The shuttle crew was terrified. They had never seen Vader in that state before. He seemed to be in a catatonic state, but the hurricane of barely-restrained violence inside him was taking over the small living space, until the tension was a pulsing, breathing thing, wrapping itself around everyone's throats.

When the shuttle landed in the Executor's docking bay seven hours later and the ramp descended, it felt like opening the cage of a rabid Rancor.

Vader walked down the ramp with slow, measured steps that felt loud and deafening to every officer standing at attention outside the ship. A black, stinking shadow seemed to accompany the Sith Lord, and everybody pulled back, repulsed by it. His respiration felt like the sound of the angel of death on the loose.

Vader went directly to his quarters and locked himself inside without speaking to anyone, without giving any orders to his petrified men.

Nobody knew what to do. They only knew one thing.

Darth Vader was a time bomb on the verge of going off.

It was late evening, and Vader hadn't moved a muscle in five hours. He was sitting on his leather chair, his eyes fixed on the cuddly toy on the console in front of him. He took short and fast intakes of breath, keeping himself alert, as if waiting for an enemy or anticipating an attack. Or both.

Until, finally, the Sith Lord felt the tickling sensation in his mind that announced the child's presence. One second later, the warmth was there.

The chair swiveled slowly, and Vader faced the boy, who halted in the centre of his office, pale and haggard.

"Here you are," the dark voice hissed menacingly.

The child stared softly at him, his head tilted to one side.

The big, armoured body rose and walked up to the boy with long, guarded steps, like a predator about to pounce on its prey.

"Your angelic smiles will not fool me again. You will answer me, I don't care if I have to rip your mind apart to find what I want to know."

The boy didn't move back. He simply looked at Vader, more serious than he had ever been. Showing no fear where other men would have crumbled already.

"Why are you here night after night, tempting me with your innocent eyes and holier-than-thou attitude? Did you think that a few smiles from you would melt my heart and change me? Is that what you thought?" Vader waited for a few moments. "ANSWER ME!"

You have changed already.

The red lightsaber came to life with a deadly humming sound.

The child stood his ground and set his jaw, but the gentle warmth around him didn't waver. Quite the contrary, his aura of Light was brighter and more compelling than ever.

"I won't let you take it away from me. You hear me! You can't take my hatred away from me. My hatred is all I have. Hatred is all I am!"

The sweet eyes softened.

You're far more than that.

"Why are you here every night, risking being discovered, risking your very life to be with me? What did you expect to accomplish? Why did you choose me? Why!"

The lovely face shone with tenderness.

The Sith Lord swung his weapon and sliced the cuddly toy in two.

"WHY!"

The boy shook his head as if the answer was self-evident but still, sadly incomprehensible to Vader. His look turned inwards for an instant. He seemed to come to a decision. When his eyes settled on Vader again, it was as if a door burst open and Vader found himself inside the boy's soul.

'Because I love you.'

Vader threw his head back and let out a bark of laughter.

"Love me? And who told you to love me?" The amusement and disdain in his voice turned into seething anger in less than a heartbeat. "I never asked for your love! I never wanted it! You had no right to enter my life and turn it inside out with your pathetic goodness and aura of sanctity. I was most satisfied with my life until you came," he spat, looking at the child up and down as if he was nothing but vermin. "What do you know about me? Do you have any idea what it is like to be me?" He touched his chest with his left hand. "Do you see this? Love made me what I am. Love put me in this suit! Love destroyed me because I loved too much once, and I was too afraid of losing it." He was panting, breathless, beside himself. "Love took everything away from me, and now I am the one who takes!" He straightened up to his full imposing height. "I take lives, lives as precious and valuable as the ones I lost. And I revel in it! I revel in my crimes, because that's exactly what I am. A cold-blooded killer, a mass murderer!"

The child took a step forward, the love in him wrapping itself around the Dark Lord like a fragrant breeze.

'I know what you are. And I still love you.'

Vader swayed on his feet under the selfless, gentle attack that was embracing all the ugliness in him, ripping all the hatred from his heart.

