#rebel!reader

Oona shoots you a cheeky grin and starts to write her own response, only for you both to be startled out of your merriment by the general calling your name.

“Yes, General?” you ask, pretending like you’ve been listening the entire time and definitely not forcing yourself to count each tick of the clock to keep from dozing off.

“I was inquiring about the status of your requested budget for the Jedi recruitment mission in the Outer Rim, Commander.” Though the Togruta tries to look stern, you can see the way that her lips just barely twitch as she tries to hide the soft spot she has for your antics. Kessyk has a tough exterior, indeed, but she fiercely loves those under her command, and has to often remind herself that she’s in charge.

“Of course.” You begin to pull up your (hastily completed last night) budget request when your heart seizes in your chest. 

The Force screams danger! at you a split second before the unmistakable sounds of TIE fighters overhead ring in your ears. Red sirens alerting the base of adversaries start screeching, and everybody scrambles to well-rehearsed places to try and decipher what’s going on. You unclip your lightsaber and ignite it, as do a couple of other assembled Force users. It’s second nature at this point to assume command of a crisis situation, so you look to your trusted right-hand woman, already at a blaster cannon.

“Oona, set blasters to fire and send out a distress signal to the fleet!” She nods, and you focus on the next order of business: getting out there and fighting whatever it is that’s come to attack.

Unfortunately, bombs drop before you can even take a step, giving way to screaming and smoke and, eventually, silence.

•••

In the years since he eschewed the Jedi Order and turned to the Dark Side, Darth Vader has gotten very good at compartmentalizing. Restoring peace throughout the galaxy and carrying out the Emperor’s wishes could often be brutal and bloody, so he had to make sure that he wouldn’t crack under the strain of the horrors he both witnessed and carried out. It was a little like turning a switch on and off. Before a mission, the humanity that he held within him, that wish for no more death and destruction, was hidden away, instead replaced entirely by Sith values. He was then able to do what must be done without any hesitation. 

(The aftermath of turning that switch back on and being faced with what he had done was horrific, but he secretly felt as though he deserved it—that it was his penance for all of the pain that he caused.)

There were times when compartmentalizing was easier said than done—killing the younglings all those years ago at the Jedi Temple, for example, had truly tested his newfound ability to do so. But there are other times, such as when intelligence points the Galactic Empire to a meeting of the top forces of the Rebel Alliance, that make it easy to shut a more humane part of him down and focus on the victory ahead. And now, as he stands aboard his destroyer and stares down at the smoldering carnage of the Rebellion’s Mandalore base, victory tastes sweet.

“Lord Vader, I have good news.” Admiral Batch, one of the few admirals not petrified of him, sidles up next to him. “The Rebels were caught completely off-guard, and as a result, we can confirm there have been over 20 casualties of high-ranking members of the Rebel Alliance.”

“Good news indeed,” Vader speaks through the modulator of his mask. “Are there any confirmed names that we can take back to the Emperor?”

“None for certain, until we can get down there and see identities for ourselves. We do know that General Kessyk was in the building, as well as a number of Force-sensitive Rebels.”

The moment that last fact actually registers with Darth Vader is the moment that his carefully constructed cruel facade collapses, allowing the Force to finally come screaming at him and tell him of the major mistake he’s made. How could he have not thought of the possibility that you, his Rebel, would be involved in this meeting? Through both Empire intelligence gatherings and the begrudging revelations from you that your responsibilities had been increasing due to your importance in the Rebellion, he should have made the connection that you were now one of those high-ranking members.

Instead, he allowed his anger and his passion to cloud his thinking until the only thing he could focus on was winning. It’s a move that has brought him pain countless times in the past, and now, it seeks to do so again. Vader has to force himself to remain calm, lest he lose control of his emotions and allow his connection to the Force to wreak havoc on his surroundings. 

He takes a couple of deep breaths before feeling like he can speak in a level tone. “Thank you, Admiral Batch.”

The admiral bows his head in respect. “My lord,” he says, turning and heading back to the command center on the destroyer.

There’s not a moment to spare once the panel to the observation deck seals and leaves him alone. He needs to get down to the surface of Mandalore before any Stormtrooper teams can beat him there and start confirming the dead and injured. Darth Vader hurries back to his chambers, where he sheds his bulky uniform and switches into a set of unassuming robes. Clipping his lightsaber to his belt, he pulls his hood up over his head and proceeds to sneak out of the destroyer and into a cruiser—an easy feat when one has the Force on their side.

The Rebel base, once so well hidden in one of the capital’s abandoned industrial districts, is now completely exposed after the barrage of Empire bombs shelled through its defenses. Rubble and detritus are strewn in every direction, making his path to the coordinates of the meeting room that much more difficult to maneuver. Vader takes great care to stay hidden under any outcroppings of the ceiling still standing, hyperaware of the fact that he could be spotted at any moment.

When he finally reaches the room where the Rebellion’s best and brightest were meeting, he pauses as he takes in the carnage in front of him. It’s nowhere near the first time that he’s stood in a room full of bodies, their injuries and deaths partially (sometimes fully) attributed to him. But it is the first time that he’s been so concerned for the welfare of one of the potential bodies. Vader’s frantic eyes scan the faces of the dead and wounded, both hoping and not to see you among them. If he doesn’t see you, it either means that you’re somewhere safe and far away from here or that you’re buried so far under the wreckage that he’ll never be able to find you. Likewise, if he does see you, he’ll have concrete proof that you’re either alive…

…Or dead.

A pit opens up in his stomach at the mental image he’s unconsciously created, and he forces his eyes to work faster, to take in more and more information until there’s no doubt left for his mind to play with. Finally, in the corner of the room, he sees your face peeking out from behind a crumbling column. He has the briefest moment of deliberation, a ghost whispering in his ear that he’s gotten too wrapped up in this whole situation, persuading him to turn back now, cut his losses, and find something else to focus his attention on. Then there’s a pop and a sizzle, a chunk of ceiling breaking off and hitting a pile of embers across the room, and the ghost disappears.

It feels like Vader teleports with how fast he makes it to you, though that is not a skill that the Force grants. Falling to his knees at your side, his hand shakes as he places two fingers on your neck, terrified of the potential outcome when he tries to find a pulse. After a stressful few moments, he’s relieved to feel your pulse beating steadily under your skin. With the knowledge that you’re firmly alive in mind, he takes a moment to actually look you over. 

