Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

PLANETARY REPORT

• Total population: 5,679,280

• Number fled: Est. 2,040,000

• Number wounded: Est. 500,000+

• Number of deaths: Unknown

• Number of infected: Unknown

Governor Marfa slapped down the datapad. The headache that had started two weeks ago, when the first incident had been reported, was building in intensity. Worse and worse.

Agri-world-6. Most inhabitants simply called it Agrisix until the Empire deemed fit to provide them with a better name. Once a small rural colony on the edge where the Outer Rim met the Mid, but under his rule, now a productive marvel of foodstuffs, leathers, rare woods, and medicinals. All of it due to his hard work. His colleagues had laughed when he had been assigned the tiny planet with a population of less than a million, but he had seen its vast potential and vowed that he would have the last laugh in the end.

So it was to that purpose that he had sent in cratefuls of machinery to plow the fields for grain and livestock, instead of the tiny subsistence gardens the colonists had scratched a living on. He had utilized the swamps and woodlands for materials to build the many homes needed for their laborers, then sent even more workers out to begin exploiting its other resource - rare medicinal flora, barks and herbs and roots, unknown on any other world and brimming with possibilities in Imperial research labs. He had brought in huge beasts from some little-known jungle planet, merely because their skins were said to be quite valued in the Core. He had imported Wookiees to work the forests and cut down the dense hardwood. 

Now, had all these little ventures of his worked? Of course not - almost all the Wookiees had perished, supposedly from overwork and “inability to adapt to the new environment”, which he had always taken to be bureaucratic talk for “laziness”. At least one of the jungle beasts had escaped into the woods, but he had turned a sizable profit from the venture nevertheless. He had even cleared out a small sector of dissidents, some group of rejected, would-be Jedi that had been subsisting on the planet for years. The colonists had spared them, insisting stupidly that they had no powers and were therefore harmless. That just showed how far the Jedi rot had spread.

Still, what else could one expect from this backwater planet? But what a transformation he had wrought. Credits were flowing in, materials shipping out. From a planet that had barely a quarter of its land cleared, he had now tamed almost half of it. And one city - the planet’s only city - he had built as well, to his exact design: the center of industry, business, transportation, and administration for the entire planet. From a population of several hundred thousand they had grown to one of several million, all engaged in the creation, processing, packaging, and transporting of products. A peaceful world, a quiet people.

Until a few days ago.

At first, he had thought it was a riot. Rebel spies infiltrating his placid, obedient people, disrupting his placid, obedient world. No matter, reports stated it was only a couple dozen dissidents, easily rooted out. He’d sent a message to the nearby Imperial base, who had responded with a squadron of stormtroopers to suppress the unrest.

None of those men had returned. 

At least, not as themselves.

And the riot had only spread.

Trade was disrupted. Goods were piling up. Factories and farms had to be shut down. Millions had fled on ships meant to ship cargo; millions more were infected, dying, or dead. As for those that remained… he did not want to think about it. Hiding, at best. Looting or rioting, at worst. 

Thank the stars it had not reached his mansion – the containment fields and laser gates were keeping them out for now. But the city itself, his beautifully crafted jewel of a city, was practically lost. Datapads were piled high around his desk; he was sending all his forces out but they were dwindling rapidly, deserting or joining those besieging the planet – and on the sly, getting his ship ready for him to flee, if necessary.

So when an assistant with a beleaguered look on his face came rushing in, he snapped, “I already told you, I will not be seeing anybody at this time!”

“I know, sir!” the assistant exclaimed – which was most unusual. Proper etiquette had been demanded - no, required - here in the mansion. That meant only soft voices and the politest of tones. Let no one say that a Rim planet was lacking in its courtesies.

Governor Marfa was on the verge of giving a sharp reprimand when he saw the look on his assistant’s face. The man had gone quite pale, hand with its requisite datapad quivering.

“What is it?” he demanded.

“Sir…” Sweat dripped from the assistant’s face. “It’s – it’s – Lord Vader. He demands an audience with you.”

Stars, but he was even more terrifying in person.

Lord Vader swept in, the sound of his respirator filling the room, cloak sweeping past his frightened guards and making his quavering assistant drop his datapad. Vader was flanked by an officer and a contingent of white-armored stormtroopers, all wielding blaster rifles, and at the sight of it all Governor Marfa had to remind himself that he was in charge here and there was no reason Vader ought to even be here in the first place. It was Marfa who had been placed in command by Moff Vanko, Marfa who sent the reports that went straight to said Moff and thence to the Emperor’s advisors before, maybe, just possibly, reaching the Emperor himself… and what was Vader to that but a glorified lackey of His Majesty’s?

Of course, then he remembered that Lord Vader outranked all Moffs and wielded more influence than a mere advisor. Had he not been at the Emperor’s side since the inception of the Empire? Was he not the Supreme Commander of the entire Imperial military, whatever that title meant? Rumors shared only amongst the other regional governors had it that the Emperor had a tendency of executing his advisors every few months to keep them on their toes, yet Vader had remained for the last eight years, surviving rivals, purges, and all manner of assassination attempts.

Some poor junior assistant who apparently hadn’t heard the news came rushing into his office. At the sight of Vader, he went stark white, shoved some piece of flimsi into his superior’s hands, then backed trembling out of the room. Governor Marfa’s guards, all apparently agreeing that this was a wonderful idea, followed suit as well.

The governor was not so easily cowed. You’re the leader here, and Lord Vader merely a guest. Act like it. He straightened in a futile attempt to meet Vader’s great height, face blankly professional. “Lord Vader.”

“Governor Marfa.” Vader’s voice boomed out over the room. Marfa suppressed a flinch – that voice could rattle a man to his bones. At the doorway, his terrified assistant was quivering down to his boots. No doubt he had received some urgent news and that was the only reason why he was staying put when everyone else had fled the vicinity, but it would have to wait. “I am here to put down this rebellion of yours.”

Marfa bristled. “I assure you, Lord Vader, this is no rebellion, nor is it of my doing. Furthermore, I have no need of any assistance from you. My men are well in control-”

“You have failed to contain the insurrection and so it is your doing.” Lord Vader drew nearer, and Governor Marfa began to get a sense of just how close in proximity he was to the… man? droid? alien?... whatever the hell Vader was.

“My lord,” he said in his most civil tone, “I don’t know if you are aware of what exactly we are dealing with, but-”

“Then perhaps you ought to enlighten me.”

The assistant now tried to jump in, though he looked scared out of his wits at the thought of speaking up. “G-Governor. I – I have some – some urgent news-”

“Later,” snapped Marfa. He had noticed the deadly twitch of Lord Vader’s fingers. Stories of what Vader did to any who displeased him filled his head, which he endeavored to push away as other stories, of Vader’s rumored ability to read thoughts, came to mind. “My lord, this is no insurrection. These are not the coordinated attacks of rebels, nor are they the riots of discontented subjects.” Not that his people had any reason to be discontented, nor was he the type to miss out on potential rebels, but that was beside the point. “We’ve had some disquieting reports from the field. It seems to be – some sort of infection that causes its victims to die only to rise again-”

A distant crash echoed down the hall.

“Governor,” the assistant squeaked, head jerking towards the sound, “I meant to t-tell you – I need to tell you - the people, the - those things- ” His voice was a squeak. “They’ve - they got through the containment fields, I don’t know how, they’re past the laser gates too - they’ve reached the door- ”

And then all hell broke loose.

“How much farther is it?”

“Not much farther, Princess. Be patient.”

Leia Organa stared out the window of the shuttle, feeling anything but patient. It was her first trip alone – well, Captain Antilles was there along with a unit of his security guards, but it was her first trip without her mother and father. And it was to their little vacation home, so it was her first time off Alderaan without them! Her first time off Alderaan entirely!

The ship banked low over what looked to be a massive field of some kind, flying closer as it reached a shadowy swamp, before veering for the dark, densely green clump of trees. That was where their vacation home was. It was a planet mainly used for growing stuff, her tutors had told her, but her parents had inherited a piece of land in one of the forested areas, which made up about half the planet. Her parents were too busy to go there themselves, they had told her, but when they were young it had been a spot for them to relax, to be with one another, to get away from all their work and just have some fun.

And now it was Leia’s turn.

“Steady, Princess,” said Captain Antilles, hand on her shoulder, as their ship dipped slightly to port. The entire viewport turned on an angle as they cruised over trees to an empty landing spot, but Leia did not tilt or stumble or lose her balance. It was her first time off Alderaan, her first time on a starship, but she could feel how and where and when the ship was going to move, like it was a part of her.

The ship steadied out and straightened, and Leia felt a low tremor as it drifted over the dirt. With a small thump, it landed.

Leia was running for the door even as Captain Antilles urged caution. The security guards laughed, barely trying to stop her as she burst out of the confinement of the starship.

“It’s so… different,” were her first words as she stared around the forested clearing. Alderaan had its lakes and its trees and its plains, but there were always homes and cities nearby. Everything was pruned and prodded into perfection, watched and trimmed to highlight its most beautiful aspects - and that included Leia herself. 

This place though… it felt wild. Untamed. Free. Some of the trees had clearly never been cut. The fuzzy grass on the ground was growing in huge weedy patches. And the air! It smelled woody and musty and just the littlest bit dank. 

It was wonderful!

She spun around, giggling, wanting to take in everything, and there right near the house was a tree - definitely never been cut - just big enough to climb up and stare at all the ships coming and going. She took one step towards it.

A twig snapped.

Leia and Captain Antilles jerked to attention. The captain’s hand fell to the blaster at his hip. He jerked his head and the rest of the guards - four of them - ran down the ramp, positioning themselves around Leia and the captain in a small circle.

From the shadows of the trees emerged a figure.

“Stop right there.” Captain Antilles’s voice had the force of a command. “This is private property, reserved for the Queen of Alderaan and her royal consort.”

The figure did not move. Leia stared at it – she was closer to it than the captain – than back at the captain. It looked humanoid, but it was too shadowy for her to make out their face, their gender, or even their species. All she could tell was that they looked tired, hunched over and breathing in shallow gasps that Leia could hear all the way from where she was.

“Back away, now,” ordered the captain sharply. His security guards had also drawn their blasters.

The figure let out a low groan, drawn out and painful.

Shivers ran down Leia’s spine at that sound. The figure’s head swiveled towards her. 

It sniffed.

Leia shot a confused glance back at Captain Antilles. His eyes caught hers and he made a hand motion: get behind me. 

The thing was still staring at her, head tilting to one angle, then another. Yet she could still feel its gaze on her, and every sense in her body was telling her not to move. 

“Princess, behind me,” Captain Antilles said to her, a note of warning in his voice. To the men, “Set for stun. It might just be some confused trespasser.”

Leia took one step back.

The figure cocked their head. 

Then they crouched and shrieked.

An answering chorus of howls echoed around the forest.

Faster than anything she had ever seen, the figure ran - straight towards her. She saw stun bolts radiating out but missing, too slow to catch the creature. Captain Antilles shouted for her to run, but she had not even turned around before she felt a hand clutch at her.

The thing was on her, fingers digging into her flesh – grabbing her by the arm – she caught one fleeting glimpse of a bloodied head with a slavering mouth that opened wide - 

Its teeth sank into her flesh.

This time it was Leia who screamed.

A blaster bolt hit the thing in the shoulder. Then several more. The figure spasmed, releasing Leia and whirling for Captain Antilles until a second bolt slammed into its torso. It fell backward, dragging along a still-screaming Leia. She kicked it - get away, get away - and finally succeeded in ripping her arm away. Pain shot up her arm as muscle tore. Warm wetness oozed down her arm. She scrambled to her feet, getting behind Captain Antilles - 

A final bolt flashed across her line of sight. She reached the captain just in time to see the figure knocked back by the bolt. It tumbled to the dirt, twitching for a few seconds before going still. The security guards surrounded the thing in a circle, blasters still aimed.

“Princess Leia!” Captain Antilles lowered his blaster, taking her by the uninjured arm. “Are you all right?” He pulled her, panting, away from the prone thing that had attacked her. “Let me see, Your Highness.” 

He rolled up her sleeve and examined her arm. Leia gulped great lungfuls of air as she stared at the massive bite wound on her arm, the imprints of rows of teeth that had punctured skin and flesh and were bleeding all over the arm. She darted a glance at the horrible figure that had attacked her. She could barely see it, still encircled by the guards, but it looked… strange. The person’s skin was a sickly gray, there was gashes down its body and limbs that were blackened and oozing blood and other liquids, sticky stuff that was several shades of white and yellow. Its head was tilted towards her, staring at her even in death, but the eyes were glassy, glazed over so she could not see the pupils.

The captain said a word that would usually get Leia a fierce scolding from her mother, drawing her attention back to him. “Come on, let’s get you inside. Force knows what that was, but we’ll get some bacta patches on that, then-”

“Sir!” one of the guards shouted.

Leia looked up to see more figures emerging out of the shadows, from behind trees, seemingly rising from the ground itself – all surrounding them. Some looked human, others were larger, smaller. Many walked, but a few crawled, others hung off the trees, a couple even flew. But all of them growling, groaning, lurching closer and closer.

“Stay back!” shouted another guard, pointing his blaster.

One of the leading figures halted, head tilting in the guard’s direction.

Then it sprang. 

The guard fired but missed wildly. He aimed to fire again -

Too late. The figure reached him and leaped. Within seconds the guard was down, pinned under his attacker’s body as it tore at him with clawed hands. Then, before Leia’s horrified gaze, she saw the thing - the monster - unhinge its jaw and bite deep into the guard’s neck. 

Blood spurted along the ground, into the thing’s mouth, all over the guard’s uniform as he tried to scream. All he managed was a wet gurgle.

Captain Antilles shoved her behind him.

“Open fire!” he roared.

Blaster bolts filled the air, downing several of the figures in front, but each time one fell another took its place - and then the things were running. Leia heard the panicked shout of a second guard as a crawling creature dragged him to the ground; saw a third get jumped on as one of the things leaped out of a tree. The fourth kept firing even as a mass of half-dozen tore into him - 

It was a moment before Leia realized the screaming she was hearing was her own.

Captain Antilles raised his own blaster. “Leia, run!”

“What?” she cried out.

“Run! Get to the speeder in the garage and get out of here!”

“What about you?!”

A dozen figures burst fully into the clearing, humans and aliens alike, sporting wounds, missing limbs, dragging themselves forward because they were missing entire halves of their body – but all of them coming for them, hunger in their dead eyes.

Captain Antilles fired. “Princess, run! Go!” He kept firing. Figure after figure went down, only to be replaced by another – or to fling themselves straight back up. They had huge holes in their torsos and shoulders and legs from the blasters but still they kept coming. “RUN!”

Leia ran.

The sounds of screeching and growling and hissing, of blaster fire, echoed in her ears over and over. She ran straight back, into the house and through the rooms to the garage. Her small fingers barely reached the button to open the garage door, and even as the sunlight of the clearing began to enter the darkened garage, she was already clambering clumsily into the speeder. She could not see anything over the dashboard, she could not reach down for the gas, all she could do was press buttons frantically until –

With a whoosh the repulsors came to life, the speeder lifting off the ground - and blasted out of the garage, the top just skimming the half-opened door. Leia slipped off the seat at the burst of momentum, her shoes planting hard into the accelerator. The speeder shot forward, past the hordes of murderous beings, down the one road out of the forest – and straight for the only thing in sight, the massive city on the horizon.

Luke shook awake at the thump of the ship landing.

He sat up, ignoring the instant stirrings of guilt in his gut, and reached for his pack. He was only going to be gone a little while. The captain had said the ship would be headed straight back to Tatooine with its cargo once it was loaded, and that would only take a couple of hours. Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru probably wouldn’t even notice he was gone. And if they did, he’ll just say he had gone to Biggs’s place and had stayed over when it got too dark. He wasn’t supposed to do that, and he was definitely supposed to get someone to tell aunt and uncle so they wouldn’t worry… but they’d understand at least. Nobody went out at night on Tatooine because of the Tusken Raiders. Besides, sleeping over at Biggs’s house would only get him a lecture, not… whatever he would get for hopping on a ship and leaving.

And it wasn’t his fault anyway! It wasn’t fair that all his friends had been able to go on a trip off-planet and Luke hadn’t. Uncle Owen had said he had chores, so he was the only one who missed out. It didn’t matter that the planet was right in the same system, or that it was almost exactly the same as Tatooine, or that Biggs said it was really boring (which Luke suspected he was only saying to make Luke feel better). The important thing was that everyone else got to do fun, exciting stuff except for Luke. He was always the one stuck on his stupid dustball farm on a stupid dustball planet.

So yeah, he’d run away. And by running away, he meant hopping over to Biggs’s home (so that wasn’t a lie) and then hitching a ride from there to Anchorhead, and then hiding in a transport all the way to Mos Eisley. Yeah, Uncle Owen said never to go there, but Luke had stuffed himself in a box and he really hadn’t seen anything at all. 

Plus, it was for a good cause, and it’d only be for a little bit!

Speaking of running…  he had to get out of the ship’s cargo hold before anyone here noticed him.

He waited until the door of the hold opened. The box he’d hidden in had been packed and loaded onto the ship without anyone checking, which was really lucky for Luke. Even luckier, nobody had bothered to screw it close or pack stuff on top of it, so Luke had gotten out quick as lightning and hidden himself behind a pile of crates. 

It seemed to take an awfully long time for anything to happen, long enough for Luke to wonder if they had forgotten about their cargo and were going to leave him trapped there. He was getting kind of hungry - he hadn’t eaten at all since running off… 

But with a leap of his heart, he heard a clang from outside and then the creak of the old hinges as the door was slowly lowered to form a ramp. He pressed himself back behind the massive boxes and waited for the first few haulers to come onboard. They were mostly droids, their rollers grinding over the metal plating, but there were two men there to watch over them, stooped and weary, muttering to themselves. He peeked out cautiously and saw one getting into a big loader that he was using to lift and move the heaviest and largest boxes. It was dark enough inside, even with the low lighting, that Luke didn’t feel too afraid of being caught. Snatches of their conversation filtered down to him, muffled by the clank of machinery.

“-sort of holdup, huh?” grumbled one of them. He grunted as he lifted a box.

There was a heavy thud as the one in the cargo loader put something down. “Eh, what can you do?”

“Not much. Never seen the port so empty, though…”

A droid came within inches of Luke, and he ducked back. The droid’s whirring cut off the conversation for a few seconds. By the time it left, he only heard the last part of what was being said. 

“-weren’t answering their comms, though-”

“So they’re on a caf break, you know these backwater planets.” The voices faded.

They had left the ship for a bit - this was his chance! Luke darted from his hiding place to crouch behind another box, then scurried to a third, keeping low and getting closer and closer to the door. He poked his head over the top. The hauler was coming back up the ramp but the other man was still outside. He waited for his chance.

At the precise moment when the hauler had gone deep into the ship’s hold and the second man had his back turned, Luke slipped down the ramp. His boots padded along the metal surface. As soon as the height was low enough, he leaped off, hitting the floor with an oof! He saw even bigger loads of boxes piled so high they were bigger than the haulers, and he kept scrambling until he was far from the ship and out of sight behind them. Only then did he let out his breath.

He’d done it!

Now to explore the planet!

The spaceport alone was bigger than anything he’d seen, bigger than his home, bigger than the whole town of Anchorhead. He’d expected to see more ships landing and leaving – right then the skies were quite clear – but just being on a ship, and seeing all those places others would be, was more than he could have hoped for. He practically skipped his way past them, imagining what kinds of ships they might have. The small ones might be for speeders - no, starfighters! Definitely starfighters. Maybe even bombers! The medium sized ones could hold anything: boring ships like transports and freighters, but maybe they’d have shuttles and gunships too! And the big ones… could those be for warships? It boggled his mind. 

He was instinctively heading for the only building in the entire spaceport. It was kind of empty - he’d expected lots more workers around - but that suited him just fine, because it meant he could walk around and observe everything without getting spotted. The spaceport was outdoors, a big complex of permacrete and metal. He tilted his head to sniff the air, then stopped, eyes widening.

Clouds! The sky was cloudy! He’d never seen clouds on Tatooine at all!

Did that mean it was going to rain? Or… it had rained? Maybe not, in his holobooks he knew that other planets had different kinds of weather and sometimes there were clouds with no rain. But he stared at those gray puffs nevertheless. It was way more different than looking at some images of them. 

As for the air… he inhaled some of it and wrinkled his brow. It smelled strange and felt even weirder, like it was making his skin all sticky. That never happened except when he was sweating, and he was not sweating now. It wasn’t even hot, just… mildly warm. To Luke, used to scorching heat, that was the same as feeling cold. 

He kept jogging, hugging his pack to him (he’d taken it with him, just in case), intent not on leaving the spaceport - he did have to go back soon - but to at least reach the building and maybe see something of the city. Luke had never been to a city. The only place he’d ever been to outside of Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru’s moisture farm was Anchorhead. Well, he supposed he’d been to Mos Eisley now, but that didn’t count because he hadn’t actually seen anything. Uncle Owen had never let him go there. When Luke had asked why, he’d just grunted, said something about it being a foul and evil place full of scum and villainy, and told him to go back to cleaning up the droids.

His uncle would probably kill him if he knew what Luke had done.

Luke expected that he’d have to do some more sneaking around as he got nearer to the building, but it was a lot easier than he’d thought it would be. There just weren’t a lot of people around. That did seem a bit weird - even at Anchorhead there were more people than he’d seen in this huge spaceport. But he shrugged it off; maybe things were different here.

The closer he got to the building, the more he realized that it was actually a warehouse, a huge one, big enough to fit Uncle Owen’s entire farm. It also had almost no people at all. Again, that felt strange for it to be so empty. But the captain on the ship had said something over the intercom about this being a mainly agricultural planet, which meant there was a lot of farming (Luke groaned - he could never get away from farming), probably with big machines and drones. Not like on Tatooine, where everything was so run down from the sand that they could only use small droids. So really, there probably weren't as many people as he’d seen in those holos of, say, Alderaan or Corellia. 

There was a big, wide pavement that went all around the warehouse. Luke followed it, figuring it would lead him out. He didn’t want to go to the building anyway; he wanted to see the city! Tugging his pack closer to keep it from bouncing, he started to jog, aware he’d have to go back soon if he wanted to catch the ship back.

That was when he cleared the building and saw the city laid out before him.

Luke stopped, eyes wide. It was so much. And so big! There was a fence surrounding the spaceport, but he could see beyond it to all the buildings everywhere, made of plastic and metal and duracrete and other stuff he couldn’t even name. Anchorhead was nothing compared to this. Only the sand dunes were as big as some of these buildings! Or maybe the cliffs of Beggar’s Canyon! Even from this far away he could see how huge each building was, miles upon miles straight up. He was sure once he was closer they would look even larger - the warehouse he was in was only a couple hundred feet up and already the biggest thing he’d ever seen, so one of those buildings might hold all of Mos Eisley. Maybe everyone who ever lived on Tatooine! 

And speeders, so many speeders parked everywhere! He ached to hop in one and take it for a ride. Luke had only ever seen the one at home and maybe half a dozen at a time in Anchorhead. But here he could see thousands along the streets, waiting to be shipped out or parked along the sidewalk and buildings or crashed up against one another –

He frowned. Crashed? Why had they crashed?

Luke put that out of mind as he walked further down the road, towards the fence. The landing port, he realized as he drew nearer, was kind of like a little island in the city - he could see a gigantic canyon that dived deep in the ground, lower than he could see. There was one bridge to cross it, far on the other side of the spaceport. He was mostly walking across a huge parking lot and loading area for all the stuff people unloaded. 

Speaking of people… there really weren’t as many as he’d thought, considering how close he was to the city. Actually there were quite a few on the bridge, past the fence. They were all walking a bit funny. Like shambling. But still, there were a lot of them, and a lot of different species of them – he saw a family of Twi’leks, another group of Rodians, some Trandoshans in uniforms, more aliens than he’d ever seen before. Though it was strange: they all walked the same way, hunched over, a slow lurching walk, like their bodies were almost too heavy for them to hold up.

One of them made a funny sound, like a snuffling noise. It turned towards Luke, but not quickly and smoothly. Its feet scraped along the ground, its body swung about like a pendulum. Luke blinked at it, unnerved, then moved back a step. 

It was bleeding. 

And its eyes… they looked all wrong.

The figure gave one deep sniff.

Then it opened its mouth and screeched.

As one, the others on the street turned, smelling the air. Almost all of them were bleeding from some part of their body, almost all of their eyes had that frightening dead look.

They all howled.

And ran towards Luke.

For one horrifying second, he stood frozen, not believing exactly what was happening – thinking, stupidly, that they were coming after something or someone else.

But all at once it hit Luke – they were coming for him. 

And then it was he who screamed. Who turned. Who ran.

Not back to port, but towards the building, thinking wildly that if he got inside, he could slam the door, hide, get out of sight. He ran and ran and he heard footsteps and howling and groaning that seemed to be getting closer and closer – and still he continued to run.

His foot landed in a puddle, and he skidded several feet forward–

– then slammed into a door that burst open at his momentum.

Falling to the floor, Luke had just enough foresight to get up and kick the door shut, right in the face of the things chasing him. A frustrated screech punctuated the air and the door shook from the force of the bodies, and Luke yelped, sure it would give from how they pounded at it. He ran back from it, crashing into boxes and parts before tripping over something he could not see in the darkened room to collapse on the floor.

But slowly, so slowly, the banging grew quieter… then stopped.

Lying there, panting from exertion, heart beating wildly not just from running but from sheer terror, he finally curled up on the floor.

And if he cried a little, that was nobody’s business but his own.

The city heaved and roiled on itself as people fled and shrieked and died. Its ships left its ports. Its industries sputtered and died. Its inhabitants left or died or turned.

The city emptied out. The factories ground to a halt. Machines came to a stop where they stood. Homes flickered out and were abandoned. Speeders crowded around spaceports, left by their owners to flee off-planet - or because they no longer had need for them at all. Many others were just stopped in the middle of a street, left in a parking lot or a garage, or smashed, burning, against buildings, against street lights and signs, against other speeders in a massive pile-up.

Food rotted, water ran out, the power flickered and died. Buildings went aflame from neglect or fell apart under the weather or from the disasters that had struck them.

And the only people left, soon, were those that had turned. Shambling through the abandoned streets, they lived only to hunt out their prey.

The few living souls that remained stayed hidden. And waited.

Chapter Text

The city burned.

Vader surveyed the wreckage dispassionately from where he stood, at the very top of the governor’s palace. And it was truly the top: he had situated himself at the uppermost edge of the roof, from where he could see the entire city laid out before him. For the governor’s palace had been built, quite intentionally, to but situated almost directly in the center of the city. It was the only urban area  on the entire planet; half the planet, the cleared out area, had been devoted to growing various vegetables, grains, and fruits while the other half lay wild, a mass of forest and swamps. This city was the planet’s main trading port as well as business hub, communications center, and administrative network.

Well, no longer.

He doused his saber, the beam dimming with its characteristic hiss. From below came the incessant moan of the rabid things that had attacked him. He assessed them clinically from his spot atop the roof. He had jumped there using a Force-enhanced leap, in the process bursting through a gaudy and likely very expensive Chandrilan glass window. It had been the only way to escape the creatures that had torn through his men like flimsiplast. He was the only one remaining of the force he had brought to the planet. The others had fallen, dragged down by those beings with no hesitation, no fear, and seemingly no motivation.

This was no rebellious mob. This was something else entirely.

He pushed aside the stuttered attempt of an explanation that the governor had given him before the mob had torn him apart. Rising from the dead - what stupidity. He knew from personal experience that a return from the dead was nearly impossible, and certainly not something achievable by ordinary beings. But a disease of some kind… that was far more likely. Yet what could it be? He thought back to the information he had received on the planet. The pastoral world was mostly human, but it had a sizable minority of alien populations. Rodians, Twi’leks, a colony of Mon Calamari in the swamps, even a few Devaronians and Togrutas, as well as an imported population of Wookiees and a counterbalancing group of Trandoshan laborers, had all made their home there according to the reports he had been given. Many of their number were amongst the mob coalescing beneath him.

Whatever madness had infected them, though, had rendered them all the same: an unruly, mindless herd bent on nothing more than destruction and hunger. Even their appearances had blurred together, so that while most retained their general distinguishing features - the shape of their head, the number of limbs, the height of their body - they all had the same grayish skin, shot through with black where the infection, whatever it was, had seeped through their circulatory systems, or the closest thing to it that they possessed. The same sightless eyes, staring at and through him; the same animalistic grunting as they shambled below him.

But even that was not as disconcerting as the next observation.

He could not feel them with the Force.

In fact, once he swept his senses out, he could feel almost no sentient life on the planet at all, no presence at all in the Force, save for a few scattered lights, most dim, some a bit brighter. It was not a Force void, for even that would have some sensation, some sense of emptiness. As far as he could tell, these beings did not exist within the Force at all.

He gripped the hilt of his saber. It was like being blinded or deafened, the loss of an entire sense. He could hear them, see them, yet to stretch out and feel nothing at all - it was disquieting. This was no natural disease, no genetic mutation or evolutionary offshoot of some preexisting microbe lying undiscovered until now. Someone had devised a method to utterly hide a being’s presence in the Force. And that idea alone was enough to make the Dark Side boil.

This was far more dangerous than any rebellion. A group of beings - any beings - that could disappear from the Force itself - it struck at the heart of the Sith.

He would get to the bottom of this.

Vader pushed the moaning mass of beings below him from his mind, assessing his next steps. There was little chance of them reaching him; the disease appeared to have rendered all its victims practically non-sentient, depriving them of conscience or intelligence. And if that was the case for the rest of its inhabitants - and by all accounts it was - then the city itself was lost; he must leave it. He swept his gaze to the landing pad next to the governor’s palace, noting with only the slightest irritation the burning wreckage that had been his shuttle. Torn apart, most likely, by the horde of creatures, in order to get to the crew and pilot left on board. As he gazed at it and the swarming figures below, he saw some familiar uniforms among them: Imperial uniforms.

The governor’s terrified explanation came to mind once more, but he shook the thought away. The governor had been an irrational fool. His men had not died. Rather, this all pointed to what he had already theorized: disease, acute, fast-spreading, and incurable. Most likely spread by bite or blood, he reflected, remembering the horde’s tendency to use their mouths over their limbs. He supposed he ought to be thankful it was not airborne, else he might have been changed too: the respirator did not filter out microorganisms. 

Idly, Vader let his gaze fall over the torn leather sleeve on his left arm. He had been careless in that first, sudden burst of the diseased, and allowed one of them to bite him. The pain, even dulled as it was by the prosthetic neuroreceptors, had been enough to snap him out of his surprise and cut down his attacker. More importantly, all it had managed to do was clamp down on metal and cloth; no part of it had found actual flesh. Nevertheless, he did a quick scan of his own body; there was a miniscule chance that, perhaps, whatever disease-causing organism had been transmitted along the metal and synthskin to his actual flesh. It took longer than he might have liked - he was no longer in the habit of checking his health - but he sensed nothing amiss. Perhaps there was an advantage to having all prosthetic limbs.

He cast that thought away and turned towards the south. His comlink had been rendered useless by the death of his men, and he tossed it aside without a second glance. If the power grid was being shut down, which was likely, then he would have no way of communicating with the Exactor either. But there was a military base outside the city; just about every notable planet had one, and those were expected to be self-sufficient and ready to communicate with any passing Imperial commander. He would make his way there, traversing the routes with the least amount of wreckage and, if all went well, finding some speeder or transport to make his way off-planet.

And once there… he clenched a fist in anticipation… someone, perhaps many someones, would pay.

It was a high drop from the rooftop to the ground, but that was no matter when one had the Force on one’s side, even if it was deadened on this planet. Without another glance behind him, Vader leaped off, his black-caped form moving towards the fading light.

The speeder jolted under her clumsy hands.

Leia clung to its wheel, the wind whipping into her eyes over the open cockpit, blinding her. 

And she could barely even see where she was going in the first place!

She didn't even know how much time had passed. It had taken so long just for her to pick herself off the floor - or at least it felt like a long time had passed - and now she was racing past who knew what. Everything was a blur and the only thing she comprehended was that she could not see the sun and that the sky was turning that gray-blue color that usually meant night was coming.

Trees flew by her. Fields too, then buildings, growing taller and taller. Leia couldn’t see over the speeder edge - just to hit the pedals, she would have to sink all the way down and push it, and then she couldn’t see anything else   so she had to raise herself back up before she hit something, but if she wanted to see clearly she had to push herself over the dashboard or the door, and then she couldn’t hold onto the steering wheel or touch any of the levers, so she was bouncing up and down, and it was cold and her arm hurt so badly and she kept bracing herself to crash, she was going to crash -!

Without thinking, she jerked the wheel to the right and yelped as she saw a massive gray something - building or ship or maybe even an alien, she’d never know - fly by her left side. She hadn’t even seen that! If she hadn’t moved like she had she would have hit - 

Something rang in her head, an overwhelming feeling that sizzled down her arms telling her to move again - and then her body jerked of its own accord, and she spun the wheel again until that same mind spot yelled stop! Her arm throbbed with every movement and she could feel wetness on her wound and the torn bits of cloth beneath her white overdress flapping wetly -

And then it came one last time, the overwhelming feeling telling her she had to STOP NOW.

Leia gasped and sank down, down towards the bottom of the speeder, one foot reaching the brake. 

The speeder came to a sudden halt that made metal screech and jolted her off her already-precarious position on the seat. Her legs buckled as they banged against the speeder floor, sending pain shooting up her feet and ankles and shins. At the same time the bottom of the dashboard came flying at her - Leia threw her arms out in front of her face and yelped as she smacked against the hard surface. 

Everything went quiet.

Leia, pain stabbing needles all over her body, whimpered as she lay at the bottom of the speeder.

Get out, her mind whispered.

She twitched at that. Her head swam with any attempt to think. Her legs ached. Her arms were sore and bruised. It was easier by far to ignore that niggling thought telling her to run. She just wanted to lie there until her parents could find her. They knew where she was, right? They were coming to save her, weren’t they?

That little mind space pressed at her again: get out .

But she hurt so much.

It was even stronger now. Get out, NOW .

But why - 

An unearthly howl made her jolt upright and almost hit her head on the seat.

It was the same howl she had heard on the ship - the same sound of the ones that had attacked her - had hurt her - had killed - had killed -

NOW!

Terrified out of inaction, Leia clawed at the leather seat until she was up - and immediately started choking as acrid smoke burned her eyes and filled her lungs. The speeder was aflame and her mind was yelling at her to get out get out get out NOW - 

The howl was right in her ear.

Leia threw herself backwards and felt something swipe right where her head had been. She couldn’t see and she couldn’t hear anything except crackling and screaming but that was all she needed. She threw herself atop the chair and scrambled across the whole length, away from the screeching, only to slam into the speeder door. Not even bothering to open it, Leia heaved herself over the open top and plummeted down to the side. She fell all the way to the ground with an oomph and a thud that rattled her spine.

Even that was not enough to stop her. There were more shrieks, all down the - the - the streets, she realized, she could see streets . Wiping her eyes of smoke, she spun about frantically, seeing alleys and buildings and streets, but all of it, all of it was on fire or smoking or blocked by giant piles of - of rock and rubble and -

There. She came to a halt as suddenly as if someone had grabbed her. An open door beckoned to her.

And all around it, the monsters. All of them turning, even in the growing darkness, to look at her with their wet, hungry, deadened eyes.

Leia ran. 

She pumped her legs as hard as she could even though they ached and her side was splitting open and she couldn’t breathe and everything tasted of ash and still she ran -

Until finally she reached the building and slammed the door behind her, and did not stop running up the steps, up and up and up, until she finally, finally found one empty room and locked herself in it.

Luke hoped that things would get quieter as night fell.

At home, night was never silent, but it was not loud. The winds that blew over sand and home were soothing, in their own way. The homestead would be powered down, allowing him to hear the hum of the perimeter alarms. There’d be the movement and mutterings of his aunt and uncle settling into sleep and the scritch of Tatooine’s tiny rodents, appearing only when the suns had gone down, to crab at the cooling sands.

Here, it did not grow quiet. 

The clawing was the worst: the nails of dozens of those… things… against the walls. It raked at Luke’s nerves in a way nothing else had. He could hear the constant crack of fingers snapping across permacrete, no pattern or rhythm to it, just a sudden sharp noise that would startle him with the loudness. Or there’d be a metallic screech, as if the walls were giving way. Each time it happened he would sit, panicking, sure that they were coming through, breaking in with their slavering teeth and wild eyes -

He buried his head beneath his pack.

The moans, too, interspersed with growls or rasps or a faint choking sound, were endless. And the patter of footsteps, never ceasing, a constant pacing around the entire building. The warehouse itself was so big that the sounds bounced constantly off the walls, making everything seem even louder than it was. At home, during the night, cuddled up in his bed, he would sometimes listen to the squeak of a droid’s antenna or the a vaporator creaking in the wind and wonder what it was like to live in a town, an actual place full of people.  

He had never thought of what so many people would sound like. He had not thought of what it would be like if they never slept.

They kept on groaning, and not even his pack could muffle the noise.

Why were they after him?

Was it because they… knew? Knew he had run away from home? Knew he had disobeyed his aunt and uncle when they said he could not go with his classmates on a trip off-planet? Were they trying to catch him? He had only meant to be gone a few hours, maybe a day, he had never been anywhere before . He had not meant to be bad. It didn’t make much sense to him that they’d be so angry for something like that, but he couldn’t think of any other reason.

And besides… Uncle Owen was always saying stuff like that. There’ll be hell to pay, he’d grumble, at everything: not just Luke when he lost a tool, but at a droid when it stopped working, at a vaporator when it broke down, at the sand for getting into the house when it was least convenient. They all knew he just liked to grump, and Aunt Beru would even make fun of him for it. She liked to say that there were three things that were constant in their life: the heat, the sands, and Uncle Owen’s complaining.

But what if he was right, this time? What if… what if Luke had been bad? So bad that this was what happened? 

Had he caused this?

Luke sat up, blinking in the darkness. He had hidden himself in a tiny close of a room within the warehouse, thinking wildly that if he was sleeping, he had better put as many walls between the monsters outside as he could. Yet somehow the groans penetrated all the walls. And the monsters didn’t go away, even though there were no windows. They couldn’t even see him, yet they refused to walk away, refused to leave.

Maybe they were just on the other side.

Maybe they could smell him.

Luke scrambled about until he found the thin sheet he was using as a blanket. Trapped inside the room, he had tried to take his mind off things by searching the boxes around him. He had found some ration bars and water canteens - filled ones, which he had never seen before - and taken those, especially the water. He wanted as many of those as he could. The water within was warm, but he was used to that. What he wasn’t used to was water that was clear and sparkling, and he had had a few pleasurable moments just staring at that crystal clear water, forgetting about the danger he was in. The water at home was always muddy-looking. It even tasted different: more clean, he realized. He wasn’t sure he liked that.

He had also found the blanket, and some clothing, though it was all too big for him. But he buried himself beneath it, because the warehouse was cold, much colder than he was used to. He still had all his clothes and even his boots on and it felt weird to be sleeping like that, in his work clothes, on the floor, with his pack as his pillow.

And the screeches.

Luke squeezed his eyes shut. Go away, go away, go away - 

Something yowled and he heard the big warehouse door rattle.

Luke gasped and burrowed himself into his blankets. As if drawn by the call, more and more of the horrible monsters were screaming, their cries piercing his ears. Luke tossed blankets and clothes over himself, yelling at them in his head: Go away! Go away, go away, please! Go away - 

He wished he could go away. Go all the way back to Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. He wished he had never jumped on the ship and come here. It had only been for fun, just to see something that wasn’t the same farm and the same sand dunes and the same town with his same old friends - 

Go away. Just go away. Go away. He imagined himself flying far, far away, shrinking down and down and down, then speeding like a grain of sand back to Tatooine, all the way back. More than anything, he wanted to go back home.

Something growled, but it sounded more distant. The clawing quieted.

Go away. He was even smaller than a sand grain. He was a tiny crystal on its surface, a miniscule shard of that crystal. Go away.

The shrieks settled back into the same ceaseless moans.

Luke, lost in his own head, heard none of it. He was a little, little speck, no, even tinier than that, a piece on the speck itself, the bits that would fall off whenever Aunt Beru swept too hard because she hated how the sand dirtied her floor, and which only Luke would spot and clean up to make her happy. Smaller than that, too… what was smaller than a piece of a sand crystal? Aunt Beru had said once that everything was made up of something else. So whatever made up a side of a crystal.

The moans drifted off, becoming just a ceaseless drone of whimpers and shuffling.

It was not quiet, not like it was on the moisture farm. 

But it was, finally, a bit more bearable.

Luke, still curled up, whispered himself to sleep.

Chapter Text

The warehouse was somewhat less frightening during the day.

Without any windows in the tiny room Luke had burrowed himself into, he awoke disoriented and with no idea what time it was. He had had dreams all night, of the ship, of being back home, of his aunt and uncle lecturing him for running off, and they were so vivid that when he awoke he did not even know where he was for a few seconds. He kept expecting to feel the heat of daytime, to see the poundstone walls of his room, to check his bedroom chrono for the time. 

It was not there, and that, as well as not hearing his aunt and uncle calling him to get up to do his chores, jolted him into awareness of where he actually was.

At least the moaning was quieter. He could tell that the monsters were still around by the pacing of their footsteps, but it was… quieter. And they weren’t clawing at the walls either.

He got up, shoving aside his blanket, and slowly crept to the front of the room. He didn’t think they had gotten inside, but he wanted to be sure before he came out. He placed his ear on the door, hearing nothing out of the ordinary. Slowly, he eased open the door, still listening. 

Nothing. 

Carefully, he poked his head out and looked into the massive warehouse as best as he could, down one corner, then another. It was daytime, he could tell that much - there were windows around the whole building, the glass surface covered with some kind of film that blurred the outside. Yellow light flowed in, and along the bottom row of windows, he could see the shadows of moving shapes, hunched and lurching in and out of view.

Luke swallowed hard and closed the door, huddling back in the room.

But there was nothing to do there, and after a while, when nothing changed, he got back up and opened the door again. It was the same thing, the same moans, the same shapes bobbing up and down the glass. The warehouse was big and was a little more interesting than his tiny room.

And maybe he could find some way out.

Luke had no idea how to do that or what to do if he did get out, but he didn’t want to think about that right now. He didn’t want to think about the next day or what would happen to him if he couldn’t get out. Right that moment, his stomach was rumbling, so he focused solely on what to eat.

After rummaging through his pack, he grabbed one of the ration bars he had found last night. It tasted like cardboard and had the texture of sand, so he drank some of the still-clear water, which was nice, nicer than the ration bar.

After that, all he could do was look around the warehouse for a way out.

And if he did not find one, or if the way out didn’t work… then he would worry about that later.

The warehouse was huge, rising a hundred feet above his head, with rails and walkways and stairs forming several levels besides the ground level. There were so many crates and cartons and boxes, made of plasteel and mostly closed up, that when he tried to count them he lost track and had to start over. It wasn’t completely crowded, he could move around quite easily, but there were stacks and stacks of them crowded all over the floor; towers of boxes rising over his head. Between looking through them and climbing around the hanging rails, or trying out the rickety metal stairs that swung and creaked when he stepped on them and finding even more boxes up there, Luke actually found the day going by kind of quickly.

He could even ignore the moaning outside, so long as he occupied himself with opening things up and peeking at what was inside.

Some of the boxes were very light and their lids easy to open: they were hinged and not even locked and he could just swing them open. Others were heavy with screws holding them closed, and he ignored them until he found a wrench halfway through the day and started using it. That was very pleasant and reminded him of working in Uncle Owen’s garage, helping to fix broken droids or poking his head down the engine of their battered old speeder. A few that made him very curious had actual control panels on them requiring a password. He poked at them for a bit, trying a few random numbers but gave up after only a few tries. There were too many other things to look at.

Luke wondered how his uncle and aunt were doing. If they were worried. If they were looking for him. Or if they were mad at him. If they thought it was better that he’d run off.

He didn’t like that thought.

So he buried it in looking through the boxes for… anything useful, he told himself. Like more food. He found a big box that was crammed full of ration bars, more than he could ever eat, and he amused himself trying to pick some of the tastier-looking ones. But then he opened the one next to it and found something better: meal packets. They looked much better than the bars, and they were light and flat. A lot of them did have funny colors - he had never seen green meat before - but he knew he could eat it; meal packs were for many species, including humans. The bad thing was that there were no instructions and he had no idea how to prepare them, but they were easy to hold and he stuffed them in his backpack regardless. He refilled his water bottles, always aware of how bad it felt to get thirsty even if this planet was a lot damper than Tatooine. 

In one box he found a whole mass of clothing, all folded neatly. Some looked exactly like the stuff he wore at home, but there were others that looked so beautiful and expensive he didn’t feel right touching them. Some were light and slippery, like water, of pale colors that he barely touched because he was afraid of dirtying them. Another was of a plain color but covered with glittering jewels and threads spun out of silver or gold. Yet another had no decorations but had been painted in colors so bright it hurt to look at. And then there were the coats, so thick and heavy with some kind of fur all around the sleeves and collar, that when he held it his fingers sank right into them. 

In another bunch of boxes he found more food, lots and lots of it, but spoiled. The smell had been so bad when he opened it that he had immediately slammed the lid back down, but not before catching a glimpse of moldy vegetables, blackened and bruised fruit, and meat that had worms crawling all over it. Luke stared at it mournfully; the box side claimed it held bantha and nerf steaks and other Core World delicacies.

There was another stack of boxes full of useful, random items. Luke caught sight of dehydrators that looked way better than the ones his Aunt Beru used, and wished wistfully he could bring one back to her. There were all sorts of small stoves and heaters and other cooking devices he was afraid to touch. There were tools and glow rods. He set the last aside for when it got really dark.

Then there was the box full of machinery parts. Lots of it looked familiar enough, gears and wiring and chips just like the ones at home, only these were shiny and not full of rust or sand that he would have to clean off. Others he had not seen before but he could guess their use from their size and shape: droid parts (there were quite a few of those sitting in the warehouse, but none of them worked - maybe they had to be recharged each night?), speeder parts (that made him want to immediately try them on Uncle Owen’s old thing), stuff that might be used in actual starships. And there were a few where he had no idea what they were for. Big machines, maybe? Luke stared longingly at some of them: Uncle Owen would have loved to have had a loadlifter like the one sitting in a corner; he was always complaining about moving stuff around. And Aunt Beru might have appreciated a labor droid for all the chores they had to do on the farm.

It was nearing evening when he trotted back to his resting spot, not looking forward to another dinner of ration bars. He wondered if he should try to prepare one of the meal packets, but the thought of messing up and wasting the food brought back memories of Uncle Owen grumbling at him for not finishing his dinner, and that was too painful to contemplate. He had only looked through half the warehouse and had not even attempted to climb up to the higher levels because the swaying steps had scared him too badly. The lights weren’t working - he had tried - so it was no use looking around in the dark, plus even if they had, he didn’t want to turn them on because the moaning monsters outside might see it and try to look for him again.

Speaking of the monsters, they had been leaving him alone, kind of. Not all the time, but whenever the pounding became too scary, he’d scrunch back and whisper his go away go away go away mantra, and for some reason that would work and eventually they’d leave. 

He’d even been brave enough to peek out the window and try to see where they were. If he pushed his face right up against the glass and squinted, he could make out what was going on outside. Not for long though - he’d only seen one Togruta, but he’d barely been able to tell what it was because its lekku had been chopped off and it had an arm that was dangling from the rest of the body by a few threads of muscle. After that he had ducked back down, feeling very, very sick.

Luke shook his head, trying to banish the horrible image. The biggest problem right now was that it was dark and he needed to go back to his hiding spot. The boxes had become strange, looming shapes surrounding him and he did not like it. He wanted the tiny room where there were just a few tiny containers that did not scare him when he bumped into them.

That was the reason he did not spot the giant, tarp-covered lump near one end of the warehouse. He might have missed it entirely had it not been for the funny feeling that went down his spine as he passed it.

The feeling was not unfamiliar to him; he had felt it a few times before in his life. Luke tried not to think about it too much - the one time he had brought it up to Uncle Owen, it had been because he was sure that something was going to go wrong with the new droid his uncle had bought. Uncle Owen had scoffed and gruffly told him to focus on his own work and that he trusted Deebee, he never sold him junk. That had felt wrong too, though Luke could not explain why.

So his uncle had not been very happy when, a few days later, a passing transport of Jawas had passed by and promptly run off with the droid. Only then did Luke figure out that the problem, the wrongness, had nothing to do with his uncle’s friend but with what was going to happen with the droid - but Uncle Owen liked it even less when Luke explained it that way. And then by the time the Jawas’ sandcrawler came back around, the droid had been sold to someone else, who the Jawa had refused to say, which had made Uncle Owen grumpy all over again. 

So Luke never talked about it much.

But he did not ignore the funny feeling either.

He looked around, squinting in the growing darkness. The feeling kept telling him to look in a certain direction, that something important was there, and despite his wariness of all the boxes piled around him, Luke padded quietly over, unsure what he was searching for but knowing he’d recognize it when he saw it.

That was when he saw the massive lump, taller than him. When he reached out, he felt cloth beneath his fingers, stretched tight. His fingers followed it down to the cables anchoring it to several hooks set into the floor. Still feeling his way around, he unhooked each of them with a snap.

Then, eyes wide, he grabbed at the tarp and pulled it off.

Leia bit down on a whimper as she wound a piece of cloth around the bite.

She had been stuck in the little room for hours. A whole day, even - or was it night? She was hungry, and tired, and dirty, and her arm hurt. It hadn’t bled that much after the initial bite, which was good because bleeding was pretty scary, but it kept hurting, a throb that got better and worse at random times and for no reason she could think of. She had no idea why any of this had happened, and she could not call or scream or make even one sound because then all those things outside the room, outside the building, walking up and down the street, would hear her.

They heard her even when she made no noise. And when they couldn’t see her. She had fled through the building all night, or at least it had seemed that way. The room she had thought was empty had not been. There had been a… a thing… hiding in the sheets of a bed and she hadn’t noticed until it sat up and screeched at her. Leia did not know who or what it was, other than that it had not looked human. It had clawed its way free of the sheets, tearing them to ribbons, and then leaped after her, following her all the way out the room and through the entire level. The one thing that had stopped it were the stairs: they were broken, and Leia had just managed to leap up to the next level while the thing had not been able to follow her. All it could do was sniff confusedly and then scream at her angrily as she ran further and further up…

Leia had been so scared then, her fear almost choking her.

And when she had found another, even tinier room, another one of the things had burst through a vent in the ceiling. Everything was such a blur by now that she barely remembered what it looked like at all, just some smaller lifeform with long, long arms that it used to scrabble at her, and the only reason she’d gotten away was because it had been stuck in the air vent somehow and could only hang there, swinging its body futilely after her.

Leia didn’t even know how that one had found her. She’d been so quiet…

Maybe they were smelling her? But how could she control her smell? And how far did it go? It felt like wherever she went, whenever she looked out a window, she’d see the same number of things below… like they were following her…

Finally she had found one small place, the smallest of them all, a broken refresher deep in another room, and barricaded the door – she was too short to reach the keypad and smash it so she had shoved the nearest thing, an end table, in front. Then she had checked for windows - there weren’t any - and the vents - a tiny one - and even down the toilet and the drains, and then she had just lain there, she wasn’t sure how long, maybe napping, dozing off, only to come awake as soon as her head started to fall. 

Now she huddled by the sink, suppressing any pained noises as she tried to wrap up her arm. She’d found a medkit under the sink, an opened one with almost nothing in it, not even a bacta patch. There had just been one roll of bandages and some wipes, so she’d torn off the bloody bits of her sleeve that remained, washed the wound (with the wipes, there was no water), and was trying to tie on the bandage one-handed.

She squeezed her eyes shut as her arm throbbed again. If only her mother was there. And her father. Whenever she was hurt, whether from falling off trees (rare, but it had happened when she was very distracted), or bumping against something, or any other cuts or scrapes, they were always there with a bacta patch and a comforting word. Maybe they were coming for her right now, and they could fix her arm for her and take her away from this terrifying place…

But then Leia remembered, with a barely suppressed whimper, that she had driven off in a speeder from their vacation home. She didn’t even know where she was so how could her parents? Hadn’t they always told her to stay where she was if she got lost? But she hadn’t, Captain Antilles had told her to run. She’d left him and the other guards… just abandoned them like a baby…

Maybe her parents weren’t coming for her at all.

She shook away tears as she kept tying the bandage tighter (she hoped she was doing it correctly), and, without meaning to, she thought of her other mother. Her real mother.

An image of her floated through her mind, blurred but still distinct. Leia must have been very young when her mother had died because all her memories of her were so fuzzy. But bits of it were clear. Like her face. Her feelings. She’d been kind, Leia was sure of it. And sad, the ache of it almost as real as her own feelings. Leia loved her adoptive mother and father more than anybody else in the galaxy, but sometimes, when she was alone in the quiet of her room, she wondered about her real mother and father. Especially her mother. She did not remember her real father at all, not even what he looked like. 

Her mother, though… Leia knew what she looked like. Especially after last week.

Leia looked around herself for a moment, then slowly pulled the holoprojector out of her pocket and activated it.

The tiny image of a woman floated before her. Leia stared at her longingly.

Mother…

She hadn’t meant to find it. She’d been in her father’s office, scrounging for a stylus because she’d lost her old one and she didn’t want to be scolded before she went to her lessons. She’d opened a drawer that was probably supposed to be locked - it had never been open before. But that day it had been loose and, not thinking, she’d pulled at the latch and found the tiny little holoprojector, just sitting there. 

Leia might still have not picked it up had it not been for the frisson that shot through her at the sight of it, a tingling all along her skin. That, and the small piece of flimisplast that had accompanied it. It was the sight of her own name that had made her read it and then pick up the holoprojector, for the flimsi had simply said, Leia - for when you are older and the galaxy is a safer place.

Well, she was plenty old now. And everyone said the Empire had brought peace and security to the galaxy, so it was perfectly safe, too.

Now, all alone, Leia stared at the tiny hologram of her real mother, placing it close to her face. She’d known who it was as soon as she turned it on, her fuzzy memories instantly recognizable in the face of this woman. 

Mother.

What was her name? What had happened to her? She was dead, that was certain - Leia had known that since she was very, very small, though no one had ever confirmed it for her. Her adoptive parents did not talk about her a great deal, though Leia felt that they had loved her too. Leia did not even know her name. But she liked to imagine that she was wise and gentle and would have loved Leia very much.

I wish you were here, she thought to herself, squeezing the projector as if the still, staticky figure within might come alive and reach out for her, wrapping her in a warm, protective hug. I wish you could come and rescue me. She closed her eyes, sat back, and leaned back against the wall, wishing more than anything that her real mother could be there beside her.

A noise made her start and open her eyes.

It sounded like breathing, deep and terrifying. Leia strained her ears to listen.

She heard it then: the outer door sliding open.

They were here.

Leia stood up, panic filling her mind. She was trapped in here, there was no other way out. She could lock this door but the keypad was too high. Her eyes fell on the table she’d used to barricade the door, somehow knowing it wouldn’t be enough. Maybe she could climb on it, then reach the keypad and lock it and stay really, really quiet? Leia hurried over as quietly as possible, almost tripping over a broken piece of ceramic, and had just moved the table into the right spot when the door opened, right in front of her.

The sound of heavy, mechanical breathing filled the air.

She backed away, almost falling again, at the sight before her.

Dark, flowing robes. A skull-like mask. A lightsaber hanging at his belt.

Leia had seen him before – on the HoloNet, during her lessons, on little images on projectors, through rumors spoken in whispers in the halls or between her parents. She knew that he was very, very powerful, more powerful even than her father; that he answered only to the Emperor; that wherever he went, death followed. She knew, too, that he had some strange powers, like the Jedi, only he used his for evil.

But she did not understand why, of all people in the galaxy, it was Darth Vader who was here, on this planet, in this city, in this tiny refresher

Or why he had found her.

She only knew one thing: that it could not be good.

Leia tried to run for the door, to dodge past him  –

Only to be shoved back, as if something or someone had grabbed her whole body and tossed her back. She fell onto the hard floor, gasping. Quickly she sat back up, hearing his boot steps. He filled the entire room, staring down at her. Leia scrambled madly away - but then her entire body froze, unable to move, like that thing that had shoved her was now holding her where she was. 

She struggled with all her might, trying to flail her arms and legs, but all that happened was that she was forced to her feet, still held in that spot. She could not move even if she wanted to, not even to turn around. She was left to stare all the way up at him - Vader.

“Princess Organa,” he rumbled. His voice was even deeper than on the halloween videos, full of malice, and her stomach roiled. He knows me, how does he know me – “So you are the one that I sensed.” 

He approached and she shrank back, or tried to, feeling what she could only describe as waves of dark energy emanating from him. She could not even begin to comprehend what he was saying, her head was just one long, terrified scream. 

“Fascinating. There is great power in you - and great fear. Senator Organa did well to hide you from me – but no longer.”

And then he lifted a gloved hand and she felt a lance pierce through her head.

Leia opened her mouth to scream, but there was no sound and no strength in it. The pain was white-hot, a knife searing her skull, but some tiny peripheral part of her mind recognized it, knew it as Vader, as Vader’s own mind or power or something trying to dig into her own –

No, no, no, no no no –

She was scared and she hated it and she wanted him out she wanted him out and she pushed back –

An answering force slammed into her mind hard enough to make her gasp. She was sure she must have fallen over from the impact of it, but she was so far into her own mind that she wasn’t even aware of her own body anymore. She didn’t feel anything except this great, awful pain.

No no no no get out get out get out - !

She pushed -

All of a sudden, the pain left her. Leia blinked, the blackness fading in a rush. She was in the same spot and so was Vader and he had dropped his hand.

Surprise crystallized the air around her. 

Words, not her own, made themselves known., forming in her head as clear as if she had heard them being spoken out loud. 

She is strong.

Leia knew with sure feeling that that was Vader. He was talking in her head.

She wanted him out.

Leia gathered all her energy again and pushed.

The thing, the intruder in her mind, faded even further and faster, but now she had the sense that it was not all her, that it was Vader pulling himself out voluntarily – and out of some instinct, some feeling that she had no source for, she felt like he was maybe – maybe testing her? Like one of the tutors Mother had given her who gave her harder and harder questions because they wanted to see what she knew before they got down to actually teaching her –

And at the thought of Mother, came back the thought of her real mother, the mother she had been calling out for…

“Impressive.” Vader’s voice cut through her memories like a vibroblade. “Your efforts are admirable.”

Without warning, the needle bore back into her.

“But untrained.”

Those were the last words she was aware of as she tried to push back, to build a wall, to do something – but the presence that was Vader knocked them inside like they were wisps of shimmersilk and reached into her mind - no no no no STOP – leafed through her memories of the day before like it was nothing, brushed through them back and back –

Stop, stop, please!

But the intruder crushed all hope of resistance, casually tossing aside her attempts to fight back, and all she felt was the roar of impenetrable darkness that was him, that was Vader hurtling into her mind with no thought or care - 

Mother, help me! Help me, please!

And unbidden, the one faded memory of her real mother returned.

