The trio finally comes together (AKA Vader and Leia finally meet Luke).
Good GOD this chapter is long. It's so long I think I lost the continuity of my own story at several points. Hopefully I caught it all (but I probably didn't).
Leia awoke with the morning light.
She blinked sleep away, fighting a weird sense of the familiar and the strange. Her sleep had been filled with fitful dreams, indistinct but always of the things chasing her, finding her, biting into her arm. She didn't feel like she'd gotten much sleep at all, yet at the same time, she thought she was back on Alderaan, that was how confused she was. The bed was soft like hers, but so much bigger, and it smelled funny. Her clothes felt greasy and unclean and so did her face. She wanted badly to wash it, and she almost never wanted to wash her face. And her head had an achy feeling because she had slept in her braids, like it was too heavy for her neck. One bun was coming loose, and she tried vainly to stick the end of the braid back in, blinking away sleep.
Then she realized where she was with a swoop of her stomach that came, weirdly, with a sensation of deja vu.
The city. The things that had chased her (infected?). And…
The door slid open and that horrible mechanical breathing noise filled the air.
"You are awake," Darth Vader intoned. "Good. We have a great deal of ground to cover and we cannot waste time." Before she had a chance to say or do anything, he closed the door, leaving her to dress.
She hurried into her clothes, which still smelled of sweat and dirt, tugging on her stockings and shoes and pulling on her tunic. When she lifted her overdress over her head, the holoprojector fell out, but she grabbed it and shoved it back into her pocket before Vader came back in and noticed, memories of him pushing into her mind still fresh.
But he had remained in the tiny apartment, and he was going to take her along with him to get out of the city. And he'd apparently been standing outside the room all night to keep the things, the infected, from coming in.
It still puzzled her, but she realized now that it also gave her the tiniest bit of confidence. For whatever reason, he did not want her to be attacked, and he was willing to do a lot to keep the things away from her.
But why? She still didn't understand that. Did he want something from her? It was the only thing she could think of. Leia was a princess and she knew all about that, not just from her tutors telling her, but also from seeing people come to her parents with requests and getting something in return. But what was it then? She didn't have anything he might need.
And he was still waiting outside. She could feel him, and it made a small part of her shake.
No, she had to be brave. She was a princess of Alderaan, even if she was much smaller and younger and didn't have scary powers. Leia rubbed at her face, brushed a bit of dirt off her dress, and steeling herself, came out.
Vader was standing at the entrance when she finished, a pile of furniture pushed aside from the door. Leia swallowed, feeling some of her bravery slip away at the sight of him. He was so tall and his breathing was harsh and deep and the lightsaber… her eyes flicked to it. It didn't matter what he had done last evening and all night; the last thing she wanted to do was spend another day with him. He was cruel and mean and every time he spoke to her he sounded so… cold. He even felt cold, though she could not explain how she knew that since she had not touched him apart from when he had grabbed her. It was just a feeling, deep in her chest. He felt empty.
And then that thing where he talked to her without speaking in her head or her brain or her mind or whatever it was - it had hurt so much the first time that when he tried it the second time, she was sure it would hurt again. He'd even said that she could do it!
She never wanted to do anything like that to anyone. Not if it hurt like that.
And if that was what the "Force" was like, well… she just wasn't going to learn about it at all, no matter what Darth Vader said or how mean he was to her.
Which was right when Vader turned and just looked at her, like he'd heard exactly what she was thinking. Maybe he could hear her, since he could do that mind-talking thing. Leia tried not to shrink back and just stared right back into his eyes - or at least the eye plates of his mask. He could not make her learn. He could not just force her to do whatever he wanted.
Whatever he saw when he was looking at her, he did not comment on it. He just turned after a moment and waved open the door. "Come, Princess."
She followed, but the short exchange lingered. The last time she had refused to do something, he had been so, so angry at her. But now, he wasn't. It was weird, the change. Last evening, she had even been the tiniest bit defiant with him and he hadn't done anything. Or at least, he hadn't done too much. She still wasn't sure what it meant or why it had happened, but she kept thinking about it.
They spent a lot of that day walking. At one point, Vader told her that after a few more blocks, they would enter the commercial district, which was a little more outside the city, and that he would find them some kind of transport to the base. That was all that kept Leia walking as the sun began climbing over the sky. First her sides hurt. Then her feet. Then her legs. Then her chest.
"How much longer is it?" she finally dared to ask, trying valiantly to keep up with the edge of Vader's cape as it swept over the cracked ferrocrete.
"We have only been walking for an hour." Vader halted, glancing at a fork in two streets, which curved away from one another in opposite directions. Choosing the left fork, he continued on.
An hour?! It felt way longer. Were it her parents, she would have complained long ago about needing to rest. They probably would have stopped. Her father might even have offered to carry her. She definitely could not picture Darth Vader doing that.
Leia was so busy feeling tired and sorry for herself that she did not notice Vader had stopped walking. She barely managed to keep herself from getting tangled in his cape. Frowning, she peeked around him to see why he had come to a halt.
They had reached some kind of massive canal that cut through the land for miles on either side and surrounded a piece of land on the other side. It made it look almost like an island, only one that was made entirely of a warehouse and parking lot and landing pads for transports. Leia could hear the distant rush of water, and when she managed to dodge around Vader and look down over the railing that blocked her from falling, she could see the canal was sunk over fifty feet into the ground. Dirty, grayish water flowed along the bottom though Leia could see some marks along the sides of the canal that told her it probably used to be much higher. Despite that, the water still looked pretty deep - she wondered just how far the canal penetrated the ground - and it was going fast enough to create waves along the surface, the only splash of white breaking up the otherwise gray gunk of the water.
There was just one way across: a massive metal bridge directly ahead of them.
Or it had been a massive metal bridge, because it had been cut apart almost completely by a transport ship that had fallen atop it. Almost the entire thing was gone; all that was left was a jagged edge and some torn fencing. Leia could not see any other pieces of it anywhere; she guessed that it had fallen and been swept away by the current. The transport itself was sunk into the canal, but it was so wide that it had gotten stuck within, unable to move. The top of it jutted out several feet higher than the land itself. Leia, now that she saw it, could hear water rushing around it, louder than anywhere else. Every once in a while it would be interrupted by a slow, sad creak as the ship was rocked by the water, rubbing jaggedly against the sides of the canal.
Vader regarded the whole scene for the space of a moment, then began striding forward, pushing open the gate to the railing.
Leia stayed where she was. "Where are we going?" she could not help blurting out. "Are we going there?"
Vader did not break his stride. "That is the largest warehouse in this city. There is a high probability we will find some kind of transport inside that will take us outside the city. Do you wish to continue walking?"
"No," Leia was forced to admit.
"Then you should be grateful that we found it so quickly."
She looked nervously around herself, then jogged after Vader. "But what about that?" she said, pointing at the creaking wreckage of the transport.
Vader came to a stop a few feet from it - and the torn, blackened remnant of the bridge. "We will have to cross it."
