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. 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.

C h a p t e r F o u r t e e n

The door was open.

That felt like a strange mockery, a twisted déjà vu that clung to the ebony trim of his cloak. The memory was not his own, and Anakin didn't need to question whose it was.

The door was open. That was snow-blinded trust, and a despair that hit you in the base of your stomach like a dewback jumping from the canyon edge.

Anakin's lips curled into a smile that was a strange mixture of melancholy and acceptance, acknowledging the simile based on his old homeworld for what it was – a burgeoning familiarity with his old life. Deep meditation since leaving Mon Mothma behind as a revenge-swollen corpse had forced a decision upon him not unlike the decision a nine year old Tatooine slave had once had to make, between two lives; one achingly secure but unfulfilling, and one with a promise of strength and… Light. As it had been then, the decision had never really been decisive at all; it couldn't possibly be, when it had been made seconds, minutes, hours before Anakin had realised he had to choose a direction at all.

He could not be Darth Vader, no more than he could ever be a lowly slave boy.

To say he had eradicated Darth Vader by a bare two days mediation whilst wanting to tear his small bunk apart in rabid frustration and panic for his son was, well…. an over exaggeration. But Obi Wan had been right when he had told Anakin, then a willing Padawan, that the decision is half the journey. The path was chosen, and attending to it over all others was worth more than the first step.

He could hope, anyway. Because the last thing he needed now was a war between disparate personalities.

But that reduction of Dark//Light to some split personality psychosis, Anakin knew by painful personal experience, was a gross oversimplification.

You didn't turn Dark simply by donning a black cape and mask. It was a state of mind, it was submission and it was control, and those two were never in harmony except when you let your feelings rule your head and didn't think too much on your actions. And that, at least for Vader, was the essence of the Darkside; it gave you enormous powers to do what you wished, to control what you wished, and then took away any responsibility for using them appropriately. He'd had the power to save Padmé, but not the will when it mattered most. He'd had the security of being controlled, only to find himself hung by his own leash.

No more.

When he reflected on it, as he had during those snatched hours of meditation, he realised now why the discovery of children had hauled him back from that path to stand at the intersection yet again. It was love, yes. It was need, certainly. But, even more than that, it was a desperation to have those children by his side, as his children and not as his subordinates. And that could never happen in the Dark. He would have had to control them, and control holds no love. Only fear; only greed.

Leia watched him with Padmé's eyes. The stone corridors were empty and quiet except for their determined footsteps. The sconces were lit, the drapes fluttering mournfully in a cold wind, but no voices carried along the carved corridors.

And the door to the throne room was open.

If Anakin had had any doubts that this was a trap, they evaporated into the air more easily than the shaky breaths of his daughter did where they crystallised in the frigid cold.

The flight in had been hard, but not near impossible, as it should have been. Solo had brought the Falcon into planetfall in the shadow of a cargo caravan. The irony of using the same trick employed to elude him after Bespin was not lost on him. The cargo holder was hideously slow, the flight to the Manari mountains excruciating, waiting for interception by the Imperial navy. Anakin had been counting on being able to intimidate the navy into backing off. It had not been necessary; they had not been intercepted.

Solo had taken a less-than-direct route to the mountains, taking them well past Jade's deadline. He didn't have enough mental-fingers to count off the clues to this being a trap, not least the easily identifiable agent that had passed on this location.

And yet... that seemed so obvious. Almost like Palpatine didn't particularly care whether or not they thought this a trap, only that they came at all. And here they were. What else could they have done?

The worry in his gut curled painfully at that, leaving Anakin with the wrenching feeling of indescribable loss. That, perhaps more than the ease of their entry to Palpatine's mountain retreat, was as ominous as the storm brushed skies.

"He's expecting us."

Anakin nodded. "Captain Solo, you and Chewbacca must stay here-"

The headstrong smuggler shook his head fiercely, the wookiee keening a negative, "No way. I go where she goes." Solo gestured towards Leia with a determined look of over-protectiveness that Anakin was easily beginning to share.

"This is not a matter you can be involved in, Captain."

"Hutt spit it isn't!" Again, Solo brought out that accusing finger. "I'm coming in there."

Anakin looked between wookiee and human, then gave a mock sigh of grudging agreement. "Very well. When Luke or Leia dies because I have to split my attention between an injured son and his wayward friends, I hope you'll be understanding if I can't quite manage to quash the urge to cut that finger off."

Solo nodded in self-congratulations. "Good, let's get-" Then he stopped. The words seemed to suddenly register in Solo's mind and brown eyes stared suddenly at his accusing hand. He grimaced, lowered it and tucked his blaster into it, glaring. The vehemence there was begrudging of the logic, though. Anakin found himself nodding in relief that Solo understood.

"Stay and guard the door." Solo had that look of imminent protest on his lips, a look that came so naturally, but he narrowed his eyes and nodded. "If anyone approaches, kill them." He would cover their backs here, whilst Calrissian guarded the ship in the snowbound hangar.

