this is a disclaimer.
air and angels, chapter two
Force, it had taken forever to convince his damn Generals that yes, he did have to go to Naboo himself, and no, there was no way this was a trap, and no, he wasn't prepared to send anyone else to meet with Senator Amidala. In the end, Anakin's patience had snapped (as it generally did), and he'd informed the lot of them that he was damn well going to Naboo because Senator Amidala was his wife and her son Luke was Leia's twin, Leia who was incidentally also on Naboo, and owing to the distinct possibility that their cover had been blown, he wanted his family away from Naboo and Coruscant and anywhere else in the galaxy where there was an Imperial presence and here with him on base from now on, thank you very much and amen.
The collected command staff of the Alliance had been too stunned to raise any further objections, so Anakin had escaped from the briefing room and gone to ready his fighter.
"I'm not happy you never told me, Sky Guy," Ahsoka said. She'd come to see him off.
"Yeah, yeah," Anakin said easily. "You're telling me you never guessed?"
"There is," Ahsoka said haughtily, "a big difference between guessing the deepest and most sacred secret of your former Master and ersatz older brother and being told it, Sky Guy."
Two 'Sky Guy's in ten minutes. He was really in trouble now.
Anakin leaned in and kissed her cheek; she stared at him in surprise. "I'm sorry, Snips," he said. "I should have told you." And then, with a wicked grin, "But think! A new nephew!"
"Go away before I hit you with my lightsabre," Ahsoka said, pretending she wasn't pouting.
Anakin laughed out loud, and Ahsoka shook her head at him. "You know, you don't often do that if Leia's not around."
"No," Anakin said, and took a moment to savour the anticipation curling in his gut. Soon. Soon. "No, I guess not."
And now it was six hours later and he was thirty standard minutes away from his wife and children and Anakin Skywalker was shifting restlessly in his seat like any fool kid with self-control problems (well, he'd always had self-control problems) and not a lot of patience (as previously mentioned, he'd never had any of that, either).
"Artoo..."
Anakin didn't have to read the screen to know that his astromech was telling him in no uncertain terms that no, there was no more speed to be got out of her, and yes, they would be in Nubian space within ten minutes. He grinned briefly, but it quickly turned into a grimace. Thirty standard minutes! He could wait that long. Thirty minutes were nothing compared to eleven years.
Right?
Anakin let his head fall back against the seat and groaned. Patience, Anakin, patience! You're a Jedi, remember?
Not even picturing one of Obi-Wan's lectures on the subject was helping. Three months since he'd seen Leia, let alone Luke and Padmé – and Luke himself had probably been no more than a few hundred yards away from him when he'd said goodbye to Leia!
It was too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence, Anakin was certain of that. The Force had decided it was time for the Skywalker family to reunite, and so they had.
Anakin just wished it would stop messing around with his life like that, without so much as a rudimentary consideration for his children's safety. His decision to send Leia away had been made after the attack on their base at Roodun; they had made the move to an abandoned Separatist skystation not long after that, but everyone knew it was time once more to look for something a little more fortifiable, and hopefully more permanent. The Imps had upped the bounty on his head again, and the patrols in many outlying systems were slowly becoming both more frequent and more trigger-happy.
It couldn't be plainer that Palpatine was getting impatient with Anakin's continued successes: three attacks on Imperial cargo ships in the last month alone, and the death of one of Tarkin's favourite underlings during the fighting. If the attacks continued to escalate, they would soon be fighting an all-out war, and the prospect terrified Palpatine. Anakin could feel the Sith Lord's anger and growing fear in the Force like a black smoke drifting this way and that, overshadowing the galaxy in a desperate attempt to find and destroy him. The Emperor had had nothing but contempt for Anakin during the Clone Wars – contempt and a twisted sort of desire for him, a need to twist and warp Anakin into something he could use and command. But now...
Now Palpatine was beginning to wonder if he should have worried more about that old Prophecy of the Jedi than he had.
The thought made Anakin smile with grim satisfaction. Go on, your Highness. Quake in your boots. I will destroy you – if not for the galaxy, or for myself, then for my family. For my children.
