C h a p t e r   O n e 

For a minute he thought his vision hummed, but it was just the blood rushing through his ears.

Lights pulsed overhead in time to the beat of a bruised heart. They were moving so fast, screaming across his vision. Lights like an airbus rushing over his head. Lights like lasers grazing across his cockpit. Lights like the reactor wall shaft skittering past. Light then dark then light then dark. Like life, where all things condescend into right and wrong, light and dark. Darkness when Owen and Beru lay smouldering in the desert. Light with Leia in his arms after the Death Star died. It had always been this way, he was sure; the certainty of all things classified under the labels of 'good' and 'evil. Yet now suddenly, strangely, there was grey between the lightness and the dark. Grey when they sat in the frigid nights on Hoth; grey when Leia pouted and glared at him, lowly commander-pilot-farmboy Skywalker, when he disagreed with her. 

Lights of a reactor wall shaft tripping past; dark of Vader reaching for him; grey pain of screaming until your blood ran from red to raven. 

Somewhere deep, deep down there was a little melancholic thought that laughed at the absurdity of the revelation that there was an existence beyond the explicit, and it loved to hide in the darkness and pretend nothing had changed. So then there was only the dark. 

So dark. So, so, so black and hot... his true left hand and his burnt right stump flailed in the darkness searching for the crack in his dark little world. Because there had to be a crack here, somewhere, if he looked hard enough. And then this despair, this self-loathing, this terror wouldn't be complete, couldn't wrap around his throat and keep on tightening; the outstretched, imploring black hand couldn't keep squeezing... There was a crack, somewhere. There was. It was how the light got in if you just knew how to look for it. 

"Leia, it's dark. Why is it so dark?" He was shivering and laughing and crying and... someone was clawing at his hand, his free hand, his only hand, like they would tear it away from him. 

Take it. Please take it. Take it all away. 

"I don't see anything." His voice tasted of bile and salt and metal. "I see him." His lips tasted of fear.

"Shh... shush Luke... He's not here. He's not here." 

A soft voice like warmed honey and mandarin breathed the mantra over him, over and over and over. And he was falling, over and over and over; down the shaft, lights flickering past. Down past sanity and further. It was the only sane thing to do. 

And he was falling still, lights flickering. But he was grinning, not screaming. Falling from Vader, dear Father, dear Old Dad; man he'd worshiped in the desert and monster he'd confronted in the wind. 

I am your father. It was beautiful. So simple, so simple like Luke, and so destructive like Luke, spawn of Vader.

"He's not my... he is my..." Lips fumbled for the word and Leia was cooing over him, hand brushing frantically at his brow like she would push the fever away. Cold and heat settled around him over the blanket she'd tucked around his blinking, unseeing body. He was so cold. He was so hot. He was shivering in the burning confusion.

The lights stopped, trembling, and he cried with laughter when he didn't die. "Leia! I flew!" 

"Shush, Luke. You're going to be fine. Please; be fine. Hang in there." 

Clinging to cold metal pipework, wind shoving and barrelling full throttle into a battered, but not beaten, body. Hang in there... hang on... don't let go Luke. Come with me, rule with me, but don't let go.

He giggled furiously and Leia clamped a hand over his mouth to stop the mocking, empty noise, letting a little sob of despair leave her own lips. 

Rule as father and son? Father was dead. Dead dead dead. Dead Owen, Dead Beru, Dead Ben, Dead Dad. 

Or... 

"Ouch." That stung, what was that? "Le-... Le-... Le-ia? Father?"

"… shush..."

The light was all gone, all gone now. And that burned. He sat bolt upright. "Leia! I know!" He clawed blindly for her, found a handful of sleeve and clung to it. "I know."

Leia was so quiet, was she even there? Had they left him on his own? Alone? Please no! "Leia!" 

"I'm here..."

"Leia! I know!" 

Small, strong hands pressed him back down and he struggled as voices mused in angry tones around him, smothering him along with the blackness. He was sucking in breath and he was throwing up despair. Leia was holding his hand, his sweaty, shivering hand, and asking him to be quiet.

"Qui-et?" He forced his lips around the word. "But... Leia... I know... he's..."

Sweet, soft, sweat-scented skin touched his lips as she placed a finger to his mouth to quiet him.

Right, farmboy shouldn't speak now. He was in the presence of a Princess. Stupid, callow, tow-headed farmboy wasn't worthy of her highness. 

Farmboy; that was all he was. Please, let that be all. All he was... all he was doing now... choking in the sand of Tatooine, burning in her heat, dying... please let him be dying. Please don't wake.

//Father!//

Ha! Ha! Who are you calling now, huh? You're so alone, you're so alone! 

Tears were spilling from his sore eyes and skin brushed skin, wiping them away as voices swarmed angry around him.

"... if he knows... something..."

"... have to... get him... he knows...."

"... might be.... vital... might.... must tell us..."

Honey tones; sweet, silky, smooth honey tones bit out with sharp little teeth. 

"He's been through enough! Let him be."

How could anyone deny her, beautiful Leia? Beautiful, tortured, hateful Leia. She hated Vader. Dear dad, how she hated him. How she must hate him.

"Leia, I gotta..." He broke into hysterics that tore at his throat, dry from screaming denial, so ready to scream acceptance. Father! Dad! Daddy! He giggled furiously at the thought of Darth Vader bouncing him on his lap as Beru once had and... "Ouch!" 

What was that? What was... what was... What was, was dead; was gone, was left in a black cloak and mask and called Daddy. 

Big, brave, role-model dad. How he loved him, cherished him, adored him. How he hated him, loathed him, despised him. 

Anakin Skywalker... Sky-Walker... hadn't he flown? Hadn't he swooped down on him above the carbonite pit? Hadn't he been so graceful, like the Krayt Dragon so lethal and... and... wonderful. Hadn't he? Hadn't he flown! Wasn't he the great pilot Ben, old liar Ben, had told him he was?

"Luke, What did Vader tell you?"

Huh? Who was that? Hers was a voice as caustic as blaster back-wash, bitter and sour and... not Leia. Not Leia? Who then? One of the others, others that hung around his bed whilst he sweated out the fever under dark-bright lights. 

"I... he flew..."

"Tell us Luke, what is so important?"

No no no!! My secret, my secret! Not yours! Don't you see, it's all I've got left! Nothing’s right, anymore! Nothing will ever be right! Was I always so wrong? So wrong, wrong, wrong. 

He only whimpered in reply and tried to roll away from the demanding voice.

"Tell us..."

"Leave him... let him... sick...."

"TELL us."

"Father?" Help me! Help... I... They want to know! They want to know! They know!

//Son?//

His crying voice caught in his throat and the reply lay there waiting... praying... Help me! 

//Luke?//

Vader's voice, his mind-voice, didn't hiss. It was beautiful, it was twin suns sinking in the desert, and cool water in the noon heat. Hot and cold and wonderful. But how it hurt him. 

"Luke?"

Was that father? Was that... the others Asking him, questioning him, jabbing him with needles whilst Leia, beautiful, strong, soft Leia did nothing?

"He..."

//Luke, you must not tell them.// 

Panic. That was panic, and fear and something he added himself. Lust? Lust to tell them. Let them take this burden! Let them feel this fever! 

"Is..." 

//shush... shh...//

Leia? Father? Vader? His mind burned in confusion; his skin burned in torment and no one was helping him.

"My..."

//Little Jedi... shush... quiet now... please...//

He couldn't, he couldn't 'shush'... couldn't. His mind dragged and pulled and hauled the words into his throat with the sting of more drugs in his arm whilst he was screaming ’stop it, stop it, stop it!’ in his head.

"Father..."

No, no, no! My secret! Mine! And I don't believe it – I don't! It's not true! It's not even true! 

They were so quiet, suddenly still, and his breath wheezed in the cold med bay air. Dark figures, loomed over him (but there's no light to see) a hand reached out as if to touch his cheek (but there's no light to see!) but instead it grabbed him along his jaw and he felt that. Stars... stars it burned! Stop it! 

"No... ow...." 

The grip tightened and a fingernail grazed along the bone. 

"Your father?"

It was so quiet, so shocked, so deliciously unbelieving that he smiled. He smiled. And the grip got tighter. The face loomed over him, short auburn hair blazing bright with fury (but there was no light for him to see by...)

//Luke you must get out... get up...// That was Vader's voice; father's voice. He let it bath him; so cold against his burning skin; against the woman with the burning hair.

"Mon, you're hurting him!"

"Leia... help..." 

She had to, she had... to... what? Had to hate him. That was right. Had to hate him. His beautiful, sweet, adored Leia. Her honey tones were sour and sickly. Her choked, desperate pleas for her friend - farmboy, Sith-spawn, Little Jedi - were dying away in his hearing. He couldn't see. He couldn't hear. Couldn't taste; couldn't feel. His tongue was too big in his dry mouth and his mind too sickened to damn himself any more but... 

//Father, they know...//

C h a p t e r  T w o

Leia's hands slammed down like thunderbolts, and it was a miracle that the synthesised Alderaani Maplewood conference table didn't crack open under the force of her denial.

"No."

The small council, Mothma, Ackbar, Rieekan, regarded her with expressions set in stone from a million trials across a thousand worlds. Pity, contempt, disillusionment. The oval table rocked again as she leaned forward towards the three, knowing the shocking red of her eyes and the tears crystallised on her cheeks like Hutt trails made her look frightful. That was better than looking frightened; better than the terrified truth behind the curtain of long chestnut hair.

"No. No more questions. He's been through enough."

Mothma was the only one to shift in her seat, but not from squirming under Leia's formidable gaze. She met her expression with one of equal steel and her voice was laced with poisonous loathing. 

"Commander Skywalker has withheld... valuable information, Princess. He must answer our questions." Her tongue had the sting of the frosty kiss of a Hoth night against bare skin, but Leia burned with confusion and desperation.

"At least wait until he's healed!" Only force of will was keeping the tears from pricking her eyes, again, as she felt the mass confusion of the past few hours fall heavy on her shoulders. 

Her plea was met only with silence.

"You're not going to heal him?" she asked, incredulous. The room didn't even shiver, and the stern expressions never wavered, even when she reeled from the realisation to sit back heavily in her chair. Her hands shook and she grasped them firmly together in front of her, skin as white as bleached bone. The frosty looks she got from those gathered in the room nipped with sharpened teeth against her reserve.

"He is the son of Darth Vader. He is dangerous. His ill health is our ally." 

Her voice was so cold, so cruel, and for a minute Leia was back in the Emperor's throne room, meeting those putrid yellow eyes for the first time as she stared their revered leader down. Mon gazed sadly at her, but her eyes swam with the same loathing Leia had witnessed there, and that she herself reserved for few people in this turbulent galaxy but could well understand.

"We don't know that."

The words seemed to dance in the frigid air, laughing, and Leia's lips were turning blue with the cold, the creeping feeling of the inevitable pressing her hands behind her back. She couldn't let go, though. Luke was her friend, he was a hero, a saviour, a...

Stars... he was the spawn of her worst enemy. The thought of that black death-mask, those unrelenting strong hands and gravelled, emotionless voice, sent shivers of hate running up her spine.

Luke... You can't be his son! Did you betray us? Were you always here to kill us, did you know he would take Han? Did you want him to?

She choked on the thoughts that she couldn't push back like she could the sentences she refused to voice. Had he betrayed them? Was he a traitor? Would he have slipped the knife into their back whilst they danced in celebration? 

How can you think that! He's risked everything for you! And he's lost everything now, even the father he so idolised!

The image of that slight, forlorn form curled up on the medical frigate both tore at and reassured her troubled heart. She hated to see him in such pain, so confused, so devastated, but she silently thanked the Force that he was in no fit state to live up to his heritage right now. When had it come to this? When had she become scared of the boy she had been proud to call her best friend? Had it been in her fits of tears over the past few hours, or sometime before that? Sometime when his Jedi heritage was revealed in those spooky little coincidences? 

Rieekan slid a datapad towards her bloodless features and she gingerly looked down at it, tears pushed back by curiosity. 

"What's this?" 

"We have records of Darth Vader's genome," he said, tone emotionless. Leia reached out a hand, forcibly stopping the shaking. She picked it up off the high, polished table, seeing her own small, scared features reflected in the dark wood. 

"It's too close to Commander Skywalker's for them not to be related." Mon spoke, clearly savouring Leia's reaction.

Her hand closed around the datapad before she threw it back to bounce along the tabletop. How she hated irrefutable proof that left no room for even a last hope.

"Luke has never done anything against us." She pleaded with them, not caring for any loss of dignity. "You cannot blame him for his father’s actions."

The room was silent, air conditioning humming sadly.

"Look at him! Go look at him! He's not Vader's son in anything more than medicine!" Was she saying those words? She, who had thrown herself onto the bed in her small quarters and sobbed through the long, pre-dawn hours, mourning the loss of a dear friend and hating what had replaced him? So hateful. Hate as powerful as that she felt for Vader, almost masking her... well, yes, her love for that boy. 