There was a burning in his chest when he turned to Leia, a pain at taking his more-than-capable daughter into danger. But she needed to be there, as much as he did.

He just nodded and strode for the open door.

For the first time since they had arrived here, Anakin reached out into the Force for the familiar balm of his son's presence. What he found nearly stilled his steps forward, the lights of sconces flickering in a cold wind.

Luke was here, in this room beyond the swathes of shadows at its entrance. He was here, but the bond they should share was tattered, bloodied. In Anakin's mind, it stung under his touch like the frothing pain of a fresh burn on tender skin. And Anakin knew how that felt. His son's presence was there, and it was... not there. It was clouded, distracted, in a pain that set Anakin's heart doing panicked loops and hammering at his chest for freedom.

Leia walked to his left side, Luke's lightsaber clutched in her pale hand. She halted in the doorway, clearly feeling the waves of past agonies seething up from between the flagstones to greet them. Anakin stilled beside her, tempted to tell her to start running and not look back. A crackled voice, marked by mockery, pulled his awareness from his pale daughter to the depths of the room beyond.

"Won't you come in, my friend?"

Palpatine. He lounged by a burning hearth Anakin recognised intimately from Leia's nightmares.

Anakin was compelled by the voice, his footsteps loosing the soothing ring of his heel against stone floor as he crossed over the rug towards the man he had called Master.

Man? How could he think of this thing as a man? It was barely alive, the skin held to crumbling bones only by sheer Force of will. Age had treated Palpatine poorly, but no worse than he deserved.

Anakin said nothing as he halted before the seated Emperor. Leia had hung back in the doorway.

"Lord Vader, a pleasure to see you. What brings you here?"

Now Anakin spoke, an ironic smile twisting scarred lips into a smile. "That name no longer has any meaning for me."

The words were the cool draught of water after years in a lifeless, loveless desert. He basked in it, could feel Leia's appreciation from across the room, and allowed himself a measure of pride.

Palpatine steepled his fingers in mock thought. "Indeed? Then you have no use for it?"

Anakin resisted the urge to shift from foot to foot, wrapping the tendrils of Force around himself in a measure of security. What did the old man want?

"None. I serve you no longer."

One brittle eyebrow rose for the ceiling. "Ah, then you will have no argument to me reclaiming it and passing it on to another?" He smiled wickedly, firelight adding to that putrid yellow of his eyes. He flicked a long, chalk-nailed finger and a figure stepped forwards from the shadows and into the light.

Anakin's heart must have stopped. It had to have, because there was no pain comparable to the burning ache that clenched it as his son stepped forward to stand at Palpatine's right side.

His mouth wouldn't work, as still as his heart and his breath. The brash boy was gone, the young man he had fought in the winds of Cloud City buried. Had this been what Padmé had seen when she looked at him twenty years ago? Had she died in the first raids of a Rebellion, or from the throes of a broken heart, malignant with the change the Darkness brought to someone you couldn't deny love for?

No. This was worse.

Anakin's hands balled into fists. Padmé had at least seen a drastic physical change, and not a despairing mockery of what she'd once known. The fine, aristocratic features of the boy were achingly pale despite the firelight, the blue eyes wide and swimming with restrained power. The dark fabric of rich robes made him both taller, more powerful, and smaller, more desperate. Emotions raged in a war across his features as Anakin looked at him, threatening to tear those bleached features apart. There was pain, radiating outwards with a heat akin to the flames of the fire. Old pain from old wounds, and fresh pain from indecision, confusion. There was hope, and there was horror. The need to get out of the room, the uncertainty of what Darth Vader was doing standing in front of him. Perhaps even memories of Bespin.

There was a strangled sob from behind him that might have formed the word 'Luke' if it hadn't been obscured by tears. Leia dropped the lightsaber with a clang, frozen in shock, and Anakin couldn't turn to her. He heard her scramble to retrieve it.

Luke flicked his gaze to her, an anguished expression quickly wiped away. It was almost impossible for Anakin to restrain himself from jumping forward and spiriting the boy away.

Palpatine was still smiling. "After all, it is an auspicious name. It should be passed on." He turned then to Luke, talking almost conversationally. "What do you think, Little Jedi? Do you like it?"

There was a moment of absolute revulsion as Palpatine stroked the back of his hand across Luke's cheek. Darkness flooded him, following quickly on the heels of his burning anger. Get off him, you bastard! Anakin shook with the need to act on that hatred.

Palpatine only crackled. "Careful, Anakin." The name was dust in his mouth. "Hate leads to the Darkside. But then I suppose you know that, no?"

Anakin trembled in rage, trying to calm his emotions. The power tempted him to strike out and reclaim Luke, who didn't even flinch at the contact. Words absolutely failed him.

"Little Jedi?" The word was mockery. Luke's gaze, glazed and confused, flicked between Anakin and his Emperor.

