A/N - I don't own Star Wars. Please tell me what you think.
As Leia and Chewie piloted the Falcon through hyperspace, Luke sat in one of the seats, cradling his stump protectively while he thought about what had just happened.
Luke knew he wasn't the only one to be relieved when the Millennium Falcon shot into the hyperspace vortex, well away from Vader's capital ship and had escaped the Sith Lord at the last minute, but the young Jedi apprentice felt as if a weight had been taken off of his shoulders. Feeling and hearing Vader's voice and presence made the already numb Luke relieved; he had felt oppressed by the very presence of the Sith in Bespin, but he had managed to hold it back during the duel, but after Vader took his hand off and was able to effortlessly speak to him through the Force, he had felt numb, cold and frightened.
And now he was left with the undeniable and horrifying truth. Darth Vader was his father. Luke was so sick and tired of the lies; Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru had always changed the subject whenever Luke had brought the subject of Anakin Skywalker up and Obi-Wan had always been silent for a moment before answering when they'd met after the old Jedi had stopped him from being killed by the Tusken raiders, but Luke had just assumed it was because he was remembering an old friend.
But now he knew the truth, Luke knew it was so then they spared him the truth. But the scale of the lies horrified Luke as much as the ultimate fate of Anakin Skywalker did.
Why, why did Anakin turn to the Dark Side in the first place?
Luke tried to think of the possible reasons, but nothing made sense to him right now; he was tired, bruised and battered, and he was numb all over.
"Good, there's no sign of any pursuit," Leia's voice broke him out of his thoughts but Luke was otherwise nonchalant about what she and Chewie had been doing for the last few minutes since their escape.
Leia turned to Luke and gave him a worried look. Ever since she had heard his voice, and seen the state Vader had left him in, Leia had been worried for him. Leia had always wondered if she were Force-sensitive. She had always been more aware of the impressions left by others, and after being hunted down by that woman, that Inquisitor Reva who had fought Ben Kenobi such a long time ago, Leia had been even more curious but she was unsure of who to ask for help in answering her questions.
But with Luke, it was something more.
When they had first met on the Death Star, they had instantly been connected. Like brother and sister. And she knew it was more than that. Even now she could feel his pain, and it was both on a physical and mental level.
"Come on, Luke, we had better get you back to bed. There's a medical frigate in the fleet," Leia said as she stood up, leaving Chewbacca in control of the ship.
Right now bed sounded like the best thing for him. He was so tired. "Sounds good to me," Luke gave a watery, tired smile and together they left the cockpit. "How are you doing, Leia?" Luke asked quietly.
Leia had given Luke the basics of what had happened on Bespin; how they had landed because the hyperdrive had played up and they were captured by Darth Vader and the stormtroopers, and how Han had been frozen in Carbonite. But Luke knew Leia was hurting; the revelations of the last few hours had shattered so many of his preconceptions and his rash action in rushing off to deal with Vader had been primarily motivated by his desire to see justice delivered to Vader for the crimes he had committed, not just against the galaxy and the Jedi slaughtered during the Purge, but also Luke's desire for revenge for how Vader destroyed Luke's family, but it had never occurred once to Luke what he would find, and he wondered if this was what Master Yoda and Obi-Wan's Force ghost had been trying to prevent. He wouldn't put it past them, either.
Luke could see Leia's expression and he felt her anger in the Force. He knew she was Force-sensitive like himself, and he was wondering if he should teach her some of the exercises he had learnt from Yoda to calm herself down. After the fight with Vader, the last thing he wanted or needed was someone else turning to the Dark Side.
"Vader just handed Han over to the Bounty Hunter, Luke," Leia's voice was a quiet, shaking, angry whisper. "All those times he wanted to get back to Jabba to pay him off, I kept fighting him. I shouldn't have done that."
Luke knew he had to be sympathetic, but he needed to give Leia the facts of life. "No, you shouldn't have done. Jabba is a very dangerous gangster, but at the same time you didn't want to lose him."
Leia was annoyed by Luke stating the obvious but she bit her lip. "Did I ever tell you how I met Ben Kenobi as a child, Luke?"
"No. You mentioned it but you never talked about it."
"It was when I was 10. I'd had a fight with one of my cousins and I refused to apologise. I had a temper tantrum and I left the palace with a guard trailing after me, but the guard was killed and I was taken prisoner and used as bait for Obi-Wan Kenobi. He came for me, Luke. He came for me."
Luke knew enough about Obi-Wan to know that the old Jedi Master had been watching him on Tatooine since the inception of the Empire twenty years ago, so that meant Bail Organa had known where he was the entire time and believed Obi-Wan was the best choice to save her.
"My father was beside himself when I got back home. He was annoyed and frightened that because of my need to act like an adult I had nearly gotten killed or worse," Leia looked down. "I've done it again. I cared more for myself and what I needed than what others wanted to do."
"Hey that's not true," Luke argued.
"No, it is. I got that guard killed and I endangered one of the only Jedi alive at that time. And now because of my arrogance, Han is a prisoner of one of the biggest gangsters in the galaxy," Leia's voice was rising hysterically, but Luke sat up quickly and wrapped his arms around her. Instead of lashing out in her hysteria, Leia sobbed into his shoulder.
"We'll get him back," Luke knew it wasn't going to be easy, but they could do it. They just needed to plan. He had no desire to rush in half-cocked as he had just done on Bespin, which had cost him a great deal and made him question everything he knew. This would take time and skill, and he would need to refine his knowledge of both the Force and do something about a new lightsaber.
X
Luke was glad of the privacy he finally had. Leia had just left after Lando and Chewie left in the Falcon, taking the droids with her, and giving him time to recover a little bit more. Luke stood up and went to the computer station. For the next few minutes, he tried to find out anything that Alliance intelligence had on any suspected Jedi Temples or artefacts. Master Yoda had shown him how to track down and open a Holocron, but if he could find any more then he might just find something to restart the Order.
Luke knew both Obi-Wan and Yoda wanted him to rebuild the Jedi Order, but he wasn't able to do that with the rudimentary knowledge he had right now. He needed to learn more about the various lightsaber forms; Yoda was a good teacher and Luke had picked up a great deal from him, but more than once the elderly Jedi Master had commented that he would need a different lightsaber at some point, as Anakin's was only just compatible for Luke.
Thinking of Yoda gave Luke pause. He would need to find a time to return to Dagobah without causing any problems. The Rebellion already knew he was a Jedi apprentice but Luke was reluctant to give them hints about the Jedi in the galaxy since he had already experienced some anti-Jedi sentiment and because he didn't want to accidentally lead the Empire to Yoda's hiding place.
But as he searched, Luke held up the results of the scan he had asked the medical droid to do. He had told the droid he wanted to learn more about his parents, using the DNA that was kept in alliance intelligence to access the records. He had done it before Leia had come in.
Hesitantly he slotted in the data.
Two pictures appeared on the screen, the first showing a handsome man with long hair wearing Jedi robes and the second, a beautiful woman with long dark hair, who bore a resemblance to Leia. But Luke dismissed it as a strange coincidence and he read about Anakin Skywalker and his exploits in the Clone Wars and Senator Padme Amidala. But what saddened him and broke his heart was the clip of his mother's funeral on her homeworld of Naboo.
Had his father, had Vader, been responsible for that?
Luke planned to find out sooner or later.