Trigger Warning: Surgery! Nothing super graphic (at least, I don't think so? but it's super up for debate) but like... it happens.

The next time Vader glimpsed consciousness, he was back in the hospital, lying on a gurney as ceiling panels passed overhead. His mind foggy and unfocused, he attempted to ground himself with that motion, counting the tiles as medics chattered around him.

He was used to this. This was just business as usual. Another effort would be made to preserve his life, and if he knew Palpatine's efforts, it would take away another chunk of comfort, and fill the hole it left with outdated, inefficient, uncomfortable mechanics.

And that would be the end of his stay. He would be hammered back into a useable state, and pushed back to the front lines until these repairs gave way, as so many others already had.

He closed his eyes again, feeling empty already, where Leia had been taken from his arms.

It was the end of his time with her as well, and he had no idea how Bail would explain away his disappearance. Would he be kind enough to Vader to tell her that he had healed enough to go home, or would he tell her that he had died?

Please, don't tell her that, he plead internally, writhing, as he often did waking up from nightmares hoping that just proving he was still alive could protect Leia from hearing that. I… I still want to send her plants. I promised.

And then he cast himself out to the Force, to the thin, undeveloped bond they shared. I am alive, Princess, he assured her. I am still here, little one.

From her end, he felt a terrified pulse back, before the gurney rattled to a halt, and Vader wheezed again, struggling to open his eyes and see what had happened.

They had stopped at the door to a surgery, double doors seeming to loom over him as he worked his fists, trying to supress the memories of other visits to surgeries, other hospital stays and brief recoveries, and returns to service.

It had been unusual that he had had the opportunity to take a break long enough to meet Leia at all, presumably because Palpatine hadn't wanted to deal with his failed servant, and had left him here to stagnate until he was required again.

He wished the princess were nearby, he realized. He let out a small breath as the doors finally opened, and his gurney began to trundle into the blindingly white light.

Would they bother to sedate him, this time?

He was letting out another breath, and struggling to disassociate enough to hide from the pain when there was a sudden indignant shout, and the medics turned away from him, looking back through the door.

"I'm going too!" the voice shouted, and Vader took an unsteady breath as he recognized his friend's voice.

"Leia, it's not safe for you to-," Bail began.

"Please," Vader croaked, unsure if his voice would even be loud enough to carry through the breath mask. "Please."

"He's scared…" Leia whispered, and Vader cowered as he felt her hands reaching for his, her weight shaking the gurney as she threw herself up towards him.

"Princess, you can't stay with him just because he's frightened," Bail tried to dissuade her, and Vader managed to turn his head towards them to see Bail gently trying to lead her away by her free hand as she clung to him, wide eyed.

"He doesn't wanna be ALONE!" she insisted again, pulling her hand from his, and gripping Vader's with it as well. Then she turned her pleading gaze on a medic, "Can't I stay with him? Just 'till he's asleep?"

Vader didn't have the heart or the breath to tell her that there was a pretty good chance that he wouldn't be going under, so he instead focused on the medic's face. He didn't know if this would look pleading, or if he had become foggy enough that it would seem directionless. Did the man know who he was? Was there a threat that the morning would come with a revelation that Darth Vader had come to need a little girl to go into surgery with him?

"There is the preparation period…" the medic said slowly, turning to Bail. "We'll need to remove the hubs, recalibrate his blood chemistry, and ensure that he is able to go under safely. There would be no risk of contamination."

Vader shivered at the thought of Leia witnessing the removal of his prosthetic hubs, ground into his bone as they were, but he couldn't help feeling a prick of curiosity. Why did they have to come off at all? They were not the source of any issues yet, if his ability to walk with Leia had been indicative.

"I wanna stay," Leia said, and Vader turned his mind back to her, watching as she made her appeal to her father.

For a long moment, Bail looked over her head at him, and he desperately tried to make his pleading visible in his eyes, uselessly reaching, one-armed, for the princess.

Then the viceroy sighed, crouching down, and holding his arms out to Leia. "Alright, Leia, but you have to promise you'll come out again, when he has to have his surgery."

For a second, Leia hesitated, slowly playing with Vader's thumb, before nodding seriously, and allowing her father to lift her. "Alright."

Vader scrabbled stupidly to maintain his grip on her hand, and she turned to him, smiling in confusion as she was seated next to him.

Vader managed a weak smile in return, before wincing as the cart was bumped, and he was forced to become aware of the medics again, as they began to prepare for their work.

"Don't be scared," Leia said, and Vader trembled, yanked back to her wide eyes and calm voice. That… that had had to be the Force. She was using it to comfort him… Curious, he reached out to her, prodding gently at the little girl's mind. Immediately, her face was lit up, and she giggled, and Vader felt her presence writhe with her laugher, squirming away as if he had tickled it.

Which seemed like an excellent distraction, now that he thought about it.

Throwing all his instinctive desire for control to the wind, he blocked out the galaxy, and released her presence, letting it laughingly flicker itself away from his a bit, before diving after it, wrapping it in darkness, and twirling it around.

A corner of his mind recognized her laughter in the real world, and he shook it off, desperate to free himself from all ties to reality as he tossed her presence around again.

