I forgot it was Friday and almost didn't post this and I haven't even read it over since my last edit ahhhh

Vader was acting kind of weird.

Or weirder than usual, in Leia's opinion. Not scarier, which was good. But pretty weird.

And it had all started after they got out of the sewers.

The first sign was when Vader had found the generator for the shield that had been placed around the city. It hadn't been too far from where they came out, so he had turned it off, then walked back and retrieved the speeder and flown it all the way to them before turning the shield back on - to keep in any other infected, he'd said.

That was where she had first noticed how different he was acting, because Luke had looked at the generator, perked up, and said something really mechanical-y about how the generator worked and that it was breaking down and the shield might fail in a few days or something. He had stopped because Vader had been looking at him, but then Vader had actually asked him more questions, and listened to what Luke had said, and even told him his ideas were pretty good and "worthy of the Imperial Engineers Academy" or something like that.

Luke had actually looked proud of that for a few seconds.

Then there was the time when they stopped around afternoon to eat because Luke said he was hungry. Leia wasn't too hungry herself, but if Luke was, she was going to say something because she'd noticed that Vader didn't seem to like him very much (except when they were working on the speeder together). But she didn't have to, because Vader stopped all on his own after Luke said that. He even waited for the two of them to clamber out of the speeder. Not just Leia alone, but Luke too. He had waited for him instead of trying to ditch him like he had before.

Luke had looked quite surprised at that, but also kind of pleased.

Which she was not jealous of. There was no reason to be jealous. She was happy that Luke was not being left behind and she certainly did not want more of Vader's attention. If Luke got some of it, that meant less for her, and she was perfectly fine with that.

It was just that it was all very, very strange to Leia. Vader had spent all his time barely talking to Luke (except, again, about the speeder) or saying that Leia should leave him. She was sure he had even wanted to hurt Luke at some point. But now he was being nice to him? Listening to him?

It was better, of course. She wasn't being ungrateful or anything. There were times when she had been so afraid for Luke because of Vader, and now she felt she didn't have to be.

But why had Vader suddenly changed his mind?

She knew it had to do with what happened the sewers. Perhaps Vader thought he had been too mean to Luke and was trying to make up for it.

Somehow, that explanation didn't feel quite right to Leia.

Now that they were past the shield, the buildings had gone from big towers and spires of apartments and huge, boxy warehouses, to smaller shops and stores. They were all abandoned though. Some of them were burnt out shells, blackened and smoking inside. Others had been blown up, windows shattered into tiny bits. A lot of times Leia could see their furniture and their items thrown all over the floor: chairs and clothes and flimsiplasts and datapads. Leia looked longingly at some of those clothes; after three days wearing the same stuff, she badly wanted to change, she felt so greasy and smelly. But the clothes she saw had been trampled and tossed all over the ground and were probably even dirtier than the ones she was wearing, so she said nothing.

Worse was if they actually happened to find a restaurant, because with those there'd be food thrown in a mess everywhere, smelling of rot and mold, with flies buzzing over it. Once Leia saw crawling things in a piece of meat and hurried on by. And in the worst places, Leia would see dark puddles pooling from huddled shapes, or limbs sticking out from beneath support beams, or piled alongside giant chunks of rubble that had been blown out.

Vader led them away from all of this. There seemed to be less people around, or as he called them, the "infected". The streets were a little emptier of rubble too: more of the electrical columns and lights were still standing, and speeders were just parked and abandoned by the side of the street rather than be thrown everywhere. But there was still so much glass and metal underfoot, and rotting food (and other things), that it took him a while to find a place he thought suitable.

The one he did lead them to looked like a small store where people could buy snacks and food packets, though most of that was gone, probably taken by people leaving the city. Still, the floor was cleaner than others and only half of the shelves had been knocked down and Leia couldn't see any people, so it worked.

Once inside, Luke pulled out the condenser unit and some water - he'd been smart enough to bring them along - and cooked up a meal packet. Leia still wasn't hungry, but when she tried to refuse, Vader had looked straight at her and said,

"Eat. You will need your strength."

And then he stood there and continued to stare at her until she had finished everything on her plate.

Then, when they were done, he didn't go back to the speeder but took them to another little store across the street. And if Leia had thought Vader was acting weird before, it was nothing compared to watching him walk amongst half-turned racks of clothing until he found the children's section, or hearing him tell them to pick up some cleaner clothes.

Maybe he had read her thoughts about that.