Love. 

Love? Not like Han, but it was still there, still deep, still unyielding to even this revelation, still incriminating in front of these Three who would condemn her friend, friend, for his genes.

"Leia..."

"He's in pain, Mon! Look at him! This has devastated him." 

She knew it; she could see it in those tired, feverish blue eyes. What had Vader said to him? What had he asked of him? And why hadn't Luke gone with him? All he had here was persecution; a group he had fought and suffered for who refused to even treat him. 

Mothma's auburn hair was swept back to reveal eyes as hard as boron-armour. She was not the woman Leia was used to following and respecting. All she was now was a manifestation of the fear the rebels had for Vader. The Alliance believed itself fuelled by righteousness. Oftentimes it seemed to be running on hate. 

"We don't know that he wasn't aware of this all along. "

That was ridiculous; that was outrageous; that was what she had been thinking not a minute before. 

"I doubt he would have destroyed the Death Star had he known. I don't think he would have gone three years as a Squadron Commander, destroying the Empire, if he'd known." Oh, her tone was absolutely icy now, even Mon couldn't match that. Even Hoth would tremble at those tones. 

Mothma flinched a little then shook her head. "We can't know for sure. We must question him further."

"No." 

Silence. They all knew they would have to go through her to get to Luke. They all knew the implications. They were all willing to do that.

"Leia, have a care. You're only incriminating yourself by doing this."

Ackbar's long, spindly hands pleaded with her, but all she felt was Mon's contemptuous stare roaming over her. They were out for blood. They were all out for blood: Luke's blood, and her blood if she was offering. Vader had hurt the Alliance too much, hunted them down too relentlessly, murdered and tortured to find -

- to find his son.

"What is this about?" she challenged them, and tired white hands spread fingers over the dark wood of her homeworld. Alderaan. Vader's glove-prints were still heavy on her shoulders, and Luke's kiss of congratulations was still tickling her cheeks. "What do you really want from him? Answers, or revenge?" 

Mothma spitted Leia with a stare that reminded the Princess why this woman was leader of the Rebellion – she had an unwavering determination and a complete righteousness ingrained in her, from auburn roots to flowing white dress hem. 

"If Skywalker knew, then he was undoubtedly sending Vader information of our whereabouts. The blood of thousands of rebel soldiers and innocents is on his hands-"

"Spare me the speech, Mon. This is no-"

"IF he did NOT know, then it still remains that Vader tracked us down because of him. And we cannot allow that to continue."

All thoughts of rebuttals died on Leia's lips at the implications. "What are you planning...?" she asked, disturbed by the shaking in her voice. Had she been able to claim Force sensitivity, she might have been extremely concerned about the dread crawling around her stomach. As it was she had a very bad feeling about this. Mothma was staring at her like a Hutt eyeing a pile of shining credits in need of counting, lustfully waiting for her to reach the conclusion.

"The charge is treason, Leia."

Treason. This was a war: this was a military operation. And for treason there was only one penalty. Death.

"No!" The word exploded from her lips and fell upon the Three like an avenging angel until they froze in their seats. Ackbar's long hands twitched nervously. "NO! You can't do that!"

"Leia, we will have you removed if you don't calm yourself." Her voice was steel and tannin.

"Calm?! You're about to kill the Alliance's Hero! He destroyed the Death Star, he's our only Jedi!" Well... semi-Jedi... Jedi-Sith-Force-sensitive child anyway. 

Rieekan barked in distaste, "And just where do you think he got that particular talent?"

Mothma waved him down and loomed over Leia. "The charge is already filed."

"What!! You can't!-"

"We have-"

"You can't kill someone for their family!" She felt all the arguments that she had prepared to persuade them to start trusting Luke again crumble like Tatooine sand between her fingers, leaving her mouth with a gritty taste. "You-"

"We're not," Ackbar put in, and he was the only one that had adopted a solemn tone. Leia whirled on the Mon Calamari. 

There's something not right here... they look honest, but...

"Explain," she growled. Yes she was bordering on insolence; yes she was edging closer to getting arrested or at least thrown out, but no she didn't care. 

"Commander Skywalker went AWOL for well over two months he-"

"I'm sure he had a reason." Her voice was suddenly quiet, and she was grasping for confidence in front of these three, literally judge, jury and executioner. 

"And you still don't want us to question him?" Mothma asked. 

Leia felt as if the room around her was trembling, but it was just the shaking of muscles in her arms supporting the heavy burden of lost trust above the table. She forced her legs to bend and allow her to sit a little ungracefully back in her seat.

"When you're trying to persuade the inconvincible, always show utter confidence in your own convictions, my daughter. Your strength of will may be their undoing."

Leia drew on the teachings of her father to try and save Vader's son. Why did that seem to mock her so much? She set her face in a stony mask of disgust for those three arranged in front of her.

"I know where Luke was," she said, voice back to the dusky honey tones they were used to confronting.

There was silence for a moment and then, "And you did not think to tell us?" Mon leaned in very close and Leia flashed her a defiant glare. Hadn't these people been her friends yesterday? She could barely remember.

"I don't know exactly where, but I believe he was training to become a Jedi." 

Again, more silence, more steady singing 'humm's of the air conditioning. 

"It makes no difference. As an officer, he should have informed his superior-"

"-who died on Hoth-"

Mon Mothma openly glared at her now. "Please let me finish before you attack, Princess." White teeth bared against thin lips in something that might once have been a smile. "As I was saying, had this occurred, request for leave would have been filed. It was not. Commander Skywalker told no one, he just left. He left Rogue Squadron without a Leader. How many of his squad died on the jump out because there was no Luke Skywalker to lead them?" The sting in her tongue was becoming strangely familiar.

Leia sat still for several heartbeats that throbbed loud in her ears. Judge, Jury, Executioner. "Any excuse will do, won't it."

No one answered. No matter; it hadn't been a question. They wanted blood, needed to swap Rebel pain for Imperial, and saw a wonderful, enticing opportunity in Luke Skywalker...

"Morale will fall if you execute the troopers' Hero," she pointed out, clinging to that last hope; Luke's victories for the small band that would destroy him. Did he even realise his danger, curled up in the grips of a fever on the ship flying shotgun to this diplomatic shuttle? 

There was a horrible, drawn silence that made her feel like the muscles in her neck were being slowly tightened like the finest of Alderaani stringed instruments. They were playing some terrible game with her. 

How did she know that? Was it in Ackbar's clenched hands, or the pinched lips of General Rieekan? A terrible grating on her nerves and her vision swam with images she hadn't conceived running through her mind. A cold truth hit her like winter rain on the open Palace terraces and she pushed through the lies these three had been spinning in front of her for the past ten minutes.

This won't be official. 

"Luke Skywalker will be listed as missing in action?" She spat bitterly. Rieekan could barely look at her as Leia almost leapt over the table to grab them all and try and shake some sense into them. "Why try to deceive me?! Why not just tell me you're going to murder him? Why?"

She could see that something was working behind those intelligent eyes of Mon Mothma, but she couldn't pull the facts from the woman in front of her. Why? Why? Why try and persuade her they would take an official route when she knew... she felt they had no intention of a trial for Commander Skywalker. 

No one spoke, no one looked like they would answer her questions. No one told here what they really planned. No one told her they felt they couldn't possibly wait long enough for a trial, but they didn't need to. It was clear to see on Rieekan's screwed-up features.

What's going on here, Mon? What aren't you telling me? What have you got planned?

"I think we have concluded our discussions here. Luke Skywalker will be questioned further, and a trial prepared." 

Prepared. Prepared. Not carried out, though. You have absolutely no intention of going through with one, do you? 

She stood shakily and straightened the white ship-suit, her gut churning with disgust; more disgust even than she had felt when she recognised the truth that Luke was Vader's son. Disgust that was pure and undiluted as her gaze tore into those she had respected not a day ago, and who now plotted the death of her friend and then tried to pretend that they would even bother to do it officially.

She fixed Mon Mothma with a soul-shattering stare that made the older woman flinch a little. 

"I have always stood for justice. I will see that it is carried out," she said icily, skating the lines of treason herself, as she turned on her heal and stalked from the frigid room, colder even than the Imperial Senate had been in its last days.

He drifted in macabre nightmares, curled up on the med bunk and clutching at sheets with his one good hand.

Something warm brushed his cheek and he opened seared eyes to the soft touch. //Leia...// 

Something comforting embraced his mind and he tried to push it away. //Father...//

"Le-ia. It hu-rts." He was biting his lip with the fury of her touch and the words were only a little more mangled than his vision of her. This couldn't be his Princess Leia stood at his bedside, gently brushing the lonely tears of frustration that had slipped past his resolve. Couldn't be her tear-streaked face and eyes red like twin sunsets on distant Tatooine, so, so far away now. 

Where were her beautiful rosy cheeks? Why was she so pale and cold? Why did she stand so far him from even as she tried to comfort him?

"Oww..." 

He should be used to the fire on his skin by now. It had been there for so long now that he could barely remember when it hadn't existed; he'd just lain here in bright med-bay lights for so long. Just lain like a stupid farmboy.

Stupid farmboy. Shoulda' stayed on the farm. Shoulda' kept on farming, stupid farmboy. 

The fire was Owen's face flushed crimson in horror at what his own little horror had done; little Jedi horror. The fire was Biggs burning in the superheated atmosphere of a battered x-wing. The fire on his skin was confusion and begging for help and desperation mixed about equally. And it burned even brighter with his father's rage at the rebels' treatment of their 'hero'. 

//Father...//

Yesterday, the thought of admitting his father was alive would have laughed and danced around him, pointing and screaming hysterically. Today, it was strangely mute and only left a muffled sting in its wake. 

He shifted as little fingers brushed hair from his eyes and he tried to focus on his silent, tearful best friend. The fingers stroked him like they would a pet, oh-so protectively, oh-so absent-minded, and he saw her eyes flicker to the starscape beyond the med bay. 

No, no, no... not starscape. Hyperspace. 

They were running again, still running; ever since they had put him here, they had kept on running. Running from him, running far from his questions, his cries to help him; running from the cold, dispassionate, blank stares of the stars to the cover of hyperspace. 

And Leia was running too, in her mind. She was tripping and falling all the way, but she was still running from him, stroking his cheek like she actually cared when all she wanted was freedom.

Freedom from him, freedom from Vader's son. And freedom was a word a rebel rarely used without thinking. 

He thought perhaps those little mocking thoughts of his acceptance might have just matured and nodded sagely. He couldn't really tell, his perceptions merely mirages in the waves of heat surging through his weary body.

Still, he knew what was on her mind. 

"H-an?"

Her eyes flicked down to him and he tried to rise onto an elbow, but all he got was the nauseating spin of the world as she both approached and moved further from him. He didn't think those big brown eyes had ever looked quite so sad.

"He's... gone." 

The words caught in his ears and rampaged through his feelings. Gone? Gone? Gone like Biggs, Owen, Beru? Or gone like Ben, still there haunting him? Or... gone like father, still there tormenting him? 

"Gone?"

His fuzzy tongue burned as he licked parched lips, wanting to be able to speak, wanting her help. Please! Please make this stop! 

"Vader... sold him to a bounty hunter for Jabba," she said, voice deep with the sorrow he found himself wallowing in and bursts of emotions erupted like super novae in his seared mind. Hatred of Vader for taking Han, hatred of Jabba for ordering the bounty; pity for Leia for her loss and pity for himself when he saw the love shining in her eyes for that smuggler, perhaps even replacing the void left by his drugged revelation. 

"Le-ia. I-" 

"Shssh... don't try to speak." Again the hand brushed his brow and subdued him. It's not like you could make it better. It's your fault. 

The thoughts were sad and immediately rescinded, but he felt them. He crawled lower onto the mattress and just wished for silence. But she continued speaking.

"Luke... I..." His eyes closed. Please, don't say it! "I know it's true, they did a blood test. They..."

The disillusionment came out in a low moan as he scrunched his eyes shut and hugged his destroyed right hand to his chest, pressing deep against where the ache told him his heart existed. He didn't need that, didn't need proof!

"Lea-ve me... al-one." 

He didn't mean it. She knew it. She moved to try and hug him and he tensed like she would slip a fatal shot in his arm rather than offer comfort. When she drew him into a fierce, protective hug he could only sob a little in protest, his voice completely eluding him now as the pain on his skin peaked. It hurt.

He felt tears that weren't his own roll down his back in little trails of liquid fire and he relished the fact that his sweet Leia could still show feeling, even if not for him. 

"I... I can't get them to treat your fever, Luke. I'm sorry. They-"

Now she choked up. Luke had never heard her so upset that she couldn't speak. He sought out her cheek with his good left hand and wiped at the tears falling into the silence, desperately wanting to apologise. But it hurt so much to talk, so very much. He tried to gather the Force a little and give him strength, but it made every nerve in his body fire until he tensed under her slight, strong arms. 

She pulled away a little and seemed to study his face then, something like determination crossing her features. She grasped his hand as she would a weapon and looked as if she would never let go.

