Star Wars Fic: "Even Though I Know You're Leaving" (Luke & Vader)

[tartanshell]

This is my first Star Wars fic! *g* Yay, I've lost my fic virginity all over again.

Title: Even Though I Know You're Leaving
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker
Summary: AU/alternate scene for Return of the Jedi. Darth Vader and Luke have a few more moments together, but it's still not enough.
Disclaimer: It all belongs to George Lucas, particularly the parts where I've directly quoted from RotJ. The title of this story is shamelessly stolen from the song "One Moment More" by Mindy Smith.

I love feedback and welcome concrit. Hope you enjoy this!


Even Though I Know You're Leaving

He came back to consciousness slowly, reluctantly, afraid it could not possibly have been real. He dared not open his eyes lest he find himself alone.

And so Darth Vader-Anakin Skywalker, though he still could not think of himself so--lay motionless save for the forced rise and fall of his chest; silent save for the dragging gasps of his respirator and the urgent beeping of his life-sustaining equipment's alarms, which sounded only inside his helmet.

He used the Force to press the button that overrode the alarm system and found that the sudden quiet brought greater clarity of mind. He became aware of motion; he was swaying, his shoulder being gently shaken. The fact that he could not properly feel the hand on his shoulder barely troubled him. Instead, he was consumed with gratitude that it had all been real. He was not alone. He was, in fact, sprawled on the floor, being clutched against his son's chest in the depths of the second Death Star.

His son was holding his hand. It should not have been true, but...it was.

"Are you awake?" Luke asked.

Vader opened his eyes. Through the red-tinted lenses, he saw Luke peering at him with concern, and he nodded. "I am."

"Can you walk? We can't stay here."

Vader doubted he could move, but both his pride and his sudden, strange desire not to disappoint Luke prevented him from voicing this. "I will attempt it," he said, struggling to sit up.

"Here. Let me help."

It took several moments, but with Luke's assistance, Vader managed to haul himself to his feet. He swayed, leaning on Luke. Luke panted, his doubtlessly injured body trembling beneath Vader's immense weight.

"Where?" Luke grunted, helping Vader put his arm across his shoulders, offering his body as a crutch.

"One of my ships. This way," Vader replied, inclining his head down the corridor.

He tried to support himself as much as possible as they walked, but both his legs were malfunctioning, making movement more than difficult. He suspected one of the prosthetics was severely damaged. It threatened to buckle each time he put weight on it.

The trip was slow and painful, but eventually they neared the ship, and Vader pressed a remote-control device to lower the ramp. No sooner had they stepped on it, though, than the slight incline caused Vader to stumble. He pulled at Luke instinctively, and Luke staggered, clutched back at him, tried to keep them upright, and failed. Together they crashed to the ramp in a tangle of limbs and cape, with a dull smack of skin and clang of metal.

Vader hissed in pain, and Luke groaned. "Have to get...in the ship," Luke grunted, the words muffled through clenched teeth.

It took a moment for Vader to find breath to speak. "Go," he managed. "Leave me."

"No!" With a lunge, Luke shoved himself to his feet, grasped Vader's wrists, and began to drag him up the ramp.

Vader closed his eyes and moaned, not caring if his vocoder caught the sound or not. He teetered on the brink of consciousness again, only dimly registering that Luke used the Force to move him into the ship.

Then Luke laid him flat on his back, and he felt the full weight of his armored suit bearing down on his chest, and the soft, beckoning darkness claimed him fully.

---------------------

"Luke." The word formed in his mind as he came back to himself. At the same instant, Luke knelt at his side, concern radiating from him and apparent on his face, and Vader realized he must have called for his son before this.

Vader felt Luke searching his emotions, felt him feeling his father's confusion even as Vader himself tried to organize his thoughts.

"I don't know where we are." Luke answered the unasked question with a helpless shrug. "I just got us out of there and into hyperspace using the last programmed coordinates. We're on autopilot now." He cleared his throat and pushed his hand through his hair. "Uh, where are we headed?"