His children. Luke. What would Luke be like? Padmé had told him that Luke had his eyes, and his propensity for adventure and getting into trouble, but Anakin was sure, without knowing how he was sure, that Luke resembled his mother in many more ways. Neither of them were the type to judge others. And Luke might be impulsive, but he never promised what he couldn't keep.
Would he even want to know Anakin, or would he resent him for leaving and taking Leia with him?
It was a train of thought that sent a chill down Anakin's spine. Luckily, they dropped out of hyperspace not a minute later, and the Nubian space authorities were distracting enough to shake him out of his half-formed fears.
*********
The snow, Anakin thought sourly as the fighter sped towards Varykino, he had not been counting on. He'd completely forgotten about season changes on Naboo, planning on landing in their meadow by the waterfalls in order to arrive quietly and without fanfare at Varykino on foot.
It was going to be an unpleasant walk. At least there was more of the stuff predicted for the evening; that way, his footprints would be hidden.
Of course, he might find himself digging his fighter out of a snowdrift when the time came to leave, too. Never mind, the twins would help.
Anakin grinned at the thought.
Artoo, however, saw nothing to be cheerful about in that scenario.
"I'm sorry, buddy," Anakin said. "But snow or no snow, you can't make it down that cliff – yeah, it's my fault. I should have put more thought into this."
Artoo informed him that he couldn't have put it better, and that Anakin never changed.
He grinned. "I know. But look, the view will be spectacular!"
When Artoo's reply came, Anakin sent a silent prayer of thanks to his wife's Gods – all of them – that Leia had never quite figured out the intricacies of the little droid's binary language.
The snow was calf-deep, heavy, wet and clingy (just the right kind for making snowballs, Leia had once informed him right before her masterpiece hit him in the face), and the wind was biting up here in the open. Looking at the waterfalls in the sunlight was like nothing Anakin had ever seen before, a burst of light and joy and happiness in an otherwise mostly barren landscape, and he stood there and watched it for several minutes, breath steaming, squinting against the dazzle.
Tomorrow, when he stood up here again, he'd be with his wife and children.
Apparently, not even the prospect of a night in the cold could make Artoo spoil his master's happiness; when Anakin farewelled him, he just wished him luck.
In summer time, it would have taken Anakin just under an hour to get to Varykino at a leisurely walk (what? Those were the only kind he'd ever taken up here). The house was a long way off, and the path was sometimes steep and slippery, and Force that wind was cold. Anakin wanted to run, to bolt headlong down the mountainside like that boy who'd ridden a shaak and kissed his beloved on the lakeside balcony for the first time, marvelling at her smooth warm skin against his knuckles. He didn't know how he stopped himself, unless it was imagining the look on her face if he showed up with a broken bone or two.
Not the first impression he wanted to make on Luke, either.
His son... were he and Leia friends already? Had they easily accepted their connection, sensing the bond between them through the Force, or was Luke balking at the idea of having a criminal and a terrorist for a father? Anakin wouldn't blame him if he did. Did he show as much affinity for the Force as Leia? How had they found out they were twins? Or had they just made friends without ever realising it, and Padmé had later recognised her daughter?
Varykino finally came into view as the pathway made a sharp turn under Anakin's feet. Tall and graceful as ever, the place hadn't changed. Padmé's personal shuttle was sitting on the landing pad in the back courtyard that was cut into the hillside diagonally below his current position. Anakin frowned; she rarely used her Senator's privilege of ignoring the Naboo no-fly zone up here. He picked up his pace a little. The path wound its way through a copse of trees, and the snow was less deep up here.
Hadn't he climbed that one once, that first glorious afternoon? And she'd come after him, laughing, her skirts snagging in the branches. The things he'd done to impress her... she'd neither wanted nor needed any of it. Good and bad, she loved him anyway.
Maybe ten minutes away from the house now, and there was a ship moving away from the veranda, a shuttle of some kind – Imperial markings –
Anakin's breath caught in his throat as he watched it pull away and begin to rise, preparing to leave the atmosphere. He ducked behind a tree as it came closer to his eye level, gripping his lightsabre with desperate strength.
Padmé was on that ship.
He did have some self-control left after all, he found, despite his first instinct to scream and yell and reach out with the Force in fury to disable the damn thing and kill everyone on board except for his wife.
