and peace instead of power and domination. Pathetic surrender of strength in favour of…what? Redemption? As if such a thing were possible after everything he'd done.

But the Sith were also dead. He'd killed the last one himself.

So: meditation attempting something new. Something neither Light nor Dark but genuinely balanced. The Force itself didn't judge; it simply existed, flowing through all living things, connecting everything in patterns too vast for individual comprehension. Touch it with hate and it responded with power and corruption. Touch it with peace and it responded with clarity and connection. Touch it with both:  with honest acknowledgment of what you were and what you'd done while still reaching for something better - and it responded with complexity. Uncomfortable complexity. The kind that didn't offer easy answers or clear moral absolutes. Which felt appropriate. He'd built his life on absolutes: first the Jedi code, then the Sith philosophy. Both had failed him spectacularly. Maybe complexity was better.

Unfortunately, the results were inconsistent. He attempted stillness; his thoughts returned to Doc. He sought clarity; her image surfaced uninvited. No matter how rigorously he disciplined his mind, it wandered back to her with stubborn regularity. It was almost as if the Force, in its infinite wisdom, had decided to be cruel.

Physical training filled more hours. His new body demanded it; cybernetic limbs that needed proprioceptive reinforcement, neural pathways that required constant repetition to maintain optimal function. The exercises Doc had designed for him, performed daily without fail because she'd told him to and he found himself following her medical directives even in her absence. Even when she's not here, he was still obeying her instructions. Pathetic level of devotion to someone he deliberately cut out of his life.

But the exercises worked. Maintained the careful integration between flesh and machine, prevented deterioration of the neural interfaces, kept his reconstructed body functioning at peak efficiency. Form following function following orders from a doctor who'd rebuilt him and then watched him walk away.

Still. Meditation and training only filled so many hours. Maybe six or seven per day if he stretched the sessions and included preparation time. That left…what? Twelve, thirteen hours? More, given his reduced sleep requirements post-reconstruction. His new body needed maybe four hours of rest per night, sometimes less. His new body needed maybe four hours of rest per night, sometimes less. At least that was what he told himself - especially on nights when pain made sleep impossible anyway. Which meant long stretches of consciousness with nothing specific to do.

Luke helped with that. Daily training sessions in the forests outside Hanna City, far enough from civilization that they wouldn't attract attention or accidentally injure bystanders. Lightsaber combat, primarily, though "combat" was generous terminology for what mostly amounted to correcting his son's fundamentally inadequate technique. On his first day in the apartment, Luke had placed it on the kitchen counter. Just set it there on the gleaming surface without ceremony or explanation: Vader's lightsaber. The weapon he'd carried for so many years, lost on the second Death Star during their final confrontation. Luke had retrieved it. Had kept it safe through the chaos of Endor's aftermath, through the victory celebrations and political reorganization and everything that followed.

Had saved it for him.

Vader had stared at it for a long time. The familiar weight and balance, the crimson blade that had carved through so much: Jedi, Rebels, anyone foolish enough to stand in the Empire's way. The weapon that represented everything he'd been, everything he'd done, two decades of violence crystallized into elegant engineering.

Red blade...A Symbol of everything he needed to leave behind.

He'd picked it up anyway. Because whatever complicated feelings the weapon inspired: guilt, shame, visceral reminder of atrocities; having it back felt right. Complete. Like recovering a missing limb he'd learned to function without but never stopped noticing the absence of.

And Luke needed the training desperately.

That had become apparent within the first five minutes of their initial session. His son had destroyed two Death Stars, had fought him twice, more or less seriously, survived confrontations that should have killed him a dozen times over, and his actual lightsaber technique was appalling. Self-taught, clearly. Adequate for overwhelming opponents through Force-enhanced speed and determination but lacking any real foundation in proper form.

But the sessions worked. Gave structure to days that would otherwise blur into formless meditation and cooking experiments. Luke improved rapidly; natural talent finally supported by actual technique. And Vader found he enjoyed teaching in a way he'd never enjoyed training Imperial apprentices or Inquisitors. Teaching his son felt…right. Like something he should have been doing all along if the galaxy had been different, if he'd been different, if Padmé had lived and they'd raised their children together instead of-

Stop. Useless spiral into scenarios that never existed.

So… meditation, briefings, physical training, lightsaber instruction with Luke, droid construction, and cooking.

But even all that did not occupy his thoughts enough to keep him coming back to her.

Doc…. brilliant, sharp, luminous in a way that lingered long after she left the room. Beautiful, in that disarming way that made it difficult to look away. Clever, compassionate, infuriatingly competent.

Also: dangerous. For him, for his sanity, for everything he was trying to build.

His cybernetic hand tightened around his cock, the durasteel fingers gripping with controlled pressure that his organic hand never could have maintained. The shower water continued pounding against his shoulders, steam so thick now it obscured the walls completely. He reminded himself again, not to think about her. He had made this choice. Distance was necessary. She was safer without him in her life. Except his mind had never been particularly good at following orders, especially self-imposed ones. And two months of trying not to think about her had accomplished precisely nothing except making him think about her more.

The want hadn't faded. That was the problem. He'd convinced himself that removing her from his daily life would diminish the desperate need that had been building since…since when? Since the first surgery? Before? Since she'd hand-fed him fruit and let her fingers brush his mouth? Since that moment in hyperspace when she'd dropped her medical coat and kissed him like he was worth wanting?

All of it. None of it. The want had been building so gradually he couldn't pinpoint its origin, and now it lived in his chest like a permanent ache that meditation couldn't touch and training couldn't burn away.

Two months. Sixty-three days of telling himself the feeling would pass.

Sixty-three days of being catastrophically wrong.

His breathing came harder now, rougher, steam and arousal and frustration combining into something almost overwhelming. The cybernetic hand wrapped around his cock moved with mechanical precision, the grip tightening incrementally as he sought release that would provide temporary relief but solve nothing.

Because if the problem were purely biological, it would have resolved itself. Probably during that filthy little dream she'd had. The one that had apparently detonated her carefully constructed fortress of morality and professionalism. Though realistically, could anyone blame him for that particular transgression? It wasn't as though opportunities were exactly lining up for a beautiful woman to feature him in her erotic fantasies. Him. With everything he was and everything he no longer was. With enough intensity to broadcast through the Force into his room like a signal he couldn't ignore.

Wicked little thing.

