VI. Vader

The Sith spent a busy day combing through the whole palace, peering into the remaining mirrors (mostly fractured or completely shattered), studying picture frames and "sniffing" for any other abnormalities through the Force. When he finally made his way back to the mirror room, he was somewhat tired but there was a definite spring in his step. For a moment he even caught himself humming, but stopped immediately in embarrassment. Sith lords do not hum, ever. Neither do they make appointments with little boys, but then, he had not returned to the room to talk with the boy, had he? No, absolutely not; it was merely to study the magic mirror. He would leave before the boy's lessons were over.

What had the lessons been about, anyway? Vader stretched his memory back, but could not remember. Apparently his little trip down the stairs had blotted out that particular memory, among others. He remembered waking up though, Obi-Wan and Padmé hovering nervously above him, and feeling that there was something he had forgotten.

Perhaps that was what it was all about? Some secret that was buried within his past and that he was now supposed to unlock? Vader peered at the mirror curiously, but the thing yielded no answers.

Frustrated, he chose a window niche that was suitably wide and sat down to meditate on what to do about a certain rebel youngster called Luke.

He was still there when Anakin returned nearly two hours later. A mixture of anger and misery rolled off the boy in waves. He delivered a vicious kick at the toy fighter, sending it crashing into the wall. "Chuba wanko man gheela!"

Aroused from his contemplation, Vader found himself inexplicably irritated. "Do me the favour, young one, of leaving me out of such generalizations!"

"Oh! Sorry, sir. I did not see you there — uh — didn't know you spoke Huttese."

"Clearly," he snapped, stalking away to the door. Vader was not even sure what disturbed him more — the fact that he had failed to leave in time, sitting here like a fool waiting for a child, or the boy's childish sulk that was very unsavoury to see when you knew you were dealing with your own younger self. Surely he had never been so immature? Perhaps it was time to cut this vacation short and return to the Empire where things made sense.

"Wait — please, Mr Vader, don't go!"

The boy's voice was so pitifully pleading that something in the Sith made him stop. "What do you want?"

Anakin shrugged. "Dunno. Just... talk, I guess?"

Vader laughed bitterly, and flinched at the unpleasant sound. Still, after a moment of hesitation he turned. "What would you want to talk with me about?" Indeed, what would a boy want to talk about with a Sith lord?

"Uh — dunno. It's been sorta lonely, and things have happened, and there's been nobody to talk to. Even Master Obi-Wan is always too busy."

Vader had no answer to that. Of course the boy was alone, he was born to be so. Why, Vader himself had been alone for most of his life: there had never been any natural peers for him, no Jedi who had understood his connection with his mother or with his wife, his need to belong and his hunger for someone who was truly his; nobody who could ever have an inkling about what the Force was to him, no one. Not even his master — his true Master, Palpatine. They all had their demands and expectations of him, trying to tie him to them and away from what he wanted for himself, trying to convince him that he did not really need it all; and in the end, those conflicting forces had torn him apart.

But perhaps not irreparably. For there was Luke still, and a chance for Vader's own personal redemption, a chance to at last have someone who would be his, and to whom he would belong as a father. If only Luke would see...

Anakin shuffled from foot to foot. "I'm sorry I bothered you," he muttered.

Vader pitied him: to feel so lonely as to seek companionship in a mirror. Yes, he understood loneliness.

"Care to tell me what happened in the lesson to upset you so?" he asked.

There was a glimmer of relief in Anakin's eyes, quickly replaced by embarrassment. "I failed. Again. Master Obi-Wan says I am too impatient. I'll never be able to still my mind properly in his way!"

"Ah." Vader understood the problem. Quiet meditation in the Jedi way had never been his forte. He waited for Anakin to continue.

"Now you must think I'm a whiney."

Vader tilted his head. "No," he said, "you are not. You are a person, and your name is Anakin Skywalker."

"Yes," the boy whispered, " how did you know?"

The Dark Lord smiled wryly. How could he not know? It was not what he had said that made the boy wonder, but how he had said it. The old mantra that had kept him going, reminding him of who he was when the pressure of being a peedunkel, shag or Chosen One had been too much to bear. The mantra that, for all his declarations to the contrary, he still remembered secretly.

"As I said before, I know everything about you."

"But how? Who are you?" Anakin demanded.

"What do you think, young one?"

"I..." Anakin hesitated, then shook his head. "I don't know."

The Sith smirked behind his mask. Oh, wouldn't it be good to see the boy's reaction to the truth? But this would never do. What if Anakin knew the truth? Would it change anything in the choices the boy, Vader himself, would make? That was a risk the Sith was not prepared to take. Anakin was an astute boy, better not lure his mind onto dangerous tracks, or the whole world as Vader knew it might collapse. So he changed the subject. "Tell me about the lesson then."

"Master Obi-Wan says I am not doing it correctly. That I should quiet my mind and let the Force be at rest and just observe. But it is never at rest! It is alive, moving, not some dead thing that I can observe quietly! Why will he not allow me to do it my way? So I told him I could do it better. He got angry at me. I think he is afraid. He doesn't understand. I think he hates me. He always did. I heard what he said to Master Qui-Gon."

"Obi-Wan does not hate you." A year, even a few weeks ago, Vader would never have even considered saying something like that, but the newly-emerged awareness of his own fatherhood had suddenly given him a new perspective. Watching one's son plunge to probable death had given him a better understanding of Obi-Wan. Not that he could ever forgive him, but some things made better sense now, and he spoke with a new conviction. "Obi-Wan loves you like a father, you know that, do you not, little one?"

"I suppose so." The boy looked down sullenly, drawing circles with his boot-tip. "But still I don't understand why I must meditate in his way. I'll never be able to do that!"

Vader hesitated for a moment; he had never shared his own particular way of meditation. After all, he had struggled long and hard to teach himself that particular technique; in fact he had been a knight and self-confident enough to truly follow his own instincts before it had come naturally enough for him. "Sit down, little one, and let us try this together."

From there, the evening progressed much more peaceably. They talked, and meditated, and talked some more, about Anakin's studies and Mother and even Obi-Wan. And later, returning to his flagship, Darth Vader slept as soundly as he had not slept for a long time, blissfully free of terrifying visions of Bespin.

TBC