Forbidden

CHAPTER FIVE: THE NEW SACRIFICE

Luke awoke like a swimmer coming out of deep water. As he sat upright in bed, he gasped for breath. Black silk sheets skimmed down his naked chest and pooled at his waist. The first thing he saw was his father standing against a backdrop of stars and the green gold planet named Black Heart of the Universe. That the stars and planets themselves should just be background for his father did not seem strange to Luke. It seemed right.

Force power swirled around his father like a second cloak. Luke felt the need to rise and walk to his father, kneel down before him and rest his head against one of the Dark Lord’s powerful thighs. He could almost smell Vader’s leather armor, feel the slickness of it against his cheek, and imagine the taste of it as he placed open mouth kisses along the interior of his father’s thighs.

Luke’s thoughts stuttered to a halt as he felt his own hand go to the sheets, about to cast them back, get up and do these acts. Luke shook his head violently. 'What am I thinking? I must not … will not …absolutely cannot do those things!' Luke wondered for a brief moment why the sexual thoughts towards his father were so fully formed and clear when the rest of his thinking was so fuzzy and strange. But the question left him, evaporating like smoke.

Luke took in his surroundings. They were on the Executor. Vader stood before a viewport at the side of Luke’s bed. The Dark Lord wasn’t standing in the midst of space like he had at first seemed to be. Luke had been attacked while down on the planet (by terrible, malignant creatures). His father had …saved him … then brought them both back aboard his flagship.

And there was one other thing Luke realized: his father was changed. Something had happened on the planet to Vader, something profound. Luke felt that his father now had the power to extinguish the light of every star that could be seen from the viewport with just a thought. 'How can that be? When did he become so powerful? How could any Force user become that powerful? And the Force power that surrounds him … it’s like the energy I felt coming off of Black Heart. Darkness and Light with a tilt towards more Darkness, but the Light is clearly there! I sense warmth … love from him. Love for me.'

“How do you feel, my son?” Father asked in his darkest honey voice that made Luke shaky with needs he didn’t know how to fill.

“I … okay. Strange. I … I don’t know,” Luke stammered.

Luke looked down at his chest, expecting to see ripped, blackened flesh from where the creature had bitten him and drank. But his skin was smooth and warm. Then Luke froze for he was touching his chest with his right hand … yet his prosthetic hand had been torn from him on the planet by the snake creatures and this was not another false appendage. It was flesh and blood. Luke felt hysteria bubble up in his chest. Had Vader rescued his real hand from Bespin and somehow preserved it only to reattach it now? But that was impossible. Maybe the Empire had devised a way to clone limbs.

“How?” Luke said simply as he extended his new flesh and blood right hand to Vader.

Vader reached with his own hands and clasped his son’s new one between them. The leather of his father’s gloves was soft. This is the first time I’ve ever knowingly touched him. Luke shivered at how right it felt.

“You re-grew your hand with your Force healing power,” Vader answered him.

“What? No, I couldn’t have! I—”

“You did.”

“How is that possible? I didn’t think that even the Jedi could re-grow human limbs!”

“It has not been achieved before … as far as I know. But you are changed, my child. You are more than what you were and you were already great in the Force,” Vader explained. “When I … saved you …you were almost one with the Force. You were slipping away and I brought you back.”

Luke struggled to understand what his father was saying. 'I almost died? Yes, that’s right. I was letting go, but before I did I wanted to let Father know that I loved him and then … then … I don’t remember! Why don’t I remember what happened next?' Luke thumped his free hand against the mattress. That act made him realize his other hand was still carefully enclosed by his father’s. He flushed at the pleasure of his father’s willing touch: enjoying the heat and silky feel of his father’s grasp. 'How easy it is to forget how a real hand soaks up warmth. So different than a prosthetic. How must it be for father having such little flesh left? Is he always cold? If only he could regain his limbs! Could I help make that happen?'

“Father … do you believe I could duplicate what I did with my hand for … for you?”

“You mean re-grow my limbs? Heal my body?” Vader’s voice was so neutral, Luke did not know what the Dark Lord thought of his statement.

“Yes, do you think—”

“The extent of your change is … unknown. I believe your powers will grow over time. So yes, it could be possible.”

“I want to try … if you’re willing that is,” Luke said. Perhaps if his body is healed, his mind might heal as well, and he will abandon the Darkness that still rules him and feed the Light that is there now, too.