"Don't you understand!" Vader cried out, holding onto it desperately, even as he felt it fading away. "I cannot care about the lives I take, like the man I murdered only a few hours ago. Because if I did..." bile rose in his throat, as the horror he had inside finally caught up with him, and drowned him in all its years of insane, insatiable brutality. "...if I had to face what I am, what I have done..."

Objects started flying across the room all of a sudden, falling to the floor and crashing.

Tears streamed down the boy's face, as he stepped forward and grabbed Vader's left hand.

"...the innocent lives I crushed, the families I slaughtered... How would I live with that?" He looked down at the child, suddenly lost. "W-what would I do?"

The boy interlaced his fingers with Vader's and brought the big gloved hand to his heart.

Vader shook it off in a final burst of hopeless fury.

"Damn you! DAMN YOU!" he yelled as his computer screen exploded in a million shards. "You destroyed me. You destroyed me!" The suddenly turned off weapon fell from his nerveless fingers and Darth Vader collapsed to his knees, feeling the wetness of tears running down his face for the first time in four years. They burned his skin and his scars like acid. "Damn you. Damn you for what you did to me!"

You did it yourself.

Crime after crime passed through Vader's eyes in a horrific slide show of madness and mindless rage, that nothing had satiated before.

Before this little boy who knelt down beside the fallen Sith Lord now, took his hands in his – the hands with the blood of thousands of innocents on them – brought them to his lips, closed his eyes, and kissed the palms one after the other, in a cleansing gesture that shook the universe with its significance. Ethereal eyes full of love rose to meet the Dark Lord's, and in them, Vader saw the promise of a long and fulfilling life, wrapped in the warm and safe embrace of the Light.

'I will always be with you. You will never be alone.'

Tiredly, needfully, the Sith Lord's heart opened to those words. He longed to rest. He longed to be comforted from a life that he knew would be a torment from now on.

'No, it won't be. Not while we're together.'

And the moment his essence rushed forward to meet the Light around the child, Vader felt something coming to life again inside him. Unable to stand the hungry, searing love in it, in himself, he passed out.

He didn't want to wake up. He didn't want to live with the weight and knowledge of his crimes. He knew it was cowardly, but he couldn't face such an existence. He couldn't!

A loving consciousness wrapped itself around his own, bringing him softly back and reassuring him that it would never leave him. They were one now, and nothing and no one would keep them apart.

Vader opened his eyes to total blackness. His heart skipped a beat.

Where was he? Was he dead?

Then, sensation returned to his numbed body. His head was resting on something soft and pliable, that a part of him immediately identified as the child's lap. Small hands were massaging his chest up and down and around his chestplate.

When the boy felt he had come to, he stopped rubbing his chest, but kept his hands there, dispelling Vader's remaining fears through touch alone.

Warmth more sublime than any feeling he had ever known, spread within Vader's ribcage. He took a deep breath that made his temples pound, but convinced him that he was truly alive.

His eyesight returned all of a sudden, and the image of a little angel bending over him appeared before his instantly enraptured eyes.

He struggled to reach up, but his limbs felt heavier than lead. He managed to raise one arm, and brought it up to the shining face that smiled down at him and filled his heart with rainbows. His fingers made contact with a pale cheek, and he caressed it timidly. Ashamed.

The child cuddled his cheek needfully into the big palm, and Vader wished they could stay like this forever.

But soon, a strange, uncomfortable feeling made itself known. A tightness in his chest that made difficult to breathe. He tried to relax and take short and deep intakes of breath, but it didn't work. In a matter of seconds, he was beginning to suffocate.

Perhaps his suit was malfunctioning. It was almost impossible, but it could happen. Maybe the switches and buttons had been damaged in the fall. Fortunately, he had his pod in the next room and he could shelter there, until he found out what was wrong with his respirator, and if it could be fixed.

'I have to go to my chamber,' he sent mentally.

As if understanding what the problem was, the boy smiled and moved his hands away.

Vader had no strength to stand, but it was as if an outside force pulled him to his feet. As he slowly rose, he felt little hands under his arm, helping him up with no inconsiderable strength.