He'd sensed her explicit thoughts bleeding through the Force while he slept, an invasion he hadn't intended but hadn't exactly discouraged. He'd merely...assisted. Guided. Provided the dream with structure, though the raw material had been entirely hers. But good gods, what passion and dedication lurked beneath that professional facade. What exquisite depravity. The sounds she'd made, the way she'd responded to his touch, the explicit demands she'd gasped while he'd…

His hand moved faster, the durasteel fingers maintaining perfect rhythm. No trembling, no fatigue, just relentless mechanical efficiency applied to biological need.

"Fuck," he breathed into the steam, the word escaping without permission. His cybernetic hand increased speed, grip tightening as sensation built with familiar intensity.

The kiss. In hyperspace, bathed in blue-white light, her mouth against his, soft and demanding and explicitly consensual. The way she'd arched against him, eliminating space between them, that small sound she'd made when he'd deepened the contact, something between a whimper and a demand. The way she'd guided his hand to her breast with explicit permission, and he'd circled her nipple through the fabric of her shirt, feeling it harden beneath his thumb. Her sharp intake of breath, the way she'd pressed into the touch, wanting more.

His other hand braced against the shower wall, supporting his weight as his hips began moving involuntarily, thrusting into his grip with increasing urgency.

What if they hadn't been interrupted?

He’d been asking himself that for two months. Every day. Sometimes several times a day.  Until idle speculation transformed into explicit fantasy that made his breathing go ragged.

The fantasy sharpened with devastating precision: He would have helped her undress. Slowly, deliberately, removing each piece of clothing with the same focused attention he brought to everything. Her shirt first, revealing skin he would crawl on his knees to touch. He'd have cupped her breast properly then, without fabric barrier, learning their weight and softness. Would have lowered his head to taste, to suck her nipples until she made those small desperate sounds.

He groaned aloud, hand moving faster.

Her pants would come next. He would have knelt to remove them; actually knelt before her, not out of impulse, but because she was something worthy of reverence. Slid the fabric down her legs along with her underwear, revealing her completely.

He'd have stayed on his knees. He would put one of her legs over his shoulder and put his mouth on her the way he'd wanted to since… he'd first allowed himself to acknowledge wanting her at all. He'd have made her come like that first. On his tongue, his fingers, the one she made herself for him, buried inside her while his mouth worked her clit with focused attention. Would have learned exactly what pressure and rhythm she needed, catalogued every gasp and moan until he knew her responses better than she knew them herself.

His breathing came in harsh gasps now, his new cybernetic lung working overtime. Pleasure coiled tight in his lower abdomen, building toward inevitable release.

But the fantasy wasn't finished.

After she'd come on his tongue, he'd have stood. Lifted and pressed her against the massive viewport. The image crystallized with perfect clarity: her naked body against transparisteel, the blue-white light of hyperspace illuminating her perfekt skin. Her legs wrapped around his waist, arms around his shoulders for balance. The way she'd look at him, not with fear or professional detachment but with pure want.

His hips thrust harder into his grip, the rhythm losing its mechanical precision as biological need overwhelmed conscious control. He'd have entered her slowly despite the desperate urgency. Would have watched her face as he pushed inside, cataloguing every micro-expression as her body adjusted to accommodate him.

"Look at me," he commanded the phantom in his thoughts, hips jerking forward into his grip. "I want to see those eyes when you feel what you do to me."

Then he'd have fucked her properly. Deep, hard thrusts that would make her gasp with each impact, that would press her harder against the transparisteel with controlled strength.

His hand moved frantically now, all pretence of control abandoned. Sensation built to almost unbearable intensity. The fantasy continued with merciless clarity: her voice breaking as she begged for more, harder, deeper. The way she'd feel clenching around him, inner walls gripping with each thrust. The sounds she'd make, those explicit moans, the gasps and whimpers and finally the announcement that she was close, so close…

"Don't stop, please don't stop…" he could hear her gasping in his mind, could see her head thrown back against the viewport, could feel her tightening around him as her climax approached.

"Come for me. Let me feel you." he'd command, voice rough.

And she would. Her whole body convulsing, inner walls clenching rhythmically around his cock, milking him with each pulse of her orgasm. The cry of his name as pleasure overwhelmed her, the way her nails would dig into his shoulders hard enough to leave marks on his scarred skin.

" Force, Doc yes…." The words tumbled out breathless as his hand worked faster, chasing the building sensation.

The fantasy shifted suddenly, his mind supplying a different image with equal vivid intensity:

Her on her knees before him. Her hands on his thighs, steadying herself as she leaned forward. The image made him groan loud enough to echo off the shower walls. His hand tightened almost painfully around his cock, rhythm becoming desperate. Her mouth on him. Taking him deep, her tongue working the underside of his cock while her hand wrapped around what she couldn't fit. The wet heat, the suction, the way she'd look up at him while she sucked him off.

He'd want to touch her. Would reach down with his hand, fingers finding her hair, gripping carefully to guide her movements without forcing. Just holding her there, feeling the vibration when she moaned around him.

"Just like that," he'd groan, watching her take him deeper. "Let me feel the back of your throat."

She wouldn't be able to answer verbally, but her eyes would say everything. The way she'd look up at him, pupils blown wide with arousal, cheeks flushed, lips stretched around his cock. Pure want reflected back at him, explicit permission to use her mouth however he needed.

His breathing went ragged, harsh gasps that filled the steam-thick air. The hand braced against the shower wall trembled slightly, durasteel fingers leaving small dents in the tile from the pressure.

"Fuck, I'm going to-" he heard himself groan aloud, the announcement escaping without conscious decision. The words broke off into an incoherent groan as sensation crested. His rhythm became frantic, cybernetic hand working with mechanical efficiency while his hips thrust forward desperately.

The fantasy crystallized in that final moment: her eyes meeting his, explicit permission in that gaze, her throat working as he pushed deep one final time-

"Doc, I'm cumming…"

The orgasm crashed through him with devastating force. His whole body went rigid, hips jerking forward as release spilled over his fingers in hot pulses that the shower spray immediately washed away. Pleasure exploded through his nervous system in waves that seemed endless, each one accompanied by broken sounds that might have been her name.

His cybernetic legs trembled, struggling to support his weight as the climax wrung every last pulse of pleasure from his body. The hand against the shower wall bore down harder, the tile cracking slightly under the pressure.

The fantasy lingered even as sensation began to fade: her swallowing, her tongue cleaning him carefully, the look in her eyes as she pulled back.

