Forbidden

FORBIDDEN

By Raythe

DISCLAIMER: Not mine. No money made.

PAIRING: Luke x Vader

WARNINGS: Slash/Incest/AU

RATING: NC-17

HINTS AND STUFF: This chapter takes us back in time for a moment to see a scene b/t Luke and Damon prior to the com-link call. Damon makes his move on Luke! There are also some surprises in terms of one of the effects the Balance is having on people. And there is a ton of Vader-angst in this chapter. These are just some of the highlights as the chapter is 31 pages long and a ton happens.

I had hoped to have the Rebel Prisoner Fantasy here, but the story didn’t allow for it yet, but it’s coming.

Also, dedication of this chapter is made to MistressMollusk who gave me some great advice, but above all encouraged me to take my time telling the story.

Once again, I thank you for all your support and open minds. If you have a moment please let me know what you think. I appreciate everyone’s comments and it inspires me to continue on.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: CONCEPTION

Luke’s POV

Half an hour earlier …

Luke smiled as he watched his father and Qui-Gon walk down the hallway together to their quarters. The two handsome men had their heads tilted towards one another as they spoke companionably. The fact that they were going to view the Archive made Luke’s chest seize a bit, but he shoved the anxious feeling away with a deep, calming breath. Father had shut their bond down tight so he wouldn’t experience any of the Archive over it. But even if he did, Luke would endure it as the Archive was their hope to learn more about their powers and perhaps their purpose.

But with the bond closed down and Vader’s physical presence receding, Luke ached for his father. Part of him though was glad that Vader was spending time with the Jedi Master. It didn’t take a Force-sensitive to know that Vader still had many unresolved issues with his past and with the Jedi in particular. Luke sensed that Qui-Gon might heal those. With that comforting thought, Luke turned and began to make his way to the third level cantina where Joran, his mother and the rest of the freed slaves were being housed temporarily.

Luke slowed as he saw a cluster of droids being stowed in one of the side passages. Two male techs in tan overalls were sliding the droids into storage compartments that lined the side hall. They were undoubtedly following Vader’s orders to shut down all the unessential droids.

Luke gripped his saber when one of the droid’s metal claspers fell across a tech’s tan-clad back as he lifted it into a high storage unit. He only released the saber once he saw that the clasper remained motionless, its arm having just fallen due to gravity and not of the droid’s own volition. He skirted around the droids carefully, so focused on them that he didn’t see or sense the trooper whose chest suddenly blocked his path. Luke hopped back a few steps, an apology leaving his lips.

“No need to apologize, Luke,” Damon’s familiar voice came from under the black and white helmet. The young man then slipped the helmet off and tucked it under one arm. His grey eyes sparked with happiness then widened in concern as he took in the state of Luke’s slashed and burnt clothing. “By the stars, what happened to you?”

The boy grimaced. He carefully zipped up his jacket to hide most of the damage. “Droid battle.”

“What? Oh, so that’s the reason for the order …”

“I didn’t think to change. Do I look that bad?” Luke asked.

Damon’s eyes took on an amused glint. He looked Luke up and down. “No, Luke, you don’t look bad, at all.”

Before Luke could figure out an appropriate reply, a familiar trill sounded behind the trooper. Artoo peeked out at Luke from behind Damon’s legs.

“Artoo! Where have you been? Getting into trouble, I’m sure,” Luke said as he walked around Damon to the little unit, stroking the dome gently.

“He was working on your X-Wing. They were going to deactivate him pursuant to Lord Vader’s order that all nonessential droids be turned off.”

“No!” Luke cried. His hands gripped the droid close to him.

“That’s what I thought. So I was bringing him to you to spare the little guy that fate.”

Luke couldn’t help the wide smile that crept over his face. “Thank you, Damon. There are some … dangers with the droids, but … I think Artoo is okay. I’ll just have to watch him carefully.”

Luke felt nothing of the malevolence and corruption that had oozed from the battle droids coming off the small R2 unit. His shoulders slumped in relief as he realized that so far at least Artoo had not been touched by Palpatine. He squatted down before the droid who hooted at him happily.

“Artoo, you mustn’t plug into any of the Executor’s systems even to recharge.”

The droid beeped, asking for an explanation why.

“Droids are being infiltrated and used to harm people. I don’t want that to happen with you. So conserve power as much as you can.”

Artoo gave a little wail. Luke patted him comfortingly.

“As long as you aren’t connected to the Executor’s systems you should be all right. Think of it like a … virus.”

“So where are you off to?” Damon asked as Luke straightened up.

“You remember that little boy, Joran, we helped on the slavers’ ship?”

“Oh, yes, of course.”

“I promised to visit him. So that’s where I’m headed.”

“Mind if I tag along?”

Luke smoothed down the front of his jacket to buy some time for his answer. “Aren’t you on duty?”

“No, I’m off now. I’d really like to see Joran again and … spend some time with you.”

Damon looked at Luke through his lashes, as his head dipped, and shoulders lowered in what would have been an endearing way if Luke had felt anything other than friendship for the other man. ‘This is my chance to let him know that we can be nothing more than friends. Letting his crush just die out on its own really isn’t an option as Father is not amused by it.’

Luke shivered a little as he thought of another man that had not amused his father: Captain Terellian. The crunching sound of his throat being pulverized and then his body hitting the floor with a solid thunk still rang in Luke’s ears. The idea of that happening to Damon for merely liking Luke too much was horrific and spurred him to act.

Luke smiled. “Sure. I know Joran would enjoy seeing you again.”

They began to walk down the hallway together. Artoo followed after them hooting and beeping to himself. Luke unconsciously mimicked his father’s pose as he linked his hands behind his back. He felt Damon’s sideways glances at him, but pretended not to notice. He doubted that this show of disinterest would stop Damon from pursuing him. The trooper had a deep well of self-confidence. He wondered about the man’s background to give him such a feeling of self-worth. Part of Luke envied him that.

“Your uncle is Admiral Piett?” Luke asked.

“Yes, he is my mother’s older brother,” Damon answered and as if anticipating Luke’s next question, said, “Almost my whole family is in the military. My father is head of the Tantalus Legion.” There was a slight note of pride in that.

Luke had heard of the Tantalus Legion. They were a group of highly skilled warriors that were sent on covert operations. The Rebellion had feared the Legion would be sent after them. But so far, Vader had satisfied himself using more traditional troops to fight them.

“With my family being so … well-connected militarily,” Damon shifted uncomfortably, “you probably are wondering why I decided to become a … mere trooper.”

Luke shook his head. “I don’t think there’s anything ‘mere’ about being a trooper, Damon. But I imagine you had the opportunity to … be somewhat higher in the ranks if you wanted to.”

“You’re right about that, but … I desired to make my own way. Rely on my own skill. Not my family’s influence. So I chose to start from the bottom and work my way up.”

Damon twisted around to look at Luke fully and Luke turned his own head to meet his gaze. The man’s grey eyes were filled with determination.

“At first I didn’t even want to be on the Executor because Uncle was in command, but he hardly has any contact with any of us troopers. And besides … it’s the best ship. Every trooper who’s on it is hand-picked by Lord Vader. Only those who are the top of their class are allowed to even apply for a berth here.”

Luke couldn’t help the burst of the pride he felt for his father. Despite Damon’s other reservations about Vader, the man clearly respected him as a military leader. And his father’s opinion in choosing Damon had just as clearly meant something to the young trooper.

“I think it’s quite admirable what you’re doing,” Luke said warmly.

“Thanks. Yet all of it would have been … over … before it had hardly begun if not for you,” Damon said, his voice lowering slightly.

