Luke slept fitfully, jerking half-awake and upright every dozen minutes or so, and Vader watched with even more concern than he had when Luke had fallen asleep on the flight here. Sometimes words would flutter out of his mouth, nonsensical and absurd, then were gone again before they could achieve coherency. He moved around, shifted, and altogether less slept than writhed.

Vader stared at him with a heavy, disbelieving heart.

It was easy to feel concerned, and he was. His chest was gripped with a tight vice with every tiny groan, every time he forced himself to contemplate how long they would be in here. While the Princess had tried to talk to Luke, even though he was paying rapt attention to their interactions, Vader had tried everything. The Force was free here, as free as it was anywhere else; this was not a cell designed for Force-sensitives. But the glass was nonetheless tough enough that it took too much effort to shatter, and he could not be weakened for the battle ahead. He couldn't make the door open with the Force; the mechanism was too complex, one he wasn't familiar with. The electronics, he could not manipulate—not without seeing them. And he got the feeling that they moment he tried to tear open the plastisteel walls, or do anything, he would incur more of that gas on Luke. He'd incurred it just by beating his fist against the glass while Luke was suffering.

And even if they got out of the cell, how could he escape without Luke, healed? He could carry the boy, but he needed to be able to fight off any attacks. There was not a massive contingent of stormtroopers assigned to monitor this research station, but there were still too many of them. He could take them out on his own, if he had no care of anything but victory, but he refused to have a stray bolt take Luke from him. Nor could he trust the Princess not to shoot them both in the back the moment she had access to the outside world again.

He needed to get himself and Luke out. His son wouldn't be left behind, and therein lay the difficulty.

Even if Luke was a Rebel spy.

He'd been trying to avoid thinking about it, but of course it shimmered to the surface of his thoughts anyway, like oil permeating a freshwater source. Luke… was a Rebel spy. His son hadn't denied it—had confirmed it, even—and the Force only backed up the Princess's claim. How he hated it.

He turned his head to stare at her. She was curled up in the opposite corner, watching Luke with a concerned expression that only made him resent her more. Then she seemed to feel his gaze on her and turned her head, quirking an eyebrow. Despite her show of bravado, he noticed her face was the same colour as that white dress she'd always worn as a senator. There were dark hollows around her eyes, and dark veins at her temples. She looked exhausted.

"How dare you," he said.

Her eyebrow only climbed higher. "How dare I what? Save his life?"

"He is my son. How dare you turn him against me."

"He made the choice of his own accord. You clearly weren't excellent at teaching the youth of the Empire your own justifications for slaughter, theft, and tyranny." She tilted her head back and closed her eyes. Fully. He wondered why she was so confident that the beast she was sharing a cage with would not kill her.

Because of Luke, for now, he wouldn't. His son was in enough pain already. But she shouldn't know that. She shouldn't know his son at all, except as an enemy to fear.

"The role of a spy or informant is a gruelling one, and I highly doubt my son chose it." He remembered being sent by the vipers on the Jedi Council to spy on the Chancellor and report back. That assignment had turned his hands dark with dirt long before he stained them red. He'd hated every moment of it… and every moment when the Chancellor asked him to report back to him about the doings of the Jedi Council, as well… "Subtlety is not his strong suit. Trying to pretend to be loyal to one cause while feeding it out to the other would destroy him."

"Look at him. I think it has."

"Then you are to blame."

"I think you asking him to keep your secrets when he spent so much more time with Palpatine than with you is what's to blame, here. How did you not notice that your son was being tortured for keeping anything you told him to himself?"

Vader clenched his fist against the hard, polished floor, wishing he could scratch it. Wishing he could pollute it with blood. Horne's, Organa's, or even Palpatine's; he did not know.

"He did not tell me anything."

"You need someone to tell you that they're being tortured before you believe it? Look at how he always wears clothing that covers every inch of him. Look at the back of his hands." She gestured to Luke, currently with his hands in his lap. White, ropey scars twisted around the base of his fingers.

He hadn't looked, before. He hadn't wanted to see.

"How many other secrets might he have from you, if your long absences mean that he can no longer trust you? What had Palpatine's constant influence made him resort to?"