You’re covered in blood and soot, making it difficult for him to determine where you’re injured. Your right arm is definitely broken, and it looks like your right ankle is, too. The extent of your injuries can be determined later by a medical droid. What matters now is that you’re alive, and that you’re stable. 

Everything else is secondary.

•••

The first thing you realize upon waking up is that you have no memory of how you came to be in a position where you would need to wake up. The last thing you remember, you were trading notes with Oona to pass the time during a budget meeting. Now you’re here…if only you knew where ‘here’ was.

It’s more difficult for you to open your eyes than it normally is, and when you do finally pry them open, your blurry vision prevents you from discerning where you are. Picking a light source in the distance, you focus on that until the room finally comes into focus and you see that you’re surrounded by white. White walls, white floors, white counters. The logical part of your brain says that it could mean you’re in a medbay. But the logical part of your brain feels…fuzzy, almost. Like there’s a blanket of clouds settled over your consciousness and making silly notions like logic and reason fly somewhere far away

“Am I dead?” you ask yourself.

Somebody laughs at you from across the room, and you look to see none other than Darth Vader, sans mask and cape and all other vestments that he wears as a Sith Lord, strolling towards you. “No, thankfully.”

Blinking rapidly doesn’t get him to disappear in a mirage, but it does serve to dry out your already-unreliable eyes. “Well, now I really think that I might be dead.”

“Not if I had anything to say about it. Which, I did, and it’s why you’re not dead.”

A puff of air leaves your nose—it’s meant to come out as a laugh, but parts of your body seem to not want to cooperate today, so a puff of air is all you manage. The action makes your nose begin to itch fiercely, and as you jerkily lift your hand to alleviate the sensation, you’re stopped at the sight of the blue bacta cast that covers your arm from wrist to elbow.

“Oh.”

“The med droids did it,” he explains sheepishly, as though you might be mad at somebody attempting to heal what must be a significant injury. “Your right ankle is in a cast, too, as are your ribs. The report from the droid earlier said that your injuries are healing at the expected rate, so you should only need to be in them for a few more cycles.”

“What happened?” you mumble.

“What do you remember?” Vader asks.

“There was a meeting, and I was getting called out by Kessyk for not paying attention. Then…” you try to think, but the blanket of clouds presses down on you further and makes everything scatter. “Ugh, I feel funny.”

“Pretty sure you’re on some heavy painkillers right now.” He grabs a tablet from the end of your bed and looks at it. “You’re definitely on some heavy painkillers right now,” he amends.

“How did I get injured enough to need enough drugs to take down a bantha?”

“The Empire received intelligence that some high-ranking members of the Rebellion would be meeting on Mandalore, and the decision was made to carry out a bombing mission. I didn’t even begin to think that you were one of those high-ranking members until after the bombs had been dropped.”

“Wow, you don’t think I’m good enough at my job to be a high-ranking Rebel?” If you had full control over yourself right now, you would be slapping a horrified hand over your mouth and begging yourself to shut up. Instead, you giggle (oh, the horror) at Vader’s panicked expression and bat at his hands with your own uninjured one. “I’m just messing with you. We both know that I’m really good at my job.”

“We do,” he agrees before continuing. “I couldn’t just leave without knowing if you were there, so I commandeered a fighter and went down myself. When I saw you laying there, injured…I wouldn't leave you to whatever your fate might have been if I hadn’t interfered. So I brought you here, to my fortress on Mustafar, to recover.”

A med droid interrupts your conversation when it begins to do a routine round through the medbay and sees that you’re awake. You allow it to poke and prod you, checking your vitals and doing whatever scans it needs, aware the whole time of Vader watching you. His stare is unwavering, closely supervising the droid as though it might rebel against its circuitry and try to harm you instead of heal you. When the droid chirps at him, he glares.

“I am letting you do your job, 21-B,” he huffs.

More chirping, followed by a whistle.

“That’s uncalled for.”

“You can understand it?” you ask, watching the scene in front of you with amusement.

“I’ve been able to understand droids since I was a young boy. For better or for worse.”

When 21-B beeps, even you can tell it's displeased. Vader rolls his eyes and proceeds to argue with the droid a bit longer before turning to you.

“Your temperature is starting to rise a little, and 21-B’s worried it’s an early sign of infection. He wants to give you some medicine to combat that. Is that alright?” You’re a little surprised that Vader is both taking the time to explain the droid’s requests to you and making sure that you consent to the care plan.

You nod, and 21-B begins to fiddle with the IV in your hand before injecting what you assume is the needed medicine into your line. There must be a sedative effect to this medication as well, because your body quickly begins to feel like gravity is no longer going to be able to hold you down anymore. You try to fight the way that your eyes flutter, willing yourself to keep focused on Vader. There are still so many questions you have that need answered!

“Do you know who died?” you ask quietly, using the stores of strength you still have within you to speak.

“Not for certain. There was…a lot of carnage when I came to find you. I couldn’t see who was alive and who wasn’t.”

“Oh.” Although such a revelation certainly warrants a better reaction, one syllable is all that you can muster.

Vader smiles just slightly at your struggle. “Focus on resting, and I’ll see if I can find answers for you, okay?”

You think you mutter an affirmative answer, but unconsciousness pulls at you before you can be sure. 

Though it feels like you merely blink, when you open your eyes once more, the shadows in the medbay are much longer than they were when you last saw them. One glance around the room reveals Darth Vader sitting in a chair at the foot of your bed, watching something on a holocron. When he notices you struggle into a sitting position, he powers it off and tosses it on a counter behind him.

“How are you feeling?” he asks softly.

“Better,” you respond truthfully. You feel a little stronger than you did earlier; your mind is markedly clearer, too.

“Good. The droid said that your temperature returned to normal about an hour ago.”

“That’s good.” 

Even though you should be focused on yourself, asking more questions about your own prognosis, your mind is with your team and your fellow Rebels—or, you fear, what’s left of them.

“Did you…learn any of the names of the injured and dead?” you ask.

Vader nods and takes a deep breath (Does his face lose a little color? you wonder as you watch his expression for any clues). “I did. General Kessyk is dead.”

