Summary :

Endor. After the Emperor's death and before the Death Star explosion, Vader and Luke are rescued by a small Imperial team. Who decide that the safest place for them to go is none other than Emperor Palpatine's home-planet… Naboo. Meanwhile, Luke's father has a decision to take : would he rather remain Darth Vader, or try and become Anakin Skywalker again?

A/N :

English is not my mother tongue, so the style of this fic may be clumsy and riddled with mistakes… Sorry! If anyone is interested in beta-reading, please let me know =)

This fic is dedicated to Queengodess, without whom it would probably not be posted here today. You don't like the story, you blame her =D j/k Loca, tack.

01/19/09: This story, while still discontinued, is currently being revised. I'm not a teenager anymore, and I know now I'd never speak to my boss the way some of my original characters did when talking to Vader, when the only thing I'm facing is a blame, not a choking. The constant switching from one point of view to another makes the story confusing, so this has to be changed; and my English has also improved enough to write the kind of elaborated speech the Imperials must have been using when in formal situations. Maybe feeling this story is less immature will give me the incentive needed to start writing it again, maybe not. Time will tell...

Prologue

It was unbearable. The sight of his son screaming and convulsing was more than he could stand. And the Emperor was there, grinning evily, obviously relishing Luke's pain.

It was wrong. Giving pain to people so that he could obtain what he desired was one thing, but giving pain for the mere sake of hearing someone screaming… It felt wrong. If he stopped and thought about it for a while, he'd realise that Palpatine's actions were not different from his own of the past twenty-three years. He was a monster.

He was alternately looking at his son and at his son's torturer. One was his master, his mentor, the man he'd been loyal to for more than half his life. The other was a fruit fallen from the other half of his life, a child of another time. Padmé's child.

The decision was a tough one. Order, or passion? What would his life be if he acknowledged the idea that he'd been no more than an evil monster for the past twenty years?

'Father, please!'

Luke was screaming and begging. Vader could not decide if he was holding out his hand for his father to take, or just out of a reflex reaction to the pain. But why would he be calling for his father? Vader had never done anything for him but bring him pain.

Pain. He could feel Luke's pain within each one of his bones, just the way he'd felt Luke's pain in Cloud City. And just the way he'd felt Princess Leia's pain on the first Death Star, now that he thought about it. But at the time, he had… enjoyed the feeling. Leia would kill him if she heard he had enjoyed Luke's pain.

Wait a minute. Leia was his daughter? As in, the Alderaani princess? The one that acted so much like Padmé?

He glanced one last time at the Emperor, but his decision had been taken. He could not, he would not let his children be destroyed. For one thing, they brought hope to the Galaxy. But what made his decision so definitive was that they were all that was left of Padmé.

A last look at a screaming Luke strengthened his will. He acted all of a sudden. He turned away abruptly towards the Emperor, seized the Sith, and held him high above his head.

Pain. The pain he felt was not Luke's anymore, but his own, and he could not block it in his weakened state. It felt like a sand storm, quick, powerful, destructive. His whole body protested when the blue lightening hit his armor and breather. He groaned, unable as he was to scream anymore. He focused on the task at hand, on the abyss right before him, the shaft where the Galactic Emperor would soon meet his death. It's a shame he won't suffer as much as his victims have, Vader mused. Had he had the time and power needed, he'd have made the despot scream his guts out. And he did think that Palpatine deserved as much.

As it happened, this project would never be realised. Darth Vader straightened as much as he could, and released his master in the endless pit. The despot fell, bolts of blue light still escaping his fingers, all the while sending Vader all his hate through the Force. If curses could kill, the Death Star would have blown up at that very moment.

The explosion that followed hypnotized him. A wind of pure darkness blew past him, engulfing him an instant in its hate and despair. He was shocked. All the more so shocked as none of those feelings were alien to him. He'd felt them all along those past twenty-three years. The Dark Side… It was himself.

Drained, scared, and confused, he suddenly wished for darkness to take him as well. He briefly considered jumping down after the Emperor, then he heard something moving behind him. Luke! His son could move! The boy would be fine…

Luke's hands drove him away from the pit. Vader fell back on the floor by his son's side, squeezing the boy's hand softly when it slid in his own. Unable to find the words to express his feelings, he shyly touched Luke's mind through the Force, asking him how he was, showing how himself felt. You've got to get out of here, Luke. The boy opened up after that, expressing his gratitude, but also his pain and exhaustion. He felt the hand in his release its feeble grasp, heard the soft thump on the floor, and felt his son's thoughts shut off.

Luke had fainted.