"Stop."

"Of course he came to us. I think he wanted to escape—to make himself feel like all the double agent work he was already doing might actually contribute to a worthwhile cause, instead of petty squabbles—"

She was cut off abruptly, grappling for her throat.

"I said stop!"

A moment and a sneer later, she twisted the Force and freed herself from his grip, taking deep, ragged breaths. "Oh, no wonder Luke doesn't want you to see inside his head. No wonder he doesn't want to see inside yours. How twisted is your perception of reality, if someone telling you the straight truth makes you snap like that?"

"I know everything I need to know. You Jedi," he glared, "are the fools."

"Oh? Really." The way she flattened her lips reminded him of Padmé whenever they argued, and he tore himself away, turned his back on her. She called to his back, "That's why you killed them all, then? Because they could recognise what you couldn't?"

"They were evil."

"No, they weren't."

"They were going to overthrow the Republic."

"So you decided to overthrow it first?"

"The Republic was rotten and corrupt."

"So it's a good thing they wanted to overthrow it?"

He whirled around again. "My patience wears thin."

"Convenient. Mine ran out a long time ago." She was almost snarling. On her feet, now, her hands balled into fists. Half his size but twice as terrifying. "Your son is my friend, and he is suffering. He has been suffering for a long, long, long time, and it's because you didn't want to see it. Now I need to get through to him so that we can clear that drug from his system. He has to take down his shields and walls, but he's not in a position where he knows he is safe to do so. He needs to listen to the Force, and not lock himself away for fear of leaking his secrets into it, if he wants to survive this. Your reactions to every tiny thing he is opening up about are hindering all of this."

"And what would you have me do?" he snapped back. "I will not take orders from a Rebel. Your method is not yet proven to work—"

"It clearly worked on me." She waved her hand. "There's epistemolide hexal in the air, but I'm clearly unaffected! I can tell what's going on around me! Much better than you can, apparently."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"I listen to people," she bit out. "I trust the Force. I try to see things from several points of view. You're stuck in your certain point of view and won't accept any evidence to the contrary until it stares you in the face. Or until your son is delirious with agony from it."

He moved his gaze back to Luke and fell to his knees beside him. "Silence."

"If you don't stop assuming that everything you believe in is utterly sacrosanct, and if you won't stop yourself from condemning Luke for going against those beliefs, he will probably die in this cell."

"Silence."

"And if you care more about your fragile grasp on the truth of what your actions really do, and have done to your son, than Luke himself, then both I and Luke judged you too kindly."

He snapped his head back up.

Stared at her furious, exhausted face.

"Kindly?" he asked.

"Luke had faith that he could get through to you, if needed," she told him. "He didn't think you were so lost that you wouldn't listen to him. So listen to him, even if he can't rehearse the words coherently right now."

Vader said, "How did you come to know my son?"

She smiled humourlessly, then. "We've been friends for years. Since before I was a Rebel, when I was just a senator. He just made sure you never found out."

Vader swallowed, then nodded.

Luke woke up screaming shortly after.

He bent over his knees, crawled into the corner of the cell, then retched quietly. Vader grimaced and moved to put a gentle hand on his back while he did. Luke flinched under the touch, then relaxed.

"Father?" he whispered. Vader found it in him to marvel at, and possibly mourn, the fact that the only gentle touch his son could recognise was his own. There was no other that the drug could convince him was there.

"I'm here," he replied. When there was no response, he tried again, infusing the Force with his words. "I am here."

"Why are you here? Did Palpatine tell you?"

"Palpatine told me nothing. Do you remember what we spoke of before you slept? Where have you woken up?"

Luke hesitated. "The cells underneath the Imperial Palace."

Again, Vader inwardly roiled at the idea that Luke had any memory of being trapped in them.

His son sensed it. "I don't know why I'm here! I didn't do anything!"

"No. You didn't. Do you remember coming to Arikan IX? You have been drugged with epistemolide hexal. It is changing your brain's perception of what your senses are telling it. You are in a cell, but it is one of Director Horne's cells on Arikan IX, not one of Palpatine's. He has drugged you to investigate how Force sensitives react to it."

