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Their excursions in the garden in the cold had been fun, but Vader was new to parenting and rapidly discovering something common to it:
His son was sick.
Vader had shoved him into the freezing water of the pond, after all. Vader had been protected somewhat by his armour and stayed out of the water much more, but Luke had been thoroughly soaked.
By the time they were indoors, he was sneezing and shivering.
"I'm not"—achoo—"sick!"
Vader was fairly sure he looked ridiculous, tilted his head and raising an eyebrow with that, with the flowers still crowning him. Luke had laughed.
Then sneezed.
Vader… didn't know what to do. He panicked.
And now Luke was glaring, swaddled in blankets in bed, a thermometer sticking out of his mouth. "I'm fine."
"You are not," Vader retorted. Luke sneezed and shivered and proved his point.
Luke smiled up at him sheepishly and Vader realised how awkward he was, such a big man looming in the doorway, then came to drag out a chair beside him.
"You are not," Vader said again, softly, reaching out his left hand to press to Luke's forehead. It was warm to the touch, but Vader could admit… he wasn't sure if that was because of any illness, or because Vader had barely had cause to touch another human being without his gloves on for seventeen years. "You… are ill."
"I've been ill before," Luke grumbled, giving up at last.
And he would have been. Luke had been raised as no lord's son, not the way he was meant to be—raised in the dirt and the rabble, contracting cuts and coughs left, right and centre. He would have been sick before, and there might well have been a chance of him dying before, and Vader could've lost him before even knowing him…
Well, not this time.
He'd make sure of that.
"I was not there before," Vader said. "Forgive me my worry now. I just want to make sure."
Luke raised an eyebrow. "That's why you threatened the castle doctor into stopping his treatment of the poor stable boy's leg to rush to diagnose me with a common cold?"
"I was not there before," Vader reiterated.
Luke didn't answer for a moment.
Then he said, "You were, once. At Hoth."
The dive in the cold river.
Vader's chase through the town.
The memory of seeing that scare boy stare up at him, eyes wide open—
Of course, he would've got ill after that.
The river was frozen half the year, enough that there were regular reports of people dying and drowning in there from the cold. It was a miracle his son had survived.
Vader had forced him into the river, that time. He had thrown him into the pond today.
It was his—
"Oh, don't give me that look." Luke rolled over. "You…"
He paused.
"You feel guilty for Hoth?"
Vader stared at him like the very fact he needed to ask was absurd—because it was. "Of course I do, young one."
Luke blinked.
Then his cheeks flushed bright pink and he glanced down. His lips parted—perhaps to mouth the words it's alright, judging from their momentary movement—then he closed them again.
Vader wasn't surprised.
Instead, he just pushed the boy back gently, trying to get him to settle back against the pillows. "Come, Luke. Go to sleep."
"Sleep? We just finished dinner. It's barely dark outside."
"But you are sick. So you must sleep."
"If it's just a cold, I'll be—"
"Please, Luke."
Luke looked him in the eye, his own narrowed. "Do you know what a cold—"
Vader opened his mouth, and a song came out.
He didn't know why. It was a familiar song—he'd… ah. He'd sung it to Luke the first time he saw him ill: unconscious, bleeding, feverish and afraid, when he'd first brought him back to the castle after their battle in the snow. He… had been nervous to sing it then.
He wasn't as nervous now.
Though to hear what Luke had whispered, then…
He was still afraid.
Luke's head snapped up when he heard it, and he stared—mouthing the words right along with Vader. Vader resolutely did not think about that, about the fact that Luke knew the words so perfectly when it was a Naboo lullaby Padmé had always said was her favourite.
The fact that he'd spent enough time travelling as a child, learnt so much about the world and by extension his own unknown culture… had interacted with the Naboo, perhaps learnt to sing to a frightened child… the fact that that was how he knew his mother's favourite song…
That hurt.
He had known and done so much. But he had never known her.
Vader carefully removed the flower crown from Luke's head to place it aside on the bedside table, then brushed his hand against Luke's head, pushing some of the loose gold locks away from his eyes. He smiled gently, still singing. Luke leaned into his touch.
His breath caught; he nearly stopped singing, but he kept going. It was a song about… he wasn't even sure he remembered the precise meaning in the Old Naboo language, something about an explorer coming home from a terrible journey to the greatest treasure he would ever find, and planting a garden of seeds from all over for that treasure to enjoy… He just knew the curling script, in his mind, and the sounds of each word as they crested the tip of his tongue like birds in flight.
Luke was watching him; he felt a flush of embarrassment. His singing voice was awful, awful and gravelly, he'd inhaled far too much smoke all those years ago… but then Luke's mouth curved in an answering smile and he started singing it too.
His accent was a lot more natural than Vader's—less crisp with formalities and formal education, more natural with the lilts of someone who knew how to sing the song with heart. Vader loved to hear it.
But the end of the song came too song, and then…
He brushed his hand against Luke's cheek again. "Please, try to sleep. Or rest. It is still early night, but it is night, and it has been a long, active day." He gave the window a pointed look—he wasn't sure which window yet, but he'd figure it out. "You need to rest after all that climbing."
Luke laughed, and leaned back. "If you insist, Father," he murmured. He was already yawning, eyes drifting closed.
But then they snapped over again. "Father—"
"Hush." Vader pushed his head back onto the pillow. "Whatever it is, it can wait for tomorrow."
"You can…" Luke sighed, clenching his hand around Vader's. "The lullaby, I… I need… to tell you… something…"
But then his eyes drifted closed and he was gone.
Vader's breath caught for a moment, watching him. The moonlight came through the window to halo his hair and soften his cheek; Vader pinched out the gentle candles and less the smoke wreath the room.
Then he turned away and left.
Luke would still be there in the morning.
Gazing at the flower crown still dressing the stand… he was, at least, sure of that.