Disclaimer: To hell with those. See first post.

A/N: Thanks to everyone for reviewing. I know I'm late again...trustmy enormous pile of workand to interfere. Here's the next part.

P.S. Daniel-Radclife-is-Cute -Strangely enough, myideasfor new fics come whenever I'm in the process ofwriting a fic and come down with writer's block...If you must know, I first thought of a dark vignette, which is actually the ending of this fic, then combined it with an idea I got while writing my other fic, My Darkness, and added a few twists.

P.P.S. This> indicates Chewie's speech.

Part VI

I groaned as I woke up on what seemed to be the Falcon's deck. For a moment, I wondered how I had gotten there, until everything came back to me. I sat up and immediately regretted it. This had to be the worst hangover I had ever had. Apparently even Jedi weren't immune to them – You are not a Jedi, remember? You said it yourself. I flopped back down on the bloodstained deck. Bloodstained? I looked down. It was my blood, still oozing from a deep, inflamed-looking wound in my forearm, one that I'd inflicted on myself. I did not regret it.

So I wasn't dead. My own disappointment surprised me. I had been half-hoping that it was lethal and that I had ended everything. I hadn't, and life, now a burden, dragged on. It would have been infinitely easier, but here I was, still hanging on to a hopelessly empty life. All for the sake of duty. But I could find freedom in death after it was over. The grave I longed for was so distant, unreachable like the dark beyond the stars.

So I was trapped in a pitiful existence that I could not escape. I was a prisoner in my own body, in my own life, with no hope of freedom. I got up, slowly this time, and glanced at my wrist chrono. It was that time between night and morning, around 0300, or at least to us it was. There was no day or night in space. The last thing I wanted to do was sleep. After putting on a long-sleeved black shirt to cover everything up, I walked out of the cabin in an attempt to calm my nerves.

I did not expect to find Chewie in the main hold. Maybe Wookiees did not need as much sleep as humans. I sat down beside him. For a moment, we remained silent, until he spoke.

You hate him, yet you feel compassion toward him. You want to save him, yet you wish he had never come into your life. Tell me, Cub, why do you want to save him?> All I could do was gape at him. He couldn't be referring to…him…Yes – he was… I parted my lips to speak, but no sound came out. I swallowed, raising my gaze to meet knowing blue eyes.

"Because he's…" I stopped, transfixed. "You know, Chewie. You've always known, haven't you?" He nodded mutely, resignedly.

"But…how?" Chewie made a sound that could have been a chuckle, but I could have been wrong. I had been known to be wrong many times.

Do you know how old Wookiees live to be?> I shook my head. What does that have to do with anything?

Centuries, Young One, centuries. I once knew a young human, much like yourself. One of the best pilots in the galaxy and a great Jedi Knight. His name was Anakin Skywalker.> The Lie, you mean?

"He was real…?" I did not dare believe he had once existed, untainted by the darkness. Not after I had found out that he was nothing, nothing but a lie to make me hate, a lie to make me fight, a lie to make me a weapon.

"He wasn't always…well, evil?" Wistfully, he shook his head.

He was once a good man. Strong, courageous, kind, even noble at times. But he was also ambitious, arrogant, even. And he – like you – wanted to save everyone. It was his undoing.> Once again, I found myself staring blankly at both everything and nothing.

Force, he'd known my father. Not Vader, my father. And he'd known of his fate all along. I lowered my eyes to the floor. My throat tightened, my vision blurred. He'd known, and he, like everyone else, had said nothing. He'd watched me put the mere memory on a pedestal, even as that memory was drowned in the shadow of the dark being he had become. And he had said nothing, kept me in the dark like so many others.

Deep inside, I searched for the anger, the one thing to break my fall, finding none, only a profound hollowness, a cold black void within my soul. Burning tears of betrayal forced their way out of my eyes, trickling down my face in tiny rivers.

"All those times I spoke of him, of avenging him…Why didn't you tell me?" He looked down on me in what could have been regret.

Some things are better left unsaid. Some secrets are better off kept. I chose not to burden you with the secret…I felt it was too heavy a weight to carry…I'm sorry.> A tense quiet over us, his words still hanging in the air. With no anger, hatred or bitter resentment left in me, I could only forgive.

Han's POV

We had almost arrived at our destination, where I would drop the kid off – if he could still be called that. Force, in the two short weeks of my absence, my little brother in all but blood had gone and grown up. Too soon, too fast. I no longer knew this person. In so little time, he'd gone from a green, wet-behind-the-ears kid to a complex individual that I just couldn't understand.

