Tatooine's deserts breed legends, and Luke will grow up on the same legends as Anakin did. But Luke will grow up free, and Owen hopes that will make the difference.

When Obi-Wan called, it was dinner time. Owen had never met Obi-Wan Kenobi, but Anakin had mentioned him, the one or two times he came around after his mother passed. His hologram lit up the homestead in a sad, blue, flickering light, and his voice broke when he told Owen and Beru the news.

"Anakin and his wife are dead," he said quietly. "We need to hide their children. Would you…Can you take his son?"

"Dead?" Beru gasped, covering her mouth.

"I'm asking a lot," Obi-Wan continued. "The Empire will be looking for him. But he must be kept safe."

"Why don't you do it?" Owen asked. A pang of anger somewhere near his heart. Anakin –dead. Shmi had been sure that he would come save Tatooine. She had told him every day.

Obi-Wan faltered. "It would be too dangerous," Obi-Wan answered.

"What's his name?" Beru asked quietly.

"Luke."

Beru smiled. "Luke." She turned to Owen. "We'll take him. Give him a good life." For Anakin.

"Thank you," Obi-Wan said. "Anakin would…Anakin would feel good, knowing his family was taking care of his son."

Beru waited for Obi-Wan. Owen watched the suns set. Nervous. They had to accept Luke. What else could they do? No home, no family. Only a sister on the other end of the galaxy it was too dangerous to know. And Beru smiled at him, sadly. "I want to take him," Beru insisted. "It will be good to have a son."

Anakin's son.

Something heavy and final settled into Owen's heart when Obi-Wan finally disconnected. Obi-Wan had told them what happened to Anakin –or Owen had got it out of him eventually. Owen felt numb now. What Anakin had done, and what happened to him, to Padmé, to their children. Owen barely knew Anakin. When he had come to visit his mother's grave, he was quiet, serious, radiant. And he was kind. Wanted to help Beru and Owen around the homestead. Anakin had said that he'd be a farmer if he wasn't a Jedi. Owen had liked him. He couldn't believe he was gone. Dead.

Worse than dead.

Obi-Wan placed Luke into Beru's arms and Owen watched as shadows fell over Obi-Wan cloaked face. A glint of downy blonde hair from the infant in his wife's arms. Beru walked over to where Owen was waiting. Blue eyes peered back at him curiously. "Luke," Beru whispered. "Meet your Uncle Owen."

One fuzzy channel on Tatooine reported the fall of the Republic that night. It would be a long time until any changes were felt on Tatooine. The boy would be safe on Tatooine. Beru switched to a channel showing Senator Amidala's funeral. "How terrible," she murmured to herself. "This whole thing is just terrible." Owen switched it off.

Luke slept now in the room that once belonged to him. Anakin slept there, too, once or twice. Luke brought with him nothing but a name and his father's face. He inherited Anakin's home, Anakin's genes, Anakin's teacher. Obi-Wan wanted to stay on Tatooine, wanted to stay to teach Luke about the Force. It didn't do Anakin any good, and Owen, still shocked, suddenly protective of his nephew, couldn't imagine a future where Luke –who looked at everything inside with curiosity and wonder, but without any fear –becoming the sad, scared young man like his father. The Force, the legends told, did nothing but mess up the lives of those who could use it. Owen was one of the few who on Tatooine had met a Jedi. And Anakin had died. The Force destroyed him, from the inside out. The Force kept them alive on Tatooine, but at a great cost. It would be no life for Luke, if Owen had anything to do with it.

For now, Luke slept. No need to worry about any of that now. He was too young to train, too young to worry about the Force. When –if –the time came Owen and Beru would handle it. They would tell him about his father –the man they knew, and not the Jedi who destroyed the Republic. No Jedi or slavers to hold Luke back.

Still, Obi-Wan was insistent. "Please," he said. "I must train him, when the time comes."

"That will be for us to decide," Owen told him. Now that Luke was in his arms, the child was his. His to protect, his to love.

"He must," Obi-Wan asserted. His eyes were burning with something more than anger. More than fear. Something like love. "He's going to be the one to save us."

"That's what you said about Anakin," Owen reminded him. "That's no kind of pressure for a child." The door slicked shut in Obi-Wan's face, and Owen's heart felt heavy, but there was no doubt left in Owen's heart that he was right; all Anakin's life he was told he'd save the galaxy or Tatooine, and look what happened.

Luke will grow up hearing the same legends as his father, but unlike Anakin, he will not become one. All Owen wants for his nephew –and it feels right to call Luke that, even if he barely knew Anakin, even if Shmi was only his stepmother for a short time –is to be a normal boy. He will know the kind young man Anakin was, the warm, loving woman his grandmother was. How much Anakin loved Shmi, and how much Shmi loved all of them.

Before Owen and Beru go to bed they go and watch Luke sleep for a while. He's almost glowing in the setting suns glinting through the windows of Luke's room. He's sleeping in the crib that he had made for Beru last year, when they had thought she was pregnant. The excitement he had felt then, was nothing to the palpable joy he felt now, looking at his stepbrother's son, sleeping peacefully.

"Maybe Obi-Wan's right," Beru says softly, running a hand over Luke's golden-soft hair. The child doesn't stir. "Maybe he will save us all."

Owen doesn't want to agree. Something in his heart tightens at the thought. "I don't want that for him," Owen says gruffly, bending down to press a kiss to Luke's newborn head. He's only a few days old and he's already lost so much. His mother, his father. A safe future. And though Owen doesn't want to, he can't help but imagine what Luke would give to the galaxy. Freedom. Safety. What he's given to Owen and Beru already.

Luke will save the galaxy. Owen is sure. But he's sure that he'll have to die first, before he lets Obi-Wan or any remnants of the Jedi anywhere near him.

A/N: Welcome to Advent 2017. Theme for this week is "Hope." Have a good Christmas season and I'll see you next Saturday when the next Chapter of Sky-Walker will be posted, and on Sunday when the next chapter of THIS will be posted.