"My castle," Vader said, straining to push himself into a sitting position. Luke saw this and assisted him, propping him back against the wall of the ship. Vader drew a slightly less labored breath. Exhaled, looking up at his son. Through red-tinted lenses, he saw Luke's unsure smile.

"You have a castle?"

Vader nodded, drawing another breath. The alarm sounded again, signaling that his respirator was well and truly broken, and for a second time, he used the Force to silence it.

Luke hovered worriedly before him, and Vader caught his thought that he hoped the castle wasn't far and had adequate medical facilities. Vader's lips twisted, too bitter to be a smile. But how wondrous that his son wished to save him, he thought. His mouth softened; the smile became genuine.

"Luke," he said, looking into his son's eyes, though Luke could not know it. "Help me take this mask off."

Luke's shock was palpable. "But you'll die!"

Vader's smile deepened. Had he ever been so young? So earnest? So afraid of death? He wished to reassure Luke, but instead he inclined his head in acknowledgment. "Nothing can stop that now."

"No," Luke thought, loud enough for Vader to overhear.

"Luke..." Vader sighed, though the sound was lost beneath the wheezing of his respirator. "Just for once, let me look on you with my own eyes."

Luke's breath caught, and he bowed his head, and for an instant, Vader thought he might refuse. Then, tentatively, Luke reached out and removed the helmet. The hiss as pressure was released was deafening.

Had it been possible, Vader would have held his breath as Luke set the helmet aside and reached toward the mask. As it was, he stiffened, feeling apprehension sinking its claws in his belly. Luke looked as uncomfortable as he felt, and it occurred to Vader that perhaps it wasn't only his own fear that he sensed.

Luke set his hands on the mask, then paused and inhaled shakily. "How--?"

Vader showed him how to work the fastenings on the mask, then waited, holding himself rigid as Luke pulled it from his face and laid it beside the helmet.

He couldn't see. This was his first thought, and he could have laughed at the irony. He had known his vision to be impaired, but the blank white walls of his hyperbaric chamber offered little challenge. He had not realized how blurred his eyesight truly was. He blinked as Luke's pale face swam back into his field of vision, and the image cleared enough for him to see the indistinct, soft shapes of Luke's features. It was clear enough, and he basked, for a moment, in the simple pleasure of looking upon his son's face without the filter of red.

Luke's expression was unreadable at first, though Vader fancied he saw shock there, and perhaps horror as well. That was not unexpected.

Then Luke made a quiet, inarticulate noise, and his expression softened, and he searched Vader's face as if seeking to commit it to memory.

Vader felt relief in his chest like a tangible thing, and he gave Luke a hesitant smile, hoping his scars would not transform it to an unrecognizable grimace.

Luke returned the smile, looking both shy and suddenly, startlingly young. "Father?" The word, half-whispered, pierced Vader's heart.

Vader nodded, feeling his smile falter at the edges. He opened his mouth to speak; inhaled with a short, painful gasp as he realized that he could scarcely remember how, without the mask. "Luke," he managed at last. It came out a near-silent wheeze, and he cursed himself and attempted speech again, more carefully. "L--luke."

Luke waited. Vader, less patient with himself, sighed.

"Thank you," he breathed.

Luke nodded, still staring into Vader's eyes. "Is there anything more I can do to make you comfortable, Father?" he asked. At Vader's look of surprise, he shrugged, ducking his head. "I mean, would you like me to take your glove off, as well? I imagine it's been a long time since you felt anything with--"

"Son," Vader interrupted, the word catching on his teeth; slurred and sibilant on what remained of his tongue. Strange how much these losses, so long dismissed, could grieve him now. "Son...I have no hand."

Luke closed his eyes and nodded, clearly disappointed. Vader realized with a jolt of surprise that Luke's offer had not been entirely unselfish. He wished his father to touch him.

Stricken by this thought, Vader tried to lift his hand, thinking to touch Luke's cheek in hopes that at least the shade of memory might come, hoping that at least his glove might be warm enough to provide comfort. But the durasteel bones and synthetic flesh were too heavy, the circuitry too abused, to manage more than a weak, awkward jerk. His arm fell to the floor with a muffled clank, and Vader sighed. The breath caught in his voice modulator and hissed eerily in the silence.

