All previous disclaimers apply.

Part Four

The boy was screaming as Vader stepped down into the interrogation cell and he was relieved that he had reinforced his barriers against the feelings the padawan was sending out. The boy was stretched upon a bench similar to the one that had held him when Palpatine's droids rebuilt him and he had to push away an odd sense of déjà vu, the feeling that this scene was uncomfortably familiar. He moved in closer as the prisoner gasped and pleaded against further hurt. If only the boy knew the power he could wield. If only he knew that he could easily end this himself, that the man tormenting him could be pushed aside with just a thought, that the droid pushing a hot pincher into his flesh could be crushed by simply closing his fist.

"See him…"

Obi-Wan was a fool not to have trained this child; he would have been a worthy opponent. As it was he was just another pathetic rebel. "What do you have?" he asked as the door closed behind him.

"Very little, my lord," the man simpered as Vader stepped up to the prisoner and the droid moved back allowing the Dark Lord some room. "His name, that he came from Tatooine, but nothing else. I am beginning to believe that he knows nothing of the Jedi."

"Anakin, see him!"

"I am not interested in names, commander," he reluctantly glanced at the prisoner in response to the desperation of the inner voice, but he did not acknowledge him, seeing only battered features and despair before turning his attention back to his subordinate. "Do you believe he knows anything of note?"

Luke gasped with some relief as the droid moved away and the searing pain from his shoulder injury lessened. He heaved in a breath, panted with difficulty as his bruised and stretched torso protested at his efforts. He hung his head, kept his eyes closed against the presence of the Dark Lord, feeling his head throb in time with each breath the man took. He could barely hear the conversation that Vader was having with his tormentor over the rushing of blood in his ears. He wanted nothing more than to pass out, to faint into peaceful darkness.

"Luke?"

"No, my Lord," the officer responded to Vader, he held out his hand for the data pad that the nearest guard held and glanced through the information gathered during the interrogation. There wasn't much. "He claims to be a farmer from Tatooine and that the Rebel droids were sold to his uncle by something called 'Jawas.' This has been corroborated by the troopers searching on Tatooine and…"

"What of Kenobi?" Vader drawled, taking no heed of the panting and gasps of pain from the boy, his incoherent whispers. "What of the Jedi."

"B… Ben?" the boy muttered.

"Very little," the officer replied, ignoring the prisoner. "He says he knew Kenobi but didn't know he was Jedi until…"

"Please… Ben…" Luke pleaded, looking for guidance in this impossible situation.

"Tell Vader…"

Luke felt nothing but hatred of that name, the name of the man who had him tortured, the man who had killed his father.

Vader sensed a tiny flutter within the Force, a brief flicker of light and a flash of a thought from the youth. An image in his mind, unformed and unfocused, but it was clearly himself wielding his sabre in battle against a Jedi, but not Kenobi. This man was taller, his features obscured as though forgotten, or simply unknown.

"…so we simply proceeded as you or…"

Vader waved his subordinate quiet. Something was wrong here; something didn't fit. The Force flowed around him becoming deeper and darker by the moment and the shadows swamped the image the boy had projected and hid the truth of what was happening just out of his reach. This child was an enigma, a puzzle.

Why would Kenobi not teach a boy with such possibility? It defied understanding.

"Search your feelings."

That had always been Kenobi's advice, and of late Sidious had picked up the mantra. If there was something needing to be understood then his feelings would reveal it. However, there had been times when his feelings clearly had revealed the truth to him and he had been ignored by his masters, or manipulated by them.

"Dreams pass in time."

Obi-Wan had been wrong. Dreams don't always pass, sometimes they came to be and then lingered to torment him.

"Va…der.." Luke muttered, squinting trying to see through blood and tears.

"Yes, Luke… Tell Vader about your father!"

