Written for Whumptober Day 4: "Do you trust me?"/Taken hostage/Pushed.

"Are you sure this is the Jedi Temple?" Luke asked, peering down into the abyss. "You said we were coming here to meet a Jedi."

"Well." Aphra chewed the inside of her mouth and tilted her shoulders a little. "I did. It's not a living Jedi—"

"It?"

"It's a crystal!"

"A crystal?"

"A crystal possessing the soul of a dead Jedi."

"Oh." That wasn't what he wanted.

But… he'd come this far.

"And it's in this mine?"

"It spent hundreds of years in this mine." There was nothing false about that statement, but very little true, either. He narrowed his eyes at her.

She just smiled at him and skipped ahead. Luke swallowed at the narrow ledge they were standing on. Aphra had strung up guy ropes and harnesses around them while they shuffled along, but the dark grey rock still crumbled away underneath them when they walked. At one point she stepped on a spot laced with cracks and the whole thing went out underneath her.

Aphra just shrugged it off and bobbed on the end of her rope before she swung back onto the walkway on the other side. Totally heedless of the debris above them shifted by the vibrations, showering down in dust, particles, pebbles, stones…

"See? We're fine. Do you trust me, kid?"

"No."

"Dammit, you're smarter than you look." Luke scowled and she snickered. "Kidding. Mostly. But that harness will keep you safe, don't worry. This cavern has stood for a thousand years. It'll stand for a thousand more."

"Isn't that what they said about the Republic?" Luke asked quietly. Aphra didn't answer.

"Besides! The miners who used to come down here erected a bunch of shield safety measures—if someone falls, the shields will flicker to life and catch them."

Luke glanced at the rocks—some the size of his head—that had tumbled down into the darkness. "Why didn't they come on for the falling rocks then?"

Aphra shrugged. "Who knows. Maybe they failed years ago and no one bothered replacing them and that's why they abandoned this mining shaft." Luke went pale. "Or maybe they just respond to falling heat signatures. We don't know, kid, let's not find out."

That wasn't confidence inducing. But Luke followed anyway. He made it across the narrow ledge to the wider ledge where she was standing, and clipped himself onto the next safety rope.

He couldn't resist peering down. There was nothing down there. Aphra peered down as well and fired her blaster into it.

"Wait, what are you—"

He snatched for the blaster, but she flicked it back into its holster and he could do nothing but wince and stare at the plummeting bolt. Memories of the sandstone canyons back home crumbling at the slightest crash or bang while they raced to the Needle flared up…

But there was no bang.

The bolt went down, and down, and down, and down, and down. By the time it hit something, it was too far away to hear.

Luke shivered, clutching onto his guy ropes tightly. They were the only thing between him and oblivion. It was so cold.

"Well," Aphra said. "That would be a long drop and a sudden stop."

Luke was nodded dumbly, still staring down, when she seized him, spun the rope around him and jabbed a blaster under his neck.

"That would be unfortunate, wouldn't it, Vader?"

Luke sucked in a high-pitched breath as out of the shadows the walkway descended into stepped Darth Vader, ghastly mask and all.

"Aphra," he boomed. "I was correct. You were always going to be drawn back to this place."

"And I knew you were always gonna be chasing me," she got out with a grin. Luke couldn't do much more than blink and choke—one of the ropes she'd secured around him was around his throat, tight and painful. He'd heard about Vader asphyxiating people who displeased him; perhaps Aphra wanted to try a little irony here, too. The other ropes pressed too hard around his arms and ribcage, his waist, his thighs. They dug in like trails of fire. "So here's the deal. You get Padmé Amidala's boy, unharmed. And I get let go, and kriff off into the Outer Rim and never contact you again! I think that's a win-win."

"I do not engage in petty bargains with criminals."

"Hey! Hey there! Rogue archaeologist. That's the whole title that got the kid here." Luke glared sideways at her, but she seemed unruffled. The only person in the galaxy who could ruffle her was Vader, it seemed, and she was confronting him head on. "And it's not a petty bargain. Anyone willing to shell out that much of a bounty for some baby who's meant to be dead clearly wants them alive badly. I don't care why! I really don't! But you get him, I get away. If I don't get away…" She shrugged, the blaster tip pressing further into Luke's neck as she did.

Luke gasped. It was still hot from the shot she'd fired earlier.

Vader's gaze zeroed in on him, and stayed there.

"Threatening a Sith Lord is the height of folly," Vader growled. Luke shuddered as the temperature plummeted even further.

"Yes, well," Aphra shuffled closer to the edge to make her point, so Luke was practically hanging over the chasm, "I've been known to make foolish decisions—"

"But threatening a Sith Lord's son," Vader finished menacingly, stalking forwards, "is beyond comprehension."

All the colour drained out of Aphra's face. "What."

Luke didn't process it at first. He stared at Vader's approach, feeling his front grow warm and damp. Watched Vader light his bloody saber. Listened to Aphra think two things, very loudly.

One: kriff.

And two, peculiarly sad: why do all parents except mine care about their kids so much?

"I don't think you want to do that, Lord Vader," she said, panic rising in her voice. Her finger was trembling on the trigger, and Luke winced, but she knew not to shoot. She knew Luke was her only shield.

Luke wasn't a fan of being a shield.

He grappled for the Force, trying to find it in the slimy, slippery expanse of the dark side, and seized the ropes around him. Loosened their grip on his neck, so at least he could breathe. So at least—

"You know what, kid?" Aphra murmured. "That's a good idea."

A knife was out in one silver flash, and the ropes around him loosened. Luke heaved a sigh of relief—and at least that meant he had plenty of air to scream with when Aphra planted two hands on his back and shoved him into the abyss.

"Luke!"

Aphra jumped after him and grabbed him in mid-air. He tried to shake her away. "What are you doing—"

Cut ropes whipped around them, raising welts on his face and arms, but he still saw her cocky grin. It was only a little nervous.

"Getting us out of here, kid," she said, and then blue flared around them as the miners' old shields came to life.