Leia grasped it like it was a life raft on an Alderaanian lake. Help me! she screamed, and whether she was calling out to her real mother or her adoptive one or even to herself, she did not know. All she knew was that in a moment of blind, writhing panic, she shoved that memory forward as hard as possible. It solidified and reformed around the image of the holoprojector, becoming stronger, sharper, and she pushed it forward again, as if that might stop Vader, as if her tiny, single memory of her real mother might actually shield her daughter from his assault - 

Vader’s presence reared back. 

Suddenly her mind was freed from his, and she choked, drawing in great lungfuls of air, blinking tears back from the pain. The relief was so great that she fell back with a soft thud, realizing right at that moment that he was no longer holding onto her with that invisible force. She rubbed at her teary eyes -

Only for him to swoop down on her, his hand grasping her dress, actually grabbing her, to pin her where she stood.

“How do you know this woman?!” he roared, and it was like the blast of a storm. He was angry, angrier than when she had pushed him out, angrier than at any point since she had encountered him. “ Why is she in your mind? ”

Leia yelped, clawing at his gloved hand in an attempt to wriggle free.

“Answer me!” He actually lifted her off the floor, his mask bearing down on her, a monster from her worst nightmares. “Did Bail Organa tell you of her? How do you know of her?!”

She tried to turn away, only for him to drag her closer to him. She cried out, kicking in a desperate attempt to either reach him or get free.

“ Tell me! ”

Leia could not speak from fear. Mother, help me! I don’t want to tell him…  

“TELL ME!”

It was the sheer rage in his voice that unstopped her voice. “I don’t – I don’t know -”

“ Do not lie to me, child!” His hand tightened where it was clenching her dress. “Tell me or I will force it from your mind!”

On cue she felt the invasive force of him drive into her mind, more painful than anything she had ever experienced. Tears blinded her. “Stop it, please!”

“Speak, then!” He swung her so that she was pressed against the wall.

I don’t want to tell him! “I - I - I won’t -” 

Her feet left the ground; she was not being held against the wall, he had actually lifted her off the floor so that she was level with his mask. “You what? ”  

Danger, danger, run, her mind screamed at her. Her back hurt, her arm, her head - “She’s - she’s my-”

“ Who? Who is she to you?!”

“Mother!” she finally gasped. “My mother, she’s my mother - my - my real mother!”

He released her.

Leia slid all the way down the wall, crashing painfully on her bottom. For a moment, the shock of being freed so suddenly left her sitting there, blinking back tears, the blurred form of Vader before her. He appeared to have frozen on the spot.

Run, now! her mind screamed at her. She scrambled to her feet, crawling against the wall like a caught animal. Go!

She ran for the door.

Vader did not follow.

Leia fled into the next room, and then the hallway, then down the steps and leaping the gap until she found a back door and burst out. She was in a tiny alleyway and there were all those people –  those things – around her, and remembering that they could sense her, find her, she turned to her left and began to sprint, not caring where she was going. She just needed to get away from Vader and his terrifying powers.

She had not gone more than a few feet when she heard a tell-tale screech. She did not need to look back to know they had found her, were following her.

Leia fled. Down one alley, then another, stumbling over boxes or almost crashing into walls and overhangs, she ran. Turning again, and then again, she tried to weave her way back to a bigger street, only to come smack up against a pile of broken homing droids, all piled together at the entrance and blocking her way. When she looked behind herself, she could see several of those things, humans but no longer looking human, their mouths dripping with blood and spit, snarling, eyes focused solely on her.

Keep running! her mind yelled at her.

She did, but she was tiring – her chest was burning and her lungs were on fire and she could barely breathe – and that was when she turned into a side street that came right up against a wall.

Screeching filled her ears. Leia wheeled around and saw them slavering, coming up on her, running or all on fours or even crawling on the ground. She closed her eyes and waited for them to take her.

Snap-hiss.

A low buzzing filled her ears, followed by a horribly familiar rhythmic breathing.

She opened her eyes - no no no he found me how did he find me -

A flash of crimson light. The body of one of the things chasing her split at the waist, falling into two neat, smoking halves. A whirl of a dark cloak, and the head of another was carved from its body, spinning through the air from the force of the blow to bounce wetly against the floor. Gray goo gushed out as the skull split open. The red blade slashed the air again and two others crumpled – right as the blade sliced down at an angle to lop the limbs off a third. Bodies fell in heaps and pieces around the black-robed figure. The shrieks gathered into a crescendo of pain and fury, and Leia slapped her hands over her ears. But even closing her eyes again could not blind her to the furious red slashes of light.

Until finally, all was silent, save for a faint hiss and mechanical breathing. Now he had her, and she wasn’t sure what was worse, being attacked by those things or being in front of him . She heard his boots draw nearer, and she stumbled back until her back hit the wall and waited for him to grab her, for the knifing pain in her head.

Nothing happened.

Long seconds passed where she waited and waited, but still - nothing. She knew he was still there, she could hear the hum of his laser sword and the cycling of his respirator, but he wasn’t doing anything to her at all.

Finally, she opened her eyes again.

Darth Vader was still there, as expected, feet from her. There was a smoking pile of bodies behind him; she could see scorch marks over them, see wisps of steam rising from the parts he had cut off. He was just standing there, staring at her, laser sword - was it called a lightsaber? - still ignited. That was a bad sign, she had seen what it could do, and she drew her body tight, sure he was going to use that on her now. 

He doused it. It disappeared with another hiss and he hooked it back onto his belt without even looking.

Leia stared at it, then, very carefully, up at him. 

“Are you hurt?”

She could not even comprehend the question, she was sure she had imagined it. So she made no answer. 

He leaned towards her, making her heart pound in fright. “Are you hurt?” he demanded, louder.

She shook her head frantically as the thought passed through her mind: only by you.

He stepped back abruptly.

Silence fell between them again, tense, unsure.

He lifted a hand, but when she flinched back, he dropped it. “Princess-” he started to say, and she blinked, because he sounded hesitant. But then a distant shriek reached them. Leia jerked around, looking frantically, knowing by now what that would bring. Vader also snapped his head in the direction of the sound. “We must leave here,” he told her. 

Leia pressed back against the wall, wide-eyed. We? Did he mean her? Going with him? The last thing in the galaxy she wanted to do was go with him. She could only imagine it was so that he could push into her mind - that was the only way she knew to describe it - once they were away from the scary things chasing her.

Vader moved towards her. “ Princess- ”

She jerked away, drawing her arms protectively around her own body, and all she could remember was the awful, intrusive pain of him in her mind, sifting through her memories.

Vader stopped once more. For a moment, all she heard was far away screaming and the sound of his respirator. He seemed to be… thinking about what to say.

When he spoke again, his voice was somehow quieter. “Princess, you must come with me.”

Leia stayed right where she was as she thought to herself, Why should I come with you?

“Would you prefer to be killed by these creatures?” Vader demanded sharply, as if he had heard her. He made a gesture as if to follow him. “Come. Now. Or I will leave you to be fed upon.”

She stood there a moment, weighing her choices. It seemed that Vader wasn’t going to hurt her, at least not yet. She shivered at the thought. That part of her, which so clearly remembered Vader grabbing her, hurting her, was telling her it would almost be better to stay here. She had been bitten already - her arm twinged in reminder - and it still had not been as bad, as scary , as what Vader had done to her…

But she did not want to die, and she knew, deep down, that the things following her would kill her; Vader was telling the truth about that. She did not want to be chased again, bitten again.

Pushing herself up mutely, she followed Vader’s beckoning hand as he led her out the side alley.

And did her best not to look at the smoking parts of the bodies lying around them.  

A daughter.

The alley was crowded with the detritus of a dead and dying city: furniture tossed about, utility droids that had been trampled, abandoned, or simply shut down as the power went out. In dirty piles were discarded clothing - or, perhaps, the remains of rotted bodies - that was little more than rags. Through open doors or tossed hastily on the ground was food, gone moldy or crawling with pests. All things to be avoided. 

A daughter.

Shattered pieces of duracrete walls lay in huge pieces on the ground. When they reached the larger streets, they were met with the sight of abandoned speeders, overturned, knocked against walls, or most often, crowded and aflame in piles along intersections and corners. More droids, haulers, cleaners, security bots, lay in sparking pieces. Obstacles they had to traverse.

A daughter.

Vader pushed through all of it, slicing through the largest pieces of wreckage with his lightsaber, and all the while his mind spun: a daughter.

His child lived.

It was so inconceivable, such an impossible thing, that at first he had wanted to dismiss it as a lie, a fabrication concocted by the Organas to hit him at his core. But the Force had sung with the truth of what the girl had said - my mother, my real mother - so that now he found himself wanting to turn back to her time and again, to remind herself that she was truly there. The Force told him it was so, aware of her bright signature, but he found himself resisting the urge to look and look a second time and a third, to see this tiny child following him through the streets.

He had a daughter.

A pile of plasteel boxes, stacked haphazardly, blocked their way, and with barely a thought, he shoved them out of their path. His mind was still in turmoil, the structure of the last eight years of his life turned upside down.

I did not kill Padmé.

Her face formed before his mind’s eye, bringing back the rage and the shock he had felt when he had first seen it in the Princess - his daughter’s - mind. She had practically thrust the memory of her mother at him, as if hoping it might protect her from Vader’s onslaught.

And it had worked, in ways neither had intended.

Our daughter.

Sidious lied.

But if Padmé had not died at his hand… if she had lived to birth their child… then what had happened to her? For it was certain that she had died; he had seen her funeral procession, viewing it once in a spasm of self-hatred. He had known she was alive on Mustafar, sensed it - which meant someone had to have taken Padmé off that accursed planet. Someone had to have pulled the child from her dying body and deposited said infant in the care of the Organas. 

It came to him very quickly and with cold rage: Kenobi.

Who other but his former master could have arranged this conspiracy? It was Kenobi who had come with Padmé to Mustafar, Kenobi who had won his duel against Vader and left him burning on the side of a lava bank. Leather creaked as Vader balled his hands into fists, and the shattered lamp post in front of him was thrown aside with such force that it cracked the wall of the building it slammed into. The sound echoed up and down the empty street, and he heard the faintest rustle of cloth as the child behind him flinched.

He was so lost in his thoughts that it barely registered. It had to have been Obi-Wan Kenobi who had arranged for all this. He was certain the Organas had known of the plan, known whose child they were raising. Bail Organa had ever been Padmé’s friend, and it was well-known that he and his wife, the Queen, had longed for a child and been unable to have one. How easy to have them take in his daughter, raise her as their own. Vader had been to Alderaan once or twice, even visited the Royal Palace. He was aware of their daughter, eight years old, born the same day as the Empire. The Organas had kept her well hidden from him, which he had been quite fine with at the time - he had no use and no tolerance for some female youngling trotting around him. Not that most younglings were comfortable with him in the first place. 

Of course they would not want Vader to set eyes on her. Of course they would want to hide evidence of their crime… of their kidnapping.

The Organas had harbored rebellious sympathies as well, and like a tide, Vader could see the whole plan before him. A Force-sensitive child that they had taken from her real father, brainwashed into their traitorous beliefs, completely unaware of her heritage, to strike back for their wretched Jedi, their carcass of a Republic…

For the girl was indeed strong in the Force, and almost without thinking of it, Vader cast out for her presence again. She remained behind him, stumbling over the occasional crack in the ground and dodging smaller piles of trash, but her presence in the Force was so bright, so strong, as to be almost blinding. He was amazed that he had never sensed it before on those visits to Alderaan.

He had noticed it here, though. In this city that was so dead in the Force as to be almost Force-blind, that bright mote had been like a searing flame in pitch blackness. Intrigued, he had followed it despite it taking him well off the path he should have gone, drawn as much to its light as to the palpable terror that had been coming off it in waves.

And what he had found was…

Padmé’s face arose, fresh and sharp.

No.

The girl looked so much like her as well…

No!

What he had found was a child.

His child.

Leia. He turned the name over and over in his mind. Yes… Leia Organa, princess of Alderaan. He had known, too, that she was adopted, remembered hearing and promptly dismissing that piece of information on his visits. Most royal families made at least a show of trotting out their children for Imperial visits - perhaps they hoped that he would not dare too much in front of them. He had not deigned to see the Alderaanian princess, though, nor had the Organas volunteered for them to meet.

For good reason.

His lightsaber hilt threatened to crack with the force he was gripping it with.

Once again unthinkingly, he cast his mind back to the child ( his child ), trailing reluctantly behind him. For all her fear, her initial refusal to come along, the girl had been following him well enough the last few hours as they navigated the dying city. They had been lucky so far, having not encountered more than a few of the maddened, sickened creatures that had attacked them. They had been easily dispatched with a swing of his lightsaber or a sharp shove against a nearby wall. They seemed to feel neither pain nor shock, not even at the loss of multiple limbs or an entire part of their body. It was disconcerting.

The girl’s foot caught on a step and she almost stumbled before catching herself, but a tiny gasp escaped her. Distress emanated constantly from her, distracting in how it thrummed at him, calling for his attention.

A strange feeling, almost completely foreign to him, attempted to rise in his chest. 

Perhaps he ought not to have probed her mind with such force.

He crushed the thought and slashed his saber with such force that it sent the top of a blocking support beam flying out of sight. Had he not done so he would not have learned of their relationship. It was… necessary. 

And the Princess… she would accept it in due time, once she knew who he was to her. Not now - her fury and terror were still too fresh, too palpable, for him to broach the subject. But later, when she had settled, grown used to him… then he would find the right time to inform her.

For it was quite certain she did not know, and that sent another wave of anger through him. Lies and betrayal, eight years of it. Once they were off this damnable planet, he would ensure that Kenobi paid for his treachery. He would take his time with it, too, letting him know the true depths of his failure.

And as for his current master…

Vader did not think that far just yet. The girl was young and clearly untrained; her futile attempt at shielding had been surprisingly strong, but that was out of sheer fear and childish stubbornness. He had broken it down easily. But with more time and experience…

He cut the thought off at the sound of cracking glass in one of the small side streets. A throaty moan seeped out of the shadows. It was followed by a second voice, then a third. These things were unintelligent, but they were quite good at calling out for others.

Vader swung around for the princess, who was staring, large-eyed, towards the noise. “We must move quickly.” He could kill them but this was a large area with numerous passageways for others to crawl out of; there was a large risk they’d be surrounded.

Which would be of little concern for him… but now he had this child whose safety he must ensure, a child most likely sheltered and lacking any sort of way of defending herself. It was galling; he would have to rectify that as soon as they were off-planet.

Vader scanned the street ahead until he found the clearest path through, and even that required him to Force push aside a massive cargo hauler, fallen on its side. It skidded along the ferrocrete and came to a crash against a wall, sending mechanical parts tinkling across the street. That left a gap between the opposite wall and the hauler that led to the next street, large enough for both of them to fit through.

Something moaned behind them, quite close.

Without thinking, Vader turned, pushing Leia behind him and drawing his lightsaber. At the sound of it igniting, the girl gasped.

Vader held up a hand, stilling her noises. He strained to hear through the buzz of the mask’s audio receptors. Something was snuffling from within one of the buildings; from another, he could detect shuffling footsteps drawing nearer.

He saw the Dug first, it’s whiskered mouth panting, drool falling from sharpened teeth as maddened eyes fell on them. A surge of hate flooded him at the sight of it. Then a Trandoshan emerged, great rips marring it’s scaly skin. And then stumbling two and three at a time, a mass of humans, limbs missing, flesh gouged from their chest, their abdomens, their faces, skin blackened with inner rot.

And they were all looking at them.

The Trandoshan growled. As one, they rushed towards them.

Vader shoved Leia through the gap, taking just half a second to make sure there was none coming from up ahead. That was enough time for theTrandoshan to reach him and leap forward, screaming.

He slashed his lightsaber through the air, slicing its legs off.

The Trandoshan howled again as it landed with a splat on the ground, bereft of any legs to catch itself. Its arms flailed wildly, but another slash deprived it of those as well. It flopped on the ground, an armless torso, and for a second Vader regarded it with a strange churning in what was left of his gut - but then he whirled about, cutting the head off one of the human attackers, then back, bisecting the Dug down the middle. The deaths of their fellows meant nothing, they were still coming - the loss of limbs and even lower halves of their body wasn’t stopping them. For a half-second, Vader assessed the situation, a realization coming to him: the ones that had stopped were the ones that had lost their heads, or whatever the cranial equivalent was. 

The thought was gone the next instant, put aside for later. He backed through the gap, gripped his saber and threw it in a spinning arc.

Screams filled the air as it chopped through half of a dozen of them, cutting through torsos and chests and backs. Bodies fell, smoking, and Vader pushed back until he felt himself bump into the edge of the gap.

“There!” the Princess cried out suddenly, pointing down.

Vader jerked back to see the Trandoshan, what was left of it, writhing on the ground. It was nothing but a head and chest and abdomen, flopping uselessly, and at first he wasn’t sure what the girl had seen: until, before his eyes, he saw something wriggling from the stump of its leg. Guttural growls filled the air that turned into pained whimpers - and then, before both their eyes, an entire leg burst out of the stump in a gush of blood and pus. And then the other leg - and then the arms.

Regeneration, Vader recalled; it was a trait shared by all Trandoshans. But that normally took days, weeks. This was a far faster regrowing of limbs than any normal Trandoshan should possess. 

He had no time to consider that, though, for the Trandoshan had leaped, wobbling, onto its newly formed feet. Hunching, eyes predatory, it launched itself again at Vader. 

Vader called his lightsaber back, and as he snatched it out of the air, he plunged it straight through the thing’s eye.

But there were still others behind it.

Vader whirled around and practically pushed the princess forward. “Move!” With a backhanded slash, he sliced an infected human from shoulder to hip before reaching the princess.

They darted through the streets, Vader trying to keep them on the main course, avoiding any sounds of yowling or shuffling or, in one case that made the girl gasp, wet crunching. She  quickly fell behind his long strides and he shortened them marginally, making sure he did not lose her. She was going as fast as she could, sweat soaking her face and her white dress, but he did not stop  until they had crossed two blocks and it was relatively quiet.

His stop was so sudden, in fact, that the child almost crashed into him, yelping a bit as she walked into his cape, but she seemed too frightened and too tired to really care, gulping air, clutching her sides. Her braided bun was coming loose and her face was shining with perspiration. Pain and fear continued to roll off her in waves.

“Are you hurt?” he demanded for the second time since they’d met.

The girl was shaking too hard to answer. 

“Did they hurt you?” he shouted, an unbecoming fear starting to form.

The girl gasped, this time in fear, stumbled away from him, and tripped over the curb, falling on her back.

Vader forced himself to stop, biting back a snarl of rage. Instead he scanned her quickly, not seeing any noticeable wounds. They would have shown up on that white dress she was wearing anyway.

Something, a container perhaps, tumbled in one of the alleys to their side.

The princess sucked in a fearful breath and stumbled to her feet, hurrying back towards Vader, and that, at least, was enough to dissipate some of his anger. She was smart enough to recognize that she had a better chance with him than out there alone. He stepped in front of her, trying to assess the source of the sound.

It did not happen again, nor could he see anything. It was rapidly growing darker, not that it mattered for him. But it would make it harder for the princess to keep up, stumbling around the ruined streets with their rubble and barriers.

He angled his head back down the main street. It was a smoking, obstacle-riddled ruin, but it was the surest, shortest way out of this section, and he knew there were some apartments further down. They could rest there.

“Come,” he said shortly, gesturing the girl forward.

She followed.

Chapter Text

Beneath the tarp was a speeder.

Not one of the battered, rusted old junk heaps that Luke always saw in shops in Anchorhead. Those had parts missing, would break down if hit by a light breeze, and were about a million years out of date while still selling for more credits than his aunt and uncle could earn in a year. 

But this speeder? This was brand-new, shining even under the dim light, its edges so smooth his hand just slid over it. The colors - red and gray with black streaks - glowed even in the dim light, and he hated merely touching the chrome metal brilliance of it for fear of leaving dirty fingerprints on it.

“Wow,” he whispered to himself - then immediately flinched, thinking it might draw the attention of the monsters outside.

It didn’t. Or at least the scritching was no louder than before.

Luke went back to admiring the speeder. It was an RGC-18, he thought, bigger than most speeders he had seen back on Tatooine, because they were meant to move stuff, not just people. He walked around it, pulling the tarp off further and letting it fall to the ground in a cloud of dust. Large back, that was probably where the cargo went. Not at all like the one Uncle Owen had, though he was sure his uncle would love to have one like this. He was always complaining about how they could never carry enough stuff with the one they had. Or that it kept breaking down. That was another thing Uncle Owen constantly groused about. Luke didn’t mind as much. Having it break down meant he could fix it, and he liked fixing things. But he was sure this speeder would never break down, at least not for the first few years. 

This one was also rounder in the front than their old speeder, rimmed with metal that glittered. The cockpit was huge too, big enough for a driver and a passenger in the back, or maybe two, if they were small. It sat on the floor atop some kind of strut so it didn’t rub against the flooring, and Luke wondered, with a thrill of anticipation, if it would work should he turn on the engines.

He didn’t, though. For one thing, it would certainly wake up all the monsters outside and make them come after him. For another, someone definitely owned a speeder this special and would be very angry to see it gone.

Still, his eyes hovered on the dash. He didn’t have to fly it… but he could start it up. That wouldn’t be that loud. And he would just be testing it - yeah, testing to see that it worked!

There was also the box full of mechanical tools and supplies; he could make up for it, he told himself, by fixing any problems he might find. That way the owner wouldn’t be mad, because Luke had helped them. He could even make some changes that would make the speeder even better: faster and with sharper turns and able to haul more stuff. And, he thought, further trying to convince himself, taking a look would help him learn what these speeders would like. Maybe he could figure out how to fix Uncle Owen’s speeder so it would be better.

Mind made up, he opened the speeder’s door and hauled himself into the seat (he was short and the speeder, even without its repulsors active, was a bit off the ground). He pressed the start button.

Nothing happened.

Disappointment flooded him, but he quickly squared his shoulders and grinned. So there was something wrong with it! That definitely made it worth starting up. If he hadn’t done that, the owner might not even have known that until they brought it home. Well, he would fix it, which meant getting a peek at the insides and getting to do all sorts of things with the engine and everything, and after that nobody would blame him for anything he did to it.

But - Luke stopped, only now noticing just how much darker it was. He had been having so much fun thinking of all the things he could do to the speeder he had not even noticed. How had he even been able to see anything? It was almost pitch black by now.

So it would have to wait until tomorrow.

Sighing, Luke backed away from the speeder but left the tarp off. He could still hear groans and snarls outside and clawing at the wall, but he was able to ignore it for now, the anticipation of fixing something greater than his fear. He would eat some dinner and then curl up in the tiny room and tomorrow, get the speeder working.

And, he thought before looking through his pack for one of the ration bars, if I fix it and nobody comes by in a few days… maybe I can use it.

Maybe I can even get out of here.

Had Vader been alone, he would have traveled the entire day and through the night. Obstacles did not matter to him, nor rest nor acquiring sustenance; his suit provided for his physical needs. As for the rest, he had the Force. 

But he was learning very quickly that with a youngling at his heels, things were quite different. Already he could feel her energy flagging; soon they would have to stop so that she could recuperate. Not to mention looking for food, and shelter, and - his mind kept supplying more things - given the state of her current clothing, perhaps a change of dress, and a wash, and all the myriad details of living that a child needed.

They reached an intersection in the street, only to find the entire thing blocked by a massive comms pole. The wires lay coiled along the ground like large black snakes, and though rationally Vader knew they were unlikely to be active, what with the power grid being down, he shoved Leia away from them nevertheless.

“Ow,” the girl whispered, rubbing her arm and glaring at him. It was the first emotion she had directed towards him that was not absolute terror.

Vader halted, examining her for any injury. Finding none, he turned his attention back to their path without acknowledging her and pushed through a gap between pole and building. The princess followed at a slower pace, pressing herself against the wall to avoid touching the cracked metal and bits of dirt clinging to the overturned pole.

Perhaps the uttered complaint had finally helped the princess find her voice, for she now asked him a question. “Where are we going?” 

Vader, part of him listening for sounds of infected creatures and the other part surveying a veritable pile of grounded air taxis blocking their way, did not answer.

“Where are we going?” the girl said again, louder and slightly more demanding.

In response, Vader turned and stared at her.

The child halted a foot behind him, but held his gaze mulishly.

For a second, they simply stared at one another, neither willing to back down, the force of their presences pressing at one another. As the impromptu staring contest continued to waste time, Vader sent out a subtle mind probe, testing the child’s will.

It was strong, for all her youth and weariness. Untrained, naturally; yet formidable despite that.

Vader tilted his head up, breaking the gaze and conceding the match. He felt a spark of triumph that was not his own and almost smiled despite himself. The irrepressible girl actually thought she had won.

As an answer to her question, he lifted the topmost taxi from the pile and sent it flying down one of the side streets.

The crash made the princess jump, bringing her hands up in an instinctive protective gesture. Point made, Vader waited.

On the other side of the now-blocked street, a furious chorus of shrieks rose up. The princess’s eyes widened as Vader quite casually lifted another air taxi and dropped it next to the first, further obstructing the way, then did it again for the side street opposite it and the street behind them. The way clear, he passed through, avoiding only the few vehicles left along the sidewalks and clumped against buildings. A few more blocks and they would likely be reaching the middle portion of the city. Warehouses and transports would be quite commonplace there; more than likely he would find an actual, working speeder to take them further out.

“You still haven’t said where we’re going.”

Vader paused briefly. So she was not cowed by his display of power. Good. She would need such strength of will if she were to master the Force. He allowed a moment of silence to pass before answering. “I am taking you to safety.”

“Where?”

Someone, perhaps a panicked mob, had left a small, haphazardly made barricade of furniture along the street. Vader counted tables, benches, desks, and one sofa among them. With a shove of the Force, he blasted the furniture aside enough for them to pass. “Outside the city.”

He passed through first. Leia jogged to keep up, ducking under a chair leg sticking out in her path. “But… there’s those things outside the city, too.”

“Infected,” he corrected her offhandedly.

She scrunched her brow. “What?”

Vader did not bother further responding to her; she would learn the meaning of the word soon enough. But there was another reason: his enhanced hearing had caught the sound of shuffling footsteps, multiple ones, ahead of them. It was rapidly growing darker - night fell fast on this world. Without a word, he turned down another, more promising looking street, knowing it would lead eventually to the same destination. With satisfaction, he noted the growing number of factories and warehouses ahead. They were leaving behind the nerve center of the city. The population was clustered here; there would be less of the infected - the things, as the princess called them - the further out they went.

He walked so fast the princess was soon panting once again, her presence exuding exhaustion in a way that pricked insistently at Vader’s mind. He came to a stop in the middle of the street.

Making a decision, he turned abruptly and went to a door. It was locked, but that was no matter; one strong Force push and it burst open. Without a word, he entered, but not before igniting his lightsaber. 

Leia followed more slowly, peeking around the darkened corners around the entrance. 

Vader crossed the hallway, then turned to a door. A wave of his hand and it slid open. He reached out with his Force senses on instinct, even as he knew it would not work. This was a small apartment, one of dozens in this area of the city, and they were on the first floor of likely a hundred, built for those with just enough money to be in the center of the city but little else besides, the address status symbol enough. He let his gaze sweep the two rooms directly before him - living room and kitchen - before turning and sliding the door closed with a movement of his hand.

Leia jumped forward as it slammed shut, the edge just missing her.

“What are we doing here?” she asked, rubbing her arm.

Instead of speaking, Vader chose instead to walk further in and towards the back, his saber illuminating the way. He shoved open the next door - the single bedroom - and peered inside.

Empty. There was one more door connected to it, the refresher, and he examined it too. Empty as well 

Light footsteps followed his, padding along the carpeted floors. “Why are we here?” asked Leia again. She glanced up at the bare ceiling for whatever reason, looking more reassured by whatever she saw.

Vader stepped aside. “To rest.”

Her little face morphed into a frown. “What?”

“ Rest, ” he repeated; was the child slow? “It is night, we will make little progress as it is, and you-” 

Her stomach chose to rumble at that moment. She looked down as if surprised at herself, then back up at him, eyes wide.

Without a word, Vader turned and headed back to the kitchen, searching through the devices. The power grid was completely disrupted - he confirmed that just by a glance out the window, at the unlit streets - and so he ignored all of the food synthesizers and preparation machines. He ignored the refrigeration devices as well, guessing that whatever was inside had long since spoiled. Eventually though, he went through the cabinets and found some sort of overly processed and preserved food and handed that to the princess.

She glanced at it, frowning as she turned it over. “What is this?”

He stepped closer to her. “Food.”

“What kind of food?”

Had the Organas spoiled her so thoroughly that she would not eat? “It does not matter. Eat.”

“Can’t I have a spoon or something?”

This child. Vader held out a hand. From the kitchen flew out exactly what she had requested, landing with a soft thud next to the girl.

Mercifully that satisfied her, for she made no sound afterwards, peeling open the lid (with a little difficulty) and gulping… whatever it was… with the aid of her newly acquired utensil. Vader left her to it, occupying his time with checking the hallway outside and the rooms immediately opposite and next to theirs, and then barricading both the building door and the apartment’s to ensure that nothing, infected or otherwise, could get in. There was only one entrance nearest to them, which made guarding the room marginally easier. On the other hand, should anything actually get through it, it would mean they were trapped inside with only one way out, and that would probably mean facing down hordes of ravenous beasts.

Were it him alone, it would be of no consequence. But now there was the child. A child who could not protect herself, a child he had to watch over constantly if he wanted her safely off the planet.

The princess had set the can aside on a nearby end table (after looking futilely for a trash compactor, so Vader could at least not fault the Organas’ hygienic teachings) and was wiping her mouth when Vader re-entered. She started at his presence, going stiff.

He pointed to the bed. “Sleep. We will resume making our way out of the city in the morning.”

A stubborn look crossed her face at that and Vader watched her warily, wondering if she was going to, of all things, argue that she did not need sleep. He was not in the mood for a battle of wills over that, and he readied himself to compel her into unconsciousness if it came to that. But then he felt her mood shift towards resignation as her own tiredness overtook her, and she turned and headed towards the bed.

For reasons he did not care to delve into, he followed, watching her as she heaved herself up onto the mattress. It was a large one, made more for an adult than a child, and she looked swamped in the thing. “Take off your shoes,” he said abruptly, as it looked like she was going to settle in without doing so.

She shot him a grumpy look, but, perhaps realizing for herself that it would feel strange to sleep with her shoes on - or maybe she was just as tired of being stubborn as he was - did as she was told. She tugged off her stockings as well, then her overdress and the tunic beneath, revealing a white, long-sleeved shift. With a flop, she settled onto the mattress, staring at him.

Vader turned to leave.

“Where are you going?” she demanded.

He paused at the doorway. There was a note of fear beneath, but he did not think she was craving his company - that was ludicrous. No, he decided, she was frightened of the infected and merely wanted his protection. “I will remain outside to keep watch.”

“Oh.” The princess contemplated that answer for a moment. “All night?”

“Yes.”

She frowned. “Don’t you need to sleep?”

He let his respirator cycle a moment before finding a response. “The Force allows for many things an ordinary being cannot do. There are a multitude of dangers in this city, so I will remain on guard.”

“The - the Force?” The girl gripped the sheets hard, making them rustle. “Is that - that’s the thing you did… right? That power you have that makes you, um, move things without touching them?”

Had she such little training that she did not even know what the Force was? Annoyance trickled through him at such a waste of her potential. That too must change once they were off the planet. 

But for now, he would make use of her curiosity. He could feed it, use it to his own ends. “Yes, Princess. And in time, you will learn to command it as well.” He let its power surge through him, allowed the princess to feel it too.

But instead of looking awed, the princess jerked back. “ Me? I don’t have that stuff - I mean, the Force.”

He withheld a snort. “You do.” He faced her. “It is how I found you. You are very strong in the Force, and it would be a waste to not learn how to use it.” 

“Learn it? To…” Her face paled and he could feel her fear increasing in magnitude. It was bewildering. “I can’t do stuff like that… can I?”

As an answer, Vader reached out for her mind.

In the deadness of this planet, it was easy to find her presence, a blinding light directly before him, dimmed only by exhaustion and lack of training. So bright was it that Vader found himself hesitating, hovering before the shining aura that was his daughter lest it eclipse his own darkness.

Instead, he grasped at the connection between them, marveling yet again that he had not noticed it before, this ethereal yet wire-strong bond between them. It was a silvery thing, thin and feather-light - yet as he traveled down it, connecting to her mind, he felt it grow stronger, the mere touch of their two minds strengthening it, generating ever more bands to coil about their respective signatures.

You can, he spoke into her mind.

Stunned, awful silence was her response.

And then her presence flinched back and he felt her attempt to throw up shields. Her mind roiled chaotically, a barrage of wordless terror and palpable anger that only made her presence flare stronger. As he let it storm about him he caught a string of words, the same over and over again:

Get out get out get out get out

He lingered a moment longer, then withdrew.

“Stop it!” The princess’s voice pierced through his trance. “Stop doing that!”

Vader took a moment to reorient himself, blinking at the wash of reality about him. The princess had shoved herself as far from him as she could in the apparent delusion that physical distance might save her, her back pressed against the bed’s headboard.

“That was the Force, young one,” he rumbled.

She pressed her hands to her head. “That’s what you did before, wasn’t it?! You were - you were in my head!” She dragged the blanket up to her chest. “It hurt - it hurt so much-”

An odd feeling was crawling up his gut. “A Force probe. I was merely searching your memories-”

“You hurt me!” she screamed.

“You were resisting,” Vader retorted. “Had you given in, it would not have pained you so much.” He waved a dismissive hand. “And had I known of our-” He stopped. Now was not the time; in her state, the truth might only make the child flee straight into the jaws of the infected civilians outside. “Princess-”

She dived under the covers. “I don’t want it,” she said, voice muffled. “I don’t want to learn and I don’t want that! Not if it hurts so much.”

Vader closed his eyes, attempting to release his frustration into the Force before responding. It only half-worked, not helped by the princess’s anger pulsing along their connection, though the child herself remained totally unaware of it. 

Finally, he spoke. “You cannot deny your heritage,” he said. “The Force is with you, Princess, and you cannot change it no more than you can change the course of the stars. I suggest you come to terms with that.”

And with that, he turned and left the room.

Leia only breathed when Vader had left the room.

She bundled herself further down into the covers in the faint hope that those would protect her. 

But Vader could go right into her head. What could some covers do?

Maybe she could run away while he was gone. There was a window in the room; if she forced it open, she could crawl out… they were on the first floor too, so it would only be a short distance to the ground, and then she could sneak away and -

And what? Run straight one of those things that had bitten her? The things - “infected”, Vader had called them, though she didn’t quite know what that was. It sounded bad, though. She was pretty sure she had heard that word before, and it did not mean good things. Whatever it meant, it had made those things - the things that had chased her and hurt - the things that had killed -

Gnawing her lip painfully, she drew her arm out from beneath the blanket and poked at it. She didn’t want to think about Captain Antilles and the men he had taken with him; it made her feel sick inside. She focused on the bite instead and how it still ached. The things’s teeth had pierced through the fuzzy lining of her innermost sleeve, but she had ripped that away and replaced it with the bandage. It was almost the same color as her shift, it matched so well, and with her tunic and overdress on, it was hidden entirely. 

It still hurt, though. That she could not hide.

She gave it a poke, contemplating unwrapping the bandage and looking, but it didn’t seem so bad right now. It had been bleeding when she was first bitten, but that had stopped pretty soon after she’d hopped into - and crashed - her family’s speeder. Her bandage wasn’t even stained.

That was good, right? It meant it was healing.

Leia pressed herself back into the mattress, drawing her legs up. She might be feeling better but she was still stuck with - with -

With Darth Vader.

He was so much scarier than all the HoloNet stuff about him. She’d heard whispers of what he did to people, people who weren’t enemies of the Empire but people working for him. Reading minds, they said; killing people without touching them; the laser sword - she was pretty sure by now that it was called a lightsaber - that was the color of blood. The Jedi had used those, and she’d heard people say that maybe he was some weird, dark version of a Jedi. But others said that, no, he was something completely different - and also that if one ever mentioned the Jedi in front of him, he’d kill them. She hadn’t thought much about that; Darth Vader almost never came to Alderaan, and the times he had, she had been very young, which was why her parents hadn’t let her see him. All those stories just felt made up.

Leia had not thought it would all be true.

And it was not just that. Nor was it about how easily he had killed all those things chasing her, twice. Or the way he had gone into her mind and read all her memories. Or even the way he talked to her, like he did not care at all what she thought or how she felt.

It was something about him, about being near him. It felt cold and dark when she was with him. In her lessons she’d read about black holes and how they sucked in everything, even the light. She’d even looked at one in her holobook. 

Vader reminded her of those. Just being around him made her feel… sick. Like he might suck her in as well, all of her, until there was nothing of her left.

But if she didn’t stay with him, the things would come after her, and she knew those things would hurt and kill her. At least Darth Vader was able to keep them away from her. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more it puzzled her. He had not just kept them away from her. Now that she looked back on it, she realized that he had saved her.

Why? 

First he had attacked her, then he had helped her. Several times, actually. He even got her some food today. Why did he do that when he had hurt her so badly the first time? What had changed? 

For the second time that day, Leia wished for her real mother. She was sure her real mother would have been able to figure this out.

She crawled over to her overdress and dug a hand into the pocket until she felt the holoprojector. She pulled it out and sat on the edge of the bed, staring at it but not quite able to bring herself to turn it on. It was only a hologram. Her real mother was dead and could not help her. But deep down Leia just knew that her mother had been kind, forgiving, wise… and that had she been here, she’d have Leia wrapped in her arms, protecting her and keeping all the horrible, frightening things away.

Things like Vader.

When Vader had read Leia’s mind, it was her mother that had made him… stop. But only for a little bit. Afterwards he had been even more terrifying - shouting at her, hurting her.

He had not liked seeing her real mother, and it niggled at Leia. Her mother was good, she was certain of that. Vader was not. That must be it, she realized: Vader was so dark, so evil, that he could not bear to be in the presence of her mother, who was so good and beautiful.

Leia curled back up in bed, cuddling the projector to her chest like a talisman. It probably wouldn’t help her, but it made her feel better to have her mother close to her, even if she was just a holo.

With that thought, she let her eyes droop and fell into an exhausted sleep.

Chapter Text

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 Vader.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.

Chapter Text

It seemed Luke had barely closed his eyes when he was awoken by the sound of the door opening.

“We need to move,” said Vader, voice painfully loud in the room. Then he slammed the door shut, and Luke could hear his footsteps retreating in the distance.

Leia sat up with a groan, rubbing her eyes, braids more askew than ever. Luke wiped his face - he had slept in his old clothes, the ones he had been wearing for days now, and he felt disgusting, like there was a layer of sand all over his skin. The best he could do was carefully use some water from one of the bottles to wash his face, and when Leia wordlessly held out her hands for some, he shared it with her too. He tried not to wince as she splashed droplets carelessly, wastefully, all over the floor and blankets.

She glanced over at Luke, and he hurriedly looked away, feeling guilty. She was a princess, she was probably used to having water wherever she went. Had she noticed that he was judging her? “Did you sleep okay?” she asked.

Oh good, he thought with relief, she hadn’t noticed. “Yeah, I guess.”

Leia smiled a little. “That’s good. I had some weird dreams.”

He had too, he just hadn’t wanted to say. “Me too. I kept dreaming of the - the monsters outside.” They were unclear, but he knew they had been in his dreams all night.

“They’re not monsters,” said Leia, suddenly angry. “Or things. They’re infected. They’re sick.”

“Yeah, I know.” The previous night’s conversation still weighed on him. “But they are, um, trying to kill us.” He thought of mentioning that Darth Vader was right about that, but one look at Leia’s face told him that would be a bad idea.

“So? They still need help.”

“Yeah, but how? What are we supposed to do?” He didn’t want to seem mean; he felt bad for them, too, but there were probably a million of them and they were just two children.

Leia lifted her chin. “When I get home, I’ll tell my father. He’s always talking in the Senate about helping people and going on missions. He’ll know what to do.”

The Senate? Missions? Leia must be really, really important if she had parents who were not just royals but also senators, even though his uncle always said politicians never did anything good. But it made him feel incredibly useless - he was just a boy on a farm, he couldn’t do anything. He subsided into quiet, and Leia, noticing that, didn’t push him anymore.

Having washed up, they emerged from the room, Luke pulling out two more meal packets to prepare. Vader was outside, closing the hood on the speeder, and Luke had to resist the sudden, odd urge to protest, You finished without me?

Vader’s head glanced towards him and Luke had a terrifying moment where he was sure Vader had heard his thoughts, but instead he only indicated Luke’s pack, then one of the boxes. “Take as much from that box as you can carry. Supplies may be limited the further we go on.” 

He waved his hand, and from one of the open boxes, a bunch of glow rods floated over to him. Luke stared at them in awe, almost not wanting to touch them.

“Take those,” said Vader again, impatience coloring his tone. Luke quickly grabbed them. “Power has been cut from the city grid. We will need those if we travel during the night.”

Traveling during the night? And as many meals as he could carry? How long were they going to be traveling for?

“We cannot rely on the speeder; it is possible parts of the journey will be on foot,” Vader continued, again making Luke think he was reading his mind. “You will need as much food as possible.”

Luke turned on the condenser unit as Leia ripped open two new packets, then grabbed a water bottle to activate the polystarch. Finally, he burst out with a question that had been bugging him for some time. “What about you? Don’t you need anything to eat?”

Vader’s stare was intense, like a live wire going through him. Leia, meanwhile, just kept making their meal like she already knew the answer.

After one hair-raising moment, he finally said, “No, young one. I acquire my nutrients in… other ways.” On that enigmatic statement, he turned and went around to the speeder, out of view.

Leia exchanged a look with him, then picked up the puff of bread and handed it to him. The green meat slices were crackling and he slipped two onto Leia’s plate, then dived into his meal.

They took a little time after eating to gather supplies, but Vader was clearly impatient for them to go, his dark presence waiting by the speeder. Luke heaved his pack into the speeder seat, now quite bulky with meal packs and boxes and ration bars, and hurried after Leia as Vader climbed into the front of the speeder. He had a feeling that if he didn’t get in fast enough, Vader was going to start it and drive off without him. At least the speeder had a back so they wouldn’t have to be sitting right next to him. Luke didn’t think he could stomach that; it was scary enough when Vader was several feet away from him.

“What about the people outside?” Leia asked as she settled into her seat.

Spurred by her question, and by the sight of the garage doors ahead of them that had no electricity to open them, Luke added, “And how are we going to… get out?” The words died as Vader turned towards them both. Why did he keep opening his stupid mouth? He resolved to be silent for the rest of the way.

Vader’s response was to turn back around and extend his hand towards the wall.

With a blast that sent both children diving towards their seats, the garage door in front of the speeder exploded outwards as if blown up by a bomb. Vader gunned the engine and pushed the handles forward.

The speeder shot through the gap, straight for a downed cargo freighter.

Luke yelled - then yelled again, both sounds lost over the buzz of the speeder as it made a hairpin turn to the left, just dodging the obstruction and sending him and Leia sliding across the seats. As they both scrambled for the seatbelts, he saw several of the monsters - or were they people? - scattered about the lot. There were several directly in front of them.

They accelerated so fast, Luke was tossed back into his seat, losing his grip on the belt. The wind whipped against his eyes, bringing tears, but even through blurred vision he could see them speeding straight for one of the monsters -

Thud.

Something screeched, the sound fading as fast as it had come. Luke felt the entire speeder waver as whatever that something - the monster, he realized, the infected - was knocked aside.

Wham.

Another was thrown out of the way by the speeder’s momentum, falling out of sight. Luke hoped it had not gone underneath the repulsors. That seemed an awful way to die.

Bump.

A third smacked into the front and was hurled several feet ahead to crash into a bunch of containers. The speeder jolted heavily as it collided with it. Leia exclaimed something in protest, but the hum of the repulsors and the wind whistling past them drowned out her words. The monsters, things, infected, whatever they were, had spread themselves out over the parking lot during the night. Luke could see their heads turning to follow their path, but they were too slow and too far to catch up with them. There was a dent in the shiny brightness of the chrome metal and a small crack along the polished edge where it had smacked an infected, with a smear of something wet and dripping. Part of him wanted to cry at seeing the shiny new speeder getting broken up already. The other part was growing increasingly frightened: the speeder was strong but he could see the bridge up ahead, with a fallen transport that had shattered it in two - Leia’s hand gripped his 

Vader cranked a gear and the speeder shot upward.

Luke was hurtled back into the seat. The wind rushed into his eyes and blew across his ears. All he could see was the open sky, cloudless and blue, and his only thought was to be grateful that he had finally managed to belt himself in - he hoped Leia had as well - 

Then with a swoop in his stomach they went down, nose pointing towards the earth. They could not have been aloft for more than a few seconds - all that the speeder could do - but to Luke it had felt like forever. Like flying.

With a jerk that threw Luke back, the speeder straightened. Luke gasped. He could see Leia panting for breath as well. He glanced back and saw with awe that they - or rather, Vader - had shifted gears so that the speeder had landed gently on the other side, without smashing its bottom against the ground. They had left the warehouse, and the lot full of monsters (infected), behind them, trapped on the other side of the bridge. Looking forward, they were cruising down a blessedly empty street, buildings shooting by.

He laughed, a joyful burst of sound. “That was totally wizard! ” he exclaimed, forgetting his earlier promise to stay quiet. 

Vader’s head tilted back towards him, and Luke immediately went quiet. This was Darth Vader, and he didn’t need Luke cheering him on. It was stupid of him to even say anything and draw attention to himself. He sat in silence the rest of the trip, drawing a look from Leia that was half sympathetic and half offended on his behalf. He really hoped she didn’t try to say something again in an attempt to defend him. He didn’t need more attention like that.

Still, he didn’t know Vader could drive a speeder like that, and he told himself that as soon as he got home, he was going to get behind the wheel of Uncle Owen’s speeder and try out the same trick.

They zoomed along the streets for a bit, Vader nimbly dodging smoking wreckage or taking a side street if he saw some obstacle he did not want to navigate. Luke had no idea how he knew where they were going - once they went down an alley so twisty he completely lost track of where they were - but Vader seemed completely confident in his navigational skills, and Luke certainly wasn’t going to question him.

But after about half an hour of this, Vader brought the speeder to a halt, shoved open the door, and exited, without a word of explanation. Luke sat up, curious despite himself. Vader seemed to be looking at something, head tilted upwards, and Luke tried to follow his gaze.

At first he couldn’t see anything. But as he focused harder, he saw it: a shimmering bubble that ran from the ground all the way up to the top of the building. Squinting and craning his head back as far as possible, he realized that the air above them was wavy, like the desert sands during the hottest part of the day, and that this waviness curved over and behind them to meet the ground once more… like a bubble. Or a dome.

Leia was already unbuckling herself and coming out of the speeder. She hopped the length - tall for them - from floating speeder to ground, stumbling slightly, then walked forward. But she wasn’t looking at the shield, she was going straight for Vader, and Luke, guessing her intentions, tried to grab her only to miss. How did someone who was shorter than him walk that fast?

“You shouldn’t have done that,” she said to Vader, all fury, and Luke saw Vader jerk as if in surprise. “You ran them over. You might’ve killed them! They’re sick, they need help!”

Vader turned slowly towards her - again, Luke thought he seemed more shocked if anything that Leia was standing there, arguing with him, when there was a giant bubble containing them. “Do not presume to lecture me, child. They were in the way and so I did what I had to.” 

Luke wanted to hide somewhere. He did not want to watch them argue; it felt intrusive, frightening.

But Leia refused to see her danger. “You could have flown around them!”

“They were all around us. Had I done that, I would only have hit another. Unless,” said with deep sarcasm that somehow carried over the vocoder, “you are suggesting that some beings are more valuable than others? How unbecoming of you.”

Luke deeply considered diving under the speeder; that sounded like it would be preferable to watching Leia inevitably die when she angered Darth Vader past the point of patience.

“You can use the Force!”

The Force? What was that? Luke, looking between them, wondered if that was the name for thing that let Vader move stuff and read minds and fly so cool.

“So now you want me to use it?” Vader said. 

Leia crossed her arms.

“I will not waste my time or energy saving those that cannot be saved,” he continued. He stood directly over her, a massive, black-caped figure. “Do not argue with me again, Princess, or I will change my mind about aiding you.” With a deliberately aimed look at Luke, “ Both of you.”

Luke flushed, horribly aware of being drawn into the argument, of being used. And Leia knew it too, and he recognized the look on her face: she was on the verge of completely blowing up. At Darth Vader! There was only one way to salvage the situation.

He grabbed Leia’s arm and pointed up frantically. “Hey, look at that! Do you see that?”

Distracted, she tried to pull away from Luke, clearly still angry, until she saw Luke’s panicked look, his attempt to tell her to stop dragging me into this. Frowning, she shook her head, but it seemed to calm her slightly. She craned her head upward exactly as Luke had to look at the wavering air. Luke joined her, heart beating wildly. It didn’t calm until he heard Vader turn away and continue… whatever he was doing. In the distance, Luke could hear some of the monsters, infected people, whichever, but the sounds were faint, carried by the breeze. The only other noise was a low but distinct humming, detectable only when he was very close to the edge of the bubble.

“Is that a… wall?” Leia asked, crinkling her forehead.

“I think it’s a shield,” Luke volunteered.

“A ray shield,” said Vader shortly, from behind them. “They are quarantining the city.” His helmeted head was tilted as if he was listening for something besides the hum and the distant call of the infected. 

Leia turned to glare at him. “So what now?”

A pause, and Luke braced himself for Vader to do something about Leia’s attitude. For a moment the air almost seemed to crackle with their shared anger. 

But then he felt it slide away. Leia seemed to sense it as well, and he saw her brow furrow in confusion. “Its  energy source would likely be some distance from here,” replied Vader, and Luke breathed out. Maybe he had decided to ignore Leia. “We will not be able to reach it from here and we cannot pass through the shield.”

“So we’re stuck?” Luke ventured to ask.

“No.” He sounded irritable, and Luke once again regretted ever opening his mouth. “The shield does not extend underground.” Vader reached out with his hand. On the other end of the street, a door to one of the many buildings lining the street, banged open. “Most of these buildings will have some kind of basement facility. Almost all of these will have access to the waste dispersal systems. We will pass beneath the shield and emerge on the other side.” A pause. “Most beings avoid these systems, so there should be little infected down there. We can bypass the majority of them.” Without another word, he strode off.

Leia blinked. Luke just stared. Bypass, avoid… was he saying that they wouldn’t encounter more of the… sick people? Had Vader… given in to Leia’s arguments? It was bizarre, and when he looked at Leia, he could tell she was equally bewildered - but also looked just a bit happier.

Then the rest of Vader’s words caught up to him. Waste dispersal? Luke did not like the sound of that. He shared a nervous look with Leia, but Vader was already heading for the door and they had little choice but to follow.

They left the speeder on the street, with Vader enigmatically saying that it still has further use but offering no other explanation. The building was some kind of office, or perhaps a bank - they started in a lobby, burnt out and emptied, furniture tangled amongst one another, and along one side Luke could see a long row of counters, with glass barriers and dozens of computer consoles. He caught sight of dark splatters on some of them and quickly averted his eyes.

“We will need to reach the bottom,” said Vader. He was heading for a small, nondescript door, marked as only for employees towards the back of the building. “Come quickly. It may be a long way down and the waste systems will not be easy to navigate.”

Leia, however, had spotted something else. “Wait, we can use the turbolift!” She darted forward towards an open door.

Vader whirled around. “Princess!”

Leia, however, dodged around him and went to the opening - then yelped, teetering on her toes like she was on a balance beam.

In a flash, Vader was at her side, grabbing her by the shoulder and dragging her back. Luke ran forward just in enough to see and swallowed hard. There was no lift, just an open and completely dark shaft which plummeted straight down. He didn’t even dare poke his head in for fear he would tip over and fall all the way to the bottom.

Vader whirled Leia around, and for a second Luke was sure he was going to kill her this time. Wasn’t that what Darth Vader did to people who didn’t listen to him? Kill them? 

“Do not go running off!” he shouted. Luke took a step back, feeling the lashing waves of his anger. “Are you so defiant as to try and kill yourself just to spite me? When I tell you what to do, do it. ”

Leia tilted her chin up defiantly. “I thought we could use it! I don’t want to go down all those steps!”

Vader clenched his fists and his presence somehow darkened even further. “All power to the city has been shut off. I have told you that. None of the lifts would work even if they were operational!”

A look crossed Leia’s face, a brief realization that Vader was right, but then she crossed her arms. Luke wanted to cover up his eyes, sure he was about to watch her die. “I was trying to help!”

“You are not helping, ” and somehow Vader managed to convey his absolute displeasure with his mechanical voice. “You are putting yourself in danger and inconveniencing me . ”

Leia just stood there, and Luke knew, could feel, that she was stewing in her own anger. It felt almost as strong as Vader’s, and he was struck again with the urge to go and hide behind something rather than stay here. The whole conversation felt weird, private, like watching his aunt and uncle argue. He took a step back and tried to look elsewhere. 

She caught his movement though, glaring at him, but Luke knew that it wasn’t him she was angry at. In fact, seeing him made her little body deflate slightly. After a while, the tension started to ease. Leia dropped her arms and her stare to gaze somewhere around Vader’s belt. “I just wanted to see,” she muttered. “And you said we had to hurry. It’d be faster.”

Luke saw Vader tilt his head up, like he was resisting the urge to further yell at her. After a moment, he spoke, in a slightly calmer voice. “Curb your curiosity then.” His tone seemed to grow softer. “It is a… laudable trait, but it is dangerous in this place.” 

Luke blinked, looking between the two as it dawned on him that Leia was not about to die horribly. If anything, Vader almost sounded a bit nicer around her.

As if embarrassed, Vader straightened abruptly, then turned and headed for the door. “We will make our way down. It isn’t far but once we reach the dispersal system, the way will be more difficult. You must save your energy.” He turned to stare at them both. “Stay behind me.”

Leia gazed after him, her face looking surprised, suspicious, and just a little bit pleased. Finally feeling like the two were past the danger point, Luke joined her at the beginning of the steps. They exchanged looks once more.

Without a word, they began following.

It was, as Vader said, quite a ways down, with multiple flights of stairs each of which extended many feet below and had very steep steps, mere slabs of plastcrete set against the wall, with nothing behind them to keep their feet from slipping. The railings were jagged and dirty and Luke soon found himself wishing that the turbolifts had worked. At least there were landings at regular intervals - except that at the first one, Vader told them to stop and wait there while he went to investigate it. He left the door open, allowing them to see the beginning of a hallway that led into total darkness. Vader’s breathing soon faded from hearing.

Neither knew exactly what was going on - but when they saw flashes of red light from within, they guessed. Leia turned away, and Luke stared at the floor. But there were no screeches of the infected or the hiss of a lightsaber against flesh, and after less than a minute, Vader reemerged and continued down the stairs without a word.

Safe. Or so Luke hoped.

Down and down they went, and it seemed like at every floor they had to stop and wait for Vader to check the rooms and corridors that connected to the landings. He never told them what he found, never explained what he had done, nor did he douse his saber. He just kept moving, fast enough that Luke’s legs were soon aching, though never so fast that he left them entirely behind. There were no windows and no working lights, and soon Luke found another reason to go more slowly: the darkness. The small square of light from the entrance was soon gone, replaced only by the bright beam of the lightsaber and - after Vader reminded him impatiently - a glow rod he dug out from his pack.

Even then, the light did not penetrate the darkness more than a few feet in any direction, and Luke had to take each step more carefully, nervous about tripping and tumbling all the way to the bottom. Between his pack and holding the rod, he felt really off-balance. Leia had to do the same, keeping close to Luke so she was within the light. Only Vader seemed fully confident where he was going. Luke wondered if the mask he wore all the time had something to do with it, but another reason was probably because he was the one holding the lightsaber. It created a red cast that made the shadows look long and frightening. Sometimes it would combine weirdly with the yellow light from the glow rod, turning the shadows into distorted doubles of themselves. The only upside was that it made Vader easy to follow - they just looked for the red glow.

Luke thought they were nearly at the bottom - the echoing sound of their footsteps was sounding more muffled - when he stopped, nerves jangling. “Wait.”

Vader kept going - or rather, the red glow of his lightsaber got further and further away - but Leia paused. “What?”

Luke strained his ears, trying to penetrate the darkness all around him. There it was again. “I hear something.”

Leia listened. Vader had nearly reached the bottom; he was just the faintest bit of red. “I don’t hear anything.”

He waited. There it was again, like a strangled cough. “There, did you hear that?”

The other girl looked unsure. “I think so?” They both struggled to listen. It sounded quite clear to Luke. Leia frowned. “I think… I do hear it. What is it?”

“I don’t know.” Luke looked nervously down the stairs, towards the darkness that Vader had disappeared into, before glancing back up, pointing the glow rod as far as he could reach. If there was any light still coming from the doorway they had entered through, it was completely lost in the yellow light. “What should we do?”

Leia squared her shoulders. “We should tell him.”

Luke blanched. That was the worst idea he had heard all day. And besides, why would anyone want to talk to Darth Vader, ever? Did Leia like talking to Darth Vader? Was that why she kept picking fights with him? “I’m not telling him!”

“But you said you heard something.”

“Then you tell him!” He picked at his belt. “He… likes you better.”

Leia jerked back, or Luke assumed she did, judging by the rustling of her clothes. “He doesn’t like me.”

“Yes he does. Or more than me.” Personally Luke didn’t think Vader liked anyone, but if there was anyone he had shown a preference for, it was Leia, not Luke. “He stopped yelling at you.”

Her voice was indignant. “All he does is yell at me. And he…” She didn’t finish the sentence. “You worked on the speeder together.”

“So? That doesn’t-” Luke saw the red glow growing rapidly brighter and gulped. From the bottom of stairs approached Vader’s form, coalescing into the shape of him, the blinking lights on his chest panel, the way the light illuminated the hard edges of his mask. 

Luke flinched, barely resisting the urge to hide behind Leia. Who Vader did like better, no matter what she said.

Vader glanced between the two of them. “Is there a reason you two have stopped walking?” 

Luke heard the impatience lacing his words and wondered if Leia did too as she said, far too chirpily, “Luke said he heard something.”

“Did he?” Vader turned his full attention on Luke, and oh stars, he really could feel the ominous doom behind his words now. “And what did you hear, young one?”

He was beginning to regret ever saying something. It was probably all in his head too, just like Uncle Owen said. Daydreaming and not keeping his mind on the present. “I - I heard - a - a noise-”

“Speak more clearly, boy ,” Vader hissed. He drew nearer and it was like he was part of the darkness itself, wielding the shadows surrounding him like a weapon. “Or I will have to force it from you.”

He was going to die. His grip on the rod was slippery with sweat. “I heard a noise! It sounded like - like - like someone was - was sick or… or something?” His voice pitched high and uncertain on the last word. 

“This entire city is sick, child,” said Vader, and his voice, mechanical as it was, had gone dangerously low. “Do not delay us again, or-”

“Wait,” Leia interrupted him. “I hear it too.”

A pause. Because of course Vader listened to her.

