This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. Not now, not this way. Everything should have been in place before they ever made their move, but there they were with lightsabers humming and buzzing - red and blue, something in the back of his mind supplied. Strange - on either side of his Master. And Palpatine with that Force-damned cackle filling the room. He knew what Vader feared. They weren't ready.

Luke moved, all those years of training showing in each intentional step. Even as Palpatine stood waiting, Luke shifted his weight, redirecting his attack to come along the Sith's right side rather than the easier-defended left. Vader tried to join him - he knew they must take Sidious together or they'd both fall - but he was frozen in place. He could only watch as his Master ignited his red blade and it connected hard with the brilliant blue. Again, Vader commanded his feet to move, but again they remained fastened to the floor. All he could do was watch.

Sparks flew in a battle almost too quick for the eye to see. Luke and Palpatine exchanged blows, red blade only barely missing taking the younger man's head from his neck as he ducked, sliding before popping up and the blue blade swung for Sidious's middle. Vader had always known his Master was faster than he let on, but frozen in place as he was, he could only hope Luke was faster.

That cackle filled the room again as Luke dodged, swung, and Palpatine was playing with him. Vader could feel it, but he couldn't call out. It was as if the enhancer box connected to his damaged vocal cords was malfunctioning, and all he could do was push the warning over the bond he shared with his son.

If he heard him, Luke didn't show it. He spun, parried the red blade aimed at his back, and pivoted the rest of the way around.

Time seemed to stop as Sidious took the barest of openings to lunge forward, red blade piercing straight through Vader's son. His blue eyes went wide with surprise and Palpatine cracked a vicious smile as he turned to look at his apprentice, allowing Luke to crumble to the floor. "Did you think this would end any other way?" the Sith Master cackled.

But he didn't matter. All that mattered was Luke, but Vader still couldn't move. His son reached a bloody hand out to him, fear radiating over their bond even as the light faded from blue eyes and the hand fell limp.

Vader screamed and the room snapped out of existence. Suddenly he found himself suspended, surrounded by bacta, and the only noise within the tank was the sound of the respirator forcing air in and out of his damaged lungs. It was a dream. A nightmare.

Father? Luke's voice filled his mind from Coruscant. Not the nearly-grown man that his father had just seen wielding a lightsaber that had looked strikingly like the one Anakin Skywalker had once carried, but a boy still in training. Still protected. He was alive and he was alright, but he was growing increasingly more concerned. Are you hurt?

No, Vader responded, forcing his presence to calm over their bond. It was a dream. A nightmare. It wasn't real.

But it would be unless he stopped it. If life had taught him anything, it was that his nightmares were always deeper and they would come true if left unchecked. He had to stop it. He wouldn't let Palpatine take the only person left in the galaxy that he loved.

Outside the tank, he saw movement. It was time to finish this mission quickly and return to his son.

—

He wasn't in the training room where they had agreed to meet that morning. Nor was he in his room, the library, or the maintenance closet he'd commandeered at some point for the droids he had a habit of building. An hour into their training session that never was, Mara finally found him in the private hangers on top of the palace. So Natus hadn't gotten distracted by a droid, he'd gotten distracted by a TIE fighter. Great.

Mara gave a short huff of frustration as she drew closer to the pair of black boots, which was all she could see as the almost-teen was standing on a lift and halfway into the guts of the craft. She ducked around so that she could peer up, finding him focused on the task at hand. "Having fun?"

Natus jumped at the sudden sound of her voice, slamming into the durasteel hull and dropping his tools. Mara pressed her lips together tightly to keep from laughing as he cursed, ducking down to glare at her. But before he could start in, his gaze swept the morning sky and the pieces started to click into place. "What time is it?"

"Little after oh-nine-hundred," she answered, not totally able to keep the amusement at startling him from her voice. Not just anyone could sneak up on Darth Vader's son.

"Dank Farrik!" he snarled, slamming the heel of his boot against the control on the repulsive lift so it would start down. "I'm sorry. Guess I got distracted."

"You been here all night?"

"I couldn't sleep."

She toyed with the idea of asking him why or leaving it be. She knew he'd had nightmares following the incident in the lower levels of Coruscant with the traitor and the aliens. Even though his father had taught him to build stronger mental shields that would keep the nightmares from being heard by any Force-sensitive being in the palace - that had happened one night and it was not an experience Mara was eager to repeat - that didn't mean that the nightmares were gone, and she wasn't sure what good dwelling on them would be.

