Whumptober No. 18 LET'S BREAK THE ICE
"Just get it over with." | Treading Water | "Take my Coat"


Zev had always hated the cold. But he hated being on a mission with Luke Skywalker more. This was the third time he'd put out a hand to force Zev to stop in the middle of the snowy forest, crouched low on the ground, listening.

"I can't hear anything!" Zev hissed.

"Neither can I," Skywalker replied under his breath. "But there's something ahead, and we don't want it to hear us."

"Is this one of those Jedi instincts of yours?" Zev asked, his lip curling.

"Of course." Skywalker eyed him. He wasn't as tanned as he had once been, presumably due to the time away from his desert homeworld, but against the dirty white snow jacket, gloves, furred hood and boots, his skin stood out like a splash of colour. "Why?"

Zev shivered and told himself it was the cold. It had bitten through his heavy coat the moment Skywalker had landed them on this ball of ice; if it wasn't for the goggles, he was sure his eyeballs would have frozen in their sockets. But even through those goggles, Skywalker's gaze was uncomfortably intense, like he knew exactly what Zev was thinking.

Like—

"Vader does that a lot," Zev said and made it clear in his voice exactly what he thought of Vader.

It rankled Skywalker, apparently, which Zev took as a win. He'd heard so much about the great destroyer of the Death Star: the man, the myth, the legend. Legends never held up. He was waiting to find out what was behind that uncrackable calm façade.

"You do know that Vader isn't a Jedi?" Skywalker said tightly. "And that this sort of ability occurs naturally across the galaxy?"

"Jedi or not, it looks the same to me."

Skywalker huffed to himself and turned away. Zev hated that this kid—who, admittedly, should only be three or four years younger than Zev at most—was being the more mature out of the two of them. He had been a commander after all before he resigned from Rogue Squadron, but still. Zev knew maturity. He knew self-discipline. His dad had taught him enough about that.

"Either way," Skywalker said, "we need to be careful. The base is just up ahead—"

"And you know that how? We got thoroughly lost in that blizzard." They'd hunkered down in a tent—Skywalker had meditated all night, who the hell did that—and waited it out, but by now Zev's map was pretty useless. He didn't like being useless. It gave people space to accuse him of being dead Imperial weight. "We can't even see past that bank of trees for the snow."

"It's there," Skywalker said. Maybe he was used to the Rogues obeying every instinct and order of his wordlessly, like good soldiers. He did really sound like Vader when he talked like that.

Zev had met Vader more times that he liked to remember. Imperial Army functions, where his dad would pull around his wife and child as a model soldier with a family; celebrations; parades; awards ceremonies where General Veers was awarded even more accolades. The last one had been the one that the Rebellion hated Zev's dad the most for: Veers had received a commendation for what he'd done on Hoth, while Rebels hissed vitriol and called him the Butcher. Being the Butcher's son, even a butcher's son who'd defected shortly after realising how little his father cared about the Empire's atrocities, had been less than easy.

At that ceremony, Vader had looked Zev, standing primly next to his father and fiercely missing his deceased mother, in the eye. He had looked from General Veers to his son several times, with enough intensity to knock the breath out of Zev's chest. Then he had looked away.

Skywalker's regard reminded him of that. It made him grit his teeth.

"I don't believe you," he decided.

"I get you're new to the Alliance, but—"

"I know how army missions work, Skywalker." Was he always going to have someone looking over his shoulder like this? Vader, sizing him up beside his father, and inevitably finding him lacking? Skywalker, dissatisfied with his lack of obedience to the ranking officer and leader on this mission?

"You don't know how the Force works though," Skywalker said carefully. Everyone Zev had spoken to had said their hero was bright, reckless, a bit clumsy with words and overeager but earnest. A damn hard worker. This meticulous way of speaking to Zev just made him feel like he was being coddled again. "I just wanted to explain it to you, if you didn't. I get feelings, sometimes—they direct me to where I need to go, though it's not always where I want to go, and they warn me of danger. And I can sense people's presences. Life forms." He noticed ahead of them, still crouching. "There's a lot of life forms over there."

