This is set in the same AU as my previous oneshot, Tenterhooks. On the website AO3, it has since grown into a series with the collaboration of the friend I wrote it for, but since that friend does not use FFN, nor does FFN allow for co-creators on a work or for works to be organised into series, only these two oneshots have been posted here; if you would like to read more of this AU, I recommend using AO3 to read the other instalments not written by me.
This oneshot is fluffy, with some angst, and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!
Fine clothes felt weird.
Trousers and breeches and shirts were meant to itch. They were rough, homespun in a way that was coarse and tough enough to keep you warm, to survive the winter. Delicate things broke, so don't be delicate—stay strong, stay worn, and your clothes should too. And never wear white. You'll never get mud out of the white.
You'll never get blood out of the white.
But the clothes Vader had dressed Luke in were... different. They were fancy. They felt like something Leia would wear.
Luke would have torn the ivory shirt off his back if his arm wasn't still filled with a dull, aching throb. Wounds from kyberblades hurt, even if it had been a good few weeks since Vader had captured him in the snow and Ben had been left... to an undisclosed fate.
And. Well. He'd torn off the first set of clothes Vader—his father—had given him.
Luke had spent several weeks locked in a room—locked in his room, he was beginning to suspect; or rather, the room that had been the nursery Vader and— and Luke's mother had prepared for their baby. When Luke had first been tossed in, the door slamming shut behind him, the floor had been dusty and untouched in years; he'd coughed up a fit and Vader had dragged him out of there to get the place cleaned before he was shoved back, the eerie toys on the shelves—knitted dragons and wooden model unicorns and ships and fake swords—still and silent, but sparkling. The eyes of the animals seemed to follow him as he walked through the playroom, into the bedroom beyond it.
The bed was far, far too small for him the first night. Then it was too big, as he complained to his visiting father about his back being sore the next day, and he'd hastened to have one of the servants' beds brought in. Then Luke's actual bed had arrived, and he slept much more comfortable now. He slept guiltily, even, knowing his friends, knowing Viceroy Organa, Ben—if they were even still alive—were certainly not experiencing such luxury.
Luke had spent weeks in that room, staring out the diamond-paned windows at the copse of trees he could see below. The gardens? Were those the gardens? He didn't know.
Whenever Vader visited, every day, and they would... talk... his questions were rarely answered.
When the tailored sets of clothes Vader had specifically ordered for Luke started arriving, he loathed them. He still loathed them. He'd destroyed the first set of shirts in a rage, glaring and shouting at Vader the whole time—get angry with me, I dare you, show your true colours, Lord Vader, betray that I'm not here because you actually care, give me something that will make this easier to bear—but Vader...
He'd flinched. He'd stared, clearly furious, clearly offended that Luke would rather remain in his stinking Rebel clothes still, but he said nothing, and his helmet made him seem otherwise impassive.
Luke had not seen Vader, his father, without the helmet since that fateful, failed, feckless duel that had ended so poorly. He flinched every time he saw that monstrosity enter his rooms.
But he hadn't destroyed the second set of clothes. Because they were accompanied by the servant who made them, who fussed over him, clearly nervous out of her mind, who begged him to tell her what was wrong so she could fix it.
That... didn't sit well with Luke.
He told her he liked them. He put the clothes on. He ground his teeth and made no complaint.
Now, he stood by the window and waited for his father to carry out his daily morning inspection, resisting the urge to tug at his billowing sleeves. It was hot in here; it was a muggy day. Naboo was a warm place.
Luke had been raised in Tatooine for a few years, until he was nine or ten, by old, distant relatives of his who Ben had clashed with often. He knew heat. But in Tatooine the clothing was prepared for the heat; in Naboo, the heat was apparently a yearly thing no one thought to anticipate nonetheless, and their clothing styles reflected that. He was sweating heavily in this room that faced east, the sun streaming in through the windows, and he probably stunk.
The key turned, groaning, in the lock, and the door opened. Luke recognised the strange, tinny, echoing breathing and turned around, trying to hide the fact that Vader's infamous horned helmet made him want to scurry like a rat and hide.
He was Toivo.
He was brave.
He was—and he had—hope.
"Vader," Luke greeted stiffly. He'd tried so long not to greet the man at all, but that just made everything more awkward.
"Luke," his father replied. He wore, as always, no weapons when he came to visit Luke. Was he afraid that Luke would use them, or was he afraid that Vader would use them? And what had happened to Anakin Skywalker's blue kyberblade, that Vader had wrenched out of his hand and shattered his world with?
Was it destroyed, along with Luke's innocence?
Luke turned away from him, back to the window, peering out at what he thought might be a little bird hop, hop, hopping along a tree nearby. He said nothing.
No matter. Vader apparently wasn't aiming for small talk, this time.
"I have been unable to secure you a tutor, as of yet," he said baldly, "and you need education."
"I had an education," Luke shot back.
"Your accent indicates otherwise." Luke scowled—what a piece of— "And the education of a lord's son is not meant to finish at twelve, child, unlike a commoner's. Can you even read?"
It was a good thing that question was rhetorical, because Luke was not deigning to answer it.
"But I am unable to find you a tutor," Vader repeated. "Not one who will arrive soon enough to be satisfactory, at least. The Emperor—"
Luke scowled fiercely.
"—has offered to send the best and brightest from Coruscant to teach you, but I do not know what you already know, or how much damage I have to undo—"
"Hey!" He spun around to glare.
"—evidently it is a great deal." Vader surveyed him. "So someone else will teach you for several weeks, to gauge what you know, so we can send for more specialist tutors."
"I don't need a tutor. I don't even want to be here!"
"And therein is part of the problem."
"So, what? Who's gonna teach me?" Luke scoffed, and raised an eyebrow at him. "You?"
Vader growled, "I am the Commander of all the Imperial forces. I do not have time to teach you every day, as much as—" He cut himself off. "But some of my men have experience teaching recalcitrant teenage boys during their leave periods, when they are not fighting with me on the battlefield. One of them will teach you."
"I can't wait," Luke drawled.
Vader didn't rise to the bait. Instead, he just examined Luke—the sweat under his shirt. "You are... warm?"
Luke crossed his arms across his chest. "I'm boiling. These clothes aren't exactly made for summer, you know."
"They are made for summer in this manor," Vader parried. "But... It's designed for maximum airflow, without that..."
