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He knelt gradually. The movement tore away at where his flesh met prosthetics; each sinew stretched itself thin, and his joints groaned from the effort. Pain shot down from his spine to the pathetic stumps that made up his thighs. He had long been on the brink of death, and could no longer afford to push his old, broken flesh beyond its limits—but in this moment, the woes and aches that daily tormented him were irrelevant.
On one knee, he bowed his head before his daughter, scarcely daring to look at her face.
Shaking metal hands stretched forward, praying, praying—
And then the miracle came to fruition; she placed her hands in his, lighter than feathers, infinitely precious.
Oh, they were so delicate, these dim, soft blotches, engulfed in his monstrous claws. With the grind of stiff machinery, he clasped her hands in his own, his barbarian thumb barely brushing her skin, terrified that he'd hurt her. The little flowers hardly weighed anything, these fragile things that he had the great blessing of resting in his palm.
His heart burst.
His wizened, drooping face crumpled, naked for Leia to see, but oh, let her see—fifty-seven years old or not, she was always his little starlight. Pitifully blind as he was, beyond his son, his failed eyes had never beheld such a precious sight; he could not care less about his own grotesque appearance.
"Are you alright?" She asked, hesitant, wary, but not condescending.
He managed a ragged breath, then squeezed those hands as gently as his stiff fingers could allow. Finding he could not conjure up the strength to talk, he nodded, trying to blink away the burning in his tear ducts.
A pause. "Why don't you take a seat, Vader? It might ease your breathing."
He gasped for another breath, the air searing the very little that remained of his lungs; then, finding he hadn't the strength to say yes to her, reluctantly let her hands go and reached for his cane.
It took unreasonable effort to wrap his clumsy fingers around the handle, but in his ailing years, he had become used to this ineptitude. He carefully repositioned the cane and leveraged his dead weight back upright with immense struggle; Luke had helped him practice this, yes, in case he fell when his son wasn't around... He could prostrate himself to his son for a thousand years in gratitude for his mere existence, and it would not be enough.
Vaguely, he saw his other precious starlight shift in her chair; saw her with the Force, moving to help. Concentrating on his own feeble body, he raised a trembling arm and gestured for her to stay seated—mouthed, though only spittle came out, that he would be there soon...
It was then that Leia realized, with disbelief, just how feeble the former dark Lord had become, how time had chipped away his mountainous fortitude and dulled his blade-like wit. Weeks ago, Luke had told her his father's health had been declining rapidly after a long bout of illness that left him bedbound, and she could not believe him—there was no death for someone who had conquered death itself, his essence would be eternal, his will pushed beyond the failings of his flesh. But two days ago Luke had suddenly and urgently commed her again, telling her that Vader was near the brink of passing; and now that the old man was here, having been granted a chance to fulfill his final wish—the one that had been eating him alive for all his endless years—she could see it.
The ancient man stumbled forth, his cane thumping irregular beats on the ground as he managed three shambling steps. He leaned on the stick as if his own legs couldn't carry him, choking for air. As soon as he managed to reposition himself to sit, the man collapsed into his chair in an ungainly bundle, hardly able to prop himself upright, legs splayed, head lolling like a dead weight. The cane fell to the ground with a thud as violent tremors shot through his hands. Leia could hear the desperate whining of his lungs, the clicking of dangerously strained internal components, with the monitor on his pacemaker flashing warning signs. Eyes misting, the old warlord sat exhausted, his leaden hands placed limply in his lap. He wheezed desperately, ragged, wet. The sound made her own heart lurch.
Leia let him gather his breath, worried the man would keel over on the spot if she did not. Eventually, he fought to turn his barren, cratered moon of a head to her, and, gasping between and fumbling over each word, slurred out in as tender a voice as she had ever heard him speak,
"Leia. It is... good, to truly see you... at last..."
Vader had been practically blind for years, but she knew what he meant. Due solely to circumstance, they had contacted very sporadically throughout the decades; Luke instigated the majority of their incredibly sparse holo conversations, while the rest were attributed to government affairs. It was clear in every interaction that Vader was desperate for any shred of knowledge about his long-lost daughter, even the most minuscule of details, just so he could make a mental reconstruction of this offspring that he somehow stored so much love. But Leia had made it clear that she would not tolerate being in the same star system as him, let alone meeting in person. Vader, for all his countless faults, had at least respected that.
That same longing was smeared across Vader's exhausted old face now, decades of heartache visible in the way his bloodless lips quivered, how his cataract-ridden grey eyes wore a filmy sheen from tears. Those hazy eyes roamed her face, searching for anything they could faintly discern.
The public at large knew of Luke's ward only as Anakin Skywalker, the aged and battered general, imprisoned and tortured by the Empire until beyond recognition and rescued when the institution fell. Behind that, Vader devoted his life to the construction of the New Republic, and Luke devoted much of his life for the past few decades to vouching for his father's loyalty and change of character in conjunction. Old Rebel command eventually became convinced of his fealty to his son (and by extension, the new government), and reluctantly, Leia reached a tentative tolerance toward his existence.