Vader chuckled. “I am willing to be your guinea pig, my son, but I think you may need some practice runs before we attempt anything on my poor form.”

Luke nodded quickly. He only had to think of some of his disastrous training sessions with Yoda in order to know that a lot of practice would be in order before he tried to heal his father. He was positive that something he had done with seeming ease while unconscious to his own body would not be so easy when he was awake and trying to duplicate it on another’s.

Luke felt a burst of his father’s awesome power through their hand clasp. “I am not the only one changed, am I, Father? You are … more than you were, too.”

“Yes.”

“But you were not close to death … were you?” Luke stared at his father’s visor, wishing he could see his eyes, read his father’s emotions from them.

“Not in the way you think. My old life is … dead. I am now … a Master.”

“A Jedi or … Sith Master?” Luke was uncertain what his father meant, but felt there was knowledge here that was important to understand.

“My own master,” Vader answered softly, almost absently then he shook his head as if to clear it. “This conversation is not … productive right now.”

“I’m sorry, Father. I didn’t mean to ask so many questions. I just wish to understand what’s happened to us,” Luke said.

“I know, child of my heart, and you will. Just not all at once and not tonight,” Vader said and squeezed his son’s smaller hand gently. “You still need to rest.”

Vader helped Luke slide back under the covers, only releasing the boy’s new hand as he brought the sheets up over Luke’s bare chest. Vader perched on the edge of the bed. Luke shifted over on his side so that he could look at Vader more easily. When he did, one of his knees brushed up against one of the Dark Lord’s thighs. He quickly drew it back, but not before he noticed that his father’s thigh was indeed as heavily muscled and firm as he’d imagined earlier. 'It would have to be in order to move those heavy prosthetic limbs he has.' Luke blushed at the image of that powerful thigh spreading his own bare legs.

“Quite a thrilling vision, young one, please go on,” Vader said.

“Must you read my private thoughts?” Luke bleated out.

“I’m afraid that you rather screamed that last image to the universe,” Vader told him and laughed.

Luke flushed a deep crimson, “So any Force sensitive person can hear my thoughts?”

“Only a powerful one.”

Luke covered his face with his hands while he mumbled, “Please tell me that the Emperor has not heard the thoughts I’ve had about you.”

“I am blocking them from him,” Vader said. “Your thoughts … especially the ones of me … are not for him to experience or … enjoy.”

Luke laughed bitterly, “I’m sure that he would enjoy them. Enjoy using them against me.”

“You need never worry about the Emperor again, my son.”

The definiteness with which Vader said that statement caused Luke to start. “This has something to do with you being your own master now, doesn’t it?”

Luke’s intuition was correct as Vader nodded.

“Palpatine is no longer … a threat. Only an annoyance that will be destroyed in due time.”

Luke felt a chill run down his spine. He didn’t doubt Vader’s words. He believed that now with Vader’s massively increased powers the Emperor was only an annoyance. Luke also noticed that his father no longer called the Emperor by his honorific title of Master.

“I take it that you no longer plan to turn me over to him then?”

“No, never. You are mine.”

Luke’s back stiffened at his father’s possessive tone. “I am my own, Father.”

Vader nodded slowly, “Yes, my son, you are your own … as well.”

Luke watched with wide eyes as Vader slowly reached forward and began to stroke his hair. Goosebumps covered his arms. His touch is so gentle. Strange to think that the only other “caress” I’ve had from him before was that of his blade through my wrist. Luke flexed his new hand under the covers, relishing the sensitivity of the flesh and blood appendage, as he skimmed the silk sheets with the pads of his fingers.

“My child, I noticed as I undressed you—”

“Undressed me!” Luke flew upright in the bed.

“Yes, I undressed you. I could not very well leave you in the rags those creatures made of your clothing,” Vader explained patiently, but Luke swore he heard amusement in the mechanical voice.

“But you were the one to undress me? Not a droid or something?”

“Yes, I thought you would appreciate the fact that I unclothed you and did not give such an … intimate … task to another.” Vader gently pushed Luke back against the pillows and continued to pet his head.

“But—”

“I don’t believe there are any ‘buts,’ Luke.”

“I suppose. It’s just …”

“Just what?”