Leia was about to ask how when she felt a horrifying surge of energy sweep over her body - the same tingle of energy she had felt when Vader had touched her mind last night. Only this time it was not just a simple brush against her mind - this time she felt her feet leave the ground entirely.
She was floating
"Put me down!" she screamed, thrashing in the air. "Put me down, put me down right-"
She dropped to the ground with a sudden thud that left her sprawling on her butt.
Vader loomed over her, lowering his hand as he hissed, "Are you trying to bring more infected on us?"
Leia pushed herself to her feet. "Don't do that to me!"
"Cease your screaming unless you want us to be attacked again!"
"I'm not screaming!"
"You-" Vader stopped, fists clenched, respirator cycling violently. "We are wasting time. We must cross that gap, so desist your flailing and-"
"Don't use that - that thing-"
"It is the Force, young one and you will learn-"
"Stop it!" Leia shouted. "I won't! I won't learn it, I won't ever learn it!" She wrapped her arms around herself tightly. "I hate it," she mumbled, staring at the ground. And, deep in her own mind, I hate you.
She was aware of Vader staring at the top of her head.
"Then how do you wish to cross… Princess?" he asked.
Leia stared at the ship that bridged most of the gap. "I'll walk," she muttered.
"Walk," Vader repeated flatly.
She nodded, trying to look braver than she felt. The gap looked very long and very high and the ship kept bobbing up and down, but it had to be better than the Force thing Vader kept using on her. Anything was better than that.
Vader watched as she approached the gap cautiously, then stared over the edge. It was a very long way down to the churning water.
"Are you still inclined to walk?" said Vader behind her. "Or would you prefer another way?"
Leia knew exactly what his other way was, and refused to answer him. She inched closer. The edge of the ship did not quite touch the side of the wall. She would have to jump to get to it. It wasn't that big a leap, she told herself, just a few feet long. She jumped farther than that all the time.
Of course, those other times she wouldn't fall several hundred feet into rushing water if she missed.
"Why do you delay?" asked Vader sardonically, coming up behind her. "It appears quite steady."
That had not been Leia's issue and she was sure he knew it, but she did not want to say so, because that would mean admitting she was scared, and she was not going to do that again in front of Darth Vader.
It was just that the ship kept swaying in the water, up and down and sometimes side to side. She'd have to time her jump just right…
There was a prickling across her skull, and she shot her head up to see Vader watching her. "Perhaps you require assistance." He raised a hand.
Fear thudded in Leia's chest. Before she knew what she was doing, she ran forward and launched herself in a flying leap towards the transport.
Just as she jumped, the ship bucked upwards, lifted by a wave. Leia, not anticipating that, was able to make the leap - just barely. She slammed into the ship edge harder than expected, the breath knocked from her and her legs smacking painfully against the metal hull. Swaying, terrified she was going to get launched backwards and straight into the water, she threw herself forward, flailing her arms until she grabbed onto the rivets along the outside for purchase until she had stopped sliding around.
It took a second for her to catch her breath. Then she let out a deep sigh of relief. She'd made it!
A massive bang and the feeling of the transport rocking sharply downwards made her throw herself forward once again, grabbing hold of some bars to steady herself. Then she heard rhythmic breathing directly behind her and craned her head over her shoulder. Vader loomed over her, blotting out the sun.
"That," he said, staring down at her, "was a foolish stunt."
Leia bit down hard on her lip to keep from saying, I made it over though.
Vader breathed for one cycle, two cycles. "Do not linger," he finally said, and she felt his shadow pass over her as he moved forward. Every one of his steps seemed to make the transport bob up and down, but she gritted her teeth and stood up unsteadily. She was not afraid, not afraid, not afraid. She straightened her spine. She did not need his help, she was not scared, and she would cross this thing on her own.
Trying to look as confident as possible, and definitely not looking down, she got up and started to follow him.
The transport curved gently upward and then back down. Vader moved up that slope, aiming for the pinnacle, but halted after only a few feet to stand near one of the transparisteel viewports. Leia followed his steps, thinking that where he stepped would be safe for her - he was so heavy that if any surface could hold him, it would definitely hold her. But she avoided walking directly on the viewports, the cracks that rippled its surface obscuring the interior and making her wary of breaking it and falling into its depths. As she clambered up to join a waiting Vader, he abruptly reached down and grabbed her arm, pulling her up.
Her right arm.
Pain shot through her wrist and up her elbow as his fingers, which felt like they were made of solid steel, squeezed down on her wound. Without thinking, she tore her arm away, yanking herself back from him, and it must have startled Vader enough that he released her.
Her backwards momentum tipped her over and she went tumbling back down the transport, rolling off the smooth surface, shoulders and back cracking against rivets. She thought she heard Vader call out her name -
And then suddenly there was nothing beneath her at all.
Leia saw the churning water below and yelped loudly, the sound bouncing around the walls.
But the water just kept flowing beneath her and she did not fall any further. She simply hovered in midair.
Oh no.
She was floating, and she could feel that tingling all over her body - and she twisted her head around. Still at the top of the transport, Vader was reaching out with his hand, leaning forward, respirator cycling faster than she'd ever heard it.
The Force, he was using the Force on her again, and -
I don't want it I don't want it I don't want it
But before she had time to struggle or make any kind of protest, Vader gestured sharply with his arm. Leia came flying back over the transport. But he did not just deposit her on the edge where she had been seconds before - she saw the entire length of the ship pass by her before he let her fall, quite gently and on her feet, at the ship's peak.
Leia's feet touched the metal surface and she swayed, head pounding, heart rocketing in her chest.
"Do not do that again!" Vader's voice broke into her thoughts. He was towering over her, cape flapping in the breeze, and he was shouting at her, angry at her, just like before. "What were you thinking? Had I not been here, you could have fallen to your death, if you were lucky! You could have been swept out by the canal, or drowned, or hit something on the way down!" He strode over to her, bearing down on her, blotting out even the sun. "Are you listening to me?"
Leia backed away frantically, any words of protest frozen again at how mad Vader was. The floating - it hadn't been that bad actually - had saved her from falling - but now something much worse was going to happen. He was going to hurt her again, he was going to stab himself into her mind, he was going to - he was going to -
Vader jerked back, turned his masked head up, and made an odd, strangled sound that came out as static noise over his vocoder. Then he snapped his head down towards her and shook his finger at her. "Do something like that again and I will tie you to me, is that understood?"
She nodded again, though part of her fear was fading. He sounded threatening and still quite angry, but not in the way he had before. It was funny - he sounded more like her mother when she was mad at Leia for hiding in the cellar to avoid seeing her cousin.
"Good." Temper finally dying, Vader turned around, looking at the other end. "I trust you have no complaints about my use of the Force?"
Leia just glared at him.
He turned. "Come, there is still the rest of this ship to cross."
They picked their way across the top of the transport - much more slowly than before, Leia noticed - then slowly made their careful way down. She caught Vader glancing back at her time and again, but he did not try to grab her or offer to help. As they made their way across, Leia caught clearer glimpses of their destination.