They changed in one of the fitting rooms (after Vader had pushed them aside and checked each one for sick people). Leia noticed Luke searching for clothes that looked like his. She did that as well. Everything was so strange and new and frightening here, she wanted to at least keep her clothes looking and feeling the same. She hated to leave her old ones behind.

Her bite, at least, was feeling a lot better. It hadn't bled at all into the bandage, and only twinged a bit when she flexed her right arm. Sometimes it felt tingly and numb, but most of the time she hadn't really noticed it. That was a good thing, she hoped. The bandage itself was under several layers of her clothes, so it hadn't even gotten that dirty. Still, she didn't think it was good to keep it on for so long, and it felt fine enough that it was probably completely healed and she didn't even need anything for it. She tugged at one end of the tape to unwrap it.

Someone knocked at the door and she dropped her hand. "Come on, Leia. Are you done?" Luke. She could see the shadow of his feet beneath the door. How had he changed so fast? Probably because boys had less complicated clothing. At home it took forever for her to get dressed, and that was with a whole team of people to help her. Luke's stuff looked like he could toss it on in five minutes. She envied that.

Forgoing changing the bandage, she quickly retaped it, checked it wouldn't slip off, then pulled down the sleeve of her dress over it. She'd managed to find a new shift and some underwear as well as an overdress that looked almost identical to her old one, just a little rougher and without the symbol of Alderaanian royalty on it. She tugged on a coat. This one was a new color, not white or dark magenta but a soft patchwork of green, and thicker since the nights were colder. "Coming." She exited, taking a look at Luke as well. He seemed almost the same, but his coat was a different color, darker and a bit shorter, and his leg wrappings looked new and cleaner too.

"I like your coat," he said, pointing at it. Then, wistfully, "I don't see a lot of green where I live."

Leia tugged on it, feeling sorry for him. She'd miss seeing all the trees and plants on Alderaan. "I wish I could see where you live," she said to make him feel better. "My parents never let me go off-planet."

He nodded. "Mine too. Well, my aunt and uncle, I mean."

Vader examined them once outside, and Leia almost stood at attention, just like when her mother would come in after her maids had dressed her. But that was silly and she stopped. Still, she felt something trickle into her mind, a sense of approval that she did not think came from herself.

Back in the speeder, they zipped along as the sun banked lower. Despite the emptier streets, Vader still had to take detours or drive more slowly to navigate places where there were obstructions. In one place, an entire water pipe had broken near a fallen electrical coupling, and despite Vader saying the power was shut off, he was very careful navigating around the massive puddle and the many wires and cables that lay in it. In another, a public transport ship had fallen over so that it blocked the entire street, and he had to shove it with the Force, scraping along the floor, until there was enough space for them to get through.

Sometimes he would veer away entirely when he saw movement ahead, and take a side alley, and Leia was absurdly grateful to him for doing that. But a few times, even the side streets had people blocking the way.

"Stay in the speeder," he'd tell them, getting out and igniting his lightsaber. He'd close up the cockpit too, leaving them in a protective bubble.

Leia didn't watch when that happened. She scrunched herself down in the seat and until all she could see were the dim flashes of light lighting up the duraplex windscreen. She had stopped saying anything to Vader about it, and Vader never said anything to her when he returned, not even a sarcastic comment.

Funnily, it was Luke who finally said something, around the third time it happened. "Do you kill them? The… infected? The people?"

Vader did not look at him as he got back into the speeder. "Yes."

Leia saw Luke steel himself for the next question. "Do you have to?" Then, hurrying on, "Can't you just… push them away, like you did with the, uh, the water and the borrat things?" He sucked in a breath, then said really quickly, "That way you're not killing them, you're just, um, moving them, and then later maybe someone else can help them get better?"

There was a long pause during which Leia was sure that she saw Vader tip his head back to stare at the sky. "If I leave them alive," he said, very slowly, "they will follow us, and then they will kill us." He started the speeder. "I will do what I must to get us safely out of the city."

Luke said no more. Leia guessed he did not want to push it any further.

So even though they had the speeder, it still took more time than usual to get through the city. As evening fell, they crawled to a halt due to all the blockages in the road. Several times they had to get out and either move the obstacles themselves, or pass through it and let Vader use the Force to float the speeder to them. His frustration was noticeable and only growing as time went on; Leia could see it by the way his hands were clenched on the steering wheel. She looked at him once, then away, watching the buildings pass by them slowly, feeling as plodding as a grazer. Beside her, Luke had let his head drop against the door. She almost didn't notice when they came to a halt.

