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“Luke.”
“Hang on,” Luke panted. “Just one more–”
“Stop.”
Luke stopped. The lightsaber slipped from his hands and clattered to the floor of Vader’s training salle, and with a wave of his father’s hand the battle droids surrounding him deactivated.
“Admiral Piett tells me you have been in here all day.”
“I know,” Luke managed between breaths. As soon as he’d stopped fighting the Force had slipped through his fingers, and now his lungs burned and his muscles ached fiercely.
Vader’s gaze moved slowly across the room, taking in the mechanical carnage that surrounded Luke. “Are there any battle droids left?”
“Probably not,” Luke admitted.
“Have you been dueling this entire time?”
“I…uh…” Luke looked around at the sheer number of droids he’d carved through that day. He hadn’t even noticed the time pass; he’d been too intent on pushing himself harder, on meeting his limits and then surpassing them until there was nothing left that could hold him back anymore.
“You have had no rest, no water…” His gaze fell sharply onto Luke’s lower leg, where Luke realized there was a frayed hole in his pants revealing a spectacular bruise surrounding a gash that was oozing blood. He hadn’t even noticed it happen.
“...no medical attention,” Vader finished pointedly.
Luke scowled and tried to twist his pants leg around to cover the injury, which - now that he was aware of it - was throbbing insistently. “You don’t always get water or rest or medical attention when you need it, you know,” he snapped.
“I know.”
Luke looked at the floor, not sure why he suddenly felt like he’d been caught misbehaving. His father had always insisted he needed to focus more on his training, so why did Luke sense so much disapproval now?
Vader crossed the room, battle droid carnage sliding out of the way to create a path in front of him. He took Luke’s chin and raised his face until Luke felt that piercing intensity that meant their eyes had met.
“What troubles you, my son?”
“Nothing,” Luke mumbled.
“Your attempts to train yourself into the medical bay suggest otherwise.”
Luke jerked his chin out of Vader’s grasp, ignoring the pang of regret that could have come from Vader or from himself (or maybe both of them), and wrapped his arms around his torso. The sweat drying on his skin left him shivering, and he was beginning to notice aches and cramps where he hadn’t before. “I was just practicing. You keep telling me I need to train more, so what’s the problem?”
“When you train out of desperation,” Vader said carefully, “you learn nothing except fear. I have lived this. I know it to be true.”
Luke turned away, suddenly unable to bear his father’s scrutiny, and went to find a water bulb - before realizing he hadn’t brought one in with him that morning. His head was starting to pound. “I’m not desperate.”
“Luke.”
“I’m not.”
Vader hesitated; Luke sensed it more than he heard it. “Is this about what happened on Imperial Centre?”
Luke froze, halfway across the room, and tried to keep his thoughts under control. “I don’t know what you mean.”
When Vader spoke, his voice was heavy with regret. “I can sense that you do, although I hoped you would not.”
Luke’s fists clenched, his eyes closed, and memories that weren’t his returned unbidden - electricity arcing through skin, lungs that failed and failed and failed to draw breath, frigid claws that invaded mind and heart and soul and twisted and fed until there was nothing left inside or out that could be consumed…
…except for one small, precious light glowing deep within, kept hidden and secret and safe.
His father’s hands closed on his shoulders and Luke came back to himself with a painful jolt.
“How did you find out?”
Luke’s shoulders slumped under Vader’s grip. “I could sense it. All of it. I couldn’t block it out.” And he hadn’t wanted to. He’d wanted to feel everything his father was going through, so he would always remember what he was fighting for.
“I did not realize,” Vader said, and this time there was no mistaking the regret in his voice. “I will shield more strongly next time.”
“There isn’t going to be a next time,” Luke insisted. “I’m going to keep training.”
“Not at the expense of your own health.”
“I need to do this,” Luke insisted.
“You need to rest.”
Luke shook his head. “No, I have to keep working. I’ll get better, I promise. I can do this - I can protect you!”
His father twisted him around and wrapped his arms around him, and Luke sagged into the embrace and leaned against his father’s chest. “You do not need to protect me, little one.”
“But it’s my fault,” Luke whispered.
“It isn’t.”
“It is,” Luke protested. “You used all of your energy to shield my presence instead of protecting yourself. If not for me–”
“It is not your fault,” Vader said firmly. “Even if it were, it is my right and my privilege to protect you. You are my child. It is not for you to protect me.”
Luke tucked his head against his father’s chest, listening to the steady rhythm of the respirator and the faint heartbeat underneath all of the armor and machinery. He wrapped his arms, heavy and trembling with exhaustion, around his father’s waist. “But I want to protect you too. I don’t want to lose you. Not when we just found each other.”
“You will not lose me,” Vader promised. One of his hands came up to cup the back of Luke’s head and cradle it against him. Luke closed his eyes, tried to breath, and focused on his own heartbeat as it finally began to slow. “No matter what happens. I will always be with you.”
A hitched sob burst out of Luke, startling him as much as his father. There was loss ahead of them, and fear and pain. He could see it coming, as unavoidable as a sandstorm. But if they could get through it all together, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.
In the meantime, though, his leg was really starting to hurt…
A gentle hand ran through his hair. “And now, young one, I suggest we return you to your room. You can eat and rest, and I can reassure myself that none of your injuries are serious.”
Luke twisted around and looked at the wreckage surrounding them. He’d really done a number on his father’s stock of training opponents. “What about all the droids?”
“You can return tomorrow. Repair what you can and clear the rest away. I will assist you if I am not otherwise occupied.”
“You’re making me clean up after myself,” Luke said with a small grin.
“Consider it another part of your training,” his father said. “There is something to be learned from destruction, yes.”
He wrapped his arm around Luke’s waist, and Luke leaned heavily on him as they left the training salle behind.
“But there is just as much to learn from rebuilding.”