This is my first fic for this fandom, so I'm sorry if anyone seems OOC. I'm pretty sure Anakin is.
This is set in an AU where Padmè survived and was sent to Naboo to hide. Later on, on the Death Star, Obi-Wan told Vader that he could meet his family if he turned against the Emperor, and that Padmè was alive. Luke and the others escaped separately from Obi-Wan, who contacted Vader again after the Death Star was destroyed to convince him fully, which is the "personal mission" he references here.
This is where Anakin sees his wife and his children for the first time at the Lars family homestead for the first time in twenty years.
"Where they make a desert, they call it peace" ~ Calgacus
Anakin Skywalker had officially marked that day on Mustafar as the most horrendous of his life. After all, he'd lost Padmé, been betrayed by Obi-Wan, and had been swamped with physical and psychological pain for days afterwards.
Healing hurt - he knew this. The physical scars had been agonising as they slowly sealed. But he'd somehow forgotten quite how much the initial stages of healing hurt.
Now he was going through them again. The bodily injuries were, if not cured, then treated. But the psychological ones had had a bandage slapped on them, and left to fester for twenty years. A part of him didn't even want to see what had grown and mutated underneath it.
Seeing Padmé again though, ripped off the bandage, and let the wounds see the sun.
He supposed he was not quite as painful for her, considering she couldn't actually see his face due to the mask he needed to breathe, and he couldn't stop looking at hers.
She'd changed - so much had changed. Her hair was the same colour, worn the same way, her eyes the same shape, her movements of the same dynamic he remembered, but. . . she'd changed. So much. And he couldn't even pinpoint how she'd changed.
She sat next to him, rigid, on Obi-Wan's ship. (How Obi-Wan had gotten such a ship, Anakin didn't know; his former master had never liked flying. Especially if Anakin was in the cockpit.) He was sure the mask hid the way his eyes flickered to her every few seconds, rather than staring firmly ahead like he appeared to be doing. He was grateful for this, but also hated that the eyes of the helmet tinted everything red, gave the world a bloody tinge.
Even Padmé.
Strong, beautiful Padmé.
The silence had stretched on too long. Padmé seemed unwilling to break it. Usually, during the last few years, Anakin (Vader?) had liked silence, liked the introspection and calm it brought with it, away from the bumbling idiocies that were the troops under his command. But not with Padmé.
Never with Padmé.
He leaned back, shifting her attention from the wall to him, and he tried to hide the shudder of pain that racked his body. He'd come back - he'd only come back because Obi-Wan had promised he would get to meet his family. He was not going to let Padmé's silence cow him into submission.
"I assume you've been staying on Naboo?" he said, then cringed at how formal the words were. He'd switched off the vocoder, and without the machine to make the words sound menacing, they went from terrifying to a downright pathetic attempt at civility.
Surprisingly, though, she responded by lifting her chin and straightening her back. Her posture was as stiff as a steel rod. "You'd assume correctly." They were the words of a queen, and if he tried he could superimpose the image of her in full regalia over the top of what his eyes were seeing, with a made up face and elaborate hair. Her words were just as powerful then as they were now. "I suppose I don't have to ask where you've been; it's been known all over the galaxy."
"Padmé." His breathing stuttered. He hadn't realised the respirator allowed his breathing to stutter. "I'm- I'm sorry." He could sense her shock through the Force; Anakin Skywalker never apologised. "I thought that maybe I could- Palpatine promised-" He swallowed. "I thought you were dead. That I'd killed you. And I have spent the last twenty years-"
"Killing more people," she finished with a flourish. Disgust laced her tone. "You can't excuse it, Anakin. I had faith in you," she said, and his heart began to race, "at the start. I had faith in you. I told Obi-Wan there was still good in you. He didn't believe me." A bitter laugh. "I suppose he changed his mind about that later on, if you're here today. But the fact remains that I had faith in you, Anakin."
She was tearing up. He didn't know what hurt worse: his laboured breathing, her words, or seeing her upset.
"And then I go to live on Naboo with my sister," she whispered. "I leave behind the twins I gave birth to, the twins I carried for nine months and put so many dreams into, and what do I see all over the holonets?" Her voice dropped further. "The Emperor's new apprentice, Darth Vader, has Force-choked someone. Vader has killed a rebel. Vader has killed another rebel. Vader did not stop killing for twenty years." She slammed her fist down on the arm of the chair. "Sola ended up banning discussions of politics in her house!"
"Padmé-"
"I lost my children, Anakin. I don't even know who was raised where; Obi-Wan told me I needed to trust him, and that if I should ever be found it might put them at risk."
"You trusted Obi-Wan?"
