Luke blinked his eyes open with great effort after long hours in the horrifying darkness of the cell. The darkness of unconsciousness hadn't been pleasant either, but at least he hadn't felt abandoned like other times in his past when he had fainted. This time it had been like a peaceful rest. The world outside, on the other hand, was so full of pain that he would have preferred to be asleep again.

He noticed gladly that his father had truly brought him to a medical centre, because everything was candid and fresh, and something was beeping constantly, maybe an electrocardiogram.

When his sight focused, Luke took note of the bandages all over his body, head to feet, and cold electrodes on his chest. Was all that stuff so necessary?

Snorting, he took off the electrodes with a casted arm - the left one, since his right hand had somehow disappeared - and tried to stand up. It wasn't his best idea.

He ended up on the floor because of an unexpected dizziness, added to the pain that was rushing over him all of a sudden. He insulted himself in a whisper as he tried to go back to bed without managing to.

Then, suddenly, he heard a hoarse, dry voice, a voice that had been pushed past its functional limits just to say three words: "Who is there?".

Luke heard the swift sound of a moving curtain and raised slowly his head, ignoring the wave of pain in his skull. What he saw left him shocked: Leia herself was lying in a bed just beside his, separated from it by a pavilion.

"Leia!" the youth exclaimed joyfully at the sight of a friendly face. His dear friend was deadly pale and an oxygen mask was hooked to her face, but she looked much better than before.

The only signs the gave, though, were a weak smile and a slight motion of her hand.

Luke frowned. "You can't speak, can you?".

Leia reached the screen where the results of Luke's ECG had been transmitted, she opened a writing box and typed: Internal airway damage.

Luke read and felt terribly guilty since he had forced her to talk. "I'm sorry" he apologized.

As he tried again, in vain, to stand, a door just beside Leia's bed opened, revealing an old man. He was tall and skinny, his hair was a grey mop and brilliant dark blue eyes shone under thick eyebrows.

The man approached Leia and put a gentle hand on her shoulder.
"Are you better?" he asked, his voice friendly and open. Leia nodded her head, and the skin around her eyes showed that she was smiling behind the oxygen mask.

Just then the old man noticed Luke on the floor, and ran by his side.

"Stars, did you fall?" he asked attentively as he helped the boy on the bed without any pain. Thankfully he was lighter than the man expected.

Luke shook his head. "I wanted to know how my companion was" he apologized with a tired smile.

The elder looked up at the ceiling in a benevolent reprimand.

"Don't try to walk until I tell you to, you might get hurt badly. You had a serious concussion, and you still need to recreate the blood you lost" he explained while Luke was nodding obediently.

"I am doctor Peryn by the way, the unlucky man who had to heal you" he added then with a kind grin, avoiding shaking the patient's nonexistent hand.

Luke smiled back; he didn't know why that Imperial medic was being so nice, but he was usually kind with kind people.

"I'm sure you did a great job" he said gratefully.

Peryn snickered and glanced at him almost paternally. "You'll be good as new in no time" he added. "Boys your age are made of gum. And your friend will feel better too".

In that moment Vader stormed into the room, making the doctor jolt upright and bow his head immediately.

"I'm glad to say, Milord, that the patients are reacting very well to the treatments" the medic said proudly.

Vader didn't even reply, he just sat on the edge of Luke's bed with a loud creak.
"How are you?" he asked.

"Far... better" Luke murmured. "Thanks to the doctor". Actually he felt awful, his head was spinning and each wound, especially the ones on his side, hurt, but he wasn't going to put the kind medic in trouble.

Suddenly, after having looked to a furious Leia, Vader came closer to his son and asked him if they could talk a bit in a separate place. He got a forced permission from the doctor, helped Luke upright and brought him out of the hospital room.

Outside there was a sort of small waiting room with two metal chairs; Vader helped Luke to sit on the first one.

"I have to tell you something" he said.

Luke breathed in and out, his fragile frame trembling. It was the first time he saw his... father after Bespin, and he wasn't ready to talk about it. He was still suffering.

Vader somehow knew what the boy was thinking about, because he said: "We will discuss that later. Now I have to talk about princess Leia".

The young Jedi startled. That Sith Lord was going to hurt her, wasn't he?

But Vader surprised him. "You must know that yesterday, when I brought you two here, the doctors took blood samples from both in order to look for any kind of dangerous drug" he explained slowly and calmly. "They found two DNA sequences which were... surprisingly similar. According to them, you two..."

The Sith Lord seemed to sigh. "You are siblings. Twins" he said.

Luke's eyes widened in incredulity. How could it be? Him and Princess Leia of Alderaan, siblings? He wished Vader could be deceiving him, but he had learnt one thing from experience: the masked man wasn't a liar.

Vader sensed confusion in his son's Force presence, the same confusion he was feeling.
"You should tell Leia" he said. Discovering the truth would be hard for the girl, especially if she heard that from an enemy who was, actually, her own father.

Luke nodded his head, exhausted, and let Vader support him until he reached the bed, a bundle of thoughts struggling to fit in his aching head.

When Vader left, the boy was alone with her sister:  luckily she was asleep, so he had time to decide what to do and say.

He sighed and leant his head on his knees, ignoring the sensation of being underwater given by the sudden movement.

It was going to be a deed...

Next chapter, Luke will throw the bomb XD What do you think up to now?
I haven't checked this chapter for grammar mistakes yet, but I wanted to publish today (-: Be merficul, my GrammarCounselor Kaito will fix everything up XD
Also, I'm starting to think that this story is a complete set of angst and maybe I need to publish something to cheer up the readers XD
Any suggestions?