A Hope in Hell
By Mina
Chapter 2
As the procession moved through the streets, deeper into the heart of the city, Vader could hardly recall his motivation for coming here. It had seemed utterly imperative at the time, utterly vital that he should visit the grave that he had hunted for so long. But now he had seen it, knelt in the mud with the mould and the dank air, he had to wonder - why? What had he hoped to find here, other than dead memories, shattered dreams turning stale?
There had been something winking evilly in Palpatine's eyes as he accepted Vader's trite excuses, but his shields had been iron curtains against any probe Vader might have dared to venture. Maybe the old Sith had known all along what Vader would find here.
"Chasing ghosts, my friend?" Palpatine had asked, eyes shining like twin yellow moons.
Burying his dreams was more like it. Burying them deep in the heart of Theed's rotting soul, next to her grave.
So perhaps Vader did know why he'd come here: to bury his past. Not to say goodbye, not to mourn - none of those things. They were unworthy of a Dark Lord. No, he had wanted to bury his memories under the drowning city. That was why he'd come; he'd found her grave, well over a decade too late, and Vader had come to finally, irrevocably chase her ghost away.
Instead, it looked like he might be joining his wife as another dead body amongst the ruins.
Vader's thoughts lingered on that possibility as the gang of youths carried him down into one of the catacombs that were scattered across the city, bearing him forward with high spirits. As an unruly crowd, they proceeded through the tunnels, going steadily down - down below the level of the floodwaters on surface, protected from the flood by ancient stone walls and ceilings that looked aged and worn in the thready light that crept into the passage.
The catacombs ended blindly on a cluster of rooms that clearly functioned as cells and Vader watched through his pain-filtered world as his captors retreated to a huddle after they laid him on a mossy tablet of stone. The queasy green light of insect repellers made his stomach throb sympathetically.
They locked him in one of the rooms and then dispersed, the water echoing their laughter. Vader grimaced in distaste; they were patting themselves on the back so hard, it was amazing they didn't fall over.
Silence descended on his cramped cell. Insects buzzed him, or flung themselves against the green repeller and died in a flash of emerald light. Vader closed his eyes. His pain was fierce, swamping him. Had he the Force, he might have dampened it a little, perhaps even enough to stand and explore his surroundings. But the Force danced away from his groping touch, and irritation ate at him. He was left with nothing to do but chase his own thoughts through his head.
- How had this gang of hooligans known he was there?
- How long before the Refutable realised he was not coming back?
- What had happened to his lightsaber?
- Should the Force return to Vader, and should he manage to escape, was his ship still intact, or had it been raided and stripped?
But despite his admittedly desperate situation, and despite accepting that those concerns should be foremost in his mind, none of those questions rang nearly as loud in his mind as this one:
- Who is the boy, 'Luke'? And why do I feel I should know him?
Sleep, when it came, was a mercy.
He was dreaming. He had to be, because the strange, weightless paralysis that had crept over him only came from dreaming or from meditating - and, denied the Force, he was certainly not meditating.
"I cannot just leave her here," someone said, and although Vader could discern from the voice that the speaker was male, he could make nothing more from it. The voice, and all sounds in his hazy, shifting dream, had an odd, monotone quality to them, as if filtered through a malfunctioning comm system. "There is a chance she might yet recover if -"
"She is dying," another voice interrupted, equally as watery and indefinable. "Though the medics might not be able to tell us why, they are certain she has little time left. It is a miracle she has lasted this long. It is only a matter of time."
"Then I will wait. I owe her that much."
There was a soft grunt of disapproval at that. "We should not have brought her here. It is dangerous, whilst she still lives."
Images appeared in his mind suddenly, flickering and flitting rapidly as though he had no control over his eyes, and his gaze roamed aimlessly across the scene. A bright room, a conference table. Ancient stone and polished marble - a Nubian building, then, and from before war had torn it apart. Two figures sat at the table, both with bowed heads, their features unclear.
"You should leave now, as we agreed. Every moment you delay here endangers them both."
The figure on the left stood, moved away from Vader's field of vision. His eyes tried to follow, but the focus was blurred and uncertain. "We did not expect her to survive the night when we agreed that. I cannot leave Padmé here to die alone."
"She would not be alone," the other man said, "if we were to allow her family to know of the situation. She could -"
"That would be dangerous. Too dangerous. If Palpatine were to hear of this..." The man trailed off into silence.
There was a long pause, filled with a stillness that made Vader wonder if the dream had ended. But then the second voice said, "I cannot wait with you any longer. I must return home... with my daughter."
"You must do what you feel is right, of course." Another long pause. The room felt chilly, suddenly. "As will I," the man added in a whisper.
Consciousness came creeping up on Vader despite his best efforts to avoid it. A nervous tingle of unease was working its way up his neck, and he again opened his eyes to the sickly green glow of insect repeller lights. He turned his head slightly to the side, despite the pain. Luke stared right back at him, both hands gripping a blaster, the barrel aimed squarely at a point between Vader's eyes.