He put out a hand to stop them as they started to go up the steps, holding his lightsaber ready. Luke craned his head up, backing up against the wall in an attempt to see through the steps. It had come from somewhere above them, he was sure of it, and he searched in vain for a shadow, a movement against the faint light. Beside him, Leia took the opposite tack. The stairs went up in a square spiral, with railings to prevent them from falling down the vertical shaft to the bottom. She clambered atop that railing now, leaning her head over it to look up.

Something slurped, and Luke had just one second of horrible foreboding.

Vader’s lightsaber went up. “Princess-” he started to say.

A very long and very thick thing came straight for Leia, dropping down the shaft like a rope being tossed down. But this was no rope - under the red light, Luke could see that it was huge and sticky and bulging like a massive tentacle from a sarlacc - and like one of those horrific monsters, it wrapped itself around Leia’s waist and pulled up. 

She screamed, clawing at it as she was jerked over the railing.

“Leia!” Luke shouted, before proceeding to do something extraordinarily stupid: he dropped the glow rod and threw himself forward and grabbed her around the middle. He buried his hands in the tentacle and he pulled back as hard as he could. 

To his horror the tentacle swelled , ballooning where his hands grabbed it to form massive, translucent bubbles filled with swirling ooze. The rest of it tightened around Leia’s body, making her choke. It was strangling her - 

Luke, panicking, yelled incoherently and pulled again. The tentacle was dripping, wet and sticky - and then, horribly, he saw the tentacle stretch, the bubbles pull apart to form smaller and smaller pulsating pimples that dotted the entire length. He wanted to throw up at the sight, afraid it was going to burst and spread pus all over him - but he couldn’t let it take Leia! And he dragged at the horrid wet mass and he had a wild moment of hope that he might just win this sudden game of tug-of-war. 

Until something slurped again.

Luke had that moment of total fear and a sensation telling him to let go NOW - but it was too late. From the same place he saw another giant thing - a tongue, it’s a tongue, like a gorg catching a sand fly , he thought crazily - and then it too wrapped itself around Leia and jerked - 

His feet left the ground as he was pulled up along with Leia. Two tongues - he was not strong enough to pull against two of them - he still had tight hold of Leia but it was no use against two of them - and then all thoughts ceased as his body slid and crashed into the railing and then over it.

Luke’s vision went white from the sudden collision. Pain stabbed his entire chest. His ribs felt broken; his arms and legs were raw and stinging where the rough metal had scraped off his skin - but the relief when it ended was gone when he looked down.

They were no longer on the stairs. They were in the stairwell, feet dangling over the massive dark hole beneath and only the flashing red light of Vader beneath them . That lasted only a second when Luke felt another jerk - and then he was being dragged up so quickly the air was hissing past their ears. His arms were burning from hanging on to Leia, his shoulders screaming from the pain, but he dared not let go - he did not think he could let go, thought he was stuck against that sticky, oozing tongue. It was a long, long way up - he could see the light growing and the shadow of a creature leaning over, dragging them to it, about to eat them - and below was only endless darkness, he could not even see the ground anymore, his and Leia’s screams were echoing in the stairwell because there was only death either way - 

Red flashed across his vision, soaring upwards faster than they were moving. Something that was not him or Leia screeched in pain and fury. And then, in that brief flash of light, he heard a splat and saw one of the red tongue things, still bulging horribly, suddenly split apart and drop - caught a glimpse of one end of it smoking and burnt. Another splat and the red light went spinning back down and he heard it’s whirring hum pass inches by his ear - 

And then they both dropped as well.

If he had thought being pulled up was fast before, this was nothing - he was plummeting, clinging onto Leia, both of them screaming - she still had one of those horrible tongues around her but Luke clung on regardless, slime coating his hand and getting between his fingers and pulsating under his grip like it was alive - 

Then the fall ended into a short, sudden stop.

Not because they had hit something - they were floating. 

Luke looked down and saw blinking lights. He blinked himself, trying to see. The glow was brightest there, bright enough to illuminate Vader standing near the bottom, hand outstretched. 

He was doing this.

They began to move once more, but it was a slow drift down to where Vader was, then over the railing, his hand following them - guiding them - the entire way. It was his power, Luke thought wildly; that weird magical power that let him move things and read minds.

Inches from the floor and perhaps a foot away from him, Vader let his hand drop. So did they, stumbling as their feet connected sharply with the ground. Immediately, Leia peeled frantically at the tongue until it was off, then kicked it into a corner, looking disgusted. Luke wiped sticky palms on his robe. There was more of that ooze all over him and he really wanted to wash it off.

“Are you hurt?”

Vader. Luke started to answer, but Vader was only looking at Leia. She shook her head, face still wrinkled in disgust. Not fear; she was not afraid. Just grossed out. “No.” Then, very deliberately, she turned to Luke and said, “Thank you, Luke, for trying to save me.”

Luke really wished she hadn’t done that. It just made Vader stare at him very hard. He dropped his gaze to the ground and mumbled, “You’re welcome.”

“And you heard it too, before any of us,” said Leia irrepressibly. “You tried to warn us.” 

He really wanted her to shut up and stop drawing attention to him.

There was a tense silence. “Indeed,” said Vader at last. 

Leia looked almost smug, until she looked at her filthy, slimy gown. Disgust filled her face once more. “What was that?”

“An infected, but it appears to have… changed. Mutated,” Vader replied. He examined the discarded tongue by the light of his saber. “Do you see? It resembles a head-tail of some kind.” Luke, looking at it, could see that, for all of its bulging length and still pulsing bubbles, it was not exactly a tongue. It was much thicker at one side and ended at a point at the other. Vader continued, “It was possibly a Twi’lek. These resemble its lekku.” 

Twi’leks. Luke had thought he’d seen some of them around. Togruta too; they had lekku as well. But not like this…

Vader turned from Luke to Leia. “Do you have any objections to how I handled it?” 

Under the glow of his lightsaber, Luke could see stubbornness cross Leia’s face. “You didn’t kill it, did you?”

“I heard it fleeing after I tore its lekku off.”

She tilted her chin up. “Then I guess it's fine.” She brushed at herself. “And… it’s fine that you used the Force… like that.”

“I am glad to meet your approval.” His tone could cut durasteel. “Come. We are nearing the bottom.”

Luke picked up his glow rod - miraculously it had not been lost or kicked to the bottom during the struggle - and they followed Vader to the end of the stairwell. 

There was a door that opened into a cavernous basement, large enough that Luke’s light could not see the far walls. He jumped in fright as he swept it around and saw huge shapes leap out at him, but they were just piles of unused computer consoles and some other furniture, stacked haphazardly around them. Vader, meanwhile, was not interested in any of that. He was busy searching the floor, and stopped when he saw a round metal cover to what he had called the “waste dispersal system”.

Which, it turned out, was his word for the sewers. 

“We’re going in there?” Leia shared Luke’s horror. 

Vader hurled the cover aside without touching it, just moving his hand. The Force, Luke thought, remembering that word that Leia had used. What a scary power. He swore he could even feel something, like a vibration just below hearing level, when Vader threw the cover aside. Having found an opening, Vader leaped into the hole with a grace that Luke had not expected. There was a splash as he hit the bottom, and Luke aimed the rod downwards in an attempt to see through the darkness. But he didn’t need light to guess what was down there: water.

“Get in,” said Vader seconds later, his voice echoing up to them. Wherever he was, it was long and empty.

Leia stiffened, but Luke could see that by-now-familiar look of mulishness on her face - she refused to be scared, or at least to show that she was. She lowered herself to her knees and clambered to the edge of the hole, legs hanging over it. With a push, she hopped in - but it seemed to take an awfully long time for her to land, and when she did, it was only the lightest of splashes.

Then he figured it out. Of course Vader had probably slowed her fall. He doubted he’d do the same for Luke.

After a second, he heard her voice with the same echoing quality. “It’s okay, Luke. Come on down.”

But it wasn’t okay. There was water down there.

And Luke could not swim.

He must have only hesitated a second, but it was a second too long for Vader. “Young one, you will join us down here or we will leave you behind.” 

Luke poked his head nervously over the hole, poking the rod as far down as he could reach. With that light and Vader’s lightsaber, he could just make out the dark water below. It kept shimmering and it took a moment for him to figure out that it was moving, lapping against Leia and Vader in small waves. The tunnel was quite large, wide and tall enough to fit Vader and still have a foot of space between the ceiling and his helmet.

“How deep is it?” he asked nervously.

“Not deep, see?” Leia waved, the light barely catching her movement. “Just up to my waist.”

That was far too deep for him.

He tried to think of something else. “Are there… monsters… um, infected down there?”

“No,” said Leia at the same time that Vader said, “Undoubtedly.” He had his lightsaber out. “They will have found their way through the connecting pipes.”

“You said they wouldn’t be here!” Luke heard Leia exclaim.

“That was before I realized that these connect to all the basements and the maintenance pipes.”

“What if they find us?” Luke exclaimed even as his heart leapt. Maybe they wouldn’t have to go down there…

Vader tilted his head up at him. “If you doubt my methods, you can stay up there.” He moved away from the hole, out of Luke’s line of vision. “Princess, come,” he said, voice already further away, mixing with the lapping of the water.

Leia stayed though, waiting for Luke. “Come on, Luke.”

His stomach was all a roil. I can’t do this, he thought frantically. I can’t …

Until he heard a faint shriek from the stairwell, traveling all the way down to them.

Leia jerked in fright, then stared up at Luke, face white even under the yellow flare of the glow rod. “Luke, come on! Jump down!”

Jump or be eaten, he heard in his head, sounding awfully like Vader - and that spurred him to swing his legs over the side and leap in before he could think about it.

He fell like a rock and landed on his back with a crush of water that knocked the breath from his lungs and totally disoriented him. The wave that his fall had created splashed over his body, over his head, knocking his pack askew and the glow rod from his hand. The light - the light was gone, bobbing and hurling up and down in the water until he was completely confused. When he tried to find his footing, all he felt was more water, pressing against his heels. TWhenever his feet caught on a surface, it would slip off before he could get any purchase. He flailed, trying to grasp onto the walls, kicking to find the bottom, but he couldn’t, he couldn’t do it - everything was black and endless, and when he screamed but no sound came out, only a stream of bubbles. He was sinking, his empty lungs about to burst -

But then someone - Leia - grabbed ahold of him under his arms and tugged hard. It felt like the water did not want to give him up, was sucking at him, pulling him further in its depths, but at last he surfaced, spluttering, spitting out water. His soaked robes dragged at his body, heavier than they had ever been before, floating around him like rags. Droplets streamed over his hair, getting into his eyes, blinding him; there was water in his nose, his mouth, choking him, and he kept gasping, wheeling his arms.

“Stop it, Luke!” Leia yelled. She was holding the glow rod in her hands, the yellow light illuminating her half-scared, half-angry face eerily. “It’s just water!”

“I can’t swim!” he screamed. “I can’t swim!”

“It’s okay, look! Just put your feet down, you can walk!”

I can’t, I can’t, I can’t - his feet kept kicking, he felt so slow underwater, but he realized that they were hitting a hard, unyielding surface. Instinctively he pressed down on it, tried to stand. The water continued to pull at him, like it was trying to tip him over, but Leia was there, holding onto him.

“See?” she said reassuringly, still holding the rod above the water. “Not so bad, right?”

His attempt at a nod just made more water get into his eyes. He wiped at them, blinking more drops away. He saw Leia at his side, her own dress drifting around her waist. Vader was making his way down the other end, little more than a dark shape, his lightsaber still lit and emitting a red light that reflected  off the wet arch of the sewer pipes.

Leia waited until Luke had regained his bearings. It was hard just to stand, the water felt… alive, not still. It wasn’t even like the sand dunes, because at least those were more solid. If they started sliding, it at least went in one direction. These waves and the tugging seemed to go in every way, he didn’t know how to balance. 

“Wow, you really can’t swim,” she said bemusedly, sticking the glow rod closer to him as if he was a particularly funny animal she was examining. 

Luke rubbed water out of one ear. “Yeah,” he mumbled. “‘Cause I live in a desert. There’s no water there for me to-”

He was interrupted by a skitter, somewhere along the walls. He and Leia turned as one, staring.

Something moved, small and quick, and the two flinched back at first - but then it came into view of their light: a large rodent with a long, spiked tail and a squashed nose emitting two tusks. Its four long legs had several claws, all of them digging into the ferrocrete tunnel. It stared at them fixedly from its vantage point along the ceiling.

“A borrat,” intoned Vader from all the way down at the end, voice loud in the narrow tunnel. “They are common on Coruscant.” He added musingly, “They look fierce but are harmless if left alone.”

Luke nodded. Okay, that was fine. It didn’t look too different from a womp rat, if he was being honest, and those weren’t scary, just annoying. He tried to focus back on the water and the slippery ground beneath his feet.

More skittering.

He started to turn again, but stopped. There was a borrat just a few feet from him, clutching onto the walls. Its eyes were gray and dead looking, its jaws opening wide like it was trying to breathe him in. There was another above it, and a third one behind it, and he could spot more moving shapes around them, coming into the glow of their light. Dozens, hundreds of little clawed feet gripping at the tunnel surface, shadows mirroring endlessly back into the darkness.

Leia was breathing harshly. Her grip on the glow rod trembled, making the light waver. He could hear even more scratching, increasing in volume, and it was above him, around him, behind him, the sound of thousands of nails digging into the wall, climbing, following them. In the darkness beyond he saw a blinking light as Vader, too, turned back towards them.

And their eyes. He could feel the force of thousands of eyes, all on them.

“Princess,” said Vader, and even with the vocoder, Luke could hear the tension in his voice. “Come here. Now.”

Leia grabbed his hand. She was breathing fast, forcing herself not to look around as he had. “Come on, Luke.”

But he could not move. 

“Luke, we have to go!” she exclaimed, pulling him forward so hard his foot almost slipped once again on the watery ground, and every part of his body seized up. He had almost fallen, if he fell he might not get up, he might drown, he could not take a step forward, he couldn’t - 

“Move!” Vader shouted from ahead.

“I’m trying!” Leia said angrily. “He can’t swim!”

“Then leave him,” snapped Vader contemptuously, and Luke could feel Vader’s disdain, feel his look go right past him, as if he was nothing. Just a stupid farm boy who couldn’t do anything and who shouldn’t be anywhere near Darth Vader or a princess of Alderaan - and now he was going to get them killed -

“I’m not leaving him! He’s coming too!” Leia said furiously. The light swung around her as she turned from Vader and back to Luke. “Luke, I’ll hold your hand, I’ll help you!”

Help him? He was going to be stuck here and get her eaten too, or else drag her down with him…

Movement, of a thousand bodies moving in a mass, like nothing Luke had ever seen; he had never seen before so many animals everywhere, on the walls and the ceiling - the only place they weren’t entering was the water, the only thing keeping them at bay - the water he was terrified of - 

“Come on!” She managed to pull him forward a few inches, the water pushing at him. It was so cold, his chest was seizing up, legs growing numb. “You have to keep going, Luke! Just - just-” 

Her panicked eyes darted upwards and widened, and Luke did not want to see what she saw. His own breathing was a sharp pain in his chest.

Leia shook her head and focused on him. “Just keep walking! Okay, see?” She tried to show him.

It’s too hard!

“See, don’t think about it! Just move with the water! Don’t worry about slipping!”

He tried. He tried so hard, stepping forward. His boots found a grip here, there, but he was so slow and he could feel the hungry stares of the borrats weighing him down - down and down to sink into the water and never get up - 

“No, don’t think about that! Think about - no, talk to me! Tell me something!”

What?

“I don’t know! Anything! You can’t swim, right? How come you can’t swim?”

Desert planet…

“Well you live on a farm, right? Doesn’t your farm have any water?”

He could see Vader’s form moving towards them, lightsaber lit and oh stars, he was going to kill him for holding them up - 

“No he’s not!” Leia’s voice broke in, furious. “Luke, tell me what you do on the farm!” Her voice rose to a squeak on the last word.

Nothing. Nothing interesting at all. Cleaning and fixing and cleaning some more…

“Then tell me about your family! You didn’t finish telling me about your family!”

Family? He opened his mouth and managed to make one tiny noise.

Leia’s face swam in front of his. “That was - good! Come on!” She tugged at his sleeve, moving him about a foot forward. “Okay, keep going! Come on, Luke!” Another, and another. They had almost reached Vader, whose lightsaber was lit, pointed at the ceiling, the light showing - 

Tusks and claws and tails but above all, eyes, all of them gray like something dead, but they were alive, they followed him, and their teeth were bared and their jaws slavering - 

“Don’t look at them!” Leia shouted angrily. “Just look at me! It’s just a bunch of stupid borrats! They’re not going to hurt you!” 

“They are infected,” said Vader dispassionately. His lightsaber hummed, red glow reflecting off the thousands of eyes. “Any suggestions, Princess? Perhaps you want to talk them down from attacking us?”

Attacking us? The very air was trapped in Luke’s throat. The borrats? All of them?

Something seemed to flare up in Leia as she sensed his terror. “Stop it! Stop scaring him!” she practically screamed. “Why do you have to be so mean all the time?” 

In the stunned silence that followed, Luke could hear her voice bouncing up and down the walls and echoing back to them. He had never heard anyone talk like that to Darth Vader and he almost backed away at the boiling emotions that filled the tunnel.

Vader's next words were low and dangerous. “Very well. If he is so important to you, then stay behind.” And he dropped his lightsaber, no longer illuminating the rats and somehow that was worse because Luke knew they were there but now he couldn’t see them -

Leia grabbed Luke so hard his arm went numb, her face furious - and determined. In a rage, she screamed at him, “Hurry up, Luke, we have to move! Tell me who you live with! You don’t have any parents, so who do you live with?” 

It sounded so much like a command that it unstuck something in Luke’s throat. “I - m-my Uncle Owen and - and Aunt Beru?”

“Okay.” She nodded encouragingly, still pulling him along. “Anyone else?”

He shook his head. 

“No one else?” she demanded, and gave his hand a tug.

He managed to gasp out. “They - they’re all dead.” He scooted forward another inch as the shrieks came louder. Vader, for all that he had said he was leaving them behind, had stopped somewhere ahead, so they were gradually gaining on him.

“Well, tell me about them anyway! Your mother, your father-”

“Don’t remember my mother.” He’d said this before. “My father - navigator. Spice freighter.”

“What about grandparents?” She grasped his arm, walking onwards with him.

He started to shake his head, then gulped in air. It was so, so cold, the water. “They’re - they’re buried - buried on the farm.”

“What were their names?”

“Cliegg… Lars.” He sucked in more air. “And… Shmi Skywalker.” His head was whirling with fear and the cold and the water… and something else… a weird hum in the air…

“Skywalker? Just like you, right?” Leia was nodding along, still pulling him further. 

They had almost reached Vader, who was just standing there. Leia’s hand slipped suddenly, but he grabbed at it in a fit of desperation, not wanting to lose his only lifeline. The sound was increasing to a tight buzz, though he had no idea what it was or where it was coming from. It was more than whirling, there was a storm around him, darkness howling in his ears. He wanted to shout except that he was sure it was all in his mind. “Right. Yeah - like - like my father too.”

One more tug. They were almost level with Vader, who was still standing in the same spot, like he was frozen, feet from them. Had he really walked that far?

“What was your father’s name?” she called. Could she hear the storm too? “Your mother’s?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know! I didn’t know - I didn’t know my - my mother!” He was repeating himself, hadn’t he just said that? The buzzing was intense, a burning in his head. “My father - my father-” Was the world around him screaming? It had turned into a storm and him at the very center of it. “My father - my father was called… his name was - Anakin.” He gulped, barely able to hear his own voice over the storm. “Anakin Skywalker.”

The tempest went abruptly silent.

And then exploded into an inferno.

At first Luke thought the screaming was still in his head. It pressed so painfully at his ears and rang inside his skull that he released Leia’s hand and hunched down, covering his ears. It was only when that actually muffled the sound did he realize it was coming from all around them.

He twisted his head around and saw the borrats, all of them, broken from their trance and flooding towards them. There were so many they were just a mass of thousands of moving bodies swallowing each other up, tails darting. They came down the ceiling, down the walls, along the narrow walkway before diving into the water, bodies swimming and jaws open to pierce their flesh - 

A dark shadow swooped over them both. 

With a heavy thud, Vader landed behind Luke, blocking the way to them. He flung out his hand.

Luke felt the water level drop and the band of coldness that had been around his torso and legs and feet disappear, leaving him feeling strangely light and free - but then forgot all about that as he saw the water move away from him. It was sweeping back, back towards Vader, then away from him as well -

It rose - a wall of water from floor to ceiling -

Vader thrust his hand out.

The water swept back like a wave, washing the borrats away with them, the rodents screaming piercingly in a fury as they smashed against the walls or hit the top, bodies tumbling helplessly away. There was an echoing crash as the water came back down somewhere far from them, the very end of the tunnel perhaps. Then a trickling sound, and Luke, squinting ahead, could see the reflection of water beneath the lights, slowly returning to them. 

And he knew that the wave was only temporary. The water was returning to fill up the tunnel - and with it, the rats.

As if on cue with his realization, he heard a distant, maddened squeaking. 

Luke grabbed hold of Leia and ran down the suddenly dry tunnel.

They ran all the way down, shoes squelching along the damp ground. Luke didn’t know where he was going, but there were only two directions, and only one of them led away from danger. Water was trickling back fast - in the time that they had run, it was already streaming along their shoes, filling in the crevices and moving against the edges of the tunnel. He could see the wavering flash of red light and hear the rapid cycling of a respirator and knew that Vader was somewhere behind them, following.

And the enraged squeaking was getting louder.

Water gushed towards them, up to his ankles; he and Leia were pulling their feet up and out of it to try and move faster. There was a stitch in his side but the two children forced themselves forward even as the water rose up to their shins. 

Because they could see a small circle of light up ahead, where there was a tiny metal covering that would let them emerge back onto the surface. The water was past their calves - flowing up to their knees - and the skittering sound was all around them again and if the rats reached them, if they covered the light that was their only way out, then all hope was lost - 

A bang, and the circle of light became a spotlight.

A black form passed them by and shot out of the hole. Vader.

And they were left alone as water continued to fill the sewer and the skittering grew closer, and closer, and Luke could only think with a sense of overwhelming devastation that they had been abandoned, both of them, were being a hindrance, to be left behind to be gnawed to death - 

Until he saw the flash of red light above, and heard the screeching that came not from the rats, but from whatever was waiting outside of the pipes.

Infected. More of them above them.

Luke craned his head above, saw Leia doing the same, but they could not see anything through that hole except the blue sky and the briefest flicker of movement - perhaps Vader’s black cape whirling over the hole. The sweeping arc of his lightsaber. A hand or an arm grasping at the air, a foot against the edge - and once, the slice of the saber that cut off a limb which fell straight through the hole with a splash. Luke yelped, narrowly dodging the smoking thing.

It felt like it took an age, but it must only have been a few seconds - but in those few seconds, the water reached their waist - and the borrats came with them. They were scurrying towards them in a giant mass - they were feet away from them - then only half a foot - were mere inches from reaching them, their dead eyes and glittering teeth stark against the spotlight above -

His entire body jerked upward.

And then they were launched into the air.

Luke closed his eyes as they flew up the opening above - not floating, but shot upward as if out of a cannon to get flung onto a surface that was not wet or roiling or cold. Luke stumbled, falling to his knees and dragging Leia with him, and the two rolled onto their sides, gasping. There was a clatter and Luke saw vaguely that Leia had finally dropped the glow rod, letting it roll away from them. The light burned at his eyes and he rubbed at them frantically, thinking in a panic that there might still be more infected around them. 

They were out.

When his vision cleared, he saw that they had emerged onto a street.There was a massive circle of slaughtered infected, scorch marks and burns along their limbs, their necks, their bisected bodies. There was an array of crashed speeders and crumbled buildings. Beside him was Leia, looking sick and gripping his hand for dear life, and behind them was the ray shield - and finally the tunnel, the opening a gaping black hole from which he could still hear feral screeching -

And beyond all of that was Vader, his hand stretched towards them.

But then he let his hand drop, and Luke felt that strange gripping feeling on his body release itself. Vader was not done yet, however; wheeling about in a great circle, he waved his hand once more. The metal covering came sliding across the ground to fall with a thud on the hole they had just exited. Just like that, it cut off the animal squeaking beneath. 

Out. They had made it out.

Luke wanted to collapse against the ground, but there were so many dead bodies around that it made him shiver. Leia had headed towards an emptier stretch of sidewalk to lean against a building, and he followed, still panting from their previous exertion. At last, he stretched out along the ground. He just wanted to lie there, stare at the sky, enjoy not being in the water. There was a rustle of cloth and he turned to see Leia slide down beside him, breathing coming in faint gasps. She reached over, seemingly without even thinking about it, to grab his hand and squeeze reassuringly. He could barely feel her, his own limbs had gone so numb, and for a few moments the two just stayed where they were, trying to gather themselves.

Finally, the shaking stopped, replaced by a funny prickling along his forehead. He rubbed at it, wondering if he had gotten dirt on himself, sitting up. Did they have to move? Leia yelling at him down in the tunnel and the fear of the last few days had gotten into his head, so all he could think was that maybe they shouldn’t be just hanging about out here, they were so out in the open that it meant that anything might find and catch them -

Vader was staring at him.

Luke jerked, then looked around him. Were there more infected coming? But the streets were empty, and he turned back around.

Vader was still staring at him.

Not at Leia. Not at some infected being behind him. At him, at Luke.

It was like being directly under a laser beam. Luke stood up and tried to back away, it felt so intense, but he’d forgotten he was already leaning against a wall and his spine smacked into it. Leia sat up too, her eyes darting between him and Vader. He shot her a terrified look, wanting her help because she seemed to understand Vader a bit better than him, but she looked just as bewildered, and maybe even a bit intimidated too by the intensity of Vader’s gaze.

What was it? Had he done something wrong?

Well, Luke could actually think of several things he had done wrong in the last hour. He started with the biggest. “I…” His voice came out in a whisper. He tried again, feeling a different kind of panic beginning to form. “I - I’m sorry that I… got scared. Down in the - in the tunnel.” He swallowed. “It was the water.”

No response whatsoever from Vader. He just kept looking at him. 

What else? “I - and I shouldn’t have gotten caught by the… tongue things. Tentacle things.” He had been trying to help Leia, but still.

Vader took one step closer.

Luke, forgetting he was already up against the wall, tried to back up again and managed to bang his head against it this time. 

Vader took another step. And another. He was still carrying his lightsaber, his lit lightsaber, and Luke shot a frantic look at Leia. She scrambled to her feet and pressed nearer to him, but for once, Vader seemed completely unaware of her. He didn’t even spare her a glance. All of his attention was on Luke.

Was he going to die now? Was Vader finally going to kill him for getting in the way?

Vader came closer, and closer, until he was standing directly in front of Luke. His respirator seemed to be working overtime, the cycles much faster than usual. He was so close Luke had to tilt his head all the way up to look him in the eyes, or where he assumed his eyes were, which only resulted in him knocking his head against the wall once more.

The lightsaber turned off with a snap. Luke watched dazedly as Vader clipped it back to his belt.

With a creak of leather, he knelt down in front of Luke.

Luke had never been so confused in his entire life.

Another long moment followed of Vader simply staring at him some more. Luke wanted to shift around, to move away, to do something to get away from his gaze, but there was nowhere to go. He was sure he had done something wrong, Vader was just refusing to tell him.

“Tell me your name,” said Vader.

His name? Luke was even more befuddled than ever. Was there something wrong with his name? “Luke,” he said, trying to stop his voice from shaking. Vader remained where he was, waiting, and Luke knew he wanted more. “Luke Skywalker.”

The silence that followed was endless.

Carefully, Vader reached out and held Luke by the chin, tilting his head up. Luke’s breath hitched; he felt like that time he saw a Tusken Raider from afar, thinking only to himself, don’t move, don’t move, if you move it’ll see you and then you’re dead. But Vader only held him gently, and looked at him, and Luke could get no hint of his thoughts, could only see his own puzzled reflection in Vader’s eye plates.

Finally, Vader released him, but he did not get up, stayed kneeling before him. Then, slowly, he turned his masked face to look at Leia, who met his gaze head on even though Luke knew she was as baffled as he was. Then back to Luke. And Luke had the strangest idea that Vader was figuring something out, but he had no idea what. 

At last he straightened, still gazing down at Luke. He was silent another moment; he seemed to be thinking. There was a tingling feeling crawling up Luke’s skin, almost burning.

Several feet away, one of the light poles abruptly fell over, crashing into the pavement.

Luke flinched, just managing to hold back a yelp. Leia was gripping his hand like a vise. Only Vader took no notice. In the distance, another pole was torn from where it stood to smash to the ground. Then a third. A fourth.

And Vader remained absolutely still, staring at them.

At last, it stopped, as did the tingling in Luke’s nerves. He let out a small breath, not sure what had happened, what was going on, only that somehow, Vader was the cause.

Darth Vader. Who had finally moved to stare upwards at the shield. 

He turned in one abrupt motion. 

“The base is further outside the city,” he said, and the normality of those words briefly shocked Luke. “If we hurry, we can reach it on the speeder before dark tomorrow.”

Luke crept away from the wall. On his other side, he looked at Leia with questioning eyes. She shot him a troubled glance, but walked after him. Luke stayed where he was. He sensed the most dangerous moment was over, but… Vader didn’t really mean to let Luke still go along with them, did he? After all the trouble he had been?

Vader turned and caught sight of him, still hiding against the wall. “You as well, young one.”

Luke blinked, not sure if he believed what he was hearing. Hadn’t Vader just told Leia to leave him? Hadn’t he been trying all this time to dump him somewhere in the city? 

But Vader was waiting, and looking at him. Actually looking. 

Luke dashed forward, still in disbelief but not wanting to question his luck. Him too. Vader wanted him as well.

Vader stayed where he was until Luke had caught up to him - he really, actually waited for him - and then they continued their way through the city.

Chapter Text

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.

Chapter Text

It was strange to be so near the children while they slept: a temptation and a distraction simultaneously. And something else, as well… Satisfaction, perhaps. Even contentment.

How long had it been since Vader had felt content?

And there were two of them. Children. Not just a child.

And not just the children.

His children.

Twins. Padmé had given birth to twins. 

He had thought he had a daughter.

Now he had a son. 

Luke Skywalker, the boy had told him, completely ignorant of the import of what he had told Vader. And at last Vader understood why the Force had hummed about the child, why his signature bore such a marked resemblance to Leia’s - perhaps even why his daughter had been so adamant about protecting him. She knew, even if subconsciously; she must have known that this boy was important to her.

With a kick that hard? Definitely a girl…

He had been certain they were having a girl.

It’s my motherly intuition…

Padmé had been equally adamant that the child was a boy. 

Twins.

And they had been separated. His daughter to the Organas, his son to the Lars. The children themselves did not even know of their relationship, or of their connection to Vader; he had gathered that much from their conversation. Vader wallowed in that discovery, stoking it with his anger and betrayal. Yes, he could see it now: twin children, so strong in the Force, bereft of mother and father - they would be a most useful tool. Naturally they would be split apart, shattering the twin bond before it could form: the girl to be raised with the Empire’s greatest detractors, to spew their rebellious ideologies once grown; the boy, so similar to Anakin Skywalker, to be raised as a Jedi, a focal point for their vengeance. And should Vader or the Emperor discover one, well, the other would be safely hidden away, a backup to spring when victory was in their grasp. The dark side stirred ever stronger with each revelation.

The children did question these seemingly immutable foundations of their lives, though. Leia had memories of Padmé. Luke, in particular, seemed to have some sense of the truth, if he was imagining that his father was on a long trip and would return some day. Something in him warmed to that discovery in a way very different from the heat of the dark side.

He might have killed the boy. 

That banished the small embers of warmth. He had wanted to cut the boy down where he stood when he first saw him and knew him only as a rival to his daughter. Then, when the boy kept holding them up, it occurred to him again to just abandon him. Only the princess had prevented him from doing so, otherwise his son might have been dead, either unknowingly at Vader’s own hand or after being left behind. 

Vader might have killed his own child without even knowing about it, and the rage of what might have been sent dark waves of energy around him. As it was he had spent an entire day ignoring the child and treating him with barely concealed malice. Vader had since taken steps to change that, but he could tell the boy still remained wary of him. The fact that he had discovered the truth before more damage could be done, could only be the will of the Force. It wanted father and children to reunite, and he reveled in that, though it had taken eight years.

Eight years where he had been separated from both children. From the family that was his by right. 

The Jedi had done this. It was only by their doing that such a thing had occurred. No… not just the Jedi. Obi-Wan Kenobi. Only his old master could have concocted such a devious plan. Only he might hate Vader enough, be petty and envious enough, as to stoop to use Vader’s own children against him.

He clenched his hand into a fist and almost wished some of those infected creatures might burst upon them. He needed something to loose his rage upon rather than letting it rise like a pyre in this room. 

But since the infected were not so obliging, he plotted his own vengeance. First, he must find the right moment to tell them the truth. Not now; the girl was still too antagonistic and the boy too frightened, though his son, he thought, at least had a craving for a father-figure that Vader could use to his advantage. Then, once they were off this blasted planet, his children - not just one child, but children - would be trained in the ways of the dark side, loyal only to him. He envisioned them, burning with all the powers of darkness, at his side; transported himself to a future where he would take them to Obi-Wan to show his old master, once and for all, that he, Obi-Wan, had failed. And once they had struck the old Jedi down, they would go to the Emperor and end his corrupted reign, to rule over the galaxy as a -  

Someone whimpered, but he was so lost in his own visions that for a moment he did not even register it. The sound tugged on the edge of his consciousness, plucking at the connection between him and his children. 

A connection he had not even been aware of until a few days ago. Yet now that he had finally noticed it, it seemed impossible he could have missed it at all, impossible that he could have ignored it all these years. Vader pulled out of his own thoughts and followed the two feather-thin cords that bound him to his son and daughter, so similar that he might almost have thought them one. When they split, he hesitated, then traveled down the one that led to Luke’s mind.

His son’s Force presence was as open and clear as a meadow in sunlight, completely unguarded. Vader moved along it with a deft touch, careful not to have Luke notice him (though he was asleep) or to wake him, then allowed himself to touch Luke’s mind.

A lekku wrapping around him - an endless drop to a watery cavern - hiding in a dark corner, choking on ash and smoke as screams echoed around him -

Vader pulled back slightly, enough to place him in physical awareness of Luke. The boy was beginning to kick at his blankets. Moreover, when Vader (far more tentatively) touched his daughter’s mind, he saw similar flashes of images. Luke’s dreams were leaking into hers along their twin bond, and that was disturbing her far more than Luke’s kicking. Vader lingered for a moment in Leia’s mind: catching not just fragments of Luke’s nightmares, but ones unique to Leia: men being swallowed under a mob of infected, a skeletal being crawling down a narrow corridor, a dark figure standing over her - but Vader broke off the connection before he could see more.

As if sensing the loss of his presence, Luke whimpered again, twisting in his blankets. Leia’s eyelids flickered, her own exhausted body coming to wakefulness. Left alone, they would soon awaken fully, likely gasping for air and sitting bolt upright, as Vader had so often before when he dreamt of - but he cut that memory off as well. An unbecoming confusion was beginning to well up. He had had no comfort during his nightmares; his only salve was to awaken and see that the person he had feared for still lived and lay beside him.

He doubted his own presence would provide that kind of comfort for anyone.

Reaching out, not entirely sure what to do but also not wanting the children to wake up and have to talk them back into sleeping, he let his presence flow along their twin bonds. Their own Force signatures reached out, an instinctive move as they felt his parental touch, and despite knowing that it was merely a subconscious gesture, he could not quite hold back his own pleasure at their response.

Setting that aside for perusal later (if that), he let his own dreams flow to them: glorious visions of power and freedom, of ruling over the galaxy and making it in their own image, molding it into their greatest desires. Leading a force of thousands, millions, to quell pathetic rebellions until peace would reign, forever; crushing their enemies and rivals to ensure a safe and secure galaxy; the worship of billions of beings.

The twin presences recoiled. Luke’s squirming turned to thrashing, face crinkling in distress. At his side, his sister kicked, fists clenching against her blankets.

Puzzled, Vader withdrew briefly. The children calmed, but only marginally, and with his Force sense still attuned to them, he could feel their old nightmares returning, lapping at the edge of their minds. They would not stay at bay for long. And for whatever reason - pure spite, he told himself - he was now invested in ensuring it would not make a return.

He cast his mind about for some solution as the dreams intensified. An old memory was poking at him, insisting on coming to the forefront. It was a memory of Anakin Skywalker’s, and those he kept buried deep down. But finally the children’s distress became so palpable that he allowed it. 

It was a memory of when he was young, living in the slave quarters of Tatooine. He had been no stranger to nightmares even then, yet whenever he awoke, his mother was there to hold him and calm his fears and soothe him back to sleep. 

That was not something he could do. He would not coddle and indulge his children; that would only weaken them for the trials that would later come. In time, they would learn to quell their fears with the Force and use it to feed the Dark Side. 

And Darth Vader did not hold children.

But that left him with no solution at all. He hesitated, then reached out uncertainly through their bond once more. He expected this more pronounced touch of his Force presence to disturb the twins, but Luke appeared to calm the further he stretched out, while Leia’s curled body relaxed slightly. Encouraged, he went further, exploring deeper and deeper into their minds until he was right in the area where their dreams originated. Here was a whirlwind of all the events of the last days: hiding in dark spaces, fleeing along streets, explosions and red flashes of light, the borrats wading through dark water, the gunner hurtling down a walkway towards them. 

Vader pulled away. Yes, he knew all that. But what images could he conjure up to counter that, when his own most recent memories were of blood and destruction?

Even the thought of this seemed to stir them up further - images of fire and smoke and ash, of his lightsaber slicing through bodies, of unleashing the power of the Dark Side. And before that, the cold emptiness of space, the bolts of laser fire, of settlements burning, the angular bulwarks of a Star Destroyer and the fury of some failed underling, some new but no less petty attempt at backstabbing in a futile effort to climb the military ladder… a constant inferno of rage and self-loathing broken only by spiteful pleasure of the fear of those under him.

Until at last he realized he had to banish all of these and simply… be. 

Like a balm on an open wound, he felt the landscape of his children’s mind settle. Nightmares attempted to roil the surface, but he sent them back and, utilizing a technique he had not attempted for eight years, generated calming waves of the Force through their young minds. Some part of him raged at this, so used to constant turmoil, but another part relaxed into the familiarity of it. As he continued to draw away the dreams, he saw, with doubled vision, Luke’s body go still, then relax, stretching out along the length of his blanket. His sister, too, uncurled her legs, her fists loosening their hold on her dress.

After a few moments, he inspected their presences again and found only quietness. Images that were not of his own consciousness mixed with his thoughts - canyons rising over a sand dune in one, a serene lake in another - but they dispersed as quickly as they had come, part of the menage of ordinary dreamscapes. For the moment, all was well.

Gently, he drew back, gradually separating their mingled connections. It took time, unweaving himself from theirs, but he told himself that it was merely for their benefit. To cut his presence off from the children’s so abruptly would surely disturb their rest.

And if there was any other reason for his reluctance, well, that was not for anyone else to know. 

He awoke the children when he came out of his own meditative trance, sensing the start of another day. 

His son sat up first, rubbing his eyes, groggily pulling on his robe and then stretching into full wakefuless. The princess was slower, her presence still dimmed with weariness, and Vader wondered if her dreams had sapped at her reserves more than he had guessed. He himself was beginning to feel the effects of lack of sleep - he had only rested a few hours intermittently the last few days and spent the rest in meditative watchfulness or drawing on the Force for energy. 

That would only last so long, but it mattered not. They would reach the Imperial base soon. Once there, he would commandeer a ship to return to the Exactor and from there… 

Well, that would remain to be seen. But he was certain of one thing: his children would be at his side.

After a hurried meal, they departed, Vader pushing his Force senses futilely out in an attempt to assess their danger. Frustratingly, there was still nothing, whether the nothingness of lack of danger or the infected’s improbable void in the Force, he could not tell. Vader had known pain and mutilation, he knew better than most sentient beings what it was to lose so much of himself that he was dependent on a machine just to breathe. He would not compare what he felt now to what he had suffered on the banks of Mustafar. Yet to be unable to sense the life forces of any beings save his children felt as if he had been cut off from the Force, like swaddling placed over his body. The entire situation was… disconcerting.

They were in luck, though, and there were no infected apart from a couple wandering outside. He dispatched them quickly and out of sight of both children, less to spare them the trauma and moreso because his irrepressible daughter would likely start another argument with him over the sanctity of life or some other nonsense. 

The speeder was parked a little way apart from the store. Some blocks down lay the wrecked attack pods that he had thrust the two children into for safety, as well as the burnt out alleyway where he had hurled mines at troopers that he would normally have commanded. The dust from the previous skirmish had settled so that their bodies were in clear view, his lightsaber’s scorch marks starkly clear on their white armor. He tried to keep them out of sight and to hurry the two children into the speeder - not because their distress was of concern to him, merely because they had to cross as much distance as possible before night fell once again.

It was for the same reason, of course, that he had hurled the two into a pod yesterday: they were a distraction in battle and they needed to be put out of the way. There were some concerns for their safety, of course - he wanted to be sure the infected did not spread their disease to the children, not to mention their lack of training meant they were vulnerable to any violence. It was not the Sith way - as his future apprentices, they ought to be immured to violence at an early age and then further trained to use their powers - but he would rectify that later. 

Besides, the fact that they had managed to fight an infected gunner by themselves was… commendable. Yes, that was the feeling. All by themselves they had managed to take down an infected with little more than an empty blaster rifle. His daughter had been distressed, obviously, but when the time came, she had not hesitated, and Vader was certain that the fight had taught her something about the harsh realities of survival. There was no room for moralizing ideology in life. The Sith knew that. Soon, she would too.

They drove through the city, evading obstacles as they had before. The one barrier of note was a laser shield set up along one street and, Vader was sure, erected along every street in an encompassing circle similar to the ray shield and the attack pods. It was standard procedure for containing unrest. This, though, was child’s play, and he barely even slowed the speeder down as he used the Force to shut off the laser barrier long enough for them to speed through. As the buildings grew smaller and more scattered, he knew they were reaching the outskirts of the city, heading for the homes of middle-class families who could afford to live away from the bustle of industry and business. Any further and they would soon come upon the massive agricultural complexes and untouched woodlands that made up the rest of the planet.

The base itself was located away from both homes and the city, though not so far that they could not easily enforce any Imperial strictures as needed. The wide, straight roads of the city were gradually shifting to narrower, curved ones, made of gravel and dirt rather than synthetic materials. As he navigated them, they passed by scattered pairs or small groups of the infected, mostly humanoid types. His hand itched for his lightsaber, but it was more imperative to reach the base than to kill a few otherwise harmless infected.

It took a couple of hours but at last he saw the top of the base, rising from a clearing along the edge of the woods. Relatively small for a garrison, it was still a sprawling construction of gray ferrocrete and durasteel, hard angles and straight lines nevertheless producing a rounded top and curved edges. It sat on a wide clearing from which dozens of speeders and ships might enter and take off at will, surrounded by a wall bristling with wire and laser shielding and with antivehicle and anti-infantry artillery laid out at intervals. 

Vader pulled up at the gate, which was flanked by two large towers rising twenty feet above him. There was nobody outside, but Vader, reaching out with the Force, sensed dozens of presences in the Force - the first he had found in days that weren’t those of his children.

“Halt!” The voice came from above. “Speak, intruder, or we open fire!”

That was almost amusing. He exited the speeder so that he was in fully view of the tower.

There was a second crackle. “Put that down! Don’t you recognize who that is? It’s Lord Vader!”

A loud shuffle. Then the first voice called out, “Lord Vader?” 

Vader, inclining his head, could see two stormtroopers looking out from one of the towers, hurriedly stowing their blasters. 

“My Lord!” one of them shouted. “We heard news that you had arrived at the governor’s palace but nothing since. Our commander feared you had been killed.”

“Inform your commander that I have survived - without any aid from him,” said Vader brusquely. “And then open this gate at once. My travels through the city have produced many questions and I am most eager to hear the commander’s explanations.”

The troopers were quick to do this, the massive metal gate creaking open, and Vader returned to the speeder, with the children still strapped in, and entered the clearing, a large empty space bereft of any plant or animal life apart from Imperial troops. The base sat in the middle of it, its angular form a sharp contrast to the woodlands just outside its walls. 

With one curt command, the children hurried out of the speeder to follow him to the door, where they were met by another pair of stormtroopers. They attempted to insist that Vader show some identification - and definitely looked askance at the pair of children following after Vader - but one veiled threat was enough to cow them into compliance. The speeder was taken into their custody, to be parked alongside the few other vehicles remaining to them - including, Vader noticed after a quick scan, a shuttle that could take them off the planet.

“Lord Vader!” A man with the insignia of a junior lieutenant came hurrying down the long corridor as they entered the base itself, before quickly snapping into a salute. His eyes darted to the two mercifully silent children, and Vader could feel the mix of confusion and fear flowing off him. “Lieutenant Reston. Can I say what an honor it is to-”

Vader brushed past him, simultaneously cutting the lieutenant off. “I am not here to exchange niceties, Lieutenant. I want answers and I will have them from your commanding officer now. I also require access to your medical officer.”

“Oh, of course, Doctor Monega will be most eager to speak to you. As for the commanding officer…” He straightened. “That would be me. All others were… lost.”

Vader swept his gaze over the young man. He did not need to ask what he meant by ‘lost’. 

The lieutenant, meanwhile, was still speaking. “I-” His gaze was questioning as he stared at Luke and Leia once more. “Are these - we don’t usually allow-”

Vader cut him short. “The children are under my protection. Find them suitable quarters. I will collect them when I leave the planet.”

“Find - leave - I mean-” The lieutenant made a valiant attempt to recover himself. “My lord, civilians are usually not allowed within the base, and given there’s a quarantine-” One long, held stare from Vader was enough to quell any protests. “I - well, of course, it’s unprecedented, but, yes, I suppose I can make arrangements-”

Vader made an abrupt gesture to the children, who were slinking along the walls like they were trying to hide in them. At that, they ran forward, keeping close to him, and Vader, connecting briefly to them, sensed a myriad of emotions: confusion at being there, wonder at what they were seeing, relief at being safe and seeing others, and most of all, a deep terror of being left alone that rendered them obedient - for now. 

“Ah, my lord - Lord Vader!” The lieutenant hurried to keep up with Vader’s long strides. He shot a third look back at the children, who were struggling to keep up with them. “Before we find, er, accommodations, I must let you know that in light of the, um, unrest outside, of which I’m sure you are quite aware of, we’ve had to take some necessary precautions-”

“They are unnecessary.”

“But Doctor Monega was quite insistent, given everything that is happening-”

“I will speak to him first, then,” Vader snapped, not slowing his steps.

“But to speak to him, you must go through his, er, precautions!”

He contemplated strangling the man there to put an end to his babbling, before deciding that finding his successor would only cause more delays. “What precautions are these?” Vader demanded.

“Oh, well, you see-” The lieutenant dragged his gaze off the children (if he looked at them again, Vader swore he’d cut him down where he stood, delays or not) and made a feeble gesture at a device that directly in front of them. “You can see it there,a ctually. It was devised by the doctor, and is really a very quick and painless-”

“ What is it? ”

The young officer jumped. “Just - just a mere, a mere scanning device! We’ve calibrated to pick up any, ah, any signs of infection. Simply step through and if you’re infection-free, which of course you will be, then we can proceed!”

It was a wise move, Vader acknowledged begrudgingly, though unnecessary, as none of them were diseased. He took in the device, which appeared to be a large scanner erected to cover the walls and ceiling, and strode through without breaking step. On the other side was a full contingent of troopers as well as an ensign, holding a smaller scanner. At the sight of Vader he hurriedly shoved it behind his back and bowed low. The fear roiling off him was even more palpable than the lieutenant’s.

“Lord Vader, welcome-”

“I must return to the Exactor immediately,” said Vader without preamble. He kept one part of his awareness on the children, who had hesitated at the sight of the scanner. “Prepare a shuttle for immediate takeoff.”

“O-of course, m-my lord,” the ensign gulped. “But it might take some time to - to prepare one. There’s-”

“Boy, just step through it,” snapped Reston from somewhere behind Vader. “It’s not going to eat you.”

Vader turned, interrupting the stammering ensign, to stare at the offending lieutenant. Catching sight of Vader, he hurriedly snapped to, then said in a much softer tone, “Er, I mean - just, um, take your time, uh, youngling. It won’t hurt you.”

Luke stepped through, eyes darting nervously all over the device, and had let out a huge sigh of relief when the ensign whispered, “L-Lord Vader?”

“What?” snapped Vader, turning back around.

The ensign held his ground, but only barely. “I - I m-merely meant to-to inform you that - that a fleet of S-Star Destroyers has s-surrounded the planet and - and set up an orbital shield-”

“You, girl!” shouted the lieutenant. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”

“-a-and we will n-need to communicate with one of them to lower it before we can-”

His daughter stepped through.

An alarm shrieked, rattling the scanner and seemingly the very walls of the base. Multiple lights flashed, spinning in a whirl of blinding red and white. Leia clapped her hands over her ears, terror pouring along Vader’s own, open connection to her.

“She’s infected!” shouted Reston, drawing his blaster. In an instant he was joined by the entire troop as they circled the princess, pushing her back towards the scanner. Her mouth was open in a soundless cry, her eyes wide with fear. As the men circled her, drawing their blasters, she threw her hands up, her body curling into itself defensively. 

“Leia!” Luke yelled, trying to run back through the scanner.

“Don’t let him touch her!” shouted a trooper. His partner grabbed Luke by the back of his robe and hurled him back so hard Luke smacked into a wall.

The inferno that was the Dark Side roared to life.

“Get back! Get back!” the lieutenant screamed, waving his blaster and completely unaware of Vader bearing down on him. “Don’t let her get through! Get the-”

Whatever Reston wanted his ensign to retrieve was lost as his blaster was jerked out of his hands. So were all the other blasters, hurled away in a wave of enraged Force energy to slam against the walls. 

Vader pushed through the men like a tempest, anger rolling off him in waves that thickened the very atmosphere. Troopers were thrown back or sent sprawling as he unleashed himself on them, falling before his ire. In two steps he reached Luke and thrust the terrified boy behind him; in another he passed through the screeching scanner and smashed it with his fist to permanently silence it; on the fourth, he placed himself before the princess, his daughter, whose fear he could feel through the Force so strongly it threatened to overwhelm the maelstrom of his own rage. 

“ What, ” he hissed, “ is the meaning of this? ”

“My Lord!” was all Reston could manage.

All his menace, all his barely leashed rage, he poured into his next words. “You will let her through.” He flung a hand up as the few lucky stormtroopers who had been spared his wrath attempted to advance. “ Now! ” A clench of the first and those troopers too were flung back from them, armor clattering, uttering garbled exclamations over their vocoders.

“B-but my lord Vader, she’s - she’s infected!” 

“ What? ”

The lieutenant, rightfully terrified that he was about to be strangled for contradicting Vader, pointed frantically at the now broken scanner, which retained one weakly flashing light. “Look! That - that noise. It-it-it means an infection!” 

Infected?  

The princess?

He reached out wildly with the Force, resting on his daughter’s presence but sensing only her tiredness, a dimming of her aura from fear and… shame. 

Not confusion, not righteous disbelief - shame . 

She must have noticed his assessment of her through the Force - her eyes flicked up to his briefly - but she did not make any protestations. He did not even feel her strong-willed little mind pushing back against his Force sense. 

It could not be… surely he would have noticed… 

The men seemed to find his sudden silence more unnerving than his rage. “Ensign!” Said ensign shot frantic looks around him upon being addressed, as if searching for someone, anyone else, to take over his role. “Get over here and show Lord Vader! Find the source!”

The ensign looked as if he wanted nothing more than to melt into the walls, but years of having obedience beaten into him won out and he hurried over, making as wide a berth as he could around Vader in the narrow hallway. He held the small, curved scanner in his hands as he approached Leia, tiptoeing like she was a raging gundark.

“Now you just, ah, hold really still,” the ensign murmured. 

He reached for her. Leia recoiled.

“Hold her!” the lieutenant shouted. “Grab-”

Vader held up a hand.

The lieutenant’s words, and his movement, stopped abruptly. Everyone turned as a gurgling noise forced itself through the lieutenant’s mouth. He clutched helplessly at his throat, clawing for the invisible hand that was slowly strangling the air from his lungs.

Luke cried out. His sister gasped, and along their bond, he felt a burst of even greater terror - and anger.

“Stop it!” she screamed. “Stop that!”

She was defending him? A man who wanted to restrain her like an animal? It was surprising enough that Vader’s Force hold on the man briefly loosened, allowing him to take a gulp of air, before he tightened his grip on him once more. 

Luke ran forward as if he wanted to help, pulling himself short inches from the officer. Leia shouted again, “Let him go!” 

Vader considered her request for a moment, now that the fire that was his fury was dying slightly. The lieutenant was overly enthusiastic, but responsible. And he had learned his lesson. 

He released his grip.

The lieutenant slumped to the floor, gasping. 

“Be grateful the child is so merciful,” said Vader, low and menacing. 

The ensign was watching the whole scene with horrified eyes. Only when Vader turned to glare at him did he come back to himself. “Ah… m-m-my lord… shall - shall I-”

“Proceed,” Vader hissed.

The ensign looked read to soil himself. “R-right away, sir.” He turned to Leia, looking very pale. “Uh - child. Youngling. It’s, um okay. N-n-no sudden moves, all right? I’m just going to - to move this thing over you, okay?” He nodded his head vigorously like he was the one who needed to agree to it. “Just really gently, won’t hurt you…”

The princess shot a look at Vader, almost like she was warning him not to do anything, and despite the circumstances, he could not help feeling a little… amused . He let that trickle down their bond as well, which only made her scowl harder.

The ensign flicked a button on the side of the scanning device, which came to life with a hum. As he drew nearer to the princess, it began beeping quietly, slowly. The closer he came, though, the louder and faster it beeped. His daughter eyed it warily, her little body rigid, as he pointed its front end at her and moved it up and down, right and left, around her head, then down past her chest and abdomen before moving around to scan her back. The beeps, though quickened, stayed steady until he happened to scan her right side. Frowning, the ensign focused on that area - and jumped as it began to beep so loudly and quickly it became one long alarm. Loudest of all was when he let the end pass down her right arm, along the middle of her lower arm. 

“Ah, that means… it’s your arm,” he told her, flicking it off. “S-so… the largest concentration of viral pathogens are along your right arm. Did - did you receive a wound there? Was it exposed to any, erm, bodily fluids of the infected?”

His daughter’s eyes were overly large, face pale. Slowly, she rolled up her sleeve to reveal a bandage tied around it. It was pristine white, almost the exact same color as her dress.

Vader felt the Force pressing against him, whispering. Luke, behind him, was peeking out, breathing fast.

The ensign kept his distance. “Well… could - could you please take that off?”

She pulled the tape off the end and began unraveling. “It didn’t hurt,” she whispered entreatingly.

The ensign and lieutenant shared a glance but did not reply.

The bandage unrolled, falling to the ground in strands, until at last it was freed and the princess revealed her arm. She stared at it, gulping back a sudden sob.

The Force was screaming at Vader.

It was a bite mark that had been infected and turned gangrenous, but this was a gangrene far beyond normal. It more closely resembled sepsis… rot. The area directly around the wound was paler than anywhere else, as if the blood had been leached from it, while the flesh further away was red with inflammation. The very edges were raised, roughened, like scar texture, oozing pus. And the center…

The center had turned black, flesh sloughing off. There was no blood, there did not appear to be any blood left, yet the infection shot out through the blood vessels, darkening them until they were almost black, black lines shooting almost up to her elbow and down to her wrist, a stark contrast to the areas of pale and inflamed skin. 

The ensign’s voice shook as he struggled to maintain his composure. “A - a bite, sir. Hard to - to judge the time without - without knowing her life cell count, but perhaps only a day ago? Maybe two.”

Impossible. She had been with Vader by then, he had kept her out of the way, he had kept her safe. He fought to still his mind, to find some semblance of calm. He would have known if she had been hurt, surely. He would have seen, would have sensed that he failed to keep her safe…

“Any symptoms, child?” asked the ensign. “Fever, nausea, exhaustion?”

She started to shake her head, then stopped. “I feel… a little tired,” she admitted, voice the smallest it had ever been. “And… I’m not hungry even - even if I haven’t eaten in a while.” The ensign only nodded as if confirming his guess.

“Lord Vader?” said Lieutenant Reston tentatively. He was still rubbing his throat. “Surely, now, you will agree that it is best to - to keep her from entering the base? We have enacted an extraordinarily strict quarantine procedure and if we allow even one exception, it could jeo-”

Vader whirled around so fast it spread his cape out in an arc. “You will allow her entrance. I want her taken to your most senior medical officer immediately.” A most unsettling emotion was threatening to unbalance him. It felt almost like fear. “Take her there. The boy as well.” He would need to check if Luke was harboring any illness too. If he did… if it was both of them… “Show me to Doctor Monega.”

“Doctor Monega is actually our biological researcher as well as our senior medical officer,” said Lieutenant  Reston eagerly. “I can have our men take the children while you and I-”

“The children come with me,” said Vader shortly, and was oddly gratified to feel some relief from both of the twin bonds. Luke promptly ran to his sister. 

“Hey!” shouted one of the stormtroopers, one who had obviously not learned from being thrown against a wall. “Get away from her, boy!”

Vader could not keep the snarl from his voice. “ Leave him. ” The Force was calling him, urging him to shove the man back, pin him to the wall, crush his throat. Anything to relieve the growing tightness in his chest.

Lieutenant Reston made some hurried motions to the trooper, clearly a signal to stand down. The stormtrooper did so, though not without clear reluctance on his end, and coming back to attention. Luke shot him a triumphant look before grabbing his sister’s hand, sending defiant looks to all and getting a relieved look from his twin. Deprived of a target, Vader started down the corridor so fast that the lieutenant was soon struggling just to keep up, let alone lead him on.

The walk was not long, though they were clearly going deeper into the base. Multiple locked doors barred the way, though the lieutenant passed them all through easily. At several points they encountered more scanners, which forced Lieutenant Reston to override them whenever they approached. Vader kept half a mind on the two children - particularly the princess. Her flagging energy, now that he knew the reason for it, was becoming a greater concern with every minute. He itched to get to the doctor, to learn of this disease and get her under treatment. His awareness of his daughter’s diminishing spirit blotted out all else; he barely noticed the rest of the base, moving past more stormtroopers and officers and roving sentry and mouse droids without so much as a glance. 

But he did note one thing: though the base was a relatively new structure, floors still buffed, walls crisp, holocams whirring, there was a noticeable lack of manpower. He passed only two contingents of stormtroopers, and those had only two or three men apiece, and the number of officers of any rank was even more minimal. Only the droids retained their usual number. Recalling the infected stormtroopers they had encountered within the city, he could hazard a guess as to why. 

They passed through one last set of doors, a pair of them with a room separating them. There was an antiseptic look and feel to the room, like it had been freshly scrubbed, and Vader imagined that if he could still smell, it would have that stinging cleanliness associated with medcenters and labs. Immediately on entering he felt the change in air pressure as well - negative air pressure, he thought, to ensure non-contamination between the room in front of them and the rest of the base. Multiple holocams followed him as he walked through, and he heard the hum of several sets of irradiators working to kill harmful microorganisms.

