A Hope in Hell
By Mina

Chapter 3

Vader's breath froze in his chest. He couldn't think of a reply.

The silence stretched.

Luke looked up at him from under his lashes, his expression stunned, as if he was surprised he wasn't dead yet. "What are you waiting for?"

The world had warped around Vader, and what he was waiting for was the universe to end. He was vaguely disappointed when it didn't.

In retrospect, of course this was his son. The confusion he felt tearing through him and making his hands tremble wasn't from the fact he could have a son, but from the circumstances.

How? How had his son been brought up on this dying world? How had he survived at all?

Those brilliant eyes were shining with bitterness now as Luke watched his father intently. 'Luke' - Vader wanted to laugh at the irony. The name meant 'light' in Nubian, but the boy had lived in a darkness his father has created. Cynically, he wondered if Kenobi had engineered that little irony. But - no. Padmé would never have let her son grow up like this.

Would she?

Had she even lived long enough to have any say in the matter? The date on her gravestone suggested not - or did Vader just want to believe that she would not have chosen this life for their son?

Looking down now, Vader recognised that the boy's familiarity had not been merely a product of his pain-hazed imagination. Luke was familiar. He reminded Vader not only of Padmé, but of himself. Had his wife seen that and hated it, sought to punish the child for the father? No, surely not. There was a story here, waiting to be told.

Belatedly, he realised he was holding the boy in a bruising grip and he released his hold, forcing himself to breathe.

Luke was watching him intently, and Vader wondered what he hoped to see. "How?" he asked, though it felt like a woefully inadequate response to the situation.

Luke just shook his head, "You really don't want to see inside my head," he said, and laughed despite the situation. He ran a hand through his straggly blond hair.

Vader replied almost instinctively. "Do not be so sure."

Luke looked away suddenly, but Vader caught the fleeting expression of desperation that flitted across his face. The pale hands fisted. Finally, he looked back up at Vader, and his expression was blank again. It was a practised move, Vader realised, designed to show indifference when he felt nothing of the sort. "If you're not going to kill me, then we should leave. The others will wake up soon and I don't want to be here when..." Luke took a breath, closed his eyes.

A torrent of questions flooded Vader's mind, but the boy was right. There was no time for any of those questions, no time at all. "Very well," he finally said, and felt a strange relief that he wouldn't have to listen to the boy's story just yet… because he was sure whatever the circumstances were that had conspired to confine his son on Naboo, they were not pleasant.

Luke watched him guardedly as Vader leaned against the wall and attempted to stand.
The pain shot down his leg, and he dropped back to the ground with a grunt. Luke reached out - instinctively, Vader thought - and more of that healing energy slid through Vader's veins.

Had it really been just moments earlier that he had thought how impossible this was because there was no bond between them? It felt like the answer should have been blindingly obvious from the moment he had first set eyes on the boy. He should have known.

I did not kill Padmé, he thought. I realised that when they found her grave here, laid down after the city's destruction. So why did I not stop to consider what happened to the child she was carrying? Was I blinded by rage at Palpatine - or did I not want to know?

And if I did not want to know... why not?

Something seemed to whisper at him with Padmé's voice, lightened with wry amusement - "Because you are not ready for the guilt you will feel... but when you are, he will turn your world inside-out..." - and Vader, unnerved, shook the words from his soul.

"I will need your continued assistance if we are to leave this place," he said at last.

Luke looked at him curiously, sending another wave of Force-energy his way. Vader found the strength to stand and straighten his back. "Does it help that much?" the boy asked, all innocent wonder for just a moment.

Vader looked down at him, almost tempted to grip the boy's shoulder in reassurance - and then he wondered just where in all the hells that impulse had come from. "Indeed it does," he said, and accepted the physical support as well as the mental when Luke put an arm around his waist. "It would help more if I could access the Force, however."

The boy flinched. "Oh," he said, very quietly.

