Vader stormed into his castle. He was furious. Another day of fighting the rebels and he was no further ahead than he had ever been. In fact, there had been a series of rather impressive setbacks. He was ready to kill. Again. Something about killing the rebel saboteur hadn't been enough.

He stormed into the kitchen, looking for something to eat. Much to his surprise, there was a full meal laid out on the table. Probably a trap. Oh, well, what's the use? He sat down and started eating. After a few mouthfuls, he sensed someone beside him. He glanced up. There sat his son, smiling slightly at him.

"What's so funny, boy?" he snarled.

"Nothing," Luke replied innocently, starting to try to yank a hand through his matted hair.

"What the hell do you think you're doing out of prison?"

Luke shrugged, "I felt you kill Thomas. And I felt that it wasn't enough for you."

Vader filed the man's name, and the fact that Luke knew him, away for future use.

"I didn't want you hurting anyone else."

"You realize that I'm going to torture you."

"Yeah. That's why I came. Better me than someone else."

"I see you took advantage of the facilities," Vader said, referring to his son's clean body and imperial uniform.

"I didn't want to make you sick by cooking like that."

Of course, he would come to be tortured and decide to make me food while he waited for me to come.

"I made a few extra things. They're in the freezer with cooking instructions." Luke said.

"Idiot."

Luke was carefully avoiding taking any food, Vader noticed.

"Aren't you hungry?" Vader taunted.

"Of course I'm hungry," Luke sighed. "But if I eat, they'll just make me vomit it out again when you take me back to prison. In the long run, it would only make the hunger worse."

"I hope you realize that your presence is only making me angrier."

"I know. I hope you'll feel better when you get to beating me."

Vader rolled his eyes. He finished his meal, taking the food to the refrigerator and clearing the table.

"The torture instruments are over there, I brought them down for you." Luke said softly, pointing.

"Good," Vader nodded. "Get up on the table."

The young man took off his shirt and crawled onto the table, lying down on his stomach. Vader walked over to the torture implements and chose one. Walking back to the table, he began assessing where he could cause the most pain. He began.

On the table, his son made a small sound of pain. Vader struck again and the boy gave a short sob.

"You think you're so noble, coming here to take the pain for someone else, don't you boy?" He didn't wait for an answer. "You're not noble, you little piece of scum. You're just a worthless rebel. You're an agent of all things that ruin the galaxy. If it weren't for you and your pathetic band of idiots, I could take the Emperor and free the galaxy."

On the table Luke whimpered.

"Oh, you think I wouldn't? Do you even know why I turned to the Dark Side? I did it to save your mother, boy, and," he rolled the boy onto his back and looked into the innocent blue eyes, "I did it to save you."

The young man's eyes closed, and an expression of pain crossed his face, though Vader had stopped torturing him for a moment. He swallowed, but didn't answer.

"Not so high and mighty now, are you?" Vader sneered, starting again. "It didn't work, you know, your mother died anyway. She's gone, but you lived. You would think it would give me some great, profound bond with you."

Luke shook his head.

"Oh, you wouldn't? Then for once in your puny, miserable life, you'd be right." But Vader was feeling something as he tortured the child. There was a thrill of causing pain to someone who'd hurt him, but somehow he couldn't remove the image of the boy's kind smile as he greeted his father.

"I planned to come back from the Dark Side, did you know that? I was going to kill the Emperor, become a Jedi again, restart the order, and live happily ever after with my family. I had a wonderful, fairy tale ending planned for us. But something ruined that. Your mother, she was like you, she came and tried to stop me from hurting people, and I was too mad with power to stop myself. I choked her. I didn't kill her; I could have made everything good for us again. But Obi-Wan had stowed away on her ship. He took her from me. There was nothing I could do. I always said whoever designed Padme's ship was an idiot. I couldn't shoot the engines. They were too close to the fuel tanks." Vader knew he was crying.

"You should have heard Obi-Wan. He begged me, he said he'd been sent to kill me, but he couldn't do it. He begged me to turn back, for Padme, for my baby. He didn't understand. He didn't know how corrupted the Senate was. He didn't know what I knew. He didn't know that I could never raise my child in such a twisted, ruined galaxy. Then he jumped to hyperspace, and I couldn't sense where he'd gone. I plotted every jump point he could have gone to from the direction his ship was pointing. There was nothing anywhere.

"The Emperor told me your mother was dead. He told me you'd died with her. So I set about fixing the galaxy. It's hard, slow work. But I never gave up. Do you know why I never gave up? Because deep in my soul I couldn't bring myself to believe that you were dead. I wanted to believe that somewhere in the galaxy, someone was raising you in a safer galaxy for every rebel and Jedi I took out of it.

"How ungrateful you are, after all this work, to join the Alliance. To join the enemy, and refuse everything I've done for you. Your entire, pitiful little life, I've been working to make the galaxy a better place for you, and you've renounced it. You don't know what the Old Republic was like! They would have stolen you from me, as they did even after everything. I would have been thrown from the Jedi Order in disgrace, and they would have kept you! I would never have been allowed to raise you! You would have been raised to believe that I was a deserter!"

The most recent device fell to Vader's side as the tears overwhelmed him. Through the salt water, he could just see the mess that had been his son's back. He dropped his weapon, falling to his knees, his face in his hands, "I'm so sorry, Luke." He sobbed.

The young man was beside his father almost instantly, holding the older man's shoulders tightly. "Father?" He asked the sobbing Imperial. When Vader didn't respond, Luke wrapped his arms tightly around him, "It's okay, Father. I know. I know." His voice softened, and he rested his head on his father's shoulder.

