notes: Look at me getting an update out early! I just couldn't wait to share it with y'all, so here it is.

Huge, huge thanks (as always) to my two fantastic betas, absynthe-minded and princess-sansa-of-ithilien. Without them this fic wouldn't be nearly as good as it is.


CHAPTER 3

Time passed slowly for Leia, locked in the dark room. Her only marker for the passage of time was the infrequent plates of food and cups of water, and Luke.

Every morning Luke would wake quickly to his chrono blaring a harsh melody. He would roll over and silence it, then lay back and call to mind the thread of light that pulsed in time with Leia's heartbeat. It had grown since the first day Luke had sunk into it, transforming slowly from a single grain of sand to the thread that now connected them, his mind to hers, her thoughts to his.

They would talk for an hour, Luke laying in his bed, Leia on her duracrete floor. Then his aunt would come in to rouse him, and Luke would pull out of Leia's mind and ready for the day, feeling cold and empty and sad, as if some part of him had been left behind with Leia.

The days dragged on and on—or so it seemed to Luke. He would help his uncle out in the vaporator fields, or his aunt around the house, longing for the moment his aunt or uncle said, "That'll be all for today, Luke. Go play." Then he would race off for the garage, clamber up on the roof, and call for Leia again, letting himself sink down, down, down the thread that bound them, until he was hanging amid her thoughts and between her emotions.

He was with her one day when a tray was brought. He heard the grate of iron against duracrete, and then, as if he was seeing it with his own eyes, caught a glimpse of blinding light and a shadow imprinted on the other side. Tin scraped against duracrete, and then there was a clang as the light was cut off.

Leia crawled to the tray. Luke felt every movement as if it was his own—as if he was the one fumbling carefully for the cup of water, the one picking it up with shaking hands, the one bringing it to his lips and gulping down the water in it. He was one with Leia, as much her as he was Luke.

"That was cool," he told her.

"What was?" she asked, putting the cup down and flattening her hands on the floor to search for the bowl of thin gruel she thought she'd glimpsed.

"It was like I was you for a minute there," Luke said. "Like we were one person, instead of me inside your head."

"Oh," Leia said. "That sounds...weird."

Luke laughed, knowing Leia could feel his amusement. "It was," he said. "But also cool."

Slowly—painfully slowly, to Luke's reckoning—he got better at reaching down the thread to touch Leia's mind. Each day he was a little faster, each week it took a little less concentration. Soon enough he was able to walk down the path carved between their minds as soon as he closed his eyes.

Two months after he had contacted her for the first time since Old Ben had severed their connection, he was standing in the garage working on the engine of the landspeeder when, almost accidentally, he reached out for her. His mind slipped into hers.

It was easier than he would have expected. One second he was elbow-deep in the landspeeder engine, the next he was surrounded by darkness. He blinked, feeling his body on the other end of their connection freeze—and then he pulled halfway back, drawing enough of his consciousness back into his own body that he was able to move.

Before this he had, once he was in Leia's mind, been able to share with her snippets of things that he saw and things that he felt. But ever before it had been passive: the image of whatever was before his eyes, the sensation he was feeling at that moment. Never before had he been able to do anything but lie still while he was talking to her—had never before been able to move and act while in her mind.

Now, however, it was like he was sharing his mind with her, rather than existing in her thoughts. It was like his thoughts were side-by-side with hers—and he could still feel her, could still sense her emotions and the chill she felt in her bones—but that he still existed in his own body.

"Leia?" he asked, tentative, unsure if she would be able to hear him.

"Luke?" came her startled reply. "I wasn't expecting you yet. Did something happen?"

"No," Luke said, feeling the spear of concern that struck through her. "I'm working on our landspeeder, and I didn't...I mean, I don't know exactly how it happened, but I just tried to reach for you, and I was here."

He pulled his hands out of the engine and leaned down for a wrench. "Can you still hear me?" he asked, rising and reaching back into the engine to loosen a bolt.

"Yeah," Leia said. "You feel...different, even though you're the same. Like only part of you is here."