Once again, Vader exited the speeder, but this time he spoke. "We will have to walk."

Leia gave Luke a shake, then carefully slipped out. In the darkening sky, she missed the pot hole in the road. Her feet came down on it wrong, lower than she was expecting, and she tripped over the crack. She might have tumbled to the ground had Vader not swung around. Within an instant he had caught her beneath the arms and righted her. It was done so quickly she had no time to protest; by the time she even registered it, he was turning around to Luke - Luke, who he grabbed around the waist and carried over the hole itself before placing him back onto the ground.

She just stared. She had never seen Darth Vader carry anyone, ever. It was weird.

Luke seemed just as disoriented, blinking like he had no idea how he'd made his way over the po hole. Vader said nothing; he acted like it was completely normal, and just continued on, guiding them towards what had forced him to stop the speeder. Upon seeing what he had spotted, Leia came to a halt.

"What are those?" she whispered.

They looked like big, metal animals lying dead on the street. Each had fat, square bodies riveted together with small slits along the sides. Some had spindly legs that had collapsed at ninety degree angles when the body fell. Another had a myriad of tiny feet that would have scuttled the round, pod-like body about. Yet another was more rounded in the center and pointed in the middle, with turrets sticking out from its front.

"Attack pods," Vader told her. "Placed to keep back the infected." He looked down at some kind of fallen tripod. "Repeating blasters." He kicked one over with a boot. "Empty." His masked gaze swept the street, empty of any people, and his discontent, his anger, was like a heat wave. "They were overwhelmed," was all he said.

"Can we, um, move them?" Luke asked, waving an arm like he was trying to copy Vader.

In response, Vader nodded towards a series of smaller bulges littered around the body and ground of each pod. "Proximity mines. A last resort for any infected that make it through."

Leia froze. "Mines?"

"They will not harm you as long as you do not touch them," Vader told her. He stepped around one as casually as if it were a bump in the road. "Follow me. We will bring the speeder over when we're on the other side."

With slow, careful steps, they passed by the pods and the almost unnoticeable little protrusions in the road. There were no beeps, no flashing lights, no alarms to indicate any presence of the mines, so Leia just had to trust that Vader knew where he was going. Luckily there were spaces, gaps between the pods large enough for even Vader to pass through, but even brushing close to one made Leia shiver. Her arm felt all tingly, her skin chilled as it continued getting darker. Soon they wouldn't be able to see anything at all.

The wind blew past them, making loose mechanical parts squeak. Luke kept jerking around to look whenever they did so, and Leia found it hard not to do that as well.

Another thought occurred to her then. She had only seen pods and repeaters like these a few times, usually on the HoloNet where they were always sent out to other worlds, farther worlds than she had ever been. But she also remembered that they were never sent alone. There were always white-armored stormtroopers with them.

"Um," she said quietly, not sure if talking would interrupt Vader's concentration, "aren't there usually, uh, men, troopers, in these?"

Vader did not pause. "Yes."

"So… where are they?"

She saw Vader's form shift, thought he might be turning to face her. She tilted her head up, trying to look in the direction his breathing was coming from.

He said, "Be grateful that we have not seen them so far."

Leia swallowed. That told her all she needed to know. She felt around for Luke, knowing somehow he was right behind her, and grasped his hand.

It was a huge relief to reach the other side and to see Vader bring the speeder to them, letting it float up and then slowly hover over where the pods were. Leia eyed the repeaters again. Had they really used these against people? A shiver went through her again, imagining how many of them must have died as they ran towards the pods. But if the whole street was empty, then either the troopers must have run - or the infected must have reached the pods and attacked everyone there. It left her confused and unsure. She still felt terrible for all these people who were sick and out of their minds, and she thought the faceless stormtroopers were almost as scary as Darth Vader was… but she didn't want them to die.

Her thoughts were interrupted when the speeder came down on their side. The three of them began to walk over to it.

A weird crackling noise made them all freeze where they were.

Before Leia could even blink, Vader had his lightsaber out and lit. He stepped in front of Leia and Luke, facing the alley, his lightsaber thrumming with energy as he held it before them. Leia peered around him, trying to see; the alley was so dark as to be almost impenetrable. Luke was doing the same on Vader's other side, squinting.

The crackling noise happened again, was answered by another crackle, and another. She moved further around Vader's cloak, trying again to see.

A dark shape came shambling forward slowly. The crackling noise grew louder. Behind it, Leia could see more shapes joining it, more and more, easing into the relatively lighter area of the open street.