But that was too close, far too close, to the Dark Side, to the kind of uninhibited anger that Palpatine had spent so long trying to coax out of him. What good would it do to save her from the Imps if he became no better than one of the Emperor's Dark Side Adepts in the process?
Besides, Leia wasn't with her. Anakin was sure of that. That meant there was a chance Luke wasn't, either. That she'd been able to hide them.
The twins came first. Always.
He waited until the shuttle had disappeared from view behind the mountains, hoping against hope that they never were never in a position to spot his fighter and Artoo in the meadow. Only when he was sure they were gone did he start to hurry, slip-sliding through the snow, all caution set aside for now – he had to trust in his instincts, in the Force, in the sure-footedness of a boy who could climb a sand-dune quicker than anyone else in the Row.
The scum had left the heavy double doors of Varykino hanging open. The house had been ransacked, top to bottom, furniture overturned, contents of drawers tipped out onto the floor. The heavy glass dining table was in shards. Two windows in the living room where Anakin had first told Padmé he loved her were broken, the couch they'd so often made love on in shreds, the fireplace choked with the debris of the search. Even the kitchen had been wrecked, her ridiculously expensive caf machine a heap of twisted metal, her favourite mugs smashed. Her study had been reduced to a pile of rubble.
Anakin stumbled up the stairs to the bedrooms, numb with cold and fear. He could barely concentrate enough to sense his daughter in the Force, so he did it the old-fashioned way, shouting her name and Luke's as he made his way through one destroyed room after another.
Torn paintings, curtains hanging off their broken poles, Padmé's wardrobe spread in tatters over the floor. Anakin realised the crunching noise under his boots was the remains of one of her older, more elaborate headdresses.
"Leia! Luke!"
Still no answer. The bed his children had likely been conceived in – the bed he and Padmé had spent their wedding night in – was now little better than kindling. He thought the troopers had used the pillows as target practice. Her fresher was coated in creams and shampoos and a small lake of her favourite perfume, spilling over the splinters of the broken bottle.
"Leia!" Anakin shouted again, ever more frantic. "Leia, for Force's sake –"
Suddenly he realised he was standing in Luke's bedroom: the boots in front of him belonged to a child, there were speeder schematics on the floor, a collection of adventure holonovels scattered about –
"Luke! Leia, answer me!"
Above his head, there was a brief hissing noise.
Anakin jumped out of his skin, sabre coming up as the trapdoor descended noiselessly, the blue glow illuminating his daughter's frightened face.
"Leia." Breath of relief barely recognisable as her name.
"Dad!"
Anakin barely had time to collapse his blade before she dropped into his arms. He held her close, relief making him stagger under her small weight. Leia buried her face in the side of his neck. She was shaking as she clung to him. Her pants and boots were damp, he realised; they couldn't have been up here all that long.
"Thank you," he whispered brokenly into her hair – to the Force, to Padmé's Goddess, to Obi-Wan for all he knew. "Thank you. Thank you so much."
When the rush of relief had faded a little, and Leia's shaking had stopped, he set her down on her feet, pressed his gloved hand to her cheek, and looked up a second time.
Luke was not a large boy, scrawny as his sister, with too-long blonde hair that was straighter and far tidier than his father's. He had Padmé's bone structure, her fine nose, the beginnings of what was definitely Anakin's own cleft in his chin. He was staring down at his father and sister with fear and longing and loneliness all rolled up into one, and he jerked when Anakin met his eyes.
"Luke," he said, and held out both arms.
Luke hesitated a split second, then he fell into them the same way Leia had.
"Dad," he whispered into Anakin's ear and pressed his nose to his father's shoulder, fingers digging into his back. Anakin held him as tightly as he had Leia. He thought he felt something shift and snap into place inside himself: a hollow filled, a puzzle piece fitted with its mate.
His son.
He didn't realise he'd dropped to his knees until Leia climbed into his lap, worming her way into their embrace. Luke put an arm around her without hesitation. Anakin kissed his son's temple, nose in his hair.
"Luke," he said hoarsely: benediction, homecoming, claiming. His son. His blood, his family now, finally, almost complete.