Stumbling and fighting for every breath, Vader headed for his pod, as the child helped him every step of the way, his little hand in his own.

Vader couldn't wait to get inside. Every breath was more painful than the last. The oxygen didn't seem to reach his lungs. It was hot and oppressive in his mask.

When the pod opened at last, he almost fainted in relief. He raised a heavy leg to get inside, and felt a soft tug on his hand. He looked at the boy, who looked up at him with a pleading expression on his face.

Unable to let go either, Vader nodded. But still, he owed the child a warning.

'You will see my face in here. It's covered with horrible scars and burn marks. Maybe you'll want to close your eyes.'

The boy smiled up at him adoringly and pressed Vader's hand to his face, caressing himself with it.

'The ozone concentration is a few times higher than usual, also. It won't harm you, but it could make you feel dizzy and slightly breathless. The chamber is set to provide me with the exact concentration of oxygen I need at every moment.'

The child squeezed his hand.

Bracing himself, Vader entered the pod and sank into the black seat gratefully. The boy quickly followed and settled on his lap, facing him.

The chamber closed after them and some pincer-like devices removed first the helmet from the top, and then the mask from the front. A few seconds later, Vader was filling his lungs with much-needed air.

As usual, it took him some time to get used to the light inside the pod, and he blinked several times when his eyes misted as a reflex action against the brightness. A while later, he was capable of keeping his eyes mostly open, as his pupils contracted little by little and allowed him to open his eyes fully.

The sight before him took Vader's breath away. When he had asked the child to be prepared for what he would see, he had forgotten that he would also be free to see the boy's real look.

He didn't expect this. He would have never imagined...! Although he had hoped.

His shaking hands reached out and framed the beautiful face. He had never seen such pure, heavenly beauty before. But what blew him away were the eyes. He had never seen such a deep, crystal blue. No artist could possibly conceive such glorious, luminous eyes.

He couldn't look away from those eyes that gazed back at him full of love and joy. In the end, he had to blink back the moisture in his own. It was then that his eyes turned to the boy's hair.

Blond. The blondest hair. Straight and soft like Aurean silk.

His fingers roamed the breathtaking face, trying to convince himself it was real.

"A-are you an angel?" he asked out of the blue. The words left his lips on their own, as his uncertain fingertips brushed lovely feature after lovely feature. Nose, cheeks, eyelids, forehead, even the tiny ears, eliciting soft sighs of bliss from the child. "You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen."

The boy looked down and a soft blush coloured his white cheeks.

"I lost my child before knowing if it would be a boy or a girl," Vader knew he was babbling, but he couldn't help it. And what was worse, he didn't give a damn anymore. "But if it had been a boy, I would have wanted him to look like you."

The child's face illuminated with happiness, and the Light around him pulsed with warmth, reaching out and holding Vader within.

"My wife and I already had a name for the baby, if it turned out to be a boy." He swallowed and his lips formed the word he hadn't spoken out loud in four years. "Luke." The name felt and tasted like the sweetest honey on his mouth.

The child gave a start and his eyes filled with helpless tears that promptly ran down his cheeks.

"What is it?" Vader asked, alarmed by the boy's extreme reaction. His heart shattered when he realized there could only be one reason for those tears. He looked away, wishing he could offer that beautiful angel something more than his deformity. "I am sorry. I didn't mean to make you cry. I wish I could..."

Whatever he wanted to say was silenced by the child's sudden pouncing on him. His little hands held his bald skull and he began running his palms all over it, paying special attention to the huge scar that started on the top of his head. His unbelievably tender lips rained dozens of kisses on every scar and burn mark. Never mind how deep and nasty looking they were, no millimetre of his face was left unloved.

Vader closed his eyes in surrender as all of him went limp, losing himself in the soothing waves of tingling warmth that covered every place of him the boy's lips and hands touched. He lingered on every scar, pressing his lips to it and breathing on it, as if wanting to take it upon himself or make it disappear.

When the bout of kissing came to a slow end, the child crowned it with a wet, noisy smooch on the tip of his nose.

Vader laughed softly, his insides positively turned to mush, and feeling clean and pure, both inside and out.

