Okay so. In regards to the update schedule for this - it has been a month and a half, and I am sorry, but I think I'm just gonna keep to something like that. This is a really difficult fic to write, for some reason, and while I intend to try and focus on it more in the next few weeks, I've said that before and it never sped up my writing. There'll always be another idea that's easier to write that I'd rather focus on, so this fic gets shunted around a lot.
Because of that, I'm still not happy with this chapter, but it's nearly midnight and I need to sleep, so here it is. XD I mean it when I say I'm going to try and work on plotting, planning and improving this fic more in the next few weeks, in hopes that that will make it easier to write, but I also mean it when I say that plot bunnies bite hard when they bite and fanfic is for fun, so I'll always prioritise the one I have more fun writing.
That said, thank you so much for your patience! I really appreciate it, and I hope you enjoy reading :D
Voices chattered over his head, but Luke just felt woozy.
He was back in the council room and regretting is dearly. They'd at least stopped to give him a painkiller or two, but truth be told, it didn't help much, and it certainly did nothing about the fact that every time he looked at his handless wrist he wanted to hurl. Everything hurt, not just his injury: that Rebel had beaten the living daylights out of him, and taking painkillers was like using a toothpick to fight a lightsaber.
He zoned back in when Leia laid a hand on his shoulder and smiled at him reassuringly, her brow pinched in worry. "Luke?"
He glanced away and tried to listen to the debate.
Mon Mothma and… Bail Organa, via hologram, were alternating between staring at him and arguing with Senator Jebel and some other High Command members. He met their eyes awkwardly, shivering despite the blanket they'd piled on him, and winced.
"Skywalker, can you come up here to answer some questions?" Mothma said—sternly, as sternly as she'd spoken to him the other day, but with perhaps a hint of sympathy this time—regret. It looped through the Force and dizzied him further.
Luke made to stand, stumbled, and staggered back into his seat.
"No," he said baldly. His legs were shaking too much. "No, I cannot."
Everyone at the High Command round table twisted to look at him, in his little observer's chair off to the side; he could sense how awkward the people on the side nearest to him were. They had to twist all the way around to see him, or expose their backs to him.
Did they think he was some rabid, unpredictable creature? Did they think he would bite?
Probably.
Leia said firmly, from her seat next to him, "He can answer questions from here." Her voice echoed loud and clear in the large chamber. He found his gaze following the noise up, to observe the stonework and the vines curling in the corners.
Mothma inclined her head. "Very well." She cleared her throat. "Is it correct, what Princess Leia says? You are Angel?"
"Yes."
Gasps and other sharp intakes of breath resounded around the room, despite that all of them must know this by now. He wanted this to be over and done with. He wanted to go back to his cell and sleep.
He wanted his father.
But he was thousands of parsecs away from Coruscant, and a traitor, so he could not have his father, no matter how much he longed for it.
Bail Organa's face was still blinking at him, slow and confused, with something unnervingly close to elation edging onto it. Had Leia not told her father about this? Really? Luke… wasn't sure if he was honoured or appalled.
Mothma continued, "And how long have you been working as Angel?"
"How long has Angel been working?" he bit back. "I didn't replace anyone. I've been here from the start."
She just said, "And how long has that been?"
Luke hesitated, numbers crashing into each other behind his eyes. "One… one year."
"One and a half years," Leia confirmed. Luke nodded.
"And why did you decide to?"
He frowned, at that. "Excuse me?"
"Why did you decide to do this?"
"To do what? To defect? To take on a mantle and nickname? To steal, instead of spy? What are you asking me?"
"All of the above."
"Well, about the nickname: that wasn't me who did that, that was you lot. And I decided to defect because… well. The Empire is kriffed up. I… I love my father, but he's not the paragon of morality either. The whole system is corrupt, Coruscant is a nightmare, and…" His voice cracked. "I started stealing because I just wanted to help people. Despite what you might think, I don't have much money of my own, at least, not enough that I'd be satisfied that I'd done my part by giving it away—I have what I need, I'm comfortable, but I get most of it from my father so I can't do anything suspicious there—so… burglary."
A shudder went through his frame; Leia's col, steady hand closed around his shoulder.
"Stealing. Leia needed something back. Another friend needed something back. I wasn't a high-ranking officer, I was a cadet, and my father kept me out of his job, but you needed intelligence, and weapons, and so many people on Coruscant needed a little bit of money. I wanted to provide."
He smiled a little. "Annoying Palpatine was just a bonus."
Mothma didn't seem convinced, but she continued, "Was becoming the Imperial Prince ever a part of your plan?"
