#vader tried to pull the old parenting trick of sleeping when the kid sleeps

[radioactivepeasant]

Fic Prompts: Star Wars Wednesday

(Based on the prompt: What if Luke was captured on Hoth?)

The room was dark when Luke woke. That, in and of itself, was unusual. The medical bay in Echo Base was always painfully bright. Luke squinted through the thick bacta and tried to make out his surroundings. Why was the room so dark?

Luke thought he remembered warning sirens pulsing faintly through the tank. A sense of fear and urgency. Had they cut the power to hide from a probe? No...that didn't feel right. This place was too empty. Han and Leia and Chewie weren't here watching over him, as they had been since Han found him in the snow. They wouldn't have left him if-

...if everything was okay.

Despite the warmth of the bacta around him, Luke realized that he felt cold. Maybe he was still in the base. But then, where was everyone else? Had he been left behind?

They wouldn't leave him!

...would they?

The increase in his heartrate sounded an alarm on the outer controls of the tank. All at once, the bacta began to drain out, and the harness rose. Relief washed over Luke. Obviously someone had to still be here, or nobody would have noticed the heart monitor. It was probably 2-1B. He couldn't really sense droids, after all. The medical droid would know what was going on.

A wave of heat staggered him as soon as his bare feet touched the ground. At a control panel beside the tank, a jet black Artoo unit hooted at him in a suspiciously judgmental manner.

This was not Echo Base.

This isn't right...

Luke swallowed, grimaced, and spat out a bit of bacta that had gotten under the oxygen mask.

"Droid!" a harsh, modulated voice barked, "Why did you release the subject without authorization?"

Luke whirled to find a guard in crimson robes entering through a door behind the tank. His heart sank when he recognized the design of the uniform.

Empire.

Oh no. No no please, Force no!

He had been captured.

But then, why would they let him heal? He had a pretty high price on his head! Usually Imps were scrambling to kill him, not heal his wounds.

"Put him back under. Now!" The guard approached slowly, brandishing a spear at Luke. "You. Hands where I can see them."

Luke backed away, on the verge of panic. Where was he? What had they done to his friends? Why was he unhurt?!

"What the kriff is going on?" he croaked.

Watch him, watch his movements. If that spear isn't electrified, maybe I can grab it...

"You aren't here to ask questions, Rebel, you're here to answer them. Get back in the tank before I give you a reason to need the bacta," the guard snapped.

He swung his spear closer, and Luke jumped back. His bare shoulders collided with a tank wall, and the Artoo shrieked at him in dismay. A swift glance behind him revealed that Luke had not backed into the same tank he'd come out of.

There was a second tank beside his, and it was still occupied.

Luke felt the cold again, as if the tank had been filled with ice water. Inside the cloudy liquid, a battered figure seemed to hang frozen. The figure's limbs ended abruptly in scarred amputations that looked old, but aggravated. Dark contusions spread across what little of the person's torso Luke saw before returning his attention to the guard. Was this someone else they'd been interrogating?

The guard advanced again and held the spear to Luke's throat. "That's enough, Rebel. By rights, you shouldn't even have been brought here! We're wasting perfectly good bacta on scum like you."

Fear and adrenaline swirled together into an indignant mixture not too far off from courage, and Luke spat out, "Yeah, because I'm so eager to walk forward with a karking spear at my throat. You been out in the suns too long? I'm not impaling myself on that!"

The tip of the spear pressed closer, and this time Luke felt a low humming from it that promised a nasty shock if it made contact with his skin. He could almost swear he felt faint amusement in the red guard.

"Well that's what the bacta's for, isn't it?"

A spark arced from the point of the spear, and Luke instinctively jerked his head backward. But the jolt never struck. Luke tried to look, but it was as if the air itself had turned to stone, locking them all in place where they stood. If he strained his eyes, he could just make out the spark, flickering pathetically in midair, never to land. He could breathe, at least, but it was labored and shallow. The guard seemed to be having more trouble than he was -- the only indication to Luke that this was not some kind of paralysis weapon.

"Touch him and your life is forfeit."

The voice was soft, barely audible through the transparisteel of the second bacta tank, but it seemed to ring in their ears all the same. Luke couldn't turn, or shift his eyes far enough to see the speaker, but he could guess who it might be. The other prisoner had awoken. How was he holding them in place? Was it-

Was he a Jedi?

The guard collapsed, and suddenly Luke was free to move again. He turned slowly to look into the tank, barely even noticing that the guard lay where he had fallen, unmoving. The bacta was still cloudy, pumped full of heavy antibacterial solutions. But now that the man's eyes were open, they were impossible to miss. The fiery golden eyes of a dragon pinned Luke in place; they weighed him down with their gaze as surely as if he had been manacled to the floor.

Whoever the other prisoner was, Luke understood instinctively that he was a very dangerous man.

"No harm will come to you while you sleep," the man vowed. He appeared to be making some attempt to soften his dragon's stare, while simultaneously sifting through Luke's very soul. It did not alleviate the young man's fears.

"Thank you...?" Luke managed after several failed attempts at speech. "I can...keep watch while you sleep, if you want." Not that I can help much without my-

The lightsaber.

His father's lightsaber was gone. Was it still in the Rebel base? Or had the Empire taken it? Luke gripped the side of the tank for support. No friends, no weapons, no connection to his father; he had nothing but the shorts he'd been wearing when 2-1B first put him in the bacta tank.

I'm sorry! First Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen, then Ben, now I've failed you too, Father. I'm so sorry!

"Have you failed? Or did Kenobi fail you?" The man in the tank interrupted his thoughts without warning. The cold grew sharper, and shadows crept from the corners of the room to curl around the tanks. Golden eyes burned in the darkness of the occupied tank.

"What?" Luke gasped, pulling away from the tank.

"Sleep, Luke. When you have recovered, there will be much to discuss."

As Luke felt the chill close in on him again, it struck him that the dangerous stranger knew his name. And he spoke it as though he were familiar with Luke.

Luke had questions. But he wasn't sure anymore that he wanted them answered.