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A large black Imperial shuttle flew overheard, heading for the coordinates that Artoo would have successfully transmitted by now. It would land about a quarter of a mile inland. There were four unique presences onboard, but only one of them was recognizable to him.
It was almost funny how odd of a sound the engine of a shuttle craft in flight could be after just three weeks. Though certainly familiar, it seemed unnaturally loud.
Luke tracked its progress through the air for a brief moment before it disappeared behind the trees and the sound of the engine grew more distant and then disappeared entirely.
He was supposed to be there when it landed. Had promised to be there when it landed, actually.
Biting his lip, Luke turned his attention away from the impending arrival of the Imperials and focused again on the sight in front of him, trying to feel and radiate a sense of peace. It wasn't that he'd gotten cold feet. He had made his decision and no matter the consequences, he would see it through. The only way to move was forward and if he just… believed enough, then maybe….
Maybe.
He was gambling. There was no other way to phrase it. He was gambling everything – his life, the rebellion, the fate of the galaxy – Han, if he were around, would be pissed because Luke was playing a dangerous hand with only one card up his sleeve and nothing else on his side except hope and a ‘maybe’.
It was crazy. But what Han didn't know was that until Luke came along, the Skywalker's had never had anything else except hope to play with and nothing except hope to lose.
There was a faint little poke in the back of his mind. Luke kept his eyes firmly on the view and breathed in through his nose and then out again. Slowly, he lowered his shields and allowed his location to be ‘seen’. In his minds eye, a connection brightened in response. There was a sense of quiet searching from the other side as information and feelings were pulled through the link from Luke and read like a book. He permitted it, though it felt decidedly strange to have someone rifling through his thoughts.
Once satisfied, the foreign-but-not-foreign presence retreated and Luke was left alone again. He let the connection remain open.
A few minutes passed by and Luke continued to watch as the setting sun finally disappeared over the distant horizon. With it gone, the last remnants of light would linger in the sky for another thirty minutes or so before it officially became dark. The ocean waves pushed against his legs gently before drawing back again, leaving his skin feeling cold just long enough for him to notice before the next wave rushed in and chased the chill away again.
His feet and ankles were buried in the sand and for once, he didn't mind. He had never really experienced wet sand before this, and Luke liked the feeling of the weight of it sitting on top of his bare feet. The accompanying sensation of feeling as though he shouldn't move made it easy to meditate here.
The repetitiveness of an ocean tide was an incredible thing. It was soothing and consistent. Having spent the majority of his life in a barren desert, Luke found that he was continually in awe of it.
Beyond the ocean, there wasn’t much else on this planet that he really enjoyed. He had crash landed on this island three weeks ago. It had taken him about two days to walk around it on foot. There were some hills further inland but none of them were particularly tall and the trees and foliage blocked most of the view. Luke had climbed to the top of a tall tree for a better look a few days after his crash but there had been no hint of civilization or sentient species anywhere. He was entirely alone, with nothing except the call of strange birds and the rustle of the wind through the trees and the quiet roar of the ocean for company.
All things considered, it still wasn’t the worst situation he could have found himself in. It was quiet and peaceful. Other than some gigantic carnivorous plants on the west side of the island, there were no other predator species that he needed to worry about. There were plenty of sources of fresh water, as well as fairly consistent rainfall for brief periods throughout each day, edible fruits and colorful fish to catch and eat. He hadn’t starved after his rations ran out during the first week and if he ignored the fact that he no longer had any viable way to communicate with anyone on or off planet, Luke could almost pretend that he was on vacation.
He had always imagined as a young boy that when he’d finally escaped Tatooine that he would find and explore worlds like this one. Worlds full of life and water – ones where there were clouds in the sky at any given time. Ones where there wasn’t the threat of slavery or Hutts or anything in between.
Life hadn’t exactly worked out the way he had imagined it would when he was a child though.
Luke twitched but otherwise made no indication of moving when some fifteen minutes later, he heard the rustle of branches and the soft crunch of dirt and rocks shifting underneath heavy boots. A different sound reached his ears now, rhythmic and familiar and as repetitive as the ocean tide pushing against him.
No. Nothing had really worked out the way that he’d imagined it would as a child.
Rather than exploring new worlds or freeing slaves, he’d instead thrown himself headfirst into a war. It was a worthy cause and it needed to be fought... but it was also a constant reminder of everything he felt had gone wrong.