“I haven’t been undressed by someone since I was two!” Luke explained.

“Hmmm. Well, now you have had the experience again. Perhaps it will not be the last time you are undressed by another. And next time you will not be unconscious and will get to enjoy the experience.” Now Luke was certain he heard laughter in his father’s tone. “As I was saying, child, when I undressed you, I noticed that that you have scars … along you lower back. Your increased Force powers would have gotten rid of those when it regenerated your hand yet … even unconscious you fought their healing. Why?”

Luke froze as his father mentioned the scars on his back. 'Please, Father, let us not talk of this. Do not probe in this dark place within me.' Just thinking about the scars made him remember the punishment. He could almost hear the whistle the belt made as it came down on his lower back. Just for a moment, he felt Uncle Owen’s breath, scented with spice, brush across his shoulders as the man exhaled with every blow. Then came the Burning. 'Oh, Force, I do not wish to remember that.'

“I … I don’t know why I did not allow them to heal,” Luke mumbled, his eyes skittering away from his father.

Vader’s hand stilled in his stroking of Luke’s hair. “Do not lie to me, Luke. I will not tolerate lies from your mouth … no matter how sweet that mouth is.”

Luke felt flushed and chilled under his father’s ebony gaze. 'My mouth looks … sweet to him?' “The scars are from my … punishment.”

“For dreaming of me?”

Luke nodded then rolled onto his other side so his back was towards his father. He scrunched his body into a tight ball. The sheets were pulled down as he shifted; revealing his scarred lower back. He felt his father trace those scars with his fingertips. Luke tried to squirm away from that touch, but his father gripped his exposed hip and kept him in place. Vader then pressed his left hand flush against Luke’s marked skin. Luke shivered. The scars had always been sensitive, but under his father’s touch they burned. Luke found himself wondering what it would feel like to have his father’s chest pressed up against the scars as he thrust into Luke’s most intimate place. Sweat and leather and scarred skin. Luke shook with it. 'What is wrong with me? How can I think these things?'

Vader began stroking the scars again as his deep voice rumbled, “Even marred like this you are still so lovely. So beautiful, my son.”

Luke squeezed his eyes shut and said, “Please, Father, do not … play with me. I know I am not … lovely or beautiful. And I know that you do not truly feel as … as I shamefully do. You are just saying these things to … to manipulate me somehow.”

“You assume much, child, and all of it wrong,” Vader’s voice took on a decidedly cool note. “Your lack of faith in your desirability disturbs me greatly. Does this stem from your time with Owen and Beru or is there more to it than that?”

With the end of that statement, the Dark Lord began raking through Luke’s memories. With a burst of fury, Luke threw his father out of his mind while at the same time scuttling away from Vader’s physical touch. Luke slid off the other side of the bed from the Dark Lord.

Red with anger, Luke spit out, “Never paw through my mind again! If I wish you to know something, I will tell you!”

Vader stood, his huge form blocking out the little light brought into the room through the viewport. Luke felt a cold trill of fear as his father’s anger spilled out at him in the form of Dark Side energy. It rolled across the room in black waves, surrounding Luke in a blanket of darkness; Luke felt crushed under its weight. He stumbled, almost fell down to his knees. The icy chill froze his lungs.

“Father! Please, stop!”

Luke gasped for breath when the crushing waves of Force abruptly retreated. There was a tense silence broken only by the sound of Vader’s respirator and Luke’s tortured breaths.

“Need I fear your temper every time we disagree, Father?” Luke wheezed.

Vader was silent for a moment. His hands tightened into fists then released. “No, young one. I will not hurt you … again … merely because we disagree. But you should be more careful of your tongue and actions around me. I am not used to defiance and I do not tolerate it well.”

“I wasn’t being defiant.” Luke heard Vader’s snort of disbelief then Luke added, “I wasn’t meaning to be defiant then. But you have no right to rummage through my mind without my permission!”

Vader’s voice was clipped and cold. “I am your father. I have the right to know what has caused this harm to your psyche. I must know in order to help you and you are not inclined to be truthful or forthcoming about it with me.”

“That is my choice, Father. My choice whether or not to accept your help. My choice whether or not to tell you of my history, thoughts and feelings. My choices, Father. Mine.”