"No. No, I—" He'd shaken his head too hard; it spun. He lifted a hand to it, and whimpered when he lifted the one that he no longer had. "That was a surprise. And an unpleasant one."
"So you do not want to be the Prince?"
"And be yanked in front of holocams and have to spend all that time with Palpatine?" he snapped. "No!"
"But do you want to be Emperor?"
For a moment, Luke thought he must have misheard. Because that was an appallingly stupid question.
He said as much, and just when one of the opposition members looked offended, he said, "Of course not. I'm not a politician. I'm not even a soldier—I wanted to go to the Imperial Academy so I could fly, not so I could fight. What would I do with an empire? What can an empire do with the galaxy, except tyrannise it?"
"You're the one who was raised on a steady diet of Imperial propaganda," someone said. "You tell us."
Luke snorted. "Bring order, I guess. But what happens on Coruscant is not order. What happens in the Outer Rim is not order."
Organa cut in, then. "Esteemed colleagues," he said, "I do not see how any of this is relevant. Whether this is… surprising or not, we know that Luke… Skywalker is Angel. We have never doubted Angel's intentions before."
"That does not mean we shouldn't have."
"My daughter vouches for him," Organa pointed out. "Do you mistrust her, she who has done so much for us in the heart of the Senate?"
Low grumblings went around, but no one objected.
Mothma cleared her throat again. "Bail is right. We should not assess one person's past, or motivations, not at this moment; rather, we should spend our time thinking about what to do now." She turned to the nearest guard. "What has been done with Derane?"
"Derane?" Luke murmured.
"The man who attacked you," Leia whispered back.
"He was put in temporary confinement, ma'am."
"I want him back as soon as possible," one of the other members immediately said. "Derane is the best Pathfinder we have, brilliant in a fight—he's wasted languishing in jail because he knows an Imp when he sees one."
Ah. Luke stopped feeling so much about Derane wiping the floor with him so badly, even if Luke hadn't really been fighting back.
"We will have a discussion with and about Derane later," Bail said. "His behaviour was… understandable," Leia glared, and Bail winced even as he said it, "but inappropriate. However, he is not the issue here."
"Yeah. The Sithspawn is."
Another voice piped up, "What are we going to do with Angel?"
"Well," Mothma said, "I think—I hope—I speak for everyone when I say that killing him or imprisoning him is now officially off the table."
There was some cringing, as everyone was reminded about that particular suggestion, but no one objected.
"Fulcrum," Mothma said. "You had a plan, did you not? Before… all of this came up."
Ahsoka stepped forwards and nodded, her blue eyes ghosting over Luke for a moment, then nodded. "Yes. I suggest we try the ransom route again—directly to Vader this time, and without giving him the chance to consult with Palpatine."
Objections erupted.
"That has clearly been proven to not work! His father does not want him back—not at the cost we are asking for."
Luke tried not to flinch, but Leia evidently saw something in him anyway; she squeezed his shoulder.
"And we cannot justify lowering the demanded payment—"
"Can we not? Angel is no use to us on a Rebel base, but he is of infinite use and advantage on Coruscant with access to everything an Imperial prince can have—"
"That would look incredibly suspicious. Either they would suspect something was amiss with the hostage exchange, or they would suspect that the Rebellion is desperate for supplies, enough that we'll grasp for straws—"
"We are desperate and Vader knows that perfectly well; it is he who cuts off all our supply routes and hunts us to the ends of the galaxy—"
"Gentlefolk," Mothma said, "please. We need reasoned discussion, not shouting."
Silence fell reluctantly, like chittering birds slowly noticing an approaching predator. When everyone had stopped talking, Mothma continued:
"I agree that the ideal outcome, which we want to aim for, is to return Skywalker to his position as prince. It is the more moral route than kidnapping and murder, which will lose us support from some of the more soft-hearted people, and it allows Angel to resume his work on Coruscant, uninterrupted by this… hiccup… and escape he had to make." Luke realised abruptly that Leia had probably shared with Mothma, if not the entirety of High Command, exactly how he'd got into this situation. He flushed bright red at his own poor thinking. "Therefore, a hostage exchange is likely the most direct way to achieving that, in my thinking. If we can indeed convince Vader to the exchange… it would achieve all our goals."
She cleared her throat. "If we cannot, then we can pursue other lines of enquiry. But until then, I support Fulcrum's plan. Does anyone have any objections?"
Plenty.
"This is preposterous—"
"I cannot believe we are even considering—"
"Vader has already said no; he is no less a heartless monster than his Emperor, appealing to him won't change anything—"
"Then what if we back up our threats?" someone said.