Natus took a seat on the lift, his boots dangling inches above the permacrete and he was eye-level to where she stood. "The Emperor talks to you wherever you go, right? Watches you?"

She tilted her head, wondering where he was going with that question. "He can. He doesn't always."

"How does he do it?"

"Why?"

Those sky blue eyes turned to look at his swinging boots. "Something happened with my Father last night. I felt it, but he won't tell me what. I want to make sure he's okay."

"He's Darth Vader," Mara deadpanned. "Of course he's okay." His gaze fixed on her then and she heaved a sigh. "Even if I showed you how I think it's done, why do you think he wouldn't block you the second he felt your presence?"

"Do you always feel the Emperor?"

"No, but I'm also not your dad, and you're not the Emperor."

She caught what she would have considered unearned confidence - he was talented, but even his ego couldn't be so inflated that he thought he was on par with the Emperor, right? - before he clamped down on it. "Then it's on me if I get caught. I have to try."

Mara didn't bother asking him what he was going to do about it if his dad was really in trouble. He had the 501st with him if the utter terror he'd instilled in the galaxy didn't keep his enemies at bay. Natus was fixated, and when he got like this it was a waste of time talking him out of it. Especially with the direct approach. "What's in it for me?"

"I'll tell you a secret."

Well, he did know how much she liked secrets, but she couldn't give it to him that easily. "You already tell me secrets. I'm the only one you talk to that isn't an adult."

His lips twitched down and he took a long moment as if he were mulling over his response carefully. "I'll tell you a secret only my father and I know. Well, and the Emperor too, I guess."

"What makes you think I don't already know it?"

"You don't."

Interesting. He believed it, if nothing else. "Fine. If you're wrong, you owe me a favour. A big one."

"Fine," he echoed, hopping down from his perch.

"And if - when - your dad catches you, this is 100% on you."

"Thanks for the loyalty," he snorted.

"Hey, I think this is a waste of time. You're the determined one. You get the blame. Those are my conditions."

"Okay."

With confirmation, Mara turned on her heel, aiming towards the lift.

"Where are you going?" he called after her.

"Somewhere less out in the open."

Somewhere they were less likely to get caught.

—

There wasn't a lot of room in his droid closet, but once they had cleared a space under his work desk Luke and Mara tucked themselves under it. It was like she was trying to put as many barriers between them and the outside world as she could.

"If this doesn't work like you think it should, I still get paid," she said firmly.

"Right," he agreed, feeling the anxiety creep up. He was pretty sure it was his own, but Mara was good at masking her emotions. It could have just as easily have been hers and she'd never admit it.

"Okay." Mara crossed her legs in front of herself and Luke mirrored the motion. Hands on knees, eyes closed, deep and meditative breathing. It wasn't anything new. "Most of the time I'll just communicate back, but I only saw what he was seeing once. I didn't initiate it, but—"

"I can fill in the blanks," Luke promised her. "Just tell me how it felt. Tell me exactly what you did."

There was a stretch of quiet only filled by their breathing and Luke had to will himself to keep his eyes closed. Finally, she started in, her voice slow and thoughtful. "It was like a dream. You know the kind where you see things from someone else's eyes, but you're still kind of you? He had been advising me on a mission he sent me on and there was… someone with him. For a second I thought he showed me, but he never acknowledged the person he was talking to to me. I just saw him." She paused, searching back into her own memories. "It felt like floating and I pictured the throne room and then the Emperor, and then I… imagined what he would see from where he sat. He told me later he'd guided me through it. It was a test."

And now she was guiding Luke through it. He gave a small sound of acknowledgment and pulled in a deeper breath.

Floating. Empty. Quiet. In the blackness he could feel the bond and he let the shadows melt off of his father, watching as they retreated to reveal a scorched ground at his boots. They whisped outward and the 501st stood with Father, blasters drawn and ready, but the only others that Luke saw appeared to be civilians. Poor and terrified. They tripped over fallen bodies, scurrying away from Father as he advanced with heavy footsteps and lightsaber drawn. Luke didn't understand why. They didn't appear to be any threat.

And then Father stopped, and Luke had to intentionally pull his own presence back, lest he was discovered. That made seeing what was happening difficult. More than a handful of steps ahead was deep in darkness again. But he waited. He wasn't great at being patient, but sometimes it paid off.