The boy's mumble, and a spark of angry hatred within the Force, interrupted his thoughts and he spared the battered figure a curious glance. The child was trying to lift his head, trying to see through swollen eyes and Vader suddenly felt uncomfortable at the courage he saw within the movement, ill at ease with the sight of the bound and tortured youth struggling to raise his head to face his accusers. Suddenly this felt wrong and his stomach twisted with vague anxiety.

"My… my…Fa..th..er?" Luke was tired, his consciousness becoming unfocused. He didn't understand what Ben wanted. He just wanted this to stop.

Vader took an involuntary step back as the youth's eyes focused briefly on him.

The officer laughed beside him, explaining. "He's been calling for his father for a while, My Lord."

Vader slowly nodded, not surprised that the boy had been reduced to calling for his parents. It was common for prisoners to become like children and, lost within terror and despair, they would call for parental comfort.

He gathered himself, annoyed that he had allowed the boy's presence to provoke him, to remind him of his past. It was time to grant that comfort, time to silence Obi-Wan once and for all and to purge the Jedi from the galaxy, from himself.

"Dispose of him." He turned to leave, inexplicably unable to witness the padawan's demise; after all he had killed younger himself. Why should this one's death have such an unsettling effect? Why did the Dark Side purl in anticipation and why did desperation push at the edges of his feelings?

"No! Anakin!"

Unthinking, Luke repeated. "An… akin."

"Yes, Luke", the voice of Obi-wan implored. "Tell Vader. Your father…"

"My…fa..ther," he whispered in turn, wanting Vader to know. Wanting the man who murdered his father to know he was his father's son. He craned his head to look at Vader as the officer took his pistol from its holster. The Dark Lord's back was to him.

"…was Anakin!"

"An… Anakin," he whispered, but the effort was too much and his head fell forward and he slumped limply in the restraints, closed his eyes as the officer pointed the gun at his head and he waited for the shot.

Vader stopped at the sound of that name uttered by a youth he did not know. Stopped at the sound of that name uttered with the word 'father.'

"Hear him, Anakin!"

"Wait," he ordered softly, turning around and placing his hand on the raised gun. He turned his opticals on the youth, noticing how slight and small and young the rebel was. "You said he gave his name."

Luke drew in another breath as Vader spoke, grimacing as his shattered ribs protested against the movement. He could feel blood bubbling in his throat and he swallowed it down and choked and coughed, fighting a wave of nausea. Through his fatigue he heard the request for his name and he wondered what the monster's reaction would be, if he would recognise the name of the Jedi he had betrayed and murdered years ago. If he would know that Luke was the son of Skywalker.

"Yes, sir," the Lieutenant told Vader. "Skywalker, Luke Skywalker."

Everything became still and the gale that had been the Force ebbed and calmed in that tiny instant as though they were caught within the eye of a storm.

"Anakin something wonderful has happened".

With a sudden and awful realisation the feelings crashed in, and Vader was looking at Padme's scared and nervous face as she watched for his reaction, he was waking from a nightmare in which his wife screamed her agony and a baby's cry echoed from the shadows, he was lost in anger as he lifted his hand against the woman he loved, he was bent over in anguish, in dreadful grief as her loss and the loss of his child sank in.

No…

It was impossible. She had died, and the child died, too. He had watched her funeral, had forced himself to view the recording of the occasion in a fit of self-flagellation and he had seen her swollen belly. He had grieved, had used his anger and self-hatred to enhance the power he now wielded. The child was lying dead within its mother womb.

My child…

And here was this youth arriving in the company of Obi-Wan Kenobi, this youth who said his name was Skywalker. From Tatooine…

Luke didn't know what was happening, but something was wrong, something was terribly wrong and he was at their mercy still. He involuntary cried aloud, squeezing his eyes shut against it all.

Vader stepped closer, lifted his hand, wanting to reach out and tilt the prisoner's chin higher so that he could study his features, but he held back as the boy cried out and flinched against the movement and he closed his fists tight in an effort to control himself. He forced himself to speak. "You mentioned an uncle…" And he wasn't sure if he addressed the detention centre officer, or the youth himself.

