His droid beeping in casual disinterest, Luke sat down on his bed, watching the whirling astromech with an expression of slight bemusement on his face. When the droid finally slowed down and ran gently into the bed, Luke reached out with a small smile to pat the droid's dome.

"Why don't you find Threepio, and go down to maintenance? He's still complaining about your work reassembling him," Luke suggested.

Artoo gave a loud, exasperated whistle, and bumped affectionately into Luke's leg again, before heading out the door, and shooting off to find his robotic friend.

Using the Force to close the door after the droid, Luke finally allowed himself to deflate, letting out a sad sigh, as he looked down at his raised hand.

Fake, he thought automatically, lowering it again, and looking at it, pulling at his fingers absently, and feeling the odd disconnect from how real tendons felt when artificially moved. Dropping his hand to his lap, he watched it slow in it's functioning at his lack of need of it.

Feeling strange still at the sight of it, he closed his eyes, feeling a bit sick. It was taking… a lot of getting used to. He'd never thought about losing limbs in his fight against the Empire. Dying, sure, but he'd always assumed he'd heal, or be dead. He hadn't been prepared for this.

As his thoughts turned to darker things, he felt a gentle motion in the Force, easing his discomfort, quietly, almost surreptitiously soothing him.

"I know it's you, Father," he said aloud, "There's no point trying to pretend I can just stop being freaked out by this in a heartbeat."

In response to the exasperated words, he felt the presence strengthen, a reluctant smile filling his sense of his father. In spite of himself, Luke gave a slight smile as well, before Vader answered, his thoughts coming from across the galaxy, "I don't wish to alarm you."

Luke gave a slight sound of disbelief, "Really? You think being comforted would startle me?"

"It does," Vader answered, "Don't pretend you think I can't sense you in return."

Luke rolled his eyes, folding his arms, although the sensation of the prosthetic's slight difference from real flesh made his skin crawl somewhat. Closing his eyes, and leaning back into his pillow, Luke felt the strange sensation of his father sending him another memory, and when he opened his eyes, he found a woman barely older than himself in his arms, and his father's now-familiar curly hair hanging in his face. As the solidified memory gently squeezed the woman, he felt a slight movement in her belly, and she gave a laugh, swatting at him playfully, "Not so tight!" she teased, "You'll scare our son!"

Feeling a slight touch of his father on his mind, Luke watched the memory slip away, his mother's smile the last thing to fade as his father's inquiry of approval became a bit more insistent.

"I know," Luke answered, allowing frustration to creep into his voice, "You and Mom were really in love."

At his words, he felt his father withdraw somewhat back into his own long-held stony persona, "You should have known her."

"I know," Luke agreed, carefully keeping his voice level, "You've told me all this before. I should have known Mom, and we should be off somewhere peaceful, living out your happily ever after."

At his continued irreverent word choice, he felt Vader bristle, and he began to withdraw himself, although he couldn't help wishing to stay in his father's protection still.

"She would have loved you," Vader's tone came flat through their connection, slipping deeper towards it's brutal, monstrous way, and farther from the brief peeks of humanity Luke half hoped for, and half feared.

"I know!" he insisted again, fighting not to reach out for his father, and reassure him that everything was fine between them. Because nothing could ever be fine between them, he realized. Their conversations, the constant game of cat and mouse, where Vader lead him onwards with memories of his mother, and of a happier time, when Luke could feel the love in his parents' embrace, their excitement at bringing a child into the galaxy…

He wanted to believe his father did it to reassure him, but somehow he couldn't help feeling that his father was disappointed in him. As though each embrace, each 'I love you' was asking why Luke was unable to throw away the past, and his own beliefs to embrace his father, and fill that space for him once again.

And in the fact that there were no memories of a newborn in his arms… there was the cruel question, intended or not. Why did I lose her for you to live, and get nothing in return?

"Maybe it's because life isn't perfect," Luke muttered in response to his own thoughts, and Vader's awareness prickled once more.

"Son?"

"Maybe you're stuck with me because life isn't perfect!" Luke said again, feeling his hands start to shake in anger, "Maybe THAT'S why I'm stuck with YOU! Why I lived, and not my mother!"