Something nagged at the back of Vader's mind. "I suppose my inability to do so is an after-effect of your... stunt in the catacomb earlier," he said. Was he chiding the child? It certainly sounded like it to his own ears, and that dismayed him.

Luke shrugged. "I... no - it's the drug Jandon gave you. It blocks your access for a while."

Vader sighed. For a wild moment he had hoped the boy was somehow responsible for his continued inability to feel the Force. "We -" he started to say, but they both stilled abruptly at the sound of something falling into the water with a crash, somewhere down the corridor. A reminder that they didn't have time to stand around talking, Vader thought. "We should go. We can discuss this later."

They made slow progress, hampered by the uneven ground and by Vader's injuries. Litter and detritus rolled down the streets in the stiff night breeze as Vader and Luke struggled up and out of the catacombs. The wind caught the boy's hair, blowing it in a golden haze around his head.

Vader hated to admit weakness, but he clung to his newly-discovered son's support and the boy said nothing about the weight he was shouldering.

A light rain soon soaked them through. The soft, murmuring sound of it hitting the ground and the tattered canopies was the only sound in the air; there was no noise of animals or of people. Occasionally, Vader thought he saw the hard glare of eyes watching them move painfully by, but they disappeared into the darkness when they decided he and Luke presented no danger.

There were so few people left here, only those without the means to escape the city or with nowhere to go even if they could. The old, the poor, and the young. Like the youths in Jandon's gang, probably orphaned or separated from their parents in the initial strike. With no immediate place to go, they had been left behind in the city when most of the adults, consumed by desperation and consequently ignorant of the need of those around them, had fled.

Or so Vader presumed. In truth, he had paid little heed to the reports his agents had presented to him on the state of Theed - he'd been too busy reading and re-reading the line that told him Padmé's grave had been found and had not thought to read beyond that.

Luke moved agilely through the sunken streets, with an economy of movement Vader had noticed earlier and found so distasteful. Suddenly those skills of skulking were not just useful, but added a bitter note to Vader's thoughts. The pale moon sent down a few spears of light down through the ever-present, not-quite rain.

"I trust you know where we are," Vader said, taking a moment to rest against the cracked wall of a building. He gripped his useless right arm with his left. Luke walked forwards a few steps, stopped at end of a shattered street and turned his face to the sky.

"We have to get out of the city," he said.

Vader's breath was coming in painful spasms. "Indeed," was all he could manage for a moment. Then - "And where then? My ship is -"

"They looted it; burned it. Forget it."

Vader frowned. Why had they destroyed a space-worthy vessel? It was mindless. He would have expected as many of the youths as possible to cram aboard the ship and attempt to escape their shattered planet.

"I know where there's another ship," Luke was saying, drawing Vader's attention away from his bewilderment. "It's a long way past the borders of the city, but I know how to get us there and -" As Vader's muscles spasmed again, Luke broke off his explanation and frowned, moving back towards Vader. As he approached, the pain dulled, and Vader allowed himself a moment of wonder at how potent the effect was. He had little experience of healing techniques, and little aptitude for them, but clearly the same could not be said for his son.

His son.

How easily the designation came to mind, when just hours before he could not have conceived of it.

His son. It was... unthinkable, unbelievable... undeniable.

He started forward a few steps, Luke beside him. And didn't it feel right for it to be that way? Bare hours after meeting the boy, and yet - so right. He shook his head briefly, before noticing Luke's concerned expression.

"Are you okay?" the boy asked, putting a hand out as if to hold Vader upright. "You felt a little... weird there, for a minute."

Vader did not know what to do with such concern from the boy - it had been years since anyone had shown concern for his welfare, and for a moment Vader swung between the temptation to bristle as if his pride were hurt, and the equally strong temptation to accept the concern as it was meant - earnestly.

In the end, he opted for the truth. "I am... weary. My injuries are slowing me down considerably."

