Accismus⋆౨ৎ˚⟡.• Anakin Skywalker⋆౨ৎ˚⟡.•

119.

'I need to get... to my quarters,' Anakin was able to say through his grunts. 'I can issue a self-destruct order. It'll send a signal to the whole galaxy that the Emperor is dead. But... we'll only have ten minutes to leave the hanger...'

'My ship is there. We could... we could escape before it destructs.'

Anakin said nothing and Sol tried to look at his face to understand his silence. She saw the scar through his eyebrow and his grimace, but nothing told Sol why Anakin chose to say nothing. Perhaps he wasn't sure if the Empire would listen to his order to self-destruct. But with the Emperor dead, and with his apprentice ordering to disperse, Sol thought that the Empire would follow the Emperor's righthand man's orders.

Sol helped Anakin out of the chamber and down the hall to the elevator. It was a relief to pause their walk as they waited for the elevator to rise through the Death Star. It let Sol adjust Anakin's arm around her shoulders, which made him wince.

'I'm sorry-'

'No, don't apologise,' Sol was surprised at Anakin's solid reply, and paused to see him glance away from her gaze. 'Please... you have nothing to apologise for, Sol.'

Something was strange about Anakin. Sol could see it. He was himself again, but there was a sense of grief in him. The Anakin Sol remembered was cunning and confident. There was no mission that was too difficult for him and he always had a plan of escape. Sol remembered how his brash and outlandish ideas got him into some tricky situations, but he took it in his stride, and would laugh about it along the way.

But the Anakin that hung off Sol's side was quiet and careful. He had just been electrocuted and Sol knew that he was in pain. But being with the dark side for so long mustn't have been the most pleasant, and all that had happened as Vader was in Anakin's memories.

The slaughter of younglings, the Jedi he had murdered across the galaxy, the planets he had raided in search of the Resistance, the countless people he had killed in search of Sol; they were all coming back. Vader's actions and atrocities were settling into Anakin's conscience, and they were more painful than the burns and wounds that littered his body.

The elevator dinged and Sol helped Anakin into the hall. The lights on the dark walls and flooring made it easier to maneuver, as the Emperor's chamber had been dimmed and hard for Sol and Anakin to find their direction. But Anakin's weight was starting to ache Sol's shoulders, and her cauterized wound was weakening her. She hoped they were nearing what used to be Vader's quarters so that they could rest before heading to the hanger.

'It's here...' Anakin said in a strained voice. Sol turned the two of them to face the door on the right and waited for him to type a code into the keypad.

The door slid open, and Sol was relieved to see that a bed sat in the corner. She waited to look around the private quarters and b-lined for the mattress, where she unhooked Anakin's arm from her shoulders and lowered him onto the edge. 

A sigh of relief sounded from his lips and Sol couldn't help but do the same as she lowered herself to the floor. She leaned her back against the wall and took the opportunity to look around the room. 

It was black, much like Anakin's attire. The bed was large with black sheets, and a desk occupied a corner and two walls. While resting, Sol looked at the cluster of droid and ships parts that covered the tabletop. She was never one for the mechanics of things, but Anakin always was. To see that even during his time as a Sith, Anakin's engineering traits had seeped through to Darth Vader's fingertips.

Once a tinkerer, always a tinkerer.

'General? This is Lord Vader. Come in, General,' Anakin said and Sol turned her attention to the man on the bed's edge. Anakin was hunched over a commlink that he held to his lips, and through his damp hair that hung in front of his face, Sol saw the exhaustion in his eyes.