Luke felt the press of an armored hand on his shoulder. One of Damon’s thumbs brushed along his collar bone. Luke stiffened under the touch. He reached up and gently, but firmly removed the man’s hand, but Damon turned the action into a handclasp. They had slowed their pace as they spoke and now were at a dead stop.

“I wish I didn’t have this goddamn armor on every time we meet. It would be nice to be able to feel you,” Damon said softly as he tightened his grip.

“Please, let go, Damon.” Luke attempted to draw his hand back.

“But … why?”

Damon moved closer until there was only an inch of space between them. Even through the armor, Luke could feel the heat of the other man’s body like a furnace. The scent of armor polish and clean male sweat coursed through Luke’s nostrils.

“Don’t you feel it, Luke?” Damon’s voice was almost a whisper.

“Feel what?”

Luke tried to step away from him but Damon moved forward again. The man wasn’t quite as tall as Vader, but he was still a good couple inches above Luke. He crowded into Luke’s personal space, almost loomed over him. Damon eye’s slid to half-mast.

“The connection between us. It’s like a strand of gold. I can feel wherever you are. On Black Heart, how do you think we found so quickly? I could … sense … you.”

Luke’s eyes widened. He sent a Force probe out to the other man and it confirmed what Damon’s words were telling him.

“You’re … Force sensitive, Damon,” Luke said softly.

“Force-sensitive? You mean like a … Jedi?” The trooper looked down at him with confused eyes. “But this feeling only happens with you.”

Luke nodded. “That’s only because you haven’t been trained yet and … and I healed you before when you were … ill.”

“Brought me back from the dead you mean,” Damon said, but when he saw the look of anxiety that crossed Luke’s expressive feature, he added, “I won’t tell anyone. I know that this kind of power you wield … well, if that knowledge got into the wrong hands … But it never will from me.”

The trooper was gazing at him with open adoration and awe. He reached up and stroked Luke’s cheek. His gloved fingers felt cool against Luke’s skin. Damon slid that hand around to the back of Luke’s neck, tilted his own head to the side and leaned down. He managed to press their lips together for a moment, before Luke gasped in shock and pulled away. The trooper gave a low groan and moved forward again.

“You’re so sweet. Just like I imagined,” Damon breathed. “Please … don’t deny what’s between us.”

His hand was an insistent pressure on Luke’s neck. But Luke kept their lips apart. He could easily break Damon’s hold, but he might hurt the man in the process. He could use a Force suggestion, but it felt wrong to manipulate Damon that way if he didn’t have to. He would use plain words first.

“This isn’t what you think it is, Damon. Release me.”

The trooper brought Luke’s captured hand up to chest and held it over his heart. “You’re wrong. This is exactly what I think it is. I’ve never felt like this for anyone.”

When the man leaned in for yet another kiss, Luke knew enough was enough. He wrenched his hand away and broke Damon’s hold on his neck while taking took two steps back. His voice was cold and clear as he said, “I’m sorry, Damon, but I have no interest in anything other than a friendship with you.”

“What … but …”

Damon tried to move close again. Luke raised a hand and stopped him where he stood.

“Enough, Damon. I don’t want this or … you.”

Damon stared at him a long time then his eyes flickered away from whatever he saw. A pained smile crossed his face and he turned his head to the side so Luke was not in his direct line of sight. He swallowed deeply.

“Is it because of Lord Vader? Does he not approve my pursuing you because I am not an officer yet?”

“No, he cares nothing about that,” Luke answered.

“Then if it is not his disapproval of me … I don’t understand why you don’t … is there someone else?”

Luke closed his eyes. This was a question he was going to have to find an answer to. It would depend if his father and he were open about their relationship, but they hadn’t talked about it yet. Though Vader had indicated on Black Heart that he didn’t want their relationship to be a secret. ‘But can we really be open? Incest is a crime in most cultures. And currently it’s a crime in the Empire.’

“There is someone, isn’t there?” Damon’s voice sounded almost petulant.

“It doesn’t matter, Damon. I don’t feel that way for you.”

“But you could … if you weren’t with someone else,” Damon intuited.

Luke’s expression tightened. “I don’t think so. I don’t think I would like to be with a person who disregards my wishes. It was clear I wanted you to let me go and you ignored me.”

Luke knew what he had just said wasn’t altogether true. Hadn’t his father touched him against his will the first time? Ignored his pleas and taken what he wanted? But what had been so thrilling and incredibly arousing to have Vader do, did not seem to translate towards anyone else.

Damon had the grace to drop his eyes. “I’m sorry … you’re right, I shouldn’t have done that.”

A fully body shudder went through the man. When he looked up at Luke, there was such bleakness in his eyes.

“I just … this feeling has been building in me ever since I first saw you. All I can think about is you. All I want to think about is you! You say it isn’t because we’re meant to be together, but it’s just like my mother described it when … when she met my father. I know this feeling is true!”

Luke felt the young man’s bewilderment and pain. He took in a deep breath and felt the low-level anger he held dissipate.

“I can imagine how confusing this must be, Damon. When I first experienced the Force … it was overwhelming.”

Damon shook slightly in response, but didn’t say anything.

Luke continued gently, “I want to help you with what you’re going through. I believe Master Jinn would also be able to assist you in this new awareness. It might … show you that these feelings you think you have for me … have little to do with me at all and everything to do with—”

“I know what I feel, Luke, and it has nothing to do with the Force!” Damon’s words became softer as he added, “But I see that … for now … you do not return my feelings.”

Luke clasped his hands tightly in front of him. Hurt was rolling off of Damon in waves and his natural inclination was to comfort, but that would only exacerbate things. He wasn’t so naive that he didn’t hear the ‘for now’ in Damon’s statement. Damon wasn’t through with chasing him and trying to convince him they were meant.

Perhaps it was because he had brought the man back from death or because Damon was a Force sensitive, but Luke felt … responsible for him still. ‘If he can just accept that what he feels is from those connections and not … not romantic love things will be so much better for him.’

“May I still … still accompany you to see Joran? I wasn’t lying when I said I wanted to see him, although it obviously wasn’t my main goal,” Damon said quietly, his head still lowered and his body rigid with tension. “I promise I will behave as I should. As a gentleman and your friend.”

Luke signed internally. The man would be devastated if he sent him away like this. ‘If I really wish a friendship with him then I should act like a friend. Besides I am in no real danger from him. And if he tries anything, I can walk away with a clear conscience that he has exceeded the bounds of friendship.’

“Of course, Damon. I would like your company,” Luke answered.

The rest of the walk was done in silence. Damon chewed his lower lip a few times, but his eyes remained steadfastly on the floor ahead of him. The tension felt so thick that Luke wondered if this had been such a good idea after all. He pressed the button to open the doors for the cantina.

“Luke, why don’t you use your powers to do that?” Damon asked suddenly.

Luke answered thoughtfully, “Because I don’t have to in order to make the door open. The Force … it isn’t a parlor trick and it should only be used in a respectful manner and not overused if one can help it. Does that make any sense?”

Damon nodded. “I think so. You said I was Force-sensitive … does that mean I could do some of the things that you do?”

“Yes, probably. With training. Master Jinn will be able to tell you more. If you’ll allow it, I’d like you two to meet.”

“I think … I would like that.”

Luke wondered how his father would feel about it though. He had never really understood Vader’s stance on Force-users fully and they had not discussed how or if it was going to change now. Luke wanted to reestablish something of the old Order. ‘The good parts … though I hardly know what those were. Master Jinn and Father will know. But no matter what there must be a place where people can come and train.’

Luke felt sure that Damon was but the first Force-sensitive that would seek him out. He sensed that there would be far more that would come and not only to him, but to his father as well. Luke stumbled to a halt as, for a moment, the blank white and black walls of the cantina, the many cots, and the crowds of former slaves surrounding them vanished from before his eyes.

