This is the last chapter! I hope you enjoy, and thanks so much for reading!

"Come on now, Luke, up you come."

Luke didn't bother replying—just let Vader rest him on Artoo in front of him, then leaned back against his bulk. Vader huffed out a laugh, and wrapped his arms around him to hold the reins, kissing the top of his head as he did.

The frantic blizzard of bandages, healing spells and fussing had faded, but now, high on painlessness and wrapped up warm with enough gauze to mummify a mountain, he was exhausted. Vader picked up him like he hadn't since he was a child and Luke didn't object at all; just let himself be carried.

It was nice to be looked after.

A pain in his chest that he hadn't realised had been there since Palpatine had tried to pull his strange magics on him had faded, and Vader's scowl had become significantly more pronounced as he removed it, but Luke… thought it was better now. He felt safer now.

Everything was going to be alright.

Vader tugged on the reins, gave a hand signal to his men, and Artoo started moving underneath them, trotting around in an arc to ride back the way he had come. Luke lifted his eyes to view the rest of the procession as he arced around them—with the handful of casualties they'd had there were quite a few riderless horses, being led by the reins by Piett and Beru. He thought for a moment that he could help, he could have ridden one of them to make it easier, but he tossed the thought away as it came: he wanted to stay close to his father.

After everything that had happened…

"Dad?" he murmured, eyes sliding half-closed. He hadn't called him Dad in years, Father was more appropriate, he knew, but Vader didn't seem to mind so far. "What… what happened? I just remember—"

"I was not there, when it occurred." His voice was tight, and Luke remembered—remembered the stinging disappointment, that the father who was never there anymore wouldn't even be there for his eighteenth birthday—but after a pause, he continued. "I… returned a week later, after Naboo was saved, to find…"

Naboo. That was right, he'd been away fighting in Naboo—and he remembered the Naberries had said that many of the nobles hadn't even welcomed his forces…

"Sabé came to meet me outside in the courtyard," he continued. "With… the worst news of my life. He'd planted a bomb in the hall at your birthday celebration—or, just before it. You were in there, ready to welcome guests, when it went off… You managed to get up a heat shield in time, but the physical shield—"

"At some point," Luke grumbled, "I will make a spell that covers all the shields at once."

Vader laughed. "I'm proud of you."

Luke smiled.

"You lost your… hand," Vader continued, hesitating. "That's a—"

"New one. I assumed so." Luke didn't want to think too hard on where his father might have got it. He flexed his fingers. "It's not as responsive as the other one, but I'm getting used to it."

"It may never be as responsive." It was the closest he would get to an apology, but that didn't matter; Luke didn't need one.

Luke just hummed. "So then you resurrected me. And then I… dusted, to the Naberries' estate. With amnesia."

"The probability of both of those side effects happening to you at once is astronomical, this whole situation should never have happened—"

"But it did." And Luke didn't know how to feel about that; whether he was melancholy, glad that he'd met the Larses and Leia again, or angry that he'd met his mother's family on such poor terms. He'd been due to visit them a few weeks ago, he remembered. Shortly after his birthday. They'd reached out to arrange it.

Vader wrapped one arm around his torso and squeezed in an impromptu hug. "It did," he said heavily.

Luke fixed his eyes on the horizon and said, "Tell me about Mother."

Vader let go. "What?"

"You… never told me what happened. Or how she died. I just know you've been searching for her, to resurrect her." He glanced back to look into his eyes, then looked forwards again. "I… the closest I have is the tale Palpatine spun when I had no memories. I don't want that to be the only story I have."

"It should not be. Whatever nonsense or venomous lies he spouted—"

"Father," he said, "please."

Vader hesitated.

"Very… well," he said. "It does not paint me in a good light."

"Not much does." His father was the leader of an army of the undead. He killed and resurrected and controlled. He had been born and raised in the shadows of the cursed Necromountains, same as the rest of them.

Luke loved him.

Vader snorted. "That is true."

Luke waited for a few moments. Vader sighed, then said, "After my mother's death, I was moving more and more towards necromancy. I knew she'd been a healer, I knew she likely wouldn't approve, but… even if she didn't, even if she refused to be resurrected, I was fascinated by it. Palpatine was Emperor, had been Emperor for years, and I was introduced to him through my marriage to Padmé. I was just a poor sorcerer from the mountains who'd moved to Naboo for work, but I'd married a lady. He was fascinated."

"By the marriage? Or by you?"

"By me," Vader ground out. "He… wanted to adopt me as his heir." He tightened his arms around Luke. "The way—"

"The way he did me."

