A Hope in Hell
By Mina

Chapter 5

It seemed to take an intolerably long time to reach their destination - time spent walking over uneven ground, ducking when they were told, climbing steps and then descending more steps. With his injuries and a growing sense of unease sapping his strength, it was a difficult journey for Vader. But eventually Jee called them to a halt and announced they could remove their blindfolds.

Vader's immediate reaction to their surroundings was wary disbelief. For a moment he thought they were back at the research station where Luke and he had spent the previous night, but then he realised that this structure was much larger than that one had been, and the air was cleaner.

But the layout was the same: a long, worn stone corridor stretching into the distance, with chambers branching off intermittently. Unlike in the other catacomb, however, these chambers were not sealed, they were open. Vader stared inside them, seeing the outline of clinical equipment in the shadows, the glint of metal in the half-light.

"This is a medical facility," Vader said, almost to himself.

"Not quite," Jee replied, before pushing past him and walking forward, the younger boys falling into line behind him. "It's actually an old biotechnology research facility." He turned as he reached the halfway point of the corridor, throwing Vader a challenging smile. "You coming? We're not in the shielded area yet."

Vader frowned, but even as he opened his mouth to voice the uneasiness that was putting his nerves on edge, Luke pushed past him. "Come on, Father. I've been here before. It's the research centre I was telling you about last night, remember? It's all right. Cold, but okay." And when the boy started walking down the corridor, Vader found his own legs following him.

They reached a closed door that might once have had a vacuum seal around it, but that had degraded years ago. As Jee cycled it open, Vader asked, "What did you mean by 'shielded'?"

Jee raised an eyebrow at that, pausing in his work. His gaze flicked briefly - suspiciously briefly - to Luke before he refocused on Vader. "Shielded from the trackers Jandon's gang have. This facility created the technology they're using, along with methods for shielding from it."

Vader stood absolutely still, suddenly aware that he was missing a vital wedge of information, the word biotechnology reverberating through his mind. He shook his head, turning to his son, who had fixed his gaze to the floor. "What 'trackers'?" he asked slowly, dangerously.

Luke bit his lip, clearly gathering his courage. Finally, he looked up just as Jee finished cycling the lock. "I didn't want to worry you -"

"Worry me!" Vader repeated, incredulous. "You didn't tell me that gang of thugs could deploy tracking devices because you did not want to worry me?!"

"Well, I -"

"Did you not think I needed to know? You let me assume they were tracking us manually. Had I known they had the technology to do so I would have -"

"I'm sorry, okay!" Luke suddenly shouted, the noise bouncing off the close walls. He was flushed with - was that anger? Embarrassment? Something else? Impossible to tell, with Vader's sense of the Force so damnably weak. "I couldn't tell you!"

Vader stared at the boy, at the agitation clear to see in Luke's tense form. There was something here... something more... something the boy wasn't telling him. "Why not?" he asked, his tone broking no arguments.

Luke looked away.

"Why not!" Vader repeated, demanded, and the boy flinched. A second passed, filled with taught silence. And then another. And another -

"Oh, enough!" Jee suddenly interjected, rolling his eyes. "We're not in the shielded area yet. You can argue about this when we get there, when we're all safe." And with that, he turned on his heel and walked off, the band of children scurrying after him. Luke broke free from Vader's stare and hurried to follow.

Vader narrowed his eyes at his son's retreating form, well aware that Jee had just thrown Luke a lifeline, and that his son had grasped it. The boy paused and looked back at him beseechingly, and Vader felt something inside of him turn over at the appeal to a compassionate side he didn't have.

But he couldn't stand here all night, simmering. And if he shouted any more at Luke, he might repeat the mistake of the previous night: his threat of choking the boy. And he couldn't do that again - never again.

Silently vowing to get some answers from his son about why he was here and what was going on in this ill-fated city, Vader strode forward.

Vader frowned as he took in the thick metal sheeting that lined the interior of the cavern. The frown deepened as he surveyed the raggedy occupants settling down against the walls, looking absurdly out of place in such a clinical setting. One boy, perhaps as young as eleven, held a lit taper in his hand, and Vader watched as he took a long draw on the stick and then passed it along.

"Don't look so disgusted, Vader," Jee laughed, brushing past him. "At least they pass it around. Most people in this city wouldn't."

Vader kept his mouth firmly disengaged from his thoughts.

