Luke heard a familiar sound, and it took him a minute to realize it wasn't a dream he was having. He opened his eyes and everything was dark, but he could very distinctly hear the sound of his father's mechanized breathing hovering over him.
"Father?" he sat up in his bed, and felt very confused. "What's going on?"
He couldn't really see his father, but he felt the cool leather of one gloved hand brush against his cheek.
"It's all right, Luke," Vader told him, "you don't have to get up yet."
"What're you doing here?" Luke asked.
"I came home early, I wanted to see you before I retired," Vader explained.
Luke thought there was some irony to that since he could hardly see anything. "Why?"
There was an otherwise silence for a few seconds before his father answered, "For one thing, I missed you."
"Oh," Luke was dumbstruck by the simple response.
"For another," Vader continued, "it has occurred to me that I have not been home enough with you lately."
Luke's eyes squinted in puzzlement, "What do you mean?"
He was mildly surprised when in lieu of an answer, his father half sat on the edge of the bed and stared down at him.
"Luke, when you were a child you always talked to me about everything."
Luke nodded groggily, "I remember, I was there."
"Why then have you kept your recent turmoils hidden from me?" Vader asked.
"Because this is a problem that you can't fix," Luke answered as he lay back against the pillows.
"Luke, nothing about you is a problem."
"You say," Luke said, "you have to say that, you're my father."
"I say it because it is true," Vader said, "I don't lie, I have no need for it, you know that."
Luke's face took on an expression of uncertainty, not that he doubted his father's word, but that he hadn't considered that fact himself.
Vader reached one gloved prosthetic down and linked his fingers between Luke's and squeezed the boy's hand.
"I know part of the growing process is to omit things from one's parents, for various reasons," Vader told him, "one being a need for privacy, which I understand, and have always tried to respect."
"I know, Father," Luke nodded.
"But I want you to know, Luke, no matter what is going on in your life, you can still talk to me about anything."
Luke pressed his lips together uncertainly, then answered honestly, "I wasn't sure how. This isn't something you could understand. And I can't tell anybody else about it because they definitely don't understand, so I just figured it was easier to keep it to myself, it's not like anyone can help me anyway, so why burden anyone else with it?"
"You are not a burden," Vader said firmly.
Luke shrugged. "Not to myself, I'm not."
"You do not need anyone who thinks you are," Vader told him.
Luke felt his eyes burning as he answered truthfully, "It gets kind of lonely, Father. If I don't bend, I don't have anyone. Nobody else is willing to compromise, so I have to."
"Luke...as the first free Skywalker born into this family, you have no need to put up with such substandard people."
"But I need someone, Father," Luke said. "Girls only like me until they get to know me, and the guys are harder to get along with because they can't let this thing go."
He felt his father's prosthetic thumb stroke over the back of his hand.
"You should have told me what was going on in your life."
Luke shot his father a cynical look. "What would you do, Father? Go down to the school and force them to be nicer to me?"
"Luke, even if I can't fix what is going on in your life, I still need to know what is going on," Vader pointed out, "just because you are nearly grown doesn't mean I cease to care about what you're doing."
"But what's the point?" Luke asked. "If it's nothing that either of us can fix, why does it matter if I tell you or not? Things are just going to be the same tomorrow, the day after, next month, next year..."
"It matters," Vader answered, "because if you had told me before, it would not have consumed you to the point it did the other night, you would have known that you will not fail me by not marrying and reproducing."
Luke pursed his lips together in silent realization.
"I realize how hard it is to bring up such sensitive topics," Vader told him, "but they tend to lose their weight once that step has been taken. The hardest part is simply taking it."
Luke nodded in understanding.
"Well...there are some things that I've wondered," he told his father, "that I've been curious about, but...I'm not sure how to ask you."
"By simply doing it," Vader answered.
"Yeah, but...it's kind of not that easy...it's..." he did a combination shrug and nod, "a, of a, a, sensitive nature..."
"I understand, my son."
"Ohhh, I don't think you do," Luke replied in a tone that indicated it was worse than his father thought.
"You need not fear asking me anything, my child."
"I know," Luke nodded, "but...that's easy to say when you don't know what it is."
"I realize that, but I assure you, whatever it is, I will hear you out, and try to answer to the best of my abilities," Vader told him.
Luke closed his eyes and nodded again. "I'll...try to bring it up sometime."
Luke was more asleep now than awake. Vader lightly patted his arm and told him as he stood back up, "Sleep well, my son."