“You are incorrect, child. Those choices are actually mine,” Vader said. “You have lived too long without my guidance and your mind and body have suffered for it. As your parent I must do what is best for you even if you do not like it.”

“I am hardly a child anymore, Father. I have my own will and intelligence. I use both to make decisions for myself,” Luke said as he drew himself up to his full height. 'If only I were taller this would make more of an impression. I must look like a mouse trying to scare a tree by standing up on my hind legs.'

Vader seemed to straighten up as well and unlike his son, his formidable height seemed to cast a shadow over the boy. “I see. You think because you have reached the cusp of manhood that you do not need a father’s guidance or advice.”

“I did not say that! I would … value your guidance and advice, but I will not give up my will to you and blindly obey … even though you are my father.”

Vader’s voice changed from edged to purring in moments. “What if I were also your lover as well as your father? Would you obey me then?”

“What?” Gooseflesh coated Luke’s arms.

“I have found that people who will not listen to a parent’s commands are more than willing to listen to a lover’s. Is that true of you, Luke?”

“We aren’t lovers so it’s—”

“But if we were.”

“But we are not! We will never be, because you are my father!”

Vader was silent. He cocked his head to one side as if Luke were some interesting animal he was studying … studying to take apart. “Why do you fight your sexual feelings towards me, Luke?”

Luke’s mouth fell open. “Because … because they are … wrong. You are my father … I should not … not feel or … want that with you!”

“So it is not sexual thoughts in general that distress you?”

“No, of course not!” Luke crossed his arms over his bare chest, suddenly very aware that he was wearing only a pair of form fitting black boxers.

“Really? You’ve had many lovers then in your life with whom you’ve enjoyed … sexual intimacies?”
Luke scowled. “The number of lovers I’ve had—”

“How many?” Vader pressed.

Luke scowled harder at his father, “That’s irrelevant!”

“Only because you do not wish to reveal the number to me,” Vader commented softly.

“None! Okay, I’ve had none. No lovers. I’ve only been kissed once and that was by Leia to make Han jealous. Satisfied, Father?” Luke’s chest heaved. He tried to find that peaceful center of himself, but it seemed to elude him entirely.

“Why have you had none?” Vader idly traced the edges of the viewport as he asked, his voice even softer than before.

“What?” Luke’s throat tightened and he suddenly didn’t feel like he could swallow.

“My impression was that you trained with Obi Wan then Yoda for only a short time. So you had many teenage hormonal years before their ridiculous notions of celibacy would have been pressed upon you. So why have you had no lovers?” Vader dropped his hand from the viewport and turned his attention fully on Luke. It felt like a laser, boring through Luke’s defenses.

“I … I don’t know,” Luke mumbled. “People just weren’t … interested, I guess.” And I was obsessed with you most of those years. Force, like I am now.

“Not interested? When you look like you do?”

“Look like what?” Luke glanced down at his own body to see what Vader was talking about.

“When you look as lovely as you do,” Vader husked softly and Luke saw him glance at the black silk sheets of the bed as if remembering Luke upon them.

Luke pressed his lips tight together, a tremor running through him. “I’m not lovely or beautiful or handsome or any of those things!”

“So you say. What about accomplished?”

“Accomplished?” Luke snorted, his mind flashing back to his failures at training with Yoda.

“Yes, accomplished, oh great destroyer of the Death Star, hero of the Rebellion, last remaining Jedi Knight,” Vader said.

“By the time I … I was accomplished as you say, I had already begun my Jedi training and knew about the … the celibacy thing,” Luke answered. Silently adding, And therefore I had an excuse not to seek out romantic attachments.

“And you were never tempted to break that rule? Even when men and women were beating down your door? To bed a hero is an aphrodisiac to most,” Vader observed and Luke could almost imagine Vader cocking an eyebrow up at him under the mask.

“No one was beating down my door exactly. Besides with a war on and constantly having to evade Imperials, romance was not high on my to-do list,” Luke said.

“But it appears that it was high on Princess Leia’s and General Solo’s lists? And probably high on everyone else’s lists in the Rebellion who were faced with very little chance of there being a tomorrow, I would imagine.”

Luke shut his eyes tightly for a moment and kept them closed as he finally spoke at least part of the truth to his father, “People find me … off-putting somehow. They might admire me from afar, but no one wants to … know me … be with me. Not romantically anyways.”

