On My Knees

Chapter One

"Your presence is soothing," –Anakin Skywalker

All he could see were colors, soft blues and purples and greens. The colors blended and faded together, pleasant and serene. All was quiet, peaceful. The soft waves of the ocean were calm, tranquil. A gentle breeze caressed the sea, cool and sweet. All was well, nothing was disturbed. This was how he liked it the best. Drifting along in his ocean of dreams without turmoil, without fears and doubts and memories. This was the state of sleep he rarely ever achieved. So rare in fact, he should have known, even subconsciously, that it wouldn't last.

His ocean began to take on subtle hints of darkness, the colors were less pleasing, less friendly. The breeze was getting stronger, and the waves more powerful. The colors were turning gray, bleak and hopeless. The calm ocean began to bubble, writhe and froth. The waves began tossing and turning roughly, vicious. The winds began howling, tearing apart the surface of the roiling black waters like claws. Everything was loud, deafening, waves crashed violently against each other. The spray of salt water was harsh and obtrusive. And in the distance, there was a voice. The small voice of a little boy, cutting across the madness that was Obi Wan's dreams.

"Father!"

Obi Wan's eyes flew open to the feel of his heart beating out of his chest, his breathing came out ragged and short, his body was covered in a thin film of cold sweat. There were a few precious seconds of disorientation before he rubbed his shadowed eyes and sat up in his bed. A sudden bout of panic seized him. Because like he did after every disturbed dream, he checked on Luke.

The boy's presence was shielded, but detectable, and only by Obi Wan. That subdued, but no less bright and warm presence in the Force. Except this time, he felt nothing. He had felt it, just a second ago, in his dreams, so powerful and obvious. But it had suddenly and without warning, been snuffed out. Like a candle flame.

And that could only mean two things. Either he was dead—or he was shielding his presence from him. He hoped furvently for the latter. The other option wasn't even a choice, it would destroy him. The boy had been his life for the past seven years, the one bright beacon in his otherwise miserable existence. He went to the boy every month. The boy with thick , shoulder length hair, bleached blonde by Tatooine's twin suns. The boy with the big, most startlingly intense blue eyes. The boy who was so slight and small.

The boy who looked eerily like Anakin.

Every time Obi Wan came, the little tyke was always doing something. Fixing or building machines. Playing with his toy ships. Doing chores—which was mostly the case. On these visits of his, he would go to the Lars homestead to give little Luke subtle lessons in the Force. It had been a hard battle for Obi Wan to win. Owen wanted nothing of it, didn't want the slightest hint of the Force anywhere near his nephew. But he had insisted and pushed and reasoned until the stubborn man had reluctantly relented. Because it was necessary. If Luke didn't learn to control, to shield and hide his abilities…

Then all would be loss, not the least his life.

The boy was remarkable—really, he shouldn't have been so surprised. After all, he was Anakin Skywalker's son. Obi wan had vowed to only teach him the bare essentials, only what he needed to survive. And yet Luke was bursting with potential. He was an obedient, intelligent learner. He caught on quickly to mind shielding, sensing danger, honing reflexes. He was unnaturally good at meditation—very unlike his father. And yet, that was all he could teach him. That… and the stories.

He did his best to tell him about his father, about the Jedi Order. He did his best to caution as much as he dared about the dark side. Ultimately, Obi Wan loved this little boy.

And Luke was not there.

Obi Wan took a deep, calming breath. It would not do to come charging into chaos with fear and panic clouding his mind. So he breathed deeply, gathered the Force around him like a cloak, and rushed out of his sand encrusted hobble.

Calmly, of course.

Luke tossed in his bed sleepily, having trouble drifting off. He couldn't fathom why he was having such issues, normally he could sleep anywhere, any time. Something kept niggling at the back of his mind, as if he had forgotten to do something, something highly important. Something he really should remember. But for the life of him, he couldn't think what.

All his toys were put away.

He took his sonic shower.

He had closed his window.

