"Luke! Luke, are you awake?" Wedge demanded, sticking his head into his friend's room.
Luke looked up from where he had been sitting pouring over some Jedi texts he had found. "Yeah, what's happening?"
"We caught Vader!" Wedge answered.
The sheaf of durasheet fell from Luke's hands. He gaped. "Vader?"
"Yeah, come on! There's gonna be a celebration."
Luke stood as well, following his friend as the older man wrenched open door after door, calling any Rebels who had so far missed the news to follow him. Soon enough, people were sticking their heads out of their rooms to investigate the sound of the stampede in the hall.
At last, Luke decided he wouldn't be missed and ducked into an adjacent hallway. When the crowd had passed him, he turned back towards where he knew Vader would be held.
When he reached the cell, he noted nervously that there were no guards. He had seen where his father would be held, and knew how it was built, that it had been designed to hold Force sensitives. But he still wouldn't have trusted it fully with his father.
He opened the cell and looked inside. "Father?"
"Son," Vader answered from where he stood behind the door.
With increasing nervousness, Luke closed the door to the cell and looked up into his father's mask. He wished he had got at least part of his father's height. He felt like a scared child looking up at his father. He was annoyed that just his physical stature had already given him a feeling of inferiority in this most recent confrontation.
"Why did you let them catch you?"
"I owed you an apology." Vader answered, apparently without second thought.
"For what, exactly?" Luke asked, running through the list of potential answers in his head. He had just finished deciding that the most likely answer was for ever having allowed him to be taken by the Jedi when his father sighed and answered.
"For everything."
Suddenly the height difference wasn't bothering Luke as much. It made him hope that his father hadn't noticed that he was shrinking back.
"Everything?"
"For letting you go, for letting others take you, for hurting the people you love, for hurting you. Everything."
Luke felt himself start to shiver. This couldn't be real. His father had just somehow worked out what he wanted and needed most, and was using it as bate. Vader would never give himself up just to apologise to his son. But would Anakin? Luke pushed the thought aside. Hadn't he seen enough times that this man was Vader, not Anakin? After everything Vader had done to him and his friends and family, he should know.
"Does everything include what you've done to the galaxy?"
Once more, Vader didn't pause, "Of course."
Luke tried to tell himself that the lack of pause was nothing but proof that the conversation had been heavily scripted, rehearsed many times. It didn't mean that his father meant it so strongly he wasn't afraid to say it.
He stood and stared at the man. What would it be like to come home to his father? Or, better yet, to be accompanied by him on missions? What would it feel like to be comforted by him when he was hurting?
As though Vader had read his thoughts, which Luke later reflected, he might well have been doing, he reached for his child, cupping his cheek in one glove.
Luke was too unsure, too hopeful, too afraid, to resist. He trustingly rested his head on his father's hand.
He felt Vader smile, and was somewhat comforted by the sense that his smile wasn't one of triumph.
He made himself stand straight once more, though he wanted nothing more than to stand there, being held, forever. "What are you going to do now?"
"I have no idea. What will your friends do with me?"
Luke laughed, "Please, you can get out of here easily!"
Again, he sensed Vader's smile, "Yes, but I don't intend to."
"Why not?"
"There's nothing anywhere else in the galaxy for me."
"Do you have any idea what they're gonna do to you? You've probably killed most of their friends!"
Vader paused for a moment, "Somehow, I can't bring myself to care about that."
Luke felt his heart leap. That had definitely been his father putting Luke first. And not just before himself, before everything. An entire galaxy's worth of wonder was worth sacrificing for him! He found himself smiling at his father.
"Really?"
And instantly he was afraid again, what if it had just been some kind of joke?
But Vader was smiling at him, "Yes."
Luke found himself unable to answer. There was nothing he could say that could possibly rival the love his father had just given him.
"I know I'm asking too much, wanting you to forgive me."
"What?" Luke asked nonplussed.
"Asking you to forgive me for everything I've done."
"Oh," Luke found himself laughing, "I think I already forgave you."
He felt Vader truly running away, away from him and Anakin. And Anakin was giving him the same smile he had already forced through Vader's persona. He could feel that he had given his father the same happiness that Anakin had given him. Was it so easy to mend someone's broken heart? Forgiving his father had been the most natural thing he'd ever done. Had asking for his forgiveness been as easy for Anakin?
"I'm not going to let them hurt you, Father."
Anakin shook his head. "They deserve to do whatever they want to me."
"They don't!" Luke exclaimed, "You're not Vader anymore! It wasn't you doing those things."
He sensed his father smiling indulgently at him, "Try to explain that to them."
"I will!" Luke said, feeling like a petulant child.
Again, he felt his father smile, "You're ridiculous, did you know that?"
The sulkiness disappeared, "Yeah, I guess I did."
Anakin smiled at him again. "You should go and join your friends in their celebration. Which they would have been incredibly foolish to have had if I had not chosen to return for you."
"They know. We just don't get a lot of reason to celebrate. So, generally, we don't question any chances we do get."
Anakin gently nudged him to the door. Luke hesitated with his hand against it. He didn't want to leave. He was afraid that if he did, his father would disappear. What if they killed Anakin because they had a better grip on how easily he could escape than he'd thought? What if he'd been wrong about Vader's being gone? What if Vader returned as soon as Luke wasn't near his father? But Luke knew that his father was right. He really should get to the celebration, especially if he was hoping to convince anyone at all that his father didn't mean them harm.
He stepped out of the cell again, and started towards the hall. He could still feel the happiness his father was projecting when he reached the celebration, and it gave him courage as he started his work.