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Luke looked up at Vader for only a moment before sighing. He was too tired. Too hurt, too lonely, too frightened to respond to Vader as a rebel, and send himself spiraling into panic. Captured by the Emperor, tortured for… he didn’t know how long, he was too sure that he had given all the Empire could get from him, and with his father towering over him, he gave in to something within himself. Gave into the voice that wouldn’t stop calling for his father, and crawled across his small cell, until he sat almost atop Vader’s boots, and leaned against his knees, breathing unsteadily.
He was tired. If Vader wanted to hurt him, then he would do so, and cowering away would barely delay it. There wasn’t a ton of comfort to be found in his father’s armoured shins, but what there was, he would take. For whatever miserable life he had left, he would take any comfort he could get.
For a long, long moment, Vader stood over him, impassive.
Then, very slowly, the behemoth knelt, and Luke whimpered as Vader tipped him back into his arms, cradling him with an inconceivable gentleness. Florid bruises from the Emperor’s abuse ached across his back in the line of his father’s strong arm, but he couldn’t find it in himself to try to shift, and ease the discomfort. If he knew one thing about his injuries, and he was pretty sure he did, it was that there was noembrace that wouldn’t hurt.
“You will come with me, then?” Vader questioned, and Luke nodded quickly.
There was no statement of allegiancebeing made, he tried to assure himself. He was agreeing to go withhis father, if a subsequent refusal to become his apprentice was unacceptable, he doubted his father could do worse to him than had already been done. As it was, he was having to resist the Emperor,who seemed willing to go to ends Vader had not, even at Bespin.
“Very well,” Vader said, and Luke allowed himself to remain limp as his father rearranged him, like a sleepy toddler, before standing once again.
As they left the cell, Luke buried his face against Vader’s neck, but as they passed out of the cell block,he smelled plasma, and lifted his head in spite of himself.
On the floor lay several of the guards who had helped Palpatine to manage him, bisected and smoking, and Luke tightened his arms around Vader’s neck, staring. As if in response, Vader tightened his own grip, and Luke pressed his cheek closer to his protector, watching the grisly scene over his shoulder.
Room after room was filled with slaughtered guards, torturers, and then, incredibly… the Emperor. Dead on the floor, dismembered, evil yellow eyes staring at nothing.
“Father?” Luke asked uncertainly. It felt like a dream, to be coddled in his father’s arms, to be carried away from where he was abused, but for Palpatine to be dead, the Emperor and spearhead of his abuse, it was too good, and Luke worried desperately that he wasdreaming,and this comfort would be torn from him in an instant.
“I realize my record may speak to the contrary,” Vader answered, and was it Luke’s imagination? Or was he softening his voice? “But I do not wish to see you hurt.”
“Oh,” Luke whispered.
It felt too good to be true. That Darth Vader, who had tortured Leia, destroyed Alderaan, cut off his hand… committed a thousandother crimes could want him.He pinched himself, hard.
The galaxy remained the same.
“Why?” Luke asked, in spite of himself, “Why are you doing this, why now?”
“As I said,” Vader answered, as the sound of his footfalls changed, and Luke tucked his head safely against his father’s, so it wouldn’t connect with the inside of the ramp, “I do not wish to see you hurt.”
“Then…” Luke hesitated, “If I had said no, were you going to leave me to starve?”
Vader scoffed,and Luke laughed in surprise.
“Hardly,your friends would have been directed to you.”
“My friends?” Luke asked. “Are they – I – what did you do?”
Vader chuckled, shifting Luke in his arms, before sitting cautiously, the Jedi held to his chest. “I happen to know you believe I should not lead the galaxy,” he said, gently tapping Luke’s nose, before adding, “And after I failed to welcome you home… I came to agree. I intend to mend things, my son, with you, and with the galaxy. I have tried for too long to be what the galaxy needs, and I see now, that I was incapable.”
Luke could only gape at his father for a moment, before realizing that his removal from his cell had returned the Force to him, and throwing himself to his father, wrapping around him, seeking truth and reassurance. Again, he felt his father rumble in gentle amusement, accepting his frantic assault on his shields, ushering him in.
His father’s heart was not the dark, shrivelled thing Palpatine had assured him it was. It felt raw, aching and tender, and Luke wrapped himself around it protectively. Vader’s heart seemed as he felt, over worn, and he offered his best protection to it.
“Will you stay with me?” Luke asked, eyes still closed, lost in the affection of holding and being held.
“That is my intention,” Vader said softly. “As long as you will let me.”
“Thank you,” Luke whispered.
The remainder of the day passed in a whirlwind of medical treatment and a soothing dose of painkillers. His father hovered at his side, anxiously trying to place a hand on Luke’s, whenever he could, but jolting back if the droids made any indication of needing access to him.
