"Again."

Luke didn't respond. He just kept lying on the floor, staring up at the ceiling, as a bruise bloomed on his temple where the butt of Vader's lightsaber had landed. Biggs, standing off to the side, fought the urge to kneel beside him and check he was alright. He'd already done that once, and Vader had dismissed him with enough venom to freeze the marrow in his bones.

"Cease being dramatic," Vader said again. "Get up."

He was right: Luke was just throwing a tantrum again, like when he used to pretend to be sick to get out of working on the moisture vaporators or go into school and deal with the likes of Camie and Fixer all day. Biggs had supported him on those occasions—it wasn't like he wanted to get out of the tasks for no reason; they were taxing and wore him down—but now he was just being mulish.

Vader was admired—and despised, by some—for how unflinching and uncompromising he was when he made his decisions. On Luke, that was called stubbornness.

"You nearly knocked me out."

"You should have ducked."

"You shouldn't have nearly knocked me out."

"The Emperor will not stop at nearly. Get up."

Luke kept staring at the ceiling. "You've barely spoken to me outside of yanking me out of the cabin to spar with over the last week."

"You require the practice."

"Am I your son or your punching bag?"

"Luke," Vader said, "if you were a punching bag, I would not have stopped at nearly, either."

Luke turned his head, so his cheek touched the floor, and he was facing Biggs. Biggs tried not to meet his gaze, but that was impossible, and so was looking away once he saw the tears on his cheek. Luke blinked until they weren't in his eyes, at least. Whether they'd sprung from physical pain or other types of pain, Biggs couldn't guess.

"Really?" He still spoke to Vader, but he was looking directly at Biggs. "You show people you love them by hurting them less?"

Biggs shifted.

"Get up," Vader said.

Get up, Biggs mouthed at Luke. Talking won't work. Just get it over with.

Luke furrowed his brow, then frowned deeply, then nodded. Biggs didn't know why he would take his word on this so smoothly, but he didn't want to question it. Luke stood up, shaking, and summoned his discarded lightsaber back to his hand. Its graceful arc was mesmerising, a tiny sign of Luke's power, before it snapped to life, crimson blade beaming.

"Again, then," Luke said.

In the stagnant week since they'd been moved into that cramped cabin, Biggs had not received a moment to himself—by design. His job was to accompany Luke. His job, as Vader kept emphasising where Luke could hear, was to watch Luke. Until now.

After the second training session of that day, in which Luke actually got the drop on Vader and managed to land an impressive hit on his helmet, Vader had complimented him for it.

Vader had complimented Luke many times in the last week, with increasingly cryptic and mocking phrases like the Force is strong with you and Most impressive. Hearing him say, "That was a well-placed blow," left Biggs floundering to try to identify the irony or superiority. Surely, it was there; Vader did not hand out random compliments. But Luke smiled.

Now, they were in Vader's quarters doing… something. Biggs didn't know what. Talking? Vader had dismissed Biggs back to their cabin then walked with Luke deeper into his quarters. Biggs hadn't heard a word they had said.

But, though his mind was spinning, he knew he shouldn't overlook this opportunity to do something himself, for himself. This was the first scrap of privacy he'd had in a week, and it might well be the last he had for a while, depending on how quickly Luke alienated Vader again, or vice versa. He lay on his bunk, wondering if perhaps he could nap soundly for once, without having to worry about every twitch Luke made above him, but sleep never came. Instead, he replayed that training session over and over in his mind, trying to figure out what had bothered him so much about it.

His hand figured it out before his mind did. It reached for his comlink and commed the Darklighter homestead. Several seconds after he'd selected the right frequency, he gritted his teeth, listening to it connect to the galaxy-wide network and waiting for it to be forwarded to Tatooine. It would be late evening in Anchorhead; no one would respond, surely? Salla would be too tired from her day working, Biggs's father ignored all calls he wasn't in the mood for, and—

Someone picked up immediately. "Biggs?"

It was Salla. Of course. She was something of a perfectionist. "Hi, Salla," he said. "I thought I'd…" He trailed off. He hadn't really been thinking at all. They hadn't spoken since the funeral.

She squinted at the holo. "Where are you? The Rebellion looks very dull. I thought there would be more explosions."

