Father wasn't getting Leia, he wasn't going to destroy her life the way he'd destroyed our mother's! I attacked furiously, empowered by my rage and fear for my sister, forgetful of my Masters' teachings, of my desire to save my father, of everything but a frenzied need to protect Leia from the Dark side.

Father was not so centered and driven. He gave way before my onslaught and soon was in full retreat. I pursued him across the open area at the foot of the steps to Palpatine's throne and onto the bridge leading across a deep gulf to the lift shaft. He stumbled and fell against the railing. His blade came up to block my down stroke but I saw the move the instant before he made it and changed my aim, severing his saber arm at the wrist.

Lightsaber and the hand grasping it tumbled together into the gulf - just as my hand and Father's old saber had done on Bespin. I hesitated, my blade at my father's throat, unsure what I wanted to do next.

"Good!" Palpatine crowed. "Your hate has made you powerful. Now, fulfill your destiny and take your father's place at my side!"

Once again he'd have done better to keep quiet - though I like to think I'd have stopped short of killing Father no matter what - for his gloating again jarred me back to sanity.

What was I doing? I looked at the sparking stump at the end of Father's arm, then at my own artificial hand. I was becoming my father that's what I was doing! This was how Palpatine had destroyed the good man who was Anakin Skywalker; by encouraging his hate and rage until they undermined his better nature and overwhelmed him. He'd tried to work the same trick on me - and nearly succeeded too.

But I had an advantage my poor Father had lacked - his own example. All I had to do was look at Darth Vader, once Anakin Skywalker, to see what the Dark side would make of me and I wanted no part of it. I would not go that way, not if it cost my life and Leia's, and Han's too, Because if I did it would destroy us all and everything we'd fought for.

I had passed my trial, I was a true Jedi now. And as a Jedi I saw that only Anakin Skywalker could defeat Darth Vader and the Emperor. This was his trial and I must trust in him and have faith he would choose the right path. I switched off my lightsaber and turned to face Palpatine.

"Never." I said quietly. "I'll never turn to the Dark side." I cast my saber away and continued defiantly. "You've failed, Your Highness. I am a Jedi, like my father before me."

I watched the Emperor's glee turn to rage as he faced and accepted his failure. "So be it - Jedi!" he spat, then seemed to collect himself. "If you will not turn you will be destroyed!"

I tried to brace myself but there was no way to prepare myself for what happened next. Palpatine raised his hands and cold blue lightenings forked from his fingertips striking me to my knees. The dark energies shredded my mind and my spirit as my body convulsed in pain. I couldn't collect enough focus to even try to resist, but somehow I found the strength to call out to the one person who could save me.

"Father, please. Help me!"

And he did. Anakin Skywalker finally broke the bonds of guilt and shame that bound him to the Dark side and turned on the creature that had corrupted him. Suddenly the pain stopped. Struggling into a sitting position I saw Father had seized his former Master. The Dark lightenings coursed over his armor as he lifted Palpatine high and hurled him over the railing into the gulf. Then Father collapsed, his mechanical breathing un-rhythmic, labored. I got to my feet somehow and went to help him. A blast of wind and heat blew up the shaft fluttering his cape and my hair asI pulled him off the railing and laid him out on the deck taking his hand.

"Luke..." he wheezed.

"It's all right, Father." I told him, the tears pouring down my face. "Everything's all right now. You've come back to me - to us." It wasn't of course. We were on an enemy station in the middle of major battle -in danger from both sides - but I didn't care. I had my father back, at that moment nothing else was important to me.

"Luke...Dai-Men...he's really alive?"

"Yes, Father, he was my teacher just as Palpatine said."

"I thought he was dead...maybe I did see him on Moloc."

I laughed through my tears. "You did. He was there, he told me about it. He still believed in you, Father, in Anakin Skywalker, even after all these years."

"Which is more than I can say." a familiar voice said sadly.

I looked up. It was Ben, once again a luminous, transparent Force apparition. His eyes touched me briefly, his main attention on Father, his former apprentice. "Thank you, Luke, thank you for not listening to me."

"Just...like...his...father." Father said, and made a choking noise that might have been laughter - or sobs. "Forgive me, Master."

Ben knelt and laid a ghostly hand over ours. "If you will forgive me, Anakin, for not being a better Master, for not trying harder..."

"My fault!" Father wheezed emphatically. "All...mine."

"And Palpatine's." I said just as firmly. None of this would have happened without the Emperor.

Something strange was happening to Ben, he was changing...becoming younger. Now it was a Jedi Master in his prime, not the worn old desert rat I'd known, who knelt beside us and I knew I was seeing General Obi-Wan Kenobi as he had been through my Father's eyes and memory.

"Obi-Wan...I didn't kill Ken-Gon...I wouldn't have..."

"I know," his Master answered gently. "and so did he. It was his choice, Ani, his decision. He didn't dare risk being brought before the Emperor."