He studied Luke. Then he studied the window.
"Can I trust you," he asked darkly, "if I open the windows?"
"You can't trust me at all."
Vader studied him for a moment, clearly weighing the situation in his head.
Then he sighed, and strode to the three large windows of the nursery, opening them slightly, making sure the lock was engaged. They were open far enough that Luke could maybe stick out his arm, but certainly not his head.
But they let the wind in, and suddenly it was significantly cooler. Luke relaxed, marginally; it was no longer quite so unpleasant.
Vader watched him. "You are welcome," he said. Luke didn't acknowledge it. "Your tutor will be here within the hour."
Then he strode out of the room, slamming and locking the door behind him.
Luke muttered a thousand curse words under his breath as he went.
He slumped into one of the nursery chairs, crossing his arms across his chest. What was a tutor meant to teach him? What would he even need to know as Vader's prisoner son that he didn't already know? Would this just be a load of Imperial hogwash, propaganda, ridiculousness? He would never fall for that.
He was Toivo.
It might be hard to remember, being shoved in a child's room, stripped of his weapon and treated like a stubborn son, but he was Toivo. He was the Rebellion's hope. He couldn't die.
That mantra had got him through worse things before. It would get him through this.
There was a chirping on his left.
He turned his head. On the inside of the window, perched on the sill... was a bird. The bird he'd been watching earlier.
It wasn't just a bird, he realised was… a starbird.
The symbol of the Rebellion.
The bird that, in cultures the Empire over, represented individuality, freedom, hope.
Each region seemed to have its own subspecies of starbird: though they all shared the crimson chest, and wings, the cooler areas of Tatooine had seen ones that were otherwise brown and coarse-feathered, while Alderaan's were red from head to foot, like they'd been painted in blood. The Naboo bird, here, had a shocking blue crest on its top and a wickedly curved beak and a beautiful song. It eyed him with one beady gaze, chirping lightly.
"Hello," he murmured, stepping forwards.
It hopped, chirping some more. But Luke had seen a lot of starbirds before—Leia used to have one as a pet, when they were twelve—and he whispered an incantation Ben had taught him that encouraged rapport with animals.
It was usually used to calm down terrified horses before someone got hurt, or to stop that raging bear from separating his head from his body, but Luke had used it on various animals before. It made for good propaganda, or just lifting men's morale, to see Toivo, the symbol, with a starbird perched on his shoulder.
The starbird fluffed its wings, which shimmered almost orange and maroon and all range of colours in the morning light, and cocked its head.
"Do you want something to eat?" Luke asked. He turned to the table by some of the shelves, where his breakfast plate still lay—he'd touched the fruit, but ignored the bread, and now he crumbled it in his hands, to leave it in a small pile on the windowsill. The bird cheeped happily and gorged itself, Luke smiling as it did.
Once it was full, it ruffled its wings again. Luke watched it enviously.
"I wish I was small—well, smaller," he mourned. "I wish I could fly away."
He closed his eyes, surprised at the tear that touched down on his cheekbone. So long as he was wishing for impossible things—
I wish my father wasn't a monster.
But wishes were wishes and dreams were dreams. He had to put his energy into hoping what was achievable.
When he opened his eyes, the starbird was gone.
He frowned, a little mournfully. Then he heard another chirp.
"What...?" He got down on his knees to peer out of the crack in the window, to see the bird perched on a branch just below it. It was a wide branch, thicker than Luke's arms laid flush against each other...
It was a branch he could climb.
The starbird stared at him. Twittered insistently, then hopped along it.
Luke tried to push the window to open farther, but it wouldn't. It was locked.
He glared at the locked mechanism, the strut that extended from the pane to the sill. It was clear where the key was needed, but there was no key in the nursery. Luke assumed it was the same key that fit the door.
Maybe...
He brushed his thumb over the keyhole and whispered the incantation unlock.
And hissed.
He jerked his hand back. His thumb now had a neat brand, in the shape of a keyhole, and was bright, bright red. Sparks flew from the metal—green sparks.
Of course it was charmed against incantations. Luke wanted to glare at it, glare like it was the eyeholes of Vader's mask, and his father could feel his wrath.
But if he couldn't use magic... Ben was not the only role model he'd had in the Rebellion.
He glanced around the nursery, already sort of knowing that he wouldn't find anything. It wasn't like children were regularly known to consider lock picks the most fascinating toys to play with—but he could improvise. Han had explained and demonstrated the concept of how a lock was picked to him many a time, and Luke had practised until his fingers shook. He didn't need a pick, or a needle, or a hairpin.
All he needed, he thought with a grim smile, catching sight on one of the dead-eyed toys on the shelves, sat there waiting for a child who was long lost to time, was a unicorn's horn.
The bird cheeped. Loudly.
"I'm coming, I'm coming," Luke hushed, and made his way over to the unicorn toy. He couldn't help but pick up the dragon while he was there: it was well knitted, and soft to cuddle—he... held it a little longer than necessary, revelling in the very faded scent of a woman's perfume on it; his mother's?—before he put it down again and turned back to the little model unicorn. The horn on it was a thin wood.
Not metal, as would be ideal, but Luke always had either an abundance of luck, good or bad, Han would say, and its very presence in his room indicated that his current luck was turning towards the good.
He took the horn in his fist, and made to snap it off, then paused. The unicorn looked at him beseechingly. The dragon looked at him judgingly.
He sighed.
Gripped the wooden body, and just... shoved the horn into the lock. The tip was narrow, very narrow—this was probably not the safest thing to give to a child—and he manoeuvred it through, listening closely for that click.
Click, click, click.
Finally, the lock gave, and he pushed the window open further. It squeaked faintly.
Luke froze.
The guards outside his door muttered and shifted, but didn't come to investigate the noise. He breathed a sigh of relief. Put the unicorn back on its shelf. Then clambered out to follow the bird.
It fluttered up to his shoulder smugly, the moment he set his feet on the branch. He shut the window to the previous width it'd been open behind him, then clambered along, enjoying getting to stretch his muscles like this after weeks indoors, enjoying the fresh air, enjoying the cool shadows under the canopy of the tree, and took in his bearings.
His room was on the corner of the manor, at the very back; as he scampered along the branch, taking care to stay low and behind as many thick sheaves of leaves as possible, he peered around the side of the manor, past the golden bricks. He could just make out the edge of the entrance courtyard from here, lined with those white stones and the winding path... and he glanced down to see how he could get to the gate. There was a path... there was a path to the gate... the fence—
The fence was unclimbable. That was plain to see.