Luke reared back, and Vader resisted the urge to grab him. Instead, he let Luke find his feet, lean against the wall, then slowly sink down it. Vader gently put his hands on his shoulders to guide him away from the remains of the vomit.

"Very little of what you are experiencing is real," he said. "Think of it more as a nightmare you are trapped in."

"I get plenty of nightmares, Father," Luke snapped. Vader's heart twinged. That was right. Luke rarely slept through the night, and Vader had been too blind to see the issue behind who might have hurt him, hurt his very connection with the Force, so much. "They feel real, but never this real. You're just a voice in my head."

"But you know you can trust me."

"I don't know!" He took a deep breath, then closed his eyes. "Or… yes. Yes I do. You feel…"

"Truthful. The Force is telling you I am truthful. Listen to it. You know you should always trust the Force."

"Can't ever trust the Force around Palpatine," Luke muttered. "He listens to it too closely. If you open yourself up to it, he'll listen to your thoughts as well. And then he has power over you." It sounded strangely rehearsed, like a mantra he'd repeated time after time. Vader, despite himself, glanced at Organa. Her pale face was pinched, but she seemed to recognise it.

"Palpatine is parsecs away," she said. "It's just me, Leia, and your father here."

"That's not any better."

Vader tried not to bodily flinch.

"I know," he murmured. "I understand."

Luke stiffened.

"Now I know you're a hallucination," he said.

"No. I am not. I am here. And I know that you sold my secrets to Palpatine, though it wasn't of your own volition. And I know that you have been a Rebel spy, which was. I… I do care. Naturally, I do. But you are my son. And I care more about helping you out of this state than getting angry about whatever you reveal to me."

Luke's stiff shoulders relaxed under his touch, and he nearly broke out in a sob, burying his face in his knees. "This can't be true."

"It is. I'm your father."

Luke lifted his face by a fraction. "That's always true." Unlike the darkness. Unlike the cell of his senses he was trapped in.

"I love you."

Luke hiccupped. "I think that's always true, too."

Vader's heart had a seizure. "It is. Though I am not excellent at demonstrating it."

"You're not."

"Will you let me—us," he glared at Organa, who had the nerve to manage a small smile, "help you?"

Luke nodded, then stood up. "Alright. Alright. I—agh." He stumbled forwards, and Vader caught him. Luke jerked back immediately. "Not real. Not real."

"Not real," Vader confirmed, though he didn't know what Luke might be imagining. "May I merge minds with you?"

"What? No!"

"You need to clear the drug from your system, but so long as the drug is in your system, you cannot focus enough on what feelings are fake and which are real in order to achieve this. Your friend, Organa, tells me she managed it by latching onto other minds nearby, and using their perspectives to sharpen her own understanding of what situation she was in."

Organa stepped forward, then, and put a cool hand on Luke's burning forehead. "The true strength of Force-sensitives comes from our empathy and our connection with others. You need to reach out yourself… or you need to let us in."

Luke took in a shaky breath. "No. No, you can't."

"I don't care what you have done, Luke, I just want you safe."

"Please," he begged. "Don't."

Vader paused.

"You don't have to let us in, Luke," he promised. "But feel for my mind. My respirator filters out the drug; I am unaffected. Feel how I am viewing things and use it."

"You're not exactly a reliable source," Organa said sharply. Luke opened his mouth, then closed it, and Vader had the feeling that he had been about to say the same thing.

Vader thought, From my point of view the Jedi are evil!

He'd barely been older than Luke when he had said that.

He didn't even want to start thinking about Obi-Wan's old adages about viewing things as true from a certain point of view.

"Use me as well, Luke," Organa offered. Offered authoritatively—commanded, even. Luke's back straightened on reflex, and Vader found himself stifling a snort.

"You know that the Force is a two-way connection, I can't connect to you without you reading my mind as well."

"Maybe we want to understand your experience as well, Luke," Leia argued.

Vader said, "Maybe we want to understand better so we can help you. No matter what evils or betrayals you think you have locked up in there, I will not turn away."