"Can you read minds?" Zev asked. He wanted to know if Vader had been able to read his rebellious thoughts on him, like a dog smelling blood.

"Only if I try." Skywalker seemed to be going for a joke, but he aborted it halfway. "I don't."

Zev wished he hadn't asked.

"We need to get closer, then," he said instead. "Our mission is to scout out the base."

"If we get any closer, something will go wrong," Skywalker said.

"What will go wrong?"

Skywalker hesitated. "I don't know. But it will. I need you to trust that."

That was impossible. Zev had been raised in the heart of the Empire. He had weathered the Imperial academy. There was no trusting someone until you saw them crack, and Skywalker was too composed for that. Too heroic.

"There might be another blizzard on the way," he tried to justify. "We need to move fast."

"We need to do this right." Skywalker glanced at him. "If I told you what I suspected, would you listen?"

"Why haven't you told me before?"

"I'm not certain—at least, I don't want to be certain—"

"I'm going," he decided and stood up.

"Veers, no!"

Zev barely made it three paces through the thick, snowy undergrowth before teeth snapped shut around his ankle. He howled.

Skywalker was next to him in a moment; he caught him before Zev fell hard into the thorny bushes; his grip was strong, but apparently Zev's enormous height and subsequent weight was difficult for him. He struggled with him to the ground. Distantly, they heard shouts.

"Kriff," Skywalker said. "I was right."

"About the danger?" Zev spat, glancing down at the ankle. Kriff—kriff—he could see blood. He could see bone. "You didn't tell me they'd have a kriffing trap here!"

"It doesn't look like it's for humans, it's for—"

"Animals, I know! I've been hunting before!" The Imperials at this base were probably hoping for game to get them through the harsher nights, or just doing it for fun, and they happened to have snagged an Imperial-turned Rebel instead—

"I wasn't right about the trap. I didn't know what that was." Skywalker winced as well when he looked down at Zev's injury, the metal teeth that went all the way through and out the other side of his squishy leg. "I was right about the other thing."

"Which is?"

The distant shouts grew louder. They weren't as distant as Zev had thought, he realised; they were far too close for comfort. Someone had heard him scream. He could hear them assembling.

And worse, he recognised the voice barking orders.

"No one's sure where that came from, so split up! Two squads to the north. You lot, head west. You—" The voice paused; Skywalker went very still, turning his face away, closing his eyes. Zev watched, but clearly the camouflage against the snow worked. "—take the east side. If there are Rebels here, Lord Vader will want them found."

Zev felt the colour drain out of his face. "You're kidding me."

"I was really hoping Vader wasn't here," Skywalker muttered.

"Vader's here?"

"By the looks of it, Vader, General Veers, and a significant portion of the Imperial Army. There must be something important going on here."

It wasn't just the pain putting the nausea into Zev's stomach. "It's a strategic planet."

"Yeah." Skywalker glanced back. "We need to run. They're headed this way."

"Run? I can't—"

A snap-hiss was all the warning Zev got. Skywalker's lightsaber wasn't blue, as Zev had heard; it was green. As green as his mother's eyes had been. Zev yelped at the sight of it, then stifled himself. Skywalker slashed through the trap, close enough to the exposed skin of Zev's legs to both burn and freeze it simultaneously and tugged the metal jaws out of his flesh.

Zev did his best, again, not to scream.

Skywalker cut a swath of fabric from his coat and swiftly tied it around Zev's shin, the blood pumping over his hand, then tied it tightly enough that Zev thought his foot would fall off. His heart was thundering in his chest. Despite all his training, everything his dad had taught him, he had never been injured in the field like this. He did not know what to do.

But Skywalker did. "Run!"

That was one order Zev was happy to obey.

Pain lanced up his leg with every step, until he was gambling, galloping, stumbling through the undergrowth like a three-legged deer. Skywalker had shot off at the speed of light—how could Jedi move that fast—to begin with, but then he dropped behind and kept pace with him. It felt insulting. Zev knew it wasn't meant that way.

"Keep running," Skywalker urged, hardly out of breath. He pranced over hidden logs and bushes like they were nothing. "Our ship is nearby. We just need to get out of atmo."