Leia caught a glimpse of a rounded helmet and white armor, and something in her chest leapt. "Look, it's the stormtroopers!" she exclaimed. She normally wouldn't be as excited to see them, but this meant that they had managed to get away from the infected. And whatever they looked like, they were there to protect her - everyone told her that - and in this place, she was grateful for anyone who could help them.

The trooper emerged fully into the light, enough for her to see the blood gleaming wet and crimson along its white-armored hand, its leg… to see one arm dangling from just a thread of muscle… right as she heard it - the groan of the sick, distorted over their vocoder.

The crackling noise - it was the troopers -

And then she was being hoisted up by the back of her jacket. For a second all she saw was Vader and the flash of his lightsaber and she thought wildly that he was going to kill her. Then she heard metal screech and suddenly she was being hurled back - landing on hard metal, the open street blocked by metal walls and a metal ceiling.

She was in the pod?

Luke crashed against the floor next to her, shaking the entire pod up and down and jolting her so that for a moment she was too dazed to do anything other than shaking her head. But then one thought entered her mind: the mines!

There was a crunching noise from the ground below the pod, and Leia scrambled back, further into the pod, on instinct. A round, flashing disk burst out of the ferrocrete, scattering dust everywhere. It floated in midair several feet in front of the pod's opening, whirring frenetically, beeping faster and faster with every second it hovered before her -

And then the disk was flung out at the infected stormtroopers.

A burst of light filled the street.

Distorted screaming thrummed against Leia's ears and she clapped her hands over her head, squeezing her eyes shut. Another crumbling noise, another quickening beeping, and a second explosive crash followed. Dust flew into her face, her arms, her body. She choked as she inhaled some of it and tried to open her eyes, but everything was a haze of gray, the entire world nothing but smoke. Terrified, she reached out and found a hand, Luke's hand, and squeezed tight.

Every breath she exhaled blew up a puff of dust and she pushed herself to her feet, the pod rocking and groaning beneath her and threatening to send her tumbling again. More staticky screaming was coming from outside - she could see dark shapes in the fog, lurching in and out of view, and a red light that cut through the haze, whilst from the ground more and more of the mines were forced out and thrown out of sight. The sounds of blasting, of plastoid cracking, of ferrocrete breaking, was deafening.

And then a force shoved her and Luke back again and the cover slammed down, hiding everything from sight.

For a moment she and Luke just lay curled up in the pod, listening as the outside continued to thunder about them. It was a muffled sound, the metal walls muting all but the loudest noises. After a second she saw Luke push himself up. There were only a few tiny slits for windows to let in light, but even with that she could see that he was as dust-covered as she was, his blonde hair darkened with the dirt that had hailed down on them as the mines went off. Ash hung in the air around them, illuminated by the dim light and moving in great loops and spirals as she coughed. Every breath meant she sucked in more of the fine powder, which just made her cough more, even as she tried to hack into her jacket to cover up the noise.

"Leia!" Luke called. She could feel the pod rattling as he moved towards her. "Are you-" But his words were cut off by a sharp sneeze, and then another as he suffered the same problem she had.

Finally she managed to stop coughing. She shook her head, waving away dust. "What's going on?" She could barely see or hear anything, and even with the window slits it was becoming too dark to see anything.

She got up, scrambling over the metal floor. The pod's interior was a cramped space barely large enough for them to stand; grown up humans would have had to sit to fit inside. Maybe it had been built for Ugnaughts or something. Squinting, she could make out the shapes of half a dozen laser cannons - or at least, the part of them that held the power core and the levers to aim it. The cannon itself stuck out of the pod through reinforced openings to shoot whatever was outside, with various levers and rotators to maneuver them with. But even then, they were so large they took up most of the space; tilted over, they blocked out their views of the back and of the few, tightly packed in seats.

There was just a narrow walkway between all this and leading to the front and the back for people to get in and out. Leia had to squeeze herself around them, her hands feeling their way against bits of debris that she could not identify by touch, to finally press herself to the back window to see what was going on outside. The glass was so dirty though, and the field of vision so narrow, she could barely see anything. There was just dust and an occasional black shape moving about.

Luke joined her, still rubbing ash from his eyes. "I - I think he threw us in here?"

It was the only explanation that made sense. But why? The question kept coming back to her. Why was he helping them? Through the thick armor of the pod, only the loudest sounds made it through, which meant they no longer had to hear the screeching whine of the stormtroopers coming for them. But they could not hear anything else either - not the whir of a lightsaber or the mechanical rasp of a respirator or the sound of anybody coming for them. The only hopeful sign was the occasional burst of red light slashing through the dust.

