Title: Parentages

Parings: Anakin/Padme (past), Anakin/Obi-Wan (one-sided), Vader/Obi-Wan.

Warnings: fem! Obi-Wan OBI WAN IS A FEMALE IN THIS STORY! If that is offensive to you, or you simply don't like the prompt, I'd leave right now. There is violence and death, obviously, but otherwise it's going to be tame story – there might be some suggestive content down the road, but I can't quite say for sure.

Summary: AU; femObi-Wan: Forced to raise the child of the man that she loved, Obi-Wan Kenobi has raised Luke Skywalker with relative ease for the past five years. But with Luke's sibling dying, Obi-Wan and Luke rush to Alderaan and set in motion a chain of events that will change the course of Galactic History.

Notes: Again, Obi-Wan is female in this story, if you don't like that, if you hate AU stories or if you want EU stories, this is not the story for you. Turn back now if you don't like it. I'll do my best to keep in all in character, I firmly believe that Darth Vader has a heart for his kids – and in that respect, those might be the only moments when it gets a little OOC. But otherwise, I'll attempt to keep it straight.

Chapter One

Five Standard Years after the death of Padme Amidala

I had many regrets in my life.

Looking back at the past few decades and knowing what I know now, it was fairly easy for me to pinpoint where I went wrong and I had to admit that in the first few years of my isolation, I had wallowed in the misery of it. No matter how much control I exercised over my emotions and no matter how attuned to the Force I had become in those early years, I couldn't help but dwell and brood over the past. It hadn't been primarily a matter of the Dark Side of the Force against the Light Side of the Force for me, as it had been for Master Yoda – it had been far too personal. I blamed myself for the monumental social and political change that had engulfed the galaxy in a matter of days, and I knew I had a hand in the tectonic shift in the Force itself as well. I was responsible for him and he had turned into a monster.

When news stories of Darth Vader appeared on the Holonet and the magnitude of his crimes was taken in, I couldn't help but blame myself. Sure, that madman that Anakin called his master had unleashed the temperament that I had long suspected lay within him, but I couldn't help but wonder if I had been responsible for that temperament to begin with. I shouldn't have seen it coming, I shouldn't have let him slip away from me like that – I shouldn't have given him the impression that I didn't care about him. In fact, I cared about him more than a Master should for their Padawan – of course I hid those feelings from him, but was it the intentional distance that I put there that did it? Was it that? Or was it the fact that he had a wife and children on the side and he was too sure that I would throw him out the airlock because of that? I had asked myself that same question far too many times.

Perhaps it was his mother's death that started it, or even before that at the death of Qui-Gon? Perhaps his fall to the Dark Side of the Force had been a long and slow fall – and I didn't see it. I had failed him, not the Jedi, not the Republic – I had failed him, the fault was entirely mine and it would be something that I would carry for the rest of my life. I just wished that he would listen to me, one more time, I just wanted to tell him that I was sorry, whatever good it would do, I wasn't sure of, I just wanted him to know it. Whatever I did, or whatever he thought I did to ruin his life, I wanted him to know that I would give anything to take it back and to make him understand that I loved him and underneath the repression of my feelings for him, I would have moved stars for him just to see the smile on his face.

Of course, the revelation that he was married and was expecting children had shattered my reasoning that I couldn't love him. It also exposed something that I really didn't like to admit too, I was jealous of her, and regrettably, I was even extremely jealous of Senator Amidala on her deathbed – because she got to have something that I never would, she got to have him. But those feeling aside, I stood by her, held her hand and made her a promise that her children would be protected and I promised her that I would never lose faith that somewhere under that veneer of armor and hate, he was still Anakin Skywalker, the father of her children and the most important thing in my life for nearly fourteen years. When she died, I felt an unimaginable guilt come up within me – again, regardless of how logical my self-deprecation was, I blamed myself for Anakin falling to the Dark Side and I blamed myself for her death, she had been the innocent party in all off this drama. Their kids were the most innocent of all us, and that's why they needed to be protected.