Zev stared at the lightsaber hilt, beating innocuously against Skywalker's thigh. A literal sword of light from the stories, the romantic side he'd got from his mother prompted; the scepticism that the academy had beaten into him told him instead about how he'd seen something like that before, as well.

At his father's medal ceremony, a rich, ornately dressed patron had loudly boasted how much they had contributed to the bounty that was out for Luke Skywalker's corpse. Lord Vader had wordlessly and gracefully drew his lightsaber and sent their head rolling, bloodless, across the marble floor. They didn't even have the chance for their expression to shift from that smug, inattentive smile.

What a barbaric weapon. At least a blaster did it from a distance. At least everyone knew to expect them. Why were people who could already kill with their minds allowed to just carry a sword of fire wherever they went? If he ever had to duel Vader, Zev would rather have a blaster at his side. And that might be a possibility they had to encounter, soon.

Skywalker held out a hand to stop them so fast Zev almost crashed past it. A force caught him and set him gently back down on the ground, before he floundered out of the woods and onto what looked like a beach. He picked himself up, grimacing with pain at the trail of bright blood he'd left in the snow like flags in a race, and glared at Skywalker.

"Don't touch me like that."

"I'm sorry," he said. There was the earnestness. But the way his head tilted as he scanned the white, featureless horizon, jaw working and brows creasing, undid the effect. He was staring into space again.

What happened, when two unnatural beings like Skywalker and Vader collided? If they didn't move soon, Zev would kriffing find out, but Skywalker wasn't moving.

"You said the ship was near," Zev said. No matter that they'd been hiking for days to get over here. How had they got that turned around? "We need to move."

Vader was here. Zev did not want to have him root through his mind, stare at him like he had before. He did not want to be the one whose head rolled. Unconsciously, he glanced at Skywalker's lightsaber again.

His father had spent his life serving under a religious fanatic who made irrational military decisions, he thought, semi-hysterically. Zev was going to die this way as well.

"I misinterpreted," Skywalker said.

"What does that mean?"

Skywalker pointed straight ahead. Zev peered out of the wood, following the snow plain to the horizon. He saw nothing.

Except, that wasn't a snow plain.

"That's a pretty bad misinterpretation, Skywalker!" Zev snapped.

"It's a narrow channel. The river is usually very still. We can circumnavigate it, like we did when hiking here, or go straight across."

"It wasn't frozen over when we landed!"

"It is now."

"Will it stay that way?"

Skywalker scrunched his eyes shut, reaching out a hand. For a moment, Zev had to stop and stare. Vader was never so obvious when he was uncertain, not from the stories he'd heard. At least Skywalker wasn't an infallible hero in that, then.

"Yes," Skywalker said at last, hesitantly.

"You don't sound like you believe it."

"It will stay that way if we're careful. I can guide us over the safe bits; if we stick to the bits that feel safe, we'll be fine."

"None of this feels safe!" Zev gestured to his leg. Stars, he should've stayed with the Empire. Funnelled his pocket money into the Rebellion instead, or something. What the hell was he doing here? Why the hell had he agreed to go on a mission with this guy?

"We can go back the way we came," Skywalker offered gently. "I have medical supplies. We can find somewhere to hide, pitch the tent, then I'll stand watch while you treat your injury more effectively."

"Yes!" Zev enthused. "Let's do that."

"Alright. It's this way, then." Luke nodded to their left. "We should hug the edge of the woods, get some more shelter—" He cut himself off. "Get down."

This time, Zev obeyed fast enough that he didn't get thrown down by an unseen force. They ducked behind a thorn bush, holding their breaths.

"And you're sure the footprints went this way?"

It wasn't near. In fact, through the forest, it would take General Veers quite a trek to get to them. But the voice seized Zev's heart. Skywalker glanced at him; even through the goggles on his face, his expression was something uncomfortably like sympathy.

Longing, even.

Could he read the inferno of emotions in Zev's chest? If he could, Zev would need him to unpick them for him.

"Yes, sir. They're a bit muddled, but there's a blood trail as well. It got a bit kicked up around here."