Luke frowned, looking down at Vader's nearly non-operational right arm. Vader had the ridiculous temptation to hide the useless limb. Luke bit his lip, looking abruptly young and fearful. "It's over a day's walk to the ship... you'll never make it like this." He paused. "We could find somewhere to rest, but..." Luke trailed off, then looked up, his gaze once again intense and serious. "But we don't have much time."

Which was probably true. They were not going to be easy to track, but Vader didn't doubt the gang had a method for doing so through such familiar territory, otherwise Luke would not be so jumpy.

"Very well," he said, straightening his back. "Then we continue."

Luke nodded, subdued. Then, suddenly, he seemed to brighten. "Hang on! I think... yeah... a bit further on, there should be one of the research stations. I found it the other day. It's secure and it's underground and it's... well, it should be safe from... from Jandon. We could rest there, for a while at least," he offered, looking up.

Vader paused, considering. If he became too tired to walk, they were in more trouble than if they stopped for a short while. Luke walked silently at his side, a constant beacon of healing energy. The boy also radiated exhaustion, though, in every move he made. Perhaps he had even sat up all night, wondering what to do since his errant father suddenly appeared in his life. Vader tried to imagine it, tried to picture Luke sitting in a cold catacomb chamber, turning the blaster over in his hands, his mind awash with indecision.

"Can't you touch the Force at all? Keep the pain away?" Luke asked suddenly, turning to him. Vader looked down at him, for the first time really noticing the smudged crescents cupping his eyes and the unnatural pallor of his skin. Strange how those things became suddenly salient now he knew who the boy was.

"Very little," he said, hearing the frustration in his voice. "The pain is... intense - too intense." Even as he said it, he tried yet again to reach out to the Force with mental fingers. Very little happened, though; the Force was closer, but still damnably far away. He resisted the urge to sigh.

"Well," Luke said slowly, and Vader looked down with a vague sense of amusement when the boy squeezed his arm reassuringly. "Maybe it'll return a bit more, later."

Was that supposed to be comforting? "Perhaps," he agreed, quietly.

Through the thin drizzle, an austere building appeared, the walls so crumbled and maligned that the outline was indistinct and hazy. "There it is," Luke said. "We can stop there, at least for a bit. That'll confuse Jandon, that's for sure."

Luke grinned, briefly, and the sight made something inside of Vader crack a little. Then he frowned. Luke had called the structure a 'research station', but Vader recalled no such buildings on Theed. The Naboo had had little interest in science, preferring to explore more aesthetic pursuits, and his instincts tingled with apprehension. Sunken steps led down into several inches of floodwater and an apparently locked door.

Vader caught the echo of the Force stirring in the crude, untrained way his son seemed to have developed, and the boy homed in quickly on the lock. He cursed, softly.

"No good. It's seized," Luke whispered. His breath formed clouds of icy air.

"Perhaps there is another way?"

"No - wait."

Luke reached up and took off the dirty bandage that was wrapped around his head. Vader winced before he could stop himself when he saw a deep red scar running down one temple. Now was certainly not the time.

Luke ran his fingers over the wet fabric, and pried out a small round disk barely the size of a credit. Vader felt the urge to ask what it was, but Luke was focused on the task. He put the disk over the lock and ripped off the control panel. Then he twisted open the circuits, rerouted and -

The thing clicked as the small disk beeped and the door slid upwards. Luke turned around, prideful. He held up the disk. "It's a mini code-breaker," he said, turning it over in his hand. "Found it a few days ago. They're pretty rare these days."

Did he want congratulating for his scavenging? Vader wondered. If he did, Vader could not bring himself to do so. After an uncomfortable silence, Luke turned away and ducked inside the doorway.

"Well... uh... come on, it's down here. Watch it, it's wet. "

Vader followed hesitantly, cradling his limp arm. Inside, there was not the airy corridor and grand, tall rooms Vader had expected from the exterior of the structure. Instead, a set of steep steps led immediately down from the entranceway into an interminable darkness.