In their place, Luke saw twin towers standing tall amidst a gleaming sea of buildings.

One tower was made of burnished durasteel, glinting in the sun like the blade of a sword. Beside it stood a tower of equal height and grandeur, but this one looked to be carved out of black stone. It seemed to absorb the sunlight and glowed instead with its own internal fire. Luke’s gaze was pulled downwards towards a tree-lined courtyard. There were hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of people streaming inside the towers’ joined base.

Luke was snatched out of this vision by Joran’s happy cry and a warm boy bundle suddenly wrapped around his legs.

“Luke!” Joran squealed. “Light sword! Light sword! Light sword!”

“I can see my light saber is very welcome here,” Luke teased as he shook off the effects of the vision. “I’m just glad I get to tag along with it.”

Damon gave him a concerned look and grasped his shoulder gently.

“Luke, are you alright? Your eyes went all unfocused there for a moment.”

“I’m fine.”

Damon didn’t look convinced but backed off as Joran’s mother joined them.

“Joran, mind your manners,” she scolded gently. She extended her hand to Luke. “So good to see you again, Lord Skywalker. I realize last time I didn’t introduce myself. I am Salara Desertrider.

“Nice to see you again as well. And please … it’s just Luke.”

Luke eagerly clasped her work-callused hand. Her face was still worn, but her eyes were alight with happiness and ease. Luke turned to introduce Damon.

“This is Trooper Damon Trans. He helped rescued Joran as well.”

Damon shook Salara’s hand. She gave him a brilliant smile. Artoo made an indignant wail at not being introduced, too.

“Sorry, Artoo. This is R2-D2. Artoo, this is Salara and Joran.”

The droid popped up his periscope and surveyed both people. He then gave a pleased hoot at both of them, before settling down to merely observe. Luke felt Joran’s unwavering gaze on the light saber. He worried the little boy might burst if he didn’t see it ignited soon. He remembered his own awe the first time he had seen his father’s old glowing blade. ‘Although, even then, the fact that father had made it and had touched it was what made the saber so special.’

“The blade’s a different color now, Joran,” Luke said and unhooked the saber from his belt.

Joran’s blue eyes widened even more and he swallowed hard. As the hiss and thrum of the light saber echoed throughout the room, Luke realized that he had a bigger audience than this one family. He heard the murmurs of the crowd. Awe and shock and a little fear as one word met his ears from many mouths: “Jedi.”

Joran clapped his hands together eagerly. “Momma, isn’t it pretty! Pretty! But hot … very hot!”

“That’s right, Joran,” Luke said.

Luke kept his Force senses alert to any danger from the other former slaves who pressed forward. Damon also noticed the crowd’s interest and shifted his footing to a more defensive stance. The man was Force sensitive all right. Luke could feel him trying to reach out and sense the people’s emotions. Luke sent out a wave of calm to all of them and felt the tension ease slightly. They began to back away.

“Can I hold it?” Joran asked suddenly, pointing to the saber.

Luke glanced up at Salara. She nodded after a few moments.

“It’s okay with me, so long as you think its safe,” she said.

Luke turned the saber onto its lowest power setting. He knelt down slightly beside and behind the boy. He clasped one of the child’s hands and slowly led it to the hilt. He covered the little hand with his own and made sure to guide the light saber away from hitting anyone or anything as he allowed Joran to slice the air with it. He could feel the boy’s tiny heart beating in excitement. He smoothed Joran’s gold hair back from his forehead.

That was when he felt it.

Like with Damon, Joran had a spark of the Force in him stronger than most people. Luke experienced a moment’s shock. Since he had been trained, other than Leia, he had found no other Force sensitives. Now he had found two in less than half an hour. But in a way Luke should have known there was something different about the boy at least.

Luke had been drawn to Joran when he was on the ship. Perhaps it was the budding Force presence that had gotten his attention. Somehow though he felt badly about that. A non-Force sensitive’s life was as important as Joran’s, but he might not have picked up their distress as clearly.

Yet he did not recall Joran or Damon having such strong Force presences before. And even if Luke had missed it, he doubted Vader would have. ‘Could their strengthening in the Force be a result of the Balance somehow? Could more Force sensitives emerge because of it? The vision showed so many. As Father and I become stronger what else will happen?’

Joran gave a big, sad sigh when Luke ended the impromptu light saber lesson. The boy brightened though when Luke began levitating his stuffed animal around. Salara was laughing as Luke “hid” the stuffed toy behind Joran’s ear and then had it drift around to give him a “kiss” on the cheek. Joran giggled and clapped each time Luke did it.

Damon winked at Luke and teased softly into his ear, “Using the Force in a respectful manner, Luke?”

Luke sent the stuffed animal sailing towards Damon’s head … butt first.

Meals began being served. Luke grabbed ones for Salara and Joran, choosing to wait to eat when he was with father later. Damon also begged off saying he would eat at the mess. They settled down at a small table that was set up beside the two cots that Joran and Salara slept on. As the two Desertriders began to eat, the talk turned to their past and future.

“They say that once we get to Coruscant that we’ll be given credit vouchers, enough to get us to wherever we wish to go and some funds to sustain us for when we get there until we find work,” Salara said as she cut up Joran’s meat. “It’s such a blessing. I can hardly believe it. And all thanks to your father, Luke.”

“He’ll be glad to know that you and Joran have a secure future.”

“All the holovids I saw of Lord Vader … they didn’t prepare me for what he was really like,” Salara said suddenly as she coaxed Joran to eat a few bits of a green leafy vegetable.

“How do you mean?” Luke asked, curious as to how someone else viewed his father.

“He always seemed so … forbidding, which as a military commander, I suppose he should be that way. And he was impressive and stern. But in person … he was those things, but also very … gentle and warm.”

Damon shifted in the seat beside Luke. He could feel the trooper’s disbelief. Gentle and warm were not often the adjectives used to describe the Dark Lord of the Sith, but they were a part of his father.

“Perhaps it is just a fellow parent’s perspective, but … when he introduced you, looked at you … well, he softened. I imagine with all the responsibility he has of running the military that … well, he doesn’t get a chance to let down his guard. I’m glad he can relax with you,” Salara said with a kind smile at Luke. “It was also clear that he is very proud of you.”

Luke found himself blushing and clasping his hands together on the table in front of him. “We’ve just … found one another recently. We both thought the other … dead for all our lives.”

Salara made a pained, shocked noise, reached across the table and covered Luke’s hands with her own. “I’m so sorry. Losing a parent or child for real is hard enough, but somehow the thought of having that loved one alive all the time, but just not knowing … seems almost worse. But then again, I suppose, there’s always a chance you could find them … like what happened with you and your father.”

“How did you two find one another, Luke?” Damon asked.

Luke shifted in his seat uncomfortably. He had no desire to speak of the destruction of the Death Star or Bespin, but he saw no way to get out of telling some of it.

“I ... attracted my father’s attention in battle. My actions … my use of the Force made him curious about me, about who I was. When he discovered my surname … it was the same as his old one. We met at Cloud City above Bespin. He told me there … that he was my father,” Luke stopped speaking and swallowed hard. He could still remember in vivid detail the smell of the carbonite, the hiss and thrum of Vader’s blade igniting in the dark, and the greasy feel of the antenna he clung to in his despair after he had acknowledged the truth to himself.

“It was a shock to you,” Salara intuited.

Luke gave a wan smile. “I had been told … told by someone I trusted that Lord Vader had murdered my father.”

Salara and Damon grew still at his words.

“So yes … it was a shock to know that the man I had blamed for taking my father away from me was, in fact, the parent I had mourned and longed for my whole life.”

