Penpals 28: Darth Vader

/Why did I tell her that?./

Vader pondered the question why he had told the Princess that he really was Anakin Skywalker and realized he simply did not know. It had just flown out of his mouth before he had had a chance to think. It had been incredibly stupid of him really but since he had started corresponding with Luke stupid things had become quite common. It was an excuse, yes, but that's all he had at the moment. He watched her face and saw surprise there. Apparently she had expected him to lie.

"You're really Anakin Skywalker, Luke's father?" The Princess stared at him, her mouth open in disbelief. Her eyes narrowed as they focused on his black breath mask. "You're the one sending him letters?"

"Yes." Vader replied, his voice loud in the empty back compartment of his private shuttle. He had no fear of the few stormtroopers overhearing the conversation. For one, the back part was soundproof. Second, he could easily alter their memories or even Force-choke them if need be. Troopers were easily replaced. His son was not. "I have been writing Luke letters. I was not aware he told you."

Her face gazed up at him, perplexed. Her mouth hung open partway and there was a crease on her forehead between her eyes, her brow raised. Her bafflement was so powerful that it was even broadcast through the Force, although that was no doubt an accident and since she didn't possess the Force she wasn't even aware he could feel her emotions. "Why? Why would you write him letters? If you think you're going to trick him into joining you…"

"He is my son." Vader simply replied.

Truthfully he was as equally shocked as she was but for different reasons. To tell someone in letters how he felt was one thing, but to confess his deepest secrets and desires to a Rebel of all people…

/What is wrong with me? I should not be telling her these things…/

No, he shouldn't. The Princess was a dangerous enemy and he had chased after her for more time than he cared to recount. She was crafty, vile and treacherous: a worthy opponent. He thought of her father, Bail Organa, for a long moment and idly wondered how the man ever ended up with such a daughter as this. He had known the man during his Jedi days at the Temple and had thought him quite the simpleton. He had been honest and caring; quite rare personality traits for a politician. His wife was even worse, if one could believe that. Yet somehow they had ended up with the most sneaky, crooked and bold daughter ever. It was quite the mystery. Perhaps if he had spare time he'd try to unravel it. It would be interesting to see what made the Princess tick.

Worse, she still reminded him of his deer sweet Padme and he was quite unsure why. Was it just the hair as he had suspected earlier or was there more? Perhaps its all the time spent on Executor surrounded by men. He supposed then when faced with a woman of similar age and hair color, eyes and so forth, the woman would remind him of Padme. Still, he wished it weren't so painful.

"What do you want with Luke?" She asked as she broke into his mental thoughts with her voice.

"He is my family." Vader stated simply. "I want to be with him. Does that surprise you?"

His loud mechanical breathing echoed through the tiny compartment as the Princess gawked at him, apparently at a loss for words.

"I have always wanted a family but was never allowed to have one." Vader admitted, his machine-amplified voice managing to sound sad somehow instead of frightening. "My mother was taken from me by the Tuscan Raiders, my wife died in childbirth and I had thought my child had died with her. I had lost all hope of ever achieving my dream. Then one day Luke writes me and I realize with shock he truly is my son. He not only carries my last name but the Force as well. The fact that my old Master was with him also proves his genetic heritage."

/How could I tell her that? I must be insane/

Yes, he must be. If she ever escaped like she had the last time…

/She is my only connection to Luke. The boy cares for her and will come./

He was sure that much was true. This was most likely the female Luke had mentioned in his letter, the one he had a crush on. It was something he could relate to. Had he not fallen in love with Padme?

/There I go again/

What in Force sake was wrong with him? He hadn't thought of his dearly departed wife for almost two whole decades and now her spirit wouldn't leave him alone! She seemed to be hovering around him somewhere, perhaps inside his very brain. He had no idea really what happened to people after they died. Heck, he still didn't understand Obi-Wan's disappearing trick. He had pondered that for so long directly afterward that his brain ached and it had almost driven him insane. Finally he had to admit defeat and shrug it off. Still, it was disturbing. He had never believed in ghosts or an afterlife. In all his years of seeing death he had never witnessed one thing to say that there was any truth in the myriad of stories that people told.

Until now.

/Is Padme lingering here with me? Is that why I can't get her out of my mind?./

"You really care about him, don't you?"

Startled at the sound of her voice, Vader tilted his head to see her better. The Princess was proving to be quite unpredictable today. Now she had compassion written on her face, her big brown eyes sad. They seemed to quiver ever so slightly, to glisten with a very fine layer of liquid.

/It is my imagination. A Rebel would not care for me./

No, Rebels would be all too happy to slice him with his own lightsaber or to blast him through the chest with a red energy bolt. They had proven that over and over. What did they care for the rules of the Empire? They only wanted to grab power for themselves and didn't care what innocents were hurt in the process. They had proven that over and over. The only one who had ever showed remorse was his son. Luke had made it clear that killing all the people on the Death Star had torn him up greatly inside. It had bothered him so much that his sleep was greatly disturbed and he had sought out the help of a total stranger on the intergalactic web.

Yet the Princess seemed to care. Is that why Luke befriended with her? Because she was so much like him? Was it possible? Or was it all his imagination?

"Why would it concern you if I care or not? You are a Rebel and I'm your enemy. Is that not true?"