Please don't... don't let go. I can't do this... alone....

"I'm not going anywhere." 

Had he sent that to her? With the immense discipline that little Jedi Master who had seen failure written already on his young features had taught him, he formed the words carefully on his lips before breathing them.

"Don't cry. We-'ll get Han ba-ck." His voice started to falter. "I'm sorr-y. I did-n't kn-ow..." He lost it but it had been enough. She looked at him for a moment, rich chestnut hair curling and plastered on her teary cheeks. Then she leaned in closer to whisper with guarded breath in his ear.

"I don't care whose son you are. You're still Luke Skywalker. I still..." She faltered as if she couldn't say it and he knew that was true. "You're still my best friend." 

"Hu-rts."

His lips burned with their own fever now. Too much... too much, too fast. She looked at him sadly before turning around and his heart skipped as she moved away from him, long hair wafting behind her.

"Fit him with the new hand, and treat that fever." 

The med droid approached a little warily as if sensing the fire in that small frame. Luke looked on blankly as fell back to the soft mattress. 

"Madam, I've been instructed-"

"I know. I'm overruling that. Treat him. You're a medical droid, doesn't it go against your programming to deny him treatment?" Her voice was blistering in his ears, and he gave a little involuntary cry as the rest of their conversation was lost to the swirling storm of his own thoughts and pain. 

She reappeared and gave a concerned if distracted look around herself, almost nervous. Then she whispered close. "He'll do what he can."

"Lei-a. What... wh-at are th-ey do-ing?" He blinked, trying to force his eyes to work and understand the plethora of emotions running over her face. 

She just closed her eyes, then she shivered a little and it passed down to his left hand in her right, making him tremble. She brushed his forehead with her other hand and bent over, kissing him lightly on the lips.

"Nothing."

You're lying! Liar! You, Ben, Yoda; liars! Tell me the truth! 

The words wouldn't form and she drifted away from him like a distracted cloud in the Tatooine sky. Don't leave me! The door whispered shut behind her and he closed his own burnt eyes. 

Nothing. Nothing? Liar.

They all lied. All of them. They had probably all known, all of them, all along. His teeth clenched painfully in his mouth and he felt his hands balling into fists of frustration, wanting desperately to get away from everyone who lied. But they all lied.

//I did not.//

His breath went from hot to cold as he passed into the shade of his thoughts, to the darker areas he tried not to tred to often.

//Father?// How it still burned to think the word. More torment than his tortured skin endured. But his feverish mind refused any other label.

//Rest now, Little Jedi. Rest and I will find you.//

Panic stirred in his gut and he could do nothing but blink his eyelids furiously in denial.

//I don't want you to find me!// he threw back into those shadows. Those cool, calm, deliciously comforting shadows.

The voice that returned was almost amused. //Then why do you keep calling to me, my son?//

Calling? Calling? He wasn't... he was... he was... he was a Dark Lord's son. Calling for his father. 

"N-o."

//Rest.//

It was an order and stubbornness kicked in like an afterburner. He pressed his left palm over both eyes and tried to stop the light from burning him further. //No! What's going on? Tell me. You know! Everyone always knew. Don't lie to me.//

Everyone always lied. Vader would be no different. 

There was a pause like frustration loosed on the wind with a sigh and Luke shivered, wanting the cold to wrap him up further. 

//I have never lied. They want revenge from me and will take it from you.//

Revenge? From him. Panic rose in his stomach as hot as the med bay air and he was struggling to breathe as another sting pricked his arm. Eyes flittered open as the droid retreated with the hypo.

//Revenge? Kill me? Kill me?! I haven't... I...//

Hot indignation and cold realisation were enough to make him nauseous as the sedative pulled him gently down with sorrow into the cold arms of sleep. It was so sweet and invigorating and he relished it as the reply came back to him, fuzzing and fading.

//Tell me where you are, my son. I will not let them take you. I will not-//

- But he wasn't even capable of listening anymore.

C h a p t e r  T h r e e

Mon Mothma visualised the small packet of pain suppressants almost wistfully as she continued to keep a mask of indifference on her face. 

The headaches had started barely a month ago, after a brief, and in retrospect foolish, trip to Coruscant in hopes of initiating peace talks. She should have known better than to believe Palpatine would even consider making concessions to the Alliance. But she hadn't been able to resist going and trying to soothe out relations between the warring parties. Nothing had been soothed – only a little pride ruffled, and she had ended up with a swift dismissal and a debilitating illness for her troubles. And the pain had steadily been beating a path through her sanity. 

Mon had always been focused, always identified her target and never lost sight of it until she achieved it; the political gundark that never let go once it got a bite. That was not true anymore. Now she had such conflicting thoughts that sometimes she lay in the stark starlight of her darkened stateroom and felt like screaming in a very un-senatorial fashion at her contradictory, belligerent thoughts. 

The four hour window for the suppressants was never enough, and the medics just shook their heads in bewilderment at her condition. It was bizarre, disturbing and left her lying in a darkened room clutching her head in pain far too often. Clutching it much as the young commander-turned-sithspawn did now under the ministrations of Onebee's truth serums. 

Watching the slight, blonde-headed boy writhe and blink back tears of frustration did nothing to quell the pain beginning to form in the back of her mind, but it gave her surprising satisfaction to see him struggling as hard with his own errant thoughts as she was often doing these days. The pain was severe enough for him to express it audibly and she felt a twinge of twisted jealousy that she could do no such thing lest the Council realise something was wrong with their leader. 

She focused again on his reactions; the flushed skin, wide blue eyes and shaking hands. Despite Princess Organa's attempts to get him treatment, he was failing miserably at refusing their questions. That, too, gave her a queer satisfaction that made her lips stretch across bared teeth into a small smile, feeling lustful revenge rise inside her where before there would have been pity. Oh, but it was good to see Vader fail at something. One Vader, or another.

She would have to have a stern word with that little firebrand of a Princess latter about the replacement of his hand. Or perhaps sooner, given the disappointing outcome of this little ask-the-traitor session. Skywalker apparently knew nothing. Nothing more than that single truth revealed after a brief but life-altering battle on Bespin. There was nothing to be gained here but ramblings of denial and pleas for help. 

She tilted her head to one side and allowed her eyes to bore into him as Rieekan asked yet another question. He blinked red eyes and the thin sheen of sweat on a feverish brow gave his skin the pale glow of starlight. His stilted, choked voice told them nothing new and Mon knew she should bring an end to this. 

But, oh, it felt so good to see him writhe under their questions. 

That feeling both disgusted and intrigued her and if nothing else was to come of this than to acknowledge that she harboured these feelings of distaste for the boy then so be it. The outcome, whether for security of the Alliance or for revenge, would be the same no matter the motivations.

"General, I think that will be enough."

Rieekan did not reply, but Skywalker's eyes snapped open and fixed her with a feverish gaze, locking onto hers and holding them mesmerised. His lips curled up as he shook sweaty bangs away from those intense blue eyes and spoke in that pained voice.

"You en-joy-ed th-at."

She refrained from the grim smile she wanted to give him. He would be dead soon anyway so it mattered little what he thought of her. She affected a shocked stance and then feigned gaining control over herself again. It seemed to convince Rieekan.

"No, of course not Commander." 

Of course not, Vader. I didn't enjoy it; I relished it.

His eyes blinked and for a second they burned clear and shed the misty look of a drugged, ill captive. They ripped right through her, dissecting former-Senator Mon Mothma as easily as could Palpatine and Vader. She shivered a little, involuntarily, and focused on her distaste for the boy, strangely finding it difficult to conjure it up amid feelings of misgivings. 

"Y-ou nee-d to ta-ke ca-re in you-r own thou-ghts." He blinked again and the injured, subdued youth was back in front of her. 

Snarling a little and wondering what he meant she turned on the medical droid. "Sedate him and-" Her commlink beeped insistently. "Mothma."

"Madam, we have exited hyperspace." 

Mon regarded the general and the ex-commander with something akin to glee as the droid injected the hypo in Skywalker's arm. "The Imperial Fleet...?"

"We have no indication that they have tracked us, Ma'am." 

She nodded in relief and offered Skywalker a glare as the indignation of being tracked for so long using one of their own wormed in her gut as a true, absolute, real-Mon-Mothma emotion. But he was already out of it, head slumped against the pillow, in no state to offer any more Jedi tricks or insights. 

"Good, thank you. Hold orbit here." She flicked it off, the turned to Rieekan looking uncertainly at the sleeping youth. "General, prepare the shuttle for Commander Skywalker."

The tone was authoritative and if he had any doubts he neither voiced them nor let them show on his face. He inclined his head in acceptance as she turned on her heel and stalked from the small bay.

Leia's head was in her hands when the doorway chimed once and opened. She didn't bother to lift weary eyes at the sound of small feet whispering across the floor, followed by the heavier strides of troopers.

"Princess."

Sighing inaudibly, she forced loose hair back from her face and let her gaze fall upon Mon Mothma, approaching slowly in a state of intoxicated indignation. 

"Princess the council agreed that Luke Skywalker was not to be treated."

Took you long enough to find out. Truly, no one on the council wanted to face Luke Skywalker anymore, no longer their callow-hero-farmboy, but son of their worst enemy save Palpatine. How they must have whispered premonitions of the terror he would wreak if they allowed him treatment, and how they must have given that med room wide passage for those fears. Delicious, then, that those same fears that kept them away had given Luke privacy enough for treatment. 

She allowed herself a small, mirthless smile and brushed the sleep from her eyes. If Mon wanted to believe she was wiping away tears, let her.

"I don't remember taking any vote on that." 

She rose to her feet from the desk that was devoid of personal possessions, all of them lost on Hoth. Mothma held no sadness in those brown eyes that gazed back as hard as hull plates at the Princess, and her stance blazed with silent fury and expectation. It made Leia distinctly uneasy, her skin crawling in little ripples of confusion and disquiet.

"It was explicit," Mon spoke, her anger thick in the already tense atmosphere of the small room. There was something else there except indignation at having her order disobeyed... something like a mother scolding her child and Leia thought perhaps her righteousness was overtaking her sense of reality. 

She batted the statement away with the wave of a hand. "Are you still going to question him again? I don't think we voted on that, either." Her tone was dusky with distaste.

Mon gave a bitter little smile that made Leia's mouth sting. "It has already been done." 

Leia's big, brown, sad eyes widened in rage and she flicked a glance at the troopers, suddenly uneasy about their presence. They didn't acknowledge her and she was all at once aware of both her smaller stature and slighter build; feelings she got whenever preparing for a fight. There was more going on here than a battle of tongues. How she wished Chewie was here, that she hadn't insisted they leave immediately with Lando to track Fett. 

How she wished they would answer her panicked calls.

"What?!" 

"There was no time to-"

"Hutt spit! Don't give me that!" Incredibly, her finger was pointing at Mothma's chest in accusation. "Couldn't wait to see him squirm, could you?"

For a minute something passed over the older woman's features and Leia feared she had struck a little too close to the truth. The air seemed to close around them in anticipation and the room cooled perceptibly when Mon took another step into the dark. Leia shivered involuntarily as she looked into those suddenly shallow eyes and saw yellow flecks streak outwards like laser bolts.

"We needed answers."

"And you got none." She should really have tried to keep the hope out of her voice there. Some trained diplomat. But if Luke had known all along... she didn't know what she'd do. Probably leave him as she had earlier when he'd pleaded for answers. Left him... Oh Leia, what kind of friend are you? You weren't even there when they interrogated him.

She hadn't known! She hadn't! But... it would have been so easy to guess they would do this...

Mon didn't deny her statement and relief flooded into her like sunlight filtering into the cavernous halls of the Royal Palace of Alderaan that Luke's father had destroyed. Instead she leaned a little further towards Leia in a gesture that reminded of her someone else... someone...

Starlight played across those age-worn features and-

Starlight? 

She twisted around to look out the viewport and her breath caught on her teeth. They had exited hyperspace.

"Where..." 

Strangely, she cut off her words as the drive tail of a small rebel shuttle caught her full and absolute attention as it arced down to the planet turning at the medical frigates feet. It enraptured her, captured her gaze and chilled her mind. She felt the blood begin to drain from her face as Mon stepped closer.

Leia didn't even bother to ask. She didn't have to.

The feeling of anticipation grew around them like Chiparca roots entangling her and anchoring her feet to the floor whilst her mind was soaring high in panic and terror. A hand on her shoulder that was neither comforting nor supportive gripped in the exact same spot where Vader's glove prints still lay from the first Death Star and she had a macabre feeling of deja vu. 

"Luke..." 

It wasn't a question. Mon didn't answer her; she gripped her shoulder harder and held her in check as Leia tried to step towards the viewport. The troopers in her periphery never moved as Leia trembled in her own terrified anticipation.

Beyond the small transparisteel window, probably only a matter of a few hundred metres away, the shuttle winked out of existence in a burst of incandescent fire that was quickly extinguished by the cold breath of space.

