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"Leia? Leia. Leia?!"
Leia ignores the ghost's voice as she ducks one last blaster bolt, stumbles up the ramp as fast as she can, flings herself into one of the Falcon's battered seats, and scrubs at her stinging eyes with her sleeve. It's not like she needs to see to know who's fretting over her. "Yes--" she gasps, waving the ghost away. "Just--need to--sit down--" Her feet and hands are numb, cold, and painful all at once. "Catch--my breath--" Some part of her brain distantly appreciates the irony, but mostly she's just focused on holding on tightly as Rey and Chewie take off.
"Your fingernails are blue," the silent voice remonstrates directly into her brain.
"So're yours," she manages to retort. "When y' have 'em."
"I'm dead. You're alive. Living humans aren't supposed to be blue!" The faintest brush of soothing warmth spreads through her hands as her father's ghost cradles them in his own.
"I'm fine," Leia mutters. "It'll be fine. Stop worrying."
"That's impossible," Anakin tells her with a brief smile. "Sorry. I'm made entirely of midi-chlorians, overwhelming love, and crippling anxiety. And I always have been."
"The epitome of parenthood. I'm so lucky," Leia mumbles as her hands begin to throb.
"It's not like I don't have reason to worry about you, my precious princess. You got spaced just weeks ago," he lectures, as if there could be any danger of her forgetting the event that killed some of her dearest friends and caused her body to cease being its usual reliable, capable self. "You barely survived. Half your capillaries exploded from the lack of pressure. And it's not like they've all healed. Your hands and feet are starving for oxygen."
"I'm fine," she snaps. "What do you know about extremities anyway?" Anakin, kneeling in front of her, gives her a pained look and she squirms internally. "I'm sorry," she murmurs, her face burning bright with shame. "That was cruel of me to say."
Anakin smiles sadly, reaching up to brush away a tear escaping from her eye. "Leia, you never need to ask for forgiveness from me."
Leia laughs, bitter and desperate. "You're the only family I have left. I can't afford to drive you away too."
Anakin begins, "You didn't--" but stops when Finn runs through, on his way to the gunner station.
The former stormtrooper barks out, "Hold on to something, Rey's about to take some evasive maneuvers--General," he adds belatedly. "Uhhhh, and, uh--" he stammers, eyes flicking to Anakin.
"General works for me, too," Anakin offers. "Or just Anakin, since I'm not your commanding officer."
"Right," Finn says. "Right. I'm just gonna...go...shoot things now." He nearly trips over his feet at the gravitational border of the ladder, and Chewbacca, impatiently waiting for the ladder to be clear, growls at him to stop gawking at Darth Vader's ghost and get moving.
"I love how the secret that wrecked my life has become no big deal," Leia comments pseudo-brightly.
Anakin smiles wryly at her. "Look, I know I'm your least favorite family member and you'd rather have literally anyone else--"
"I didn't say that," Leia attempts to interject. Anakin just gazes at her sadly. "I didn't," she repeats. "It's, it's nice to be talking to you. As family. Not as an enemy."
"Leia, don't lie to make me feel better, I don't deserve it--"
"I'm not lying," Leia says firmly. "I like having you in my life, and even if I had Luke and Han around, and, and Ben," and she swipes angrily at her eyes, "I would still want to be haunted by the weirdest ghost I know."
Anakin scoffs. "After everything I've done? You can't be serious. " He busies himself with removing her left boot, peeling down her sock, and frowning thoughtfully at her foot.
"I can too," Leia retorts. "I...I want you around. I wish I'd had you in my life ever since--"
"Ever since you were born?" Anakin asks quietly.
"Ever since you died," Leia corrects him firmly. "Before then, it wasn't my doing that you were not in my life. But after...after I knew, and then you found out, and then you were dead and not Dark, you reached out, and I was the one who pushed you away." She sighs heavily. "And that, I regret."