And the gate...
There were so many troopers there.
So. Many. Troopers.
Were they here because Luke was here? Or was Vader holding a large strategy meeting, where Luke's tutor came from, which all the Imperial forces had to be here for?
Either way, one thing was clear:
Luke would not be escaping the manor at this time.
Instead... he eyed the other direction. Where the starbird leapt off his shoulder to fly towards.
There was a crumbling wall.
Overgrown with moss and flowers and made of hedge more often than not... it was a wall. It was taller than Luke, but this tree had a branch that went right over it, that he could easily drop off onto the other side.
And if he was out of his rooms anyway...
"Hey!"
The shout nearly had him fall out of the tree. He heard someone burst into the room and bellow, "The kid's gone!"
Well, kriff.
He scurried along the tree like a monkey, and—barely looking down—dropped past the wall, into the garden beyond.
It was sloped—he damn near twisted his ankle landing at that angle, but he rolled, and kept rolling, into a slight ditch behind a bush of hydrangeas. He thought he could distantly hear guards barking orders, voices still floating out of the nursery window, so he crawled under the bush and hid there for five tense minutes, peering out through the violet and white flowers.
Nothing.
Nobody came by.
Alright. He crawled back out—if he took a petty pleasure in how this white shirt would never, ever be white again, he wouldn't admit to it—and glanced around. He was on the side of a valley, the valley the manor was built on, presumably, and the path curved down away from him.
He was never going to manage to escape, he knew.
But he certainly didn't want to go back to his room and listen to a tutor try to brainwash him.
So he might as well explore!
The path was gravel and winding; it would be difficult to be quiet on, so Luke didn't take it. He wandered around the numerous hydrangea bushes lining it instead, appreciating the array of pink, purple, white and blue that bristled ahead of him—this place was an explosion of colour. If these were the gardens of the manor and Vader hadn't shown them to him yet, Luke thought grumpily, then that was another point against him.
The distant sound of running water drew his attention and he ducked away from the hydrangea pass, walking parallel to the side of the valley for a while, over a few bumps and twists in the landscape. The view was... staggering... from up here; he could see right down, to where a gleaming stream fed a large pond with a marble dais in the middle, and a large statue at the centre of that. The whole layout of the gardens was spread out around it, like a massive wheel, or like the centre axis the constellations spun on; he could see paths winding their way up and through what looked like a grove, or woodland, or forest on the other side. Luke itched to head over there, with the way the sun was pressing down on his head, but he was still curious about the water flow, and he followed his ears farther along to where a waterfall sang over tumbling rocks.
He stopped and stared for a moment, admiring the gurgling stream, the glass-clear water as it bubbled over the stones on the bed, then tinkled over step, step, step, under the path, to continue into a thicket of large leaves. Luke laughed in tune with the water, pausing on the tiny wooden bridge over the stream, then taking a seat on it, removing his socks—he had not been given shoes, as someone who was expected to stay indoors all the time, and thus far walking on the grass he had not needed them—to dangle his feet in the stream. He yelped—it was cold, and it tickled.
He sat there for who knew how long, just enjoying the curtain of water along the rock steps behind him and in front of him, before he peered farther ahead to see where the path led. The trees that grew up over much of the valley—sycamore, redwoods, all sorts he'd have never expected to see in a cold, rainy climate whose sunny days were as rare as this one—obscured much of it, but he could deduce that it veered right, suddenly, and was struck by a sudden curiosity of where it could lead.
He jumped up, leaving his smelly socks on the wooden bridge, and walked along the path to where it flattened, at the edge of one side of the basin of the valley, and the vegetation and undergrowth that had previously stretched to his ankles, then his waist, now towered over him. The leaves reminded him of nothing more than rhubarb leaves, but unless Vader's magic let him enlarge vegetables as a hobby, he doubted they actually were.
It was... nice, though. The broad leaves cast wide, thick shadows, creating a sort of dappling effect on the ground, and rotting vegetation underfoot was cool, if slimy, and soft to walk on, both muffling and echoing sound strangely. Weaving in and out between these massive plants was fun; he ducked between them, staring up at them—
—and that was how he ran into someone.
He yelped, and stumbled back, yelping again when he bumped into the stem of one of those plants—they were thick, and they were all covered in tiny, tiny spikes. Rubbing his arm, he peered up at the very tall man who'd come after him, and who now had a hand knotted in the back of his shirt.
"Come away from there," he snapped; his voice sounded vaguely familiar, but Luke couldn't quite place it. "What are you doing in these gardens? Were you invited!?"
Luke swallowed and hung his head. At least the man seemed to be only chastising him for that, rather than being here, or trespassing, or being a Rebel; he was far, far too tired of his guards glaring at him and spitting the name Toivo like a curse. It had been gratifying to begin with, but—
"Sorry, sir," he said shakily. This had to be the gardener—Luke had heard voices earlier, when he'd been crawling about, and he was fairly sure this man had been one of the more commanding ones. "I— I hadn't seen anything like these gardens before, they're beautiful, and I just wanted to—"
"Crush all the plants underfoot by wandering off the paths?" the man snapped. Luke cringed. He didn't mind pissing off any of Vader's soldiers, but he detested this for the same reason he was wearing the damn (and now dirtied) shirt—the servants didn't suffer his ire.
"Sorry, sir," he repeated. "I'm sure you work hard on this."
The man just scoffed, as if he found that amusing, and dragged Luke back onto the stone and gravel path. Luke winced at the feel of the gravel under his feet.
"If you don't like the path, wear shoes. Don't run around barefoot like an idiot. What is it with teenage boys and defying perfectly good social conventions just to needlessly get themselves dirty?"
Luke felt parented—no; that wasn't the right word. Scolded.
He hung his head, surprised at the tears that pricked his eyes. He wasn't crying about this; he could deal with it. But Ben...
Ben had been the last one to scold him. For running off into danger, for putting himself into the line of fire for Viceroy Organa and his men, for handing himself over to Vader half because he wanted to fight his father's murderer. You are fifteen, he had told him. War mage or not, war hero or not, you should not be in a war at all, and you should not be running after Vader!
Luke had run after him anyway.
Ben had followed.
And now... now Ben...