Jee turned to Luke. He looked at him for a moment, a strange, sad familiarity in his eyes, and then shook his head. "Always said you would run, and damn the consequences."

Luke looked uncomfortable. "I guess…." He shifted his weight on his feet, clearly uncomfortable with the conversation.

Vader frowned again at the veiled conversation. His irritation flared. "Consequences?" he snapped, hearing the confusion in his voice.

At that, Luke averted his gaze. He looked so painfully young. And Jee… the scarred boy raised a jagged eyebrow. He opened his mouth to talk, but Luke interrupted.

"Don't, Jee…." Luke's face fell. His voice now sounded as young as he looked.

"I wasn't going to," Jee said. The boy looked at Luke with an expression of regret. Then he eyed up Vader, adding, "Though I think it's too late now, kiddo." He ran a hand through his thin hair. "Listen - you can stay here tonight: the next lab over is also shielded, and it's empty so you can have some privacy. Get some sleep. You look like you could use it." As he said it, he held out his hand for Luke's bag and the promised supplies and rations. "Where's the key?" Jee said.

Luke took out of his pocket and passed it over, numbly.

"It better work," Jee said.

"It does. Well, at least on that one station, anyway." Luke said, and then looked up at Vader warily, his eyes flashing to Vader's wounded arm. He turned to Jee, visibly bracing himself. "Look, I know I said you could have the supplies, but he's exhausted and in pain - can't you spare a couple of patches?"

The plea caught Vader off-guard. It was a pointless thing to have asked; the youth would not help them. He had only led them here in return for the supplies; there was little point appealing to him.

Jee looked at first irritated, then troubled. He shook his head and turned to survey Vader. "No. He doesn't need them badly enough. We need to save them."

"Jee, come on; just a couple?" Luke took a step forward in suppliance and Vader rested his hand on his shoulder, keeping him within protection distance.

Jeed looked aside. "No. Get out of here, kid. Go get some sleep."

Vader watched Luke's face fall in disappointment and betrayal. His lips thinned into a line of anger, and he sighed. "Come on," he mumbled to Vader, and turned to leave the room.

Vader's gaze was fixed on him, watching him go. He turned as he felt a hand on his arm, and Jee leaned in. "Make sure you get it all," he whispered. "His story, I mean. But go gentle or I'll do Jandon's job for him." He walked away, rifling through the bag Luke had given him.

Annoyed by the threat, Vader glared, but there was no real heat behind it. This young man was a minor player in his life, a minor irritation on their road back home. But his son... his son mattered far more.

Vader took an uncertain breath, his mind screaming at him that whatever Luke's story was, he just didn't want to know. But he knew he couldn't live in ignorance any longer; it was faintly amazing that he had managed to avoid demanding answers until now. He was long overdue having the brutal truth rammed through his heart. Slowly, feeling the pull of inevitability on his feet, he followed Luke from the room and into the medical suite in the next room.

Luke was sat on the floor, staring determinedly at his hands. He had managed to make himself incredibly small and insignificant, curled over his knees with his face turned away. Vader reached out an uncertain hand and just as quickly retracted it.

Ah, where to start? What to ask first - When? Why? With who? There was a sympathetic pain in his chest as he looked down at the bundle of misery that was his son. The mask of nervous defiance had melted away. He looked like a hurt child….

"You should not… have suffered… like this."

His left hand again wavered over Luke's shoulder. He heard the boy take in a shaky breath of his own.

"Don't…." Luke turned his face up to him, the grimace scrunching up the starburst scar on his cheek.

"I need to know," Vader said.

Luke's eyes looked huge in the dim light. "Why?" he asked, and it was a legitimate question. Why? Because he needed to know if there were further dangers Luke wasn't telling him about? Because of idle curiosity? Or because he wanted to know - for himself, as a father?

"For many reasons," he finally replied, and Luke didn't seem pleased with that answer. He shook his head. His lips were pressed firmly together, and his eyes were shining.

"You need to know but you don't want to know," he said, obviously working to keep emotion out of his voice. Vader heard it all the same.

"That is not true." But even as he said it, he felt Luke's keen gaze stripping him. "Tell me," he said.

For a minute, Vader thought his son would resist, but in the end Luke gave in and pushed his hands threw his hair, removing the bandana and displaying that scar on his temple again. "All right," he said, and then paused. "Where do I start?" He looked up at Vader, as if seeking guidance.