Precautions that had clearly not served them well enough, he thought darkly.

Lieutenant Reston beeped them through, and Vader now entered a room that looked part surgical center and part research lab. A medical bed took up a quarter of the area, while a table was set off next to it and another at the far end. Various bits of scientific paraphernalia were scattered about: microscopes, test tubes, vials and glassware. A large, locked cabinet was at the opposite side, and a huge console littered with datapads dominated the far side. Hovering in a corner was a medical droid, wielding hypodermic injectors, mediscanners, laser scalpels, and all the other assorted tools of its kind. Vader tore his eyes away from it to eye the man at the console, who had spun around in consternation.

“Lord Vader, Doctor Monega,” Lieutenant Reston said smartly, ignoring the doctor’s ill-preparedness. “Doctor, Lord Vader requests information-”

“Spare me the introductions, Lieutenant, and return to your duties,” Vader snapped, advancing on the doctor. The man seemed ordinary enough, middle-aged, thinner than military personnel that otherwise inhabited the base, with a pinched cast to his face. Lieutenant Reston needed no excuse to depart and practically fled the room. Only inches from the doctor, Vader had to resist the urge to throttle the man. The Force swirled around him, practically shouting in significance. He was behind this, Vader knew it.

“Doctor,” Vader said, in his most dangerous tone, “were it up to me, you would be stripped of your rank for your mishandling of this situation and this entire city wiped from existence, with you in it.” He held up a finger. “ Fortunately for you, I still have need of information. I want to know what is affecting the inhabitants of this planet and your proposed treatment, and when you can administer it to the child.” He gestured forcefully to his daughter, to Leia, who was breathing rather quickly from having to keep up with him. Luke was still gripping her hand - or perhaps she was holding his, from how tight she was squeezing it.

DoctorMonega’s eyes moved from Vader’s - too slowly for Vader’s liking - to Leia. 

They lit up at the sight of her. A wide smile spread over the thin features. 

“An infected?” he exclaimed. Disregarding Vader entirely, he grabbed the princess by the arms, pulled her from Luke’s tight grip and, ignoring her surprised flinch, dropped her unceremoniously on the medical bed.

Vader resisted the urge to strangle the man right there and then.

Luke, not to be left behind, immediately tried to hop onto the bed as well.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, boy,” said the doctor casually, pulling up the girl’s sleeve with unwonted eagerness. “Not unless you want to risk turning into something like her.”

Turning into something like her? Vader can see Luke trying to understand that phrase. The pit of his own stomach dropped - if she was ill, then her fate would be that of the many infected outside the base walls. 

But that would not happen. He would find out what the treatment was for her illness and have it given to her immediately.

Luke hovered indecisively, not sure whether to join his sister or remain where he was. Vader solved it for him; using the Force, he summoned one of the lab chairs from the table and brought it spinning next to the medical bed, then indicated for Luke to sit on it. The boy, wide-eyed at this simple display of his powers, did so, keeping a protective eye on the princess.

The doctor, who apparently doubled as a medic and researcher, immediately caught sight of her arm. Without even looking at her, he turned, snapped on a pair of gloves and goggles with lightning efficiency, then twisted her arm around - painfully. Leia caught her breath, suppressing a whimper.

“Do not mistreat her,” Vader snarled, taking a threatening step closer.

“What?” The doctor blinked at him, then down at Leia, gritting her teeth in pain. “Oh, yes. Apologies. Droid!” The droid floated over. “Scan her!” He went right back to prodding at the arm, picking up some kind of medical instrument and poking at the wound with, in Vader’s opinion, needless force. The droid placed its medisensor in front of Leia and trailed up and down her body while the doctor continued to mutter to himself. “Fascinating. Fascinating. It’s been so long since I got to examine one of these in such close proximity.” Still without looking at Leia, he asked, “How long since you were bitten?”

Seemingly without meaning to, Leia looked to Vader appealingly. Catching herself - and perhaps also realizing that Vader wouldn’t know - she whispered, “I think… three days ago? Four?”

“Truly?” The doctor peered at her from behind the goggles. He went back to poking. The wound squelched, emitting a milky pus. “Fascinating,” he said again. “The rate of development from onset is remarkably slowed … only one to two days by the look of it… Perhaps the result of unusually low life cells? Or overly high? But only a scan can tell…how many life cells do you have?” But at Leia’s confused look he muttered, “No, you wouldn’t know… Droid!” he yelled again. “Take a sample!”

Leia flinched away as the droid floated towards her, the needle point of its sampler shining under the lights.

Vader knew something of the invasiveness of medical droids. He told himself it was that and that alone that made him snatch the device from it. 

“I will handle it,” he snapped. He took Leia’s hand, trying to keep his grip gentle. Leia watched him, round-eyed. “This will not hurt,” he assured her, before pressing the device to the tip of one of her fingers. He knew it was drawing a tiny sample of blood, and it beeped when finished. He handed it to the doctor, who had been staring as well, a question in his eyes. But the sample appeared to distract him and he rapidly abandoned his patient for the console, still muttering to himself as he inserted it and began typing frantically.

A few moments passed. The doctor kept mumbling. He gasped. Then typed some more. Muttered under his breath. This might have continued, but  Vader’s limited patience had run out. “Explain. Now. ”

Doctor Monega jerked and stared at Vader, as if he’d completely forgotten his presence. “Ah. Yes. I have used this sample to run a scan determining the average number of life cells she possesses. As rate of development is correlated with this count, I am highly interested in-”

“ What, ” said Vader, with the tone of a man on the verge of Force choking not just a man, but all scientists in the vicinity, “are life cells?”

Doctor Monega actually grinned. “Ah, my greatest discovery!” He pulled down a viewscreen and, from a pocket, revealed a datacard. Plugging it into the console, he began typing even more quickly. Images flashed across it as he narrated them with all the aplomb of a HoloNet newscaster. 

“Ah, how many years ago was this? Five? Six? Hm, perhaps even seven…” He glanced at Vader. Some tiny sense of self-preservation must have sensed Vader’s rising ire and he hurried on. “Yes, let us say seven. I was conducting research as part of the Imperial Biological Weapons Division, and during my studies, discovered a quite astounding little microorganism. I recall it coming to my attention because I was finding it in samples of just about every human cell sample I had acquired. You can imagine my astonishment when I expanded my search to see that it was present in not only every human but every life form alive. Carbon-based, silicon-based; oxygen breathers, methane breathers, helium breathers; mammalian, avian, reptilian, invertebrate…” 

Vader listened, his impatience growing. 

“...nor was it limited to sentient species. By the end, I was discovering it in non-sentient species… plants and fungi… even fellow microorganisms. It was remarkable!” Different images flashed across the screen: flora and fauna, humans and Wookiees, Hutts and Rodians and Gands, Nautolans and Biths and Duros. 

There was something very familiar about this. 

“Yet I found not one mention of it in the Imperial scientific archives, nor any of the databases, or the most recent research, not even a hint that anyone was on the verge of making a similar discovery. For lack of a better term, my men and I coined them “life cells”, for it is the one commonality was that it was present in every living thing.” He displayed what appeared to be a child’s scribble of a very simple cell.

Suddenly it clicked. Midi-chlorians.

The pompous fool of a scientist had discovered midi-chlorians. Or rather, re-discovered ; after the fall of the Jedi Order, the Emperor had ordered any and all mentions of midi-chlorians purged from the records and further banned any research into the beings. It would not do to have scientists discovering the source of their powers, after all. Only Inquisitors had been provided with devices to scan for them - just because the information was destroyed did not mean they could not make use of it, and they well knew the danger of having Force-sensitive infants not under their control. Yet even the Inquisitors had been provided just the barest outline of what they were searching for, enough for them to understand what they were doing but certainly not enough for them to guess at its significance. Any such research into the topic should have led to the immediate execution of the offending scientists as well as his entire crew and the destruction of his base. Yet here was this man, alive and extolling “his” discoveries. 

Doctor Monega was now displaying the image of a typical virus, polyhedral and bristling with spikes. “Now, you can imagine that this discovery put some incredible ideas to my mind. A life form common to all living things? There’s power in that, Lord Vader… from a scientific viewpoint. Our division had come up with any number of biological weapons, and so I thought… something that could target a life cell? Well, what targets a cell? What co-opts a cell’s very processes for itself? And of course, it was obvious: a virus.”

Vader was very still as he stared at the facsimile of the viral reproductive cycle, but redrawn to show the virus eating at a midi-chlorian.

“It took years of work, many failures. But I was persistent, I knew I had something of great value. For you see…” Doctor Monega showed a chart. “I soon discovered that there was some correlation between these cells and the Jedi. And I found it here, on this very planet. As it turned out, a few years ago, the governor had wiped out this agricultural group of some kind - apparently a corps that the Jedi sent those they rejected? Well, he purged most of them but there were a few survivors that they sent to us, and I thought, why not test them, and well…”

The Agricultural Corps, Vader realized, one of four branches that the Jedi sent those who were deemed to be Force-sensitive, but not strong enough to pass the Trials. They and other groups like them had been scattered all over the galaxy at the time of Order 66, going virtually unnoticed in some areas. Palpatine had ordered them rounded up or wiped out, oftentimes at Vader’s hand. 

Apparently he had missed one.

The doctor was still speaking. His viewscreen now showed a lightsaber-wielding “Jedi” with a crudely drawn face and a virus attempting to attack it. “I noticed upon injection of this virus a most astonishing effect: the symptoms of these survivors progressed faster than those of others! Examination of their corpses yielded the cause: these rejected Jedi had higher life cell counts than most other beings, hence the rate of the disease progressing exponentially faster!” He mused, “They had quite a few things to say, some of them did, in their delirium: apparently the Jedi would conduct certain tests of their own on the children that they stole, measure the count of these life cells. I had thought those that did not meet their standards were summarily killed, but instead they exiled them to backwater planets…. Though, Lord Vader, you would know even more about this than I do,” he chuckled. “And so I thought: a weapon to target the straggling Jedi out there? To target any that might become like them? Or even further: a weapon that could decimate any planet hiding them. Or any planet at all! Imagine how easily we could cow any rebellion, how quickly we’d crush those who dare to stand against us.”

He said it all perfunctorily, like it was a speech memorized by rote. He did not care, Vader realized; the Jedi, the Imperial military, the deaths around him - none of it concerned him apart from the science. 

Vader spoke. “I know of these cells you speak of. They were well-known in the era of the corrupt Republic - studied by the Jedi. ” The doctor opened his mouth but Vader overrode him. “You are arrogant to think that you are the first to discover them and presumptuous to have continued to let it go forward at all.” He placed his hand on his lightsaber. “Research into these cells is banned. The penalty for breaking it is immediate execution.”

“My Lord, I’m sure there’s been some mistake!” exclaimed the doctor, looking panicked for the first time during their conversation. 

“There is no mistake.” Darkness wrapped his form.

“No, no, I would never do this without - without approval. And I did not!” He backed into his desk. “You allowed this, my Lord!”

The words seemed to hit him somewhere in the chest. I…? “What?”

Doctor Monega fumbled about a drawer until he found a piece of flimsi. “You see? Your signature granting me approval to continue my studies, as well as His Majesty’s. I made the presentation before the Emperor myself.”

Vader snatched the flimsi from the doctor, his mind reeling. He recognized immediately the nondescript form, full of dense legalese, that he had signed off on, one of thousands of pieces of paperwork he had received in the last eight years. This one merely asked permission to research “a biological project of some importance towards exterminating the Jedi”. That had likely been enough to convince the Emperor… and Vader himself.

So it was true then. 

I did this.  

The Force swirled around him. This was my doing.  

All the sickness, the violence, the deaths… and Leia… his daughter… “And how does this… virus… work?”

“Ah. Well.” Another click, this time to display an image of a virus with the same general shape, but colored in patches of red and black, receptors dotting its pitted surface. “Infection occurs through bodily fluids: blood, saliva, the like. And only in beings with a functional circulatory system: we did not want to risk it becoming airborne, you see.” He waved a finger. “Bad enough that most everything alive has these cells.”

Everything living… that meant not only sentient beings but semi- and non-sentient ones. Small mercy that the need for a circulatory system at least eliminated most kinds of flora and simple, single-celled beings.

And he had done this.

“The onset between transmission and symptoms is short,” continued Doctor Monega, “though dependent on the amount of life cells present. The more there are, the faster the development.”

“Yet the… princess,” said Vader slowly, every word a stabbing pain in his chest, “claims she was bitten days ago. And her… ‘life cell’... count is quite high.”

“My scans indicate that she has over ten thousand at present, and that is with the virus coursing through her system,” nodded Doctor Monega, apparently too wrapped up in his presentation to ask how Vader knew that. “An unprecedented number. Were she healthy, I can’t even begin to speculate how high it might be. Twelve thousand perhaps? Or maybe even fifteen thousand? Or-” 

“Over twenty thousand,” Vader said automatically.

Doctor Monega blinked. “Well… perhaps, my lord. That seems astronomically high, but…” He shook his head. “At any rate, the progression of her illness, based on her life cell count, is quite puzzling. By all accounts, she ought to have turned into one of those ravening beasts within hours.” 

Leia, still sitting on the bed, let out a tiny gasp. Vader reached for their bond almost on instinct, but could find nothing to send her. 

Doctor Monega continued, oblivious, “I can only venture a guess as to the reason, but perhaps her ludicrously high number of these cells has offered some sort of protective barrier. We did have a few rare test subjects with unusually high counts who defied our predictions. Oh, not as high as hers, perhaps only ten thousand or thereabouts… but I was sure they would have turned within a day. Instead they held out for four, close to five days.” He spread his hands. “Or perhaps there’s just so many of them that it takes time for the virus to infect them all. Who can say?” 

The Force, Vader realized. It was the Force, flowing through the midi-chlorians. All life flowed through it, all energy, and with so high a count, it was fighting, pushing back against the disease trying to overcome it.

Something else occurred to him. “Can these infected sense others?” He recalled, suddenly, how almost every instance of using the Force had brought an attack on them. How they had seemed to sense them even at a distance. Were they bright beacons in the darkness of these creatures’ minds, their tremendous Force potential a danger?

“Yes, we designed it that way,” said Doctor Monega. “It is the virus, you see? It wants to continue spreading, it hungers for beings with more life cells. The creatures crave what they have lost. Clever, eh? And the more life cells you have, the more likely you will be attacked. And the more infected there are, the more likely you are to be hunted - and found.” 

His mind was a morass, the pieces of the puzzle gradually coming together. This was why he could not sense the creatures with the Force. Why Leia’s presence was so dimmed. Why it seemed that they were always attacked whenever they merely passed by an area… or when he used the Force itself. They were like a burning star in this Force-dead world; little wonder they were such easy targets. Leather creaked as he clenched a fist. A disease that targeted midi-chlorians itself. How had the Force itself not rebelled against that?

“And you spread this here,” Vader said slowly. “Deliberately.”

Doctor Monega drew in a breath. “Ah. That. No.” He shrugged. “An accident. We were transferring some samples. A leak occurred - one of the locals. They had no idea of the value, or danger, of what they were transporting. Lack of safety precautions - they neglected to put on one of the suits, you see. They cut their hand and spilled some sample on themself, then promptly went home without informing anybody. They lived within the city, so by the time we realized, the infection had spread beyond what we could control.”

If he could strangle an entire base, he would. “What is the treatment?”

The doctor looked surprised. “There is none. It is a virus, Lord Vader, and one we especially designed to have no cure. Any care would be a temporary measure, merely an alleviating of her symptoms. It would not rid her of the disease. We developed no antivirals, no vaccines. Not to mention the fact that it targets these life cells… I imagine the only cure is to destroy all of those, but that would possibly kill the victim regardless.”

Destroy the midi-chlorians… He did not look at Leia. If he looked at Leia, he might very well destroy something else. “Then the girl’s… prognosis?”

“I’m surprised she has not turned already,” said Doctor Monega callously. “The high life cell count, I suppose. It’s a… buffer, if you will. There are so many that it is taking the disease more time than usual to infect her. But at some point, that buffer will be overcome, and then, I imagine, the infection will come very fast and very strong.”

Vader briefly but quite seriously considered throwing the man to the mercy of his own creations. An infection… that causes its victims to die only to rise again… “So the girl will die.”

Leia was very silent.

“Not precisely,” said the doctor. “The victim enters a coma quite close to death - the failure of the life cells, you know. A death-like coma, if you will. The first time it happened we even buried a few. But the virus offers itself as a replacement of sorts, reanimating circulation, respiration, metabolism, even a rudimentary intelligence. Those are the creatures I’m sure you’ve encountered. In a few cases, we’ve seen some incredible mutations, such as regen-”

“And the boy?” Vader interrupted.

“The boy?” Doctor Monega shot a surprised look at Luke. It was the first time he had even glanced at him. “If the scanner did not activate, then he is well. They are state of the art, my lord, I designed them myself. Even a singular viral particle is detectable.” He shrugged. “Assuming he is not bitten or scratched in the future. If he continues to stay in such close proximity to the girl, I imagine he’ll be her first victim.”

Leia’s breathing was loud in the silence. Luke’s hand was pressed against his mouth.

Vader turned to Leia. She tensed, staring at him and through him. He lifted her off the bed, setting her on the ground. She did not protest this, which was worrisome in itself. He gestured for Luke to follow them. He went to the door and found Lieutenant Reston waiting outside. 

“You have an empty set of private quarters?” When Lieutenant Reston nodded, Vader shoved the children in his direction. “Take them there. Do not disturb them if you value your life.”

The Dark Side coiled around Vader as he turned to the oblivious Doctor Monega. His hand fell once again to his lightsaber. A quick death by choking was too good for him. This required a level of personal care and attention that Vader normally reserved only for the Jedi.

Doctor Monega was watching him approach, brow furrowed. Vader sensed no fear or apprehension; the man, for all his insights into infectious diseases, seemed totally unaware of his impending doom. Vader’s thumb found the hilt of his lightsaber.

“You care for the girl,” said the doctor suddenly, “don’t you?”

The sheer audacity of the question was the only thing that stopped Vader in his tracks.

The doctor turned abruptly and busied himself with his lab table. While his back was to the console, Vader held out a hand on impulse. The datacard, containing all the doctor’s information, flew into his hand. As Doctor Monega began stuffing things inside the a container that Vader recognized as a medpac, Vader hid the data card in his belt just as the doctor finished and turned. The other man proffered the medpac to Vader.

“There’s no saving her,” he said matter-of-factly, as if he had no feelings about it one way or another, “but you might take these. Fatigue and lack of appetite are the first symptoms. During this time, the wound also turns gangrenous, as you have observed. For most, these all occur within the first day, though the child’s rate is, as we know, slowed. Around the second day, the victim experiences fever, nausea, and vomiting, along with general weakness. By the third, they fall into a deep unconsciousness that turns into a coma. The transformation usually occurs just hours after that last symptom.” 

Vader stared at the medpac.

The doctor followed his gaze and nodded, pointing to each item. “They won’t cure her. They simply provide palliative care. Bacta patches. It won’t help what she has, but you can use it for other wounds. Painkillers. Energy stimshots. She will not want to eat, so hydration capsules, nutrient capsules. Muscle relaxants.” He pointed to another hypodermic injector. “For the seizures. When she falls into a coma, she is nearing the end.” He touched one last hypo. “Use this then. One dose only. You understand me? Just one dose.” He handed the box over. “The transformation only occurs if the patient awakens from their coma. If they die, they do not change, you see?” He nodded to the hypo again. “For a painless end.” 

For a second as Vader took it, he felt the Force call on his rage, his helplessness. It yearned to choke the life out of the man, to slice him limb by limb, to take his vengeance with as much coldness as the doctor had when he created his foul disease. 

But what would it change? Would it rid Leia of the disease? Would it turn back time to before she had been bitten? Allow him to discover it earlier? He may as well attempt, futilely, to kill the virus, or all of the infected, or the Force itself for showing him he had a daughter before ripping her away from him.

Or himself.

He had done this to her.

Leia, the princess, his daughter, was dying.

And he did not know what to do.

Chapter Text

“Does it hurt?”

Those were the first words she had heard from Luke in some time. He was looking at the bite mark on her arm, but he didn’t seem grossed out even though it was horrifying, black and sticky and foul-smelling. He just looked sad, like he wanted to help her and couldn’t figure out how.

Leia shook her head, careful not to dislodge her uneaten plate of food, and turned her arm so she no longer had to look at the bite. The officer at the front of the base had brought them to these rooms - while looking scared of her and keeping ten feet away from her the entire time. The room reminded Leia a little of her own bedroom, if her bedroom was gray and built from metal and there were no decorations or colors allowed. It had a bed big enough for her and Luke to share and still have extra space, a side table, a desk and chair, and another door leading to the refresher. She had wanted to wash herself, but Luke had spotted the food synthesizer and insisted on eating first. He’d even joined her where she was sitting on the bed, despite what the doctor had said, and brought her a plate, though she’d said she wasn’t hungry.

Which she now knew was because of the bite. The bite that everyone said was going to turn her into one of the infected. She was sick, just like almost everyone else on the planet.

“Was it…” Luke stopped, and Leia looked up at him. His face was stricken with guilt. “Did it happen when I… before I opened the door?”

Oh. He thought she had been bitten because he hadn’t let them in fast enough. She shook her head. “Before that.” Luke relaxed, but only slightly; his face was still serious with worry.

She was going to die.

She felt strange when she thought about it, like she was floating outside of her own body. She had heard of people dying and knew it was sad, that people who died left and never came back, but she had not known anyone close to her who had died. There was her mother, her real mother, but Leia didn’t remember that. Until the royal guard and Captain Antilles had been caught by the infected, she had never known what it felt like to see someone die. 

Would it hurt? It seemed everyone was scared of dying. She assumed it was because it was painful. She wasn’t sure she wanted to die if it would hurt a lot, and the infected she had seen had had horrible injuries, missing limbs and huge parts of their body ripped out. Her bite didn’t hurt though, so maybe it wouldn’t be so bad? 

What would happen after she died? She’d asked once what happened when someone died and had been told that nobody knew but everyone had different ideas. There was one she liked that said that if someone died, their life force would return to the planet to become a part of it. If her parents came here, would she be able to see them again? That didn’t sound so bad. She could be with them, in a way… and Luke, if he ever returned. She really liked Luke; she felt like she’d known him her whole life, felt closer to him than some of her best friends. Sometimes she almost felt like she could hear his thoughts, feel what he felt. 

What if she could never see him or her parents again? It made her feel twisted up and sad inside to think that she might not. Or maybe she would be a ghost and she could see them, but they could not see or talk to her. That was another thing that some species believed in. But the idea of still existing but not being able to talk to anyone, or touch them, or be seen by them at all, made her feel even sadder.

But the scariest part was what she would turn into: a hungry, mindless thing, like the doctor had said. She had felt bad for all those sick people - that was why she was so angry with Vader for killing them - but she also… did not want to be them. All they wanted to do was scare and hurt people. Leia didn’t want that.

Could she control it? No, she didn’t think so. All the other infected were once, she was sure, nice ordinary people. But when they got sick, like she was, they had turned into things that just wanted to attack them. Even the stormtroopers had transformed, and they were supposed to be much stronger and smarter than other beings, since they were recruited to protect the galaxy. And if they couldn’t do it, how could she? 

Would she remember anything? Would she become as ugly and gross-looking as them? Most of all: would she attack those closest to her? Like Luke? That was the worst thought of all: to hurt someone she cared for. 

“Aren’t you going to eat?” Luke asked now, still staring at her sadly.

Leia shrugged, equally miserable. “I’m not really hungry.”

Luke put his own empty plate aside. “When I’m sick I get like that, too. Aunt Beru says that’s how she can tell I’m feeling bad, because I eat like a krayt dragon the rest of the time.” He nudged her gently. “But she also says I have to eat to fight off my sickness. Something about energy.”

But she wasn’t going to fight it off, was she? The doctor had said that there was no cure. She was just going to get sicker and sicker, until - 

The door slid open, and the two children looked up to see Vader enter. He was holding a pack, which he placed on the side table, before shutting the door and then looking at them.

Or rather, at her, in that way that always made her very nervous. She knew what it felt like now - like going through the scanner in the base and feeling her whole body being examined. That was how his staring made her feel now. She fiddled with her plate, wondering if he was going to make her eat again. He’d been telling her that a lot. Luke scooted closer to her, and she felt a small wave of gratefulness at his support, that he was not scared enough to keep away from her.

Vader stepped closer, and she thought he might tell Luke to get away from her. Wasn’t that what he did? Get rid of the infected? Kill them? 

But to her surprise, he kneeled in front of her, which placed him almost at eye level with her. Gently he grasped her arm, turning it over to examine the wound. She watched him warily as he pressed gloved fingers close to it. His hand was very hard - prosthetic, she remembered - but just like when he had taken a bit of her blood, he did not hurt her and did not poke at the wound itself. The doctor had kept doing that; he didn’t seem to care that it hurt her. But Vader was, weirdly, a bit nicer. He just kept examining it. It was a little intimidating though, having his mask only inches away from her own head, and she did her best not to squirm.

He released her arm, but he remained where he was, gazing at her. “How long ago?” he finally asked.

Leia found it a bit hard to look right at him when he was so close, so she stared at her own arm instead, at the putrid, blackened hole in her flesh. “When I first came here,” she whispered. “The ship came down and when we got off, they were already there.” Something swelled in her chest as she remembered the guards and Captain Antilles battling them off and yelling for her to run. Were they the reason she had been bitten, because she had run off and did not bother coming back for them? Was this a punishment for being so scared?

Vader’s respirator cycled through once, twice. She could feel his gaze on the top of her head. “Are you in pain?”

It was just like Luke’s question. She gave the same answer, a shake of her head. If anything, she actually wasn’t feeling much at all. Even when Vader had been holding it, his fingers had felt … muffled. Like there was still a bandage wrapped around it and he was touching that instead of her arm.

“You are not eating,” Vader said next.

She gave a tiny shrug. He already knew why.

“You must eat,” he said, making it sound like a command. “Your body requires energy if it is to heal.”

Now he really sounded like Luke. Luke himself seemed to notice, nodding along like he was Vader’s personal droid. Leia shot him a look, but she was too tired to argue. And besides… “Why does it matter?” she mumbled. “I’m going to die anyway.”

Vader jerked upright, towering over her. “You will not die.”

Oh right, she wasn’t going to die. Not really. “I’m going to turn into one of them. ” She shot a terrified glance at Luke - not fear for herself, but for him. What if she tried to bite him? What if she turned him into one of them as well? She was struck with the urge to get as far away from Luke as possible; she couldn’t let what was happening to her happen to him too.

Vader cut through her thoughts. “You will not turn.”

“But the doctor said-”

“I have requested the use of one of their shuttles. When it is ready, we will rejoin my Star Destroyer. It contains the most advanced medical technology in the galaxy, and I will use it to its fullest extent. I will-” He cut himself off, seeming lost in thought. After a second of that, he appeared to come back to himself just to jerk a finger at her. “You will not become one of them . I will not allow it.”

The movement made the lightsaber hooked to his belt swing. Leia found herself caught by the movement - and by the memories of exactly how he used it. “Are you going to kill me?”

“ What? ”

His voice was so harsh it made her wince, but she squeezed her hand - her unbitten hand - against the bedsheets and asked anyway, even though she was terrified of his answer. “That’s what you do, right? You kill them. Even when I asked you not to. Are you going to kill me if I turn into them?” He had cut them into pieces. He had said that they were dangerous, that there was no way to help them… which meant there was no way to help her. She would be just like them: dangerous and violent and good only to be killed. Would it hurt to die that way? It might be quick at least…

Vader was silent so, so long, just looking, looking, looking at her. It felt worse than being under the scanner; it felt like she was touching an electrical wire, her body tingling painfully.

Finally, he spoke. “It will not come to that, Princess.”

“But what if I try to hurt… Luke?”

Luke said, “You won’t hurt me-”

Vader interrupted. “I will not allow Luke to be hurt, either.”

The silence stretched on.

She finally dared to lift her head and look at him. “Why?”

He tilted his head. “What?”

“Why are you doing this?” She placed her plate back on her lap. “Helping us. You keep doing that. Why?” Darth Vader didn’t help anyone. She saw it all the time in the HoloNet, heard her parents whisper it. If Darth Vader went to a place, it was always a bad thing. He was there to destroy things, not to fix them.

Her question seemed to have Vader off guard. He kept staring at her, and she had the funniest feeling that he wasn’t sure what to tell her, that he was struggling to decide something. “Princess-” he started to say.

The door intercom beeped and a nervous-sounding voice filtered through. “Lord Vader. Lieutenant Reston has an update in the comms room.”

Vader turned slightly towards the intercom, then back to her. It was funny; he seemed almost relieved by the interruption. “We will speak of this when I return. Eat. Luke,” the other boy jumped at being addressed by name, “make sure she does. Then wash yourself. We will be leaving shortly.”

He swept from the room, door sliding quietly shut behind him. 

“Well?” said Luke quietly. “Come on. Eat a little.” He poked at one of the dishes. “Look, synthsteak. I think I only had that once in my entire life. It’s good.”

Leia had eaten it multiple times and didn’t really care for it, but it felt rude to say so. And Luke was staring at her so earnestly that she could not resist. So she took a bite, and at his encouraging smile, another, and another, forcing it down as her stomach roiled and her fingers slipped clumsily on the fork. 

“We’ll get out of here, you’ll see,” Luke said with eager hopefulness as they undressed to use the refresher. He had generously allowed her to go first, but had stripped off his outer robe, boots, and leg wrappings, so that he was sitting on the chair in just his tunic and pants. “They’ll find a way to help you, Leia. I know it.”

Leia, stripping off her dress, wished she shared that feeling.

The comms room was the most packed room in the base. Considering it was barely at half-capacity, this did not actually mean much. Many of the consoles were empty; the ones that were filled were staffed by men who looked harassed and sleep-deprived, unshaven, clothing wrinkled in a way that would have earned them a demerit on any other base. Vader guessed that they were pulling double duty shifts to make up for the troops consumed by the infected. There was a frazzled quality to the room that might have had something to do with Vader being present, but which he could also sense had permeated the base as a whole. Anxiety lay under every action the men were taking.

Despite that, it was almost preferable to be here than in the private quarters with the children. Especially after the conversation with his daughter. After learning of her infection.

Are you going to kill me?

For one terrible, ludicrous moment, he had thought that she had understood the role Vader had played in her illness. She had looked at him with Padmé’s eyes and Padmé’s face and suddenly he was on Mustafar as she confronted him. You killed younglings, she accused him (you let this happen to me) , and he had wanted to rage at her that he had done it for her, to protect her, why didn’t she understand that? He had killed them to keep them away from Leia, and she had complained and argued and demanded he stop the entire journey through - and she was going to turn into one of them. Before he had ever encountered her, she had been infected.

Because of him.

No. He clenched his hand on his lightsaber. No! He would not allow it. He would fix this. Doctor Monega was wrong, there was something he could do. His daughter was still relatively healthy, the virus had likely barely started its course. In just a few hours’ time they would arrive at his ship and he would pour all its resources, all his will, into ridding her body of this disease. 

And more than that… Palpatine had once hinted that he knew the secrets of life and death, and while Vader had turned for the promise of that knowledge, he had not pursued it after Padmé’s death. There had been no point with her gone.

Now there was.

And Vader would do anything for that knowledge. Anything. He would tear the galaxy apart for his master, immerse himself even more deeply into the Dark Side, pledge himself to Palpatine again and again if that was what it took.

She would not die. 

He would save her.

A traitorous thought stole into his head: Save her? The same way you saved her mother?

Lieutenant Reston popped up at his elbow, which was a mercy as it pulled Vader from his spiraling thoughts. He snapped a sharp salute. “Lord Vader! We have been attempting to make contact with the Exactor . No response so far, but I have all our men working on it.”

Vader paused. That was very odd; any Star Destroyer, but particularly his flagship, should have responded immediately to a comm from an Imperial base. “You have tried all channels?”

“All Imperial channels, yes lord.”

“Widen your parameters. Send communications across the entire grid. And inform them of exactly what penalties they will incur should they refuse to answer.”

“Of course, my lord. The crew are also pleased to inform you that your shuttle is ready for you.”

He nodded, reaching out along the children’s bond. His daughter’s remained exhausted, but he could sense that she at least had eaten and was resting. His son’s, conversely, was as strong as ever, was even contented in a weary sort of way. Yet a vague sense of danger lingered, some warning in the Force too nebulous for him to decipher.

“Send a squad to escort-” the children to the ship, he meant to say, until the Force sense sharpened. Danger, it told him, should he go that route. He cut off the sentence, said instead, “Has there been any change?”

“No, Lord Vader,” said one nervous crewman, at the same time that another shouted, “Sir! Look!”

“What is it, Kiva?” demanded Lieutenant Reston.

“Another Star Destroyer has entered the system!” Frantic typing. “And another!”

“Well, make contact!”

“There’s no contact, sir!” another crewman exclaimed.

“Lieutenant,” said a third crewman, voice shaking, “we’re detecting multiple starships converging on a target.”

Lieutenant Reston paled. “Make contact, now! Lord Vader, what-”

But Vader was already leaving the room as the Force was practically shouting at him. Multiple Star Destroyers, a convergence of them in one area - there was only one reason for this.

Orbital bombardment.

Alarms should have been ringing all throughout the base, but understaffed as it was, there was no time and not enough manpower. A call had not even been made to evacuate - there was no time and it would not have helped anyway. And there was nothing he could do and nothing he was willing to do, for only the smallest part of Vader’s mind was registering any of this. All the rest of him was focused on reaching the blindingly bright presences on the other side of the base before they were permanently snuffed out - but he was too far and there was no time , unless -

Without thinking, he reached out along the stronger connection: Luke! 

The bond thrummed, vibrating with surprise.

The Force screamed at him. Take the princess and get under the bed!

He reached the door to their quarters and thrust out violently with the Force. It tore free of its holdings and landed at a diagonal atop the bed, metal on metal clanging. Luke’s face poked out from beneath it, eyes frightened.

The ground shook beneath him just as he entered the room. 

Vader reached out again. The bed sprang away, exposing the children underneath it, and crashed into the far wall. 

The Force roared at him as he threw himself into the gap and over the children.

The explosive hit.

The entire ground seemed to rise up and then come crashing down. The support beams shook; duracrete crumbled; the walls fell like sand. Durasteel screeched as it came crashing down, as the ceiling broke asunder beneath the bombardment, falling in huge piles of rubble around them, atop them. Furniture shattered, torn into thousands of near-microscopic pieces by the impact of the blast. The lights exploded in a hail of sparks, water burst out in gouts as pipes split, and lightning arced along shorn wires. All around them was a thunderous boom as the base was hit again and again before it finally crumbled entirely, burying everything all beneath it.

He was dead.

They were dead. They had to be.

Luke could not move. He could not breathe. He could not see. He could not smell anything except dirt and broken duracrete. That definitely meant they were dead, right? He was buried in the ground, he was dead, just like everyone else here. They all had to be dead, the stormtroopers, the officers, the infected, Leia, and Darth Vader himself, even though he seemed unstoppable.

Except that he kept hearing a constant repetitious mechanical noise.

He tried to move a hand, an arm, to wriggle his leg, but it refused to budge. He not only could not squirm, he was pinned down, his entire body crushed beneath a tremendous weight. The building, he remembered. He had heard loud bangs, multiple ones - then the ground rocking from the impact. And crashing - and the panic he had felt when he saw the ceiling coming down and the walls crumbling…  

Explosions. Something or multiple somethings had blown up. Was it bombs? He knew soldiers carried them. Or maybe a cannon? Whatever it was, it must have hit the base - or maybe it was in the base - and now it had fallen all around them and he was crushed beneath it. It had happened so suddenly he had thought he was trapped in some kind of nightmare. Only it wasn’t a nightmare, it was real, and now he was dead, buried by the building.

But he still kept hearing that noise.

And another, stranger thing: he could kind of see something. At first everything was just one big dark void, which was why he was so sure he had to have died - he was floating somewhere in the afterlife if it was this dark. But as his eyes adjusted, he noticed something flashing. Blinking. And that mechanical noise was actually quite loud in his left ear. Whatever was pinning him down too - it didn’t feel like one constant weight, the way he imagined an entire building on top of him would feel. Some parts of him felt freer than others. And then there were things that were digging into his ribs or his arms, bumps or ridges, and very uncomfortably too.

If he was dead, he wasn’t supposed to feel that, right?

Luke coughed.

Something above him shifted and he froze, fearing even that tiny noise had touched off something above him and he was about to be crushed even more. But to his amazement, he felt the pressure lift - and, even more weirdly, the blinking lights moved with it.

“Are you injured?”

If he had room to, Luke would have jumped at the sound of Vader’s voice, which sounded both louder and yet more… contained. He realized why it was louder: Vader was speaking right next to his ear. Which, he thought with a bolt of nervousness, was because Vader was almost right on top of him. The blinking lights he saw - those were from his chest plate. They were only about a foot away from Luke’s face, that was how close Vader was to him. But why his voice sounded so strange in the other way, like it had been shoved into a small room, he could not figure out. Unnerved at Vader’s closeness but also grateful not to be squashed anymore, Luke moved again, just a tiny bit, and came up against a hard wall. 

“Luke.” Vader’s voice was insistent. “Are you hurt?”

“No,” he squeaked, and was startled at how quiet and tiny his own voice was.

“Good.” A shuffling of cloth, a creak of leather and plastoid. “Remain still.”

Remain still? That was easy, he could barely move to begin with. “What happened?”

The rustling went quiet. “The base was attacked.”

“Attacked?” Luke said, fear making his voice rise. “By the - the infected?”

“No, they do not have the capability of bringing down this base. It was an orbital strike by a Star Destroyer, several of them.” Luke thought the mechanical voice sounded grim, burning with quiet rage. “Even the strongest base cannot withstand a Star Destroyer’s cannons.”

So they had been… blown up? But they were still alive! So where were they? Luke put a hand out and felt a cracked, dusty duracrete floor beneath. If he lifted his arm, would it hit the ceiling? He blinked uselessly in the darkness. Was that why Vader’s voice sounded so muffled? Because they were trapped in a tiny air pocket beneath the destroyed base? He wasn’t dead, but they would have to be soon if they stayed here, right?

His breathing was loud in his ears.

“Luke!” He felt a hand grab his shoulder. “Do not panic! You must be calm or you will use up what little air we have.”

Use up the air? So they were stuck! His throat closed in on him.

“Luke, calm yourself! We are not trapped. I will find a way out! But you need to find your - find the princess. Do you understand?”

The princess? Leia! He had to find Leia, he didn’t know where she was! He gulped down air, fear creeping in again at the thought of wasting it - no. Leia, he had to focus on finding Leia! Her name helped him calm down a tiny bit. He pushed himself as straight as he could, which was not much, he was still most on his stomach. Then he tried to feel about the area immediately around him. 

Nothing. He’d have to move.

Luke wriggled about on his belly, the rough surface scraping at his clothes. As he turned himself around - he hoped - he heard cloth rustling again and saw the lights move away from him. The pressure eased up even more. 

But wait. If Vader was that close, if he was lying practically atop him, then that meant… his memories came back in a flash: Vader hurling the door from its hinges without touching it; Vader telling him to get himself and Leia under the bed… 

Had Darth Vader thrown himself over them when the building collapsed?

The repeating mechanical noise, he also realized, was his respirator. But it sounded different, and not in a good way - it was running faster, each breath shorter and sharper than usual. 

Which meant… when Vader had thrown himself on top of them, he had taken the full brunt of the building falling on them. 

“Are you okay?” Luke asked, suddenly frightened all over again. He forgot, in the darkness surrounding him, just who he was asking. All he was thinking was of how much it must have hurt Vader when the ceiling and walls fell… and that he had done it to protect Luke and Leia. 

Luke could not see a thing, yet somehow he knew that Vader stiffened at his words. “That is none of your concern,” he said shortly. 

“But… if you’re hurt, shouldn’t we-”

“You cannot help this.” His tone was so sharp that Luke subsided into silence. There were pin pricks all over his body, like he was being stared at. When Vader spoke again, his voice was a little softer. “You should be more concerned with yourself, child.” Another creak, of leather and plastoid armor rubbing against one another. 

Luke blinked, and blinked more, like that might make the darkness go away. Leia, he thought, and moved his hand carefully… and then he felt something soft and smooth, apart from the bits of gravel embedded in it. He traced his hand up it and grabbed at a hand. “Here! I found her!”

“Good.” Too late he realized he hadn’t actually told Vader where she was and it was so dark he couldn’t see… but somehow Vader did not sound surprised. More movement, and the blinking lights disappeared abruptly while the breathing grew quieter. 

When Vader spoke again, his voice sounded more flattened, like he had turned away. “Princess.” More shuffling. “ Princess . You must wake up.”

Rubble groaned and stones clattered as they tumbled along the floor. There was a rustle and a tiny groan.

“Leia?” Luke called. He kept blinking, as if that would help him see better. The lights from Vader’s chestplate were so tiny it hadn’t illuminated anything around them, but he missed even those now. Without them, he was in complete darkness.

More rustling. 

“Luke?” he heard Leia say. 

She sounded very close. Luke still had her hand, and he tried to feel around for her wrist and figure out where her head was. She couldn’t be that far, she’d been right next to them when the building came down. Her hand squeezed his back, tugging at him. He crawled along until his shoulder bumped against hers. With a wriggle and a relieved sigh, he pressed himself to her.

The lights came back into view, small and dim. Vader must have turned back around. 

“Leia?” The hand squeezed once more. “Are you okay?” he asked.

Silence. Then Leia said weakly, “Yes. I think.”

Vader’s voice made them both jump; Luke felt it in how Leia’s fingers suddenly squeezed his wrist. “We must leave immediately. Luke, do you have your pack?”

“My pack?” He had put it under the bed, but in all the confusion… “I don’t know where it is!”

“Find it.”

“But… it’s dark,” Luke whispered. He did not ask how they were going to leave; he could not visualize how Vader was going to free them from this vast darkness.

At Luke’s words, there was a metallic click and a snap, extraordinarily loud. The bright red blade of Vader’s lightsaber hissed into being, illuminating the area with an eerie crimson glow. Luke could now see that they were under a tiny crevasse of rock and duracrete, formed by the rubble falling atop and around the tilted door. The door itself was only feet from crushing all of them, forced down by the weight of the building; the metal surface had bent terribly from the impact; the entire frame had scraped the walls as it buckled, but by some miracle - or maybe the Force that Vader was always mentioning - it had held, protecting them from the worst of it.

Luke could also see Leia, sitting next to him, both their backs against the wall. Her hair was down and still damp from her wash - he could see the wetness shining against the light. But it was muted by all the dust and dirt that had stuck to it, turning it grainy. Luke was sure his own hair was the same - it felt grimier than before he had washed it - and both their clothes were torn around the sleeves and their leggings. Leia’s overdress had a massive rip in the back as well, which Luke saw as she tried to clamber around, using her hands to search for anything to use around them.

Vader himself was just a looming dark shape in front of them, the red glow of his saber reflecting off his helmet and armor in a way that emphasized the sharp angles and flat planes. He was crouched low, almost atop them, and even then he filled up most of the space.

He swung his helmet around. “There.”

Luke followed his gaze and saw a dark, soft shape in a corner. He let go of Leia and wriggled past Vader, almost squashing himself into the wall, to get it, before clutching it to his chest.

“Take this as well.” Vader handed him a box. By the light, Luke could see it was a medpac. “Take out the supplies, put them in your pack. Leave the box, it will only weigh you down. Was there anything else?”

He shook his head, saw Leia do the same in that dim red light.

Vader turned his masked head up, towards the bent door. “There is only limited air in this space; if we stay much longer, we will suffocate.” Before Luke could begin to panic all over again at that statement, Vader gestured towards the wall, the movement vague and formless in the dark. “Get back. I must lift the rubble off of us before I can bring you to the surface.” His head jerked around to meet their frightened faces. “As soon as we are free, you must run, do you understand?”

“Why?” whispered Leia.

Vader placed a hand on the door above him. “The infected. They feed on the Force, they can sense it.” There was a creak as he pressed against one of the metal supports of the bed. “I suspect that when I use it, they sense that as well.”

Luke didn’t understand. “The Force? But we don’t… how would…”

“It is as I have told you before. The Force is strong with both of you.” The metal creaked more sharply. “It is very strong in me. They can sense that, even if you do not use it. That is why we have been attacked so often. It is likely the reason why they seem to surround us wherever we go.” The door squealed as it was pushed up against the rubble. 

They could sense them? Horror pulsed at Luke’s head. They were like, like… he imagined them like the glowrods they used on the nights on Tatooine. In the empty desert they were often the only beams of light for miles around. Farmers didn’t like to use them for that reason; if one of the Sand People saw, they’d know instantly where they were. Was that what they were like to the infected?

The door squealed again. Vader’s hand was no longer on it, though he continued to reach up regardless, pushing with - with - with the Force, like he had said.

Which would bring the infected to them.

Luke grabbed Leia’s hand with her own, shaking. He had thought they were safe, he had thought they were leaving, but now, now… now they were more trapped than ever, and to get out, they would only get attacked again… 

And was there even a ship waiting for them? Or had that been destroyed as well? If the explosions could destroy a whole building, there was no way a ship would survive. And if it did, would it matter if they got attacked as soon as they got out? He imagined them climbing out of a hole only to be fallen upon by hordes and hordes of infected, tearing them apart, biting them the way Leia had been bitten, and he was shaking so hard and he didn’t even know what to do or how to keep them away or - 

Or…

That same memory poked at him: Tatooine, and his home, and the way their small farm glowed in the desert night. It was why it was easy for the Sand People to find them. 

The Sand People…

Something else came to mind, something that had to do with the Sand People he was just thinking about… a strange incident. from several years ago. He hadn’t thought about it in a while because it was one of those weird things his uncle didn’t like Luke to talk about. 

He and Uncle Owen had been searching for a lost droid in the desert. His uncle had thought they’d find it before the sun went down, but they hadn’t, and before he knew it he’d gotten separated from his uncle and night had fallen. He’d been lucky enough to have a water pack and that he was in the canyons and not on the open desert, because the Tuskens were out at that time and he would have been a sitting womp rat on the dunes. 

Luke had heard them calling out, the eerie guttural howl against the roar of their banthas. And then… they had found him. He had been trying to hide from them in the rock outcroppings near his home, but they must have guessed he’d go there and had poured out amongst the rocks, dozens of them, all on the verge of finding him. But Luke had scrunched himself into a tiny hole, not even big enough to fit him, and wished himself gone, willed himself away, imagined himself small, so small that nothing could ever see him…

And somehow, it worked. The Sand People had walked right past his hiding spot, multiple times, never even looking at him. For hours it felt like he had hid there, waiting for the footsteps to fade, for the bantha groans to disappear into the desert sands. 

Only then had he dug himself from the hole and ran off to find Uncle Owen and a very worried Aunt Beru. They asked what happened and he told them he’d gotten lost and hidden in the rocks. But he’d never told them about wishing and hoping to get small or how close the Sand People had been, for fear his uncle would get mad at him for imagining things. 

It had been so long ago. He hadn't thought about it at all, actually, until just a few days ago, when he was hiding in the warehouse, whispering go away, go away, go away…

Maybe… maybe that was how he had hidden himself from the infected, just like he’d hidden from the Sand People. Like turning off a glowrod. Maybe if they wished and willed it hard enough, they could… they could…

“Can we block it?” he asked. “The Force?”

He said it so quietly he wasn’t sure anyone could hear, until he heard the creaking stop. He winced, expecting, perhaps, a scoff, or a dismissal, the way he got at home whenever he started daydreaming.

But Vader only asked, “Block the Force?” He sounded almost curious.

That was enough to prompt Luke further - that and Leia finding his hand again and giving him a reassuring squeeze. “Like - like a light.” And even though he’d never told his uncle about it, or Aunt Beru, who was more understanding, he felt he could tell Vader, that he would listen. 

So he did: he explained the lost droid, and Uncle Owen, and the Sand People, and hiding, making himself so small and invisible he went unnoticed. He stumbled over his words and went so fast he forgot to explain what Sand People were to Vader, but Vader did not interrupt. “And when I was hiding, I tried to - I tried to - to shrink, to go away-” he could not explain it fully, “-but it worked, I think? They never even saw me. And - and the people out there, the infected, I think I tried the same thing in the warehouse, and they - they didn’t go away but they stopped banging so hard, so… maybe…” His voice cracked on the last word, and he felt an utter failure, unable to explain it.

Silence followed, the longest of Luke’s life.

But then: “You concealed yourself,” said Vader, “using the Force. You hid your own presence from them.” There was wonder and just a hint of pride in his tone. “You did this by yourself? Without any training?”

Something in his voice made Luke straighten and nod.

There was a short period of silence, without any noise except, occasionally, a distant crumbling, a pitter as rocks came loose, falling atop the caved-in building. Leia continued to hold onto Luke’s arm, curling her fingers around his wrist. And it was not the only thing he felt; there was a gentle probing, not physical but mental, like a thoughtful nudge against his mind. He wondered if Leia felt it too. Maybe: her fingers tightened whenever it happened to him. And something even weirder, a feeling he could not explain except that it was similar to when he had been in the ship that had brought him here during its initial takeoff - like someone had slapped ear coverings over him, a funny pressing feeling on his head. 

“I know of such techniques to conceal one’s own presence,” said Vader, almost to himself, “but to stretch it out to conceal others…”

Luke imagined a big bubble around them, like the one in the city. “Like… like a ray shield?” he suggested. “But, uh, for the - the Force?”

Vader said, after a musing silence, “Yes. A shield against the Force, large enough and strong enough to encompass both of you.” There was a movement of rock and gravel. “It may work. But you must stay close to me, is that clear?” 

He nodded, saw Leia do the same in the soft glow of the lightsaber.

Vader raised his hand towards the door. “Hold on,” was all the warning he gave.

The metal creaked more dangerously, then shrieked as it scraped against the walls and pressed into the rubble above, piercing Luke’s eardrums. Luke wasn’t sure what to hold onto - Vader hadn’t said - so he clutched onto Leia, and her to him, his other hand holding his pack to his chest. The lightsaber went out, called to Vader’s hand, sinking them back into darkness. Luke heard a rumble as deep and earth-shaking as the roar of a sarlacc. The walls were shaking, dust was springing from the ground, emitting from cracks - not that he could see it, but he could smell it, breathe it in, making him cough. A pebble fell on his head, then another, then another - he grabbed his pack and shoved it over his and Leia’s head as pebbles became rocks became huge chunks, landing at his side, in front of him, everywhere except directly on him or Leia or Vader - 

Vader’s respirator was straining. Luke could hear his breaths laboring, a quick, sharp hitching every few cycles. The entire air was thickening with dust and something else, not wind and not earth but another force whirling just below the surface of his mind, like trying to catch a shout being carried by the wind. And still the door didn’t lift, it didn’t come off - 

Without thinking, Luke reached out with his mind.

He found the thrumming bond without even meaning to. Followed it with no clear direction.

It was like being caught in a sand dune, a slippery morass that dragged him down and down, a void if a void was filled with color - swirls of light that were simultaneously dark as a black hole and white as a supernova. All of it was being poured in one direction. It was another bond, a rope, a cable, that was pouring energy in one direction and being stretched thin, thinner than his mind’s eye could see. And just as a sand dune could collapse if it slid far enough, this too was breaking down: the whorl of energy, of force, was not endless. It was not enough. There was not enough left in the swirling light, it was being pulled in other directions too, smaller ones, but all of it was a drain on the dark light: Luke could see it ebb and flicker, giving out like a glowlamp as its batteries drained. 

It, Vader, could not give enough to push the rubble off, Luke thought suddenly. 

And still it kept going, kept pushing, and Luke was caught in a maelstrom of images too fast for him to decipher, save that it was all of him and Leia, and finally one clear thought entered, that this one sand dune was going to sink into nothingness, grains blown away by the wind, grains tumbling off the edges and the top, grains sinking into the depths of the earth, and unless he did something then it would all be gone, and when it did, they would be trapped forever, they would die together in the darkness.

Luke’s mind opened.  

It was like the creation of the universe: an explosion of light and color and sound that he had never known existed, suddenly right there. Oh, he realized, this must be the Force, and he understood now why Vader talked about it so much, because it was the most wondrous thing he had ever seen.  

At the same time, he couldn’t quite make sense of it other than the vastness of it. He was just a tiny, tiny thing compared to the hugeness of all that light and color and sound, a little bug, a small rock, the littlest grain of sand… 

Sand… like a sand dune.

That one image formed in his own mind, crystallizing into clearness. He imagined himself as that one bit of sand and then everything else was the sand dune, collapsing the lights and the colors and the sounds into that one image. He was the grain of sand but he was also all the other grains, he was the entire pyramid, because his little grain was touching other bits which were touching others and others, connecting them all… 

And taking it, he poured all those little grains, all that explosive power, back into his bond with the other dune. He imagined it slip-sliding into the greater dune, grains melding with it, burying itself into the other, building it up once more. Imagined it growing and growing and growing.

The push grew stronger.

His sand dune was spinning, its own vast light sinking into the other. He had the briefest sensation of muted surprise, of an attempt to draw back. But Luke kept pouring himself forth, more and more, and eventually that other presence accepted it with a trace of resignation that Luke barely noticed. It was endless, his energy, an entire galaxy of stars, there was so much of it that he could give. The connection danced, whirling with their two bonded forces, and it sparked and flared with such brightness that, at some point, it reached out and found a third nova, a third light.

The other, newer, smaller light jumped back. It dodged his touch, avoided his prodding, the connection vibrating with unease, but it did not “run” in the sense of leaving or breaking itself off - or shielding itself. It merely hovered just out of reach, a wary observer. And Luke stretched out again, sending out questioning nudges, reassuring nudges, trying to convey wonder and awe and safety.

The smaller connection stood still, if it could stand still, thinking, thinking, thinking.

Tentatively, it reached out again.

Luke wrapped his own presence around it, sending gladness and friendship and joy. Imagine a sand dune, he tried to tell it, but it didn’t quite get across, maybe only sent a cloudy image of a hill, of sand… but whatever he did, the other connection seemed to understand. 

It called up its own image. 

Luke never quite figured out what it was, just like maybe the other connection - Leia - probably never figured out what his was. All he had was a sensation of something large, something cool and deep and vast, stretching out to the horizons, but it felt like a sand dune to him, his sand dune, just like his sand dune probably felt like something else to her . It had all the power and potential that he had, and he prodded it in the direction of the other, the dark light, and he whispered, Help. This is help.

After only a moment’s hesitation, the first light, the dark light, reached out to Leia.

Luke wasn’t sure how long it took, only that it might have been many years or less than a minute. He was dimly aware of rocks continuing to fall, of the sound of metal and duracrete ripping itself apart, of a massive crack opening in the top and spilling dirt and gravel on them, but the whirling force had gathered itself around them and kept telling them safe, it’s still safe, focus and so he did, and the sand dunes kept slip-sliding, more and more - 

Until, abruptly, all connections cut off as light spilled across his face, sending him gasping awake as if from a dream.

He stared at the open sky, many feet above, through a great hole in the rubble, while the world reformed itself, clear and sharp-edged.

Vader dropped his arm, respirator still laboring, but he did not stop, did not rest. Straightening, he grabbed Luke and Leia around the waist and leaped - 

Wind roared past Luke’s ears, the hole of rubble became a blur, the sky filled his view - until with a jolt that made his stomach lurch, they landed on the surface. He caught only a glimpse of a vast landscape of ruin, of the shattered parts of the Imperial base and of approaching figures shuffling towards them, when Vader, still holding him and Leia, jumped again. Again they soared through the air, wind whistling, the world a streak of blue and green and gray, until they landed once more and Vader set the two down. This time Luke looked around to see them atop the highest point of the rubble, on what might have been the second story of the base, of huge chunks of the building surrounding them to create unscalable surfaces.

He only had a second to even think about the view - of the former base in pieces, of the burning remnants of the city to one side gushing smoke and up in flames, of the green expanse of fields and woods on the other side and the shimmering sky - before two things happened.

First was an all-too familiar screech in the distance.

And the second was Leia collapsing to the ground, pale and shaking and the feeling of her presence suddenly, awfully, gone from Luke’s mind.

Chapter Text

The sky looked wavy.

Leia kept thinking about that as she lay on whatever she was on - the base, maybe, or what used to be the base before it was bombed to pieces. That didn’t seem to matter as much as it should though. Mostly because she thought it was funny how the sky kept moving before her eyes.

“Leia!”

The blurry off-white figure that was Luke rushed into view. He grabbed her by the arm and tried to haul her up, and failing that, shoved her into a sitting position to sag against him. He was warm and soft and she closed her eyes, utterly spent. She felt worn out and spread thin because… because… 

Because Luke - she had known it was Luke somehow - had done something to her, something like the mental probing that Vader did and which she hated . The only reason she’d put up with it this time was because it was Luke and he was nice, and kept pleading with her to, or as much as he could plead when he was just a feeling in her mind, kept sending her thoughts of trapped darkness death if she didn’t help, if she didn’t do something, and she might be about to die but she did not want Luke to.

Gloved fingers pressed against her head and there was, again, that feeling of someone else in her mind. It wasn’t as strong as before, at least, and she was so very, very tired, that she couldn’t find it in herself to push back. 

She had seen Alderaan. Or rather, had imagined it because Luke had told her, in that strange mind-melding way, that it was important; she had gotten a sense of something massive and overwhelming in his mind, an endless range of hills or mountains. And from her… she had tried to remember one of Aldera’s lakes that she loved to swim in. Had felt the crystal clear waters of its depths, had imagined the lake running into the river that was Luke’s presence, pouring itself down this cascading stream to who knew where.

But this poking feeling, she knew, was Vader, not Luke, just like the gloved fingers on her forehead was him, and she did not want him burrowing into her memories again. She gave her head the tiniest shake, pushing back with her mind and pulling away physically. There was the briefest sensation of that other presence withdrawing. 

Then: Princess.

The voice in her head made her jolt, banging the top of her head against Luke’s chin and pulling away from Vader’s touch. Oh no… she did not like that, not at all. She opened her eyes and shook her head frantically, resisting the urge to start scratching at it, as if that might rid herself of his horrible voice .

Get out!

Vader had not moved from where he was standing, and neither did the foreign presence in her head. We must move. You have to get up, now. 

Leia had the momentary thought that Vader sounded much more different in her head than in real life: softer, warmer almost. But still she flinched away from speaking to him directly. Stop it!

His presence began to fade. Then stand up. Now.

She wanted simultaneously to do as he said just to show him that she could and to defy him, to tell him he couldn’t make her do anything. Her legs felt like jelly and it ached just to hold her head up and she was so, so tired… she drooped down again.

A howl echoed up and down the base, sounding closer than before. Vader was silent a moment, in her head and out loud, save for his breathing, and she opened her eyes again to see him and Luke looking off into the distance. It was the infected, they were coming just like Vader had said. They had to go, both of them, especially Luke. But she could stay here, couldn’t she? She was already sick anyway, they couldn’t make her more sick. Besides, all she wanted was to curl up on the hard surface and go to sleep, but Luke and Vader could go, they could leave her -

No! Do not even think of that!