Anakin harrumphs and hunches over her feet, muttering to himself, "I'm really worried about these two little toes of yours. The blood flow is compromised and I don't want you to lose them. It's bad enough that you're already suffering from poor circulation, but I really want you to avoid amputation, that's extremely painful and probably wouldn't heal well because of--"
"Anakin," Leia tries to interrupt.
"--inadequate perfusion anyway, setting you up for gangrene and agonizing debridement--"
"Anakin!" Leia tries again.
"--and I really don't want that for you--"
"Father!" Anakin looks up in surprise, and Leia smiles gently, reaching out to him. "I love you too."
Anakin takes her hand and mumbles, "I don't deserve--you can't possibly--I understand that I've hurt and traumatized you in the past and I'm not asking for your forgiveness or--"
"Shut up, Father," Leia says with a smile. "I love you. Accept it."
"Shutting up," Anakin replies quickly. Leia bursts into laughter, and Anakin frowns in confusion. "It wasn't that funny--"
"You sounded just like Threepio," Leia snickers. "Did you program him to say that?"
Anakin shrugs bashfully. "Yeah. I mean, sort of. He's--I made it so that he would try to placate anyone who might be angry at him... Because I didn't want Watto or anyone to get angry and hurt my mother for having a mouthy droid, you know..." He looks, suddenly, young and uncertain. Vulnerable. "Especially once I--once I was freed and I left..."
"I get that," Leia murmurs. "I mean, I wasn't--it was only two days, for me, so I'm sure I don't understand fully--"
"I don't want you to," Anakin tells her bluntly. "'Only two days' is two days longer than I ever wanted any child of mine in chains--" Leia bites her lip, ashamed, and Anakin scowls. "No. Leia. It's not your fault. It is no cause for shame."
"I was careless, I got caught, I chose to take off the helmet, a disguise doesn't work if you don't wear it--"
"From what I've heard about what happened," Anakin begins carefully, "you took off the helmet to comfort your beloved as he suffered from hibernation sickness."
Leia tilts her head quizzically. "Well, yes. But I shouldn't have risked it--"
"No, it was absolutely the right thing to do," Anakin argues. "Hibernation sickness is extremely disorienting, and he might have suffered much longer if he didn't know there were beings around him that he trusted."
Leia frowns skeptically. "You're some kind of expert on hibernation sickness, too?"
Anakin shrugs. "I've had it, I've been carbon-frozen. It's unpleasant. But no, I'm not an expert on it like I am on what happens when your body parts don't get enough oxygen." He flicks his fingers against Leia's right foot and tries to look stern and concerned at the same time.
"I'm fine," Leia protests, trying to hide her foot.
"You're lying," Anakin corrects her. "Probably trying to keep me from being so worried."
"Is it working?" she asks hopefully.
Anakin scoffs. "Does it look like it's working?"
"I'll be fine. I caught my breath and everything," Leia mutters. "I hate not being able to run anymore. And the chest pain."
"I know," Anakin sympathizes. "I know exactly how you feel."
"Don't remind me that I'm turning into you," Leia scowls. "Unless I suddenly get taller. That I wouldn't mind."
"But then you'd have to re-learn how to walk and everything, it's not worth it at all. Besides, being short makes you a smaller target," Anakin objects.
"As if a few centimeters make a huge difference to a good sniper--" Leia begins, then glares at her father. "Speaking of snipers, do you know anything about the corpse that fell out of a tree this morning, right before all this started?"
"No, of course not, I have no idea what you're talking about and that guy probably died of a perfectly normal heart attack," Anakin insists, utterly failing to look innocent.
"Clearly I got my ability to lie convincingly from my mother," Leia notes, glowering severely.
"Yeah, probably. Look, I didn't mean to kill him. I think it was a heart attack, actually, he was really scared."
"You scared him to death."
"Well, it sounds really bad when you put it like that," Anakin mumbles.
"It looks really bad when my birth father the former Sith Lord is the reason there's a corpse falling on me!" Leia sighs, and rubs her eyes. "What did you do that scared him so badly?"