"Yes, Master."

The words were like a blow to Anakin's gut. We waited too long. We waited far too long.

"Let him go," Anakin growled, the words menacing through the vocoder. He was peripherally aware of Leia standing still rooted to the spot, staring at the three dark cloaked figures.

Palpatine chuckled, "No, no. I don't think so." He turned back to Anakin, his hand falling from Luke's cheek. Anakin heart went for a full-fledged cheer when the boy inched further from his Master, his eyes looking pleadingly at his father.

//Stay calm, Luke. I'll get you out.//

The thought hammered against the barrier erected between father and son, and Palpatine shook his head. "You never did learn, did you Anakin?"

"I thought I learned far too much," Anakin spat. The cold fury was still there in his veins, potent and threatening.

Palpatine sighed almost wistfully. "You were such a recalcitrant student. Not at all like your son. He's just plain stubborn."

Snow squalls beat at the glass windows, and Anakin took a step closer. "What do you want? Why do you want me here?"

That crooked smile came again, but Anakin's eyes were on his son, edging slowly away from Palpatine. He didn't even look like he knew he was doing it.

"What do I want?" His hand snaked out and clutched the black sleeve of Luke's robe. The boy didn't flinch as fingernails dug into his skin and he was hauled back to his former position. "I want your son."

He couldn't help it; the anger boiled hot in his cheeks and he took another step forward, prodded on by the low growl in his daughter's throat.

"Oh, originally I wanted whichever proved the stronger between father and son." Yellow teeth shone as bright as his eyes when he smiled. "But now I just want your son. He's very strong, you know?" His hands began to stroke Luke's sleeve. Luke looked down fiercely, but the resistance died almost immediately.

"Yes, I know. Stronger than you realise, I think." It took a supreme effort not to launch himself forward and wrest his son from that bony grip. The silent warning against doing just that hung on the blue tinged fingertips of Palpatine's free hand.

Again, that chuckle that shivered up his spine. "Perhaps, perhaps… he certainly took a lot longer to turn than you did. Tell me, what took you so long to get here?"

Anakin growled low in his throat. Leia walked up behind him to stand just behind him, to his right. The fury was coming off her in hot waves as the fire crackled in a strange harmony to the tension in the air. Anakin's eyes remained fixed on Luke, not bothering to answer Palpatine's question. There was a strange worming of pride in his gut at the statement, and another feeling he recognised as guilt at the accusation. The high black collar framed mournful blue eyes as Luke watched the confrontation with a strange detached sadness hiding behind those blonde lashes. Even screaming his denial on the gantry on Bespin, he had never looked so lost. It ignited feelings in Anakin that were murdering the rage that rose with Palpatine's words, letting him push the Darkness away savagely every time it beckoned.

When it was clear he wasn't going to rise to Palpatine's taunts, the Emperor frowned, forehead crumpling. "Still…" his voice was again wistful, "It might be interesting to see who is the stronger." His hand waved through the air, fire patterning it.

Leia cried out as the saber in her hands was ripped from her grip and flew to Palpatine's. She cursed under her breath. Calm, Leia. Don't give in.

Anakin kept his eyes on his son. His jaw was set in a fierce determination, but his eyes were still glazed. This had gone on far enough.

Palpatine turned the saber in his grip, fingers crawling over the weapon Anakin had made as a padawan, years past now. The Emperor looked over at Luke, a tendril of Force energy forcing the boy's gaze down to his own. Luke struggled with words of defiance as the saber was placed into his hands.

That fierce possessiveness was back, Anakin struggling with disparate feelings of disgust and despair. And, yes, there was fear too, as Luke rolled the saber in his hands and fluttered his eyelids closed.

Palpatine looked between them, considering. Anakin tensed. "I'm not about to fight my own son, Palpatine."

"So certain of yourself… You didn't seem so disinclined on Bespin, my apprentice," Palpatine chuckled. "But I'm afraid I'm not about to offer you a choice, Anakin. Do you remember your last sacrifice to the Darkness? Ah... yes, I see you do. They screamed beautifully, didn't they? " Anakin flinched. Palpatine continued, eyes on Luke, "He needs only that last step now. Needs only to take his place at my side. And you, Anakin, are standing in his way."

"I'm not going to fight him." He tensed. Luke had yet to reopen his eyes.

"Fool."

Anakin's body tensed in anticipation, hearing nothing but the squall of snow outside.

And then the crackle of lightning. And Leia's scream.

The bolts hit her in the stomach, throwing her to a rough collision with the wall behind them. Furious, Darkness flowing with the hatred, the saber came from his belt and snapped to life. Before he had any conscious knowledge of what he was doing, he leapt across the remaining distance, blade sweeping up and down towards the decrepit old man, ready to slice him through -

- only to be intercepted by the blue blade of his old saber, held in the unwavering hands of his son.

Over the sparks of clashing lightsabers, Palpatine cackled.