He was too well trained to panic, too pained to jump up and attack. They regarded each other for long seconds that ticked away to the sound of dripping cave water. The repeller painted a finger of green light across the eyes of the boy, making them appear as intense as the emotions that rippled through the slender frame.
"If you intend to murder me, you should do it before I regain enough strength to defend myself," Vader said at length.
The boy's lips turned down in a frown that quickly transformed into a grimace. He shifted his grip a little. "It wouldn't be murder. It'd be justice," he said. The words echoed through the chamber. Uncertain, desperate - and they sounded rehearsed.
Vader tilted his head slightly. "Perhaps. Do it, then."
He watched, fascinated, as a fine tremor shook the boy's body.
"You want me to?" Luke asked, frowning, and the blaster dropped slightly. Those striking eyes widened in interest. His skin was heavily smudged beneath them, giving the impression of hours of worry and anxiety. Perhaps he had spent the whole night watching Vader's unconscious form, waiting for him to wake so that Vader would be conscious when he shot him -
But, no, that was not the impression Vader was receiving from his still pitifully weak Force sense. Instead, he had the feeling that coming in here was a rash decision, taken on an impulse, and that the boy was wondering what in all the hells he was going to do now.
Vader moved slightly, trying to alleviate the pain from his wounded thigh. The boy flinched, and his grip tightened around the blaster. It lifted again. Vader stilled.
"I have no wish to die a humiliating death in public," Vader replied. "You would be delivering me a mercy."
His eyes studied the scratched and taped-together blaster, and watched as the boy's grip on the weapon wavered. Vader's heart was beating a little too fast, and he found himself wondering which option he should be hoping for. Yes, his nonchalance was only a tactic to get the boy to put down the weapon, but it worried him that he sounded so certain. So desperate. Luke lifted a fine blond eyebrow, as if Vader had voiced his thoughts aloud, and Vader hurriedly tried to slam down his mental shields. He met only a sluggish response from the Force. Dismayed, he clenched his hands into fists.
That little movement seemed to catch Luke's attention, his gaze moving to Vader's hands. Then the boy shut his eyes, a look of disgust on his face as he let out a noisy exasperation. He lowered the blaster, shaking his head. His breath crystallised in the cold air as he stepped forward.
"This was a really stupid idea," Luke muttered, apparently to himself. And then to Vader, "Come on, we're getting out of here."
Vader struggled upright into a sitting position despite the pain. "You're a little young to be handing out executions," he said, his legs screaming at the brutal treatment. "And I do not believe your friends will be impressed with your actions."
"They're not my friends," Luke snapped angrily, and Vader was taken aback by the vehemence. Luke sighed nosily, waving the blaster. "They're…. never mind. Come on, get up."
"You realise it will not matter whether you kill me in here or outside. They will still know it was you."
"It doesn't matter."
"I see." He paused. "I doubt you will survive their retribution."
The boy shrugged, and for a moment he looked incredibly young and vulnerable. "Yeah, I know…" he whispered. "Come on, get up."
Vader stood slowly, the pain flooding his body. He gasped, and felt his thigh muscles begin to collapse from under him.
Luke looked up sharply and took a step forward, reaching for Vader even as Vader felt a wave of healing energy break over him. The shock of that Force-touch stole his breath and then returned the ability tenfold as his lungs gasped hungrily for air.
Incredible. It felt like a lock had clicked open.
The Force had not been returned to him, but he felt renewed. Buoyed. The boy clutched him, preventing him from falling and, remarkably, Vader found the strength to stand. He had to resist the urge to grasp the boy and demand to know what he'd done. The communication of such energy should not be possible unless a mental bond was present, which clearly was not the case. But that healing energy… it was undeniable… and inexplicable.
It almost felt... familiar.
But, no. That was plainly impossible.
He straightened his spine. His knees didn't buckle and send him crashing into the filthy water, as he had almost expected them to. Luke had slung a slender hand around Vader's waist and was trying to hold him upright. Vader looked down at the boy, watched the gaze turn stubbornly away from his own.
"How are you doing that?" Vader finally asked.
The boy looked abashed. "I… don't know. It just sort of happened when you started to fall."
Incredible - and impossible. Who was this child?
"You are not the sort of child I would expect to find collaborating with those… thugs," Vader said softly.
The boy stiffened. "Yeah, well, so what?" he snapped.
"Who are you?"
Luke shrugged. Another wave of healing Force took the demand for an answer from Vader's lips, but he heard Luke say, "You don't want to get inside my mind. It's even uglier than yours."
And Vader wondered at that, but it seemed unwise to anger his captor - or rescuer, whichever he was. "Very well," he finally said.
Luke didn't look particularly pleased with that response, but he said nothing. He attempted to urge Vader on a step, but despite their combined efforts Vader faltered and nearly went crashing to the cold water. Luke's hold on him tightened, preventing him from falling completely, but he still ended up on one knee. The boy struggled to pull him upright and, in truth, without the efforts of Luke's healing Force Vader would probably have stayed on knees indefinitely.
There was something terribly familiar about that touch of the Force, and something horribly disconcerting about the sheer strength of it.
"Come on," Luke urged. "We have to get out before they wake up."