Where was Ben?
Was he dead? No— no, Vader had said—
But had he?
Had— had Vader—
"What? What are you blubbering about?" The man released his tight grip on Luke's shirt to grasp his shoulder and shake him lightly. "You're the one being foolish, you shouldn't start crying when your elders—"
"No," Luke stuttered, "it's— it's not that." He swallowed, pinched his lips together, and pinned his gaze on the ground.
Ben.
He flopped to sit on the path, swinging his feet into the mulch, and mouthed the name.
Ben, where are you?
"Lad, cheer up. I'm sorry if I gave you a fright." The grip on his shoulder leaned down and... patted it. Awkwardly. "Now where did you put your shoes? Your socks? You need to—"
"Luke," said a far too familiar voice.
A booming voice, rattling around in the confines of a mask.
It ignited something in Luke that he hadn't even realised he could feel, something more primal than magic, something more vicious than any flame or sword strike or snowfall could be—because that was his father's voice. That was Vader's voice, that was Vader, and that stupid kriffing mask, and—
—and Vader had taken Ben away from him—
He let out a wordless roar, spun around, grabbed a fistful of mulch, and chucked it.
Vader loomed from under the towering leaves of the plants like a spectre. Like a demon, like a devil, like death, the embersteel crowning his helmet with spikes, the helmet twisted like a gargoyle, his entire stupid aura one of destruction and terror and fear and Luke hated him.
But he liked the way the mulch splattered right onto that stupid, terrifying helmet's front, clinging to the embersteel like refuse, blocking his eye plates.
Stiffly, Vader reached out to wipe it off.
Some of it fell back to the path with a thud. Some of it lingered, in streaks and clumps and strings. Luke smirked at it.
The gardener was staring in horror—he'd grabbed Luke upper arm so tightly that it hurt, that he couldn't move it again, and was staring. "My— my lord—"
"It is nothing," Vader dismissed, surprisingly light-heartedly. "Your aim is impressive, young one."
Luke didn't know what to do with that.
"Where are your shoes?" he continued.
Luke bared his teeth. "You didn't give me any."
Vader hesitated. "Ah, yes. That's right. I... did not." A pause. "You did have socks, though, did you not?"
Luke just flushed red.
The fact that he suspected his father was more amused than annoyed by this chain of events was grating, though, and he glanced down stubbornly—only to snap his head back up when he heard, "Thank you for your prudence and attention, Veers. I will handle it from here; return to tutor Luke at the same time tomorrow."
The gardener—no. Veers released Luke's arm from his bruising grip and straightened up rigidly, snapping off a salute. "Yes, my lord."
Luke stared.
"You—" He scrambled to his feet to glare, though both Vader and Veers were so tall that he doubted it had any effect. "You're not the gardener!"
Veers stopped, looking down at him in a vaguely bemused if condescending, way. There was a faint smile on his lips as he said, "Did you think I was?"
"You're General Veers!?" Luke said. "You captured me!"
"Your father captured you, Toivo," Veers said. "I would assume you would remember that."
"I certainly remember you!"
"You didn't two minutes ago." He was smiling. He was laughing at Luke. So was Vader!
"You're—" he spluttered. "You're— you're not wearing... your helmet..."
"Ah. So you weren't looking at my face?"
"It wasn't worth looking at."
Veers barked a laugh, then. "You were raised by some commoners with backbones, weren't you?"
"Don't you dare—"
"It wouldn't be worth it. Kidnappers don't deserve the breath wasted talking about them." He turned to Vader. "Until tomorrow, my lord." Then he vanished back up into the sunlight, out of the patch of large leaves.
"Be patient with Veers," Vader chided Luke. "He is being patient with you."
"He's the tutor you were talking about?" There were so many things wrong with that statement, and Luke folded his arms across his chest. "He hates me."
"He hates the Rebels, not you."
"I am a Rebel. I felt his hatred pretty keenly in the snow when we first met."
There was... a minute flinch of the helmet, then, and Luke wondered what, exactly, his father felt about that day. The still-healing wound in Luke's arm. The casual cruelty his men had treated Luke with. He certainly hadn't punished them for it, though he'd expressed remorse over his own harshness.
"He hated Toivo. Not you."
"I am Toivo."
"You are not."
Luke lifted his chin. "That's an absurd claim. I am Toivo. I did all the things under that name, there is no one else—"
"Toivo is a myth. A construction of a view that Rebels held you in."
"That's ridiculous."
"It is the truth."
"No, it's not. It's ridiculous."
His father just stared at him. Luke frowned and glared.
He wondered when the last time was that someone had so thoroughly stood up to him.
"General Veers does not hate you," Vader changed tact, "because he hates the Rebels. He is to be your tutor, yes. And I have not kept your existence a secret, not among the household and not among my most trusted troops. Veers has a teenage son—he takes immense offence to your kidnapping, though less offence, of course, than I do."
"It wasn't kidnapping—"
"What was it but kidnapping?"
"I wasn't safe with you! And—"
"What evidence have you to indicate that?"
"Ben said—"
"Ah, yes. Obi-Wan. Ben." Vader spat the name. "I would not trust anything he says, little one. He has only endeavoured to fill your head with lies."
Luke didn't dignify that with a response. He wondered if Vader knew anything about how long his wife had lived, or what she'd decided to do with her son when she'd died.
He just turned away.
He thought he heard Vader sigh. "Luke..."
"What did you do to him?" His voice wobbled. "Where is Ben? What happened to him?"
"Why does it matter?"
"Why does it—!?" Luke spun around again. "He practically raised me, for years!"
"And now, one way or another, he will never see or poison you again. I will ensure it."
"What happened to him?"
"Why does it matter?"
"Because he told me not to come!" Luke shouted. "Because you captured Viceroy Organa and set that trap and he told me not to come, that I would only endanger myself and that you would break your word! And because I went after all, he followed, so if you hurt him, if you slaughtered him, that is my fault!"
Vader growled, "Ah, yes. Of course Obi-Wan did not want you facing me, or learning the truth."
"You nearly killed me! I think that's why he doesn't want me near you!"
"I did," Vader conceded. "I did not know the truth, then, because of Obi-Wan. But tell me this, young one: did I break my word, after all?"