Vader leaned back in his seat and patiently waited to see what she would say. Then the real Princess would be revealed. She would be ugly, twisted and uncaring. She would scoff in his face and say that she didn't care. How could she? How could she possibly care after what he had done? The woman must surely hate his guts! He had held her while Grand Moff Tarkin blew up her home world! And unlike him, the Princess had cared about her homeworld. It was precious to her and that suggested she had had a nice childhood there. She had grown up as royalty, been pampered and catered to. She never had to struggle for every crumb or been owned as a slave. Most likely she only had a very vague idea of what slavery even was. It no doubt was a super clean version where slaves wore nice neat collars around their neck like some pampered pet. But it was dirty, gritty and rough. You were starved, beat, called names and abused; all without legal recourse. Many slaves died from matters who were too cruel. Those were the lucky ones as in death they were finally free.

"Yes, you are my enemy but it doesn't have to be that way." Leia said with her own voice, the one she used to talk to Luke and not the dignified voice she used with the Senate. "Don't you see? Luke is my best friend and I care about him more than you can ever know. And he cares about you greatly! So we both care about him so we have something in common! I'm beginning to think that you're both very much alike."

"I should hope not. I've had nothing but bad luck." Vader admitted to his captive.

"You care a lot about people, don't you?" Leia gazed at the expressionless breath mask wishing she could see his face to gauge his mood the way she would Luke, but that was impossible. Her brown eyes dropped to the black clad glove that rested on the chair's armrest next to her. Ever so slowly and before she could chicken out, Leia gently placed her manacled hands on top of his hand. She had no idea how he might react to such a thing; for all she knew it might get her killed. But just like Luke, he was obviously hurting and in pain. If someone had told her this yesterday she would have called him or her insane. But there it was right before her. The proof that Han had guessed the identity of Luke's mysterious penpal correctly was coming out of Vader's black mask. "You tried to save them, you tried to do the right thing. Just like you tried to save Luke now, didn't you?"

Astonishment swept through him and he didn't know what shocked him more, the gentle words that came from her mouth or the feel of her weight resting on his hand. And how could she know he had come racing here to save Luke?

"How did you know?" He finally asked.

"Because you've done it before." Leia replied gently, her hands still resting atop his glove. "I really didn't believe you were his father before but now I do. I had thought perhaps it was some trick but you're telling me the truth, you really do care about him. And I'm sure he's fine. Last I saw him he was recovering from his encounter with that snow beast."

"You've read the letters I sent him?" Vader asked. It was the only thing that made sense. How else would she know of his failed rescue attempts? Sure, he had mentioned the Tuscans had killed his mother but he had not said how he had tried to save her.

"Look, I didn't want to read the letters but Luke asked me to." She explained as she shifted slightly in her seat so she could look at him better. "He was all mixed up and confused, OK? He wants to help you but you're in the Empire and well that confuses him. And then Han guessed who you really were and well, that added to the confusion."

A red-hot bolt shot through him at those words.

"Luke knows who I am?" He asked, his voice sounding odd even to his own ears. So many emotions flooded his body that he didn't know what he was feeling. Fear that his son would reject him, relief that the boy finally knew the truth, hope of acceptance…

"Yes, Luke knows. Or he strongly suspects I should say. And he decided that he's going to help you anyway even if you are Lord Vader."

/Luke knows! He knows/

Pure joy of acceptance flooded him and at that moment he owed the Princess a huge dept of gratitude. It was without doubt the happiest moment in his life; except for perhaps the day he married Padme. But in some ways this joy was much stronger than his wedding day. That had been soiled with the knowledge that he was breaking the rules of the Order, that the Clone Wars had started and that the War was partly his fault. If he had only listened to his Master instead of charging forward so recklessly at Dooku… And that was yet another thing to nag at his mind: the loss of his arm. How he had wished he could once again hold her with both arms instead of one. Although he could use the arm, it had no sensations at all. He couldn't feel the smoothness of her skin with it or the softness of her hair. And its appearance had bothered him more than a bit. In the back of his mind he had always wondered if the arm's skeletal appearance had bothered her. Did it feel cold against her delicate skin? Surely it must have felt bizarre to say the least; as if she had married a droid instead of another human being. Self-doubt ate at him and he worried about a thousand things. If he were out in the hot sun too long would his mechanical hand burn her tender skin? Did it secretly disgust her and she simply never mentioned it? Did she see him as less of a man because of it?

So the fact that Luke knew and loved him anyway was purely the happiest moment of his mixed up life. He felt his throat tighten painfully and he desperately tried to swallow the sudden lump that existed there. The last thing he could afford to do was to start crying while on the shuttle. His breathing was bad enough the way it is; he didn't need tears and mucus gumming up his nose. It was OK if he were in his private quarters as there he could remove the mask and hook himself up to the respirator; but here…

He swallowed several more times and desperately repeated the calming exercises that Obi-Wan had taught him all those years ago. He blinked his eyes rapidly, wet tears leaking down the curved surfaces of his cheekbones. Slowly ever so slowly he felt his emotions coming back under control and he breathed a sigh of relief. It would be extremely embarrassing to imagine him dying because his nose had gotten clogged with mucus and he had been unable to clear it due to the mask.

When he glanced at his prisoner he saw her staring at him with big round, concerned eyes.

"Are you all right?"

"It has been over twenty years since anyone has asked me that…"

Shock and horror mingled on her face. "Why, that's terrible!"

Yes, it was terrible, wasn't it? Why had that never occurred to him before? Had he really been so caught up in duty and regulations that he had forgotten common decency? It seemed almost impossible but it was true.

/And it took the compassion of a Rebel prisoner to show me the truth and to open my eyes../

The comm. buzzed on the wall and Vader depressed the button with a finger. "Yes, Commander?"

"We have arrived on Executor, My Lord."

To be continued…