Chapter 164
Thexan was sitting behind a desk in his room. Having his mother back in his life was really relieving. It made him feel somewhat normal. Laetitia had helped him find the courage he needed to find her. Another thing she did for her.
But he did feel kind of bad. He got his mother back, but Leah could never have her mother in her life again. She couldn't hug Padme when she missed her or ask her advises for relationships.
Thexan knew that Leah was happy for him, but she was a bit jealous that she couldn't get Padme back. It didn't matter, though. There was nothing she or anyone else could do about it. She was gone. Leah had accepted that for years ... But that didn't mean that it was easy for her. She wanted her mom back so much.
Thexan exhaled deeply as he pushed down his feelings to focus on what he was working on. The more he thought about it, the more he got depressed. He just wanted to work on what he was making. He was no Skywalker when it came to building stuff, but he was trained by one and he was really good at it.
"What are you working on?" A voice brought him back to reality.
Thexan turned around and saw Laetitia standing behind him. He was so deep in his thoughts that he didn't even notice she came in.
"Oh ... This." He simply said as he showed what he was building.
He was a bit annoyed that his 'surprise' was now ruined, but when did these two ever have anything normal?
Leah took it out of his hands and took a closer look. It was a necklace ... sort of. The chain wasn't that big, but the only thing it had was a small piece of metal. Like a long cube, dangling from the chain.
"Okay ... I'm not gonna question your fashion style. But it's kinda tactless." She said, trying to hide her laughter.
Thexan just sighed in irritation. Of course she would be the only girl in the Galaxy to think that the necklace was his, and to ruin the moment!
"I mean, it's just a …"
"You idiot." He muttered under his breath.
"What?!"
"It's yours."
"Huh?"
"I said it's yours, not mine." He said, which left Leah completely speechless.
He knew how she felt about losing her actual necklace, the one Anakin had built for her when she was born. She lost it when she died and went missing, and she was so wrecked because of it.
He never wanted to see her that broken again. Never.
"And it's not just a necklace." He said.
"What do you mean?"
"It's also a weapon ... Give it to me."
He took the necklace out of her hands and found a very small button on the back. He pushed it, and suddenly, a very small blade came out from it. The necklace was a disguise ... for the lightsaber.
"A light ... needle?" She simply said.
"A lightdagger. It's basically a very small lightsaber, used for short people. It's also usually a bit bigger than that, so I don't know if this one works. Master taught me how to build one when I helped him to build his first Sith lightsaber. We basically invented the thing. He said I was really good at it, too." He said.
Leah shook her head as she took another look at the lightdagger. It was so small, but that was the point. It was still as deadly as a lightsaber, and the good thing was that no one could see it coming. The perfect weapon.
"I know it's not as good as your necklace, but ..." He tried to say, but Leah softly interrupted him.
"No, it's ... It's better ... Thank you." She smiled in appreciation.
Thexan stood up and helped her put the necklace on. It fit perfectly on her, and it actually suited her. It wasn't beautiful, but it was good ... for her, anyway.
"Can I ask you a question?" She suddenly asked.
"Hmm-mm."
"Why do you call Sidious your dad? He hates you." She bluntly said without sugarcoating it.
Thexan sighed as he sat down. He actually wondered about that, too.
"He may not act like a father, but he gave me scars that only a father gives his son ... Besides, he hates it when we called him that."
"So you call him 'dad' out of spite?" She pointed out, which caused Thexan to chuckle.
"It actually feels really good ... But my relationship with my father is nothing like yours." He said when he knew why she was asking him that.
"Why is that?"
"Because even in his darkest moments, your father never stopped loving you. Mine never even started to stop." He stated.
Leah didn't say anything to protest. She couldn't argue that Vader did feel something for his daughter. It may be a bit of an obsession, but ... it was also love. She was starting to lose the line between love and obsession. Love and hate.
And that scared her.
"Your father treated me better than anyone else. Maybe even loved me like a son. Besides, I don't want my father to change. I've accepted him for who he is."
"You're lucky you never loved him." Leah sadly said.
There were some times that she regretted loving her father. If she never did, she wouldn't have had such a hard time t hate him or kill him. She didn't regret being Anakin Skywalker's daughter ... but she regretted that she loved him. That she remembered him as the good man he was, and how he turned into the worst.
"Of course I loved him ... once upon a time. He's my father. If he wasn't, I wouldn't be blaming myself for his mistakes." Thexan whispered sadly.
"Yeah, you really need to stop feeling that way."
"I'll stop blaming myself for my father's mistakes when you do. How about that?" He challenged.
She rose her eyebrow and gave him a look. She knew she sounded like a hypocrite. She blamed herself for everything wrong in the Galaxy. Who was she to suggest other things to people?
"Maybe that's naive of me, but ... I think anyone deserves a second chance. And I don't wanna be left with regrets of 'what if's. I try something, and if it doesn't work, I know that I did everything in my power to prevent it from happening ... I've given my father thousand second chances, but he let me down every single time. I've given up on my dad, but yours isn't completely the bad guy here." He said, which caused Leah to scoff.
Why did he keep insisting that Darth Vader wasn't the bad guy here? He was a Sith Lord, for God's sake!
