sith_happened | Vader's office [Thursday night, NFB]

Vader was in his office, printing out his lesson plans and leaving notes for Krycek about each of the Ethics students.

He rather suspected he wouldn't be back in time for final exams.

The shuttle would wait as long as he told it to--he was Darth Vader, after all--but taking too long to tie up loose ends would only further anger the Emperor.

He moved quickly around the office, forgetting that he had left the door slightly ajar.

[OOC: Preplayed with the lovely and talented

rory__gilmore. No IC interaction possible, OOC comments fed cookies...]

	Rory had left Luke in the clinic, somewhere between numb and feeling so much she couldn't register any of it. She strode into the school on auto-pilot, and found herself standing in front of a slightly cracked door. When she caught sight of him through it, she pushed the door lightly and stood there quietly for a moment before finding her voice. "Hi, Anakin."
	"That name no longer has any meaning for me," Vader snapped. His flinch when she called him that indicated otherwise.
	Rory stared at him for a moment, then grabbed the Zen garden she'd given him and threw it as hard as she could at his helmet.
	Vader let it hit him, sand spraying everywhere. "Throwing things doesn't change matters," he said, finally turning around to look at her.
	"So says the reigning king of tantrums," she retorted, so mad she was practically spitting. "What happened, Anakin? Someone take away your favorite speeder and you decided to go Dark Side? Get accused of hatching from an egg, or did someone call you 'Annie' a time too many? Or did you just decide evil is the new black?"
	"It was complicated!" Vader snarled. "It is complicated."
	"No, it's not," she shouted back. "You were good, Anakin. And now...you just cut off your son's hand. You tried to kill Luke. Your son." Rory was practically vibrating with rage now, and not even sure how much sense she was making.
	"That was his own fault," Vader snapped. "If he had just come with me instead of fighting, that never would've happened."
	"Oh, yes, it's Luke's fault for not following in his father's disgusting, monstrous footsteps," she yelled.
	If Vader was at all affected by Rory's words, it didn't show. "My master has plans for him," he replied. "There is no room for negotiation."
	Rory watched him for a moment, close to tears, and tried a different tack. "Anakin. I know you're in there. Under the helmet, you're in there. I know you can hear me. I love you. Luke is your son. Don't do this."
	Vader spun away from her, cape whirling out behind him. "I must obey my master," he said quietly.
	"And that makes you a shitty father," she spat. "That's okay, though. It goes with the theme you're working these days."
	"I didn't even know I was a father until that boy blew up my master's Death Star," Vader snarled. "So forgive me, please, for not being full of parental pride."
	"So who'd you knock up, anyway?" Rory asked callously. "I know it wasn't me."
	Vader slammed a vase into the wall with a shatter of cheap glass. "You watch your tone," he yelled.
	"No!" she screamed, "I will not watch my tone. I will talk however I like to you, and if you want to hurt me for it, fine! I have a right to know, and I've had a right to know all of this for months."
	Vader's shoulders dropped. "It was better my way," he muttered. He crossed his arms over his chest. "Take a good look," he said icily. "I'm no one you know."
	"It goes both ways, then," she said, crossing her own arms. "You don't know me. You probably never did."
	And that comment hurt more than what he'd been forced to do to Luke. "If you want to remember it that way," Vader said, turning away again, "I'm not going to stop you."
	"You're the one who's apparently decided it meant nothing."
	"You're the one who moved on a month later," Vader snapped back.
	"And you're the one who's evil, so I think it's fair to say that that was a pretty smart move on my part," she said in a low voice.
	"But you didn't know that then," Vader said, sounding almost sulky.
	"No," Rory said softly, looking just for a second like she might lose it. "And that's why I'll always love the Anakin I knew, but I'm never, ever going to stop hating Vader."
	Vader's shoulders slumped. "It's better that way," he said quietly.
	"Relatively," she snorted. "Everything I said before, about you and Luke and hurting him? It still applies. I don't care who you are. You'll have to deal with me. And I swear to God, I will make your life a living hell or die trying."
	You think my life isn't already a living hell? Vader ignored the pitiful whining in his head. "He's not dead, and he's not going back with me," Vader said. "He should count his blessings." He glanced around the office. "And the Emperor will have more...creative ways of punishing me for that error than you could ever think of."
