Title: Twelve Roses and a Receipt

Chapter: 7. Change me, Please

Summary: After Bespin, Luke is reunited with his father and mother when a cruel trick of fate throws them into an alternative universe where Palpatine failed and they are forced to act like a functional family. Vader/Padme and baby Luke.

Keywords:

Rating: G

Genre: Adventure/Humour

Timeline: Post ESB/ Legacy Era

Author: Wellingtonboots

Archive: Slytherin Serpent,

Status: Short Multi-chapter

AN: thank you for waiting for so long whilst I slaved away over my exams. Read and Enjoy.

When it was finally time for Padme to leave for her senatorial meeting, Luke's mind was spinning once again with an overload of information. The heady, breathless mix of excitement and astonishment had left him quite unable to think about anything else until Darth Vader emerged from his study.

"Anakin," said Padme crisply as she tucked her holo terminal into her elaborate robes, "I need to leave now,"

"Very well, when will you be back?" asked Darth Vader his eyes betraying no emotion as they stayed riveted to Padme's face.

"Seven, Dorme's on her day off so I'm afraid you will have to cook,"

Forgetting entirely the anecdote Padme had just told him about Anakin's impressive culinary skills, Luke almost panicked.

"What? Please I'd rather starve to death!"

"That can be arranged," said Darth Vader as he turned his piercing ice-blue gaze on Luke. Once, Luke had thought that much of Vader's terror inducing image was provided by his suit. The blank eye sockets of the mask and the constant barrage of his respirator had become legends in their own right. However as he stared back into Vader's human eyes, he realised his fear had only increased.

At that moment R2 came hurtling into the apartment beeping furiously. In the wake of all that had happened, Luke had almost forgotten his trusty droid so it was a welcome relief to see that his friend was still fully functional and very well polished.

"What happened?" demanded Vader reaching out a hand to stop the droid with the force. The little astromech apparently enjoyed being manhandled by Vader as much as Luke did. Emitting a series of high pitched beeps, R2 extended one wickedly sharp metal pincher and attempted to jab Darth Vader's unprotected backside.

Needless to say the effort was futile but before Vader could extract his legendary vengeance, R2 hastily delivered the urgent message that had caused him to come careering into the room like a homing missile.

"Dorme's been attacked!" cried Padme, her voice becoming uncharacteristically high pitched.

"She's fine, she's in hospital," replied Vader, listening intently to the long string of unintelligible beeps and squeals.

"I'm going to see her," said Padme, all the colour gone from her vibrant features, suddenly she looked much more like the fierce fighter Luke had first met in the jungle just a few hours ago.

Vader merely nodded as if giving permission for her to leave but Luke seriously doubted that even the Emperor had the strength to stop Padme at that moment.

In the wake of Padme's hasty departure, Luke found himself worrying about Dorme. Though they had never met, Padme's account of her life had already introduced Luke to the kind, brave young woman who had shared so many of Padme's trials and tribulations.

He was so absorbed in his thoughts that he did not manage to escape in time when Vader gripped his around the middle and hoisted him off the couch.

"Let go of me!" snapped Luke twisting furiously to get away from Vader's grip.

The Dark Lord did not reply but simply pressed him to his chest and walked out onto the balcony with Luke unwilling sitting in his arms.

A thousand speeders rushed past in the busy sky lanes that surrounded 500 Republica. The setting sun glowed fierce orange on the horizon, bathing everything in gold and amber. The huge artificial canyons between giant skyscrapers were already thrown into shadows and darkness, broken only by the occasional glint of reflected sunlight from the top of a moving speeder.

Coruscant was every bit as breathtaking as Leia had described and Luke forgetting who was holding him, paused to marvel at the testimony to sentient ingenuity.

"Impressed?" asked Vader, his voice soft and low.

Glaring up at his captor, Luke distained to reply and continued to wonder at the hundreds of thousands of interconnected walkways that snaked between building complexes forming an intricate spider's web of glittering transparent tunnels.

"They are watching us, you know," whisper Vader, pulling Luke up his eye level, his lips almost touching Luke's ear. His warm breath fanned across Luke's cheek as he pressed his soft lips against Luke's delicate skin.

Suppressing a distinct shudder, Luke tried and failed to spot the spies that were surveying them on the exposed balcony.