“You are an icon to them. A symbol,” Vader said. “No one romances a symbol.”

“Like you are a symbol for the Empire?”

“Ah, but it is easier for me. I do not look for romance … or I have not. In the past, I have merely taken those I wished to. Quenched my thirst in willing or unwilling bodies and moved on.” Vader shrugged as if his mention of coercion of bed partners was nothing extraordinary.

Luke’s blue eyes opened wide and he looked at the strong, imposing black clad figure, wondering how many were taken against their will and how many more wished fervently that it was them in Vader’s bed. 'And what do I wish?'

“You’ve … raped … people?” Luke’s voice was hoarse.

Vader looked at him a long quiet moment, “They gave me what I wanted, because I am who I am. Would they have chosen it otherwise … sought me out? Some would not have for sure.

“And you are alright with that? Knowing that they … gave into you, because you are the Dark Lord of the Sith?” Luke clenched his fists at his side, unable to comprehend his father’s matter of fact attitude about this.

“They received pleasure from the experience.”

“How can you know?”

“Because I was in their minds when I took them.”

Luke gasped. He sat down on the edge of the bed, his legs suddenly unable to hold him. With his back to Vader, all he could hear was his father’s beautiful voice answering him, but its beauty, like the whole of the Dark Lord’s allure, could be like a poisonous flower.

“You are innocent, Luke, when it comes to the ways people truly interact with each other. Even though I sense that you have been hurt grievously, you believe in the intrinsic goodness of people. I suppose I should be grateful for that considering it was what allowed you to see past my … mask.”

“Why could you not satisfy yourself with those who were willing? I am sure there were many of those,” Luke said weakly, his hands fisting in the silk coverlet; the material felt like water underneath his hands and he couldn’t hold onto it.

“Because sometimes the unwilling ones … or I should say the ones that are unwilling at first are far more … satisfying.”

Luke’s back twitched. His father suddenly sounded much closer than he had before. Luke felt the whisper of a touch between his shoulder blades. He scrambled to his feet, whirling around to face his father. The Dark Lord had not moved from his position by the viewport, or at least he had managed to get back there before Luke could turn and face him.

“But you need not worry, young one.”

“Worry about what?” Luke’s voice sounded so small and breathless.

“I have no desire to seek out other bed partners now.”

“Other?” Luke felt sweat break out across his upper lip and his palms.

“Yes, other. I have all I want … right here,” Vader’s voice was low and smooth. He stepped around to the foot of the bed, the distance between father and son suddenly halving.

“You mean … you mean …” Luke repeated, swallowing hard, his eye flickering to the door then to the bed as if he could not decide where he wished his legs would take him.

“I mean I desire only one person now. The one I died for and was reborn for. The light in my darkness.” Vader took another step forward.

Luke retreated until his naked back was flush up against one of the bedroom’s walls. Vader crossed those last feet between them. He reached forward and traced Luke’s cheek with one gloved index finger. Luke’s breathing deepened. His face flushed pink and his blue eyes dilated. 'I’m on fire. I’m burning.'

“You are the only one I wish in my bed, child of my heart. I pray that you come to it willingly … for you will come to it either way.”

“No … no, Father, we cannot … must not do this!” Luke’s mind felt like it was short circuiting.

Vader brushed a gloved thumb across his son’s full pink lips. Luke moaned softly, but bit his lip to cut off the wanton sound.

“Oh, but my son, my beautiful, responsive son, we are destined to be together not only as parent and child but as lovers. It is the will of the Force.”

“No no no no,” Luke said as he thrashed his head back and forth against the wall.

“Let me show you that we are meant. Your body already knows that you are mine, now your mind just needs to catch up.”

Vader cupped his son’s chin, stopping the boy from shaking his head and making him look up at his father. “I wish I could … kiss you right this moment, Luke. But …” Vader’s head tilted to the side. “The Force provides as it does in so many cases.”

Suddenly, Luke felt lips pressed against his own, it was the ghost of a kiss, a kiss through the Force. His father’s hands roamed his muscled arms and chest while the ghost kiss continued. Vader twisted Luke’s nipples until they pebbled beneath his hands. Luke cried out and arched against his father’s leather clad body. The feeling of his father’s form, hard and strong and demanding, against his own sent shockwaves through Luke.

