Luke sat in the kitchen and stuck a spoonful of soup in his mouth and swallowed it. He tried not to look over at his father who was watching him. Remembering the behaviorist's warning, he'd decided to try eating on his own and see if he actually could after so long. It was a slow process, he'd swallow a couple spoonfuls and wait, anticipating it to come back up just like everything else had the week before. He waited, and once he was sure it would stay down, he took another...he'd spent half an hour eating the same bowl of soup. Through it all, his father watched his every move, Luke supposed to make sure he actually ate it instead of tossing it down the drain when he wasn't looking, not that he hadn't considered it.
Finally his spoon hit the bottom of the bowl, he dropped it and looked at his father imploringly.
Vader reached over and lightly patted Luke's shoulder with one gloved hand. "Very good."
Luke wouldn't make eye contact with him as he replied quietly, "I don't feel very good."
"It will take time, you have to be patient."
"I'm tired," Luke said as he looked up at his father, "Can I go to bed?"
The hand on his shoulder moved up and lightly carded through his hair as Vader responded, "I think that would be a good idea."
Vader escorted Luke up the stairs to his private chamber and tucked the boy in, inquiring before he left if there was anything Luke needed. The boy tiredly shook his head in answer, and in a few minutes was in a dead sleep. Vader grabbed Luke's hand in his own and squeezed it for a few seconds, the barrier of his durasteel prosthetic notwithstanding, feeling that contact, knowing this was real, Luke was alive, safe, here where he could watch him. It was supposed to ease his mind but instead he felt a phantom sensation of a million tiny vibro blades poking him in the back of the neck and working all the way down his spine.
He tried to will Luke to sleep and stay asleep, hoped his son would have no dreams, also hoping if he did, none reminded him of his ordeal. Finally, reluctantly but knowing it was necessary and why, Darth Vader left the room and returned downstairs to conduct a little unofficial Empirical business of his own.
"I have reached out to other systems that have encountered these things, some have actually been able to study them, though they don't appear to live long enough to warrant extensive research," Vader explained to the technicians who stood in the room and watched a holotape of one of the alien creatures that had attacked Luke. "The ones that had, I had them send over any and all holotapes of their studies, to know as much about these things as possible, how big they get, how fast they move, how they move, how they are able to incapacitate a human host. I want you to study these tapes until you know the build and dimensions of these things inside and out."
The dark lord's voice, through its modulator, somehow took on an even more sinister tone as he told the room full of men, "I have a job for all of you."
Luke dragged his feet, digging his heels against the floor, as he and Vader neared the behaviorist's office.
"I don't want to be here, Father," he said.
"I know, Luke."
"Why do I have to see him again?" he wanted to know.
"Because he's helping you," Vader answered simply. "And you need to to get better."
Luke closed his eyes and shook his head. He looked up at his father and asked, "Will you be here when I come out?"
"Right here," the man in black answered assuredly.
Luke nodded glumly. "Okay." He took a step towards the door, then turned back on his heel and asked, "Is he going to put me back in the padded room?"
"No, you will be coming home with me after the session," Vader answered, sensing his son's uneasiness through their bond.
Luke didn't look reassured by this statement but he nodded again and turning around, entered the office.
Now, as before, came the hard part for Vader, waiting.
An hour later the door slid open and Luke stepped out slowly. Vader would otherwise have been holding his breath as he awaited the verdict, behind his red tinted lenses his eyes widened at the sight of a single tear trailing down Luke's cheek.
"Father," the boy eked out like he was half asleep and struggling to wake up, his hands held out in front of him as if he were blindly making his way to Vader.
"Luke," Vader closed the distance between them and wrapped his durasteel arms around his son. "What is it?" He felt Luke's weight press against him. "What happened?" He pulled back and traced the gloved fingers on one hand under Luke's chin to make the boy look up at him. "Are you alright?"
Luke squeezed his eyes shut and a couple more tears worked their way free and rolled down his face, he opened his eyes again and his voice was mostly strong as he answered, "Yeah...I think so, I...I think I'm starting to feel a little better..."
