A/N: Thanks to those who are still reading this much-delayed and drawn out story. I do appreciate all the comments very much.

A/N 2: Stupid ff.net!!! This new quick-edit thing is supposed to make this easier!!!!??? AAAARGHHH!!!! Anyway, sorry for that….

Because of this new stupid crappy way of uploading stuff, it won't let me use the method I have been for a couple of things.

Scene breaks are now denoted by this

Force talk is now like this ((Hello))

I HATE doing it that way, but I can't figure out what else to do. Sorry!

I swear, if I didn't want to leave you guys hanging with this, I wouldn't bother posting here!!! So damn frustrating!

On to the story….

Arica had been trying for two days to get into Skywalker's room when he was alone, but his protection squad had swung into full force. She wondered if the youth felt as smothered as she would have were she in his position. Finally, a little bit of luck fell her way. For the rest, she had to get sneaky.

Antilles was out on a recon mission. One down. Jade was in an overdue debriefing meeting with Alliance High Command. Two down. The Wookiee was working on that pile of junk the Corellian called a ship. Three down. That only left the Corellian himself. Arica stubbornly ignored the little jolt of something that went up her spine at the thought of another encounter with Han Solo. She couldn't even put a name to it, blast him anyway!

In the end, she took the easy way out.

She waited until she saw a young rebel walking up the hallway and put a vacant expression on her face. She put a little flounce into her walk as she called to the young man.

"Excuse me, sir!"

The boy turned around and she could actually see him gulping, probably at the thought of an attractive woman talking to him.

"Y-yes, ma'am?"

"Do you know Captain Solo?"

"Uh, not personally, ma'am, but I know who he is."

"Oh, good! I'm supposed to deliver a message to him, but I'm so nervous about talking to him! He's a big hero, you know," she said in an awed tone, while inwardly wanting to gag. She batted her eyelashes at the boy and smiled up at him coyly. "Do you think you could do it for me?"

The young man blushed and stammered, "Well, I don't really know him and, to be honest, I'm kind of nervous about talking to him, too."

"Oh, please," she said with a pout. "It's a really important message." She reached out and touched him lightly on the arm. "It would really mean a lot if you could help me out."

Arica didn't think it was possible, but his blush deepened. "Okay," he agreed in a bemused tone.

An evil smirk was on her face as she watched Solo dash from Skywalker's room in a panic several minutes later, bellowing the Wookiee's name uselessly into his comlink. Slicing into the hangar deck's computers and temporarily disrupting their comm system had been a piece of ryshcate. Maybe she'd gone overboard in her forged message from the hangar crew to the annoying captain that the Millennium Falcon was on fire, but it felt very satisfying to see Solo so disconcerted.

The smirk changed to a look of grim determination as she stepped out into the hallway and headed for Skywalker's room. She was going to see her mission completed, one way or another.

Arica slipped quietly into Skywalker's room. He was lying on a narrow bed on the opposite side, his eyes closed, his breathing even as though in sleep. She moved over to the edge of the bed and gazed down at him, the 'assignment' that had plagued her with problems from day one. She wondered if it might not be easier to just kill him now. There were no witnesses around and she knew multiple ways to end someone's life silently and efficiently.

Instead, she found herself incapable of moving, staring at his face, mesmerized. What is it about this boy? she mused to herself. Arica had never been so confused and confounded by any mission her Master had given her before. She was taken by surprise when Skywalker suddenly opened his eyes and looked at her. Arica had been certain that he was deeply asleep.

Again, she felt that strange connection, similar to what she'd experienced in the hangar bay, although not quite so intense, since Skywalker was not as agitated as he'd been that day. As much as Arica wanted to, she could not tear her gaze away from those vivid blue eyes. Why? she wondered.

"Arica?" he asked, confusion evident in his voice.

He feels it too, and doesn't understand it any more than I do, she realized.

"I saw it," she said.

He frowned as he shifted to an upright position. "You saw what?"

"What happened to you, wherever you were. When you came onboard the other day, in my head, I saw what happened." Why am I telling him this?! she wondered, but she couldn't seem to stop the words coming out of her mouth. "You were in a dark room, fighting a dark man. Then this happened," she said as she lightly touched his prosthetic hand and absently noted that his expression was growing ever more horrified, "and then you fell."

"How…" he gasped and she could feel his shock.