“Please … oh, please, Father!” Luke cried, not knowing whether he wanted Vader to stop or bring this fire within him to greater heights

Vader’s hands trailed down his son’s chest, past the soft downy hair of his son’s lower stomach to the top of the black briefs. Luke thrust up against his father’s hand unconsciously. The boy keened in the back of his throat. Vader grasped his son’s arousal through the shorts. Luke’s member twitched and throbbed as Vader stroked it.

“See your body knows to whom it belongs,” Vader said. “It knows its mine.”

“Do not say that, Father! Do not think it! We must … fight this temptation … whatever it is between us!” Luke sobbed and ripped himself out of Vader’s grasp. His erection ached, demanding to be put back in his father’s capable hands, but Luke ignored its pleas. Instead, he sank down on the floor, brought his knees up to his chest, and wrapped his arms around them.

Vader loomed over him, so close that his cape brushed against Luke’s skin. Yet Vader’s voice was softer, gentler than it had ever been, “You want to be with me so much yet you fight it twice as hard. It is more than the prohibition against incest that fuels you. Why do you do this, Luke?”

“Because I … love you.” Luke’s voice broke at the end.

“You love me?” Vader repeated and there was a note of wonder there just for a moment. “But that is illogical, my son. Why should your love of me make you deny your desire for me? I have made it perfectly clear that your desire is very welcome.”

“If I give in to this desire … if we become lovers … then I cannot help you get back to the Light. And I do not think that there is anyone else in the universe that you would let close enough to bring you back there,” Luke explained softly, his chin pressed tight against the tops of his knees. “So if I fail then … you may be forever lost to the Dark Side.”

Vader gave a bark of laughter, “I am beyond the Light, child. I am the Dark.”

“You are not as black as all that, Father. I feel the goodness in you.”

“That is my love for you that you sense, child of my heart. Love flourishes in the Dark.”

“Possession, obsession and unnatural lust, not love, are what reside in the Dark, Darth Vader,” Obi Wan’s voice shattered the communion between father and son.

“Obi Wan, I see that killing you was not enough to stop your incessant lecturing,” Darth Vader said as he pivoted on his heels to face the misty blue figure that appeared at the edge of the bed.

Luke peered up at his old master, quickly wiped the tears from his face, and tottered to his feet, “Ben!”

Obi Wan gave Luke a smile, but it was small and tinged with sadness and something else. Fear. 'But why? Why would Ben fear me?' Obi Wan for all his bravado towards Vader also seemed more disturbed by the Dark Lord now then he ever had in life. His misty form seemed to retreat from Luke’s father’s presence. Vader, for his part, appeared to enjoy stalking the dead Jedi around the room.

Luke found his voice again, “Ben, why did you not tell me Vader is my father? Why did you tell me Vader killed my father?”

The misty form wavered, but Ben tried to put on a serene countenance, “What I told you was the truth … from a certain point of view.”

Vader gave a quick bark of anger and his gaze met his son’s as he said, “The depth of your lies amazes even me, Obi Wan.”

Luke clenched his hands into fists. His body pounded with anger. Could Ben be so … arrogant … as to still defend his actions? 'Act as if what he told me wasn’t a truth so twisted it could only be a lie?' But then Luke looked over at his father and a part of him softened. Whatever Obi Wan and Yoda had intended by their deceit they had not succeeded. He knew Vader was his father. They were together now … with a whole new set of issues, but together. Luke took his anger towards the old Jedi and let it go. When he focused back on Ben again, he realized that his old teacher was staring at his re-grown hand. Luke flexed it and offered Ben a closer look … if dead Jedi need to physically be closer to see anything!

“How …” Ben began and stopped. He seemed paralyzed by the sight of Luke’s new hand.

“I re-grew it,” Luke explained.

“But no one has the power to—” Ben cut himself off as he turned and looked at Vader.

That sense of change Luke had noticed earlier about his father was more pronounced. The Dark Lord’s power was like a mantel over them, velvety blackness that pulsed with purple light. But there was Light Force energy present, too, a cool blue white, that was wrapped up inexplicably with the Dark. Like snakes coiled about each other. Luke realized that this was but a taste of the boundless energy that Vader now controlled.

“What has happened here?” Ben’s voice sounded raspy, breathless, frightened. “You are both … what has happened?”