It was strange, really. Had someone asked her not ten minutes ago what she would have expected to experience upon the death of her best friend, rebel commander Luke Skywalker, she would probably have suggested bright, brilliant explosions; horror personified into chaos; the fireworks of first love and first death. Something to match the terrible tearing she felt; something that gave substance to the ripping sound echoing in her ears and loosed in a wail of despair and disbelief. 

In the actual moment though, all she saw was a small, quickly quashed explosion no brighter than a candle blowing out. 

Her emotions fully matched her expectations however, and there were fireworks, loud and clear and blinding, in her mind.

"You... you..." What was the proper thing for the Princess of dead Alderaan, friend of dead Luke Skywalker to say right now? Perhaps she should regain composure, stand regally and offer something contrite about her disgust. 'You had no right to do that!' perhaps? How about, 'you've just made a very big mistake, Mothma.' ?

No... she had other things she wanted to say right now... 

She let her anger explode brilliantly around her and whirled on the woman restraining her, hatred solidified by the small, thin-lipped smile she saw there. "You hutt-slime cold-hearted bitch!" 

Her own heart was bursting and tumbling rapidly down through her ribcage to despair as the last embers of the shuttle flittered away in small, dying comets. Dying... dying... Too late! Already dead you mean! 

The thought laughed so loud she was sure her sanity had walked out of the dark, oppressive room along with her last hopes for a good, old-fashioned happy ending; slamming the door to anything resembling happiness in her face. Another dear, desperately needed companion gone. Gone. Taken from her, ripped flesh-from-flesh like... like something she couldn't quite remember but that tasted of the past; of a mulling infant and a sad, brown-eyed face she called 'mother'. 

Taken, like Mother, like Father... like Han...

Luke...

"Luke!" 

The cry of his name came a little late but it didn't lack any emotion for that. Mothma forgotten, she rammed her fists against the transparisteel in desperation, caged. The jolt shocked her back to the stark reality of the here-and-now and she found her arms clawing for her revered Leader before she had any conscious knowledge of the intent. 

Mon stepped quickly backwards from the tempest in Leia's eyes as she hurled abuse in a very un-Princess-like manner at the woman who had betrayed her friend. The troopers, grim faces unmoved, stepped forward to intercept her and Leia forcibly relaxed her muscles and her voice. Getting herself arrested would do Luke no good.

Nothing would do Luke any good now...

The first tears ran in fiery little rivulets down her cheeks and tasted of salt in her quieted mouth. Would everyone she ever loved be taken from her?

Loved...? Yes, loved. Whose son he was didn't (hadn't) matter (mattered). Whose genes he bore (had borne) didn't change who he was (had been). How had she ever begun to think they did?

That bitch, that cold, mean, betraying bitch finally spoke and Leia felt disgust in her throat along with the salt of her tears as her tone registered as triumph. "A regrettable accident," she cooed. 

Leia's fingers raked neat little slits into the hand that tried to offer false comfort and Mon quickly snatched it back, shocked. 

Why are you shocked? What did you expect - acceptance, understanding, thanks?

Mon's eyes flashed yellow in pain and contempt and she fixed Leia with a gaze touched by the sick loathing she had previously reserved for Vader's son. 

Vader. Oh stars... Vader was not going to be happy about this. 

She felt a cruel little smile of her own pass her lips and Mon startled for a second. 

"You've murdered Darth Vader's son," she spat, hearing the grief colouring her words, shocked by the vehemence there. "We've all heard the tales of his vengeance."

For a second, a precious second she would cherish for a long while like a small child hugging a favoured toy in times of darkest trouble, Mothma looked truly disturbed as if she had not even stopped to consider that thought. Had she been foolish enough to think Vader would stop chasing the rebels when there was no Luke to latch on to? 

"He'll chase you down all the harder now." She felt acid on her lips. Her tears tasted of guilt and pain but her voice tasted of revenge. She lashed out with words when the troopers restrained her from approaching further. "Oh, Mon, what have you done? He will not give you mere death now."

It gave Leia no comfort; couldn't begin to patch the gaping hole in her heart, but oh, the look of terror was pure ecstasy in a world suddenly devoid of light. 

"Us." The caustic voice quivered a little and Leia offered another mirthless smile.

"You. I hereby resign from my post in the Alliance."

The world shook around her, trembling at the thought that princess Leia Organa could cease being a rebel. But this wasn't the rebellion she had fought and suffered for: this was a rebellion which made her suffer, taking from her a truly kindred, brother-spirit. The loss burned bright and painful and fuelled her muscles until she could stand straight between the rebel troopers as if they were escort guards. "I'm sure your guards won't mind escorting me to the docking bay. After all, what use will two troopers be against the wrath of a Dark Lord of the Sith?"

The pale, sick face of her former leader lost all expression and the eyes lost their yellow tint as fear settled neatly into them. She offered no resistance when Princess Leia of Alderaan walked in small, shaken but righteous steps from the room. 

Aboard the rebel shuttle, hyperspace throwing facets of gold and auburn across the sleeping features of Luke Skywalker, the slim form in the pilot's uniform turned in her seat and stood swiftly, stalking towards the 'dead' Jedi. The deck plates hummed into the cold dark of the cockpit, the ship undamaged from the decoy explosion of shrapnel and plastisteel set off a bare millisecond before 'jumping. A small, pale hand checked the readout on the med bunk monitors and reassured itself that he was still completely unconscious. 

The figure moved away and began to strip off the stiff olive-green shirt to reveal a thin black ship-suit underneath, the trousers similarly thrown into a heap on one of the monitors clustered around the two figures.

The last piece of her disguise, the cap lying neatly on her head, was removed. Smiling grimly to no one but herself in the pale backwash of hyperspace, she shook a long, fiery coil of red-gold hair to lie loose around her shoulders. 

C h a p t e r  F o u r

"This is it?" Palpatine nudged the small, stunned body beneath his feet with his boot, but it gave no indication other than a little, weak moan that it felt anything. He sniffed disapprovingly. This 'thing', this weak little forlorn figure laid out before him, gazed blankly with muddy blue eyes, firelight caressing its cheek. 

"Yes, my Master." 

Mara stood to one side, gaze bright and alert but unimposing as her Master studied his newest toy. The Skywalker child gave a little vain attempt at movement which only brought the Emperor's gaze back to where it lay on the soft padding in front of the hearth of an open fireplace. The child was so small, so utterly tiny that he felt he could take it in his hands and just... snap. If it would only get up, the fun he could have with it! Testing just how weak it truly was, knocking it down again and again and again. He let the pleasure of that thought coat thin, cruel lips with a dextrose smile. 

He knelt at its side, black robes pooling over its feet, and savoured the wide-eyed stare and the terror that passed over its lips but was never voiced. He smiled again at his Hand's swiftly delivered work.

"What did you give it?"

"Just a sedative," she replied, voice deliberately unimposing. Apparently she realised that this was a delicious moment for Palpatine, one in which he wished to relish to every last morsel and not be plagued by interruptions. 

"Oh?"

"The rebels seemed disinclined to treat him. It made his capture easy." 

He cackled at the obvious lack of the word she was clearly thinking – pitifully easy. Delicious. 

"Good. Mothma is better than I thought." His words crackled darker than the fire licking at the sides of the hearth, maw-like opening swallowing the small boy in front of it in red light and leaving the rest of the cavernous room in shadows. Mara stayed within those dark confines and if she wondered at his statement, she never asked.

Palpatine ran a long, cracked fingernail across the child's cheek, watching the shivers of fear spark outwards from its panic-stricken eyes and mingle with fire embers. This little thing... had Vader found it so difficult to track? Perhaps it had hidden in the smallest of holes, buried itself far from its enemy. Perhaps, but no wonder it had been found and brought to him, by Vader or not; it burned too brightly in the Force to stay hidden. As his hand brushed the warm cheek with fingertips as cold as an open grave, he felt the power trickle behind them in little rivulets released by its fear. He traced them backwards with his hands, greedily sucking up the power released by the fear, intoxicating in its potency, as sweet on the tongue as a matured red wine and as deep in flavour as hot Corellian whiskey. He found his lips curling up with pleasure from this little thing, bursting with power as did ripe fruit laden with promise on hot summer's afternoons. The fire provided the heat; the child the power. 

"Did you leave any trace?" The words sounded drunk even to him and he laid his palm flat against the child's face, covering those wonderful, bright, delicious eyes and let himself swim in power such as he had not felt since... well, since Anakin. 

At the momentary pause, though, he turned and pierced his Hand with yellow eyes burning with intensity beyond flames in the hearth. Underneath his suddenly tight hand, the youth whimpered from the pressure closing around its temples; eyes; mouth.

"Mara?"

She shifted her feet barely perceptibly and met his gaze. "There was little time for planning my Master. They moved quickly; I had to convince them to let me onto the shuttle they planned to destroy with him aboard."

Palpatine laughed cruelly "Such an unglamorous end for our little Jedi." His hand squeezed further, drinking on the fear beneath his palm, the little sounds of protest ricocheting against skin as dry parchment. Oh, yes, he had done right bypassing Vader. He might never have had this opportunity otherwise. 

She inclined her head but offered no comment on that. Instead, her deep voice, silky like fine Alderaanian linen, carried on her explanation, "I killed the crew, planted a shrapnel explosive and set it of off before we jumped. I believe it fooled them."

"But you do not know?" The words bore as deep into that hardened soul as his gaze did, his body framed in the firelight. Outside, beyond carved stone walls and parapets, blizzards whistled and white snow buffeted the walls in a powdery tempest as furious as his concern that this, his... toy, might be taken from him.

"No." 

The word bore no remorse, no fear. Mara Jade had long since learnt that Palpatine did not enjoy weakness in his servants, only submission. But it was a hard word for her even then, bitter and small and falling on her lips like spoiled and sour crushed fruit. He let her ponder it for a few seconds broken only by the Skywalker child's feeble little complaints that neither paid any heed to.

"It seems I will have to contact dear Mon to make sure you left no errors behind." He was as surprised as she to discover no reprimand in the words. It was, perhaps, because he knew she would have done her best and the speed of the assassination was out of her control, or that he was preoccupied by his catch. 

Mara inclined her head and, again, asked no questions. Palpatine leered a little at that, knowing how inquisitive she must be, both about her captive and her mission. "You wonder, don't you, my young Hand?"

There was no sound but the crying of the gales and the little Jedi. Then Mara stepped a little into the firelight. "Yes, my Master." 

He looked away from her for a moment and back at the small boy, taking his hand from its face for a few seconds. It was so bursting with power. Its reconstruction would be so utterly delicious. Mara had carried out her orders, brought it to him with very little delay and no interference from its father, so why not reward her?

"Do you remember a 'Peace' mission Mothma attempted a little over a month ago?" he asked, eyes on boy. The fire made wonderful patterns on its brow, a strange tableau of alien writing on its face and side. The other side, the shadowed side, burned just as brightly in his mind as he studied it, measuring, deciding how best to break it, and then repair it. Shape it with a little pain here, a little hope there; remake it. It would require him to knock it over again and again and again and that he would enjoy. 

"I do. Mon Mothma left rather abruptly." Her red-gold hair burned brightly in kindred spirit with the blazing fire and sconces dotted around the room in small pockets of light. Her tone was as icy as the turbulent weather outside though, bitterly cold and destructive. It was one of the things he valued her for.

"Oh yes, but not after we had a little chat." He cackled and the fire shivered, shadows tottering around them, drunk by the power at their feet. For itself the child barely noticed the sudden crackling of the atmosphere in apprehension and Palpatine ran a finger across the full lips admiringly. What a wonderful job the Alliance had done - subdued this little Jedi so that he was ripe for the taking with nothing more than lack of medical attention! How the little Princess would cry to see this! How delicious her tears would taste, salty and bitter with betrayal and loss, by far the best combination to savour in his enemies.

As he turned back to his Hand, he saw something in her stance; a small window to her feelings quickly covered again by an emotionless expression made cruel by the play of firelight and the howling wind. Palpatine frowned at that but continued his explanation.

"Mon agreed that it would be prudent to keep an eye on our little Jedi." 

Would she see it – ah! There was the twitch in the corners of her mouth- she knew there was more.

"You planted a suggestion?" she asked, silky tones betraying no emotion. 

"No... no...." Ah... he had thought she was so close! "A mind link. Quite handy, don't you agree, to be able to keep an eye on the Leader of the Alliance when she's running around the rim worlds trying to hide?"

As he spoke, he continued to drink in the fear beneath him, although to his disappointment it was subsiding a little; the sedative dragging the small form towards unconsciousness. Perhaps the rhythmic caress of the firelight also lulled it further. Palpatine pursed his lips in annoyance, having not yet discovered enough of the child to begin breaking it, or to stop revelling in his victory. His fingernail brushed neat welts into the lips until they bled a little. That helped; the pain brought something akin to awareness back to it and it struggled weakly. Much better. 

"Yes. You control her thoughts?" Mara asked. 

Again, when he turned back to her there was a quickly concealed disturbance on her expression and Palpatine's frown deepened. Annoyance bled with the boys lips and he studied the hard lines of his favourite assassin's face, searching.