The boy reached around his father's armored midsection and hugged him tight. Vader was half tempted to ask just what had happened, but he knew it wouldn't accomplish anything, these sessions were private for a reason, he'd only know what happened if Luke chose to tell him.
"Father," Luke was just about asleep when he suddenly sat up in his bed, his eyes were only half open but his voice was alert as he asked Vader, "what about the flight academy?"
Vader nudged Luke with one gloved finger and pushed him back down against the mattress and told his son as he tucked him in, "I've taken you out of the academy until further notice."
"What does that mean?" Luke asked as he looked up at his father.
"It means until further notice," his father answered without answering.
"But I can't stay gone much longer," Luke said. "I've already missed out on so much..."
"It does not matter," Vader told him. "If you have to re-enroll next year, that is how it is, you can't rush your recovery, Luke."
"I know," the boy answered with a note of defeat in his tone. "But all of my friends are there this year."
"I understand," Vader responded as he patted Luke's shoulders through the blankets, "but you are not ready to return yet."
And truth be told, he wasn't ready to let go of his son and just trust he'd be fine no matter what could possibly come up.
Another truth be told, Darth Vader had another reason for wanting to keep Luke home for the time being, but now was not the right time to discuss that with his son.
"When can I at least get my bed moved back to my own room?" Luke asked, his eyes almost completely closed by now.
"We will see," Vader said. "Right now, just go to sleep."
"I'm 18," Luke groggily insisted, a pause between his words as he futilely fought the urge to nod off, "you can't make me go...to, bed..."
"I know," Vader replied as he brushed one gloved hand against Luke's cheek, "but do it anyway."
With a tired groan, Luke complied and he was in a dead sleep in a mere matter of minutes.
Vader stood over his son and watched him for a few minutes. Through their bond he tried to will Luke to stay asleep, to get through the night without waking up screaming. He had good days, and bad days, and the nights were always the worst. When he was finally convinced Luke would stay asleep, he reached down and stroked one gloved hand over the top of his head. So many questions were spinning through his mind. Why Luke? Why did this have to happen to his son? Luke was very possibly the first human who had actually survived being attacked by one of these things, who survived having one of those things growing in his chest, but Vader wasn't sure Luke was any better off for it. He bore no physical scars from his ordeal, but clearly he didn't walk away unscathed, the behaviorist had warned Vader they could be looking at months of recovery, and Luke would have his setbacks, they didn't even know what could trigger a flashback for him, a panic attack, this was all uncharted territory and they were all blindly stumbling through it.
Vader had a plan, and he hoped it would help Luke, but it had to wait until the time was right.
2 months later-
Luke felt himself going in and out of sleep, he felt a lulling sensation and was just about completely asleep when a sensation rocked through him that made him gasp and sit up on his bed, frantically looking around and calling, "Father?"
He rubbed his eyes and then was able to see that he was alone in the room, and there was sunlight coming in the windows. It took a minute before he remembered it wasn't night, it was either late morning, or early afternoon, at least it had been when he decided to lie down for a while. He still found himself looking around the room because he would've sworn he heard his father calling him.
"Father?"
Luke wasn't sensing anything through their bond, but that didn't prove anything. He got up and headed out into the hall, nothing, no one. Looking around, Luke headed downstairs, the palace seemed unusually empty, he didn't even see any of the droids on shift.
"Father?" Luke called every so often as he made his way through the many rooms of the Imperial palace. Each time he was met with nothing but a disturbing silence, especially disturbing since he couldn't even hear his father's respirator anywhere. Where was he?
"Father?"
Luke turned on his heel and looked behind him every little bit. For all intents and purposes, he seemed to be very much alone, and yet, he was unable to shake a nagging feeling in the back of his head that told him that he was being watched by someone or...something...
He saw nothing, no matter how many times he turned around and looked, but that did little to ease the sensation in his head.
"Father?"
Luke tried to not be nervous as he mentally calculated how many rooms he'd checked and how many remained in the palace and there still wasn't any sign of his father yet. Next he came to the training room where the two of them would spar, it was very unlikely Vader would be there by himself, but it was worth a look.
