Chapter Text
Luke smelt the smoke and burning flesh even before he saw the fire. The pungent cloud wafted through the air, making it thick and black as Luke tried to breathe.
The once sandy cream dome of the place he’d grown up was scorched darker than the hide of a bantha, and he could’ve sworn he saw the shape of a human skeleton-
“OWEN!!!” He screamed, dismounting his speeder and sprinting towards the remains. “BERU!!!!!” He slowed as the smoke got too thick to breathe through, but could clearly see the bodies now.
If there was enough left to even call them that.
Two skeletons, with barely any charred flesh clinging to them, lay outside their living quarters, strewn in almost artful positions, as though they were reaching out across the sand.
Luke let out an aborted cry, dropping to his knees as choked sobs racked his body. He fisted his hands in the sand, barely wincing at the burn.
Who could’ve done this? He’d run back out of fear that the empire had gotten here, but this was brutal even for stormtroopers. The Jawas he and Ben had found had been shaken, only their leaders cleanly executed. But this…
Luke raised his wrist after a few minutes and dialed in Ben’s comm frequency, numbly waiting for the static to end so he could get help.
When Ben picked up, Luke explained the situation shakily, barely able to rasp through the smoke that had clogged his throat. Ben spoke soothingly, promising that he’d come as soon as he could and trying desperately to calm Luke down.
Luke focused hard on the calming voice. The reminder that someone was still there. Someone still cared.
He was so busy repeating this in his head that he didn't notice the approaching figure until his speeder blew up behind him.
There was a loud crack, then a bang as his only transport was destroyed. Luke turned the comm off and snapped his head around so fast it hurt.
His speeder was a wreckage, spurting fresh clouds of smoke into the air and leaving Luke’s jaw agape as he stumbled to his feet.
Someone was still here with him.
He staggered away from the bodies of his aunt and uncle, out far enough into the desert that he could clearly see his surroundings, then lifted a hand to shade his eyes from the twin suns.
Still, he was unprepared for the hand on his shoulder.
Luke stood rigid as a figure in a pale cloak came to stand facing him, their face a blank looking mask with a white streak on one side. They were about the same height, and Luke felt that the figure was staring him in the eyes.
The hand still hadn't left his shoulder.
They stood like that for a moment, light desert robes whipping in the wind, before the figure exhaled and spoke.
“Luke. Boy… you ought to come with me.” The voice was gruff and flat, with an outer rim accent, and Luke would guess it belonged to a middle aged human man. He knew appearances could be deceiving, but he liked to have a rough idea of who he was talking to.
“You blew up my speeder.” He responded numbly, taking a step back. As he did so the hand fell from his shoulder and the man put it in his pocket- a relaxed motion.
“You killed Owen and Beru…” he continued, barely noticing his voice breaking.
The man sighed and tilted his head to regard Luke.
“You’ll be far stronger without them.” He said simply, crossing his arms as Luke backed away further. “You have nowhere else to go.”
Luke didn't even stop to consider his options before he turned around and bolted. His feet kicked up sand as he ran for the canyons, hot tears still streaming down his face. He prayed Ben Kenobi was on his way, or better still that he'd wake up in his pristine, unburnt bed.
The stranger didn't pursue him, but if Luke had turned around he would've seen him speaking quietly into a comm, almost resigned.
He didn't turn around though. He staggered towards the shelter of the rocks, panting Ben’s name under his breath.
He didn't stop running, not even when he heard the roar of the speeder from behind him.
Behind him.
Ben would be coming through the canyons.
Luke stumbled to a halt and turned to see another stranger- this one in charcoal coloured robes of a similar style to the first man’s. He tried to run again, but his legs screamed in protest.
He shouldn't have run, it had only wasted his energy. They were going to take him and… and… he didn't even know. He didn't know what he’d done wrong, why these people were here. Were they imperials? Bounty hunters? Why would they care for him anyway? How did they even know his name?
Luke limped a little further before collapsing against a boulder, tears streaming down his cheeks again.
“Luke.”
He tensed his shoulders and pressed his forehead against the rock. If he didn't look… maybe everything would be ok. He felt like he had when he was a child and that woman had come…
“Luke! We have to go!!”
Someone shook his shoulder.
A friendly, familiar shake.
Luke turned around, dazed and dehydrated.
“Ben?”
Obi-Wan grabbed his arm and dragged him around the corner, where he’d parked his speeder. His white hair was plastered to his forehead, and it was clear that he’d exerted himself to get here. Luke rubbed his eyes and forced himself to put one foot in front of the other. They'd reach the speeder soon, just keep walking…
Obi-Wan pulled up short, gripping Luke’s arm tightly. Luke blinked and looked up to see the figure in the dark robes leaning against their speeder almost casually.