That made her snap open her eyes again, as Vader must have known it would. “Stop talking in my head!” she cried. She could feel his presence pushing at this one specific place in her mind, the same place his mental voice was. Why did he have a spot in her head? She curled up into Luke, squeezing her eyes tightly shut so she could focus, with all her might, on getting rid of him.

“You must get up,” said Vader out loud, and she sensed he was trying to be gentle but he only sounded as harsh as ever. There was a rustle and his shadow fell over her, cold and dark, and then his hands wrapped around her body, pulling her to her feet. And it was the strangest thing: once he did so, she felt the smallest pulse of energy flow through her - flow from him. And something else besides: a heavy resignation that was not hers, but his, a whisper that told her it was all he could give. And that alone kept her from physically recoiling at his touch, kept her from flailing out with her arms. But she thought that Vader sensed it anyway because as soon as he had her upright he jerked back, and she felt frustration and weariness in equal measure in that place in her head that was once more not her and not Luke, but him.  

The ground felt like it was shifting beneath her feet, but she knew it was not because anything was moving. It was her, her body that was wobbling from the sheer effort of merely standing, and how could she walk if she could barely hold herself up? She tried to find anything, the tiniest scrap of energy to make her move, but there was none left, not after Luke had called for her in his mind.

“Just leave me here,” she mumbled. She just wanted to rest, to close her eyes and not open them… “Where are we even going to go?” she asked, wiping at her face, at the dust that had gotten all over her. “Everything’s blown up.” 

And to that, Vader was silent.

But not the infected. A second guttural howl broke the air. It was echoed by a third, a fourth, and more besides that, so many more… Leia stopped counting, only hearing that they were coming in all directions, from far away and closer by. Surrounding them. 

Luke, still standing behind her, steadying her, flinched at the noise, hard enough even she could feel it. She pulled herself back, not wanting to drag Luke down, not wanting to burden him. If he got sick because of her… 

“What about the speeder?” Luke asked. His voice sounded distant to her ears.

“Luke,” Vader’s voice was a little softer now, closer to the voice in her head. “The speeder is gone.”

Luke’s breathing was loud in her ears. “There aren’t any ships left at all, are there?”

More howls. They were getting closer. She could even hear scraping footsteps, multiple ones, along duracrete and metal. They must be crossing the wall. Soon they would be in the clearing, then at the base itself, and she knew they were high up, they should not be able to reach them, but they had done other, terrifying things before… and she remembered that soon she would be one of them too. Maybe Luke as well. Maybe even Vader. 

Unless they could leave. Unless… a ship… The thought echoed in her head. It was important.

A hiss of cloth rustling against armor. “We will find another way off the planet, but we have to move, even if we must carry the princess with us.” 

That should have made her mad, but she couldn’t focus on it. The thought kept intruding on her. A ship. Something tugged at her. Something important. We need a ship…

“I have a ship,” she whispered.

She felt Vader’s attention focus on her, she did not even have to look. “Where?”

She struggled to explain. “When we landed… my family’s ship… it’s in the woods, in… near our home…”

“How far?” Vader demanded. She felt, once again, the probing in her head, but it slipped away before she could do anything about it. “ Think , Princess. Try and remember. Where is your ship?”

Leia tried. She squeezed her eyes shut and wracked her brains, struggling to find the landmarks she had past by so quickly, how long it had taken as she flew the speeder. How had she gotten from the woods to the city? All she could remember was a road - fields - buildings zipping by… “I can’t - I couldn’t see - the speeder, I couldn’t see where I was-”

“You must remember.” His voice reached out across the darkness overtaking her memories, low and persuasive. “Relax. Follow your instincts. Reach out-”

“I can’t!” she exclaimed, squeezing her eyes shut again. She balled her body up so hard she stumbled, falling back on her rear. Her head hurt, her body hurt, she couldn’t even stand up and he was going to push into her mind again if she didn’t do what he said and she was so, so sick of it. “I can’t remember, I can’t, I don’t know where it is-!” and without it, they were all going to die, Luke was going to die because she couldn’t do this one thing to help them and she could hear more and more screeches, hungry desperate screams gathering all around them… they had to be in the clearing now…

“You can,” Vader said, and his voice was so close to her that he must be kneeling in front of her. His hand pressed against her forehead. “Do not give into your fear. Trust your feelings.”

No, that was not what he was asking. The Force. He wanted her to trust the Force, the power he had used to hurt her. “I don’t want to-” She tried to pull away from his hand.

But he only held her harder. “You must.”

“I can’t, I don’t have that,” I don’t want it, “I can’t-”

“You can,” said Vader, more urgently than ever, and the screaming sounded louder than ever, directly below them,  and Luke’s breathing was quickening into panicky gasps. “Do not doubt yourself. There is great power in you, Princess. Trust in the Force, trust in yourself-”

“It’ll hurt!” she cried out, and the tumult of memories felt like a physical thing: Vader ripping into her mind, forcing his way past her protests and her attempts at blocking him and plucking the memory of her mother out, the only memory she had of her real mother, and Vader just took it - and maybe it was because of that, that she felt Vader flinch back from her, and then he was silent, except for the respirator, which kept cycling over and over.

Until at last he brushed her forehead with his fingers. “It will not hurt,” he said quietly. “Believe me.” And that spot in her head that his voice occupied seemed to whisper something that sounded like, It should not have happened like that, I should not have done that, it will not happen again. 

Leia trembled, trying to feel the truth of those words.

Feel your way to where your ship is. That’s all that matters.

But she couldn’t just ignore what was happening around her. They’re so close. She could hear them clawing against duracrete. She could hear their nails latch against metal, screeching as they hauled their bodies up. They were climbing towards them. I can’t do it in time!

You will. You can do it, Princess. And it did not sound like a command. It sounded, simply, like trust. Let go of your doubts. Release your fears.

Tentatively she stretched out with her mind, just like she had when Luke had brushed his presence against hers. She wished he were here, too. Though maybe he was - for as she felt the currents around her, struggling to grasp onto one, the one that she hoped would lead to her ship, she sensed a brightness right beside her, a glowing force of strength and goodness. What do I do now? 

Feel the life around you. 

There isn’t any!

Exasperation echoed down to her. There is. There’s Luke. There are the fields and woods all around us. The beings living there. The air and the soil and the water. It is all a part of the Force… as are you. For some reason, he did not mention himself, though Leia could feel his presence almost as clearly as Luke’s.

She tried to ignore him, the whirling storm of darkness that was Vader in her mind, and instead attempted to envision all that life, green and lush. It was like Alderaan, she supposed. Beautiful. More wild. More woods, more plants. Huge, huge fields. Were there animals? Alderaan had lots of nerfs and grazers being herded, but she hadn’t seen many of them here. Then she remembered the borrats, so maybe any animals here had also - no, she could not think of that. They weren’t here, she had to think of something else. 

And it did not hurt. Maybe she should have been thrilled at that, but she was only relieved. Vader was right, it really was okay. She pushed herself further and further into it as it welcomed her like an old friend, almost familiar in a way and not at all frightening. Vader was right: there was life around her, life that had survived the virus. She stretched out, past the base, past the empty homes and fields, searching for some feeling that would tell her it was right -

There.

She lifted a hand, aware of nothing except that slight movement of her body. The rest of herself was bobbing in the tide of the Force. “That way.”

Then, just like that, the energy - the Force - ebbed away from her like waves at the edge of the ocean, sending her reeling back into reality and she fell back against the ground, exhausted, as she heard a triumphant howl split the air, echoing in her skull as her vision went black.

The quiet dropped around Luke like a blanket just as the infected reached them.

It was like an incomplete silence, a deadening of all noise. The closest feeling he had to it was if someone had stuffed up his ears. But it wasn’t just his hearing either; it felt like all his senses had been cut off. No, not cut off, he wasn’t blind or deaf. It was just… less clear, less loud, less sharp. The world had lost some of its vibrancy, like seeing something in real life and then seeing a hologram of it, the same thing but leached of color.

But he had no time to think about it, he just closed his eyes, grabbed hold of Leia, who had fallen to the ground again, and waited to get torn apart.

Nothing happened.

For a bizarre second, he thought that maybe he had died again: the infected had eaten them so fast that he hadn’t even felt any pain. But he still felt very much alive. He could hear footsteps, for one thing - the shuffle of multiple beings, the wet dragging of ones with torn or broken limbs, the patter of the species that could hop or run on all fours, even the buzzing of wings here or there. He could smell them too, the rotten stinking smell of meat gone bad, the rusty smell from those with oxygenated blood. They sniffed or they groaned or they slurped, as if trying to sense something. 

He dared to open his eyes.

And saw an infected just feet from his face.

Luke yelped, stumbling back with Leia in tow - but then a gloved hand grasped his shoulder, steadying him. Vader. Luke tensed against his grip, breath shuddering, trying to keep hold of Leia. Instinctively he seeked out one of their presences - Leia, Vader, anything - 

Nothing. 

Just silence.

Only Vader’s continued hold on him kept him from lurching again. He had not thought the loss of that - that feeling, of someone else in his head - would feel so awful, not when he had only known of it for a day at the most. But now that it was gone he felt cold and alone, and he tried to search for it again on instinct. But it was like trying to pierce through a fog, pushing into a heavy, unyielding thickness.

The infected nearest him, a Duros, turned slowly. Each of its large eyes focused on him.

“Do not use the Force,” warned Vader, and he sounded strained. “They will sense it.”

Was that what he was doing? Now that Vader had said it… yes, it was like he was holding out a hand and trying to grab something far away, only it was all in his mind. Shaking, Luke tried to shut down that instinct, to stop reaching out or thinking altogether. 

The Duros’s eyes unfocused; the flaps beneath its eyes opened and closed in an attempt at sniffing him out. But after a few moments it staggered away, joining the others, and only then did Luke breathe, and try to focus on what was around him. 

Vader had brought them to the top of a rubble heap that should have been unclimbable. It made sense to Luke - if they were up here, then the infected couldn’t reach them, and they weren’t smart enough to build stuff or to climb up. 

What he had not anticipated was the amount of different beings around them: not just humans, who made up the majority of the ones below, but species that could stick to walls, that could grasp at the tiniest handholds, that could fly or leap to the top despite the sheer sides and sharp rubble. These were the ones that had managed to reach them, had stopped mere feet from them. But their blind eyes stared right through Luke. They snuffled but seemed to smell nothing. Luke was close enough to see the membranes of their skin, which no matter the species seemed to be varying shades of gray shot through with black; close enough he could touch one if he reached out. But none of them were even looking at him now. They weren’t attacking. By the way they kept shuffling about confusedly, it was as if he and Leia and Vader had disappeared from their sight.

His own words returned to him: a shield. He stared at Vader’s hand, then up at the man himself. Vader was creating a shield, he had listened to Luke.

Vader’s rumbling voice made him look up. “We must move carefully.” His respirator hitched, just once, a mechanical hiccuping.

“Are you - is that-” Luke tried to ask.

“Yes,” said Vader, understanding Luke’s fumbling question, but even that one word sounded as if it was taking a great deal of effort. His cloak was tattered along the edges, there was dust all over his armor and his helmet, the leather had been torn along his arms and his gloves to reveal the dull glint of a metal prosthetic underneath. Luke darted his eyes away, feeling intrusive, remembering Vader pushing the rubble off of them - remembered the sand dune and Leia’s presence and the whorl of black light that he had poured himself into. Luke reached for that now, again automatically, instinctively, wanting only to help - but it wasn’t there. Just like Vader and Leia’s presence, it was gone. 

Blocked. 

The infected nearest to them grunted, head tilting as it caught his words - but it did not move, just kept whickering mindlessly.

They were trying to sense them, but they couldn’t. Not with the Force. And that was all that mattered to them.

But Luke could tell that it was pushing Vader to his limits just to maintain the shield. The lights on his chest plate kept flickering and every time they did, his breathing seemed to strain as well, a thin inconsistent wheeze. Luke wanted to ask again if it hurt, if he needed help. 

But then Vader moved towards him like it was nothing, and Luke let the question die. For one second he forgot about the shield and thought that Vader had read his thoughts and was offended… but instead, Vader reached for Leia and hoisted her up into his arms. She flopped bonelessly against him, making a small sound of protest before subsiding. Her arm - her arm looked horrible. The black lines had reached the back of her hand… when had that happened? They had only been at her wrist just a few hours before, Luke was sure of that…

Ignoring that - and Luke’s large-eyed stare - he reached down and with his free hand grabbed Luke’s pack, handed it to him, and then leaned down until they were eye to mask.

“Listen to me,” he told Luke. His respirator hitched again, yet his voice did not falter. “You must stay close to me. Do not stray from my side, do not run ahead, do not fall behind.” He kept his gaze, or what must have been his gaze behind the mask, on Luke’s face. It was kind of scary. “The shield hides our presence in the Force, it is what is keeping the infected from attacking us. I can extend it for about a foot around me, but no more. You must stay within its boundaries or they will detect you, do you understand?”

Luke nodded frantically.

Vader straightened, Leia still in his arms. “We must make our way out of the base. There are homes ahead that we can shelter in for the night. Tomorrow we will make for the princess’s ship. Luke,” the boy turned his eyes back up to Vader, “the speeder is gone. We will have to walk through blasted homes and fields and the wilderness. There will most likely be more infected out there. I will protect you from them,” and something in his tone made it sound like a promise, “but you must stay near me, is that clear?”

Another nod.

Vader made a short gesture, and Luke, understanding, quickly went to his side. This close to him, he was aware of just how tall Vader was, of the loudness of his respirator. Leia remained limp in his arms. 

“Take hold of me. We must get off this ledge.”

He did. Then, they did.

And then they walked. 

They left the base, which took almost an hour of navigating both the infected - who seemed oblivious to their presence, but neither Luke nor Vader wanted to test it by bumping into them - and the uneven surface of the rubble. The infected lurched spasmodically and seemingly at random and while Vader seemed to guess, even with his shield, exactly which direction they were going towards, Luke almost walked into one, twice, and had to be pulled out of danger both times. Each time he winced, waiting for Vader to scold him or, worse, leave him behind as he had tried to do before, but Vader never said a word, never even made a gesture to indicate he was annoyed.

Then, as they crossed the base and its clearing, they had to avoid the places that were burning, keep away from where huge columns of smoke poured out. Several times they saw massive pits where bits of machinery sparked; and everywhere, there were pieces of duracrete in huge chunks to crawl over. Giant metal struts and cables poked out, sharp and dangerous. Smaller pieces of rubble threatened to trip them up. And once or twice, Luke looked and saw a pair of legs sticking out from some piece of debris. Saw a bloodied body flung over the wreckage. Caught sight of blackened bits of white armor or singed off pieces of gray uniforms.

Vader’s hand fell on his shoulder and pulled him away.

Being clear of the base itself did not mean less danger, though the amount of infected did decrease - many of them had gathered where they had been hiding, drawn just as Vader had said. Broken ships and speeders littered the clearing, oil gushing from them to ignite small fires. Sparking mechanical bits also posed a danger. And the rubble had exploded outwards, falling in scattered pieces everywhere. The wall itself had crumbled in several places, but not fully, and they had to climb over them and around the turrets. 

And they always saw at least a couple infected every few minutes. A flying Toydarian, snorting after them. A cluster of Mon Calamari waving webbed hands, fish-like jaws lax and open, bulging eyes clouded over. A Rodian, dressed in the uniform of a construction worker, dragging a broken leg behind it. Luke wasn’t sure if Vader was following some inner map or just going in the direction that Leia had pointed out, but he kept up with him regardless.

They walked down the dirt road that had led to the base for another half an hour before reaching a more paved street that criss-crossed into a sprawling area of smaller, one-story houses. These were made of a combination of plasteel and natural materials like stone and wood. Had Luke not been so tired and scared, he might have admired all that dark, shining wood everywhere - or what used to be dark, shining wood.

For as they moved into the area, he soon saw that the homes were as bombed out as the base - or the distant city, clouded by distance but still glowing with fire, gouts of smoke from various destroyed buildings forming a huge gray tower into the sky. There were fewer speeders, but the ones they did see were wrecked, melted masses of metal, overturned on the streets. Each house had a yard, but many were scorched black; the ones that weren’t had caught fire from others and were burning slowly. There were some trees planted around the houses, which Luke might have been fascinated by if they weren’t also afire. Even scarier, the fire was so hot it made the wood crack loud as lightning, shooting out sizzling chunks. And several times, he saw a distant figure down some street, or hidden behind smoke, though if they were infected trying to escape their own death or someone alive, he didn’t know, they always wandered away too quickly for him to see.

It was after another hour of silent walking that Vader’s voice broke the silence. “We should find shelter here.” Luke thought he sounded tired. It was a frightening thought. 

In an effort to help, Luke looked around the area, searching for any house that was not too destroyed. It was hard, there was so much smoke and dust everywhere, and it was rapidly growing darker, making it harder to see. Only the glow of burning trees provided some light. Alongside the shield Vader had erected, it felt like he could not sense anything, that he was wandering in a cloud of nebulous shapes.

After a moment, though, he spotted a dark shape that looked promising, flickering as it was behind a veil of smoke. “That one?” He pointed.

It turned out to be a home whose outside had remained standing, but only just; the inside was a bombed out shell. But just beyond it was a house that must have been on the very edge of successive bombardments; it was a little charred and its lawn, like all the others, had burnt away, but the interior had held together. The door was intact and even still locked. Vader’s hand fell briefly on Luke’s shoulder, squeezing it approvingly, and Luke was surprised to realize how good it made him feel.

Vader made Luke wait outside with Leia, who was still asleep, while he checked inside. Luke wondered if he was going to kill any infected that he found - and if he had energy enough to even care. 

But then he remembered Leia. She would turn into one of them if they didn’t get help. Somehow, it felt different when it was her. 

It took only a few minutes for Vader to return though, so maybe the house was empty. He scooped Leia up (she had not stirred at all when she was placed down) and took them both in. There he deposited her on a sofa before relocking the door and barricading it with the dining room table, plus some of the chairs and smaller tables. 

Finally, the odd, muffled feeling fell away. It was like being able to take a full breath again, like his eyes were clear of dust that he had been unable to rub away until now. He shook his head once, then another time, feeling fully himself at last.

“Luke.”

He turned to see Vader, and something about the slump of his shoulders terrified Luke. He reached out in a rush and without really thinking about it, half-bracing himself to hit that same fog - but the shield was gone, and the light - the Force - swirled around him as strongly as ever. How had he never noticed it before, or gone without it? It was such a rush after hours of nothing that Luke felt like he was flailing for a moment, grabbing at something, anything, everything.

Instead he ran straight into a whirling pool of fatigue and urgency, fear and guilt and a burning determination regardless. Guilt roiled in Luke’s stomach, and he stretched out again, the way Vader had said to Leia. He found the wavering connection between them and imagined the sand dune - 

“Don’t,” said Vader sharply, and it was like a wall had gone up between them. Yes, a wall - not the fuzzy shield but a barrier of durasteel that Luke could not penetrate. It was so sudden that Luke stumbled back and started reaching out everywhere again. But he wasn’t cut off from the Force; he wasn’t even cut off from the connection to Vader. But there was something blocking him regardless. 

He said, “But you’re tired-”

Vader made an impatient gesture. “Save your energy for yourself, Luke. I can take care of myself.” He stepped forward. “Open your pack.” Luke hurried to do so, still feeling a creeping sickness, as he watched Vader place a hand on Leia’s forehead. There was a sensation, or maybe a movement, from Vader, as if steeling himself.

At first, nothing happened. But then Leia’s eyes flew open. She was breathing in big, long gasps. She jerked at finding Vader’s hand on her and he withdrew, almost reluctantly it seemed to Luke, but she did not seem angry or scared, just confused. She raised a hand to rub at her eyes - her right hand.

She caught sight of what it looked like when it was only an inch from her face. She gasped, hand dropping. The parts of her skin that had been whitish colored were turning grayish. The bite mark looked crusted over and dried. And worst of all, to Luke, were all the black lines. They had reached her knuckles already.

“Wha…?” Leia craned her head blearily, looking around her. She tried to sit up, only to collapse back on the sofa. “How did… Where…?”

“We are in a small town on the outskirts of the city,” said Vader. When Leia faltered, he made a movement as if to help her sit up, only to stop himself abruptly. “We will stay here for the night. You must eat something. I have… given you some measure of energy that will last for an hour, perhaps longer, but then you will need to sleep.” He took Luke’s pack from him and pulled out one of the ration boxes. “Eat from this. You can share and it does not require preparation.”

Leia just continued to stare at him. “You’re tired,” she said, and it was almost scary how she sounded like an exact mirror of Luke’s thoughts. She kept looking at Vader fixedly, frowning. “You brought us here, didn’t you?” she asked quietly. She managed to sit up, pushing herself up against the arm rest. “You carried me. And you did something… I could feel it. To… protect us. The entire way.” Vader did not respond. She kept staring at him, like he was a puzzle she was trying to figure out. She shook her head, pushing herself up with all her remaining energy to look at him. “Why won’t you tell us? Why you’re helping us?”

To Luke it seemed like Vader was attempting to evade her gaze, and he could not understand why. All he saw was Vader tilting his head up and over them, looking at the wall behind them. 

He said, “It is… unimportant.” 

Leia dropped her gaze, frustration evident even with her exhaustion.

Vader made that same movement again, as if to reach for her before deciding better. “Eat, Princess,” he said.

“You can call me Leia,” she said resignedly, picking up a bar. “You don’t have to call me ‘Princess’ all the time.”

A pause. “Leia, then.” He looked at Luke, for some unknown reason. “Luke.”

They ate in silence the rest of the time under Vader’s watchful guard, alternating between making sure they were eating and gazing out the windows, still intact but smudged with dust and ash. Stray figures passed by occasionally in the street and Luke saw Vader’s hand falling to his saber once or twice, but they never came too close. Luke tried to make conversation, but even awake Leia did not give more than one-word answers. Did she want the white roll? No. Was she feeling okay? Fine. Did she need anything? No. Could he get her anything? No.

Soon after, and just as Vader had predicted, she fell back into an exhausted sleep. This prompted Vader to return to hovering over her, fingers resting lightly against her forehead as she lay against the arm rest. Luke wanted to ask what he was doing, what he sensed, but wasn’t sure he wanted to know. Leia had covered up her bite mark again with her sleeve but he didn’t think he’d ever forget the sight of that horrible wound. It was spreading, he realized, sending black lines down to her hand and up past her elbow, maybe to her shoulder… her chest and back… probably the rest of her body… just like the other infected.

Whatever Vader did, Luke did not notice any change in Leia, and after a moment Vader pulled away and returned to staring out the window. Luke could still see one or two distant forms passing by, but they did not come near or even glance in their direction. He moved closer, leaving Leia alone on the sofa, trying to see out the window better.

“They’re not coming after us?” Luke asked after a few moments. Vader had said that using the Force made it easier for them to be found, and Luke was pretty sure that was what they had been doing the last hour or so, and they were still okay.

Vader was silent so long Luke wondered if he had even heard. Just when he was going to return to Leia, Vader said, “The Force inhabits all living things. Here, closer to the wilderness and away from the city, it is possible that the life around us provides a… mitigating barrier between us and their senses.” He looked down in time to catch Luke’s confused look. “Imagine that every living thing has its own presence: every plant, every insect, every being. Now imagine all of them around us. They do not shield us from the senses of the infected, but they do make it harder to detect us, like interference on a comm channel.”

“What about before at the base? They came from really far away then.” 

Again, there was a thoughtful silence. “It’s possible that the more powerful the use of the Force, the more it announces our presence to them.” Vader’s head tilted upward slightly, following a small clump of infected until they passed out of sight. “Telekinesis, pushing or pulling objects, those require greater strength in the Force than merely sensing others or absorbing energy.”

“Or talking in your head?” Luke couldn’t help asking, thinking of what Leia had said.

He wasn’t sure how he knew it, but he could tell that Vader was sending him an amused look. “Yes, or talking to someone in your head.” He turned his gaze back towards the window. “The disease attacks cells in your body that have a connection to the Force. Using its powers may activate them in a way that the creatures can sense.” He seemed to drift off into his own musings. “A cunning strategy, more so than even the doctor may have realized. A Jedi would automatically use the Force to protect themselves from these infected, which would only draw more of them. The Jedi would be overwhelmed within minutes.”

There was something strange in his tone, and Luke tentatively reached out again, the way he had before. He could feel something through his connection to Vader - not quite fear, more apprehension, the kind of nervousness that would make his heart quicken. 

But then there was a pulling away and he realized that Vader had felt him prying, and Luke had that sense of a wall forming itself again, cutting off his emotions. The man turned and Luke almost took a step back, fearing he would get in trouble for once again pushing his nose in where it did not belong.

All Vader said, though, was, “It is time for you to rest. We will have to move quickly tomorrow.” It was just like being back with Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru and being sent off to bed early.

Luke didn’t complain though, because as night fell fully upon them, they were left in complete darkness. There was no power left, no water, though Luke found a few bottles in some cupboards that he stowed in his pack and which made him feel a little better, since they had used up several of the old bottles already. Though there were other rooms, including a bedroom, Luke did not want to go there if it meant leaving Leia and Vader was not going to do anything to disturb her, so he simply climbed onto the sofa and curled up on the other end - there was plenty of space for them to stretch out and not bump into each other’s feet. He thought that maybe he should sleep a little further from her, Leia’s fears that she would transform into an infected and then attack him running through his thoughts. But, he told himself, she hadn’t turned yet, so it was safe, wasn’t it? And, Luke assured himself, if anything did happen, Vader would do something about it. Luke wasn’t sure what, but he would. He had all this time.

It was truly dark by that point, Vader only a shadowed form against the dim moonlight streaming through the window. Luke pulled his feet up to his body; he wasn’t really cold, but he was used to Tatooine’s searing hot days. This place was much chillier, and it made it hard to sleep. But he had to; Vader had said so. He pressed his face into the sofa arm rest, closing his eyes and trying to drift off to the noises around him, just like at home on the moisture farm. That didn’t really work, though, because the sounds here were too different: the crackle of distant fires, a rumble or low thud as something exploded or a building collapsed. And most of all, Vader’s breathing, rhythmic and mechanical. 

Luke huddled deeper, trying to find sleep. But he kept thinking of Vader pushing the rubble off them. The sand dune and the connection. Talking in your head. The shield. He remembered the warehouse. It seemed so long ago, hiding in there, whispering go away, go away, go away… He had told Vader that, and Vader had understood instantly. He had used it. That definitely made Luke feel a little better about himself, but it could not fully relieve the ache of his guilt. Vader had done it to protect him and Leia, not himself. Vader could protect himself just fine with his lightsaber, Luke had seen that plenty of times. But he’d gone to all this trouble to help the two of them, and he still didn’t know why.

Could he do it again? Make his own shield so that Vader didn’t have to do it? It wouldn’t get rid of the guilt entirely, but he did know it would make him feel a lot better if he could do something, anything, to help.

You’ve helped enough, Luke.

Luke jerked so badly he was afraid he would kick Leia. Was that what Darth Vader sounded like in his head? He knew, somehow, that it was; the tenor of his mind-voice felt strangely similar to the connection he had formed… almost like they shared the same color or something. And now he realized why Leia had been yelling at Vader for no apparent reason at the base - it was weird hearing a voice all of sudden in his own brain. But it also made Luke feel a bit left out. They had had a connection and he didn’t - until now, it seemed.

Hesitantly, he tried to talk back. Hello? he attempted.

A pause. Hello, Luke. Even Vader’s mind-voice sounded like he was amused by him.

Still, it was working, and Luke was too excited about this new thing to feel offended. Luke tried to touch with his mind this bond that was allowing them to talk, but it was like a ghost, flitting between his mental fingers. Yet it was there regardless. He focused as hard as he could on forming his next words. Can I learn to - to do the shield thing? I did it before. I think.

You do not need to. The comment was abrupt, closer to Vader’s actual voice, an attempt to end the conversation.

But Luke tried anyway, despite his stomach squirming in agitation. Why not? I want to learn - if I did it before, I can do it again. He tried another tactic. It’ll help me against the infected. 

A longer pause. He sensed Vader thinking about something. You do not have to do this, Luke.

I know. But I want to, he said, or thought, or whatever it was. He had to, because whatever Leia said, it was his fault that she was sick. Maybe not because he had failed to open the door quickly enough, but he knew that he had delayed their travels, knew that was why Vader had been so annoyed with him. Now Vader wasn’t so mad at him - actually, he hadn’t been mad at Luke for quite a while - but it was still an ever-present thought in his head: if Luke hadn’t been there, maybe Leia might not be so ill.

And at some point, Vader had to realize that. He seemed to like Leia for some reason, he spoke nicer to her than to anyone else, treated her better than he treated Luke. Once Vader knew it was Luke’s fault, he would leave. He had said he would stay, but Luke didn’t think he meant it. Leia was a princess and Darth Vader was… Darth Vader. They were both important. They belonged together. But not Luke, some random kid from a planet nobody went to. 

And when that happened, when they left, Luke needed to be able to shield himself. He’d be left alone with no one to keep the infected away. All that ran through Luke’s thoughts, but he kept it away from the tenuous connection he had formed with Vader. But however hard he tried not to send it, something must have reached the man.

I will not leave you.  

Why not? Luke was unable to stop that thought. Even if it wasn’t his fault that Leia was so sick, what was so important about him? The fact that he had been allowed to tag along was a miracle in itself. Just like back at home too, where the only reason he was allowed to go with Fixer and Camie and the rest was because Biggs allowed it.

Luke, said Vader, with whatever the mental equivalent of a sigh was, you are more important than you think. 

Luke radiated skepticism back at him. 

Believe me. You are destined for much more than the life of a moisture farmer.  

Really? He could not hide his excitement, and he sensed Vader’s own rising humor at that. Like a pilot? That’s kind of what my father was. I like flying a lot. I think I’d like to be a pilot.

Their connection was silent for a moment. Yes, Luke. Perhaps even more than a pilot. But before Luke could ask what could possibly be more important than a pilot, Vader said - or thought: Relax. Feel the Force around you. Release all conscious thought.

What’s conscious mean?

Now it really felt like Vader was quietly laughing at him. Don’t think. Feel.

That was easy. Uncle Owen said that all Luke did sometimes was not think. But it seemed that as soon as he tried not to think, it was all he could do. Think about where he was and what he was doing and what he was supposed to be doing and not doing - anxiety rose up his throat as he felt himself failing.

Do not worry, said Vader, surprisingly patient. You have done very well so far for someone with no training. And Luke had a sensation - no, a memory - energy pouring into a dark pool: Vader’s recollection of Luke and Leia reaching out to him after the base had collapsed. But you must learn to control your power, harness it. Reach out. Sense the life all around you. There was a funny little burst of hidden emotion that Luke had no time to try to decipher, like maybe Vader was thinking of something else he had said before to someone other than Luke.

Luke turned his attention back to the Force and attempted to do as Vader had said, trying to imagine the world around him as little blobs of light. There was one right next to him, though the light was small and dimmed. But it was familiar, the same presence he had touched before, and he realized immediately who it was: Leia.  

I can feel Leia here!

Somehow, Vader did not sound surprised. Yes, you have a link with her.

How come? Wait - do I have link with everyone?

A distinct pause. Not everyone.

Why not? And why Leia?

So many questions you have, Vader replied.

Luke went silent, but Vader didn’t seem too mad about it. So is it just me and Leia who have a link? He thought about it. No wait, we do too, right? And does Leia have one with you?

He had a feeling of Vader trying to puzzle something out. Yes. I am… unsure of the reason.  

Luke frowned; something about that statement felt… not right, like Vader was hiding something.  

Vader continued, This kind of link is… not something I have heard of before. They do exist between some masters and their apprentices, but the Jedi do not allow their members to marry or have children, and so -  

He stopped abruptly, though Luke could not understand why. He waited until Vader spoke again in his mind. Try again, Luke, he said.

Well, Leia’s presence was still there, a little light in front of him. Curious, Luke touched her presence and felt her touch back, but sleepily. Encouraged, he probed further, then stretched out - he imagined himself exploring the whole house. There was another, much more powerful aura in front of him: Vader. It acknowledged him approvingly but pushed him onward, and Luke had a vision of himself as another little light, bobbing out of the house, down the street, searching for the woods and the fields. He tried to think of becoming bigger, filling out the whole land.

It was an overwhelming sensation: all the life around him. He could feel the insects living among the plants, rodents burrowing into the ground. There were avians flying through the trees and the sky and fish swimming in the water. And the plant life itself: fields and fields of flowers and vegetables and grains, huge soaring trees, grass and brush, moss and tiny plants living on the surface of the water…

Well done, said Vader, and Luke, deep into the living force of the planet, managed not to jump this time. Now that you can sense those around you, you can learn to block yourself from them.

How?

The life, the energy that you felt - that is the Force. It is not just in living things but all around you. With time and training, you can draw upon it anywhere, use it to do whatever you desire. A pause. But for now… feel it again. Find your own presence. 

Luke did so, withdrawing into himself, it felt like. It was quite odd, in a way - he could feel all the little bits of his own body, the moving parts, how it all fitted together, and the things that were… irregular, maybe. A little cut on his hand, barely noticed, already healing. A bruise on his leg, newly formed. Bits of dust and dirt he kept inhaling that his body was ejecting, whispering foreign-wrong-does not belong.

Not so deep, Vader said gently. Pull away. Can you sense others around you again? Luke tried to send some kind of affirmative response. Good. Then imagine a wall between them and you. Draw your presence inward, like you did before. Let the Force mask yourself so that you are just like everything else in the world around you.

Slowly - or so it felt to Luke - they worked on it. In many ways it felt familiar, because it was - he had done this in the warehouse, just subconsciously, and it felt like his mind had already made a groove there, a pattern, and all he had to do was fall back into it. But in other ways it was a whole new feeling, a world he had only had limited access to that had now opened up before him, like going to Anchorhead when all he had known before was his little home. He wanted to explore everywhere, do everything.

Yet it seemed all too soon before Vader called a halt. It is late, and time for you to rest.

But I haven’t done it yet!

You already have, Luke. Vader’s mental voice seemed to retreat, his barriers receding enough for Luke to feel his own weariness leaking in. Now, sleep.

Luke was silent as he withdrew into his own body. No longer absorbed in the Force, he was aware of all the little discomforts: the sounds in the distance, the bumpiness of the sofa, the chill in the air.

Luke?

I’m… He wasn’t sure if he should say anything. It’s cold here.

He felt two emotions from Vader simultaneously: a sense of familiar understanding and, much more strongly, a feeling he could only describe as Vader apparently berating himself over something.

Luke heard Vader departing, his breathing growing more distant - only to reemerge holding something. One he draped over Leia, his hand lingering on her head once again. The other he wrapped around Luke. Blankets - he had gotten blankets for them. He’d grabbed them himself, not pulling them to him with the Force. 

Thank you. He felt a lot better now, warm and snug. But, with a sense of impishness, he thought, I’m still not sleepy, though.

You will be.

And before Luke could question that statement, he felt a wave of what he now knew to be the Force wash over him, pulling him away.

Chapter Text

Exhaustion dragged at Vader, a continual companion that sat alongside the laboring respirator, the snags of his prosthetic limbs, as well as the generalized pain of his grafted skin and the machines hooked directly into his body. He had learned to ignore it for almost a decade, as he ignored his own fatigue now, but doing so for much longer would soon take its toll on him. He ought to be resting as well.

Yet all he wanted to do at that moment was stay and watch his children sleep.

It could be the last time he ever got to watch Leia…

No. He banished the thought forcefully and attempted to turn his attention back to the window, to draw upon the revitalizing energy of the Force. That was the paradoxical nature of shielding his and his children’s signatures - he must use the Force to cut himself off from it, and in so doing, spend his reserves without any way to replenish it. They had found a temporary safe spot here, in this housing unit placed nearer the field than the relatively lifeless city, and he ought to be using the Force to focus on himself, not on the children.

And yet, his mind kept turning back to them. Without meaning to, sometimes without him even being aware of it until he was already doing so, he found his presence brushing against Luke or Leia’s. Gauging their strength. Assessing their condition. Learning to detect the minute differences between the two. They were so similar that at first glance he had mistook one for the other, but now he was seeing the subtleties of their unique signatures: equally strong in their potential, but Luke’s as serene as a Naboo lake, rarely ruffled, and Leia’s vibrant, sparking with color, her emotions a whirl beneath the surface - weariness and fear and a bone-deep anxiety.

She turned in her sleep as if sensing his regard, eyelids fluttering, and muttered, “Father?”

Vader froze. It could not be… had she sensed their relationship? He had been careful not to let it slip, and Leia, untrained, would not even know…

But she rolled on the sofa again, tangling herself in her blanket, still murmuring weakly, “Father! Mother! Please…” Her presence flared with fear before she subsided.

And Vader let out a breath, or would have if he could. No, not him. She was calling out for the Organas. He was only a frightening stranger to her while the Organas were her parents, as far as she was concerned. And though he tried, he could no longer kindle the anger he should have felt at that, at Bail and Breha for kidnapping his child.

He shook himself abruptly. Force, what was he doing? Forming attachments? Allowing his feelings to run roughshod over all sense of logic? It was imperative that he physically protect them until they were off-planet - how was he to train them in the ways of the Dark Side and defeat the Emperor if they were dead? And he had already taken those first steps, teaching the two to speak through their bond, to open themself to the Force and thus furthering his design. But forming a bond with the children? Reassuring them? Even apologizing for his (admittedly violent) intrusion into his daughter’s mind? Some detached part said it was what had to be done to gain her trust. Besides, had he not intruded on her mind, he would not have discovered their relationship, and he would have abandoned the princess to her fate without a second thought.

So why did that make him feel so cold?

It was all to turn them to his side, of course, and in the princess’s case, to overcome her irrational fear of the Force. Not to mention finding some form of transport off this Force-forsaken planet. The bond that his son had unwittingly formed had not even been of Vader’s doing, even if he had been the first to utilize it. It was the child himself who had sought to pour his own life energy into Vader’s, the child with his unnerving innocence who kept attempting to push past his barriers. Despite the stirrings of pride Vader felt at such an instinctively skilled use of the Force, he had had to stop the boy lest he sacrifice all his life force and manage to kill himself, because what end would that have served? Even now he checked on his son, to see if there had been any permanent damage done from giving himself so effortlessly, so willingly. But Luke had already recovered from it, his potential seemingly boundless.

It was not because he had cared about what Luke thought. It was certainly not because he felt a softening of his edges whenever the child expressed nervousness for him. He was a Dark Lord of the Sith; children did not worry about him.

And if the ultimate goal was to serve the Dark Side, it did not matter what methods he employed. Palpatine, as Darth Sidious and Chancellor and then Emperor, had certainly not suffered any moral scruples when it came to his methods. He had created dual personas, performed multiple roles, manipulated both sides of a pointless war, all for the purpose of achieving his ends. The only thing that mattered was that they managed to leave this infested planet alive so that Vader might put his own plans into motion.

He assured himself of that as he reached out again to test the princess’s - Leia’s - aura, as he had done with Luke. She was strong, yes, probably would be as strong as her brother were she healthy, but her presence was growing dimmer by the day, a flickering light about to go out. Her face was drawn into a grimace, body fighting off illness and pain. Without thinking, he reached for her, physically reached for her, resting his fingers against her temple and infusing some of his already limited reserves into her. Her body relaxed, expression softening, but he kept his hand on her long after that. 

How long had it been since he had touched someone in a way that did not involve violence? How long since it had been someone he cared for?

Cared for.

You care for the girl…

You allowed this, my Lord…

Look at what his caring had done to her.

Vader withdrew his hand sharply and pretended not to notice how Leia’s body also appeared to curl back into itself. He stretched out along his bond to Luke once more and was faced with another tumult of images - dreams. This time of suffocation and darkness, the overwhelming terror of being alone and trapped. Before he even knew what he was doing, he had let flow a soothing current of energy, brushed back the dreams, pressed feelings of safety and comfort. By the time Vader realized his aim, his son had settled back into a dreamless sleep.

No.

This had gone far beyond serving the Dark Side.

He wanted his children to live. Not just to serve as his apprentices. He needed them alive because he wanted them to live for their own sake. Not for the Force, not for the Dark Side. He needed them with him. And everytime he envisioned a future where they weren’t, there was a hollow feeling in his chest that had nothing to do with his fatigue or the Force-deadness of this planet.

Vader jerked back, pushing all this away. Had he not learned his lesson already? Had he not seen for himself what the price was for his damned feelings? Yet here he was, striding into that same minefield without a care - wanting to walk into it.

Better instead to dwell on the day’s events. Luke’s dream had brought back memories of the bombardment, and with it, his fury at the senselessness of it all. 

No, much more than that: betrayal. Assassination. 

His men were well aware that he was on the planet’s surface, and they would know too that after the governor’s palace, the next most likely place for him to be would be the Imperial base. And they had destroyed it all the same, and the city too. He wondered who had ultimately given the order. One of his admirals, no doubt. He turned to stare out the window, hearing a distant rumble. Another sweep?

Then he realized that this was a natural sound. A storm was coming.

He continued to mull the thought over as clouds swept over the once-clear night sky, extinguishing the stars and the moons. He had made many enemies in his time serving the Empire, and it was no secret that, as the supreme commander of the entire military, taking him out would present a huge hole that any ambitious officer would love to fill. Any one of the officers on the Exactor, or the Star Destroyers that had joined it, could have seen their opportunity and overridden any protests by lower-ranking officers to activate orbital bombardment. They would even have good reason to: the infection provided an excellent excuse, and should Vader have been caught in it, well, he was just a casualty of the Empire’s ruthless efficiency in eliminating threats - albeit a rather important one.

Of course, just because any of the officers could have, did not mean they would have. Because in addition to his rank, the one other thing they knew about Vader was his incredible propensity for surviving anything and everything that had been thrown at him. Lightsabers, electrical shocks, blasters of all shapes and sizes, thermal detonators, decompressing airlocks, the void of space, and the one incredibly foolish assassin who had thought a mere vibroblade would work - none of it had made a permanent dent on him. And he doubted that most of them would truly risk him surviving, finding out the perpetrator, and incurring his lethal and undoubtedly painful wrath upon them.

But there was one being who could order such a bombardment and receive no protest nor be in any danger of suffering his vengeance… one person who had made it clear that he was still, and forever would be, testing Vader’s potential.

His respirator quickened, struggling to keep pace with his own emotions. There was a worrisome hitch to the constant cycles; the collapse of the base had possibly thrown some of the parts out of alignment. Vader touched a button on his chest plate, adjusting the pressure and oxygen levels. At some point he would need to stop and actually make some repairs. It was not a major worry for now, and he did not dwell on it overly long, but if it kept going…

Well, he had survived worse.

He raised his head as a light patter began coming down. Rain. The sound was steady and though he kept a watchful eye out for a few moments, neither child stirred, remaining deep in sleep.

Vader settled against a chair as well, relaxing into a meditative trance. However much he had tried to deny it, the day’s events had taken a toll. Had it not been for both children allowing him to draw on their energy, he had not been sure he would have been able to lift the rubble that had buried them. And then afterwards maintaining the Force shield and giving Leia bouts of his own energy… he would never admit it, but he was drained. And tomorrow - tomorrow they would have to press on even harder.

They had to find the ship. Once off the planet, he could heal his daughter, do whatever he must to eradicate the virus tearing through her body. How he would do it, he had no idea. But he had to. He had to undo his mistake.

The thought was too painful to hold for long. With one last check to ensure they were safe enough, he relaxed into the Force.

He came out of his meditation to the sound of thunder, feeling, if not rejuvenated, then at least less fatigued. His first act was to look around, examine the area in front of him. His senses told him that it was daytime, though a heavily overcast, dreary day. His children were arrayed in front of him, curled up under their thermal blankets on the sofa.

Vader stood, reaching out lightly and feeling the strange voids in the Force that the infected presented. They were not actual gaps or holes in the Force, or they might have been easier to sense; it was more that they were fuzzily defined, empty areas, difficult to grasp and easy to miss. There were a number of them scattered around the surrounding landscape, though less of them than had been in the city. Perhaps that pattern would continue the further out they went; the fields and wilderness before them should only contain the few laborers and workers needed to operate the agricultural machinery, not the masses of concentrated populations of urban areas.

So on that thought, he awoke Luke first, then went to Leia as the boy did his best to freshen up and pulled out the box of rations they had not finished. His daughter had barely stirred, and concerned, Vader placed a hand to her forehead. She felt warmer than before, and his mind flashed to the fever reducers the doctor had given to him. Should he use them now, to stave it off before it became worse, or wait until she truly needed it?

As if hearing his conflict, Leia stirred awake, blinking at him from beneath his hand. She did not flinch back, which Vader put down more to her exhaustion than any growing trust she had in him. 

He asked, “How do you feel?” The words felt foreign to him; how long had it been since he had actually been interested in another person’s wellbeing?

Leia closed her eyes a moment, drooping against the cushions. “Okay,” she said, voice weak. Then, “A little cold.”

Yet she definitely felt warmer, even with the dulled nerve endings of his prosthetic hand. “Luke, your pack.” He reached inside and pulled out the fever reducer. Leia did not even wince as he injected it into her arm. “Sit up. Keep the blanket around you.” He gestured, but Luke had already guessed his intent and made his way over with the rations. “Eat. We have a long way ahead of us.”

She picked at the leftovers but attempted a few bites, still looking wan. Luke kept proffering different things to her and barely ate anything himself until Vader prompted him to. Neither ate as much as he would have liked, but between them they finished the box and discarded it on the sofa. Luke wrapped his robe around him while Leia brushed wearily at her hair. 

The movement made her sleeve fall, revealing her arm, and the sight of it made Vader go cold inside. The infection was continuing to spread, crawling up to her fingers. The flesh was shriveling as it blackened, which was how the form fitting sleeve had slipped in the first place. And even with all that, he knew that was only the most visible symptom, that the virus had already spread itself through her body, and merely seeing this was… He turned away sharply. 

But Leia muttering to herself made him look back. She was attempting to braid her hair back, but she appeared to be having some difficulties. It only took a moment for Vader to determine the problem: the fingers of her right hand were not curling. 

Leia stared at them in furious concentration. “They won’t - they’re not-” 

Luke reached forward. “Here, I’ll help-”

But she dodged him, fear crossing her face. “No! I’ll do it by myself!” She stared at her hand in furious concentration, like it might move by sheer force of will.

At that, Vader moved towards her. “Leave it.” They did not have time for this. If the symptoms were as strong as this, then it might be as the doctor had said: the infection had overcome the protective buffer of Leia’s overwhelming number of midi-chlorians. 

She did not have much time left.

He watched her carefully as she dropped her hair, still unbraided, then pushed herself clumsily off the sofa. “Can you walk?”

She nodded, a trace of her old stubbornness passing over her face. Deciding not to respond to that, Vader slid the door open. 

Luke gaped at the dreary world outside, at the drizzle of water. “Is that… rain?”

“Yes.” Vader did not share his awe, even if he understood it, remembering his own wonder at seeing planets with so much water on it. But he had no time for any of that; it was already difficult enough to sense the infected without the Force, even if his mask allowed for some enhancements. This would make it even harder. And the children…

He turned and decided to risk using the Force to bring their blankets to him. He passed them to the two. “Cover yourself. Stay warm.” He stared at the rain as the two children wrapped the blankets over their bodies. The blankets were large enough that the two could pull it over their heads and still have it cover their body down to their knees. Still, they would get soaked and with Leia in her condition…

But he could not stay here thinking about that. They had to move before the storm became stronger - before the disease took Leia. Vader turned towards the door, stemming the tide of regret threatening to overtake him. “Remain close to me.”

They kept to the edges of the houses, staying under roofs or dodging past trees. The rain had come too late to save them; many burnt during the night to mere sticks of blackened wood that steamed in the chill. The rain itself was not heavy, but it remained a constant light shower that misted them with dampness at the slightest breeze. Luke, used to Tatooine’s dry heat, was soon shivering, wiping at the water that kept getting in his eyes. He was weighed down as well by his pack, which jutted out from beneath his blanket. Leia, who had grown up with Alderaan’s milder climate, was shaking for different reasons, but she moved doggedly forward, one foot after the other, barely aware of what she was doing.

Before midday, they had reached the end of the town. The homes became more and more spread out and the road soon turned from ferrocrete to gravel, and before long, Vader could tell, would be mere dirt - or in this rain, mud. That would be an issue; it was hard enough walking on paved roads. The mud would suck at their footsteps and stick to their boots, slowing them down and wearing them out with the effort of escaping it, and the children had already been pushing themselves as it was. Shelter was growing scarcer too with every foot they walked; the houses no longer contained lawns so much as they were sitting on larger and larger lots of untrimmed grass and brush. More and more trees had begun popping up, dispersed randomly as they drew nearer to the woodlands. As the rain continued to fall, they became dark, spindly shapes in the downpour, though they at least offered some temporary reprieve from the rain. The amount of abandoned speeders, he noticed, also seemed to be increasing. Perhaps the inhabitants had fled this way in an attempt to escape the disease. That was not a good sign either; it meant they might encounter more infected instead of less the further they went.

He glanced down at the children as they pushed through the landscape. So far they had been keeping a steady pace with his admittedly shortened strides. The rain had plastered the blankets to their bodies and their hair against their faces. Luke kept blinking water from his eyes and shaking droplets from his hair, all his awe long gone; Leia’s shivering, meanwhile, had increased so much Vader could see drops being shaken loose. She clutched at her blanket with her uninjured hand while the other hung limply by her side. Her body drooped and she put one foot in front of the other without looking where she was going, following out of sheer perversity rather than any purpose. He stretched out.

She had no presence at all.

Terror struck Vader; he reached out again frantically, tearing through the Force’s currents with all the subtlety of a rock being thrown into a still pond until, at last, he spotted her signature: a tiny mote of light bobbing up and down along the ripples, so small that if he looked away, he might lose it again. She was getting worse, far worse.

Vader came to a halt so suddenly the children almost walked into him, but he did not notice; he was struggling to make a decision. The road they were following would lead towards Leia’s family’s vacation home and her ship. Yet he knew it would be a winding, circuitous route, built around the vast, hexagonal fields of crops rather than cutting through them. It might take days to reach it on foot - days they did not have. 

But there was another option: they could go straight into the fields themselves and whatever was ahead of them, taking the shortest, most linear route. But the grain growing in the fields was dense, so tightly packed he could barely see the gaps between them; moreover, it was tall, taller than Vader himself, the thick heads bobbing in the wind. And even more daunting, it was a wetlands crop and had to remain constantly submerged in water, water that was thick and silty from the storm. As if there weren’t troubles enough, Vader also had no idea how deep it would be either, only that the storm would definitely increase it. Walking through flooded land, in pouring rain, their view obscured by waving heads of grain: Vader could only imagine what creatures might be lurking within. How vulnerable they would be.

He turned and knelt in front of the two children. Leia’s body was constantly trembling and she was huddled miserably beneath her blanket, yet when Vader put a hand to her, she felt like a heater, so hot was her fever. 

Vader made his decision. He crouched in front of the girl. Leia did not even look at him; it was like lifting her head was too much effort for her. “Show me where your ship is,” he said. When Leia only swayed, staring at the ground like he wasn’t even there, he pressed his hands to her shoulders. “Leia, you must show me. When we reach your ship I can help you, you will not die. But you must show me where it is. Remember how to do it.”

She was shaking so hard and was so sodden that she almost slipped from his hands, but after a moment she lifted her head to meet his. He saw her eyes focus briefly. Water splattered against her face, into her eyes, dripping down the tip of her nose and over her cheeks, but he could feel the Force swirling around her, and kept an eye out warily for any infected to find them. 

Her hand lifted, pointing. Her teeth were chattering so hard she could barely speak, but she had given Vader all he needed to know. “That way.” It was at almost a ninety-degree angle from the road.

The volume of rain was increasing seemingly exponentially. Vader stood, decision made. “Follow me.”

Thunder was booming intermittently as they crossed the wide open plain that surrounded the last house for several hundred feet around. Soon they would be in the midst of farmland, all filled with the same huge stalks of grain. The sky was almost as dark as it was at night, only the occasional flashes of lightning illuminating their way. The rain had transformed the dirt into a swirling, sucking morass that clung to their shoes and dragged at the edges of his cape. He tried to lead them around the worst of them, but sometimes he had no choice but to trudge through the thick, squelching puddles. Wind whipped at the trees as they passed them, whistling past his auditory sensors, and that itself was all but drowned out by the roar of the rain. Wet grass slapped at their legs, clinging to his robes. All they could see in the growing downpour were dark shapes of agricultural droids: tracto-droids with heavy treads that had gone still, load carriers with flat arms and scoops, rotary droids with huge wheels rusting under the rain - and in the distance, a massive, boxy shape of some kind of storage or processing building.

The children were losing energy fast, as much as Vader tried not to push them beyond their limits. They were pathetically tiny figures in the gray fog of the storm, bent from the constant, chilling rain. Yet he was driven on by Leia’s fading presence - he had to get her to her ship. The clipped grass of before had given way to long, uneven strands that snagged at them and left wet streaks and smears of mud, and Vader could see ahead that they would soon reach an area that was even wilder, an expanse of uncut brush and overgrown plant life.

The massive building was only a little further ahead, yet it took far longer than it should have to reach it. The sloshing mixture of mud and water came partway up to Vader’s boots, which for the children meant it was up to their knees. Every movement or breeze sent a wave of water over the children, sometimes up to waist level that further drenched and chilled them. They struggled to wade through it, gasping under the cold rain and the wind that kept gusting against them, even with their blankets. Those had long lost their heating ability under the relentless downpour and served more to weigh them down, soaked through with water and puddling out along the surface The only reason Vader did not take it back was that it still offered them some protection from the rain. Together they were little more than three staggering shapes in the darkness; Luke had actually grabbed hold of Leia’s hand to tug her along, so that they looked even more like a shambling beast. 

The last feet felt longer than all the others combined, but at last they found relief from the incessant rain. Beneath the building, the heavy downpour was a constant rattle against the structure, the wind blowing through the open doorways to create eerie wailing. Vader flicked water off his gloves, his cape dragging along the rough floor, then turned and hauled the two children within.

Leia immediately collapsed, body quivering with the effort of holding herself up. Luke, still trying to hold her and clutch onto his own blanket despite not looking much better, ended up dragged down with her. But Vader could not let them rest for more than a moment: the building was totally open, multiple uncovered arches and windows so that rain and dirt had splattered inside, rendering the whole place filthy and fuzzy with mold. And the rain was still blowing through, chilling the soaked children to the bone. He pulled them up bodily and shoved them further inside, down into one of the rooms nearer the center. Only there did he stop and finally allow them to rest.

Luke sat limply on the ground, pulling off his blanket and divesting himself of his pack robotically; Leia curled up beside him, not even bothering with hers. Vader summoned Luke’s pack, forgetting about being cautious with using the Force. Pulling out the condenser unit, he turned it as high as he could, then used the Force again to gather the sticks that were littered about the area. He tossed those onto the unit until they burned to life, then dumped them on the floor, a makeshift campfire. He tossed the blankets nearby to dry. By then Leia was too far gone to even move towards it, but a valiant effort by Luke meant that she was soon curled near it. 

“Is she-” Luke tried to ask, but the words seemed to stick in his throat.

There was little use trying to deny it. “She is very weak,” Vader said. He got down beside her and pulled Leia upright to rest against him. He reached for Luke’s pack again but the boy, anticipating him, had it ready. He found the second fever reducer and pressed it to Leia’s arm. That done, he pressed a hand to her forehead once more, allowing some more of his own life force to flow into his daughter. Between those two things, perhaps they might be of some help. Yet some small part of his brain was realizing just how limited his usefulness was. Even as a Jedi the healing arts were not something he had focused on; he had preferred fighting and action instead. And as a Sith Lord, sacrificing some of his own power for unselfish ends would be anathema to their teachings.

The regret that he’d been holding back all day was threatening to overwhelm him. All his power, all he had sacrificed, and none of it, none of it was of use. Nothing to save his daughter from the consequences of his own actions.

It felt like it took an age, long enough that Vader bid Luke to begin eating - using a meal packet, not a ration box or one of the bars, the boy was in dire need of a warm meal - but eventually, Leia began to awaken, a little color returning to her face. She twitched at finding herself so close to Vader. 

“Do not move,” he ordered her. “You will only drain yourself further.”

She wrinkled her face at him, but perhaps feeling the truth of his words, slumped back reluctantly against him. 

“Eat something,” he told her, and held out his hand for a meal packet. It had been a little while since he had prepared one of these himself, and it brought back old memories of sitting hunched over in other ruined buildings, at small fires, surrounded by clone troopers and fellow Jedi - he shook them off and prepared the meal. It took less than a minute, but in that time Leia’s eyes had closed and she had gone back to shivering beside him. Vader summoned her thermal blanket - somewhat drier by now - and rewrapped it around her. The fire would further warm her up, he told himself.

“Eat this,” he said, pressing the protein slice and the polystarch biscuit on her. For once, Leia seemed to know that refusing him was not an option, but after her first bite, her arm - her left arm, Vader could not help noticing - fell limply to her side, too weak to even hold that up. She had gone quite pale, even that small movement draining her. 

Without a word, Vader lifted her fully into his lap, resting her against his body - or rather, his armor, which could not be comfortable. It was a measure of how tired she was that she did not say anything or even squirm. Ignoring Luke’s wide eyes, he plucked the biscuit from her hand and lifted it to her lips himself. She took a bite, then rested against him a while, chewing slowly. Just eating was sapping more energy than she was likely receiving from the food, but he refused to let her stop. Another bite, another moment to recover herself. Vader brought the water bottle over, had her drink from that. Another three pieces, each taking an interminably slow time, and then a sip of water.

Until Leia suddenly sat up, face draining of blood. “I feel sick,” was all she managed to mumble before she leaned over and vomited her entire meal across the floor. 

Nausea and vomiting are the next symptoms, Vader thought distantly when all he could do was hold her until her retching stopped. There was a curious feeling of spasming in his own gut, like his body was in sympathetic accord with hers, and he wondered if this, too, was what it meant to be a parent: to feel a child’s pain as if it were his own. Luke had leaped away but immediately returned with a full water bottle. He even held her hair while she washed out her mouth, though he looked so sick himself at the sight that Vader was tempted to send him away, for the boy’s own sake.

After that, there was only one thing to do, which was to feed the nutrients directly into her body. The doctor had given them three capsules; this left two. Leia was close to unconsciousness after her bout, utterly worn out and slumped against his arm. Still, she accepted the capsule after some prompting on Vader’s end and swallowed it without a sound. He did not like how pale she remained even after; the capsule would sustain her body but it could not warm her the way a hot meal would.

They could not stay inside forever, and though Vader waited longer than he ought to, hoping for the storm to ease, it continued to blow on, minute after minute. They had finished eating, their blankets were dry, their things cleaned up, and still he delayed needlessly, standing at the edge of the building right as it crossed into the fields. They had no time to wait, no time to rest, but Leia could not even hold herself up. 

And there was another concern, one Vader did not voice to the children: when he tried to sense any sentient, intelligent life ahead of them, all he felt was emptiness.

But if they wanted to reach Leia’s ship as quickly as possible, they must cross the field.