“Does not your oneness with the Force tell you what has happened, Obi Wan?” Vader’s voice was heavily laced with sarcasm. “Are you not supposed to be all knowing and all powerful now that you have joined with the Light Side?”

Ben frowned and his image shivered for a moment.

Vader’s melodious voice rolled on, “I see you are not all you thought you would be in your afterlife with the Force. Fascinating.”

“The only fascinating thing, Darth, is that you are not festering where you stand with that much Dark Side energy flowing through you,” Ben said.

“Your understanding of the Force, let alone its Dark Side, is hardly a definitive one. You are like a customer who enters a store and sees only one item that store offers even though there are millions of items actually there. That is the Force to you. It is why you are so ignorant.”

Ben stared past Vader to Luke, his eyes flickering down to the re-grown hand. “You are wrong, Darth.”

“But you fear I am not,” Vader said.

“I fear nothing.”

“Now that is most certainly a lie, Obi Wan,” Vader laughed.

“Ben,” Luke tentatively began. “Ben, what is going on here? You do seem … afraid. Even of me.”

“I am not afraid, Luke. I am disturbed, because there is something more unnatural going on here than your attraction to each other,” Ben said and Luke flinched at the word unnatural. Ben softened his tone, “Luke, you must listen to me. In order to bring balance to the Force you must destroy Vader!”

Luke was shaking his head before he said, “No! I could never … would never do that now that I know he is my father.”

“Do you honestly believe that patricide will balance the Force?” Vader asked the dead Jedi. “Such an evil act. An act that would not only destroy the father, but the son as well in its wake.”

Luke searched Obi Wan’s flickering countenance. “Ben, I would have known Vader was my father the moment I struck him down and that … that would have killed me, too. How could you not have realized that then? How can you not realize it would destroy me to kill him now?”

“I’m afraid, child of my heart, he did and does realize that. He knew exactly what would happen to you when he began this game. He just did not care,” Vader answered.

“No! Ben, tell him that isn’t true. I was your student … your friend! You wouldn’t have betrayed me like that!” Luke was shaking. He could see his own hands trembling in front of him as he reached out to the incorporeal form of his old teacher.

Ben’s face was strangely unexpressive. His eyes were fixed on Luke’s face, but they showed nothing. “Some things are worth more than an individual life, Luke.”

“What are you saying?” Luke asked.

“Only that what I did … what Yoda did … was for the greater good, but it required sacrifice. Your life was … what was needed,” Ben explained slowly.

“But it’s my life, Ben. It wasn’t yours to … sacrifice,” Luke breathed the last words. He felt so cold. He had never felt this cold before. Not even when he’d left Tatooine for the first time and was in space. Luke’s teeth began to chatter and he hunched down to try and get warm.

“I would think the Jedi would know better than to meddle with people’s lives in order to bring about some outcome in their favor,” Vader said by Luke’s shoulder. “After all, the last time they did so they were cut down like wheat.”

Vader covered his son’s shaking body with a blanket then steadied the boy gently against his chest. Luke turned his head to press his cheek against Vader’s arm.

“You must understand, Luke, that it gave me no pleasure thinking that you might die. But you were our only hope,” Obi Wan said, his blue form going thready and indistinct for a moment.

Luke realized the wetness that he felt on his face were more tears. He expected them to freeze to his face he was so chilled. But something about Ben’s statement that Luke was the only hope rang false and filled him with heat. 'He believes there is another. Another person he can influence to kill Vader … to kill me, too.' Luke’s head whipped forward to face the dead Jedi. Luke's yes burned with a white hot flame.

“You are lying again, Ben. You are going to try and recruit another to murder Vader and … me. Who is it? Who are you going to convince to sacrifice for your vision of the universe?”

Ben retreated from the preternatural radiance of the boy’s eyes. The old Jedi actually raised his hands up in front of him as if he were warding off a blow. Vader chuckled at the spirit’s display.

“Ben, who are you going to lie to next? Tell me who you seek to betray us!”

The dead Jedi did not answer. Instead, Ben’s misty form broke apart into a million glowing pieces that slowly winked out. As the last fragment died, Luke turned to look up at his father’s visor.

“Did he reveal to you who it is that he seeks to turn against us, son?”

Luke nodded. His blue eyes filled with tears that he blinked back. “Leia. He seeks Leia.”