As I leaned back against the tree on the bank of the lake and grinned at the swathe of giggling children splashing in the lake, my eyes found him and a grin came to my face at his exuberance. Luke Skywalker, or as he was known to everyone else, Luke Varsin, had his father's face and his mother's temperament. With his father's hair and eyes, he was very much the image of him, but he lacked the impulsiveness of his father and carried the diplomatic nature of his mother. He was such a caring and devoted little boy, and as much as it was horrible to think this, I was glad that the Force had seen fit to force me to take care of the boy. The original plan was simple, his sister, Leia, would go to Bail Organa. Master Yoda, the Senator and I were in complete agreement that she would be sufficiently safe there with him.

We were in complete agreement with Luke's planned arrangement too – but after I arrived on Tatootine with Luke, fully intending to deliver him to his Uncle and Aunt, I nearly lost him. Coming upon the Lars Moisture farm that day had been the closest I had come to being exposed – the charred remains of the farm were swarming with Imperial Troops, and obviously, being left with no choice, I turned and I didn't look back. It was daunting task, but I promise his mother that I would do it – and I did, I went all out for it, focusing on one thing, Luke's wellbeing and protection. I knew that in the back of my mind that their collision would be inevitable, Luke would be a powerful practitioner of the Force when he was older, but for now, at this age especially, I would not allow Vader or his master to twist Luke. I would take care to not have a repeat of the mistakes that I made with Anakin – I would make it clear that Luke was loved, and that he could always come to me. But that avenue of thought led back to his father and the guilt came back.

I didn't allow myself to even absorb the impact of yet even more innocent lives taken because of my failings with Anakin, and I immediately went back to the spaceport, communicated with Senator Organa and he was the only reason that I wasn't left destitute, taking care of a baby and trying not to get killed. The breathe of Bail's generosity was enormous, he furnished me with a ship, a yearly transfer of credits and he pulled strings to have a new, fully fledged, brand new identity created around me. I was no longer Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi – I was now Ailla Varsin, the last surviving heir to an influential mining family Alderaan. It explained the ship, the money and it allowed me to be rid of my last name, I knew that if I would have continued to go by it, somehow, someway, it would reach Darth Vader.

I grew my hair back out to a length that it was while I was a Padawan, I had to start wearing makeup, I had to total reinvent myself in order to protect that little boy. I shed my robes and my lightsaber for the typical female attire, I forced myself to learn things that I once thought were completely inane. One day, I went from being a Jedi Master to a single mother, traveling from one safe planet to another, and living in the yacht in the intermediate times. It was a stark transformation, but with all of those changes and through almost constant clamping of my Force Presence, I had done it and I would continue to do it until it was safe for me to at least allow someone of my old self back into my life. Luke was five years old and I knew that it would be sometime before I could begin to teach him and then, only then, would allow it. Until then, I was Ailla Varsin and nothing more.

We never stayed in one place for more than six months – I worked any secretarial position that I could find, something that paid well enough for me to rent an apartment and enough to buy food that was good enough for Luke and that was in a safe part of a usually crowed city. I had long since realized that when we stayed on the more known worlds, it would be prudent to live in a crowded population so that any force user would have a difficult time picking up even a slight movement made from either myself or Luke in the Force. With Bail's credits covering everything else, we had settled into a stable pattern that would suffice until I could find a safe place for us to settle down so that he could finally have a stable life. But I knew it would be a very long time until then, there were reports every other day of entire enclaves of Jedi being wiped out by Vader – and until the purges stopped, I would need to be on the move with him. The only thing that kept me from trying to stop Vader myself was his son, and the guilt that I had at the thought of my friends and the people I considered my family being wiped out was Luke, again.

Standing up and running my hand through my hair, I brushed it over my shoulder and I sighed – we had to go. Trema was a beautiful planet, along the lines of Naboo, and it was spared most of the Imperial occupations that other planets had received. That was partly because of the fact that a lot of Imperial Aristocrats inhabited this planet and because the Government of Trema had allowed the Empire to establish a defense hub on this planet for the entire sector. It really was a family planet by most accounts, lacking the lawlessness and the desolateness of most planets in the Outer-Rim, and the urban, fast paced and heavily Imperial Controlled planets in the Inner-Rim and the Core. If things settled down quickly enough, I would probably bring Luke back here – one day, hopefully, I could do it.

