To Vader's surprise, and eventually relief, he didn't fall back into the pattern of abusing the child at every turn. There came a time when Luke was strong enough to move around by himself. But instead of returning to beating the boy, Vader found the kindness to come more easily. He had forgotten how good it felt to make someone else happy. He had forgotten his own longing to be a parent to someone, but Luke was happy to remind him of that.

Vader had been shocked to discover that even when he was angry, he couldn't bring himself to torture Luke again. Instead, he would go up to his room and sit down on the bed and stew until Luke inevitably came to join him and listen to his problems.

All the while, Luke maintained a grip on some of the rules that Vader had laid down when he was still happy to hurt the child. He never ate when Vader hadn't offered him food, and nothing in the galaxy could convince him to enter the hanger Vader had forbidden. After several failed attempts to convince Luke to enter it, Vader finally gave up, and moved his tools to one of the hangers already filled with repaired speeders.

He had smiled to himself the whole time as Luke had sat in the new hanger and watched him moving the repaired speeders to the old one, and the broken down ones to the new one. It had been a ridiculous and pointless undertaking from a logical perspective, but Vader had learned to like having the boy around. After the time he had spent frantically nursing a kitten-weak child back to health, it was comforting to see the boy moving around by himself.

It hurt him to see how easily scared Luke was. The boy would turn to run whenever old rules were mentioned, clearly terrified that he had broken one and Vader had decided to fall back on the old rules. Vader tried not to mention them.

His idea of happiness transitioned from torturing Luke to spending time with him. Luke had an extremely limited understanding of the galaxy, for obvious reasons, and he wanted desperately to know more about where he lived.

Vader was sitting at the table eating his breakfast before going to look for Luke when there was suddenly a huge yawn from the sofa that dominated the half of the room that Vader considered to be a living room. Of course, the castle had more than enough space for each conceivable type of room to have three or four rooms dedicated to it, but the idea of trying to use the whole castle was claustrophobic at best.

Vader turned to the source of the sound. Sticking up over the back of the sofa were a pair of arms and a pair of legs, twitching slightly. Confused, and concerned, Vader went to the sofa to check on the boy. Luke gave another yawn and his limbs lowered themselves again as he curled back up.

Vader grinned at the boy, "That was quite a stretch."

Luke's eyes opened. "Huh?"

"I thought you might have been having a seizure." Vader said, smiling.

Luke smiled too, sitting up. Vader took a seat next to him, wrapping one arm around him, as had become their custom when sitting was still overly taxing on Luke.

"How're you feeling this morning?" Vader asked, "Hungry?"

"Yeah, a bit. I'm doing all right, thanks. How 'bout you?"

Vader smiled, standing and helping Luke to his feet. "I'm doing pretty well. I'm a bit hungry, and I was just about to have breakfast when you yawned. Do you think you can fix your own breakfast?"

"Sure. When can I start cooking again?"

"Huh?"

"You said I wasn't supposed to cook until you started letting me eat again. Since you let me eat sometimes now, can I cook too?"

"If you want to, sure. And I've tried to tell you, you can eat whenever you-"

But Luke's face was becoming terrified again. Vader stood and pulled him close.

"Shh, Luke. Shh. I didn't mean to scare you. Everything's going to be okay."

Luke let out a frightened whimper and broke down, sobbing. Vader gently led him back to the sofa and sat down, holding Luke close. As the boy cried helplessly, Vader rocked him, still trying to comfort him.

"I'm sorry, Luke. I didn't mean to frighten you."

Slowly, Luke calmed down again, snuggling close against Vader's chest.

"I'm sorry. It's just that-that…" The boy sniffled again.

"I know. It's hard for you. I'm sorry I contributed to that. Sit down and I'll bring you your breakfast."

Luke took a deep breath and stood up, "No. I'll get it. You're right, I need to get over this."

"Don't push yourself. Everything's going to be okay." Vader said, gently pushing Luke back into the sofa. "Do as I say and let me feed you."

Luke sniffled again and didn't try to get back up. Vader gave the boy a quick squeeze before filling a cereal bowl for Luke and taking his own. They sat together as they ate, Vader afraid that Luke would start to cry again and choke.

When the boy finished, Vader took his bowl and put both in the dishwasher, taking Luke down to the new hanger.

Luke pulled out his usual cleaning cloth before Vader had the chance to say anything. He happily walked to a particularly grimy speeder and climbed onto the hood, beginning to polish. Taking a toolkit, Vader followed him.

"Luke, I appreciate what you're doing, but would you like to learn how to make it run?"

Luke looked up with such speed that Vader could have sworn he heard a *crick* from the boy's neck.

"Yes!"

Vader smiled, "Then get off the hood, we need to get under there."

Luke leapt off the ship, putting his rag down and moving to Vader's side to watch intensely as Vader began explaining the problem with the ship.

Finally, Vader closed the hood, having repaired the ship with Luke's help. "Did you get that?"

Luke was still gazing catatonically at the hood, finally he shook himself out of it, "Yeah, I think so."

"Good. There's another ship over there with the same problem," Vader pointed. "I'll move to a ship nearer it so I can help if anything goes wrong. I want you to fix it."

"Me?" Luke asked, sounding startled.

"Yes, you. Now, come on, I'll show you to the ship."

Luke nodded nervously, "What if I mess up? It won't-it won't burst into flames, or anything like that, will it?"

Vader smiled, trying to avoid laughing and hurting the boy's feelings. "No, it won't. Not unless you make some mistakes physically large enough that I would see you doing them."

Luke gave a sigh of relief, "Oh. Okay."

Vader passed the boy the tools he needed and moved on to working with the ship beside it. Sooner than Vader would ever have guessed, Luke was coming around the ship, covered in grime and looking quite pleased with himself. "Done!"

Vader climbed off the shuttle he had been working on, joining Luke to look at the boy's work. "That's very good. I'm proud of you, S-" Vader broke off. He had been about to call the boy 'son'.

"What?" Luke asked, looking at Vader.

"Nothing. It was nothing." Vader shook his head.

"I- okay. If you're sure. I'm tired. May I go to bed?"

Vader nodded, feeling strange. It had felt so natural. He had just been speaking to the boy and the name had nearly escaped him. He had nearly called Luke his son. But Luke wasn't. He wasn't, and Vader shouldn't have felt that way about him. It was an insult to his son's memory. His child's memory. His baby hadn't necessarily been a boy. He was projecting the child on Luke. He was lying to himself. He was allowing a slave to take his feelings for his child.