"Can I see?" Luke asked, pushing his face next to hers and shoving her away.

"Wait, I want to see too!" Leia protested, trying to keep her spot.

"You're taking up all the space!"

"You need to share!"

"I am sharing, I-"

Something fell with a clang behind them.

The two turned as one, staring into the darkness further within the pod.

A groan emanated from a corner. The seats and the laser cannons had been abandoned, broken, and fallen on the floor. They were dusty from the ash in the air, landing on each of them - except for one. Before Luke and Leia's eyes they saw one of the cannons get pushed upward, forming a cloud of particles that blew through the air.

An arm rose up from behind a broken seat. Then another. And then a head, wearing a helmet that sloped to cover the back but whose front had been cracked open, revealing decayed eyes, a bloodless slash across the cheek, and a body that ended abruptly at the waist, the flesh torn and ragged.

Someone screamed, and Leia wasn't sure if it was her or Luke.

The person that had once been a gunner lurched forward faster than they thought possible, crawling on stick-thin arms down the walkway. Leia launched herself away in one direction, Luke in the other, diving into opposite corners and run-crawling along the seats towards the back.

With a gurgle the infected gunner twisted itself around, and Leia, struggling to get around one of the cannons, turned and saw something that made her stomach drop: sausage-like tendrils that trailed out of its open abdomen and dragged behind it. Nausea pooled in her stomach and bubbled up her throat and froze her where she was. The gunner hurtled towards her, mouth opening to clamp down on her leg -

The sight of its bloody teeth snapped her out of her trance. She jerked her leg out of the way just in time, falling back against the cannon. Tumbling to the floor, she grabbed at the handles to pull herself up, bringing the cannon swinging down with a rumbling crash.

An idea flashed across her mind. As the gunner spun itself around, somehow doing it in seconds despite only using its arms, she pushed the cannon's power core back up.

The gunner tore down the walkway - and Leia, grabbing the handles, slammed the entire bulk of the cannon straight down onto its helmeted head.

There was a crack as the helmet split, falling in jagged pieces. The various rods and levers jammed into the gunner's head, his helmet, his skull, entangling him there. As the gunner screamed, struggling to claw itself free, Leia ran down the walkway, pulling down each of the cannons to further block her way.

With another growl, the infected gunner pushed itself free, but only for a few seconds before its eyes settled on easier prey: Luke. The other boy had tumbled over a seat and was trying to pull himself up and out of the way, but the seat wasn't high enough and the gunner, spotting easier prey, slammed one arm on the seat and heaved itself up. Like a humanoid webweaver, it began crawling on the seats, intent on catching Luke - and there was no Vader in here to save them.

"Hit it!" Leia shrieked, forgetting any sympathy or pity she had once had for the infected. All she saw now was something trying to attack her friend.

Luke looked around frantically. His eyes fell on an empty blaster rifle. Without hesitating, he picked it up and smashed the butt end on the gunner's broken helmet.

The gunner yowled, body jerking as its skull smashed in.

Luke yelped in disgust, hurling the dirtied rifle aside, but the thing was not dead yet. Head caved in, it nevertheless twitched forward, the wet ooze of its brain dripping from the massive hole in its skull. The blow had been hard enough to wreck even its face; its jaw was hanging by just a few muscles and bones. And still it kept hunting Luke -

"Again!" Leia yelled. She shoved the cannons back out of the way, running down the walkway to aid Luke. As she reached him, she grabbed the dropped blaster rifle at the same time that Luke did. Together, they thrust the handle down once more.

This time it hit the gunner's body, cracking the spine. The monster spasmed, still screaming. Luke dodged its open mouth, holding the rifle tight. Another hit smashed the back of its ribs. The fourth found its shoulders. Again and again they brought it down, Leia no longer even thinking of it as a once-living thing, just wanting it to stop -

With one last ram, the monster went still, the rifle handle sinking through its torso.

Leia gasped, staring at it, waiting for it to jump up again, like it was trying to trick them. But it was still.

They'd killed it.

She fell back, feeling sicker than ever before. She had helped kill one of those things, even though she had said they shouldn't. It had been scary and she had been trying to help Luke, but now that the heat of the moment was over, the guilt and the horror was crashing over.

That had been a person once. Had she left it alive, it might have gotten help to get better. Now it wouldn't, ever.

