His son entered the room behind him and Vader tore his gaze away from the painting and turned about.
"Good evening." he said simply - and instantly chided his own inhibitions.
The boy nodded in reply, "This room is safe?"
It was the same thing that they always asked, one of the other, whenever they met; was the room safe to talk in- was it bugged. That was the limits of his association with his own son; stolen moments, watchful for betrayal or discovery.
"This room is safe." He replied simply with a short nod, and they both stood in silence for long moments. Finally his son looked away, uneasy, "I've come to take my leave of you. The Peerless heads out tomorrow for Bothawuii."
"For Mothma." Vader replied levelly, bringing his sons' eyes up in surprise. "The Emperor told me. I think he meant it to be a contention between us - that I would believe the task should have gone to me." He shook his head against the uneasy guilt in Luke's eyes, "He was wrong. This has been your campaign and your strategy. You should finish what you have begun."
Luke glanced away, his father's words reminding him again of Master Yoda, glancing into the ether to ask of Kenobi, 'Will he finish what he begins?'
Vader sensed the burst of self-reproach as his son looked away and wondered at it. "She would have been proud of you." He said obliquely.
Luke glanced up, frowning. "Who?"
"Your mother. She had the highest standards of anyone I ever knew, for herself and for those around her. She would have been proud of you."
Luke looked away, deeply uncomfortable, "I very much doubt it."
They remained silent for a long time, though it was no longer awkward, just... uncertain, each wishing to continue, but neither knowing how.
"What was she like?" Luke uttered at last, unable to look at his father as he did so.
It seemed to Vader an eternity since he had first taken the holo-pic of Padmé to Luke aboard the Executor. Now, looking back, he couldn't believe he had thought that Luke would ever have conceded so much so easily as to have taken the projector - in his place, Anakin Skywalker would have done exactly the same as Luke Skywalker had.
Now, Vader knew, this question meant so much more than simply a desire to know his mother - because he wanted to know from his father. Wanted to know the woman that his father had known.
"She was... very beautiful. True beauty - it shone from within her."
"How long did you know her?" Luke shied away from asking the one question he truly wanted to ask; did you ever love her?
"Since I was a boy- nine years old. Before I was even a Padawan."
His son considered, a slight frown marking his youthful face, scarred now by Mothma's hand. In truth, Vader wanted very much to go after her himself- longed to with a biting fury. But this was far more equitable; for his son to deal with this himself- for him to want to. For the Emperor to trust him to. Vader still had no idea what coercion the boy could have used to change their Master's mind; he had been so adamant for so long that Luke should remain always close to Coruscant, and Vader could hardly blame him - in Palpatine's place, he would have placed the same limits.
"She was from Tatooine?" Luke asked, mismatched eyes to his father.
"No - she was from Naboo." He wanted to tell his son everything - that his mother had been a Senator; a Queen - but too much too fast would only overwhelm him... and in some selfish way, he still wanted to hold onto this power he had over the boy; the lure to bring him back again.
"Then...?" Luke prompted, fascinated.
"Padmé came to Tatooine when her starship was damaged, looking for parts. That was how we first met." Vader fell silent, but his son waited expectantly, so eventually he offered more, "I... became a Padawan soon after that, coming to Coruscant. We did not meet for many years, but I always remembered her."
"You were a Jedi... when you met her again?" Which meant he shouldn't have been with her, Luke knew. So much information, so quickly- this was as much an education of who his father was as his mother.
"Your mother had no part in my... decisions." Vader said evenly, and Luke could sense the defence in his words. That he wished to protect her was... touching. "She would have held me to the Jedi's misguided beliefs and I would have eventually fallen with all those around me, defending a flawed cause."
Luke was past trying to challenge his fathers warped views; they were too deeply entrenched and now was not the time; even he had cited them only in defence of...
"Her name was... Padmé?"
"Padmé Amidala. That was her given name." Vader chose not to give her family name yet, which was still easily traceable in Imperial archives. But to say even this out loud made something wrench deep within him despite the years- another wound that never healed.
To listen to his father speak with such hesitant regret of his mother was intensely... humanising. At once disturbing and elating, breaking down every assumption Luke had believed, holding him to fascinated silence as his father continued.
"She was intelligent and strong-willed. Passionate in her beliefs; she would not be dictated to - in that you are very much alike."
Luke hung his head, deep regret in his distant, wistful expression. "I wish..." he stopped, as much out of consideration for his father as chiding himself- there was no use in longing; the past could not be changed.
Vader paused, his own remorse knotting his stomach- that he had taken her not only from himself, but from his son. Nothing he did or said now could ever....
He lifted his head, "Wait."
Luke looked after his father as he strode quickly from the room, frowning his curiosity.
When Vader returned a few minutes later, it was to find his son stood before the painting, staring into it, fascinated. Did he know? Could he pick up some trace in the Force of the endless hours Vader had spent stood in that very spot, staring with desolate melancholy.
He turned as his father entered the room and for a split-second Vader faltered - he had so little that had been hers...
But that was why he should give it to his son. To their son.
He held out his closed fist and Luke reached out his open palm, uncertain. Dropping it from his hand, giving it voluntarily to another, was strangely freeing. Not at all difficult, when it came to it - because of the one he gave it to.
Luke glanced down as something fell into his palm, small and cool and surprisingly heavy.
He pulled his hand back to stare at the ring. It was a large, square, pale blue stone set in dark, mirror-polished perennium.
"It was your mothers." Vader said, though Luke had known. "I brought her the stone from Jabiim. She had it made into a ring and wore it on... the first finger of her right hand."
Jabiim- painful memories twisted up about Vader's thoughts... memories of Obi-Wan- of the shock in the eyes of the man whose windpipe he had crushed using the Force. He blinked quickly, willing the memories away again; they had no place here. "She..."
He didn't say it- couldn't. He had brought her the uncut, worthless stone simply because he had seen it and thought of her in that moment - known that she would like it. She had been so enchanted- had held it up to his face and claimed it was the same pale blue as his eyes, and had it cut and set into precious perennium- black, polished perennium, dark as the robes he wore, she'd teased.
She had worn it always, as a ring on her first finger, lamenting having to remove it when... when her pregnancy made her hands swell. He'd stolen it from her jewellery box, intending to have the ring resized so that she could wear it again. But duties had pulled him away and he never seemed to have the time and suddenly...