“Ben…” Luke gasped, unable to keep the tremor from his voice. Obi-Wan stepped in front of him.
For a moment, the three men stood still. The stranger said nothing, his hands clasped before him and his face cast in shadow. He eventually inclined his head towards Obi-Wan.
“You shouldn't have come here, Darth.” The jedi said. He sounded tired, but his tone was firm.
Darth. Luke had heard that somewhere before, this morning. Darth… Vader. The man who had killed his father. A sudden spike of adrenaline had his eyes widening in fear.
The man stalked forward to stand just a few feet before them. Obi-Wan was inhumanly tense, to contrast his opponent, who still seemed strangely relaxed.
Or… no… he was fidgeting.
It was a strange thing to notice, but Luke did it when he was trying to appear confident too. Usually he’d find a machine to tinker with, but this man was prodding strangely at his right arm. The monster who had killed his father and terrorised civilisations, hunting jedi for twenty years was nervous.
“I’m just here to take what is mine, Obi-Wan.” Vader had a smooth voice that Luke would describe as light, with a very faint rasp to it. But Luke was sure, now. He was putting on a facade.
“Luke.” Vader turned to him. His face was hooded, but Luke could see his mouth and chin. He had a slight smile on his lips.
“I won’t go with you.” Luke said, shuffling closer to Obi-Wan. He tried to put some bite into his tone.
“You don't have a choice.” Vader responded. His voice was terrifyingly light, and Luke thought he almost sounded excited. Beside him, Obi-Wan took a breath. “Luke, did Obi-Wan ever tell you what happened to your father?”
Luke sensed something, then, a deep, smoldering rage that wasn't his own.
He remembered the fondness in Obi-Wan’s voice as he’d spoken of Anakin just earlier that day. How Luke had tucked away the slightest bits of information to hold close to his heart. He’d always looked up to his lost father, even before he’d known he’d been a jedi. It didn't matter to him whether he’d been a slave in a junkyard or the greatest general in the galaxy, and Luke couldn't bare to look at the smiling face of the man who had taken him away.
“He told me enough.” He ground out. “He told me you killed him.” He felt fresh tears in his eyes.
Vader was still fidgeting with his arm, and Luke thought that that action, that must be the facade. No one as vile as Vader could be so human. There was a strange conflict in the back of his mind. Something didn't add up.
“No.” Vader said. He reached up and carefully pulled the hood from his face.
He was just a man. He had long dark hair and tanned skin, with muddy blue eyes. Luke thought he was probably in his early forties. His gaze flitted from Luke to Obi-Wan, eyes narrowing in fury as he regarded the latter.
“Please…” Luke heard Obi-Wan choke out.
“I am your father, Luke. You were stolen from me when you were very young and I was told you were dead.”
Time seemed to stop.
Luke vaguely registered Vader stepping towards him, and felt himself shaking his head. The tall man paused.
“That can't be true.” Luke said, lip trembling. “Ben, you know that's not true!”
Obi-Wan didn't respond.
“Go on then.” Vader said, a deadly calm in his voice. “Ben, tell him what he wants to hear.”
There was another pause, and Obi-Wan remained silent.
Then he ignited his lightsaber.
Luke stayed frozen to the spot as the two men circled each other with practiced motions, as though they’d done this hundreds of times before. Vader walked with a predatory smoothness, and when Luke caught sight of his face he saw that his eyes had turned a sickly yellow, rimmed with blood red.
Luke tried to tell himself that the man was lying. That he was bluffing, just to stall Luke. But somehow, deep down, he had an intense feeling that Vader had been telling the truth. And it went against his every instinct to deny it.
This was his father. And he was here to take Luke home with him. It was everything he’d wanted as a child, and yet…
There was something wrong about Vader. The dark cloud of anger still seemed to consume him. He was still a jedi hunter, still attacking Ben, and as far as Luke could tell, he had helped kill Owen and Beru.
He was pulled from his thoughts as he heard the hissing of clashing blades. Vader’s sizzling red sparked against Obi-Wan’s blue, illuminating both of their furious faces.
The two of them moved faster than Luke could track, with Obi-Wan taking a controlled, defensive stance and Vader attacking furiously with powerful, yet graceful strokes of his blade. He spun the hilt in his gloved right hand and tried to wear down his opponent's defenses. The jedi was practiced, though, and patient. He barely flinched at the onslaught and seemed to always know where to position his saber with the least effort.
