Vader visits early in the morning, only minutes after Luke awakes from an uneasy sleep. The fog that lingers over his brain in those few precious moments after waking clears up the second he hears the obscenely loud respirated breathing penetrate the peaceful silence of the med bay.

Luke, still laying on his side, considers feigning sleep. He desperately wants to avoid any more confrontations with his so-called "father". But as tempting as the idea is, it's not realistic. Vader probably knows Luke is awake already. He seems to know everything.

With a long sigh, he sits up and faces Vader. He maintains a respectful distance from Luke's cot, not making a move to come closer. It makes an odd mixture of relief and discomfort flash through him; relief that Vader's icy Force presence isn't pressing closer, and discomfort from not knowing what he wants this time.

Is he here to drop another life altering revelation? Perhaps he has an evil twin that he never knew about somewhere in the galaxy?

"The medic tells me that you are making more than adequate progress in your recovery."

The sudden declaration startles Luke out of his musings. For a second, he has no idea how to respond. Vader doesn't seem like the kind of man he could make smalltalk with, and he's not even sure he would want to.

"Then why do I still have to see her?" he finally spits out.

"Your condition is stable, but you are still malnourished," Vader insists. "And if the bags under your eyes are any indication, you are suffering from sleep deprivation as well."

Luke's ears burn with embarrassment at the accusation. Malnourished is too strong of a word, he thinks. So what if he's a little thin? He's far too old to be reprimanded on his eating and sleeping habits, especially by the likes of Vader.

"I'm fine," he grumbles. "I think my weight is the least of my concerns at the moment."

The hiss of the respirator fills the room as Vader pauses.

"There are many things you should be concerned about, young one," he finally says.

The implication behind Vader's words makes Luke's blood run cold. His hands go to rub up and down his arms, drawing out what little warmth he can.

"What's our plan then?"

Vader tilts his helmet slightly, and Luke realizes his mistake. He said "our plan". As if they have some sort of kinship or common goal. Even the thought of working with Vader for any reason makes his stomach turn over.

What would Leia say? What about Han, or Wedge, or Wes and Hobbie and Dak?

"My plan involves you remaining out of sight here in this med bay," Vader responds. "I will not allow you to assist me in the recovery of this tape and risk the chance of exposure."

Luke huffs. He's spent too long in the med bay, especially for someone who isn't even injured anymore. Of course he realizes that it's the only place on the ship to hide out, but he's sick of hiding out. He's restless and aching to do something, anything.

"You can't keep me here forever, you know," he challenges.

Vader takes a step forward. It's almost too small to notice, but the icy tendrils coming closer to Luke's chest make it hard for him to miss.

"I can do whatever I wish, my son."

The term of endearment makes Luke bristle.

"Please don't call me that," he begs. The words come out far more desperate than he intended.

It seems Vader is not moved.

"You are my son, whether you wish to acknowledge that fact or not."

"You don't know the meaning of the word," Luke shoots back.

Luke is not a person who gets angry easily. Annoyed, irritated, even vindictive, yes. But he's always had a calm, level head. Vader just seems to love goading him into a rage like no one else can. It scares him sometimes.

"And what do you mean by that?" Vader asks, his voice deadly quiet. It's almost enough to make Luke back down.

Almost.

"Fathers are… they're supposed to… to protect and love their children," he argues. "Fathers are supposed to go to the ends of the galaxy just to make sure their children stay safe and happy. My uncle did that for me, but you never did."

Vader's fists clench at his side. The iciness that looms over Luke's body seems to grow even stronger. He rubs his hands together to warm them up.

When Vader's fists unclench, the coldness begins to retreat.

"Lars was not your blood," he snaps. "You were stolen from me by Kenobi. He was the one who denied you the chance to have a father."

The rush of emotions that Vader is feeling come at Luke like blaster fire. Now that he's open to Vader through the Force, every emotion the other man feels is potent enough in his mind that he could almost mistake them for his own. Normally, Luke feels a block in their… "connection", as if Vader doesn't want him to feel what he feels. But he can't feel that block now.

He feels anger, malice, a thirst for vengeance, and… regret.

Regret for what? he wonders.

He shakes the question out of his head. It's probably just regret that he didn't kill Luke's aunt and uncle himself.

"He was protecting me!" Luke declares. "I was better off with them than I would have ever been with you."

Vader's respirator seems to skip a few cycles, as if he stopped breathing for a moment. Luke wonders if he just imagined it.

"There is no such thing as "better off" on that miserable wasteland of a planet," he hisses, venom dripping from his words. "I could have given you the galaxy."

Though Luke silently agrees with his summary of Tatooine, he doesn't regret a moment of his childhood. Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru made him follow a long list of rules he resented at the time, but they always made sure he knew he was loved. When harvests didn't yield enough to keep them all fed, they would go without just so Luke would have enough to eat. They wouldn't take so much as a scrap of his food, no matter how much he offered. That was love.

What Vader has shown him is far, far from it.

"I'd be better off in the Sarlacc Pit than anywhere with you," he scoffs. "Tatooine was a boring dustball, sure, but at least my aunt and uncle loved me. Could you have done that? Are you even capable of love?"

