Vader is on Hoth, tracking Luke and fighting his own memories; Luke is on Dagobah, pondering the mystery of Darth Vader.
# # #
The Admiral was definitely an incompetent fool and possibly a traitor. Either way he lay dead on the deck, a fate that was too merciful but Vader had neither the time nor the interest to linger over a more fitting punishment.
Of course the Rebels were on Hoth. That explained his Visions of Luke smothered in mounds of white, encased first in ice, then in water. But he was not dead. The Force would not let him die because unlike Padmé, he was Its Child. The Force would protect Luke, though It had cared nothing for his loving mother and little for his Jedi father.
Hoth.
His Desert son must have been so cold here.
Heat gathered like living Fury, ice liquefying under his boots as he stormed through passageways. Rebels did not possess the patience or equipment to chisel to this extent; they had allies. He sensed the work and desperation of natives pulsing inside the walls. Animals of some sort. He halted as another Vision entered his mind. A great, shaggy creature, as hairy as a Wookiee but its coat white and smeared with blood. Carnivores then. They must have feasted on Rebels, and that pleased him until he imagined them feasting on his son.
The Millennium Falcon blasted free of the huge cavern. He clenched his fists, but it didn't truly matter. His son was not on it. His son was not on the base. His son, so nearly in his grip, had evaded capture and escaped to an unknown destination in the galaxy. Fortunately the Falcon without its primary hyperdrive would travel slowly, and its safe destinations were limited and easily monitored. It would be the perfect bait for his son.
"My Lord, we've found evidence of Skywalker."
He whirled, overtaking the soldier as they neared a med bay. It was a compact treatment center, but there was little left: a half-drained bacta tank, towels, rumpled sheets on a medical bed, and—
"Here, sir."
A clipboard, sheets ripped off in haste, leaving the top portions stuck to the fastener. Skyw. He released each scrap, hoping for an indication of what injuries his son had suffered, but it was in vain. He tossed the board aside with a snarl of frustration. The remnants of flimsi crumpled before he caught himself and opened his hand. He could feel his son. In the room, in the bed, on the report. Luke's signature, strong in the Force, surrounded him, heady with promise, almost too Light to be redeemed to the Darkness. But it was Luke. He knew it was Luke.
There had to be more.
He followed his son's Force signature like a relentless wolf stalking a clever prey. It led him to a room with three bunks left in disarray as its occupants fled. "Contact the Guild," he commanded his aide. "Have their best bounty hunters report to me."
The fourth bunk that belonged to Luke was made up neatly, heavy blankets folded at the foot. Someone must have done it while his boy was in sickbay. Luke had friends. That knowledge woke deeply-rooted Memories that he had not been able to completely expunge despite two decades spent suppressing them.
Ruthlessly, he pushed them back again and returned to observations, clinical, impersonal.
On the wall behind the bed was a poster. The Rebellion Needs YOU! it proclaimed, emblazoned with a romanticized illustration of a pilot who was likely a figment of an artist's imagination. It was a travesty; his son should be the poster boy for the Rebel Alliance as Anakin Skywalker had been for the Republic.
Perhaps he should distribute such posters himself. It would raise every bounty for Luke's capture, emphasizing UNHARMED in bold letters.
There was little more to be found here. Someone had taken all the belongings, including whatever belonged to Luke. He has friends. Those attachments could be used. Intelligence had emphasized the importance of Luke-Leia-Han, an unlikely trio composed of the traitor princess from a destroyed planet, a lowlife smuggler scum, and the Child of the Force. Capture of the other two would lure his son because he was a Skywalker, and Skywalkers never left a compatriot behind, be they friends, soldiers or…droids.
The security footage from the Death Star had stunned him. He'd thought them destroyed or dismantled long ago, but there they were, the two most important non-humans from the Before Days: Threepio and Artoo. The Force had worked in logical ways, indeed, when It sent them to his son. Artoo would protect him, and Threepio would make him laugh when his days were difficult. When his friends were lost, the droids would be there for Luke.
He didn't know why he was harboring such weak thoughts. He wanted Luke to be alone, to turn to his father as his savior and, someday, as his master.
He was moving toward the door when he hesitated and stared back at Luke's bunk. It was about a foot off the floor, and he wondered. Was it possible…?
A Sith Lord knelt for no one, save the Emperor. But he would kneel for his son and their future union.
It was painful and awkward, but he lowered himself fully and reached under the bed, sweeping his hand beneath it.