After a few minutes, Luke- who had backed against the rock wall, looking for a way to the speeder- noticed his father beginning to tire. Vader growled in frustration as Obi-Wan suddenly struck at his face repeatedly, singing his hair and just barely missing his skin. Luke took a breath and tried to creep closer, determined to get past and get to the speeder. He just wanted to leave and forget all of this-
Vader noticed him and cried out, stumbling forward to try and catch him, but Obi-Wan took advantage of his distraction. Luke tensed as he saw him raise his blade to strike.
The man had lied to him. He’d promised him jedi training for what? To defeat Vader? He had lulled Luke into thinking he was fighting to avenge the family he’d lost, but really he would only be sealing its fate.
Luke’s entire world had crumbled around him today, but seeing Ben- who had ignored him, lied to him- ready to strike the killing blow on a man he claimed to have loved…
Luke felt fury bubble up within him. His own, this time.
Barely thinking, he lunged forward, past where his father had twisted back around, eyes wide, and grabbed Ben’s hand as he was striking.
The next thing he knew was blinding pain.
His vision went white, and he thought he heard Vader screaming behind him.
He was burning. His face felt like it was on fire, like a hole had been seared right through his skull. Something ran down his ruined cheek, and he wasn't sure if it was blood, sweat, tears, or his eye melting from his face.
He faintly heard a broken groan, and took a moment to realise it was his own, muffled by the course sand he was lying in.
His own flesh sizzled in his ear, and he faintly registered concerned shouting from behind him, and a lightsaber igniting.
A moment later there was a muffled thump next to him.
Luke managed to crack open his eye, and forced himself to roll over slightly- groaning- so he could see what had happened. He was still numb with hatred and pain, but the sight sent a shock down his spine nonetheless.
Ben stared sightlessly back at him. His blue eyes dull and sorrowful.
The rest of his body was several feet away, slumped at the feet of the monster.
“I almost wish I could bring him back just to kill him again for what he’s done.” Vader said coldly.
He extended a hand towards Luke, whose own limbs were trembling.
Luke glanced up at his father, at the man who had once been his father, and then back at Obi-Wan’s severed head.
He spat blood into the sand.
Vader stepped closer, dropping to one knee to examine his son’s face, but Luke scrambled away, staring wildly into his father’s eyes, which had dulled back to their natural blue. The monster frowned at him, studying Luke’s ruined face with his cruel mockery of concern, but after a moment flinched back in horror.
Ignoring the pain in his face, Luke heaved himself to his feet and backed away. Vader still stared at him with a stunned, and somewhat broken expression.
That was how he left him.
-
In hindsight, Luke probably should’ve gone to the speeder and escaped, but by the time he had cleared his head of the mindless rage towards Ben and his father, he was miles into the desert, in pain and deliriously thirsty.
He hadn't even thought to check the wound on his face, but he knew he would likely never see out of his left eye again, if it was even still there.
Images of Obi-Wan’s severed head and Vader’s yellow eyes seemed to haunt the corners of his vision, whispering promises of violence and death. They only fed the ever growing fear building up in Luke’s chest, and eventually he had to stop beside a rocky outcrop and collapse to one knee, hyperventilating.
Sobs wracked his exhausted body, such strong swells of emotion that he thought they would consume him entirely. The wound on his face stung as salt from his tears ran onto the tender flesh. He carefully reached up to touch it, and whimpered when he felt the raw, scabbed flesh.
The lightsaber had certainly burnt away a few layers of skin, leaving a deep groove in his cheek. It was only millimetres short of searing a hole into his mouth.
And… his eye. He couldn't feel it at all, and wasn't sure if anything remained. He doubted he’d be able to see out of it again, and the blind spot was glaringly obvious at the edge of his vision.
He knew he should try to calm down, but it led him back to think of Obi-Wan. Of his betrayal. To Luke, and likely to Anakin too. How could he have let the man he’d spoken so fondly of become the unfeeling monster who had severed his head?
Luke curled in on himself. The rage he’d felt earlier bubbled back up under his skin, and this time he embraced it, letting it cloud his thoughts and quiet the screams of pain in the back of his mind. He imagined that he could fix this, that he could bring Ben back just to yell at him, to help his father. And bring Owen and Beru back… Owen and Beru. He’d almost forgotten them.
He hardly registered that the last of his pained sobs turned into violent shaking. And the other half of the world went dark around him. And the sand seemed to vanish beneath him. His last delirious thought was that he ought to have drunk something this morning.