"You stabbed me—"
"And I regret it. But you had challenged me to a mage duel; you should know the consequences. I hope you will be more hesitant when picking your opponents in the future. That was before I knew who you were, and I will not hurt you again, but answer me this." He loomed. "Even before I knew your identity, did I break my word?"
And Luke was forced to answer: "No. You didn't."
"Then he was wrong—"
"So what if he's wrong!?" Luke shouted. "People are allowed to be wrong! But did you kill him or not?"
Vader watched him for a long moment. Staring. The wind blew through the leaves and rustling them together; sunlight peered through the canopy to dapple Vader's helmet, and the mulch still on there.
"I have told you this already," Vader said at last. "I did not."
And Luke was floored.
"You— you didn't," he said dully. "You... didn't?" He'd— he'd been so sure Vader was lying before, but he was almost certain he wasn't lying now—
"I did not."
"I—"
"I wish to speak of this no longer." Vader folded his hands behind his back. "Will you walk with me?"
Luke couldn't find it in him to refuse.
"As you might have guessed," Vader said slowly, as they wandered down another path lined with bushes of hydrangeas. There were a lot of hydrangeas in these gardens. "These were your mother's gardens."
"Oh," Luke said. He hadn't guessed.
"It was her manor, in fact," Vader continued. "The Naberrie family manor is located nearby to here, a few hours' ride away—she wanted to be close to her family, still, when she married me, and we built a home for…" He paused, glancing sideways at Luke. "For our son."
"Oh." Luke gnawed on his bottom lip.
Vader continued, "She designed the gardens—hydrangeas were among her favourite flowers, which is why you may have noticed an abundance of them." Luke couldn't bring himself to laugh at the wry joke, but he did snort. "I… made some modifications, over the years, yes, but kept the rest of them largely untouched. They… remind me of her. And the child we were meant to have. I had them walled off, I didn't want to look at or walk through them and be reminded of my loss, but… I didn't want them destroyed. I had them renovated, after the fire. She loved them too much. She told me she used to dream of a golden-haired son who walked through the streams and the grass barefoot and played with flowers."
Vader tilted his head to look down at Luke's feet. Luke fought very, very, very hard not to flush.
"She would have smiled to see you like this."
Luke still didn't know what to say. So again, all he did say was: "Oh."
"I would enjoy showing you around them, if it would please you?"
"You're not going to shut me back in that stifling nursery?"
Vader paused. "Is it not to your liking?"
"Not being able to leave it is not to my liking."
"I… understand. I was intending to show you around once you had finished your first lesson with General Veers—in the meantime, I was preparing the manor for a tour I could give you. Show you… some things about your mother." Luke didn't know what preparations that would entail. Probably briefing the guards in even more detail. "Yet when I was making these preparations, Veers returned to inform me that you were nowhere to be found."
He added, then, amused: "And it seems that you found your way to her without my prompting, while my back was turned. I see, as ever, the twin blades of magic and destiny dance a dance no man can predict. You must have been drawn here."
Luke was not going to tell him that he'd only ended up here because he'd been running from the enraged guards.
Vader was a big man—a big man, with a cape, and a large, intimidating helmet. When he clasped his hands behind his back and turned his full attention on Luke, his shoulders shifting with the motion, Luke could feel it. It was like standing out in the desert and having the sun beat down on him with an actual, physical weight.
It was simultaneously pressuring and comforting, having his father, his enemy, look at him with that sort of focus.
"I assume you escaped through the windows?" Vader said lightly. He didn't sound angry—simply curious. "You tried to unlock the mechanisms with a charm."
Luke shrugged and hedged: "It didn't work when I tried it."
"So you tried it again?"
"I got out," Luke said vaguely. If Vader thought it had been magic he'd escaped with, not the horn of a toy unicorn, well… that could only help for future attempts, right?
"Clearly you did. Shoeless."
"Are you going to keep bringing that up?"
"Your feet must be sore by now."
They were, come to think of it. They stung with pinpricks, in the way that meant they were probably bleeding from the gravel. But Luke got out through gritted teeth, "I'm fine."
"As you wish."
They reached the bottom of the path, now, near the bottom of the valley, and it snaked off in two directions. Vader paused, letting Luke take a tentative step forward to examine both ways. One went more or less straight ahead, along the broader path towards the manor, which sat like a square buttercup on top of the valley; the other looped to the left, into the bushes, and seemed to eventually lead up the other side.
Luke did not want to go back to the manor just yet.
He took the left-hand path. Vader, waiting patiently for his decision, moved towards it when he did.
The path took a few steps down, from grey gravel onto smooth white stones, and Luke's feet were grateful for it. The hydrangea bushes were still plentiful, but he thought he saw other types, now—a quizzical glance at them was all it took for Vader to name them for him, even if he could've guessed what they were if he'd tried.
A bushel of pink, trumpeting flowers with crinkled petals. "Rhododendrons."
A similar flower, some slightly redder and some slightly peachier. "Azaleas."
Florid orange flowers that twined up towards the sun. "Candlewick flame lilies." They were Alderaanian, Luke was fairly sure.
Tulips. Irises. Daffodils.
When the path wove to the edge of a bridge, it suddenly bristled with flowers far bolder in colour than any of the others. A bright, royal blue, darker than cornflowers but lighter than irises, with a vibrant splash of scarlet in the cup of the flower, gold pollen dusting the anthers. They were shaped like lilies but smaller, the longest of their petals the length of Luke's little finger, and their stems stood as sharp and erect as any soldier.
"Starflowers," Luke said. The five-pointed petals made it obvious.
Vader inclined his head—half in acknowledgement, half in confirmation. "The symbol of your mother's family."
The symbol of the Skywalker family was swords, Luke remembered. At least, the first member of the house—Anakin Skywalker—had made it that. Luke had never understood why; perhaps now, he realised, he could ask.
But not this moment.
Another.
Instead, Luke just brushed his thumb against one of those stark blue petals and stepped onto the bridge. Vader's gaze caught on the bloody footprints he left on the white-painted wood, but made no comment.
At the bottom of the valley was a lake.
Luke stared out at it—he didn't remember much about his childhood, but Ben had told him that his mother had raised him for several years, before… before she'd died, on a quest to do something Ben had never explained. But he'd spent a lot of time in the dusty backyards of Tatooine, and even years later, he found himself appreciating water whenever he saw it.