So Vader, looking at her, looking at the storm that showed no signs of ebbing, made a second decision: he scooped her up into his arms.

Immediately, Leia began to squirm. That was not optimal. “Cease moving, you will only tire yourself more,” Vader told her.

“I can walk,” she protested, pushing at his arm with more energy than she had shown the entire day.

“You cannot,” was Vader’s short reply as he crossed the length of the building. Luke jogged alongside, clutching his blanket, pack strapped to his back.

“I can,” said Leia, sheer impertinence seemingly giving her strength enough to argue with him. 

Vader looked at her. One more step and they’d be outside, exposed to the pounding storm. Ahead was a vast field of the tall grain he had seen from a distance, planted in such dense rows that he could not see any clear passage between them. Water flowed between the stalks, and even the higher ground, which would remain dry during normal times, was turning into a cascade of rain and mud. Water pelted the surface in a roar that drowned out all other sounds. Between the darkness of the sky and the dense, waving heads of grain, any other movement - infected or otherwise - was indiscernible.

And to reach Leia’s ship, they would have to cross it. 

Gently, he set the princess down and bent so he could grip her by the shoulders to help her stand. She blinked owlishly, gazing at him in dull stupefaction.

“Leia,” he said again, “you cannot. And if we are to reach your ship in time, you must not.”

Her face crumbled. She wiped at her face with the back of her hand, again, again. “I didn’t mean to leave,” she whispered. “He told me to run, but I didn’t want to… I was scared, I didn’t help-”

Discomfort squirmed in his gut, a most unexpected - and unpleasant - reaction. What was he supposed to do? She was looking for alleviation from her guilt, from someone who had no experience with that and no idea what to say, who had not known what to do even before… this. Action had been the way he had dealt with his own feelings, not contemplation.

But perhaps she was not truly looking for relief. Perhaps all she wanted was some sign that someone was listening to her.

Still feeling very discomfited, but needing her to stop crying, he touched her face with his thumb. “It was not your fault,” he told her. “Had you stayed, you would have been killed as well.”

Did it comfort her? He could not imagine it comforting himself. He had never feared his own death, assured that he was powerful enough to evade it. But the death of others… it brought back memories of another self, a younger self, who would have declared that lack of strength was no excuse and that he should have fought harder, been more powerful. But his daughter… 

Her  shoulders remained slumped, but he sensed some tiny lifting of her mood through their bond. She swiped at her nose. “I’m going to die anyway,” she mumbled.

Vader stood swiftly. “Not if we move quickly,” he said, because he refused to consider the alternative. His sudden movement, however, caused her to stumble, and he caught her before he could fall. She looked so small, so terrified, no longer the stubborn daughter of royalty defying his every command. He almost wished she would at this point; this fragile child had no spark, no life in her. Without any further protests, he swung the thermal blanket around her and pulled her into his arms, then turned for Luke. Shifting Leia to his left arm, he used his free hand to tug the second blanket around Luke, wrapping it tightly around his form. 

“We’re going to walk through that?” asked Luke, staring at all that water, all the huge plant life and Vader sensed his Force signature spiking with nervousness, recalled the boy screaming, I can’t swim…   and Vader’s own anxiety around water when he had first left Tatooine. 

What had he said in response, back before he knew Luke was his son? Something callous, no doubt.

“Calm yourself, Luke,” he said now. “I will not let you drown.”

“But,” Luke continued to stare at the field, “how will we know where to go? Won’t we get lost?”

“I will guide you.” He looked at this son and said, once again, “I will not leave you behind.”

Luke looked up at him, and Vader felt the boy reach out through the Force, a hesitant, untrained attempt to tap into his emotions. He sent back reassurance, and knew Luke felt it when he saw his eyes widen. 

Leia lifted her head from his shoulder, squinting. She rubbed her eyes once, then again. “I think I see something.” She squinted again. “Something’s moving.”

Vader was silent for a moment. He had not wanted them to notice, yet it seemed even with her dimming presence, his daughter was as perceptive as ever. “Infected. There are likely some hiding amongst the stalks.” He had sensed it when he reached out and all he felt was the void. 

Luke jerked his head up at Vader. “Hiding? Then how will we see them?”

“We won’t.” He could not lie about that. “I will shield us, but it is even more important that you stay close, do you understand?”

The two children stared at the thickly growing fields of grain, and nodded - even Leia, carried in his arms.

Vader pulled out his lightsaber. “I will cut a path through the grain. If we encounter any infected, I will deal with them.” He waited, thinking and even hoping his daughter might demand that he not kill any but to merely push through them. She did not, and Vader found himself wishing irrationally that she had.

Luke shifted closer to him. Vader looked down at the boy, practically burying himself against him, and had an idea. He lifted the edge of his cape, tattered as it was. “Get under.”

Luke stared at him with eyes that had gone even larger with surprise. Vader moved nearer, inviting him in. He saw his son hesitate, but only for a second. In the next, Luke had moved so he was sheltering against the side of Vader’s leg. He seemed surprised to even be there, and he kept staring at Vader’s cloak. One hand grabbed onto its edge, rubbing his fingers along the torn parts. Then he looked up, as if afraid Vader might shake him off. And when Vader did not, his eyes shone with something close to gratitude.

Igniting his lightsaber, Vader looked out at the field. The primitive life forces of the plants clashed with the emptiness of the infected hiding amongst them: laborers and mechanics out in the fields, utilizing and repairing droids when the disease struck and reduced to prowling through stalks of grain or lurking, hidden, in the knee-deep water. And there was another concern: if the borrats had been infected, then so could other animals. The water could hide infected aquatic animals; the fields might part to reveal a herd of normally herbivorous mammals, ready to attack should they sense them. 

Vader looked down at both his children. They had no other choice; Leia’s life was on the line. “Are you ready?”

Luke looked terrified, but he nodded. In his arms, Leia peered up from beneath the hood of her blanket and nodded weakly as well. She closed her eyes and dropped her head back down.

Vader dropped the shield around them and stepped out into the rain.

Chapter Text

Leia was having a strange dream. 

She dreamed that she was back in Alderaan, playing in the woods. In her dream it was raining, not a thunderstorm but one of those light, mild showers that Alderaan had. She kept trying to climb up the trees, scrambling along the rough bark and leaping for the lowest branches. In her dream she kept failing though, so eventually she started running under the roots, which were big and deep, dodging her parents and giggling as they tried to catch her until she was so worn out, her father had to carry her back to her bedroom.

A deep rumble and a flash of light against her eyelids brought the dream to an end just as swiftly as it brought back the memories of the last few days. Her head hurt and her body ached and her stomach felt like it was tumbling inside her and she was so, so cold. She was sick, very sick. She was far from home. And her father was not here.

She was being carried, however.

Leia scrunched her face as water kept splashing into it. Not only was she cold, she was also quite wet. Her clothes were sticking to her and itching at the edges, but she was too tired to scratch. The blanket wrapped around her was equally wet and cold and itchy. And she ached, all the way down to her bones. It took a huge effort just to breathe; to open her eyes was almost more than she could handle. All she wanted to do was sleep, but she ached so much that whenever she drifted off, the pain would bring her right back.

It felt like she was being carried on the back of a roba, what with the constant swaying motion and the swish of plants and water. It was the hardest roba she’d ever ridden, though. Finally, her curiosity made her open her eyes just a little. 

She blinked some more droplets from her eyelashes. All she saw was a lot of gray and black. She could hear a distant sizzle, as if something was burning. Everything looked very fuzzy, too, except for the black parts nearest her. That part looked shiny, water sliding down the hard surface and along the many ridges in fat drops. It didn’t surprise her when she angled her head slightly and saw the edge of Vader’s mask, only inches from her face. She had known that it was him all along, while she was drifting in the haze between sleep and wakefulness.

He must have become aware that she was awake, because she saw his mask tilt in her direction, down towards her face, hidden beneath the hood of the blanket. But he didn’t stop or speak, he just looked at her for a long moment, and kept walking.

Leia let herself be rocked by the motion for a bit, closing her eyes once more. With the blanket around her, all the sounds of the environment came swaddled in softness, from the constant fall of rain splashing into the water, to the swish of the plants rubbing against each other, to the slash of Vader’s lightsaber as he cut through them. She looked at it with a dreamy distance, watching the pattern of his movements as he used it. It was the brightest thing for miles around, the red glow reflecting off the wetly shining armor. She kept staring at it, fascinated by the way the light played off the surface. It was so cold that parts of his helmet was starting to fog up, and Leia was tempted to start drawing funny patterns in it. Then she blinked and realized that would be really, really dumb, and also she couldn’t even move her arm very well anyway.

Vader kept the lightsaber in front of him, away from his body. Every few inches he would swing it in an arc in front, cutting so that the plants would fall away from them. It was almost comforting, the repetition of the movement, the way the plants fell before him in one large mass to lean against the other stalks. 

And there were other sounds, only identifiable when she opened her eyes again - the hiss of rain running down the saber, the hard splash as plants fell into piles in his wake, the sloshing motion of water as he and Luke pushed through the flood. If she looked over his shoulder, she could see a path of burnt stalks behind them. It lasted only a few feet; beyond that was only gray fog, and already the building was so far away it was no longer visible. 

Vader halted. 

The sudden stop jolted Leia enough to make her look. Vader was staring straight ahead, through the thick stalks. She rubbed the water from her face, but there were more falling from the edge of the blanket where it hooded her face. Squinting, she tried to see what he had seen. 

There was movement ahead - a shadowed figure slouching amongst the stalks.

Vader shut off his lightsaber. His hand dropped to his side; why, Leia wasn’t sure. He held himself perfectly still, except for his mask. Leia could see his mask follow the figure as stumbled in front of them, crossing from the right to their left. And Leia, feeling the tension in his arm, held her breath as well.

It was probably only a minute of waiting, but to Leia it seemed to take forever before the infected person was out of sight, fading into the rain. Only then did Vader reignite his lightsaber and begin to move forward, slowly, cautiously. She wondered why he hadn’t just killed it, like he had so many others even when she’d complained about it - but thinking about it too hard made her head ache, so she stopped.

Where was Luke? She knew he was there but she could not see him. Making a massive effort, she lifted her head and looked around. Finally she spotted him, almost hidden on Vader’s other side, beneath his cloak. He had his own blanket wrapped around him and was holding onto that with one hand. His other hand was bunched in the folds of the cape. Leia thought worriedly that he needed to stay warm; the water was up to Luke’s waist and he was shivering. He can’t swim, she thought distractedly, and here he was, having to wade through muddy water in freezing rain.

Luke seemed to sense her gaze. Peeking out from beneath Vader’s cloak, he smiled tentatively at her. His hair was slick with rain even with him sheltering under the cloak, and he was breathing heavily from the cold water and having to keep up with Vader’s strides. Each of his steps looked more like he was hurling himself forward through the water. The movement created a small wave, swirling water around Vader’s own form, knocking aside twigs, bits of plant material, and clumps of grass. 

Leia smiled back wanly, feeling guilty that she got to be carried while he had to walk. Perhaps she ought to switch places with him… which was the last coherent thought she had for a while. Between the sloshing water and the patter of rain and the rocking movement, her mind drifted off, numbed by the unchanging landscape, the hum of the lightsaber. They and the plants and the pelting rain were the only things in the world, and the dark mass of the woods at the edge never seemed to grow any closer. 

But Vader kept going, treading through the flood of water that now reached his boots, while Luke followed, hidden as best as he could beneath his cloak. He had dropped his hand, flinging his arms around to try and give him more momentum to push through the water. Leia could see nothing else around, not even the infected, and she allowed herself to fall into that half-dreamy haze. Sometimes they would stop again as an infected person, or two, or three, passed by them. The first few times she opened her eyes to watch. The infected were just shadows most times, figures passing through the grain slowly and then disappearing into the fog. After a while she let herself be lulled again into sleepiness by the rhythm of walking, stopping, walking, stopping again… 

Time passed, she wasn’t sure how much. It felt like it could have been seconds or it could have been hours when she opened her eyes again. The sky was so dark that she could not tell if it was morning or noon or evening, it all looked the same. They were still surrounded by the plants, but they looked even taller, so tall and heavy their tops drooped back down in the rain to hover just over his helmet. Leia stared at them as they passed by. In the rain and with so many, they were a blur of thick, grayish stalks, thorny leaves justin out every few inches and grainy heads poking out at the top. They swayed in the rain, back and forth, leaves twisting eerily.

Until, with a shocked yelp, Luke went sprawling into the water.

The sound of the splash and Vader’s voice shouting “Luke!” startled Leia awake. She pushed herself away from him, for one wild moment thinking Vader had done something to Luke and ready to protect him. But Vader swung around so quickly his lightsaber would have slashed through Luke’s head had it still been there. As if realizing that, he doused it but kept it in his hand as he reached straight into the water.

And Leia saw, to her horror, a thrashing form in the water being dragged away from them - being pulled by something into the stalks where they couldn’t reach. Vader’s hand came up empty, only holding his lightsaber. Luke’s blanket sank into the water, disappearing.

But Vader moved forward with a surge of strength that pressed Leia against him. His lightsaber split the air, glowing red, and he hefted it, changed his position on it, and stabbed it straight into the water.

A huge ripple split the water, an entire line stretching five feet in front of them, going straight into the stalks of grain. The ripples turned into a bubbling foam and Leia, clutching hold of Vader, gasped as a sinuous dark form floated up, writhing in its death throes. He pulled back, lightsaber hissing, and shut it off, hooking it to his belt in one smooth motion.

The next second, Vader plunged a hand back into the water, right where the splashing was biggest and strongest - and came out with Luke, gasping and spitting water. Vader had grabbed him by the back of his shirt. Luke was kicking and Leia could see where the big black snake-thing had coiled itself around his leg. But finally it stopped wriggling and went limp, still floating along the water, allowing Luke to pull himself free. Vader hauled him back to his side, a sodden mass, then straightened sharply, pressing Luke to his side. The movement was sudden enough that Leia had to grab hold with her uninjured arm to keep from suddenly sliding to one side.

“Wha-” Luke choked out, shaking water from his eyes.

Vader clamped a hand on his shoulder tightly.

Leia looked around and sucked in a breath as an infected passed right in front of her. 

It was so close she could see how the rain had darkened its torn clothing. She could see it was a human, a man, but his skin had turned grayish and… bubbly, she thought, with a sick twist in her stomach. Its eyes were a dark gray too, like he had gone blind, and as it shuffled past her, she caught sight of the dark lines of its veins… exactly like the ones on her bitten arm.

Luke was breathing almost as loudly as Vader, eyes wide. Water dripped off his hair and into his eyes, down his nose, getting into his mouth, but he was holding himself totally still. The infected stumbled through the water, making the stream slosh in big muddy waves around its legs. It sniffed, jerking its head from one side, then the other. Trying to find them, Leia thought, trying her hardest not to move at all, not even to breathe too much. Vader felt like a statue she was resting against, his only movement the slight turn of his masked head as he watched the infected pass by. As it rounded by Luke, Leia saw Vader’s hand tighten even more on Luke’s shoulder. Luke’s face looked like he was in pain, but he kept quiet, eyes widening slightly.

Finally, the infected disappeared into the grain, the stalks parting as it pushed through and then returning with the slap of wet leaves. Only then did Leia feel the slightest softening of Vader’s arm around her as he relaxed, removing his hand from Luke’s shoulder.

Luke let out a big breath and began to wipe at his face. Vader stared at him for a second, then kneeled down so that they were both level with him. He was still holding Leia, and with him bent down, she was practically sitting on his leg.

“Are you all right?” he asked Luke, loud enough to be heard over the pouring rain.

Leia thought that was a bit of a silly question, because Luke did not look all right to her. He was more drenched than ever before, even more than when they were in the sewer and he’d decided to fall straight into the water. There were flecks of mud soaking into his tunic and dirt leaving streaks along his skin as the rain continued to splatter him. He looked too shaken to speak.

Vader grasped Luke’s shoulder. “Luke, are you hurt?”

“N-no,” he finally managed to say. He was shaking so badly that his words were coming out in small, chilled gasps. “No… I… don’t think so…” His shivering grew more violent, and he grabbed at Vader’s hand, without thinking, Leia thought, clinging to where it rested on his shoulder. “What grabbed… what was-”

Vader did not loosen his grip on Luke or shake him off. “Some kind of eel or serpent, perhaps. Or a swamp slug.” 

“Swamp slug…” Luke’s eyes were wide with fear. “W-was it… sick? Infected?”

Vader straightened, removing his hand (Luke looked a little crestfallen at that). He pushed through the water towards the slug-eel-snake thing and gave it a kick. 

It rolled over in the water, and Leia saw the head appear - a bulbous thing with several eyes, a pair of long feelers, and sharp teeth. There was a blackened hole in its head where Vader had stabbed it with his lightsaber. He examined it now, helmet tilting.

“No,” said Vader at last, making Luke’s shoulders sag with relief and Leia release a faint sigh. “That would explain why it was able to find you. The shield only obscures our presence in the Force. A creature like this would still be able to sense any vibrations through the water.” 

“S-so…” Luke said, still shivering, “there might be more of them? And they could find us?”

Vader turned in a wide semicircle, looking at the stalks around them. Still holding Leia, he tugged Luke closer, back beneath his cloak, before reigniting his lightsaber. Again he turned, searching, hunting, and feeling his paranoia, Leia darted nervous looks around as well, searching behind Vader’s massive form. She tried to wound her arm around his neck, but it wasn’t responding, like it had disconnected from her brain, so she just flopped it as best as she could over Vader’s shoulder. Were they swimming amongst the plants? Lurking in the mud? Or worst of all: gliding silently around them, hidden in the constant ripples and waves of the water as the storm continued to pour down? She stared at the muddy flood around them. If it was in the water then there was nothing they could do; the dirt that had mixed with it was thick enough that she could see nothing.

But finally, he stopped. “I do not think there are others nearby.” 

“And the - the infected?” He looked around again, at the small gap they had made in the grain.

“There are still many more of them around.” He tugged Luke even closer to his side. “Which is why we must remain alert, for both types of creatures. Stay as far from the plants as you can, Luke; if another water creature grabs you and drags you into there, it will make it more difficult to find you.” He glanced at Leia briefly, like he was checking she was safe.

She gazed at him from beneath the blanket, lifting her head up as much as she could. “You didn’t kill it,” she whispered.

Vader turned back to stare at her. After a moment, he said, “It would have alerted others to our position.”

She blinked sleepily. “Mmhm.” It was tiring to keep her head up, and she dropped back down to rest against his shoulder.

He paused for the space of a second, then looked back at Luke. “Keep hold of me. Do not stray.” He lit his lightsaber once again, as Luke grabbed firmly hold of his cape, and looked around them - all around them - one last time.

They moved on. Leia took her arm off of him, feeling awkward, but Vader still said nothing. He acted like he did not even see or feel it. They moved even slower now: Luke was edgy around all the plants after having been grabbed by the eel or slug or whatever it was, huddling so close to Vader that Leia wondered how he wasn’t tripping over Luke. Both of them moved even more carefully, pulling back where the plants remained uncut. Vader, she thought, was slicing them down in an even wider arc than before. But that took more time, he had to stop and cut more for every step. And still they continued on, through the roaring rain, the dark mist of it showing nothing ahead except, in rare instances, when a fork of lightning split the sky and thunder rumbled through the clouds.

Vader stopped once again.

Leia, about to fall back into her trance, was jolted out of it. She saw Vader swing his saber in front of Luke, bringing him to a halt as well. When she lifted her head, he was staring straight ahead of them, and even through the mask she could feel the intensity of his gaze.

She turned, trying to look as well, pressing her good arm against his shoulder for support when it felt like her body was too weak to hold her up. 

They had almost reached the edge of the field, an area where the grain became shorter and more scattered. But instead of directly merging into the woods, the dense plain dropped off rapidly into a massive swamp. There were places where it seemed people had been clearing it out: places where she saw bushes torn up and piled along the edge of the field, the stumps of trees, pipes laid to drain water, and in the distance, the shape of a tractor-droid. 

But even just a few feet beyond that, she could see it was mostly still wilderness. Huge trees rose out of dark, swirling mud. And the water - the ground dropped off into a wide expanse of it. But it was not like the cool, clear lakes of Alderaan. Here the water was as thick and muddy as in the fields. Islands of matted plant life or wet soil jutted out all over the water, and the trees hung over it, low branches and leaves brushing the surface and leaving more material drifting over the already dank water. The rain splashed through the branches and made huge ripples; Leia could see masses of algae and moss hanging off the trees, drifting along the swamp. Sometimes she’d see a giant log and think it was some surface to stand on, only to see it move away or sink into the water.

And moving in and out of the water, barely noticeable until she looked, really looked, were shapes. Humanoid shapes, but slinking through the water like fish, their backs and heads breaking occasionally through the surface only to dive back down. She could see rounded heads and giant eyes on many of them; others were tentacled, making her think of the plant roots - or the infected that had attacked her in the stairwell.

Without thinking, Leia wrapped her unhurt arm around Vader’s neck once again. She was surprised, this time, to feel him squeeze her tighter for one brief second. It almost made her let go of him.

Luke stared at the swamp before them, fear palpable. “Are they…”

“Infected,” Vader answered before he could finish the sentence. He watched the cresting shapes for a moment, head following one that got particularly close for a few seconds. “Mon Calamari. Some Quarren as well.”

Something churned in Leia’s memory: her father, discussing politics with an uncle. It had become a heated argument, about a problem in the Outer Rim that was morphing into ones closer to home, especially of non-human beings, hidden under words like “labor force” and “importation”...

“Are they…” Leia lifted her head to stare at them, curiosity overcoming her tiredness for a second. “Aren’t the Mon Calamari slaves?”

She was sure she felt Vader twitch under her arm. “It does not matter,” he said forcefully. 

“They’re slaves?” whispered Luke. But when Vader turned his masked head to stare at him, he went silent. He was too frightened to say more, and Leia too tired and in pain. But it lashed at her, the revelation, and it was somehow worse than if they had been other beings. They were forced to come here, someone had made them. It wasn’t their fault for getting sick, and especially not their fault for anything they did because they were sick, and now they had no choice in whether they would get better or die.

The downpour of rain was the only sound for a time. “So what do we do?” asked Luke, words so quiet they were almost lost. A strong wind battered them at that moment, whipping at leaves and branches and sending the water sloshing over them. Despite being protected by Vader’s cloak, with his blanket gone, Luke was drenched along his back and arms - even more than he already was.

Vader pointed with his lightsaber towards something. Leia turned, the movement finally exhausting her, squinting as water batted at her eyelids. It was so dark with the clouds and the downpour that she wasn’t sure what she was looking at, everything kept blurring in and out of focus. But finally, she saw what Vader was looking at: a narrow series of wooden bridges and crossings, a few buildings on stilts out of the water. 

“These will lead us towards the woods,” said Vader, though Leia did not know how he could be so sure.

Luke swallowed. “So we're going to… swim there?” His voice shook on the last words.

Vader shook his head and indicated one of the trees. It had huge roots that rose out of the water and sank into it, out of sight. “The water is too deep for any of us to swim through it.” And Leia, clutching onto him, was suddenly aware of how heavy his armor must be. “I will drop the shield. We will have to jump across and then make our way to the other side.”

Luke’s voice was small beneath his cape. “They’ll find us then, won’t they? The sla - the infected in the water.”

“Yes. And the ones hiding in the fields.”

Luke whipped around at that and was almost tangled in the cape. “The fields? They’ll be able to sense us all the way from there?”

“Yes,” said Vader resignedly. He moved his lightsaber so it hovered above Luke. “But I will protect you. I will not let them harm you.” 

By killing them, Leia thought. Killing enslaved beings. She had thought it’d be different when Vader hadn’t hurt the ones hiding in the grain. It made her feel sick in a very different way from what the bite was doing to her.

Vader tilted his head towards the wooden walkways. “Come. We must get as close as we can.”

They sloshed along the edge of the field until they reached an area where the heads of grain were the fewest, clumps barely sprouting from the flooded soil rather than the large stands they had been passing through. But with every step away from the most carefully tended parts, they drew nearer to the wilder areas of the swamp, and Leia could see the water growing murkier, if possible, and deeper; it splashed in waves against Vader’s thighs and threatened to pull Luke into its current. Mud splattered on Vader’s cloak, his armor, and all over Luke’s face, and he had to swipe at it and the constant rain.

At last, they stopped. Carefully, Vader put Leia down, trying to place her on the steadiest piece of ground available. She unwound her arm from around him, swaying at being put on her feet after so long, and clung to her blanket. Her legs felt like jelly, her head too big for her body, and the world tipped dangerously until Vader put a hand to her forehead. The air seemed to shirt just a little, and something warm spread down her body, steadying her.

He stepped aside, and a glimmer of understanding came to her. 

“You’re going to stay behind,” she said, “aren’t you?”

Vader regarded her for a moment, seemingly unsurprised. “They will come for me first,” he told her. “I will hold them off while you and Luke get as far as you can.”

“But you’ll come with us after, right?” asked Luke.

A pause. “Yes, Luke,” Vader replied, “I will come with you.” He held his lightsaber aloft, the sword hissing as rain scattered over its surface, and held out his hand. “Hold on.”

Luke grabbed hold of Leia’s left hand, letting her lean against him. Leia felt something change in the atmosphere once more, a sense of sounds growing louder, her vision more focused. The shield, she realized, the shield had dropped. Vader raised his hand.

Their feet left the ground, and she might have yelped if this had not happened to her multiple times already. They soared through the air, Leia feeling her stomach whoosh uncomfortably as they sailed over a stream of mud and water and reeds, over clumps of floating dirt and grass, over strange shapes in the water below, fast enough that their face was drenched with rain and droplets from the trees - until with a thud that almost sent them sprawling, they landed. Leia knew what would happen, waited with bated breath for the telltale screech of the monsters.

It came almost as soon as she thought it.

They swarmed from everywhere - Mon Calamari bursting with a massive splash from the water, gurgling horribly; humans tearing through the fields; Quarren appearing from behind the rain itself; and leaping from the very trees, something huge and hairy. 

Before their eyes the mud-covered infected began crawling up the bridge. They hurled themselves out of the water covered in floating plant matter and algae and moss. Vader turned in a whirl, cape billowing out behind him, pushing his hand out. Leia saw several of the nearest infected being hurled backwards from them as if pulled by an invisible rope, disappearing beneath the water. But she knew that would not hold them for long.

A voice echoed through her mind: Run!

Luke pulled hard at her hand - had he heard the same thing? Together they wobbled along the rickety bridge, stumbling over the jutting planks, Leia clutching her injured arm close to her body. It was so narrow they could not even run side by side, and Luke pushed her ahead of him. There were no railings, just impenetrable water on either side of them, and the wood was so slick with rain that if they took one misstep they’d end up falling into it. Leia could see the ripples of water from the constant rainfall - or was it the air bubbles of something lurking beneath? She clutched at the edges of her blanket whilst also trying to balance, the hood flapping off.

There was a small platform just ahead, sitting, like all the rest, on a set of stilts and support poles. From there multiple crossings spread out, but only one led to a building as far as Leia could see, the others disappearing into a thickening fog.

They reached the landing just as the wooden slats exploded beneath their feet.

Leia screamed as a mud-covered infected burst through the wood. It was covered in so much plant matter that she could not even tell what species it was, only that it was shrieking, teeth tearing through the wood as its clawed hands thrashed in their direction, trying to catch them. One hand snatched at her blanket and tore it from her before she even had time to comprehend it. Luke tripped and crawled onto the other side from the gap on instinct, but the blanket was twisted around her unbitten arm. She cried out again as she was pulled towards the edge, the blanket cutting into her flesh, slipping on the wet wood and falling on her back. Her other arm was useless, barely able to scrabble at the entangled fabric. Just inches from going over the edge, Leia saw the water churning beneath her. Struggling to keep from falling in and totally separated from Luke, on either side of the platform, she yelled at him, “Keep going!”

Luke did not say anything. Determination filled his face and Leia knew, as clearly as if she had read his thoughts, that he was going to stay and fight. She opened her mouth to tell him not to be so stupid and to just run - 

He grabbed a bunch of the moss growing along the platform, balled it up into one soggy mass, and flung it in all the infected being’s face with all the strength he could muster. 

The plant stuff walloped the infected and splattered its face just enough to make it loosen its hold on Leia’s blanket. She twisted her arm free, then grabbed at a plank, feeling splinters under her palm. Launching herself back to her feet, she fled up the rest of the bridge and took hold of Luke. Together they ran, fast as they could, leaving behind the choking, snorting infected.

They reached the landing and took the only bridge that looked promising. This one sloped upward and was marginally wider; Leia ran side by side with Luke. But the rain sliding down made it even more slippery, and both of them fell at different points, ending up scrambling up on hands and knees as they tried to regain their footing. Gurgling snarls could be heard beneath them, but so long as they kept getting higher it would be all right…. 

Both children yelped as another clawed hand reached through the water and dug long nails into the wood - there was one on their right, tearing gouges - and then another on the left, making splinters erupt around them. Stick-like arms thrust up and hauled its body up, claws reaching for Luke - 

Leia forgot entirely that she had tried to defend them, forgot everything about them being sentient beings, forgot that she had been about to tell Luke to leave her when she was attacked. She only knew that she had to stop them from grabbing Luke - and so without thinking, she lifted her foot and stomped right on its wrist. 

Bone snapped beneath her foot. The infected lost its hold and tumbled back into the water with a splash that soaked her and Luke from head to foot. She swayed, unbalanced, only able to use one arm to keep herself upright - until Luke was at her side, steadying her. He shouted something right in her ear - it might have been “Come on!” - and pulled her up the sloped ridge as more and more infected burst out. There was a rickety building on the next platform, with a thin slatted door swinging open.

Then one of the infected roared out of the water. It was too far below them, it could not reach them, could not get out of the water, and Leia thought that they were safe, it was okay.

The infected opened its mouth. Leia heard a horrible noise, something between choking and strangling.

Something thick and gooey splattered across her face. The force of it made her stagger. She tasted dirt and vegetable matter, gagged on it, inhaled it. She couldn’t see and she was unbalanced and she tripped, smacking onto the wood. Frantically she rubbed at her face, tossing off bits of mud, and her mind was screaming, keep going, keep going, don’t stop so she was trying to wipe her face with just one hand and run at the same time even though she could barely see where she was going, was in danger of plummeting off the ramp if she took even one wrong step.

Then she heard another strangling sound. Something whizzed through the air, close enough Leia felt it almost graze her cheek and Leia instinctively threw herself down and felt it splash just inches from where she’d fallen. Smearing away the last of the mud on her face, she saw Luke ahead of her, shaking off more bits of his own faceful of mud, the pieces falling in large globs all over the floor. And along the tall ridge poles, the infected were boiling out of the water, reaching up towards them.

One of them stopped, sniffed the air; Leia could see the lines of tentacles beneath the clotted mud, spot the blackened vessels and gray skin of its sickness. Its glassy eyes focused on her - and then with a warning shriek, it clambered up the pole like it was nothing and came running straight for her, shoving itself towards her. Leia fell back. The thing came again and she kicked out on instinct, but it was slick with water and mud and its screams pierced her ears and her foot slipped off the body.

“Get off of her!”

Something small and drenched in mud hurtled itself at the monster. Carried by Luke’s momentum, it was tossed off the platform and into the water.

Leia grabbed Luke’s proffered hand, wobbling to her feet. “We have to get inside!” she yelled, pointing at the building. 

There was one way there, a shaky rope and wood suspension bridge that careened downwards  so that at its center it hung a mere foot off the water. There was no time for fear or hesitation; Leia simply pulled at Luke and ran. The bridge bounced horribly beneath them and a board cracked, sending Leia falling, one foot caught in the space of the broken plank and almost hitting the surface of the water. Her palms and knees smacked into the wood painfully. Luke leaped over and grabbed at her arm, almost wrenching it from her shoulder.

“Get up!” he yelled.

The bridge was swinging wildly under their struggles and Leia could see bubbles forming in the water beneath, a warning that the infected were congregating beneath them. They sprinted the rest of the way, grabbing at the slippery ropes for support as the bridge sloped up. With a final burst of speed, the two reached hard wooden ground and Luke grabbed the door. Leia, shooting a look behind her, saw no sign of Vader anywhere before she was pulled inside.

They slammed the door shut. Leia took in the room with one glance, seeing wooden walls and a wooden ceiling and wooden beams, before finding some old, rickety furniture, also made of wood, much of it looking like it was rotting from the rain and lack of upkeep. As if reading her mind, Luke shot forward and grabbed one of the pieces, hauling it over with loud gasps of effort. Leia, legs wobbling as much as if she were still on the bridge, helped him, and they heaved it in front of the door. Another small table was tipped over on the ground near them, and Luke pushed that towards the door as well. 

Panting, Leia backed away, listening. Her head was swimming, her body prickling painfully, her limbs trembling, but some instinct told her not to rest: told her she had to stay alert, to try and listen for any danger. The sounds of the infected were fading a little, and she remembered what Vader said about them not being able to sense them unless they were close. Maybe, maybe they were far away enough that they had been forgotten. They were several feet above the water and a lot of them had gone for…

Seemingly reading her thoughts once more, Luke looked around. “Where - where-?”

Leia shook her head. “I don’t-”

The floor blew up beneath their feet.

Dozens of clawed hands tore through the thin planks of wood, nails scratching the air. As one, Luke and Leia screamed, hurtling back, Leia towards the other door, Luke all the way on the other side where the only way out was a window, too high up for him to reach. More wood burst in a shower of splinters. The arms latched onto the floor, on the unbroken planks, even at the lowest edges of the walls, and heaved up, revealing round, hairless heads and great orb-like eyes that had turned glassy from disease.

“Luke!” Leia screamed, waving her arm frantically, but he was trapped by several feet of biting heads and grasping arms.

“Go!” he yelled at her. “Just run!”

No! She wasn’t leaving him, she refused to leave him - 

Her eyes fell on half a plank of wood, its end broken into sharp pointy bits.

Leia scooped it up and brought it hurtling down on the nearest infected’s head. Her aim was clumsy but she was so close it didn’t matter. It cracked right atop the thing’s skull. With a yowl it sank from its shoulders to its neck, still snapping its teeth. A second hit made it fall further. She smacked it a third and final time and watched it go under.

She looked up at Luke, panting, head aching. “Come on!” 

Luke took a big breath, then began run-jumping from one area of unbroken wood to another. Some of them burst just seconds after he leapt off of them; one broke as he landed, and would have sent him into the water had he not made a lightning-fast jump in time. Another infected pushed its head through that hole but Leia, reaching forward heedlessly, jammed the wood into its huge eye. White fluid burst out in a spray as the monster sank down. Another tried to bite her hand but she jerked back and smacked it as Luke leaped over it, landing next to her.

“Let’s go!” he exclaimed, hauling her up.

They hurtled out onto another platform. The rain was letting up, they could see a bit further through the mist of dampness. The trees kept getting higher, but ahead, Leia saw something, something that could save them: a downed transport ship at the end of one last, long wooden crossing that stretched through fog and trees. Her body was shaking, her legs were starting to give out, there was a harsh buzzing in her ears, but she knew only one thing: have to keep going. Because if she stopped, Luke would stop, and she could not bear for Luke to get taken by one of them - or worse, infected as she was.

Through a mouth that was even dry even with the pouring rain, she grabbed onto Luke with her free hand, still holding the plank of wood in the other, and said, “Come on! Just a bit more - a bit more!”

They ran.

The crossing sloped downwards which made it even harder; the only mercy was that it was wide enough for them both without one slipping over the other. Twice they skidded into each other or almost over the edge, one or the other grabbing them to keep them from falling. The infected were bursting out on all sides, but they ran so fast they passed right by them - and maybe something more. Leia thought for one wild second that maybe Vader was doing something or protecting them still because she saw several infected turn away from them and run back, back towards the fields, towards the places they had left behind. He was nowhere in sight, not even the glow of his saber visible behind the drizzle and the fog. For all she knew he was creating a mass of writhing bodies but she had no time anymore to pity them, no energy to wish they could help. All she knew was to run.

“We’re close!” Luke yelled, pointing ahead. It was a transport, looking almost intact, half sunk into the water in the midst of a clearing between dozens of trees. Its wings had crashed through a mass of buildings and bridges and trees to lie, partially submerged, in the water. All they had to do was jump to the last wooden crossing, run across the surface, and then get to the door - 

Leia heard only a warning shriek before a dark shape jumped out of the tallest tree in a blur of motion.

“Look out!” was all Luke had time to shout before a huge, hairy thing was on top of them.

The force of the jump slammed both of them into the wooden platform and partially through it. The plank fell from her hand. Splinters of wood exploded out in a wave around them and Leia felt her pain and Luke’s, somehow both part of her and separate from her, a tearing along her arms and her legs - and his terror as he fell down towards the water -

But then the jumper released Leia. It went for Luke - it grabbed him, hauling him back up, saving him from plunging into the water. But it had done so only so it could eat him. It was massive, bigger than Vader, all bloodied fur and a massive, red jaw lined with teeth opening to clamp down on Luke’s body. 

It’s an infected Wookiee, Leia realized dazedly. And all at once, a second bolt of realization - she was infected, too.  That was why it had let her go - it didn’t want her, it knew she was sick, it probably could barely sense her, but Luke,  Luke wasn’t sick - 

The buzz in her head was only increasing in volume but she found herself getting to her feet anyway, though the world tipped about her. Luke, she kept thinking, I have to get to Luke. 

With all the force that she could, she leaped on the Wookiee, grappling at its hairy back and tearing out bits of its fur.

The Wookiee roared and thrust itself upright. Leia grabbed frantically at its fur but it was so wet it slipped from her hands and she landed on her back with a thump that knocked the breath from her lungs. She saw Luke dive for something. 

He found the plank of wood, drew it back over his shoulder, and sent it plunging straight towards the Wookiee’s face. 

It slammed into the Wookiee’s mouth with such a wet squelch Leia thought its whole jaw might break. Instead it gargled, mud and saliva and other liquids Leia did not want to think about spewing around the plank. 

Luke gagged as he was almost hit with flecks of it, releasing the plank and stumbling back. Leia, breath tearing at her lungs, ran around to grab him and pull him back with her. 

The Wookiee stood there for a moment, gray eyes looking momentarily shocked. Maybe it hadn’t expected them to fight back. 

It clamped its jaws down. 

The plank of wood snapped into a shower of pieces. With a growl, it spat out the remainder. Its eyes fell back on Luke, clawed, furry hands grabbing onto the planks for purchase. Luke scrambled back, dragging Leia with him too - only to bang against something hard. The wall, they were up against a wall of a building with nowhere to go. 

The Wookiee lurched forward, arms extended, mouth open, straight for Luke to tear into his flesh.

Red light arced in a circle around its waist.

With a gasp, Leia saw the Wookie freeze. Its fur was hissing, the smell of it burning making her nose hurt, stronger than the smell of molding wood and rain. Behind them, Vader landed so hard he made the entire landing shake.

Her head was still ringing from being tossed about, her vision wavering, but through it she saw the Wookiee staring dully at them - and then its body split neatly in half. The lower part slid slowly through the hole in the wood it had created. She heard the dull splash of its body landing in the water, and a wave of sickness crashed over her as the Wookiee’s upper half writhed - and then began clawing its way towards a scrambling Luke, not caring at all that it had lost part of its body.

This time, the swing of Vader’s lightsaber cut it off at the neck. Its head bounced off the floor and over the edge, dropping with a plop into the water below. The torso slumped, went still, save for its furred hands. Those kept wriggling, like it still wanted to grab Luke, even after the head was gone.

Familiar breathing filled her ears, louder even than the howling cacophony of the monsters left behind them. It cycled faster than she’d ever heard it, and she could see Vader’s body moving jerkily, as if he too was panting from exertion. He swept his gaze over the area for all of half a second before grabbing Luke and Leia by the backs of their shirts. Mud splattered his armor and his cape, coated his boots and his gloves - everything except for his mask and his saber.

Without a word, he thrust them like dolls onto the crossing. They ran the rest of the way to the transport, Vader right behind them. He pulled open the door with a crash upon reaching it, before heaving all of them inside. A second crash echoed around the enclosed area as he slammed the door shut hard enough to make the whole thing wobble on the unsteady ground that it had landed on. The echo of it thrust itself like a shard into Leia’s head.

“Leia, your ship.” 

Vader. 

She swayed and he grabbed her by the arm. Everything was going fuzzy. “Where is it?” His voice was booming in her head.

The ship, the ship, that was all anyone wanted, she thought disorientedly; what did it matter when she was going to die. She couldn’t find it now, her body hurt, her head hurt, she didn’t want to think, to move, to breathe - 

“One last time, Leia.” Vader’s voice, simultaneously commanding and persuasive, “just once more. We will find it and I will make the hurt go away.”

And if she couldn’t? She was sick, she was going to turn into them. Would he leave her then?

His hand found her cheek, tilted her face up to his. “No,” he said, “I will not abandon you.”

Her very body rebelled, the knife in her mind blazing cold as ice - but she tried. She reached out, one last time, as he had said, even as her vision exploded into stars.

The second to last thing she was aware of was raising her arm to point in a direction, a direction she could not even see but she knew it was the right one, as the ice cold knife buried itself in her brain.

The very last was someone, she could not recognize the voice, calling out her name.

Chapter Text

“Luke, get the pack!”

That was all Vader said as Leia’s eyes rolled up into the back of her head and she began to thrash. Luke needed no other instructions; he was already hurling the pack towards Vader. At the same time, he felt the blanket of silence fall over them and the noise of the monsters outside began to fade as they lost them, but there was no time to take comfort in that when Leia’s entire body was seizing up right in front of them both.

Vader grabbed Leia, ignoring the blows he received from her flailing arms. One hand smacked against his chest plate, another made contact with his helmet, but he acted like it was nothing. Her feet were beating a pattern against the deck and her body arched once, twice. Horrible choking noises were coming from her mouth, like she couldn’t breathe. They sounded terribly familiar for a reason Luke couldn’t comprehend at first - until he realized that she sounded like the infected that had been attacking them all this time.

Luke stood there helplessly, not knowing what to do, as Vader pulled a hypo from his pack. He did not even look at it, he seemed to know exactly what it was, as he placed it against Leia’s neck and pushed the top.

Leia stiffened, gagging. Her flailing continued but her muscles had gone limp, flopping bonelessly. This lasted for a few seconds before she subsided into a constant trembling that rocked her body, lying against Vader’s legs. Vader pulled her up, letting her rest against him, and it should have been weird, but Luke had seen him carry Leia through an entire field, he had seen him feed her, and he no longer knew what was normal anymore. He was just scared, terrified that she was getting worse and worse…

And it was because of him. Luke knew that, deep down. He had not been fast enough.

Trying to get his mind off what was happening, he cast his eyes around himself. They had made it to the transport, a ship that must have crashed after trying to leave. There was just one narrow row of seats along the wall; the rest was empty space that would have been filled with containers. He saw belts and hooks along the deck that would have been used to hold them in place. But if there had been any cargo, it was long gone, so the deck was just a stretch of metal grating, warped and twisted when the transport had crashed into the swamp. Luke, looking at the shattered viewports and the wrenched door, the torn seat belts along the seats and the scattered pieces of luggage left behind in the corners, thought that it must have been carrying people instead, probably fleeing the planet. As for what happened to them when the ship crashed… he looked out one of the windows. It had a rust-colored smear over a spider web of cracks. Swallowing hard, he looked away. 

A sudden thump at the door made him jump, but it was nowhere near the intensity of before. It ended quickly and Luke saw the shadow of a passing infected being pass by the viewport, its image warped by the cracked transparisteel. Luke knew it had to do with the shield; what he was afraid of was what would happen when it wore Vader out and it came down.

Vader looked up at him sharply, and for a second Luke was afraid he’d heard that thought. But instead he just had that pins and needles feeling, like being under the scanner. Hefting Leia into his other arm, Vader said, “You are wounded.”

Startled from his guilty thoughts, Luke looked down at himself. Beneath the mud and the ooze, there were multiple scratches on his arms and legs, mostly around his elbows and knees. He was so cold from the rain that his limbs had gone mostly numb, he hadn’t even felt it. He still didn’t feel it.

Vader beckoned him over. “Come.”

Luke hesitated, not sure what Vader intended.

“I will not hurt you, Luke,” said Vader. “But I must tend to your wounds. There are other diseases in this world besides the one ravaging its people.”

Still, he wasn’t sure. He kept looking at Leia, who was barely moving, and her arm… her arm that looked like a blackened stick rather than anything living. “Will she… shouldn’t we…?”

Vader sounded weary. “We must let the infected pass before we move on. And I…” He did not go on, but Luke could hear Vader’s own exhaustion leaking through. But Vader said, “We must… take a moment to rest. Her condition is stable, for now. Come here.”

So Luke went to him. Leia’s trembling had stopped, and she was lying, pale and asleep, against Vader. When Luke reached him, however, Vader reached for the chain around his cape. In one movement, he unclipped it, tucked it around Leia, and then left her lying curled beneath it on a seat to go rummage through a container near the front of the ship. He returned with a tattered towel. Bidding Luke closer, they sat on one of the seats - they were all so bent and broken from the crash that there were only a few that were even usable - at which point he picked Leia back up and proceeded to rub off the mud caking both of them. He switched from her to Luke at intervals, beginning with their faces, flicking the mud off their hair, then to their arms, their legs, careful not to get any into their cuts. Once he pulled a twig from right off of Luke’s hair; for Leia, he kept finding wet leaves sticking to her clothes, hidden by the green color.

“Take off your outer layer,” he said to Luke at one point. “It will dry faster that way.”

So Luke did, as well as his boots and his leg wrappings, laying them on the seat to dry with his coat. Vader removed Leia’s green coat, which unfortunately just made the mud on her formerly white dress look even starker, but he did not say anything about that.

This went on for a little while, and Luke kept staring, watching him work, but Vader did not say a word. There were splinters in his wrappings, and he picked them off when he found them, but none had pierced through the cloth into his skin, which was good. It was so quiet, and Vader was being so weirdly nice, that at last he felt safe enough to voice something, something that Leia had said and which he had wanted to protest but had been too scared to at the time, the other thing that was making him feel increasingly horrible. 

He asked, “Are they - those people in the swamp - were they - I mean - are they - really slaves?”

Vader picked up medical supplies from Luke’s pack, not looking at him. “They were dissidents. They resisted the Empire’s rule. Resistance cannot be tolerated, young one. They must be taught a lesson so that other systems will not be inspired by their example.”

That was a lot of words that Luke didn’t fully understand, but he thought he understood the gist of it: they were bad so they were punished. But that didn’t mean it felt right to Luke. “But we shouldn’t hurt them still, right? It’s not their fault they got sick.”

“They earned their fate when they spoke out against the Empire.”

“Yes, but…” Luke struggled to put what he wanted to say into words. “It’s not their fault they were sent here … right? If they’d been sent to another planet, they wouldn’t be sick. So… they can’t help being infected, right? Shouldn’t we… help them?”

“There is no help for them, Luke. There is no cure.” Vader had found an antiseptic wipe. He turned to Leia and dabbed at a cut more forcefully than he should have, making Leia mumble in her sleep. He gentled his movement. “Death is a mercy for them.”

“But… can’t we leave them alive anyway?” asked Luke as Vader turned to him.

“Do you wish for them to continue suffering?” Vader looked up at him fully then. When Luke didn’t respond, mainly because Vader’s masked head looming over him was still kind of terrifying, he began using the wipe on him. It stung. 

It felt like the end of the conversation, but Luke didn’t want it to be. He was scared of how far to push it, but emboldened by the fact that Vader had not, say, kicked him out of the transport for being impertinent, he struggled to find the right words. How could he make him understand why he felt so awful about it? 

“My grandmother was a slave,” he said to Vader at last. “Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen told me once. Uncle Owen’s dad freed her and married her, but they always remembered. Aunt Beru…” He hesitated, because what he was about to tell Vader was technically illegal, but he had to make him see why it felt so wrong. “Aunt Beru… said she used to help deactivate the slave chips, before they had me. She - she said my grandmother would have wanted it.”

Vader had gone very, very still, had stopped wiping at Luke’s cuts. Luke hoped he wasn’t offended at him disagreeing with him so strongly - or worse, was about to go after his aunt for freeing slaves - but it was very, very important to him. 

“She had to go wherever she was told, my grandmother,” Luke said. “What if she’d been sent here? She couldn’t leave because she’s a slave, so she would’ve gotten sick and been killed.” By you, he thought but didn’t say.

There was no response from Vader for the longest time. “That,” he said finally, “is different.”

Luke shook his head. “No it’s not.” He knew that in his heart of hearts.

He thought for sure Vader would just ditch him after that, but he didn’t, he just kept swabbing at his wounds like he thought if he did that, Luke would forget. When he pulled out the bacta patches, Luke tried to pull away - he wasn’t a baby, he could put those on himself - but Vader grabbed his arm before he could move away and held him there, saying, “Do not be foolish. If this is not done correctly, you may contract some parasite in the water, and I will not have you succumb to an illness right after escaping this one.” 

So Luke could only sit there as Vader peeled off each patch and placed them on him, planting them firmly to his skin so they would not fall off if Luke moved or bent a limb or rubbed against them. Even though Luke had argued with him. Even though Leia had, back before she had gotten sick.

Leia had asked that of Vader several times. Why are you helping us? Why are you protecting us? Now, for the first time, as he was being cleaned in a way that only happened with Aunt Beru, Luke wondered the same thing: why? And all the while, the ball of guilt had returned and was building up and up and up… if Leia getting sick was his fault, did it matter if he got hurt? If he caused this, should he be getting any help at all?

But Vader had not answered Leia then and he seemed too busy cleaning him up to answer now. Finally, he seemed to think Luke was as patched up as he could be, so Vader sat him back, then picked up Leia and let her lean against his other arm and began doing the same to her, sticking each patch to her cuts. Luke just stared at him as he did this. He had never imagined that Darth Vader would do anything like this for him, or for Leia… or really, for anybody. 

When Vader finished, he gave Leia that same intense, inspecting gaze, then shifted her back to his other arm, examining her even more intently. She had stopped shivering. Actually, she had stopped moving almost entirely. The only thing Luke could see moving were her fluttering eyelids and the rise and fall of her chest.

Vader just stared at her for a long while, and Luke, worry crawling in his gut, had no idea what he was thinking and was too afraid to ask. But the fear was wriggling into his mind: was Leia going to die? And deep, deep down: how much of it was his doing? That would be the worst thing: that he had helped Leia die. Vader had insisted, over and over, that she wouldn’t; Leia had said too that she had been bitten before she’d ever met him. And for reasons Luke did not understand, he trusted both of them, at least on that. But it was also because whenever Luke thought of Leia dying, it was like a big black hole had opened in his chest, a void so painful he couldn’t bear to think of it. So he hadn’t.

But now he could not help but think of it, because Leia was so still and pale she looked dead already.

Vader lifted his head. “We will rest here,” he said, and something in the tonelessness of his voice made Luke feel even more awful. Vader lifted Leia off his lap and let her lie along the chair next to Luke. Lifting his cape, he gave Luke a gentle push to get him to lie down, then covered both of them with it.

Bundled beneath Vader’s cape, guilt swelling ever further, Luke asked, “Are we going to sleep here tonight?” Was it even night time? He had no idea how long they had walked, what time of day it was. The sky was beginning to clear so he could tell it was, at least, still daytime, but he didn’t know if it was morning, afternoon, or evening.

“No.” Vader settled back against the chair, staring out one of the cracked windows. Figures continued to move past it, refracted into multiple pieces. “We have no time. We will stay until the infected move on, but then we must get to her ship.”

Luke swallowed and curled back under. And if they didn’t reach it in time?

“We will,” said Vader, and whether he was answering Luke’s thoughts or telling himself that, Luke did not know. And if they did not find it… if it was because of him…

“I was too slow,” he blurted out, sitting up and letting the cape fall off him to pool around Leia’s body. Vader tipped his helmet in Luke’s direction as the words tumbled out. “I heard you at the door and I wanted to go open it but I was scared - scared to let them in - and I - I-” He took a gulp of air. “I tried to run to it when I did but I was - there were too many - I couldn’t get it open in time-” The words were all balled up and confused.

Vader reached out uncertainly, letting his hand rest on Luke’s shoulder. “Luke…” he began to say, but then halted, as if he too was unsure how else to go on, and it just made Luke feel worse.

“She said she didn’t get bitten then,” he whispered. And when Vader’s mask tilted in confusion, he tried to explain, words struggling through. “Leia. She said she was bitten before but I - if I hadn’t held you guys up in the - in the sewers and - and outside - she’d be better, right? She wouldn’t be so sick, so I-” The words kept coming out. “Uncle - Uncle Owen always says something bad will happen if we don’t - don’t follow the rules, and that I need to - to - to hurry up and stop daydreaming and I was and something bad did happen-” He tried to breathe even though his chest was all tight. “I didn’t mean for Leia to get hurt. I didn’t want to be gone that long. I just - I just wanted - I just wanted to see - to see-”

“Luke,” said Vader again, more firmly, “this was not your fault.”

Wasn’t it? “But - but you said in the sewers-”

Vader paused. “I should not have said that. Nor should I have… attempted to leave you behind.” Another beat of silence. “This had nothing to do with you being… slow. And I sincerely doubt your uncle would blame you for anything that has happened here.” There was yet another stretch of silence, like Vader was trying to decide something. “Luke, what happened here… what happened to your - to Leia… was not of your doing.”

“Really?” He wanted so badly to believe it, but he’d spent so long thinking the opposite, he didn’t dare.

“Yes. This is the fault of the doctor who created this disease. And… it is mine.” 

That made no sense. “Yours?”

“I allowed this to happen. I gave permission. Had I not, this disease would never have existed. Nobody on this planet would be ill.” The masked head turned away from him, the voice sounding even more toneless than ever. “So you see, it is not your fault at all.”

Luke picked at his pants. He ought to feel relieved; instead, he felt a burden in his chest, a sensation of guilt that was not entirely his. “Oh,” was all he could think to say.

Vader straightened, being careful not to jostle Leia. “That is why we must reach the ship. I will fix this, Luke. She will not die.”

Luke stretched out a little with the power Vader had been teaching him. His sense felt like it had cotton all over it, indistinct and quieted, but there was a faint ringing that told him truth, truth. He wanted to believe it. He hoped it was true. Somewhere inside, he felt a little bit of that guilt shrink, like a burst bubble leaking air. 

Vader lifted his hand hesitantly, then gently placed it on Luke’s shoulder. It was very heavy. “Rest. Think no more of it.”

After a second, Luke nodded. He still did not understand it, but… he trusted Vader, at least in that. “Okay.” Settling against the seat, he pulled the cape back over. As he settled, as best as he could, into a light nap, he remembered something. “Thank you.”

He did not not hear Vader’s answer, if there was any. He did not even know if he really slept, only that Vader roused him a little while later. He blinked, sensing something different and trying to figure out what it was. Then he realized what it was: the constant patter of water over the metal surface was gone. The rain had finally stopped. 

Leia did not wake as Luke did, and Vader did not bother trying for more than a few seconds. He just replaced his cape over his shoulders, then lifted Leia back into his arms before indicating wordlessly to Luke to follow him out. 

The metal door opened with a screech that Luke feared would bring all the infected back on them, but if they were still around, they had left the immediate area. Or even if they hadn’t, Luke could not see them, for they had walked into a world of… Luke searched for the word. Fog. That was it. The misty white stuff gathering around the trees and making everything but the nearest objects all fuzzy, was fog. He had seen it before, but now it was much, much thicker, obscuring everything more than a few feet in front of them. If things weren’t so bad, Luke would have been really tempted to wave his hand around to see if it would move.

But there was no time for that. Vader soon set them a fast pace past the transport, one that Luke could barely keep up with unless he went at a constant jog. But he didn’t complain. He knew it was for Leia. 

They marched along the other wing and landed on spongy but solid ground. The swamp was soon behind them, but they still had to walk on stretches of water that, while long, were not as deep, with many islands connected by logs and walkways of wood laid out along the ground. The trees were growing thicker, bigger, and Luke had to remind himself over and over not to stop and stare. He had not thought any plants could grow so big, even though he knew they did on other planets. And they weren’t the long, dangling trees of the swamp with their huge roots, but straight and thick all around. He wished he could crane his head and try to see the tops of them beyond the fog, but he had no time for that. Vader pushed through all terrain and obstacles, driven by the memory of where Leia had pointed them before she had collapsed.

Soon there was no water at all, and the fog had begun to disappear as well, and seeing that, Vader lengthened his strides even more. Luke was at a run now, drawing heavy breaths with every step, but he did not utter a word of complaint, knowing why they had to move so quickly. The sky, when Luke could see it through the trees, was still gray, but now and then a bit of sun poked through. But it was a waning light - it was setting, and night would be on them again soon. Through the trees Luke caught occasional glimpses of roving shapes, but Vader avoided them, dodging past trees and avoiding brush. He did not have the shield up, but they were not followed, that was how fast they were going. He held Leia to his chest and Luke, watching the girl, felt again that awful sickness in his stomach. She was completely limp in his arms, like a dead body he was carrying, not even her eyes moving. Sometimes Luke wasn’t even sure she was breathing. 

And then, as they reached the thickest part of the forest, so thick even the sun that had finally broken through the clouds could not pierce more than a few of the thinnest coverings of leaves - they saw a road. It was paved only with stones and gravel but it cut through the trees into a clearing ahead, miraculously empty of all infected. In the center of it was a small home, built all of dark wood and smooth plasteel - and a ship.

We made it.

Vader pressed a hand to Luke’s back and pushed him ahead. Luke ran ahead, and he was so focused on getting around the house that he was not listening for anything, not even the infected.

So the roaring mass of flesh that plowed into him was a complete surprise.

Luke caught a glimpse of dark, jagged, rippling muscle and skin before something hit him right in the chest. All the breath went out of him as the world went spinning. Dirt and sky and trees whirled in a kaleidoscope - he had a feeling of tumbling and spinning - before he thumped into the dirt.

A roar echoed through the woods, almost bursting his eardrums, and Luke, gasping for air, struggling to rise to his feet, suddenly realized why the woods were so empty of any infected. The monster that stood before him was over twenty feet tall. It walked on two massive legs as large as tree trunks, but its body was hunched over, wielding two arms long enough to touch the ground and with the longest, sharpest claws Luke had ever seen - and atop the hulking body, a great jawed head filled with bloodied teeth and eyes completely caked over with blackened pus -

And Luke knew what it was: a rancor, an infected rancor that had mutated to something else entirely. Its muscles bulged, it oozed liquid from its eyes and its nostrils and its mouth, so thick that Luke could even smell it all the way from where he was. It smelled like the mud of the swamp, like the yellow stuff that came out of his cuts when they hadn’t been cleaned. And when it roared, it shook the very trees around it.

Luke began scrambling backwards, only to hear a massive thud as the rancor took a step . The entire earth shook, laying him flat again. But he could see Vader running towards him, and his heart soared against all odds because he knew more than anything else in the galaxy that Vader would protect him - would protect him and Leia. Some surge of energy pushed him forward and he reached Vader just as the other man swung Leia off his arm and thrust her against Luke.

“Get to the ship!” Vader said, lightsaber flying to his hand and igniting.

