As Luke matched his strides with those of his father's, he watched the passing faces of Imperial officers. People were regarding him and his father with awe.
Him, the Empire's most dangerous enemy in both its height of glory and its time of greatest despair, walking freely beside the Dark Lord...not as a prisoner, but as an equal.
An equal.
A farmboy from nowhere, a child with no past—a young man who rose into heroism in the midst of a war and who only became a Jedi Master because he had proclaimed himself as such—the equal of a Sith Lord? It was a dizzying thought.
He was an orphaned farmboy, nothing more—he was a simple comfort to the people of the New Republic...But he was nothing in the dark glory of his father.
Luke tried to hide his uneasiness as he gave his father a sideways glance. He hadn't agreed to anything tangible, he reminded himself. He had only agreed to give his father a chance, right? He had simply accepted that his friends weren't always right and that following them was not the best choice for him.
He wasn't an Imperial, nor was he a Dark Side user.
He was...somewhere in-between?
Luke's eyes widened as the thought occurred to him, and he quickly shoved it away. No, he was the Son of Skywalker, the Child of Light...His father was his mirror—together they created the perfect balance of Light and Dark.
Yes, he told himself quickly. They were opposites...
Equal opposites? the strange thought suddenly struck him.
Luke's train of thought came to a halt as his father stopped in front of a door. Father and son entered after the former punched in the combination. Once inside, Luke allowed himself to survey his surroundings with curiosity. They were inside a mostly plain room that basically consisted of a computer, a table, a chair, a viewport, and a hall leading to...what? Vader's practice room? His...refresher? Bedroom?
...Did Vader even need to sleep?
The Jedi suddenly realized that he didn't know that much about his father.
Vader walked slowly up to the viewport, and Luke trailed behind pensively. A sea of stars unfolded in front of them, the orbs twinkling brightly and cheerfully ignoring the problems of those in the turmoil-filled galaxy—ignoring the fact that Luke was the prisoner of his blood-thirsty father, the possibility that something terrible could have happened to Mara, and the increasing chance that the New Republic would be taken down by a reemerging Empire...
Luke scowled. He'd never liked stars that much anyway.
No, he backtracked in his mind. He did like stars...He just didn't like their carefree personalities right now.
...Since when did stars have personalities?
Skywalker, you're going insane, he reprimanded himself.
"When I was younger, I wished to be the first to visit all of the stars," Vader broke the silence.
"Did you?"
Vader slowly shook his head. "I did not."
"It's not too late."
"I have wandered this galaxy alone for quite some time. There is no point in pursuing such a dream when I no longer have someone to share it with," the Sith Lord spoke quietly, wistfulness evident in his voice.
Luke suppressed his immediate urge to tell his father that he, Luke, was there and that Vader could share his dreams with him.
Vader didn't have dreams—couldn't have dreams...He was just a dark figure out for nothing but vengeance against mankind and alienkind alike...Right?
The Jedi glanced at his father quickly; then he stared at the ground as if he were trying to bore a hole into it. To anyone else, Vader would be just that, whether they had actually met the Sith Lord or not. Somehow, he felt he had to be the first person to step forward and give his father a second chance...
And yet, why should he be the one with that responsibility? The man had cut off his hand, for space's sake!
Sensing his inner turmoil, Vader spoke, "All I ask is a chance to prove myself."
Luke raised his chin up, staring at his father's dark helmet with intense blue eyes that pinned him to the spot. "Prove what?" The words were both clearly enunciated, bit out due to emotions that were close to overflowing, emotions born of frustration and anger.
"That I am not what people perceive me to be...That I can be a worthy father...That I am able to make up for the years in which Obi-Wan hid you from me on that accursed planet. You may not believe me, Son, but I have every intention of providing you with as many elements of the childhood you never had as is within my ability."
"I am no longer a child!" Luke growled.
"No," Darth Vader agreed softly. "You are not."
After a moment's pause in which Luke glared at the floor, Vader spoke again, studying his son. "You are neither a child, nor an adolescent,...nor an adult."
Vader waited a few seconds before speaking again. "You are but a blend of experiences which never filled the void inside of you—you never had a childhood with caring parents, nor did you have an adolescence full of those experiences that teenagers enjoy...Without those first two stages of life, you cannot truly be an adult. Perhaps you have the wisdom of one as well as the battle scars, but you do not have the first few experiences to shape you."
A muscle twitched in the young man's cheek, and his fists clenched. Vader had released the floodgate, and painful memories were surging back. Voice trembling, Luke spoke, "Uncle Owen...never wanted me to have anything. He was gruff, bitter, and always disappointed in me, always challenging me. Every time I was going to leave to do something with my friends, I went to my aunt for permission, and somehow Uncle Owen was always beside her, daring me to speak the words...Usually, she managed to calm him, but there were a few times..." the Jedi shuddered.
