Chapter 8
Luke looked at the Dark Lord, an expression of utter disbelief on his face.
"But…how…why…how can you be my father?" he cried. "You are the enemy of the rebellion! A murderer! My father was a great Jedi! I don't believe you!!" he cried, backing away.
Leia sighed. "Luke, he is telling the truth," she said. "You and I are twins."
Luke looked at Leia, shocked by her revelation. "But…how can this be?" He turned to Obi-Wan. "Why did you lie? What did you hope to gain by it?"
Obi-Wan grew uncomfortable at the young man's indignation. "I didn't entirely lie, Luke," he said in self-defense. "Anakin Skywalker, your father, was seduced by the Dark Side, and became Darth Vader. So in a way, Vader did kill your father.
"Hardly the same thing as murder, though," Vader put in hotly. "Is it Kenobi?"
Luke turned his eyes back to Vader, the pain and disappointment in them clear. "Why?" he asked simply. "You were a hero, a Jedi? Why did you do it? Why did you throw all that away? Why weren't you the father I always wanted, the father I always needed?" he asked, and then left the room, heading for the cockpit.
Han gave one last look at Vader. "For the record, I don't believe a damn word you've said," he said, shaking his head in disbelief. He turned and followed Luke into the cockpit.
"It is bound to be a tremendous shock to the boy," Obi-Wan said. "Give him some time to accept it."
Vader nodded, not wanting Kenobi to see how deeply Luke's words had cut him. Why weren't you the father I always wanted, the father I always needed? "Perhaps if he had been told the truth in the first place he would not have such a hard time accepting it," he said to Kenobi, his voice laced with angry resentment.
Kenobi nodded, acknowledging his own culpability. "Perhaps," he replied. "But what's done is done. I cannot take back what I said."
"He will accept it in time," Leia said. "I will speak to him."
Vader turned to her. "Have you accepted it?" he asked.
Leia looked up at him. "Not entirely," she replied truthfully. "I am truly grateful to you for everything you have done, but I still I have so many questions," she replied. "I know that you are telling the truth, though. I don't know how to explain it, but I …I just know."
Vader nodded. "Just as I knew you were my child even before I did the blood analysis," he told her.
Leia was silent, wanting to ask so many questions, needing so many answers. "Why did you do it?" she asked, voicing the same question her brother had moments earlier. "Why did you turn to the Dark Side? I know you loved my mother," she told him. "That fact is clear to me. So why did you do it? Why did you give up your life with her to be Palpatine's henchman?"
Her words bore no malice, much to Vader's surprise; yet they still struck at his heart, even in their simplicity.
"It was not as simple as that," Vader told her. "The emperor led me to believe that the Dark Side would enable me to save your mother. I was so desperate to do so that I believed him."
"Save her from what?" Leia asked. "I don't understand."
Vader sighed. Where do I begin? He thought. How do I tell you of the agony I went through for her?
"All my life I have been plagued with dreams," Vader told his daughter. "Portentous dreams. I foresaw the death of my own mother in a series of nightmares spanning over many months. After that, I learned to fear my dreams."
"You dreamed of the death of my mother?" Leia asked.
Vader nodded. "They began on the day she told me that she was pregnant with you and Luke. What started off as the happiest day of my life soon turned into the most terrifying, as that very night I dreamed of her dying in childbirth."
Leia was chilled by her father's words. "That must have been terrifying," she said quietly.
"It was," Vader replied simply. "And because of that recurring dream I became obsessed with finding a way to save her."
"And you thought that the Dark Side would enable you to do that?" Leia asked, starting to understand.
"Yes," Vader replied. "I allowed myself to be manipulated by Palpatine, who had managed to hide his true nature, that of Sith Lord, from everyone, including the Jedi."
"How was that possible?" Leia asked Obi-Wan. "How could that have happened? I thought the Jedi were stronger than that."
"Palpatine managed to use the Dark Side shield himself from us," he replied. "By the time we realized who he truly was, it was too late for us to stop him, or his apprentice," he said, looking at Vader.
Leia was stunned by this disclosure. It hardly seemed possible that the notorious Darth Vader, the heartless, ruthless monster, could have been motivated by love to become what he had.