Luke jerked upright in his bed, sheets tangled around him, and stared wildly at the opposite wall.

No he hadn't.

Luke stared, numb for a moment. His room was on the side of the house facing relatively away from the wind, but even so, his curtains fluttered with the movement of air, and the tiny grains of the desert flitted into the room. The grains scattered, sparkled and whirled in the double moonlight, glittering like some kind of magic pixie dust. The moons were always bright. But Luke suddenly felt that the shadows all around him were longer, darker. Not even the bright moons, and the glittering dust could penetrate it. He didn't know what to do, what to think. He knew what an open window could mean. He knew, what could happen if you left them open at night.

Jawas could creep inand steal your stuff.

A sand creature—that one didn't much scare him.

You could freeze to death with the window open at night, the cold could seep in and take you in your sleep. The sand could bury you alive. Fortunately, neither of those events seemed to be occurring.

But there were worse things.

His mind seemed very good at inventing those unimaginable worse things. He peered about his room, never moving his head, just his eyes. He didn't know why, but he was scared to move too much, contrary to his restless sleep and obvious movements earlier. As if in stillness, he was safe. He tried to remember when the windo was open last. He often opened it during the day, in a vain attempt to cool his room. But Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru almost always came in to check that it was closed before bed. Sheesh, all the fuss about closing windows. But Owen had told him countless times that it was for his safety. He peered about himself cautiously.

Of course, he saw nothing in the darkness.

He thought about running to Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru's room. He hadn't done that in a while—three months?—they wouldn't mind. But he knew, in the morning, he would have to explain why he had felt the need to crawl into bed with them. They would want to know what had disturbed him. And then they would know that he had been careless enough to leave the window open, and then Uncle Owen would probably yell, and take his toy ship away. And at such a price, Luke had to wonder if the feeling of safety was worth it.

Safety.

Ship.

Safety…

Ship…

Hm…

Luke thought about it long and hard. Thinking about his delightful little toy ship made him feel better. Happy even. He was rather tempted to drag it out of the toy chest right this second. But he decided against it. He would close the window, go to sleep, and play with the ship in the morning. In the light.

And so he did just that. He flung the sheets back, and his little feet pitter pattered rapidly as he dashed across the room. He reached the windo, got on his tippy toes to reach the latch, and promptly shut it. He looked, for a minute, out the glass. It was strangely pretty. The twin moons bathed the desert sand in pale iredescent light, making the sand look like pure soft gray silk. He noted absently that there were dark clouds about to obscure the view. He turned and scurried back to his bed, snuggling under the sheets.

His eyelids were half closed when a hand came out of the darkness and clamped over his mouth.

Obi Wan couldn't believe his eyes.

How on earth was he slow enough to miss this?

He gaped, his heart plummeting to his stomach. The Lars homestead appeared over the rise of the sand dune, casting a ferocious fiery bright orange dance against the dark night sky. It was smoldering, dancing, collapsing in on itself, turning huge shapes to black lumps. It looked very recent. This fire only just reached its pinnacle. Perhaps there was something he could do. He moved forward, intent on running through the flames to find any survivors. But he stopped short.

The Force was telling him there was nobody alive in there.

He knew this as surely as he knew Anakin hated coffee.

There were no signs of life in the Force. Beru… Owen… were gone. Permenantly. But he knew Luke wasn't. He didn't know how he knew. He just felt that he would know if the son of Anakin was truly dead. Feel him go, like he had felt Qui Gonn go, the way he had slipped into the endless Force. Until he knew for certain, it was not possible.

He peered around him, desperate for a form of distraction. There were footprints in the sand, he noted, traveling around the house towards the East. He stared at the heavy footprints. Prints of men, come to take Luke away, and kill his Aunt and Uncle. Men that Obi Wan was very tempted to inflict severe bodily harm to.

The wind picked up, blowing sand about carelessly into the frigid night air. Obi Wan's heart immediantly went cold. With the wind, the footprints would fade. And along with it, a chance to save Luke. He noted, at the very least, that the prints were going East.