"Who else was I to trust? You?" She scoffed. "Anakin, I will tolerate you until we meet our children. And from there, I will leave it up to them. If they want us both to get as far away from them as possible, then I'll acquiesce. If they want both of us to stay, then both of us will stay, even if I have to force you to. But if it were left up to me, Anakin," she looked up and met his gaze; he cringed again. How she'd managed to find his gaze through the opaque lenses was a mystery. The only other person who'd managed to was that young Jedi whose hand he'd cut off-
"If it were up to me, I'd be on the opposite side of the galaxy to you."
He blanched. "Padmé-" All he seemed able to say at the moment was her name. "Padmé, please-"
"I do hope I'm not interrupting anything." Obi-Wan had come through from the cockpit, and eyed them curiously, though not without a certain amount of amusement in the positioning of his mouth. Anakin wanted to snarl. What exactly was so funny about the situation? "But we've landed."
"Thank you, Obi-Wan." Padmé's tone was diplomatic as always. "Where are we?"
She asked it even as they both began to walk down the boarding ramp, and Anakin tensed up at the stretch of sand in front of him. In all directions, actually.
He didn't need his old master's response to know. Neither, judging by the minute gasp and temporary stilling of her movements, did Padmé. But Obi-Wan said it anyway. "Tatooine."
Rage flared in his chest as he turned on the old man. "What are we doing here?" he hissed. Padmé stepped forward, likely on impulse to lay a soothing hand on his shoulder, like she had in the happier days of their marriage, but she stopped halfway and let the hand fall to her side. "What are our children doing here?"
Obi-Wan took a calm step back. "The boy was raised here," he said evenly. Anakin flexed his right hand, feeling the durasteel move with difficulty. Wonderful; sand was already in his joints. "We're currently just outside the homestead where he lived."
"Is he with the people who raised him?" Padmé inquired gently.
Obi-Wan shook his head. "No. They were killed about a year ago by stormtroopers." He cast a sidelong glance at Anakin. The man didn't have to guess what the look meant, or what was coming next. "The homestead was destroyed in the Empire's search for two important droids. Luke only survived because he was visiting me at the time."
"Visiting you?" Perhaps he didn't hide the disapproval in his voice well enough, if Padmé was giving him that look.
"I lived here," his old master said amiably. "I watched over Luke and kept him out of trouble for nineteen years. The droids Luke and his uncle had purchased were from the Rebellion, with a message for me, and the little one had run off to find me. Luke had to go out after him."
"Luke," Padmé said quietly. Anakin suspected it was just for the sake of saying the boy's - their son's - name. "What about Leia?"
Leia. So that was the girl's name. A sinking feeling emanated from his gut.
"She was adopted and raised in a loving family," Obi-Wan said vaguely. "I visited her often. Now, you can ask them all these questions yourself once we see them." Padmé nodded, and Anakin nodded along, simply for lack of any other option. "A word to the wise, they know they're twins - I told Luke that a while ago, and I very much doubt he hasn't told her - but they don't know who their parents are. So I'll have to introduce you."
Padmé smiled. "Thank you, Obi-Wan." Something twisted in Anakin's chest at the genuine gratitude she displayed towards him.
Obi-Wan gave a half-smile back. "You're welcome, Padmé." He clapped his hands together, and raised his voice slightly. "Now! Let's head out there, and get to it!" Padmé cracked a smile, and Anakin made a move to take her hand before he realised what he was doing. She shot him an unimpressed look and walked out of the ship.
Instantly he began to sweat; there were a million reason he'd never wanted to set foot on Tatooine again, and the heat was certainly one of them. Obi-Wan manoeuvred round the side of the homestead, Padmé just behind him. She faltered briefly when she came upon four blocks of stone, two of which were far newer than the others. Anakin came up behind her, heart pounding as he read:
Shmi Skywalker.
He remembered that grave. Remembered the terror and the anger he'd felt at receiving the dreams, remembered coming to the homestead and meeting his mother's family, remembering his mother dying in his arms, then the Tusken Raiders screaming as they died, lightsaber blazing-
The other three graves he was more neutral about. One read a simple Cliegg Lars - a name that meant something, but little, to him. Then there was Owen Lars and Beru Lars. His stepbrother and stepsister-in-law. Making them. . . his son's uncle and aunt.
He had not felt regret in twenty years - it wasn't an emotion Darth Vader thought prudent to feel - and he wasn't sure this was exactly it, either. But it was the closest approximation of it that he could remember feeling.
He hadn't realised he'd stopped walking until he looked up again and Padmé and Obi-Wan were waiting for him. Padmé looked fierce, and Obi-Wan. . . his old master was smiling at the graves sadly.
Trying not to dwell on the Jedi's expression, and what it meant, Anakin reached out with his feelings, and felt the minds of those around him, and in the homestead. Padmé's Force signature felt the same as it always had, and Obi-Wan's burned with less vigour than it once did, but was bright nonetheless. But he found his attention inexplicably drawn by the brightest Force signature of all - the brightest he'd ever sensed - coming from inside the homestead. There was another powerful one as well, though less potent.