"That makes sense," Luke said, catching the bolt as it fell and putting it in his pocket. He leaned up on his tiptoes and felt around for the second bolt. "I'm there, but I'm here too."

"What are you doing?" Leia asked after a moment. She could feel his concentration.

"Replacing a busted hose," Luke told her. He loosened the final bolt and pulled out the engine part that the hose was attached to. Turning, he set it down on the stool he had dragged over for just that reason, and propped the wrench up against one of its legs. "Uncle Owen said he's been meaning to do this for ages. The 'speeder still works, but the engine gets really hot, and so you can't drive fast. Which is a problem if you're trying to outrun something. I finally convinced Uncle Owen to let me change it this morning."

"What kinds of things would you be trying to outrun?" Leia asked. Though Luke had told her about Tatooine, she still didn't understand much about the dangers that the desert offered.

"Sand People mostly," Luke said.

"What are Sand People?"

"Desert nomads who torture and kill settlers. They rarely come into settlements or close to houses, but if you're out on the open road—or out on the edge of the farm—you're fair game. That's how my grandma died," Luke admitted. "She was out on the outskirts of the farm one morning, gathering mushrooms from the vaporators, when she was taken. By the time they found her she was dead."

"I'm sorry," Leia said.

"It's okay," Luke said. "She died before I was born. Uncle Owen gets sad when we talk about her though. She was only his stepmom, but he really loved her."

"What was her name?"

"Shmi."

Luke could feel Leia's shock through their bond. It radiated up the thread connecting them, settling into the pit of his stomach like a fist of ice.

"Leia?" he asked. "Are you okay?" He concentrated, allowing himself to sink deeper into her mind, where he could better feel and sense her.

"I'm fine," Leia said gruffly. He felt her gather her thoughts—and then there was a wall before him, like durasteel and diamond. He pressed against it, searching for Leia's thoughts and feelings. But he couldn't get past the wall.

"Leia?" Luke called. "Leia, what's wrong?"

"Nothing," Leia said.

A thrill of relief flowed through Luke; at least he could still hear her. He just couldn't feel her emotions or sense her thoughts.

"It's just… Never mind," Leia said.

The wall lowered a moment later, and Luke was able to feel the fading tingle of shock receding from Leia's body. But no matter how hard he pressed, or how deeply he tried to search, Luke was unable to discern what had so badly startled her. Every time he thought he was getting close, he would run into another wall—shorter and thinner than the first one, a hill to a mountain though no less impenetrable—and would be able to search no further.

Things changed after that day. Luke was able to enter Leia's mind at will with only a thought, even while out working on the vaporators or weeding in the greenhouse. His uncle commented dryly one day a few weeks later that Luke had hardly said a word during lunch lately, to which Luke replied, "I've just got a lot on my mind."

"And what is so important that you finally learned the quality of silence?" Uncle Owen asked. He had always been a man of few words—as Luke had known ever since he was old enough to toddle—but he had put up with Luke's chatter during lunch and while they worked for ten years. It should not have been surprising, Luke reflected, that he notice Luke's new silence.

"A friend," Luke said by way of answer after a few seconds of tense silence. "I'm worried about a friend."

It was true, Luke told himself. He was worried about Leia.

She was alone—save for him—and cold, lying on a hard, duracrete floor with only a pair of thin pants and a thinner shirt for warmth and protection. She slept with her arms beneath her head and her knees drawn to her chest to preserve body heat, waking every so often when her hands fell asleep or her hip began to hurt from the floor.

She had also told him about the hallucinations. He had been laying in bed, talking to her as he drifted off to sleep, when abruptly she changed subjects and said, "Thank you."

"For what?" Luke had asked.

"For being here," she had said. "For not leaving me alone."

He could feel there was more she wanted to say. "Any other reason?" he prompted.

"I… Before you started talking to me, I was seeing things all the time," Leia said. "Bad things. And some good things, but mostly bad things."

"Like what?" Luke had asked.

"Like my father. And other people who died. Bugs too, and walls rotting and bleeding. Stuff like that."

