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Luke was seated on his bunk, a strange feeling of unease settling in his stomach, when Leia stormed into the room. Luke clutched the rebellion issued sheets tighter. Anger was writ in her eyebrows, etched into the way they drew together as a storm raged across her features. But when her gaze alighted on Luke she paused, her expression crumbling like a house of cards. Her hand grasped for purchase on a door frame, fingers spidering across the metal. All at once the tension rose like a krayt dragon overhead, casting a shadow leagues wide. Luke stood to steady her but she waved him away. Somehow, Luke thought with a detached bemusement, the meeting with High Command about his parentage hadn't gone well after all.
He was unsure of just how exactly the information got out. Luke had a few theories of course. Perhaps words fell from lips unbidden as he tossed and turned in his sleep, haunted by a shadowy hand outstretched and singing sickeningly of home .
(Luke pretended he didn't yearn to take that hand, even as he sank a thousand feet. It was easier that way. Easier to hold at a distance a man who he sensed reciprocated that desire for more)
Regardless, news travelled fast in a base where outside of an ongoing galactic conflict nothing much of note happens. Whispers raced from foreign tongues, ebbing and flowing with a tide, until gracing the ears of Mon Mothma. Or at least that's who Luke thought heard first. Anyone else and he may have been thrown in the brig and interrogated. A thought like that would've stopped him stone cold a week ago, but now he sees it's humor in a detached sort of way. Maybe he deserved it for being related to a monster. Ah, there's the root. Luke thought he deserved this. It was the only thing stopping him from bolting the moment stares stabbed his back like tiny daggers as he walked the halls.
'They're just worried I'll turn out like him. It's understandable.' Alone at a lunch table while his former friends floated miles away, watching in a horror filled awe. 'Even I don't know how alike we could be. I don't blame them I don't I don't I don't.'
The taste of sand coated his throat.
Eventually the tremulous peace broke when a summons rang out. They wanted him to state his case. Make known to them one of the most intimate moments of his short pathetic life. He had chuckled wryly about going to the gallows as Leia prepped him. She frowned and went over decorum again and again until Luke's head spun and he couldn't think of any more dark jokes to mask his terror.
And so he did as told. Standing at the front of the galaxies most wanted, himself at the top of course but knowing what he knew that fact was much more chilling, he spoke of Bespin. He recounted as much as he could with a heart weeping and pounding so loudly he couldn't think. Luke wondered for a delirious moment if they heard it too, heard it trying to crack his rib cage and run to where it wanted to be most against all logic. Which hands it wanted to be safely cradled by. But the moment passed and robotically he carried on.
Luke didn't tell them about a scared young boy dueling a specter of his worst nightmares made flesh. He didn't tell them about how desperately that young boy wanted to reach back against all odds, to make childish fantasies real, and actually touch . He especially didn't tell them of those feelings mirrored in a much older, much more broken adult man, past wounds never scarred rising to the surface as he watched his son die for a second time.
The council stood with rapt attention. The room silent with the weight of expectations. Luke could sense their conflicting emotions in the force- horror warring with terror and, most damning of all, pity. His hand clenched a fist. I don't blame them I don't. I can't. Luke flexed his fingers and noticed it was his right hand. The sight gave him a strange numbness. I deserve their distrust.
A general who always regarded him with disdain voiced his dissent and all of a sudden hell broke loose. To an outsider it may seem calmer than most arguments, but Luke no longer made that mistake. Though it may seem ordered, the points quickly made and countered were spoke with gusto, flame coating the tongues of every speaker. Leia rose from her seat, gently placed her arm in his, and guided him out of the room. His legs wobbled for a terrifying moment and he leaned on her. Neither of them spoke a word. The silence was poignant and oddly calming. Luke could breathe a little. But as expected the peace didn't last. Again he met with glares in the halls, some angry, some uncertain, and some downright terrified. Luke turned his gaze to the ground, hands shaking. Leia only tightened her grip and shot sharp looks right back. Mind hazy, Luke thought he had never been more glad she was his friend.