When it was over, and his father at last approached him once more, Luke turned his cheek into Vader’s palm, smiling comfortably.
“You are… cleared for release,” Vader said slowly, and Luke nodded slightly. “I would be glad to take you home.”
He swung his legs over the side of the bed, slowly pulling himself upright, bracing himself against his father. For the first time since that first interrogation session, he felt like a person,as his father gathered him against his side, and he limped alongside the Sith. He imagined they must have made a strange sight, Vader slowing his pace to the speed of an injured man a foot shorter than himself, and he smiled, tipping his head against his father’s shoulder, as they walked. His father. Darth Vader. A Sith Lord had silenced his pride, and allowed him to make them both look foolish.
No one was foolish enough to point and laugh, of course, but Luke imagined that they would all be speculating, once safely out of earshot.
When they reached an unassuming set of doors, and they opened, Luke followed curiously. From their stature, he would have expected nothing more than a storage closet, or some barracks, but as he hobbled along next to his father, a large chamber opened, revealing a single chair, and Vader led him to it, settling him, before comming for a bed to be brought in.
“Is this home?” Luke asked, drawing his legs up and curling into them, for warmth in the cool space. He gazed around at the walls, entirely bare, and the inside of the pod, similarly so, save for a large viewscreen.
“Yes,” Vader said, marching to a wall and opening a storage cabinet, pulling out several blankets, before passing them to Luke. They smelled of antiseptic and cleaning supplies, but Luke tucked them around himself nonetheless. “I apologize that I have nothing better for you, but I struggled to believe you might want to share a home. If you prefer, I have kept the commander’s quarters for you.”
“No,” Luke said quickly. “I don’t want Imperial quarters, you know that. You had it right at Bespin, sort of. I want to be father and son.”
He thought he could feel his father’s smile at that, but before Vader could answer, the door opened, and Luke was faced with several droids, awkwardly carrying a heavy-looking bed, which looked more suited to life planetside.
Vader gestured the droids to place it next to Luke, the legs just barely fitting in the arc of the chamber’s floor, before the droids scampered out once again, and Vader approached him.
“I suppose it was not designed for use in a hyperbaric chamber,” he said wryly, pulling back surprisingly tidy bedsheets, and offering Luke a hand, helping him drag his current entourage of blankets into the safe warmth of the bed. “I did not imagine you would wish to be with me, or I would have prepared otherwise.”
As Luke settled himself, curling up in the large bed, and gazing up at his father in trust, Vader hesitantly reached over him, carefully pulling the blankets military-tight over him once more, and Luke smiled. It felt… right, that his father should treat him so awkwardly. Like the sincere actions of a man who had not considered his choices at Bespin.
Slowly, Vader sat in the chair Luke had just vacated, gripping Luke’s hand for a moment before asking slowly if Luke would be willing to accept… some discomfort, for his father.
Luke nodded, uncertain what Vader meant by that, and jumped as the chamber began to close. When it finally sealed, he felt as if the room exhaled, and he struggled to remember how to breathe normally as the air began to change quality, the same antiseptic smell from the blanket permeating the space.
When the room itself reached down to his father, his gaze locked on the Sith’s mask… just in time for it to be lifted away, and for Luke to find himself gazing at his father.
The man looked old, and tired, but as his eyes met Luke’s, he smiled, and Luke could not restrain himself from bolting up, out of the blankets his father had just smoothed, throwing his arms around Vader’s neck, and pressing his cheek to his father’s head.
“Hush, young one,” Vader said, his voice creaking and weak, but tinged nonetheless with a smile. Again, his arms were around Luke, gripping him tightly, even as he turned, and kissed Luke’s cheek.
It was an awkward gesture, like when his grandfather had used to give him kisses while his uncle held him just-slightly-too-high, but like his father’s awkwardness, it only served to give the moment greater humanity. Luke squeezed his father with all his might, sure that after so long being abused and underfed, he could notsqueeze too tightly.
“You must rest,” his father commanded, gently. But he showed no inclination to put Luke down, so Luke laid still, resting against him. All his life, he had dreamed of being held by his parent, the last few weeks, especially desperately, sure that his only living parent had no interest in doing so. Having it now, he was afraid to withdraw from Vader’s arms, worrying that when he woke, he would find himself back in his cell.
After a few minutes, in which Vader gripped Luke almost as tightly as Luke held him, Vader softly admitted defeat, cradling Luke closer, and wrapping him in one of the worn blankets.
“I am glad to have you home,” his father told him, stroking his hair. “I will see to it that you are able to see your friends, soon.”
Luke nodded, appreciating his father’s consideration, but gripping him all the tighter, “Not yet,” he sighed.
He was tired, and needed time to heal, and wanted nothing in the galaxy more than to take that time under his father’s watchful eye.