No. 26 NO ONE LEFT BEHIND
Separated | Rope Burns | "Why did you save me?"

This was written originally from a prompt I received on tumblr:

"It's alright Luke..." Vader said soothingly as he brushed away the tears on the small child's face, paying no mind to the way he flinched and recoiled at his touch. "It's alright... your fathers here..." he continued as he stood, gathering the still sobbing child into his arms, his burning yellow eyes briefly staring down at the fearful bright blue of his sons. "And I promise... " he started as they headed away from the broken body of his former master "I will never, EVER leave you..."

I had a lot of thoughts on Vader's mental state here, and wanted to dig into it deeper, but Whumptober - short and dirty. Hope you enjoy!

There is something especially insulting about the fact that the whole time Palpatine has raised his son, it has been directly under his nose. Palpatine did not need to hide Luke at all from him, but he did anyway, and hid him so closely? Vader storms into the lowest level of the Palace, where few bother to go and certainly not him, and almost snarls when he sees who blocks his way.

"My friend," Palpatine begins, looking him up and down sympathetically. "I had heard you were struggling with this decision again. You do know that if you had any doubts, you could simply have spoken to me?"

"Let me see him."

"You entrusted me with your son. I have cared for him for thirteen long years. And you know that I trust you implicitly, but… Lord Vader, there is a reason you entrusted him to me in the first place."

That reason was built on a lie.

"I am here to see my son," he repeats. When Palpatine does not move out of his way, he shoves past him, hard enough to send his master flying into the wall. The lack of red guards to prevent such indignities from befalling their master should be suspicious, but Vader does not notice. He barely notices Palpatine's pained grunt, his pained tuts—all fake.

The door to Luke's training facilities are right in front of him. He barges towards them and flings them open, the force of it billowing his cape behind him. There, before him: a large hall, training mats laid out on the floor, and a slim, muscled boy doing katas with a live lightsaber against a row of inactivated battle droids.

For years, the only holo Vader had of his son was the one he had taken when he first found Luke in the midst of chasing Kenobi: a tiny, red, raw thing, face bawled up in loud protestations at being woken by the cam's light. He snuggled in Vader's arms on the trip back to Coruscant and was enough to prevent Vader from pursuing the escaped Kenobi further. His son was all he had left of Padmé.

Palpatine was right, when he presented him. Luke was all that was left of Padmé in the galaxy, and Vader had killed Padmé. Vader would kill Luke too, if given the chance. He could not see his son.

And yet for years and years he hung onto that holo. He knew it was foolish. It was sheer weakness for a Sith to be so attached to any one thing. But the image followed him everywhere: onto the battlefield, onto new ships and old, onto Rebel bases, into useless meetings and diplomatic events. And Palpatine did report back to him, but sporadically. Every time, he made it clear that Vader's touch would only taint Luke Skywalker's perfection.

Vader already knew that. But he longed, anyway. He strove to destroy the Rebels, to build a better galaxy, for him and him alone.

Now, he stands in front of Luke for the first time in thirteen years. Luke turns from his katas, the lightsaber casting bloody light onto his too thin face. Kenobi was right. Luke is not malnourished—not skinny, with a substantial amount of muscle on him—but he is far from nourished. He is far from healthy or content.

Vader steps forwards. "Luke," he said, his heart in his throat.

Luke's face contorts in the sort of hatred Vader has only ever levelled against himself. He spins his lightsaber in his hand, springs to his feet, and lunges at him.

"Anakin, no!"

"Anakin Skywalker is dead," Vader hissed, clashing his lightsaber against Kenobi's. Kenobi backed away, face pained, the blue and red light intermingling on his face. "You killed him."

"Is this what you want for yourself?" Kenobi shouted at him, backing away. "Is this what you want for Luke? You'll ruin—"

The pang in Vader's chest made him roar all the louder. His lightsaber came down against Kenobi's harder, harder, until Kenobi was forced to give ever more ground. "Do you think I do not know that!?" The lightsaber toppled out of Kenobi's hand, split in two. "Do you think I am not aware? Palpatine has him. He will protect him."