Her boy, Ben, also had a mind of his own, and that mind always gravitated to this mysterious grandfather, this phantom that hovered in his parents’ lives; once he became an adult, she knew she could no longer control his decisions, and allowed him to visit his aging grandfather for the first time. Apparently, Vader welcomed the visit fervently, desperate to know his oldest grandchild, especially as his body was beginning to give out.
Ben came back speaking of his grandfather's doting and devotion, a box of handwritten letters regarding Padmé Amidala held carefully in his arms. He told her what Luke could not, forbidden by his father—the journals upon journals that Vader took account of Leia, jotting each speech and legislation; carefully noted details about her preferences and travels, trying to reconstruct his daughter with whom he had lost a lifetime. A list of bounty hunters, all names struck through. A garden of her and her biological mother's favorite flowers, carefully tended to. There were clumsy sketches of her many public appearances, denoted with his observations; sketches whose quality deteriorated through time as illness set in. It was obsessive, but in a way that spoke of years of yearning that burned him through. But she could never forgive the wrongs of Vader's magnitude, nor forget the nightmares he imparted—despite how Ben maintained his visits to his grandfather for the past few years, despite how even her own son (damn him) encouraged reconciliation.
Until Luke finally convinced her to acquiesce, just this once.
While Vader labored to gather himself for his next words, Leia studied his gaunt face—there were new cracks on the ruined skin that hadn't been there when she last saw him bare through holo; deep fault lines that knotted like crossroads near his hairless brow and extended across his entirety, mostly from his perpetual grimace. His red-rimmed eyes sank so deep into his skull that they were nearly enveloped by the bruised, sagging bags that sheltered them. Luke had placed a long bacta strip on the open flesh that ran from Vader's barren crown to the back of his puckered head; of that, she was glad. She would rather not fathom the pain of active decay.
Vader managed a few more breaths through his nasal cannula—shallow, wheezing gasps for air, his wizened nostrils twitching as he looked at her with nothing short of reverence. The branching lines near his eyes crinkled, and he cooed,
"You are… so precious… to me." Coughs wracked the old man, and he gripped the armrests of the chair, suffering. It was a while before he managed to speak again, and when he did, his hoarse voice quavered more than before. Leia admired Luke's patience, caring for a man ailing so severely without complaint. She would not have been able to bear it on a daily.
"Force willing... might I be the... deformed husk... which forever protects thee..."
His sagging face was frozen in a rictus of pain. He sat there for a long while, hunched over and heaving; she could feel him trying to reel in the miasma of agony that had leaked through his shields. It was his chest that ached the most. If this was how poor Vader's health had become, she did not envy Luke at all. Eventually, he stared through her, eyes glazed toward a void.
"Protect thee... Until the stars... End..."
The only sound that accompanied Leia was the perpetual compressions of air from his oxygen pump. The woman watched awkwardly—how should she respond? With half-feigned gratitude? With lingering bitterness?
Vader suddenly shook his head, choking on another breath. "I am... sorry. It is taxing... To parse the ramblings... of a... senile relic... like I..." Speaking drained what little remained of his energy, and he sank back into his chair, sapped of strength. His shallow breaths hissed as his unfocused eyes watched her with that boundless, naked love.
In a single moment, all her accumulated pity stung her thoroughly—that the towering monster of her nightmares was no more above mortality than herself, its eyes milky, its mouth devoid of teeth. What was once a butcher of worlds could now only butcher his vague, lisped speech. There was some strange grief in that.
The man must be ancient, she thought to herself. Nearly a century old, judging from his crumpled, mottled skin, but the wars must've aged him. Maybe pushing ninety.
"Don't worry about it. I can understand you, just focus on catching your breath." She decided she would not lash out with cruelty today.
The old man strained his spine to lean a bit closer, and Leia heard a series of cracks and pops and winced. Tremors wracked the man's hands:
"Thank you... for—" he drew a painful gasp and his voice came back hoarser, "This... kindness."
"Of course," she said quietly. Her heart stung despite itself, and she remembered, so long ago, visiting the elderly in hospice on Alderaan when she was a child. The medical lights, the incessant sounds of machines. How much it meant to be comforted.
"Can I help you to rest for a bit?" She tried, tentatively. Leia from a decade ago would have laughed at herself. Some part of her still is, now. But he was not what he once was, and, just this time, she wanted to try, just a little.
The old cyborg's face shifted; the myriad grooves on that ruined skin cut even deeper as his unfocused eyes managed to meet her face.
"Worry not... for a withered, old thing... like I..." His mouth stretched into a small, tentative smile, deliberately tucking his thin lips over his toothless gums so she'd be spared from seeing the rot inside.
"It is already... the greatest gift... to be... s-sss... seated here."