He stood there afterward, breathing hard, his hand still wrapped around his cock while the water continued its relentless assault. His reconstructed lung worked overtime, pulling in steam-thick air while his heart rate gradually returned to baseline.

Post-orgasmic clarity arrived with its usual cruel efficiency:

Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic. She had saved his life. Had given him a new lung, returned unassisted breath after twenty years of a respirator. She had replaced every lost limb, restored sensation and movement, rebuilt his spine, removed the neurological markers embedded in his brain. She had given him back a body that could exist without constant pain and machinery. And he? He just came fantasizing about her on her knees, sucking him off, about using her mouth, about -

She deserved better than being reduced to such crude fantasy. Better than him standing in his shower every day imagining increasingly explicit scenarios while she's moved on with her life like any sensible person would.

He chose distance. He chose to walk away. He didn't get to stand here fantasizing about her mouth on his cock while pretending it's anything other than selfish depravity. But even as shame settled heavy in his chest, even as rational thought reasserted itself with punishing clarity, part of him remained fixed on the same impossible question:

Would she actually do that? Would she kneel for him willingly, would she let him finish in her mouth, would she look at him with want instead of the professional detachment she'd maintained so carefully until that final kiss?

He released his grip finally, letting his hand fall to his side. The water continued washing away physical evidence, doing nothing for the emotional aftermath.

Two months of this. Two months of telling himself the want would fade, that distance would provide clarity, that removing her from his daily life was the responsible choice. Two months of being spectacularly, catastrophically wrong about everything.

He should turn off the water. Should finish his shower and return to his quarters and continue pretending he was capable of moving forward without her. Instead, he stood there, letting steam and water and shame envelope him completely, while his mind replayed both fantasies one more time with perfect, merciless clarity. The viewport. Her mouth. The sounds she'd make in both scenarios. The way she'd look at him…with want, with permission, with something that might almost be-

He severed the thought before it could root. Hope, once allowed, only sharpened disappointment. But the hope persisted anyway, stubborn and irrational and completely beyond his control.

Just like everything else about his feelings for her. But what was the alternative? Actually acting on these feelings? Allowing himself to pursue something that would inevitably end in disaster? She'd moved on by now, certainly. Two months of silence probably spent realizing that her moment of attraction had been temporary insanity brought on by close proximity and the psychological quirk that sometimes made patients fixate on their doctors. She'd probably found someone appropriate by now, someone without a body count measurable in planetary populations, someone who could take her to public venues without causing mass panic, someone who wasn't the galaxy's most notorious war criminal under house arrest.

He made the right choice. Distance is necessary. She's safer this way. He repeated it like a meditation mantra, trying to convince himself it was true.

Didn't work any better now than it had two months ago.

Vader turned off the water with more force than necessary, the shower controls protesting slightly under his prosthetic grip. He grabbed a towel, one of the absurdly soft ones that had come with the apartment, luxury items that seemed out of place in detention housing and dried off with mechanical efficiency.

His reflection stared back from the mirror, pale scarred skin and cybernetic limbs. The evidence of his past written across every visible surface. No wonder she'd moved on.

Stop. Useless spiral leading nowhere productive. Focus on the day ahead. The meeting with New Republic command at fourteen hundred hours, analysis of Thrawn's probable response to recent fleet movements. Concrete tasks with clear objectives.

Vader descended the stairs to the apartment's kitchen, dressed in loose dark pants, civilian clothes that still felt strange after decades in armour. His scarred scalp was damp from the shower, water still beading on the pale skin.

His son was in the kitchen.

Of course, he was in the kitchen. He made almost daily visits, checking in with the kind of concerned persistence that suggested he took his supervisory responsibilities seriously. He was currently demolishing what remained of Vader's latest culinary experiment.

He looked up as Vader entered, his expression carrying careful neutrality that suggested he was trying very hard not to comment on something he'd noticed.

He heard. Of course he heard. Force-sensitive, living next door, and you were not exactly quiet.

"Morning," Luke said, tone determinedly casual. "Sleep okay?"

"Fine." Vader moved to the caf maker, focusing on the simple task of preparing the stimulant with more attention than it required.

Silence stretched between them. Heavy. Loaded with unspoken observations that Luke was clearly trying to decide whether to voice.

Don't. Please don't. Let this go.

Luke set down the container of Vader's questionable food experiment, his expression shifting into something more concerned. "So…" He paused, seeming to recalibrate his approach. "Everything okay? With you, I mean?"

"Fine," Vader repeated, voice flat.

"Because I thought I heard…" Luke stopped himself, clearly rethinking this conversational path. "Never mind."

Thank the Force. Small mercies.

But his son wasn't done. His expression carried that particular determination that meant he'd decided something was important and wasn't going to let it go.

He continued, his voice carefully neutral. "You know, the cybernetics ward at the newly built hospital in Hanna City is fully operational now. If your prosthetics needed adjustment, or…"
A deliberate pause.

"If you wanted to schedule a follow-up appointment. Calibration, sensor refinement. Or whatever other medical justification might warrant a visit."

Smooth. Very smooth. Might as well have said 'go see the woman you're clearly obsessing over.'

"That's unnecessary. The prosthetics are functioning optimally." Vader said, keeping his voice level.

"Right." Luke's tone suggested he didn't believe that for a second. "So, you're just what? Standing in the shower thinking about optimal prosthetic function?"

Force. This conversation was actually happening. They were genuinely having this discussion.

Vader turned to face his son, caf mug in hand, expression carefully controlled. Time to shut this down with the kind of dismissive reduction that might be believable if Luke hadn't spent enough time around him to recognize deception.

"I'm utilizing her image as stress relief. It's not uncommon. An attractive woman who showed no fear in my presence, that's rare enough to be memorable." he said, voice forced clinical.

The words came out detached, exactly the kind of casual objectification that might be plausible if Luke didn't have the Force sensitivity to read the emotional undercurrents beneath the statement.

Luke stared at him. His expression cycled through surprise, disbelief, and finally settled on something between exasperation and genuine concern.

"Did you…" Luke stopped, visibly searching for appropriate phrasing. "Did you actually just admit you're using Doc as…" He paused again, clearly struggling with the terminology. "As jerk-off material?"

Crude phrasing. But essentially accurate description of the lie he was trying to sell.

"That's inelegant phrasing," Vader said flatly.