Kenobi stared at him in horror—horror at the loss of his lightsaber, no doubt, but not primarily. "Palpatine?"

"I killed Padmé," Vader hissed, stalking forwards. He would end this, once and for all. "Do you want Luke so you can turn him against me too? Palpatine will make sure he is loyal. And Palpatine will make sure I do not hurt him."

Obi-Wan didn't run. He let Vader march right up to him, almost as if he knew the massive power his words would have.

"You didn't kill Padmé," he said.

Vader froze.

Obi-Wan continued before he could rage and deny and scream: "She survived for days after. Luke wouldn't have survived otherwise. But when she did die, her life force was drained. Only a Master of the Sith could have achieved that."

Vader hardly dared to think.

"You didn't kill Padmé. Palpatine did." Obi-Wan looked on him with a sadness Vader could not bear. He struck him down, scything through his suddenly empty robes like butter, but his accusatory words followed him anyway. "And you left Luke with him?"

Vader never expected Padmé's son to attack him, but so much of him still thinks that he deserves it that he lets Luke's first strike land true. Its accuracy is beautiful: pride aches in his chest, or perhaps that's his aching lungs, because Luke thoroughly destroyed his chest box, and now his respirator is wheezing. He denied Padmé of breath; now her son denies him.

"Luke!" Palpatine shouts, loud and panicked. "Luke, no! That is your father!"

"I know," Luke snarled, his voice not even broken yet, too high and sweet to be contorted into such a rough, rasping snarl. He strikes again, but anger unbalances him. He only draws a groove in the metal of Vader's right arm. "You abandoned me—you tried to kill us—"

His next strike, Vader catches on his blade. "I am sorry," he offers. "I am here to protect you." He can still sense Palpatine watching them, and the fury sparks something black and horrid in his chest. "I am here to do better."

The words do nothing. Luke glares at him, his eyes smouldering gold, then red. They seem to glow, and Vader senses something deep within the Force begin to stir.

"I want to see my son," Vader said, keeping his head bowed in respect. Palpatine's gaze was on the back of his neck, boring into him, but his unfazed façade was a lie. He was startled.

"Are you sure that is wise, Lord Vader?" Palpatine hesitated. "His emotions towards you are… complicated, as any teenager's would be."

"He is my son. I want to see him."

"He is Padmé's son, first and foremost. We both agreed that, when you asked me to take him." Palpatine smiled weakly. "He reminds me so much of her. When he was a child, he never spoke much—he had difficulty breathing, something to do with his lungs—but once he gained his voice… well. His oration is on par with hers. His persuasiveness as well. Were his existence not such a closely kept secret—a fact I empathise with your desires on, Lord Vader—he would be an extraordinary asset in the Senate and negotiations with Rebel leaders."

Vader couldn't gasp for breath. That choice had been taken from him long ago. But he stilled, mournful, his chest speared with pain.

"Padmé," he said, "would be proud of him."

"She would. You should be as well, my friend."

"I am."

"Children are strange, I must confess. I have known you for so long, and yet I forget what you were like when you were young. Especially teenagers. Even for one with such immense capabilities, everything about them is so fragile." He folded his hands in his lap. "But… I am not cruel. Would you like to visit him? You have not seen him in nearly twelve years."

Vader shrank back from that suddenly intense stare.

"No, Master," he said. "I understand this is… for the best."

Vader steps forwards to meet Luke's next strike—he will not strike back, he will not hurt his son, but he will not stand here and let himself be buffeted by a boy so controlled by Palpatine, even if he deserves it—and the floor vanishes beneath him.

He lands moments later with a thump, only to find the training room unchanged, on his knees. Luke's lightsaber is still swinging; he brings up his own, but another blink and the fabric of reality shifts around him. He brings his lightsaber down on empty space, then starts. The door is in front of him, not behind.