Luke descended them quickly, with the impatience of youth, and Vader followed him more cautiously as the door closed behind them, shutting in the darkness. Vader's breathing reverberated in the small space, and water dripped down the steps in a rhythmic tap, puddling at their feet.

At the foot of the steps was another door, and Luke's quiet tinkering told him the boy was working on the locking mechanism. Vader wondered briefly where the boy had learnt such skills and then decided that perhaps he didn't want to know.

A spark leapt from the control panel, briefly illuminating the area with ghostly blue light, and Luke cursed softly, pulling his hand back and sucking his finger. "Blast it!" he muttered.

Vader was dismayed to find that he had reached out as if to pull the boy away from the dangerous circuitry. He stared at his left arm as he slowly lowered it. Where had that impulse come from - the impulse to pull the boy back from danger?

You need him if you are to get out of the city, a cold part of his mind suggested logically, but it lacked the ring of truth.

Luke was still struggling with the splice.

"Perhaps I can -"

"I've got it," Luke said defensively, and Vader snorted in annoyance, recognising his own mile-wide streak of stubborn pride in the boy's character. And Luke had reason to be proud - the door swung upwards after another moment's work, Luke grinning up at him. "See?"

When Vader did not reply, Luke just shook his head and rolled his eyes before walking through the entranceway.

The opening door had revealed a stone corridor lit by low, sickly white light. Vader wasn't sure what he had expected to find inside this building, but it certainly wasn't this. The tunnel that stretched ahead of them was cold and hollow, and ancient, filled with the oppressive taste of stale air and the memories of centuries.

It was so unlike the typical Theed architecture that it gave Vader pause. The tunnel curled away to the left, disappearing steadily downwards. This was a part of the catacombs beneath the city, Vader realised, recognising the architecture from the similar structure in which Jandon's gang had taken shelter. He took a cautious step forwards, but then stilled, the pervasive doubt still in his mind. Why had the Naboo built such a structure within the catacombs? Just what kind of 'research' had been done here, beneath the heart of the city?

Luke had walked on a few steps, the shadows engulfing him. He turned back to Vader, beckoning. "The control room's down here," he said. "Come on."

Vader followed him, eyeing curiously the closed, sealed chambers they passed. The tunnel widened abruptly around a sharp left turn, opening into a chamber lined with pre-Empire technology. At the centre was a large control area, dominated by a plastiglass screen that might once have displayed images but was now cracked across the centre, the liquid crystal having leaked out and dried on the crazed 'glass surface.

Luke moved swiftly past it all, heading to a row of storage cupboards at the far end and rummaging through them. A true scavenger, Vader thought briefly, and resisted the urge to call the boy back. He doubted the child would have obeyed, anyway.

Instead, he took a seat at one of the consoles, relishing the sudden easing of tired muscles. He stared at the control panel, but nothing was familiar to him. Finally, he swallowed his pride and turned to his son. "What is this place?"

Luke's head was still buried in the contents of the cupboard. "They used to do some sort of research here - something to do with the war," he said, the words muffled. "There are a few of them dotted around Theed, and a much bigger one across the city where they did most of the work. I don't know what they did here, but it's the only one I've ever managed to get past the front door to, other than the one Jandon's gang holes-up next to, and he emptied that years ago. They're all underground... no one really knows who they were doing this stuff for, though. The Empire, I guess." Then he reappeared, holding up a box triumphantly.

He walked towards Vader, looking young and bright suddenly. He sat down in one of the mouldy, over-stuffed chairs, looking distinctly proud of himself. "Are you hungry?" Luke asked, pulling out bars of emergency rations from the box he had found.

"I... do not eat without removing my mask, which is not possible in this atmosphere."

Luke blushed brilliant red and looked away. "Oh, ah... yeah, sorry." He turned a ration bar over in his hand, not looking at Vader.

"You should eat, though."

The boy smiled briefly, as if he had been waiting for permission. He tore off the top and started chewing hungrily. Vader nearly - nearly - told him to slow down or he'd make himself sick, but he bit back the words just in time. Instead he said, "If this is a research facility, it may have its own power supply. And if it has communications equipment, we could -"

Luke was shaking his head. "No, it doesn't. None of them have any comm systems. And the power banks are dead."