The warehouse was a big, tall, flat square that looked like it was sitting directly in the middle of the island, with the vast lot surrounding it on all sides. It probably used to be full of ships - Leia could see lights and landing strips and other markings painted on the ground, as well as the usual assortment of smoke and blast marks. But now the ships were almost all gone, the landing pads empty, and it was filled instead with speeders, most of them overturned or too wrecked to work. In other places she saw more broken haulers, fallen on their sides or slumped in disuse. And littered everywhere else, in the small spaces and nooks and gaps, were the remains of droids, astromech droids and loading droids and repair droids and so many others she didn't recognize. The warehouse itself was a massive, box-like structure painted a dull gray and brown, windows tinted dark.
Vader came to a stop at the edge of the transport, preventing Leia from moving any further. She could see the other end of the bridge, which was just as broken here as it was back where they came from.
He said, "Now, since I cannot trust you to even walk over this without fear of imminent death, I will cross first, and then-"
Leia spotted movement in the corner of her eye and turned to follow it. She gasped.
Lurking behind the left end of the warehouse was a horde of two dozen of the things, the infected. Some of them were walking, others were shuffling, dragging limp limbs behind them; a few were hopping on one limb or even crawling on the ground, pulling themselves forward with their hands. She peered down at the other end and spotted another dozen lurching about in a slow scattering outwards. Their movements seemed random, yet they were gradually filling out the lot, sniffing, dead eyes scanning the air before them. And like her eyes had been opened, she kept seeing more and more of them. Two emerging from behind a flipped speeder. Another crawling over one. A few standing atop boxes, heads canted as if listening for prey. And more, peering from behind a droid, bumping into cargo, pushing themselves atop a hauler.
But all of them were moving towards her and Vader.
And, she saw now, many of them were the same reptilian species they had encountered before - Trandoshans, she thought. Which meant they might grow back anything cut off.
Snap-hiss.
Vader's lightsaber hummed into life.
"The door to the warehouse is directly ahead," he said, and he sounded so loud. "I will go first, then I will send you across. As soon as you land on the other side - Princess, listen to me." Leia jerked her eyes back to him. "You are not jumping that. I will use the Force on you and you will allow me to do so. Do not waste your time and energy struggling. When you land on the other side, run straight for the door. Do not deviate from that path except to avoid one of the infected, do you understand?"
Send her across - he was going to make her float again. She wanted to yell at him and tell him she would jump, but something about the way he was talking told her he was not in any mood for an argument…
And… and if she was being really truthful, it hadn't been so bad… maybe just a little better than jumping… and definitely better than him letting her fall to her death.
She clambered to the end of the ship because it seemed that was what he wanted her to do, then caught herself at the sight of more and more… infected?... coming towards them. There was a loud buzzing in her head. There were so many -
Vader swung his lightsaber down. With a leap that no normal person could make, he landed on the other side of the bridge. The transport swayed down, then up, as his weight left it.
His boots had no sooner touched the ground than one of the Trandoshans jerked. It sniffed the air.
Then it snarled, a terrible rasping sound.
Vader swung around and reached out a gloved hand. With a forceful tug, Leia was launched off her feet; she flew over the transport, over the rest of the broken bridge, then past Vader before landing several feet ahead of him, in the middle of a maze of speeders and containers and droids, hitting the ground so hard her shoes skidded across the gravel.
The things screamed.
And ran.
Vader flung his hand forward. His lightsaber arced through the air straight towards the things, a blur of red light. "Go!"
Leia sped across the lot.
Straight across she sprinted, her dress catching in the wind. Her shoes kept slipping on the rocky ground and once she almost tripped and slammed into a massive container, but she caught herself and kept going, dodging around it -
A thing leaped out from behind it, making her come to a screeching stop. It was not a Trandoshan, she didn't know what it was, only that it was shrieking in her face, clawed hands grasping at her.
Leia did not even have air to gasp. On instinct, she ducked under its arms and dove between the thing's feet, sliding forward. Grit caught in her sleeves and scraped at her palms and her knees, but she scrambled back up, gravel pressing painfully against her hands. Onwards she ran, sliding past a hauler and dodging the teeth of another thing. It seemed she could hear the footsteps of a million of them pounding towards her, growing closer and closer, and the door was so far away -
A pile of containers exploded next to her. Leia ducked, hands over her head. A pig-like grunting assaulted her ears as a Gamorrean, ax still strapped to its back, raged at her, bearing down atop her.
They fell to the ground together, the thing crushing the breath out of her. Leia could not scream, could not even make a squeak. The squealing was deafening and she felt stubby fingers tearing at her dress. Drool wet her hair and her face and all over her clothes and she could not move, could not kick or beat the thing back, she was pinned down and she was going to die -
Leia braced herself for pain, only to see the Gamorrean fly off her. Instantly the pressure on her entire body was gone and Leia took a grateful gulp of air, wiping the disgusting spit off herself. She stared around herself in bewilderment, not understanding what had happened to the Gamorrean. Had it jumped off her?
She craned her neck around, looking for it - and then she saw the Gamorrean soaring through the air, limbs flailing, squealing confusedly, rocketing as swiftly as if it had been hit by something. For a second she could not comprehend it, could not think why that was happening. But then she looked in the other direction and saw Vader, lightsaber back in one hand, his other arm extended out towards her - no, towards the Gamorrean that had gone soaring off her - and she understood. The Force, again.
And then, something happened that Leia could not explain. All she knew was that all the things that had been following her, that were feet from leaping on her, swiveled their heads as one towards Vader - and despite the greater distance, ran towards him. They moved around her like a stream around a boulder, ignoring her entirely, to swarm Vader.
Vader barely spared her a glance. He turned to face the horde of dozens that was leaping over droids and containers and speeders and surging across the entire lot for him - including a massive group of Trandoshans, missing arms or legs or even the lower halves of their body but sprouting replacements before Leia's eyes, the new limbs coated in pus and blood, emerging as rapidly growing stumps.
Vader waved his hand almost casually and Leia felt something along her spine like a crackle of energy.
The Trandoshans flew, scattering like a wave on the ocean, away from Vader. Some simply soared through the air, landing out of sight feet away from them. Others collided with those behind them, sending them tumbling in its own ripple effect.
From a further distance, Leia heard another chorus of shrieks. She twisted to see, down by the landing pad, a straggling clump of more Gamorreans, turning their heads and running for them. For a moment, she did not move at all, frozen at the sight of what was happening.
Run!
The mind-word, insistent and demanding, snapped her out of her trance. She clambered to her feet at the sound of the voice that was not hers, fearing getting the attention of those things but also fearing the pain and intrusion that always accompanied Vader's voice in her mind. Leia ran the entire rest of the way. She could hear the howls of those things echoing up and down the lot. The warehouse was only thirty feet away - then twenty - then ten -
Leia slammed into the door, grabbing at the handle and jiggling it.
It did not open.
No! She grabbed at it again, then reached for the door lock, but it was dead, and even if it hadn't been, she could see the buttons for a password she did not know.
She slammed her fists on the door. "Help! If there's anyone in there, open up! Please, someone, open the door!"