Luke palmed the door open and stepped in, calling out, "Father?"
Again, no response. Luke was just about to turn around and head out the door when something caught his eye, he turned to get a better look, and his eyes opened as wide as possible and he screamed at the top of his lungs in terror.
Darth Vader had just returned from a conference with the other members of the Empire. He'd hated to leave while Luke was asleep but he knew the boy was old enough and fully capable of taking care of himself.
He'd just reentered the palace when the deafening sound of Luke screaming echoed through corridors and bounced off the walls.
"Luke?"
He didn't know right away where Luke was but he used their bond in the Force to track him down, and while he never ran, he hurried as fast as his prosthetics could move to find Luke and find out what was wrong.
Vader had just reached the training room when everything suddenly got quiet, he wasn't sure if that was a bad sign or not.
"Luke?"
"Fath-e-e-e-r-rr-r!"
Upon entering the room he immediately noticed nothing automatically seemed amiss, for that matter he didn't even see Luke.
"Luke?"
He turned and got his answer when he found the boy pressed as flat against the floor and also the corner of the wall as he could possibly fit himself. His son looked up at him with wide eyes and looked like he was going to hyperventilate.
"What is it, Luke? What's wrong?"
Luke didn't seem to have anymore voice to him as he just leaned further back against the wall and pointed.
Vader turned to see just what it was Luke was pointing at, and he felt a vibroblade running down his spine.
Luke regained his voice as he stammered, "No! No, Father don't! Don't go near it! No! Father!"
Vader picked up the alien creature with finger-like claw legs and a long tail and turned towards Luke, who only screamed louder and pressed himself tighter against the wall.
"Luke, calm down!" Vader ordered him. He turned the alien over for Luke to see it. He tapped it with his fingers and told his son, "It's not alive...it's not real, it's a droid, just a droid."
Luke seemed to be too far in shock to even acknowledge what his father was saying. Vader took no pleasure in it but he actually had to smack Luke across the face to get the boy to even blink, let alone realize what was going on.
"Wh-what?" Luke asked, his whole body trembling like a tree in high wind.
"It's only a droid, Luke, it's not alive, it's not sentient, it can't hurt you," Vader told him.
Luke shook his head. "The thing that attacked me was no droid."
"I know," Vader nodded.
"W-w-wh-what?" Luke asked.
Vader raised a hand to explain. "I had the technicians create a set of droids modeled after that thing."
"Why?" Luke asked.
"Because wherever those eggs came from, there are more of them out there in the galaxy," Vader told him. "And I want to make sure should you ever encounter them again, that you will be able to defend yourself against them."
Luke blinked. "What?"
He straightened his spine and pulled himself to his feet, he was still shaking but now his fear had turned to rage. "You...you had...there's more than one of them?"
"Yes," Vader nodded. "20 of them."
"20?" Luke repeated in disbelief. "That...that..." his chest heaved as he struggled to find the words, "you...I've spent months trying to get over what that thing did to me...and you do this? How..." Luke's eyes went blank for a second, when he blinked there was a fire in them, "how could you do this to me?"
"Luke-" Vader reached a hand out to him but Luke stepped back before he could make contact.
"Don't touch me!" Luke yelled at him as he pressed his back against the wall. "Stay away from me!"
"Luke..."
Luke was practically foaming at the mouth, his chest heaved and he sounded like he was near hyperventilation. Unlike his previous episodes that developed into full blown panic attacks, this time he was raging with sheer fury.
"I...hate you!" Luke flared his teeth as he all but spewed venom at his father.
Vader knew that Luke didn't mean it, not really, but in that moment, it hurt. Luke's words cut through him like a fire knife.
Luke turned and stormed off. Every instinct in Vader's body was telling him to stop Luke, to reach out and grab the boy, force him to stay, but a sensation pulsating in his head told him to let the boy go, that he would only make things worse if he actually tried to maintain contact. As much as it killed him, he stood where he was and he let Luke storm out of the room.