The lake—or pond, perhaps; too small to be a lake—was as smooth and blue as a sapphire plane in some parts, and capped with waterlilies upon waterlilies in other parts. It was in a rough figure of eight shape; the little white bridge arced over the narrowest part, in the middle, surrounded by reeds and flowers. Luke stared out at it, straight ahead—there was a small podium, and a statue atop it, in the middle of one of the halves, but he couldn't make out who it was of from here.
Luke sat himself on the edge of the bridge, folding his hands over the slats and dangling his feet in the water. It was cold and soothing.
"Do you like it?" Vader asked Luke, watching him closely. Luke found that he had to nod.
"Yes," he said, and a smile tugged at his lips, for reasons he couldn't quite name. He tilted his head back, closed his eyes.
It was beautiful here, and peaceful, and calm—it reminded him of training with Ben in the vast gardens of the palace in Aldera, Leia spying on them through the bushes when she was meant to be in dance class, laughter pealing louder than the gushing of the fountains when she was caught. He smiled wider.
Vader's concern was… a large reason he was smiling, as well. The fact that Vader cared so much… wanted his opinion…
He opened his eyes again and looked at his father head on. "I love it."
He'd heard that his mother's manor had burnt down the day he was born.
He'd heard that it had remained a ruin until Vader had decided to spit on the ashes and rebuild it as his own.
Now, knowing the truth… he wondered if Vader was desperate for the restored gardens to strike the same chords in the son as they had in the mother.
Everything had been ashes, before.
But now Vader was rebuilding. Trying to.
He supposed…
Luke smiled, hesitantly, straight at him. Vader seemed to freeze; Luke had no idea if he was smiling back or not, but he suspected he was.
Luke couldn't fault him for that, could he?
They were out wandering the gardens for hours, but eventually the sun began to dip towards the horizon again and Vader reluctantly turned back towards the manor, citing military and household and imperial business to attend to. Luke bit his tongue and followed him back up. His feet were, by now, utterly filthy.
A housemaid gave him a scandalised look when he walked in, then an… oddly affectionate one. He supposed he looked more like the commoner he'd been raised as than a lord's son, a ragamuffin, in a muddy shirt, torn breeches and bare feet. But Vader's hand was heavy on his shoulder, pushing him forwards, so he acquiesced—
For a moment.
He paused, though, for another moment, before Vader led him up the main staircase to the child's nursery. The staircase was wide, large: it had two individual flights of stairs that looped on either side before coming together in one broad set on the next level. And hanging in the centrepiece of those two flights, right in front of anyone who came in through the door… was an oil painting.
It showed the valley.
It showed the pond.
It showed the bridge.
And it showed two people standing on it.
Luke stopped. Vader tried to tug him along, but paused when he realised what he was looking at.
Luke's mother looked just as beautiful as she did in all his distant memories, in a wedding dress of white and pale blue lace, her train trailing all the way back to vanish amidst her beloved starflowers and hydrangea bushes. The man beside her… Luke recognised only distantly. He had seen him scarred, staring at him with beseeching blue eyes in the snow. He had never seen him like this, with a full head of hair the colour of Luke's, wearing the dress robes of a skilled mage and staring at his new wife like she held the sun and moon in her heart.
Their hands were intertwined, resting on the side of the bridge. The whole beautiful view was laid out before them, but they only had eyes for each other.
Luke blinked fiercely; he was tearing up.
"Luke," Vader said softly. "Come."
The servants milling about them were definitely trying not to gape.
Luke nodded quietly and continued moving up the stairs.
Once he'd placed him back into his rooms… Vader didn't close or lock the windows, Luke noticed. Intentionally. He'd glanced at them, still open—including the one Luke had escaped out of, opened wider by the guards who'd figured out where he went—but had made no move to close them.
So. Naturally, that evening, about an hour before he estimated Vader was going to come to eat dinner with him, he snuck out again.
He hadn't noticed it with Vader, because of course his father scared all sentient and non-sentient beings away from him, but these gardens were… empty. Other than Veers and Vader, he'd seen no one else in his time wandering them. Even when he'd heard guards cursing earlier, they'd been cursing outside the walls; they hadn't entered the walled gardens. Why not?
Were they walled off for a reason, other than Vader trying to keep his own sanctuary away from him?
Luke—wearing socks this time, though still no shoes—dwelled on it as he walked back to the pond. Sat on the bridge, dangling his feet in the water. When he got up again to walk around the pond, to where the podium in the middle was joined to the bank by a winding path of steppingstones, he made a beeline for the nearest bush, plucking a few bushels of the hydrangeas and turning back to hop across to the island.
He had a suspicion who this statue depicted.
Sure enough, his mother's face looked almost identical to how she did in that painting of his parents' marriage, though… harder, from the white stone and the severity of it. Her expression was stern but in a comforting, familiar way—if Luke cast his mind back, he could remember that expression, how she used to fix him with it, in her parental concern; it set something too painful to be nostalgia ringing in his chest.
In the statue, her right hand rested on her belly. It was slightly swollen.
He sat down cross-legged in front of her, nervously rolling the flowers between his fingers and glancing up at her every so often. The setting of the sun had turned the horizon aflame, setting gold sparking in her alabaster eyes, before he finally worked up the courage to say:
"Hello, Mama."
He hadn't used that name in years. He could barely remember it.
What mission had she gone on, that had killed her? Why had she entrusted him to Ben?
Why wasn't she there?
The feel of the flower stalks in his hands was familiar; he remembered what Leia had taught him, when they were sitting in the gardens of her palace, and it was more muscle memory than thought that had him looping the stalks round each other, chaining the blossoms together. He barely looked at his work, his gaze fixed on his mother.
"Where are you?" he asked gently. The world was blurring into shifting pillars of light; he blinked to clear the tears. "What happened? Why—" He coughed, a tear escaping to run down in his cheekbone, cheek and jaw. "Why did you leave?"
Why did you leave my father?
Why did you leave me?
"What did you see in him, that you loved him so much?" he whispered. "And what ended it?"
His mother had founded the Rebellion. He knew that—it was a source of pride.
His father had helped found the Empire. That was a source of shame.
Where had they split?
What disagreements had they had?
What had happened?
And… had Padmé still loved Anakin, in the end?
Had she still loved Luke?
She must have.
Right?
The flower crown in his hands was light as a feather but as heavy as chains. The blue petals were soft against his hands.
He dropped it.
And then he bent over and cried.
