Luke woke up and blinked around the cave his father had built for him. Vader wasn't present, so Luke got up and walked out of the cave.

His father was on his hands and knees painting mud into holes in the structure.

"Hello."

Vader looked up for a moment, then gave a sharp nod.

Luke felt a twinge in his stomach. He'd been hoping that when his father had held him it had been an indication that all was forgiven and forgotten. Apparently not.

"Can I help?"

Vader indicated the mud that made up the ground and to a patch of unpatched holes.

Luke knelt in the mud and started patching the wall. Looking over at his father's patching, he felt a mixture of comfort and despair. Vader was doing an excellent job. Whilst an excellent symbol of caring, it said very clearly that Vader didn't think they would be getting off anytime soon.

He dipped one hand into the mud around his knees. As he began to splatter it across the holes, he tried to make conversation with his father.

"Any idea how long it'll be before someone comes looking for you?"

"It depends on whether or not Palpatine finds another apprentice. If he does, no one will come at all."

"Oh," Luke said, and sat in silence for several minutes, waiting for his father to ask when his friends would be coming for him. Vader didn't, so Luke felt compelled to fill the gap, "If he does find a new apprentice, but we manage to get off anyway, what would you do?"

Vader didn't answer.

Luke sighed and returned his full attention to patching. It wouldn't hurt too much to talk to him, would it?

"How far back does that patch start?" Vader asked, suddenly standing at Luke's shoulder. Luke leapt to the side automatically, landing on his back in the mud.

Embarrassed, he sat back up, "Which one?"

Vader pointed.

"I dunno. Maybe a couple of inches?"

"The rain will wash it away. You need to start further back."

Luke nodded, and his father moved onto another patch.

Frustrated, he dug the patch back out. He started again, but found himself unable to concentrate. His father was right beside him! He'd always wanted to be close to his father, but Vader was resolutely ignoring him!

Wouldn't it be nice for him too if they were to put everything behind them and just be family? At this point, it didn't look like they would ever be getting back to their warring factions. They might as well try to be close.

"Father, what was Mom like?"

Vader didn't even respond. Not a twitch, never mind a word.

Luke sighed. Maybe conversation was a bad idea. It was clearly not helping either one of them. Maybe if he was patient, his father would decide that he wanted to speak to his son!

With that comforting thought, Luke's mind drifted from the patch he was making. As it followed the roads the idea of rescue, and family ties, brought, he was taken further and further from the mud in his hand.

"Luke!"

Luke thought it was part of his daydream and didn't react.

"Luke!" Vader's next call was accompanied with a shake.

Luke blinked, "Huh?"

"This is a shelter, not a work of art," Vader said, pointing to Luke's patch. In his dreamlike state, Luke had doodled a number of spirals and stars into its surface.

Luke started to bristle before he noticed the lightness in his father's voice. Was that as close as his father came to laughter?

"Sorry," Luke said, going to wipe away the drawings, "I got distracted."

Vader batted his son's arm out of the way, "You may as well leave it. But maybe you should try to focus a little more."

Blushing, Luke returned to patching.

Suddenly, there was the strangest sensation from his hand. He ignored it, continuing patching.

"Luke, there's something wrong with your hand."

Luke had been daydreaming again, though he'd managed to stay more on-task. He looked down at his hands. The left one seemed fine, but the right one…. his father was right. There was something strange about it.

Vader grabbed his hand, bringing it closer to his mask for further investigation.

Luke tried to yank it back, "I'm fine."

"Luke, if we can, we should fix it now before it has the chance to get any worse."

Luke started to feel skittish, not really wanting to trust his father to repair his dominant hand. He didn't know how to say that, though, so he allowed his father to continue to poke at it.

Finally, Vader released his hand.

"Make a fist."

Luke did as he was told and Vader nodded.

"Good."

Luke turned away and continued patching. Of course his father wouldn't talk to him when he wanted to talk, but the moment he let his mind wander, his father would have something that desperately needed saying.

He began to wonder if he let his mind wander often enough if his father would eventually fall to a friendlier topic of conversation.

To test it, he told himself, he let his mind drift again to living with his father.

"Luke?"

Luke snapped out of it in record time.

"If Palpatine does find a new apprentice, what do you think I should do? He'd kill me. Your alliance would kill me. In my current state, I am not particularly capable of hiding."

Luke looked at his father. The older man had finished all the patches except for the area Luke was working on, it seemed.

"I don't know. I guess I never thought about that."

"If I were to take you in, they would be after you as well. If I act as your father now, and we have to part ways, it'll only hurt you."

Luke was somewhat glad to finally have a topic that he could argue, "That's not true. If it means that you've treated me as a son, that'll make all the difference in the galaxy. Anyway, I think I'm already just about as attached to you as I can get. I mean, if anything were to happen to you now, I think I'd probably hate myself."

Vader moved to start patching some of the holes beside Luke, "If anything were to happen to you, I know I'd hate myself. Of course, I already do, but that's beside the point."

Luke didn't know how to answer that. There was only one answer that felt genuine, but his father would think he was being childish.

Vader finished patching the last of the holes and shunted his son back into the dry shelter. He threw a couple of logs on the fire, ones he had moved inside before the rain.

The fire gave an apparently grateful shower of sparks. Luke didn't know what to say to his father. He really, really wanted to speak to him, but his father's defeatist attitude was beginning to make him feel depressed.

It was Vader who finally broke the silence, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have burdened you with that."

Luke shrugged slightly, "It's all right. It was nice that you spoke to me at all."

Vader didn't answer. But he seemed to notice Luke's shivering, because a moment later, he was wrapping his cape around Luke's shoulders.

As Luke took the hem in his hand and stared into the fire, he spoke, "Father? If Palpatine ever does find a new apprentice, and you can get away from him, you'll let me know, won't you? I'd be happy to help you. We could hide someplace like this, and I could buy the things we need. It would be kind of wonderful. Like camping, almost."

He looked up at his father with a smile.

Vader turned sharply away, "I forgot to put out something to collect water in. I'll go look for something."

Luke watched as his father left, wondering if that was what it had looked like, his father being overwhelmed by Luke's dedication. Luke told himself that that wasn't it, that his father was only doing that now because it had just occurred to him.