Salara squeezed Luke’s hands gently in sympathy. Artoo gave a mournful wail. And Joran hugged his stuffed animal tighter against his chest. It was unclear if the little boy understood all Luke had said, but Luke wished he had said less just in case.

Shaking himself out of the funk he’d fallen into, he said, “But … enough about that. What about you and Joran? Will you go back to where you came from?”
“No, we won’t go back to Tatooine. We’d just be enslaved again by the Hutts. Besides … it’s a hard world to live on.”

“I come from Tatooine myself,” Luke said.

“I wondered. Your last name … Skywalker … it sounds very familiar. I wonder if … no, that can’t be.”

Luke’s ears perked up at that statement. Perhaps she had known his father or grandmother there. She was old enough. But before he could formulate a question, Damon was speaking.

“Do you have any family elsewhere?”

“My husband and my son were all the family I’ve had since I was a teen. And my husband … unfortunately, he passed away.”

Her face became shadowed for a moment. She petted her son’s head to soothe any hurt the mention caused, but luckily he was too interested in trying to feed Artoo some of his vegetables to notice the conversation going on around him then. Luke doubly wished at that moment he had not mentioned dead or murdered fathers earlier.

“My husband is also part of the reason I don’t want to take Joran and I back to Tatooine. Every brick there reminds me of him.” A fond smile graced her face. “He was an archeologist. Just like my father. Their joint interest in Tatooine’s history was how I originally met him.”

“Now you have to tell us the story,” Luke said kindly.

“I don’t want to bore you with such things.”

“Some of my fondest memories are of my mother talking about how she met my father. Please tell us,” Damon piped in.

Luke tensed slightly remembering what the trooper had said earlier about his feelings for Luke mirroring those that his parents had for one another. But Damon’s eyes never even flickered over to him. Perhaps he was just imagining that Damon was trying to use this conversation with Salara to convince him of the rightness of them being together. Luke shook his head, exasperated with himself. ‘Not everything is about me.’

Salara laughed. “Well, you’re in for it now. Let’s see, where to begin? Ah, I know. My father was quite the expert, I guess you could say, on the ancient civilizations of Tatooine.”

“You mean the Sand People and Jawas?” Luke asked, his disbelief ringing in his words.

“No, no. My father discovered a far older civilization.” Salara’s eyes stared off into distance as she related, “They were a space-faring race that was incredibly technologically sophisticated … at least from the few remnants my husband and father unearthed of their machinery. But it was my father who originally found the ruins of their civilization in the mountains west of Mos Eisley. Somehow the sand had not claimed the ruins even though he believed they had been unoccupied for thousands of years.”

Her words provoked a vivid sense memory in Luke. The rustle and whisper of the people around him faded away for a second time, and all he could hear instead was the rush of sand in his ears and feel its stinging passage on his cheeks. How many times had he experienced the touch and sound of sand just like this on Tatooine? And always there was a chance that a simple breeze could be a prelude to something much more dangerous: a sandstorm. Luke remembered how the sand could rise in the air and turn clear blue skies to brown and would change breathable air to a choking, deadly mass of sand particles.

Yet many times as a child, he had been compelled to stand still and frozen watching the storms come towards him until Uncle Owen or Aunt Beru had grabbed his arm and dragged him inside the shelter of the farm. A strange thought had always flickered through his mind during those times: that if he but walked into the storm, and survived it, that on the other side of the wall of sand would not be the flat, arid empty planes of his uncle’s moisture farm, but instead a shining city would be spread out before him.

He had believed at the time that his desire to see something other than the hardened mud homes people lived in on Tatooine had made him conjure up gleaming spires rising from the sand, but now …

Luke shivered. He suddenly felt so cold.

Salara continued on, oblivious to Luke’s reaction to her story, “After my father passed away, I was the only one who knew how to find the ruins. They are … hard to locate. My husband was a brash young archeologist, wanting to make a name for himself. He sought me out, intent on proving his worth to review my father’s notes and trace the location to the ruins himself. I always teased him that he only married me so he could ensure that I wouldn’t tell anyone else where the ruins were.”

Luke could hardly get the perfunctory laugh out. The visions of Tatooine hummed at him even as he listened to Salara’s words. Luke absently saw Joran pointing to Damon’s blaster, petting the man’s armored forearm as if to coax him to see the gun. Surely, Damon wouldn’t offer the weapon to the little boy. Showing him would be fine, but … Luke was distracted as Salara suddenly rummaged through a small bag at her waist.

“I managed to hide this from the slavers. My husband brought it back from a very special set of ruins he referred to as the Palace.”

She set on the table between them a small, slim metal cylinder.

“May I?” Luke asked, his hands almost trembling with the need to touch it. The humming from the Force had become a full-blown scream in his mind. He knew this cylinder was important, but the how of it was not available to his Force senses.

“Go ahead,” she said.

Luke felt Damon’s hand gently brush his side as if to calm him. The trooper’s eyes were narrowed in concern. Luke picked up the cylinder and grasped the microfiber pull-tab on the side. A wafer-thin screen slid out of the cylinder. Immediately text began to flicker across its surface. While Luke couldn’t read the text, the alphabet was disturbingly familiar. He would know that lettering anywhere. He’d seen it on the walls of the temple at Black Heart. He pressed the button on his shirt for his com-link. He had to tell his father about this!

______________________________________________________________

Vader’s POV

The present …

Vader burst into the third level cantina with Qui-Gon close on his heels. The cantina went silent as all eyes turned towards them. Disconcertingly, all the freed slaves knew who he was. Fear and awe touched him from a hundred minds. He felt Luke send a wave of calmness to the crowd.

Qui-Gon had tried to slow him down when he had bolted from their quarters after the com-link conversation with Luke, but he had brushed the man’s cautions aside. Now he realized that making such an entrance and having this conversation in the cantina was not a good idea. He cursed his own impetuousness. He had thought himself beyond that. He gave Qui-Gon a rueful smile. The man acknowledged it with a small quirked smile of his own.

“Father,” Luke said as he jogged over to the Dark Lord. “Perhaps—”

“We should have this conversation elsewhere,” Vader finished, a smile growing on his face as he saw his son’s beloved face. They had only been a part less than an hour, but it seemed much longer.

Luke nodded with a relieved grin. “They’re a little excitable around here.”

“There is a quiet observation deck a few doors down.”

Vader watched as Luke slipped back to the group of people he had been sitting with to explain that they were moving the meeting. Damon’s tall frame blocked out his view of the smaller Salara Desertrider and the tiny boy, Joran.

The trooper had stood and saluted as soon as the Dark Lord had entered. Vader’s shoulders tensed at the sight of the man, but eased when he saw the way Damon avoided his eyes and kept a respectful distance from his son. ‘Ah, Luke has spoken to him. Told him his advances are not welcome and put him in his place.’ Vader couldn’t help the smirk that spread across his face. Luke was his. The impudent trooper wasn’t fit to step on Luke’s shadow.

Over their bond, Luke sent, ‘Father, both Damon and Joran … there’s something you need to know.’

Vader’s eyes narrowed. Luke seemed almost anxious and yet excited about whatever information he had. ‘More revelations, child?’

Qui-Gon was the one to answer instead, his mind-voice seemingly shocked, ‘They are both Force-sensitive.’

‘What?’

Vader’s eyes narrowed as he examined both Joran and Damon with his Force senses. Sure enough, the trooper and boy glowed with Force presence. He cast his mind back to when he had interviewed Damon to join his crew. The younger man had a spark of Force energy, but this was far more than that. It was as if he had been an ember and was now a roaring fire. The boy, too, was like a crystal bowl filled with warm light. Both would have been chosen by the Jedi Order long ago with the potential they now showed.