Her tone was light, teasing, but he didn't need to be a Jedi to sense the underlying concern in her words. She shouldn't have to mother him, a man barely a few years younger than her, so he cracked a smile in return. "Oh, there's no need to worry about me. I'm safe from any explosions for now."

"You're a Rebel pilot. Don't lie to me."

"I'm not."

"You are. Rebels explode." She said it so matter-of-factly that it turned his stomach. Rebelling slaves certainly did.

"I'm not a Rebel, that is," he corrected. "Which is why I won't explode."

"What does that mean?"

"What does what mean?" a gruff voice demanded.

Salla turned in the holo to gesture Huff over. "It's Biggs—"

"Tell him to stop bothering us unless he'll apologise and come back."

"He says he's safe. He's not a Rebel."

"So, he made all that big fuss for nothing?"

Biggs swallowed. Why had he called her? Why had he called them? They were both staring at him now, demanding answers that he didn't know how to offer in a way that would best satisfy them both.

"I was never a Rebel," he said. "I— I've been working for Lord Vader. He sent me as a spy, and I needed to spread the word so it would be compelling."

Salla's face… fell? It was hard to tell in the grainy image of the holo. She opened her mouth to speak, and from what few words Biggs caught, her voice was flat. "You've been working for the Empire?"

A snort. "And I thought you were a lost cause."

Biggs frowned and exchanged a look with Salla. Huff's arms were crossed, towering over his wife, but his attention was fixed back on Biggs. His scoff was painful across the parsecs, but the strange pride in his voice, alien to Biggs's ears, cut deeper.

"What?" Biggs asked.

"That's better than the Rebellion, at least. You haven't lost your senses completely."

"I—uh— This isn't why I called you." But: "You hate the Empire."

"When they come encroaching on my business and try to undercut me for water prices, yes." Huff rolled his eyes. "But if you're gonna waste your life in servitude instead of making money on the farm, at least the Empire keeps everyone else under control."

"Under… control?" Biggs tried, and failed, to close his mouth.

"With the way you and Skywalker ran around, I worried about you getting me into trouble with them. But maybe the academy was good for you." Biggs's stomach turned. "The Empire makes sure everyone remembers who, or what, they really are. I don't have to worry about crime or beggars nearly as much when I can throw them over to them."

Salla stared at her husband. But he ignored his wife, as ever, and kept talking to Biggs, more cordially than he had in years.

"You refuse to help me on the farm, so at least make sure the Empire keeps all these desperate, thieving scum off my property. I taught you to shoot that rifle for a reason."

Biggs went cold.

He had taught him how to shoot a rifle. He'd been eight years old, and it had been nearly as tall as him, but his father had said he had to do it. He had to learn how to protect the farm.

Biggs had refused. He'd cried. His mother had still been alive then, and he'd turned to her for support, but she couldn't do anything. His father had put that blaster in his hands and taught him to kill first, ask questions later. The Empire had liked that in him.

He knew that Beru had done the same to Luke. But he also knew that that soft, gentle family did not believe in killing first, only when there was no other option. And if Luke had cried and screamed about it the way Biggs had, she never would have forced him.

"You need to look after yourself and your own, or the desert will kill everything. Make sure the Empire looks after us, Biggs."

Talking won't work, Biggs had told Luke. Just get it over with.

Luke had believed him.

The Emperor would not stop at nearly. The desert would not spare you.

Where did these desert truths even come from?

Biggs nodded in agreement, not that his father was waiting for a reply. He tried to say something else, anything else, but he couldn't. So, he nodded at Salla and disconnected the call.

The blue light vanished. He sat, in the darkness of the cabin, and thought.

Talking wouldn't work.

Biggs gritted his teeth. He stared at his comlink, dead and quiet in his hand. The stillness of the cabin held him fixed in place for long, long minutes. It reminded him of the sort of dead quiet that dominated at home whenever his father was in a mood, with Biggs and Salla—and, even further back in his memory, his mother—tiptoeing around him. None of them had ever dared to break the thin ice keeping his anger at bay.

He used to take his T-16 and head to Luke's, then. After a while, Beru hadn't required any explanations. She'd smiled at him, hugged him without asking if he needed it, and ushered him inside for something to eat, telling him to mind the houseplants on the way in. Owen had nodded at him gruffly and not questioned it—not a warm response, but a useful one, when Huff would call Owen asking where his degenerate son was, and Owen feigned ignorance.