Luke had shuddered then. "Do you still see them?"

"Sometimes," Leia admitted. "Usually when you haven't talked to me for a while."

"Well then I'll talk to you as much as I can," Luke had said. "I know that isn't much right now, but I'll practice. I'll get good at connecting with you. Then maybe I can do it and do other things too."

"What friend?" Uncle Owen asked, shaking Luke out of his reverie.

"Oh," Luke said, and frantically fished for an answer. "Someone you don't know," he finally settled on. Again, it was true—though Luke half expected follow-up questions, as the Larses knew most of the settlers and farmers in the area.

"Huh," was all Uncle Owen said, however, and they finished their lunch in silence.

Leia learning how to throw up a wall changed things too. Luke found her doing it more and more, blocking him off from parts of her mind that he hadn't even thought to look for. He only knew they existed now because there was a wall to keep him out.

"Why do you keep walling me off?" he asked her one day as he was cleaning the kitchen after dinner. "What are you trying to hide?"

"I just don't want you to go snooping," Leia told him.

"Do you really think I'll go snooping?" Luke asked, picking up the pot that the night's dinner had been cooked in.

"Well…no. Not really. I just...there are things I don't want you to know about."

"Okay," Luke said after a long pause. "But you don't have to wall them off. I won't go snooping. I promise."

Luke felt what could only be described as a mental shrug. "It's safer this way," Leia said. "For both of us."

"Both of us?" Luke repeated, finishing scrubbing out the pot.

"Yes."

"How is it safer for me?" Luke asked. He rinsed the pot and set it on the drying rack.

"There are things I know—things I've seen—that...that could be dangerous. I think. They feel dangerous. And scary. And I don't want you to have to deal with that."

"I'm here to help you, remember?" Luke said, wringing out a wash rag and turning to wipe down the stove and counters.

"You can't help me with this. Trust me, it'll just be better if you don't know."

"Okay," Luke said slowly. "If you say so…"

Even so, they grew closer every day. They talked almost constantly: little sentences of thought and emotion as well as full conversations about water on a desert planet, about mountains, about horses and banthas and thrantas and krayts, about dreams, about the stars, about a thousand more subjects.

He would send her snapshots of his life—images of the vaporators, of Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru, of the desert sky and its brilliant suns. In the evenings, when the first sun was down and the heat was bearable, Luke would go out to the garage and lay on the roof, sending Leia the feeling of the warmth soaking into his back through their bond. He could feel her sigh and the unspooling of the taut muscles that tried to keep her warm.

It became easier and easier for Luke to slip in and out of Leia's mind at a second's thought, until he could slide in on accident when he wasn't paying attention. As their connection strengthened—the thread of light growing strands that wrapped around the cord, weaving in and out of it until it was a rope of light as strong as steel wire—Luke was able to leave part of his mind in Leia's, so he could feel her emotions and the faintest impressions of her thoughts, even when he wasn't actively paying attention to them or to her.

The only times they were truly apart were when one or the other was asleep.

Leia's hallucinations continued to abate. They would still come at times, however, even when she was talking with Luke. He would feel them in her mind like a large, dark shadow pressing against her thoughts—a massive, sinister being that breathed with a mechanical hiss and whispered in a voice and tongue Luke could not understand.

He never could tell exactly what it was Leia saw, but when he would feel the hallucination taking shape, Luke would stop and put in her mind an image of whatever it was he was working on, be it vaporators or the landspeeder's engine or simply his bedroom ceiling.

"Focus on me," Luke would tell her. "Focus on my voice, and on what I'm showing you."

And Leia would concentrated on Luke, and on the image he was putting in her mind, and the hallucination would ebb away like sand whispering down a dune.

"Thank you," she would always say then, and afterwards would cling all the more tightly to Luke. He could feel it in the desperation with which she spoke to him, and in the sharpness of her thoughts and her emotions.

"I'm not gonna leave you," Luke told her one night after they had driven a hallucination away. "You know that, right?"

"I know," Leia said. But Luke could feel the disbelief, the uncertainty, in her. It was smooth and soft and black, spongy like mold and just as rotten.

