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Anakin Skywalker was never claustrophobic, but maybe Vader is.
He thinks this as he is encased in a medical tank, flooded with oxygen and bacta. The procedure is not as gentle as when he used to get it at the Temple healers. It's rough and frantic, his limbs, or what remains of them, being tugged in various directions with no regard for his burnt, raw flesh.
If he could scream, he would. The oxygen mask only makes it sound like muffled gurgling, and it only makes his lungs burn and feel as though they are deflating. Maybe they are. Black dots dance in front of his vision, sweet Force will they please put him under a sleep suggestion or some kind of pain killer?
Eventually, he does fall into unconsciousness, but he can't even be given a break in sleep.
Vader sees his face, standing upon the lava rocks Mustafar. His wretched mentor who left him for dead. Through his tear-stricken eyes, he told him he loved him, told him they were brothers-- obviously he meant the man Vader used to be, but still. Obi-Wan Kenobi walked away as he asked for mercy.
You were my brother, Anakin!
Not anymore.
He wakes up in a new hell. Lying on a hard table, still in agony. It feels like someone is sitting on his chest, but when he tries to look at himself to see the perpetrator he realizes he is not just lying on a table, but strapped down. Panic courses through him, making it feel as though he is breathing through a straw. Vader sputters, gasps, and then something is thrust into his arm, coldness sweeping through his veins, and the darkened room blurs into a darker void.
He sees his padawan. Former padawan. He used to consider Obi-Wan as more of a father than a brother because if anyone was Anakin's honorary sibling it was Ahsoka. Strong and snippy. Her departure was one of his biggest regrets, but the young woman she came back to be turned out to be his biggest moment of pride. Ahsoka is a firecracker, cloaked in a blanket of the light despite the injustice the Order did on her. He will never be as strong as her. He will never forgive himself for their bond that now hangs tattered in his mind like an exposed wire.
Vader is glad she is dead though. He isn't sure what he would do if he ever has to face her.
A blinding light. Vader opens his eyes and finds half a dozen medics surrounding him. Implanting mechanical arms and legs and electric nerves to the tattered remains of Obi-Wan's handiwork. Someone at least had the sense to give him drugs so he doesn't feel their surgeries, but his consciousness isn't appreciated. He feels nothing. Not his body, not the Force, not even a singular emotion. Vader is drifting through the twilight, just feeling the seconds of time in their entirety as they pass. It's tedious. Almost meditative.
Long ago, his mother used to tell him that one day he would count the stars. He would visit so many places, see so much of the galaxy, that he would be the first to know exactly how many there are. But in order to do that, he must practice. So Anakin did. He would play games while he worked. Counted how many people passed by his window, or how many times Watto swore during a workday. He even tried to count every grain of sand one day. Then he would go home and tell his mother how high he made it.
"Oh my sweet, Ani," she would say. "Every day you grow closer to having the patience and diligence to count every single star. You made me so proud."
Of course, her game was a tactic to keep his young mind off the horrors of their servitude. It didn't work-- Anakin was well aware of his status as a slave, but it did give him something to do. And when he did become a Jedi, he would look into the sky and count as many stars as he could see. Just for her.
Now he doesn't count stars, as there is no sky to gaze at. So he counts the seconds as they pass.
When his surgery is over, they dress him. He's stuffed into a thick, compression suit with cutouts where the new cybernetic portions of his body are easily accessible. Vambraces, thick gloves, black boots that fall below his knee. When a heavy panel is strapped to his chest to control his erratic vitals he longs for the body he once had. Never again will he move with the same ease. He will undoubtedly have to relearn how to wield a lightsaber. Despite the time he spent in bacta, his skin has lost the ability to feel as it once did. Warm sometimes feels cold, and cold feels like his flesh is burning off all over again. Never again will he be able to feel the breeze on his skin, the relief of jumping into a cool lake on a hot day. Or the silk sheets of the bed he shared with his wife.
Padmé. Guilt riddles him at their last interaction. His anger took over him. She wasn't supposed to be there. She was never supposed to see him like that.
He looks up as the sound of hydraulics catches his attention. From above, a black helmet descends. They told him his lungs are too damaged to not be on a constant respirator. They assured him the helmet would protect his skin and improve his eyesight. He knows these things, but as he watches it grow closer and closer, Anakin can't help but feel like this is the lid of his coffin closing.
"Padmé," he whispers to himself as it encloses over his face. "Help me,"
For a few long moments, before the respirator kicks in, Anakin Skywalker lays in his final resting place. He is surrounded by darkness, both in a literal and in the Force. His new suit is suffocating, feeling like he is being lowered into his grave instead of being reborn into the Sith Lord is to be. Maybe death wouldn't be so bad. He wouldn't have to live as half man and half machine. He could see his mother again. Ahsoka. Everyone else who perished.
Then it dawns on him. They wouldn't want to see him. His hands are covered in their blood, and there is no way back. He betrayed the Order. His best friends. Everyone who trusted and loved him. There is nobody to go back to, now.
Vader breathes. The respirator makes an exaggerated whooshing noise as he inhales and exhales, pushing fresh oxygen into his lungs. The operating table tilts his body back to a standing position, and next to him stands his Master, wrapped in a dark hooded cloak.
"Lord Vader," Sidious croaks. "Can you hear me?"
"Yes, Master," he replies between heavy breaths. For so long he has been unable to say a word, and now he finally can ask the question that has been sustaining him through all of this. "Where is Padmé?"
The beautiful thing about non-Force sensitives is that they have no concept of their presence in the Force. The Force is everywhere, flowing and surrounding every living thing in a special way. Just as Jedi could sense one another through their signatures, and subsequently block their presence from others, non-wielders also have a specific signature. They usually have no grasp of reigning in their signatures, so they are easy to distinguish. And then there are some who manage to project those, shining brighter than the others.
And Padmé, oh... if there were a star at the center of the galaxy, it would be his Padmé. He can sometimes feel her worlds away, her bright presence like a beacon made specifically for him. Padmé is his home, his love, and he will give his life for her to live, as he couldn't do for his mother.
"Is she safe?" he asks when Sidious doesn't reply. "Is she all right?"
His master falters a moment, his chapped mouth opening and then closing. His pulse quickens at the hesitation. "It seems, in your anger, you killed her."
You killed her.
In your anger, you killed her.
"I? I couldn't have," he rasps, his knees feeling like jelly all of the sudden. "She was alive! I felt it!"
But when he reaches out through the Force, drawing on the raw strength of the dark side to amplify his request, he doesn't find a beacon. He doesn't find his home. Padmé's Force presence has been eliminated from every corner of the galaxy. She's dead. He killed her.
His wife and his child are no more.
Something within him snaps. Maybe it's the last remaining strand of light. Maybe it's his heart. Grief clouds him, pressing on every wound and burn that covers his body because all of this was to prevent her from dying. This entire plan, his devotion to the dark side, and the fall of the Jedi were for the light of his life who he didn't even manage to save. Now he truly feels like he is being buried alive in the thick ink of darkness.
The dark side feeds on his pain. It wraps around him, but unlike when he would bask in the power of the light, the darkness just engulfs him deeper and deeper.
Everything around him is shaking and crumbling as he saturates the Force with his despair. Durasteel medical devices crunch as though they are sheets of flimsy, syringes explode, and he smashes through the restraints that bind his hand to the table. Though it is Vader's power, he recognizes Anakin is the one who wails, both for the death of his love and the last moments of his own existence. Without Padmé there is no more Anakin. Darth Vader is all who remains.