You’re almost expecting that answer, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less. And in a normal circumstance, you would hide that hurt until you could break down away from anybody. But this isn’t a normal circumstance. You’re hurt and thankful to be alive and probably still a little high on pain meds, which is why you have to stare intensely down at the cast on your arm to keep the stray tears that hit your blanket from turning into full-on crying in Darth Vader’s presence. To his credit, he is incredibly patient with you, remaining silent and giving you the space to feel your feelings. 

You manage to get yourself under control quicker than expected, sniffling a couple of times before you can meet his eyes again.

“My second in command—my best friend—was there with me.” It’s hard to get the words out, as a selfish part of you wants to not ask, but instead live in this gray area where she’s both alive and not. “Did you hear anything about someone named Oona?”

The control that you had been so proud of yourself for exercising crumbles the moment that you hear him say that Oona’s injured, but alive. Tears that were vanquished mere moments ago return in full force until you’re sobbing.

Not just crying, no. Sobbing. Like, gross, heaving sobs. The type of sobbing that will most definitely leave you feeling embarrassed later for having such an emotional reaction. At the moment, though, sobbing seems like the only way to properly express your feelings. Relief, at Oona being alive. Grief, for your general and likely a number of others who have lost their lives. And something bittersweet—some emotion you can’t truly place—for yourself and the position you’ve found yourself in.

After a few moments of indecision, Vader rises awkwardly from his chair and hovers inches away from you, unsure of what to do.

“I’m so sorry, Anakin,” you try to apologize in between sobs. “Really, I’m just—”

“Please don’t apologize,” he insists uncomfortably as your breath gets caught in your throat, causing you to almost hyperventilate as you try to remember how to breathe.

Darth Vader is a Sith Lord, and you’re a Force-sensitive Rebel; enemies, that much is true. But first and foremost, you’re both human beings who possess human traits and tendencies. Vader can’t help but sympathize with you, putting a comforting hand on your shoulder before he’s even fully aware of the action. Likewise, when your body recognizes another human who’s willing to provide you comfort in a time of need, it acts by taking his hand in your own and beginning to pull him down onto the bed before logic can say otherwise. 

“You don’t want me to hold you,” Vader tries to convince you while he’s climbing onto the bed with you and carefully avoiding your various bacta casts to slide his arms around you, somehow unaware that he’s the one taking the comfort further than just the simple hand-holding and proximity that you initiated. “I–I’m the reason for this. You should be sending me away.”

“Shut up,” you mumble into his chest through hiccuping sobs. 

Already, your breath seems to come a little easier, your tears a little lighter. And the Force, which is always humming around you with something to say, has gone contentedly silent. 

When you find yourself calm enough to dry your eyes and lift your head off of Vader’s chest, you have to fight a sudden bout of shyness to be able to actually look at him. “Sorry for crying on you so much,” you mumble bashfully.

“I promise you, there’s nothing to be sorry for,” Vader assures. “If anything, I’m surprised that you aren’t angry at me.”

“How can I be, when I would have done the exact same thing?”

He doesn’t bother to hide his shock. “Really?”

“Yes,” you admit with a laugh. “I absolutely would have bombed a meeting of Empire officials, and then belatedly realized you were probably there and tried to get you out safely against my better judgment.”

“Judgment seems to not be either of our strong suits right now. None of what’s happening to us follows any rationale,” Vader says.

“No,” you agree. “We should be mortal enemies.”

“Absolutely.” Vader tightens his grip around you. “Once we figure out why the Force keeps doing this to us, we’re right back to trying to kill each other without any qualms.”

“So glad we’re on the same page.”

Leading the rebellion against the self proclaimed king and queen of Middle-earth was not an easy feat, doing so with Galadriel's growing obsession with you putting an even bigger target on you was nearly impossible.

The strategy had to change. With so many of the free people under their influence, you had no chance in an open battle, so you planned to you use this inconvenience to your advantage. You figured you could get close enough to them and live long enough to take out at least Galadriel if you had no chance against Sauron, losing her could weaken him just enough to break their spell on the people...

“Look, if you would just listen for a moment,” you yell at him over the sound of electricity humming, “I think you would see that we all want the same thing!”

“And what thing is that?” Darth Maul snarls, raising his blade above his head and attempting to crash it down on top of you.

You meet it with your own, gritting your teeth under the strain as you attempt to hold him back. “The end of the Galactic Empire!”

He bears down harder in response, and your arms begin to shake. Knowing when to give up some yield is half the success in battle, so you adjust your strategy and drop to your knees, doing a quick roll to get some space in between you. He turns to face you once more, his yellow eyes so filled with hatred that it makes a frightened whimper get stuck in your throat.

“Please, we only came to talk. We can be allies!” you plead.

“What happens after the Empire is defeated? We part on good terms and go our separate ways?” Maul shakes his head, twirling his saber and stalking towards you. “No. At the end of the day, the Sith will always be an enemy. I will always be an enemy.”

“I’m sure that—woah!” He renews his attacks with vigor, clearly done talking. Unfortunately for him, you’re not done. “I’m sure that the Rebel Alliance would be happy to negotiate some sort of treaty.”

“I have had enough of arrogant little Force users thinking that they can change the galaxy with ‘the power of goodness,’” he mocks. “You are not the first to approach me with your misguided ideals.”

Maul kicks the center of your chest and sends you falling to the ground, a position you never want to find yourself in when fighting for your life. Attempting to scramble backward is made extra difficult with the lightsaber in your hand, and it’s only delaying the inevitable as Maul follows you slowly, a predator stalking his prey. With a firm smack, your saber goes flying out of your reach.

He holds his lightsaber to your chest and smirks down at you as it burns a hole through the fabric of your shirt. “But you will be the last.”

You raise both hands up in a last-ditch plea, though you know it’s for naught. This is it. You’ve lost. You’ll become just another name on the long list of lives lost as sacrifices for the fight for a better tomorrow.

Though you’d like to say that a sense of peace comes over you as you stare your impending death in the eyes, that’s not the case. You’re scared out of your mind, actually, and the only thing comforting you is the fact that it’ll be a quick death. With that in mind, you close your eyes and await the inevitable.

But the inevitable never comes. Where you were expecting pain and darkness, there’s simply darkness from screwing your eyes shut. After a couple of long moments, you hesitantly open your eyes. Darth Maul no longer looms over you. Instead, he’s a few feet away, engaged in battle with someone else.

“It was foolish of me to believe that Kenobi could actually finish the job and successfully kill somebody for once,” he spits, twirling his saber in his hand as another red saber clashes with his.