A yowl made her whirl about. One look at the now hundreds of things coming in all directions made her freeze up all over again. Vader was in the middle of it, lightsaber a whir of motion so fast it looked more like a sheet of red than a blade. Body parts were flying with every movement. As he cut his own opening, he spotted Leia and began moving towards her, faster than she thought possible for him.
Leia grabbed at the handle again, pulling with all her might. When it still did not give, she kicked at it furiously, then slammed her whole body against the door. "Help us! Help us, please! Someone, anyone, open the door!"
The screaming was getting closer.
"They're coming, please! Help us!"
They were almost there.
"Help! Help, please, open the door!"
A shadow fell over her. She looked up and saw Vader, turning, lightsaber swinging furiously to beat back the horde that had followed him, and even she could tell that he was barely able to keep them back any longer and that they would be on her and Vader in seconds.
The door opened. Leia almost fell forward as it did.
Vader swung his head at the noise. He took one look within, then grabbed her by the back of her dress and hurled her inside. She landed roughly on the floor, coughing.
She heard the eardrum-ringing, metallic sound of the door slamming shut, and all the noises outside, the howling and the screeching and the clawing, were cut off along with the horde itself.
They had made it.
For a few seconds, Leia just lay there, gulping down air. She didn't know what happened or what miracle had allowed the door to open, but she didn't really care. She just wanted to rest.
But slowly, the quiet settled her, and she peered up, rubbing sweat from her eyes. Rolling over, she clambered to her feet, chest still heaving from exertion. Vader remained at the door, mask canted forward slightly, listening as the things outside clawed at the walls. Their nails raking against metal sent shivers down Leia's neck, and she backed away quickly, bracing herself for the sight of the door falling forward.
But the door held.
However, it was only when Vader shut off his lightsaber that she fully relaxed.
Catching her breath, Leia bent down for a moment. Her body was still quivering from all the running she had just done, and it took several more long moments before she felt recovered enough to start looking for their savior. For she knew there had to be another person: the prickling that had replaced the shivers along her neck told her, with a deep innate sense, that there was someone else inside this warehouse. And what else could have opened the locked door?
It took a moment to spot him. He was crouched by a box, and the warehouse was so shadowed that he was difficult to see until her eyes had adjusted. It was really his shock of light blonde hair, which glinted off the dull sunlight streaming in from the upper windows, that caught her attention.
A boy, just her age.
Leia jogged forward, a funny feeling running through her body. He jerked like he was about to curl into a ball, looking frightened, and she quickly smiled in an attempt to put him at ease, though she knew she was a mess and had nearly let in a bunch of those things. "Hi. It's okay, we won't hurt you."
The boy blinked up at her warily.
"Thank you for helping us." She held out her hand. That was how one introduced themselves, as her parents had taught her, and despite everything, she still remembered her manners. "What's your name?"
The boy straightened a little, some of the fear leaving his eyes. He had just opened his mouth to speak when his gaze darted over her shoulder. He paled.
Leia felt it before anything else - the dark presence towering over them both, huge and inescapable. Vader - but it was Vader as he had felt when she had first met him. That dark, cold, empty part of him had been kept quiet for most of this day. But now it was back and stronger than she had ever known. She could feel a terrible sense of danger, the darkness inside him coiled like a Vorn tiger, ready to strike at the boy standing before her.
The boy who had helped them.
Vader wanted to hurt him.
Well, she wasn't going to let him.
She stepped forward and grabbed the boy's hand, placing herself firmly between him and Vader. "I'm Leia. It's really good to meet you." She said the words forcefully because it was not just the boy she was speaking to, it was Vader, telling him, no, you're not going to hurt him.
The boy glanced at her, briefly distracted, only for his eyes to fly back over her shoulder. He took a step back, and Leia did not need to look to know that Vader was ignoring her, had probably not even heard her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him step around her and his gloved hand flick to the hilt of his lightsaber downwards, ready to ignite.
Leia hurtled forward, grabbing the confused boy's hand. "Thank you for helping us!" she all but shouted, her voice echoing up and down the building. "Have you been hiding in here?" Before the boy could speak, she added, "That's great!" Everything was screaming at her no, no, he can't hurt this boy. "You're going to come with us, okay? You'll be safe with us, and we're going to get off of here and take you home, all right? So why don't you show us around here?" And then she turned and faced Vader, planting herself defiantly between the boy and Vader and his lightsaber.
Her sheer boldness appeared to stop Vader in his tracks. Or at least, he paused and lowered his hand away from his lightsaber just an inch.
Leia continued to stare into his eye plates, refusing to back down now that she had gained a tiny advantage. "He helped us," she insisted. "He opened the door, right? He saved us. So that means he gets to come with us. Right?"
Absolute, dead silence.
Leia held Vader's gaze unblinkingly even though her eyes were already watering. She waited for his presence to push at hers, bracing for pain, but it didn't happen. Still, she felt the battle of wills between them, felt the silence stretch on and on, the air so tense it seemed one word would snap it.
He helped us, she kept thinking furiously, so you don't get to hurt him.
Then Vader raised his head slightly. A funny sound came out of his vocoder, like a gust of wind marred by static.
He hitched the lightsaber back on his belt, and without a word, turned around and headed for the other side of the warehouse.
Leia shivered as the thickness of the air evaporated. She waited another moment for Vader to fully disappear into the shadows of the far end of the building before facing the boy, releasing his hand. Now that they were closer, she could take a better look at him. He didn't look like any of the children she had met before on Alderaan. He was dressed in some kind of light-colored robe, but cut above his knees and tied with a belt. She spotted other, equally pale-colored layers beneath, and he wore boots and what looked like lots of wrappings around his legs. His hair was, as she'd seen before, a very sandy blonde and cut rather shaggily. He was also blinking, wide-eyed, after Vader's receding form.
"Who was that?" he whispered.
Leia raised her eyebrows slightly. Did he truly not know? "That's, um, Darth Vader."
The boy's eyes got even larger. "Darth Vader?"
"Haven't you seen him before?"
He shook his head. "I heard about him on the HoloNet, but I've never seen him." He shivered. "He felt… scary."
She nodded; that was exactly the feeling that she had gotten from Vader, and she warmed to the boy. He understood. "I know. I'm… sorry." She didn't know why she was apologizing for him, but she felt like she needed to do or say something.
The other child tilted his head, attempting and failing to find where Vader had gone. "What's he doing here?"
Leia frowned. She wasn't sure; she had never tried to ask. "I don't know, but he said he's taking us to a base or something."
"Us?" The boy pulled back hesitantly. "Really?"
"Of course." The moment she said it, it felt right. "You opened the door, right?"
The boy nodded slowly. "Yeah. I'm sorry it took so long. I was all the way - I was - I was doing… something." He waved an arm vaguely in the other direction.
"That's okay." She clasped her hands behind her back, like her parents had taught her. "You got it open, that's all that matters. And it means we're friends." That felt right as well. "So you get to come with us. We're all going to get out of here." She didn't know if she really knew that or if she even believed it, but she wanted to.