This was one of those times.

From the shadows emerged a figure. Broad and likely average height, but he looked so much shorter next to Father as he approached. His skin was a greenish-grey and he wore a helmet like Luke hadn't seen. He carried a weapon like he'd never seen too. At least he assumed that the circle in his hand was a weapon of some kind.

"Did you find him?" Father boomed, his voice modulator causing his voice to echoed out and the civilians could be heard scattering in the shadows.

"He was not here, My Lord."

"Then you have failed."

"Perhaps not. We believe the villagers have hidden him away. Seventh Sister will pull a confession out. Willingly—" his eerie gaze swept out across the shadows — "or unwillingly."

"Pray that she does. My patience grows thinner with each failure."

Luke held his breath, a chill of warning running up his spine as the milky eyes flickered over and landed where he stood. The alien hissed, the circle in his hand ignited with brilliant red blades, and he was looking right at him. "My Lord! We are not alone!"

Father turned, but Luke was frozen in place. It was only then that he saw the alien's free hand where it was extended out in front of him, locking him in place. He couldn't pull away. He couldn't escape, and he had no idea what happened if he was cut down without being physically there.

A more familiar blade arced outward, cleanly sweeping through the alien's neck and instantly the pressure released Luke as the head tumbled, gloved hand loosing its grip on the strange lightsaber. Father - very much the essence of the feared Darth Vader in that moment - turned to his squad. "Burn it down. Leave no survivors," he ordered, and with the smallest flick of his hand Luke found himself being hurled backwards.

—

She had resigned herself to waiting. It was good practice, she knew. Not everything came as quickly as she would have liked.

One moment Natus had been deep in a trance-like state and the next it was as if someone had physically tossed in back. He slammed into the table leg, all the assorted parts on top clanging and clattering loudly and he gasped, desperate to pull air into his lungs.

"Hey!" Mara yelped, rocking up on her knees and leaning over him. "What happened? Are you hurt?"

He looked dazed and more than a little terrified. Natus blinked hard once and then again before she thought he actually saw her. Slowly, his eyes focused. "He killed him," he choked out.

"Killed who?"

"The man with the red blades. He killed him because he saw me. Then he told the stormtroopers to kill everyone."

Dank ferrik. Vader had sensed him and unleashed on everyone around him, including one of those creepy inquisitors he used. They were the only ones besides Natus and his dad and the Emperor that carried red lightsabers. She needed to tell him. It'd get back to him anyway and it wasn't a far leap to make that would put her right where she sat. She'd tell him, he wouldn't be caught unawares, and maybe he'd go a little easier on Vader. Really, she was helping to protect Natus' dad.

"I have to go," she started, but wide, blue eyes focused on her and she wasn't sure if it was what he'd seen, lack of sleep the night before, or a combination thereof that created the storm in his eyes. She froze in place. "Natus…."

"Luke," he croaked out.

"What?"

"My name is Luke. That's the secret I'm not supposed to tell."

If she'd felt uneasy with the situation at hand before, now she felt the dread creeping in to take hold. She'd thought it'd be some silly secret he thought was important from his ivory tower. No, it had to be his real name. He'd been given another for a reason, and Mara couldn't imagine how this exchange they'd made had been even. "Why?" she managed.

He swallowed hard. "Because…" He cleared his throat hard, but he still looked on the verge of folding into her arms and sobbing his eyes out. To his credit, he held his composure. "Because I trust you."

The words rang out and Mara found herself torn. She wanted to help. She shouldn't, but she did, and easing her master's wrath was the only way she knew how to do that. She reached forward, fingers against his cheek. "Hey? It's going to be okay."

"How do you know?"

"I'm going to make it okay. You said you trust me?"

He nodded and she leaned forward on impulse, pecking a kiss to his cheek. She'd never done it before and she had no idea what possessed her to do it then, but it startled Natus - Luke - out of what was beginning to feel like a spiral.

She stood, and her feet carried her out and down the hall with practiced speed and silence. She was going to make it okay.

—

Vader was furious. The idiot Fifth and Seventh Inquisitors had dragged him halfway across the galaxy with a lead they were determined was real, only to turn it into a prolonged interrogation of what seemed like every village on the Force-forsaken planet. If that hadn't been enough, Luke had managed to… Vader didn't even know what. Project himself somehow? He knew well enough that one trained in the Force could reach out - Luke did it all the time through their bond - and the truly talented might even be able to see through another person's eyes, but his son hadn't done that. He had projected himself through the Force in a way that the Fifth Brother had even been able to see him. If it hadn't been so terribly dangerous, Vader might have been proud.