“You said it, not me!”

Belatedly, you realize that you know that cocky, annoying voice. Sure enough, Darth Vader is now Darth Maul’s opponent, and he’s faring much better than you had. His helmet is off, allowing you to see the arrogant grin he’s sporting, and his blond curls fly around his face as he swings his lightsaber through the air.

“Vader?” you call, still feeling like your eyes are deceiving you. 

He looks over at you, his grin somehow getting bigger. “C’mon, get up and help me out!”

You stumble to your feet and call your lightsaber back to your hand using the Force, but remain back. Vader doesn’t need your help, because he’s very clearly winning. You would only be a hindrance if you were to join, so instead, you watch.

Even if you didn’t know that the two Sith lords had been trained for a very long time, their fighting styles would make it obvious. The way that they move, so fluidly and deadly, is an art form. It almost looks like a dance, if a dance could end in somebody’s death.

“Darth Sidious won’t be pleased when he finds out you’re helping out the Rebel Alliance,” Darth Maul taunts, bending over backward to avoid a swing.

Darth Vader curses at the near-miss. “Oh, but I’m not.”

“Then what do you call this?”

He looks over his shoulder and winks at you. “Helping the one particular Rebel that I have a vested interest in.”

“Pathetic!” Darth Maul spits.

Vader’s lightsaber makes contact with the palm of Maul’s hand, and he yells out in pain. He catches his saber with his other hand before it can fall to the ground, but he’s unable to grip it with both hands now. Though he could fight one-handed, against somebody as talented as Darth Vader, he wouldn’t be very successful. The light from his saber disappears as he extinguishes it, giving one curt nod before he backs off.

“This is not the end,” he promises.

“No, I don’t believe it is.”

Though Vader could very easily finish him, there are rules to a battle. When one willingly concedes, the fight is over, no matter how much the other wishes that it wasn’t. You and Vader both watch as Maul makes it to his ship and escapes, flying high above your heads and away from Corellia.

Vader turns his attention to you, wrapping his large hands around your upper arms and looking you up and down. “Are you alright?”

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”

“You were the one about to die.”

“I had it under control,” you claim, even though you very much did not have it under control. “And I didn’t need you to save me.”

“Oh, you didn’t? That’s not what it looked like to me.” 

His fingers move to the open hole in your shirt left by Maul’s lightsaber above your heart. The skin there is shiny from a light burn—it’s nothing that will hinder you in the long run, but it does sting a bit, especially when Vader lightly touches this wound. You hiss through your teeth, but he doesn’t move.

“Your heart is beating so fast,” he notes, his voice soft from concentration.

Your cheeks burn at this because you know there are a couple of reasons for your racing heart, and only one of them is from the exertion of battle. Wiggling your hands up, you get enough of a space that you can lightly push yourself away from Vader.

“What are you—how did you know that I would be here?” you demand, having been under the assumption that everybody had done very well in making sure this was a top-secret mission.

“We received some intel that the Rebel Alliance would be making a rather stupid attempt at reaching out to Crimson Dawn. I was going to just let Maul have at it, but then I thought, ‘What are the odds that my Rebel would be involved in this?’”

“I am not your Rebel.” The way that he looks at you, like you mean something to him, makes your heart clench in a way that you don’t want to consider right now. Onto the next subject, then. “Why did you help me in the first place? You could have let him kill me. You should have let him kill me, actually. Would have saved you a lot of trouble.”

“I don’t want you dead.”

You roll your eyes. “Of course, you just want me to join you and go against every one of my morals.”

“I still have morals, Rebel. If you were willing to listen, to be open-minded, I think you’d find that the Dark Side is not evil. Where the Light Side wanted their Jedi to shirk all of their emotions and attachments, the Dark Side encourages those emotions. Anger, sadness, passion…love. Sith believe in a world where we’re all free to feel what we want, to allow that which scares us to be out in the open so that we may overpower it. You can’t tell me that this sounds evil.”

You remain silent, because you don’t know what to think. With how Vader puts it, the Dark Side doesn’t sound all evil. Actions speak louder than words, however, and you’ve seen the terror and devastation that the Empire and the Dark Side have unleashed on the galaxy. You’re not willing to dwell on it right now (or ever, really; just thinking about the possibility of Vader’s words having some validity makes you feel like you’re betraying the Rebel Alliance), so you force it to the back of your mind and refuse to think about it any longer.

“Well, I think my work here is done,” Vader declares with a sigh, clipping his saber back onto his belt.

You look at him in confusion. “Wait, you’re not…going to force me to be your apprentice? I mean, now’s kind of the perfect time.” You don’t want him to do so, but you were sure you knew what his end goal was, since he’s made it clear every other time you’ve encountered him.

“It is,” he agrees. “But I’ve decided that it does no good to have you join me against your will. When the time comes, you’ll give yourself to me—to the Dark Side willingly.”

He sounds so sure of this, like it’s a foregone conclusion. You’re about to argue, to insist once more that you’ll never join him, when you hear groaning behind you.

“Looks like your crew is starting to come to,” Vader notes. “I’ll see you soon.”

You don’t doubt that, but you won’t let him know that. “I sure hope not.”

He laughs, already walking to his own ship. “Make sure to get that burn checked out so that it doesn’t get infected!” he yells to you.

The groaning gets louder before you can tell him to not tell you what to do, and somebody calls your name sluggishly. Your pilot is trying to roll over onto his hands and knees, and the others aren’t far behind him in waking up. You get ready to help, as all good Rebels do—because that’s what you are, someone good and helpful and nothing at all like the Sith Lord that increasingly occupies your thoughts as of late.

So, you begrudgingly agreed to meet with him on a moon that was basically forgotten, one that neither the Empire nor the Rebel Alliance had yet touched. Making your ship untraceable and sneaking away was the easy part. The hard part, as it turns out, is gathering the nerve to stand up and walk out to actually meet with Darth Vader. He’s here somewhere, you know–you can feel his proximity to you, probably thanks to the bond. The tug of the bond becomes too much for you to ignore, and you stand with a sigh and allow it to lead you.

It’s only a couple of minutes of walking before you stop in a clearing, knowing that he’s here somewhere. You spin in a slow circle, looking for a glimpse of black robes or yellow eyes, but you can’t find any sign of him.

“I know you’re here, Vader,” you call, your voice echoing through the imposing mountains of this moon.