Luke collapsed against the seat as well, letting go of the rifle. It fell with a thud that startled both of them.

"Is it dead?" he mumbled.

Leia nodded faintly.

He shivered. "Are you okay?"

She closed her eyes, squeezing her arm. "Yeah. Um… are you?"

"I - I think so," he mumbled. He grabbed her hand again, seeking comfort, reassurance, a sign that there was someone else in this pod apart from the dead monster.

Only then did they notice that it had gone quiet and still outside. When Leia finally looked out, she could see, through the settling dust, that it only looked a little darker than before. It was not fully night yet; they had only spent minutes, not hours, inside.

A dark shape appeared at the window, and both children jerked back.

The door opened.

Vader was a black-armored figure coated with a fine layer of dust, turning the shiny durasteel and plastoid the same shade of gray as everything else. More dust floated about, tiny little grains shining in the last rays of the setting sun. With one glance, he took in the dead trooper, the battered blaster rifle, and Luke and Leia, sweaty and scared, and seemed to understand.

He raised his still-lit lightsaber and speared it through the gunner's head.

Satisfied, he reached in and grabbed Leia by the waist. There was no time for her to say or do anything to make him stop. Moreover, she was still holding Luke's hand, her fingers numb from how hard they were squeezing one another, and she had to let go of him or drag him along. As soon as he settled her on the ground, he did the same to Luke, before glancing over them with the same intensity Leia had felt before. She could feel a thrum of some feeling that felt both related to, and foreign to, her: discomfort, worry, weariness.

Vader said, "Are you hurt?"

She shook her head numbly. Beside her, Luke did the same.

Vader appeared to believe them, and regarded the dead gunner. He hefted his lightsaber, but did not use it. "You destroyed it." It was not a question; moreover, it was tinged with the slightest hint of pride.

Luke, hearing it as well as Leia, straightened, some of his weariness fading. But Leia just felt worse. They had killed someone. What would her parents think of her?

Vader swung his gaze back to them. To her. His head tilted, and she had that prickling sensation again. "You are displeased," he observed.

Leia stared at the ground. "We shouldn't have killed it."

"It was attacking you."

She shrugged angrily. "It was sick!"

"You had no choice. If you did not kill it, it would have killed you."

That did not make her feel any better.

Luke came up beside her, and he, at least, seemed to offer some understanding. "Hey," he whispered, nudging her gently, "next time we'll try something else, okay?"

She nodded, but it did little to assuage her guilt. She was tired and sticky and she did not want to think about any of this anymore.

Vader was still regarding them. The tingly feeling increased, and Leia had the strangest sense of uncertainty, but not her own. Tentatively, Vader put out a hand, and for one wild moment Leia thought he was going to - to - to pat her on the shoulder? Or hug her? But instead, he just brushed some dust off her hair, from her face, and away from her jacket. He did the same to Luke until his strands of hair actually looked blonde once more. Luke held really still, eyes wide as he was dusted off.

Then, as if embarrassed, Vader straightened and looked away. "We will not make it to the base today." He nodded towards what looked like some kind of small foodstuffs store. "That building has survived better than some of the others. We will shelter there."

They made their way there through the dust-covered street. Leia was almost glad of all the powder in the air, because it meant she did not see many bodies. There was only one in clear view, some feet away, a stormtrooper covered in scorch marks.

She hurried past it.

It was with great exhaustion that Leia sat down inside the cold floor of the store, even though, once she thought about it, she realized that all she had done most of the day was sit in the speeder. The day had felt so much longer; wading through the sewers with Luke seemed a lifetime ago.

Luke started to pull off his pack, but Vader held up a hand. "There are still some supplies here. We should use those and save the rations."

He did let them pick whatever they wanted to eat, after he barricaded the doors and blocked up the windows and circled the entire store to make sure it was clear. They were allowed to wander up and down the aisles, Vader following at some distance. He had been right that the store had survived a little better: most of the shelves, while empty, were at least still standing, and some of the ice bins even had a few fruits and vegetables in them, though all were moldy and bruised and rotten. But scattered here and there were some supplies of preserved food, things that had been left behind or forgotten as people fled the city. It was these that they looked through for something good to eat.

"Blood chowder?" Luke asked, holding up a can of red paste.

Leia shuddered. Right now, anything with blood as one of the ingredients made her stomach want to heave.

Luke, who was slightly taller, grabbed at something above her and came down with a tube. "'Nutri-paste'," he read out loud, "'rated the best among Imperial officers and troopers.'"

