It wasn't long until he was back, however. The detention levels of the Palace were even more familiar to him now, it seemed, than when Luke had been doing his training with the ISB and with COMPNOR and with Palpatine himself: he had already been down here several times, and here he was again.
He disliked how drawn he was to the captured Rebel leaders. He disliked it immensely—and he disliked even more that his father seemed to take it as a sign that everything was getting better. Luke would finish overseeing the operation he himself had come up with, organised, carried out and executed, he assumed, then he could move onto his princely duties in a galaxy free from the scourge of the Rebellion.
If only it was that simple.
Before he knew it, he was in front of Cell 2187. Leia's cell.
"You are dismissed," he told the death troopers at his sides. They hesitated, and he snapped it again—a little crueller than usual, which he was sure wasn't helping his case with them. But they went, obedient as ever, and he took a deep breath.
And stepped in.
Leia was lying flat on her back on the bench when he entered, staring straight up at the ceiling. He'd half-expected her to still be in the Rebel fatigues she'd been captured in, but no: she was in standard Imperial prisoner garb, the shapeless grey suit too large on her small frame.
Before she even looked up, she was drawling, "Come to try at me again? That's not going to—"
"Isn't it?" Luke said coolly.
She stiffened. Bolted upright so fast she was a beige blur, and her face contorted when she laid eyes on Luke. She was up, on her feet in a second, lunging for him—
He let her get one good hit in, to his face. He rode the blow back, feeling something in his nose give and pain burst forth, hot blood splattering her fist and his cheek, then he stepped to the side—just as the cell door hissed closed in front of her, locked.
She stared at it and let out a scream.
"Are you finished?" Luke asked. He pinched his nose between his thumb and forefinger—he'd have to get to the Palace medbay, have that seen to, after this.
"Never." She got back to her feet and glared at him. She seemed to take immense satisfaction in the blood that was spattered on his white, white uniform. "You deserve so much more, you bastard."
He wiped his nose again and laughed lowly to himself—he didn't know what else to do. Tell her he hadn't meant it? He had. Tell her he regretted it? He wasn't about to admit that.
Leia was still watching him with furious eyes. "Why are you here?" she growled. "Come to kill me in person? Or just to see what your handiwork has done?"
Why was he here? It wasn't to interrogate her—he knew that much. It wasn't to apologise to her—that would be moot. It wasn't…
Why was he here?
Did he doubt himself?
Did— did he—
No.
He clenched his fists in his gloves. No.
He shouldn't be here.
Why was he here?
Why had he let her hit him?
"You're a traitor," she spat. If she had been a Force-user, her eyes would have been yellow.
Luke repeated what he'd said to Evaan: "I'm not a traitor. Just a highly successful spy."
"You are!" she spat. "A torturer, a liar, I hate you—"
And though Luke knew hatred like a familiar friend, he balked at that sentence.
"—and you are responsible for all of this. The only word for you traitor."
Luke flinched. He didn't mean to, but he did. Leia's lips twisted in a vicious, mirthless smile.
"You have an objection to that word?"
"I am no traitor," Luke said evenly. "I am loyal to my father. I am loyal to the Empire." He… had struggled with that, for years, when his father had first proposed the idea of a coup. Vader, his father, the epitome of all he strived to be, wanted him to betray the Emperor? All the training he'd received, from every moment of his education from cadet to specialised ISB trainee, had taught him to venerate Palpatine. Palpatine had taught him to venerate him. It had been a long time before he'd accepted that killing him wasn't treason.
It had been a long time before his father had trusted him with the knowledge of the abuse and indignity his master subjected him to, and the knowledge of the Death Star they were building.
But eventually he'd seen the truth: Palpatine was evil.
"I always have been."
Palpatine was a scourge on the galaxy. He was a scourge on the Empire that Luke had dedicated everything to serving.
He had to go—and so did his precious battle station.