"I don't know how. All I know is that there's some kind of strange connection between you and me, Skywalker, and I've felt it since the first time I saw you."

There…the bantha that had been sitting ignored in the corner from the moment they had met was now right in the middle of the room and it would be ignored no longer. To her amusement, he turned a brilliant shade of red at her words.

"I…I…I don't understand this at all! I'm in love with Mara, I always have been," he stammered.

"This isn't love, Skywalker!" Arica snorted derisively. As if she would ever consider…the idea was ludicrous!

He gave her a sharp glance. "Well, if you know so much, what do you think it is?"

To her utter embarrassment, she could feel the heat in her own face as her blush matched the one he'd worn a moment ago. The frustrating thing was, Arica really had no idea what the connection between them was. She hated to admit that she was as ignorant as he was. She only knew that it was there, and part of her wanted it gone. Another part, a part that she tried so hard to deny, wanted to grab onto it and hold on with both hands, and never let it go. Somehow, it made her feel…accepted, in a way she'd never felt before in her life.

"I don't know either," she said with a slightly sullen tone in her voice.

He dropped his gaze down to his hands, which were clutching the bedsheet tightly. He must have realized this and carefully relaxed his grip, but then he seemed at a loss as to what to do with his hands. He first smoothed the sheet, then clasped his hands together, and then pulled them apart to let them rest at his sides. During all of this nervous motion, he didn't once meet her eyes.

Arica couldn't help a little smirk as she understood that she was the one causing his nervousness. She was about to tease him about it when he cleared his throat.

"Um, when you said you saw what happened, what exactly did you see?"

"I already told you what I saw. You were fighting someone, you lost your hand, and then you fell."

He finally looked her in the face again and she could see the apprehension plainly in his expression.

"Is that all? I mean, there wasn't anything more than that? Could you…" He hesitated, as if not sure whether to ask the question that was on his tongue or not. "Could you tell who the dark man was?"

"I'm assuming it was Darth Vader," she said and noted the flicker of alarm in his eyes. "Not a very wise move on your part, was it?" she added with a little taunt.

The alarm quickly flared into anger before he visibly struggled to control it.

"I did what I felt I had to do," he said shortly.

She narrowed her eyes as she felt something like relief filter through this odd bond they'd somehow developed. He was hiding something. And it had to do with Vader. Arica's own Force abilities weren't very strong, but she could focus them enough to sometimes read things that people didn't want anyone else to find out. It was even easier with Skywalker than with any other being she'd ever tried to do this to.

Skywalker's eyes widened in astonishment as he realized what she was attempting. She unconsciously leaned in closer to him, stretching out with her senses towards his mind, trying to ferret out his secret.

"What…what are you doing?" he said and leaned away from her.

Arica gave him a grim smile as she reached out and grabbed his hand, his real hand. She would find out what he was hiding…he would not be able to keep it from her. It was definitely something to do with Darth Vader. As that son-of-a-sith was not exactly her favorite person in the galaxy, anything that helped her gain an advantage over him was a bonus.

"Another connection. Between you and Vader. My, Skywalker, you have little strands of yourself all over the place, don't you? What is it, this link with you and the Dark Lord? Somehow very close…very close," she said in a low voice.

She could feel him trying to block her, but she'd been at this a lot longer than he had and her strength of will was impressive. She caught images, fleeting glimpses of him as a child, impressions of all the different things he'd experienced and endured. She shoved her way through all that, searching for memories of his encounter with Vader. There! A small sound of satisfaction escaped her lips as she again saw the two figures facing off, their lightsabers blazing furiously.

"No. Stop it," Luke whispered desperately, trying to pull his hand away from hers, but her grip was like durasteel.

The setting unraveled before her mind's eye as though she were watching a holomovie, the two combatants battling for supremacy in the climactic ending scene. Arica had suspected that the connection was a close one, but she still caught her breath in shock at 'hearing' those fateful words.

No, I am your father.

"Your father. Vader's your father!" she gasped.

"Stop it…STOP IT…STOP IT! Get out of my head!" he shouted and shoved her out of his mind, his barriers finally coming up a little too late to protect his secret.

He ripped his hand out of her grasp, put it on her chest, and physically pushed her away from his bed. She stumbled backwards a couple of steps, still gaping at him in astonishment. Why had her Master not informed her of this? How could he keep something this important from her? Was this why he wanted Skywalker alive? Was this boy to replace Arica in her Master's service?

