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Luke was more asleep than awake when he heard the doors to his fathers private office slide open and his father enter in quietly, returning from whatever Imperial business that had kept him so late. The respirator was a familiar sound to him now and he didn't stir or twitch in response to it. Their training session earlier in the afternoon cycle had been grueling and he'd only taken the time to take a nice hot shower before passing out on the fancy leather sofa his father had in his office early in the evening. He no longer felt unease or uncertainty in Vader's presence and Luke could comfortable tune it out without much effort, getting lost in the pleasantness of sleep.
There were movements around the room as his father set things down and tidied others but they seemed muted and dull. After a few minutes, Luke felt the gentle weight of a blanket being fanned out over his person and the warmth spreading over his body as a result. Vader's Force presence brushed over his with considerate care, checking to make sure all was well. Luke hummed an affectionate, wordless greeting and felt a gloved hand brush through his hair before his father whispered a faint command for him to sleep, and effortlessly sent Luke deeper into his rest before retreating back but not straying too far.
He knew nothing after that.
Until, eventually, he heard a whisper of... something that felt... wrong.
Luke stirred slightly, still weighed down by the heaviness of a deep sleep but feeling... uneasy, as that something he didn't have a name for brushed coldly past him in the Force once again and sent a genuine chill up his spine.
Awareness returned more fully as his heart immediately began to pound loudly in his ears.
Something was wrong. He was freezing and it felt... it felt as if there were cobwebs touching his face or had gotten stuck in his hair and Luke clumsily found one of his hands under the blanket and managed to free it in order to try and bat the disconcerting feeling away. It didn't seem to help at all.
...Master Skywalker...
Instantly, Luke's eyes flew open in a panic that he didn't understand. A cold, cold dread pulsed like ice in his veins and he sat up, looking around the dimly lit room that had become so familiar to him over the last few weeks. Weirdly enough, it had become 'home' for both him and his father since they had joined forces to try and take down Palpatine. A refuge from the greater galaxy and unwanted eyes.
Nothing around him seemed to be out of place - decorative plants set peacefully in the corners of the office and tasteful chairs and side tables, the pictures of landscapes mounted on the walls, and his fathers black wood desk with the window looking out into the great expanse of space.
There was no one except himself.
So who...?
...Master Skywalker...
It was a child's voice and it echoed again, whispering on a plane that was neither here nor there. It was something lost - something from in between. An endless chasm of darkness and terror and pain. Luke looked around once again for the source but still there was nothing. Luke felt another tingle of fear trickle up his spine as his breath began to fog the air in front of his face as the temperature dropped.
He knew - he knew with absolute certainty that there was someone in front of him but he couldn't see anything. The realization was made worse by how dark and tense the Force had become.
He'd never known it to feel so... awful. Misery and terror seemed to seep through his skin and bleed into every pore and orifice in his body, almost as if the feelings were determined to become his own. He wanted it to stop but he didn't know what to do. Luke felt his breath catch in his throat, hardly daring to move when he suddenly felt phantom little hands pulling on his clothes, as if they were begging for his attention.
Luke looked down and saw nothing except the silky blue blanket pooled around his waist and his own trembling hands.
There was another tug and the blanket on his lap shifted ever so slightly in response. Startled, Luke flew back, pressing against the back of the couch as another... another something brushed up against him. More cobwebs on his face and hands now. In his minds Eye, there were little lights beginning to flicker in the Force. They pulsed with a dying light, old and fading but also trapped. It seemed like they were crying.
"Father?" Luke choked out desperately, the word barely making it past his lips. His father had been here earlier to check on him. Where was he now - he couldn't be far.
Luke yanked hard on the Force bond which connected them to try and get his attention, threads of his panic slipping through with thoughtless abandon as the Force began to whisper vague and indistinct horrors to his mind. It was like being trapped in a waking nightmare.
Master Skywalker... there are too many of them. What are we going to do?
Children - lots of them - had been involved. The vision or whatever the hell it was wasn't clear enough for Luke to see their faces and he was glad, fearful of what he might see.
Something awful had happened to them.
Something evil.
And the horror of it was still painted in the Force like bloodstains that couldn't be washed or scrubbed out.
...what are we going to do? Master Skywalker... what are we going to do?
Haunting screams of frightened little ones echoed mercilessly in his mind. He could even imagine that he heard the faint hum of a lightsaber as it swung through the air and began to silence their cries permanently.
Master Skywalker... there are too many of them.
"Stop it." Luke begged, squeezing his eyes shut and pressing his hands against his ears in some fruitless, vain attempt to drown out the little boy's voice as he began again. This time the image of a tall, hooded figure with bright yellow eyes passed briefly in front of his vision before fading out again. "Please. Stop it."
What are we going to do?
Another tug on his clothes from those unseen hands, more insistent and desperate now.
Master Skywalker.
"Please - "
"Luke!"
A blue lightsaber came to life in the Force and the hazy image of a youngling flinched backwards in response.
There are too many of them... what are we going to do?
Two hands grabbed at his shoulders, tangible and real, and they shook him slightly. Luke's eyes flew open again with a gasp and his vision was blurred by tears he hadn't known were streaming down his cheeks. The cold terror coursing wildly through his veins was pushed back and it took him a few seconds to realize that the tall dark figure in front of him was his father and not... and not....
Master Skywalker. The echoing voice whispered again. ...what are we going to do?
His heart pounded, sweat dripping down his temples as his stomach clenched with a sick and awful dread. He couldn't react, unable to do anything except stare as a slow, unwanted realization came over him while fading echoes of screaming, frightened, dying children whispered in the back of his mind. If he dared to look close enough, Luke thought that he could see the shadowy figures of ten to eleven children huddled around his father, still whispering for his help.
"Luke." Vader repeated his name, his love and concern wrapping around him like a blanket in the Force. It was an almost jarring juxtaposition of emotion compared to the terror that was and wasn't his still frozen in his veins. "Are you alright?"
A sob escaped from his lips and then Luke was pressing the palms of his hands into his eyes, utterly weeping.
"No," he choked out and then Vader was kneeling in front of him and pulling him into a hug and Luke clung to him desperately - there was no one else for him to turn to and he didn't understand.
Luke buried his face in Vader's shoulder, tears still streaming down his face as he sobbed out the misery and agony that was still polluting the Force and clinging like cobwebs to his skin. The voices were quiet now, gently pushed away by his fathers more experienced Force presence. It was only then that Luke realized his father could feel and hear them too.
More than that, he knew them.
"Father - " Luke sobbed again and guilt shame remorse bled freely into their Force bond. Vader's guilt and shame could have filled an ocean, it went so deep.
It scared the absolute hell out of him.
Luke didn't understand.
He couldn't - dear Force, they had been children.
Little, innocent children.
"Luke." A hand brushed at his hair in an attempt to soothe and some part of Luke was horrified that he was even allowing it. He should be pushing his father away, screaming at him to get the hell out. "Luke... my son - breathe, little one. Deep breaths. Please, Luke."
Luke tried desperately to listen, sucking in a shuddering breath of air and then failing miserably. He clung tighter to his father instead, shaking and sobbing miserably as the image of that familiar blue lightsaber igniting in his mind played on a cruel repeat.
It was too much.
Luke had naively thought he'd come to know the very worst part of who his father was when he'd been brutalized into a bloody mess and had lost his hand on Bespin. He thought he had made his peace with the man his father was.
"Father," he choked out again after a few more minutes had gone by. He pulled back a little, tears sliding down his face as met his father's eyes through his mask. "Father... what did you do?"
He had been wrong.