	"Good," she said, her voice hard. "He's not going to die by your hand, do you understand me? And you are going to leave him alone. Take your punishment. A good father would die for his child. I'm not Luke's mother, but I'll take whatever you throw at me in order to protect him."
	"I wasn't trying to kill him this time," Vader pointed out. "But I won't be leaving him alone. He has a destiny and if you stand in the way of that..." it just might kill me "...you'll be removed. Don't make me do it, Rory." There. The first time he'd said her name aloud. It had hurt just as much as he thought it would.
	"No!" Rory screamed. It was too much. One word, and all of her control over her emotions spiralled away. "You don't get to speak my name!"
	Vader took a reflexive step backwards as he was flooded with memories. He was in a hotel room facing off against a vampire who saw too much... He was in a tent ignoring the voice of a long-dead Jedi as he took his revenge... He was in a lab hearing terrible words from his terrible master... He was on a cliff watching his son break down in front of him. His hands gripped the back of his chair as he tried to regain control.
	Rory watched him and tried to keep her breathing steady before she started talking again, her confidence raised by the fact that even she could see that she had gotten to him. "If you have to kill me, do it. It's not like you've ever had a problem hurting people smaller or weaker than you. And just think - with the mask, I won't even be able to spit in your face like I did to Angelus."
	He was back on Mustafar with Padmé as she pleaded for his soul. Vader had been a lost cause then. He was a lost cause now. One more death couldn't damn him any further. "Don't get in my way," he repeated more firmly. "I won't hestitate. Ask Obi-Wan."
	"I could," she said, almost smugly. "He might be dead, but he's sticking around to help Luke."
	The thoughts Vader was having were extensive, profane, and physically impossible. "Of course he is," he snarled. "Obi-Wan would be the one to find a way to continuing ruining my life after I've killed him."
	Rory almost smiled. "And Isabel and Aeryn and Peter will still help him. They don't know who you are."
	"I am Sith," Vader said, the word coming out as a curse. "There is nothing they can teach Luke that will stop the inevitable."
	"I'm helping, too," she added, hardening. "And I've been grieving Anakin for awhile now. Doesn't matter so much if I'm one of the ones to aid in your actual death."
	Vader had thought he'd moved past feeling heartbreak. He'd been wrong. "It would matter," he said quietly.
	And for just a second, she cracked a little more. "I know you're in there," she whispered, almost to herself. "But I don't know if I have the strength to find you." She swallowed hard, and more loudly said, "Not to me. To me, it'd be just another monster to destroy. No better or worse than Darla or Drusilla."
	Vader heard both comments, but chose to address the one he found less painful. "Maybe the Emperor will destroy me before you get the chance," he said, giving his office another appraising look. "I was supposed to be returning with Skywalker today."
	"Don't call him that, like it's not your name, too," she said hoarsely. "Hide behind your helmet if you like, and demand to be addressed as Lord Vader. You're Anakin Skywalker. And Luke is your son." Oh, the numbness was starting to set in now. All the better. It meant she wouldn't break until she was far, far away from him.
	"I'm not," Vader insisted. "And I haven't been for a long, long time."
	"Yes, you are," she whispered. "I want to pretend you aren't, but you are. You're Anakin, who made me laugh and kissed me against walls and who used to snore and hog the bed. Anakin, who I love...loved more than anything in this world. You used to help me through nightmares. And now you've become one. I don't know how or why, but you have." She swallowed hard, willing her voice to stay steady as she stepped back through the door. "Have a safe trip. It's not revenge if the Emperor, whoever that is, gets to have it for us." With that, she turned on her heel and headed back to the dorms. Halfway there, she was overcome with a sudden memory of kissing Anakin, and barely made it into the bathroom before she was vomiting.
	Vader stared out after her for a long time before finally putting the rest of his papers in a neat pile on the desk with the notes for Krycek on top of them. The garden and vase he left in their shattered piles on the floor. Closing the door behind him, Vader stalked off towards the landing coordinates he had given the shuttle, his mind whirling with memories. Not for the first time, he hoped that the Emperor would kill him. Living seemed like entirely too much effort at the moment.