So when Leia snarled, "You're a traitor to the galaxy, for participating in its oppression like this!"
Luke had been half-turned away, but now he snapped right back, his glare out in full force. Her eyes blew wide at the sight of him—ah, yes, he'd always made an effort to hide when his irises went yellow in the Rebellion—but she jutted out her chin and stood her ground, her hands in trembling fists.
"I destroyed the Death Star," Luke said, "remember? Palpatine was a megalomaniac—"
"And you and your father aren't!?"
"Don't talk about my father like that," he snapped. "Palpatine was a tyrant, a despot; we were always going to kill him. We were always going to destroy his little toy, and protect the galaxy from the turmoil he wanted so desperately to plunge it into. The fact that you stole the plans just meant I had to come up with my own plan to take the Rebellion down at the same time."
Leia gritted her teeth. "You're—"
"The Rebels are the traitors to the galaxy, by that logic," Luke continued. His voice gained fervour with every syllable—yes. Yes, this was it. This was the certainty he'd been looking for. "You are the ones who decided to resurrect war after the Empire finished it, who caused uprisings on multiple worlds and brought carnage upon them—"
"Do you hear yourself?" Leia laughed brazenly. "You were with us, Luke—if that's even your name—"
"Of course it's my name. It wouldn't have been nearly as effective otherwise."
"—you heard the pilots talking. You think that many people joined because we wanted death? The Empire brought war to them. All of them suffered, all of them decided they were willing to fight and suffer more if it meant it could spare others the same fate. And because of that, you will never kill us. All the strength of your Empire can do nothing against the hope that—"
"Save your propaganda rant, I've had enough of that over the last few years. And it was far more effective then." Was this what he had fallen for? The passionate words of a princess from a pacifist world, held in higher regard than his father?
She was wrong about strength. She was wrong about the Empire.
If she was right, she wouldn't be sitting in a cell waiting to die.
She paused, a strange look passing over her face. "It was effective?"
Luke suddenly did not like the turn this conversation was taking. He strode for the door, but Leia blocked his way.
"You believed in our cause for a while?"
He stayed silent.
"Yes or no; it's a simple question," she eyed his uniform, "my lord."
He looked her in the eye. Their faces were inches apart, but neither of them backed down.
"I had doubts, for some time," he hissed. "Until now, in fact. But you are pathetic enough that now I remember why the Empire is strong, and the Rebels were always doomed to fail."
He pushed her out of the way and strode right for the exit, the sharp lights of the detention cell now starting to make his head hurt. Or perhaps that was the Force, constricting around him in this monumental moment—the moment he saw the truth, again—the moment destiny fell into place—
"Liar," she called to his back. He stopped at the top of the steps, one hand already raised to open the door. "You can lie to yourself, and to your precious father." She spat the word on the ground. "You can pretend that you are the perfect Imperial prince, a saviour, but you are still lying. And we both know the truth."
He froze, every muscle in his body tensed to the point of pain.
"We thought you were a hero, after Yavin. That was a lie too. Because you wear the garb of a prince, Luke Skywalker." Her voice was intense. "But I know princes. And I know that you are nothing but a liar and a coward."
The lightsaber at his hip itched.
He wanted to draw it. He wanted to draw it, so badly, to spin around and skewer her there, watch the life drain from her eyes in shock, have her look upon his crimson blade—the blade his father gifted him because he was proud of him, because he became more skilled than any of the Inquisitors he'd trained with and so he deserved something better—and understand that this was who he was. That the Empire had defeated her, once and for all.
But he was his father's son.
He clenched his right hand, and she choked.
Gasping.
Heaving.
She fell to her knees.
"I am none of those things," he told her. His father's gentle words, his love, devotion, dedication, poured through their bond and his memories, bolstering him. He remembered what he'd said—and now, finally, he could try to bring himself to accept it. "I am a hero."
He said it with feeling. So much feeling that when the body hit the ground, unmoving, he could almost believe it himself.