"But accurate?" Luke's voice carried incredulous disbelief usually reserved for witnessing something fundamentally incomprehensible. "You're telling me that what I've been sensing from you for two months: the frustration, the longing, the complete emotional turmoil, that's just you casually using someone's image for sexual gratification?"

That was the version he presented. A lie, deliberately chosen. Not because it was convincing, but because the truth was worse.

"Essentially," Vader said, taking a deliberate sip of caf like this was normal conversation about normal things.

Luke stared at him. Vader stared back with the kind of unwavering control he'd perfected over decades of refusing to show weakness. The silence stretched. Uncomfortable. Luke's Force presence carried disbelief mixing with concern mixing with something that might have been pity.

"That's bullshit," Luke said finally, his tone carrying absolute certainty. "Complete bullshit and we both know it."

"Luke-"

"No." Luke moved closer, expression intense in that way it got when he'd decided something was important and wasn't going to let it go. "I've spent two months watching you build droids and learn to cook and meditate for hours like you're trying to achieve some kind of emotional equilibrium you can't quite reach. I've felt your presence in the Force, frustrated and lonely and wanting something you won't let yourself have."

He paused, making sure the words landed.

"That's not someone casually using an attractive woman's image for stress relief," Luke continued, voice gentler now but no less certain. "That's someone missing a person and lying to themselves about it."

Direct hit. Accurate enough to be painful.

Vader set down his caf mug with careful precision, expression shuttering completely into the kind of blank control that had served him well during Imperial briefings.

"Let it go, Luke."

The words came out flat. Final. Carrying command-grade authority that expected immediate compliance.

Luke opened his mouth, clearly preparing to argue, to push, to continue this catastrophically uncomfortable conversation.

"Let it go," Vader repeated, and this time there was enough edge in his voice to make it clear that further discussion would not be welcome.

Luke stared at his father for a long moment, frustration and concern warring in his expression. Then his shoulders sagged slightly; not surrender exactly, but recognition that pushing further right now would be counterproductive.

"Fine," he said finally, though his tone suggested this conversation was merely tabled, not concluded.

He moved toward the door, paused with his hand on the frame. Didn't turn back. Just stood there in that particular way that meant he had one more observation to deliver and was calculating whether it would be productive or just inflammatory.

Inflammatory, probably. Luke had inherited his mother's stubborn insistence on emotional honesty at the worst possible moments.

"You know she rejected me, right?" Luke said, voice careful. Measured. "Said there was someone else."

Vader's hand tightened fractionally around his caf mug. "That's none of my concern."

"I thought so too. At first." Luke turned now, meeting his eyes with that particular intensity he got when he'd decided something was Important. "Except your behaviour around each other was… a little too obvious. The way you look at each other. And worse: how you look when you think the other isn’t noticing. The careful distance you both kept, somehow more suspicious than anything else. I suspected it, but I told myself I was reading too much into it."

Vader set down his caf with deliberate precision. "You're inserting yourself into situations that don't concern you."

"Am I?" Luke moved back into the kitchen, clearly committed to this catastrophically uncomfortable discussion. "Because from where I'm standing, this concerns me quite a bit. You're isolating yourself, she's clearly affected, and you're both pretending it's professional distance when everyone who’d spent five minutes around you could tell it was something else entirely."

"Luke-"

His son continued, voice gaining momentum. "The attraction isn't subtle. Whatever you think you're hiding, you're not. Not from me, not from anyone paying attention. And I get that you have…well, complications. History. Reasons to think relationships could end badly for you."

That pulled something sharp in Vader's chest. Dark amusement mixed with old pain.

"But avoiding her isn't-"

" The last woman who looked at me like that," Vader cut in, voice flat, "I strangled while she was pregnant. I choked her unconscious while she was carrying our children."

The words hit his son as intended.

Luke went very still. Very quiet. The kind of stillness that came from having information forcibly restructured into new, unwelcome patterns.

Vader continued, because apparently he was committed to this now. Might as well be thorough. "I didn't kill her directly. But I closed my Force grip around her throat and held it there while she begged me to stop. While she told me she loved me. While she was carrying you and your sister."

He watched his son process that. Watched the horror and recognition and desperate attempt to reconcile the father he wanted to believe in with the man who'd committed that particular atrocity.

"So, when you suggest I pursue someone who looks at me with…" Vader paused, searching for accurate terminology. "…with care. With want. With something that resembles what Padmé saw before I destroyed it. You'll forgive me for concluding that distance is the only responsible choice."

The silence stretched. Heavy. Painful.

Luke's throat worked. "That's…that's not-"

"You wanted honesty." Vader said, his voice devoid of inflection. "There it is. Unvarnished truth about exactly why I'm 'making a mistake' by staying away from her. She's safer. I'm safer. Everyone involved, the entire galaxy, frankly, is better served by me maintaining appropriate distance from anyone capable of stirring emotion in me. "

He picked up his datapad, scrolled through briefing materials with mechanical precision. Conversation concluded. Nothing more to discuss.

Luke didn't move. Just stood there, clearly struggling with how to respond to information that had thoroughly demolished whatever argument he'd been constructing.

"I think…" He stopped. Breathed. Tried again. "I think you’re wrong. And I think you’re making a mistake."

"Noted."

"No, listen." Luke's voice carried determination now, cutting through shock. "What happened then was…horrific. I'm not minimizing that. But you're not that person anymore. You've changed. You chose differently on the Death Star. You're choosing differently now."

Vader looked up from his datapad, expression carefully blank. "Am I? Or am I just finding new ways to cause damage while convincing myself it's progress?"

"You're the living proof that people can change. You killed the emperor. Saved me. You're here, working with the New Republic, trying to make different choices. That matters." Luke pressed.

"Does it?" The question came out more bitter than intended. "Does it matter to the billions that got killed? To the Jedi I slaughtered? To your mother, who died believing, correctly, that I had become a monster?"

Luke's voice carried absolute certainty. "It matters to me. And I think…if you gave Doc the chance, it would matter to her too."

Vader returned his attention to the datapad. "This conversation is concluded."

"You're making a mistake."

"You've mentioned that."

"I mean it." Luke moved toward the door again, but his Force presence carried stubborn persistence rather than retreat. "You're so focused on protecting everyone from who you were that you're not letting yourself be who you are now. And that person, the one who builds droids and learns to cook and trains me even though it forces you to confront everything the Jedi were, that person deserves a chance at something other than isolation."

