Sometimes he wishes he can hate them, just a little.

Hatred makes everything so much easier. He's learned that firsthand, and it isn't going to be a lesson he soon forgets. It's just so much easier to let go -- feeling over thinking, acting over waiting ... he misses it, hates that he misses it, hates that he hates.

The one law is fear. The one fear is power. The one power is hate.

The whisper worms its way into his mind, and he hurriedly brushes it aside.

They look at him with so much stars-damned respect; it saddens him, sickens him, angers him that they can look at him like that, with so much hope in their eyes after he betrayed them all so thoroughly.

He doesn't deserve that respect anymore, doesn't deserve that deference. He deserves to be thrown in prison for what he's done, and, perversely, he hates that he isn't rotting away in some jail cell right now instead of sitting here and attending this meeting of the Alliance High Command.

They look at him like he's still a hero, and he can't stand it. They gaze at him in adoration, admiration, awe -- he just wants to shout at them, scream at them to stop, dammit, because he's not their hero, can't be their hero or their savior or their champion. He can't even save himself, how can he be expected to save them?

He's no hero.

Hells, and now it's Leia who's looking at him, those chocolate brown eyes meeting his own with so much love evident in her gaze that he just wants to scream. She trusts him so completely, loves him so blindly, and he's afraid of that, so afraid. He doesn't want to hurt her, but he doesn't think he'll be able to help it, if it ever comes to that again.

I don't deserve you! he wants to shout. He wants to grab her by the shoulders, shake her hard until she understands. Shake that love out of her eyes until she realizes that she should be fearing him, hating him, not blithely offering forgiveness. I don't deserve your respect, don't deserve your love, don't deserve your forgiveness!

None of them understand. They think they do, think they have him all figured out -- ah, the prodigal son, the disillusioned little Jedi. Come back to his true home with his tail between his legs, meek and mild as ever and looking for forgiveness. Little boy, little pet. Come back home, all is forgiven.

Not even Leia understands, though she should know better. She should know, she whose father was his father; she should know something of the Darkness, something of the evil that clings to him even now. But she doesn't understand, just gladly offers absolution for things that can never be forgiven. She doesn't even understand the greatest sin of all: to have done it, to have enjoyed doing it, and to not even be sure whether he'd choose differently, if he could make the choice again.

Do they really think it's that simple? Do they think he's free of it now that he's repented and come back from the Dark? Do they believe he can take it off or put it on at will, as he would do with a cloak? Take it off, put it away, and go back to being the man he once was, the Jedi he once was, without any of it lingering about his soul?

They know nothing of the Dark.

For all his life he'd served the Light. At Yavin, at Bespin, at Endor ... he'd rejected the Dark so many times, heard Yoda's teachings so often that he'd almost never considered what it would mean to embrace the Darkness itself. He was a warrior of the Light, the sword of the Jedi, the last of a dying breed; he had carried such a heavy burden on his shoulders, ever since that final duel on the Death Star.

Because he'd been a hero, dammit, and that was what heroes did -- they carried the burdens of their people, protected them, saved them. Saved them from their enemies, saved them from each other, saved them from themselves.

And when he embraced the Darkness, all of that disappeared.

Because none of that mattered, in the Dark; the galaxy went to hell and he didn't give a damn. Because he didn't have to worry, didn't have to think, didn't have to care. Could watch the impending end of a world or a galaxy or a universe with a smile on his face.

And it felt good, dammit. So damned good.

To have the Darkness coursing through his veins, the cold and the ice and the stars-damned power. Power waiting at his fingertips, at his command, at his beck and call. Power beyond all imagination, beyond all conception, beyond all understanding, power that waits for him and calls for him and sings for him to take it up once more. Power he can take and embrace and use as he chose, power that screams to be taken up again even after he willingly gave it up.

And to use that, power ... by the hells, he loves it. To direct the flow of the Darkness, to harness it for his own needs. To take that power and do unspeakable things with it; to do them, and enjoy doing them. To cause pain and fear and suffering and not to give a damn, simply relishing the feel of the power that rushed through his soul. It's amazing, exhilarating, intoxicating -- nothing else comes close.

They're weak. All of them. They know nothing of the Dark or Light or the power he has at his fingertips. They don't understand. They don't want to, as comfortable as they are in their own disbelief. Don't want to think about their little pet Jedi going rabid, going for their throats or ripping out their hearts or just being his father's son. Don't want to think about how he can kill all of them with less than a thought ...

... not that it matters, of course. Because he barely escaped from the Dark this time, and he isn't going back. He's discovered all those Dark things his father knew so well, become his father's son in more than name. He isn't going back isn't going to stray from the Light again ...

But he can kill them. Easily. He knows it.

Reach out to the Force, as he's done so many times before. But this time ignore the Light, reach instead for the Darkness that has been beckoning him for so long. Grab it, embrace it, use it -- feel the darkness rush through his veins, become a conduit for the Darkness that hovers just out of reach of his conscious mind.

Crush their windpipes, as his father was so fond of doing. Stop their hearts. Snap their necks. The little nerves at the base of the spine: so very fragile, yet so very important. The jugular vein or the car--

"Luke? Are you all right?" It's Leia's voice, and it jolts him from his thoughts.

"Fine," he assures her, flashing his farmboy smile. "Just thinking."

And then they're looking at him again, that understanding in eyes that know nothing. Pity and compassion and maybe even a tinge of contempt for the prodigal son who got lost in the Dark but managed to find his way home.

And some little voice in his head is telling him how good it'd feel to wipe that look from their eyes and put some fear in their hearts. Give them a good scare, show them the true power he has at his command. And hells know it's tempting, so damned tempting to wipe that smirk of the Bothan's lips, that condescending look from Mon Mothma's face, that trust from Leia's eyes.

Because they should be afraid of this power that hovers just at the edge of his consciousness. Would be afraid, if they had any sense at all.

Force knows he is.

Afraid for them, afraid for himself. So damned afraid that the next time he takes up the Dark, there'll be no turning back. Afraid he won't be able to resist the temptation, the whispered seductions of the Darkness. Afraid he'll do something that he'll never be able to fix, afraid for his family, afraid for those he loves, afraid for the whole damned galaxy ...

Because when a hero falls, who's there to catch him?

Finis