Luke glanced up in fright at that, eyes wide, to see a human woman's dark gaze fixed on him.
Mothma said, "If you are implying that we hurt someone who has only been an ally to us—"
"I am not," she interrupted. "But our ally has already got hurt," her gaze shifted to Luke's stump, "has he not?"
Silence fell again, this time more naturally. Shocked, aghast, and—unnervingly—considering silence.
She finished her proposal with, "Why not use it?"
It was an ensign who came to report to him. The boy wasn't a terrible ensign, but he was a terrible sign.
If higher-ranking officers had ordered a lower ranking one to report to him, all the way down to an ensign, it meant they had some truly terrible news for him.
No matter. He remained standing behind the desk in his study, staring out of the viewport behind the chair he never used, and used the Force to open the door before the boy could even knock. "Enter."
The ensign took a deep breath, stumbled a little, but came in. "The coordinates in the latest transmission from the Rebels, my lord—"
Vader snapped around, then, his cape flapping at his footsteps, and took in the officer for the first time. He was about Luke's age, brown-haired, he had one of those ratty bracelets, he held a plastisteel box in his hand, and if he was here about that transmission, this was terrible news indeed.
"The one about the ongoing negotiations for my son," he said sharply. The ensign swallowed, and nodded. "The team dispatched to the coordinates they sent have returned."
"Yes, sir. They led to Dantooine, to an abandoned Rebel base—it seemed to have been abandoned for some time—and the only thing that showed up on any scans for organic or humanoid lifeforms showed up this." He tentatively put the box on the desk.
Then he gasped as it leapt into Vader's hand, its contents rattling about inside it.
Vader looked at the box in his grip.
He had no idea what it might hold.
He had no idea what this was supposed to be.
But he felt physically sick with foreboding as his hand edged towards the seals.
"Leave," he said to the ensign.
"But, sir—"
Strangling him would alleviate some of this horrible, horrible pressure, Vader mused. It would satisfy the dark side, which would stop haunting him so closely, it would satisfy him, and it would serve as a temporary release for everything he wanted to do to every single Rebel who ever crossed his path from now on.
But he was Luke's age. Slightly older, perhaps, but barely.
He had one of those stupid bracelets, despite being far, far too young to have served on the Executor when Luke was handing them out. Which meant that someone who had served then had shown him sympathy—had tried to save his life. Or perhaps it was a parting gift, a paltry defence for the child they'd passed their reporting duties onto: the faintest chance for survival.
Vader was increasingly sure, from this ensign's large, widening eyes, that he was not older than Luke.
"Leave," he repeated. "Do not make me repeat myself a third time."
The ensign scrambled to attention, and could not get out of the office fast enough.
Finally, the door slid closed, and Vader was alone.
It was dim in here, he noticed suddenly. His lenses adjusted for it, but it was dim, and this was probably something that deserved the full amount of illumination. He flicked the light switch with the Force, set the box down on the table, and sat in the chair behind it.
Then, with hands that would have trembled were they not made of durasteel, he unclasped the seals and listened to the hissing release.
The darkness was crowing at the back of his head; there was a knot in his spine, clenching tighter and tighter; there was an anvil on his chest; there were worms in his gut.
Luke, he thought. His son. With bright eyes and bright smiles and a bright future, should he wish to pursue it.
Luke.
Luke.
Then he flipped open the box and the darkness roared.
It was a hand.
A hand, some of the flesh starting to rot from time detached, the fingernails scabby and the skin scarred. It had been scrubbed to perfection—the Rebellion presumably didn't want to reveal what world they were on by having dust on the threat they sent—and it looked unnatural: limpid and white and… fleshy.
It was Luke's hand. He recognised the scars, the slender fingers, the curve of the knuckles.
It was— it was Luke's hand.
They had cut off his son's hand—
Later investigation of it would reveal that the severance was done by a lightsaber. He resolved to show any Jedi with the Rebels even less mercy than before.
Later investigation would see the new holorecording also in the box, outlining the Rebellion's new terms. Hardly changed, and even bolder.
Later investigation would pull up more and more details of this awful situation, and Vader's rage would only grow tenfold with every discovery.
But for now, it was monstrous enough.
The cabinets, the datapads, the chairs… they all shattered around him. He just stood in a rain of splinters and glass and howled.
Luke was back in his cell, a medical cap on his wrist to prevent the wound from becoming infected, when he was lying on his back unable to sleep from the pain. He was musing that he supposed he was grateful at least that they'd turned off the permanent lighting, that had made it difficult to sleep, when the door slid open and Leia strode in with a mat and a pillow.