Agony rakes down his back. As he doubles over, his cape flaps in several long thin strips, tangling unnaturally around his ankles, tugging him down…

He kicks them off, but Luke is in front of him again. His eyes are as bright as two red-gold stars in his face. In the Force, he… does not exist. A sickly dark presence, more compelling than anything Vader has experienced before, consumes the entire training room. Even Palpatine is swallowed up by it, though Vader can hear him clapping.

"Luke, stop!" he calls. Is he clapping? Or is he desperately waving his arms? "Lord Vader, you see? Luke's power is unparalleled. With your unique bloodline, and the personal tutelage of many of the lingering Sith ghosts from the shrine that the former Jedi Temple was built upon… We have created a true powerhouse."

Vader stares at his son. He is small and shaking and pale. His eyes are the brightest thing about him.

Palpatine has created a true powerhouse. He has destroyed a child.

"He had nothing to do with it," Luke declares. "I did the work, I followed orders, I—"

"Of course, Luke, I wouldn't imply—"

"All he did was try to kill my mother!"

"I did not kill your mother, Luke," Vader says. "Palpatine did."

Behind him, Palpatine stills.

Luke glares at him. The Force explodes between them; Vader is sent flying. He looks up at the high, high training ceiling and sees stars.

Then a face comes into his vision.

"Do you think that matters, Ani?" Padmé asks him.

This is impossible. It is only because Vader knows it is impossible that he at all notices Luke rooting around in his mind, twisting his visual input, stealing his precious memories of Padmé and turning them against him. It would be bad enough if he were using Padmé from Mustafar, already pregnant and crying. Instead, he uses the Padmé he first met, his angel from Iego. In hindsight, she was barely older than Luke is now. She was not ready for such hard decisions, and Luke deserves better than the galaxy on his shoulders.

Padmé lashes out with a knife. It draws a burning line across his torso. He aches with it; he wants to crawl to her feet. He wants her back.

"Do you think," Luke asks with Padmé's voice, the voice of the mother he has never known except through Palpatine's warped and distorted lens, "I did not know?"

"So," Aphra said, "you want me to find a kid."

"Find any young teenager in close proximity to Palpatine. Any gossip whatsoever."

"Blond? Small for his age? Quiet?"

Vader lurched towards the console she was working at like a man on strings. "Yes."

"His existence is no secret," she tells him. "Palpatine apparently really likes busting him out as a party trick—at all the galas you're not invited to, I assume. There's stories about that going back years."

"How many years?"

She squints. "Ten?"

A decade. This had been happening for a decade.

"What party tricks?"

"He makes people hallucinate. He's very persuasive, apparently—there's a bunch of senators talking about how they were so, so sure that they wanted to join the Rebellion until they spoke to this yellow-eyed ten-year-old who convinced them the Empire was holy. And various other stuff that, to be honest, seems kinda creepy to me, but—"

Vader snatched the report from her hands and scanned it, his stomach dropping. Palpatine hadn't just turned his son into a monster. He'd turned him into an obedient pet.

"Why're you interested in this kid, anyway?" Aphra asked. "And how d'you think he does it? Reading people's minds, bending them, torturing them like that… Sounds to me like something the Jedi used to pull off."

The datapad crumpled under his fist.

"No Jedi could do this," he spat.

"He killed you," Vader says hoarsely. Then again, louder: "He killed your mother, Luke."

"I know. I felt him do it. I have always known that the presence that killed my mother is trying to make me his." Padmé's face contorts into a smile. Her eyes flash. "And I knew that you left me to him!"

Vader is yanked up to his knees. He does not mind. Kneeling, begging for forgiveness at Luke and Padmé's feet, is the appropriate place for him.

"I thought you were safer with him than with me," he murmurs.

"Look at what he did to you. And you had the Jedi to protect you." Luke snarls. "Who did I have?"

Vader knows what is coming before it does. He has been treated to it enough by Palpatine, he recognises instantly the moment Luke begins, darkness funnelling back towards him like ink sucked into a single black thread. It arcs out in a sheet of light and heat.