Luke pulled back from him, blue eyes swimming with tears, and brushed a hand over his father's face.
"I didn't know Anakin Skywalker cried," he said, smiling tremulously.
Anakin tried to grin. "You don't mind? Having a terrorist for a father?"
Luke's eyes widened. "Mind?" he echoed. "My Dad. Is Anakin. Skywalker."
Leia sniffed. "He thinks you're awesome," she said. And then, defiantly, "So do I!"
Anakin had to laugh, gathering them close again. "I do my best, my loves."
*********
They regrouped in the attic, because Anakin proclaimed it an awesome hiding place, and because there were ration bars and blankets up there. Anakin wedged himself in between two crates of... something..., back against one, legs bent, toes of his boots pressed against the other. Leia propped herself against his left knee the way she always did. Luke sat at Anakin's other side, his own bony knees digging into his father's leg.
"All right," Anakin said when they were wrapped in blankets and chewing their way through a bag of ration bars. He slung an arm around Luke's shoulders easily and drew the boy back against his chest. Luke snuggled in immediately. "Begin at the beginning, Commander."
Leia grinned at him (still a bit watery, but any grin counted as a win in this situation) and started to talk, starting with the day she and Luke had met, the fight, the holos, the detention, the weeks it had taken them to come to terms with their new relationship before finally deciding to run away.
"And at first we thought we could get away with doing it like in the book, you know, where they switch places, but Luke said that it wouldn't work, and so we both just came straight to Mom and kind of crossed our fingers that she didn't hate you or anything."
Anakin blinked. "Hate me?"
Leia wriggled. "Why else would she send us away?"
"Oh, sweetheart. I'm sorry we ever let you think that."
"S'OK, Dad," Luke said softly. "Mom explained – about the Emperor."
It was almost the first thing he'd said since they had come up here, seeming content to sit and bask in his father's presence. Anakin dropped a kiss into his hair.
"Yes. We decided – if he could see for himself that my son was no threat to him – he'd be less likely to come after you and Padmé, and not likely to ever realise there was Leia as well. It'd be – he'd be happy to gloat over the fact that I'd never know you. He'd think of it as part of my punishment for defying him, being separated from the people I love. It would appeal to his twisted sense of... poetic justice."
"But now he's worked it out," Leia said. "Right? That's why they arrested Mom."
"It's a trap for you, Dad," Luke agreed.
"Hmm," Anakin said. "Maybe. But there's something else, you see. Another reason why Padmé and I separated was so that she could get us information from inside the Senate."
"Mom was spying on the Emperor?" Luke asked, looking up at him.
"Pretty much, yeah."
The boy's eyes widened. "Awesome," he said. "But wait. If they arrested Mom for spying, then they might not know about you or Leia!"
"Well, that's the question, isn't it?" Anakin said thoughtfully. "Which is it? And does it even matter? I'm going after her anyway."
"She said she'd kill you herself if you tried," Leia said.
Anakin laughed sharply. "We can fight about that once she's safe."
"She said to tell you she loved you very much."
The twins looked away diplomatically while their father rubbed at his eyes and drew a few deep, steadying breaths.
Once Anakin was fairly certain he wasn't about to break down and cry in front of his eleven year old twin children, he looked back at them, forcing a smile. "Did she say anything else?"
Luke reached into his tunic under the blanket wrapped around his shoulders and drew a datacard out, offering it to Anakin. "Just to give you this."
Anakin turned it over in his flesh hand, thumb rubbing at the corners. "The stolen plans."
"Mom stole something?" Luke said. "She's a spy and she stole something?"
Anakin grinned. "It wouldn't be the first time. So maybe they realised she was the thief, and then started looking into her past..."
"That sithspawn Tarkin arrested her," Leia said fiercely.
"Personally? What an honour."
"What are we going to do?" Luke asked.
Anakin pursed his lips. "Find out how they found out that she was the thief. We can't afford a leak. And we need to know where they're holding her."
"She was at a conference on Sollust," Luke said. "She only came here because Madam Dormé called to tell her I'd left."
"Done a bunk, Obi-Wan woulda called it."
"General Kenobi?"
"Yeah."
