Special thanks to BiP, Vi-Violence, Defiance of Fate, ILDV, Sallee, guests, Shy Mary Butterfly, Radum Person, Rookworm, the drizzling rain, FireChildSlytherin, masterdisk, Iris, Edhla, Candace Marie.
99.2% MATCH.
The numbers flashed across the screen. Luke's breath hitched, and he scanned them again, eyes going back and forth over the flashing letters.
For a paternity test to be confirmed, the percentage of success had to be ninety-nine point nine percent match, but this was close enough to show relation, at the very least. He wasn't sure why he had tried a paternity test in the first place; if anything, Ani was almost young enough to be his son, but the image of a young Anakin Skywalker had lodged itself into his mind and refused to budge. So, compulsively, he'd set up the test.
Himself, his father and Ani were related. Which meant that he had family left, and maybe it also meant that Ani knew something about Anakin Skywalker. He grinned giddily.
Turning back to his computer, he memorized the contents one last time, then deleted the file.
The smuggler had left and the pilot had returned, looking incredibly happy. Vader made an attempt to figure out the reason, then gave up. He didn't care why D- -no, Luke was happy. Because he was miserable.
"Hey," Luke greeted, far too cheerfully, plopping down onto the bunk opposite him.
He glared through his fortress of blankets and hissed something unintelligible.
The boy raised his hands in a gesture of surrender, blue eyes laughing. Vader narrowed his own. Now that he paid attention, Luke really did look like him. But that didn't mean anything because there was no conclusive proof, and it wasn't like he remembered exactly what he used to look like anyway. Contrary to what Mace Windu had believed, he hadn't spent hours preening in front of mirrors. So no, he didn't know what he'd looked like before, and the outlandish notion that his child was alive sitting right in front of him was impossible. This Luke was just a Rebel nobody.
He had to be.
Vader turned away anyway. A stab of hurt strummed through the Force, and for a moment, there was blessed silence.
"So..." Luke began, already recovering from the rejection, and Vader bit back a curse. "Is there something you want to tell me?"
"No," he replied immediately, voice muffled by the sheets. What ever the pilot wanted to know, he was not in the mood to talk.
Annoyance crept into the boy's tone for the first time. "Then I'll ask. Are you related to my father?" And Vader's heart stopped beating. Oblivious, Luke continued. "And to myself, I suppose, but I have a feeling you might know him better."
"How presumptuous of you," he sneered. But his voice was too dry to have a bite. He didn't dare turn around. He didn't want to see the boy's face, so kriffing familiar, when he forced the question past the lump in his throat, "Who is your father?"
"I haven't told you?" He could hear the boy's proud smile. "My father is Jedi Knight, Anakin Skywalker."
Vader dimly noted that if he hadn't been lying down already, he would have crashed to the floor in a dead faint.
As things were, he still managed the fainting part.
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