But for now, we had to leave, we were due of Alderaan, Bail had contacted me only a few hours ago and told me to come to his home as quickly as possible. There had been an underlying since of fear in his voice, but nothing suggested that it was so urgent that I couldn't allow Luke a little time to do what he loved before we left for Alderaan. Luke, loving the water like his father, had begged me if he could go swimming a little while before we left and unable to resist him, I relented. The boy had an around him that was just infectious, and even in the moments where I was convinced that we would be caught, he made it that much easier. I don't know what I would be doing now if Beru and Owen Lars hadn't been destroyed by the Empire.

As my beckoning gesture to Luke caught his attention, I smiled as he pouted and slowly took his time getting out of the water. He loved space, he talked all of the time of flying, but we also loved the months when we didn't have to live on the yacht. I wish I could move time forward so that he could live on a planet like this without the overwhelming fear of being found by the "bad men" – but for now, it would be something that we would both have to bear. When he trudged up to me, his swim shorts budged up around his legs and water dripping off of his body, I crouched down to my knees as he continued to wear his seemingly trademarked, adorable pout. "Mama, I don't wanna go, can't we stay just a little bit longer?"

I leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead, I wish that he had it better, but I hope that he understood that in the end this was for the best. One day, it would be a better place. "I'm afraid not – we have to go to Alderaan, but I know that they have swimming pools in the Palace, perhaps you could swim with the Princess?"

Luke and Leia were not aware of their connection – not yet, Bail and I both agreed that it was best to keep that hidden. And regardless of the fact that Bail and I took great care to keep them off of the same planet together for extended periods of time, they still became close friends. And when his face light up at the mention of his sister and the swimming pool, he suddenly grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the changing rooms. Laughing, I allowed the little boy to pull my hand and I made sure to remember the emotions and the lightheartedness of this moment. I didn't get a lot of them nowadays, so as I used the key that I got when I paid for use of his little locker to open it and pulled his travel clothes out of it. I tried to take it in, and as he departed into one of the stalls and I told him to make sure not to get his travel clothes wet, I smiled – I only wished his parents could see this.

'That poor boy…' I thought morosely.

And because of thoughts like that, I stood resolute to raise the boy with all of the love in the world, protect him from the evils of the galaxy, and to train him so that one day he could restore the galaxy to at least a freer place. That was his future regardless if I wanted it for him, I only had to make these years the best for him.

Several hours later…

Five Parsecs away from Alderaan…

Breathing deeply in and out, trying my best center myself, I reflected on the past hour of my thoughts. There was nothing that prepared you for the moment that I had experienced. Leia was not my daughter, I didn't know her that well, but along with so many other things, I felt that I had failed her in some way. I had expected her have a far easier life then compared to her brother, she was going to have the lifestyle of Alderaan Royalty, but Luke had never been put in this position. I could count on one hand the amount of times that Luke could ever have been called sick.

When I contacted Bail to tell him that we were on are way, I was very glad that I had put Luke to bed so that he couldn't see the utter shock that had come over my face. I had to calm myself down because at the moment I felt utterly helpless at what he had told me. Leia was dying, she had become heavily anemic, she had been unconscious for about a day and the only reason that she hadn't died yet was because of the constant medical care. They didn't know what exactly was wrong with her, but they suspected that what she needed a blood transfusion and their in lay the problem, because her blood type was AB negative. Bail didn't have that, no one that he knew had that, I didn't have that, and Luke didn't have that, there were only two people that I knew who had that blood type. One of them was dead, long dead, and the other, well the other would be a problem – the other was Darth Vader – Leia's biological father. It was where she got the extremely rare blood type and the sinking feeling in my gut told me that it was the only place that we knew we could get the transfusion from because he was the safest source to get it from.

Still on my knees, meditating in the cockpit of the yacht, I knew that I was risking detection by even the most mediocre Force user in close proximity. I just had to touch Leia in the force, just to let her know that we were doing our very best to try and get her out of this, for comfort. And when I found the small, but still very distinct presence in the Force, I gently touched it and I was struck by how weak she felt. She was still clinging to life, just barely, but of all of the times that I had felt her presence, she had never felt this way. Gently sending calming waves at her through the Force, I broke the connection as quickly as I made it. It was very much an intentional move, because I realized that I had made a very, very bad mistake.

