Adrift Through Time

Epilogue

Author's Note: I decided to do this because of the special request for it. It's something that I think deserves to exist, anyway.

Also, the conversation with Anakin and Obi-Wan is based off of their post-ROTJ conversation in canon (that I adore <3).

~ Tirana Sorki

It's been so long since Vader – Anakin – was last touched, it's nearly overwhelming. Sidious has touched him fleetingly, but never like this.

Anakin twists sideways, half curled up in Shmi's lap, or at least about as much as he can be when he's practically twice her size. She's leaning against the head of the bed, with him resting his head against her chest, her arms firmly wrapped around him.

She and the twins insisted that he look into getting treated, and he's presently in the best medical bay there is on Coruscant where they're looking into treating his injuries.

The details are... frankly confusing him more than anything else. He doesn't know how to – to control any of that. He hasn't for years. It's been so long since his body has felt like his own. He's so used to the sickening feeling of what did you do to me this isn't my body this isn't me that he always feels after Sidious directs his surgeries. He never expected that he'd have control of himself again someday. He just feels... lost.

Not that he cares to think about any of that right now.

He's in a pressured room where he can breathe freely with his helmet off, and... the pieces of his armor and life support suit that cover his chest and back are presently off too, even if it can only be temporary right now.

He feels Shmi's hand lightly resting on the scarred skin of his back, in between the implants that he knows cover it, and it – it's more than he could ever thought he'd get again.

"You should rest," Shmi tells him, her hand lightly rubbing his back.

He opens his eyes, wanting to look up at her but deciding against it, because he doesn't want to stop feeling her touch, or even the softness of the fabric against his skin. "I – I want to feel it while you are here," Anakin objects.

She sighs softly, her hand coming up to press against his cheek. He twists his head enough to press a kiss to the palm of her hand. He forgot how much he missed her, somehow. He was so used to her being gone, to forgetting what it was like to feel cared for by her, to feel like a child again – and not in a way he minds.

"I'll always be here," she promises.

He presses a little closer. "You were gone so long. Sometimes, I do not know if – if that will change." He doesn't think it will, but he can't help being terrified of it. He lost her once. He can't handle that again. "And I have not been touched in a long time." He doesn't mind explaining it to her. Doesn't have a reason to. She's the one person he knows he can trust inexplicably to take care of him. That's the only thing that's ever mattered to her, and he –

(He wished that was true about Obi-Wan, no matter how... selfish that might be. He can... accept why it wasn't. Obi-Wan never had a family himself. Even if that doesn't change how much it hurts.)

"All these years, you... never have been?" she asks. He can feel her flare of horror in the Force.

He almost feels bad for telling her about it, at all. He can feel that horror constantly, and he – he doesn't like it when she has to feel like that because of him. "Sidious did sometimes, but it was not – It was brief."

"Just to hurt you," she says. He can feel the anger and mostly just how sick she's feeling.

"Not only," he admits, "It was to remind me I was his." The touch had always felt possessive and sometimes he thought there was affection there, but at the end of the day, Sidious wanted him as his perfect weapon. Nothing more. No matter how much it still hurts sometimes, even if he accepted it long ago. Doesn't make it easy to forget entirely what they had for years when he was Palpatine.