He paused at the threshold. Then he said quietly. "You tell yourself distance keeps her safe, but maybe you're just afraid. Afraid that if you let yourself want something good, it'll get destroyed like everything else. Afraid that you don't deserve it."

"I don't." Vader said flatly.

Luke's voice softened.  "Maybe not. But she gets to make that choice too. And you took it away from her by walking away without explanation. That's not protection. That’s suppression. And you know exactly where that path leads."

The observation landed with uncomfortable accuracy.

"All right. Enough." Vader’s voice sharpened, edged with irritation. "Very well. If the universe, the Force, fate - whatever cosmic entity you prefer, should decide to grant me another opportunity, I will remember your words from today and…reconsider the matter."

A pause. His tone flattened. "Will that suffice to end this unnecessary conversation?"

Luke snorted softly. "Great. I’ll let the universe know you’re open to reconsidering."

He didn’t wait for an answer. The door slid shut as he disappeared into the corridor.

Alone in the absurdly large kitchen, Vader stood there with his caf and his datapad and the crushing weight of truth he'd been avoiding for two months.

His son is wrong. Distance is necessary. She's safer without him in her life. This was the right choice.

The mantra felt hollower than usual. Less like conviction and more like excuse.

His comm unit chirped, the distinctive tone indicating a scheduled meeting reminder. Right. The briefing. Another session with New Republic command staff, analyzing Thrawn's probable strategies while carefully maintaining the emotional detachment necessary to function in a room full of people who would happily execute him given half a chance.

Concrete tasks. Clear objectives. Things he could control.

Not the persistent ache in his chest.

Until the stars burn cold.

The promise echoed in his mind, the last thing he'd said before walking away. He'd meant it. Every word. The kind of absolute declaration that came from somewhere deep and honest and completely terrifying.

But meaning them and acting on them were two entirely different things.

And only one of those choices kept her safe.

Even if Luke was right, and the other choice was the one that respected her agency. Even if distance was nothing more than suppression in a different form. Even if it was costing him more than he was willing to admit.

Even if he was slowly destroying himself in the process.

The dress had been a mistake.

You knew it the moment you slipped it on. The kind of dress meant for dim lights and loud music, for bars and clubs and being noticed. The kind you wore when you wanted eyes on you. When you wanted distraction. When you wanted to feel wanted.

Or worse: when you wanted one specific person to notice, despite the inconvenient fact that he wouldn’t be anywhere within reach. Hadn’t been for two months and four days.

Stop counting. For Force's sake, stop counting.

Your communicator buzzed. You lunged for it with embarrassing speed, heart hammering against your ribs like it was trying to escape.

Jano - 647 SCT Heeey Chief… so sorry 😵‍💫 Pax just turned up at my door. We’re talking. Rain check?

Of course. Of course, your wingman bails when you were already dressed like you were clearly prepared for intrigue, tension, and poor life choices. Frustrated, you exhaled and typed back: Wow. Timing. Go have your important talking, we’ll reschedule. But seriously, use a condom. Who knows where he’s been roaming 🧫

You stared at your reflection in the mirror. Hair styled with effort that felt wasted now. Makeup applied with precision that bordered on surgical. And the dress - this ridiculous, obvious, desperate dress - was absolutely stunning. Unfairly so. And hot. The only one of its kind in your closet.

Take it off. Put on comfortable clothes. Open a bottle of wine. Forget this entire ill-conceived plan to drink away the memory of blue eyes and a single kiss that had completely derailed your equilibrium, right up until Jano interrupted and ruined….

 Everything. Ruined everything.

Your fingers found the zipper. Started to pull down.

Then stopped.

Every moment, until the stars burn cold.

He'd always known…

About your shame, your want, the desperate attraction you'd tried so hard to suppress behind professional distance and ethical boundaries and every other defence mechanism you'd constructed.

The zipper stayed where it was.

A laugh threatened to bubble up, sharp and a little hysterical. You could feel it: how close you were to actually losing your kriffing mind. You needed him out of your system. One way or another. Because this limbo was unsustainable, and pretending otherwise was a lie you were no longer equipped to maintain. And honestly? If Jano could so cheerfully toss his much-vaunted pride overboard and get back together with Pax for what was very likely the fifth time - something you were fully prepared to bet good credits on, then to hell with your pride. You were done being the only one pretending restraint was a virtue.

You paused in front of the mirror, studying the woman staring back at you. Up until now, he’d known you almost exclusively as the doctor – in scrubs, in a coat, sealed into sterile precision, or wrapped head to toe in full surgical gear. And then there were those unforgettable three minutes without the coat.
This was… different. You tilted your head, assessing. Not a doctor. Not a surgeon. Just you, unmistakably so. A slow smile tugged at your mouth. Alright, Lord Vader. Let’s see what you have to say about this.

Dignity is overrated. Worst case? Well…in the absolute worst case, you’re crossing boundaries and behaving like a stalker. A hot stalker, though. There’s that.

Your medical bag waited by the door. You picked it up, intending to make a brief stop at your office to grab the few remaining essentials before heading out.

The speeder ride to the political district took twenty-two minutes. You counted every single one.

Security tightened as the speeder entered the political district: checkpoints, patrols of security droids, layers of quiet vigilance. Normally, that would have been a problem. Tonight, your credentials did the talking. Your identification as one of the Alliance’s senior medical staff granted you access with little more than a cursory glance, gates opening where they otherwise wouldn’t have.

You’d pulled the address from Luke’s contact details after a quick stop at your office to access the patient file, swallowing your moral objections in the process, since otherwise the entire plan would have been doomed.

 Now standing inside the building, the reality of it hit. The place was… impressive. Disarmingly so. Clean lines, muted lighting, materials that spoke of money and discretion rather than ostentation. Luxury, but restrained.

It was hard not to appreciate the irony: you still lived in what was essentially a glorified hospital storage unit - with better lighting but the antiseptic smell and unmistakable hospital atmosphere were difficult to escape when your own ward was only two corridors away, while a convicted war criminal enjoyed luxury housing courtesy of the New Republic, house arrest notwithstanding.

You rode the lift in silence, memorizing the unit number like a mantra.

The lift opened onto an inward-facing corridor that overlooked a shared atrium below. Soft light filtered up from somewhere beneath, catching on greenery and glass, the quiet rustle of leaves drifting faintly through the open space. Apartments lined the inner ring, their large windows facing one another across the garden; elegant, restrained, and softened by greenery in a way that felt distinctly Chandrilan.