Tears pricked Biggs's eyes. Owen and Beru were dead. He would never feel that safety again. All of it—from the kitchen to their houseplants to Beru's soft, warm hugs—had gone up in flames.

The Empire never stopped at nearly. And it certainly never stopped to ask questions.

After he made his decision, he listened closely at the door. No one was coming. Luke and Vader were still wrapped up in their conversation, he presumed, or Vader was monologuing the way Biggs's father used to and Luke was listening to just enough to keep himself unharmed. He had time. That sort of training could last for hours.

Biggs only had the contact frequency because Luke had granted it to him once, when he trusted him, in a casual moment of trying to connect two friends. He still had it, and he had shuffled it away in his memory as he switched to his Imperial-issue comlink, and he typed it in now.

"Who is this?" Princess Leia's tone was sharp, no-nonsense, but not yet cruel. This could be an ally, calling from a cloaked comlink after all. The cruelty came a few moments later.

He cleared his throat. "Biggs Darklighter?"

A sharp intake of breath. "Why did you bring Luke to Vader?"

They figured out what had happened, then. Biggs wondered how quickly they'd concluded that he'd kidnapped Luke, and not that Luke was in on it. He figured he'd ask. "How do you know Luke didn't—"

"I know Luke." She'd known him for a month. Biggs bristled but didn't disagree. "Also, Artoo is here."

"What?" R2 and R5 had been captured by Vader's techs when last Biggs heard from them. Luke had asked after R2 many times since then, and Vader never answered.

"Artoo and Arfive escaped the Devastator on an Imperial shuttle before they could be mined for information. They returned to the Alliance several days ago and have both given a very thorough report on what happened to them."

"Loyal droids," Biggs said idly, throat dry. Vader… hadn't told him this. He must know, but he hadn't told Biggs, or Luke. That wasn't a good sign. Lying to Luke was one thing—he had his hands full as it was—but he was meant to trust Biggs.

Perhaps he just didn't trust Biggs's ability to keep Luke from reading his mind.

"A loyal droid makes up for a loyal pilot in this case. What did you do with Luke?"

"I think that's evident," Biggs said bitterly. But, he noticed: "You care about Luke."

"Naturally. I thought you did too. Unless the stalker behaviour was just to get close to him?"

"Stalker—!" He cleared his throat. "No! I want to help him escape." Her shock left a fleeting silence, and he took advantage of it. "I'm calling you because I care about him, I got the impression you do too, and I want your help getting him away from Vader."

It was the first time he said it. It sent a little thrill through him, not necessarily in a good way. How encrypted was his comlink? Would they be able to hack it? Where would this leave him?

Princess Leia, after her very short period of shock, was less impressed. "Escape? Tell me how he is, where he is, and how to get him to safety."

Biggs swallowed. Her love for Luke was overwhelming, even after so short a time. It was annoying. And just listening to it, jealousy shot through Biggs like poison, at the fact they were so close so soon, the same feeling he'd had when watching Luke and Captain Solo interact. Solo, Princess Leia, the Wookiee, even that blasted R2 knew this new Luke far better than Biggs did. They'd been by his side while he mourned his family and watched his galaxy change before him. Biggs had been far away, disappointing him.

But that just meant he could trust them to do what was best for him. The same way Vader trusted Biggs, except Biggs no longer believed that what was best for Luke was what Vader wanted. What fathers wanted, in his experience, rarely was.

So Biggs told her everything.

He probably told her too much. That stare of hers, even through the heavily encrypted comm that cut off any image, bore into him as if she were right in front of him. Before he knew it, every detail about Tatooine, about his love for Luke, about his expired loyalty to Vader was on the table, and she had the pick of which hand to play.

"This is unexpected," was all she said.

"Unexpected? Don't you have anything else—"

"What do you want from us?" she asked. Her tone was still level. Biggs knew she was Luke's age—born the same day, in fact, something that Luke had laughed at when they realised—but she sounded years older. He wondered if having her planet destroyed had done that to her, or if it came with being a princess. "You understand that you kidnapped our star pilot and murdered another pilot in cold blood."