He’d lost his family, a mentor, and a dear childhood friend... but he had also gained friends in return. He’d learned of dark secrets and been confronted with harsh truths. He’d learned what it meant and how it felt to take another’s life and to have blood on his hands. He understood better and appreciated the virtue of patience and the meaning of loyalty and duty.
And... he knew how to pursue a cause that was greater than himself.
Closing his eyes, Luke swallowed thickly. “Did you want me in binders?” He asked quietly, breaking the silence that hung heavy between them for the first time.
When no answer was forthcoming, Luke finally turned his head and looked over his shoulder.
Vader had arrived and was standing about eight feet away from him, just past the edge of the tree line, watching him quietly. His emotions were unreadable in the Force. After a long moment, he shook his head once.
“No.”
Luke nodded slowly, feeling his lips twitch slightly. “Carbonite then?”
Vader did not deign to answer that one and instead he held up Luke’s lightsaber for him to see. He had left it back at his crash site, which he’d converted into a camp over the last few weeks, with the hope that the gesture would be seen as a peaceful one.
“I’m in no position to fight you,” Luke said warily, feeling his muscles beginning to tense up with uneasy anticipation.
Their bond was open. Luke was hiding nothing from his father and in return he received the faintest impression that his father was raising an eyebrow at him. For some reason... it made him feel like a small child expecting to be scolded by Beru or Owen for forgetting something they'd already asked him to do a thousand times before.
“That was not my meaning,” Vader corrected with an air of patience. “You should never leave yourself unarmed for an enemy to take advantage of, Luke. As I am sure you have been taught by whomever has taken over your training... a Jedi’s weapon is their life.” He said reproachfully, before using an underhand throw to gently toss Luke’s lightsaber back to him.
He caught it with his left hand, his right one unusable now after he'd butchered the machinery for parts. He couldn't help but be surprised by the conversation and that his weapon was being returned to him. Luke stared at it for a long moment before looking back up at his father. “Is that what we are? Enemies?”
“Do we not stand on opposite sides of a war?”
“Doesn’t family transcend all other conflicts?” Luke shot back at him. “Are we not both Children of the Desert?”
“I have left Tatooine behind me,” Vader snapped instantly. Something stiff and uncomfortable flickered along their bond, betraying his unease. “That life belonged to someone else.”
Lie, the Force whispered softly.
Luke hesitated. Words were always important and he suspected that this conversation would define their relationship moving forward. He took a moment to be calm before responding. “And yet you claim me as your son?”
“You are my son.”
“Then you must be Anakin Skywalker because I claim no other man as my father.” Luke insisted.
Vader raised a hand, shaking a finger at him. “That name no longer has any meaning to me.” He said lowly, a hit of warning flickering along their bond now.
“Then why do I matter to you?” Luke allowed his confusion to bleed through their bond as well as a desperate desire to understand. “How can you hate Anakin so much but still want me?”
Anger simmered along their bond though Luke could not tell if it was directly entirely at him. "There is much that you do not understand." Vader bit out.
"Then explain it!"
"No."
It was Luke's turn to be annoyed. He scowled at his father, deliberately projecting his irritation at him with the childish hope that it would rankle. It made him feel like a stubborn teenager again but he was too proud to be more mature. Uncle Owen would usually just give him a list of chores to do whenever Luke copped an attitude at him. Briefly, and not for the first time since Bespin, Luke couldn't help but wonder what his life would have been like had Vader been the one to raise him. He tried to imagine giving Darth Vader the same grief he'd given Owen at times and the thought made his lips twitch.
When Vader gave no sign of submitting, Luke sighed and turned back to the ocean and the darkening sunset. The Force was whispering patience and so he clipped his lightsaber to his belt and settled into the strange silence between them. Vader's emotions were tangled and difficult to name and because he could be just as stubborn as his father, Luke decided that he would wait for Vader to make the next move, whatever it may be.
Fortunately, he didn't have to wait for very long.
“Why did you contact me?”
His father's vocoder made his words sound harsh and flat... but Luke could feel his hesitant confusion through the Force and remembered Vader's initial surprise when Luke had finally reached out to him a few days ago. Their conversation had been short and beyond sensing his father's attention shifting towards him every so often throughout the day, they hadn't spoken since.
Why did you contact me?
How can you hate Anakin so much but still want me?
The tide was rising, brushing against the bottom of his rolled up pants now. The light of some distant stars were finally beginning to appear overhead. “I don’t know.”
“You are lying.” Vader said accusingly and Luke heard him step forward on to the sand. He didn't turn around to see but watched from the corner of his eye as Vader came and stood at his shoulder. He made no move to grab at him and Luke was grateful.
