About Turn

by Mina1

Delirious and in shock after Bespin, Luke inadvertently reveals his next-of-kin, but what will the Alliance leadership do with the son of Darth Vader? Concluded.

2.

Recovering from Bespin, a feverish Luke Skywalker lets slip his parentage, but what will the Alliance do with the son of Darth Vader? Their mistake proves monumental and delivers Luke into the hands of his worst nightmare. Destiny goes into an about turn where there's only one person who can save Luke from the darkside - his father

Mina

C h a p t e r T w o

Leia's hands slammed down like thunderbolts, and it was a miracle that the synthesised Alderaani Maplewood conference table didn't crack open under the force of her denial.

"No."

The small council, Mothma, Ackbar, Rieekan, regarded her with expressions set in stone from a million trials across a thousand worlds. Pity, contempt, disillusionment. The oval table rocked again as she leaned forward towards the three, knowing the shocking red of her eyes and the tears crystallised on her cheeks like Hutt trails made her look frightful. That was better than looking frightened; better than the terrified truth behind the curtain of long chestnut hair.

"No. No more questions. He's been through enough."

Mothma was the only one to shift in her seat, but not from squirming under Leia's formidable gaze. She met her expression with one of equal steel and her voice was laced with poisonous loathing.

"Commander Skywalker has withheld... valuable information, Princess. He must answer our questions." Her tongue had the sting of the frosty kiss of a Hoth night against bare skin, but Leia burned with confusion and desperation.

"At least wait until he's healed!" Only force of will was keeping the tears from pricking her eyes, again, as she felt the mass confusion of the past few hours fall heavy on her shoulders.

Her plea was met only with silence.

"You're not going to heal him?" she asked, incredulous. The room didn't even shiver, and the stern expressions never wavered, even when she reeled from the realisation to sit back heavily in her chair. Her hands shook and she grasped them firmly together in front of her, skin as white as bleached bone. The frosty looks she got from those gathered in the room nipped with sharpened teeth against her reserve.

"He is the son of Darth Vader. He is dangerous. His ill health is our ally."

Her voice was so cold, so cruel, and for a minute Leia was back in the Emperor's throne room, meeting those putrid yellow eyes for the first time as she stared their revered leader down. Mon gazed sadly at her, but her eyes swam with the same loathing Leia had witnessed there, and that she herself reserved for few people in this turbulent galaxy but could well understand.

"We don't know that."

The words seemed to dance in the frigid air, laughing, and Leia's lips were turning blue with the cold, the creeping feeling of the inevitable pressing her hands behind her back. She couldn't let go, though. Luke was her friend, he was a hero, a saviour, a...

Stars... he was the spawn of her worst enemy. The thought of that black death-mask, those unrelenting strong hands and gravelled, emotionless voice, sent shivers of hate running up her spine.

Luke... You can't be his son! Did you betray us? Were you always here to kill us, did you know he would take Han? Did you want him to?

She choked on the thoughts that she couldn't push back like she could the sentences she refused to voice. Had he betrayed them? Was he a traitor? Would he have slipped the knife into their back whilst they danced in celebration?

How can you think that! He's risked everything for you! And he's lost everything now, even the father he so idolised!

The image of that slight, forlorn form curled up on the medical frigate both tore at and reassured her troubled heart. She hated to see him in such pain, so confused, so devastated, but she silently thanked the Force that he was in no fit state to live up to his heritage right now. When had it come to this? When had she become scared of the boy she had been proud to call her best friend? Had it been in her fits of tears over the past few hours, or sometime before that? Sometime when his Jedi heritage was revealed in those spooky little coincidences?

Rieekan slid a datapad towards her bloodless features and she gingerly looked down at it, tears pushed back by curiosity.

"What's this?"

"We have records of Darth Vader's genome," he said, tone emotionless. Leia reached out a hand, forcibly stopping the shaking. She picked it up off the high, polished table, seeing her own small, scared features reflected in the dark wood.

"It's too close to Commander Skywalker's for them not to be related." Mon spoke, clearly savouring Leia's reaction.

Her hand closed around the datapad before she threw it back to bounce along the tabletop. How she hated irrefutable proof that left no room for even a last hope.

"Luke has never done anything against us." She pleaded with them, not caring for any loss of dignity. "You cannot blame him for his father's actions."

The room was silent, air conditioning humming sadly.