But Fifth Brother had seen him, and that changed everything. If he'd gotten word to Sidious, if the Emperor knew how powerful Luke was becoming…. The nightmare he'd had crept back to the front of his mind and he suppressed a shudder. He wouldn't let that happen. He wouldn't allow any harm to come to his son.

Luke didn't try to reach out to him as Vader hastily wrapped the mission up, leaving only ash in his wake, but as they came into Coruscant's orbit, Vader finally touched the bond he shared with son lightly enough that he shouldn't be noticed. He couldn't get specifics without alerting the boy - nearly a teen now, he reminded himself. Hardly a child - but the anxiety was impossible to miss. Perhaps he would think twice before attempting something so foolish again.

A couple hours later he stepped out of his personal shuttle and onto the private landing pad he used whenever he was at the palace. The staff around the ramp stood at perfect attention, fear oozing out of every pore, and his gaze immediately fell on the lanky twelve-year-old hovering close to the stairwell. Luke looked exhausted and there was something more than fear of his father's judgement for his actions in his eyes.

Luke met him halfway to the lift and didn't have to scurry quite as much as he used to to keep up. Neither spoke, the understanding that an audience was not needed or wanted, but as soon as the lift door closed, the calm façade that his son had managed to plaster into place flashed out of existence. "Father, I'm sorry! I didn't know anyone would see me. I —"

"It has been dealt with," Vader boomed in response.

"I saw." Luke's answer was so quiet that Vader wasn't sure he would have heard if his helmet hadn't amplified it for him.

"Were you alone?"

Blue eyes flickered up instantly. No. He hadn't been. That could only mean that Palpatine's damned Hand in training had been with him. And, in turn, that would mean that she had told the Emperor.

Vader flicked his hand and the lift screeched to a stop between floors. He turned to his son. "What did she tell him?" he demanded and the boy, to his credit, only flinched a little.

"I don't… nothing. She didn't tell him anything. She said she'd make sure it was okay, so she couldn't have told him."

Logic only sound to a boy not yet thirteen. Foolish, wishful logic. "She will have told him everything."

"No!" Luke argued, pulling himself a little taller this time. "No. She was helping me. She wouldn't betray me."

There was no explaining it to him there, Vader conceded as he released the lift and they began to move again, the doors emptying them out on the residential level. He would see soon enough. He could not trust her. He could not trust anyone but his own flesh and blood.

Come to me, Lord Vader, Palpatine's voice rang suddenly in his mind. Bring the boy.

If this turned as badly as Vader feared, it could be a lesson learned very shortly.

—-

He had a bad feeling about this. Luke had been so worried about his father's reaction in realizing that his son had, essentially, been spying on him, that he really hadn't put a great deal of thought into how Mara had planned to help him. He hadn't heard a peep from her since she'd disappeared and left him alone in his droid closet, but now that Father was back they were both being summoned by the Emperor. Together. That so rarely happened that it always reminded Luke of the first time. He didn't remember much from the event, only that Palpatine had kept him from his father and he'd done…. something. It'd been so long now he didn't remember, but it had set the Emperor's attention on him and on his training. It made Father uneasy.

The Red Guard let them in and Luke followed a step and a half behind his father, catching the surprising sight of Mara just behind the Emperor's throne. There was a flash of emotion in her eyes before it was hidden again behind the careful mask of indifference.

Luke nearly stumbled into his father as he stopped - Luke's own gaze still fixed on Mara - and took a knee before his Master. Luke imitated the gesture and there was a tense silence that weighed heavy on the room as Palpatine watched them with those strange, yellow eyes of his.

"You were sent to dispel the rebels and restore order."

"It has been done, my Master," Father answered without daring to raise his masked face.

"Has it?"

Luke risked a glance up at the sharp question, finding the Emperor's gaze fixed solely on his father. Blue eyes shifted to the left of the throne and green met them. The movement was so fractional, that for a moment he thought he imagined it, but the hardening look in her eyes confirmed the warning that had come in the barest shake of her head: Don't move. Don't speak. Don't intervene.

Palpatine stood slowly. "I see no rebels in your custody and the village that the inquisitors called you to was left in ash, one of them dead as well. By your hand, was it not?"