"You have to know the complete truth here to judge. Believe it or not, the truth can set you free." He stated.
"Or it can put you in a whole new prison." She bitterly stated as well, which caused Thexan to sigh.
"I'm just saying that we don't know the whole story."
"Yeah, we do!" She almost snapped at him.
"He turned to the dark side and killed everyone I loved. He chose power over his own family and tortured them. That is the whole story. I don't care what his reasons were. Doing the right thing the wrong way isn't heroic. It's just wrong ... No one pushed him to turn to the dark side. He fell on his own. HE made that decision, not his reasons." She coldly said.
Thexan didn't say anything. He knew that that was her way of shutting everything off. She didn't want to know his reasons for turning to the dark side, because then, it would be harder to kill him or hate him. She would have to ... forgive him.
She suddenly winced in pain and pressed her hand against her heart. Thexan stood up and went to her.
"What's wrong?" He asked worriedly.
"I don't know ... Something's wrong with Luke." She said as she panted in pain.
"Leah ..."
"I have to go. But I really don't want to talk about him, Thexan. Please ... don't bring it up again." She firmly said as she sort of begged him.
She didn't wait for his answer and just left to find her brother.
Laetitia followed Luke's Force signature to find him. She ran to his room and found him moaning in pain in his bed. Was he having a bad dream? Another 'Vader' dream? Was that what was causing the pain.
She just walked slowly to him and softly shook him to wake him up.
"Luke ... Wake up, buddy."
Luke inhaled sharply as he opened his eyes. His blue eyes were filled with painful tears and he was sweating in stress. What was he dreaming about that made him like that?
"You're alright now. It was just a dream." She softly said to calm him down.
"No ... I don't think it was." His voice cracked.
Leah frowned in confusion. If it wasn't a dream, then what the hell was it?
"You mean like ... a vision?" She asked slowly.
That wasn't good. Leah was hoping that the pain of having premonitions would skip on one child. She was fine with being the one tortured as long as no one else was, especially Luke of all people. He had suffered enough.
"I don't know. I just feel like that it wasn't just one of my nightmares."
"What did you see? Can you tell me?" She pressed.
Luke sighed as he tried to get a hold of himself. He could remember what happened in the vision vividly. That's what was scary. But if he told her, maybe she could help. She understood the Force a lot better than he did. She had more experience dealing with this kind of stuff.
"It was about Thexan."
Leah almost jumped out of surprise when she heard that. The vision Luke had was about Thexan? That was ... impossible. Force-sensitives usually had visions about themselves or someone they loved. Leah didn't have a vision of her boyfriend, but her brother did?
"Tell me what happened." She firmly said. Now, she needed to know.
"In my dream, I saw Thexan and someone who looked just like him. But his face was covered in burn marks, and he had a big black mask on half his face."
"Arcann." Leah angrily said.
That was the only person who looked like Thexan. Who else? Unless Palpatine created Clones of his own sons or Thexan had more twins, which was something she did NOT want to think about.
"Arcann? You mean Thexan's brother? The one who tortu... held you captive for 3 years, Arcann?" Luke asked in anger.
"Yeah, that'll be the one ... Bam-Bam!" She calmly replied. She was not a fan of him.
Luke smiled very slightly when she heard her name for Arcann. But his mind was focused on something else entirely.
"What happened next?
"Well, they were in a dark room. I couldn't see where it was, but I think it was somewhere in the Imperial Palace. I think. I'm not sure, because I've been never ..." Luke started to ramble, but Leah figured it out and interrupted him.
"What did Bam-Bam do to my boyfriend, Luke?" She asked again. Now, Luke knew that she was demanding.
"He ... cut Thexan in half with his lightsaber." Luke very slowly said and closed his eyes to not see his sister's reaction.
Leah just ... stayed still. Her heart stopped beating and she felt like she was out of breath. She tried very hard to not let it affect her, but it wasn't working. Her eyes were filled with unwanted tears.
That was a vision from the future. It would happen! She wanted to stop and deny it, but she didn't know how.
"He hissed to his ... body ... 'this is what happens to the people who love the Skywalker bitch'."
Leah closed her eyes and released her anger in her hands. She could hear the sound of breaking the knuckles very clearly. She wanted to say that this was just a dream, nothing more. But how would she explain how Luke knew what Arcann called her?
"Leah?" Luke asked as he heard those sounds, too.
"And then?" She ignored him as she kept her eyes closed.
"Then, I heard the laughter of Darth Sidious and ... your crying. You woke me up after. I didn't see anything else." He quietly said as he looked down.
Leah just took deep breaths repeatedly to make sure she was alright. How would she be alright after she heard that her boyfriend was going to die? All because of her. She knew that their story was impossible to have a happy ending, but she didn't know that their ending was ... this soon.
She was gonna lose him? Right after they were just getting somewhere?
She finally closed her eyes and wiped the tears from her face to look strong. She would have to tell Thexan about it. That was all she could think about. If she warned him, then maybe, just maybe ... they could save him.
"What do we do? Do we tell the others?" Luke asked.
"No ... Let me handle it, Luke. You just ... forget you saw that. I'm sorry you had to." She tiredly said.
Luke shook his head in acceptance and watched as Leah left to be alone.
Done :)