"What the hell is going on in here? I could hear you halfway down the corridor, Kid!"

Arica jerked her head around to see Solo striding angrily into the room. He paused a few feet away from Skywalker's bed, effectively putting himself in between her and his friend, she noted. She mentally cursed her inattentiveness, as she hadn't even been aware of his arrival until he'd spoken.

She could see him taking in the startled looks on both her and Skywalker's faces and immediately schooled her features back into their customary calm facade. Solo turned back to Luke, who was having a little more difficulty masking his emotions.

"Luke?" Solo questioned.

"I…it's nothing, Han. Arica and I were just…uh, talking."

She mockingly raised one eyebrow at his choice of words and his face flushed again.

"Talking? Sounded more like yelling to me," Solo said with a shrewd glance at Arica.

She slid her gaze from Solo to Skywalker, and back to the Corellian again, wondering just how aghast the smuggler would be if he knew the farmboy's true heritage. Arica saw Skywalker stiffen and then she suddenly heard his voice in her head.

((Don't tell him, please!))

She whipped her eyes back to her target in surprise. He seemed as stunned as she was. But for once, he recovered first. He looked at her with an eerily serene face and 'talked' to her again.

((Please. I'm not ready for anyone to know about that yet. I'm not even ready for you to know about it and I'm not sure how you did what you just did. But I don't want you to ever do it again.))

It was a very disturbing feeling, having someone's voice other than her Master's in her head. Arica looked at Skywalker with new eyes and wondered if it was entirely appropriate to continue thinking of him as a boy. The person on the bed giving her that impenetrable stare was no boy. Her mission just kept getting more and more complicated.

She nodded quietly, momentarily struck dumb by the intensity of the situation. Skywalker turned his attention back to Solo, who was watching the silent interplay between the young man and woman with a little frown on his face, as though he did not like what he was seeing.

Arica could hear them talking, but there was a fuzziness to her thoughts that prevented her from understanding a word of it. She shook her head slightly, appalled at the way she had allowed Skywalker to gain control of the moment. With a grimace, she realigned her thinking, pushing away the confusion the intense experience with Skywalker had created.

The two men were still talking as she cleared her throat to get their attention.

"Sorry for any disruption I may have caused, gentlemen," she said in her customary cool voice. "Solo. Skywalker, I'll speak with you later," she nodded to them both and turned to leave the room.

"Yes, Arica, we will definitely talk later," Skywalker threw at her retreating back with a warning hint to his tone.

She paused momentarily halfway to the exit, but did not turn around to meet his gaze again. Her jaw tightened, although she did not deign to reply to the vague threat as she continued out of the room.

"All right, Kid, maybe now you can tell me what the hell that was all about?" Han asked, his eyes having followed the petite brunette's form with a mixture of interest and wariness as she left.

Luke breathed a quiet sigh of relief at Arica's departure. He was still slightly in shock at what had just happened. Stars, he wasn't even sure what had just happened. The obvious answer hit him like a ton of duracrete…Arica Alie was Force-sensitive and she was well aware of it. She knew how to use her abilities, fairly aggressively at that. His thoughts still felt raw from the way she'd raged through his head.

Neither Master Yoda nor Ben had ever mentioned the ability to do what Arica had just done. He froze as he wondered if what she had done was the Dark Side and what that might mean about who Arica really was.

Luke was torn between elation at another being like himself in the galaxy - he had thought he was the only potential Jedi left - and dismay at the apparent deception that Arica had perpetrated on the Alliance and on himself. Look who's talking about deception, he thought bitterly. If the Alliance ever finds out who my father is, they'll send me straight to Kessel.

"Well? I'm waiting for an answer here, Kid," Han said impatiently.

Luke looked up at Han and felt a wave of self-loathing as he realized he was going to have to continue deceiving his friend. But he could not risk the secret of his parentage coming to light. Luke was barely able to deal with the knowledge himself, he certainly didn't want to have to deal with others' reactions to the revelation.

"We simply had a disagreement, that's all."

"What about?"

"It's…well, it's kind of personal."

"Personal? Too personal to tell me or too personal to tell Mara?" Han said with a glare.

Luke flushed guiltily at the mention of Mara Jade. He knew he loved the redhead, just as he knew that this thing - bond, connection, whatever it was - between himself and Arica was not love. Still, it almost felt like he was hiding something.