"How was I supposed to know that he used to be an Imperial sniper?" Anakin demands. "Most people trying to shoot at you just get confused or distracted when I show up. Maybe they need clean pants afterwards, but I haven't killed anyone in more than three decades! Until today." He shrugs uncomfortably. "He may have had a heart attack because he thought he saw Darth Vader about to Force choke him," he adds in a small voice.
"And was Darth Vader about to Force choke him?" Leia asks, pointedly.
"No, absolutely not," Anakin insists, meeting her gaze steadily. "I promise. I only look all Vader at them because it makes for a better, quicker distraction than if I looked like this."
"You know I have to ask."
"Just like you had to ask Poe about the missing spice, I understand." Anakin quirks a slight smile, and his eyes twinkle even bluer, if possible. "I'd rather be questioned like a recovering addict than, y'know, have you loathing me because you think I'm stuck on the Dark Side forever."
Leia snorts. "Even if I did think that, I know you'd be--distracting--people to death around me anyway."
Anakin grins. "You're absolutely right."
Leia rolls her eyes with a smile. "You're too much."
"I love you too, dearest daughter." Anakin's smile vanishes, and he gazes unblinking up at her. "Even if I was--you know--if I still was Vader--I would do the same. Protect you, I mean. Now that I know." He struggles for a minute, opening his mouth to speak, then stopping to consider his words. "If I had--earlier--"
"You would have stalked me across the galaxy like you did Luke?"
Anakin shrugs. "Well, yeah, but I was going to say..." He frowns in concentration for a moment. "If I had known about you, if I had been told at that moment that I had a daughter that was chained to Jabba, there is nothing and nobody that could have stopped me from freeing you." He squeezes her hands tightly. "Unless you freed yourself before I got there." He smiles for a briefly blinding second, radiating his profound joy, his uncomplicated awe. Then his gaze falters, and he continues, "As wrong, as lost in the Dark Side as I was, I would still have--you're my daughter--" He trails off, looking plaintively up at her. "Even if the first thing you did was kill me, it would have been worth it, to see you free."
"I know," Leia tells him softly. "I know." She tugs him up to sit next to her. "This is the worst part, for me. The waiting, doing nothing to help."
"This ship has way too many guns for a light freighter, and you have excellent aim," Anakin points out. "Why aren't you at one of the quad cannons?"
Leia hunches in on herself. "Because I can't handle the ladder anymore. My feet--"
"You can levitate yourself to the seat," Anakin argues. "Or you could copilot, I'm sure you'd be a big help to Rey."
"I'm not that good of a pilot--"
Anakin scoffs, "You're just measuring yourself against your family full of phenomenal pilots. That's why you think you fall short. You're actually a very good pilot. Bordering on great." Leia rolls her eyes in disbelief. "You are!" he insists. "Better than Obi-Wan, definitely. Almost as good as Ahsoka was when she left the Jedi. Better than when she first became my Padawan, anyway."
"I thought you wanted to protect me," Leia objects. "To look out for me and my oxygen-starved toes."
"Yes, I do. But you can look after your health and shoot from a ship turret." Anakin squeezes her hand. "You're far from helpless, and your command style is to lead from the front, like me." He waves his mechanical hand at the turret ladder. "Or from the turret, as the case may be. You have a different skill set than me. More ranged combat, better spycraft, demoting your subordinates instead of murdering them--"
"I slapped Poe," Leia reminisces gleefully.
"But you're not the kind of General that puts your soldiers in harm's way while you stay safe." Anakin beams. "And you're phenomenally good at it, and I am so proud of you." He pokes the tip of her nose playfully. "All your other parents were politicians and royalty. I should get to take some credit for your military skills."
Leia pokes his nose in return. "I get my nose, my Force sensitivity, and my slightly alarming aptitude for warfare from you, sure."
"And your chubby cheeks, your temper, and your stubbornness."
"Why couldn't I get your height?" Leia grumbles again.
"If you're short, it's easier to float yourself into the turret," Anakin suggests with a grin. Leia gives him a thoroughly unimpressed look, and he continues seriously, "One of the extremely skilled rebels you command is you. Your injuries haven't made you helpless or useless. Don't forget that."