"Then fan out and search this area. They can't have gone far."

"Yes, sir."

Zev whispered, "We're going across the ice."

Skywalker glanced at him. "What?"

"I am not staying here to be found. We're going across the ice. It's against Imperial policy to follow on foot, and to get speeders they'd have to go back, fix them to deal with the cold, by which time we'd better be across."

"We will be," Skywalker reassured. It was obvious this was not one of his premonitions. "Alright. Move slowly. The ice is thick, but it creaks. Our coats should camouflage us."

"What does a desert boy know about ice?"

"Hoth was a steep learning curve."

Zev suddenly wondered if Skywalker had watched his squadron die under Zev's father's fire.

"Alright," he said. "Lead the way."

Zev had never moved so slowly. Every footstep, snow crunching underfoot, was like a cannon bursting from under his toes. The blood that drip, drip, dripped behind him, melting through the top layer of white snow crystals, was fairy tale-esque in the trail it left behind. The only colour in this bleak, monochromatic landscape.

Skywalker stepped onto the ice first. It creaked slightly under his foot, but he spread his weight, his snowshoes doing their job—Zev's right one had been crushed in the trap, so he didn't know how he'd manage—and got several metres without so much as a hitch. He beckoned to Zev.

"Come on." His tone was a murmur, almost. Zev heard it in the rush of cold air against his cheeks.

He followed gingerly. Every tiptoe across the ice felt like inviting doom. Up close, it wasn't white: it was deep aquamarine, shot through with frost-tipped planes. His own distraught face stared back at him as if out of a shattered mirror. Skywalker's reflected back as well, upside down from this angle; Zev glanced at his reflection, and for a moment he thought he looked afraid. A crack in the ice bisected his reflection, like he was made of fragments himself.

"Stay low to the ice," he murmured again. "They're coming. We need to get into the haze of snow before they get here."

They kept moving. Skywalker stepped in an irregular, zigzag pattern that made Zev's head spin, but he knew how to dodge blaster bolts so the logic to it made sense. He followed behind closely.

Wouldn't the ice, thick as it was, be weaker when he stepped on it, having already born Skywalker's weight? Wasn't he heavier?

"What is there to say that where you step is safe for you but not for me?" he asked. "I'm a lot heavier than you."

"I'm paying attention, Veers. I don't want you to die."

"You weren't paying attention back there."

"I made a mistake, I'm sorry. This is a fast way to get to the ship."

"It's just also a dangerous way."

"Yeah."

Zev shivered. But that was his dad back there, searching for the faceless Rebel that had replaced his only son. Their last conversation played on repeat in his head: Veers's absolutely adamance that Zev was wrong, that Lord Vader's decapitation of that random Imperial was justified even if neither of them knew the facts behind it, Zev desperately trying to make his father see how the values he had taught him contradicted this.

It was either face the past or risk the future. He had to trust this unnatural Jedi hero. He resented it with every fibre of his being.

But the moment he divided from Skywalker's forged path, he felt a change in the ice underneath him. It shifted under his step, groaning. His reflection rippled, afraid.

He slipped back onto Skywalker's path. The faint fall of snow had split them from sight of the shore, Zev's bright trail of blood leading into a white haze. There was nothing but Skywalker's instincts to say whether they were heading away from the Imperials, towards their ships, or the wrong way entirely.

"Just to break the ice," Skywalker said, then winced at his own phrase, "we're both thinking it. I wanted to confirm. That's…" He hesitated. "That's your dad back there, isn't it?"

"What's it to you?" Zev bit out, a little louder than he should have. The ice bounced it back at him; he stumbled and heard it crunch, then scrambled away again. Before his eyes, the tiny plate he'd punched loose in his overeager kick bobbed merrily, caved in on all sides, and slowly froze back to the main plate.

"I'm sorry," was not what Zev had been expecting. "I know it's hard to have a parent on the other side of the war."

"The hells would you know about it?"

For a moment, he hoped this would be the moment Skywalker cracked. This would be when he revealed that darker core Zev could tell was there. No perfect mask stayed unscarred for long. Vader's mask was replaced regularly for the wear it took on the battlefield.