Vader takes a few quick, giant steps forward until he's right beside Luke's cot. His imposing form looms over the much smaller boy, rage spilling through their Force bond. It makes Luke's breath catch in his throat. He knows that Vader isn't choking him, but the intensity of the anger pouring out of him is enough to rip all the air out of his lungs.

"Do not imagine to know what I can or cannot feel," he growls. "You understand nothing. Absolutely nothing."

Luke opens his mouth, but no words come out. Vader's rage swirls around in his mind, in his heart, in the pit of his stomach. He's never been able to feel another person's emotions so intensely, as if they were his own. It's equal parts intoxicating and terrifying.

"Then make me understand."

Vader leans away from him as if he's been slapped. He makes no move to respond, but Luke can feel his eyes on him. Though he can't see them through that opaque mask, he just knows.

A question bubbles up inside of him, too burning to ignore.

"Did you love my mother?"

The anger Vader was projecting recedes at last, allowing Luke to breathe easier. Vader turns his back on him, his mental shields going up like walls around his Force presence. Luke can't feel anything coming from him. To be so open to someone else's emotions only to have it ripped away feels like a punch to the stomach.

"Yes, I did," he says at last.

Relief washes over Luke. Ever since Piett told him that the Jedi weren't allowed to have spouses or children, he wondered if his birth was the result of some sort of affair. He worried that Vader wouldn't even know who his mother was.

The relief is quickly replaced with confusion. Vader is a monster, a murderer, someone who shouldn't have the emotional capacity to love. Yet Luke can feel the truth in Vader's words. Whoever his mother was, she meant a great deal to him.

How did a man who loved someone so strongly turn into this?

"What was her name?" he prods.

Vader's head jerks around to glance back at him so quickly it makes him flinch.

"You mean," he starts, his voice deadly calm. "No one ever told you her name?"

Rage begins to swirl around him once again, but it's tinged with some other emotions Luke can't decipher.

"I don't think… I-I don't think they knew her name," Luke sputters. "My aunt and uncle, I mean."

Vader whirls around to face him, his rage only growing stronger.

"Kenobi knew her. He knew her and he kept it from you."

"We didn't have enough time," Luke argues. "Besides, if it's anyone's fault, it's mine for only asking about you and not her."

A tense silence hangs in the air between them. The only thing Luke can hear is the creaking of leather as Vader clenches and unclenches his fists over and over again. After a few uncomfortable moments, he becomes convinced Vader will never tell him. His shoulders slump in disappointment. He shouldn't have gotten his hopes up. It's not even common knowledge that Vader was once Anakin Skywalker, so he must be determined to keep his past from everyone, even his own—

"Padmé."

Luke snaps out of his thoughts and looks up at Vader.

"What?"

"Her name," he says. "It was Padmé."

Padmé.

He rolls the name around in his mind.

Padmé, Padmé, Padmé…

It sounds pretty. He likes to imagine that she was pretty, too. When he was little, he used to imagine a kind woman with curly brown hair and chocolate brown eyes. He would imagine that she was somewhere in the galaxy, desperate to reunite with her son. Over the years, as he's thought about her less and less, the image has faded from his mind. Sometimes, he misses that imaginary mother.

"What happened to her?" he asks.

As soon as the words leave his mouth, the medical droid beside his bed is crushed into a ball of scrap and sparking wires. He winces at the sound of the screeching metal and the feeling that he's asked the wrong question.

"Enough!" Vader booms.

Luke flinches away from him in fear. He knows that he's being ridiculous, that Vader has kept his promise not to harm him, but the memories of his interrogation are still fresh in his mind. And Vader's so angry… What if he snaps?

The anger that was threatening to consume Luke recedes just slightly. He risks a glance at Vader. The other man has backed up even further from his cot.

"I do not wish to speak of her," he says, quieter.

Luke finally knows what that other emotion was that he felt mixing with the anger. It was sadness.

However his mother died, even thinking of it is bringing Vader great pain. The crippling intensity of it momentarily overwhelms Luke. His eyes screw shut as he tries to regain control of his own emotions. Vader seems to realize he's projecting his own volatile feelings, because his Force presence retreats from Luke's mind. He can feel the beginnings of a headache coming on.

The urge to learn more about his mother is begrudgingly pushed down by his fear of incurring Vader's wrath again. At least he knows her name now. That's more than he ever knew before. But there's still so many pieces missing from the puzzle. What was his mother like? Where was she from? How did she die? And most importantly, what the hell does Ben have to do with Luke ending up on Tatooine?

Did Vader even know I existed before I told him my name? Luke wonders. Was he looking for me all these years?

Luke narrows his eyes at Vader, examining him in a new light. He's a murderer; he killed Ben, he's killed countless friends of Luke's, and he as good as killed the entire population of Alderaan. But he was once a man who lost the woman he loved and, as far as Luke knows, his child as well. Is that what drove him to the Dark Side?

An uncomfortable ache that he recognizes as sympathy builds in his chest.

"I-I'm sorry if I brought up—,"

"It is of no consequence," Vader interrupts. "There is simply no point in reliving the past. We have more important things to attend to."