"Why don't you believe me?" he asked, calling her out on her lie.

Leia hesitated so long that Luke wondered if she was going to answer him. But then, finally, Leia said, "There were people who I thought loved me. But they didn't. They left me to...to the Emperor and the Inquisitors and… Well. They left me. I thought they loved me. But I was wrong."

"I swear to you, Leia," Luke said. "I love you, and I'm never going to abandon you."

It was the first time one of them had said they loved the other—though it was a statement of fact that both had known for months. They had known that they loved each other from the time they had played at the house by the lake, when Leia had taught Luke how to swim and they had stared at the stars and talked about their dreams.

"I love you too," Leia replied softly.

Luke smiled.

~oOo~

"I found her."

Jak stood in the entrance to Lord Vader's regeneration chamber. A bacta tank took up the center of the wide room, glowing eerie blue and bubbling gently. Counters ringed the walls, covered with hypos and wrenches and a hundred other tools that Jak had no name for, but knew they were for fixing things—fixing humans, fixing machines. Docking ports for droids were in even intervals around the walls, interspersed between the counters. Half of the ports were empty, the droids puttering around the large room; the rest of the ports were full, the droids powered down and silent. A large medical chair stood on the far end of the room, just visible around the curve of the bacta tank.

Jak found it unnerving and disconcerting. All of the medical equipment and the sterility of the air made him uncomfortable, and caused him to wonder just what happened in this room. He wished, in that moment, that he had not been ordered to inform Lord Vader the moment he found Leia—regardless of time or situation.

Darth Vader hung suspended in the bacta. A breathing mask covered his face and he wore a pair of tight-fitting shorts, but the rest of him was bare. Jak was shocked to see that he was covered in thick, rippling scars—scars that could only have been caused by fire and flame. For the first time Jak also saw that both of Vader's legs were artificial, as were both of his arms.

So the rumors were right, Jak thought, fighting nausea. He is as much machine as man...

The air was thin and dizzying. Jak had heard that the air in Vader's regeneration chamber was 98% pure oxygen. He had not been sure if he believed that rumor—until now. Until he stood in the room itself and breathed in a heady amount of air that tasted cleaner, purer, more sterile than any air he had ever breathed.

There came a hiss, and then the bacta in the tank began to drain, swirling away in a rush of blue and bubbles. Vader's feet slowly lowered to the floor, until he was standing upright in the last few inches of bacta. Then that too was gone, disappearing through the drain at the center of the tank. The door slid open.

Vader stepped out, pulling the breathing mask from his face.

Jak fought down a shiver and a thrill of fear at the sight of him. He had a strong stomach—you had to, if you were to work in the Imperial Domestic Corps—but even so Jak found himself uneasy at the sight of Vader, fighting down horror and disgust.

Droids squawked and rushed hither and thither, trying to usher Vader toward the medical chair, bringing him a robe, reaching for the joints were metal met flesh.

Vader ignored them all.

"You found her?" he said, taking a step forward. Bacta pooled beneath his feet in thick, blue puddles. His voice was thin and hoarse—a stark contrast to the rich, deep thunder of the voice that issued from behind the black mask he wore.

"Yes, my lord," Jak said with a bow, averting his eyes. He did not want Vader to think he was staring.

"Where is she?"

"She's being held in the IB basement," Jak told Vader. "In what used to be a custodian closet that they transformed into a cell."

"Well done," Vader said, and at last allowed the droids near enough to him to drape a robe over his shoulders and survey his joints.

"Thank you, my lord," Jak said, still averting his eyes but fighting to keep from grinning with pride. It was rare for Vader to offer such praise.

"You may go," Vader told him.

Jak bowed and left, listening to the door slide shut behind him on the strange and horrifying room.

~oOo~

So, Vader thought, she's still in the IB.

He sat in the medical chair in his regeneration chamber, waiting impatiently as the droids tended to his mechanical arms and legs and tuned the machinery embedded in his chest. It burned, and his stumps ached as the nerves attached to the artificial limbs were twisted and abused. He knew it was necessary, however, unless he wanted to stop functioning—and so he tolerated the pain and discomfort.