"Look at him! Go look at him! He's not Vader's son in anything more than medicine!" Was she saying those words? She, who had thrown herself onto the bed in her small quarters and sobbed through the long, pre-dawn hours, mourning the loss of a dear friend and hating what had replaced him? So hateful. Hate as powerful as that she felt for Vader, almost masking her... well, yes, her love for that boy.

Love.

Love? Not like Han, but it was still there, still deep, still unyielding to even this revelation, still incriminating in front of these Three who would condemn her friend, friend, for his genes.

"Leia..."

"He's in pain, Mon! Look at him! This has devastated him."

She knew it; she could see it in those tired, feverish blue eyes. What had Vader said to him? What had he asked of him? And why hadn't Luke gone with him? All he had here was persecution; a group he had fought and suffered for who refused to even treat him.

Mothma's auburn hair was swept back to reveal eyes as hard as boron-armour. She was not the woman Leia was used to following and respecting. All she was now was a manifestation of the fear the rebels had for Vader. The Alliance believed itself fuelled by righteousness. Oftentimes it seemed to be running on hate.

"We don't know that he wasn't aware of this all along. "

That was ridiculous; that was outrageous; that was what she had been thinking not a minute before.

"I doubt he would have destroyed the Death Star had he known. I don't think he would have gone three years as a Squadron Commander, destroying the Empire, if he'd known." Oh, her tone was absolutely icy now, even Mon couldn't match that. Even Hoth would tremble at those tones.

Mothma flinched a little then shook her head. "We can't know for sure. We must question him further."

"No."

Silence. They all knew they would have to go through her to get to Luke. They all knew the implications. They were all willing to do that.

"Leia, have a care. You're only incriminating yourself by doing this."

Ackbar's long, spindly hands pleaded with her, but all she felt was Mon's contemptuous stare roaming over her. They were out for blood. They were all out for blood: Luke's blood, and her blood if she was offering. Vader had hurt the Alliance too much, hunted them down too relentlessly, murdered and tortured to find -

- to find his son.

"What is this about?" she challenged them, and tired white hands spread fingers over the dark wood of her homeworld. Alderaan. Vader's glove-prints were still heavy on her shoulders, and Luke's kiss of congratulations was still tickling her cheeks. "What do you really want from him? Answers, or revenge?"

Mothma spitted Leia with a stare that reminded the Princess why this woman was leader of the Rebellion – she had an unwavering determination and a complete righteousness ingrained in her, from auburn roots to flowing white dress hem.

"If Skywalker knew, then he was undoubtedly sending Vader information of our whereabouts. The blood of thousands of rebel soldiers and innocents is on his hands-"

"Spare me the speech, Mon. This is no-"

"IF he did NOT know, then it still remains that Vader tracked us down because of him. And we cannot allow that to continue."

All thoughts of rebuttals died on Leia's lips at the implications. "What are you planning...?" she asked, disturbed by the shaking in her voice. Had she been able to claim Force sensitivity, she might have been extremely concerned about the dread crawling around her stomach. As it was she had a very bad feeling about this. Mothma was staring at her like a Hutt eyeing a pile of shining credits in need of counting, lustfully waiting for her to reach the conclusion.

"The charge is treason, Leia."

Treason. This was a war: this was a military operation. And for treason there was only one penalty. Death.

"No!" The word exploded from her lips and fell upon the Three like an avenging angel until they froze in their seats. Ackbar's long hands twitched nervously. "NO! You can't do that!"

"Leia, we will have you removed if you don't calm yourself." Her voice was steel and tannin.

"Calm?! You're about to kill the Alliance's Hero! He destroyed the Death Star, he's our only Jedi!" Well... semi-Jedi... Jedi-Sith-Force-sensitive child anyway.

Rieekan barked in distaste, "And just where do you think he got that particular talent?"

Mothma waved him down and loomed over Leia. "The charge is already filed."

"What!! You can't!-"

"We have-"

"You can't kill someone for their family!" She felt all the arguments that she had prepared to persuade them to start trusting Luke again crumble like Tatooine sand between her fingers, leaving her mouth with a gritty taste. "You-"

"We're not," Ackbar put in, and he was the only one that had adopted a solemn tone. Leia whirled on the Mon Calamari.

There's something not right here... they look honest, but...

"Explain," she growled. Yes she was bordering on insolence; yes she was edging closer to getting arrested or at least thrown out, but no she didn't care.