Luke looked stunned. "It's all true, isn't it? All the stories. They're all true."
Anakin smiled. "That would depend on which stories you've heard."
*********
In the end, Dad decided that the best thing to do was take Mom's ship and head out to Sollust as quickly as possible to try and find out who the leak was. Sabé should still be there, along with Threepio and Captain Typho, so maybe they could shed some light on the situation.
Luke was expecting Dad to send them straight back to school, but he went on making plans with every appearance of wanting to actually take them with him, and if Luke hadn't been convinced that Dad was awesome before, he was now.
But all his anticipation withered and died when he saw what Tarkin's men had done to his home. They picked their way downstairs through the destroyed house, Luke's hand gripped firmly in his sister's.
"It's going to take forever to clean up," Luke said shakily.
"There won't be any cleaning up," Dad said. "I know this is probably hard for you, son, but you're not coming back here even after I get Padmé back. It's too dangerous for that now."
Leia gasped. "You mean..."
"I mean we're going to be together from now on," Dad said. "All of us."
Luke stared at him. Dad was standing in the hallway with his arms crossed over his chest as he spoke. He looked very much the Rebel leader, with his lightsabre hanging off his belt and that scar over his eye. But there was also – there was the boy in Luke's holo in the faint little smile, the tilt of his head. For the first time, Luke realised that he had his father's eyes.
Leia tugged at his hand, eager for a reaction. He summoned all his self-control and the poise that Mom had taught him.
"You'll get bored with me," he said cheerfully.
She rolled her eyes. "Only cause you're a goody-goody."
"Am not!"
"Are too."
"Kids," Dad said, and there was something almost gleeful in the way he spoke, like he was happy to finally get to use the plural, to be with both of them. "Shall we go rescue your mother?"
"The landing pad's that way, on the right," Luke said, pointing.
Dad grinned at him. "I know, Luke."
"You and Mom used to live here?"
"We were married here," he said, leading the way down the corridor to the landing pad. Leia tugged at Luke's hand again when Dad turned his back. Luke squeezed her hand in response.
"Well?" she whispered.
"It feels – Dad feels –"
"Safer than anyone else in the whole galaxy."
"Yeah."
"Like he can do anything."
"That too."
"Cause he can."
"Obviously."
*********
Artoo was a very unhappy little astromech by the time Anakin set Padmé's ship down in the meadow. He was launching into a long list of complaints about Anakin's thoughtlessness and general bad conduct as the hatch opened, but when he saw Leia, all that was forgotten in favour of an enthusiastic reunion.
"Artoo, Artoo, there's someone you have to meet –"
Luke saw: a rather battered-looking blue and white droid, beeping furiously at Leia, who seemed to understand at least the basics of his language, and sitting behind them, half-sunk in the snow, an Eta-2 Actis class interceptor, painted yellow. It had been damaged and patched up again over and over, he could tell, it was at least as old as he was by now, and the paint job was covered in scratches, and it took his breath away.
He staggered a few feet through the clinging snow to stand right next to it. A real Jedi interceptor! He'd wanted to fly one of these since he was old enough to know what it was, understand its history, realise just how fast he would be able to push it, the manoeuvrability it must have. The fighter that the Great Negotiator and the Hero With No Fear had flown in some of their greatest battles, most meaningful victories.
His father's fighter.
Luke reached out and touched it.
"Hey, you still with me?" Leia demanded. He turned to look at her, caught between awe and delight.
"It's a Jedi interceptor," he said.
"It's Dad's interceptor," Leia said, amused.
"My Dad is Anakin Skywalker."
"You said that already."
"I'm having trouble believing it."
She laughed at him.
"Don't scoff," Luke said. "He's been my hero forever. And now he's my Dad. And there's a Jedi interceptor sitting right in front of me."
Leia giggled. "You're geeking out over this, aren't you?"
Luke nodded, grinning like an idiot, and they stood there and laughed at each other as Dad came out of the ship.
"It'll be a squeeze, but I think we can fit her in the cargo... what are you two laughin' about?"
"Nothing, Dad," the twins chorused, and then started to laugh all over again.
Anakin felt himself smile in turn. Artoo was pushing forward through the snow, nudging at Leia, who grinned down at him.