"No, merely gave her a little perspective. Something troubles you, my dear." 

She flinched, but not before her gaze flickered to the youth on the floor. The wind seemed to grow in volume outside the mansion walls, biting with icy white teeth at the large, velvet-draped windows. 

"No, Master." 

He tsk-tsked her mockingly and turned back to the boy in understanding. "You dislike this?" His hands stroked the hard line of its jaw with long white fingertips. He didn't need to look at her to feel disgust light in that crumpled heart before being rapidly extinguished.

"I have no feelings for or against the boy," she said. 

He laughed, a cruel little laugh but it echoed in the room, bouncing off stone walls. "No, not that. This."

Deliberately opening himself to her Force presence and the feelings she could never hide from him, he let his hand wander down from the boy's face and to its covered chest, fingernail softly drawing a red welt along the collarbone there. 

He sensed the disgust again and wondered at it as his fingers stroked the soft skin. It was not attraction she felt; not compassion. It was not a sense of ownership being infringed upon, nor even disgust at the actions themselves. It was... what was it? Hard to say; very hard. His Mara could be so complicated sometimes, behind a steely mask of competence she hid a turbulent storm of emotions which she never dared acknowledge. Perhaps it was jealousy? Perhaps not.

The boy was regaining his voice, he noted with some pleasure. It was attempting to make some plea for him to stop. Palpatine drank it up as Mara looked on silently, the moment of indiscretion gone as soon as the boy started to fight back, however feebly. Perhaps it was contempt at exploiting someone who could not fight back? But her Master did that on countless occasions. This girl was still a mystery sometimes.

"Well?"

His hand strayed further down, revealing soft pale skin on the hip of the child and caressing it. It made waves of pure, absolute terror roll off the child and into the Force, such turbulence that the Emperor had to concentrate on maintaining a disconnection from pure feelings and keep himself grounded in the real world, such as it was.

"I have no problems," she said, voice absolutely calm.

"Good." He pursed his lips, believing her. It was not the actions it was... something else. 

But this had been revealing, in more than one way. When you had your Jedi child subdued at your feet, how did you go about breaking it? Oh, he could hit it, maim it, knock a little blood out of it to colour his walls. But there were little stirrings of doubt in his mind, nibbling at the corners of his half-formed ideas like vermin. Doubts that said this child wouldn't submit simply to pain. He could offer it riches and power, but it plainly didn't want that. What was left? Where was the soft spot he could prod until it burst and released that power tenfold to what he felt from it now?

It blinked up at him with sad blue eyes, lips trembling. "St-op." 

The voice was small and cracked through a weeks worth of fever and confusion. It was also rich and empowering, if a little provincial. 

"Why, Little Jedi?" 

It flinched beautifully at the designation, muscles tightening in little waves that ran from head to toe. Palpatine emphasised the question with a squeeze on the soft skin, looking for the bursting point.

The boy sucked in breath around sore red lips, shining in the firelight, but it didn't have the strength to lift its head from the stone floor to implore. Poor, little, weak thing; he would show it strength. 

"Pl-ea-se," It begged much as its father had twenty years ago; without any real hope. The eyes had crystallised with fear and the fingers shook. 

He looked at his hand on its hip, then at the distraught face, and the soft spot that would yield the power, would burst this ripe fruit, was abundantly clear. Mara had shown it to him, perhaps inadvertently. 

"I think it’s a virgin, my dear," he commented as his hand left the soft flesh, regretful of the loss of the connection to such potency. "I don't think it liked that."

"No." Was her only comment, and he chuckled at her tartness. It was not directed at his actions, he knew, but at the reaction of the boy. 

His hand went back to the cheek of his new toy, and he wasn't surprised to see little trails of tears there like spice veins in Kessel rock. He brushed at them. "You know who I am, child?" 

"Y-es." It tried to nod, but the gesture was futile with Palpatine's strong grip on it.

"Good, good. I wish to complete your training, my little apprentice." Little, tired, terrified, strong apprentice. His mouth curled into a smile as it blanched and tried to shake its head free of his grip. The fingernails only dug in harder, shadows of their imprints deepened by the fire. 

"N-o."

"Oh yes, in time you will understand." He stroked the cheek almost affectionately and again there was a violent reaction in the child, trying to shake free. Yes, he'd found the weakness. Anakin's had been his lust for power but no such thing existed here. This boy's weakness was his innocence, of mind and of body, and Palpatine was wonderfully adept at exploiting that. This would be deliciously easy; the weak ones never truly understood what was happening to them and it left them floundering in a smothering darkness until they could no longer escape. 

"I-"

"Shssh now... sleep." The gnarled hand rested on his forehead and the boy's eyes rolled backwards, body slumping into unconsciousness. Palpatine studied it a moment longer before standing, cloak swirling over its face. It covered the boy like a funeral shroud. 

Finally, he turned from the inert form to his Hand, standing silently by, probably understanding that she had given Palpatine the leverage he sought. 

"I must consult Mothma."

"I believe she is a little busy at the moment," Mara commented. As they talked they moved from the firelight to the huge window dominating the far wall and the Emperor gazed at the little white flecks beating the glass in the moonlight. It was so futile a gesture from the storm... as futile as the child's attempts at resistance, now and in his future training. The snow pounding to get out; the child's strong heart hammering against its ribcage to escape. He did love those little ironies.

"Indeed, Vader is not happy," He chuckled, knowing Mara wondered at the hidden meaning but not divulging the necessary information. "I believe the rebellion has bitten off more than it can swallow with this latest mistake."

"It appears so." There was an unvoiced question there that the Emperor did not deign to answer. He gestured to the child. 

"Take it back to its room, have it treated for that fever." It was uncommonly kind of him, but it was less fun working with injuries you hadn't yourself inflicted. "And bring it to me tomorrow."

"Yes, Master." She bowed in reverence and he didn't acknowledge it, his thoughts elsewhere; on the child's training, and on his Hand's somewhat unusual reaction to his interest in it. Did she think he had a sexual interest in it, was that it? Well, it certainly was pretty, but not in the ornamental sense. He chuckled; if he wanted sexual pleasure he wouldn't go to such trouble to kidnap a virgin farmboy. It didn't exactly seem like the type to be proficient at such things. No; it simply intrigued him.

"And then you must leave me, my dear. I have other missions for you to complete. You have done well here, and I know I need not remind that you must speak of this to no one." He gazed at the snow beyond the window; the Manari mountains of Imperial Centre obscuring the lights of the vast city at the mountain's knees. 

"No, my Master." 

He dismissed her with a wave of a crinkled hand, but watched with intent dirty yellow eyes as she removed the unconscious little Jedi from before the fire, carrying it into the shadows and the darkness beyond. A feral grin touched his lips at the thought of Darth Vader, out on a mission of revenge for its death, chasing down Mothma and her little rebel band with fury unmatched since the death of Amidala. Apparently, his block on the child's connection to its father was working wonderfully, bolstered by the fact that Vader fully believed the reports filtering through to him of young Skywalker's demise.

His pleasure erupted in a cold laugh and the squalls of snow laughed with him.

C h a p t e r  Fi v e

Leia Organa, former Princess of Alderaan, former Senator, former member of the Rebel Alliance, wondered if the misery was ever going to end. She swirled her drink around the glass before taking another sip, face wrinkling at the acrid taste that was mostly pure alcohol mixed with a little of something that tasted a little of swamp water. Lovely. Such high-class establishments she found herself drinking at these days. 

She stifled the smirk behind another grimace at the taste and kept her eyes on the cantina entrance, waiting. Since leaving the medical frigate aboard a commandeered shuttle, which her conscience had demanded she return after landing, she had called Chewie and Lando and asked for a ride. Things were moving far too fast for her; far too fast. A week ago, she had been a high-ranking member of the Alliance Council. Now she was... neither rebel nor imperial; neither outlaw nor common citizen. Just Leia. All she was, had been and ever would be was described by what she had lost and it left her feeling like an empty shell of the feisty Princess Han and Luke had pulled from the heart of the Death Star.

Han and Luke; both lost to her now. Both leaving very deep scars in a heart they had managed to defrost from the icy attitude she had used as security. With them, it had felt so good to be open. Without them here it just felt vulnerable and bare; free for the whole world, alliance, senate and cantina, to scrutinise and she didn't like that. She swirled the drink again, unable to force herself to take another swig of the tepid liquid. 

Several denizens had approached her in various stages of drunken disrepair, and she had waved them all off easily and with detest, emphasised by her 'borrowed' blaster. How ironic; the Princess of Alderaan who had had everything she ever wished for was now reduced to a white ship-suit and a borrowed blaster, concealed by a homespun cloak, also not hers. The strangest thing about that was that she really didn't care.

Again, she swirled the drink; again, she grimaced at the taste. Rank heat waves rose into the air around her, sweat and smoke heavy in the dark light. 

"Princess?" The voice was concern and charm mixed more equally than her drink was, and she realised with some chagrin that she had swapped studying the entranceway for studying the glass. 

She looked up, eyes heavy, into the wide brown eyes of a large wookiee and the concerned, down-turned mouth of Lando Calrissian. 

"Hello," she offered weakly. Her fingers rubbed at the chipped glass of her drink as they seated themselves opposite her. From their worried expressions, she knew they had figured out something had gone seriously wrong and she hadn't called them for a social visit. Perhaps the rumours were spreading faster than she could run.

"What happened?" Lando's dark skin shone with sweat and she wondered if they had run from the docking bay to the cantina. 

She didn't offer a smile and found her fingertips shaking. "Luke's dead." 

Oh, she could have broken that better. It was cruel on all three of them to give it out so deadpan. There was silence from across the table and she glanced back up and into outright shock. 

"Luke's... what?!? He wasn't that badly injured!" Lando protested, Chewbacca strangely mute. With trepidation, she studied Calrissian's clearly upset face. He had barely known Luke; had, in fact, been instrumental in his near-capture by Vader. And here he was; caring. But then Luke tended to have that effect on people. He was instinctively likable. 

Had been instinctively likable. 

Tears threatened her sore cheeks, stinging her eyes as surely as the tepid alcohol in her hands would. She was squeezing the glass so hard she was sure it would shatter into as many sharp little shards as her heart had. She concentrated on the liquid as Chewbacca found his voice, still quiet but rumbling deeper than she had ever heard it before. She understood little of what he said and looked to Lando in askance. 

"He asked how it happened," Lando said. He looked at the glass cracking in her hands and slowly, gently pried her dirty fingers open with his own, setting the glass back onto the table. 

My hands are dirty.

My hands are dirty to, what are you afraid of?

Afraid of? Of loss, of heartbreak, of exactly what she was experiencing now. She splayed her fingers out on the metal-grill tabletop and knew she had to answer Luke's friends. "They executed him. No; actually, they murdered him." 

Chewie finally found his voice. He howled in outrage and disbelief and she looked at him with big, sad brown eyes. The cantina patrons barely gave them any spare glances. 

"Chewie... Chewie...! Quiet down!" Lando hissed at him, grabbing handfuls of shaggy fur to try and attract the furious wookiee’s attention before he started dicing the cantina occupants with those sharp claws extended in outrage. 

Lando, a woefully inadequate hold on the wookiee's arms stopping any carnage, looked over at Leia where she remained seated. "Why?"

This was the hard part, the part where Chewie really was likely to start tearing arms off the nearest sentient. The part she could barely say. So she only whispered it.

"They got scared. They found something out..." Come on Leia, say it. She put on an emotionless mask and steeled herself as both Lando and Chewie looked down at the quite, petite figure. "Luke was Darth Vader's son."

If possible, they were even quieter than they had been at her first revelation. Chewie stood absolutely still for a full ten seconds. Then the outburst came and she sat quietly by and let them shout at her, letting them deny it just as she had. She studied her hands, barely hearing the shouts. "It's true, they did a blood test. And then they killed him, because they got scared."

Dust motes danced in the air between them and she felt strangely detached, unwilling to touch that emotional pain again, or feel it in empathy. "He didn't know," she added, forestalling any questions about Luke's loyalty. She didn't think Chewie would have asked anyway. 

Something like recognition passed over Lando's lips as he asked a question weighted with intent seriousness and wonder. "Then the reports from the fleet... Vader is massacring them. Is it because...?" Perhaps there was even pride there.

Leia simply nodded and gave a small little mirthless smile. "He's not happy." 

Chewie burst back into a violent fury again, not knowing what else to do and she barely saw anything more, mind lolling in memories. When the table in front of her was violently overturned and her erstwhile drink spilled to the floor, she looked up at the wookiee, his rage apparently spent. 

"We have to go to Tatooine," she said. 

Lando, she saw, did not know what to say, and so for once said nothing. He knew he had no place in their grief, having barely known Luke, but he felt it just the same. She could see it in his suddenly dimmed eyes. 

"Han?" 

She licked her lips and rose from the seat. "And... there's something I have to do."

Stop it! Leave me alone, please leave me-

"- alone!! Please!" 