It was strange, this other world was so abstract, so impossible, unintelligible to the vast majority of the galaxy… But it felt so right and real to play with her like this, prodding her as he had once teased Ahsoka.

"Princess?" he asked, lowering her back to her own corporeal awareness.

For a long second, there was silence, and he sighed, beginning to assume that she couldn't hear him yet, before she answered, her voice soft, charged with curiosity , "Yes?"

"Your power is incredible," he complimented her, teasing at the luminous edges of her presence again. "I am sorry I was not able to teach you more."

"You still can," she offered innocently, and now a thin streak of light reached out to him in return, prodding at his own writhing darkness.

Allowing her to reach towards the heart of his haze, he shook a few waving tendrils of darkness at her sadly. "I will be returning to my own planet, once the surgery has been completed."

At that, her presence withdrew, its curious beams retracting, and light flickering, as though she was blinking in confusion.

"I have been pressed past the point of requiring a recovery period," he explained softly to her, reaching out to her once more, his mind caressing hers. "I am accustomed to it, but I regret that I will not be able to remain with you."

There was a sudden tug on his consciousness, and Vader gasped, his eyes springing open as a medic wrapped a cool, damp towel around his left arm, and Vader dived back into the Force, wanting to hide himself in the little girl's light. In reality, she had slumped, her arm resting over Vader's stomach, but here she was bright, and awake.

"I believe that once I have some time, I might purchase you a plant from my wife's planet," he offered her, drawing her light against himself, and reaching out to the galaxy at large, Naboo floating before them, as it had all those years ago, when Anakin had first seen it.

"One with flowers?" Leia asked, and Vader threw them in, closer to the planet, down to a familiar cottage on a lake, and through the grounds, Leia drawn along with him, searching for a perfect plant.

Feeling the uncomfortable draw of more cloths, this time wrapped around the prosthetic mounts for his legs, he struggled to remain in the facsimile he had created, the vague colours and shapes of the garden resolving themselves as he held them out for the princess's appraisal.

There was movement at his arm again, and he drew the princess's light against himself in desperation, struggling to resolve every petal of the head of flowers he held, before there was a sudden rending, and the garden and its flowers fell away with his scream of pain.

Panting, he turned to see that the mount had been pulled loose from the bracket it had attached to, ready to be removed entirely. A medic stepped forwards, precise drill in hand, ready to begin removal of the plates, but Vader shook his head.

"My legs… next…" he panted, and the medics turned to him, even as he felt Leia's hands tighten in his hospital gown, frightened by the change to her friend.

"Are you aware of the extent of the surgeries you're about to undergo?" a medic asked, seeming to take on the position of head surgeon as he slowly touched Vader's head.

Vader shook his head, pulling his right arm around Leia, gripping her shoulder tightly. It seemed these medics had no idea of his identity, given the slow caress he was receiving in a misguided attempt at comfort.

"It is… of no importance…" he said, "I will take what has been chosen for me."

"It's gonna be okay," Leia whispered, her fists twisting his gown tighter around themselves. "Daddy said."

"It will," Vader croaked, stroking her head slowly, his stump automatically moving as if it still had a hand with which to cradle her. "It always has been."

At his words, the princess closed her eyes, nestling her cheek comfortably against his stomach. "Mmm…"

"Alright," Vader murmured, closing his own eyes as he continued to focus on the motion of stroking the little girl's hair.

Vaguely feeling motion around one leg, he gritted his teeth, but hardly felt its sudden separation from his body. As the second one was removed, he hardly tensed, his remaining hand stilling comfortably on Leia's shoulder.

"Will the plates be similarly painless?" he asked uncertainly, looking up at the chief medic.

The man shrugged, "If that's what you want to call a fairly major surgery."

"For now, I do," Vader said, looking down at Leia, who had lifted her head to watch the conversation. "You have a little longer before you must return to your father."

She frowned slightly, gripping his arm with one hand, "I don't wanna go."

Vader smiled, and risked letting the medics see him use the Force to draw her closer, until she leaned against his chest instead. "You will have to. They will require a sterile environment for this, and little girls are far from sparkling clean," he teased, wiping some dirt from her face with his thumb. It must've happened while they'd been out in the gardens, and he had been blinded by pain, and his determination to please her…

"Awww…" Leia said, and Vader laughed sharply at the sarcastic sparkle in her eyes as she flopped her entire body over his.

"Alright, we're gonna start removal," the medic said, sounding bemused.

"You do that," Vader answered lightly, sticking his tongue between his teeth, and awkwardly moving the stump of his arm to poke Leia's forehead.

"Nooooo…" Leia giggled, pushing him back off, before reaching for his face, pressing a cool hand against his nose as he laughed in return.

He barely heard the drill starting up, fully focused on getting his remaining hand through Leia's flailing defences to tickle her again.

Before he knew it, the vague whine of the drill had ceased, and Bail was back in the room, trying to lift a still-giggly Leia out of his arms. At her loss, Vader nearly begged to have her remain, but managed to hold it back, instead just pushing himself upright for long enough to kiss her head.

"We'll see your friend before he goes," Bail promised Leia, her little hands slipping as she tried to hold onto Vader.

"We…" Vader hesitated, startled, "We will?"

For just a second, Bail met his eyes again, and nodded slowly. "We will. I've made the arrangements."