‘I take it that neither one of them had this much of a Force presence before?’ Qui-Gon asked him.

Vader shook his head. ‘Since the Purging, I have found very few Force-sensitives and I could have hardly missed these two under my nose.’

‘Could it be something to do with the Balance?’ Luke asked suddenly as he guided the family, trooper and Artoo towards them.

‘How do you mean?’

‘Perhaps we are … awakening or strengthening the Force in certain people somehow? I feel that Joran and Damon are but the beginning, Father. There are going to be far more who will seek us out.’

Luke then sent him a vision he had experienced earlier. The image of the two towers was a potent one and Vader felt a rush of excitement at the power he sensed streaming off the structures. He recognized all too well the still-standing Jedi Temple on Coruscant as the durasteel tower, but the black stone tower was new … and reminded him eerily of the architecture on Korriban, one of the Sith homeworlds.

‘Did you notice the joined base?’ Qui-Gon asked over their bond.

Vader had not realized he had sent the vision to Qui-Gon. It was unnerving how natural it felt to share things with him this way without thought. Like Qui-Gon was truly his Master and he the Padawan again. Yet unlike how he had felt with Obi-Wan and Palpatine, he was actually almost eager to know Qui-Gon’s opinion. He experienced for a moment the twin emotions of happiness and anger at his reactions to the Jedi Master, but it was less heated than it had been since Qui-Gon’s admissions to him.

‘Yes, quite symbolic, I suppose … Jedi and Sith together. What did you think of the amount of people entering it?’

‘A far greater number than the Jedi had at the time of their destruction. I believe Luke is right that one of the effects of the Balance will be an explosion of Force-sensitives like Damon and Joran. It will be quite a task to handle all of them when they seek you out.’ Qui-Gon’s brow furrowed and he stroked his goatee thoughtfully. ‘You will need trainers … far more than just the three of us. I wonder …’

Vader wasn’t certain how he felt altogether about the idea of the Jedi Temple being occupied again, let alone a Sith Temple being built as well. Not to mention all those Sith Lords and Jedi Knights occupying the structures. He had done much over the years to keep all the power and knowledge to himself and Palpatine. Even if there were an explosion of Force-sensitives like Qui-Gon and Luke clearly anticipated, it didn’t mean necessarily that they should be trained, did it?

The echo of pleased Dark Side laughter suddenly ran through his mind. It ached for more to corrupt and taint and devour. It seemed to say: ‘Bring them to me, my Dark Lord, bring more beneath my sway.’ Vader shivered with excitement or disgust, he wasn’t sure.

Qui-Gon touched his shoulder gently. ‘Is anything the matter, Anakin?’

Vader shook his head as he forced the Dark Side to retreat. ‘No, I’m fine.’ But he didn’t know if either of them really believed that.

‘We should check Damon and Joran’s midichlorian levels later,’ Qui-Gon suggested.

‘I leave that to you.’

Qui-Gon nodded his acknowledgement. Once again, Vader felt that sense of ease of relying on the man brought. Luke and Qui-Gon were the first full allies he had in a long time. People he truly felt he could trust.

“Trooper Trans, your presence will not be necessary at this meeting,” Vader said coolly to the trooper.

“Yes, sir.” Damon then turned to the Desertriders and Luke and added, “A pleasure to speak with all of you.”

Tense lines faintly appeared at the corners of Damon’s mouth and eyes, but the rest of his body language showed only obedience. He saluted again and left the cantina with only one backwards glance towards Luke.

“Please, if you would follow me, there is somewhere more private we can speak,” Vader said to the group then turned on his heel.

As he led them out of the cantina and towards the observation deck, Vader sent over the bond with his son, ‘Young one, I see you disabused Trans of his romantic notions.’

Luke stepped up to walk beside him, hand clasped behind his back, worrying his lower lip with his teeth. ‘I tried, Father. But he is confused.’

‘Confused? How so?’

‘He senses my Force presence and … thinks that means we’re meant for one another.’

Vader’s hands clenched into fists at his sides. ‘Meant for one another?! He isn’t fit to …how dare he—’

Luke stopped his tirade. ‘Father, it’s only because he’s untrained. Perhaps once he’s taught something about the Force he’ll realize on his own that his … liking of me is due just to his awakening Force senses and nothing more.’

Vader stifled the urge to sigh. Owen Lars had truly destroyed Luke’s belief in his own desirability. ‘You honestly believe that he desires you because he senses your Force presence? That there is no other reason for his being attracted to you?’

Luke looked slightly chagrined. ‘He did not believe that explanation either.’

‘No, he wouldn’t. As a rule, I don’t bring on incompetent people aboard my ship. Captain Terellian notwithstanding.’

‘Damon said you hand-pick everyone who serves on the Executor.’

‘I do.’

‘He was proud that you picked him.’

One of Vader’s eyebrows rose at that. ‘If you are trying to make friends between Trooper Trans and me, Luke, such a thing will not occur. He has attempted to take what is mine. And no matter his reformed behavior as I’ve said before … I do not forget nor forgive such trespass.’

Luke nodded with a rueful smile that said he understood if wasn’t happy about it. At that moment, Artoo glided up beside them and chirped at Vader happily. Luke gave him a nervous smile as Vader’s eyes went from the droid to his son’s face.

“Damon stopped him from being deactivated. I hope that’s all right. I’ve already warned Artoo about plugging into the Executor and … I don’t sense anything of Palpatine in him.” The words rushed from Luke’s mouth as if the faster he got them out the less chance Vader would have to consider the decision a poor one.

Vader ran a finger over Artoo’s dome. Only the normal blank, neutral presence of the droid was there. To be completely safe he should have the droid shut down until after Palpatine’s death, but he saw the pleading expression in his son’s eyes.

“Luke, if he shows even a hint of being … possessed … I will shut him down myself.”

“Understood.”

Luke’s arm innocently brushed against his own then. Warmth flowed out from that simple contact and Vader was overcome with need to touch the boy. Love and lust coursed through him. He extended the fingers on his hand closest to Luke and stroked the delicate skin at the boy’s wrist. Luke reached to grab hold of Vader’s hand and lace their fingers together, but then aborted the movement as he glanced back at Salara and Joran walking a few feet behind them. The Desertriders noticed nothing as they were chatting amiably with Qui-Gon. Once again the Jedi Master was proving his worth.

‘Father, I have been thinking … about our relationship … what are we going to do? I mean are we going to hide that we’re … lovers as well as father and son?’

Vader grimaced slightly. He knew this conversation was coming. He didn’t have a satisfactory answer for his son. He did not want to hide his feelings for Luke like he had for Padme. Nor did he truly think it possible. He would lay out the potential scenarios for his son and see which appealed most to the boy. Perhaps that would guide him to an answer.

‘As I see it, Luke, we have several options.’

‘They are?’

‘The first is that we … pretend only to be lovers. That what we hide is the fact that we are father and son.’

‘But what of all the people who already know that we are parent and child?’

‘I can wipe their memories. This would be the easiest course. The fact that we look nearly the same age, have different surnames, and the public records report the death of Anakin Skywalker twenty years ago all support … our story. We can even marry and you would be my consort.’

There was a definite appeal in the thought of having Luke as his consort, joined to him in a huge ceremony in one of the gleaming temples on Coruscant. But still … denying Luke’s parentage even to the masses was unacceptable to Vader. He was Luke’s father. Luke was his son. And he would never wish that to be different. He wanted to shout to the stars how proud he was of his child.

Luke nodded, his expression thoughtful. ‘What are our other options?’

‘That we go forth in the world as father and son … and hide that we are lovers.’

Luke glanced down at their hands, which were now merely an inch apart. ‘I do not know … know that we could pull that off, Father. Or at least … I fear I would give away how I feel for you.’