Leia was a dead weight against him. He grabbed her arm and, just like he’d seen in holomovies, hauled her over his shoulder. It was way, way harder than it looked. Sagging under her body, he looked about panickedly until he saw, at the edge of the clearing, the winking metal of Leia’s ship. 

Stumbling, he began to make his way over.

The earth shook again, trembling and almost sending him toppling again. 

“Luke!”

Vader’s shout made him turn automatically - turn to see the rancor use its huge forelimbs to rip out a chunk of earth and hurl it straight at Luke and Leia.

He yelled and threw himself to the ground with Leia in the same instance that Vader threw out his hand. The piece of earth soared over Luke at the last moment, just skimming his back, to land with another ground-shaking thud a few feet away. Leia flopped on top of him, her arm smacking his head.

With a furious howl, the rancor tore up another chunk of earth and hurled it - but this time at Vader. Vader swung his saber, splitting the pieces in half so that they broke about him. Dirt and grass scattered like thick, brown drops. Again the rancor howled in anger. It sniffed - then turned in Luke’s direction, sensing him. Torn between Vader and Luke, it paused, hulking head swiveling from one to the other. Luke was frozen, staring at it.

The shield!

There was no time for doubt, no time to question if he could use the Force - he simply willed himself to go away.

The rancor simply stopped, pulling to a screeching halt in a way that would have been funny if it wasn’t coming after Luke and Leia to kill them. It raised its head, sniffing. Its many eyes blinked once, twice, despite looking straight at him, then rolled away in confusion.

It had lost him. For a moment, Luke was giddy with triumph.

A piece of earth smashed into the rancor’s head.

He stared around. It was Vader, hand stretched towards them. The rancor lurched, almost falling, before catching itself on its long arms. Forgetting Luke entire, it fell on all fours to begin hurtling after Vader - 

And only then did Luke figure it out: Vader was distracting it. He was doing it so Luke could get Leia to the ship.

At that, Luke picked up Leia again and began to drag her with him. She was so heavy and he still hadn’t gotten his breath back, and he could feel how his shield shivered with every step and every bump. They had gone only a few feet when Leia twitched. For a second he thought she had woken up and maybe could start walking again.

But then her whole body jerked. She spasmed against his side.

He grabbed her, but she arched her whole body. She was seizing up, going rigid.

“Leia!” Luke cried out as one huge thrash made her slip completely off of him. She twisted on the ground, arms and legs kicking, flailing, eyes open and rolling up until he could only see the whites. Luke looked for help but the rancor was occupying all of Vader’s attention - tossing pieces of earth only for Vader to hurl it right back without letting any of it touch him. They did hit the rancor, and each one made it stumble back a few steps - but this only seemed to make it madder. It howled, its arms landing on the earth - but not to tear it up. It began running in a burst of speed, going after Vader, who was moving back, back - drawing it away from Luke and Leia, from the ship.

Which meant there was nobody to help Leia but Luke himself.

His shield dwindled to nothing and the noise of the world descended back on him, but he did not have the time to think about it. Luke hurled his pack to the ground, rifling through it. Vader had used something on her, one of the injections. There were several in there, all looking almost exactly the same, with tiny writing along the side that he could not understand at all. Leia seized up again, choking, face twisting in pain.

“Hold on, Leia!” he yelled, grabbing one of the hypos. Which one? Which one was it?

Think!

Luke tried to breathe, to remember. Think back! Which one had Vader used? What did it look like? He couldn’t remember it, part of his brain said. Of course he couldn’t, he didn’t understand what it meant, he wasn’t even meant to be here, he was just there to drag everyone down - 

No! That was the other part of him. It shouted,  calm down, think! He wasn’t sure if it was his voice or Vader’s in his head, but he tried, he had to try - 

And it came to him in a burst of inspiration. That one!

He wasn’t sure how he knew, he just did . He grabbed the hypo and without any hesitation, jammed it into Leia’s arm.

Leia twitched again, and again, but her face relaxed. The jerking of her body grew smaller, weaker. Within seconds she was calm, and then her arms, her legs, dropped limply by her side.

He could not wait any further. Deep down he knew that if she had another seizure it might kill her, that they had to get on the ship now . He hauled Leia to her feet once more, pulling her arm over his back, and began to run as best as he could, trying not to trip. There was a pain in his side. Whenever he turned, he could see, right in the corner of his eye and almost blocked by Leia’s head, Vader moving around the edge of the clearing. The flashing red thing had to be his lightsaber. Unable to look away, Luke saw him dodge a blow from one of the monster’s arms, then make a sharp downward swing that sliced the monster’s skin.

Luke turned away, vomit rising in his throat, and tried to bring his shield up. Again, again, again he tried until he felt it come up - he thought it was up. The ship, he had to focus on getting to the ship. It was so hard with Leia hanging off of him. Each step took forever and every time he was frightened Leia would slip off of him again. 

One step, grab onto Leia’s arm to keep her there. 

Another step - a roar that made him shiver and stare for something to come flying at him. 

Third step and Leia almost fell again and Luke tugged her so hard he was afraid he might break her shoulder - 

Fourth step, his back was aching and he heard a sizzling hiss and the earth trembled like never before as a pained, furious howl split the air but he dared not look -

Fifth step, there were shooting pains in his legs and feet and he could smell roasting flesh - 

On the sixth step, his foot caught on a clump of grass and he fell. Leia fell with him, landing with a soft thump on the grass.

When he looked up, he saw the ship’s landing gears just in front of him, saw the ship itself. He had fallen practically beneath it.

He had to get in. How did he get in? He rolled Leia over and tried to get her up but his legs gave out under him as he dragged at her boneless body, and he fell again, this time atop her. The ship was so close but it was all one smooth surface, there was no ramp and no door, how was he supposed to get in?

A roar, louder than any he’d ever heard so hard, trumpeted the air. It burst through the trees and sent avians bursting from the leaves; it echoed around the trunks and the branches, and Luke grabbed his ears. The sound hurt. It thundered in his skull and throbbed in his very bones.

An answering chorus of shrieks filled the air, making a chill go down his spine. Luke turned wide eyes around to see the monster, with multiple scorch marks and slices in its spiked skin, hurtle towards Vader. Its entire body slammed into him before he could get out of the way, sending Vader flying back. With a roar, it spun on all fours, sniffing - its tiny eyes landing on Luke as more shrieks split the clearing.

And as the eyes pinned him, Luke heard the increasingly loud scurrying of dozens, hundreds of footsteps. 

They’re coming.

He heard the crash of brush, the snapping of hundreds of twigs and branches beneath feet, the rustling of tree leaves - and Vader was gone and still he could not get to the ship.

His shield fell.

Reach out.

Luke went still. 

Reach out. Feel it. You’ve done this before. Do it again.

But he didn’t know where! He flailed with his mind, trying to stretch into nothingness - and then, in his desperate mental thrashing, collided with and almost fell into the tenuous, nearly-gone thread that was his bond to Leia, and he called straight into it: what should I do? What do I look for?

An image, vague and cloudy, floated back to him. Luke struggled to make it out. It was like trying to squint with his brain; he didn’t know how to get it to focus, and he had no time, every second that he wasted doing this was a second for the infected to get closer - 

See it.

The fuzziness seemed to stop for a second.

Feel it. 

The image cleared, coming into focus.

Tell it what you want to do.

Luke stretched with his mind and willed the ship into activating.

With a quiet whir of hinges working and machinery starting up, the ramp loosened from the ship’s bottom and came sliding noiselessly down, landing with a thump a few feet from his head.

He’d done it.

There was no time to whoop and cheer. With a surge of energy, Luke grabbed hold of Leia and dragged her on top of him. Pushing with everything he had, he lifted himself, and her, and began scrambling for the ramp. One step and he was only a foot away and the shrieks were all around the clearing - second step, half a foot away and he could see shapes of multiple infected beings of all species bursting from behind tree trunks  - third step and his boot had found the edge but it was shaking so hard he could not get a grip - 

A shadow fell over him and some inner sense screamed move! 

Luke threw himself down on the ramp with a bone-crushing slam and rolled with Leia just as something huge, something hard rammed down onto the ramp where he’d just been standing. Clinging to Leia, he spun to find the rancor roaring above him. Spit flew, splattering the ramp and his face and his clothes and the entire world was shaking like an earthquake. A fist crashed down on his right, then on the left - Luke yelled as he saw a burnt stub of a limb squash itself into the ramp. Bone crunched and muscle shredded but the rancor did not seem to feel a thing. The entire ramp bounced, him and Leia rattling atop it, the metal surface jolting against his spine. Cords of flesh trapped him on either side - and above, the monster, which threw itself at him and Leia. 

It screamed hungrily, jaws open to reveal rows and rows of bloodied, razor sharp teeth. He could not move, he could not even scream, all he saw was death coming for him -

A dark blur placed itself between him and the rancor.

Luke muffled a shout as Vader, from out of nowhere, leaped towards the ramp, just ahead of the horde of infected streaming into the clearing. The rancor’s jaw came sinking down to tear at Luke’s body -

And clamped instead on leather and durasteel.

Luke gasped as instead of ripping into his torso, the monster found itself biting Vader’s left arm. 

His prosthetic arm. 

It shredded the leather glove and bodysuit to pieces and Luke saw sparks bursting as it tore into the durasteel strips and pierced the wiring. Vader sank under its weight, hitting the ramp -

His lightsaber pierced upward.

The monster froze, grunting stupidly, as the saber, in Vader’s other hand, stabbed under its jaw, through its tongue, up its skull, and into its brain. For a long moment, it just swayed on the ramp, eyes rolling.

Vader pulled the lightsaber out and yanked his arm free, ripping gouges from it. 

The rancor tumbled back, crashing onto its side, off the ramp.

For a moment, even the horde of infected was still, as if shocked by the death of the one that had called them. Luke, too, was frozen, still grasping Leia, unable to believe what had just happened.

Then one of them sniffed and gave a starved shriek. Spell broken, the others flooded the clearing, barging through or climbing atop the home, clawing at the ship’s struts, pouring like an undammed river towards them.

Vader hauled himself up. His left arm hung limply at his side. He did not even bother to douse his lightsaber, just hurled it up the ship’s ramp. With his working hand, he pulled Luke and Leia up by the back of their shirts and flung them all the way into the ship, just like he’d done with his lightsaber. He did it so fast and so hard Luke expected to slam into the bulkhead with Leia. Instead, they seemed to float inside and land gently -

The next second, Vader emerged at the top of the ramp. Luke was sure he could see the infected directly behind him.

Vader slammed the door panel.

Several monsters shrieked as the ramp closed on them. Vader did not even look behind him; he just flung out a hand towards one of the other rooms.

A rumble shook the ship, sending Luke rolling. He heard metal screeching and a whir of engine - 

And then, liftoff. 

Chapter Text

Vader took mere seconds to ensure the ship was in orbit and away, far away, from the planet surface, before he turned all his attention to his children.

Luke was picking himself off the deck of the ship. He looked shaken, dirty and bruised, but a rapid perusal of his Force signature indicated no serious injuries. 

But Leia…

Forgetting all sense of Sith dignity, he scooped Leia against him with his one working arm and just about ran for the med bay. He examined her signature. 

There was nothing, nothing at all.

No. There remained a tiny, winking light that was her presence. She was alive. She had to be alive. A coma is the last symptom, Doctor Monega said in his memory but he forced that aside.

The monitors in the med bay began going off as soon as he hooked her into the medical bed, but smashing the loudest alarms solved that issue. It was difficult with only one arm; his left hung uselessly at his side, the torn circuitry sending impulses spasmodically up and down his nerve endings. He was peripherally aware of Luke entering the room, face white, his own Force presence screaming his fear, but he was too busy hooking his daughter up to the IVs to maintain life, the oxygen mask to sustain it, the monitors to check heartbeat, blood pressure. Each step took twice as long as it should have, time that Leia did not have.

The winking light vanished.

Terror, worse than he had ever felt, struck him. He lashed out wildly into the Force, seeking her presence somewhere, anywhere, even as the monitors - the ones he had left unbroken - pulsed into nothingness. She could not die. He would not let her die. 

But this is your doing. That little voice that he had ignored for so long, was back. Look at her. You gave permission for this project. This was of your making.

If this was his doing, then he had to fix it. He owed it to her, to…

To what? What is she to you? There’s no cure and nothing the machines can do. There was nothing you could do on the planet, nothing you can do with the Force. With all your power, all you’ve done to acquire it, you could not think of one thing to help down there, so what has changed here?

He knew. He knew who she was. He knew now what she - what she was - 

What is she to you?

She was his daughter.

A means to power, isn’t she? That’s all she is, isn’t she?

Yes. A means to end the Emperor’s tyrannical rule. To shape the galaxy as he wished it.

Well, you don’t need her. You have the boy. He has power too, as strong as his sister’s. What does it matter if the girl dies? Two are better than one, yes, but there’s you and there’s the boy. Two there must be, a master and apprentice, so does this not work out better for you anyway?

No. He wanted Leia - his daughter alive. To share in their glory, their power, to… to…

You thought of killing the boy before. 

Before he knew who he was!

A minor difference. So the girl is dead instead. Two there must be…

Vader placed his one working hand on the medical bed, slumping over the edge. 

No. 

No, it was far more than that.

She was his daughter. Not just a possible apprentice, not just a figure of powerful Force potential. She was living proof of his and Padmé’s love - he could admit that now - as was Luke. She was a part of him, flesh and blood and bone, with Padmé’s wisdom, Padmé’s sense of justice, Padmé’s spirit - and something of himself, too, his fire, his passion. She was all that and more, and he wanted, needed , her to survive.

What had he done? Opened himself up to these emotions, this… love? After all he had lost, all he had suffered, one would think he’d have learned… yet here he was, acknowledging and even hungering for this child and her love, allowing himself to develop this attachment all the while knowing that she was dying from her disease, telling himself, as he had so many years ago, that with enough power and will he could save her.

He could even keep the ones he loved from dying…

But you can’t do that, can you? The insidious voice was back. You could do nothing then. You’ve learned nothing since. What has Palpatine taught you? What can you do now? You could not save Padmé and you cannot save her. The Dark Side does not heal. The Dark Side does not have room for those who cannot survive.

He pressed his fist against the edge of the bed, a tearing in his chest as Leia’s heartbeat slowed with each passing moment. His mind flitted to the last hypo in Luke’s pack. For a painless end. If he did not use that, Leia would transform, become one of the same mindless victims he had cut down, over and over again - despite her wishes, despite Luke’s wishes. A wild part of him wanted that to happen if only to retain some part of his daughter on this plane of existence. 

But in the end, that wouldn’t be her. It would not be Leia with her fire, her independence, her will; it would merely be a shadow, a half-life, the most violent, ravaged part of her that remained. And in the end, as her midi-chlorians died, so would she, suffering all the while. How long was he willing to let her stay in that state, out of his own selfish need to keep her? And when it came to it, did he have the ability to watch her die anyway? To even kill her as he had all the others?

If he gave her the injection, he would kill her anyway. 

Can you do that? the voice asked. Can you kill your own child? It sneered at him. You believed for years that you killed Padmé and her child with her. How is this any different? 

Yet how could he simply stand there and end his daughter’s life, knowingly, coldly?

You already did that when you allowed the project to go forward.

Vader grasped Leia’s arm, insensible towards Luke’s wide-eyed stare. It was his mother all over again, watching her tortured death throes in the Tusken camp. It was seeing his men fall before the Separatists, unable to save them from the horrors of the battlefield. It was hearing that Padmé had died at his hands. But there would be no glimmer of hope at the end of this, no miraculous discovery that her child - children - had survived. It would only be himself and his choices, and he would have to live with that to the end of his life.

Each of Leia’s heartbeats was quieter than the last, a longer gap than the last, counting down the seconds as she succumbed to the virus ravaging her body. Helplessly, he reached out one last time to that feather-light bond, the only thing still existing between them. There were flutterings of confusion and fear thrumming along it, the last vestiges of Leia’s bright, fierce little mind as she verged into death. He sank into it, into her Force presence, into the the last throes of her failing body,  sending out feelings of comfort and safety and assurance. She would surely feel the falseness of these emotions, but he had to do it so she would not leave this world alone - 

Vader halted, if his mental presence could be said to halt. 

Carefully, he threaded his way about Leia’s presence; peered further into the recesses of her bodily functions. He could see a way forward, a way to go deeper, closer. Gently, he probed the dying organs, forcing back nausea and his own complicated feelings about the dying lung tissue, the disintegrating cells, the viral particles coating every surface of her body. They clumped around one source on her right arm, the location of her bite. Sensing their deadness in the Force, Vader could not contain his own anger and grief, a palpable force that pressed against the particles and sent them scattering down her bloodstream in a lashing wave.

Sent them scattering…

A germ of an idea settled into his mind and he pushed again at the viral particles again, this time with more intent. The virus was not sentient - it could not even be said to be truly living - but like any infectious agent, it had a purpose, a directive, which was simply to spread, to reproduce. Clamping down on his own emotions, Vader pressed at that directive, persuaded it, altered it, told it that its sole function in life was no longer to spread but merely to move.

It moved.

The idea germinated and Vader pushed his mind force against more of them. He was surrounded by them, very much like the horde of infected. But Vader was not a flesh-and-blood being here; he was a vergence in the Force and safe from them. But they were not safe from him - and at that thought he hurled-throttled-slammed the full power of his presence against them, all of them, telling them to move.

They fled from him in a wave.

He could feel his heart racing in his body, his real body, a distant but distinct pounding that he was aware of in the smallest corner of his mind. But it was not enough to affect one area and so he expanded all his senses outward, spreading it through his entire awareness of Leia’s body to determine the extent of her illness. He had to work quickly before it was too late, before her body was beyond the limits of what the med bay could sustain her. If he did this fast enough, if he should rid her body of the virus, both the agents and the infected cells, then with the aid of the med bay… 

She might recover. 

It was the tiniest thread of hope, a one-in-a-million chance. Vader was nearing the limits of his own energy already; this might very well push him beyond that. And he did not fool himself: there were hundreds of thousands, likely millions, of cells he would need to identify as infected, one by one, and eliminate; millions or even billions of viral particles he would have to locate and tell to move, to scatter, to run, individually or as a group, to where he wanted them to go. It would stretch the boundaries of his concentration, require all his focus, all the power he could gather.

Size matters not.

This was Leia, his daughter, and for his children he was willing to do anything.

With a singular purpose, he bent his mind to the task ahead of him and plunged into the depths of his daughter’s bodily presence. 

The most difficult thing was to orient himself - for many precious moments he had no sense of up or down, of left or right, of going deeper into the body or towards the surface. All he had to rely upon was the pulsing of the heartbeat, the flow of the bloodstream, the sensation of gravity, to find his way around. It took more seconds to begin to identify what he was feeling: whether he was passing by a vital organ or a bone, whether the spark of movement was muscle or nerve.

Once he knew where he was, then, only then, could he begin.

Vader was not aware of his body save in the most faraway sense as he worked. Occasionally he got some twinge as the stump of his legs rebelled against standing in one position for so long, felt an ache in his arm that grew, and faded, as he ignored it. All he knew was finding a virus and telling it to go-move-shift towards the source, the area of greatest concentration of infection, the bite mark. He had begun there, where they were all gathered, a dead area of flesh and Force that had made even his mind mote wary. Then he gathered himself outward, telling the particles that had extended up her arm to go back; following them down the line of her shoulder and collar to say go back; up to her brain and her sensory organs and up and down her spine, go back.  

There had been an almost equal amount of viral concentration in her brain as there was in the bite, and he spent much time there. He could not tell the infected cells to go back. What he could do, however, was tell them to burst. That was harder, the cell’s prerogatives, while still rudimentary, were infinitely more complex than the virus’s, and they resisted the urge to lyse themselves. But he was persistent, he enacted his will on them, on every piece of infected tissue . And when they burst in a haze of cellular material, remnants of the symbiotic midi-chlorians, and unformed viral particles, he told them, go back. Sometimes he came too late, came in time to see a cell die of its own accord. Every virus that burst out, he would have to stop before it could latch to its next victim, whisper go back. Even the dead tissue, bone and cartilage and skin and hair, he examined minutely, knowing that even one virus left could begin the cycle anew.

And yet, even as he let the Force flow through him, he felt himself flagging.

It was his own fault, he thought detachedly, for he had neither slept nor fully rested for days. He had kept up a concentrated shield to mask himself and his children for several of those days, one that had limited his own connection to the Force; had fought hundreds of the infected, survived bombardment, nearly had his arm torn off by an infected rancor. Still he had kept going, and he had to keep going now, even as he felt viral agents slip his grasp. Felt them spreading beyond the area he was trying to contain them in as his attention wavered. He could not hold them at bay while searching for them, so he must work faster, but his energy, too, was sinking. Twice he allowed particles to slip past and infect a new cell and he had sighed internally, cursed himself for allowing it to happen. But he must continue, must keep up the split awareness if he was to save his daughter - 

Until, all of a sudden, a second awareness touched his.

Luke had no idea what was going on.

He had followed Vader in a haze of fear as he swept off with Leia and placed her in some kind of med bay (he’d never seen or even been in one before, any time he got sick or hurt he’d been treated at home). He had watched as Vader had monitored her in a way that even he could recognize was a frenzied panic. And then Vader had just… stopped moving. He wasn’t even moving now, he was just standing over Leia, hands on the bed, staring at her intently. Even his respirator had slowed down. Luke had actually called out to him and received no response.

What was he doing? 

What could Luke do?

He pulled himself up over the edge of the bed, onto those pristine white sheets with his muddy boots and dirty clothing. Leia was sleeping - or so he hoped. She moved even less than Vader, was paler than her own dress, and her arm was laid out, bare and with the bite openly exposed. It was even more horrible to look at than before. The wound had turned her whole lower arm and most of her hand black and withered. The bite itself had dried and crusted over, yet the scabbing tissue still shone wetly with pus and ooze, the flesh rotten. It even smelled terrible.

She wasn’t dead, was she? There were tons of those monitor things around and they were still beeping softly. Vader had smashed some of the loudest ones, which Luke had actually been a little happy about, because all the red flashing lights and blaring alarms had made him quite panicked. But the quieter ones remained, particularly one that Luke thought was measuring her heartbeat. He’d seen them in holomovies. It even looked like the ones from there, with the digital spikes of her heartbeat and the flashing numbers. The only difference was the spikes in the movies were never as small, or as far apart, as Leia’s were. And he knew, with sure instinct, that this could only be a bad thing, just as he knew that the wavering bond between him and Leia was a bad thing.

Tentatively, he started to reach out to it, but it was such a light, fragile thing he was afraid even that might break it. But there was a stronger bond, if he traveled down a similar yet parallel path. It felt very much like Leia’s, but darker, older. Vader, he thought, and after a glance at the  man, still unmoving, he pressed hesitantly against it.

He was very surprised when he felt Vader press back.

Actually, it wasn’t a pressing back, because that would be gentle. This felt more like a push, a wordless shove away. Luke gasped, clutching at the blankets, so unexpected was the feeling. He waited for another shove, but the sensation faded as soon as he withdrew.

What was that? He had never felt anything like that before, and while he was a little nervous, it hadn’t been painful, just… surprising. Vader himself had not moved or spoken. Luke hesitated, thinking more and more that maybe he had just imagined it. Gathering himself up, he found his connection to Vader and reached out to it again.

Luke.

He jumped at Vader’s mental voice. Before he could formulate something to say, Vader spoke again.

Luke. Rest.

There was something weird about Vader’s mind voice. It didn’t sound weak, just… distracted. It kept rising in waves of volume, sometimes louder and sometimes quiet, like the sound on a malfunctioning hologram. Luke almost wanted to back out at that, but he was desperate for an answer to his one burning question.

Is Leia going to be okay?

A very, very long silence, as if Vader was weighing his words - or pulling himself away from whatever was grabbing his attention. 

Finally: Perhaps. Another pause. If this works.

Luke wrinkled his forehead. If what works?

It is… difficult to explain. And then he went quiet again, and Luke thought at first he was trying to figure out how to explain it, until he felt his presence drifting away. He hovered indecisively where he was for a moment - wherever he was - before following Vader’s presence.

And was plunged into a completely foreign world.

Everything went dark and watery; Luke didn’t know how to explain that it felt watery, only that it was exactly like being back down in the sewer pipes. There was the deep murmur of waves pressing against his ears; the louder rush of currents dragging him in their wake. He wanted to flail about but he had no arms, no legs, he was nothing but a floating presence, just a tiny sand grain being swept along by the wind, only instead of flying he was thrashing, bumping into anything that was in the way. He could not tell what was happening, where he was, what he was doing, and his real body jerked in an agonized struggle to get out.

Luke! Remain calm!

He knew that voice. Luke grasped onto it, clung to it, the one safety line in the darkness.

Let go, Luke. Pull yourself back. You do not need to be here.

Vader’s mind-voice still had that distracted sound. Luke poked hesitantly at it. Vader’s presence did not move away, but just held onto him in a resigned sort of way.

Where are we?

Again, that pause. Then, with the feeling of a sigh: We - I - am in Leia’s body. Or a representation of it in the Force.

Her body?! Was that the rushing noise? Was that her blood? And that dull pounding that he was starting to make out distantly - was it her heartbeat?

Yes. That is what you’re sensing, and more: the virus, the disease that is killing her. For a moment, his voice sounded strained. I can use the Force to gather the virus away from her body. Move it somewhere to deal with later. And for a second, Luke had a flash of an image: Leia’s arm, blackened and filled with the little particles that he was beginning to be able to see - to sense - in his mind’s eye.

You can heal her? he asked.

I can… stop what is harming her. The words were tinged with something heavy. For healing, she must do that on her own.

Let me help! Without waiting for permission, he tried to stretch out, to get a better sense of this… virus thing, of Leia’s own presence. It seemed that just by doing so, his vision was clearing, lightening; he had a feeling of being very small and in an enclosed space that stretched out in a maze of connections, of hundreds of thousands of living things surrounding him, all the same and yet different, ignoring him, intent on their separate but related functions.

Luke. Vader’s mind voice interrupted his exploration, pushing him back. You must rest . I do not need help.

That felt like a lie, and the thought traveled along their bond before he could stop it. 

Vader’s signature flared, blistering and angry for half a second, before something clamped down on it. Luke flinched back minutely but held his ground. There was a long moment of silence. Vader had not exactly forced him out, so Luke tried to further figure out where he was. He had taken some classes on the human body before as well as seen his fair share of injuries, so he had a somewhat good idea of what the body looked like. He tried to visualize it: Leia’s body stretched out and him bobbing along somewhere in it, a tiny little fuzz ball. He was in her blood, right? That was why everything felt wet. But where? Along the arm? The leg? 

And as he was concentrating, something else began to dominate his focus. It was not a clear feeling, but it was a strong one: the feeling that there was something going deeply wrong in Leia’s body. Something that didn’t belong there. It was the little particles, smaller than cells, that Luke had begun to get a sense of, little voids in his mind’s eye. But if he focused on one, he could begin to visualize their spiked bodies busily scurrying over Leia’s cells and poking themselves in.

Luke, I… Vader’s voice startled him out of his observations. A beat. He sensed Vader’s focus wavering, towards him and towards Leia and towards… something else. He had the strangest sense of an apology flowing along their bond, quiet and muted. 

He pressed back reassuringly.

Vader’s presence was still a moment longer. There was a feeling of something tugging at it. Luke, said Vader’s mind-voice, suddenly resolved, follow me.

And it seemed Luke did follow him, or follow the dark, looming presence that was Vader in his mind, traveling up and down and through a maze of passages until Vader - or rather, his presence - paused in front of a mass of the wrong things that was in Leia’s body, thousands, millions of them. Luke wondered why they didn’t burst out in a frenzy towards the rest of the body, until he felt something like Vader’s mind, or part of his presence, erected in front of them like a wall. 

Or a shield.

Yes, Luke, a shield, said Vader, and Luke realized he had sensed his thoughts. Listen to me, Luke, and for a moment he sounded as weary as when they were fleeing through the swamp. If you wish to help your - to help Leia, you must hold these things at bay, do you understand?

At bay?

Envision a shield. His voice was low, persuasive. Remember what I taught you? There you created a shield around yourself. Now you must extend it outwards. Hold back the virus that would hurt Leia.

He tried, tried to envision a big wall made of stone and metal, pressing against the swarming things that Vader had called a virus. For long seconds it didn’t work - he could feel it flickering around him, then fading, and even when he got it to stay he couldn’t move it away from him. Panic began to build.

Luke, focus. Do not let your fear rule you. The touch of Vader’s mind was soothing, sending calming waves. 

I can’t do it! Despair threatened to choke him. He wanted to help, but he couldn’t do it.

Luke. He heard admonishment in Vader’s tone. Do not doubt yourself. You have done… remarkably well, given your lack of training. Again, he felt the touch of Vader’s presence against his, like a guiding hand. You can create a shield around yourself?

I - yes. I think so. He felt it wavering around him, before solidifying as he focused more strongly on it.

Good. It is no different from that. You are simply placing it around something else. Stretch out, until you feel the virus - 

The bad things?

Yes. Can you feel them?

He could, millions of them, beating at the barrier. His barrier. It was holding, at least for now, though it still felt unsteady, unsure. When had he placed it around them? Yet he had, barely even realizing it. You want me to keep them back? All of them?

Yes. I can search out the others, send them to you, and it would be much easier if you can do this. He paused for a moment. It would help.

There’s so many of them!

Size matters not. There was a faint flicker of memory in those words. It doesn’t matter how many, Luke. They are simple beings and you have the unlimited power of the Force with you. They will obey you.

Luke wanted so much to believe him. He felt his body taking deep gulps of air, and tried to let it steady him. This would help Leia. Vader had said it would. And he wanted to, needed to help her. 

Okay.  

A shield, a shield, he had to keep up the shield. He could sense Vader’s own shield, and he poked at it experimentally, letting it guide him in what he had to do. His barrier seemed so thin and weak compared to Vader’s. Even now it blinked out of existence. He had to do it, and he had to keep doing it. Just like when he made one for himself.

He squeezed his eyes tight. He had made one around himself, unknowingly, and now he was doing it again, knowingly. He just had to… keep it up. He scrambled for some way to make sense of this, because whatever he was doing, he had to make sure it stayed up. Vader waited, patiently, on the outskirts of his awareness as he fumbled with the Force. At some point, Luke felt something, an encouraging nudge, flowing through their bond.

What if he pretended the things he had to hold back was himself, Luke? He tried to think of it that way. If they were himself, then the shield could extend out. He just had to reach for them, feel them, get a sense of what they were and what they were like. They felt so strange, so different, but they weren’t very different from each other. It wasn’t like a bunch of individual monsters, more just a lot of foreign objects that were the same… he envisioned, maybe, a lot of spiky balls -

And with a weird shivery feeling, he felt the shield billow out, like the tip of a sand dune being blown forth by a breeze, felt the shield settle near Vader’s and extend out and out and out.

Good, Luke. Can you hold it?

He drew forward, expecting, with the millions of little wrong things, to feel bombarded, pelted, like when he had been caught in a storm. But it was not like that; it was more like tiny nudges against his barrier before they drifted off. It did not relent, the nudging, but stayed constant, because new ones were always surging towards him, yet these things weren’t… smart, he thought. They were just mindless things whose sole purpose was to make Leia sick.

If he could sense a smile through a mental link, then that might have been what Vader sent him. Good. You are doing very well. The words sent a cascade of warmth through him. I will return.

And his presence… did not leave, but withdrew, and Luke imagined himself positioned like a guard at a wall as Vader traveled down a road and out of sight - no, traveled through Leia’s body. He could almost see him soaring through bone and muscle and blood, maybe going to the different organs or traveling along nerves and up and down limbs.

As for Luke himself, for a little while it took all his focus to keep the barrier up. He did not dare let even one virus through, some part sensing that, as unintelligent as these things were, they were deadly should they be let loose. But after a while, the concentration it took became familiar, like becoming used to lifting a weight because he had done it everyday. In a little while, he realized that he only needed most of his focus to keep the barrier up. Then only half his focus. And soon, just a bit, as if the force of his mind had built the wall up, brick by brick, until it was near impenetrable.

But only for one side. At regular intervals he would feel one on the other side, the outer side, slip past his barrier as easily as a fusion cutter through duraplast. Lingering on each of those, though, was Vader’s presence, Vader’s force of mind, telling them to go to Luke. It did not take concentration to let them through; they went in easily and then stayed contained. Luke wasn’t sure what that meant - was his shield that weak to Vader? Or was it because he was just focusing on keeping everything inside and not out?

After a time, though, it stopped concerning him. Floating there, or at least that was what it felt like, he let the part of his mind - his Force sense, he supposed - drift to Vader’s bond. It acknowledged him but only abstractly, seemingly busy, and Luke could sense even that muddled his concentration a bit. So he searched, finding the other bond, Leia’s bond. Hers was inert, unmoving, but not dead, merely like one asleep, so he only sent a little message down, a sense of safety-help-comfort , before starting to move away.

What he did not expect was to feel something get sent back.

Darkness, deep, heavy, impenetrable. That was all Leia knew for endless stretches of time. It was not scary, though. It was more a sensation of nothingness, of floating in the void of space, not seeing or hearing anything, drifting constantly on the edge of sleep. Time had no meaning here. But there was nothing painful, nothing frightening, and for a long time, who knew how long, she simply rested there. Sometimes she’d feel tiny pinpricks on the edge of the darkness, but never enough to draw her attention for long.

And then, a voice.

Leia?

At first she thought she imagined it. But the message lingered there, a little floating light amidst the darkness, emitting warmth and love. After a length of time, Leia drew closer to it, or at least felt the floating part of herself go nearer. She touched it, sent her own message back of sleepy contentment.

The little light seemed to wriggle with surprise before exploding as bright as the sun. Leia!

It was familiar. Leia tried to remember, though everything felt so distant here in the night. Then she knew. Luke?

Pleasure and relief. Are you all right?

Hmm… She drifted again. She felt all right. There wasn’t much of anything she was feeling, really.

Leia? We’re trying to help you! So just hold on, okay?

Help her? It was difficult to find words here. But feelings, those she could send, ones of questioning and the slightest disturbance. What did she need help for?

Don’t you remember? You were bitten. You’re really sick.

Again, the struggle to recall. She tried to pierce through the fog that the darkness had draped over her. Sickness. A bite. Luke. That thought niggled. When she traveled down the thought that was Luke, she could begin to recall… Yes, a ship. The infected, so many of them. She would be one of them too, soon. And there had been pain and fear. Anger, thought not at them. She shied back from all these memories, preferring the sheltering darkness, where nothing hurt her. But something about it prickled at her, something else connected to Luke…

Vader’s here, too, offered the Luke-light. We’re going to make you better, okay?

Vader. The name flashed in the darkness, and suddenly she was aware of him, too. He was harder to spot than Luke, who shone so brightly, but now that she knew, she sensed him so strongly she didn’t know how she had missed him in the first place. He felt further away, not fully aware of her, but there all the same. Even as she noticed him, she felt his presence tug, not at her, but at Luke, like there was a tether connecting them two. And her. The Luke-light seemed to dim in response to Vader’s pull, and she sent out that questioning emotion, now tinged with a little fear. She did not want to be left alone here, now that she knew there were others.

Luke’s response emitted guilt-shame-fear . He said I shouldn’t disturb you. You need to rest. He seemed to grow more distant - or maybe it was her, like she was on a ship flying away from his brightness. I’m sorry.

Leia gathered herself up. No. Wait. Even those words were difficult to formulate. She stopped, trying to draw on her own energy. What… are… you… doing?

There was a sense of the Luke-light getting smaller, but also brighter, like his presence was trying to sneak towards her, out of sight of the larger, stronger, darker presence that hovered watchfully nearby. It made Leia want to giggle. Could she giggle in this place?

We’re trying to get the virus out of you or something. Vader’s going around and moving them, I think? And I’m holding them somewhere. He paused. I’m not sure where. I’m not really sure of any of this.

Get the virus out? Could they do that? She tried to put all of it together, the virus, and Luke, and Vader. Was the darkness getting a little brighter as well? Can… I… help?

Whatever Luke was going to say was cut off as the huge and overwhelming presence that was Vader suddenly made itself known. Luke’s light shrank even further, whether to hide or because it was being dimmed by the great blackness, Leia wasn’t sure. But when Vader spoke, he addressed only Leia.

You need to rest.

Leia, reduced back to emotions in his presence, managed to squeak out a myriad of them: curiosity and confusion and the need to help all intertwined with a plea.

You are ill. Vader’s tone, or rather his presence, grew a little softer, less overwhelming. We are doing well enough without you. Rest. 

She changed her own tone now, to one of sheer stubbornness.

Vader’s presence flared. Child - He cut himself off, the black star that was his Force signature dying down. Leia imagined herself, a light as tiny as Luke’s standing firm against his massive form. But there was something else, and she tried to pull herself together again.

You’re… tired. A memory came back to her, dim and ill-formed, of her saying these exact words to him already.

It is nothing. Something appeared to draw his attention away, his form growing smaller for a brief moment. Beside him and far away, Luke floated silently, a tiny speck of light.

I… can… help.

He truly did sound weary now. And what would you do?

Show… me…

His reply seemed to take centuries. She waited and waited, holding herself there, until at last he spoke. As you wish.

The darkness erupted, bursting out in a cascade of color, and with a shock that sent Leia reeling, she felt herself bobbing like a leaf in the ocean, somewhere huge and massive and… familiar. It was so familiar. Herself! It was herself. As soon as she identified it she knew, deep in her mind, where she was. But it was also not entirely herself, she felt that immediately. There were strangers - it was the only way she could think of them - or invaders, things that did not belong there. 

That’s… the virus? She tried to point out the invaders with her presence, envisioning a little arm-blob of her light sticking out.

Whether it worked or not, Vader seemed to understand. Yes. The source, and the area with the most concentration of them, is the bite on your arm. I am gathering them from the rest of your body while Luke holds them at the bite mark, to keep them from spreading. A distinct pause, like he was trying to find the right words. What else can you sense?

Leia spread herself out; it was so weird, being simultaneously in and apart from herself. But it was also easy, because it was her own body, and it was so known to her that at first all she sensed  were those wrong things, the virus, their foreignness standing out starkly to her. They were everywhere in her body, but were especially concentrated, now that Vader had pointed them out, in her arm, millions of them gathered in that place like a festering hole.

But then she began to sense something else, a feeling of wrongness that was more subtle. Floating over herself, over her own… cells, that was it, she’d learned that from her tutors… floating over them, she could tell that while a lot of them were okay, there were some that were not. Some had the same distinct feeling of strangeness as the virus, but more muted. 

You can feel that? It was Vader, and she mentally turned, realizing that he was following her, in a way.

Yes. She gathered herself up again. What… is it?

Infection. The virus has invaded that cell. It is growing inside there, waiting for the right moment to emerge. When it does, many more of them will erupt from the cell, spreading the sickness further. There was a tense silence, and again Leia had that sense of Vader trying to formulate his words. Or, perhaps, trying to decide something. Can you sense more of them?

Leia stretched out and gave the mental version of a nod, which she hoped Vader understood. Now that she had noticed this one, it was easier to spot all the others, to sense that… strangeness that was slowly growing within them. On and on she sensed more of them, in various states of… bursting, she supposed. Some were almost completely unnoticeable, maybe just starting to mature, whereas others were almost ready to explode.

A question occurred to her. Can you… feel them?

Vader replied, Not as well as you. Another silence. He was doing that a lot. Leia. Do you truly wish to help?

Of course she did! This was her body, she was the one who was sick, she could feel Luke and Vader helping too, feel how draining it was. Why should they be doing everything? She needed to help! She wasn’t sure how much of that got through to Vader - maybe some of it, maybe only a little, maybe even all of it - but she knew what the result was: the mental version of him sighing.

Very well, young one. His presence grew rapidly sharper, larger, closer to her. She felt him indicate, she wasn’t sure how, one of the cells that she had noticed and was about to burst. That is one of them? And when she agreed, his presence dove straight onto it - and the cell tore itself open. Dozens of little virus things exploded out, but before they could latch onto any new cell, Vader simply shooed them off. Or did something that made them leave.

How… did you… do that?

They are rudimentary beings, not even fully alive, was his response. It is easy to compel them. He readied himself. Where is the next?

Here. She pointed it out. And that one.

So on and on they went. Luke’s presence hovered in the back of Leia’s mind, if she could call it that, but it was Vader who was beside her, Vader to whom she indicated the infected cells. Sometimes he would grow silent, attention appearing to wander, but Leia soon figured out that he wasn’t not listening to her; rather, he was finding free-floating bits of viruses and sending them to Luke, at the same time that he was lingered near her, awaiting her indication of some newly infected cell.

Leia did not know how much time passed. After a while, she stopped mentally sending words, or even feelings, to Vader. Her mute indication was enough for him, as if he had spent enough time with her that he knew what she meant without her needing to say anything. It was good, in a way, for the longer they went, the more Leia felt the darkness beckoning, ever closer, urging her to rest in its folds. But she ignored it as best as she could, pushed onward by the feeling of… cleanliness, she thought it was. Like sweeping her body into order. Because as they continued, she saw the less of the viruses, the less of those wrong cells. What began as one every few seconds, became one every few minutes, then one every half an hour, and then… and then…

And then Vader’s presence was touching her mind gently, and he said softly, It is almost finished, young one. We can take it from here. You may rest.

Leia stretched out her presence to him. She was quite… tired, if her little mind-presence could feel tired. Like she had been stretched thin. Yet still she asked one thing: Really?

Yes. And she was sure she could feel an affectionate approval in his tone. Go now. Sleep.

And maybe it was the darkness, or maybe it was Vader, or maybe even both, for as she heard those words, a warm wave of drowsiness swept over her. 

Then there was nothing but peaceful bliss.

Luke had been holding the shield so long he could not seem to remember a time when he wasn’t doing that. So when Vader returned - or rather, when the presence that was Leia blinked out and he turned his full attention back to Luke - and told him to stop, he was not even sure how to do that.

What about Leia? he asked. He had felt her flicker away and a momentary fear struck him. Is she okay?

She is resting, Vader assured him. As you must rest. I can deal with the rest myself.

There was something in those words, something Vader was hiding. What are you going to do?

I… The pause went on too long. Yes, Vader was definitely hiding something. I will destroy the virus, once and for all.

How?

That is none of your concern. The words were harsh, and Luke shrank a little. As if realizing that, Vader’s next words were a little softer. You can let go of the shield, Luke. I am here.

And yes, Luke could feel something solidifying alongside his own shield, strengthening it. But it took him some time to figure out how to pull his own shield down, to finally withdraw, and then even longer to begin to retreat to his body.

When he did, it was disorienting, being thrown into a world of light and color, with gravity and sound and sensation all pulling at different parts of him. He blinked rapidly, his entire body dazed and heavy. There was something under his hands too, crinkly and soft - a sheet, he realized. And that annoying, incessant beeping - those were the monitors. He blinked again, shaking his head, wondering why everything was so bright. So white. Long moments passed before he could make out little shapes and recognize the med bay, the bed, Leia…

Leia! He rubbed his eyes, but he was still so disoriented that he missed his face entirely and ended up hitting thin air. He tried again, and again when it didn’t help, until at last his vision cleared enough for him to stare intently at the girl. There was color in her face, and her breathing was heavier, deeper. He could see the rise and fall of her chest and the flicker of her eyelids as she slept. Even the monitor was beeping consistently. 

She looks so much better! he thought.

Vader’s voice made him jump. The virus has been cleansed from much of her body, but it still must be eliminated.

Oops. He must have sent his last thought mentally. But Vader seemed to wave it off - or his presence did. Physically he remained in the exact same position as before, standing over Leia.

It is no matter. You are readjusting to being back in your physical form. 

Luke frowned. Something about Vader still sounded indistinct, like he was speaking to him through a long tunnel.

Luke. He jumped again. Had Vader heard that as well? Lie down. Rest. You have tired yourself helping her. 

Isn’t there anything else I can do? he asked plaintively.

He had a funny feeling that Vader wanted him gone - not because he was annoyed, but because there was something he did not want Luke to know or to see. You have done more than was required, Luke. There was pride in the voice, and it eased his feeling of being rejected. For now, you must heal as well. Sleep.  

Now that Vader had mentioned it, Luke was feeling drained. He stretched, started to look for Leia’s arm, the bitten one, but then decided he did not want to see. He wondered if he could sleep next to Leia; there was enough room there. Rather than asking, he simply lay down there, curling atop the blanket. As soon as his head hit the soft pad, he felt tiredness overtake him. Maybe that’s Vader, he thought sleepily, but if it was, it was too strong for him to resist. With the soft beeping in his ears, he soon drifted off.

It was with a sense of relief that Vader felt his son fall into blissful unconsciousness, a relief that only a small part of him had the space to pay heed to.

The rest was spent on maintaining the mental barrier to keep the millions of viral particles trapped in one part of his daughter’s body. And just doing that was taking almost all his will, all his concentration. 

What was left of Leia’s lower right arm, where all the virus had been forced into, had turned into a blackened husk that reminded Vader all too much of his own sufferings on the banks of a lava river. There was an ache in his prosthetic arm just from looking at it. 

There was little hope of it healing. He had had some thought of forcing the virus to eject itself from the wound, an opening in the flesh it could leak from like pus, but the wound itself had long since closed up. There was little blood left in that part of her body to circulate the virus outwards, and the cells of her limb had been dead so long that Vader did not think anything might help it to recover.

Nor could he think of a way to destroy them quickly- unlike cells, they did not have a simple mechanism to burst apart, a sort of button he could enact his will upon. The only way would be to go to each particle and break them apart individually, and he did not have the time or the focus to do that. There was nothing he could do… except for one thing. The only one he could think of, the only thing he could do, standing over her, using all his mental powers to keep the virus at bay.

He could only feel some comfort that neither of the children would be awake to witness it.

Vader ignited his lightsaber and, without hesitating, brought it down on Leia’s arm.

Chapter Text

Soft beeping.

Leia stirred, opened her eyes - and then stared. 

They were on her ship. They had made it. 

How had they done it? She struggled to remember finding the ship, getting on it, but the last thing she remembered was the swamp, the Wookiee, a pain in her head… and then nothing.

Until now.

But they must have made it. Unless she had died. But if she had died, why would she be in the med bay? And… she looked around, though her head felt like it weighed a million pounds. There was Luke, curled on her left, sharing the bed, and he didn’t look dead, just asleep. And on her right, Vader. That was when she knew she wasn’t dead, because that would mean Vader had also died and that was practically impossible. 

Vader had found one of the medical chairs and was sitting on it (which looked quite funny, now that Leia thought about it), his head tilted back slightly like he was looking at the ceiling - or asleep. His respirator was slower than before, rhythmic, and he didn’t seem to have noticed Leia moving around. She thought he might actually be sleeping for once. 

He had said he would make her better, and he had. She knew it because she felt better. So much better.

That was about as far as she was willing to go with her thoughts for now, because even that made her head swim. Her whole body, while no longer aching, felt sluggish and heavy. So with a little sigh, she relaxed back into her bed. It was warm and soft and the tension of all the days before had eased and she just wanted to drift back to sleep. The beeping continued, constant, steady, lulling her in and out of consciousness. She did not know how much time passed with her half-asleep, waking up a little, then dozing off again…

After a time, though, she felt herself coming fully awake. She still felt quite heavy and very, very tired, but she looked around herself a little more. The ship looked exactly the same as when she left it. How long ago had that been? She tried to count the days, but with her not remembering stuff, she didn’t know just how long it had been. Maybe less than a week? Or was it more? It felt so much longer. But the ship was still white and clean and peaceful; nothing about that had changed.

There was no Captain Antilles - her heart still ached at that. But Luke was still there, lying beside her. He’d turned around to his other side. Vader was still there as well. She frowned as she noticed for the first time that the sleeve and glove of his left arm had been ripped horribly, revealing a metal prosthetic arm beneath it. She was sure his right arm was a prosthetic. So his left arm was too? The arm itself looked like it had been pulled apart but then welded together back hastily. She did not remember that at all. Had his arm always been like that? Or had something happened when she was unconscious? How long had she been out?

Shaking herself of those thoughts, she turned to her other side and sighed sleepily. Luke was atop her blanket - that was also why she found herself so heavy and hard to move, he was kind of pinning her in place. In fact, when she tried to roll over she found herself unable to do so because of his weight.

Her wriggling, however, awoke Luke. He blinked sleepily, then stretched (and almost punched her in the face). She wrinkled her nose as she tried to avoid him. Still blinking, he looked up and met her gaze. For a second, he stared at her in awe. 

Then he smiled.

“You’re okay,” he all but shouted, relief flooding him as he remembered the long, long hours of holding the virus back. A question lurked in the back of his mind, but it did not feel important enough at the moment for him to think about it too hard, not when Leia was lying there, awake and healthy and alive .

“Shh,” Leia whispered, twitching her head towards Vader.

Luke scrunched a little, but he was still smiling, and Leia found herself smiling too. They had found her ship, they were flying away, she was well, they were safe , and that feeling of finally being able to just rest after days of running, made his whole body feel like he was flying.

“How do you feel? Does anything still hurt?” asked Luke, voice so low she almost didn’t hear him. Those were the kind of questions Aunt Beru would ask him when he got hurt.

She sighed, wriggling down into the bed. “A little tired,” she admitted. “But okay.” And she did: she didn’t feel like throwing up, she didn’t feel achy anywhere, she didn’t feel too cold or too hot. It was the nicest she had felt since she had arrived on the planet.

“Do you remember all the…” Luke made a swirly motion around his head. At Leia’s confused look, he tried to explain, “Like… floating, I guess? We were getting rid of the virus and everything. Do you remember that?”

Leia frowned. A vague sense of it was returning to her… she had spoken to Luke, hadn’t she? And Vader. They had been like little lights in the darkness. “I think… I do. Yeah. But it’s kind of… blurry.” Like a dream fading away however hard she tried to grasp it.

Luke nodded. “Me too. I… I remember it, and I remember talking to you, and…” His eyes went to Vader for a second. “And I remember how long it felt, and how… weird. But it’s all… fuzzy.” He thought for a second, seeking out a clearer memory. One came back, starkly terrifying, and his voice dropped as he tried to keep it from shaking. “What about… do you remember the rancor?”

Her eyes widened. “Rancor?” Was he talking about the Wookiee? It was the only thing she could think of that was even close to a rancor. Maybe Luke had mistaken it for one. She didn’t think Wookiees lived on desert planets. 

“Yeah. There was one right outside your ship.” He tried to hold back the memories of it throwing things at him - of it pinning him down on the ramp. “It was infected too, and it was huge. ” He stretched his arms out as far as he could. “It tried to eat us. I was carrying you the whole way and then it made this roar and a bunch of other infected came-”

Leia tried to sit up, but her body still felt too weak to hold her. That did not sound like a Wookiee at all. She didn’t remember any of this, not one bit, and her heart thudded in fear for Luke. “I don’t remember any of that! What happened? What did you do?!” 

“We ran to your ship, and he distracted it,” again, Luke pointed at Vader, “but then it tried to chase me - it was smart, Leia - but I did this - this thing where I - I feel like I saw your ship? I think… you showed it to me? It was a way to bring the ramp down.”

Leia shook her head. She could not recall any of that.

Luke slumped, a little disappointed, but then hurried back to his story. “Well, I got it open, and then we made into your ship, and then-”

“And then,” the third voice joining theirs made them both startle, “he left you alone to rest , Princess.”

Evidently their increasingly loud whispering had finally awoken Vader. His masked head had turned to face them. Luke hunched down again, as if he might hide behind Leia, but at the same time he found himself trying to stretch out to assess Vader’s emotions. To his relief, though, he did not sense any anger, just a tired sort of exasperation, a bit of worry, but mixed with… fondness, almost.

Vader stood, cutting off the bond, and came to Leia’s side to look down on them. Luke sat up, scooting so he was no longer sitting on top of the blanket. Leia, still tired, chose to continue lying on her bed. 

“Sorry,” she said, though she was not feeling sorry at all, not that much. She dropped her eyes the way she did with her mother when she wanted to get out of trouble. “It wasn’t Luke’s fault. I was awake first. I’m feeling a lot better, too.”

There was a moment as she felt Vader looking her over. “That will not last long if you do not rest,” was Vader’s response, but his tone was merely resigned. 

He raised a hand, but all he did was lay it on Leia’s forehead gently. She did not flinch, but lay, quiescent, beneath his hand. The rest had refreshed him; the fatigue, the feeling of pushing past his own limits, was gone. The only reminders of what they had endured were his tattered cape and his patched together prosthetic, which, while functional, snagged at certain movements and continued to send shooting pains up his shoulder. That was to be expected; his repairs had been hurried at best, done only after he had determined Leia’s condition to be stable.

And she was stable. She had come out of her coma; the seizures had dissipated; even her fever was gone. He extended his senses towards Leia’s without compunction, no longer afraid of what he would find but still searching for any remaining vestiges of illness. But all seemed well with her, and the last symptoms - a lingering tiredness, some weakness in the body - would heal with time. Most important of all, though, was the strength of her Force signature. Despite the virus ravaging her midi-chlorians, the cells had bounced back with a resilience that mildly shocked him. Perhaps it was the Force’s own brand of revenge: the thing created to destroy them had only, once eradicated, resulted in it becoming stronger. In just a few hours her presence had brightened to be almost as strong as Luke’s; another few days, he predicted, and it would be equal to her brother’s. And Vader’s.

It took a moment for him to realize that he cared about this not because of any indication of her potential for power, but only as a measure of her health, and he put that thought away as being too uncomfortable for close perusal. 

Could this method have saved Padmé?

The question stabbed at him, unrelenting and haunting. He had brought his daughter back from the brink of death, using Force techniques practically unheard of in the Jedi temple, save as legends, perhaps. It was something only hinted at by Palpatine, vague insinuations dropped and allowed to foment in Vader’s imagination. Manipulation of midi-chlorians… the prolonging life… preventing one from dying… 

But the question remained: was what he had done of the Light, or the Dark? Would Palpatine have ever taught him of this technique, or would he have left it, as it had happened here, to Vader to discover for himself? Had Vader even needed his master? Had he ever?

And at the heart of it: did it matter, when his daughter lived?

Questions for another time, he told himself, thrusting it all away. Leia was moving beneath the blankets, still a little listless from her long ordeal but with growing energy.

She had not, he realized, discovered the price she had to pay for her survival.

He was unwilling to reveal it to her just yet, and instead reached over and placed his hand on Luke’s head. He frowned. The cuts and bruises his son had sustained in the swamp were healing, either from the bacta patches he had placed on him or his own youthful energy, but he had acquired new ones from their rapid dash to the Alderaanian ship, which neither he nor Luke had seen fit to take care of. Moreover, the child was hungry and quite filthy, whereas Leia at least had been hooked up to IVs for her nutritional needs. Vader let his hand drop, feeling an unwanted guilt pool in his chest. He had neglected the boy in favor of his sister, understandably, perhaps, but he had to rectify that.

Taking advantage of the fact that he no longer had to limit his use of the Force, Vader summoned over a med kit, Luke’s pack, and several wet, medicated towels, and indicated for Luke to get down from the medical bed and sit on a nearby chair. The boy was as still as his sister as Vader tended to him, not understanding, perhaps, what Vader was doing or why, but still willing to trust, as he had before, that Vader was not harming them.

But why , Luke wondered again, the same question he had had in the transport, in the same situation, as Vader pulled off the old bacta patches - wet and dirtied and some of them practically rubbed off from being thrown around by the rancor. Why had he helped - and then the thought went away as Vader rubbed the medicated towels against his cuts. It hurt - there was something chemical in them that made the cuts sting even worse than the other wipes - but it was over quickly, and then the new bacta patches were placed over them. There was even something in there for the bruises on his legs, a kind of padding that Vader said would help the blood flow and promote healing. He wrapped it around his legs, mostly his knees and his shins, tugging off his boots and putting his leg wrappings, which were still a little damp, somewhere else for drying. He felt filthy sitting in this clean, white med bay, and looking at Leia, noticed for the first time that she was much the same: wet from rain and with patches of dirt and mud everywhere. He supposed he hadn’t seen that because he was so relieved she was well.

Leia watched too as Vader cleaned Luke up as best as he could with some towels. His pack crunched with leftover meal packs and ration bars, and she realized that, for the first time in days, she was actually craving food. Solid food - that sounded quite nice to have. Maybe once Vader was done with Luke, they could get something from the food synthesizer. But while he worked, she was content to lie there drowsily, listening to the continuing beep of the monitors and the peeling of bacta patches. Luke was off her blanket so she turned over to lie on her side instead of on her back.

She froze, and, sensing her distress, Vader turned sharply.

Where her right hand and arm should have been, there was nothing. 

Leia lifted her arm from where it had been hidden beneath a blanket. She did not understand, she could still feel her hand there, she was sure she had been curling her fingers, moving her hand - hadn’t she felt the blanket over it? But when she looked, there was nothing beneath her elbow: just a stump of flesh with a medical pad wrapped tightly over the place that had been cut off.

Vader made a movement as if to reach for her, then thought better of it. “Leia-” Her wide eyes found his, somehow, behind the mask, searching desperately for any kind of answer there, and Vader realized he was in the unusual and very uncomfortable situation of floundering for words. “We isolated the infection to your arm, where the bite was. But to destroy it-” It seemed that Leia’s large eyes would completely disarm him. “To destroy it in time… the only solution was to remove it before it could spread again.” 

He remembered how easily his lightsaber had cut through the withered skin and flesh and bone - too easily. He remembered placing the medical pad on the end to numb the pain and begin healing the cauterized flesh - the exact same process he had undergone once, many lifetimes ago. He remembered scooping up the dismembered limb, crawling with infection, feeling strangely detached from the whole process, as if it was not his own daughter’s arm he was picking up. He remembered wrapping the festering thing into a vacuum sealed bag, dousing it in disinfectant, burning it, and ejecting the remains into space just for good measure.

The last hypo from the med pac had gone with it. For a painless end, Doctor Monega had advised him. But Leia was not dying and he had taken a furious pleasure in ridding himself of it.

Leia held up what remained of her right arm. Vader saw her eyes go to his own, exposed prosthetic arm, the one he had used, in a bout of complete insanity, to block the rancor’s bite. For whatever reason, the sight seemed to calm her.

“It was the only way?” she asked, looking up at him, remembering again falling into a long, pained sleep of nightmares and strange dreams. Remembering too floating in the darkness before Luke and Vader’s voices had called to her.

Vader nodded.

A little frown crossed her face. “If you helped me… couldn’t you help everyone - everyone down there?”

She meant all the infected. Vader withheld a sigh. “It would be beyond my powers.” Before Leia could respond, he said, “It took the combined efforts of all three of us to heal you. There are millions living on that world. It would be impossible to heal them all.”

Leia kept staring at her arm. “So - we’re just going to leave them?”

He looked at her upturned face and said something he knew he was going to regret. “I will… endeavor to find some way of helping them.” He remembered the data card he had taken from Doctor Monega on a whim. Perhaps he might have some use for it after all.

Twin looks of relief met him after his pronouncement. It was more effective than it should have been. He would need to learn not to be so affected by it. 

One of her most burning questions answered, Leia dropped her arm and caught Luke staring from his seat. It made her stomach clench, until she saw he did not look pitying or repulsed. He just looked accepting, and a little sad, not because she’d lost an arm but because she was frightened and confused and in pain. 