And it was a good question. Vader considered the answer for a moment, but one question was uppermost in his mind. "How did you come to be here?"

The boy wrinkled his nose at the question. "I… I don't really know. I mean, I know my mother was killed here just after I was born. Dané said-"

"Dané?!" Vader said, shocked. She had been one of Padmé's handmaidens, back before the Clone Wars. Words from a dream flashed through his mind - 'There are still those in palace who remember me and may help me if I am... discreet... in contacting them...'

"She told me my mother had died, along with the Jedi who was with her."

"Obi-Wan…." Vader muttered, more images from his dreams flashing through his mind. So, they were memories, those images that plagued him when he slept. How strange that the nightmares that haunted him now were images of the past, and not the future.

Luke looked up at him curiously. "Yeah, that was his name. I don't remember either of them. I wasn't supposed to be here. This wasn't supposed to be my life!" He took several deep breathes of the damp air. "I was… Dané said the Jedi was going to take me to Tatooine, but he was delayed."I think... well, Dané said my mother was dying and he wouldn't leave until she'd gone, but then the war came here and it was too late. He never made it to the ship, I think. I don't know. But I ended up staying here, somehow, with Dané."

Vader looked down at his black-gloved hand where it rested against his son's arm. But he said nothing. Somehow, he had the feeling that this would be his only chance to hear Luke's story. The feeling unnerved him. Eventually, he had to ask, "Did Dané raise you, child?"

Child. How did such a simple word gain such endearment, coming from a Dark Lord's lips? This was not right… it simply couldn't be right.

Yet, why then did it feel so right?

"Yes. Well - kind of."

"Tell me," he said, and it sounded like a command. If the fingers of Vader's left hand tightened any further, he was going to leave bruises. With a desperate effort, he forced them to relax.

Luke did not seem to notice; his eyes were closed and he looked distant, as if lost in memories. Vader felt the muscles in his stomach tighten.

"She did, for a while. But then... well, then Jandon and his gang, they looted our house, took everything. That was… that was when there was still some food left, and housing. It's probably flooded by now." Luke shook his head. Blond tendrils dropped into his eyes. Vader was halfway to brushing them away before he realised what he was doing and lowered his hand again. "They took me, too."

Vader swallowed thickly. Four simple words that spelled… what?

He looked away, almost unwilling to listen. When he looked back, Luke was watching him with wide eyes. "I'm not a member of Jandon's gang, I'm one of their slaves, Father. Dané… I think she resented me. She didn't put up much of a fight." Luke shook his head slightly. Something in his posture had again closed Vader's throat and that damn pain in his chest was back again.

"She didn't call for help," Vader said. He was not surprised to hear anger in his voice.

"She didn't want…" he gulped, "didn't want you to find out…."

"And I never did." Would apologising help? No, he didn't think so. He had done nothing explicitly wrong, anyway. At least that was what he told himself. How was he to have known? Naboo was a perfect place to hide an unbeknownst son, just as Tatooine would have been. "What did she tell you of your mother?"

Luke looked wistful for a moment. "That she died when I was very young. I... don't remember her. But Dané loved her, I think." His expression became forcefully passive as he added, "But she hated you."

Vader sighed mentally. He tried to picture the handmaiden, but failed. He had barely met her. And she, a woman he'd met only in passing and who hated him, had raised his son.

"She told me all about you," Luke continued, a pinched expression on his face. "What you did to the Jedi. To my mother."

A burst of anger flashed through Vader at that, but it died quickly, because there had been no accusation in Luke's voice, only a wistful sadness. "I was trying to save her," he whispered, and was only aware that he'd voiced the words aloud when Luke answered him.

"I know," he said.

There was a long silence. Vader reached out, briefly touched the scar on Luke's temple with his gloved fingers. "If she knew where Padmé's ship was, why did she not leave in it?" he asked.

Luke shifted uncomfortably. "She didn't know. I mean... I didn't know it was there until a couple of years ago. I... I had this dream... and I recognised some of the places, so I went to them and... I found my mother's grave - and I found this," he said, and pulled out a small bullet-shaped object from his pocket. Vader took it from him, and turned it over in his hand, recognising it immediately. It was a remote activator for a ship - more specifically, for a Nubian ship. "It was in a box... next to where my mother had been buried... it wasn't working. I figure it was damaged when she and the Jedi were killed, but I don't know. Dané was dead, so I couldn't ask her. And I couldn't get away from Jandon..." He trailed off, staring blankly into space, perhaps remembering all too vividly finding Padmé's grave - and Vader knew how that had felt.