"Help me," he whispered again, managing to lift his hand a few more inches this time.

Luke swallowed and caught Vader's wrist in his own mechanical fingers. A mild shock sparked between them; stored Force lightning.

"No," Luke replied, and Vader saw rather than felt his son's fingers tighten. He blinked, startled and slightly hurt.

Then Luke rose to his knees and moved forward, shifting his grip to Vader's shoulders. He settled back against the wall, pulling Vader close to cradle him against his chest, as he had just after the Emperor fell. "I can do better than that," Luke finished, his voice hoarse.

Luke's cheek was soft and warm and damp when it came to rest, light as a whisper, on Vader's scalp. Vader shuddered at the touch; sucked in a breath, wet and sharp, and winced as it knifed home.

Luke pulled away at once and looked down in concern. "I'm sorry! Did I hurt you?"

Unable to speak for the painful tightness in his throat, Vader shook his head. He closed his eyes in an instinctive fight against tears his body could not produce and clutched Luke's arm to his chest with the wired stump of his wrist. "Please," he said, once his breath was back. "It was...not painful."

Luke nodded and again laid his cheek against Vader's head. Again, Vader shivered at the contact. Perhaps his flesh was over-sensitive; it had been twenty years since he had last been touched by anyone but a droid, but he had forgotten how pleasurable the sensation of feeling another's skin could be. Even the stinging burn of Luke's sweat--or tears--was welcome.

They sat in silence for a long moment, swaying to the rise and fall of Luke's chest. Vader closed his eyes and concentrated on his own labored breathing, wondering if his decision to remove the mask had been rash. If there was the slightest chance that, with it, he might live--

--had he to do it over, he would remove it again without hesitation, if only to feel this.

He opened his eyes, blinked at the sudden assault of light, and found Luke looking down with his brows drawn together, studying him as though he were a new species. Vader frowned, feeling self-conscious under the intense scrutiny. This was doubtless not the face Luke wished his father to have. It was not a face anyone would wish to have. Perhaps he should not have removed the mask, after all.

"Do I..." he paused, steeling himself for the difficult syllables he knew he would abuse no matter how carefully he prepared for them, "...disgust you, my son?" He managed a small smile, taking the sting out of the question. "I fail to see how you can bear to touch me." Or listen to me, he thought, slurring and spitting like a mental defective. Or look upon me at all.

It shouldn't have mattered; surely there should come a point at which one's pride becomes insignificant, at which one can no longer feel ashamed. It shouldn't have, but it did. He pressed his lips together, feeling uncomfortable.

Luke didn't reply for a moment, and Vader feared that the truth would come out: that Luke did not want to be near him, did not wish to touch him, did not wish to be here marking time, waiting for the inevitable.

"Father," Luke murmured at last, the word itself a caress. He pulled away only enough to look into Vader's eyes, near enough that Vader could see him properly for the first time. Then Luke lifted his left, natural hand and set it against Vader's cheek; brushed his fingertips in a half-circle above where the top of his ear should have been.

"Father," Luke said again, and he gave Vader a smile that shook at the edges. "Luminous beings are we. Not this crude stuff." Then he shook his head and breathed a laugh. "But I've been waiting for this my whole life."

He cupped his fingers along the curve of Vader's face, his flesh warm against cheek and temple, and Vader closed his eyes.

It was too much. It was as if Luke knew--as if he understood, and perhaps he did--that this contact above the fourth vertebrae was the only touch Vader could truly feel. Certainly it was the only caress he could return, however clumsily. And he did, moving his head, skimming skin on skin.

Luke exhaled in a rush, as if the sensation affected him as much as it did Vader.

Emboldened by this, Vader turned, ignoring the stab of pain in his neck. He dipped his head and attempted to press his lips to Luke's wrist past the microphone of his vocoder, the saliva-draining tube, and bottom portion of the mask. It was, of course, impossible to do so properly. But his top lip brushed Luke's flesh, and Luke gasped, and Vader knew this, too, had been understood.