"Koroban was an Imperial spy, I was protecting Luke—"

"Koroban was certainly not a spy." She sounded so certain that Biggs scoffed, but—"We did a thorough background check after Yavin. You accused us of taking Luke's safety lightly, but our desperation for pilots didn't outweigh our caution. All of Koroban's living relatives work for the Rebellion, and he's been with us since he was of legal age to join. He's as solid as they come—or rather, he was."

Biggs swallowed. "So, Palpatine's spy is still in the Rebellion." Which meant that Palpatine could know, right now, who Luke was and that he had been kidnapped. And Palpatine could trace it back to Vader and claim Luke. "You need to—"

"We're always keeping an eye out. But as you said yourself: secrets leak." Her voice was uncompromising. "Let us handle counterintelligence. We're evidently more effective at it than you are. We will find Palpatine's spy, without you. What are you planning to do?"

"I want to get Luke out of here."

"Because only now you have delivered Luke to Vader do you realise he'll be an abysmal father?"

"He…" Biggs hesitated. "He was a good mentor."

Princess Leia's voice was droll. "No. He was just the best mentor you'd ever had."

"And I don't want Luke to have that, so I need you to get him out!" His heart raced. "Please. Your Highness, I don't know when they'll come back, I don't know how much time I'll have—"

"We cannot break onto the Devastator. The scale of that sort of mission is unthinkable right now."

His heart stopped racing and plummeted instead, finding purchase somewhere near his spleen. "You… can't help?"

"But you can." Her voice grew gentler. "Get Luke off the ship. Anywhere else, barring Coruscant, and we may be able to assist you. But make sure Vader takes him somewhere—somewhere you both know well, perhaps. Then we can send in a task force to get him back."

He forced himself to take a deep breath. He'd bent over almost double on the lower bunk; his left hand, not holding the comlink, was gripping one of the ladder rungs like Vader gripped his victims' throats. After a moment, he released it.

"Are you doing this because he's your friend," he asked, "or because as the destroyer of the Death Star, he's valuable to you?"

"Does it matter?" But her voice was suddenly so flat, so diplomatic, that Biggs knew the answer. He smiled a little, hope an unidentified flying object in his chest. "Both motivations require us to get him back, to trust him, and ensure he survives this unharmed. Is that not enough for you?"

She hadn't needed to specify the unharmed. It made hope's wings beat faster. "It is," he said hurriedly. "I—"

"Contact me when you have a feasible plan."

Before he could try to express the relief ballooning in his chest, she disconnected the call. He slumped back on his bed, shivering. A smile twitched on his face.

After a little indulging in his relief, he squashed it down ahead, leaving his face blank. He didn't want Vader or Luke to suspect what was happening, when they got back. He still lived with mind readers.

But he would tell Luke—soon. When he had a plan.

When he fully had hope again.

It was after the next training session that Biggs got his chance to lay the foundations. Luke wasn't resisting the training anymore—he'd got the hint from Biggs that the fight wasn't worth it—but he wasn't jumping to get involved, either. One didn't have to be Force-sensitive to sense Vader's frustration.

"You are one of the most powerful Force-wielders in the galaxy," he lectured at one point, while Luke got up again. "There is no excuse for this performance. You are resisting the blade."

Luke looked down at the lightsaber in his hands distastefully. It wasn't his own lightsaber—Vader had confiscated that in the hangar, the moment they'd been frogmarched away—and the colour was bloody, a dark, unpleasant shade of red that had even Biggs's stomach recoiling. He wondered what Luke saw in it.

"I don't want this blade."

"Then make your own. You must fight a Jedi, take their crystal—"

Luke rolled his eyes. "I'll go again." He lifted the lightsaber into guard position.

But Vader lowered his. "This training is necessary."

"You've said."

"It is for your own benefit."

"I heard you the first few hundred times."

"Why are you being so stubborn?"

Luke's lips peeled back from his teeth in a snarl. "You think this is stubborn?" he asked. "Uncle Owen would laugh."

"Your kidnapper is dead."

Luke gritted his teeth, ducking his head so his fringe fell in his eyes and discovered the sudden spark of tears. Biggs saw them, anyway. "And I know who did it."

Vader's grip on his lightsaber tightened even further. He strode forwards, and Biggs hadn't seen him strike Luke outside of sparring ever before, but the way he walked was still setting off alarm bells, so he did something stupidly dangerous: he stepped in between them.