"I knew nothing of your dreams, Anakin," Kenobi said, not even bothering to correct his slip.
Vader turned to him. "Of course not. You knew nothing of my marriage to Padmé. Why would I tell you of my nightmares about her?"
Kenobi nodded sadly, realizing Vader was right.
"Was that your name?" Leia asked. "Anakin?"
"Yes, at one time," Vader admitted. "But Anakin Skywalker died long ago. His life ended when he lost his angel."
Leia shook her head, utterly devastated to learn of the tragedy that had befallen her birth parents. "You truly loved her, didn't you?" she asked.
"With every fiber of my being," Vader replied. He was silent for a moment, speaking of his wife this way had reopened the wounds he had carried for the two decades since her death. "I sacrificed everything to save her," he said at last. "Everything. But in the end I lost her anyway, she died, just as I foresaw in my dream. The emperor lied to me, he used me, he used my love for her and my desperate need to save her to gain my allegiance, to purchase my servitude."
Kenobi listened to Vader, astonished by the acrimony he now felt towards his master. Was it possible that Vader finally saw Palpatine for the evil monster that he was?"
"The emperor is and always has been, pure evil," Kenobi stated, half expecting Vader to rise up in anger.
Leia nodded, her emotions raging through her. "He took everything from you," she said to Vader. "Everything! You see that now, don't you?"
"I see it all too clearly now," he replied. "If only it hadn't taken me a lifetime to do so."
"That is true," Kenobi replied. "But you have seen it, and that is what is important," he pointed out. "You have seen what he did to you and Padmé, and to your family, how he used you to destroy the Jedi, destroying the good man you once were in the process. The question is, what are going to do about it?"
It was the second time that Kenobi had asked the question, and Vader had no more answers now than he had earlier.
"What indeed," Vader mused thoughtfully. "My son hates me, resents me. He's right to feel that way, you both are," he said, looking at Leia. "I wasn't there for you, for your mother."
"Why? Why weren't you there for us?" Leia asked. "Why were my brother and I separated at birth?"
Vader looked at Obi-Wan. "You and Luke were hidden from me," he said. "I nearly died on the day you were born, and believed you had died along with your mother before you were born. I had no knowledge of your existence until just the other day. Had I known you were alive; things would have been so different. But what is done is done, and there is no way I can change the past."
"Why did you hide Luke and me?" Leia asked Kenobi. "Why did you take us from our father?"
Kenobi was surprised by her question, surprised she even needed to ask. "Why do you think, Leia?" he asked. "Your father had turned to the Dark Side; he was an agent of the emperor. If he had claimed you and Luke as infants, you would have fallen to the same fate that he had."
"You don't know that for sure," Leia countered. "Perhaps the knowledge that we lived would have made a difference in him, changed him."
"Perhaps," Kenobi acknowledged. "But none of us were wiling to take that chance."
"It has made a difference now," Leia pointed out, looking at her father. "Hasn't it?"
Vader couldn't deny that he had changed since learning of the existence of his children. "Yes," he replied. "Undoubtedly. Though I'm not certain what that change will mean, Leia. It is not easy to begin life anew," he reflected somberly.
"It is never too late for a fresh start," Leia told him.
Vader looked at her. "I'm afraid it is for me, Leia," he told her. "No doubt your leaders will be pleased to have me in their custody. I do not expect to be shown any mercy."
"They will be merciful if you help us," Leia told him. "You know the Death Star's layout thoroughly; you even know its flaws. Help us to destroy it, tell us how. That will go a long way towards gaining their trust."
"Not to mention Luke's," Obi-Wan put in, knowing that it was only his children's trust that Vader craved.
Vader considered this. He really did not care if the Rebellion accepted him; but the fact that the Death Star would be tracking them right to the Rebel base, where it would annihilate them all, including his children, made his decision to help them somewhat academic. What choice did he have? His life was now forfeit anyways, no matter what he did. He had committed treason by helping the rebels to escape; no doubt the emperor had already received a full report on his treacherous activities. Besides, if it enabled him to earn the trust of his children, it was well worth doing.
"I will help you," he said at last.