AN:Editing is taking longer than expected, mainly due to my work and family commitments, but also because as I edit... the story grows. :( Thank you to everyone who is reading and who has been kind enough to comment - it is your enthusiasm that keeps me writing.

Note: This tale has not been beta read. All mistakes are, embarrassingly, mine.

All previous disclaimers still apply.


Insidious

Part Seven

The Teacher

The shuttle shuddered as it entered the Tatooine atmosphere and the deck plates vibrated beneath their feet. They had been warned to expect turbulence, had been warned that this area of the planet was currently experiencing high winds and sandstorms, but that mattered not a whit to the Dark Lord of the Sith. No wind was more powerful than the Dark Side of the Force and today would be a day his apprentice and his young pupil would each long remember.

Palpatine raised his eyes and looked across the passenger compartment to Lord Vader. The Sith was sitting as stoic as ever; head held high, back straight, gloved hands settled on armoured knees, but he could feel Vader's surging emotions behind the black façade. He could feel his apprentice's hatred and searing fury.

Vader had not been so alive, so passionate, since the end of the Clone Wars. It would seem that learning of his son, of his offspring's unlikely survival, had enflamed him and stoked the fires of his hatred of the Jedi, especially when he had learned that Obi-Wan Kenobi was also on Tatooine… Palpatine swallowed his gleeful chuckle, recalling the creak of leather as Vader had tightened his fists, the cracks and splinters of the furniture in his state room on the Star Destroyer as each piece imploded with Vader's anger. It had been too long since he had felt such pure darkness, such unadulterated malevolence from his apprentice.

Perhaps he should have told him earlier of the boy's existence.

He had missed his young friend these last few years as Vader, adrift in grief and self-pity, lost his fervour and intensity over the years and became the dull, obedient, servant who carried out Palpatine's every order.

Yes, perhaps he should have told him sooner… but the whispers of the Force had guided him to hold his peace and say nothing, until now.

And still he had made Vader wait. Drawing out the journey to Tatooine, enjoying the build of tension within his apprentice until he felt that the very Force itself was about to snap. It was time now… Time to introduce father to son and son to father.

He knew Vader would not fail him. He knew that Vader would obey without question, but of the boy he was uncertain and deliberately so; his ever expanding absences from Tatooine were calculated and planned; tests of the boy's pledge, of his loyalty and devotion.

If he were to fail tonight… He would die.

The shuttle landed, a little harder than normal given the weather beyond, and the hatch cracked open and the ramp began to descend. Outside the winds gusted, picking up sand and blowing it in to litter the deck with golden grains. Without a word Palpatine stood and lifted his cowl, he turned for the hatchway sensing the troopers with them also standing, feeling Vader obey his master's unspoken command to follow.

A storm outside and a storm within… and a storm still to ignite.

ooOOoo

The Pupil

Luke's eyes sprang open.

Something was…. Something was coming.

Pushing his bed covers aside the teenager sat up and swung his legs over the side of his bunk.

Something… something was happening… was about to happen.

It was dark. It was the middle of the night. It was the time when the flats and the dune seas were too treacherous travel and yet…

There was an urgency, a sense that he had to move that he had to be elsewhere….

He stood, took a step, glanced around the gloom of his room. He had to go. He had to move, he was…

…being called.

He stopped. Stilled. He could feel the warm thickness of the home spun rug beneath his bare feet but barely registered it. His stomach spun with anxiety, adrenalin rushed with the certainty that his master was coming; was summoning him. He didn't move, suddenly restrained by doubt, frozen with indecision.

After so long, after months of silence, why now? Why was his master here now?

His fist curled, tightened, and his nails dug into his palms. Something was different. The Force was heaving with expectation, the Dark Side twisting and rotating like a vortex and he felt like a womp rat caught in a sand whirlpool, claws desperately scrabbling at loose grains as it was inevitably dragged down to slowly suffocate; lost to the suns, lost to the light.

Luke let out a breath, heaved in another.

He had to go. No matter the time. No matter the dangers of a Tatooine night. He had to go.

And as he dressed, as he quietly pushed his speeder out into the night so as not to wake his guardians, Luke knew that when the suns arose the following day that he would either be here to see them, or he would not.

ooOOoo

To be continued...

(Apologies for the short chapter - but the next one is a little lengthy)