"Commander Skywalker went AWOL for well over two months he-"

"I'm sure he had a reason." Her voice was suddenly quiet, and she was grasping for confidence in front of these three, literally judge, jury and executioner.

"And you still don't want us to question him?" Mothma asked.

Leia felt as if the room around her was trembling, but it was just the shaking of muscles in her arms supporting the heavy burden of lost trust above the table. She forced her legs to bend and allow her to sit a little ungracefully back in her seat.

"When you're trying to persuade the inconvincible, always show utter confidence in your own convictions, my daughter. Your strength of will may be their undoing."

Leia drew on the teachings of her father to try and save Vader's son. Why did that seem to mock her so much? She set her face in a stony mask of disgust for those three arranged in front of her.

"I know where Luke was," she said, voice back to the dusky honey tones they were used to confronting.

There was silence for a moment and then, "And you did not think to tell us?" Mon leaned in very close and Leia flashed her a defiant glare. Hadn't these people been her friends yesterday? She could barely remember.

"I don't know exactly where, but I believe he was training to become a Jedi."

Again, more silence, more steady singing 'humm's of the air conditioning.

"It makes no difference. As an officer, he should have informed his superior-"

"-who died on Hoth-"

Mon Mothma openly glared at her now. "Please let me finish before you attack, Princess." White teeth bared against thin lips in something that might once have been a smile. "As I was saying, had this occurred, request for leave would have been filed. It was not. Commander Skywalker told no one, he just left. He left Rogue Squadron without a Leader. How many of his squad died on the jump out because there was no Luke Skywalker to lead them?" The sting in her tongue was becoming strangely familiar.

Leia sat still for several heartbeats that throbbed loud in her ears. Judge, Jury, Executioner. "Any excuse will do, won't it."

No one answered. No matter; it hadn't been a question. They wanted blood, needed to swap Rebel pain for Imperial, and saw a wonderful, enticing opportunity in Luke Skywalker...

"Morale will fall if you execute the troopers' Hero," she pointed out, clinging to that last hope; Luke's victories for the small band that would destroy him. Did he even realise his danger, curled up in the grips of a fever on the ship flying shotgun to this diplomatic shuttle?

There was a horrible, drawn silence that made her feel like the muscles in her neck were being slowly tightened like the finest of Alderaani stringed instruments. They were playing some terrible game with her.

How did she know that? Was it in Ackbar's clenched hands, or the pinched lips of General Rieekan? A terrible grating on her nerves and her vision swam with images she hadn't conceived running through her mind. A cold truth hit her like winter rain on the open Palace terraces and she pushed through the lies these three had been spinning in front of her for the past ten minutes.

This won't be official.

"Luke Skywalker will be listed as missing in action?" She spat bitterly. Rieekan could barely look at her as Leia almost leapt over the table to grab them all and try and shake some sense into them. "Why try to deceive me?! Why not just tell me you're going to murder him? Why?"

She could see that something was working behind those intelligent eyes of Mon Mothma, but she couldn't pull the facts from the woman in front of her. Why? Why? Why try and persuade her they would take an official route when she knew... she felt they had no intention of a trial for Commander Skywalker.

No one spoke, no one looked like they would answer her questions. No one told here what they really planned. No one told her they felt they couldn't possibly wait long enough for a trial, but they didn't need to. It was clear to see on Rieekan's screwed-up features.

What's going on here, Mon? What aren't you telling me? What have you got planned?

"I think we have concluded our discussions here. Luke Skywalker will be questioned further, and a trial prepared."

Prepared. Prepared. Not carried out, though. You have absolutely no intention of going through with one, do you?

She stood shakily and straightened the white ship-suit, her gut churning with disgust; more disgust even than she had felt when she recognised the truth that Luke was Vader's son. Disgust that was pure and undiluted as her gaze tore into those she had respected not a day ago, and who now plotted the death of her friend and then tried to pretend that they would even bother to do it officially.

She fixed Mon Mothma with a soul-shattering stare that made the older woman flinch a little.

"I have always stood for justice. I will see that it is carried out," she said icily, skating the lines of treason herself, as she turned on her heal and stalked from the frigid room, colder even than the Imperial Senate had been in its last days.

* * * *

He drifted in macabre nightmares, curled up on the med bunk and clutching at sheets with his one good hand.