Vader's arms moved without his needing to think about it. One was wrapped around his son's body, the other supporting the boy's head.

They knelt on the floor, holding one another for a long while, each supporting the other.

At last, Luke pulled himself back out of his father's arms. "Stand up," he told Vader gently.

Dazed, Vader obeyed. He unsteadily got to his feet, and Luke slipped under his arm, supporting him.

"Everything's going to be okay, Father. You just need to sleep. When you wake up in the morning, everything will look better."

Vader didn't respond, but Luke started to lead him through the castle until they reached the older man's room. Then he pulled the blankets back and led his father to lie down. "Everything's going to be okay. Just wait and see."

Vader didn't answer.

"Roll over," Luke instructed gently. "I'm just going to rub your back. It'll help you sleep."

Still stunned, Vader did as he was told. He felt the mattress move ever so slightly as his son sat down next to him. The boy put his shoulders on his father's shoulders and started to rub gently.

"Everything's going to be okay," he said again.

Vader sighed, willing himself to believe it. "It's been so hard since I lost your mother."

"I know. It's been hard on me too. I never knew either one of you, and I always wanted to. Losing Mom was hard on both of us. But now, everything's going to be all right. My aunt always used to say that to me when I'd had a bad day. Everything was going to be okay, and I should wait for tomorrow."

Vader didn't answer. Luke continued to massage gently, promising again and again that everything would be all right. Vader was calming down slowly, relaxing, beginning to go to sleep. He didn't notice when his son's words changed.

"All my life, I've wanted to know you, Father. I love you. I know maybe you'll refuse to believe me, just because I won't turn to the Dark Side, but you mean a lot to me. I had to drop out of school when I was seventeen so I could join the Alliance, but before that I got fairly average grades. On Tatooine, that's about as good as it gets. I was even valedictorian for my grade seven graduation. I think you would have been proud of me, I did a lot of research and managed to write the sappiest, most Empire-loving speech you ever heard. I nearly keeled over laughing up on stage. It was ridiculous.

"I never used to have anything against the Empire. Actually, I wanted to join. I kept needling my aunt and uncle for permission to join the Academy. They were always putting it off. I never understood it, but now I guess it had to do with protecting me. They had to keep me away from the Empire at all costs."

From insetting sleep, Vader managed to speak a few words to his son, "If you could go back and change it now, would you go?"

From the sound of his voice, Vader knew Luke was smiling, "Yeah, I think I would. Probably."

Vader smiled into his pillow and fell asleep.

When he awoke, his son was still sitting over him, rubbing gently. Unlike the night before, when he awoke that morning, he was alert, as he had learned to be. And, as such, his first thoughts were of his son. The boy must have been in agony! He sat up and looked into his son's tired face.

"Hush, Father. You've only had five hours of sleep. Lie back down." Luke told him, gently trying to push him back onto his bed.

Vader stared at his son's face, at the tear streaks that had dried, and the boy reached up and mopped one bare arm across his face. Apparently he hadn't even gone to retrieve the shirt he had borrowed.

"When did you last sleep?" Vader asked, remaining firmly upright.

"I dunno, I guess it's been about a week."

Vader stood up, carefully guiding his son into the bed in his place.

"Hush now." Vader told his son, putting one hand on his cheek. "Shh," Vader said as the boy tried to get back up.

"I don't wanna." Luke protested weakly. "It'll be worse when I go back to prison." Tears began to pour again. He shook, his face becoming childish and desperate.

"I'm not going to send you back to prison, Son. Do as I say and go to sleep."

Luke gave another whimper, but Vader sat down on the bed beside his child, rubbing the boy's shoulder and preventing him from getting up. At last, the young man let himself sink into the pillows and close his eyes.

Vader smiled at his son as the child fell asleep, his body leaning hard on Vader's supporting hand. Assuming the boy needed the togetherness, Vader moved closer until the boy's thin body folded itself around him.

He ran his hand through Luke's hair, silently apologising, and wishing the boy quick healing. Exhausted, the child slept through his father's affectionate disturbances.

When at last he awoke, he lay still, blinking up into his father's face for several moments until the older man looked down at him. But Vader didn't ask him to move, he just gazed into his eyes, savouring the feeling of being together. At last, Luke pulled himself upright, leaning on his father's shoulder. Vader accepted the boy, wrapping his arms around and rocking him slowly.

Finally, Luke began to shiver, and Vader pulled a blanket off the bed, wrapping it around the boy's fragile shoulders.

Luke looked up at his father, "Father? May I have something to eat, please?"

Vader nodded, nestling his son in the blankets again. For a moment, it seemed the young man would protest, but he relaxed and allowed his father to leave his side.

Vader found his son some food and took it back to the child, who eagerly accepted the nourishment. When he was done, he nestled himself in the blankets again.

"I'm proud of you, Luke."

The boy's eyes opened again, "Huh?"

"I'm proud of you," Vader repeated.

"For what?" Luke asked, "Everything I've done against you? Everything you jailed and tortured me for?"

Vader flinched, and felt a responding twinge of apology. "That. And more." He answered. "I'm proud that you were valedictorian. That's quite an achievement."

Luke smiled, embarrassed, "You heard that?"

"I answered you, didn't I?"

"I thought you were just kind of… I dunno, maybe you answered in your sleep."

"No," Vader said gently, "I was awake."

Luke smiled more widely. "I thought you'd laugh at me if I said it to your face."

Vader shook his head. "I'm sorry I woke you again. Sleep now, Luke."

Luke smiled again, then let his eyes close, and Vader watched as the child fell asleep.