He found what he had hoped from a Child of the Desert: a Memory Box. His son had left his Memory Box behind, and no one had thought to pack it, hidden and protected as Luke had kept it. It was unimpressive, made of flimsi with smudged, illegible markings on the lid. It should have been crafted with care from Desert wood; still, considering the circumstances it appeared relatively intact, patched along the corners with tape. It was an unexpected treasure, and he smiled, his heart swelling with satisfaction.
This is Luke. Now his thoughts belong to me. He is mine.
His shipboard meditation chamber held the belongings that traveled with him wherever he went: extra life support units, repair kits, bacta patches, and the ever-practical duct tape. But the few truly personal items he owned were well concealed. Responding to a wave of his hand, the secret drawer slid open. It would be a safe place to keep Luke's Memory Box, hidden with Anakin Skywalker's Box and a sapphire hair clip. They were the most important and forbidden trophies he'd retrieved from the former Jedi Temple months after his surgeries, more priceless to him than the precious artifacts salvaged for Palpatine's pleasure.
In the Before Days, at the battlefront, he'd carried the delicate clip with him in his pocket and often fell asleep clutching it to his chest, remembering the night she'd lost it. How she'd brushed back her curls and felt around their bed, searching, until she saw his smile and knew he had taken it. He had intended to return it to her someday but Fate had intervened, and suddenly there had been no angel to miss it, no cascade of dark hair to bind.
As his Master, Obi-Wan had known of his Memory Box, but to him it was simply an empty container, a child's rough carving from dune driftwood, for he had no interest in Tatooine culture despite being mentor to a Son of the Desert.
Yoda, however, had been aware of the significance of the Box because Yoda had spent hundreds of years studying obscure planetary traditions. Dwell on the past, you should not, Yoda had lectured him, suspecting that his heart was haunted by his mother and devoted to Padmé. He did not doubt that Yoda knew he loved them both.
Anakin's Memory Box had been sealed when he'd died and assumed the mantle of a Sith Lord. Not destroying it was another weakness, evidence of absurd sentimentality for which Sidious would severely punish him should he learn of it. But he kept it despite the risk. It was the safest place to store old Memories, where he would never have to remember them. Or lose them.
He had no qualms about trespassing in his son's Memory Box. It would hold clues about his son that his investigations hadn't discovered, certainly images from a childhood in the Desert, years of training by Kenobi, the Jedi talents he'd accomplished, everything.
But there was none of those. Instead the Memories were recent, a couple years back at most. It occurred to him then that his son's original Memory Box must have been in the Lars home. It had been destroyed by stormtroopers under his orders to locate the Death Star plans no matter the cost. If he had known-—
No, it wouldn't have mattered. A misjudgment, perhaps, made too hastily, but it had been made with ignorance of his son's existence. What was done, was done. He allowed his mind to drift deeper into the Box, searching for any clues that would help him analyze his son's motivations and learn what it would take to convince Luke to join him.
He did not expect what he found.
Amidst scenes of war and chaos and laughter and loss, the cloaked figure of Darth Vader towered in the heart of it, surrounded by flames, not scorched on a lava bank or crippled by Sidious's punishment, but standing tall and upright as everything around him burned.
That was not a Memory. That had not happened.
It stood there like an Oracle of old. A god, or perhaps a demon. Whatever it represented, Luke held Darth Vader in the center of his thoughts; everything else orbited around that swirling black hole.
Luke would be drawn inside too. He would succumb the power of his father. It was inevitable.
# # #
Dagobah was a strangely peaceful place, even sitting outside Yoda's hut and listening to the chittering and slithering of nocturnal creatures, even feeling wet and sweaty and miserable. Luke tipped his canteen and watched a few drops splash on his arm, curious to see if they would turn into steam. He glanced at the Master who seemed unbothered by insects that landed on his ears and clung to his sparse hairs.
Meditate, you must, but how he could meditate when he had so much to think about? Han and Leia and Chewie were together. Without Luke between them, Leia might drop her protective shell around Han, and Han might stop needling her. It was clear to everyone except them that they were in love.
The Alliance was gathering at the rendezvous point. The remaining pilots were there. Dak was dead. Luke hoped he died quickly, before that giant foot had smashed their snub. Other pilots were dead, friends. They should be in his Memory Box instead of in his head.
Meditate, you must.
Yoda was teaching what he suspected were only the basics of Jedi skills because true Jedi trained for years. Still, he was learning so much. He supposed it was alright that his Memory Box had been left behind on Hoth because Yoda didn't share Memories and there would have been nothing from Dagobah to add to the Box except aches and pain and misery and failure and unanswered questions. Still, he missed being able to hold the bittersweet reminders in his palm and being able to put them aside when he was weary of being reminded.