“A family trait, it seems.”
"Luke."
Luke pursed his lips. “On Bespin,” he began stiffly before releasing a heavy sigh. “I… I sensed that there was good in you. That deep down… you’re still Anakin Skywalker. You could have killed me several times in that fight but you didn’t. And I don’t think you want to. Maybe I'm wrong... but I don’t think that you actually want to take me to the emperor either, otherwise you would have caught me when I jumped off the gantry.”
He paused, giving his father time to deny his claim. Vader stiffened ever so slightly at the mention of Luke's suicide jump and their bond grew eerily quiet. No thoughts or impressions or feelings were coming through anymore but Luke could feel Vader staring at him intently from behind his mask. He almost wanted to turn and face him, wishing desperately that he could see his fathers face and know what he was thinking.
When no rebuttal or indeed, any response came, Luke hesitantly continued on. “What I told you before was true. I haven’t been able to reach or get a signal out to anyone else… and I've tried. I’ve tried for weeks and I finally realized that if I wanted to get off this planet, you were my best chance. I could have avoided you entirely and just stayed here forever but then, what would that accomplish?”
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Luke wasn't so full of himself that he thought his disappearance would effect everything else going on in the galaxy... but he also wasn't naïve enough to think that there wouldn't be consequences. There were a lot of things that needed to happen for the galaxy to be free... and the simple truth was that, as a Jedi, Luke was the best chance anyone had of bringing about real change.
The rebellion needed his help and he simply couldn't run and hide forever.
Luke felt Vader digesting his words and even his thoughts. Vader's own thoughts were still largely private and it was a few minutes before he spoke again.
“Am I to assume that you plan to escape back to your rebellion then?”
Luke wondered if he was imagining the faint sense of hurt flickering between them and felt his heart skip a beat at the idea that... that maybe Vader really did want him. His whole plan was hinging on that hope.
Of course, he knew Vader wanted him. He wouldn't have come from halfway across the galaxy just to pick him up if he didn't. But maybe it really was more personal than even Vader was willing to admit to himself. He didn't think Vader was the kind of person who let himself hope for much anymore. From what little he could garner, Vader seemed miserable and lonely and on his way to giving up entirely.
Escaping back to the rebellion should be Luke's plan. It was the logical thing to try and do.
And it was tempting to go back - even now, despite all that he was willing to risk for this one impossible chance... it would be much, much easier to just leave.
But Luke slowly shook his head. “I told you – I’ve had a lot of time to think recently." Licking his lips, Luke turned and finally glanced up at his father, meeting his eyes through the red lenses of his mask. "I finally contacted you not because I thought that I was the one who needed rescuing… but because I think that you do.”
For a brief moment, the shields Vader had raised between them flickered and Luke felt like he was punched in the gut with the sense of Vader's genuine surprise.
During the last twenty some-odd years, there had been hundreds of thousands of people all throughout the galaxy who had been more than willing to hurt, kill, maim, humiliate, undermine, and abandon the man known as Darth Vader to whatever his fate was. With the small exception of a very select few officers, no one had ever seen Vader as a man worth helping, and even then, never on a personal level.
He was dark and fallen and lost in more ways than one.
But Luke could feel a stubborn remnant of Light still living and breathing in his soul. He felt that there was still someone there that could be saved. That Darth Vader, for all the terrible things he had done, was still worth saving.
"You think... that I need to be rescued?" Vader repeated incredulously.
“Yes,” Luke said simply, hesitantly pressing his honest willingness to forgive Vader for everything that had happened between them along their bond. Vader latched on to it quickly, almost marveling at the idea that someone might care about him. That Luke might actually care. “On Bespin... you asked for my help."
At the time, and even for months afterwards, Luke had thought Vader was simply power hungry and that Luke was a convenient stepping stone to getting what he actually wanted.
But he'd had so much time to think. He'd spent the last three weeks meditating and thinking and dissecting everything his father had said and hadn't said out loud that day. Picked that day apart until he could finally see it with perfect clarity.
The path he was choosing was... different. It was probably going to be difficult. But it also wasn't a bad one... the Force didn't dim or feel queasy like it did when he was making a bad decision. It felt steady... if somewhat cloudy, as though the end result of his chosen path was still uncertain. But... the way Luke saw it, being uncertain was just part of life.
Luke didn't have much to gamble with but he had hope... and hope was what his family had survived on for generations. He thought there was a good chance that it would be enough.
"You asked for my help," Luke repeated quietly. "So let me help you.”