A/N:Thank you for reading. Before we begin, the obvious disclaimer. I don't own Star Wars, and I'm doing this purely for my own enjoyment, not for profit. I hope that some of you enjoy it too. ;)

I owe an immense debt of gratitude to beta readers stargazerlily, Luke1, and Kellie. Thank you so much!

This story begins at the end of The Empire Strikes Back. It is based only on the first two movies (Episode IV and V), and purposefully ignores the Prequels, EU/Legends, and most of Return of the Jedi. This probably goes without saying, but this also contains no spoilers or information regarding the sequel trilogy or any of the new canon, as it was written in 2011 and I was kind of pretending to write it in 1980. I know this fic is old, but I am still fond of it and love to hear from readers. I'd love to know what you think!

I'm not in the habit of revealing what, if any, pairings, character deaths, etc will happen in this story. Take what you know about Star Wars, from the Tantive IV to Bespin. Everything after Bespin... well, anything goes from here.

Chapter 1

Outside the window, the stars spread out before him like a blanket of fire. Beside him, a beautiful woman smiled down at him with concern in her eyes. Across the room, a medical droid was lost in conversation with the ship's computer, filling the room with its beeping and whirring as it argued an impossible case.

Luke Skywalker saw these things and heard them, but they were processed only by the corner of his mind that knew more or less where it was and what it was doing but didn't bother to think too deeply about the details. The rest of his mind was a blank, and at the moment he hoped it would stay that way.

The droid – what was its name again? – finished its conversation and rolled back to his bedside. Its head swiveled down in an approximation of – what? Sympathy? Friendliness? Both were lost on Luke, who nodded mindlessly to the droid and refocused his gaze on the window. "Swelling has subsided," the droid proclaimed. "Circulation in the residual limb is sufficient." It spoke to Leia; she was the only one who had shown any interest in what it had had to say so far. "He may be released."

Leia nodded and smiled – it seemed like she'd been smiling ever since they'd been here, and Luke couldn't decide at this particular moment if it was annoying or reassuring. "Thank you, Too-Onebee." So that was the droid's name. "I appreciate all that you've done. Luke?"

"Leia." He heard the question in her voice, but it was easier to pretend that he hadn't. What happens now? Where do we go from here? How was he supposed to answer those questions for her, when he couldn't even answer them for himself? There were a hundred things that he wanted to say to her, and a thousand reasons why he couldn't. Instead, he looked up at her and repeated her name, as if to make sure that she was really there, that he wasn't alone with the droid and the ship and his memories.

"We have to rejoin the Alliance." She made it sound like an apology.

Luke shook his head. "I can't go with you." It was the first thing he'd been certain about in all the time he'd been here. "Can you get me a ship?"

Leia looked down, and it wasn't his face she was looking at.

Luke lifted the stump of his arm, and it was like he was seeing it for the first time. The droids had amputated even further up than Vader had, something about removing the damaged tissue – he hadn't been listening, really, hadn't even cared. The scars were neat and linear, dividing the air between his elbow and where his wrist should have been. He flexed his elbow and was almost surprised to see his own forearm move. It didn't look real, didn't seem real, certainly didn't feel real. He kept expecting to wake up and see his hand back where it was supposed to be. To realize that everything he'd heard on Bespin was a dream. He said nothing of this to Leia, though. What could he have said, that would have made any of it better? Instead, he looked up at her, tried to smile, and failing that said, "I'll be okay."

"I believe you," she said, almost too quickly. "But I don't know what the Alliance will say." She shook her head, and her eyes fled to the window as well. Out into the stars. She didn't want to be here anymore than he did.

"I can fly."

"I'm sure you can." Leia smiled down at him, her eyes shining with something almost maternal. She meant what she said, too, and Luke knew that she did.

"I'll be back," he promised. "But there's something I need to take care of first. Alone."

"Luke…" He watched her search for the words. "You don't have to prove anything."

"I'm not trying to."

"You should rest."

"I've lost too much time already. I can fly, Leia."

"I haven't even told them…Mon Mothma and the others."

"Please." Luke took her hand and gripped it, and she took a step back.

"Luke?" Her eyes were wide, lost, and he wondered if she could feel it too. The strange power between them that had let him – somehow, impossibly – call out to her on Bespin. That had let her feel him, and find him, and…. "This isn't about your hand, is it?"

"No."

Leia nodded. "What…what happened up there, Luke?"

Luke shook his head. "I can't tell you."

"Why not?"

"Not yet. I…I have to get out of here." I have to face Vader. I have to know the truth. "I have to…I have to move on."

"What about the Alliance?"

"I don't know," he replied, honestly.

"Then what about Han?"

Han. Guilt stabbed at him, but Luke shook his head anyway. "Lando knows what he's doing."

He swung his legs over the side of the bed, and Leia moved in to help him to his feet. "Then where are you off to, Luke?"

He laughed, but there was no joy in the sound. He knew how this must look. He wasn't the wide-eyed optimistic farmboy who had rescued and nearly – maybe more than nearly – fallen in love with the princess of Alderaan three years ago. That boy had been lost with his hand and with his innocence. Or maybe with Hoth. Or maybe even with his aunt and uncle, all those years ago.

"I'm not sure," he said at last, gesturing broadly toward the stars with the hand that was no longer there. "To become a Jedi. To finish what I started. To find out… who I am?" He hadn't meant that last to sound like a question, but it came out that way anyway.

"And you need a ship."

He wrapped his arm around her waist as they looked out at the stars together. "I need a ship," he echoed. "I'll come back this time, Leia. I promise."

"You all right back there, Artoo?"

Luke's voice sounded strange to his own ears, and he heard the little astromech's cheery affirmative as though it were lightyears away. He felt out of touch, as though everything that had happened to him had erected some kind of barrier between him and the rest of the world. If he'd thought that being behind the controls of an X-Wing would remedy that, that conviction was shattered the first time he instinctively reached for the controls with a hand that wasn't there, and blown into oblivion when he found himself asking Artoo to take the ship to autopilot less than half a parsec into the trip. If he was trying to convince himself that he hadn't changed, he'd probably chosen the worst possible way to do it.

"Yeah, I'm all right," he called back. "No, I'm not going to follow the princess. Yes, I'm sure those are the right coordinates."

Artoo burbled a confused but complacent reply, and Luke smiled in spite of himself. His friends, at least, had not changed, and that made at least a small part of the universe seem right.

The stars outside the window blurred to white streaks and then to the violet mélange of hyperspace as Artoo took the ship to lightspeed. It would be easy, he thought, to be hypnotized by the scenery, to drive his mind back into a blank, to cut off even his connection to the Force. It would be easy, maybe, he told himself. But it wouldn't be right. He rested both elbows on the console in front of him, forced himself to look at his left hand – his only hand – and his empty right sleeve. He had his blaster; he had his new ship. His lightsaber was lost.

He had gone to Bespin to confront his friends' torturer, his father's murderer. Instead he had found…Vader. He still couldn't bring himself to think of him as anyone, as anything else. And yet….

Search your feelings.

He hadn't wanted to. But there hadn't been much of a choice. The Force. The damnable Force that he felt now even if he didn't want to! He had felt it then too, and he had found that, whatever darkness emanated from the man – the creature! – that was Darth Vader…he hadn't been lying.

Father.

Luke had set out to save the galaxy. And now – he looked again at the fightsuit's empty sleeve – he wasn't sure that he would be able to. What was worse…. What's worse, he whispered silently to the emptiness of hyperspace, I'm not sure that I want to.