His children, was what he didn't have to guess. Just as strong, if not stronger, as he had been. As he still was.
Obi-Wan led them through the entrance, and down the steps into the main part of the warren, where there was no roof. It was cool in the passageway. Loathe to leave the shadows, especially with his heavy black cloak making him overheat, Anakin hung behind while Obi-Wan and Padmé stepped forwards into the merciless sunshine again.
He could hear voices - a conversation - coming from one of the doorways in the walls, where he could detect four intelligent lifeforms standing in the unlit room. "We can come back another time, you know. We don't have to do it all now. You don't have to show it to me unless you're ready, Luke."
Anakin clenched his teeth. He knew that voice.
"No; it's fine, Leia," came the reply. "I mean, they were your family too." There was a pause, then the sound of a large, heavy object collapsing, and an outbreak of coughing. Sand and dust and ash billowed out into the clear Tatooine sky. There was the sound of a Wookiee's growl.
"I'm with you, Chewie," said a third voice. "Are you sure this place is safe, kid?"
"Tatooine? No. The homestead?" A faint pause. The voice had had humour in it, but it disappeared now. "Safer than anywhere else on the planet."
It hit him then.
Luke. This was Luke, his son, talking. This was the child (one of the children, at least) he'd thought was dead.
"Thinking about Mos Eisley, that's not saying much."
How old would they be by now? He didn't know about the third voice, but the twins - Luke and Leia - must be nineteen, no, twenty by now. The twentieth Empire Day had been celebrated a few weeks before Obi-Wan had convinced him to kill Palpatine; they must've been born shortly after that.
"I didn't realise safety was an important concern of yours," the female voice - Leia - snapped. "This was Luke's home. Have a little sensitivity."
"My apologies, Princess." The tone was decidedly sarcastic. "But judging by the horror stories I've heard about this planet, it's not a great place to leave your guard down."
Princess. Anakin knew exactly who his daughter was, and he was not looking forward to the confrontation.
Luke's voice ended the minor argument. "Han's right; we shouldn't be too long here. I just wanted to see what was left of it." Something crunched as he assumed the boy took a step forward. "It's not surprising the Tusken Raiders tried to take a bite out of the place."
Oh, Anakin really didn't want to step forward. But suddenly Padmé and Obi-Wan were moving forwards, and his former master was standing a few metres from the doorway and smiling at someone inside it.
"Hello, Luke," he greeted warmly.
Anakin stayed in the cool shadows as he saw a figure emerge from the room. The light of the twin suns struck sandy blond hair, and for a moment his son just stood there, his face one of shock.
He looked achingly familiar to Anakin, and not just because of the familial resemblance.
"Ben?"
Luke dived forwards and hugged his former master with a boyish grin Anakin remembered sporting himself sometimes as a child. He used his seeming inability to study his son further, even as the boy was unaware he was being studied. The boy wore the orange jumpsuit of a Rebel pilot, and at his waist hung a blaster, what looked like a small toolkit, and. . . Anakin's old blue lightsaber.
Anakin gritted his teeth. No need to wonder who'd given his son that particular relic.
"Ben?" Leia had emerged from the room now as well, flanked by a Wookiee and a scruffy-looking man with a square jaw. "Obi-Wan Kenobi?"
He'd been right. The Leia that was, apparently, his daughter, was also the Princess of Alderaan.
Anakin sighed, despite the respirator's protests. This would be awkward.
(To say the least.)
And then there was his son. Where had he seen him before?
Luke pulled away from Obi-Wan. "Where've you been? The Alliance sent out pilot after pilot looking for you. And who's this?" He noticed Padmé then, standing a step behind the Jedi master, and gave her a friendly smile. Anakin didn't miss the curious look his son threw from Padmé, behind him to Leia, then back again. He seemed to have picked up on the resemblance as well.
Obi-Wan chuckled gently, and put a hand on Luke's shoulder. "Didn't you tell them I was embarking on my own mission, and that I'd eventually return?"
Luke shrugged. "I tried to." He gave Padmé another curious glance before Obi-Wan finally relented, saying with a simplicity that belied the situation:
"This, Luke Skywalker, is Padmé Naberrie. Your mother." He looked at Leia. "And yours."
"My- Oh." Luke's blue eyes went very wide as he stared at Padmé, and his mouth flapped up and down soundlessly, like a fish. "Oh."
Padmé - being Padmé, being calm and collected when she needed to be - smiled at him warmly. He could see the relief in her posture at finally meeting the two of them. "Hello Luke," she said quietly. "Hello Leia." She turned to the man and the Wookiee, diplomatic until the end. He wondered if she'd ever stopped acting like a queen. "I don't think I know you two."
The man was studying her inscrutably, his face passive. "Han Solo," he responded. "This is Chewie - Chewbacca." The Wookiee growled something that may have been a greeting.