"Yes. I was considering it at first—who wouldn't? He was kind to me. He was powerful. He was… an old friend of my wife's…"

He trailed off, staring into the distance.

"But Padmé's opinion of him and his empire, his policies and authoritarian control over his territories, was dropping rapidly. Especially when he started teaching me necromancy, encouraging me to get into it. Before that she'd talked me down from trying to resurrect my mother, but then she was getting sick, and… Palpatine was telling me what necromancy is."

"Control," Luke said instinctively. It was the most fundamental lesson he'd learnt: necromancy was control.

"It meant I didn't have to worry about losing any more of my family," he said. "It… was seductive. I was deep in grief, Padmé was pregnant, and then she was getting ill from the same plague that had killed my mother, and even though I knew it wasn't necessarily fatal, I knew that, I… I couldn't lose her. I agreed to the Emperor's offer, and we fought.

"She rode after me—sick, in winter. She didn't make it far, and Sabé had to get her home, to the cottage at the bottom of her estate where she had lived. The handmaidens watched over you while Sabé came to get me. There you were born… and there Palpatine attacked you both."

He swallowed, and his arm went around Luke again, as if to reassure himself that he was there.

"Most of her handmaidens died—sacrificed their lives to protect you and her. A few fled, and I've long suspected that they had… Well, Padmé and I had suspected that she was carrying tw—" He broke himself off. "I will explain that suspicion to you at a later date; it is a complex and painful one. But despite the efforts of her dead and lost handmaidens, Padmé… Padmé died too. By the time Sabé and I returned, no one was left except you. Hidden and crying in a cupboard."

Luke took his father's hand and laced his fingers through his.

"That was when I decided to fight against Palpatine for good. Your mother's family shunned me, claiming I'd brought the misfortune upon them—they'd never liked magic, especially death magic, and now my involvement in death magic had killed their Padmé. I took you away, fled to Mustafar, and started building to defend what we had left.

"I studied hard. I became a necromancer to rival Palpatine—I raised armies to rival his. I would kill him, and take down his oppressive rule that Padmé had so hated, and I would protect you from him.

"I wasn't going to lose you too."

Luke nodded, picking at his wrist—the bone bracelet there. He hadn't been wearing it at the ball, had kept it in his rooms; he wondered how long his father had been carrying this, touching it to remind him of Luke. "I don't think I want to be a necromancer."

Vader stiffened behind him. "What? What do you mean? Your power—"

"Can go into any other discipline just as easily. But I… don't want to be a necromancer."

Vader was quiet for a moment, before he said, "May I ask why?"

"I…" He closed his eyes, remembering… remembering the feeling of those Imperials with their muscles and bones and beating hearts in his grip, obeying his command. Remembering ripping apart that carriage driver without thinking about it—oh, Death almighty, he had ripped that carriage driver apart without thinking about it, he hadn't even thought about it until now, that had been an innocent man—and the way his innards had turned outwards, painting another mountain road with death. He thought of the sickening horror in his own face and in Leia's when Palpatine had spun his lies about Leia's resurrection, and he remembered why he thought they were true.

He remembered Beru's words, about why even after death, the residents of these mountains could never have peace.

Necromancy was powerful. It was control. It gave you power and command, and he could well understand why his father had turned to it in an attempt to protect his family. Luke had grown up steeped in it, even. More so than most residents of these cursed mountains, he had known Death so long as he lived. They were old friends by now.

But he didn't think that in a land whose population was a quarter dead men, the answer to helping things would be more death.

"Necromancy is your discipline, Father, and I'm grateful that you taught it to me." And he was grateful he would still have the skills, if he needed them, even if he didn't pursue them. "But I don't want to kill or resurrect people. I want to heal them."

Vader's breath hitched for a moment, before he lifted a hand to brush Luke's hair. "Like your grandmother?" he said gently. "Healing passing travellers, going to warfronts and embattled towns and helping them?"

Luke nodded. "And… pursuing the spiritual side, too." Death was his friend; he could give to them, as well as take. "Helping people pass on peacefully, when their time is right. Ghosts haunt us at every turn, don't they? I want to help."

Vader laughed then.

It was a nice sound, warm and low, and Luke realised he couldn't remember the last time he'd heard it—months ago, years ago? Before his father had gone to war again, before Luke had been kidnapped by Palpatine for the first time? He couldn't be sure.

"You want to do the exact opposite to me," he teased.

"I…" Luke shut his mouth. "Perhaps."

"Why do I get the feeling that the moment you get out there, you're going to ruin all my plans?"

"I'm—!" Luke stifled a laugh himself. "I might. Depends on what your plans are."