She laid them both on his bunk. "There. That should be better."
"They're giving me a mat now?" Luke muttered sceptically.
"They did just see your hand amputated and the cadaver sent to your father, and you do technically do a lot of work for the Rebels, so their consciences kicked in for once."
"Don't remind me about that. None of this is fun, and I hate it."
She smiled. "I know you do. But what is it you're really worrying about here? This whole situation is hell, I know, but you're even moodier than you were earlier."
Luke grimaced. "He's not going to cave, Leia," he whispered. "He's just… not. He didn't cave the first time—like I told you. I don't care what your Rebellion, or what Ahsoka, thinks of him. He's a Sith Lord, and a different person to the one she knew. He would give his life for the Empire—"
"But would he give his son?"
Luke looked at her as if she was insane. "He's already shown that he would." His voice cracked. "I don't know what you're looking for."
Leia snorted. "Isn't it obvious? Filial loyalty. You can't tell me he doesn't love you."
"Of course he does. I know he does." He had never said it, but he didn't need to—Luke knew that. If he looked, he could see behind every gift, every dry quip, every clumsily affectionate gesture, a deep sort of love he didn't think his father had felt for anyone else since his mother. "But the Empire was his first child. I was born two days later, thousands of parsecs away."
Leia shook her head. "I don't think that's true. Your father adores you. Anyone who's been around the two of you has seen it." She elbowed him lightly in the ribs. "Also, I ran a background check on you when you first started Angeling, just to be sure. Anybody on the Executor who any spies will interview will say the same thing." She dropped her arm, then, and clenched her fist. "I think he's terrified for you. I think that when he gets the"—she glanced at the cap on Luke's stump—"package, he'll cave. Especially since this time, it's not going to go through Palpatine."
Lack of Palpatine was only a good thing, he supposed.
"Just give it time," she said. "It's barely been twenty-four hours since our spies said an Imperial transport went to Dantooine. He'll come through."
"I don't think—"
"Luke," Leia said, "when I was in the Council room, just now, and people were refusing to trust you for being Vader's son, I nearly told them I was his daughter."
He jerked his head up to look at her. "Why? I thought you hated—"
"I do. I don't. I—" She took a deep breath. "He's an awful person."
It was undeniably true. Luke said nothing.
She smiled. "But he loves his son more than he loves being evil," she said. "I'm pretty sure of that."
Luke said nothing.
He didn't know how to articulate the hollowness in his chest. He didn't have to.
Ahsoka burst into the cell moments later, grinning.
It gave him such mood whiplash that he blinked, trying to understand what he just saw. Her eyes were wide and surprised; she closed the door behind her quickly, the hiss breaking the awkward silence that fell.
"He replied," she said, her face dropping into the solemnity that, probably, fit the situation significantly better. "And he agreed."
Luke froze. "W…" he worked his mouth, swallowed, tilted his head. "What?"
"He sent a message back," she said. "He agreed to our terms in order to get Luke back. We're sending Luke back to Coruscant."
Luke jerked his head up. "What?"
Her face fell, and she couched it more gently: "You're going back, Luke. He agreed. You're safe." She smiled a little more, tentatively. "We get the supplies and hostages and funds, you get to go home and resume your life."
"He…" His brain didn't compute. "He accepted the deal?"
"He did."
"He wants me back?"
"Yes."
"How much did you cut from your original demands?" Because the original demands had been ridiculous, he knew—utterly massive. His father had probably fumed the moment he read them, killed the poor sod who'd delivered it to him out of sheer rage. He would not have agreed to them, no matter what they'd sent—
"Hardly anything," she said. "We banked on the hand being… quite a lot of pressure, and kept pushing. His message was clearly furious about it—I've never seen so many threats in ten minutes—but he caved. There'll be an exchange. He drops off the supplies and other stuff we bargained for at pre-selected, neutral planets, and after a few runs to make sure he's genuine, after he's given over everything, then we'll send you over to Coruscant and return you."
"How are you going to return me?" he asked, eyes narrowed.
"I have some friends there," she said coyly. "They'll help me—don't worry, you'll be in good hands. They'll just drug you, take you to an abandoned building, then make sure you stay alive until the Imps receive the coordinates and come and get you."
Luke said, "Reassuring."
She laughed. "I'm sorry. It's supposed to be." She squeezed his shoulder; when he didn't respond, she sighed, and turned to leave.