At the words, he felt a reeling of horror, fury sweeping through the Force, seeming intent on tearing into his heart as he struggled to close himself off from the pain of finally letting go.

"You keep showing me these memories! It's like you're telling me, 'Look, I cared for you once, isn't it time you reciprocate?' You show me better times, times before I could ruin everything, as if they make up for what you're doing now!"

"Luke," the Sith answered sharply, and Luke felt his father reign in his anger, gripping gently at Luke's presence, as if trying to stabilize him.

"No!" Luke retorted, tearing himself away as he felt his father attempting to give him another sickly bittersweet memory, "You can't patch it with who you were then! You can't tell me that our relationship can be fine, just because you and Mom were happy then! Because who you are now… it's not someone I can love. Not someone who deserves love! I don't owe you ANYTHING!"

Furiously withdrawing from his father, feeling their bond stretching thin, tension crackling in it, Luke finally spat out, "You're trying to make me love someone who doesn't exist."

Squeezing his eyes shut in pain, he slashed through their bond, feeling the frayed end of the connection fluttering in a breeze that he knew didn't exist. Feeling and seeing the imagery all too strongly, he shuddered, feeling shock begin to set in.

It was strange…

He was free of his father's touch on his mind…

The touch that was no doubt cancerous.

But he felt hollow. Empty.

In the course of a few short days, his father's presence had become a steady ground for him. A reminder that there was someone he could lean on, in the empty abyss of his life. Yearning for someone to take comfort in once more, he felt another spike of fury jab his heart as he realized how Vader had slipped through the chinks in the armour around his heart.

He had invaded the hole left by the loss of Han. In pure selfishness, Vader had taken Luke's friend, to make space for himself to squeeze through the protection Luke had tried to find in the recesses of his own soul.

"Sleemo," Luke muttered to himself, trying to tie off the severed lifeline as he slowly stood, looking around his small room, "You enjoy the luxury you've stolen for yourself, and take joy in killing people, like you do… but don't you dare try to pull me down with you."

"You've left me on my own until now. I've learned to stand by myself," he finished, the words giving him a new straw to grasp at as he fought not to sigh, and shatter the illusion for himself once more.

Reaching instinctively for the Jedi's lost 'sabre, he felt his false fingers grasp at nothing as he headed out of his quarters, the presence of others forcing him to hold himself together.

He had cast aside his last hope to ever be satisfactory simply by being himself, he thought. Only a family could have been expected to love him simply for being Luke, and he had just pushed the last of his away.

A member of Rogue Squadron offered him a wave, hurrying past in the opposite direction, and Luke quickly tacked on a smile, waving back as he hurried his steps, heading down towards maintenance, to take comfort and shelter in fixing up his droids, as well as whatever other repairs might be required.

HIs destiny was on hold, at least for the moment, as he learned the way around his new hand, but that didn't mean he wouldn't help the Alliance.

It wasn't just a duty to him, he thought, looking around the bustling halls and rooms, it was his home, even if it wasn't everything he wanted.

Kneeling down to start tidying up Artoo, he remembered the first time he'd worked on the droid, and gave the astromech a slight smile, murmuring to him, "Wasn't Aunt Beru always telling me we couldn't have everything?"

His droid gave a gentle beep in return, bumping at him again, and Luke felt a real smile form at the affectionate motion, "I'm fine," he assured his friend, patting him before returning to work.

"I guess I forgot what great friends I have," he said, reaching out in the Force once more to feel the many living, breathing presences of his fellows as he closed his eyes and let out a slow breath, before looking back into Artoo's 'eye'.

As the droid offered a gentle coo, Luke's hands took over maintenance from his brain, and he felt himself drifting away into the galaxy at large, feeling the struggles of each living being, the life forces of even the smallest flower or blade of grass.

Feeling at home in the familiar motions and full brightness of a galaxy of possibilities and lives, he heard the sounds of a great cosmic sound sweeping over him, as if the galaxy itself were an instrument, and its music facilitated by the souls that inhabited it.

Under every pain he felt, he sensed some joy, and in each cruelty, a soul struggling to find its way back to acceptance.

Lulled by the great immensity of the galaxy, his mind slipped back to Vader without his instruction, and in the great movement of comfort, he searched instinctively for the bright side to that particular soul's plight, and found hardly a bittersweet memory.