Notes: It certainly helps to have an understanding of seaQuest DSV for this one.

Hyperion Was Once a Desert World

Sometimes I wonder which of us carries more anger. We're evenly matched most of the time, and we cling to each other because of it almost as much as we try to push each other away. Abandonment is always in the front of our minds, and I know I often want to push him away before he can get up and leave.

He won't get up and leave, though. He is as lost here as I am, although I have the advantage. I know what it's like to be thrown into an alien world – he has no such prior knowledge, and that is why he won't leave. He needs me.

Lucas' anger burns bright and hot in the morning, when he wakes in my arms and remembers where he is and why. As the day progresses, as we go about our lives, trying to survive, it always cools into resentment and frustration, and I can see it bubbling behind his eyes.

I wonder if he can see the same in mine.

He isn't Force-sensitive, but sometimes I'm convinced he is. He always knows where that animal is, can call him to the shore, and they can speak to and understand each other better, even, than I can speak to and understand Artoo. He can fix things faster than I, and when he took apart my lightsaber and reassembled it the first time, I tried to get him to understand the nature of the Force. He doesn't, and won't, so I let it go.

Now he is trying to increase the sensitivity of the sensory chips in my artificial hand, and my overriding emotion is hope. I want to be able to touch him with every part of me, be able to run both hands through his hair and feel it. He's been at it for a few hours, and even though I'm feeling a little restless (I've never really been able to sit still for long), I let him continue, because he is touching me, and I need the contact. As he works, I meditate, reaching out through the Force to try and locate my Master, and his friends.

It's difficult, because his fingers are distracting.

I can feel them out there, somewhere, but I haven't been able to pick up more than a faint whisper of my Master – not enough to point us in the right direction, not enough to give him hope that his friends are truly alive. As much as I've tried to reassure him, as much as I've reiterated my ability to see death in my dreams and that I have yet to dream about him or anyone connected to him, he still despairs.

On the edges of my Master's Force-signature, I can feel something else. There is someone else on this planet strong in the Force. Not Lucas, not his animal, and I know it is not my Master. The feeling I have whenever I touch upon this strand of the Living Force is familiar, but I cannot place it. I can only hope when my Master finds us (or we find him), I can figure out what this other feeling stems from.

Lucas has stopped his work and is lying on the sand beside me. I reach out with my hand of durasteel and copper wiring, and lay it on his back. Beneath my fingers, I can feel the soft fabric of his shirt. I move upwards, and brush my golden fingers through his golden hair.

Bliss.

He shifts under my touch, and I know he's fallen into uneasy sleep. As much as I want him to be awake, to keep me company, I am glad he is resting. He's been agitated these past few days, and the lack of sleep is making him more vulnerable to his raging emotions.

It's something Obi-Wan has often lectured me about. I, however, don't have the heart or inclination to repeat the lecture. I am not Obi-Wan, and I have no right to try and teach Lucas something he doesn't want to learn.

The sand here is different than that on Tatooine. This sand, although it still gets everywhere, is soft and white, and is bordered by water that stretches far beyond the horizon line. These are our two worlds – water and sand, and it is fitting that we have made our camp where the two come together.

The morning comes, and with it Lucas' anger. Today it is directed towards the friends who ordered him off their doomed ship, who sentenced him to be cast adrift on the endless sea. Although it is warm, he shivers in my arms. "I hate them!" he cries, and I hear my own voice. He hates as I do, passionately, out of love.

I reach out and cushion him in the calming embrace of the Living Force. It is something I cannot do for myself, but I have become skilled at doing for him. Perhaps out of necessity. Although this mission is stretching me to my limits, I know I have the tools to cope. Lucas does not, has never needed to develop such a talent. The Force provides me the ability to comfort him, but will not let me comfort myself. I do not need it as he does.

I cast the net of the Force again, searching for Obi-Wan. He is closer, now. I can feel him, and I know he is searching for me as well. He is jubilant, and I know his part of the mission, at least, is succeeding. I tell Lucas as much, but he is not willing to listen. "They're dead, Anakin," he seethes. "Stop lying to me." He pushes me away.

I sit where he has left me and gaze out across the water. Although he has walked away, I can feel him as surely as he is still nestled in my embrace. He will return in his own time, and until then, I send a beacon of hope high above our little island.

This, I know, is the kind of signal that will save us both.

-the end-