Vader smiled gently. ‘I think that both of us would be hard-pressed to pull it off without many guessing. But one of the perks of being Emperor and Dark Lord of the Sith is that none will ever deign to mention it.’

Luke frowned. ‘But they will talk about it behind our backs. They will know and many will disapprove … say that it shows we are unfit somehow. And it may … may effect your ability to rule and mine to … to train other Force users.’

‘Yes, that is true.’

‘Is there any other option?’

‘We do not try to hide either aspect of our relationship and let the chips fall as they may. Once again though, we are left with most people’s disapproval … and disgust. But that can be said of the Empire’s rule now. Many disapprove and are disgusted by myself and Palpatine. So little would change for me on that score except the reason for their dislike. It would be different for you though.’

Vader had rarely cared what others thought of his morals so long as they obeyed him and stayed out of his way, but he knew that Luke felt things very deeply and the sting of rejection from people would hurt him.

‘Do you ... have a preference, Father, for which path we take?’ Luke was studiously looking at the floor and not his face.

‘I just know that … I wish I could touch you, young one, right this minute.’ He used the Force to trace a line down Luke’s spine.

Luke shivered, his shoulder blades twitching at the Force caress. ‘I wish it, too.’

‘We do not need to make a decision this moment. Just … think on the options, Luke.’

‘I know.’ After a quiet moment, Luke asked, ‘Perhaps after this meeting we can spend some time alone together?’

‘I’m sure that something can be arranged.’ Vader grinned.

In fact, Vader already had planned to make Luke’s Rebel Prisoner Fantasy come true later that evening. Even now, he could picture Luke in the detention cell. The boy would be vainly pulling at the restraints that would hold him bound and helpless. Luke’s blue eyes would be sparking at him with defiance and pride. It would be a challenge to Vader’s dominance, which would only inspire the Dark Lord to greater heights to make those blue eyes glaze over with desire, pleasure and ultimate submission. Vader could not wait to indulge them both in this fantasy.

Although in truth, just holding the boy and speaking to him would be most welcome right now. There was so much he did not know about his son, so many years where he hadn’t been present or even aware of Luke’s existence. The boy had lived a whole life without him. Vader did not know what his son’s first word was or how he looked as took his first toddling steps or what happened when he crashed his first speeder. Those moments could be shared at least in part through conversation. He wanted to know his son as deeply as any devoted father would … and he wanted to know him as intimately as the most constant of lovers.

‘I want …’

‘Father?’ Luke’s blue eyes rose to look at his face in confusion as Vader’s thought had been left stillborn.

‘I want all of you, Luke.’

The boy blushed becomingly. ‘You have all of me, Father.’

Vader smiled, but it was tinged with sadness. His own actions had ensured that he had lost twenty years of his son’s life, ensured that he could never truly have all of Luke because of that.

‘I love you, child of my heart.’

‘I love you, too, Father.’

Vader gave his son one last longing look, before they entered the observation deck and he smoothed his features into a neutral mask. The room was empty of people. There were comfortable upholstered seats surrounding low tables by the viewport. Right now only a blur of stars was visible outside as the Executor sped through hyperspace. Most people found that view disturbing and he used the Force to close the blast shields.

Vader was almost sorry that his son would not get his first view of Coruscant from the Executor’s viewports, but in order to avoid a confrontation on Palpatine’s terms they could not arrive on the flagship. The city-planet though was a magnificent thing to see from a Star Destroyer. As one hovered above the planet’s completely building-covered surface, the world looked to be ablaze as sunlight reflected off the sparkling surfaces of the durasteel towers, plastiglas domes and slender, gilded walkways. This marvelous sight, and millions of others, he wanted to share with his son. After Palpatine was dealt with, he would work on showing his child the wonders of the universe instead of all the ugliness the boy had seen so far.

He gestured for everyone to sit down and all waited for Salara to be seated first. She helped Joran into the chair beside her. Luke and Qui-Gon sat opposite her, leaving Vader a chair in between them. Immediately, Salara handed Vader the data scroll as he sank down into the chair. Vader pulled out the microfiber tab and watched as the familiar alphabet appeared on the thin screen. Luke was right. It was definitely the language of the builders of the Black Heart Temple.

‘What brought them to Tatooine? And is it really a coincidence that Luke and I were raised there?’

“Luke mentioned that your husband was the one to find this in some ruins he called … the Palace.”

As he lifted his eyes from the scroll, he found Salara was staring intently at him and Luke. She flushed and brushed one hand across her forehead, a nervous movement.

“Forgive me for … for staring, Lord Vader. I just wondered if … I think that my father’s work brought me in contact with a Skywalker, ironically, in connection with the ruins this scroll is from. Although … I’m sure she has nothing to do with the two of you,” she explained softly. “But to answer your question, yes, my husband Darol found the data scroll at the Palace ruins.”

Luke leant forward in the chair beside him. “My father is originally from Tatooine as well, Salara.”

She plucked at her worn skirt as she answered, “Oh, well, still … I’m sure that you two aren’t related to her. The Skywalker my father interviewed was a … a, uhm …”

“A slave?” Vader asked quietly.

Salara’s head jerked up. “Yes, but how did you know … I assure you, Lord Vader, that I didn’t mean to insinuate that—”

“Be at ease. You have not insulted Luke or me. I was born a slave,” he said, trying to keep his voice from tightening up and betraying the discomfort he felt speaking about that time. “As was my mother. We were enslaved on Tatooine by a Toydarian named Watto.”

Salara’s eyes widened in shock. Qui-Gon shifted almost imperceptibly in his seat and the Dark Lord felt a spike of disgust in the older man’s mind at the thought of Watto. Qui-Gon had bested the creature in a bet that had freed Vader from slavery, but not his mother. The Dark Lord had often wondered if Qui-Gon had lived whether he would have left her there on Tatooine as a slave or if he would have sought her release later.

For Obi-Wan, the woman had ceased to exist except as a blockage in Vader’s training. Seeing him crying over her loss or missing her only got him a lecture on attachment or some kind of sweet as if that would replace her. What would he have felt if he had known she was somewhere free and safe and not at the mercy of Watto? A greater sense of peace, he was sure. As it was, he too, had forgotten her in a way. It took those horrible dreams to push him to seek her out. But too late. Much too late.

“Then perhaps she is related to you,” Salara said softly though she continued to study his face almost skeptically as if she could not connect his mother’s looks to his own. “My father was an archeologist like my husband. It was for his work that he took me to a meeting with … Shmi, that was her first name … Shmi Skywalker. She had dark hair and a kind face. I was only ten at the time, but I remember this meeting so well, because it was her information that led my father to the ruins he had sought all his life. The same ruins where my husband later found the scroll you’re holding.”

The slight burr of the Tatooine accent, even the lines by her eyes and the sides of her mouth, reminded Vader very much of his mother. As Salara’s voice washed over him, saying Shmi’s name, Vader envisioned his mother’s face as it was, not the last time he saw her in the Sand People’s hut, but glowing in the desert suns as Qui-Gon took him from her.

He could remember the way she bit her lower lip to stop it from quivering and bade him be strong and that she loved him. She wanted him to go, to get away from the degradations of slavery, and the fate that would surely have found him if he had remained there: a pleasure slave, a spice addict, and probably a cruel death after that.

‘Father, are you all right?’

One of Luke’s hands suddenly covered his and warmth spilled over their bond. Vader only then realized that he had been clutching the chair’s arm so hard that his knuckles were white and the wood was creaking. He consciously relaxed his grip and slipped his hand to the side so that he could hold onto Luke’s. Damn the consequences, he needed to touch his son.