Luke hesitated, then gently turned Vader's face back to his. Moved forward and kissed the worst of the scars on Vader's cheek, below his eye, then rested his forehead where his lips had been. Vader leaned against him, the closest embrace he could give his son.

Vader did not know whether his body was fighting tears again or simply the impure air--or both--but his breath caught, his throat tightened, and he shook his head in denial as he felt his lungs burn and rattle.

Not yet. He wasn't prepared; it hadn't been enough--

Luke pulled away at once. "Father?" he asked, a note of panic in his voice. "Are you--is there anything I can--"

Vader shook his head again, seized by a sudden coughing fit made all the worse because he tried to stifle it.

"Help me sit up," he said through the Force. "As before. That was better."

Luke did so at once, obviously straining to shift Vader's weight. Again, he pulled Vader back against his chest and put his arms around him.

"Like this?"

Vader nodded, concentrating on forcing deep, slow, tremulous breaths into and out of his lungs. The sudden onslaught of oxygen made him lightheaded, and he closed his eyes, willing the floor to cease tilting beneath him.

When he was reasonably certain he was not going to lose consciousness again, he turned and laid his head against Luke's shoulder, forehead touching Luke's neck. Luke sighed and leaned into the touch, and Vader caught his pang of regret that this was the only contact they were capable of.

"What would you have us do?" Vader thought, moved and a little amused by this.

He felt Luke's smile against his scalp as well as his surprise that Vader had not chosen to disconnect from their mental bond.

"Do you want to talk like this? Is it easier for you?"

"Both methods are tiring," Vader admitted. "It matters not."

"Well, I'd rather hear your voice," Luke said aloud, his breath brushing Vader's skin.

Vader exhaled through his nose: a small, hopefully safe laugh. "I am surprised you can understand me," he said dryly, and honestly. He felt less embarrassment at this admission than he would have expected.

But it was true. Damaged though his hearing was, he knew his last words had come out sounding something like, 'I am...sssur...prishhed...you c-can...un...dersshtand me,' the mangled syllables half lost in the gasps and wheezes of his breathing. At Luke's age, he had scarcely had the patience to decipher Master Yoda's odd syntax. He never could have borne listening to a lisping, dying old man.

Luke smiled again and tightened his arms. "Of course I can."

Vader nodded. "Well," he said, "I will ask again. What would you have us do?"

"Everything."

"Elaborate," Vader requested, suddenly wanting--no, needing--to know what Luke had imagined for them.

Luke was quiet for a long moment, and Vader began to wonder if he'd heard him, or if he was simply choosing not to answer. Then he shrugged and shook his head, hair tickling Vader's skin.

"Fly," Luke said. "And spar without trying to kill each other. I wish you could teach me how to fight like you do. Have a meal together and tell one another how the day went. I don't know. Uh--" he broke off with a nervous laugh. "This is embarrassing."

"Continue. Please."

Luke groaned and lifted his left hand to push it through his hair. "Uh. I want us to have caf in the morning and argue about something. Stay up all night talking. Watch the suns set back home. Hunt womp rats."

Startled, Vader laughed aloud. It turned to a cough halfway through, and he struggled to regulate his breathing.

"Hunt womp rats?" he echoed, when he had regained control of his body.

Luke chuckled. "It's stupid. But everyone on Tatooine does it, and--"

"Luke, I know. Tatooine was my home, once."

"It was?"

Vader nodded. Then he smiled, ignoring the painful stretch of scar tissue it caused. "Would that we could hunt womp rats." Even on Tatooine.

"What else?" Luke asked quietly, serious again.

"I..." Vader closed his mouth when he realized that either too many words or too few rendered him speechless.

"Yes?"

"It would be...profoundly ungrateful...for me to wish for more than this."

"Father! That's not fair." Amusement colored Luke's tone.

"Very well," Vader replied after a moment. "I would like...to race speeders with you. To--"

Luke laughed, sounding delighted. "You? Race speeders?"