Vader held up the device. It was taped together by duct tape and webbing. The power light blinked fitfully. "You repaired it," Vader said, unable to keep the flash of pride from his voice.

Luke glanced up at him. "Yeah, well, kinda. I got a location out of it and then it died again. It's pretty useless now."

For a moment, Vader tried to imagine what growing up on Theed's shattered streets would have been like. Post-war Naboo was a cruel simulacrum of her old, austere grandeur. It was an apocalypse of the Empire's making, though - didn't that make him ultimately responsible for this?

"If you had… been raised as you should have been, this would never have happened. I would not have allowed it."

Luke was shaking, just a little. "It doesn't matter, anyway," he said.

Vader clenched his hands. "Yes, it does. So Dané died... when?"

"I was seven. Since then, I've been.…"

"What, my son?" Was that the first time he had used that title? It felt oddly appropriate.

Luke looked aside. "You don't want to know."

Vader wanted to tell him that of course he did. He needed to know. If he knew all the details, he could set about reaping his revenge.

Luke seemed to catch that thought because he looked up suddenly. "Don't you see? That's exactly why you can't know."

But his imagination was running wild. The uses you could put a Force-sensitive child to in a band of mercenaries. Stealing, attacking, mind reading… The memory of Padmé's tomb came back to him, the sensory assault that had rendered him immobile for a second too long.

"It can be no worse than what I have done myself."

The admission shocked him, and Luke grimaced as the first tear slipped down his cheek. Inordinately distressed by it, Vader was thumbing it away before he really knew what he was doing.

"We're both slaves then, you by choice," Luke shrugged, suddenly, and he reached up and fingered the scar on his temple. "I had to be made to obey," he grimaced. "Nothing's ever hurt as much as that did."

Vader's anger was still rising, but it was a cold thing. Where he would have expected righteous fury, he felt only curiously saddened. "What did they do?"

Luke was really shaking now, and that troubled Vader deeply. "I… I was stubborn. I wouldn't obey them, kept running away." Luke was leaning towards him, Vader noticed, although his searching eyes were fixed on a point in the distance. Vader put his operational left hand on the boy's arm. He was icy cold. Uncertainly, Vader wrapped his arm around the trembling shoulders to pull the boy closer. So he could gain heat from Vader's body, he reasoned. Although why then did he not simply take off his cloak and offer it to the boy? Luke's forehead rested on his shoulder.

"What did they do?" Vader repeated.

Luke's fists curled around the wet black fabric of Vader's cloak, brushing the pile one way, then back again. "They had drugs from the research station. I thought I was going mad. I didn't understand they blocked the Force. But they couldn't break me, so they implanted a tracker. I was confused, I couldn't… I didn't understand what was happening to me. I ran away again, tried to get home, but Dané wasn't there. She... they'd already killed her. Then they found me again. The tracker… it tells them… you know… that's how they're following us, now."

Vader's arm tightened. "Relax," he said. "Breathe. It is only a memory - it cannot control you."

Ah, but who was he trying to convince? The memory of Padmé had been stalking him ever since his last fight with Obi-Wan, and whilst it hadn't controlled him, increasingly he had been seeing someone he no longer recognised when he looked in the mirror. The Corellians had a saying that if you no longer knew your reflection, it was time to change your face. Now he understood why.

"They followed me and..." His voice hitched, but he carried on talking as if Vader hadn't spoken, "And they were angry. Jandon was really angry and he... they took me back. I never really got another chance to get away, and I didn't dare, not after what they did to Dané to get to me."

"It was not your fault."

"I should have -"

"There was nothing you could have done."

"But that's not all…." Luke said shakily. "I attacked you. I attacked my own father. I'm…."

"Hush…"

It had been too many years since he had had to offer wordless comfort, and he was wholly unprepared when it was required.

"I hate…." Luke started to say. He stopped.

"Do you hate me?" Vader asked, waiting for the answer as he had waited for no other answer in his life.

Luke levelled his red-rimmed gaze on Vader, his shoulders stubbornly set. "No," he said. "No, I don't hate you."