For a moment, Vader felt the slight weight of her hand on his upper arm, where it was flesh; he froze, immobile from infirmity and utterly baffled. He must be hallucinating; his senile mind must have begun its final descent. Here he was, and the daughter he had lost and yearned and dreamt of for so many long years was next to him, granting him solace. The thought emboldened him, pushed him past his shame as a failure of a sire.
"Leia." He drew a ragged breath and reached to hold her hands again, and she let him. He clung to that lifeline, squeezed the fingers with infinite gentleness. Then he asked what plagued him utmost. "Were you happy?"
She paused.
"Yes." She would give him this. And she believed it anyway.
At that, he finally wept, tears breaching his dam and leaking down his crumpled face while his tremulous smile grew. The shadow of infinite grief lifted from his sunken eyes, replaced by reassurance. It was an uncomfortable sight, watching the topography of the elderly invalid's face shift this way; Leia’s heart ached fiercely from the understanding of being a parent herself, and for this, she could not fault him—he was just an old, old, dying old man drowning in his regret and with very little time left, comforted by the knowledge that his precious child had been alright, despite every offense he has personally committed.
"I am... glad." And he could manage to speak no more. With great difficulty, he clasped her hands and dared to bring them closer to his heart, cooing her name with so much adoration that Leia's eyes began to mist as well. She swallowed and reeled in her emotions; seeing her cry would kill the old invalid.
She missed Bail so much. But Vader had spent years repenting, and that was worth something.
It was another while before Vader spoke.
"Ben is..." He labored to gather his breath, "Kind, and... discerning…" The old man barely managed to form the syllables, but Leia understood him well enough. He blinked lethargically, doing his best to push his sibilant tongue into speech. "So... wise. You... rai-shhhhhed him... well."
"I did my best." She took his hand again, squeezed the rusting appendages. "Thank you for taking him in when he needed it."
His hazy eyes creased and twinkled. "It was my... great... honor."
The air suddenly shifted, and he craned his head to see her better; his bleary, cataract eyes were as wide and focused as she'd ever seen them this day, and she could hear both his grief and his sincerity as he wheezed: "For the Organas... I am... grateful. And... forever indebted..."
Leia stared at him in utter shock; that he would acknowledge this in the first place, that he’d, after so many years, finally vindicated her parentage.
“It would have been… the greatest joy… to have raised you. But they gave you… what I… could not.”
She wanted to ask more, say more, but the light in his eyes had receded in a moment, and even sitting reclined in his chair seemed more than what he could manage. His gaze was faraway as he muttered incoherently to himself; even with her best efforts, she could not coax him back. The ailing man needed proper rest.
She felt her brother through their bond; he must’ve sensed that debilitating, bone-deep exhaustion too. As Luke drew closer, Vader stirred and looked to the direction of her landing pad, seeking; against her better judgment, Leia returned his fallen cane to his hand, helped him get back upright, and offered her arm to walk side by side toward the door. Vader shuffled beside her, inching forward and crumpling over his cane, and she moved slowly to accommodate his limping footsteps. As they stepped over the small ledge at the door, one struggling and unbalanced foot at a time, he began to lean on her for support, though he did it lightly, not wishing to burden her with his dead load. Other than his attached assortment of machines, the old man was silent through their short but toiling trek; it was a miracle that he'd even managed to walk today, Leia thought to herself, given what Luke had said about his father's decline. Today was Vader’s final push.
The ship landed as they stepped onto the landing pad. In their brief moment of rest, Vader simply stood there, stooped over his cane, the bleary, sunken eyes tearfully admiring her blurry figure from that ashen face. His lips were quivering; he spoke, his voice barely a murmur.
"Leia... you must know... this body... serves me... no longer. But I pledge myself… to you… until… the galaxy’s end. For everything today… I thank thee."
Soon, Luke emerged from his ship; once he did, he took Vader from Leia’s arms. From behind the two, Leia heard Luke mutter reassurances throughout the way as Vader fought to move his clumsy feet, leaning on Luke more with each step. She watched Vader trip and collapse suddenly right before the ship gangway, into Luke's arms; before she could move, Luke turned his head, reassuring her, then gently supported all of his father's feeble body up the steps.
At the top of the gangway, the old man turned his bent body back to look at her one last time; and with Luke's help, he raised a trembling arm to wave weakly, not having the heart to part from his precious child. Time froze for a long while and she knew with certainty that his hazy, blind old eyes saw her, saw clearly the daughter he had lost a lifetime with, the daughter he utterly adored, one of the two centers of his universe.
Eventually, Luke ushered his father into the ship.
Anakin's body gave out rapidly after; just two days after his visit, Leia felt his death. His heart stopped, Luke told her, but it was a peaceful passing. Luke had taken him to Naboo for his last rites.
In the years that followed, she never saw his ghost fully like the way he would materialize to Luke and Ben; but sometimes, in the corner of her bedroom at night, she would see a faint blue glimmer, and the room would be comfortably warmer.