"Five o'clock, one droid, one human," whisper Vader, pulling his lips away leaving a stomach turning patch of wetness on Luke's cheek. Forgetting instantly that they were being watched, Luke angrily scrubbed away at his skin until he was sure all of Vader's evil spittle had been removed. Deliberately, he wiped the back of his hand across the Dark Lord's leather tarbard with pure revulsion.

Thank goodness, Han and the Rogues aren't here to see this, thought Luke, I am never going to talk about this – ever!

Mmm, said Anakin's voice inside his head, I do wonder exactly what your pathetic friends would have to say when they discovered your parentage.

Bail Organa is my father! Thought Luke fervently, whilst trying to raise his mental defences at the same time but he found the force which had once served his beck and call responded only sluggishly to his commands.

Yes, hissed Anakin's voice saturated with dark pleasure, that's what Padme would like for us to think, isn't it?

"What?"

In Luke's confusion he had spoken his thoughts out loud and he felt Vader's gloved hand pressing into his back in warning.

We are being watched…

Stretching out to the force once more with a great deal more concentration than he was used to, Luke searched through the teeming mass of life to identify their watchers.

The human broadcasted a sense of cool confidence into the force, a definite professional. There were no hints in his feelings as to what his task was besides surveillance and his thoughts were tightly shielded.

Oh this isn't good, thought Luke.

Mmm, came Anakin's voice, echoing eerily inside his head this time, I suggest you act a lot better than you have been – they are getting suspicious.

Who are they? asked Luke not bothering to disguise his curiosity and apprehension.

There are a hundred threats in this galaxy that would make your blood freeze many times over, replied Vader, his voice laced with foreboding, today we have merely seen one of them.

Turning on his heel, without so much as an explanation, Vader strolled back into the apartment. Behind them, the transparisteel doors leading to the balcony sealed shut with a hiss. R2, who had been hiding behind a curtain for the last ten minutes cleverly waiting for Vader's ire to fade, silently fell in step behind them as they across the lounge.

"Looks like I'm going to have cook," said Vader with something akin to sadistic enjoyment in his voice as they entered the stylish kitchenette,

"Don't poison me," said Luke feeling the familiar sense of dread creeping under his skin, "Padme -,"

Before he could finish his sentence, one natural finger was jabbed into his mouth.

This apartment is bugged; thankfully I just cleared the kitchen of listening devices.

Oh, thought Luke feeling very confused and even more stupid. He had simply assumed that Padme, being a politician, had developed an ingrained sense of paranoia that even Master Yoda would find hard to correct. Apparently her paranoia was well founded but who would want to listen to their private conversations?

In the midst of his musings, Luke found himself once again a free baby. Vader set him down gently on the dining table and moved to the refrigeration unit.

The entire kitchen was decorated in contrasting shades of white and black. The cabinets doors were of gleaming white stone, polished to perfection and the counter tops were made of sturdy black granite with interlacing veins of grey and pink. To one side fitted between two cabinets was a strange glossy black contraption that looked as if it might have been made of the same material as Darth Vader's armour.

The cabinets, counters and contraptions were arranged around the walls surrounding the elegant glass dining table standing in the centre of the room.

Emerging from the refrigeration unit, which could easily house Chewbacca and his crossbow, Darth Vader laid out the ingredients for their dinner on the table in front of Luke: bizarre smooth white spheres arranged in a large plastic box, a piece of what looked like raw meat and several unappetising red vegetables that bore an uncanny resemblance to the boils Wes Janson would mysterious contract when it was his turn to filled out the paperwork.

"Break the eggs into the bowl and stir them with this," Vader produced a glass spatula with an intricately decorated handle.

"I thought you were going to cook!" said Luke accusingly as he tried to grapple with the huge spatula that was almost as tall as he was.

"You're going to help," stated Vader in the same tone that once sent Imperial officers running in terror. Normally, Luke would have been less than cowed by this attitude but when Vader mysterious produced a wickedly sharp piece of metal from inside his tarbard, Luke decided he was a little unprepared for this argument.

Taking a smooth white orb, which must be the eggs, Vader had been referring to, he carefully cracked the shell against the sides of the glass bowl and watched with fascination as the gelatinous white contents slowly slid into place. On one of the counters, Vader was swiftly chopping root vegetables with deadly precision.