"Okay." The boy smiled at her. "What's your name again?"
"Leia Organa," she smiled back. "What about you?"
"Luke." He shrugged, like his name was nothing. "Luke Skywalker."
The boy's presence in the Force was so strong, it outshone almost everything else.
On the far end of the warehouse, out of sight and out of earshot of the two children, Vader contemplated his options. This was a new factor in the dangerous game that was being drawn, and he did not like it.
He was so bright, this boy's Force signature, it was almost unfathomable how Vader had missed it before. Together with his daughter, their presences in the Force were almost blinding, twin suns against the dark void of the planet. It was almost as unfathomable as to why the Force would place two such strong Force-sensitives on the same planet, at the same time, to be encountered by random chance by Vader.
But then again, there was no random chance when it came to the Force.
He prowled the other end of the warehouse, ostensibly looking for a working speeder. In reality he was so deep into his own speculations that he could probably trip over a speeder and not see it. That only made his rage fester all the more. As he looked over the many piles of boxes, he let himself reach out, testing the boy's presence once again.
The power hidden beneath the youth's innocence was overwhelming. Yes, he was strong, incredibly so - as untrained as the princess was, but shining with such potential that Vader thought it might even outstrip his daughter's.
Or Vader himself.
And that made him a danger. Should the boy be found and snatched up by one of the Inquisitors, he would most certainly be trained in the ways of the Dark Side - but not only that. With such strength, Palpatine himself would take an interest in the child. His master would not leave the boy to rise slowly among the ranks of the Inquisitorius, no: he would see in this child a new apprentice - a rival to the powerful Sith that Leia herself would become.
A rival to Vader.
The child was their enemy without him even knowing it. Vader ought to cut down the boy right now, before his master could ever get his hands on him. That had been his first impulse when he sensed the boy, an impulse his daughter had sensed subconsciously.
His hand fell back to his lightsaber, but he did not bother to ignite it. It was no use anyhow, because for some bizarre reason, his daughter had taken it upon herself to protect the boy, declaring that he had saved them. Vader would have retorted that with a simple Force push, he would have opened the door for the both of them and that he had been on the verge of doing so once he had taken care of the horde of infected.
But the way the princess had stood up to him, all defiance, her sheer strength of will blazing back at him… had it not been for the situation, he might almost have smiled.
She had looked so much like Padmé at that moment.
That banished any momentary pride he had in the princess and he forced all the memories away, resuming his search for something of use. He had hoped to find a speeder in the massive lot outside, but that was now filled with the infected. And most of what had been left behind had looked unusable anyhow.
The children's voices drifted over to him, indistinct in their words but palpable in their emotions. His daughter's rang louder, whilst the boy was softer. He felt an urge to return to them, to drag the two apart; the closer they grew to one another, the more his daughter would protest when he inevitably killed the boy.
He did not, though. Something else kept him away, though it stoked his anger ever higher. The clothes the child wore, his accent - Vader recognized all those. The boy was a Tatooine native, most likely the son of one of the moisture farmers.
Unbidden came the memories - a shop owned by a greedy Toydarian. Speeding through narrow canyons. The sunken pit of a lonely homestead in the middle of the desert sands - and the skin tents of Tuskens as he crept through their camp.
No. Again he forced the memories away. He would have to control these constant intrusions, which he could only blame on the presence of this boy, however much his daughter liked him -
Padmé's image rose up once again.
No! Disgusted with his own weakness, he stalked further away, supposedly to search the upper levels of the warehouse, but in truth to put even more distance between himself and the source of his ire - the source of all the memories the boy had brought up. This other child would be a problem, he could already tell.
There was only so long he could stay away though, and for all the innumerable amounts of cargo in the warehouse, it was obvious none of them held a speeder, land or otherwise. The children's voices kept echoing back to him, and he finally forced himself to return, following those two bright and strangely similar signatures. No doubt that was due to their proximity together. Who knew what the boy was saying to his daughter…
He need not have worried; they were clearly speaking only of inane things. The princess was questioning the boy about the mundane details of his life. "-on a moisture farm, Luke?" So apparently Vader had been correct in that assumption.
The boy, Luke apparently, shrugged. "It's really boring. I help my aunt around the house most of the time, or my uncle has me fix the moisturizers and the droids. They're always breaking down 'cause there's so much sand everywhere." As Vader approached, he stiffened and slunk back towards Leia.
The princess lifted her chin and made a show of not noticing Vader. "How come you're here then? Are you and your aunt and uncle trying to buy more stuff for the farm?"
"Um…" Luke's eyes kept flitting to Vader and then away. "No, I… I actually… kind of… ran away. Sort of."
His daughter's eyes widened, but she looked understanding. "Ran away? Why?" She cocked her head to one side. "Um… were your aunt and uncle mean to you?"
"No!" the boy exclaimed, then jumped at how his own voice bounced around the walls and immediately dropped his volume. "I mean - no. They're nice. Uncle Owen can be kind of grumpy sometimes, but he loves me. I just…" He sighed. "I wanted to go somewhere else. Biggs - my friend Biggs - and all the other kids I know went on this really long trip and they all came back talking about how he saw all these cool solar systems, and went to a planet with actual seas, and swam in it and saw all these aliens and I didn't get to go because - well, Uncle Owen never wants to go anywhere. Even when my school has a trip just to another town, he told me I had to stay home to help. I just…" He threw his arms up. "I want to see something else. I don't want to be stuck on the farm so long. But now…" He looked miserable. "I guess I'm stuck here instead."
Vader felt an unexpected twinge in his chest and the echo of a long-ago voice in his mind. I'm going to be the first to see all of them… What was it about this child that kept bringing back things he had thought long buried?
His daughter finally deigned to look at Vader, tilting her head all the way up to look at him. "Hi," she said, with a bold impudence that Vader could only assume came from having an audience in the boy.
Vader ignored her. "The infected will not be held back for long. We must find what we're looking for here or prepare to leave." And considering the trouble it took to get inside, it would likely be twice as difficult to get out. The horde outside sounded louder than ever, a constant patter of footsteps and bodies bumping against the walls interspersed with moans.
She turned to Luke. "We're trying to get out of the city, so we need a speeder."
Luke blinked. "A speeder? There's one right here! Come on!"
He grabbed the princess's hand and pulled her all the way to the back, in a shadowed corner of the room surrounded by boxes. It was covered with a tarp, which, the boy was explaining, was because he had wanted to keep it clean and away from dust. Like a showman, he pulled the tarp off with a dramatic whirl, tossing it aside.
It was, indeed, a speeder, and one that looked to be in working order. Vader circled it once, twice, then a third time.
So the boy had found this? Moreover, he had chosen, despite his clear intimidation at the sight of Vader, to show it to them, trusting apparently (because he had no doubt his daughter had promised this) that they would take him with them instead of abandoning him to the infected.
