Forbidden

Father-Figures

Vader's POV

Luke clung to Vader as the kiss continued. Finally, nearly breathless, they broke apart and the boy laid his head against Vader's chest. Vader's hands glided up and down Luke's wet back stopping at the beginning of the swell of the boy's buttocks. They stayed like that for several quiet minutes, the patter of the shower and their slowed breathing, the only sounds until Luke spoke.

"I know that I'm important to you, Father, but so is Qui-Gon. And I can't give you what he gives you," Luke said.

Vader's hands stilled. "Oh, child, that isn't true. You give me everything."

Luke tilted his head up so that they could see each other's eyes. 

"Even if he isn't your real father ... he's a father-figure to you and ... don't deny it ... you need that. But I can't be that. I can't fill that role for you," Luke said.

Vader opened his mouth to protest, but then closed it as he realized that he felt the familiar twist of pain when his "missing" father was mentioned. And though Luke fulfilled so many of his desires, the very essence of what Luke was to him, his beloved son, also meant Luke could never be the father-figure he thought he had long outgrown needing.

"So I seem like I need a father even now?" Vader asked his son softly.

Luke's eyes dropped from his and the boy chewed his lower lip before he finally met Vader's gaze evenly. One of his hands cupped the side of Vader's face as though to ease the blow of what he was about to say. "There is no shame in needing someone strong like that in your life."

"It's because I've become more ...vulnerable. Weaker than before that I need such a person," Vader said the words as if they left a bitter taste on his tongue. Weakness. Always weakness ate at him. He hated it, but it was the only constant in his existence or so it seemed.

Luke ran his hands down Vader's sides comfortingly. "It's not weak. It's actually the opposite. It's hard to admit needing people, but we all do. I doubt that this need is new. Just that you're willing to ... to admit it now."

"Perhaps," Vader said with a twist of an unbelieving smile on his lips. Upon seeing his son's concerned expression, he added, "At least, it is good to finally have someone I can trust with my true thoughts, even my weaknesses, who will not judge me badly for them in any case." 

Vader tightened his arms around Luke's shoulders to show the boy that Luke was whom he now trusted.

"Was there no one you could confide in before? I know you didn't feel you could with Obi-Wan, but what about your ... your wife?" Luke asked, his shoulders tensing as he mentioned his mother.

"Padme and I ... didn't exactly confide in one another about things like that," Vader said slowly.

"What do you mean? If ... if that's all right to ask. I know you don't like talking the past. Or if it's too painful for you, we needn't discuss it," the boy rushed out.

Vader smoothed the top of Luke's head with one hand. "You may ask. I may choose not to answer, but you may ask me anything, Luke."

"Is this one of those things you won't answer? Because if it is I under-"

"No, its not. You have a right to know about ... about her and me. She was your mother after all."

The truth was Vader hesitated to say anything, because he feared that speaking of Padme would only undermine the boy's confidence in their relationship. After all the knocks it had taken, and was bound to take, with his bond to Qui-Gon growing so much stronger, he didn't want to add to Luke's baseless fears. Although, the truth about him and Padme showed how much more of a relationship he had with Luke than he'd ever had with the boy's mother.