Luke took in a ragged breath. "He never laid an aggressive hand on me, but I knew he wanted to. I could see it in his eyes...He tried to hide it from Beru, and she was so kind-hearted that she never suspected...But whenever we were alone, his piercing eyes would settle on me, and I felt as if perhaps—perhaps he hated me. Hated the trouble I always brought for him. I didn't know about the Force, but there were times when I did or knew things that I shouldn't, and it always made him so mad... When he was killed, I felt a sort of load lift off of my shoulders, and relief flooded my senses...But it was soon gone, replaced by horror and sorrow...I loved Aunt Beru—and I never wanted him to die, no matter how much he despised me...I felt like it was my fault that he was dead, and I realized that it wasn't really me that he had hated, but what I stood for: the past. He never approved of my recklessness and obsession with piloting, and whenever I mentioned joining the Imperial Academy, he always got grumpy. He must have been very bitter that he and Aunt Beru couldn't have children, and I was a symbol of what he could never have..."
"Curse Obi-Wan!" Vader rasped, clenching his fists. "Curse him for taking you and my wife from me and for leaving you with Owen!"
Vader's rage sparked anger in Luke, "Where would you rather he had taken me? To you, where you could manipulate me and turn me into a creature even more dark and monstrous than yourself?"
"You do not know of what you speak," Vader hissed warningly.
"Oh, really? What else is there to know? You've killed space knows how many people with little more than your lightsaber and the Force. You are part of what you hope is a 'rising' government, which is, in fact, full of nothing but prejudices and the desire to kill innocents—"
There was an edge in the Dark Side user's voice. "Perhaps you have been blind to the weaknesses and prejudices in your own precious government? Must I point out again that you have killed a great number of innocents in your own lifetime as well? With life comes death. I do not enjoy killing, and I avoid it when I can. A cycle of life and death exists; the weak are overtaken by the strong.
"I once held onto foolish ideals such as yours. But fighting against my selfish mentor before being left to burn to death opened my eyes for the very first time. Once I restore the Empire, I wish to bring back ideals that encompassed both the Empire and the Old Republic. Both had their errors, and both had their strengths. I intend to take the best of both and incorporate it into one government. I shall banish alien prejudices and forbid slavery, and I have various other plans in the making."
"The New Republic already covers that and more. Why destroy it?"
A black mask moved minutely to face the Jedi. "There are faults in your so-called 'New Republic' that you don't allow yourself to see...Constant bickering is one of the major ones. It was a fault of the Old Republic."
"As if your 'Grand Moffs' don't argue enough," Luke sneered.
"Most of their quarrels have never affected how the Empire was run."
"Most," the younger man repeated quietly.
"Most," Vader agreed. He suddenly felt as if time were running out. "Yoda used to say that once someone started down the 'dark path' it would forever dominate their destiny, but both of us know that it is not true. You touched the Dark Side on the second Death Star, but you maintained your connection with the Light Side. If you allow yourself experience the Dark Side fully one more time, I shall no longer bother you about it, and if you wish to return to that which you like to think of as your own, then I shall not stop you."
Luke stared at his father. Although it went against the beliefs embedded deep within him, he was considering his father's offer. He could sense that the man was telling the truth in that Luke would no longer be pestered constantly to 'join' the Dark Side. He could touch the Dark Side, show his father that he was happy where he was—in the Light—and be done with the matter. All he had to do was hold his Light deep inside, and he wouldn't be forever corrupted by Darkness. Then he could finally return to his friends.
"I will not turn, but I will touch the Dark Side fully. Then I will leave."
An hour later Luke was slashing furiously at his father, the green light from his saber flashing in his vivid blue eyes.
Letting loose his Dark feelings had been easier than he had expected, leaving shreds of uneasiness that flitted throughout his head like insects upset by a passing beast.
His senses had intensified tenfold when he had merely touched upon a smidgen of his anger towards his uncle, and, after he had grabbed at the Darkness when his initial shock was over, he had felt like a new, almost superhuman being.
Every movement was effortless, every blow easily parried, every strike skillfully given. Time seemed to slow as he foresaw every move his father was going to give and took proper measures.
Perhaps what was the most shocking was that it hadn't felt as evil to utilize the Dark Side as it had before. It flowed naturally into his body, like a more efficient and greater power source. As he continued to duel his father, he could tell that the older man was slipping beneath his onslaught.
It amazed Luke how different the feeling was from that panicked moment on the second Death Star. He was using the Dark Side not out of desperation but out of choice...
And it felt good.
Stars, it felt good.
Luke trembled at the knowledge of the power he wielded at his fingertips. He could slash his way out of imprisonment and right the galaxy's wrongs so easily that he would wonder why he hadn't done so long ago...
He could also kill his father.
Yes, Luke mused, as he observed the black giant through his own almost-bored offenses and defenses, the man would be easily exterminated, just another of the galaxy's problems thrown out the chute with the rest of the garbage...
Or, the younger man backtracked slightly, he could keep Darth Vader as an ally, and get rid of him once all that he wished to accomplish had been.
How could he have ever seen the Dark Side as the path to evil? It, like the Light Side, was but a tool to achieve an end, which was justified by the means.
On a murky planet, a wizened alien opened his eyes. Had they already lost?