The boy moved back, opened his eyes and looked at him as if he was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

And Vader felt like it. He nodded and smiled shakily, his heart too full for words.

"Yes, as good as new."

The child's smile widened even more, showing his little white, perfect teeth. He studied Vader's features with renewed intensity.

Vader cocked his head to one side, wondering what the boy found so fascinating about him, when they had been face to face for several minutes now.

Finally, the child's eyes bulged in what seemed like... recognition? He reached out and touched Vader's chin.

Vader just smiled, uncomprehendingly.

Seeing that he didn't understand, the boy touched the dimple on his own chin, and then touched Vader's chin again, his index fingertip lingering on the exact centre of it.

Vader's mouth opened in sudden realization. He also had a dimple on the chin! He had completely forgotten about it! Not as deep as the child's, but he also had one. His smile grew bigger and he nodded.

"Yes, I have one, too." He bowed his head and kissed the pointing little digit. He didn't know why, but having a feature in common with that angel made his heart swell in his chest with the sweetest pride he had ever known.

Resuming their game, the little finger pointed at the boy's stunning blue eyes, and then at Vader's.

"Yes," Vader nodded once more in utter contentment, as old memories flooded back with the utmost clarity, "my eyes are also..." The words died on his lips and his blood ran cold in his veins.

If his eyes were blue, that meant...

Vader fought to remember the last time he had consciously tapped from the Dark. Definitely, it had been until the moment he passed out, when he had embraced the Light around the child. Before that, he had been holding on to the Darkness desperately, in a demented effort not to lose the safety net his hatred had provided.

In the end, even his hatred had been an illusion. An illusion that had been defeated by the only real thing in his life. The unwavering love of this little angel, who had been ready to go farther than anyone had ever gone, and would ever go, for the salvation of his soul.

His hands moved of their own volition and he wrapped the little body in his arms, drawing it instinctively close.

He was peripherically aware of the child's fingers playing with the buttons on his chestplate, but he ignored it, knowing that the suit would return to the predetermined settings he had programmed years ago, the moment he exited the pod.

"Who am I?" he wondered out loud. "What am I now?"

The boy stopped what he was doing and focused all his loving attention on the former Dark Lord.

Two sets of incredible blue eyes met.

"How will I live with myself?" Vader's eyes bored into the child's, desperate for an answer he knew they couldn't give him. No one could.

The boy snuggled up to him, reached up and stroked his right cheek.

'I will help you. We will always be together.'

Vader grasped the little hand and kissed it.

"You belong with your aunt and your uncle. Your family," he tried to explain for the umpteenth time. His feelings about losing the only light in his life were of no consequence. "I wish I knew how to make you understand. You deserve better than a monster like me."

The child shook his head and pressed his face against Vader's shoulder plate, grabbing a handful of the leather covering his arm.

"I should be dead. I should have burned to death four years ago," Vader's voice seemed to come from far away, as the most ominous thoughts began consuming him. He looked away. "Why didn't I die then?"

A little hand covered his mouth, halting the stream of dark words.

The touch of Light brought Vader out of his sinister train of thought, and he looked down at the precious being he cradled in his arms. He smiled, but the smile never reached his eyes.

"I guess we were destined to meet, hm?" His gloved fingers caressed the boy's face endlessly, all over it. He never wanted to stop. "So I knew what absolute Goodness is really like. Goodness that was destined to redeem me." His eyes closed when a wave of excruciating pain slashed through his soul. "But why did it have to take so many thousands of innocent lives? Why?"

For the first time, the child seemed to feel helpless to comfort such infinite remorse. But then, with his characteristic gesture of unyielding stubbornness, he straightened up and placed himself right in front of Vader's eyes, cupping his cheeks in his little hands.

'Hold on to me.' His eyes reddened with a blending of emotion and passion that left Vader speechless. How could a four year old feel so much? Then, he felt a ripple of vulnerability in the Force. 'And don't ever leave me.'

Vader opened his mouth and tried to say something, but he was too overwhelmed to articulate the words.

"Do you really need me that much?" he asked at last, astonished.

The lovely face softened and shone with love. Love for him. All for him.