What is their purpose in holding her in a custodial closet? he wondered. What do they hope to accomplish?

Though he himself had never been held in permanent isolation, Vader had seen cases of it during the Clone War and after, among the Empire's prisoners. Many of them went crazy after only a few short months of isolation, turning from logical, rational men and women to raving lunatics. They hallucinated, their sense of time warped, and they became highly anxious and erratic, incapable of cogent thought.

Was that what the Inquisitors wanted to turn her into? A raving, incoherent, unintelligent, mad girl?

Somehow Vader didn't think that was what the Inquisitors—or the Emperor—wanted.

The droids finished their ministrations and Vader rose, ready to don his armor once more. It hung at the back of the regeneration chamber, more droids scuttling around it ready and waiting to place it on him. Vader stepped up, extended his arms, and waited.

It descended on him like a black wave, smothering and constricting. Tunic and pants came first, quilted black cloth that was smooth and slick against his scarred skin. Then came the breastplate and pauldrons: two piece of heavy plastisteel that hooked together at his sides and settled over his shoulders, the droids humming as they fed the interlocking teeth together. The gorget came next, encircling his throat and protecting his collarbones. The breathing apparatus control box hooked onto the front of the whole piece, lighting up as it synced up with the interface embedded in his chest, red and green and red again.

The codpiece came next, hooking around his hips and navel. Then boots, greaves, and leather gloves, followed by his helmet. It was in two pieces: the first half fastened to the gorget, covering his mouth and nose like a bevor; the second hissed as it fastened over his head, sealing to the first part with a gush of clean, cold oxygen. Last was his cape, fastened to his pauldrons with sliding hooks.

He was Darth Vader, in all of his imposition and power, once more.

Turning, Vader strode from his regeneration chamber and through his attached quarters—sitting room, unused bedroom, equally unused dining room, and study—and out into the corridor beyond. He hesitated then, torn between his duty—he was schedule to meet with a committee of Admirals in half an hour, and he liked to get to the meeting room early—and a morbid desire to see Leia Organa again.

Who is she to you? he asked himself. Why should you care to see her again?

Because she has Her eyes, a treacherous voice whispered, and you want to see that again.

Vader ignored that voice.

She is the child Palpatine desires to supplant you with, another voice said, snide and cruel. That reason alone should be enough to make you not want to see herOr should be enough to drive you to do so, another voice rejoined. You should know your enemy.

Vader decided the Admirals could wait for him this once. He turned and directed his steps toward the Inquisitorial Building, and toward the girl being kept there in darkness.

"My lord Vader," an Inquisitor said, startled as Vader appeared in the IB's doorway. The foyer opened before him, cool and dark and gleaming, and the Inquisitor stood in a doorway leading off it to a spiral staircase, a heavy tome in his hands. "What can I do for you?"

"Nothing," Vader said, and swept past him toward the lift.

He rode down to the basement in silent thought. Was it worth it, going to visit her? Surely news of his visit would reach Palpatine, just as it had the first time he had done so. Palpatine would likely not be pleased, especially this time, as Leia was being kept in isolation, and Vader was about to break that isolation.

He decided he didn't care. The desire, morbid and masochistic, was stronger than his fear of Palpatine's anger.

The door opened onto the long basement hallway, and Vader stepped out into the cool, duracrete corridor. Bright lights shone down on him, and Vader imagined that the air tasted cold and dry and musty.

He came to a custodial closet, the plaque hanging beside it announcing its function. He opened it, only to find a room filled with buckets, mops, brooms, cleaning agents, a wash station, a sink, and all manner of other supplies. He closed the door and moved on.

At the end of the hall stood a second, smaller custodial room. This one had a bolt on the outside, and a sliding grate welded to the bottom of the door. Vader knew he had found the place.

The bolt clanged as Vader shot it back, and the door groaned as he opened it. The wood of it had been reinforced with iron plating on the inside, causing it to hang heavy and grind against the floor.