Obi Wan lifted his eyes to the house being eaten before him, almost merrily. The heat seemed to scorch his skin. The wind was blowing the fumes from the fire, making smoke curl up in wisps and promptly being carried away. The fire kept lapping at the small modest structure, consuming, devouring. It would run itself out to the ground before morning, nothing but charred ruins of lives.

Obi Wan suddenly laughed humorlessly.

"Father… he meant Anakin."

And that realization was painful, because Luke could be going to him right now, so innocent. So defenseless and unsuspecting—the perfect victim. Except not really, not really to Anakin. No, to something much worse. And he had to remember that, and he had to do everything in his power to get Luke back, at every cost to his own. He closed his eyes briefly against the despair. He was not a young man, and he had not used the Force to its full draining compacity in a long time.

But he would do it. For luke.

For Anakin, wherever he was.

Luke came to with the realization that he couldn't open his eyes. They felt ridiculously heavy, they were bags of sand instead of flaps of flimsy skin tissue. He scrunched up his brow during the effort, making a crack split across it. He was quite certain that his head had literally split somewhere down the middle, there was no other explanation for such extreme agony. White hot pain lanced through him, his entire body was sore, and his throat suddenly felt tight and parched. He opened his mouth, and let out a pathetic croaked squeak. He meant to ask someone for water, he really did, but for some reason water was not the word that came out. To be frank, words weren't coming out at all. And he had a nagging suspicion that he wasn't going to get anything if he didn't open his eyes and locate water—or a person for that matter.

And with an unreasonable amount of effort, he managed it. Well, the part about opening his eyes, anyway. And the first thing he noticed was the dark. It was dark in here, wherever here was. And it was silent. He struggled to sit up and look around. It took several moments of blinking and squinting for him to make out his surroundings. It was a small room, lit only by a flickering candle in the corner. And much to his astonishment, there were children all around him. Some of them weren't even human. And most of them looked no older than twelve. They were all huddled on the floor, clothes ragged and dirty, eyes dark. Silent. Some were sleeping, some were awake, watching. Luke wanted to speak, wanted to ask what was going on, wanted to clear up this confusion. But he couldn't, he felt like he couldn't dare break this oppressive, suffocating silence. Like something would happen if he did. At first he thought he must be dreaming, and so he wasn't scared.

Huh.

Yep, weird dream.

He kept his mouth shut and waited. And waited… He tried to think, to remember. The last thing he remembered was being in his room on the farm.

Wait.

And there was a hand. And there was a feeling of intense danger about to happen, a knowledge that something permanent and unstoppable was about to occur, so strong and screaming through every fiber of his body. After that, a pain, and blackness.

Needless to say, now he was terrified and didn't know what to do. He slowly brought his knees to his chest and wrapped his small arms around them, hugging himself close. He noticed with a start that many of the other children were doing exactly the same thing. He looked at their faces, trying to make eye contact. They all looked away. He didn't recognize anyone. All their faces were obscured in shadows. He felt tears welling up in his eyes as the terror, uncertainty and pain began to overwhelm him. Hunger and thirst were creeping in fast as well, and the tears were coming. Even more children looked away from him, if possible.

It had hit him like a sand storm—this was no dream.

Luke whipped his head around as there was a sound, the singular noise cracking the air with its loudness like a whip. A small door open on the opposite wall, perfectly in his view.

"Get up!"

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars, it is the sole property of the amazing, the wonderful, the marvelous—George Lucus! (loud applause follows this statement,) But I have an imaginary Darth Vader plushie that I like to squeeze in moments of anger and in times where comfort is needed.

A/N: Need beta, need beta! Volunteers? Also, I already have the next chapter halfway written, expect an update soon., I really need a beta because I don't know how to spell things in the star wars universe—like the name of creatures. Twi'leck—Twi'leek—whaaaat? And I know this chapter probably has glaring mistakes that I'll discover later, when I'm reading back over it for inspiration. *sighs*

Tootles.