He appears out of nowhere, though you know he likely used some aspect of the Force you’re not yet familiar with to cloak himself from you. It’s the first time you’ve seen him in his suit since the day you first met. Now that you’re not struck with fear, you can fully admire just how powerful he looks in it. The buttons on his chest plate glow green and red; what purpose they serve, you’re not too sure. Gloves cover his hands and stretch up the length of his strong forearms, though his right glove seems to be more reinforced than his left one. That damn cape of his billows out behind him, making him look like a member of royalty. You’ll never admit it, but you love when he wears it.

The one thing that’s missing from his ensemble is his helmet. There’s no sign of it, and you assume he left it back on his own ship. Though he’s revealed himself to you, you both stand a few paces apart. You’re both uneasy about being around the other, trying to figure out if you’re being lured into a trap of some sort. Even if it weren’t for the bond, something in you knows that he hasn’t betrayed you.

“I’ll admit, I’m surprised you actually showed up,” Vader says, appraising you as he takes one slow step closer.

You shrug. “Said I’d be here, didn’t I?”

“You did.” 

He produces a bag from within the confines of his cloak, tossing it on the ground between you. Small objects in all manor of shapes spill out and scatter in the grass. It appears Vader did his job, and he did it well. Slowly, he sits down on the grass, his cloak trailing behind him. He looks at you expectantly, and you realize that this is a peace offering. He’s putting himself in a vulnerable position first, giving you the choice to attack. Instead, you sit down next to him, and he pushes a couple of holocrons towards you with a smirk.

“Shall we?”

A couple of hours later, you’ve gone through every single holocron that Vader brought. Your eyes hurt from the strain of reading so much information, back-to-back-to-back. So much talk of dreams and bonds, yet none of it gives you any clarity for your situation. The dreams mentioned were merely visions that most Force users got, the bonds being between master and apprentice. Nothing in any of these explains involuntary Force bonds between two people who had never met before, shared dreams, or being able to sense someone who’s not your master or apprentice.

“This is useless,” you grumble, tossing a holocron from hand to hand. Vader stands, pacing back and forth as he continues to go through what he’s already looked at.

“No, there has to be something here.”

“There’s not. We’ve both looked at all of these, and nothing applies to our situation. Maybe…maybe it’s in other holocrons that you didn’t grab. You said you only grabbed as many as you could, right?”

“Yes, but I don’t know how many more hundreds of holocrons I can take and replace while simultaneously disappearing for hours at a time.”

“Dammit.”

Vader stares at a spot on the ground, thinking. After a moment, he says, “I might have another lead, but it would be risky. It’s on a neutral planet, though. Takodana.”

You hum noncommittally, not too happy at the thought of following another fruitless lead. You’re already wasting too much time and brainpower on this situation, and becoming far too entangled with the dark side of the Force. Some nights, when you lay awake and stare at the ceiling, you think that you can hear it whispering to you, attempting to seduce you. 

You hate how tantalizing it can be.

Vader finally stops his pacing when he’s in front of you. You look up from the holocron in your hands, slowly trailing up until you meet his eyes. “Spar with me,” Vader says to you, already unclipping his lightsaber from the black utility belt around his waist. You look at him in bewilderment.

“I thought we agreed that this…rendezvous would end without bloodshed.”

“And it will. I’m nothing if not a man of my word, Rebel.”

A smile lights up his handsome face as he activates his red lightsaber, casually twirling it in his hand. You try your hardest to ignore the way that your stomach stirs at the sight and scramble to your feet.

“However, you’ve acquired a weapon of your own now, and I’m quite interested in seeing how you handle it.”

Though you’re still wary, you unsheath your own lightsaber and stare down at the blue color emanating from it. You hadn’t gotten the experience of your Jedi forefathers who were able to travel to Ilum and pick their own kyber crystals. Instead, your mentor – Dia hated the idea of being called ‘Master’ – had shown you to a room full of the lightsabers of fallen Jedi. Force-sensitives were low on options, and it’s not as though the weapons were being used, so the morbid ritual of a dead Jedi’s kyber choosing a new owner was becoming more and more common among those who had managed to escape the brutality of the Inquisitors.

It was quite the solemn experience, walking through what could only be described as a tomb and sifting through the emotions, the experiences, that each crystal had stored within it. You were thankful that your crystal had come to you, the lightsaber un-wedging itself from under a pile and flying into your hand. From there, you were able to use discarded parts to create your own lightsaber, though you would forever thank the Jedi whose name you didn’t know for the gift of their crystal to help you complete your weapon. Every time you saw that beautiful blue glow, you liked to think that this Jedi’s Force essence was there with you, teaching you.

“I had my lightsaber back on Batuu,” you point out.

“We were, unfortunately, too busy running from our captors to waste any time discussing that which wasn’t directly related to our mission. Or did you forget?”

You roll your eyes, shifting into an attack stance. How could you ever forget that experience? How could you ever want to forget that experience?

Vader goes into a stance of his own, and you both stare at each other for a moment, engaging in a battle of wills and daring the other to make the first move. The Force sparks and crackles around you, something beautiful and untamed and alive, and you try to listen to the clues that it wants to give you. When you feel it lurch, you do the same, just barely blocking Vader’s low swipe as he strikes first.

From there the pace only picks up, blades crashing against each other and emitting purple pulses of energy whenever they do. Vader’s good, and it’s obvious that his skills are nowhere near exaggerated. You’ve heard stories of the legendary Anakin Skywalker and his astonishing droid kill-count from the Clone Wars–though Ahsoka, in the short time that she’s been a part of the Rebel Alliance, is always quick to tell you that she was just a few behind him. With the power of the Dark Side coursing through his veins, he’s only gotten more deadly in battle. You’re keenly aware of the fact that, if this was an actual fight, he could easily snap your neck with the Force.

Though he fights with grace, his saber twirling from hand to hand as he attempts to back you into a corner, there’s also a viciousness behind the intensity of his strikes. He violently brings his weapon down while trying to find a weakness, and you meet him with yours. You crash into a stalemate, your blades locked together as you glare at each other through the heat of the lightsabers.

“You’re good,” Anakin comments, baring his teeth in a savage grin. “Who’s been training you?”

You badly want to tell him that you’ve been receiving lessons from his former Padawan, but you know that it’s not your place to reveal her whereabouts to him. Instead, you respond, “Dia Dorvin.”