"I'm sorry," Skywalker repeated.

"Don't pity me," Zev said.

"I don't."

"Don't judge me either."

"You think I would?"

"You're Luke Skywalker. You wouldn't understand any of this! You're too busy saving the day to worry about the grey areas of the galaxy!"

And that was why Zev couldn't trust anyone perfect. He was antsy around all the Rebel leaders, Princess Leia especially, for how they kept their faces blank and their feelings neutral throughout the war, their masks impeccable. He hated following symbols. They weren't real people, they wouldn't understand him, and they definitely wouldn't try to. They'd just look right through him—or down on him, if they saw him at all. And they took everyone else away.

How many of his friends at the academy had never taken their anti-Imperial thoughts to their natural conclusion because they were so enamoured with the shiny stormtrooper armour? How many people had died for an emperor who sat on a throne and never bothered to look them in the eye? How many fathers had been lost, because they were so loyal to one, impossibly powerful leader, that they refused to listen to their own sons?

It had been naïve to think that the Rebellion might be different, for that. But Zev would be.

Skywalker said, "I understand what people say about me. I don't like it."

"They say you're a hero."

"Yeah. I'm not going to judge you, Zevulon."

"If you're going to be unprofessional and use my first name, it's Zev. But don't. Don't use it."

There were shouts in the distance. People were onto their trail. Skywalker looked behind them and swallowed.

"You can move faster than me," Zev told him. "Go. They're following my trail."

"We both know that's not going to happen." Skywalker's gaze moved from them to him. "How do you deal with it?"

"What?"

"Knowing your father hates Rebels."

That was the final straw. Zev stared at Skywalker, silhouetted in goggles and a massive hood against the white fall of snow. The ice underneath his feet was almost luminescent, blue-green and brilliant, with the light that Skywalker seemed to exude just by existing.

"Don't make fun of me," Zev said, his voice lower and colder than the bottom of this river. "Let's get this over with." He marched forwards, shoving past Skywalker.

"Veers, wait!" Fingers caught the edge of his jacket, but he brushed them off. He wanted to be done with this mission. He wanted to be done with all of this. He never wanted to think about his father again.

The ice cracked. His foot went through. His knee, then waist, then torso followed. When his head hit the water, it was like being folded in liquid nitrogen.

He instinctively gasped for air. Frigid water flooded his mouth, his nose. He coughed and spluttered, eyes streaming even underwater. It was so dark under here, that aquamarine fading to a dark, hungry blue that lurked beneath his kicking boots. His broken snowshoe trembled with how hard he beat his legs in the water, even as the cold bit into the holes the trap's teeth had left behind; it wobbled some more, then dropped off his boot altogether. He watched it sink.

Everything was so slow. His head was pounding, but… He needed…

He needed to get out of here.

Straining, he reached for the surface. His coat was a dead weight around him; survival training, no matter how abstract it had been to swim leisurely in a pool compared to this, seized the back of his mind. He shrugged off his coat, watching that billow to the bottom of the river as well. When he reached the surface, he extended a hand.

He met only ice.

No, no, no—

How far had he shifted? Was there a current? Had the ice shifted instead? He couldn't see the hole he'd fallen through anymore. Light streamed into the water in the distance, but it was too far away to make out—was that it? Shadows flickered along the surface. Where was he? Where was up? Down?

He knew where that was. The more he kicked, the more the cold sank into his muscles, and the less he kicked. Slowly, he drifted towards the dark blue embrace.

Thumping. Lots of footsteps, it sounded like—through the water, at least. Skywalker should run. When Vader caught him, he'd kill him.

Bubbles wibbled in front of Zev's face. His lungs burned. Slowly, his vision went red. Then blue. Then, just before the true blackness crept in, he saw a shadow flicker above in the paler blue part of the world.

A spear of green shot through the haze.

The sight of a lightsaber so close to his face shocked him out of his stupor. He gasped, more water choking him, but it spun around him as neatly as a factory machine. He followed it around with staring eyes, bubbles dribbling from his lips. When he looked up, he saw a perfect circle of white, limned in green. It exploded outwards.

