It was only my lingering shock that allowed me to return to the Alliance and my family. My mind was operating on auto-pilot; I knew not what I did. There was a subconscious part of me that was like a homing beacon for Leia, so I found my way home.

I locked myself in spare pilot quarters on an Alliance command ship. I hardly had a thought in my mind that I can recall–I wasn't brooding or sulking. I all knew is that I couldn't face my wife and son. If I told them at all, it could not be yet.

A few days later I woke from my shock to realize that I had to do something. Now I'm not sure I would have told Leia anything, where I was going, why I was leaving, or the truth of our parentage, simply left without a word. But then there was still some trace of the idealistic farm boy left in me, and that boy was loyal to the woman he loved regardless of what he now knew her to be.

Unbelieving my own boldness, I sought out Leia in the rooms she, Ben, and I once shared. Ben ran into my arms when he saw me. I held him tightly–it was never his fault, his concern, what he was, nor was it mine. Ben was a mistake that hadn't been my fault, unlike the others, and I think that it was that fact that let me feel for him up until the moment I left. I never regretted the love I feel for him.

I asked Ben to go to his room. Leia stood in the doorway, and by her eyes I knew she felt the coming storm as surely as I had on Degoba. Crouched on the floor where I'd been holding Ben, I anxiously avoided her glance but tried to look at her nonetheless, frightened, repulsed, and fascinated by her curving body, disgusted at myself for having done the same thing to her as my father had.

I rose timidly, looking away from her questioning face. "Where have you been?" she asked, accusing, frightened. "You docked three days ago and you haven't even called–"

"You don't understand," I said quickly, angry at her for being angry with me. I brushed past her into our room, sat on our bed with a sigh. She watched me, puzzled, with a hand on her stomach. She was wearing one of my shirts, I noticed grimly. It's got to be too late for her to get rid of the baby–the abomination–if she already can't fit into her own shirts, I tought.

"Sit down," I ordered her softly.

She sat beside me, silent.

"I have to leave, Leia," I near-whispered.

"Again?"

I didn't answer.

"Why? Where are you going?"

I gathered my courage. "I have to find Vader."

Nothing but shocked silence from her.

"It's the only way to end all this. I have to kill him."

I knew there was only thing that could compete with Ben for most important thing to Leia, and that was seeing Vader dead–not a day went by that she didn't dream of killing him for all he'd done to her and the rest of the galaxy. She didn't rejoice at my words, however. She knew there was more. "Why now, all of a sudden?"

I took a deep breath. "I found something out while I was on Degoba."

She reached for my hand, to comfort me, but being reminded of our love only made me angry. I drew away sharply and rose. "Don't touch me," I snarled. "Don't ever touch me again! You don't understand!"

"Maybe I'd understand if you would explain it to me, Luke!" she snapped in return, desperate.

I folded my arms across my chest, and I knew I wanted to hurt her. I wanted to hurt her the way it hurt me to find out Vader was my father, and Leia had slept with Han, and the way Obi-Wan had hurt me by not telling me the truth. It would be easy to hurt her. And I wanted at first to hit her, but I knew it would hurt more to use words, to tell her the truth in the least gentile way I could think of.

"Let me tell you a story, Leia," I said, finally looking her in the eye. "Once upon a time there was a woman from Alderaan of noble birth. She was raped by a dark lord of the Sith and got pregnant–"

"Luke..." she whimpered, shocked. Never since Ben's birth had we spoken of his true origin. "Why are you doing this?"

"I'm not talking about you, Leia. I'm talking about your mother, Padme."

She blinked. "My mother...?"

"You thought Bail Organa was your father, just as Ben thinks I'm his. It's too bad you didn't know sooner, that Vader didn't know. Not that it would have changed Vader's mind when he had his way with you. You probably look like your mother–it enticed him."

"Luke...what are you saying?"

"We were created from darkness, Leia, you and I. From hate and fear...." I draw nearer to her. "And lust. That night when Vader raped Padme, she conceived twins. Have you ever wondered about our birthdays, Leia? Six days apart. Six days. That's how long it takes to get from Alderaan to Tatooine. They must have called the day they brought me there my birthday...."

She blinked and a tear rolled down her cheek. I never told her directly. We never spoke of the truth directly. It just existed somewhere in the air between us, there but invisible, real but intangible.

"Why are you telling me this?" She pleaded. "Why are you doing this to me? It's not true."

"It is. You know it is. You've always known–so have I. And so what we've become is as evil as our conception."

She drew a shuddering breath.

"That's why I have to kill him, don't you see? He began this. He turned to the darkside, created us, created Ben, which led to me marring you...and the innumerable evils he's done to the galaxy in general. He has to die."

Leia trembled. She looked sick and frightened, and so very small and helpless. "Don't go," she begged.

"Why?" I laughed bitterly. "You'd have me stay here with you and our inbred children? To what end? We have no future, Leia."

"I...." She glanced at her pregnant stomach as if seeing it for the first time, suddenly very afraid of the child within. "I don't want you to go. You'll be killed...or worse."

"No." I shook my head. "'Worse' has already happened. It's too late."

"Luke...I don't claim to understand the Force as well as you do, but isn't revenge of the darkside? If you kill him, won't you become like him? You can't risk that."

I could feel the dark power in me already, the surge that I got from my anger toward Obi-Wan and from causing Leia pain. It was intoxicating, amazing. "It's too late for that, too. I'm my father's son. I know that now."

She sat quietly for a long moment. I turned to go.

"Wait," she stopped me. "You...love me. Don't you?

I clenched my teeth. I didn't want to be reminded. "I...I did...."

"Then, maybe...Vader loved o–my mother once, too." I heard her stop herself from calling Padme our mother. "He wasn't always Vader."

"No. He wasn't. But he is, now. And he's done enough damage for one lifetime." I turned to go again, but she called me back a final time.

"Luke–"

I turned back.

"What was his name, before he was Vader?"

I hesitated. "Anikin Skywalker."

She nodded. "Maybe Anikin's still in there somewhere."

"Maybe Anikin and Vader aren't as separate as you seem to think!" I snapped. "I'm not exactly all hopes and dreams anymore, either."

She refused to recoil at me anger, and simply pleaded, "Don't go, Luke."

She said it so softly, yet so firmly, so sincerely, that for a moment the anger and the memory of the past week left me, and I wanted to stay with all of my heart. "I...I have to go," I said at last, no longer so sure. I turned to leave, but came back one final time to give her a quick kiss.

I left, and I haven't seen her and Ben since.