Unfortunately the next egg did not behave as well as its counterpart. The shell refused to crack and in a moment of unthinking desperation Luke squeezed the hard outer shell with all his might. An explosion of sticky white matter splashed across his face and exposed torso, encasing him in a mucus-like layer of egg.

The shock was enough to trigger his crying reflexes and to Luke's embarrassment he was once again wailing at the top of his lungs. R2, true to his caring personality, immediately handed him a towel draped on an extendible arm.

"My, my," said Vader, the twisted sardonic smile, "the great hero of Yavin is reduced to this,"

Through his tears, Luke could feel his anger waiting to erupt and his immature cerebral cortex was in no shape to control the boiling rage.

As Vader approached with measured steps, Luke felt his sadistic amusement swirling through the force, feeding his insatiable anger.

"And the Emperor thought you would be a threat…"

Without any conscious thought, Luke reached out to grab an egg. Summoning all the negative emotions he could feel so keenly at the moment, he hurled it will all his might at the monster who had tormented him for so many years.

With one flick of Vader's wrist, the flying missile swerved off course and cruised straight into R2's dome making a sickly squelching noise as it struck.

"Nooo!" howled Luke, his mind nothing but a vicious tornado of hate and anger.

"Oh no!" echoed Vader without any trace of sarcasm.

The sudden shift in the force was enough for Luke to clear his mind and the volcano of rage that had been threatening to erupt disappeared as swift as mist blown away by the wind.

Without knowing quite why, Luke looked down at himself with a sense of foreboding usually reserved for Star Destroyers and Sith Lords. His soft, tight fitting underpants had changed to bright blue colour and even as he watched words began to appear across his private area.

"Change me, please,"

"Oh stars no!" snarled Vader, his complexion turning an unhealthy shade of pink.

"What happen?" asked Luke,

"You lost control of your bowels!" snapped Vader and before Luke could protest he was being lifted from the table and carried out of the kitchen at arms-length.

"What? I didn't-I didn't lose control of my bowels!" cried Luke, but even as he denied it he could feel his cheeks glowing with mortification.

In the bathroom, also decorated with granite and marble, Luke was unceremoniously dropped onto a gaudy plastic mat that ruined the décor with a vision offending display of blue and yellow ducks.

A bag, equally tasteless, floated out of the adjacent cupboard and Vader, a look of sheer disgust firmly plastered on his features, pulled out another pair of white underpants.

"Stay still, don't make this any harder than it has to be," snarled Vader, viciously pressing Luke's body down onto the mat.

"What are you going to do?" asked Luke as an icy sense of dread gripped his heart. Surely the Dark Lord of the Sith was not contemplating –

A wet wipe appeared in his peripheral vision and with a mind of its own, the damp cloth started to clean his face and torso of their slimy layer of egg white.

Okay, thought Luke desperately trying to control his breathing, that wasn't too bad.

He was forced to reconsider when, with one force assisted rip, his soiled underpants came apart at the seams and an offending odour floated into existence.

Revulsion and hate fought each other for pride of place across Vader's features, making him look as if he was trying to decide whether to destroy Luke or run from the traumatic scene. Perhaps, Vader's mortified discomfort would have been amusing, had Luke not been lying prone on a plastic mat with his privates in full view of the Dark Lord and R2. If embarrassment could be fatal, Luke would have probably been six foot under and sinking fast.

Unable to bring himself to physically touch the soiled underpants, Vader made the offensive object float into the bin but this did nothing to alleviate the smell.

If the force was not cruel enough, Luke felt rather than saw Vader's hand clasp both his ankles and lift his legs into the air, whilst his other hand swiftly wiped all the exposed areas with a damp cloth.

Just close your eyes and pretend you're back at Base, thought Luke desperately, You're still at Base playing cards with Han – you're still at Base chatting to Leia – breath in, breath out, breath in, breath out

The horrifying sensation finally disappeared and Luke opened his eyes just a sliver to see Vader wrapping the new pair of underpants around him.

Okay – it's over – it's over, I'm still alive…

"Never tell anyone about this," hissed Vader, his voice barely audible even in the silence of the bathroom, "Never ever tell anyone about this."

"Don't worry," said Luke not able to meet his eye, "I'm not going to live this down either,"

AN: Please review feedback is always welcome.