That horrible force he hated so much seized him. One moment he was dying, then he was lying on his side on the ice, retching. That green light had not stopped. It was… warm.

He noticed that where Skywalker reached it out, hovering it a few millimetres above his clothes, steam evaporated off of him.

"This is taking too long," he muttered to himself, and deactivated it. Zev wanted to protest, wanted the light and warmth back. Skywalker shrugged off his coat. "Take this."

"What?" But he'd already bundled it around his shoulders. A shock of residual warmth from Skywalker's body went through his shoulders. "Why?"

"Because you're half dead."

"No," Zev said, struggling to get it out. "Why didn't you run?"

"Why would I?"

Of course he hadn't run. He was a hero. But he didn't look calm and collected now. He was shivering violently without his coat, one of his hands curled limply at his side, and kept looking to the horizon.

"Veers," Skywalker said.

"Zev."

"What?"

Zev stared at Skywalker's lightsaber. "Just—call me Zev, alright? You've already saved me twice."

That got a mirthless smile. "Alright. Zev. Do you think your father will kill you, if he finds you?"

"What?"

"If he finds you, will your father kill you? Rebel or not, you're his son."

"Why?"

"Because we can't escape," Skywalker said. "You can't move very far like this. We'd freeze before we got back to the ship."

"You can still escape."

"Will your father kill you or not? Or hurt you?"

"No!" Zev said. "I don't think. No. He won't." He was furious at him. But he loved him. Angst about their relationship and Zev's betrayal aside, he had that low, low bar to count on: his father would not kill him if they ever saw each other again.

Skywalker swallowed. "I have a flare," he said.

Zev's eyes widened. "You need to escape. No."

"You're sure that your father won't hurt you?" Skywalker's voice cracked. And Zev watched, with shock and horror, as Skywalker cracked as well. Hot tears were steaming up his goggles. "That fathers don't do that?"

"No! Why?"

"You think I'm like Vader."

"Yes? No? It's—"

"You should. You're right. Do you know what he told me when I last confronted him?" Skywalker's words were an avalanche. "He's my father."

Zev watched Skywalker. Skywalker watched him back.

That stare. That alertness, the instincts, and expectation that people should follow them, because they were evidently right. How Skywalker had flinched, revealing that first hint of the darkness at his core, when Zev first brought Vader up.

"He cut off my hand before he told me that," Skywalker got out. He waved his dead hand. "It's a prosthetic."

Zev stared at it. "It must've died in the cold ages ago."

"It did."

"You've only had one functioning hand this whole time and you didn't say anything?"

"It wasn't relevant! Your injury was!"

"Vader is your father?" Vader had a son? A Rebel son? One who had an Alive Only bounty on big enough to buy the Empire out from under him?

"Apparently!"

He thought about how Vader had stared at him, at that awards ceremony. Standing tall and proud next to his decorated father: an army cadet, ready to serve by his side. He thought about how Vader had looked away.

Zev reached out a hand to take Skywalker's dead one. "Send up the flare," he told him.

"You're sure? You'll be alright?"

"So will you." Zev's chest ached. That might be from inhaling all that water. "Once they rescue us, we'll be fine."

"How do you know?"

"Send up the flare," Zev insisted. "Now, you have to trust me."

When Luke looked at him, he was not judging him. Zev didn't know why he'd ever thought that he was.

This war had left no one unscathed. Maybe Luke, Princess Leia, Zev's dad, Vader, all the symbols of good and evil he'd ever looked up to, were just much better at hiding it than he was.

Luke fumbled in his bag for the flare. Looked at it in his left hand. "I need you to help," he said, wiggling his dead prosthetic.

Zev nodded and took the string. Together, they lifted it, aimed, and fired.

It soared into the sky with an ear-splitting squeal. Bright yellow, orange, red: the antithesis to this cold landscape around them. When it exploded, just the sight of the showering sparks warmed Zev, somewhat. So did the distant shouts.

They huddled together on the ice, heat bleeding through each other like hope, and waited for their fathers to rescue them.