The fingers caressing the sensitive skin on his hip dissolved into the reality of a bright morning. The blistering heat of a fever and an open fire were replaced by brilliant sunshine and cold stone beneath his back. And, when his eyes obeyed his command to open, the whistling squalls of snow were replaced by motes of dust skipping across the air. 

Luke Skywalker blinked, unmoving, mind clearing like the deserts before a sandstorm, turbulence of fitful nightmares dying on his lips. Nightmares. The unreal; the conjured that couldn't touch you like those dirty, cold hands had touched him and- 

"Nooo..." 

The moan was weak but not lilting, his voice no longer catching on a fever, and it came from his first look around the room where he lay, to the fireplace and velvet drapes that were cold and bare in morning sunshine. No nightmare this; no imaginary hand smothering his face, no spectra leering over him. This was reality, as cold as the stone beneath his back and as clear as the swathes of snow beyond the stone-carved window. 

"Nap time's over, Skywalker." Despite the cruel taint on the silky voice, he was glad that he at least owned the name he had thought belonged to him. It seemed to be all he had left from the last time he had fallen asleep. This was no stark medical facility, no rebel barracks and no shuttle. This was... this was a cold, broad, stone-walled room that echoed with his words and diminished him to a small, confused rebel. 

The world blanched in indignation at his attempts to sit up, and he knew it was too soon. Still, he rested his back against frigid stone window mounts, mountains beyond spearing a bright cloudless sky. Somehow, he doubted his own position was so bright and hopeful. From the shadows by the fireplace, the woman with the red-gold hair and the voice like silk stepped forward, her face a picture of scorn. 

"Up," she ordered, cat-stepping forward across deep-pile rugs. "The Emperor will be here soon." 

The Emperor!? His mind whirled and his fingers clutched at the edge of the stone window seat he sat upon as the memories of last night flooded his mind in a black, ugly tide. Fingers on his face, his chest, his hip. Sore, bruised lips pleading with a sick old man with putrid eyes to stop. The Emperor.

His back collided with the cold window at her words. A reply was not needed; he knew she saw the fear blossom in tired blue eyes and there was something there, on her face... his lips struggled to name it but his mind flailed blindly for an answer to her curiously incongruous expression. As quickly as it had appeared, it was banished as she turned expectantly to a far door, large and old like everything else in the room. His fingers gripped tighter onto the edge as the air sang in anticipation. Or perhaps it was just the furious, terrified blinking of his eyes rustling in his ears.

The door opened and Palpatine entered in a wash of black robes and dark Force waves spilling into the room. The Royal Guards in their towering red uniforms were dismissed as he spitted Luke with a gaze that ripped right through any barriers he had been attempting to construct. The humourless cackling only helped to dissolve Luke's resolve into a mushy pile of lost hopes. 

The redhead stepped away from Luke and bowed reverently. Luke would have stood to present a more formidable presence in front of his enemy, but he didn't think Palpatine would be impressed by him collapsing to the floor in a terrified little heap. His heart hammered so hard he thought it would pummel itself to an early grave against his ribs. 

"Dismissed, Jade." His voice was as Luke remembered; salty and sharp like quicklime. 

Jade whispered from the room and left Jedi and Sith facing each other in an uneasy standoff. Luke found his feet under him and stepped forward boldly, banishing memories of his crackled, spindly hands on him from last night. "Emperor Palpatine." He inclined his head, trying to mask his fear behind icy determination, not bowing; there was no respect in his stance. Loathing perhaps, but no reverence. 

Palpatine stepped within breathing distance of Luke and laughed, teeth and eyes shining yellow in the sunlight. Luke almost wished he was still delirious and didn't have to confront this. 

And why was he confronting this, anyway? Where was Vader, if his plan had been to bring 'Skywalker' before the Emperor? And where was Leia, beautiful loyal Leia, if Vader had not brought him here? Where were his friends, and more importantly his enemies? And where was his self-confidence and unwavering hope? Were they all bunkered out together under the same fear rushing through his veins like glitterstem? 

In his reverie, he never saw the spindly white hand reach out for his cheek before chalky nails brushed against it, Luke's disgust boiling hot in his stomach. He backed against the stone ledge of the window-seat and he wished fervently to have the fever back and to escape reality. He wished even harder that he knew how in Sith he had gotten here. 

"You're confused, my young Apprentice. Do not be, it is very simple and soon you will understand all." The hands raked over his cheek almost affectionately and Luke nearly, nearly pushed the dictator from him. But he didn't; he'd heard the stories of Palpatine's wrath. It was not time to test it yet. 

"Where am I? Where's Leia?" Only hurriedly assembled Jedi resolve allowed him to ask.

Palpatine looked at him quizzically and patted his cheek. "It matters not. You will be here a while yet, that is all you need know. Concern yourself with more important things." 

After a life under the shadows of half-truths and outright lies, Luke disliked intently being kept in ignorance. It must have shown on his face because Palpatine laughed as he turned away to a large seat by the fire, robes billowing behind him in a black cloud that disturbed the sunny day. 

"What do you want?" He barely realised his hands were shaking and his cheek felt immeasurably dirty as Palpatine hid in the shadows of the chair.

"Why, nothing more than you, utterly and completely, my young Apprentice."

Luke's resolve faltered for a moment at that, his heart fluttering in persecution and detest. To be owned? To be controlled? By this disgusting slime? Never.

"Never."

Somehow, he had expected, hoped for even, a better reaction than mocking laughter from the dictator. It turned his blood grey. 

"Sit." A bleached white hand indicated the chair opposite Palpatine's. When he didn't move the Emperor scowled and a rush of air like dust over parchment indicated his displeasure. "Sit, and be thankful I do not demand you kneel permanently in my presence."

No, but there will come a time for that, won't there?

He pursed his lips in annoyance at the future whispering in his ear. He didn't like it. He sat.

"You wonder, no?"

"Yes." He was well aware of the darkness he sat in, of the darkness he was facing, but he could not deny his confusion, nor did he try. "I don't understand." Was that a weakness he had revealed? No - Palpatine well understood his confusion. Voicing it hurt no one, and ignorance was his worst enemy here.

"Then let me explain. I rescued you." His hands lay flush with the arms of the large chair and the smile mocked him until Luke felt very small, very open. He felt like those eyes tore his dignity; his confidence from him layer by layer to reveal a frightened little Jedi underneath. And where was Vader in all this?

"You... what?" Diplomacy was never his thing. The words sounded provincial in his ears. Palpatine's steady gaze was stripping him of the years in the Alliance, of his training, leaving only a callow farmboy underneath. One who lived in lies and ignorance. 

"The Alliance may swear allegiance to the Force, but in reality they only revere it as a primitive culture rushes to worship a malevolent God. In fear. They feared you, they tried to destroy you. But then, you knew they would." He leered at Luke and Luke shifted uncomfortably in the deep seat. 

--... they want revenge from me and will take it from you… --

The question was almost on his lips, the question about whether it was because of his blood relations, but his mind banished it in a fit of denial. He shook his head barely perceptibly and knew Palpatine had seen it anyway. "Because of Vader?"

"Yes." 

The word was pleasurable in the dictator’s lips and sour in Luke's mind. "Because of my father." 

Palpatine looked at him in askance and confusion, and that sent a shiver up Luke's spine, his throat suddenly dry. 

"Your father?"

Luke's heart, as much as it had been clambering for an escape route from his chest, suddenly stopped and he imagined Palpatine holding it bleeding in those white, white hands, leering. "Vader."

The chuckle was ghastly, and it tore through him, turbolaser fire through flimsiplast. "Your father? Ahhh... Little Jedi!! Foolish Jedi!! But... ah, so cunning! Vader tried to win you through your heart, by giving you a hope to run to!" 

The laugh was too much for Luke's nerves and his fingers dug into the arms of the chair, world spinning madly. "He's not...."

"No!" 

He was so still, so very still, his heart truly torn from his chest. Played; like a foolish, callow, lowly farmboy. "No! That's not true! That's-"

"Impossible? I'm afraid not. Ah, but what a clever ploy by Vader. I must congratulate him on the attempt." The eyes took on a distant look and Luke barely knew he was standing, stalking the Darksider in front of him. Lost, found, and lost again. Abandoned, reclaimed, rejected. It brought burning tears to tired eyes. 

//Father!!!//

Palpatine seemed utterly unconcerned, almost contemptuous, about the boy in front of him, hands balled in fury and loss. "Who are you calling, Little Jedi?! Your father died twenty years ago, slain by the man you gave his title to! Oh – this is delicious. He would have died twice over!"

//Father!//

Would his mind never stop giving Vader that designation now? Where it had been so hard to accept, now it was hard to destroy. And, indeed, there was absolutely no answer to his pleas. He choked down a cry of anguish, feeling like nothing more than a little Force-sensitive doll for the rulers of the galaxy to play with when they got bored or melancholy. 

"You have no father, little Jedi. You're so alone." 

Oh, that was too cruel. Weren't those the words he had screamed in his delirious mind when Leia had herded him to the medical frigate? Wasn't that a cry of denial now turned into lost hope? Truly, Palpatine sat in front of him now with Luke's heart neatly removed from his chest. 

Enraged, Luke lunged for the small Darksider. He was so weak, so frail; surely Luke's bare hands could strangle the life from him?

He was in for a sore disappointment. Palpatine came swiftly to his feet as the attacked was launched and blistering white-hot sparks erupted from his fingers. The shock barely registered before the lightning struck Luke. His forward momentum reversed, he slammed back into the chair he had vacated, crying out. But now, now, he no longer had anyone to cry to. Leia and the Alliance wanted him dead, and his father was once again lost to him. Who was left? Only the Emperor and his cackling yellow eyes. 

The despot advanced, bony fingers spread and he leered as another shot burst through the weak mental shielding Luke threw up. He writhed in pain, not hearing his own pleas to stop, and neither did Palpatine. There was a sickening look of glee on the old man's face.

Finally, after seconds of sheeting pain, Luke opened burning eyes to find Palpatine stretching out a hand for his cheek and the tears rolling large down his face. Tears are for the weak... and the truly desperate.

Luke jerked his head backwards, was rewarded by hitting the back of his head on the chair. His skin screamed at him, but his desperation and despair hollered mockingly as Palpatine's hand settled over his bruised lips. 

"Never do that again." There was no need for threats; they were implicit. Luke shuddered as the hand brushed his lips. 

"Little Jedi," he whispered, proximity choking, "you have lost so much. Your friends, your family, yourself. And they have all lied haven't they? Lied to the innocence they thought to use as they willed? Let me tell you a truth, my Little Jedi." The Emperor's breath whispered against Luke's skin and he thought he might gag, but the words echoed around his head enticingly. "What you learn here will be your comfort. The power you yield will be companionship. The Force is the only truth you will ever know, and it's intimacy will replace the human comforts that would burn and betray you. And knowledge – that too you can have. Never to be deceived again. Never to be vulnerable with your innocence. Never to hurt like this again." His hands caressed Luke's chest in ownership over where his heart lay. "Will you take that? Will you forsake ignorance and learn?"

His mouth faltered under the cold fingers, and he wanted to throw Palpatine off him but... where would he run to? Who would he run to? The only embrace left was in the freezing snow beyond these stone walls, or in the misery of life as a fugitive from two would-be governments. 

"No." His voice was hoarse and they both heard the lie. 

Where were his Jedi skills? Where was his control? It was lost - lost from the moment the Emperor had touched him and threatened his dignity, swallowed by the black hole that resided in his heart when he had lost his father. And, more than that, it was doomed from the very outset, from the moment he had left Dagobah. 

Dagobah – he had thought Ben and Yoda had wanted him to stay because he lacked the skills. Now he thought it was because he lacked knowledge, because he wallowed in ignorance. But that, after all, was their fault! 

"So, Yoda lives still? Do not fear, I will kill him for you," Palpatine whispered and Luke felt the tears of outrage slip over Palpatine's fingertips. 

"Hush, child. Do not be weak, I can show you such power that you will never cry again. Take it." 

He shook his head, trying to clear the fog that had descended, Palpatine's formidable presence looming over him, offering, enticing, intoxicating in a dark cloud of forbidden power. He didn't trust himself to answer. The dictator saw this and softly, with deceptive care, planted old cracked lips in a kiss on Luke's forehead, brushing the tears away with his thumb. 

"N-o."

"Yes."

//Help me!// 

Palpatine laughed at his mental cry and whispered. "There is no one to hear you, Little Jedi. You, you're mind and body, are now mine."
 
 

C h a p t e r  S i x

Palpatine was wrong. There was someone to hear Luke's pleas, and his cries plagued her with nightmares she could never hope to understand the import of. 

Sand whisked around her feet and stirred the hem of her farmer's skirt as she stared down at the small pile of bleached rocks that was all that remained of Owen and Beru Lars. Twin suns blistered the air with waves of sweltering heat and the outcropping of rock soaked it up easily. Leia Organa did not. She shifted uneasily, feeling her skin prickling and burning in front of the shallow grave and monument Luke had constructed before joining General Kenobi.