"It was, my Master," Father breathed out. "His ineptitude had gone on long enough."

"And yet, you have nothing to show for it either. Perhaps it is more than you say." One wrinkled, gnarled hand reached out, fingers splayed and that yellow gaze turned on Luke as he felt an invisible hold begin to drag him forward across the smooth floor. His knees slid and he struggled to get his feet under him, to give him some leverage, but even as he got one under him he was lifted up and the pressure that had pulled him forward relocated, wrapping entirely around his throat. His hands clawed at the invisible hold as his boots left solid ground.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he felt his father's fear spike and he remembered the lesson that he'd been taught for so many years now: use the fear.

Luke did. He pushed back hard, and for a split second he thought he'd shatter the hold on him. Instead, the Emperor flicked his fingers, sending Luke crashing to the floor hard enough that black spots danced in front of his vision.

"I will have no more insolence from either of you," Palpatine snarled. "Natus, your obedience is not only at your convenience, but at all times. Your father should have taught you that by now." He turned, and Luke thought he'd do the same to his father that he'd done to him, but instead white-blue lightning leapt from his fingertips, arcing out and throwing Father back as it raced up and down this black suit, short circuiting mechanics that kept him functioning. "And you, Lord Vader," the Emperor continued, "I will have the truth from you."

A painful, rasping weeze left his father, but Luke didn't dare move, didn't dare think lest Palpatine catch wind of the real reason why his father had killed the inquisitor. To protect him. He didn't know exactly why the inquisitor needed to die to protect him, but he sensed it, and he knew to trust his instincts.

Luke's father rolled to his side, propping himself up, but instead of getting to his feet, he returned to his bent knee, lowering himself before Palpatine. "I let… my emotions… dictate my actions," Father weezed out.

Palpatine studied him for a long moment before turning to Mara, something unspoken between them, and she nodded. The floor felt like it fell out from under him. She'd betrayed him. Father had been right.

"Your failures put on display," the Emperor murmured and his gaze turned back to Luke. "Perhaps we have kept your boy secluded too long if you fear that he finds your failures out."

"If it is your wish, my Master, I will take him on the Executioner with me to -"

"No. He is too naïve and not ready to be put on display for the Empire to see. I will send him with my Hand on her missions. From the shadows, he will learn, and you will have more time to devote to the job at hand."

There was a long, tense moment and it was everything Luke could do to swallow the protest. It wouldn't do any good. All it would do was hurt both of them.

"As you wish, my Master," Darth Vader swore, his deep voice seeming to resonate off the walls of the throne room.

She hadn't meant for it to happen that way. Two days before, after they'd been hidden away to attempt a dm feat they should never have touched, she'd told her Master what she knew: Natus - because she didn't dare refer to him as Luke and reveal that he'd given away his secret to her - had been capable of using the bond he had with his father to see the events through Vader's eyes. Vader had found out and had lashed out, killing the Fifth Brother and ordering his 501st to burn the village. The Emperor rarely cared when Vader left bodies piled up behind him, so it must have been more. More than she knew and more than she'd been able to tell him.

"His loyalties are split," the Emperor mused after both Vader and Natus had left. "It is up to you to realign them."

"Lord Vader is his Master. His father," Mara answered.

"It is the way of the Sith that the apprentice eventually does away with the master. I expect nothing less of Lord Vader, but he should not have an ally in that boy."

Everything about the conversation was strange and Mara tucked her whirling thoughts carefully behind her shields. He could sense them if he wanted to, but for the moment the Emperor seemed very caught up in his own thoughts.

"You will depart tonight and soon, my child, you will win him over to our side."

"What if blood is thicker?"

"Then I will have little use for him and I will bring Lord Vader back into line in other ways."

A chill ran down her spine and it was everything she could do not to shudder against it. Instead she bowed deeply. "As you wish, my Lord," she answered and turned to leave, the understanding that she would either have to betray her friend or lose him forever nipping at her heels.

TBC

Notes: I do love Anakin, but that man is a walking self-fulfilling prophecy of his own worst nightmares no matter what he calls himself. And it breaks my heart, because as much as he reacts emotionally to everything around him, Palpatine plays a long game, and it's putting both of our Skywalker boys in a very precarious position now. The question is: what do you think Mara will do about it? Is she going to align with her Master or her friend? Time will tell.

Next Time: Luke is sent out on his first mission off-planet with Mara.