‘I’m fine, Luke.’

‘If you’re sure …’

‘I am, beloved.’

The boy gave him an uncertain smile and squeezed his hand gently. Salara’s voice had broken off from her story and Vader could tell his distress had not gone unnoticed by her either. Kind eyes looked at him from that weatherworn face. He had to look away to center himself.

‘Anakin, perhaps you would prefer to have Luke or I speak to her alone?’ Qui-Gon’s mind-voice was gentle over their bond. ‘We would report to you all she said. Perhaps a false emergency—”

‘No, that will not be necessary,’ Vader sent, his riled nerves causing him to add coldly, ‘And if I require your assistance I will ask for it.’

Qui-Gon sent a neutral acknowledgement back over their bond, which somehow stung more than if the man had given him an emotional response. A quick glance to the side showed nothing had changed in Qui-Gon’s outward demeanor after Vader’s curt dismissal. In fact, as Vader searched Qui-Gon’s emotions more, he found only concern for him. There was no anger or frustration. Obi-Wan would have been hissing and spitting at him and then coldly ignoring him after such a display of temper, but Qui-Gon appeared unphased.

‘It is because he understands why I snapped at him. That it was not … personal.’ It unsettled Vader all the more as he felt a sense of gratefulness flare in his chest at the man’s understanding. ‘But I don’t need his understanding. I don’t need his precious Jedi calm and gentleness. I don’t need his approval or acceptance. I don’t … don’t …need anything from him at all.’

Vader just wished he believed that.

Centering himself as much as he could, he turned back to Salara and said, “Shmi Skywalker was indeed … a relation of mind. And I truly wish to know anything you can remember about this meeting with her.”

Vader successfully kept the anger and pain out of his voice and posture this time. This woman and her child were not the cause of either. The loss of Shmi and his own failure during that time were what scalded him. Salara’s hand brushed over the top of Joran’s blond head, a gesture that showed she knew, without him having to say, what relation Shmi had been to him. The boy, however, believed a clarification was in order.

“Shmi … your momma?” Joran asked Vader with that frightening directness of children.

“Joran!”

Salara tried to shush him, but the boy stared at Vader awaiting an answer. Luke’s grip on Vader’s hand tightened as if he feared that the Dark Lord’s temper would be unleashed. But Vader had a tight hold on himself. When Vader nodded curtly in response to the boy’s question, Joran’s rosebud mouth drew into a deep frown. The blue eyes narrowed and Vader felt a spike of Force energy from the boy.

The child suddenly cried out, “Oh! Oh, she … she died! Bad people … hurt her. Sand … sand …”

Tears erupted in the large eyes and streamed down the boy’s face. He jumped from the chair and was in Salara’s lap in moments, sobbing against her chest. Vader was stunned. If he hadn’t sensed the child’s Force-sensitivity earlier, he surely did now. Luke’s wide blue eyes met his.

‘How did he do that without training?’ Luke asked over their bond.

‘Some are born with the innate ability to see other’s pasts. It is an almost empathic gift,’ Vader explained. What he didn’t add was that those born with such a gift were often traumatized by it as they could be overwhelmed with other’s past sorrows just by walking down a crowded street.

“Don’t want that to happen to you, Momma!” Joran wailed cutting off Luke and Vader’s conversation.

“Joran, oh, child, what have I told you about blurting out such things! Please, forgive him, Lord Vader. He says nonsense like that sometimes …” Salara looked stricken, her eyes flicking from her distressed son to Lord Vader.

“But it isn’t really nonsense, is it? The things he says are often true, aren’t they?” Qui-Gon asked quietly.

Salara’s expression crumpled. She nodded. “Many people are frightened by what he can do. But he means no harm or disrespect by it.”

“He may very well be a … Force-sensitive,” Qui-Gon explained.

“I’m sorry … I don’t understand. I thought only Jedi could use the Force. Are you saying that Joran is … could be a Jedi?” She asked with a touch of amazement.

“He may have the potential for becoming a Force user. We will have to do a test to make sure,” Qui-Gon answered. “If you would be willing to let me take him now … while you are here talking with Anakin and Luke … I could have the answer for you by the end of the meeting.”

“It’ll be all right, Salara,” Luke added gently. “Joran isn’t in trouble. And I don’t believe the test hurts at all. Master Jinn will take good care of him.”

“Just a blood test,” Qui-Gon explained.

“All … all right. Joran, you’re going to go with Master Jinn now.”

“But, Momma, don’t wanna leave you!”

The tear-streaked face pulled away from Salara’s chest to gaze up at her. She smoothed down the boy’s tangled locks and kissed his forehead gently. Vader had a feeling of deja vu: a mother holding a sobbing blonde child while Qui-Gon stood to the side, waiting patiently to take that child away. As Vader stared at the tableau, he felt the agony of Shmi’s loss all over again and the wrench of his own failure. His chest grew tight and his face hot. He gripped Luke’s hand harder.

Shmi had loved him just like Salara loved Joran. She had sought only the best for him even if it meant giving him up to the Jedi Temple. But his love for her had turned out to be a rather useless thing. He had wiled away years at the Jedi Temple complaining of his own lack of power, while forgetting the fact that his mother had been the truly powerless one.

First, she had been Watto’s slave and then the Lars’. Though Owen’s father had freed Shmi and offered to marry her, Vader knew that she would have had little choice but to accept his proposal. After all, she had no money and no place to go. Her son was a Padawan and the Jedi did not allow Padawans’ mothers to move into the Temple nor did they offer financial support for their family members. And Shmi would never have asked him to give up his dream of becoming a Knight in order to support her.

For years he had blamed Obi-Wan and the Council for his not coming to get her sooner, but now he acknowledged to himself that they could not have stopped him from going to her if he had truly wanted to. He could have used some of the credits he earned illegal pod-racing on Coruscant to free her and set her up in a small home … not on Tatooine, but somewhere green and lush where she could have had a garden … and never feared Sand People.

He should have done something … anything … to protect her. But he hadn’t. He’d been too concerned with earning the title of Jedi Knight, but not concerned enough about the reason he had originally wanted to become one: to save her and all the slaves of Tatooine. Slaves like Joran and Salara. It felt horribly like everything was coming full circle again.

There was a prickle over his bond with Qui-Gon. Vader also felt Luke’s warm Force presence suddenly encasing him more fully. His distress was spilling over his carefully constructed walls and their bonds were being flooded with his emotions. Vader suddenly stood and walked briskly over to the viewport, opening the blast shields so he could pretend to be staring at something outside. His hands were shaking. He stilled them by gripping onto the viewport’s ledge.

‘Anakin … do not allow yourself to despair over the past … it is done. There is only the future to consider,’ Qui-Gon sent over their bond.

‘I need no lectures, Jedi!’

‘Forgive me, I do not mean to lecture, only to give you some comfort.’

Vader’s shoulders slumped. ‘I do not need your comfort.’

‘But I offer it nonetheless.’

“Joran, I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be right here when you get back,” Salara said as she urged him to go to Qui-Gon.

Vader watched the reflection in the viewport’s glass of her helping Joran get down from her lap. The boy stood on unsteady feet, wiping his eyes with balled up fists.

“Perhaps we can find some sweets while we do the test. I, myself, could use some,” Qui-Gon offered as he extended one large hand to the boy.

Vader felt, even as Qui-Gon was soothing the child, the solid presence of the Jedi Master over their bond, offering him strength just as Luke did. He didn’t take it, but he didn’t turn it away this time either.

“Go on, darling, it’ll be just fine. I promise,” Salara said, pressing two more kisses to his chubby, flushed cheeks.