"I don't know what to do, Mama," he sobbed. "I… he's Vader. I'm Toivo. And you were Starflower. I don't know what to do."
The statue, of course, did not answer. Dusk was settling in like a veil drawn over the garden and one glance up at the purpling sky, the manor's dark shadow, the fire-bright lights that shone in all the windows, told him it was time to go.
In one of the windows—his window—he could see a broad figure silhouetted.
Luke stood. His mother's statue was life-sized, it seemed, so he was about on a height with it when he stepped up onto its pedestal. It was easy to reach up and drape the crown of blue petals on her head.
A brief wind stirred; smaller petals tugged free of the crown and danced around her in mid-air. Luke felt that same wind tug at a strand of his hair, tucking it behind his ear.
My son…
He headed back to the manor.
When he reached the gates of the garden, the two men standing guard there started and stared at him. He just gave them an impassive look as they grabbed his shoulder and hauled him out.
"Let go," a voice ordered. They let go immediately.
Luke looked up. Vader was striding for him, the back door of the manor standing ajar behind him, spilling honey light into the night. Vader's helmet caught the shadows in an eerie, intimidating way, but the manner he in which grasped Luke's arm and ushered him forward with was distinctly parental.
"I was going to invite you out for dinner," Vader chided. "But once again, you were gone."
"I wasn't hungry."
Vader glanced at him—and did a double take when he saw Luke's tear-stained face. "Are you… well?"
"I wasn't hungry."
That wasn't what he'd been asking. But neither of them addressed it.
Vader said, "I need to get you a pair of shoes."
Luke always woke up early, here—the servants were bustling through the corridors outside from the early hours, so he woke with them. He watched the sky change its dizzying array of colours from his window, tilting his head to see if he could see the statue from up here. The trees were in the way, obscuring much—he suspected that though he'd been able to see Vader last night, backed against the light, Vader had not seen him.
He didn't have long to wait before Vader came again. Not with breakfast, this time.
He'd kept his promise sure enough. It was with shoes.
"You seem fond of those gardens," was all his father said. "Would… would you care to take another walk with me, before we breakfast downstairs?"
Luke took the shoes hesitantly. "Downstairs?"
"I think," Vader stated, "neither of us have anything to gain from you staying cooped up in here."
Luke smiled.
"Sure," he said. "A walk sounds great."
Luke had thought that there wasn't much he hadn't already seen. He was wrong. There were all manner of paths, trees, waterfalls—even a sheer drop with merry streams tinkling over it, at one point, gushing into a pool that fed the pond below.
The shoes were too big for him, but if he tied them tightly enough it was no issue, and the soles of his feet were grateful for them. He even had the energy to run or climb a little, now, and he did, with great vigour—at one point, a great apple tree arched over the top of the valley, and he clambered into its boughs, staring out over the patchwork of colour. The pond was the centre of it all, as he'd noticed before—the touchstone all the water gardens and streams and pools fed into, like webs of silver.
"Come down, Luke," Vader called up to him, though he could hear the reluctance in his voice. "The gardeners will not be best pleased if you fall and crush the flowers."
Luke snorted. "Glad to know it's the flowers you're concerned about," he called back down.
"The flowers are delicate rarities. My son once threw himself off a bridge into an icy river and survived," came the response—though he didn't get the impression Vader was happy about that.
Luke scurried back down again, landing in a crouch. "You remember that, huh?"
"It was reckless and foolish of you."
"You were swinging a sword at me!"
Vader tilted his helmet. "I concede the point."
Luke glanced back up at the tree he'd just vacated. He was hungry, slightly—he wondered if these gardeners would be so angry at him if he just… took one of those apples…?
He swiped at one and bit into it. It was sour.
"Those are cooking apples, son. They are not recommended to be consumed without first cooking them."
"Yeah." Luke chewed and swallowed it anyway, then threw the rest of the thing into the undergrowth. "I got that. Hopefully the gardeners won't mind my theft."
"I am sure they will not."
Luke glanced up at him. This part of the path was shadowed by the trees, fairly narrowed, and he was standing closer to the dark lord than he'd realised. The sunlight through leaves cast a pretty dappling effect on his armour.
"How many gardeners are there?" he asked. "How many people are allowed in? It doesn't seem to be many—it's dead quiet around here."
"All the better for the wildlife," Vader said simply. "There are several trusted gardeners who maintain the valley. I had these gardens restored in your mother's memory, when I returned to this manor—to ensure that no one would disrespect that memory… I am the only one allowed in, without express permission. Veers yesterday was the exception, and only because I was searching for you."
Luke raised his eyebrows. "I have to ask you for permission every time?"
"Clearly you do not have to; you are perfectly skilled at sneaking in yourself." Luke flushed, but Vader made… a strange noise. It sounded like laughter. "But no—I informed the guards that you also have unconditional access, now, after the way they treated you last night."
"All they did was grab my arm."
"They would have done worse, for trespassing in Lord Vader's gardens, son of mine or not." His voice was grave. "I have ensured that will never happen."
Luke didn't ask why—he knew, exactly, what Vader's answer would be—but he did feel compelled to say: "You stabbed me."
"Indeed." Vader's gaze moved to Luke's arm. "And nothing like that will ever happen again."
He said it so fiercely, Luke had no choice but to believe it.
They kept walking. Luke was tempted to ask more about who Vader gave permission to enter the gardens—especially when he caught a glimpse of a mousy-looking man he was pretty sure was military, not a horticulture specialist, hiding in the bushes and giving Vader encouraging nods—but he didn't. They continued walking in silence, until they were back at the pond, and the statue stared at them across the water.
There was a wrought-iron bench here, under a trellis of hanging flowers, between a patch of irises and a hydrangea hedge. Vader lowered himself onto it with a faint grunt and Luke… perched beside him, awkwardly. He absentmindedly reached for another bushel of hydrangeas and started weaving them together in his hands.
Vader didn't comment on it—Vader wasn't even looking at him. He was staring, in fact, at Padmé… and the crown of flowers still seated on her head.
"I see," he said, voice oddly thick, "what you were doing last night in the garden that was so important. She looks beautiful."
He glanced down, at Luke's still-moving hands, and tilted his head. "Is this creation a common hobby of yours?"
"It's soothing," Luke shot back—defensively, almost, but he also just felt awkward. The pink petals in his hands smelt sweet and he let that calm him down. "Leia taught me how to do it when we were… twelve or thirteen."
