Anakin stood part way across the gym from his son and beckoned. The boy stood up from the wall he had been learning against and began to walk towards his father before breaking into a tottering run. As he neared Anakin, he stumbled, and Anakin caught him and helped him to stand back up. Then he took ten steps away from the boy and beckoned again. They continued the process until they had crossed the gym.
At last, Anakin helped his son sit down on a bench, the boy's balance completely thrown off by his journey across the room.
"Good job, Luke. We're getting closer, aren't we?"
"Yeah," Luke said, smiling up at his father.
"Only twelve cycles to get across the gym tonight. That's down three from our first attempt last night."
"Last night was fifteen," Luke confirmed.
They had taken to coming to the gym after everyone else had left, accidentally entering the first night when the door was unlocked for the cleaning droids, and since having obtained permission to use it, and the access codes necessary. That way, their strange form of practice didn't get in anyone's way.
Luke's skills with moving and talking were improving rapidly, and Anakin was finally becoming more useful as a Jedi once again.
Their daily schedule rarely changed, but it was working wonders for both of them, and Anakin rather liked the stability.
From nine until five, like any other job, Anakin would perform Jedi duties. At his request, he mostly taught lightsaber dueling to the older students. Then he would return home, eat and watch a holoshow with Luke, from which his son was picking up a great deal of his speech, which meant Anakin had to be careful about his choices; they were currently watching a soap opera that hovered somewhere between boring and immensely complicated. When their show was finished, they would watch a movie before heading down to the gym.
Once they arrived at the gym, he would help Luke to practice walking and running. After they had improved at least two cycles from their first attempt of the evening, they would work on swimming. Luke insisted that it was silly at first, but finally gave up when Anakin started trying to teach him how to do flips in the water. Luke's attempts were still clumsy, and he still frequently needed help in righting himself again afterwards, but he was undeniably better at it than he had been.
Anakin only wished his son's abilities were par with Vader's son on at least one skill.
"I wonder how your brother is doing," he said to Luke.
"Yeah," Luke had learned not to respond with an echo of the original speaker's words.
"You spent some time with his father; do you think they'll be getting along well?"
Luke paused for a moment before smiling, nodding, and saying "Yeah."
"Why the pause?"
"He's… different."
"I know he is. Do you think he might hurt Luke?"
This time, Luke replied instantly, with utmost certainty, "No. Not on purpose. He just-," the boy searched for the right word, "Maybe he'll try going too fast."
"Too fast?" Anakin recognized the phrase he usually used when he tried to hurry Luke's learning process in the area of walking too much, "Your brother is pretty different from you. I think he can manage trying to learn a little faster."
Luke looked frustrated, as always at his inability to communicate, not his father, "He's different now. More love than before."
"Vader?"
"Yeah. He's different, and he might be different faster than Brother's expecting."
Anakin laughed, "Oh, you mean he changed."
Luke smiled, glad his father had understood, "Yeah."
"And you think he might surprise your brother?"
Luke's smile widened into a grin, "Yeah."
"I think your brother's up to it. He's waited for that a long time."
Luke's smile faded and he looked wistful, "Yeah. He'll be happy now?"
"Definitely."
Suddenly, much to Anakin's surprise, someone grabbed his neck.
He yanked out of the person's arms and spun, reaching for his lightsaber, to find Vader's son sinking to his knees on the bench, tears of laughter in his eyes.
"I g-got you," the boy laughed, "I so got you!"
Anakin forced his hand away from his lightsaber and laughed as well. Now that he was aware of who had snuck up on him, he felt calmer.
"Next time, care to not strangle me as a greeting?"
Luke grinned with excessive innocence, "Strangle you? I wasn't trying to strangle you. I just wanted to give my daddy a hug; after all I haven't seen you in days," he exaggerated each word to the point of ridiculousness.
Anakin opened his mouth to reply, but there was a familiar sucking at the air in the room, and Vader appeared.
"He surprised you?" the Dark Lord asked.
Anakin forced himself to relax, "Yeah."
"I've been trying to do that to my father, but I never seem to be able to."
Anakin sensed amusement from Vader, "I'm accustomed to frequent attempts on my life. Anakin fell out of the galactic spotlight years ago. He's lost his paranoia."
Luke grinned and sat down on the bench. Anakin took a seat between the two boys and gazed up at Vader before realizing that the other man would probably have a very hard time seating himself on the low bench.
"Any particular reason you're here?"
Vader didn't answer, merely starting to pace, glancing frequently at Anakin's son.
"No reason," Luke said happily, "I just wanted to see how you're doing. And Father won't admit it, but he wanted to see your son."
Vader released a strange feeling, prickly, but very much like pride. Perhaps annoyed amusement? Then he nodded, accepting it, and Anakin helped his son to his feet. Once he was balanced, the boy ran to the Sith, and Anakin hugged Vader's boy close.
He just heard Vader starting to proudly remark on how much better Luke now was at walking, then whispered in the other boy's ear, "How has he been treating you?"
Luke sat back, grinning, "It's been great."
"Nothing, uh, prison related then?"
"Nothing. It's been kind of confusing, but better than it would have been if he'd introduced your son to my galaxy. As it is, the story is that I've escaped from prison, and I'm currently wandering around Coruscant, trying to find a way off planet. All week's been one long fight about whether I'll be better off staying with him or going back to the Alliance."
"Gee, I have no idea which side you're on."
Luke laughed again, "I think he'd be having an easier time of this if he hadn't let me communicate with Han and Leia and tell them that I'm safe."
"One of my worse ideas," Vader conceded.
"If you're including the ideas that we had as a Jedi the first time 'round, that's pretty bad."
"It certainly is," Vader said with that same strange affectionate prickle.
Only Vader could make a prickle an affectionate thing.
"I just wanted to say hi and see how you're doing with him," Luke said with a smile, indicating Anakin's son, "And we should probably get home so Father can get back to working on overthrowing the Emperor. He works on it pretty much constantly now. I love you, Daddy."
Anakin hugged the boy one more time, asking Vader, "Are you sure you couldn't stay any longer?"
For the first time, exhaustion radiated from Vader. He shook his head.
Luke sat up and looked, slightly sourly, at his father, "I keep telling him I can manage the forces while he sleeps, but he won't listen to me," the boy turned to his father, "Would you do me a favour and tell him that I can take over occasionally? I can plan."
Another amused, affectionate prickle, "As you planned your rescue of the princess from the Death Star?"
"Hey! You'll notice my entire life had kind of switched around that day!"
The prickle continued as Vader released Anakin's son and put his arm around his own, and they disappeared.