And, as they exchanged glances, she saw the question that had been forming in his head ever since the swamp, the same question she had had and which Vader had, so far, refused to answer. But now more than ever, now that they were here and safe, now that she had seen what Vader was willing to do, how far he was willing to go, she had to ask, Luke had to ask.

“Can you tell us now?” she said.

Vader tilted his head. “Tell you what?”

Luke got up on his knees on the chair in an attempt to gain more height. “Why did you help us?” Before Vader could respond, he blurted out, “Like when the base got bombed. And in fields. The swamp. When we were running to the ship - you kept helping us. Why?”

And then curing her, and bringing them to the ship, flying off with them in it - something clicked into place for Leia. She had not thought of it until now, had not wanted to think of it until now because it had been so painful, but it was not so frightening, Vader was not so frightening as when she had first met him, and with her mind clear of fear, she thought she could pinpoint the exact moment things had changed.

“It’s because of my mother, isn’t it?” she asked quietly. “My real mother?”

For a moment, the only sound was Vader’s respirator cycling.

Then, “Luke, come here.”

Luke blinked in confusion, but followed where he gestured, sitting beside Leia on the bed. She pulled herself upright, leaning against the pillows, to make room for him. 

Vader looked at Leia. “Do you still have the holoprojector?”

Leia nodded, and Luke watched, still bewildered but now curious, as she pulled it out from a pocket of her dress. Vader was not particularly surprised it had survived - it had to be the will of the Force, as it was its will that he had found his children. 

He held out his hand for it. Leia hesitated, clinging onto this one representation of her mother, but finally her curiosity won out over the last remnants of her distrust, and she placed it in Vader’s palm, so many questions in her eyes. Vader held it gently, almost reverentially, as he turned it on. The image of Leia’s real mother blinked into view, smiling wistfully. She looked gentle, kind. Beautiful. Luke thought even Vader knew that, the way he stared at it. He stared at it for so long, in fact, Luke almost thought he would not give it back, that he planned to hold onto it forever, that was how transfixed he was with it, until he placed it down between Leia and Luke, with a hesitation that looked reluctant.

“Did Bail Organa ever tell you her name?” he asked Leia. When she shook her head, Vader said slowly, “Her name was… Padmé.” He pronounced the name softly. “Padmé Naberrie Amidala.” 

Luke saw Leia’s eyes widen and her lips move as she tested the name. The smallest bit of envy crossed his mind - he did not know his own mother’s name. Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru had never told him.

But then he felt Vader’s gaze fall on him, exactly like he had sensed Luke’s thoughts.

“This is your mother, Leia,” said Vader slowly, looking at Luke all the while. “And Luke… she is yours.”

Luke sat stock still for a moment.

His mother, too?

His first thought was to blurt out that Vader was wrong, there was no way this beautiful woman could be his mother. Leia’s, yes, they looked almost exactly alike, and of course a princess should have a mother who looked like that. But him, Luke? A farm boy from Tatooine?

But he could feel the truth of Vader’s words with that inner sense he had had his entire life - the Force, Vader would probably tell him. As unlikely as it seemed… this was his mother. And now he knew her name, too.

And if she was his mother and Leia’s, that made him…

“You’re my sister?” he said, staring at Leia, seeing that she had reached the same shocked conclusion. Now he knew why he felt like he had known her, had always known her, why he had found that bond so easily with her.

“Twins,” Vader confirmed.

Leia looked at Luke. And smiled. She had a brother . She had always wanted a sibling - no. She had always known that she had one, deep down; had felt an empty hole where he should have been, and her wanting one was simply her wishing for that hole to be filled and not knowing why it wasn’t. It had been there so long she had stopped realizing it was even there, but now with Luke sitting beside her, she could feel it becoming whole.

Brother.

Without thinking, she reached out with her one arm and hugged him. Luke grabbed tight hold of her too and hugged back, being careful not to hurt her where her arm had been cut off.

He had a sister! A twin sister. He let his presence find the bond with her and opened it up to her, feeling all her thoughts, feeling that same void he had known filling up. That was why they had connected so easily, why whenever he reached out, he had found her. 

But wait… He released her and stared at Vader. “How did you know? That we’re twins and that she’s-” he motioned to the holo, “-my - I mean, our - mother?”

The silence was the longest he had ever heard from Vader, endless cycles of his respirator filling it. Luke had a sense of Vader steeling himself, and felt his own body tense in anticipation.

Until at last, Vader said simply, “She was my wife.”

For a few seconds, Luke had no idea what that meant. He just kept blinking at Vader, wondering how in the galaxy that explained anything. But then he heard Leia gasp, and like her mind had connected to his, it all came together. Twins - sister, brother - mother, Padmé - and Darth Vader’s wife, which meant - 

Father.

The word fell into place, and everything made sense. Luke understood all of it now: why Vader had protected them so violently, why there was a link between them that he had found as easily as Leia’s, why they could sense each other so well, why he could talk to Vader so easily at times, about speeders and fixing things and Tatooine and the Force, why, why, why - 

Darth Vader was their father , and maybe that should have been scary, but he had been through so many other scary things the last few days and Vader had been the only lifeline in all of it, that all he felt was relief and understanding and the filling of that other great hole in his life. 

His father.

And Luke, reaching out through their connection, nudged against Vader now, no shields, no barriers, all their emotions flowing, but all he felt from Vader - his father - was an awful, tearing uncertainty. 

So Luke reached out for him until he grabbed Vader’s hand, tugging him nearer. Vader drew close to them, right up to the bed, where Luke was sitting, staring up at him. Another tug, and Vader came down slowly to their level, masked face gazing intently into Luke’s, and again there was that hesitation until Luke wrapped his arms around Vader’s neck, pressing himself against the man. 

For several seconds, Luke’s spontaneous gesture appeared to stun Vader into freezing. But then he brought his own arm up and, very gently, placed it around the boy, pulling him closer.

Leia, meanwhile, watched the two of them, unsure what to do. She was excited to have learned her real mother’s name, thrilled at having Luke as a brother… but Darth Vader as her father ? To her, father was still Bail Organa, and for all that she was curious about her real mother, the woman she recognized as her mother was Breha. At least now she understood why Vader had changed so when he had pushed into her memories and found her real mother there… the probing that still made her flinch from remembered pain.

But afterwards… after that, he had led her through the city, protecting her and, later, Luke. He had brought her to the base. He had, in his own intimidating way, cared for her, looked after her, helped her, and then had saved them after the entire building was bombed. And, she knew, he had carried her all the rest of the way, brought her to the ship… saved her life.

Father.

It was all so mixed up and confusing, and she wished she could be Luke, who had only an aunt and uncle and who could so easily accept a father into his life. Darth Vader… the idea of him still terrified her, in a way. He was the person her parents whispered about when they thought she couldn’t hear them. He was the dark figure on the HoloNet, with mysterious powers and who only came to bring destruction. And now he was her father. 

And he had saved her. Saved both of them.

Was that enough?

Tentatively, she leaned forward, noticing, again, what used to be her right arm. He had done that, too. He had cut off her arm. And he had done it to save her.

With her other arm, she pulled herself closer to Vader and, curling against Luke, wrapped it around Vader’s neck as well. In seconds she felt Vader’s own arm come up and cradle her close, and it was not too different from when he had carried her across the field. She rested her head against the crook of his neck. His helmet was hard against her forehead, as was the armor along his shoulders, and she could hear his respirator quickening in its breathing. But otherwise, he was not too different from Bail Organa.

Father. She pressed her face closer. He smelled of dust and metal and plastic. 

Luke’s thoughts mingled with hers, light with elation. Our father.

My children, they heard along their respective bonds, and both were sure it was not their imagination.

But eventually they had to pull away, Leia, exhausted just from that, falling back against her pillow. Luke glanced at her and scooted over so he was sitting right next to her. “So what happens now?” He raised hopeful eyes to Vader. Were they going to live together now? He was their father, Leia was his sister. They were family. That was what families did after they found one another, wasn’t it? Live together?

“Now,” Vader said, sounding much more business-like and more, well, Vader, “you are going to wash up and eat something.” He looked at Leia. “I assume there is a refresher and food synthesizer on this ship?”

Leia, put on the spot and still a little disoriented from, well, everything , nodded.

“Good.” He pointed a finger at her. “Do not get up for anything except to wash, you are still recovering. Ask your brother to bring you anything you need.” Brother, it was so strange and yet so exhilarating to hear that. “I will make contact with the Exactor and bring this ship there.”

Luke wrinkled his forehead. “Okay. But… what about after?” He shot a wondering look at Leia. “Are we going to… go with you?”

Vader seemed to hesitate. “I will decide that after we are aboard my ship.” Another jab of his finger. “Wash. Eat. Rest. I will return shortly.” He swept from the room, the door sliding shut behind him.

As soon as he was gone, Luke leaned towards Leia. “What do you think?” He felt almost giddy now: he had a sister and a father! Everything was going to be okay now, wasn’t it?

Leia shook her head. “I don’t know.” She fussed with her blanket, curling it in her one remaining fist. “Do you really think he’ll let us live with him?” She had never even thought of Darth Vader having a home or a family - up until the last few days, she had thought of him as more like a droid, unstoppable, not needing anything to live. A curious question occurred to her, right then: if Vader was their father, then he was obviously human, so… what did he look like under the mask? She had sometimes tried to imagine what her real father was like. Now that she knew he was Vader… she shot a surreptitious look at Luke. Luke had said she looked like her mother. Did that mean Luke looked like Vader?

Luke was oblivious to Leia’s thoughts. “We should, right?” He swung his legs over the side of the bed. “We’re a family now.”

But her family was back on Alderaan, Leia thought. They were still her parents. She wished she had Luke’s confidence. “I don’t want to leave my parents - I mean, my - my father and mother on Alderaan.” It was strange now to say it, when Vader had also declared himself their father. “They’re still my family too. And I know they’re worried about me.” She looked at Luke. “What about you? Don’t you have your aunt and uncle?”

“Yeah.” He was ashamed to have not thought of them in all the excitement. “They’re probably worried too. Or maybe just mad.” He had run away, after all. “I’d miss them too, but… maybe we can visit them? I mean, we can’t just go back to them, can we? I want to stay with you. With our… our father.” He said it a little shyly, the word unfamiliar in his mouth.

Leia nodded fervently. That, more than anything else, was making her nervous. “I want to stay with you, too.”

They both looked towards the door where Vader had gone through. Luke sighed. “I guess we’ll find out later. Do you want to use the ‘fresher first?” He wrinkled his nose at his clothes. “And I have to wash these, too.”

“You can go,” Leia said, lying back against the pillows. “But could you get me something from the food synth first?” At Luke’s look, she reminded him, “ He said you have to get me anything I want.”

In the cockpit, Vader closed the door, allowing himself some space away from the children. The distance, he knew, was physical only; their connections to him thrummed along the Force, strong, brimming with their every emotion. He placed his hands on the controls, where he had left them on autopilot, hovering somewhere above the treeline of the planet, before guiding them into orbit. The Exactor lay ahead, remaining within the system even after the others had left, awaiting his return. He allowed himself to relax into the ease of piloting, the simplicity of it.

Only then could he contemplate Luke’s question: what would they do after?

His first impulse was to tell Luke that, yes, he would be taking them to live with him. He had spent eight years without his children, unaware even of their existence; he would not be deprived of them a moment longer, not when they were finally out of danger.

But common sense quickly overrode that, the voice that whispered, Are they truly out of danger now?

That same voice asked him, W hat of the Emperor?

His children were strong with the Force, incredibly strong - no doubt that was why they had been hidden from him and Palpatine. Were he to present them to the Emperor, Palpatine would immediately see what potential they had, what assets they might be to his power.

Or danger.

That is, after all, what you had planned, isn’t it? the voice asked him. Now you have it. Your daughter lives. You have your son as well. Take them as your apprentices, train them in the Dark Side as you planned. They are your children, your blood, and they will be loyal only to you. Then, when the moment is right, strike down the Emperor and take his place as ruler of the galaxy.

But if he had thought that far ahead already, it was obvious that his master would too, as soon as he laid eyes on the twins. And what then?

Palpatine might take them for himself, bend them to his own will. He would order it of Vader. Vader knew well how manipulative his master could be, and how powerful. Vader could not hope to disobey him, could not defeat him on his own; if the Emperor commanded it of Vader, he would be forced to hand over his children. And at their age, so vulnerable, and having just found out Vader was their father, any ties of blood would mean little after years of the Emperor’s molding. Vader knew as well that, after his injuries on Mustafar, the Emperor had found him to be rather unsatisfactory as an apprentice. He might very well be handing over his own replacements - and once Vader had been struck down, killed by his own children, then the twins would be told to turn on one another for the position of the Emperor’s apprentice. There would be no one to protect them at all.

Two there must be…

Or the Emperor may not even go that far.

He might order them killed.

He might order Vader to kill them. A test of his loyalty. And what then? Vader clenched his fist on the controls. He could not defy the Emperor. But he would not kill his own children, not after all his efforts to save them.

Then hide them and train them.

That could take years, years in which they would be at constant risk for discovery.

And there was one final question, pushed deep down so that he did not have to think about it until now: did he truly want them trained in the Dark Side?

It went against all Sith teachings, to even question that. Why else would he have need of such powerful children if not to turn them to the Dark Side?

But he knew what the answer was to that.

You just want them , don’t you? Not as apprentices, not as future Sith Lords. Just them.

Foolish. Because that option, more than any of the others, left them most open to danger. Two powerful, untrained children of immense Force potential? They were simply begging for the Emperor to take them.

Then what can you do to protect them?

For one rapturous moment, he considered throwing everything away and fleeing into the furthest reaches of wild space. Leave behind Empire and master, take a shuttle, and settle on some uninhabited planet in a remote corner of the Unknown Regions, raising them as he should have, perhaps training them the way he desired. 

But just as quickly as the vision came, he dismissed it as a foolish, hopeless dream. Should Vader defect, Palpatine would stop at nothing to retrieve him and take vengeance for Vader’s disobedience - he was too powerful for Palpatine to just let him go. He would send probe droids, Inquisitors, and the full might of the Imperial military, not to mention all the powers of the Dark Side. And once he discovered the children… there would be no safe place for them. Vader knew with clinical dispassion that he had little to no allies who would risk the Emperor’s wrath to aid him, even if they wanted to.

Not to mention, he thought with a wry twist of his scarred mouth, the temper tantrums he’d have to put up with from his children if he tore them from their homes. Especially from Leia.

So then, what to do?

The answer came slowly, but perhaps that was only because he did not wish to acknowledge it. But it was the only answer he could think of.

At that moment, he received a message from the comms system. “Vessel Polestar, state your purpose and destination.”

He pressed the transmission button. “Captain Denholm, prepare the docking bay for my immediate arrival.”

There was a startled pause before he received the next message. “Lord Vader! My apologies, we did not recognize your ship.” That much was obvious, Vader knew; he was flying an Alderaanian yacht, not the shuttle he had left on. “We had heard that you and your entire party were killed at the governor’s palace!”

“Clearly not,” was Vader’s scathing reply. “I will be within range of the Exactor in less than five minutes. Have a shuttle ready; I have other business I must attend to. I want the entire bay cleared of personnel.”

“Of course, my lord,” was Captain Denholm’s puzzled response. Vader was about to shut off the transmission when the captain added, “My lord, the Emperor contacted us five days ago. He requested that you speak to him should you return.”

For a moment, Vader wondered if the Emperor somehow knew about the discovery of his children - if he had felt it through a tremor in the Force. But he dismissed this - more likely, he wanted an update on the status of this bioweapon that had been created. It was, after all, the Emperor who had also allowed it to go forward, and Vader had little doubt that he had been keeping a closer eye on its progress than Vader had. And with it came another thought: the Emperor had fully expected him to survive this.

“Inform the Emperor that I will be contacting him shortly.”

He flew the ship until it reached the Exactor’s tractor beam, then allowed himself to think of his next steps. He had ordered his shuttle ready and the hangar bay cleared so that he could discreetly move the children to that ship before leaving. But now that would have to wait until after he spoke with his master.

As the ship landed, he left the cockpit in search of his children. They had not left the med bay, but even if they had, Vader had no doubt he would have found them easily, that was how bright their Force signatures were.

He found them freshly washed, clothes clean. Leia was sitting on her bed, eating a meal with more appetite than she had for days. He noted that approvingly, also noticing her increasing energy - and talkativeness. Luke sat on the bed beside her, the two chattering about something or other - he caught Leia expounding about the nearby woods and Luke occasionally describing the dunes of Tatooine. But their conversation halted as he entered.

“Come,” he told them, “we are landing in my Star Destroyer’s docking bay, but we will depart on my shuttle. I have ordered the bay to be emptied of all personnel, but we must be quick.” He examined Leia, trying to gauge her health. “Can you walk?”

Her presence flared with annoyance, which he took to be another good sign. “Yes I can walk!”

He simply nodded before leading them off the ship and towards his own personal shuttle. It was a walk of just a few feet but he was cognizant the entire time of the possibility of being seen. His plan would be for nothing if anybody spotted two children walking alongside him and reported it back to his master.

Once inside, he said, “Stay in here. I will return your ship to Alderaan, but first I must speak with the Emperor. I will return.”

Luke stared around the ship. “You’re going to leave us here?”

Vader regarded him curiously. “It is perfectly safe. None of the men will disturb you.” The crew of his flagship had long ago learned to heed his orders, however unusual, lest they incur his wrath.

But that was not, apparently, Luke’s concern. “Can I sit in the cockpit?”

Leia’s eyes lit up. “Can I sit in the pilot’s chair?”

Vader had a brief but vivid mental image of his errant children slapping a button and his shuttle taking off to Force knew where. 

“No.” 

But he had not prepared himself for the twin expressions of dismay he got at that response. Before he had time to even think about it, he heard himself saying, “You may sit in the cockpit but only in the back. Do not touch anything.”

The way their faces shone should not have touched something in him. He watched as the two scrambled from their chairs for the front, Luke already claiming the copilot’s seat. It was as if the events of the last few days had never happened - or maybe they were driven out by the prospect of pretending to fly a ship. Shaking his head minutely, he left the shuttle, closing the ramp as he departed. 

The docking bay remained empty, even of the usual contingent of troopers overlooking it for security purposes, but Vader knew that footage was still being recorded by the nearby holocams. He made a short detour to the security room to erase it - it was only a few seconds long and unless someone was actively searching for it, nobody would even notice it was gone.

Then he made his way to his personal chambers and the Emperor.

As Vader kneeled, he wrapped himself in the Dark Side and eliminated all thoughts of children, of Padmé, of his plan… of anything except for the business of cleansing the planet of infected beings. If he revealed any hint of his wavering attention, allowed himself even once to think of his children waiting for him, all would be lost. 

“What is thy bidding, my master?”

Palpatine’s image flickered into view, his grotesque visage magnified to ten times bigger than Vader. Even as a blue hologram, there was something malevolent flickering behind those hooded eyes.

“Lord Vader.” His voice was measured, anticipatory. “I trust your visit was productive?”

So it was to be a meeting of obfuscation and subterfuge. Vader hardened his shields, not letting any of his impatience leak out. “It was most informative, master.” He let his words end there, choosing to wait for his master to reveal his hand.

His master, of course, was far too clever to play into this. “I have felt a strange disturbance in the Force. Was this supposed uprising the product of a nascent cell of rebels?”

Of course he would know that it was not. “No, my master.” Knowing that simple answer was not enough, Vader added, “The uprising was caused by a contagion spread amongst the population.” Something nudged at his shields, something along the twin bonds. He studiously ignored it even as part of him balked at his reaction, wanting to return.

“A contagion?” Palpatine’s interest was only perfunctory. “That appears to have been omitted from the governor’s latest reports. Shall I trust then that the agitators were quelled?”

So it seemed he too was playing dumb, though he did it well enough that, had it not been for Doctor Monega’s report, Vader might even have believed him. The thought made him weary, the constant duel of move and countermove, of baiting and rising to - or refusing - the bait. 

Or perhaps it was something else: another one of his tests. Palpatine was fond of throwing those at Vader, testing his allegiance to the Dark Side - and to him. Well, he would not know just how far Vader had fallen from his allegiance, hidden behind shields as hard as durasteel. “Reports of any agitators are false. The so-called uprising was violence caused by victims of the infection, symptoms of their progressing illness.”

“Most interesting.” Sinister curiosity permeated the Emperor’s voice. “And the source of this disease?”

Vader had never had much inclination for this game of words and hidden meanings, and as he felt another nudge along the bond, he decided to end it now, whatever his master should think. “An Imperial base engaged in bioweapons research.” He allowed his anger to leak through now. “Its lead scientist was conducting research into midi-chlorians. A disease that targeted those cells specifically, a disease he claimed you had full knowledge of.”

The Emperor smiled. “Doctor Monega was correct. I approved of his proposal myself after hearing it - as did you.” A reminder, then, that Vader was just as culpable in the creation - and that Palpatine had not missed the undertone of accusation. “I was most… distressed to hear of the doctor’s demise in the orbital bombardment. He was an extraordinarily resourceful scientist.” His tone grew cloyingly troubled. “As I was to hear that you were planetside when the bombardment occurred. The orders for such were certainly not of my doing. Have you identified the officer who gave it?”

So it was another test, Vader thought resignedly. “No, my master, but I look forward to conducting a thorough investigation of all the officers.” An investigation that no doubt would lead to a trail of false leads with no conclusion. Or perhaps it would lead to a man, a scapegoat for him to loose his misplaced anger on. It would not matter. Only one could have ordered the bombardment while he was on the planet’s surface with the confidence of getting away with it. As for why - likely another test by his master. He turned the subject away from that. “Master, the disease-”

Palpatine cut him off. “Fascinating, was it not? And a way to cull the Jedi, as well as…” something in his tone shifted, “any others of their potential. Relatives, perhaps. Offspring.”

Vader slammed his shields down as his wariness spiked. Was that a warning? A probe meant to drive at Vader’s past? Or merely the Emperor’s idle speculations? He waited a moment, fighting for control before daring to speak. “Master, the disease infected not only Force-sensitives but every living being. It interfered with the ability to tap into the Force itself. Whatever strikes at the Jedi strikes at the Sith.”

“Quite true, Lord Vader, quite true. Yet even you must admit there is some potential there.” Palpatine let the words hang for a moment. “What would your solution be?”

This was steadier ground for him, and Vader did not hesitate. “The disease must be halted. No ships must be allowed in or out of the system. A planet-wide quarantine must be placed.” 

“And yet, if this disease strikes, as you say, not only at the Sith but at every living being, surely you would agree that more drastic measures must be taken to prevent any future occurrence.”

Vader hesitated. “If there is a possibility of a cure-”

Palpatine waved a dismissive hand. “For there to be a cure, we would need to share Doctor Monega’s research, opening the door to imitators. This planet was a testing ground for his creation, and a most effective one, but nothing more. The risk is too great. The inhabitants have served their purpose. Is that clear, Lord Vader?”

He could not argue. “Yes, my master.” He knew Palpatine was waiting for him to suggest something else - but his children’s faces as he promised to aid the planet floated before him. Quickly he shut it off before the Emperor could become aware of it.

He would not disagree with the Emperor - but neither would he be the one to bring up a more destructive alternative. It was a pitiful gesture of defiance, but it was the best he could do.

The silence between them lengthened. It was Palpatine who chose to break it. “A plague can rest dormant in the soil and water and atmosphere for years on end. We must not risk letting it spread any further. Perhaps incineration of the entire planetary surface will do? Or orbital bombardment of any and all residences?”

Vader recoiled involuntarily at the thought, even as memories of being buried beneath rubble threatened his composure. “There may well be survivors,” he rumbled, “Imperial troops among them.”

“Nonsense.” Palpatine’s holographic image appeared to grow larger as he leaned forward. “The base was destroyed, as you well know, and any survivors will be mere fodder for the diseased. I will not risk breaching the quarantine to save a few stragglers from their fate.”

He breathed in and out, weighing the options before him. His children’s faces swam before him yet again before he hastily pushed them away. “It is an agricultural world,” he began carefully, “and its lone city has already been destroyed. It would be a waste of resources to wipe out the entire planet. A quarantine and blockade of the planet from all trade routes should suffice.” Leia’s face floated before his eyes again, pale with illness. As did Luke’s. He added, “It can be used as an example of the Empire’s benevolence. Instead of bombardment or incineration, we have left it to attempt to recover.”

“Mercy,” said the Emperor, with a mirthless twist of his wrinkled mouth, “is for those too weak to survive in this galaxy.”

But Vader was ready. “Then it will serve as an example. Spread word that there was a rebellious contingent forming in the city, as initial reports stated and that this was their fate.” 

Palpatine considered the proposal, then nodded. “Very wise, my apprentice. Yet there is one more way for this disease to spill over: information. What shall be done with Doctor Monega’s research?”

Vader stepped carefully here. The Emperor had praised the doctor only moments before, not to mention gave approval to his project years ago… but given the results, Vader did not think his next words would be met with disapproval. “Master, even if it was unintentional, research into midi-chlorians is illegal under the Empire’s laws. His research is too dangerous to be given to other scientists. It must also be destroyed.” 

“I quite agree,” replied Palpatine, suddenly business-like. “How fortunate it is that the base was already destroyed, is it not? And I have already ensured that all the data banks of Doctor Monega’s research have been erased. Nobody will follow in his footsteps.” 

Vader kept all thoughts of Doctor Monega’s data card out of his mind.

Palpatine seemed to recede slightly in the hologram, interest waning. “Shall I leave it in your hands?”

Vader bowed. “It will be done, my master.”

He waited for Palpatine’s image to flicker out of existence before letting out a sigh, as best as he could, of relief. Standing, he gave his preliminary orders to his men before making his way back to the shuttle. He gently tested the twin bonds as he did so. They seemed well enough, so he at least did not have to worry that they had destroyed his shuttle in the interim.

On the way, he passed by one of the crewmen. “Return the Polestar to the House of Organa,” he ordered. “And inform them…” He hesitated at the choice before him, knowing there was no other option. “Inform them that its most valued passenger will be joining them shortly.”

He did not stop to hear the crewman’s assent.

It was time to take his children home.

Vader found them in the cockpit of his shuttle, the two of them seated in the back chairs.

“What’s our status, Leia?” Luke called. He was up on his knees in the chair, staring out the front viewport as he steered an imaginary wheel.

Leia made a rapid spin as if to simulate a scan. “Enemy fighters all around us, Luke!” She pretended to swing down an imaginary turret, which at least was better than her actually touching the gunner’s array in front of her. “I’ll take them down!” She swung about with her one arm.

“Negative, there’s too many! We’re headed towards an asteroid field!” Luke made a boom! sound, rocking up and down in the chair.

“An asteroid field!” Leia yelped. “Luke, we’ll be killed!” She made as if to shoot her turret. “Look, I’m taking them down! Two fighters down, two more on our tail!”

“Intensify forward shields!” Luke twisted his “wheel” and gunned a “lever”. “We’ll face them head on! Get ready, Leia!”

“Ready!”

They made simultaneous exploding noises before whooping. “We did it! Our cargo is secured!”

“What were we transporting anyway?” asked Leia curiously.

“Uh… death sticks.”

“What?!”

Vader ducked into the cockpit at that moment, crossing his arms. Both children fell silent at the sight of him. Luke hurriedly sat back down in his seat.

Leia said, in the manner of seeking a distraction, “Um… are we going to go now?”

Luke perked up. “Where are we going?”

Vader moved past his two children to take the pilot’s seat, deciding not to comment on what he had just witnessed. “I am taking you home.” He started up the shuttle, feeling the familiar rumble of the engines whirring to life.

“Okay,” Luke nodded. Then he blinked. “Where’s that?”

“I am returning you to your aunt and uncle,” he said to Luke. “And you to your parents,” he told Leia.

A stunned silence followed those words.

“But - we’re not going to - to stay with you?” Luke demanded.

Leia added, “Luke can’t stay with me?”

The ship pulled out of the hangar bay, the momentum briefly pushing the children back against their seats, as Vader said, “It is too dangerous for you to come with me.” He turned and instantly regretted it as he found two pairs of bewildered eyes on him. “Listen to me. There is a great power in you, but it is also something that brings great danger.”

“But you’re our father, ” said Luke, as if that might solve everything, and Vader could almost hear his unspoken thoughts: You protected us before, you can protect us from everything else!

He refrained from sighing; he had not expected this to be that difficult. They were returning to the people who had raised them, he would have thought them to be thrilled to be going back. “I have many enemies, Luke, some with more power than I have. If they were to find you, your very life would be at risk. I cannot protect you-”

“You said you wouldn’t leave us!” Luke interrupted at a shout.

Startled, Vader said, “Luke-”

But the boy had shot out of his seat and stumbled off to the back. Vader, following his Force signature, sensed him throwing himself at the very end seat, furthest from the cockpit.

A soft noise made him turn again and see Leia rising from her seat as well. Her glare was half defiant, half betrayed. “You promised you wouldn’t go,” she whispered. “You promised. ” She ran to the back as well.

For a long while Vader was surprised into stillness; it was only years of experience that allowed him to essentially auto-pilot the shuttle away from the Exactor. He set the coordinates, but the distress emanating from Luke’s bond - from both his children’s bonds - was proving to be quite distracting. It tugged at something in him, something he had thought long-buried, and one part of him said that if a little thing like this could interfere with his attention so badly, perhaps it was for the best that he send them back to their respective homes. 

Not to mention, with all the upheaval, one would think they would rejoice at returning to the normality of their previous lives, rather than being thrown into a home with a Sith Lord. It was not as if he had done a good job of getting them to trust him either, what with trying to kill Luke at first meeting him and using a mental probe on Leia…

The other part, though, was urging him to do something, anything, to put it right. He could not very well deposit his children back at their homes in this state, could he?

With a sigh, Vader punched in the coordinates, then placed the ship on auto-pilot before leaving for the back.

He found them curled together in the last row of seats, hands twining together. Leia was whispering something, it sounded again like the lakes and oceans of Alderaan, and he thought that maybe she was trying to describe what it might be like for Luke to join her there - and for her to join Luke on Tatooine. They studiously ignored him as he approached, a childish act that engendered both amusement and irritation. Nevertheless, he still had to speak to them, so he came right up to the two and stood, waiting for a response.

Luke stiffened his shoulders and Leia slumped in her seat, still refusing to acknowledge him. Even their twin bonds were closed to him, or at least, they attempted to close them. Vader could have easily bypassed their barely formed shields, but that did not seem like a wise move when they were both already distressed.

So they were at a standoff.

The ship bounced gently as it traveled through hyperspace, and the two remained stubbornly, obstinately silent in the face of Vader looming over them. Remarkably, Vader considered the fact that they would drop out of hyperspace and the two would still continue to refuse to speak to him, united in their twin conspiracy to, perhaps, annoy their father into letting them remain together. Vader was considering just dumping them on their respective planets and letting them learn from their mistakes that way, but realized that that was not a good move either.

He found himself wishing Padmé were there. She would know what to say. And the thought occurred to him as well that he was putting off saying anything because he had so little experience in this field.

What could he do to make them understand?

At last, it came to him, the only thing that could work at all. He sat down on the seat beside the two, staring out the viewports with its shimmering streaks of light. 

“Luke, Leia,” he said, trying to find the words, “When I told you about the Force, as you were learning - do you remember what I said about it?”

For a moment, neither responded, and Vader wondered if he might end up holding an entirely one-sided conversation. But finally Leia, still looking mulish, muttered, “You said… we had it and we were very… strong in it, I think.”

He nodded. “And the infected. What did I say about them and the Force?”

It was Luke who answered this time. “You said… that they sensed it. They used it to hunt us.” He wiped his face.

“There are others in the galaxy who can use the Force, and they, too, can sense when you use it. They will hunt you, just like the infected. And when you do, you will be in danger.” The children lifted their heads to look at him, twin expressions of bewilderment on their faces. “But it will be worse. Because these people are intelligent. They may not just try to kill you. They will try to use you, to hurt you, to hurt others.”

Their bonds were open to him once more, and he heard the echo of their shared thoughts. But what about you? they wanted to ask once again. He had saved them before, and he felt, stronger than anything, their unshakeable faith that he would save them again, and it rocked him to his core. How could he explain what he must, how could he make them see the necessity of what he had to do?

“One of these people,” he said slowly, “is the Emperor.”

He saw both children blink in confusion. “The Emperor?” repeated Luke. “What does he want with us?” And Vader could hear his thoughts: how does someone so important care about us?

“The Emperor,” said Vader carefully, “is more dangerous than anybody else in the galaxy.” He stared at the two, trying to emphasize the intensity of what he was saying. “If he learns of your existence, he will stop at nothing to acquire you. And if he feels you are a threat to him…” He let the words trail off.

Leia finished them for him. “He’ll kill us?”

Vader let his silence confirm her words.

Luke stared at Vader. “What about you?” And again, that unspoken trust lingered in the air.

Vader shook his head. “I am not strong enough to defy him.” Once, perhaps. But the intervening years had proved how wrong he was.

“You?” Luke asked, disbelieving. 

He nodded, not caring to explain further. “That is why you must return. You are safe where you are, the Emperor will not find you. That is why you were placed there, rather than… with me.” It was a lie, but it was yet another thing he could not tell them about, not at this age.

They stared at their laps. Vader could feel their turmoil, their depression. “You said you wouldn’t go,” Luke whispered, one last protest.

He started to respond, then had a better idea. Reaching out, he found the twin bonds that connected them to him - and to one another. Along that bond, he sent the feelings he could not convey in words: the resigned acceptance of what he had to do, the pain that he shared with them of having to part with them, and above all, his fear for their lives… and his protectiveness. 

I am not leaving you. Not truly.

He knew that they had heard when he saw their eyes widen. A flood of emotions rushed through the bonds, so similar as to be almost indistinguishable from one another: grief and uncertainty and wonder and trust, all at the same time.

For a moment, they just sat there, taking in the feelings.

Vader felt the rumble of the ship preparing to come out of hyperspace and stood. “We will arrive at Tatooine soon. You may stay here until we land.”

Luke glanced up. “Can we… sit in the cockpit with you?” His eyes were wide and a tendril of thought escaped him, the urge to stay near him just a little longer.

Vader regarded him for a moment. How simple it was to distract them, to make them happy, in their innocence. He hoped it would last, knowing that was pure naivete on his end. “If you do not touch anything or disturb me… you may.”

The two scrambled to their feet and, dodging around him, dashed for the cockpit ahead of him, and Vader allowed himself a moment of bemusement at how easily satisfied they were. 

“Can I sit in the co-pilot’s seat?” Luke asked, bouncing.

“I want to sit in it,” Leia protested. “I was in the back already.”

“I was in the back too!”

“I was in the very back!”

Vader held up a hand, forestalling further argument, then jabbed a finger at Luke. “ You may sit in the co-pilot’s seat until we land.” He pointed at Leia. “ You can sit during our flight to Alderaan.”

That seemed to satisfy them, but Vader waited until both were seated and buckled in before continuing. Then it was only for them to watch as the streaks of light settled into the pinpricks of stars that marked their arrival at Tatooine.

Chapter Text

Tatooine was burning hot, as it always was and likely always had been, and nowhere was the heat more noticeable than out in the flatlands. There, farmers scraped at vaporators to collect what drops of water they could, hid in the relative coolness of their dugout homesteads as the suns crept to their highest point, and eked out a living as best as they could in the sand and the dust.

These were the chores that the Lars homestead might have engaged in were they not worrying over the fate of one of their missing members. In fact, many of their usual chores had been neglected for days in lieu of searching the barren deserts or making subtle contacts in town. This had become their routine, and the two remaining members were on the verge of doing it all over again, despite the sinking feeling that it was all for nothing, until an Imperial shuttle landed just feet from their doorstep.

Owen had his blaster rifle ready almost as soon as Beru did. The Empire left their planet alone for the most part, and on the rare occasions they made an appearance, it was at one of the few places deemed large enough to be considered a population center: Mos Espa, Mos Eisley, Anchorhead if it was unlucky enough to be picked out. An individual family was beneath notice, so to have a ship land on their farm was frightening indeed. 

But Owen and Beru had always known the risks when they had taken in Luke. They just didn’t understand why the Imperials would appear at the one time Luke was gone .

The two exchanged looks as the ship’s ramp lowered. Unpicked mushrooms were sprouting on the furthest vaporators, thin stalks stretching to the sky. Rust was beginning to accumulate on the machinery nearer the homestead. Sand had blown up in drifts along the steps, unswept. A mere week of neglect was already beginning to show its effects. Owen and Beru had scoured the desert surrounding their farm for days, even daring to track the Tuskens at a distance. Still, nothing had turned up. Their nephew was a dreamer, adventurous, but he had never disappeared for more than a few hours, and never without leaving some sign of where he was. To be gone for days… if the desert had not taken him, and so far no desiccated body had been found buried beneath the sands, then there could only be one other fate. And as they heard footsteps and harsh breathing, they braced themselves for the worst.

The shadowed figure that emerged, however, was alone, unaccompanied by any battalion of troopers or flanking officers. Owen kept his rifle in full view, not aimed, but letting the figure know they were perfectly capable of, and willing to, defend themselves. He could make out the shape of him at the top of the ramp, and for a moment he thought, with a chill that should not have been possible in the hot air, that it was an Inquisitor. 

Then the being emerged fully into the sunlight and Owen recognized him for who he was. He had seen him several times on the HoloNet, though he was usually on some faraway planet, standing next to the Emperor himself. But why in all the galaxy Darth Vader had come to their homestead, was beyond him. 

Vader came to the bottom of the ramp and stood, regarding them for a long moment. The cycling of his respirator filled the air. It was only the start of the day but the heat was already such that the air was beginning to waver with it, and Owen briefly wondered how the man could stand it in his heavy armor and layers of robes. That was cast aside quickly in favor of assessing that thick armor. Their bolts might not be able to penetrate it, but there was surely a weak spot.

But then Vader stepped aside and a tiny figure burst out from behind him.

“Uncle Owen! Aunt Beru!”

Beru dropped to her knees, eyes wide, rifle falling from her slack hand. “Luke? Oh, Luke!” She grabbed the boy in a hard hug. “Oh, we’ve been so worried! Luke, are you all right? What happened?”

Owen crouched beside her, but he kept his hand on his rifle and an eye on the still-silent, black-armored figure. Vader and Luke? If it was an absurdity that the second-in-command of the entire Empire would visit them, then him having their nephew bordered on the impossible. Yet there stood Vader, cloak brushing the sand, watching them, and here was Luke. Deciding not to question it for the time being, Owen knelt down and pulled Luke into his own hug - though never taking his eyes off the other man.

“Where the hell were you?” he asked Luke gruffly, ruffling the boy’s head and trying to examine him at the same time. Luke looked a little thinner, a little bruised and cut up in places, and there was a look in his eyes that spoke of things no Tatooinian farm boy should have seen, but he was all in one piece and for now, that was what mattered.

At that question, though, his nephew deflated a little. “Don’t be mad, okay?” he implored, which was always a bad sign. He looked between aunt and uncle - and then back at Vader, who stood silent and alert. Beru thought she saw another movement behind him and, frowning, caught sight of a second child, a little girl with dark brown hair who looked close to Luke’s age. She peered out from behind Vader’s dark cloak.

Her attention was distracted yet again as Luke started babbling, words pouring out of him: of wanting to go on the field trip, of running away, of finding a transport to another planet (just for one day, he insisted) - and then the terror of landing, and something to do with a mob of people wanting to eat him or tear him apart, he seemed a bit confused on that, and a girl who was sick, and special powers, and - 

“My father, Uncle Owen,” whispered Luke, eyes wide. “I found my father! He was there, he saved us!”

Father? But Luke’s father was dead . Kenobi, that crazy old hermit, had assured them of it when he had delivered Luke to them. Moreover, they had met Anakin Skywalker before, and this armored figure coming up to them…

“Owen Lars,” said the man, machine, whoever or whatever he was now. 

Owen stiffened his shoulders. Recognition or not, he could see nothing of the intense, troubled young man he had met so briefly, long ago. “So you know my name, but how do I know you’re who Luke says you are?”

The man tilted his head, somehow appearing amused. “We met when I came in search of my… mother.” Did Beru imagine the hitch in the voice, so mechanical as to reveal almost no emotion? “You introduced me to Beru,” he indicated the woman with a minute tilt of his helmet, “and your father, Cliegg Lars.” A pause. “You called me your brother.”

Surprise flickered across Owen’s face - and something else, as he took in the mechanical body, the respirator, the blinking chest panel. “Anakin? Is it really you?” He stared at him. “Stars, what the hell happened to you?”

Vader, or Anakin, if that was who he really was, did not respond to that. Luke hung off Beru’s hand, but his gaze was on his father, intense as the suns. 

Owen caught their shared look, and his hand tightened on the blaster rifle. “So what now?” he asked sharply. “You going to take the boy?” That was what these crazy outlanders did. It was what the Inquisitors did - if they did not do something worse. It was all the same thing to Owen, though. Someone had come to take Anakin away; Shmi had told the story often enough, of a Jedi who had come from a faraway planet to free her son and train him to be a Jedi. Now look at what had happened to Anakin. But the Jedi were gone, the Empire was hunting down all like them, and Luke… Owen stepped in front of Beru and his nephew. Luke was his to protect and he was not letting anyone, not even Darth Vader, take him away. 

But this man who was supposedly Anakin, regarded him fixedly from behind the mask. He was silent for an endless moment, breathing echoing across the space between them. “You have cared for Luke all these years.”

It was not a question, but Owen nodded curtly regardless.

The man, Anakin, turned his gaze away to stare out across the sands. “The Empire has made little impact here.”

“They’ve tried,” Owen interrupted. “Doesn’t mean they’ve succeeded.”

The other inclined his head slightly. “You know, too, what kind of child Luke is.”

“He’s our child,” said Beru firmly. She placed her other hand on Luke’s. “It doesn’t matter what else he is.”

“It does,” said the other man, voice rumbling. “He is an extraordinarily special child.” Luke straightened at the words, face flushing with pleasure and embarrassment. “But there is great danger in the galaxy for children like Luke.” He breathed, in and out with that mechanical sound, for a moment. “You have kept him safe.” The helmet turned to face them. “You will continue to do so.” He made it sound like an order - which was likely his intent.

Owen raised an eyebrow. “You’re letting him stay with us?”

The mask tilted up. “Do you wish otherwise?”

“Not sure if our wishes have any bearing on your decision,” was his sharp retort.

There was a staccato noise across the vocoder. “It does, whether you believe it or not, Owen Lars.” There was another moment where he regarded them. When he spoke again, his voice was softer. “Watch over him. Do not let the Empire find him.”

“What do you think we’ve been doing all these years?” said Owen.

A brief nod. “If that should change… I have considerable resources at my disposal. You could take the boy, make a new home elsewhere…”

“This is our home. We’re not leaving,” was Owen’s terse reply. “And I think we’ve managed just fine ‘til now without any help from you.” ,But at Beru’s look, he added begrudgingly, “Fine, well, if things do get very bad… maybe we’ll send a message.”

Vader nodded again, seemingly satisfied. He glanced at Luke one last time and held that gaze, as if unwilling or unable to pull himself away. “Look after him. Keep my son safe.”

Son. If nothing else had convinced them, then that word would. So it truly was as Luke said.

The girl wriggled out from behind the man and ran to Luke before flinging herself at him. Their hug was fierce. Owen and Beru noticed, at the same time, her missing right arm, ending at the elbow joint. She did not let that hinder her, wrapping herself around Luke as tight as she could, as did he. Her face was wet, and so was Luke’s as they released each other. Luke had mentioned her in his babbling - a friend, they supposed.

“Can we see each other again soon?” Luke asked his father, wiping at his eyes. He was still gripping the girl tightly and Beru did not know whether he was referring to her, his father, or both.

Did Vader hesitate? It seemed to take the space of a second for him to reply, “It would be very dangerous.” 

“Can we at least send messages?” the girl pleaded.

“There is too much risk,” said Vader. “The Empire monitors all transmissions. Should they find out, it would place both of you in grave danger.” But when both their faces fell, he added, rather quickly it seemed, “Nevertheless, I shall see if we can… arrange something.”

Arranging something? Owen and Beru exchanged yet another look. What did the girl mean to Luke and Vader? 

Yet it was impolite to ignore her, this friend of Luke’s. Beru smiled at her, bent to her level, and asked, “And what’s your name?”

“Leia,” replied the girl, attempting a teary smile as she held Luke’s hand with her remaining one.

“What a pretty name,” Beru said. “And is Luke your friend?”

“He’s my brother,” said Leia, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Beru’s startled stare took in Owen, Luke, and Luke’s father - the children’s father. “I didn’t know Luke had a sister,” she said, trying to recover herself. Obi-Wan had made no mention of that fact. She tried, as surreptitiously as possible, to examine the other child, looking for similarities. So close in age… she must be a twin. Did the girl share Luke’s unique abilities? Who did she live with? And why had the two been kept apart?

“It’s okay,” said Leia, “I didn’t know either until just a little while ago.” 

More questions. To have not only an unknown father but a sister? Who had split them up? And was the girl’s family aware of Luke? But Beru only kept a smile on her face and said, “Well then, I suppose we are your aunt and uncle too. I am Beru and this is Owen.” 

The girl sparkled momentarily, and Beru thought she caught a glimpse of another face in those young features, the face of the beautiful young woman who had accompanied Anakin on his trip to their farm. She wanted to ask what had happened to that woman, but there was no time for more questions. The girl, Leia, released Luke’s hand, her smile wilting and looking suddenly small and sad. “Goodbye, Luke. I - I hope I’ll see you again. Soon.”

He reached out, hugging her again. “Me too. Bye, Leia.” But when he pulled back, Beru was sure something was exchanged between them, like a tiny spark flashing between them.

Vader was watching them. As they drew apart, he made a gesture, as if to touch Luke’s head, only to halt almost before it had begun. Instead he turned, the gesture so abrupt that Beru knew it must have taken all his effort to do so, saying only, “Return to the ship, Leia.” But Beru did not think she was imagining the subdued emotion lurking beneath his words. 

The girl nodded, eyes wet as she walked back, never taking her eyes off Luke until she reached the ramp. With a last wave, she clambered back up into the ship, her father striding after her, cloak sweeping the sands.

“Wait!”

Luke saw Vader turn sharply as he dodged Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru’s restraining arms and ran to him, stumbling as the sands slipped beneath his feet. He grabbed Vader’s hand, tugging him fully around to face him.

“I will see you again, right? Soon?” he asked hopefully. 

His father stared at him for long seconds, as if seeing something that Luke could not. Finally, he said, “The Emperor’s spies are everywhere.” It was with the tone of trying to let Luke down gently. “I cannot risk placing you in danger.”

Luke dropped his gaze. The Emperor must be very dangerous indeed if his father said he could not fight him, and he felt his hope fade away to misery. He did not want to place his father in danger either. “I know,” he mumbled to the sands. “But I don’t want you to go either.” Had anyone ever said that to Darth Vader? Luke didn’t really know or care. “Please come back? Just to visit or something.” He stepped closer, Vader’s breathing loud against the sands. “You said you’d stay.”

Vader was still for all of a moment, the spot in Luke’s head that he occupied tingling. Then he came down to his level, his hand resting gently atop Luke’s head. Luke grabbed it, squeezing, feeling the hard metal beneath the leather glove, looking at the eye plates of his father’s mask. He wished more than anything then that he could see the face behind it. Behind him, he was aware of his aunt and uncle and could feel, like words just below hearing level, something of what they were thinking: that they could not doubt now that he was Vader’s son and that he cared for him, however that might be demonstrated.

“It cannot be often,” said Vader softly, his thumb brushing back strands of Luke’s hair. “It will endanger you and your sister if I am seen visiting you too much.”

Luke nodded, but he felt his heart lightening. He hadn’t said no. “That’s okay. I just want you to come back, even if it’s for a little bit.” A tumult of emotions threatened to burst out that, if he could put into words, would have said, not yet, please not yet, not after eight years of daydreaming only to know you for a few days and you not saying anything until hours ago… But all he said was, “Soon?”

“I shall… try.”

Vader stroked Luke’s head one more time before rising. Luke trailed his hand after his, not wanting him to go. Yet along their bond, Luke heard the quietest whisper of his father’s mental voice:

Be safe, my son.

And Luke smiled, releasing Vader’s hand. “Goodbye… Father.”

Leia was peeking out from the door, wondering what was taking so long. She gave a forlorn wave to Luke, and he held his smile bravely, waving back, connecting to her one last time before she left.

Then the ramp closed, and the ship’s engines were alight, and in mere seconds, its wings had unfolded as it soared into the sky and out of sight.

With Luke gone, it was Leia’s turn to occupy the co-pilot’s seat, but she could not find it in herself to enjoy it. All she wanted to do was stare at the streaking lights as Vader made the jump to hyperspace, the ache of leaving Luke fresh and raw. It was so strange how one missing boy could make the ship feel so big and empty, and for a while she simply sat there, testing the bond to Luke. She could feel tendrils of his emotions, sometimes even words, though already it was getting more difficult to reach across to him. That made her chest ache with sadness, the only thing lightening being the promise of seeing him again… someday.

After a while, though, the pain seemed to fade - or rather, she noticed a new pain, more difficult to ignore and stranger, for it was all along her missing arm. It was like she had hurt it from moving around too much, a tender ache, and what she would usually do was rub it until it went away, but she didn’t have an arm to rub anymore and so no way to get rid of it. So she just sat, increasingly puzzled by the phenomenon.

“The pain will fade in time.”

Leia looked up as Vader spoke. His mask was facing the viewport, not looking at her, when he spoke. But when she turned a little in her chair to face him, he tilted his mask in her direction.

“Your arm,” he added. “It is phantom pain. Your nerve endings are still adjusting to the loss of the limb. With time, the pain will decrease.”

She gazed at him quietly. “Does it ever go away?”

A breath cycle. “No.” Another moment passed as Leia dropped her eyes to her arm. It hurt much less than she’d expected a whole missing arm would - even touching the end with the medical pad only made it ache a bit more, but nothing worse than that. But it was still strange to see it gone. Doing even the simplest things, like buckling herself in, had become so much harder; it had taken her several minutes to grapple with the seatbelt, feeling stupid and clumsy the entire time over something that used to be automatic.

“Leia…” Vader’s voice made her look up again. She could feel something along her bond, a wistful apology. “If… there had been any other way…”

“I know,” she said, before he could finish. She did know. “It’s okay.” She looked at Vader’s left arm, still exposed without its glove. After a moment, she scooted her chair closer to his. He’d lost an arm too. Both of them. Maybe more. She laid her hand on his right arm, the one closest to her, which was occupied with the controls of the ship. She remembered how hard each finger had felt whenever he had held her. He knew what it was like, and he’d survived that and possibly more, as she took in his suit, the chest panel, the mask. 

Vader glanced down at her hand on his. Surprise, and the beginnings of awe, flowed along their open bond. She moved even closer, leaning over towards him. “How long until we get there?”

He held himself very still, not moving his arm from her hand or his body away from hers. “A couple of hours.”

She nodded, feeling very tired all of a sudden. Vader would probably tell her that still needed rest, and she was beginning to think he was right. Maybe all that running around and playing pretend had worn her out. Very carefully, she sidled up towards Vader until her head was resting against his side, and wondered if she imagined the hitch in his respirator. “Father?” There was a creak of leather as he looked down at her. “Thank you.”

Leia dozed the rest of the journey, coming out of sleep when she felt the familiar jolt of the shuttle exiting hyperspace. Within moments, Alderaan was rushing towards them, the lush green and blue planet so different from the one they had just left. She rubbed her eyes, sitting up. Vader had not moved, it seemed, since she had fallen asleep.

The Organas had been alerted to the arrival of the shuttle long before it landed, and were waiting for it on their private landing pad just outside their palace. Vader, observing them as he navigated the ship down, thought both looked haggard with worry - no doubt Bail Organa, with his connections in the Senate, had heard some of the rumors of what had happened on the planet of the family’s vacation retreat. The return of their ship, empty of its occupants, and now an Imperial shuttle - it was likely that, similar to the Lars, he feared the worst.

But they still managed to welcome Leia back with open joy as she ran down the ramp and into their waiting arms.

“Leia! I was so worried…” Breha held her close, then pulled back to stare at her arm. “What happened?”

Leia, like her brother, began telling the story of what happened as her adoptive mother listened closely. But Bail Organa had seen Vader descending the ramp and steeled himself for what was to come.

He met Vader part way between the landing pad and the walkway towards it, inclining his head. “Lord Vader,” he said, and Vader had to admire how steady his voice was even as he must have suspected what was coming, “I suppose we have you to thank for returning our daughter to us.”

“Your thanks is not required,” replied Vader. He allowed his gaze to rest on Leia, still talking to the queen. “Your daughter’s return,” and he knew Bail did not miss the emphasis on the word, “was not done for your sake.”

Consummate politician that he was, Bail Organa’s face did not change even if his nervousness began to rise. “What is the purpose of this, then? One last reunion before you tear her away from us?”

So he thought him that ruthless. “If I had wanted that,” Vader said, very deliberately, “I would not have returned her brother to his relatives on Tatooine.”

He let that statement hit Bail, saw the slight widening of his eyes. So he knows about the boy too, Vader could almost hear in his thoughts. The Lars had not known about the girl, but Bail Organa was clearly more informed than they were. 

“Then what is your purpose here?” asked Bail, before adding, “I cannot believe that you would simply choose to leave her here.” Your own daughter, Vader seemed to hear.

“And yet,” replied Vader quietly, “that is exactly what I am doing.”

Behind Bail, Leia had finished her story and was wiping at her face, distress evident. Vader found himself unable to look away from her tearstained face - until he caught Organa observing him. Then he deliberately looked away, gazing out at the peaceful serenity that was Aldera. Queen Breha pulled Leia into another hug, then took her hand gently in her own and led her to her husband. Organa rested his own hand on Leia’s shoulder, then leaned towards his wife and murmured something to her. Surprise flickered across her own face before she reined it in, her queenly mask concealing her emotions.

“Might I ask the reason for such unusual generosity?” asked Bail… for the Organas knew better than most the dangers lurking around Leia. 

“The Emperor,” was all Vader said, and he could see their understanding. Vader regarded them for a long moment, letting the atmosphere thicken. “He must not learn of her existence.” Bail raised an eyebrow. “You must keep her safe and hidden.” Despite your very public lives, he was tempted to say. Lives that would surely lead to Coruscant - Imperial Center - at some point, placing Leia at the nexus point of Palpatine’s attention.

“She is a princess of Alderaan,” Bail Organa pointed out. “I cannot very well keep her locked up in her room her entire life.”

No, and he had not; Vader was vaguely aware of seeing the Organas as a family unit, Leia waving alongside Queen Breha to crowds of Alderaanians. She had been in the public eye since before she could walk… and her real father not knowing of her existence all that time. How long might he have remained unaware had the Force led him along a different path?

“He must not learn of her potential,” Vader amended. “Or of her brother’s.”

“Do you truly expect us to tell the Emperor?” asked Breha quietly. “We love her as our own.”

They did. Vader could feel that, see it in how they hovered protectively over his daughter. That would have to be enough. He nodded. “That is all I ask. But should I hear of any danger to her…” He let the threat linger long enough to see the Organas stiffen. 

Nothing else needed to be said. His shuttle was waiting, he had been gone long enough. He regarded Leia one more time, then turned to go.

He had taken perhaps two steps when he heard the patter of another coming behind him.

“Will you come back?”

It was an echo of Luke, and there was a definite sense of deja vu as Vader turned and looked down at Leia’s face, tilted up to him appealingly.

She held his gaze behind the mask, tucking her arms behind her back before she remembered that part of one was missing. “Luke told me you promised him you would.” He had sent it along their bond just before they left, whispering to her, He promised me he would, he’ll promise it to you too. “Mother said they’re going to get me a prosthetic arm.” Her eyes flicked to his hand, and she wondered if he heard her thinking, just like yours. “You’ll come and see it, won’t you?”

He hesitated only a moment before taking and holding her left hand in his. His massive gloved hand almost swallowed hers up, but his squeeze was gentle. “We must be very careful.”

“Leia,” said Breha in a gentle reprimand, “I’m sure Lord Vader is very busy and has many places he must travel to.” 

Leia looked heartbroken.

Bail continued, “However, given our planet’s key role in the Core, not to mention as an… important… supporter of the Empire, I imagine he will find a few reasons to return here.”

Leia understood. She turned back to Vader and smiled, bobbing up and down on her feet hopefully.

Vader made a noise that was probably a sigh, but Leia could hear the affection beneath it. “I shall endeavor to… check on the royal family when I can.”

She gave his hand a squeeze. He took her right arm, gently, where it ended, careful not to hurt her, and she remembered his words: the pain will fade in time. Vader lingered for just a moment before turning. He was at the ramp of the ship when she reached out to him impulsively.

Come back soon, Father.

And, along their bond: I will, my daughter.

She retreated back along the walkway as the shuttle started up, twining herself between her mother and father as they watched the ship leave and disappear into the sky.

Traveling through hyperspace, Vader found himself searching for the twin bonds even as he knew that they would fade with distance. Already Leia’s was thinning to just the barest trace of her strongest emotions, while Luke’s, which he was drawing nearer to as he returned to the Exactor , nevertheless did not have the clarity of the previous days.

It was time, he knew, to return to his duties - to continue enforcing the rule of the Empire, to put on the facade of obedience to the Emperor. There was much he would need to do to cover his tracks: erasing the coordinates of his shuttle, ensuring that no crew member had spotted the children, hiding evidence of the Alderaanian starship ever being on the Exactor. Nothing that could be traced back to either the Lars or the Organas.

He pulled out Doctor Monega’s data card. It would be expected of Vader to oversee the quarantine of Agri-world-6. After that… he placed the datacard down, staring at it. His children’s voices echoed in his mind, pleading with him. 

The possibility of a cure was low, very low. It would likely take years of work, study that must be kept secret. He would need to find scientists away from Imperial eyes, scientists he could trust. Should Vader be discovered to be the source of the information, his punishment would be severe. And yet… for the sake of that world, and for himself and his children, he had to try. 

And after all that was over, the Emperor would want to have Vader back at his side, if only temporarily, at the Imperial Center - or send him to do his bidding, wherever in the galaxy that might be. If he could take a deep breath, he would have to prepare himself for the coming trials. The Emperor must not sense the changes that had occurred in him, or have the slightest suspicion that Vader was secretly defying him. Most importantly, nothing of the children’s existence must ever reach him. Vader would have to wield the Dark Side around him like a shield, concealing all conflict, all feelings, and the ever-present bond he had to the children.

It would be a difficult few days, months, likely even years. Years in which his children would grow up without him, unseen except on the rarest occasions using the cleverest subterfuges. Their future was uncertain, full of pitfalls and hidden dangers. One wrong step could spell death for all of them, and there were many missteps that he could take; whenever he tried to probe the future, he saw only cloudy uncertainty.

And yet… Vader stretched out further with his mind, finding his children. Mingled emotions traveled back to him as they sensed, even at this distance, his connection to them: hope and relief, longing and wistfulness, and most of all, love, unwavering and completely trusting in him. He let that wash over him, calming him.

As his ship leaped into hyperspace, he realized, very simply, that it was enough.

For now, it was more than enough.