If Luke kills him, Vader will accept it. But before the lightning hits him, it dissipates. Luke's grip on his perception of his surroundings fades, and he sees Palpatine standing between them.

"Master," Luke says suddenly, bowing his head. "I—"

"There is no need for remorse, Luke. I can feel your anguish." Palpatine takes Luke's chin in his hand. "This is the man who killed your mother. Anguish and fury are natural, and I have not trained you to ignore them. This show only makes me prouder of what you've achieved by fully immersing yourself in your inhuman nature."

Luke's eyes flash, but he keeps them trained on the ground. Vader stares.

Has Palpatine not heard anything of what they have said?

No. Vader spoke aloud; Palpatine knows that Vader knows the truth. But Luke spoke through Padmé's illusion.

Palpatine knows nothing of why Luke truly hates him, but he commands Luke's loyalty, nonetheless.

"One day, I will allow you to take your revenge on my dearest friend," Palpatine promises Luke. The warm way he promises patricide is chilling. "But I still need him. You are not strong enough—you remain too much of a disappointment to replace him. You cannot avenge your mother yet."

Luke nods.

Palpatine lets go. He turns towards Vader. He enjoys his kneeling position for a moment, before invisible hands haul him to his feet. "Lord Vader," he says sharply, leading him away. "Your presence here is clearly only destructive to Luke. Son or not, are you finally satisfied why I must keep you from him?"

Vader stares at Palpatine. He knows nothing of Luke's hatred. He knows nothing of how Luke will one day avenge his mother, but not on Vader. If he kills Vader, it will be to avenge himself.

Luke does not need Vader. Vader ruined his life, and his attempts to undo it continue to make it worse. Murderer or not, Palpatine is right: Luke would be better off without him.

He should walk away and stop complicating things. Luke is stronger than he has ever been.

"Yes, Master," he says at last and turns away. Palpatine smiles, satisfied. It makes Vader's skin crawl, but it doesn't change his decision. He turns towards the door and limps away. Every injury his son has given him seems to be carving him into pieces.

At the door, he stops. He has to. He hasn't seen his son in thirteen years; he still craves every moment he can steal with him. When he turns around, he sees Palpatine bending over Luke, murmuring something. Luke's eyes are closed, but he listens intently, his vast, eldritch presence coiled in on his tiny body, more ink than blood after so many years steeped in ancient darknesses. His boy is not even a boy anymore. Palpatine has ensured that.

But he looks human enough as he grimaces in response to whatever Palpatine tells him, twitching his right hand. The hand that he tried to channel lightning through, before Palpatine stepped between them.

No. Vader stares.

His life was not spared by Palpatine's intervention. His life was spared because Luke cannot channel lightning. That hand, spasming and clenching, has a panel popped open in its wrist. Charred wires fill his fingers and palm.

Luke has a prosthetic.

He knows that Palpatine has hurt him. He knows that Palpatine has likely groomed him even more thoroughly than he has Vader. But Palpatine let him be injured like this. Palpatine has failed to protect Luke at all, in any sense of the word.

He let him become even the tiniest bit like Vader.

Vader moves before he thinks about it. Palpatine, wrapped up in the immense power of the pet whose hair he is now playing with, does not notice when a lightsaber punches through his skull.

Luke yelps and steps back, staring. He is still shaking like a small dog; he is still thirteen.

He is trying not to cry.

Vader reaches for him, kneeling again, this time of his own volition. "I am sorry," he says. "I thought you would be safe with him. I was wrong. But I will never forsake you again."

Luke stares, mistrustful. But Vader reaches for him.

"It is alright, Luke," he says, trying to be soothing as he brushes Luke's tears away. He flinches and recoils at his touch, but Vader ignores it. "It is alright." He hesitates. "Your father is here."

He stands, holding Luke's elbows and bringing him with him. Luke folds into his arms awkwardly, still sobbing. His eyes are blue as Vader's, burning, stare down at him.

Vader tugs, and Luke follows. "And I promise," he begins, as they head away from the broken body of his former master. Their former master. "I will never, ever leave you again."