"No communications system," Vader repeated slowly.

"Mmm-hmm," Luke replied, around a mouthful of food. "Someone destroyed most of the computers and equipment. This stuff," he said, gesturing around the room, "is all dead."

Vader turned that over in his mind, tempted to ask Luke what else he knew of this, because Vader had never heard of any such research from Padmé during her Senatorial days. But... perhaps it did not matter any longer. Probably it had been some amusement of Palpatine's that he'd lost interest in after winning the war. And if that was the case, it was likely that Vader did not want to know what his master had been up to. Because it was over now, whatever it had been. It was all over.

Vader leant back in the seat and closed his eyes. Everything ached, and yet they hadn't travelled far at all. Ah - if only he could access the Force, he could use it to boost his lagging energy reserves and they could leave this place far quicker than at the slow crawl they were making so far.

There was a strangely comfortable silence as Vader rested and Luke ate. A mocking part of Vader's inner voice thought distastefully of how inappropriate it was for a Dark Lord of the Sith to be comfortable in such a situation but, still, he could not bring himself to find it troubling.

Although he had been to Theed on two occasions, he had little memory of the city's layout or its size, and he spent several minutes trying to picture in his mind where they were or where they might be heading.

"How far is the city limit?" he eventually asked Luke, unable to picture their location. The boy jumped at the sudden conversation, and then energetically wiped his hands on his tunic and leant forwards.

"Well, imagine this is the river," he said and drew a wavering line in the dust on the nearby console. Vader nodded. "This is where the Palace used to be. And the docking port, the waterfalls - they're all long gone, of course."

"Of course," Vader echoed, although in truth he knew little of the city's current state of destruction and disrepair.

"Okay, well, Jandon's gang is based here," Luke said as he pressed a finger down in the dust. Vader noted that at the mention of the gang leader, the boy suddenly went silent for a few moments before seeming to shake himself free of some melancholy. "And we're here," he said.

Vader frowned. "That is closer to the city centre than where we started from," he pointed out.

Luke nodded. "Yeah, I know, but all the south side of the city is impassable. We have to get here," he stabbed at the dust again, "where we can cross the river and go west, then we can get out through the old residential district."

Vader studied the makeshift map, dismayed at the circular route the boy had plotted for them. "You seem to know the city well," he said, looking for reassurance that the boy knew what he was doing.

Luke, however, frowned at the statement. "I've lived here all my life," he said defensively.

Vader's mouth was open before he knew what he was going to say, and he was within a breath of saying - Where? With who? Why? - before he shut his mouth with an abruptness that jarred him. It wasn't that he didn't want to know the answers to the questions… was it?

Vader realised Luke was looking at him, puzzling him over, the ration bar forgotten in his hand. "You are certain this is the fastest route?" Vader asked, at last. Again, Luke looked affronted, and the childish delight of a few minutes ago was gone from his expression.

"Yeah, I'm sure."

"And where are we going?" he asked. This was safer ground. He could stick to the practical problems and deal with all the fallout of the discovery of his son once they were on safer territory and he had the Force to ground him. "My ship is -"

"I told you, it's been looted and stripped. Forget it."

Luke turned to him, Anakin's eyes looking him over and weighing him up. Vader had no Force shielding, and he felt naked without it. And cold - even the lining of his suit couldn't keep out the creeping frost. It burrowed its way into him, although he had the nagging feeling that it wasn't just the physical cold that chilled him. There were realisations yet to be had, if he would just accept them. But he would not. He could not.

"I presume you are not foolish enough to bring us out here without a plan."

He knew the words were wrong as soon as they were out of his mouth. Luke's eyes looked wounded, and his lips quirked into a self-mocking grin. "Perhaps I am."