"It - it doesn't turn on," the boy explained with only a slight stutter, watching Vader's circling, "s-so I've been trying to, um, to fix it. There's a whole bunch of stuff here," warming to his topic, he pointed to a box, one of many in the warehouse, "so I'm trying to go through it and figure it out. I think it might be the engine or something, but I couldn't get it running. Or, uh, maybe it's the turbocharger, but I can't quite reach it, so-"
Vader tuned out the boy, feeling everything fall into place. Yes, they could use this to escape the city and make their way to the nearby Imperial base. His daughter would clearly argue for taking the boy, but that was of little consequence. She was a child and Vader a Sith Lord, and the city was a maze of streets and alleys that were filled with infected. For a child of the deserts, it was likely even more disorienting. Vader had little doubt that he would soon "lose" the boy to one of those side alleys… and when his daughter was not looking, dispose of this other child, her unbeknownst rival.
And if the princess should find out, well, she might protest and put up a fuss, but if she wanted to survive she had no choice but to follow him regardless. He was a Sith Lord and she was just a sheltered, untrained child, and he would exert his will over her.
Plan made, Vader brought his mind back to the present to assess the speeder for himself. One of the newest models, most likely purchased for use in transporting loads of cargo rather than for moving people about. That, of course, would mean it would have great strength in carrying heavy loads, but be deficient in speed and acceleration.
That was easily rectified, though.
He stretched out a hand without looking. A hydrospanner flew from the box. Snatching it out of the air, he began unscrewing the rivets holding the front closed, before throwing it open.
The boy was watching with wide eyes, all volubility ceasing. But his gaze followed Vader's every movement, and when Vader opened the front, the boy looked ready to leap up. Vader paused for a fraction of a second, thinking the child might be stupid enough to launch a protest. But instead he detected an eagerness in the child, this Luke.
"You have some knowledge of landspeeders?" Vader rumbled, glancing at him.
The boy's widened even further at being addressed. He opened his mouth, hesitated, then murmured, "I can - I can fix almost anything. I, uh, do that all the time at home."
"Then make yourself useful," said Vader, already pushing the boy out of mind. "Hand me the reheats, and then the turbocharger. The smallest ones."
As the boy scrambled to help, Vader thought that perhaps he might delay killing him for just a little while.
It had never occurred to Luke that Darth Vader might be good at fixing things.
He had also never thought that he, Luke, would be helping him.
Then again, he didn't actually know much about Darth Vader, just the weird stories and funny rumors people said about him. None of them were good, though, and most were scary. Stuff about people dying whenever Vader came to their home, or how his ships would single handedly bomb a home or even a city from existence. And even crazier stuff, like reading minds or moving things without touching them.
He believed all those stories now. He'd seen Darth Vader make a wrench fly towards him. Did it mean the other stuff was true, the reading minds and everything? Maybe not… but Luke was pretty sure it was true. He didn't know how or why. It was just a feeling, and Luke had always trusted his feelings.
But right now, he had to help Vader with the speeder.
At first, Luke mostly stuck to just finding things for Vader, scurrying around the containers whenever the other man needed something. Luke had dug through them enough the last couple of days that he pretty much knew where everything was, and what wasn't there as well. So he spent a couple hours just walking - well, running - back and forth from box to Vader (whilst keeping a really wide berth from him), giving him things (which was more like placing them near Vader so he didn't have to directly hand them to him), or, sometimes, taking stuff from Vader and placing them somewhere safe. He placed them down very carefully too, even if they were oily or dirty or seemed otherwise useless. He caught Vader watching him the first time he did that, but when Luke made to stop, the - man? droid? alien? - had merely turned away.
So he guessed it was okay to keep doing that.
After a little while, Luke began to figure out what Vader was doing. At first he was just checking what wasn't working; apparently it was an issue with the repulsorlifts. Luke didn't know why the whole thing wouldn't start if it was only the repulsors that weren't working, but Vader figured it out fast and didn't say anything about it being weird, so Luke guessed it was just a quirk of this model. Then he fixed that. Luke gave a start when the speeder roared to life, but Vader turned it off pretty quickly (which was rather disappointing). Now he seemed to be checking the turbochargers again.
Leia was helping as well, though funnily Darth Vader didn't make her do anything. Luke wasn't sure why she was with him, and Leia didn't seem to know either. He had asked her before Luke had shown Vader the speeder, and she had just shrugged, looking confused.
"I don't know," she'd told him, her forehead all crinkly. "But he won't let me leave, and…" Her eyes had darted to the tinted windows, where they could all see the shapes of the monsters shambling outside. "He's really scary, but I think… I'd rather be here… than out there."
Which Luke could only agree with.
It was at least easier to forget the monsters outside when he was fixing stuff. After a while, Vader seemed to run out of - or not need - things for Luke to grab, which left Luke to hang around with the girl, Leia. Vader also did not seem to have any of the hesitation Luke had had about touching or dirtying anything, and had opened up the speeder's doors and kept the cockpit open so he could work on the dash. Leia, who had nothing to do, eventually decided to go sit inside it, and after several moments of uncertainty, Luke crawled in beside her, thinking they might talk or play or do something besides standing around, waiting.
All the banging around, however, made it really hard to focus, and eventually Luke poked his head over the dashboard, heaving himself up on the steering wheel to get enough height. He could not even see Vader under the open hood of the car, though he heard his weird, mechanical breathing just fine. He badly wanted to know what he was doing to the speeder - what if he was messing it up? - but he had no idea how to ask it without sounding rude.
Also, the stories he'd heard of Vader killing people with just his mind were… very frightening.
Leia pulled herself beside him as well. She flashed him a glance that seemed to read Luke's entire mind, then said, with a jauntiness that betrayed her nervousness, "What are you doing?"
Vader's response was to ignore her.
Leia cleared her throat, ignoring Luke's frantic attempts to stop her. "What are-"
Quickly, Luke tapped her shoulder. He had recognized the mess of parts and the tools and hoped this might shut her up. "Are - are you replacing the turbocharger?" He slid down the front of the windshield, feet banging against the open hood. "That'll give it more speed, right? But I didn't see a replacement in the boxes."
Vader suddenly appeared from behind the hood, tilting his helmeted head up to gaze at Luke. Luke shrank back, wondering if he had said something wrong.
But then… "Yes," said Vader, sounding mildly pleased. "If we are to escape this city, we will need acceleration, not load-bearing ability."
He understood that. He wanted the speeder to go faster. Well, Luke could certainly get behind anything that had to do with speed, though he wasn't sure how Vader was going to be able to do that. He whispered that to Leia, who was looking a bit puzzled by the words.
She nodded, understanding… but she wasn't done with her questions. "Why do we need to be able to go so fast? Will it still fit all of us?" The look towards Luke made him squirm; she was worried about him.
"There will be room enough," said Vader flatly, back behind the hood. "We will need enough speed if we want to outpace the infected surrounding this wretched building."
Leia frowned. "What's 'infected' mean?"
"Diseased." At Leia's puzzled silence, Vader added, "They have an illness that causes them to become maddened, enraged. That is why they attack us, though I am… uncertain how they continue finding us." He fell into a brooding silence.
But Leia's frown only deepened. "Illness? Does that mean… they're sick?" Her eyes widened. "Are you killing sick people?"