You walked slowly, counting doors, repeating the unit number in your head like a mantra. You checked it once. Then again. Not because you doubted it, but because stopping gave you something to do with the nerves.

Your hand hovered in front of thw durasteel door.

Last chance. Last possible moment to retain whatever shreds of dignity you still possess and retreat to somewhere that doesn't involve explaining your presence at Darth Vader's apartment while dressed like this.

Movement caught your eye. Three doors down, an older couple emerged from their house...and promptly stopped dead, the door still ajar behind them. Their gazes latched onto you with the kind of focus usually reserved for violent accidents.

You dropped your eyes to yourself, attempting to assess the situation from their perspective: Woman, early thirties. Hair and makeup signalling intention. Heels. A large bag.
 Dressed for going out rather than anything remotely professional…unless one counted professions that charged by the hour. Standing outside the apartment of what must surely be their favourite neighbour as the galaxy’s most famous war criminal, at nineteen hundred hours on a casual evening.

Oh dear.

You didn't need the Force to know what they were thinking.

The woman leaned toward her husband, whispered something behind her hand. His eyebrows climbed. She nodded, gestured toward you with the kind of scandalized fascination usually reserved for witnessing crimes in progress.

You knock on the door with a little more force than necessary, grinning manically at the ridiculousness of it all.

The door opens.

Your heart slammed against your ribs, frantic and reckless, as if it were trying to outrun your better judgment.

But it's not Vader. It's a security droid; Imperial KX-series, matte black finish that drinks in the hallway light, photoreceptors glowing amber in the dim corridor. Taller than you by a head, built with the kind of aggressive angularity designed to make organics reconsider their life choices.

Great. Screened by security before I even get through the door. This is going spectacularly.

"State your business." The droid's voice carries all the warmth of a medical scanner.

Your mouth went dry. So much for confidence. So much for the carefully constructed internal monologue that had carried you all the way here. Professional composure - normally your most reliable armour - evaporated on contact, leaving you standing there in a dress that very clearly suggested anything but legitimate medical reasons.

Words, inconveniently, failed to cooperate.

“I…” You swallowed. Tried again.  “I treated…” Another pause. You forced yourself to breathe. “I’m the cybernetics specialist who treated Lord Vader after the Death Star Explosion.  I need to…there’s a scheduled prosthetic adjustment. Calibration.”  You winced inwardly at how thin it sounded. “Routine follow-up.”

The droid did not react. It simply continued to watch you, silent and unmoved, letting the weight of its scrutiny do the rest.

"KX-77." Vader's voice cut through from somewhere behind the droid, carrying that particular tone of long-suffering patience. "Let her in."

The droid stepped aside and there he was: well over two meters of presence filling the doorway, barefoot, dressed in black. Loose trousers, a dark shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his forearms, the fabric doing nothing to hide the solid reality of him. His eyes swept over you with the kind of thorough assessment that made your skin warm beneath.

You stepped past him into the apartment before the elderly couple could get any more ammunition for their neighbourhood gossip, acutely aware of how close you came to his body, close enough to register his heat, steady and unmistakably real.

The door slid shut behind you.

"I need to inform you, that there's a non-zero chance your neighbours currently believe you just hired a prostitute." you said, turning to face him with as much dignity as you could muster,

Vader blinked. Once. Slowly. Processing that statement with visible effort. His gaze swept over you from head to toe, recalibrating, placing your words into their proper context. Then something shifted in his expression, not quite amusement, but close. That subtle softening around his eyes that you'd learned to recognize as his version of finding something funny.

He answered dryly "Given what the holonet has been broadcasting about my alleged crimes and conspiracies, hiring an expensive escort would likely be the least objectionable accusation. It might even improve my public image. Supporting the local economy, after all, instead of conducting affairs with Thrawn and Mon Mothma or attempting to establish my own one-man Empire."

You couldn't help it: you grinned despite yourself, a breathy, disbelieving sound slipping out before you managed to rein it in. Your weight shifted without conscious thought, the nervous energy translating into a small, restless tap of heel against polished floor. Your free hand tightened around the strap of your bag like it was an anchor and not, in fact, the entire reason you were here.

His eyes dropped again. Slower this time. Deliberate. Following the neckline of your dress, the way fabric clung to your body, the hemline that stopped mid-thigh. The return journey to your face took long enough to make your pulse spike. 

You watch his throat work. Actually watch him swallow, adam's apple bobbing, jaw tightening fractionally in a micro-expression that you've learned to recognize as his version of being affected by something while trying very hard not to show it.

Good. Excellent. The dress was not a mistake.

 You cleared your throat, the humour softening into something more earnest as you straightened a little, reclaiming what was left of your professional spine.

"I'm sorry for the unannounced house call," you added, fingers flexing against the bag. "But I thought tonight might actually be the right moment to install the extended sensor package. Temperature differentiation. Expanded tactile feedback. The prostheses have had enough time to settle, and frankly, it would be a crime not to make full use of what they're capable of."

One of his sparse but now somewhat more prominent eyebrows rose sceptically.  "Do you usually make house calls dressed for Corellian nightclubs?" The question landed with dry amusement that made heat flood your face. "Or is this special treatment reserved for war criminals?"

The laugh escaped before you could control it; genuine amusement mixed with embarrassment mixed with the sheer absurdity of standing in Darth Vader's apartment wearing a dress while pretending this was a professional visit.

"I got stood up, actually. He cancelled last minute. I was already dressed and thought I might as well be productive with my evening instead of drinking alone in expensive regret." You’d chosen the wording carefully. This sounded far more like other people might also be interested than my gay best friend ditched me.

Something shifted in his expression. Subtle change, but you'd spent enough time studying his micro-expressions to catch it: surprise, followed by something that looked almost like…satisfaction?

"Stood up." He repeated it slowly, testing the words like they contained information requiring analysis. "Someone cancelled plans with you while you're looking…"  He gestured vaguely at your entire existence. "like this."

You shrugged, going for casual and probably missing by several degrees. "His ex came crawling back. Apparently, nostalgia beats my company. I’d love to say that surprised me."

"What a Fool." The words came out flat and absolute. No inflection, no elaboration, just simple statement of fact.