A blink and suddenly they were back at his room and he was guided to sit in his bunk. Leia said something to him, placed a warm, comforting hand atop his arm and kept it there for a while. Her speech wasn't coming through, barely registering, a filter between them that garbled her words like he was buried in the dunes. His eyebrows furrowed and he opened his mouth but Leia patted his cheek and shook her head. She gazed into his eyes, hers a steady solemn brown, and her warmth left and Luke was cold so cold he had never been so freezing please come back- but his arms couldn't seem to move and chase that gentle warmth. His limbs were lead, heavy and dragging him down until he collapsed on his bunk and waited.
He was feeling more lucid when the princess came back, eyes full of horror. Luke knew what High Command had decided before she even spoke.
Leia fidgeted with her hands- that was the first sign, she never fidgeted- and spoke with more conviction than he sensed in the force. "I was chosen by High Command to inform you of the coming developments in light of your recent-" she paused and sharply inhaled " recent parental revelations. Ideally, they think it best if you were under more optimum security befitting your new status."
The pit in Luke's stomach grew larger, consuming his every thought until it settled in his skull, quietly pulsating. His fingers tensed as they gripped his arms. Luke flinched when metal kissed flesh.
"Was this unanimous?" Luke whispered. He hated to ask and almost didn't want to know, but if Leia-
"Of course not Luke! They want to keep you in a cage! How could they live with themselves, doing this to you of all people." Leia huffed, digging her fingers into her palm. " It's like they forgot about everything you did to help. Luke, that was our first victory in years!" She startled and leaned in closer to him. Warmer eyes, eyes he wanted to melt into so he didn't have to face reality anymore, held him captive. "You know that your father's identity doesn't define you, right?"
"Who says it doesn't, Leia? Maybe I deserve this." Luke breathed. He shivered, chill air cutting to the bone like the desert boy from weeks ago was still alive. " Maybe the council is right."
Leia's eyes widened. "Luke you can't be serious!"
"I've never been more serious in my life. Sure it hurts that they all sided against me but- it would be for the best." Luke tried to smile, to let it trawl across his face, but judging by Leia's stiffened expression it didn't work. I guess a monster like me can't even make another person happy .
The least I can do is stop taking up space from everyone else .
He wanted to crawl in the smallest crevice possible and hide, wanted to crumple himself into a ball until not a spec of him remained and the wind blew him away and he was nothing. Wind like the howling gusts as a child held onto a weather vane, the drop having spooked him from looking down. He clutched harder and wailed for anyone who could hear-
Luke flickered back into reality to a worried Leia reaching for his hand. He flinched backwards and she froze, a statue trapped mid motion. For a moment there were words unspoken trapped in the air, lying behind worried teeth. But it passed and Leia retracted her hand as if burned.
"I- I wish there was more I could've done to help you. You know I would've if I could." She swallowed. " I believe in you Luke. You are more than what you think yourself to be right now"
Luke couldn't meet her eyes full of hope. Shame was choking him from the inside out, rooting in his lungs and blooming until his throat ran thick with petals. He knows he should be angry with this treatment but… he couldn't dredge up the mental energy to care. He was so tired. So tired all the time. Ever since Bespin Luke woke up and waited for the day to end so he could sink into the relative comfort of his dreams.
Nothing would change much anyway. The walls of his holding cell would change from familiar to strange. And as long as his eyes could flutter shut with no pushback it was fine with him. Dreams could bring comfort, could reawaken old habits of a father he never knew, a faceless man full of possibilities. Cold reality only reminded him of the truth, the real man so caked in darkness there was no way to guide him out. Even with a hand reaching forward, desperately grasping for a boy he could never touch.
"Okay Leia. Thank you." He said hoarsely. "But I'm a little exhausted right now. I didn't do much today but-" Luke trailed off into silence. Leia's face held an uncomfortable amount of understanding and she didn't question his behaviour. She simply nodded and reached for the door controls. One look back, face cast in shadow, and she was gone.
Luke slumped, all vitality drained from him. He wasn't lying when he said he was tired. Without a conscious decision, his body fell downwards onto the bunk. He curled up as tight as he could. Luke wondered when the alliance members would come for him, corral him into a new cell to wait out the rest of this war in silence. The old Luke would have protested at this treatment like Leia did, would fight to be recognized for his merits and not the potential Vader everyone thought lurked inside. But now all Luke wanted was sleep. His eyes slid shut, the last image in his thoughts a beautiful woman dressed in flowing robes, crying.