"It's nice to meet you both," she said, her smile still flawlessly intact. Solo was starting to look a little unnerved. She said to her children, "I'm sorry I couldn't have met you sooner, but Obi-Wan insisted I go into hiding when the Empire was founded." She rubbed her arm. "And you two had to be separated to prevent yourselves from being found."
"Found?" Leia asked. A valid question. "By who? Why would we be so important?" Anakin tuned out the rest of what the boy said to acknowledge something:
It hurt.
Being so close to his family, but somehow so far away, hurt.
He couldn't take it any more.
He moved forwards into the sunlight.
Leia's gaze moved to him first; the look of terror on her face was what prompted "What's wro-" from Luke, before he too took in the sight of Darth Vader (Anakin Skywalker?) in his mask and armoured cloak. His tanned face drained of colour.
Han Solo reacted the fastest. He detached the blaster from his hip and shot at him, twice, before stepping back to cover Leia. Anakin halted both bullets with the Force.
It was Leia who spat, "Vader."
Anakin inclined his head towards her. "Greetings, Your Highness." The words sounded so odd without the vocoder.
"Don't antagonise them, Anakin," Obi-Wan warned, and Anakin was hit with a wave of nostalgia from when he was a Padawan and all the times his master had chastised him for being reckless.
The Princess was still glaring daggers at him, the Wookiee and Solo in defensive positions between him and his children. Padmé was giving him a look that insinuated he'd done something very, very stupid. Luke was the only one who'd truly listened to what his friend "Ben" had said.
"Anakin. . ?" He said slowly, then his lips went wan. "What the kriff," he spat, whirling on Obi-Wan. "What the actual kriff."
"Your feelings do you credit, Luke," Obi-Wan said calmly.
"My feelings? No." Luke seemed to be ranting to himself now more than anything. Leia took her eyes off "Vader" for the first time since his entrance to watch her brother. "No. That monster-" He pointed at Anakin, gesturing to the cloak, to the mask, to everything about him, "-is not my father. No." He made a chopping motion with his right hand. "No."
He might have said more, but Anakin wasn't listening as he walked forward, hyperaware of the tension in Solo's and the Wookiee's stances. Because the light from the twin suns had glinted off Luke's right hand - Luke's metal right hand - when he'd motioned with it, and now Anakin knew where he was so familiar from.
Six months ago, his agents had been looking into capturing and interrogating (and potentially Turning) the Jedi reported to be a part of the Rebel Alliance. Not Obi-Wan Kenobi; they'd known the Jedi to be little more than a boy, and therefore (in the Emperor's mind) more malleable, more susceptible to the Dark Side. But the boy had escaped, with Anakin (Vader?) only managing to cut off the boy's right hand. In the turmoil, he hadn't had a decent look at the boy's face.
Anakin was too busy staring at the hand in shock to pay attention to Leia rounding on Obi-Wan.
"How can you be so calm? That monster, as Luke aptly named him, destroyed an entire planet!" She had tears on her cheeks as she screamed. "He blew up Alderaan!"
Padmé gave him a disgusted look; he assumed she hadn't heard about that particular occurrence until now.
"He did," Obi-Wan agreed, and Anakin's heart sank. Was everyone here to hate him? "Anakin blew up Alderaan with the Death Star. Luke blew up the Death Star." Anakin's gaze whipped to Luke, remembering the bright and burning Force signature he'd felt in the final moments before the battle station had been destroyed. Remembered wondering who it had belonged to even as his fighter was sent careening through the abyss. "I'm not going to pretend that anyone here is innocent of crime, or death, though admittedly Anakin is guilty of far more than the rest of us."
Even Han Solo seemed to have an objection to this. "He killed-"
"The Emperor." Obi-Wan finished. "Anakin killed the Emperor in the end, and instead of taking his place, as is the way of the Sith, allowed the New Republic to be formed. In return he only asked that he might meet his family. Once." Anakin forced himself to meet Leia's hateful gaze. "Just once."
Padmé stepped forward then. "I haven't seen Anakin since before I last saw you, but I know I speak for both of us when I say that after today, if you want us to go, we'll go. If you want to never see us again, you won't." She took a breath, and Anakin could see how much that would pain her. Luke could too, and put a comforting hand on his mother's arm. "All we ask for is one day to talk, and get to know you. One day."
Luke looked at Leia, and anyone could see in his open gaze that he knew what he wanted to do. But he was letting Leia decide, perhaps out of respect for what everyone knew she'd suffered at their father's hands.
Leia looked from Anakin to Padmé to Obi-Wan and back again, before glancing at Luke. "One day," she said. "That's it. Then we'll make our decision."
We. Her and Luke. The Skywalker twins, already a working unit. As they should be.
Padmé smiled. "That's all we ask."