Something warm brushed his cheek and he opened seared eyes to the soft touch. //Leia...//

Something comforting embraced his mind and he tried to push it away. //Father...//

"Le-ia. It hu-rts." He was biting his lip with the fury of her touch and the words were only a little more mangled than his vision of her. This couldn't be his Princess Leia stood at his bedside, gently brushing the lonely tears of frustration that had slipped past his resolve. Couldn't be her tear-streaked face and eyes red like twin sunsets on distant Tatooine, so, so far away now.

Where were her beautiful rosy cheeks? Why was she so pale and cold? Why did she stand so far him from even as she tried to comfort him?

"Oww..."

He should be used to the fire on his skin by now. It had been there for so long now that he could barely remember when it hadn't existed; he'd just lain here in bright med-bay lights for so long. Just lain like a stupid farmboy.

Stupid farmboy. Shoulda' stayed on the farm. Shoulda' kept on farming, stupid farmboy.

The fire was Owen's face flushed crimson in horror at what his own little horror had done; little Jedi horror. The fire was Biggs burning in the superheated atmosphere of a battered x-wing. The fire on his skin was confusion and begging for help and desperation mixed about equally. And it burned even brighter with his father's rage at the rebels' treatment of their 'hero'.

//Father...//

Yesterday, the thought of admitting his father was alive would have laughed and danced around him, pointing and screaming hysterically. Today, it was strangely mute and only left a muffled sting in its wake.

He shifted as little fingers brushed hair from his eyes and he tried to focus on his silent, tearful best friend. The fingers stroked him like they would a pet, oh-so protectively, oh-so absent-minded, and he saw her eyes flicker to the starscape beyond the med bay.

No, no, no... not starscape. Hyperspace.

They were running again, still running; ever since they had put him here, they had kept on running. Running from him, running far from his questions, his cries to help him; running from the cold, dispassionate, blank stares of the stars to the cover of hyperspace.

And Leia was running too, in her mind. She was tripping and falling all the way, but she was still running from him, stroking his cheek like she actually cared when all she wanted was freedom.

Freedom from him, freedom from Vader's son. And freedom was a word a rebel rarely used without thinking.

He thought perhaps those little mocking thoughts of his acceptance might have just matured and nodded sagely. He couldn't really tell, his perceptions merely mirages in the waves of heat surging through his weary body.

Still, he knew what was on her mind.

"H-an?"

Her eyes flicked down to him and he tried to rise onto an elbow, but all he got was the nauseating spin of the world as she both approached and moved further from him. He didn't think those big brown eyes had ever looked quite so sad.

"He's... gone."

The words caught in his ears and rampaged through his feelings. Gone? Gone? Gone like Biggs, Owen, Beru? Or gone like Ben, still there haunting him? Or... gone like father, still there tormenting him?

"Gone?"

His fuzzy tongue burned as he licked parched lips, wanting to be able to speak, wanting her help. Please! Please make this stop!

"Vader... sold him to a bounty hunter for Jabba," she said, voice deep with the sorrow he found himself wallowing in and bursts of emotions erupted like super novae in his seared mind. Hatred of Vader for taking Han, hatred of Jabba for ordering the bounty; pity for Leia for her loss and pity for himself when he saw the love shining in her eyes for that smuggler, perhaps even replacing the void left by his drugged revelation.

"Le-ia. I-"

"Shssh... don't try to speak." Again the hand brushed his brow and subdued him. It's not like you could make it better. It's your fault.

The thoughts were sad and immediately rescinded, but he felt them. He crawled lower onto the mattress and just wished for silence. But she continued speaking.

"Luke... I..." His eyes closed. Please, don't say it! "I know it's true, they did a blood test. They..."

The disillusionment came out in a low moan as he scrunched his eyes shut and hugged his destroyed right hand to his chest, pressing deep against where the ache told him his heart existed. He didn't need that, didn't need proof!

"Lea-ve me... al-one."

He didn't mean it. She knew it. She moved to try and hug him and he tensed like she would slip a fatal shot in his arm rather than offer comfort. When she drew him into a fierce, protective hug he could only sob a little in protest, his voice completely eluding him now as the pain on his skin peaked. It hurt.

He felt tears that weren't his own roll down his back in little trails of liquid fire and he relished the fact that his sweet Leia could still show feeling, even if not for him.