Vader eyed her. "They are attacking us. I have no choice but to kill them."
"But that's not fair!" Leia's voice was pitched high, and Luke flinched, not knowing how she could find the bravery to yell at Darth Vader. "They're sick! They can't help what they're doing, right? We should help them!"
"They," said Vader, with the tone of someone whose patience was on the verge of running out, "are trying to kill you."
"But they-"
"Do not argue with me!" Vader had put aside the hydrospanner to jab a finger at Leia. "Perhaps you feel I should be more merciful? Should I have let them tear you apart in that alley, or let the Gamorrean rip you to pieces?"
Leia's mouth was shut, but she was staring at him furiously.
That seemed to be answer enough for Vader. "Do not complain, then, Princess, of my treatment of these creatures, or next time I will leave you to their mercy."
Princess? But now did not feel like the right time to ask. The girl was silent, fuming in her seat, and Luke could feel tension thickening the air, just like when Leia and Darth Vader had first entered the warehouse. He glanced at her hesitantly and patted her arm. He understood. The fact that they were people, sick people, was awful. And if Vader was just killing them… weren't people supposed to help others who needed it? When he was sick, Aunt Beru always took care of him. She didn't just… kill him.
Guilt squirmed ever deeper in his stomach. He wasn't any better. He had locked all of those monsters - people, sick people, he knew now - out of the warehouse, which was full of food, clothing, probably medicines. That was all stuff that could have helped them. He knew that if you were sick and you didn't get help you'd only get worse. Maybe you could even die. Was that what he was doing to them? Making them worse?
But he certainly wasn't going to say that to Vader.
Luke shook his head, not wanting to think anymore about this. It made his chest feel tight and uncomfortable. Leia still didn't look like she wanted to talk, so he tried to bring his mind back to what he had been wondering about in the first place: how they were going to make the speeder faster. He kept watching, looking at the discarded parts and the stuff lying around in readiness for… whatever Vader was doing. Vader kept tinkering with the turbocharger though. Luke knew that was what could make a ship go really fast, really quick. This model's turbo wasn't that great though; Luke knew because he'd helped Fixer use one of the older versions of it. Vader seemed to agree, because he had pulled it out entirely.
But where were they going to get a replacement? The speeder couldn't just fly around with one, and Luke hadn't seen any that matched what the speeder needed, at least not in any of the boxes he'd managed to open. He pushed himself off the speeder and pattered around to the front, trying to crane his head over the top to look inside.
To his embarrassment, Vader actually noticed him standing there. Even worse, he stood back, as if he was waiting for Luke to try and figure it out. The pressure of being under his scrutiny made Luke want to back off and leave him to it, but his curiosity got the better of him. What was his plan?
For a few moments, he couldn't figure out exactly what was going on or why the inside looked so different. There should have been a big empty space where the turbo had been removed, but it was completely filled. They weren't the right parts for this speeder, though… and then it clicked and he grinned suddenly, understanding.
"What?" demanded Leia from atop the speeder.
"You're using three of the T-44's turbos," Luke exclaimed, addressing that to Vader. "They're top of the line, but they're too small and weak for this model if you have just one. But if you use three, it'll work! That's so wizard!"
"Precisely, young one," said Vader, still watching him, and unless Luke was imagining it, he definitely sounded approving. "But can you see a potential problem?"
Luke nodded eagerly. He liked this stuff, he was good at it. "The T-44s are really strong, but they also build up a lot of heat. We have some of their older models at home, and it's a really huge issue, 'cause it's really hot there already."
"And what would you suggest we do to resolve this issue, given your… experience in this matter?"
He ran to one of the nearby boxes, fumbling through it, so engrossed in the problem he didn't even notice the incongruity of Vader asking him for advice. He knew he'd seen a certain something somewhere… so it was with a shout of triumph that he pulled it out.
"Biggs has one of these at his place," he said proudly, hauling the thing over. "Though his is a lot uglier and worn down. Uncle Owen wanted it anyway, but Biggs's dad beat him to it. It's a single-stage bypass fan with a high and low pressure turbine. It cools the engine down and there's no afterburn either!" He rattled all this off, remembering his uncle grousing about losing out on it.
"Yet there's no space to install it."
"Oh, that's okay." Luke placed the turbofan on the nearest box, then climbed atop it for good measure to be able to see better. "Look, I can see the side engines over there. They're mostly used for steering, and there's three of them in there, which is a lot." Uncle Owen's speeder had one; it was all that was needed for his trips. "They're cool for quick turns, but if all the streets here are really straight, we don't need them." He picked up a wrench. "So if we're really careful, we can take them out and that should give us room for the fan!"
Vader moved aside, making a gesture as if to say, go to it, then, and Luke got the funniest feeling then, a mix of surprise and curiosity and approval that did not feel wholly his. A heat crept up the back of his neck as he became conscious of how closely the other man was watching him.
"I want to help." Leia plopped down on the floor beside him. She was determinedly not looking at Vader, and Luke could almost read her thoughts: if she couldn't help the sick people outside, she would help Luke. And also: if Vader wasn't going to do as she wanted, then she would stick with Luke instead. "Show me what to do. I can help."
Luke was grateful for her presence. But at the same time… she was a girl. And judging by her clothes and fancy hair, she was probably rich as well, from the Core most likely, even if everything she had was stained and unraveling. But before he could even open his mouth to say anything, she shot him a glare, and it looked so deadly that Luke decided not to risk it.
"Um, okay, I guess you can… pick stuff up and move it."
Leia's glare became even deadlier. "I can do more than that. Just show me."
Luke was aware of Vader's gaze on him - both of them. He really wished he'd stop watching them. "Fine. We have to unscrew that thing, and that thing." He pointed, then handed her a wrench. "They might be screwed in really tight, though."
Leia was already clambering back up the hood. "I can do it." She shot him a look. "Race you."
Luke won.
But only barely.
Vader took over installing the turbofan, and the silence between him and Leia remained thick, but he halted midway through.
"But we're almost done!" Luke protested before he thought better of it.
Vader looked at him, then pointedly out the window at the darkening sky.
"Oh," said Luke, deflating. "Okay then."
His stomach chose to rumble then; he hadn't eaten all day. Leia shot him a look, but she seemed to find the sound more funny than anything else. He searched around for his pack, which had been discarded on the ground, and picked it up. "Um, I have some stuff if you're hungry." He held out a bar to Leia, and then, very hesitantly, to Vader. Did Darth Vader eat ration bars? He had to eat something, right? But Vader stared at him so hard that Luke hurriedly put his arm down. "I've mostly been eating this. There's some of these meal packs around, but I don't know how to prepare them." He took out said packets and placed them on a container.
Vader approached him so quickly Luke took a stumbling step back to get out of his way. But he merely picked up one of the packets and held them at mask level.
"These are Imperial rations," he said after only a few seconds of examination. "They need only water and a heat source to activate." He placed them down and walked slowly towards one of the boxes, as if… listening for something. Outside, the howling seemed to grow louder, though maybe that was because Luke no longer had the speeder to occupy all his attention.