You fear that which you do not understand. You fear the dark and the unknown, the enigmatic and the unpredictable. You fear that which is beyond human comprehension. It was hopelessly conflicting and irrational. I didn't fear him, or fear would be too strong a word. No, I couldn't fear him. He was, apart from Chewie, my best friend, and I knew he would never consciously do anything to bring me harm. That I knew, but it changed nothing.

It was like an aura that floated all around him, one of light, bright and painful, of quiet, beautiful despair, of swirling dark that sought to absorb you and pull you down into its depths. It could have been my own madness that told me that, but I was as sane as I'd ever been. Had I truly been out of my mind, I would have been unaware. I knew of its existence. And I feared it.

Speak of the Sith, I thought as said person strode into the cockpit. Now he was in for it. Fear or not, I still had to find out what the hell had happened, and if he wasn't going to tell me, I would force it out of him. Now that he was here, I would have him backed into a corner.

"So, Kid, care to fill me in on what happened while I was gone or is this some sort of conspiracy between the four of you to keep me uninformed?" Luke forced a laugh.

"No, I wouldn't call it that." I arched an eyebrow at that.

"Then what would you call it?" Dropping his façade, he replied my question with another.

"Why name something if it is nonexistent?"

"You're making my brain hurt," I commented in an attempt to lighten the mood.

"Brains can't feel pain. They feel nothing." He said, his tone strangely neutral, devoid of any emotion. I suppressed a shiver.

"Stop it, will ya? You're freaking me out. No more games, just tell me." He frowned, keeping his silence.

"You know, I'm sure Leia knows everything. She'll be more than happy to give me all the details." I wondered what I had said to make the blood drain from his face. I fright? No, this was absurd. Why in space would he ever be afraid of Leia revealing the truth?

"Alright, Han. You win." And he told me everything. I watched and listened numbly as he recounted the details of the events of Bespin and those that followed all in that same dead tone.

"…and now…she hates me. I don't know what I did to anger her. My mere presence disgusts her…Maybe it's just who I am," He finished glumly. I stared at him, transfixed. For a moment I felt revulsion and wanted nothing more than to pull back, as far away from him as possible.

Then common sense set in. Did I really give a mouldy womp rat's ass about who the kid's dad was? So what had changed, now that I knew? Nothing, that was the answer. He was still the same guy, no matter where he came from, because that was just it. It was blood, and nothing more. It meant nothing alone, without the attachments that usually came with it.

What shocked me so much more was Leia. It just did not fit. It denied all that she was. This was not the Leia I knew. She wouldn't have given in to blind hatred without so much as a valid reason, despite her unpleasant history with Vader. She would have known better, she would have seen through. Wasn't she beyond such grudges? Wasn't she beyond such prejudice? Wasn't she the compassionate, democratic, diplomatic person I knew? Or had things changed more than I realized? No, I denied, it was probably a misconception of Luke's. She couldn't hate him. It had most likely been momentary resentment.

After saying his goodbyes, Luke turned to me, piercing me with his gaze. I would never get used to that stare.

"I never did tell you what I will do from here. I'm going to face him." I narrowed my eyes. He didn't mean…

"Vader? You're gonna face Vader?" He nodded.

"I know there is good in him. I can't explain it, but I…I just know it. I can bring him back, Han." I swallowed hard, keeping my emotions in check.

"Don't do it. I tell you, that's a big mistake you're making." Miniature firestorms raged in otherwise cool blue eyes.

"I know this will be difficult…and that I may never make it out alive, but—" This had to stop now.

"Forget difficult, this is suicide! Damnit, Kid, just what do you think you're doing? If you think you can best him after getting your ass kicked only weeks ago, you must be out of your mind! You're gonna get yourself killed!" He fixed me with sad, anguished crystal orbs, and uttered three quiet words.

"So I will." And he departed.

Shortly after I returned to the fleet, Leia arrived to greet me, throwing herself into my arms. I had not conceived just how much I had missed her. But it did not matter, now that I had her back. I wanted to hold her and never let go, to stay in that embrace forever, but all good things came to an end. We broke apart.

"Hello, love." She smiled.

"I never took you as the mushy type." I laughed.

"Me, mushy? I'm offended…"

Hand in hand, we walked to her quarters. Everything was fine until I brought up the subject. Suddenly, she turned cold as Hoth, hardening to bitter stone.

"I wish he was dead."

The words reverberated again and again. And for the first time, I saw that things really had changed more than I realized.

A/N: I will update as soon as possible - that is, as soon as DRL looks away...