"I... I can't get them to treat your fever, Luke. I'm sorry. They-"

Now she choked up. Luke had never heard her so upset that she couldn't speak. He sought out her cheek with his good left hand and wiped at the tears falling into the silence, desperately wanting to apologise. But it hurt so much to talk, so very much. He tried to gather the Force a little and give him strength, but it made every nerve in his body fire until he tensed under her slight, strong arms.

She pulled away a little and seemed to study his face then, something like determination crossing her features. She grasped his hand as she would a weapon and looked as if she would never let go.

Please don't... don't let go. I can't do this... alone....

"I'm not going anywhere."

Had he sent that to her? With the immense discipline that little Jedi Master who had seen failure written already on his young features had taught him, he formed the words carefully on his lips before breathing them.

"Don't cry. We-'ll get Han ba-ck." His voice started to falter. "I'm sorr-y. I did-n't kn-ow..." He lost it but it had been enough. She looked at him for a moment, rich chestnut hair curling and plastered on her teary cheeks. Then she leaned in closer to whisper with guarded breath in his ear.

"I don't care whose son you are. You're still Luke Skywalker. I still..." She faltered as if she couldn't say it and he knew that was true. "You're still my best friend."

"Hu-rts."

His lips burned with their own fever now. Too much... too much, too fast. She looked at him sadly before turning around and his heart skipped as she moved away from him, long hair wafting behind her.

"Fit him with the new hand, and treat that fever."

The med droid approached a little warily as if sensing the fire in that small frame. Luke looked on blankly as fell back to the soft mattress.

"Madam, I've been instructed-"

"I know. I'm overruling that. Treat him. You're a medical droid, doesn't it go against your programming to deny him treatment?" Her voice was blistering in his ears, and he gave a little involuntary cry as the rest of their conversation was lost to the swirling storm of his own thoughts and pain.

She reappeared and gave a concerned if distracted look around herself, almost nervous. Then she whispered close. "He'll do what he can."

"Lei-a. What... wh-at are th-ey do-ing?" He blinked, trying to force his eyes to work and understand the plethora of emotions running over her face.

She just closed her eyes, then she shivered a little and it passed down to his left hand in her right, making him tremble. She brushed his forehead with her other hand and bent over, kissing him lightly on the lips.

"Nothing."

You're lying! Liar! You, Ben, Yoda; liars! Tell me the truth!

The words wouldn't form and she drifted away from him like a distracted cloud in the Tatooine sky. Don't leave me! The door whispered shut behind her and he closed his own burnt eyes.

Nothing. Nothing? Liar.

They all lied. All of them. They had probably all known, all of them, all along. His teeth clenched painfully in his mouth and he felt his hands balling into fists of frustration, wanting desperately to get away from everyone who lied. But they all lied.

//I did not.//

His breath went from hot to cold as he passed into the shade of his thoughts, to the darker areas he tried not to tred to often.

//Father?// How it still burned to think the word. More torment than his tortured skin endured. But his feverish mind refused any other label.

//Rest now, Little Jedi. Rest and I will find you.//

Panic stirred in his gut and he could do nothing but blink his eyelids furiously in denial.

//I don't want you to find me!// he threw back into those shadows. Those cool, calm, deliciously comforting shadows.

The voice that returned was almost amused. //Then why do you keep calling to me, my son?//

Calling? Calling? He wasn't... he was... he was... he was a Dark Lord's son. Calling for his father.

"N-o."

//Rest.//

It was an order and stubbornness kicked in like an afterburner. He pressed his left palm over both eyes and tried to stop the light from burning him further. //No! What's going on? Tell me. You know! Everyone always knew. Don't lie to me.//

Everyone always lied. Vader would be no different.

There was a pause like frustration loosed on the wind with a sigh and Luke shivered, wanting the cold to wrap him up further.

//I have never lied. They want revenge from me and will take it from you.//

Revenge? From him. Panic rose in his stomach as hot as the med bay air and he was struggling to breathe as another sting pricked his arm. Eyes flittered open as the droid retreated with the hypo.

//Revenge? Kill me? Kill me?! I haven't... I...//

Hot indignation and cold realisation were enough to make him nauseous as the sedative pulled him gently down with sorrow into the cold arms of sleep. It was so sweet and invigorating and he relished it as the reply came back to him, fuzzing and fading.

//Tell me where you are, my son. I will not let them take you. I will not-//

- But he wasn't even capable of listening anymore.