"I told Palpatine who you were promoting for your coup, so he could have them killed off."

"And I forgive you."

"I told Palpatine the identities of Rebel spies. Several times. So he could remove them."

"You are a double agent at war."

"I'm a traitor. To everyone."

How had he missed his son's suffering? How had he let it come to this?

He would do better. He would spend every day of the next thousand years making it better.

"You have survived," he said. The tenderness that leaked into his voice pricked a tear from Luke's eye. "That's all I can ask for, from my son. Let us help you. Trust that we won't turn away."

Luke swallowed.

He opened his eyes and looked around. Vader knew he wasn't seeing them, that he was viewing the cell he thought he was trapped in, instead of the one he actually was. He stepped forwards, lifted his hand to mid-air… and stopped it there. Pressed his palm flat upright, against an imaginary wall. Then he threw open the doors of his mind and a chilly light gushed out.

Vader and Organa glanced at each other, then both tentatively reached out. The membrane around Luke's mind was more a shell, and Vader did not want to break it by entering. Knocking only got tight reverberations sent back at him. His son stiffened, then Vader wrapped his hand around Luke's wrist, wondering if he could feel the comforting touch at all. The Force was not with the action, but the Force was all around them, clamouring. It would be too loud to think, if the Force had not been thoughts themselves.

A chink opened up in the shell and Vader slipped in, thrusting his own ideas and visions to the forefront of his assault. Luke stumbled back, then forwards again, still crashing into that imaginary wall. But Vader felt him take the new knowledge, turn it over in his hands like a datapad, peruse it and open his eyes to see with it. His face contorted, then the sight slipped away; it was not a comfortable, easy, or understandable experience, seeing through someone else's eyes.

Organa was gentler. Vader's life was violence, but politicians were sneakier when it came to making people see things their way. She was in and melded with Luke's mind like they'd been formed in the same womb. Luke blinked, then nodded, and then—he looked right at Vader.

Vader didn't know what to do with what he was getting from his son. Guilt. Flashing images. A leering face. Guilt, guilt, guilt. Fear. Desperation. Love.

So much love.

The memories flashed past and settled into his understanding like ancient photographs, blurred and spoiled by water damage, twisted into something even more horrible than the original. In an instant, Vader understood what his son had done. The line he had walked—less tightrope than minefield of intersecting razors—and the footprints of blood left wherever he stepped, not all of it his own.

But ultimately, it did not matter.

It was terrible. But this was his son. Vader felt a stronger affection for him than he had ever known before, now that his fears, demons, failures, were laid out in front of him like a conspiracy theory. Luke had faced so much. He had overcome it all, and still kept his heart beating in his chest. Vader had failed him; Luke had not failed himself, no matter what he might think.

Organa was murmuring something to Luke, too quiet for Vader to hear. But the tone suggested that it was exactly what Vader was thinking.

He had never been articulate. He did not try to voice it as he did. Instead, he just unleashed those feelings into the world, as a fundamental part of his point of view on the unknowable galaxy, and Luke could feel them too. He sagged in Vader's grip, before jerking upright like a rod lanced through his spine. Then he lifted the hand pressed against a wall that was not there… and moved it forward.

Slowly, through mental concrete, durasteel and pain. Muscles shaking. And then the hand flopping, fingers writhing, and Luke flexed his shoulders. Opened his eyes; closed them again. Took a step forwards, then another, then another.

Until his outstretched fingers brushed the cold, clear glass at the front of the cell.

Vader let go of his wrists, turning to watch. There was a scientist there, he realised. The man who had harassed him with questions earlier, with large glasses, holding a neat white clipboard.

He stared up at Luke in horror as searching fingers pressed against the glass. Luke opened his eyes to see his palm pressed against the real thing keeping them prisoner. Vader sensed fear rage through the station; gas pumped back into the cell, according to the statistics in his mask, but Luke kept his eyes fixed on the glass. They didn't go distant. They weren't fazed at all. Sweat rolled off of Luke's forehead, turning his hair to dark, ropey strands, and he still trembled. But he did not fall or writhe in pain.

Instead, he closed his hand into a fist, and brought it crashing down upon the glass.