Vader held out a hand. From one of the boxes floated out a small, shiny, metallic device, with a flat top connected by a vertical tube to a circular, open bottom. Luke stared in awe as it floated straight to him, and only just resisted the urge to jump back when it clattered at his feet.
"Use this," said Vader; if he was aware of Luke's fright, he made no sign of it. Outside, the cries of the monsters - infected? - kept going, but Vader ignored it completely. "A condenser unit. I assume you have water?"
Luke nodded quickly, not sure what would happen if he ever said 'no' to Darth Vader, but not wanting to find out.
"Then," said Vader, as if Luke were a very slow child, "prepare your meal." He swept away so fast the tip of his cape knocked against the box with the ration bars, sending them to the floor in a way that felt quite disdainful.
Leia came over, giving Luke a look as if to say that she did not want to be around Vader anymore than he did. Luke, who would never even dream of trying to anger Darth Vader himself, just sent her a wide-eyed, anxious stare and shook his head, pulling out a water bottle.
Meal preparation was quick, less than a minute, and yielded a spongy looking bread bun and a flat slice of green meat. It didn't taste that good - the bread thing was grainy and the meat was unsalted - but Luke was hungry enough not to care. So was Leia, it seemed.
"What?" she asked, when she caught Luke staring.
Luke blinked and looked down at his plate. It was shiny and new, totally unlike the rusted, chipped things he had at home. The infected were still being pretty loud, and he tried to talk over them to distract himself from thinking about them. "Nothing. I just thought…" He struggled for a second. "I didn't think you'd like the food, that's all."
"Why?"
"Um… he called you a princess." He pointed to her dress. "And you're, um, kind of rich, aren't you?"
She shrugged. "I'm a princess of Alderaan."
Alderaan? A princess? Now Luke was even more nervous. Not only was she a girl, not only was she rich, not only was she from the Core, but she was an actual princess? Vader hadn't been making that title up? How was he, Luke, a nobody farm boy, eating food with and talking to a real life princess? A princess who could fix things and help him cook and everything else too?
Leia shook her head. "You don't have to look at me like that. I'm not any different from you. I'm just Leia, really. And being a princess isn't any fun."
Luke thought of endless days working in the hot sun, cleaning off machinery, and seriously doubted that. "Why? What do you do?"
"I just wave a lot, and have to act nice to people I don't like."
That sounded like paradise to Luke. "Wow."
Leia pulled a face. "Not 'wow'. I wish I was like you. At least you get to do stuff and go outside. My parents just make me stay in the palace all the time. I want to run away from home someday." She poked at some meat. "All I can do is run away to the woods, and that's still part of my home."
A palace. She said it so casually too - she lived in a palace. Luke tried and failed to imagine living somewhere other than his aunt and uncle's farm and having a forest as part of his home. He didn't even know what a forest looked like apart from some holos he'd seen at school. "How'd you end up here then?"
"We were taking a trip. My parents have a home here but they sent me first because they're busy with something." Her face fell. "The guards tried to help, but we were attacked. And Captain Antilles was… he… he told me to run. I got in a speeder but I didn't go back for him, I couldn't see him…" She turned away, pushing her plate off her lap and not looking at Luke.
Luke focused on his own meal, embarrassment squirming in his chest. After what he thought was long enough, he whispered, "And… how are you with…?" He gestured with his head in the direction that he thought Darth Vader had gone.
Leia played with her fork, finding a piece of meat left over on it and plucking it off. "I drove the speeder here and crashed it. Then I ran inside a building to hide. He found me there." She twisted her fork in her hand. "He did… something… to my head."
His eyes widened. Floating things, the light sword, and now doing stuff with people's heads? Were all the stories true? It made Luke very nervous. "Did it hurt?"
Leia nodded, looking close to tears.
Impulsively he hugged her. He wasn't sure it was the right thing to do, because she was a princess and he felt dirty just sitting near her, but it felt right. "I'm sorry."
She squeezed him back. "Thank you, Luke." A pause as she finished her meal. "I think something happened, too. Because of… my mother."
"Your mother?"
Leia nodded, reaching into a pocket. "My real mother." She drew out a holoprojector and flicked it on. A tiny image appeared of a beautiful woman wearing a rich gown, hair loose and falling down her back in a mass of curls. "I don't know anything about her, but I remember bits, I think."
Luke gazed at the woman, feeling a sympathetic twinge in his chest. He set aside his own finished meal. "I don't know anything about my parents, either. Well, my uncle said my father worked on a spice freighter or something. But I don't remember him or my mother, either." He kept looking at the woman in the holo. She definitely looked like someone who could be the mother of a princess, and he felt small and inadequate all over again. That was not someone who could be his mother.
Leia's look was understanding. "I'm sorry.
Before Luke could answer, they both heard the sound of a respirator rapidly drawing nearer. Leia hurriedly snapped off the holoprojector and shoved it back in her pocket as Vader, who had gone off somewhere in the darkened warehouse, reappeared as suddenly as a ghost. Which was weird considering how big and loud he was.
"You will need rest for the journey tomorrow," he told them, lifting his head from where the holo had just been. "Even with the speeder it will be some distance, with many obstacles. Where do you sleep?"
So Luke had to show them both the tiny room he had taken for himself, and the pile of blankets he used for bedding. Somehow, despite the mask, the way Vader looked over his nest felt almost contemptuous.
"These are inadequate," was all he said before departing abruptly. Next thing Luke knew, he was waving his hand and tipping over boxes, letting fly padded mattresses and thicker blankets and even some very soft, fluffy pillows. "You will sleep there," Vader told them, and his tone brooked no argument. "Make yourself comfortable. I will wake you when it is light."
As soon as he left, the two of them dove into the covers. Luke was only grateful Vader would not be staying in the tiny room with them. Not only was Vader incredibly terrifying, he had to admit, he did not know if he could sleep with the constant sound of his breathing filling the room.
It was almost completely dark in the room, the only noise being their breathing, the occasional breeze against the building making it creak, and the ever-present grunts of the monsters outside. Luke could not see a thing, but somehow he felt Leia there, just a few feet away from him.
Unexpectedly, her voice came floating out of the darkness. "Well… good night, Luke."
He smiled, and somehow knew that she could feel it, as easily as he felt her. "Night, Leia."
It was still incredibly terrifying, being alone on this planet, with monsters (sick monsters, he reminded himself) trying to eat him and Darth Vader around, who could mess with his head and make things move without touching them. And yet… it was nice, too, to have a friend.
Vader: This boy is as strong with the Force as my daughter.
Vader: And he has an almost identical Force signature to her.
Vader: And he's good at fixing things and wants to be a pilot.
Vader: Plus my daughter has already formed an unusually strong bond with him.
Vader: ...
Vader: ...
Vader: Clearly this boy is a threat and must be killed immediately.
In canon and a lot of fics, Vader usually (and understandably) figures out Luke is his son first and only later finds out about Leia, so I thought it'd be fun to reverse the situation. And to have him immediately think of murdering him. I thought that'd be incredibly funny.