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After talking to Ben, Luke had decided to go to the Jedi Temple and practice some of his lightsaber forms, working off some of the energy that had built up with a full night of sleep and a healing trance besides. As well as to calm his mind, keep it focused; he had the sense that they were standing on the brink, watching the storm come swiftly in, and knew that he and the other Jedi would need to get together and work things out, checking in with all of them.

Focus. Feel the Force, let it flow through you.

His green blade sliced through the air, leaving glowing trails behind, concentrating on those first teachings Obi-Wan had given to him on the Falcon, many years ago. And gradually, Luke slipped into a sort of trance, the Force wrapping around him and supporting every simulated parry, every practiced strike.

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And they deserved it sat on the very tip of Vader's tongue, held in check by a rare flash of common sense and consideration for Luke's feelings.

"That is unfortunate," he said. That they wasted their lives for such a meaningless act of terrorism, he finished, internally.

"You have told me you are a pilot," he said, his mood brightening with the mention of his most favorite thing, "it is to be expected, it is in your blood. I am surprised you remained planetside for so long, to be honest."

"Uncle Owen needed help around the farm," Luke said with a shrug. "And I wasn't old enough to enlist in the Academy, so I stayed. Even when I was old enough, I stayed--he needed my help, after all. But yes, I'm a fair hand with a ship. I prefer starfighters. But mostly Ben and Mara and I fly together."

The Shadow had a three-person crew, after all. They were three. It worked.

"Owen?" Vader frowned. "He is the one you lived with? Where was Kenobi and the others? Lars' son is not a man to buy into the Jedi teachings."

He settled into a more relaxed pose. "You share my gift if you share my passion. It cannot be any other way."

"Obi-Wan didn't have much to do with us--he just kind of watched from afar. I grew up thinking he was just eccentric old Ben Kenobi, a hermit out beyond the Dune Sea." Luke smiled. "I sure found out I was wrong quickly when he saved me from a bunch of sandpeople. But he was the one who was always telling me to trust my feelings when I got behind the controls of my speeder... although I tried not to tell him I was using that to go out racing through Beggar's Canyon with my friends."

Vader's face turned chalk white, even paler than usual, and caused his scars to stand out even more prominently.

"Lars let you out with a way to defend yourself-- among the Sand People?" he growled. "Kenobi as well? I cannot--"

He stood and began pacing, hands clasped behind his back. "I would never have let you-- did they not care to make sure you were-- you could have--"

"I had a blaster," Luke said, suddenly curious but figuring that it was better for both of them if he not inquire as to why the mention of sandpeople got that particular reaction out of his father. "One of them just got the jump on me. Like I said, I'd have been a goner for sure if Obi-Wan hadn't been there."

"Then Kenobi has finally learned his lesson," Vader said, bitterness heavy in his voice, "about just how dangerous the Sand People can be. They do not deserve to be referred to in such a manner-- they are animals. Savage, brutal animals and they should all be put down."

There was a long moment as Vader finally settled back onto the pillow.

"I assume you took to backwoods racing because the old podracing rings have finally been shut down, correct?"

"We just lived too far out to ever get into it. It didn't appeal to me anyway--I'd rather race with my friends and stay out of the way of the Hutts."

Vader nodded. "A wise choice. The Hutts are vile in their own way, and their time will come soon enough."

He exhaled, looking at the floor before meeting Luke's gaze. "You seemed...happy," he said. "If you had to be stolen from me, then..."

He did not want to say it.

"Then ultimately, it is best that you were relatively free from the Jedi and...content. I would want you to be such a way."

What he wanted was his son back, but such was impossible.

"I think I probably would have figured out my heritage eventually, and that I am a Jedi," Luke said carefully. "If not by someone telling me then on my own."

"The Force is indeed strong in you," Vader said, proudly. This was the safest way to interperate that statement. "Stronger than it is in me, in this state. It is small wonder you rose to the top of the Order, rising over Kenobi and the remaining Jedi."

"Obi-Wan was long dead by the time I became Grand Master," Luke said. "He died a few days after we left Tatooine. And until the Republic got established on Coruscant, I didn't think there were any Jedi left save my sister and I. Then I met Mara, and then Leia had her twins, and, well, I figured there had to be more Jedi who'd been born since... you know."

Vader manages to keep his mouth shut, but there's an unmistakable curl of his lip that says good even more loudly than if he'd shouted it.

I only regret that I was not able to give him the death he deserved

"Jade was hardly a Jedi when I knew her," Vader said, acidly, "but it would appear she has changed her allegiance by now. Perhaps, in the absence of the Emperor...?"

He couldn't ask what he needed to know. Where was his master in all of this?

"The Emperor died six years after I joined the Rebellion," Luke said. "Aboard the second Death Star at Endor." He paused, unsure if he should continue. "You struck him down when he used Force lightning on me."

Vader knew, somehow- he knew the Emperor was dead, there as no way he would have allowed the Republic to rise again, but to know that it has happened at his hands...

"It seems," he said, very heavily, after a long moment of silence, "that I am always forced to choose between my loyalties."

It wouldn't be the first time someone he gave his life to died at his hands.

Luke folded his hands, looking at his father steadily. "Do you think it was a good one, listening to what I've said?"

"I've always picked you!" Vader snapped, much more harshly than he meant to. "Always, even when they Jedi did not care about you! When Padme and I first learned you were to be born! I always picked you!"

He smiled a little at that. "Have you had a chance to talk any with Leia?" he asked, changing the subject slightly. It still felt odd to actually talk to his parents; even after the second Death Star, Anakin's Force-ghost hadn't really visited Luke, and he had only ever known his parents as either this black-suited figure or as holos, faces in old records.

Luke's tiny smile brought a flash of ecstasy to Vader's heart- for a fraction of a second, he was truly happy.

"No," he replied. "Your sister is not easy to locate. I have been chase her shadow these past few weeks, with no results."

"It took longer for her to forgive you," Luke said quietly. "She might not want to talk to you right now."

"I have not even seen her! What could I possibly have done-- other than give her life?" Vader asked, nastily. "I did not want her to end up in Bail Organa's thieving clutches, but I failed to keep her safe- would she hold that against me?"

"When we knew you--" Luke bit his lip. "Well, if you know she grew up on Alderaan... when the Death Star was completed and became operational, that was the first world it was tested on. You held her back from Tarkin while he ordered it, made her watch. It was hard for her to accept you were our father. Eventually she did, though. She even named her second son after--well, she named him Anakin."

Vader scoffed at that. "Tarkin? Spineless worm. I did not think he had the nerve."

The thought of an entire planet dying gave him a thrill-- whether it was terror or excitement, he couldn't say.

"She named him for a shadow of a man," Vader said. "Why you and your sister both are fixated with Anakin Skywalker I can only fathom. He couldn't save you. He would have seen you both dead and been unable to stop it."

"We're fixated because that's who our father is," Luke replied.

"He was not strong enough to take care of you! He could not save your mother! He could not remake the entire Galaxy for you because he was weak! I can, and yet you reject me at every turn," Vader shook his head, breathing heavily. "He cannot have you because he is dead. Why I cannot have you...is another matter altogether."