"It's not like that. I just really can't talk about it right now, okay?"

Han's glare softened and he awkwardly put a comforting hand on Luke's shoulder. "I know you've been through a lot, Luke, and I just want you to know we're here for you. You don't have to face this alone, y'know."

Luke's throat tightened as the guilt threatened to overwhelm him. He felt like the lowest form of life lying to his friend in this way, but he could see no other option.

"Thanks, Han. That means a lot. And I'm sorry, by the way, for the uh, bump on your head the other day."

"What, that? I barely felt that! Kid, you shoulda seen me the time I ran into some bounty hunters who mistook me for one of their marks. Why, Chewie hadda carry me back to the Falcon and I…"

Luke smiled as Han went off into one of his wild tales. Perhaps he didn't deserve such wonderful friends, but he was certainly very glad he had them.

Luke lay awake in the medcenter bunk, staring at the ceiling. His thoughts were far too noisy for sleep. The confrontation with his father - he was surprised and frightened at how easily the title came to him now - played over and over in his mind. The Dark Lord had toyed with him. Luke was a barely-trained Jedi Apprentice. Vader had been responsible for killing thousands of highly-skilled Jedi Knights in the Purges. Their 'duel' should have lasted about two minutes, but instead, Vader had chosen to drag it out, tormenting his son.

Luke frowned as he reconsidered every aspect of the battle. Had his father been tormenting him, or trying to not have to kill him? He recalled Vader's offer to join him. His thoughts and emotions had been far too confused to sort out everything he'd been feeling at that moment. Now, with time and distance, he scrutinized it carefully.

There had been something in Vader's sense when he'd extended his hand and made that offer. The Dark Lord had let an emotion slip through the tenuous bond that had formed between father and son. Arica was right, I do have strands of myself all over the place, he thought ruefully. With a sigh, he pushed thoughts of the strangely compelling young woman out of his head. He could only handle thinking about one part of his increasingly complicated life at a time.

Luke was somehow certain that the emotion Vader had revealed had been unintentional. There had been…a loneliness…a sense of longing…so still and small that Luke wondered if he was imagining it after all. Again, he called to mind the vision that he'd had under Cloud City. Anakin with the beautiful young woman. His mother? Yes, that felt right.

But what had happened to her? What had happened to his father to change him from that handsome, mischievous young man into the dangerous, black-armored Dark Lord? Perhaps something terrible had happened to her, causing Anakin to fall from his grief? Luke's frown deepened as he concentrated on the young woman. Something familiar about her…

With a gasp, he sat straight up in the bed. His vision from Dagobah! Vividly, he recalled the image of the tearful young woman who had haunted his dreams while he was training on the swamp-covered planet. His mother. He felt tears gathering in his eyes as he latched onto her image. He had no memories of her.

Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru had never answered the many questions Luke had asked as a child, about either of his parents. Well, the reason for their reluctance about his father was rather obvious now. But the woman in his visions didn't seem dangerous or evil. Why had they never told him anything more about her?

He strained to try and remember what she had been trying to tell him, knowing that it was vitally important. Had it been a message about his father? She seemed so sad and lonely…the same feelings Luke had briefly felt from Anakin during their clash on Bespin. He frowned as he realized he was thinking of his father as Anakin and not Darth Vader. Was there still some piece of Anakin buried within the Sith Lord who called himself Darth Vader?

Impulsively, Luke stretched out with the Force, trying to find his father's presence. Perhaps it would be his father that he found and not the Dark Lord. He closed his eyes as he concentrated on finding Anakin's distinct Force signature. His whole body froze as a cold, dark presence suddenly seemed to reach out for him, almost trying to smother him.

((Your father is dead, young one. Come to me and let me show you the true ways of the Force.))

Desperately, Luke tried to pull his Force sense back, away from this thing that wanted to swallow him whole. His body began to tremble and sweat trickled down his temples as he attempted to extricate himself from the web he'd stumbled into.

"No, no, no," he muttered, barely aware that he was speaking aloud.

((You are mine, boy! Come to me!))

Luke was hyperventilating, his hands convulsively clutching the sides of his cot, straining against the overpowering presence with every iota of strength he possessed and it wasn't enough. It was not enough! He could feel the other, reeling him in, drowning him in darkness.

"Father, help me…" he whispered, but there was no answer to his plea.