He wondered if his lost Box could gather Memories on its own. Maybe it had gathered the raw images of Darth Vader and the Cave. Even if it didn't, that scene wouldn't disappear because he couldn't stop thinking about it, trying to make sense of what had happened.
Yoda said he'd failed, but he didn't understand how. Why was it wrong to slay an enemy as evil as Vader? The enemy who'd destroyed the Jedi. Wasn't that what Yoda was training him to do? Wasn't that what Ben had wanted? Wasn't that what Ben had tried?
Inside the Cave, Vader hadn't been standing in fire. He'd been Luke. Or Luke had been him. It was a mystery teasing an answer that flitted just outside his comprehension like one of those huge mosquitoes. Yoda didn't enlighten him though Luke was sure he could have. The Jedi Master was silent, poking in the damp dirt with his cane, watching the reaction of curious worms.
"Do you have my father's Memory Box?" Luke broke the silence, knowing there were more secrets behind those ancient eyes than he could fathom.
"What happened to it, I do not know." Yoda shrugged. "Knew he kept it, I did, though forbidden attachments were. Lost it was. Destroyed by Vader and his Emperor."
Darth Vader had destroyed his own home, the Jedi Temple. Years later he destroyed the home of his son as if he wanted to erase the name Skywalker from the galaxy.
Did he even know it was my home then? Was he coming for the Son of Skywalker— or was it not he who lit the fire, but simply rampaging stormtroopers on a path of destruction?
He hoped Beru and Owen had died quickly.
I wasn't there or I'd've been killed too.
Did Ben suspect the troopers would track the droids to the Lars homestead?
If you'd been there, you would have been killed too.
Maybe one day he would return to Tatooine. Maybe their Boxes had been saved somehow, maybe neighbors had found them in the ashes. Maybe Grandma Shmi's Box held Memories of her son. And Obi-Wan had lived on Tatooine for a long time, perhaps long enough to respect the custom and build his own Memory Box. Maybe it held Memories of his Padawan Anakin.
Maybe it held Memories of Darth Vader.
Yoda told him about the wonders of the Temple, the millennia of knowledge stored in a vast library, and in his dreams Luke imagined himself strolling the halls, wearing his robes and carrying his own lightsaber, lurking in that library, reading and absorbing all of it. Yoda described the seriousness of fledgling Padawans and the pranks of certain mischievous students. He described young Knights and elderly Masters, those who smiled and those who scolded as they watched the antics of the younglings. Luke wondered which kind Yoda had been then, because on Dagobah he'd been both.
In his dreams, his father would have walked those halls with him, wearing robes and carrying his lightsaber, the lost one that Luke had now. Maybe he would have been his father's Padawan.
Vader had been Ben's Padawan. Vader had lived in the Padawan dormitory and studied and practiced and sparred and sat down to meals with them. Then he killed them.
How could Vader have killed his friends?
He betrayed and murdered your father.
I wasn't there or I'd've been killed too.
The gnarled cane rapped across his foot.
Luke scowled, then leaned forward, dangling his arms off his knees, and traced a circle in the mud with his fingers. "Master, did he steal my father's Memory Box?"
Yoda didn't answer immediately, and Luke waited because the Jedi knew that he was thinking about Vader and the Cave and Vader's head and his own head.
"Become Memories, your thoughts will. No Box do you require."
Maybe not. But how do I move forward when all these thoughts are cluttering my brain, making me worry about my friends, creating scenarios in my head, preparing for confrontations. Preparing to face the man who killed my father. "That's not an answer. A Memory Box is a sacred tradition. They're filled with knowledge and kept for generations. Not unlike the Temple Library," he added reproachfully.
A mournful call came from the trees. Whoever or whatever the creature was talking to didn't reply. "Sleep now you must," the Jedi finally said. "Eludes you, peace does."
Sleep outside on a bed of mud with crawlies all over him, or curled into a ball in one of Yoda's tiny rooms. Which also was full of crawlies. I never knew a world could hold so many bugs and snakes and spiders and scorpions. They're innocent beings in the Force, and Yoda says I shouldn't kill them without reason.
Even though he eats them.
And truthfully, some of them are crunchy and pretty tasty.
He knew what Darth Vader would do to these bugs. Jedi, younglings, friends, enemies, innocent families, bugs. They were all the same to the blazing torch of the man who haunted his Memory Box. He shouldn't be there. He had no right to be there. He was trespassing, his unwelcome presence festering like an open wound, poisoning his Memories, utterly demolishing his dreams of What-Might-Have-Been.
Vader's presence in his Memory Box made him angry.