"Yes, this is him. Luke, meet R2D2 –"
"Astromech and babysitter," Dad interjected.
Luke cocked his head and smiled at the droid. "Hi," he said. Drew a deep breath. "I'm Luke Skywalker."
Leia's grin lit up the whole Lake Country.
*********
The trip from Naboo to Sollust took just under four hours. Anakin slumped into the pilot's seat (Padmé had sat here not forty-eight hours ago) and ordered the twins off to bed to grab some sleep while they could. Leia nodded briskly – she knew when her Dad meant business and when she had licence to mess around – but Luke paused, looking uncertain. Anakin raised his eyebrows at him.
In a burst of resolve, the boy crossed the cabin and threw his arms around Anakin's neck. Anakin hugged him back briefly before drawing away to cup his face in his hands.
"Hey," he said softly. "Everything's going to be all right, Luke, I promise. But I need you to be strong for me, understand? I don't want to let you two out of my sight right now, but I need to be able to trust you to be strong."
Luke's mouth firmed. "I can do it," he said. "I really can, Dad. I just..."
Anakin thought of another sandy-haired little boy with blue eyes and a mother far away and a brand-new father figure who carried a lightsabre and didn't really know the first thing about reassuring nine year olds, and smiled at him.
"I know, son," he said.
At least he had some idea of how to deal with children, he thought ruefully, winking at Leia after Luke turned his back.
They were holding hands again as they left the cabin. Interesting. Leia had no objection to hugs from him, but she wasn't otherwise very tactile. Maybe it was some sibling-bonding thing. He'd ask, in a few months when they were all more comfortable with each other.
For now, he had a traitor to find, plans to secure, children to protect, and oh yes, there was the minor matter of his wife's rescue.
"Just another day at the office," Anakin muttered. "Obi-Wan's probably finding this deeply amusing."
Artoo agreed with him. He also offered the opinion that Luke had promise, although he seemed a little wimpier than Leia. Anakin laughed.
"He'll toughen up," he said. "Unfortunately. They should have both been allowed to live his life."
Artoo told him that on the whole, he was grateful he hadn't had to deal with both of them from an early age.
"Wait till they get old enough to start demanding missions of their own."
Apparently Luke already wanted to fly his fighter.
"I'd like that," Anakin said. "To teach him. Leia's good, but she's not passionate about it. I'd like to get to share that with my son."
As long as Anakin didn't try teaching the boy to podrace, Artoo supposed.
"I think Padmé might object to me teaching him to podrace, Artoo."
She always did have better sense than Anakin.
He wasn't wrong there.
*********
When they reached Sollust, Anakin got a hold of himself and resorted to mind-tricking the security forces to let the ship through – not something he ever liked to do. It was a kind of cheating, and it was also a form of slavery, although Obi-Wan had never been able to grasp why Anakin saw it like that, and they had had more than one argument on the subject over the years.
It was an awful risk, coming here. Even more of a one than either of the twins realised. Half the galaxy recognised Anakin's face these days, and there was always the possibility that Senator Amidala's staff had been taken into custody after her own arrest. But Anakin was strong enough in the Force to be able to mind-trick half the conference centre from orbit if he had to, and it was imperative he found the being who had betrayed Padmé to Tarkin. It was too much to hope for that Leia, and by extension Luke's paternity, would remain a secret for much longer, but there were others to think of: Bail Organa, who had become as close a friend to Anakin as he had always been to Padmé and Obi-Wan over the last few years, Mon Mothma, Bana Breemu and half a dozen others who had supported the Rebellion, whether openly or in secret, over the years.
Anakin had to know who had been exposed, and he had to know now, or Palpatine would start a rampage through the Senate that would result in dozens if not hundreds of deaths and the virtual destruction of Senatorial and public sympathy for the Rebellion. He couldn't allow that.
He drew a breath. Showtime.
Flipped the comm on and punched in Sabé's personal number.
She answered.
"Nertay."
"Naberrie here," Anakin said. "How's that cargo I charged you with?"
Over the commlink, he could hear her gasp quietly, the breath of air rustling and crackling as static in the connection.