"To build a better land for you," Vader tickled Luke's side lightly; Luke yelped and writhed, careful not to aggravate his wounds, giggling, "for you to do with it as you please."

Luke leaned back against him. "I'm not going to stop you from doing that."

"You may disagree with my methods."

"I think I will definitely disagree with your methods. We'll just have to talk it out."

"Talk it out? With Padmé's son? I know how to pick my battles, little one."

Luke grinned up at him… then sobered. "I saw her. When I died. She was the only thing I could remember when I woke up."

Vader went quiet. "I know you did," he confessed. "Or her image, at least. Death comes in the form of lost loved ones, when they come to meet us; perhaps—"

"No. I know Death. This was Mother."

Vader's grip around Luke tightened—almost possessively. "Then I am sorry you were ripped from her arms for a second time. I was selfish."

"I'm sure she understands."

"You're the only family I have left, Luke," he said.

"Am I?"

Vader paused, then—"Of course you are."

"What about Piett and Veers? They've been there forever. Aunt Sabé." Vader made an awkward noise. "Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen—"

"I have not spoken to my stepbrother in years. Not before I went searching for you."

"And he still helped me. Maybe you should. There's no harm in starting now."

Vader paused again, before he said wryly, "You are already challenging my plans, I see. Is this a part of your agenda for healing?"

"I think it will help you," Luke insisted. "The same way it helped me. So yes. First task: get Dad a family." Vader choked in shock. "Second task: go travelling to be a healer and figure out what the third task is on the way."

"Travelling? Different to your grandmother," Vader mused. "But very much you." He tousled his hair. "Just—"

His voice broke.

Luke caught his falling hand between his, before he could take it back. He stripped off the glove and gauntlet to clasp the fingers between his, skin on skin, ignoring the itch of dried blood that covered both their skin.

Vader squeezed his hand back. "Promise me you'll come home, first? For a little while."

"Promise me you'll come home for a little while?" he countered.

"Of course." His other arm went around Luke's shoulders—then he jerked to yank the reins when Artoo nearly went down the wrong crossroads. "Just… stay. Come home."

Luke smiled, and was surprised at how much he wanted that. His chest ached; his eyes watered.

"I want to come home," he said. He missed the heat of the lava flows and the specific layout of his bedroom and Sabé rolling her eyes at him because he talked back again.

He wanted to go home.

"I am aware you promised the Naberries you would visit them, but you have already missed that appointment—and they do not deserve you anyway."

"I'll still visit them. Just… later." He yawned, and closed his eyes. "They're family too, you know. Even if they didn't know it at the time."

Vader harrumphed, but let Luke settle back against him, get comfortable. "Are you going to be like this all the time, now?"

"Who knows. Why?"

"Because I missed you." He kissed his head, then enfolded him in his arms, turning his head up to watch where Artoo was going. They had been riding for long enough now that the skyline was gold with the shimmer of sunset, the mountains stamped in black and blue ink against the wash.

Luke fell asleep with a smile on his face.

It was a long while later, after much rejuvenation at Mustafar, that they eventually returned to Naboo to meet the Naberries again.

Luke felt sick to his stomach the closer they got. There was Theed, the town where he'd nearly lost his mind; there were the hills and valleys he'd screamed into; there was the house that he'd fled from, a letter-opener tight in his fist. Piett had handed it to him when they returned to Mustafar, with an understanding smile and a quipped, "Was this yours?"

Luke had tackled him in a hug, and now held the proud title of being one of the only people to ever catch General Firmus Piett off guard.

But as he watched the hills grow larger, then realer, until they were trundling through them, he had never felt so nervous. Sabé—who had barely let Luke out of her sight since he got back—took his hand between hers and gave him a reassuring smile which he tried to return.

He had limited success. She raised an eyebrow, and laughed.

"Don't worry, they won't reject you again," she said. She eyed Vader, sitting opposite them in the carriage. His great helmet sat to the side of him, shadows stretching stark over his scarred face. He looked like a gothic brooding anti-hero. "Your father will terrify them too much."

Vader didn't acknowledge her with more than a vaguely frustrated grunt. Luke swallowed.

"That's what I'm afraid of," he mumbled, so quietly he doubted Sabé could hear.

The fact that Vader had restrained himself from murdering and resurrecting Jobal Naberrie on sight was truly a testament to his self-control, and love for Padmé.

He did not bother announcing his presence—they had let the Naberries know in advance that their cousin would be delayed in visiting them due to unforeseen circumstances, but they had not known who their cousin was before now and they did not yet. So when Vader marched onto their property and demanded entrance…

They granted it as they would a conquering lord. Not family.