"I did." Vader craned his neck and rolled his eyes back in an effort to look at his son. "Is that so difficult to believe?"

"No! I mean--well. You raced speeders?"

Vader nodded. "On Tatooine, when I was very young."

Luke smiled. "All right, speeder racing. What else?"

"I would like to walk with you and talk at length," Vader continued. "To do everything you suggested. To..." he sighed and rubbed his forehead along Luke's neck and jaw. "To touch you and look on you at the same time."

Luke was quiet again, then he took a deep breath. "Maybe we could do something about that last one. Do you have sensation in your prosthetic hand?"

"Not like this. And I am unable to move it. This will do."

"Father..." Luke sighed, shifted slightly, and looked down at Vader, their faces a mere hand's breadth apart. He lifted his left hand once again; ran it gently over the curve of Vader's skull.

"Would it be all right if I touch you instead? While we look at each other?" Luke asked. His mouth worked as he pressed his lips together in what might have been an attempted smile.

Vader returned the smile and drank the sight of him in. "That would be acceptable."

Luke studied him with the same intensity, tracing scars and wrinkles with his fingertips. Vader longed to do the same, to learn his son's face by touch as he should have done when he was an infant, to cup a palm to his cheek or draw a finger along the bridge of his nose. Instead, he sat still and savored the warmth of Luke's hand, savored the sight of his son's face looking on him with affection and curiosity rather than disgust or fear.

Luke slid the pad of his thumb over the skin beneath Vader's eye as though brushing away tears, though his own cheeks were wet and streaked. "Your eyes," Luke said wonderingly. "They're just like mine."

Vader smiled and nodded, unable to spare the breath to speak. The effort of even partially supporting his own weight was exhausting, and he knew he would not be able to sustain this position for long.

Apparently sensing this, Luke pulled back. "Father?"

"Come here," Vader whispered, beckoning with a small movement of his head.

Luke leaned forward and gave Vader an uncertain smile. "What should--?"

"Closer. Let me touch you."

"Like this?" Luke asked, gingerly touching his forehead to Vader's.

Vader nodded, skin half-catching against Luke's. The tight, deep ache in his chest and throat threatened to overwhelm him. Their noses touched, and Vader moved, feeling the roughness of Luke's eyebrow, the smooth, slightly oily slide of skin.

Luke curled his fingers around the back of Vader's head, lightly tracing the deep, half-numb crevasses of flesh. His breaths were fast and jagged, and, for the first time in many years, Vader felt the wetness of tears drip onto his cheeks.

He made a choked, involuntary sound at the back of his throat and pressed his temple into the curve of Luke's wrist.

"I want--" He closed his eyes and bit down on the words, his mouth and chin shaking beneath the heavy, pinching machinery. Any attempt at speech in such a state would no doubt result in words too malformed to be recognizable. "--more than this. To comfort you. Luke. I am...sorry. Profoundly so."

Luke nodded slowly, then put his lips to Vader's forehead. As he did so, he deliberately moved his hand to cup Vader's cheek, his thumb resting on the top of the breath screen. It was an invitation, an unexpected kindness, and once again Vader was taken aback by his son's compassion.

He smiled softly and touched Luke's skin with his still-trembling lips, then tasted salt when Luke pulled away.

And then the floor seemed to tilt again, and his vision went gray and more blurred than usual at the edges, and he swayed despite Luke's support.

"Father!" Luke's voice was muffled, stifled by the roaring tide in Vader's ears.

------------------------------

He heard the wheeze of his breathing first, then registered bright light and movement when he opened his eyes. The light was too much, too painful, and he closed them again at once. And he dared hope, for an instant, that they were in a medical facility somewhere, that he was not going to die, that--

"Don't go. Please don't go," Luke whispered, holding him again, cheek and words hot and wet on Vader's skin.

Vader opened his mouth to speak but found his voice withered, his breaths too weak and shallow to force sound past his tongue. He reached for the Force instead; found it like swimming through sand.

"I would never leave you willingly, my son."