“Hmm, she was knighted right before the fall of the Jedi Order, yes?” You must show some surprise in your eyes, as Vader smirks while forcing your shaking arms to continue to hold the defensive lock you’ve found yourselves in. “The Order was not that large. Dia accompanied me on a couple of low-stakes missions when her master was off doing something too dangerous for a Padawan to be a part of.”

You overpower him just enough to shove him away from you with your foot kicking his chest, flipping over him until you land behind him with the hopes of catching him off-guard. He’s fast, fast enough that he’s matching your swings before he even turns around all the way.

He leaves his middle open, and you assume that you have him. You wouldn’t kill him, of course, but sparring dictates any contact equals a win. If you can just singe the leather of his suit, then you can declare victory over him. The need to win is all that you can think about, yet you don’t know why you feel so strongly about this. Maybe it’s because nothing involving you and Darth Vader, Anakin Skywalker, can be anything below the highest intensity.

You strike, putting all of your weight behind your movement as you slash your lightsaber towards him. He drops to his knees to avoid the heat of your weapon before coming back up to his full, intimidating height. His foot hooks behind yours and pulls it out from under you, making you collapse to the floor with a surprised gasp as your saber falls out of your hand and rolls away from you. Your back hits the surface harshly, and you feel the stinging pain for only a second before forcing yourself to get back to your feet.

Vader beats you to it, digging his knee into your chest to keep you pinned to the floor. He brings his lips to your ear and his weapon to your throat, and you swallow when you feel the heat right against your skin.

“I win.” 

His voice is just a little louder than the humming of his lightsaber, which he finally extinguishes after a moment and tosses to the side. Still, he doesn’t remove his weight off of your body. You’re both breathing heavily, but at this point you don’t know whether it’s from the physical exertion or Vader’s proximity to you.

You’ve heard Force users older than you talk about how the Force is meant to guide you, how they often know what is right or wrong based on how the Force responds. You’re still trying to learn when and how to listen to it, but its teachings are frustratingly vague a lot of the time. When Vader removes his knee and leans down even further, and you sit up enough to connect your lips to his, the Force sings around you, rejoicing in the fruition of its hard work. Nothing has ever felt so right, and never have you been so sure of what the Force is trying to tell you than at this moment.

Vader’s lips, much like everything else about him, are rough and full of passion. Yet there’s a softness that he tries to keep hidden, one that translates to the way that he rests his hand against the back of your head to pull you into him. You wrap your own arms around his neck in response, and he moves to straddle your waist.

This is wrong. It’s so, so wrong. This is a Sith Lord you’re kissing, one who’s made it clear that he wants to corrupt you into his apprentice. He serves as the enforcer for a cruel regime that seeks to bring the entire galaxy under its rule, and he does so with a bloodthirsty joy. He’s working to destroy the embers of hope that the Rebel Alliance is fanning into flames, the hope that you’re willing to defend with your life. Kissing him is wrong.

Why, then, does it feel so right? Why does the Force continue to put you in situations where you’re forced to work together and get close to each other, why does it give you dreams that you share with each other? You’re connected to Vader, like it or not, because the Force has willed it so. Right now, as he tilts your head back just a bit and licks his tongue against your lip until you grant him entrance, you like it very much.

It’s when he begins to trail his lips down your jaw to the spot behind your ear, when you tangle your fingers in his messy curls, that some semblance of logic returns to you. Not all of it, because your hormones are currently eating up most of your brain cells, but enough that you realize that if you don’t stop this now, it’s not going to stop at all.

You muster all the strength that you can to put your hands on Vader’s chest and push him back from you. He’s the only Sith you’ve ever met, but he is the exact opposite of what you would expect a Sith to be. He doesn’t (usually) renege on his word, and he’s a gentleman that backs off the moment that you start trying to pull away. Those heated golden eyes of his are mired with confusion, and you want to assure him that it’s nothing that he did.

Instead, you say, “We can’t…be doing this.”

“Doing what?” he asks.

“This.” You motion between both of you. Getting to your feet, you summon your lightsaber and clip it onto your belt, using any excuse to not look him in the eyes.

“Why not? I thought you were enjoying it.”

“I was, and that’s the problem.” Only when you feel that you’ve put enough space between you and him do you turn around. “We’re enemies. Enemies don’t kiss; they don’t even meet up in secret!”

A smirk plays on his lips. “Y’know, a wise man once told me that ‘only a Sith deals in absolutes.’”

“Don’t you dare.” You point a shaking finger at him. “I am nothing like you or the Sith, and I never will be.”

It’s bad enough that you’re connected to a Sith in the way that you are. To think about the fact that you could carry traits of the Sith, traits that lie within those who are evil and fallen, is almost too much to bear. Vader must realize this by the way that he puts his hands up like he’s surrendering, showing you that he means no harm by what he said. The damage has been done, however, and you glare at him.

“Besides the fact that we are both betraying the causes we fight for by being here, this is also fundamentally wrong. I mean, a Jedi and a Sith, light and dark. It doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t work! We’ll collide eventually and burn each other out.”

Vader shakes his head. “I don’t believe that.”

“It’s the truth!”

“Screw the truth!” He crosses the room in only a couple of strides thanks to his long legs, grabbing your arms in his hands. Even this action, with so much intensity behind it, manages to be gentle. “The Force has brought us together for a reason. You wouldn’t be here, with me, if you didn’t feel it too.”

“Vader–”

“Anakin,” he interrupts, shaking his head furiously. “Call me Anakin.”

“You told me that that name died on Mustafar.” 

Your voice is trembling now, everything becoming too real. This was supposed to be a productive meeting where you would hopefully work together to figure out how to remove whatever bonded you in the Force. Now you’re kissing and fighting like lovers and he’s insisting that you call him a name that nobody else is allowed to use. The air in the room suddenly feels a little too thin, your breath coming out harshly as you try to remember to breathe.

You wrench yourself out of his arms. Though he’s strong enough to overpower you if he wanted to, he lets you go. You stumble backwards and yell, “Stop playing your mind games with me!”

“You think that I don’t feel just as insane as you do? I don’t know what’s worse, that I haven’t killed you or that I don’t want to kill you.”

“That makes two of us, then.” You rub your hand hardly over your face, ridding yourself of any of the angry tears that you can feel building up at the backs of your eyes. “I’ll go with you to Takodana so that we can follow your lead, you just tell me where to be and when. But if this one doesn’t pan out, that’s it.”