It looked and sounded completely unappetizing, not helped that Leia was already feeling pretty queasy. What she really wanted was to lay down and rest, but she had a feeling Vader would not let her, at least not before eating. He was probably following them just to make sure she would.

"Okay, how about this? Veghash." He turned the can around to reveal some combination of brown mush with unidentifiable yellow and green things floating in it. He squinted in the fading light at the description. "'Eating it will make you realize the importance of meat.'"

Leia was beginning to think all this stuff was abandoned because it wasn't any good. "What's that up there?" She pointed to a hopeful-looking jar.

Luke stretched hard to bring it down. "'Vita-paste, made for every type of being and every type of body shape.'"

Vader's voice stretched from somewhere down the aisle. "I would not recommend that one, child."

The two children exchanged looks. Luke carefully placed the jar back. Then his eyes lit up. "Hey, here! Bantha Surprise. That sounds good, right?"

Leia considered it a moment, then sighed and took it. It sounded all right. Luke handed it to her, then took a pack of something he said were called exo-protein wafers. That one sounded much less appetizing, but Luke insisted on trying it. Together, they settled down to eat. Vader hovered a few feet away, close enough to hear them, and any other sound of danger, but far away that they could pretend to have some bit of privacy. For a little while, there was silence, the two of them preoccupied with ripping off wrappings and peeling off lids and discarding them on the floor. Leia could not help thinking of what her mother would say if she caught her tossing trash everywhere. That made her mood drop once again, and she was in no mood for conversation.

Luke, however, was of a different feeling. "Did you really feel that bad about killing the… the person in the pod?" He shoved his wrapper aside on the floor.

She shrugged wearily. She wasn't even sure herself anymore. "It was going to hurt you."

"I know." Luke played with his wrapping. "How come you don't want them hurt? They've gone after you, too."

Leia couldn't explain it, just that there was a feeling of something wrong about it. "My mother and father always said that everyone deserves help, whoever they are and whatever they've done. They'd want to help them, not kill them." She poked at a piece of brown something and ate it. It tasted like meat. Felt like it too. Or so she hoped.

Luke's eyes widened in understanding. "That's just like my Aunt Beru. She said my grandmother used to tell her that all the problems in the galaxy are because nobody helps each other." He took a bite of wafer.

There was a noise from where Vader was standing, which made both of them look at him, but he said nothing. Leia had the sense that he was listening to him, but she decided to ignore him. She was thinking of something Luke had told her, down in the sewers. "I didn't know you knew who your parents were." He had told her he was an orphan, which had made her like him even more; she was also an orphan too, even though she had her adoptive parents.

Luke shrugged. "Just my father and grandmother. Aunt Beru says they gave me my last name because my grandmother, actually."

"Not your mother?"

He shook his head.

Vader seemed to be standing very still. More than ever, Leia felt he was listening, and that made her skin prickle, though why it did that, and why he'd be interested, she had no idea. "I only know one of my parents, my real parents. Or, I know what she looks like. I don't know her name or anything else."

"Your mother, right?" Luke asked, and moved his hand to indicate the pocket where she kept her holoprojector. Leia nodded. "But not your father?"

"No. Though sometimes I try to imagine what he looked like." She looked off into the darkness. She supposed she would never know.

Luke took another bite of his wafer bar. "Yeah, I do that too. Or I imagine he's off flying somewhere and he's going to come and find me one day and take me with him."

She smiled, poking at some more bantha steak. "That's nice. I don't think about him too often though." She didn't want Luke, or Vader who was probably still listening, feeling sorry for her. "I have my mother and father. The ones who adopted me. They're more like my real parents anyway." She swirled the meat juice. "I hope they're not too worried about me."

Luke mirrored her serious look. "Yeah. I hope my aunt and uncle are okay, too."

The conversation ebbed after that, and they finished and cleaned up as best as they could. Leia was so tired by that point that she would have been fine with curling up on the floor where she sat, but when Vader approached, she forced herself to stand and follow him. There was an odd second or two where he just stood there, staring at them, and Leia again had that very distinct feeling that he wanted to do something, to say something to him. She, and Luke, who had also gotten to his feet, waited, not sure what he intended.

But then the moment passed, and Vader swept on by them and headed for the back. They followed; it was practically habit by now, and neither questioned it until they saw where they were.

"That's the freezer!" Luke exclaimed as Vader opened the metal door. It squealed loudly in the empty store, making both children flinch. It was clear he intended for them to go in there.