They really don't want Leia escaping, Vader thought.

Light from the hall spilled into the room, illuminating a tray and cup sitting just inside the door, a drain at the center of the floor stained with piss and shit. If he could breathe the free air, Vader suspected that the stench would be nearly overwhelming.

And there, curled into the back corner of the small room, her feet dirty and her pants and thin shirt stained, lay Leia.

He heard her cry out when the door opened and the light flooded in, hiding her eyes from the blinding pain. Her hair was matted and tangled, halfway fallen from the braid it had been woven into. Her face was streaked with sweat and dried tears and old snot, and her lips were cracked with thirst.

Silently, Vader cursed. What are they doing to this girl? he wondered. What do they hope to accomplish with this?

"Look at me," Vader commanded.

Leia whimpered and did not obey.

"Look at me," Vader ordered again.

This time Leia lifted her head cautiously, squinting tear-filled eyes against the light. She whimpered again and shut her eyes tightly, spilling the tears down her cheeks.

For just a second, Vader had seen it—had seen Her in Leia's gaze. It sent a thrill of shock and horror and relief through him, so profound it made him dizzy. He had almost convinced himself that it had been a figment of his imagination, the fact that Leia had Her eyes.

The Force whispered at him, nudging and pricking him. Listen, it said, in the language Vader had known since birth. Listen, listen, listen…

Vader turned. He had been foolish to come here. What had he expected? Some lightning bolt of understanding or clairvoyance? Understanding? Leia to tell him what he wanted to hear, which was—what? What had he wanted to know?

I wanted to know why she has Her eyes, Vader thought.

"What do you want?"

Leia's voice halted Vader's turn. He spun slowly on his heel, until he was looking at Leia once more, now sitting up with her eyes opened in slits. "What?" Vader growled.

"What do you want?" Leia asked again.

Vader thought about what answer he could give her. He could tell her the truth, or he could lie. The truth was dangerous, and there was a slim chance at best that Leia would understand what he meant, and an even slimmer chance she would be able to answer his question. If he lied however—well, what would he say?

He settled on part of the truth. "I wanted to see you."

"Why?" Leia asked, sounding almost accusing.

"I wanted to know how you were faring."

Leia laughed, high and derisive. The sound sent chills down Vader's spine. Something about the laugh was...familiar. Familiar and terrifying.

"Since when did you care about me?" Leia asked.

A beat. Then, with more venom spurred by his discomfort than he intended, Vader said, "I don't."

Leia laughed again. Tears continued to trickle down her cheeks, but she was smiling a cold, brutal smile. "Of course you don't."

This time when Vader turned, Leia didn't stop him. He swung the door shut, slammed the bolt home, and strode away.

He shouldn't have come, Vader decided as he stepped into the lift. It was stupid, and pointless for him to have done so. And what did it accomplish? Nothing. It had accomplished nothing. He had wasted his time, and broke an unspoken rule to get nothing.

He slammed a fist against the button, closing the doors and sending the lift upwards. Anger—at Leia, at himself—crackled through him, sparking down his bones and burning in his blood. The pull of the Dark Side strengthened, mounting inch by inch, ounce by ounce until Vader yearned for the feel of the Force breaking bone.

Never again, Vader thought. I will never seek her out again.

Deep down, though, he knew he was lying to himself. He was drawn to her, in mind and soul, like a moth to flame; even now there was a part of him that yearned to return, to hear her voice again and see her eyes. There was something captivating about her, something enchanting—something that drew him, irresistibly and irrevocably.

He would see her again. Just not yet.


end notes: I made a deal with my ao3 readers: 10 reviews by Sunday and I upload the next chapter then, or 15 by Tuesday and I upload Tuesday. Otherwise I'll upload next Friday or Saturday. Now, I don't want to post on different days on different sites, but I figure it's only fair that I offer you a deal as well. So (since I typically get fewer reviews here), 10 reviews by Tuesday and I'll post then, 15 by Thursday and I'll post Thursday. Otherwise I'll post Friday or Saturday. Sound fair?

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