Tatooine; the Dune Sea. Where this mess had really started, where Artoo and Threepio had stumbled from a torched escape pod. They had been here several days now before Leia had gathered the courage to come out to this place, whilst Lando and Chewie continued to monitor for Boba Fett arriving with his bounty. Tatooine to rebellion to Tatooine: full circle. 

Soft, mournful currents of sand drifted down to her and she let her gaze rest on the grave for a long while, the homestead in the distance, reclaimed by native farmers, serving as a suitable backdrop. The tears were overwhelming her pride, standing here at the beginning. Or perhaps it was merely the end that had blossomed from here.

She was kneeling at the edge of the pyramidal heap of desert shrapnel, reading the small placard at the head of it, mind registering the words and their importance to the Tatooine farmboy-turned pilot- turned Jedi. . 

Owen and Beru Lars. 

There was no date, no epitaph. Just names. Apparently for Luke that had spoken volumes. 

Her hand toyed with loose sand at it's base and her eyes toyed with the idea of crying. Again. Instead, she reached into her small holdall and removed the scrap of soft material there, laying it in the white dust. The black material sucked up the sunlight and was soon hot to touch as she just stared at it for long seconds, so reluctant to take this final step. Finally embracing the inevitable, she unfolded the corners and laid it out on the ground, looking at the contents, somewhat melancholy. Her fingers traced the outline of the rank insignia for a few moments and she allowed herself to think back to her friend, almost imagining his wide blue eyes. Almost seeing him, backlit by sunshine and heavy velvet drapes. She shook the image from her head, wondering where it had appeared from, sure she had never seen him like that. Tears touched her cheeks unbidden as she closed the material again, sealing away the last part of Luke Skywalker and placing it beneath the placard with a delicate, reluctant sigh. 

"I know you would have been proud," she murmured to the dead beneath her feet. 

"They would have been outraged." 

The ground might have shuddered or she might have trembled; it mattered little which. Her heart froze in her chest, touched by a shard of ice and she couldn't move, frozen with her fingers on the small bundle. Her breath rushed out of her in a strangled cry and she kicked around in the sand, falling clumsily onto her back and trying to both crawl away and stand. 

"What... what are you doing here?" Her fingers fumbled at her hip for a nonexistent blaster, still onboard the Falcon along with Lando and Chewie. 

Darth Vader approached from the top of the dune, shadow stretching for her. "I am not going to hurt you, stop crawling away," he rumbled, voice dark and heavy. 

She tried to gather her wits about herself; instead gathered her dress and stood slowly, considering going for her commlink. Sand grazed her skin as she swiped angrily at the tears on her cheeks, not wanting the Dark Lord to see her like this. Not since... the last time. She shuddered in the heat. His black cloak wove little trails in the sand behind him as he stepped forward and she halted him with a sharp, nervous glare. 

"Well?" She brushed sand from her skirt and moved to place the grave between herself and the Dark Lord responsible for her current misery. The black visage stepped down from the dune towards her and Leia's feet threatened to drop her to the ground again in fear.

"What are you doing here?" he countered with no animosity, only sadness, stepping forward until his feet touched the bleached pile of stones. The jet black of his armour was out of place in the sandy wastes, and yet he was strangely also a part of the desert. She shook her head, trying to clear the twisted perception. 

Her fingers twitched unhappily for a blaster. "Trying to find some closure. You?"

"Trying to find a beginning," he answered.

She looked up into the black mask that had tainted her nightmares up until very recently before being replaced by something deeper, darker. There was a lump in her throat that was very difficult to swallow past as she kept a steady gaze on her friend's father. Luke's father, at his guardian's grave... and, in his stance, he was clearly troubled. That was not something she was used to seeing on the Dark Lord. 

Even through her fear and shock, a small thought recognised that this enigma somehow seemed less terrifying when he had a history as Anakin Skywalker. 

"I thought you were out massacring the Alliance," she bit out, but was dismayed by her own lack of animosity. After all, perhaps he was merely here to mourn Luke, much as she was... empathy with Darth Vader? The thought made her sick.

"I was."

"What happened? Too easy?"

He tilted that black-masked head to one side and a ripple of fear rushed through her at recognition of one of Luke's mannerisms. "No, Princess."

"What then?" This new, strangely pensive Dark Lord was making her distinctly uneasy. If he was here to kill her, why not now?

"I heard you were here," he said. Her breath caught in her throat and she skidded back from the grave, sand screening her from him momentarily. When it cleared, he had made no move towards here. "I merely wish to talk." 

Her fists clenched and unclenched. "Allright." 

There were other options, like screaming or running or attacking, but somehow she wasn't inclined to take them. This was just too un-Vader-like for her. 

"You left the Alliance shortly after Luke's death." To her surprise, as he spoke he leant forward over the shallow grave and lifted the fabric she had laid there, opening it and studying it with a regretful sigh. Leia felt her eye's bulge.

"Immediately after... was he really your son?" Had those words really come from her mouth? She scarcely believed she could have voiced that thought. 

"Yes." That was pain. It was the first time she had heard it in Vader's voice and the humanity of it was shocking. "Princess, the reports I have are... somewhat sketchy. What happened?" He folded the fabric and replaced it under the plaque; she studied it a moment before answering.

"I..." She gave herself a heartbeat before continuing. "They got scared, he was talking deliriously when we got him out from Bespin." She shot a glance at Vader that truly was hateful. "Something about a secret. Mothma was there, she wanted to know what it was. They drugged him. He told them. There was a meeting, a sham really; they'd already decided. They... tried to convince me they would have a trial for treason." 

His questioning gaze made her pause and the air grew cold around her, forcing a shiver through her muscles. A small stone tumbled from the grave to a clattering stop.

"They? Or Mon Mothma?"

Her gasp escaped in a little strangled exclamation. How had he known she was thinking that? Was he inside her head? Her eyes narrowed. "I... it was the Council that agreed-"

"Are you sure?"

She hugged her arms around her waist self-consciously as the cold black eyes of the mask tore through her, before she fetched the dignity and self-confidence of Senator Organa from the deep confines of her empty world and stood up straight. "Mon did seem a little... over-eager," she admitted. The images swirled in her head – Ackbar and Rieekan sitting passively by, not meeting her gaze, and Mon, so unlike the woman she knew, eyes shining in hatred, holding her back as the shuttle exploded. 

"I see..." Oh, that was cold. That was so cold. Somehow, she almost pitied Mothma for her mistake now. Somehow, she knew the price was going to be very high indeed.

She watched Vader's fist curl in barely contained anger and hatred and carried on, finally speaking the truth she knew - Mon, not the Council, was responsible. "I knew she planned no such thing but I... I didn't expect her to move so fast!" She knew she was pleading with both herself and The Father not to blame her, but she continued, "I was trying to contact friends, trying to get help to get him away and then... then they just put him on a shuttle and blew it up." 

Her voice had trailed to hoarse whisper and Vader was leaning intently forwards. "You're certain the shuttle was destroyed?" 

Leia looked up sharply and, unknowingly, took a step around the grave head to face Vader, Destiny and wonderment cheering her on. "I saw it!" she growled. 

"Then I am wrong." There was a queer sadness in that voice, resignation almost, and it made her heart crumple.

"Wrong...?"

He looked up at her and waved a gloved hand through the air. "I had... hoped the rumours were false." 

She shook her head sadly, "Why?" The word was quiet, so quiet, it whispered on the warm Tatooine winds and with his prolonged silence, she thought perhaps he hadn't heard her. But he had.

"He's died before, and I felt it. You both died. This time... I felt nothing," he said, then he looked up as she inhaled sharply. 

"What? When?" The idea - it was ridiculous, and yet something whispered in her that it was nothing more than the truth. There was more silence, more ominous silence as still as a fresh corpse. 

"Mimban." 

She paled, memories flooding, instinctively touching her cheek to where the vanished scars had been from her duel with Vader, stepping hurriedly backwards at the dark memories of a particularly cold Darth Vader beating her and Luke to small tattered corpses in a dusty, crumpled temple. Mimban. "No... we can't have died. That's not possible."

"It is. Luke healed you, and himself, somehow. Or did you think your injuries disappeared into mere nightmares?"

She flinched at that word – nightmares – and he saw it. The hand stretched out invitingly for her, maybe even to offer her some support, but before he could question her, she growled at him in her deepest, duskiest voice. "You...! Some father. You beat him; tried to kill him! Did kill him, and me – I remember; it was so bright! " The memories pushed through more brilliant than the Tatooine sunshine and she pulled herself away from them, still wondering but unwilling to look at them. "Why?"

He sighed and it whispered up with the heat waves. "That was not me."

She shook, "Had a bout of insanity, did we?" Sarcasm aimed at a Dark Lord; that was tempting fate. 

He barely acknowledged it. "No. It was not me. Palpatine was... experimenting with clone technology. I think he thought it a perverse irony to clone me and then torture the clones until they had to be placed inside suits such as this. They went a little... crazy. And they had no knowledge that I was once Anakin Skywalker. When I found out I killed them all. Except one Palpatine already had out on a mission. To Mimban. So the clone you encountered, and killed, did not know Luke was my son." Leia was looking unconvinced. "I have a mechanical right hand, Princess. I lost it after Luke blew up the Death Star, as punishment. The clone Luke killed had a flesh hand. Did he tell you that?" 

Leia gaped at the Dark Lord, at the revelation. "Yes..." She closed her eyes. "And you... you felt Luke die after the duel?"

"Yes... and you. It was... disturbing. If brief," he admitted, and Leia almost had the insane urge to offer a hand in comfort. The idea mocked her as she reopened her eyes. 

"And you didn't feel that this time?" 

"No."

"But you can't... sense him now?"

The answer was a long time coming, "No."

They stood silent for several minutes. Leia watched the sand churn at the graves feet. "Perhaps it was because he was unconscious."

"I doubt that."

She stared up into the black mask that conveyed nothing of the emotion in his voice; emotion he was trying hard to conceal. "If you've... hoped this all along, why haven't you been out looking for him all along?" 

The stories she'd had over the past two weeks... they were chilling. Vader in a rage was deadly, and not a quick, neat death either. The man in front of her though was not shaking with rage, was not demanding her blood for failing his son. He was... despondent. She might have said afraid even, but she had never known Darth Vader to know fear.

"I was... consumed. I felt a loss in connection, and with the stories... I was a little angry."

'A little...'? That was a liberal use of the word. The silence continued until she sighed. "Is it... possible? I saw the shuttle destroyed." The words were dry and painful. 

"I ask again; are you certain?" 

She flinched at the words, taking a step backwards before she could stop herself, remembering those words from her time spent in his company aboard the Death Star. Her heart beat wildly.

"I... thought so." She was no longer sure. Maybe her mind was just being messed up by those weird, macabre nightmares. 

"Did they retrieve bodies?" Was that... hope?

"I doubt they would bother," she admitted. Could it be possible... could she allow herself hope too? The sorrowful blue eyes from her nightmares appeared to plead with her to try.

The eager steps of Darth Vader brought him up to her and she didn't flinch. "Princess, you seem to have a preoccupation with nightmares." 

Her head snapped upwards, but as she tried to move backwards from him, his hand closed around her arm and held her there. There was something intent in his stance, something desperate. "Get out of my head!" she snarled. 

"Well?" His voice was mesmerising.

"I... I've been having dreams..." She glowered, trying to pull her arm free, trying to stop fresh tears and wishing for strength. All she got were some pretty bruises.

"Of...?"

She yanked hard on her arm. "They're none of your business, Vader!"

He sighed and shook his head, "And you were being so co-operative... Princess, it may be important. You... heard Luke on Bespin didn't you? Do you hear him now?" His voice pleaded with her to confirm it. 

She froze and knew he had his answer. Yes she heard Luke; heard him screaming for someone to come to his aid. Guttural cries of lost hope. But they were only nightmares... weren't they? "Yes..."

The rhythmic hiss of the respirator stopped and she looked up startled. "I'm missing something here.... something important..." he murmured. 

The uneasy silence was interrupted by the sound of feet skidding in the sand a strangled cry of surprise. Dark Lord and Princess turned to the new arrivals.

"Leia! Fett's here! He -"

Lando shut up very abruptly when he spotted the dark figure looming over her. Chewie, bowcaster aiming, snarled at Leia to get out of the way. She couldn't even if she'd been willing to. 

"Stop and she comes to no harm." Vader growled, but to Leia there seemed to be less menace there than she had expected. Chewie faltered but didn't drop the weapon. 

She barely even heard the exchanged threats, her mind bursting with confusion and indecision. Han! He was here! Fett was here! And the man that had taken him from had his hand clamped firmly around her arm. She felt desperate, needing to escape, needing to rush after Fett. And... and leave Vader here, after discovering a faint little sliver of hope she had thought lost? The idea was ludicrous. But... Han...