And no matter what Luke may try to convince him of, he did not intend to be. Padmé was dead and they had failed her son.

Jobal met him in the entrance hall to their manor, chin raised high and arrogant, her lips already half-sneering.

"Lord Vader," she greeted icily. "Should I thank you for liberating us from the Empire?"

He didn't even look straight at her—couldn't, even, her resemblance to Padmé painful—so instead looked around. The great fireplace, the urn of Padmé's father's ashes on the mantelpiece, the rich carpet underneath them. "That entirely depends on your political views, Naberrie, and I have no interest in dictating what you should or should not think."

"I think that we should have had no part of this war at all! We are not a part of the Necromountain range, magic has no place here and we have no need for it—"

"Then that is irrelevant, seeing as you were pulled into it, whether you liked it or not. But once again: I am not here to discuss politics." He studied one of the great paintings they had on the wall: a family portrait, from when Padmé and Ruwee still lived, Ryoo a young child and Pooja a squalling babe. He just looked at Padmé's gentle face and seethed at how they had not seen her legacy in Luke. "I am here to discuss your daughter."

She clammed up immediately. "What do you want with Sola?"

"Not Sola. Padmé." He nodded at the painting. "As much as you rage against magic, she was known to be an ally of it. Her handmaidens were coveted sorceresses, taking on her shape when needed."

"And Padmé was killed because of that association," she bit back.

"So you expelled all the handmaidens?"

"They were killed with her."

"Except Lady Sabé." If Jobal noticed how he would call Sabé a lady, but not her, she did not show it. "Do you know where she went?"

"I presume to a long and happy life—she was loyal and talented—but—"

"She went to train Padmé's son. A child you showed no interest in, and now a powerful sorcerer in his own right."

"I had no idea he was alive! The moment he wrote to me, expressing a desire to meet, I jumped at the chance—"

"And yet when you met him, you threw him out on the streets."

She stilled.

"What?" she uttered. "I have not met him, not since something came up that meant he couldn't make it… But he is coming today, in fact, if you will kindly vacate the premises before then—"

He turned away from the painting, lifted his helmet in one motion, and looked at her.

She opened her mouth to snap something—then her eyes fell on his face, and her lips stopped working mid-word.

"You…" she whispered, squinting at him. He looked different to how she had last seen him, splashed with age and scars, but he was recognisable. "Anakin—"

"Something came up," he echoed. "That is what Luke told you, yes. Do you know what came up?" He didn't wait for her to answer before he barrelled on. "He died."

He knew full well that his expression was unhinged, but he didn't care. "Palpatine planted a bomb in our home and blew him up. I resurrected him, I saved him, the way I couldn't Padmé—"

"She would have wanted nothing to do with that power."

"But there are side effects of resurrection. They include a poor connection to the physical realm—location jumping, dusting—and amnesia. Luke was saddled with both."

Jobal looked very, very pale.

"And when he showed up on the Naberrie estate," he whispered, "in the ruins of the cottage he was born in after Palpatine had ordered it destroyed in battle… You drove him out. Because he was marked by death—because you saw a lost, terrified boy, and you were afraid of him."

"I wanted nothing to do with your necromancy. It has brought us enough grief."

Ire and irritation rose; he twitched his fingers, and Ruwee's ashes leapt in their urn. She cut herself off with a scream.

"So you cast out your grandson to the mercy of soldiers and killers? Padmé would be rolling," the ashes arched up and back down, looping over and over themselves, "in her grave."

"I did not know," Jobal insisted. "I wanted to protect my family—"

"So did I," he bit out. She fell silent at that.

He sighed. This was getting them nowhere, and he still needed to know what he'd been sent in here to ask.

"My question is," he said, "is Luke in it?"

She was still pale and paralysed with surprise, but she met his gaze with wide eyes.

"Do you still want to meet him, knowing that he is undead, and a sorcerer, and irrevocably tied to the mountains you hate? Or will you spurn him the way you did me?"

Jobal lifted her face to the portrait, and tenderly traced the smile on her daughter's cheek. She took a deep, shuddering sigh.

"I have made a grave mistake," she realised quietly, "in my fear."

He didn't contradict her. As far as he was concerned, she had made an unforgivable mistake. "You are not the only one who is afraid. Can I go back outside and tell Luke that he can face his mother's family without being rejected again, or should I gently dissuade him before he is confronted with even more heartache?"

"He is eighteen," Jobal whispered to herself. "Padmé's son is eighteen. And he has already died once." She shook her head and looked at Vader. "Of course he is a part of my family. He is my grandson. If I had known—"

"I am sure it would have been different." His tone was thick with irony.