"Mm-hmm," Luke absently hummed as his head lolled to the side, already gone.
Luke sat at the dining hall table, with the upper half of his body all but sprawled over the top of the table as he stared blankly ahead and spoke to his father, who sat at the head of the table, working on a part for his TIE fighter.
"So," Luke summed up what he'd told his father during dinner, "I told Mara that I really liked her, and I think she's a great girl, and I like spending time with her, but I wanted her to know up front that nothing sexual is ever going to happen between us, and I made sure to let her know it's nothing to do with her, I just wanted her to know where we stand...and, she said she never wants to see me again."
Luke looked up at his father, who continued to tinker with the ship part for several seconds before he finally seemed to acknowledge his son.
"I am sorry, Luke," Vader finally responded, "I know relationship troubles are a part of every adolescent's life, but I really thought you would have an easier time of it than most."
Luke sat up straight in his chair again and looked at his father.
"I've been trying to figure out how to bring something up, but I'm still not sure about it," he told Vader.
"Simply by saying it," Vader responded as he picked up his tools again and resumed his work.
Luke sucked in a sharp breath in anticipation. "Okay...well...uh...how did you know...when you were my age...how did you know that Mom was the woman you wanted to...have sex with?"
The gloved hands stopped tinkering with the various items laid out at the head of the table but otherwise didn't move, nor, for that matter, did Vader even raise his masked face. Luke looked, and waited anxiously, and when nothing happened, he worried that he may have actually broken his father.
Finally he saw the red lenses staring at him.
"It was never an issue, Luke," Vader answered. "By the time we reached that stage of our relationship, I had already been in love with your mother for years. You forget, I met her when I was nine years old, I fell in love with her the first time I saw her."
Luke looked at him uncertainly for a few seconds before responding, "Maybe that's where I went wrong. Maybe if I'd met a girl I really liked when I was a kid, I would've found the right one to be with, maybe it's just too late for me now."
"There is no such thing as too late, Luke."
The temperature in the room seemed to drop 20 degrees. Luke felt the anger in his father reaching through their bond in the Force. He knew however that it wasn't actually aimed at him, so he didn't respond to the icy tendrils climbing up his spine. He knew the moment would pass and merely waited for it.
Vader stared at the boy, and though his modulated voice didn't actually soften, the next sentence was spoken without the same amount of power in it.
"When you find the right woman, that will be the right time," he told Luke.
Luke stared at him for a moment before responding, "If, you mean."
"Consider me an optimist."
Luke dropped his head to the table in a laughing fit when he heard that.
Luke walked into the palace without a word and hardly even a sound, his hands thrust deep in his jacket pockets and his gaze aimed more towards the floor than what was right in front of him.
"Luke."
Looking up, he saw Vader sitting across from him. There was a mild look of surprise on the boy's face but for the most part he managed to appear unfazed.
"Hello, Father," he said in almost a blank tone.
The red lenses stared at him for a minute before his father asked him, "Didn't you have a date tonight?"
The chrono on the wall verified that Luke had returned home after only 35 minutes.
"Uh...yeah," Luke answered slowly and nonchalantly, and turned for the stairs, "Goodnight, Father."
"Luke, get back here."
Luke grumbled under his breath as he turned around and stepped over towards his father.
"What happened?" Vader wanted to know.
"Uh...well..." Luke stuck his hands deeper in his pockets as he explained slowly, "I went to her house...I met her parents...we all seemed to get along great...and we left...and we got to the end of the block...and she ditched me to go off with her real date, a guy that her parents didn't approve of and wouldn't let her go out with. I was her cover date."
The dark lord raised one gloved hand and curled his prosthetic fingers motioning the boy over to him. Reluctantly, Luke stepped closer to his father, and found himself being pulled down to sit across the arms of the chair, similar to when he was a kid and sat on his father's lap.
"I'm sorry, Luke."
"Oh well," Luke murmured, "I guess I should've known something was wrong, she actually acted interested in going out with me."
He felt one of his father's hands pat him on the shoulder and heard the modulated voice, "I know this isn't a comfort right now, but don't let this discourage you, Luke, you will find the right girl when the time is proper."
Luke offered his father a small, sad smile and responded, "I don't think so, Father."
"You need to be patient," Vader reminded him.
"Believe me," Luke told him, "it would be easier to be patient if I didn't have to see anybody."
"Believe me, child," Vader said in return, "I am well versed in that feeling. Part of growing up is learning how to deal with people anyway."
Hearing that statement from his father made Luke's smile slightly more genuine.