"Why? Why me?" Vader couldn't understand what he could possibly have that such a angel needed so badly.

The boy hissed through his teeth and the doors to his soul opened wide again, inviting Vader in.

Humbled by the gift of absolute trust he had been given, Vader shyly entered the boy's mind. Every childish need was right there in front of him, naked and exposed.

'Because I am the father you've longed for all your life!'

The boy threw his arms around Vader's neck and clung to him desperately.

Blown away, Vader returned the crushing embrace. He closed his eyes and buried his face in the little shoulder, inhaling the child's scent until he was inebriated with it. He smelled of a faraway desert, sprinkled with little flowers and soapy water. He smelled like... home.

Oh, Force, he so could relate to that feeling! He had been looking for a father figure all his life. He wanted to fill an emptiness in his heart that had been present since the day he was born. He had projected that feeling onto all the male adults he ever met. Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan, Palpatine... And none of them had ever fulfilled the need that seemed written in his very blood.

If he never had a father, how could he assume such a role for this child?

You already have. You unconsciously assumed it the first night you allowed him here. Because you need him every bit as much as he needs you. Even more. In your heart, he is your son

It was impossible. The boy already had a family! As for for himself...

Just then, the child stiffened in his arms. His every muscle became so rigid that it felt on the verge of snapping. He threw his head back in a gesture of agonizing pain and... fear?

No, it was more than fear. It was sheer panic.

Vader held the boy close trying to calm him, but the child grabbed his upper arm in a vice-like grip, looking up at him in terror. It was as if the life was escaping him through his every pore.

At first, Vader thought it could be a seizure of some kind, but when those dilated pupils met his, he saw the Darkness that was engulfing that innocent spirit.

And when he reached out with his senses outside the pod, a revolting nausea turned his stomach.

Palpatine was in the ship.

All reason deserted Vader. The cool-headed, calculating Sith Lord turned into a distraught man, whose only thought was protecting this helpless child who stood no chance against his master.

There was no time and place for them to run or hide. It was a matter of seconds now.

"Stay here!" Vader ordered the child, opening the chamber and depositing him softly on the leather seat, after the mask and the helmet closed on him again. Oddly, he could breathe perfectly now. "I will try to distract him."

It was hopeless and he knew it. He knew very well the reason that had brought Palpatine to the Executor. He wasn't the greatest, most gifted Sith Lord who had ever existed for nothing.

But then, a little voice reminded Vader that he was supposed to be the Chosen One, the one who would destroy the Sith.

Maybe that was true... in the past. But he was less than a man now. Half-man, half-machine, and with a limited ability to feel the Force and wield it.

Whatever he was now, it would have to do. This angel's life had to be protected at any cost.

A sudden flash of inspiration hit him then. He turned to the child when the pod was beginning to close.

"You can help me."

The terrified eyes turned to him.

"Remember how you've been blocking our repeated attempts to locate you with our scanners? You can use the same Force trick now to shield your presence in the room."

The boy smiled tremulously, making a visible effort to control his fear. His eyes met Vader's with a final plea.

'I don't want to lose you.'

"You will not lose me," Vader made the most sacred oath of his life, along with his marriage vows. "I won't leave you, Son."

Vader felt the child's heart skipping a beat at his last, instinctive word, as clearly as if it was his own heart. The eyes whose true colour he couldn't see now, looked at him with more love than he could stand to watch. No one would ever love him so generously, so unconditionally, for as long as he lived.

The love inside him reached out to encompass the tiny form as it disappeared from his sight, and hold it to the core of his being.

He wouldn't fail those he loved again. He was ready to die.

As soon as the pod closed, Vader felt the child's presence blinking out of existence. It was as if someone had turned off a light.

Still, if he concentrated hard, he could feel a sort of void inside the chamber that wasn't natural.

Praying for his master not to notice it, Vader entered his office.

Five.

He saw his lightsaber on the floor.

Four.

He summoned it up to his hand.

Three.

He attached it to his belt and turned about.

Two.

He called upon the Force to help him and guide him through his greatest trial.

One.

TO BE CONCLUDED...