I knew Ken-Gon was the name of Ben - Obi-Wan's - son and Chani's father. I knew he was dead but it was good to know it hadn't been by my father's hand. Not that Chani would have held it against me but it would be hard to explain to the children that one of their grandfathers had killed the other.

Suddenly a loud whistle came from the Emperor's throne above us. "Your Majesty! Your Majesty! " a frightened voice cried, "the shield's fallen, we have fighters inside the superstructure. Your Majesty, do you have any instructions? Your Majesty?"

General Kenobi looked at me and I saw my Ben in his worried eyes. "Luke, you've got to get out of here!"

"Yes..." Father agreed, "go son."

"Not without you." I told him. "Can you walk?"

He couldn't really but he managed to make it to the lift. I let him rest, sitting awkwardly on the floor, during the long trip down to the docking bays then hauled him to his feet as the doors opened.

The bay was in chaos. The deck rocked under our feet from explosions and space outside the containment field was punctuated by blaster fire. Imperial personnel ran hither and thither in mindless panic, not paying the slightest attention to me as I dragged my father out of the lift.

"Luke, leave me." he pleaded as I hoisted him up.

"No." I had to get him out of there, get him to Leia. She had to meet our real father, meet Anakin Skywalker, how else could she ever forgive him for the things Vader had done?

Painfully I made my way to an Imperial shuttle parked in a corner of the bay, staggering under Father's weight, but collapsed at the foot of the gangway. I could risk a minute's rest - at least I hoped I could.

"Luke..." Father wheezed. "Help me take this mask off."

"But you'll die!" I protested.

"Nothing can stop that now." he answered calmly. "Just once...let me look at you with my own eyes."

I didn't want to do it, and not just because it was risking Father's life. I was afraid to see what the Dark side had done to him...afraid to see a face like the Emperor's, furrowed with evil and yellow eyed. But I did as he wanted...and it wasn't so bad. It fact it wasn't bad at all.

I didn't mind the flabby whiteness of his skin, shielded from sun for twenty years, or the scars of old wounds that seamed his hairless head, for theonly lines on my father's face were ones of sorrow and suffering, and his eyes were blue - like mine. I smiled at him in relief and a kind of joy. Now I had a face to replace Darth Vader's mask. This was my father, this was Anakin Skywalker.

He smiled back, though I could barely see it behind the respirator mouthpiece. "Now...go, my son. Leave me."

"No." I said stubbornly. "You're coming with me. I'll not leave you here." not on this doomed station tainted by the Emperor's Darkness. "I've got to save you."

"You already have, Luke." he answered. "You were right." he repeated it in in a kind of wonder - and joy. "You were right about me. Tell your sister...tell Leia you were right."

his eyes fluttered closed.

"Father, I won't leave you." I said through my tears

His lips moved soundlessly forming a name, Mother's name; 'Padme'. And then he left me - to go to her? Yes, it had to be so. She was one with the Force and now so was he. They'd be together forever.

The docking bay rocked as the instruments on the walls began to explode. We had to get out of here. I wiped an arm across my face and got to my feet, dragging my father's body behind me into the shuttle. Empty shell or no I wasn't leaving him here to be obliterated with the rest of the Emperor's creatures. He didn't belong with them - he belonged with me.

I landed in a clearing, not far from the Ewok village, and spent the hours as afternoon turned to evening collecting wood. Leia was all right. I could feel her presence, warm and happy, in the back of my mind. She hadn't sensed Father's death, I was sure of that much. How would she feel when I told her? Would she be glad Darth Vader was dead or would she grieve for him, or both? How was she ever to come to terms with Father now that he was gone?

It was full night by the time I finished building my pyre and hoisted Father's remains atop it. I'd wanted to take him out of the armor but I couldn't, it was fused to what flesh he had left. So after a long, last look I put the breath mask back over his face, choosing to let fire consume it all, Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader both. I thrust a torch into the heart of the pyre and stepped back, watching as it caught and the flames fanned higher obscuring the figure laid out on top of it.

"A Jedi funeral." Father's voice said behind me. "Thank you, Luke."

I whirled. He stood there smiling at me, a tall blue glowing apparition with a youthful face that reminded me of the one I saw in the mirror. "Father!"

"I will always be with you, son, that's a promise."

A knot inside me unloosened. It wasn't the same as having him alive but it was a lot better than nothing. "And with Leia. I want you two to know each other."

He grimaced. "I do know her, Luke, better than I know you. We've been intimate enemies for a long, long time."

"But you were friends first." I pointed out softly.

He looked at me startled. "How do you know about that?"

"I saw it in Leia's mind. She hasn't forgotten."

His eyes shifted past me, but I knew he wasn't seeing the pyre. "I didn't either. Ever." he looked back at me. "I wouldn't have let Tarkin execute her."

"I know." I said softly. But Father had tortured Leia aboard the Death Star and stood by while her planet was destroyed. That was going to be hard for both of them to deal with.

He took a deep breath. "Our relationship was ...complicated, Luke. Tell Leia when she's ready all she has to do is call, I'll hear. And then leave it be, this is between her and me."

"Yes, Father." I said.