It was only for a moment and it was quick enough for the presence to only feel me and not have a firm lock on where I was, but we had felt each other long enough. I knew who the presence was – it was a presence that I had felt in my life constantly until five years ago. It was the presence of Anakin Skywalker, cloaked in the hate and the anger of Darth Vader. The formally bright, burning and wonderful presence of my former student was now a dark, sticky presence, cloaked in hate and anger and I thanked the Force that I had pulled away just in time. I grimaced, realizing that he more than likely had detected me, but he hadn't detected where I was or where I was going and that was the best thing that I could hope for at this moment. Perhaps nothing would come of it, perhaps I was wrong, maybe it was only an irrational, paranoid fear, but I had a very bad feeling about this situation.

Nine Parsecs away...

The Imperial Star Destroyer Exactor…

My eyes snapped open and I took in the interior of my hyperbaric chamber, just to make sure that she wasn't waiting in ambush to finish what she started. But as soon as I realized that I was completely alone, as usual, I relaxed, as much as I could and began to ponder on what had just happened. It was not unusual five years later for me to still feel Jedi in the Force when I probed it, normal procedure dictated that I direct my fleet to their location in the Force and deal with them. But this Jedi was one that I knew I would have the most problems finding, if I ever found her. Beyond everything, beyond Darth Vader, she knew me from a time I no longer liked to acknowledge, she knew how I thought, she knew how I acted and she most definitively knew how to avoid me, but I had felt her, for only a second.

It was not even directed at me, but regardless of the time and all of the actions committed between now and the last time we had seen each other: I was still firmly attuned to the Force presence of Obi-Wan Kenobi. While still deep in my sleep that was still more Force enhanced then anything, I felt something akin to the gentle brush of her hand against my cheek and my shock was what caused me to snap out of my sleep at an instant. I hadn't felt or even heard a whisper of her existence in five years and since the last time I saw her, walking me away and condemning me to this… life, if you could call it to that, I had always hungered for revenge in the back of my mind. I knew that she wasn't dead – no matter how much intelligence and my master had tried to convince otherwise, I just knew that she was still out there. I might have been Sith and I might have turned my back on those days a long time ago, but some of my connections with her would never be severed and I know I would have felt it if she would have died. For the first time in years, I had felt her, she had slipped and now it was only a matter of time until she did it again.

Over the past five years, Obi-Wan was one of those Jedi that I knew it would take specific and personal care to find – but my time was diverted in other places and I had relied on some of the best Bounty Hunters that I could find. No matter the bounty, no matter the months that they spend trying to find her – even the most voracious Bounty Hunters could not find her. They, like the rest had tried to convince me that she was dead and just as I was beginning to think that I would never have the chance to get my hands on her again, she did this. But still, that would make it no easier, unlike the other Jedi and unlike the seditious enemies of the Empire that I was almost always ordered to hunt, this one knew me better.

I knew her very well, I spent all of my formative years with her, I had grown up with her, she was… well, in that intervening decade between Padme, she did have an effect on me. I was not so foolish or blind not to admit that she was a very attractive woman and there had been a time when I gave serious thought to what it would be like to be with her. But Obi-Wan was a staunchly conservative Jedi, and I had married Padme and nothing was ever born of it. But the point was that I had studied her so much and spent so much time with her over the years that I knew how she thought and the reason that the connection ended so quickly was easily explainable. She had felt my presence, there was no other explanation, it must have been the first time in years that we were ever in close proximity to each other and considering that she had no way of knowing where I was, I knew that she hadn't done this on purpose. She miscalculated with whatever she was attempting to reach out and feel in the Force – but she had been smart enough to pull away.

And she pulled away fast – fast enough to where I she was able to remain hidden.

Contemplating contacting the bridge and giving the other for the fleet to halt, I looked back to the walls of the chamber and took as deep of a breath as I could to steady my nerves. I had two options, I could contact the Emperor, confer with him on what my course of action should be, and he most likely would dismiss it and order me to return to the Capital, or I could send word of being held up out here and use that time to search for Obi-Wan. Of course my instincts were telling me to go ahead with the first one, but my need to find her was so strong that it overrode my sense of judgment. This was the first time in so many years that I had left that clam, resolute and… comforting presence and I would not abandon it. Obi-Wan must die, she took everything from me, including three of my limbs, no… there would be no retreat, I would remain here until I detected her again or I figured it out.

It was time that this ended.