Vader can only watch as you turn to go back to your ship. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that I’ll do anything to sever this bond,” you call over your shoulder. “Even if that means I have to kill you.”

When you keep walking and don’t turn back, he calls your name. Your real name, not ‘Rebel.’ You don’t think he’s ever done that before. It makes you stumble in your determined walk, and you look at him with wide eyes. Vader stalks over to you and grabs your arm, pulling you in before he kisses you once more. Your teeth clack against his as your lips angrily meet; this is nothing like the sweet kiss you previously shared, and nor should it be. You’re both mad–at the circumstances that have brought you together, at being on opposite sides and viewpoints, at having feelings that neither of you want to have.

Vader pulls away, taking steps back while still staring at you. You’ve never hated a person so much while also wanting to kiss that same person so much. You wipe the back of your hand against your mouth and walk away again.

“Takodana,” he says. “I’ll let you know when to meet me there. And believe me, I will see you there.”

This is terrible, you think as you fly back to the base you’ve been stationed at for the past month. This is complicated and messy and it’s with arguably the worst person you could be in this sort of a situation with. You want this bond severed, and you repeat that to yourself even as you bring your fingers to your lips while they still tingle from the intensity of Vader’s kisses.

I want this bond severed.

I want this bond severed.

Though he wants to provide a rebuttal, he realizes that it would be futile and acquiesces to your suggestion. It’s another few tense minutes of hiking before you reach lights and actual civilization, and you could cry with relief when you do. There are many things that you would do for the Rebellion, but being sold off to the Hutts is not one of those things. Considering how close it came to that being your reality, you’re more than ready to get off of this planet and never look back…after some rest.

You and Vader both pull the hoods of your robes up over your heads once you enter the Outpost, wary of his earlier warning of spies. It’s disorienting trying to get around on a foreign planet without a map and while dodging many unseemly creatures who duck in and out of cantinas and casinos, but eventually you come to a building with a “Black Spire Inn” sign attached to it.

The noises of merriment outside are dampened as the door shuts behind you both. A Jablogian male sits on a stool that looks close to breaking, head against the wall and pointed ears twitching as he snores. At the sound of the door, he snorts roughly before blinking his beady green eyes open to see what’s disturbed him. He springs up quickly (as quickly as a Jablogian can) upon realizing that it’s potential customers and lumbers over to the check-in desk.

“Rising moons, travelers!” he greets you in a friendly manner. “What can I do for you?”

You step in front of Vader, who casts his face down to the ground in an attempt to keep hidden. “We come seeking shelter. Do you have any rooms available?”

“Let me see here.” He opens a log book and begins to look through the entries, scratching his protruding throat pouch and humming while he does. “Ah! You’re in luck, I have one open room left.”

“We’ll take it.”

Considering you’re in a smuggler haven, the innkeeper has the tact to not ask for your names and any other identification. Instead, he makes you pay up front (you thank the sense that you had to grab a bunch of credits from the room of bounties that also contained your lightsaber) and explains that damages will result in a heavy fine before handing you your key and sending you on your way. Nice and easy, which is sorely appreciated after the day that you’ve had.

You and Vader trudge down the halls until reaching the room that corresponds to the number on the key. You’re both exhausted, with no fight remaining to even bother speaking to each other. You’re thinking about the fact that you’re going to be able to have a hot shower and clean off the blood that’s uncomfortably crusted on the top of your head, and you assume Vader’s thinking something along those same lines too. You unlock the door and step inside, fumbling for the light switch as Vader locks everything behind you both and closes the curtains tight.

It’s when the light is on and you’re appraising the room that you realize the mistake that’s been made. It’s a fine room, what one would expect for temporary lodging in a seedy spaceport town. There’s a refresher off in the back of the room, the usual desk and chair and dresser, and in the center of the room–

“There’s only one bed,” Vader points out, dumbly pointing at the single bed that you can very much see. Though it’s a bed large enough to fit you both, that doesn’t matter, because there’s only one bed.

You groan. “Kriff, and he said this was his last room available.”

Vader tries to come up with a solution, but he can barely get out the beginning of a sentence before another potential solution hits and his brain pivots to that one instead. It would be almost amusing, if it weren’t for the situation you currently found yourselves in. You realize what needs to be done and sigh.

“Just give me a pillow and a blanket, I can sleep on the floor perfectly comfortably.”

Vader looks appalled that you would even suggest such a thing. “No! You’ll take the bed, and I’ll sleep on the floor.”

You’re not sure what sort of power play he’s attempting to pull here, but you don’t like it. “What? I offered first!”

“Don’t argue with me.” The way that he looks at you leaves no room for any rebuttal. Honestly, you’re too tired to even want to argue with him. If he feels so strongly about wanting to sleep on the floor, then he can be your guest.

“Fine, but then you get to use the shower first since you’re taking the floor.”

He glowers at you, but stomps to the refresher anyway. “Fine.”

“Fine!” you say as he slams the door shut. You fall onto the bed with a huff, but not before first throwing two pillows and a blanket onto the floor. Stupid, infuriating Sith Lord.

You continue to stew in your frustration until it’s your turn to use the shower, glaring at him (and his stupid, wet curls) as you pass. Though you want to continue to be mad at him, the heat of the shower loosens up your muscles too much for you to hold onto that anger. You stay under the water until it begins to run cold, getting out and shaking your clothes of dust and grime as much as you can before having to put them back on. It’s not the cleanest you’ve ever been, but at least you feel refreshed.

Vader is already laying down when you exit the refresher, facing away from you with the blanket pulled over his form. You can’t tell if he’s sleeping already or even if his eyes are closed, so you try to be as quiet as possible when turning the lights off and crawling into the bed. Common decency has a “good night” hanging on the tip of your tongue, but you fight it back down and instead burrow under the covers and into the pillow. Hopefully you can block out all of this enough to wake up and magically be back at the base in your barracks.

It’s still pitch black in the room when you wake up, and you whine when you realize that you’re awake while you don’t need to be. Your sleepy brain takes a moment to process what’s happening and why you’ve been so harshly pulled from your slumber. When it does process, you realize that someone whimpering and talking has woken you up. After another moment, you realize that it’s Vader whimpering and talking.