But his eyes…

His eyes were doing something that made your pulse forget rhythm existed. Darkening slightly, the blue deepening into something more intense. His gaze dropped just for a second to trace the neckline of your dress before returning to your face with visible effort.

He was actually affected. The dress was absolutely not a mistake.

Something small and mechanical collided with your ankle.

You looked down.

A mouse droid, the kind that usually scurried through Imperial installations performing basic maintenance tasks, had apparently decided your leg made an excellent obstacle. It backed up with a whir of tiny repulsors, rotated approximately forty-five degrees, then proceeded forward again.

Directly into your other ankle.

Another reverse. Another rotation. This time ninety degrees.

Straight into the wall.

The droid hit the baseboard with a soft thunk, reversed a few centimetres, then just stopped. Sitting there against the wall like it had given up on navigation entirely and decided static existence was preferable to further embarrassment.

"KX-77," Vader's voice carried the particular tone of someone who'd had this conversation before, "please remove M6 from the entryway before it traumatizes our guest."

The security droid moved with surprising speed for something his size, scooping up the confused mouse droid with mechanical efficiency.

"I notice, my lord, that this is the third time this week MSE-6 has assaulted visitors." KX-77's photoreceptors brightened slightly, you were rather quickly convinced that was the droid equivalent of smugness. "Perhaps your programming skills require a few updates themselves."

Significant personality, you noted with a grin. The kind that suggested someone programmed it either deliberately or through spectacular accident.

Vader's eyes closed briefly, his expression cycling through what you recognized as extreme patience. "The programming is functional. The navigation algorithms require minor adjustment."

"Of course. I'm certain the droid will appreciate your eventual attention, my lord." KX-77 glided away with the confused mouse droid. "Assuming it doesn't achieve sentience and file a complaint first."

You couldn't help it. The smile broke across your face before you could control it; genuine amusement that bubbled up from somewhere honest and surprised.

Vader caught your expression, something shifting in his features. Not quite a smile, but a softening around his eyes that suggested he was aware of the absurdity and possibly shared your amusement.

"Faulty programming on both," he remarked in a level tone "I'd intended to correct the navigation issues, but the day turned out to be more…full than expected."

You followed him into the main living space and looked around curiously.

The apartment was chaos.

Organized, systematic chaos, but chaos nonetheless.

Droid parts everywhere. Not scattered randomly; everything had clear organization, the kind of military precision that suggested someone with tactical training had imposed order on what would otherwise be complete disaster. But the sheer volume of mechanical components transformed the space into something between workshop and droid graveyard.

The dining table was substantial, dark wood, probably designed to seat eight comfortably, had been completely overtaken. Protocol droid chassis in various states of assembly, arranged in a line like patients waiting for surgery. Optical sensors sorted by type and size in small containers. What looked like an entire astromech's motivator assembly spread across detailed schematics.

Meanwhile, a side table that appeared to exist purely for decorative purposes had been reassigned as the dining area, as evidenced by two chairs and an empty caf cup left behind.

The floor had dedicated zones. Three partially constructed security droids in various KX-series configurations lined up against one wall. A pile of binary load lifter parts near the window. Even what appeared to be a complete protocol droid torso serving as impromptu bookend for a stack of technical manuals.

"You've been busy," you managed, taking in the scope of the operation.

This was…well, kind of impressive. The organizational system alone suggested hundreds of hours of work.

Vader stopped near the kitchen, turning to face you with expression that carried something between defensiveness and other. "I needed something to occupy myself. Meditation and Training alone proved insufficient for filling the hours between the intelligence briefings. Luke suggested charitable work or…socializing."

He paused, his gaze moving across the mechanical landscape he'd created.

"I found droid repair more..." Another pause, like he was searching for the right word. "...manageable."

Because droids didn't judge. Didn't flinch. Didn't look at you with fear or recognition or the weight of everything you'd done. They just needed repair and programming and patience. The observation sat in your chest with complicated weight. You'd suspected, had half-expected to find him isolated here, avoiding human contact, surrounding himself with projects that didn't require emotional vulnerability. But seeing the physical evidence transformed suspicion into confirmed reality.

"The sensors." you tried redirecting, grasping for professional distance like it was a lifeline. "The adjustment shouldn't take more than twenty minutes. Simple calibration work, activation of the next phase of sensory inputs, temperature gradients, texture discrimination, pressure mapping-"

He watched you while you spoke. Or rather he appeared to. His expression shifted into something complicated, eyebrows lifting slightly as his gaze slid to the side, as if he were engaged in an internal dialogue with himself or with an entity invisible to you. One part of him seemed to be listening. Another had already reached a conclusion.

Whichever side won, it did so decisively.

“I’ll agree to the adjustment on one condition,” he said, already moving, that familiar decisiveness in his tone as he headed for the kitchen.

“What condition?” You followe and promptly forgot the question.

The kitchen was… absurd. Spacious, immaculate, all clean lines and high-end surfaces. Cooking had never been an undiscovered talent of yours, but even you could recognize a dream setup. It looked almost as large as your entire apartment.

He leaned forward, both hands on the black polished durasteel counter between you, and looked at you with a calm, deliberate certainty.  "Have dinner with me. I was about to start cooking when you arrived. I should have enough ingredients for two. Luke will simply have to endure a breakfast that does not involve leftovers."

The words landed with enough unexpected force that your brain temporarily stopped processing language. You stared at him, trying to reconcile the statement with…with anything that made sense.

Did Darth Vader just offer to cook you dinner?

He continued before your verbal centers could reboot: "Consider it payment for the house call. And…" Something shifted in his expression, almost hesitant. "Compensation for being stood up by someone with catastrophically poor judgment."

The ambiguity of his statement had not escaped you, but you chose not to address it for now.

"You..." Your voice came out uncertain. "You cook?"

"I'm trying. Or rather I'm learning," he corrected himself, already pulling items from the cupboards with practiced efficiency. He moved like someone who had turned cooking into a structured operation. "I required something to occupy my time beyond droid repair and meditation. It seemed practical."

Practical. Well, that was for sure one way to describe it.

"You wouldn't eat Vita paste," you said slowly, watching him work. "I had to practically threaten you just to get basic nutrition compliance, and now you're offering to cook?"

His shoulders shifted; might have been a shrug if he did things as casually as shrugging. "Vita paste is an abomination against palatability. Actual food requires effort, which makes it worthwhile. Besides it resembles engineering. Components assembled in a specific sequence. The difference is that the final product rarely survives more than a few hours."