Vader snorted. "From what I heard of their celebrations, I doubt any of them will be sober for some time." And hadn't it been frustrating, lying there listening to them drinking themselves out of their minds, utterly unable to take advantage of the situation?
"You don't know Jandon like I do," Luke said, and Vader didn't like the waver in his voice as he said it. The boy tucked his blaster into a patched-together holster he had strapped to his thigh. Vader stared at it for a long while, considering the situation - the boy was apparently fearful of the gang, and yet he had come to Vader in defiance of them.
Apparently to kill me, although that doesn't explain why I'm still alive.
"Maybe I haven't decided what I'm going to do yet," Luke said, with a strange wry humour, though his voice sounded strained as he pulled Vader back up to standing.
Vader stiffened. Had the boy pulled that thought directly from his mind? "I see..." he said at length, uncertain what concerned him more - that the boy was keeping his fate on a leash, or that he had slipped into Vader's mind so easily.
"Come on," Luke urged again, and Vader grudgingly acknowledged that going with the boy appeared to be the lesser of two evils. He took a step forward, and then another, each one somehow less painful than the last, cushioned by crude but effective Force use.
Clearly the boy's Force-skills were instinctive; he hadn't been taught. Probably he was a product of his environment, stumbling through life and surviving through whatever means he could, the Force coming to bear in his desperation.
It sickened Vader that the Force could be so twisted out of the measures of Light and Dark, and possessed him with a curious rage towards whoever had brought up the boy. He could easily recall the confusion he had lived through on Tatooine, when he had lived with an unknown supernatural power that some were scared of and others wanted to exploit.
And maybe that was what Luke was doing with this gang. If so, Vader felt a strange sense of anger on his behalf. Anger, and an uncharacteristic appreciation of the boy's gall.
Perhaps Luke had again picked up on his thoughts, because the boy faltered and stared up at Vader, casting him a look so full of longing and desperation that, despite the boy's support, it nearly brought Vader to his knees, stunned by the emotion behind it.
Bewildered by his own reaction to the boy and annoyed with himself for taking such an inexplicable interest in the child, Vader felt an urgent desire to do something to escape this situation. He gave the boy a push towards the lichen-covered wall and pulled the blaster from the holster, turning it around and pressing it to the boy's temple. The youth looked betrayed for a moment, and then his expression fell into one of distaste - with himself or with Vader, Vader couldn't tell.
"I should've known you'd do that. She always told me you-" Luke stopped suddenly, as if aware that he was talking to himself. He seemed to brace himself, but Vader didn't pull the trigger, and Luke frowned.
Vader shook his head. "She? Who is 'she'?" he snapped.
The boy clenched his jaw and looked down. "What you waiting for?" Luke asked.
Vader's finger hovered over the trigger, disconcerted by the misery beating off the boy. "You came here to kill me. Why should I not kill you?" he asked, as much to himself as to the boy, perplexed by his own hesitancy.
Luke lifted his gaze back upwards and smiled humourlessly, and it was... someone else's smile. So familiar, it plucked every nerve in Vader's body.
"I didn't come here to kill you - I... I came to rescue you." Luke shrugged, looking downcast and… lost. "Don't ask me why."
"Why not?"
Luke's lips formed a thin line of defiance. "Pull the trigger already."
Vader frowned, unused to being on the receiving end of such orders.
"I -"
Suddenly, the boy's fragile calm snapped. "For Sith's sake, pull the trigger! What are you waiting for?!" The words came tumbling out, and Luke's voice wavered with the telltale sign of tears. His breathing hitched and he grimaced. "Do me a favour - pull the trigger. I don't care. Pull the trigger!"
"Why?" Vader asked, and he felt destiny pressing at his chest.
"Why what? Why kill me? 'Cause I don't matter, and I never have! I'm just… just some orphan kid no one could be bothered with! So go on - you'd be doing me a favour."
A chill swept through Vader. "What do you -" he started to say, but was interrupted when the boy's eyes flashed in anger. That look…. It sent a quiver of anticipation racing down his spine. "Who are you?" he asked, and the boy flinched.
"Does it matter?"
"It does."
Still the boy remained stubbornly silent. His harried breath crystallised in the air. Vader's palm itched around the handle of the blaster. Suddenly, he felt anger clawing at his thin pretence of control. "Tell me!" he demanded. The words from one of the drunken gang members came back to him, in the disguise of an omen: Make him tell, Jan!
Perhaps his anger had fuelled his ailing Force abilities, because the boy opened his mouth then, even as he flinched. "Sky-" he started to say, and then choked on the word.
Vader staggered forward. The barrel of the gun dropped and before he knew what he was doing he was grabbing the boy by the front of his shirt, even as his injured knee finally gave out and he stumbled to the floor.
"Say it," Vader demanded, although he already knew what he would hear.
Luke grimaced, eyes red-rimmed with tears and a bitter anger. "All right, okay," he said. "I... my name... my name's Luke Skywalker," he confirmed with a sigh, looking aside. But, oddly, he seemed more relieved than frightened. "What are you waiting for, Father? Just shoot me and go."