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On the worst days, he takes himself apart.
It’s fascinating, really, how much of him is circuitry, robotics, thick coils of multicolored cord, status indicators flashing with light and heat. How little of him is actually left. He dismantles himself piece by piece, edging as close as he can to the point at which he is no longer.
When he’s finished with his legs and his chest and his arm, he slumps quietly against the wall, parts and pieces laid out in perfect order around the stumps of his legs, listening to the sound of his respirator. And then, slowly, he reaches up with his only remaining limb to fumble his helmet off, to pull the mask away.
He cannot breathe then. He listens to himself try, listens to the odd whistle of air that won’t make it into his bloodstream. In and out, in and out, yet not at all.
And that’s when he allows himself to imagine that he might escape, that he might finally be free. That he might die.
When he puts himself back together, it centers him. Gives him focus. He repairs himself, updates himself, replaces old parts, optimizes his circuitry, greases his joints. He fixes himself. He thinks of nothing but the work, and when he is done, he is once again ready to serve.
He cannot truly take himself apart, after all. Only those who love him can do that. And there is no one like that left. There is no one who loves Darth Vader.
But finally, as everything he has ever done leads him to a destiny that will destroy the only good thing to come out of it, he realizes: all those times he reassembled his body, he was never actually fixing anything.
He saves his son. He flings away his emperor, and his poisoned fate.
He can escape now. More than that—he can truly put himself back together. But he has to do it properly. When he rebuilds, he will take none of this with him.
He’s too weak to do it on his own, but it must be done. “Luke,” he forces out. “Help me take this mask off.”
Only those who love him can truly take him apart, after all.