The hot wind stirring sand around their feet seemed to whispering at her to make a decision, and she knew it was right. If she chose wrong, they would all pay dearly. But... there was something different about Vader. Perhaps it was just her perception of him as Luke's father. Or perhaps it was something more, something of that infamous Skywalker heart. Regardless, she had to choose now: oppose Vader and go after Han. Or go with Vader on the slim, wild hope Luke was still out there. Both made her heart crumble like the sand under their feet. But maybe... maybe she could do both...

Decision made, she whirled to her two companions. "Stop! Chewie!" she called, and the wookiee faltered some more. She turned to Luke's father, sighing in resignation. 

"I want to find Luke, but I cannot abandon Han." 

He never moved, and probably he had expected just this. "I see."

She fought the compulsion to fight the Sith and said something she could never have expected to pass her lips. Something which bound these two together, forming a truce based solely on trust. "If you help me get Han out, I'll help you find Luke," she implored.

There it was. Co-operation, alliance, trust. Stars, it made her stomach turn. But it also felt like the right thing to do.

Chewie and Lando, bare metres from them, both inhaled sharply at her words, although they probably didn't understand their true import for Leia Organa, staunch soldier against anything and everything Vader stood for. Except that he now stood for Luke, and she couldn't fight him. 

The mask considered her and she felt hope ripple down her arms beneath black-gloved fingers. "And if I refuse?"

"I don't think Chewie will hold out much longer." She smiled sweetly. He chuckled with scorn – actually chuckled – and released her. 

"It isn't wise to upset a wookiee, although I think I could handle him," he said, bass tones rumbling. "Very well, but you must tell me: what do these nightmares show you?"

The mention of them; it sent her stomach into tight little corkscrews. He looked visibly shaken as she paled at the memories, bile rising in her throat as Lando and Chewie approached cautiously, not understanding the pact made between the enemies but honouring Leia's decision.

"You... you don't want to know." The words were caustic. 

Vader leaned in closer and this time his voice definitely trembled with fear and pain at what she might say. Fear for his son, she realised. Human, mortal fear. "Tell me..."

"Pain, darkness. And..." 

He looked at her and suddenly her world consisted only of herself, her nemesis and her nightmares. "Death."
 
 

C h a p t e r  S e v e n

Palpatine watched it try to hold the tattered skin together, fully appreciative of the sight. It glared a little blankly at him and struggled to stand. When it couldn't, when it let out a little moan in dismay, Palpatine turned his back on it and moved away giving a soft chuckle. The Skywalker child remained kneeling on the rug, face furious and red with unshed tears as one hand clutched around the wound in its left arm, the crimson shining deliciously in the firelight. Palpatine circled the boy. 

"You do insist on learning in a most difficult manner," he commented, watching the child stiffen as he moved behind it where it couldn't see, where its bruised back wouldn't allow it to turn to. Blood-slicked hands slipped down from the wound when the skin became too slippery and there was a sigh of pain.

"You do not control me." 

From the stiff words, Palpatine knew they were spoken through painfully clenched teeth. He snaked a hand into the mop of blonde hair, rake-thin fingers catching on sweaty tangles. "Really?" 

The pressure kept it down, but Skywalker tried to stand all the same. His fingers tightened in the hair, eliciting a little yelp. 

"Well?" There was no answer, only the hiss of a forced intake of breath. "You understand so little, my young apprentice. But understand this fact and things may be a little easier on you." He knew there would be no answer, no admission – yet. He removed his fingers and continued his circle, the disgust and fearing pouring off his Little Jedi and he lapped it up.

This was more fun than he had anticipated. Its blood shone like wine when shed, its tears water to the thirsty and its haunted eyes a view to the imprisoned. He beat it and it always got back up; would it never learn that he would simply knock it back down again? Again and again and again... 

No, it understood. The furious face told him that. But it couldn't stop the denial that fell on its lips every time it spoke. Such will power. But then, if it was weak in spirit, what use would he have for it? He patted the furious face with his palm and it remained kneeling. Good. Perhaps it was learning after all.

"I will not turn. I will die first." The words were washed in the blood from its arm and the na?ve idealism Palpatine was so enjoying destroying, piece by ripped-up little piece. And it tore so well. 

"That will not be necessary," he cackled and crouched to the figure, took its bleeding arm between white fingers. The blood shone as it covered his palm, as ran his fingers over the deep tear. He saw the question pass over the boys lips, before they were set stubbornly into silence.

"I hear your thoughts. There is no need to refrain from asking."

The glare could not have contained more hatred. Then it shivered as Palpatine basked in the power that rushed up to meet the angry feelings. The Jedi mantra was repeated in its darkened mind and the child calmed. It stared back defiantly, not looking at the cut Palpatine was stroking, little shivers in its back betraying the pain.

But it didn't speak.

"It is a simple trick," Palpatine answered anyway. The child shook with rage at having its thoughts violated. In truth, there was no reason not to think it would be curious about how the Emperor had broken the skin by a mere look. He did not have to probe its mind to know that. "One you will perhaps learn, one day." It was simple matter manipulation to pull the flesh apart like that, not unlike the floating-rocks trick all Jedi learned. He sneered at the thought, contempt easily seen on his cracked features. 

It inhaled sharply at the look of distaste on the Emperor's face. Looking at the defiant, weak little child he smiled. That seemed to unnerve it more than the stroking did. "Will you not allow me to show you such power?"

It struggled to stand, but its muscles refused the order, still tingling from lightning. In two weeks since beginning this 'training' Palpatine had still not tired of seeing those tendrils snake over the boys skin. He rubbed the tip of his tongue over his teeth thoughtfully, almost regretful that there were definite signs of change in the boy and such punishment might not be necessary in a few more weeks. That would indeed be a shame. Still, torture was such a familiar thing, was there nothing new to be done with the child? 

"No," It hissed. "I will not turn."

There was such defiance there, unbridled emotion spilling out and making the words more damning than any action the child could have taken. Every denial only pushed it further.

"Indeed. Why not?"

The blonde head snapped upwards in surprise and the lips parted in horror. Yes, it really was quite beautiful. Beautiful, trembling and obedient. The pleasure washed through him at the sting in the voice, so misguided. "The Darkside is evil. It is everything I fight against. That is not how... how we're supposed to use the Force."

The laughter that came from Palpatine was the first true mirth he had expressed in a very long while. He stood, voice crackling and bounding back to him off stone walls. The child shivered uncertainly. 

"Young fool! You still don't understand." He stood and turned, the cape snapping at the boys face. He felt familiar emotions rip through that small, slight body. Fear, loneliness, confusion. That played into his hands wonderfully and he manipulated them with all the skill of decades worth of mastery of the Sith ways. The child never even saw the trap.

"...what?"

Yes, indeed it was changing. Only a few days ago it would have let him punish it before uttering those words. "The Force is a tool. Nothing more," he said. He flushed the robes out as he sat in the chair. The boy remained kneeling, confusion on its tired face. 

"That's... not true. It's too natural, too old. It's... too alive to be used as a tool. You can't-" 

It was almost gaining in confidence. He slapped it back down. 

"Fool. Listen to what you say. You protest because you believe it is ethereal, some God-like entity." He leaned closer to the child and drew it towards him with a stirring of the Force. It crawled, obedient. Trembling and obedient and beautiful. "You would describe sentience where there is no such thing. The Force is the energy field from all life, but is not itself alive. And being natural makes it above our sentient demands? Fool!"

He snatched a handful of the black tunic and drew Skywalker closer, the blood on its arm smudging the pale skin. It whimpered in pain before returning to a defiant and... yes, interested expression. 

"The Force is no more alive than is fire and it is just as 'natural'." One gnarled hand indicated the flames in the fireplace, the other stroking the child's cheek, emphasising each word in little rhythmic caresses that shattered its resolve. Such a simple trick this. Touch rendered it incapable of defiance, left it open to disgust and fear. It worked wonderfully. The blue eyes widened and stared transfixed at the Emperor's hand. He brought its attention back to him with a squeeze of his fingertips. "It is a creation of the living but we don't claim it to actually live, think, act!" The claws of his fingernails tightened. "The Jedi were fools and were consumed by the fire they revered but refused to use. They didn't tame it and it took control. They watched, listened, passively observing so much that they never noticed it enclose and destroy them. Fools, just as you are."

It was struggling for words, eyes wide with fear. Its gaze flickered to the large hearth, then back to Palpatine, and he saw understanding blossom there. But it was not spoken. 

"But... the Darkside-"

"As you know it, it is nothing more than a Jedi horror story." He shook his head, eyes shining. "The Force must be used, there is no other way."

The child shook its head furiously and Palpatine shoved it backwards from him to sprawl on the floor. Confusion and macabre understanding were shaken from its face hurriedly. "No. The Jedi use it, but they use it for the good. They use the lightside. You are the Darkside, and that is nothing more than pure evil."

Palpatine stood in a swirl of angry robes. He stalked forwards and the child began to claw uncertainly backwards away from the Emperor, defiance crumbling. 

"The Force does not care how we use it – it is not capable of caring. Does the fire care what you burn and what you warm? There is no discrimination there – it is power, pure and simple. It only relishes being used at all." He crouched over the figure. "What matters, if something must, is who uses it."

The little, weak thing shook its head frantically, trying to block out the words that so went against what its teachers had told it. It licked dry lips uncertainly. Before it could speak he placed two fingers over its mouth, knowing this would shatter its concentration. 

"And you, Luke Skywalker, are nothing but darkness."

It blanched and the light seemed to fade a little from around him, sconces flickering. 

"No." 

Oh, but the word was so uncertain, so scared. He grabbed the back of its neck with spindly sharp hands and wrenched it backwards until sick yellow met terrified blue. "Yes. You; who kills indiscriminately, who murders millions on the Death Star. You, my little Jedi murderer were born for the Darkside," he spat.

"No..." 

It was a wail and the eyes closed as feelings of anger and disgust poured through the small frame. And loneliness - so alone. Little abandoned, unloved Jedi. Little, misguided, betrayed Jedi. The feelings were unstoppable, everything it had stood for kicked out beneath its feet. Palpatine's hand closed tighter as he invaded the fragile, shattering mind and he delighted in what he felt being voiced there.

Friends, family; loved ones and those he hated too; all were destroyed. None of them cared. None came for him. All gave him pain and he delivered it back tenfold. Because he was born for the Darkside. 

It sobbed briefly and then the eyes snapped open in panic. It felt it. It felt that power – he could see it clearly in those seared eyes. 

It blinked and in that second, in that single eye-blink the sconces winked out, the fire in the hearth coughed, exploded, died, and the ancient glass on paintings and light fittings burst into small, wicked shards and rained down in a hard storm. Dark energy poured, delicious and warm, over both of them and it cried, it cried out so hard and loud but it did nothing to stop it. 

Palpatine laughed in something that might have been triumph, but felt more like delight.

Leia set the make-shift mirror to one side, lit by a small glow lamp. She studied the reflection only briefly, not willing to see the tired eyes or weary, sand-bitten skin. In the small bunk aboard the Falcon the light was dark but it was enough to work by. She reached up uncertainly and undid the clasp to her hair, tangles of plaits falling to her shoulders. Splaying her fingers, she ran her hands through them until her long chestnut hair laying in a curtain around her.

A curtain she could no longer hide behind like a spoilt Alderaani Princess, or an Imperial Senator, or an Alliance Leader. 

No; she was just Leia now. Leia Organa, no title, no rank, no fixed abode. She nearly laughed at that last mocking thought; the man who was at least in part responsible for that little fact only a bulkhead away. Yes, Leia Organa, as much a nobody as Luke Skywalker had been, had just made a pact with the devil. Or rather, the devil's henchman.

And if she had to do this, if she had to strip off the Princess and the Senator and follow this man, then here was another symbol to abandon. 

She lifted the little scissors to her fingers and let out a shivering breath. Her Aunts would murder her if they knew... but her Aunts were another part of a distant past. She took her hair between her fingers, to a length just beneath her jaw line, and snipped. The tearing sound, its symbolism, was not lost on her, and she forced the tears back down for a more honourable use. It was only hair. She continued.

After several minutes, her long, rich hair lay across the bunk seat and she set the scissors down. In the mirror, the woman who looked back at her with a sharp little bob and a defiant set to her jaw was anything but the grieving Princess. She looked deep into those eyes and hoped she found herself soon. 

"Princess?" The door swiped open.

"I'm ready." 

They covered him in a black cloak and cowl, probably not wanting to 'scare' the Palace servants. He accepted it gratefully, not wanting to scare himself. When he and his escort reached his quarters in a quiet little funeral procession the doors whisked shut behind him and he stood in the entranceway, not seeing. 

There was no sense of time in this quiet, dreadful place. He did not know how long it had been before he'd felt those dark stirrings, but they followed Palpatine's creeping fingers and laughed when he pleaded with him to stop. The taste of disgust and terror was utterly familiar to him now, as was the broken tearing of his soul every time Palpatine stroked his cheek, touched his lips, whispered of more if he didn't obey. 

All he wanted now was respite, but he knew his disturbed thoughts would plague him through the cold night. He had nothing. That had