Vader shook his head. Frustrated, he was frustrated. Once with himself, for being so weak that he couldn't stand, twice with this damn planet and three times with the Force and its ironic sense of retribution.

A reply - a denial that any son of his would ever be foolish - was on his lips, but Luke had swung his chair around, his back to Vader as he searched through the box he had found earlier. "Like I said, I know where there's a ship that's not looted, though," he said. "That's where we're going. It's... well, you might as well know… it was my mother's ship. I've got the beckon call for it. It's damaged, but it'll still show us where it is."

"Padmé's ship?" Vader asked, sucking in a harsh breath. "It's still here?"

Luke nodded slowly, perhaps wary of Vader's sudden agitation. "Yeah. When she died the ship was still out in the - Father!"

Vader has stood up suddenly, agitated into movement by Luke's words. His sudden, careless movement sent blinding pain shooting through his leg and he gasped in pain. But even as he did, he was almost grateful for the violent pain in his mind. It burned away the questions he knew he should ask, but that he wasn't sure he wanted to know the answers to yet. There would be time for those, time when they both got off this planet, when he had the Force back, had re-found his centre.

Small hands were pressing down on his forearms, urging him to sit again, and he looked down at Luke, stunned by the fear he saw there. He was frightening the boy, he realised, standing there like a statue, hands clenched in pain. He sat back down, slowly, less suddenly than he had stood.

"Here," Luke said, digging into his box and pulling out a handful of small, white packets.

"What is that?" Vader asked.

Luke held them out to Vader. "Med-patches. Haven't seen any of these in... well, in years." Vader looked down at them, undecided. Luke frowned. "What's wrong?"

Vader paused, again. It was getting to be a habit. "I am... unused to relying on drugs for pain relief."

Luke looked puzzled. "Huh?"

"The Force is a powerful ally - I have not required medical pain relief for some years."

Luke snorted, "Must be handy. Round here, people would slit your throat for one of these."

Vader didn't doubt it. "Honourless people," he muttered, in disgust. He refocused on the more important issue of what this ship was they were heading towards, and how far it was. "Padmé's ship - how do you know it has not been looted like my own? How do you know where it is? Why do you have the beckon call?"

But something about Vader's first comment - honourless people - must have struck a nerve for Luke, and he didn't answer. The boy went pale, and stood abruptly, walking away towards the blank screen. Vader could barely access the Force, but the boy radiated anger. He turned suddenly, eyes flashing in fury. "How can you say that?"

Vader remained silent, unnerved by the sudden temper his son displayed. And, yes, this was another one of Anakin's traits, coming back to haunt him.

"How can you say that?!" Luke repeated, clenching his fists by his side. "You... you did this to them - to all of them. If anyone is honourless then it's you."

Vader's temper flared in return. He was on his feet before he knew what he was doing, his hand stretching out, forming a fist -

- and nothing happened.

Luke stared at him, eyes wide. Apparently he knew exactly what that gesture spelled for him, and apparently Vader's anger was potent enough that even untrained, the boy could feel it beating at his skin like heat from a raging fire.

"I should'a known," Luke said slowly, backing away until his back hit the cracked plastiglass screen.

The words hit Vader somewhere near the solar plexus, and he dropped his hand abruptly. "You should not anger me -" he started to say, but Luke had turned away from him, facing the screen, spine stiff and straight as a saber-blade.

Vader supposed there were words of comfort or apology he should be using right now, but they wouldn't come to him, and he sank back down to his chair. This time, the silence between then was tense and uncomfortable. Eventually, Luke spoke.

"You better get some sleep, Father. We have to get moving again soon." The boy sounded exhausted suddenly, and he moved away from the screen to go sit in the chair farthest from Vader, turning so his back was to his father.

Father. The title echoed in his ears, sounding at once alien and familiar. He wanted to say something, but the words wouldn't come. And then the silence had lasted so long that he felt that if he did say something now it would be too loud, too jarring.

Eventually, despite the agitation of his thoughts, he slipped into an unquiet sleep.