She glared. "I will not be preached to about cruelty by a man who murders thousands in his campaign against his enemy. If Luke had been collateral damage in any of the towns you attacked, what would you have done?"

He fixed his helmet back onto his head and said coldly, "I learnt necromancy for that very contingency."

He turned to the door again, looking through the arched window to the carriage still waiting at the gates, imagining Luke's afraid, awkward shuffling inside it.

"Tell him he can come home."

Home. The arrogance she had, to call a hostile house home. Their home was far from here.

But Luke had already taken to calling Beru and Owen's little hovel something similar. As he had with Alderaan, and the queen who looked too much like Padmé, acted too much like Luke's sister.

So Vader, uncharacteristically, found himself hoping that he could do the same here.

He reached into his pocket and drew out a letter-opener, holding it out to her, handle first. Her expression shifted slightly when she set eyes on the Naberrie crest—as she recognised it—but she took it without a word.

"Come out with me," he said, voice level, "and tell him yourself."

When Luke finally managed to extract himself from the whirlwind of overblown Naberrie affections, he found his father in a remote corner of their gardens, standing before a blooming cherry blossom tree, a grave wrapped in the roots at its base.

He frowned, and stepped up to his side, tilting his head down to look at the gravestone. Padmé Amidala Naberrie gleamed in clear, cold carvings across the front, along with a small illustration of a flower underneath.

"How are the Naberries?"

"Apologetic," Luke replied. "They're… nice, when they're not afraid of you. And they have nice food—I didn't manage to eat much of it last time."

"They are a kind, close-knit family, for all they mistrust everything from the mountains. The loss of your mother traumatised them."

"It traumatised you, too."

Vader didn't respond to that, for a little while.

Then…

"She's not here," he said quietly. "Or rather… only some of her is. Sabé tells me she gathered as many of the remains as she could find, so they could be buried and memorialised back here, the tree planted above them, as she always wanted."

Luke said, "Then she is here."

Vader held out a hand and closed his eyes. His fingers trembled for a moment—then he let out a breath, and sighed.

"Not in any way I can reach."

"You don't have to resurrect her to reach her."

"This is what I have worked on for decades," he burst out. "And… and Palpatine took it from me in one fell swoop. Padmé—"

"Is dead."

"She should not be. All of this was for her." He turned his face towards Luke and cupped his cheek; Luke was surprised to see tears twinkling at the corners of his eyes. "And for you. I cannot lose either of you."

"You cannot control death."

"I can—"

"Not forever. Palpatine tried that, and look where that landed him."

Vader half-scoffed, half-snorted. "He did it only for himself."

"And is resurrecting Mother a project for yourself?" Luke pressed. "Or is it a project for her? Would she want it?"

Vader let out a breath.

"No," he said finally. "No, she would not." He looked at Luke. "Would you?" Do you? was the unspoken question.

"I am happy to be alive," he said. "But I don't want to live forever. And I don't think you do, either."

"Death is an old friend," Vader murmured.

"One day they will come, and we'll see what happens, I suppose." He didn't know. He still didn't remember anything about the experience of being dead—just his mother's embrace. "Until then, we'll have to let go."

Vader shifted his arm to wrap around Luke's shoulders, gazing back down at the grave. "As long as you live," his voice wobbled, "I will not."

"As long as I live," Luke agreed. The idea of losing his father—or Sabé, or Aunt Beru, or Uncle Owen, or Leia, or any member of his family—was sharper than shrapnel in his chest. But… he would rise above it.

He had once before.

So he knelt down and placed his hand on one of the roots of the tree, reaching out.

Vader's hand fell off his shoulder; he frowned down at him, confused. It wasn't death magic that he summoned as the wind blew and chilled the gardens, but it wasn't healing magic either. It stirred the earth to attention, awareness and love prickling at the back of his consciousness, and white-pink petals drifted off the tree to coalesce in front of him.

The figure of a woman smiled down at him, flowers curled into fingertips brushing his cheek. She straightened up and nodded to Vader, beaming brilliantly.

Vader gave a strangled cry.

Then the wind whipped harder, the woman disintegrated and cherry blossoms rained around them like confetti.

The love and emotion faded, the tree silent and still, but a luminous imprint still glowed in his chest and mind, enough that his eyes watered. Vader still stood silent.

He said, "I have never sensed a dead soul at peace before now." Hesitation. "I… am happy for her."

Luke rose to his feet again and promised to a woman long gone, "That will be only the beginning."

Thanks again for reading!