Notes: PG-13 is the rating and this is just a short ficlet to prove that I can still write short ones.

Summary:  After escaping from his father on Bespin and being rescued from the weather vane by Lando, Leia and the droids in the Millennium Falcon, Luke knows they won't escape Vader this time and as the Sith Lord bears down on the Falcon; Luke makes the only choice he can to save his friends.  

Disclaimer:  None of this belongs to me and I'm making no money from it.

Father
by Sherry

 

Luke Skywalker trembled in the seat, his coldness coming from deep inside himself rather than the chilly atmosphere of the Millennium Falcon. His heart, his very soul was icy with a knowledge that he could never unlearn.  His stubbed wrist pressed tightly under his armpit, the pain of his wound haunted him as much as the words still did.

I am your father.

His eyes slammed shut against the four words that had changed him forever. "No," he mumbled, his body tensing and new pain shooting up his shoulder as his mangled stump was pressed harder against his side. The half-trained Jedi Knight could only shake his bruised and bloodied face as he continued to deny the words in his mind that his heart already knew were true.

I am your father.

"No," he mumbled incoherently, his eyes barely opening as he felt hands upon him again, much softer ones that had never hurt him the way his Father had.  No, his mind screamed, he's not your father.

Sobbing, Luke stared at Leia through swollen eyes as she helped him strap into the seat, the pain on her face at his beaten body, his battered soul, nothing compared to what the monster chasing them would inflict upon her. "He's coming," Luke mumbled desperately as she began to walk away, his arm starting to move to grab her until he groaned in pain from the movement and then stopped altogether at the sight of his missing hand. "He's coming to finish us all," Luke whispered, his mournful gaze on the blood that ran down from a deep gash on his forearm, covering where his hand should have been, where nothing existed now but a cauterized stump.

"What?" Leia asked, worried by the shock he was obviously in as she turned to view his tortured face again. Her own eyes sliding down from his grief-stricken face, Leia couldn't help the shudder that ran through her as tiny droplets of blood dripped from the end of his mangled arm to the metal floor below.  Reaching out to help him, wanting to bandage the severest of his bleeding cuts, Leia wasn't surprised when Luke snapped out of his daze and tucked the wounded appendage back under his armpit.

Deciding quickly as she heard the Falcon's engines whine louder and faster, signaling the fact they were about to enter hyperspace, Leia knew Luke needed her more than Lando and Chewbacca did. They were more than competent as pilots of the Falcon but Luke, Luke was in a far worse place than any of them. He looked as if he had beaten over and over, his face hollow and eyes empty, his skin bruising and bleeding all over his body.  Throwing herself into the seat beside Luke, she strapped in and leaned closer. "Who is coming, Luke?" She asked, gently brushing his blood matted hair from his temple as she tried to coax him out of his shocked shell.

Gasping as the Falcon lurched, its mighty engines trying to make the jump, Luke didn't get a chance to answer as Leia's attention suddenly diverted, her brow furrowing at the situation. Another giant lurch rocked the ship, jarring them both even though they were tightly confined to the seats.  Both sets of worried eyes scanned their metal surroundings as the Falcon groaned and creaked with a sudden strain.

With a sinking feeling in her stomach, Leia knew the sounds, the bucking wasn't because they had made the jump into hyperspace. "No…no," she mumbled in a surge of fear, no doubt that the Falcon, and her passengers, had been caught in a tractor beam.

"Lando, Chewie," she yelled as she unbuckled from her seat and jumped to her feet, sliding from one wall to the other as she stumbled toward the cockpit, the ship shuddering and veering with the strain of the tractor beam. "Get us loose."

*I have you now.*

The voice echoed in his head and Luke's fist rose in the air, powerless to stop it.

*You won't escape me.*

His heart was tormented by the dark, demanding voice inside his head, a voice that belonged to what he had wanted his whole life but now only wanted to run and hide from. The voice of his father seared his soul, branding him with a truth that Luke knew he couldn't live with.

*Son.*

Tears streaming down his face, Luke ignored Leia as she reappeared, the ship still bucking as it tried futilely to escape.  He felt tiny hands on his arms, urging him up and quickly explaining how their only hope was to hide in the Falcon. But as the ship stopped bucking, the tractor beam securing its grip as it pulled the vessel toward the waiting Super Star Destroyer, Luke knew there was no reason to hide. He could never hide again.

"Luke, please," Leia urged him frantically, the fear of what would become of him greatly outweighing what she knew the Dark Lord was capable of doing to her. "We have to hide. We can't just let him get us."

Luke stared at her with blank, reddened eyes, the terror on her face, a raw fear he had never seen so deeply mar her features before, finally awakening some of his senses. "He only wants me," Luke explained softly, defeat flowing freely within him. "He's come for me."

"It doesn't matter," Leia began, Lando's earlier words of how Bespin was a trap set just for Luke ringing in her ears. You can't have him, Vader, she silently cried out, surprised when Luke struggled to his feet, pushing her aside. 

Staring after him, Leia felt her stomach churn as Luke stumbled toward the cockpit of the ship, still clutching his wrist under his arm. She shivered as her gaze lowered to the metal floor and the blood droplets that had dripped from the wound on his arm, blood that Luke had stepped in and now left bloody footprints in his wake.

Fresh tears falling, Leia bounded after Luke, the friend she knew something even more terrible was to befall.  "No, Luke," she cried out, not sure what he was doing but knowing it wasn't the way it was supposed to be.

Entering the brain of the ship, hearing the howls of Chewbacca and the angry tone of Lando, Leia grasped Luke's elbow but found herself being shrugged off.

Luke reached past the furry arm that beckoned him out of the cockpit, urging him to hide, feeling more sure than he had been in weeks. "No, Chewie," he answered softly. "I have to do this. It's the only way," he insisted, opening a communiqué that he wasn't sure how he knew how to send. "I can't hide anymore."

The cockpit grew silent, the soft sobs of the woman beside him filling the awkward stillness until a few seconds later, the only one who could grant clemency to his friends finally appeared on the screen.

A smug look on the face beneath the helmet, Luke was sure of even though he couldn't see. For a long second, he could only stare, building his courage to do what fate dictated to him.

Ignoring the soft protests, Luke's parched lips parted and he did the only thing he could to save his friends.

He offered what Vader wanted most.

He offered himself.

"Let them go," he began, his voice steady and strong even though he felt none of that inside. "And I'll come with you," he told Vader.

*I want more than just you.*

The voice answered, confusing Luke until he understood what Vader wanted.

He wanted Luke but he wanted his son as well, both of them in complete defeat.

Blue eyes glancing first at Lando, then Chewbacca and Leia, Luke swallowed the bile in his throat, wishing he could spare them the truth as well as their lives.  His lips trembling, Luke once again faced the monster he hadn't acknowledged, the machine he would have rather died than say the truth aloud to.

"Release the ship, my friends and I won't resist anymore," he whispered in defeat, adding the one word that sent his friends minds reeling in shock and sealed his fate to the man he could no longer deny.

"Father."

~~~ THE END ~~~