He glanced back at you then, something almost playful flickering in those blue eyes. "Also, professional boundaries have shifted. Threats are no longer necessary. Nor is enforced fruit consumption."

The implications hung in the air between you like charged particles waiting for catalyst.

Professional boundaries have shifted.

Because you'd signed his discharge papers. Because technically, officially, you weren't his doctor anymore. Hadn't been for two months. Which meant…

"Dinner sounds good." Your voice came out slightly breathless. "Thank you."

He gave a single, sharp nod and reached for a knife, checked its balance out of habit, and began slicing with measured, deliberate strokes. Every movement carried the same lethal efficiency he'd once brought to the battlefield. This was not improvisation. It was execution. And like every fight he entered, he had no intention of losing.

You perched on one of the high stools positioned along the kitchen counter, settling into the seat. Your hands folded loosely in your lap, fingers interlacing without purpose, and you simply…watched. The surreality hadn't quite penetrated. Your brain was still catching up to the reality of Darth Vader moving through his kitchen with practiced efficiency, reaching for ingredients, the whole scene impossibly domestic in a way that made your perception of reality feel slightly tilted.

He reached up to a cupboard above him without breaking rhythm, the motion fluid and unhurried, and retrieved two wineglasses, placing them on the counter with deliberate care. The wine bottle sat nearby, already opened, breathing. You'd noticed it earlier but hadn't quite processed the implication.

The liquid poured smooth and dark, catching the light as it flowed. Rich burgundy settling into crystal with the kind of colour that spoke to expensive vintage and careful selection. He kept one glass, slid the other across the counter toward you with movements that suggested familiarity with this space.

"I require it for cooking," he said, voice carrying that particular dryness that had you smiling like an idiot before you could stop yourself. "But it's also perfectly acceptable to drink."

Something warm uncurled in your chest; might have been amusement, might have been something more complicated involving the casual domesticity of the moment and the man offering you wine in his kitchen like this was normal.

You accepted the glass, fingers closing around the stem, cool crystal a pleasant contrast against your skin. "Thank you," you murmured, the words softer than intended.

The first sip was good. Really good. The kind of wine that cost more than you'd spend on a bottle for yourself, rich and layered with complexity that spoke to careful aging and professional selection. You let it settle on your tongue for a moment before swallowing, then just sat there. Watching him work. Letting the absurdity and intimacy sink into your bones until it transformed into something almost comfortable. Darth Vader was cooking you dinner. In his apartment. While you drank expensive wine and perched on his kitchen counter like this was a completely casual…date evening.

Your life had become genuinely surreal.

The way he moved his hands was captivating. Pure professional interest in the prosthetic function and motor control integration, you told yourself, watching the knife work with growing absorption.

Except it was more than that.

The precision was remarkable. Each cut fell with mechanical exactness; uniform thickness, consistent angles, the kind of knife work that took most people years to develop. But he'd only had functional prosthetics for three months. Three months, and he was moving like he'd been born with these hands. The blade glided through vegetables with controlled force, never hesitating, never correcting. His cybernetic fingers adjusted grip with microscopic shifts, compensating for texture and resistance in real-time. The kind of feedback loop that should require extensive practice to achieve.

It wasn't just competent. It was masterful. The kind of control that spoke to something deeper than motor function, complete integration between intent and execution, no hesitation between thought and action.

"That's…" You paused, searching for adequate description. "That's extraordinary control. The neural integration shouldn't be this refined yet. Most patients at three months post-installation are still dealing with tremors or overcorrection during fine motor tasks. But you're…"

You gestured vaguely at the cutting board, at the precisely portioned ingredients. "you're operating like you've had these hands for years, not months."

His eyes flickered toward you briefly before returning to his work. "Well, I had an excellent and very dedicated doctor," he said simply. "And the rest is just based motivation to regain function rapidly. Dependence is unacceptable."

The wine warmed your throat as you took another sip, watching him move through the next phase of preparation with the same focused efficiency.

"You're still missing the full sensory spectrum though," you observed, physician mode reasserting itself beneath the wine-softened edges. "What you're achieving now is remarkable, but it's limited. Texture discrimination, pressure variance mapping, thermal gradient sensitivity. The prosthetics are capable of so much more than basic motor function."

You paused, your cybernetic fingers tracing the rim of your glass.

"That's why I'm here. To activate the final phase of sensory integration."

"Yes." He didn't look up from the cutting board, but something shifted in his posture, attention focusing even as his hands continued their precise work. "Your professional dedication is commendable. Making house calls at this hour in…"

Another glance. This one longer, more deliberate. His gaze travelled again from neckline down to hemline and back up, attentive enough to make warmth bloom beneath the thin fabric of your dress. "…formal attire."

He was teasing. Actually teasing.

"The dress seemed wasteful to change out of." You leaned forward, chin resting in your organic hand as you watched him work. Your cybernetic hand made a small, habitual adjustment, fingers smoothing the fabric, keeping the dress precisely where it belonged as you crossed your legs. A reflex more than a conscious decision. Practical. Entirely unremarkable. At least, you told yourself it was.

"And I'm technically off duty. This is more of a favour between…"

You paused, searching for the right word. What were you? Former doctor and patient? Acquaintances? People who'd kissed once and then spent two months in loaded silence?

"...friends."

The knife paused mid-cut. His eyes lifted to yours: intense, searching, that Force-sensitivity probably cataloguing every elevated heartbeat and shallow breath you couldn't quite control.

"Friends." He tested the word like it might be unstable. "Is that what we are?"

Loaded question. Dangerous question. Answer carefully or risk detonating whatever fragile détente had allowed this evening to exist.

"I don't know what we are," you admitted, the wine barely touched yet already loosening something you’d meant to keep locked down. "But I know what happened before you left wasn't nothing. And two months of silence doesn't erase-"

You cut yourself off. Too much. Too honest. Too direct.

"No." Quiet agreement, voice barely above a murmur. "It doesn't."

The vegetables fell in orderly succession beneath his knife. You found yourself watching his hands again, deliberately trying not to think about the kiss or, more dangerously, the dream.
It took at least one more glass of the rich, costly wine before you allowed yourself anywhere near that territory.

"What are you cooking?" Safe question. Neutral territory.

"Herb-crusted Nerf Fillet with Spiced Reduction and Seasonal Greens." He gestured toward a datapad propped against the backsplash.