Vader sat for a moment in quiet. "Leia," he mused. "Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan, I assume? That Viceroy's daughter?"
"Yes, her."
"Did she send you to face me, to rescue her father?"
Luke gritted his teeth. "No. Rebel Command were going to let those people die. I ran away to face you on my own choice—not even Leia knew."
"Then you are truly my son." Vader sounded oddly happy—if chiding—about that. "But you know the Organas well?"
"Yes. I spent a lot of time in Aldera in the last few years." He twisted the stalks between his fingers and didn't meet his father's eye, despite the act he could feel the whole weight of his attention on him.
"Alderaan is behind Rebel lines, since you destroyed our main fortress on that front and the Organas reclaimed the land it was defending," Vader observed—not in any aggressive way, but Luke winced at the reference to his attack on the Death Star military base. "It makes sense that you would spend a great deal of your childhood there."
"I spent some in Tatooine as well," he volunteered.
Vader… froze.
Turned his head to stare.
"What?" he asked.
"I lived in Anchorhead," Luke shrugged, "with some distant relatives—the Larses, they raised me for a few years along with Ben—"
"Obi-Wan took you to Tatooine!?"
"Yes? It was safe from the Empire."
"But not, young one," Vader ground out, "from slavers."
"I—"
"I assume you know of the superstitions about mages there?"
"Well, yes, but it wasn't any more dangerous than being on Imperial soil—"
"You have no idea—"
Luke regretted bringing it up.
He distracted himself, he decided, by finishing the pink flower crown in his hands and placing it on his own head.
Vader paused at the sight. Luke flushed.
"It suits you," Vader observed, amused; his anger still vibrated, but less potently. "Matches the colour of your cheeks perfectly."
Luke just blushed harder.
"Well then," he said, standing up and pulling out the other flower crown he'd made, in pink and purple petals as well as a few blue. "I guess I'll give this one to Mama, and not to you."
Luke was across the steppingstones and at the statue in a heartbeat. Vader hesitated to follow, but follow he did; the image of that massive man teetering from stone to stone lightened Luke's spirits.
Once he was on the podium, though… he stopped. His helmet turned away from Luke and towards the statue, his limbs stilling. Then he reached up one arm to caress Padmé's face, her cheek, then dropped it down to place a palm on her belly.
In that moment—in that one moment—Luke felt infinitely sorry for his father.
"Mama's already got a crown," he said softly. Vader nodded, turning that same tender gaze he'd given Padmé, and her unborn child, onto Luke. "Do— do you want one?"
A pause. Vader looked between Padmé and Luke… and though he couldn't see his face, Luke thought he might have smiled.
"I would love it, young one."
"Sit down."
Vader lowered himself to sit against the pedestal, stiffly, so he was at eye level with Luke. Luke smiled at him and reached up—
And cried out.
Vader shot up immediately. "What? What happened?"
Luke had yanked his hand back, taking heaving breaths, the force of the retreat having broken the crown in two. He gritted his teeth, nursing his right hand—the fingertips were red and raw; burnt.
"The spikes on your helmet…" he said weakly.
"Embersteel." Vader's breath hissed out of his mask. "It's a rare substance, heats up in close proximity to a mage who lacks the knowledge to control it—the more unchecked power, the hotter it gets. Did Obi-Wan teach you nothing?"
"If it's a rare substance," Luke spat back, "then I've never had reason to learn. Why do you have that sort of thing on your helmet!?"
"It is a symbol of—" Whatever he'd been about to say, he cut himself off. "Never mind. Let me see your hand."
Luke had already muttered a healing spell; sparks prickled along his fingertips, then they were done. "It's fine," he insisted. Vader inspected it anyway.
"Adequate," he conceded. Luke scowled.
"I'm perfectly good at healing myself—"
"It is not your skills I am doubting—"
"Well, that's what it sounded—"
"Is it broken?" Vader interrupted, waving his hand at the crown. "Could you fix it?"
Luke hesitated. "I could." He picked at it for a moment, and then it was whole again.
"Good," Vader said. And then he took off his helmet. "Now, there is no problem."
Luke had seen his face before.
In the painting, in the snow… he'd looked into his father's eyes and seen himself reflected back, seen a multitude of emotions cross a face scarred so fiercely it was almost unrecognisable. Almost.
But that didn't mean it was any less of a punch to the gut when he saw the tender gaze that was given to Padmé, then to him.
When he saw the shy, terrified smile his father fixed him with.
Hesitantly, tentatively, Luke reached up and settled the lilac flowers on the crown of Vader's bald, pasty head.
His father smiled wider. Luke smiled back.
"You look nice," he said.
Vader straightened up. "Thank you, my son."
My son. It… meant more, when he could see his face, see the similarities, and see what made his father human.
There— there were so many emotions piling up in Luke's chest now, his heart was ready to split the way his face split into a grin, and—
He hugged him.
Vader let out a quiet gasp when Luke thumped into his chest. His hand instinctively came up to cradle Luke against him, the touch a gentle as the breeze, and Luke thought he heard the tiny hitch in his breathing.
The hug didn't last long enough, but perhaps Vader was feeling as overwhelmed as Luke was; he stepped back, towards the edge of the podium, away from Luke. Regret crashed across Vader's flash as hurt flashed across Luke's.
Only for, suddenly, mischief to rise up in its place.
He took a forceful step forward, again, and pushed.
There was a shout, a gasp, and a splash.
Luke was vaguely aware of the man who'd been in the bushes earlier gasping and rushing out, glaring at Luke—cut off only by Vader's laughter.
"It's alright, Piett," Vader said, eyes twinkling as he looked up at his son, standing over him… and the statue of his mother, beside him. "But if Luke wants to play underhanded, he will have to brace himself for the same tactics."
Luke was barely aware of the rush of magic, the gust of wind, before he too was face down in the pond, soaked to the skin.
"Hey! At least I didn't use magic!"
"Well then," Vader rose out of the pond, water sluicing off of his every limb, "you should have thought about it."
Luke splashed him. Vader splashed him back. Luke splashed him with magic—and it continued, escalating, until Luke realised that theirs was not the only laughter he could hear.
The breeze blew around them, carrying stray hydrangea petals, flecks of pollen and the scent of a perfume half-forgotten in rings of colour… and Luke wondered if she was still with them, after all.