Luke raises an eyebrow.

"What "important things" are we talking here?"

Vader steps closer to Luke until his shin armor presses against the edge of the cot. He's close enough to touch, but Luke feels no fear. Somehow, he knows Vader won't hurt him. He knew it before, but now he feels it.

"I'm going to teach you how to shield yourself, young one."

Vader deserves more than a few hours in his meditation chamber for the restraint he's shown in the past few days. His son is far too curious for his own good, and too stubborn to let a subject drop. The kind of questions he's asking would have had Vader snapping his neck in seconds if it were anybody else. As it is, he struggles to let his anger strengthen his connection to the Dark Side while simultaneously keeping it from lashing out at his son.

He's already seen what happens when he loses control.

But finally, he feels a shift in the air between them. His son isn't refusing his training outright. His eyes don't hold the same hostility they held only minutes earlier. Instead, he sees a soft curiosity in them. Even a hint of excitement.

Whatever it is that won his son's favor, he doesn't care to know. He just has to make sure it isn't temporary.

"Shield myself from what?" he asks.

The boy is too inquisitive. He would not have lasted a minute under the instruction of the Jedi Order. Like his father before him, he is destined for much greater things than the Jedi.

"Only you and I know you are my son, as well as your role in the destruction of the Death Star," he explains. "I can keep this knowledge hidden from other Force users, including the Emperor. You, however, do not have that skill. That is why you must be taught how to shield."

Luke looks as though he wants to question him further, but he slowly nods his head in assent.

"This will be painful," Vader warns, and then without another word, he invades his son's mind.

Luke gives a startled gasp as Vader begins to dig around in his head. He doesn't wish to hurt his son like this, but it's necessary to teach him with these extreme methods. Coddling him will only make it take longer to learn, and they're under a massive time constraint.

'Focus on pushing me out of your mind,' he tells him as he delves further in. 'Picture your shields going up like walls to close me out.'

Luke attempts to follow his instructions, but Vader hardly feels more than a light shove. He lightly prods at a memory of Luke's to give him some more incentive. Luke's alarm is palpable through the Force, but he still can't raise his shields.

'You have to do more than just think it,' he insists. 'You have to command it. Bend the Force to your will, just as She bends you to Hers."

He can distantly hear Luke huffing in frustration. The boy is too much like he was once; impatient, frustrated by the abstract nature of the Force. There's too much Anakin Skywalker in him. Vader makes a mental note to rid him of those traits in the near future.

Without another warning, he begins to sort through his son's memories.

"Aren't you a little short to be a stormtrooper?"

…

"I'm Luke Skywalker. I'm here to rescue you!"

…

"Okay. Take care of yourself, Han. I guess that's what you're best at, isn't it?"

…

"For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic. Before the dark times. Before the Empire."

…

"I want to come with you to Alderaan. There's nothing more for me here now. I want to learn the ways of the Force and become a Jedi like my fa—,"

The boy reacts violently to Vader's intrusion, lashing out at his Force presence. The pure Light the boy expels momentarily burns his Dark tendrils, but it's not enough to push him out. He's felt far worse.

'Just attacking me won't keep me from entering your mind,' he reminds him. 'The walls, Luke. Focus on building your mental walls.'

Perhaps this method of teaching is a bit cruel, but at least Vader isn't dredging up the things the boy wants most to keep hidden. The Emperor would not be so merciful.

So he presses on.

"Great, kid! Don't get cocky."

…

"Hey, Biggs. I told you I'd make it someday."

…

"Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only—,"

With a burst of white light, Vader feels his connection to Luke's mind sever. He prods at the walls Luke has built to see if they'll collapse on his command. They refuse to yield. Vader is sure if he was given enough time, he would be able to bypass them, but the fact that Luke was able to erect such strong walls in the first place is admirable. He's more impressed by his son than he would dare to admit.

The boy is trembling and breathing heavily from the exertion, but his eyes hold a determined glint that Vader knows far too well. He's using all his waning mental strength to keep those shields up. If he were better trained, shielding would be second nature to him. One day's worth of practice isn't enough to perfect even the simplest of Force practices.

But it's better than nothing.

"I hated that," Luke breathes.

"Noted. Now rest."

Luke's nose scrunches up in confusion.

"But I just woke up."

"And you have already overexerted yourself, so now you're going rest," he commands. "Unless of course, you wish to perfect your shielding instead?"

The thinly-veiled threat earns him a scowl, but it has the desired effect. Luke throws his Imperial-issue blanket over himself and presses his face down into the pillow rather dramatically.

"I resent this, Father," he retorts, his voice muffled by the pillow.

"I will make a note of that as well. Now sleep."

His son succumbs to the suggestion placed in his mind, slipping into unconsciousness. He's strong in the Force. Vader knows he could have resisted it if he wanted to. He must have chosen to allow it. To some degree, he must trust Vader enough to give him that power.

Vader tears his eyes away from the sleeping boy and rushes out of the med bay, heading towards his meditation chamber. Perhaps if he immerses himself in the Force, he will stop hearing Luke's voice saying "Father".

The distant echo is making his weak heart speed up for reasons he cannot determine.