"It'll be cold!" Leia complained. She felt chilly just looking at it.

Vader looked off into space for several long seconds, as if willing himself to be patient. "There is no power, the cold will be long gone," he finally said, with the air of explaining something to a pair of three year olds. Leia bristled at the tone. "This is the safest place here. Nothing short of orbital bombardment will get through this door."

Leia rubbed her arm. "What if we get stuck in there?"

"You will not get stuck in there." He pointed inside. "Go."

What else could they do?

Once inside, Vader tossed them some blankets he had found from who knew where, then shut the door behind him. It was only one room, and though it wasn't tiny - Luke's little nest of a room in the warehouse had been only half the size of this - it was with a disconcerting lurch of her stomach that Leia realized that this time, Vader was intending to stay with them.

As if catching the thread of her dismay, he glanced at her. "I will ensure that nothing gets through this door." A pause. "And that you do not get stuck."

Leia opened her mouth to say something grumpy, but stopped when Luke jabbed her with his elbow. The feeling ebbed away quickly, replaced with something much more uncomfortable: a feeling that she was being incredibly ungrateful. That just made her angry all over again. Darth Vader had helped them find food and clothes and a place to sleep; he had kept them from getting attacked over and over again; and sometimes he even seemed to listen to her, and Luke, now that he was being nicer to the other boy. But he had hurt her and scared her and threatened Luke and now he was staying in the same room as them.

But if Vader caught those thoughts, he did not indicate it, nor did he leave. He just stood near the door, like some dark guardian, respirator working rhythmically. And Leia, tired as she was, decided not to argue and just curled up on a pile of blankets near Luke. He, at least, was nicer company to be with. She closed her eyes and huddled up, still feeling cold even with another blanket to cover her.

It was quiet, maybe the quietest she remembered since landing on the planet, except for Vader's breathing, and even that came so regularly that it became background noise. Her mind drifted off, pulled towards sleepiness.

Luke's voice came floating out, just on the edge of hearing. "When you said you'd… watch to make sure nothing gets in… does that mean all night?" It took a second for Leia to realize he was speaking to Vader. "Don't - don't you need to rest?"

Vader's voice was, strangely, quiet as well. Was he able to turn the volume down? "I do require rest now and then, young one. But the Force will sustain me for now.."

"Oh." Luke was silent a moment, enough for Leia to begin to drift off again. "So… the Force? I heard you talking about it, I think. Like… like how you make the speeder float, and move stuff without touching them?"

Something like amusement crept into Vader's mechanical voice. "It can be. The Force can sustain me when I need to go without sleep, when food and water are lacking."

"What is it, really?" Luke whispered. She could hear him shuffling. "The Force?"

"You do not know of it?"

A shuffling movement; Leia thought Luke was shaking his head.

A longer pause. "It is an energy and a power unlike any other. It flows through everything in the galaxy, but only a few have the ability and the will to master it." His voice sounded closer now. "If you wish it, young one, I can train you. There is great potential in you. It is almost inconceivable that you have not been trained earlier, a waste of your great strength."

"I - wait." Luke sounded absolutely befuddled. "Strong? Train me? I can't do any… Force stuff."

"You can, child." Another beat of silence. "As can the princess."

Luke just breathed in and out, seemingly lost for words. Leia tried to beat back sleep, sensing some importance here, but it was so difficult.

Then, "But that must wait until later. First we must get off this planet."

"Oh." Blankets shuffling. "Wait… get off together… and then train me? And Leia? Wait… does that mean… you'll stay with us? Or we'll stay with you?"

"We shall see, young one."

And then sleep swallowed Leia up.

No notes because I panic-posted this.

NO WAIT, one note. While I was scrolling Wookieepedia for examples of GFFA food, I did find that Vita-paste is the nutritional stuff Vader eats through his suit and that it tastes awful, and while that does majorly suck for Vader, it was also kind of darkly hilarious because it implies that someone (Palpatine) was so detail-oriented and so set on making Vader's post-Mustafar life hell, that they made sure even his food tastes like crap. Anyway, that's why he comments on it in the fic.

OH AND ALSO in the Left 4 Dead games there are "special" infected that have certain powers and also some "uncommon" infected, which aren't as different from the "common" infected (AKA the typical zombie horde) and more numerous than the "special" infected. They're typically like... oh they were construction crew workers so they have hard hats that make them resistant to head shots, that kind of thing. Anyway, stormtrooper infected! Taken from that.