Ghost - A Star Wars Fanfic

Chapter 13

Vader strode calmly into the cell, ignoring the fearful azure eyes of his son staring up at his intimidating figure, the boy's body curled up beside his mother, Padmé's brown eyes more cold and sad as she stared at the cyborg who was once her husband.

     "You're awake," Vader stated plainly, his booming vocoder carrying his voice around the small, confined steel walls with a faint echo.

     "What do you want?" Padmé asked simply, her arm snaking tighter around Luke and her other hand absentmindedly groping for her belt only to remember that her weapon had been stripped from her.

      "Simply to discuss matters that concern your identities," Vader said, his voice still unbearably monotone.

     "You know damn well who we are, Vader." Padmé hissed, her hands trembling. Luke watched the both of them argue, his youthful eyes blinking and his left hand rubbing his mother's shoulder in comfort. He was still in a state of shock with his current situation, but the fact that his parents, his living and breathing parents, were right before him, still blew his mind. And his sister was...well hopefully she was far away from wherever he and Padmé were.

     A strange staticky sound left Vader's mask, a sigh most likely, and he began to pace throughout the tiny space. "I just..." He paused, turning his ocular lenses on the duo before returning to his brisk stride. "I just need to know how. It's been twenty-two years and I never thought Kenobi could sink this low, even after I discovered Luke's existence-"

     "This has nothing to do with Obi-Wan," Padmé deadpanned. "I made my own decision to go into exile to protect our child and myself. Who knows what you would've done if I had come back to you? You had killed so many already Anakin, and I-"

     "Do not-" Vader's cybernetic fists clenched at his sides at the name, his restraint obvious.

     "I don't blame you." A small voice perked up, catching the couple's attention. They both turned to see Luke blushing lightly at having interrupted, the blonde hair falling forward as the young man bowed his head in apology. Vader and Padmé had almost forgotten he was there; they had been so caught up in their grievances of the past. Luke continued however, the silence his only ample opportunity to speak despite how weak he still felt, "I mean, I see that Palpatine manipulated you somehow into thinking this dark way...but you used to be a good person. Your decisions were just...bad." Luke winced at the poor vocabulary word, but he knew that was as complex as it got. Vader, or Anakin really, simply made bad decisions that unfortunately affected the galaxy along with it.

     The silence got stronger, Padmé squeezing Luke's left hand and looking hard at her feet, making sure her thoughts were heavily shielded. Strangely enough, Vader wasn't even attempting to search her mind, reminding her briefly of the promise Anakin had made so many years ago to never read her mind.

    '...you are anything but weak-minded.'

     "How is your hand, young one?" Vader said after a few more tense moments. Luke blinked in surprise and then raised his right hand, testing out the limb by stretching his fingers one by one. Each muscle moved at his command, the feeling alien to him, yet something he would have to get used to.

     "It'll be fine." Luke mumbled, trying to forget the fact that Vader had been the one to cut it off in the first place.

     Another staticky sigh before Vader crossed his arms before him, his echoing breathing and his red-tinted eye-lenses foreboding in the dimly-lit cell. "Palpatine wishes to train the both of you. Once I get more information from the both of you, you will begin in the simple stages of Sith arts only to advance further on."