"Yes, sir." The man responded nervously, unsure of the sudden change in Vader's mood. He holstered his pistol, lifted the data pad. "Lars, Owen Lars."

"I guess I'm your stepbrother…"

This was impossible! This couldn't be! He stared at the boy hanging on the bench, the boy who only moments before seemed resigned to die, who, twice now, he had ordered destroyed only to belay the command. The youth softly groaned his pain and confusion, bright blood spilled from open wounds, sweat mixed with the blood and matted his hair, his body was mottled with deep bruising and was stretched beyond endurance.

It couldn't be! This child couldn't be…

My son…

And yet, the Force surrounded them both, thick and potent with power. It seemed to hover around them as though waiting, as though it had preordained this moment and awaited its outcome, waited for him to come to a decision as it had almost two decades before.

"What have I done?"

He reached out to the Force, reached out to the battered child before him and gently probed. There was no fight, no barrier to him. The boy was scared, terrified and in so much pain. So much agony that it was almost unbearable, almost like…

Hot winds fanning the flames as they surged over his body, searing black sand and ash hampering him as he tried to crawl from the river of flowing lava… and Obi-Wan turning away, walking away, leaving him to burn…

…and more; a presence - an innocence and gentleness, courage and tenacity, conviction and enthusiasm and…

It was her… the boy felt like her…

It was true. He knew it to be true. He didn't need DNA analysis, he didn't need a midi-chlorian count. Obi-Wan was right and the Force had revealed the truth. This youngling was…

"My son. My grown up son."

Son.

"What have I done?"

His son. Her son. Their child was hanging bound and tortured on his orders. Interrogated when he could know no answers. Vader moaned and clenched his fists tighter, lowered his head and closed his eyes against the sight of his injured son, at the result of his orders.

I didn't know… how could I know! My son… hidden from me.

And his fury and hatred grew. The Jedi had tricked him again. They had turned his wife against him, had secreted her away, allowed her to die in childbirth as he had foreseen and then had spirited his child away. And this was the consequence of their actions; son pitted against father and left to suffer at his father's hands.

"Anakin, please… you are wiser than this!"

"M…my Lord?" the officer tentatively asked, unsure of the sudden change in Vader's demeanour.

Vader turned with a snarl and the officer was sent flying to smash into the opposite wall, he fell limply to the floor and lay still. The two guards swiftly backed up trying to put some distance between the enraged Dark Lord and themselves as the torture droid was crushed in mid air and left to drop in a heap of broken circuits and bloodied plating.

Luke was aware only of noise and feelings, of darkness closing in, pressing in on his weakened body, holding onto him as solidly as the metal restraints did. He knew it was his name that had caused it, knew that Vader had remembered something, knew something of his father and had recognised him. He felt, rather than saw, the Dark Lord turn back to him, felt that he had once again become the focus of the man's attention.

It terrified him.

"Be calm, Luke".

Ben. Why didn't Ben help him? Why did he merely whisper in his ear and leave him open to their ministrations?

"Please…" he pleaded roughly, not knowing if it was Ben or the Dark Lord he was speaking to, not caring. "Please…" Then he cried out as the table he was on moved back into its horizontal position.

"No! Ple…ase, please…" Tears of panic mixed with blood and slid down the side of his face. "Please…" There was nothing else left to say, he could only beg not to be hurt again as Vader reached for him. "Ple…ase."

Vader ignored the pleas and loosened the taut chains of the rack, opened the binders holding his son's wrists and ankles. He turned to the two guards. "Leave me! Have a medic report here immediately," he glanced down at the boy as Luke stirred, as he tried futilely to move away from the giant who hovered over him. "Remain still," he ordered and looked back up to where the guards had hesitated. "Now!" he barked at them and they scurried out, leaving him alone with his son.

ooOOoo