Joran took Qui-Gon’s hand. He cast one last backwards glance back at his mother, but allowed Qui-Gon to lead him from the room. Vader let out a shuddery breath. Luke was suddenly at his side, a tentative hand placed on his lower back. He looked down at his son’s concerned face and lightly brushed Luke’s hair away from his eyes. The simple act steadied him.

‘You were right, Luke.’

‘About what, Father?’

‘The past. Sometimes … it does have a hold on us. A stranglehold.’

The boy’s expression grew more pained for him. ‘Can I help you in any way with this?’

Vader leaned down and pressed a fatherly kiss to Luke’s forehead. ‘You help every moment you are with me, Luke.’

“Lord Vader … are you all right?” Salara asked softly, her hands clasped tightly on her lap.

Until Luke had entered his life, none would have dared ask him such a question. His forbidding presence would have deterred them. But if someone actually had the nerve to comment on his emotional state, they would have been crushed like an insect beneath his heel. But he had changed. He could not imagine destroying this inoffensive woman for asking about his well-being. Some would say that meant he had softened, which was ironic considering he now was able to wield more Dark Side power than ever before. With a touch of surprise, Vader found he was not sorry for this change. In a way, perhaps it wasn’t so much a change as a reawakening of a piece of himself that he had forgotten.

He turned around to face Salara … and this part of his past.

“My mother … Shmi … was captured by Sand People while I was training to become a Jedi Knight. I had visions of her in great pain yet I delayed coming back to Tatooine to determine if she was all right, because … the Jedi Council had forbidden me to and … I was afraid of being censured for disobeying them in this matter.”

Vader looked down into his son’s eyes. Luke’s hand on his lower back pressed tighter against him. Even though it was seemingly to Salara he told this story to, it was really Luke he wanted to hear his confession.

Vader’s voice became quieter as he said, “I was more concerned for my position … than my mother’s life and well-being. And when I finally did look for her … it was only to find her moments before she died from their torture. I … I was too late to save her. I failed her … the woman who had done everything she could for me.”

Salara gave a gasp of distress. Her hands clenched tighter in her lap. “I’m so sorry. So … terribly sorry.”

Vader acknowledged her words with a slight nod of his head. “As am I. She deserved so much better.”

“Oh, Father,” Luke said, “she wouldn’t want you to blame yourself.”

“No, she wouldn’t, but that doesn’t mean … that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t.”

“But--”

Vader covered Luke’s lips with the first two fingers of his right hand. “No, Luke, I have spent many years hiding from the truth of the things I have done. I do not want to anymore. At least not about this.”

Vader stared out the viewport for a few moments. He thought he would feel worse for having revealed this to Luke and to Salara, but it was like a great weight had been lifted from him. He cleared his throat and turned back to face the Desertrider.

“I was only with Shmi for a few years of my life. But … she was my mother and … one of the best people I have ever had the honor to know. Any information about her … would be precious to me.”

“Anything I can do to help you, I gladly will,” Salara said softly then her eyes went unfocused for a moment as a memory suddenly hit her. “Oh! She spoke of you at the meeting my father had with her.”

Vader froze.

“Well, she spoke of a son at the Jedi Academy … that must have been you that she meant.”

Vader was anxious to know what his mother had said about him, but he knew it would be better to have Salara start from the beginning so he could hear all the nuances of her tale.

“Please … tell me everything.”

“Yes, of course.” She rubbed her hands together as if cold. “This all began with the necklace.”

“Necklace?” Luke repeated.

“It really isn’t a non-sequitor. You see my father had taken to trolling the junk shops for certain types of artifacts. Artifacts he believed proved his hypothesis that an ancient, hitherto unknown civilization had existed on Tatooine thousands of years before. Small traces of their existence showed up in the old bazaars in Mos Eisley and in junk dealer’s shops. It was while he was on one of these trolls that he came upon a going out of business sale. I believe the owner … a Toydarian … had to sell everything because of debts ...”

“A Toydarian going out of business? That rather sounds like Watto. He was quite … broke after he lost all his money on the Bunta Eve Race,” Vader said.

“Not the same Bunta Eve Race you won?” Luke asked and when Vader nodded, he exclaimed, “But that means he didn’t—”

“He bet against me and lost everything,” Vader said, satisfaction laced with bitterness in his voice. “Please go on, Salara.”

“Well, at this Toydarian’s shop, my father found a particular necklace … intricately designed with symbols on it …like those on the scroll, I think … that he recognized as coming from this civilization.”

Vader wondered about this necklace. He remembered only ship and droid parts at Watto’s shop, but the Toydarian had a back room where he kept “treasures” he would never sell … well, not unless large sums were offered to him. But he kept them locked away because no one of the right means had ever entered his vision or so Watto had claimed. Vader was never allowed in that room and though he had tried to break in, the electronic lock had resisted his young efforts.

“Did your father purchase the necklace?”

Salara leaned forward, her elbows resting on her knees as she explained, “No. Even at the supposed ‘rock-bottom’ price the Toydarian asked for the necklace it was just too much for my father to pay on his small salary.”

“Typical Watto behavior,” Vader remarked under his breath. “Greedy.”

Salara smiled at his comment then continued, “But your mother was there, tidying the shop, and she overheard the conversation. She motioned for my father to meet her outside … out of earshot. She told him to come visit her at her home that evening. She said she could tell him where the Toydarian had gotten the necklace if he was interested in such things as there was more where it came from.”

“And that was the meeting you went to?” Luke intuited.

“Yes. She told us that she was the one who actually found the necklace. She discovered it when her master had her scouring the flatlands just by the mountains west of Mos Eisley with a metal detector for old ship and droid parts. A sand storm had sprung up and she had taken shelter in a cave.”

“A sand storm?” Luke asked, his voice sounded so strange that Vader looked keenly at his son, but Luke wouldn’t meet his eyes.

Salara nodded. “It was a particularly vicious one. While she waited for it to abate, she wandered farther back into the cave and found that it was in fact a passageway through the mountains into a valley.”

“There was a city in the valley, wasn’t there? With … with spires of metal rising out of the sand?” Luke asked and Vader grew more surprised at his son’s statements.

“That’s exactly the way she described it! And exactly how it looked when I went and saw it. Have you been there?” Salara asked him.

Luke shook his head, running a shaky hand through his hair. Vader touched Luke’s forehead to check for a fever. The boy looked almost grey and sweat had broken out on his upper lip. But his skin was cool. This was a similar reaction to the one Luke had with the Archive.

“Child, are you well?”

“Yes, I’m all right, Father. Please continue, Salara. I’m sorry I interrupted.”

Vader gripped his son’s shoulder. The boy leaned against him, but the bond was strangely silent and Vader could not find the cause of his son’s obvious distress.

Salara frowned and her eyebrows drew together as she told them, “Shmi said she found the necklace in the ruined city. And that there were other objects there, but she had only taken the necklace. It had … called to her. She told us that the rest of the objects should still be there unless others had discovered the ruins since then. But she doubted they had.”

“I’m surprised that Watto didn’t have her back there post haste, stripping the whole place bare,” Vader said with a frown.

A wry smile crossed Salara’s face. “She lied to him. Told him that she discovered the necklace randomly in the sand dunes and that there was nothing else there.”

Vader gave a sharp laugh. Good for his mother. She had pulled one over on Watto.

“She said the city was a sacred place … a haunted place, too. Not a place she was willing to let her master go and despoil. It needed to be protected and she felt my father would do that,” Salara explained, then added with a piercing look at Vader, “And there was another reason, she felt so strongly about the ruined city. A special reason specific to her … and to you.”

“Me?” Vader repeated, a strange combination of excitement and foreboding coursing through him.

Salara gave him a sweet, motherly smile. “Shmi said that you were conceived there, Lord Vader.”