"But he caved," she continued softly. "It's alright—it's over. A few days, or weeks, and then you're going home."
"I want to see the recording."
She froze mid-step.
She didn't look over her shoulder when she said, "I don't think that's a good idea, Luke."
"But—"
She had already left the cell.
"See?" Leia said. "He loves you—enough to sacrifice a significant part of his empire for you. It'll be fine."
He got the sense she knew what she was reassuring him about.
And he got the sense she knew it wasn't helping.
He'd heard his father's words, in the previous transmission. Just because he'd now shifted tactics, just because he'd decided that temporarily giving them what they wanted was the best course of action, didn't mean—
Didn't mean he'd ever forgive Luke if he found out about Angel.
Did it?
He thought about his father—Darth Vader, dark lord of the Sith—and all those caring gestures he'd never been able to resist from making.
He… loved Luke.
He loved Luke.
He was willing to sacrifice tactical and military advantages for the Empire to get him back.
Surely that meant—
Surely…
He didn't know.
He hardly dared to hope.
He was fairly sure he knew the answer anyway; hoping would just hurt more.
"Great," he said, and tried to make his smile seem genuine.
He was sent back a week later. Before he was shoved on that ship, they threw him up in front of High Command one last time—more, he suspected, so the Rebels could ogle their great thief and supplier than because they had anything important to say to him.
"Will the Empire give him a prosthetic?" a man asked, eyeing the cap on his wrist.
"Would the Empire let their prince walk around without one?"
"I simply wanted to point out, it would be more difficult for him to burgle if he was adapting to using only three limbs—"
"They'll almost definitely give me a prosthetic," Luke interrupted. His body was thrumming with tension, and with every thoughtless word the frequency rang higher, and higher. "Next question."
They jerked, as if they'd forgotten he was here, eyeing him again—more like a fascinating specimen than an enemy, now. Several of them opened their mouths for more mindless enquiries, but Mothma shushed them.
"No more questions," she said. "Your transport has arrived. And—Skywalker—" She swallowed.
He stayed sitting in his little chair to the side, even as she approached him; only when she was right in front of him did it occur to him that perhaps he should stand up.
As he did, she said, "I think I speak for all of us when I apologise for this experience. We have treated you poorly, unworthy of the help you have given us—" Luke contained his snort. "—and we all regret it dearly. We apologise."
He smiled with a slight twist of his lips. "Apology accepted." He just wanted to get out of here.
He wanted to go home.
He wanted to see his dad again.
She hesitated, like she wasn't sure—and she was genuinely concerned about this, he could tell. They'd unwittingly traumatised one of their most successful suppliers, and he was in the perfect position to defect and sell them out if he chose to take offence.
He wasn't, his father would—probably?—kill him if he ever learnt the truth, but they didn't know that.
So he smiled wider. "Really," he reassured. "It's fine. It was me who was silent about everything when it could have made it easier." That wasn't to say he wasn't still bitter, especially since he was missing a kriffing hand, but anger wouldn't help him here.
Anger would lead him deeper in Palpatine's trap, and that was something he could not allow.
Mothma finally seemed to accept it, then. "And… we appreciate, the risk you are taking for us."
Which was a ridiculous thing to say.
They had any number of soldiers who lay down their lives in every battle for the cause. Any number of spies who crept along a knife's edge with every day of their existence. All of them were in more danger than him.
But he accepted the gratitude all the same.
And then Leia took his arm to lead him to the ship and he followed her.
Zev was on the ship when he entered, prepping the engines.
"I didn't know you were a pilot," Luke commented.
"I'm not. But I know how to prepare a ship." He flicked a few more switches then swung the chair around, stood, and approached Luke. "And I wanted to say goodbye."
He clasped Luke's left hand in his, squeezed it tightly. "Good luck."
Luke nodded, throat suddenly too tight to speak. "You too."
"I mean it. With Angel, with your father, with the whole prince thing—all of it."
He gave a wry smile. "I think I'll need it for that."
"Your father paid the ransom though, right?" Zev pressed, and Luke could hear the slight envy in his tone—sense it in the Force. "He'll be happy to have you back."
Luke grimaced—it was true, but… "It's gonna be different now. He's not going to let me out of his sight. And if he finds out…"
He didn't finish the thought.
Zev, who had lived and experienced that same fear coming true, didn't push him to.
"You'll be fine," he said gently. "You always are."
Luke nodded.
Then Zev walked down the ramp, back onto the sunlit landing pad, and the last Luke saw of the Rebel base, planet unknown, was a sliver of ancient paving stones wreathed by steam as the ramp rose to a close.