Luke gasped, and Vader thought he felt Luke's arms tighten around him. "I didn't think you were coming back."

Vader attempted to smile, though he wasn't certain his muscles responded. "Would that I could stay longer. With you."

"And hunt womp rats," Luke added, with the barest flicker of amusement.

"Yes." Vader sucked in a breath; let it out in shuddering bursts, determined not to cough.. "I would take you to Naboo. Your mother's home."

"My--" Luke's breath seemed to hitch. "What was she like?"

Vader smiled again. "Beautiful. Strong. Her name was Padmé Naberrie. And Queen Amidala." He rested for a moment. "She was a senator, as well. I want you and your sister to learn about her. Leia is...very like her."

"I will," Luke said. "And I'll go to Naboo, and take Leia with me, too, if she wants to go."

"Good."

Luke's breath quickened again, and two fat tears fell onto Vader's scalp. He twitched as they began to slide down his forehead, and Luke wiped them off at once.

"Sorry," Luke whispered thickly, as another one dripped. "I shouldn't--"

"Ssshh." This sound, at least, came easily. Vader tilted his head, wishing, yet again, that he might lift his hand to stroke Luke's cheek or smooth his hair.

Luke must have sensed this thought, as well. He reached down and covered Vader's left hand with his; squeezed it tightly enough that Vader felt the sensation of pressure.

Vader did not attempt to return the gesture, fearful that his lack of control would result in him accidentally crushing Luke's fingers. Instead, he let his head fall to the side as much as his collar would allow, leaning into Luke's cheek and jaw.

Luke smiled despite his tears. "Please don't go," he murmured, for the second time in as many moments. "Please. Let me take you somewhere to get treatment. I've got to save you."

Vader smiled and opened his eyes; stared down at the pale shape of Luke's hand covering his own. He drew a deep breath, past the catching rattle of pain, and drew upon the Force, gathering strength.

"You already have, Luke," he managed, each word requiring a supreme effort of concentration. His tongue felt thick and clumsier than usual, his lips strangely cold.

Luke's grip on his fingers tightened again, to the point that it should have hurt. "It's not enough," he thought fiercely, love and misery flowing from him so strongly Vader ached with their intensity. "It's not fair! I want--"

Vader closed his eyes again. "Luke..." He choked on the hard consonant and breathed a sigh of frustration.

"Son," he began again. "Oh, my son. I know. But...do not fear this. Do not resent it."

He stopped himself from adding that it was not the Jedi way. It would be hypocritical, and regardless, Luke was a better Jedi than he had ever been.

Luke made a sound somewhere between a groan and a ragged sob and buried his face against Vader's scalp, lifting his hand to his father's cheek once more. He breathed hard, fingers and thumb stroking Vader's skin randomly, as if searching for some alternate truth.

"I'm frightened. And I do resent it," Luke replied, words and lips brushing damp, feather-light touches. "I love you," he added, so quietly that Vader almost wasn't sure Luke had spoken the words aloud.

Feeling as though his heart had stopped--and not entirely certain it hadn't--Vader pushed past discomfort and exhaustion to tilt his head back and look at his son. He shook with the effort but maintained the position as Luke pulled away and looked back.

Luke's face was blotched and swollen, his eyes red-rimmed and wet, but his lips curved in a smile. Vader returned it, realizing that it had been many, many years since he had beheld such a marvelous sight.

Then Luke leaned forward and kissed him as near to his lips as he could manage, a lingering, intimate embrace in their strange language of touch where lips took the place of hands and arms and shoulders. Vader's smile deepened, and trembled, and he returned the motion if not the actual contact.

Once again, he let his head fall back into the crook of Luke's shoulder; felt his son's cheek come to rest against his skin.

"Son," he whispered, the word barely more than a hiss. He had not the strength for the other words, but he knew Luke would feel them and understand.

"Tell me about hunting womp rats," he requested, his thoughts barely a ripple in the Force. "Tell me about Tatooine."

He closed his eyes and felt Luke's chest rise and fall as he began to speak.