Note: This part rated T. This is the final chapter. I hope you enjoyed it. I have considered continuing this story some day, but right now I'm working on several other stories... and I need a rest from this one, it's exhausting:)

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It was a few hours before the physician returned, accompanied by two stormtroopers. "Get up and get dressed," Quester ordered brusquely, tossing a jumpsuit on the bed. "Hurry up."

Luke slid out of bed, then sank back against the edge of it. How long had it been since he'd asked his legs to hold him? They were shaking, and he felt nauseous. Under the impassive gazes of the troopers, he struggled to dress himself with trembling hands while Quester packed datapads and medication in a satchel.

"Where are we going?" He hadn't expected his seed of an idea to come to fruition so soon and tried to hide the elation in his voice.

"Lord Vader is not coming here. Instead, he has ordered that you be brought to Coruscant, there to be presented to the Emperor as his new student."

His hands froze in mid-motion, dropping the soft shoe to the floor. He stared at it, unable to give himself the mental command to bend over and pick it up. Coruscant? No...oh no oh no...

...It is you and your abilities the Emperor wants...

And now the Emperor would have him. Unless...

Quester knelt, slipping the shoe onto his foot. He stood and met Luke's horrified gaze. The brown eyes were unreadable, implacable, and Luke shuddered at the cold resolve he saw in them. "Coruscant?" he whispered, and Quester stared hard at him before cuffing his wrists, turning away to nod to the troopers.

They proceeded through the hallways. This time there was no audience, no jeering, no scorn. This time Luke was invisible, another faceless prisoner of the Empire. And this time there was a docking bay, a ship...freedom, if he could manage to win it, one way or another.

It was a mid-size shuttle, not luxurious but built for speed and distance. Luke paused as he was led on board, catching a glimpse of his reflection in the mirrored finish of the interior hatch. His face was bruised and discolored, though he didn't remember being struck. He looked old and tired, and he barely recognized himself.

"Move it." A poke in his back enforced the command.

The uniformed pilot and copilot waited in the cockpit while the trooper inspected the ship. Luke was strapped in, the binders still clamped tightly around his wrists. He listened to the conversation between the pilot and the bay controller, closing his eyes as the familiar hum of engines warming reminded him of his x-wing and how he longed to be piloting again. But his fighter had been abandoned in Cloud City...just as he had been.

He remained still and silent through take-off, imagining that he was on the Falcon and that Han and Chewie were at the controls, that it was Leia sitting next to him, not his healer, his abuser. Drifting into a drowsy state, he paid little attention as they sped through space until a voice came over the intercom.

"Doctor, you asked to be advised when we were at our hyperspace jump-point. We're almost there."

Luke stifled a yawn, leaning slightly against the seat that Quester vacated. He opened his eyes, dismayed that he was still so tired. Evidently the feeding tube had been pumping drugs into his system as well as nutrients. He had to fight against the urge to relax. He had to focus on releasing his binders and finding a moment when he could--

The sharp report of a blaster ripped through the cabin, and he jumped, automatically fumbling to release the constraining lapbelt. Another blast sounded, and he was free and on his feet, frantically trying to rip off the cuffs. Staggering toward the cockpit, he stopped and stared in horror at the two bodies slumped in their chairs.

Quester dragged the pilot and copilot to the floor, kicking them out of the way. "Sit down or I'll shoot you, too," he snarled. "I don't need your help to find Raylan. If he's still on Saarn, I'll track him down."

His surprise passed immediately. This wasn't quite what he had planned, but it would work. "You can't do everything yourself. You need a navigator--hell, you need me to get to the Alliance base without being shot down." He held out his hands. "Unlock these."

Quester hesitated.

Luke shook his head impatiently. "I want to get to Saarn as much as you do. Let me go and I'll help you find Raylan."

A shadow passed over the physician's face before he reached a decision and quickly unfastened the binders. Luke dropped into the pilot's seat. "I'm the better pilot," he declared flatly.

"And I've got the blaster," Quester stated as he took the copilot's chair. "Try anything and you're dead."

There was nothing he needed to try, and he wondered if Quester truly didn't understand what he'd done. The Imperial officer had just murdered two Imperial soldiers and was fleeing with a Rebel prisoner to the Rebel base, where the prisoner would become a free man and the doctor would become the prisoner.

And would find, contrary to his desperate hope, that there was no son for him to rescue.

After the new coordinates were plotted and entered and the jump to hyperspace made successfully, Luke glanced at his copilot. Quester's face was ghostly white, glowing with a cold sweat. His gaze flickered to the side, where the dead pilot's booted foot was visible.

"Feeling guilty?" Luke asked.