"My lord," he asked. "May I… speak to you?"

Vader was brought up short. For a moment, Biggs's throat closed—painfully—and he knew it wasn't his nerves doing it. But Vader looked from Biggs, and the way he was glancing at Luke worriedly, to Luke, and lowered his hand.

"Practise your katas," he ordered Luke. Luke had the audacity to roll his eyes, and Biggs marvelled at his courage. Vader, as Luke had pointed out, was far from Owen in patience or mercy, and a few weeks ago Biggs had not expected that comparison to be so unfavourable.

Once they were outside, in the room where Biggs had always debriefed Vader, he turned on him. "What is it?" he hissed. "It is not your place to interrupt."

Biggs swallowed. "If I may," he chanced, "I have… an idea… that may endear you to Luke."

"Luke is my son. I do not need to win his affection."

He nodded as if he agreed. "But in this case, it would help. He feels like you're an enemy still. How many close conversations have you had with him?"

"Many. You were not privy to them."

Many was a long stretch—Biggs had been asked to leave the room at maximum three times since they arrived so the two could talk—but again, he didn't question it. "Then perhaps actions will speak louder than words."

Vader paused, turning only his head to view Biggs. That sentiment was what had always characterised him as a leader, why Biggs had looked up to him. Many Imperials talked. Vader acted.

Biggs continued, "You keep him locked on the Devastator for weeks on end—that doesn't convince him that you care about him as a son, other than as another asset." Nor did hiding the fact that his beloved astromech was gone, but Biggs shouldn't know that, so he tried to bury that knowledge.

"He is my son. That is obvious."

"Not to him." Biggs worked his next few words for so long Vader almost seemed to turn away. "Is there a way to… prove… how much he matters to you? He can't enjoy his current quarters or confinement—"

"He is confined in his current quarters for the very reason of protecting him. If the Emperor were to learn of his existence, that existence would quickly be made a miserable one." Vader's tone was as monotonous as ever, but weeks of intimate contact were starting to unveil certain hints of emotion. Vader sounded… bitter.

"Will he be there forever?" Biggs tried not to shift on his feet. "Will you have to keep him a secret forever?"

"Naturally I will not. I will kill the Emperor and install Luke in his place. But until then, his existence must be a secret. I cannot compromise on this, no matter what petty rebellions he intends to put up."

Alright. Alright, that was… Biggs clenched and unclenched his jaw. That was a lot to handle, but it did tie in with what he wanted to argue, so he would use it now and process it later.

"He doesn't know that—"

"He does. I have told him."

Right. So Luke knew. No wonder he'd been so out of it. Not that Biggs and Luke spoke much, anymore, despite their close quarters interactions, but Biggs noticed these things.

"Have you demonstrated proof, though?" he asked. "I think… Based on that, there may be an obvious thing you can do to gain Luke's goodwill, prove you're serious about giving him the throne, and prove that you listen to his concerns as well."

"Do not waste my time. Make your proposal or leave. I can sense that Luke is not doing his katas."

Of course he wasn't. "Luke and I are from Tatooine, my lord," Biggs said. Before that spawned more rage from Vader—Luke had mentioned it once before and watched him explode—he hurried on: "We grew up under the yoke of the Hutts."

Vader paused again. Thinking.

"If you want to give him a throne and prove that you care about his personal experiences on that planet, the natural thing to do is destroy Jabba. Show him that one day, he'll be able to do that sort of thing himself, and make the difference he wants to see. That will provide him a target for his training and prove that you are willing to engage with him."

And with his past. Biggs knew nothing about Lord Vader's background, but he knew that Anakin Skywalker had been a slave on Tatooine. Everyone in Anchorhead knew that; no one acknowledged it in polite conversation. If Vader, too, had a vendetta against the Hutts…

"I have no intention of going back to that planet," Vader said.

Biggs hung his head. "Neither does Luke," he admitted. "He wanted to destroy the Hutts, but even in all his daydreams, he knew that no one person was powerful enough to kill them."

"He is," Vader said immediately, with that paternal pride that made Biggs's chest twist.

They looked at each other. Vader nodded once, sharply, then strode past him, back to the training room. Biggs's shoulders sagged.

Small victories, he told himself. The worst was yet to come.