You shift the curtains just slightly to let in a bit of light from the moons in order to see what’s disturbed him. When your eyes adjust and you look down at the floor, you see his eyes are still closed and his face is pinched in fear. He’s having a nightmare, and from the tears streaking down his cheeks, it’s a rough one. You can just barely make out what he’s saying, catching words like “no” and “don’t.” 

You’re not sure what to do. Aren’t you not supposed to wake up a person that’s having a nightmare, or is that just for sleepwalkers? He lets out a particularly loud cry, which spurs you into action. You kneel next to him on the floor and gently shake his shoulder.

“Psst!” you whisper. “Wake up!”

That doesn’t work, and he continues to shake his head while mumbling. You sigh and roll your eyes, shaking him a little harder.

“You’re having a nightmare, you need to–!”

His eyes shoot open suddenly, and you barely have time to even react before his fight-or-flight kicks in. Quicker than you could ever even attempt to do, he has you pinned to the ground on your back with a hand wrapped around your throat. Your heart pounds in your chest, and you stare up at him with wide eyes. He’s still half-asleep, wild with the perceived threat and the feeling of being startled out of his dreamscape. Yet, even in this state, he could still very easily kill you. The thought makes you panic, and you fight to stay calm under him.

“V–Anakin,” you whisper. You’re not sure why you use his real name, but it comes out before you can do anything about it. “Anakin, you’re alright. You’re safe, you were having a nightmare.”

“Y/n?” Vader blinks a couple of times, then looks at you again as if he’s seeing you for the first time. “Y/n!” His hand releases from your neck and he scrambles backwards, horror evident on his face.

You should probably be a little more scared, considering you just had a hand around your throat and you were completely defenseless. Yet you don’t care about that right now. The only thing that you care about is making sure that the man in front of you is okay. “Are you alright?”

He’s crying, and holds a hand in front of him when you try to get closer. “I–I hurt you!”

“No, you didn’t. I shouldn’t have woken you up so suddenly, not when I knew you were having a nightmare.” It was partially your fault, you’ll admit. After all, people that grew up well-adjusted don’t become Sith. You grab his hand and force him to allow you to sit in front of him. “You’re okay. Everything’s okay.”

“I’m a monster,” he admits.

He is a monster. He has killed without hesitation and slaughtered villages without mercy. He’s ruthless and terrifying, the type of person who would torture anyone he believed to have information he needed. He hurts people and strikes fear into their very souls, and he enjoys doing so.

As you sit with him though, you don’t see that monster. Instead, you see someone that’s frightened and obviously going through something, someone that’s in need of comfort. And you can’t turn your back on that, even if you wanted to.

“You’re upset and scared. Please come lay down, you need rest.” Against your better judgment, and against Vader’s protests, you make him get in the bed that you were sleeping in. He seems to have calmed down during this process, and you smile reassuringly at him as you make sure that he’s comfortable and no longer on the verge of a breakdown. Satisfied, you turn to take his place on the floor when he grabs your wrist.

“Please…don’t leave me.”

You hesitate, but there’s not much fight left in you. Even if it weren’t the middle of the night and you weren’t exhausted, you can see that there’s enough room in the bed for both of you without having to be right next to Vader. Besides, what are you going to do, kick him back to the floor after he’s had a nightmare? No, you’ll both share.

“Alright,” you say, “but don’t expect me to hold you or anything like that.”

He laughs softly, more an exhale of air than an actual laugh, but it’s enough to let you know that he’s starting to come out of whatever nightmare had him in its grasp. “I’d never dream of it.”

You’ll never admit it, but it’s comforting to have a person next to you, even if you’re trying to put as much space between you as possible. Just knowing that there’s somebody there, even if you may not be fond of that person, seems to make it a little easier to breathe. Within a matter of minutes, you can feel yourself tipping back into sleep. Before you do, Vader speaks.

“Thank you,” he says quietly, staring up at the ceiling. You hum and think you say something like “don’t mention it,” but can’t be too sure of it before you’re fully asleep.

The suns are actually in the sky the next time you wake up, which makes the whole “waking up” thing not nearly as painful. Still, the kidnapping and escape seem to have taken their toll on your body, and you yawn tiredly as you bury your face against the hard chest, that’s surprisingly comfy, that you’ve been using as a pillow. The arm that’s draped across your side tightens against you at your movement, and you sigh at the blissful feeling of simply being held by someone.

Then you realize where you are, and the spell breaks. Your eyes snap open and you look around to see that you’re laying on your side and facing Vader, who has his arms wrapped around you while you slept on his chest. The lines of worry and anger are softened in sleep, and his full lips are just slightly open as he breathes quietly and evenly (it’s endearing, though you’re not going to admit that to yourself or to anyone else). One of your legs is thrown over his, and you can feel your face burning in embarrassment as you try to remain calm and not freak out. 

Your movement seems to have woken him up though, and you watch as he goes through the same process as you. He groans at waking up, scrunching up his face in displeasure before shifting and burying his head against your hair. Suddenly he stiffens and looks down at you with eyes as wide as you’re sure yours are.

Near-simultaneously, you break apart from each other and scramble to opposite sides of the bed. You find yourself very interested in a stray string on the comforter, and Vader picks at a spot on the back of his hand. The clock on the wall across from you shows that it’s 0924. “The spaceport should be open by now,” you point out, still not looking at him.

“Good, I’m ready to get far away from this planet.” 

“Me too.”

Vader gets out of the bed and stands to his full, towering height, picking up his discarded robe and lightsaber from where he had tossed them on the chair last night. After he gets himself as ready as he can while in a barren hotel room on an unfamiliar planet, he wordlessly hands you your own cloak and lightsaber. You quietly thank him and take them, sliding off of the bed yourself and repeating Vader’s actions.

“This is probably where we should split,” you say, “so long as we’re both in agreement that we were never on Batuu and captured by Hondo?” What you’re actually saying is silent: your time as allies is coming to an end, and you need to be ensured that you will both make it out of here safely and without incident from the other.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve been on Onderon, conducting a covert operation against suspected members of Crimson Dawn.”

“I’m on Corellia to purchase new ships.” You both nod at each other in silent agreement.

“You should leave first. If Hondo’s still looking for us, it will be a lot easier to find us if we’re together.”

You put the hood of your robes up and head for the door. With your hand on the doorknob, you pause and turn your head behind you. “Farewell, Vader.”

“Farewell,” he smiles, “Rebel.”