"Yes." Quester gave him a tight, humorless smile. "I do have a conscience, despite what you may believe."

"I know you have one. You also have the ability to put it aside when it becomes inconvenient."

Like I'm doing.

"I'll do anything for my son."

It was a simple statement, but it made Luke wonder why his own father didn't feel the same. He knew that one day, if he was lucky enough to have a child, he too would do anything to protect his son or daughter. But Vader didn't feel that way. Vader left his son in the hands of a fiend-- a fiend who had once been a sane family man and a healer.

"His loss changed you. You were a decent person before that, weren't you?"

There was a long silence before: "I thought I still was," Quester whispered painfully, "until... you. And now I have lost everything--my position, my self-respect. But all my sacrifices will be worth having my son again."

"Will they?" He could only imagine a love that could command such a high price, and he envied Quester even as he feared the obsession such a love could create.

"Yes," the physician said with finality.

"You'll be a prisoner, though." It was what Quester deserved. So why did the realization make Luke uncomfortable?

...you are betraying Quester as you betrayed the Alliance...

"I saved you."

...yes...

"You tortured me." He clung to that truth, for it was his only justification for his own treachery. Luke stared at the stars that streamed past them, long, twisting ribbons of light. He needed to decide what to do when they reached Saarn, and he prayed that the Alliance would still be there-- and that the Empire would not be. If there had not yet been an attack, there would be soon. He would have to warn them, which meant that he would have to confess his disloyalty. And what about his torturer? The Alliance would arrest Quester. He could never return to the Empire he had betrayed, and he would learn that his son was indeed dead. Even the sustenance of vengeance would be lost to him. Though he did not yet know it, the physician's life was over.

For the first time, Luke wondered if the cost of his escape was too great, too Dark.

...you will become an agent of Evil...

Luke brushed aside a tear, destroying the evidence of the pain inside him. Pain for his lost innocence, tears for the boy he would never be again. "You're evil. I have to denounce you. There's no other way."

"I followed orders, as a good soldier would. You are the son of Darth Vader." Quester didn't look at him. "Judge for yourself which one of us the Alliance will find more threatening. When they learn your identity, they'll give me a medal for torturing you. You'll lose everything if you denounce me." Now the dark eyes focused on him. "If you have lied, if my Raylan is truly dead, you will replace him. I will never let you go, Luke. Your life belongs to me. So you see, my boy, we either live with the lies or tell the truth and die together. Your choice."

Your choice.

And he would have to live with the consequences of whatever choice he made. He could let Quester control him and exist in a world of hypocrisy, basking in the false admiration of the Alliance, while the truth slowly eroded and consumed him. Or he could tell the truth, likely condemning him as well as Quester. You are the son of Darth Vader.

What would the Alliance do with the son of Darth Vader?

It was a surprisingly simple choice. It wasn't about him or Quester or Vader. It was about the safety of the Rebel forces and the freedom of the galaxy. Luke folded his arms and didn't reply to the physician. But in his head, he whispered a final farewell.

Father... good-bye.

- - - - - - - -

The messenger died for delivering the message.

The Dark Lord glared at the prone figure as though he could will different words out of the corpse. To have come so close, to have had his son in his grasp, and now this...

Quester was a fool. He should have had more guards with them. With the Force and his innate stubbornness, it must have been child's play for Luke to take control of the shuttle and flee to Rebel space, taking with him two soldiers and a perfectly competent physician and security aide.

Now, too, his plan to squash the Alliance in one blow was shattered. He had hoped to use the knowledge of the location of the Rebel stronghold to further Luke's Fall, but he knew it was useless to send the fleet to Saarn. Warning them was undoubtedly the first thing Luke had done upon his return, and by now the damned Rebels were on the move. Still, Quester had obtained other useful information from Luke. Perhaps identifying the traitorous Bothans would placate Palpatine.

A fool's hope. Nothing would placate Palpatine. The Emperor would be furious when he discovered the magnitude of the loss, and discover it he would, for Vader could hide nothing if the Master probed him. There was no reason to delay delivering the bad news, but...he would review Quester's interrogation tapes to see if the doctor had missed recounting anything of importance that Luke may have revealed.

No. To delay was to be weak. He would go now, though he hoped the Emperor would not sense the treacherous sentiment that was buried in the depths of his heart: The son was free... as the father had never been.

And the father was condemned to continue his life of servitude.

Vader drew himself up straighter, consciously uncurling his fists. Closing his eyes and focusing on the Force, he opened himself to it, joining the easy flow that brought him both peace and rage, relaxing his mind to replenish his strength and fortify himself for the coming confrontation--

...Father...

His eyes flew open.

Perhaps his dreams were not dead after all.

End