"Not so great. One of our caretakers messed up badly. The corporation hasn't decided yet whether or not to buy the rest of the stock, and they're keeping the trouble quiet in case the competition finds out."
Did she really mean no one else had been arrested yet? No one at all? As for keeping it quiet...
Risky business. Anakin made his decision.
"All right then. Get your people and meet me at the public spaceport, dock 593. We'll discuss it there."
She must've already left the conference centre when Anakin commed. Sabé was waiting in the dock the authorities had assigned to him, arms crossed over her chest. Threepio was with her, standing near the doors; Sabé had probably ordered him to stay back, just in case.
She was also armed. Anakin's gut twisted; if she was the traitor after all, if she forced him to kill her, would Padmé ever forgive him?
Would he ever forgive himself? He knew how close to the Dark Side he was dancing just by contemplating this. But he could not allow her to take what she knew to Tarkin and the Emperor. She had already had enough time to tell them everything if she so chose.
Anakin nodded at her through the cockpit window and opened the hatch, silently inviting her up. He met her at the top of the gangway.
"You're mad, coming here," she snapped at him.
"The leak," he said.
"It's Typho."
"Padmé's Security Chief."
"S'right. His uncle is a Moff, don't forget. We did. After all this time, we let our guard down, just enough. It's my fault; I thought... ah. I'm sorry, Anakin."
Too good to be true. Too neat. Too obvious.
Sabé could see the thoughts in his face.
"Read my mind, Jedi," she said. "I'm telling the truth. I love Padmé like a sister; I love that boy like he's my own. And Obi-Wan and I were always friends. So were you and I."
"I can't afford to make mistakes," Anakin said quietly.
"I know."
He touched her face with his left hand, reaching out in the Force, gauging her truthfulness, her sincerity. Finally, he sighed.
"I'd apologise for being a suspicious bastard."
"Yeah, well. You trusted Palpatine once, too."
"Oh!" Anakin winced theatrically, and she laughed.
"If you've come in her ship then you've seen Luke?"
Anakin couldn't keep back his sudden grin, wide and delighted. "Yes. Finally!"
"He thinks you hung the moon," Sabé said, smiling back. "All of them. Did you tell him the truth?"
"We worked it out for ourselves," Leia said from behind her. Sabé jumped and spun to face her, hand dropping to her blaster and then falling away.
"Sithing hell!"
Leia stuck out a hand, grinning. "I'm Leia Skywalker."
"Sabé Nertay. Pleased to... finally meet you." She shook hands with Leia, casting a glare over her shoulder at a visibly amused Anakin.
"You brought an eleven year old –"
"Two eleven year olds," Luke said. "Hi, Sabé."
"Oh, Force," Sabé said helplessly. "I stand by my earlier statement. You are mad."
"It was either bring them along or leave them at the house by themselves," Anakin explained as she and Luke embraced. Leave his children in the wreckage of their mother's home and hope against hope that the Imps wouldn't come back for them? Not likely. Better to have them with him, danger or no, than abandon them like that in the desolation the Imps had left at Varykino.
"Which is all well and good, but I'm pretty sure the only reason I haven't been arrested yet is because they were in fact waiting for something like this to happen," Sabé said. "They want to flush us out, Anakin. Typho might not know about Leia, but he's sure you're Luke's father."
"Wait, you knew about Leia all along?" Luke demanded. "And you didn't tell me?"
"That would have defeated the whole point, don't you think?" Anakin said dryly.
"You can't trust any of them," Leia said, glaring. Luke fixed Sabé with a betrayed look, leaving Anakin to wonder what kind of reception he would have gotten at Varykino if Padmé hadn't been arrested. Something was telling him it would have been a loud one.
So Typho was the traitor. He hadn't been expecting that; to be honest, he'd almost forgotten about the man. It made things both easier and more difficult: easier, because he knew now that his friends were still loyal, and more difficult, because he had no way of knowing what Typho knew, and how far he'd go in his betrayal.
Anakin had to get to him, and fast. He took five seconds to consider his options. Then the famous Skywalker talent for split-second decision making that had won him more battles than he cared to remember kicked in.
"Sabé, if they're keeping it quiet, how did you know about Padmé's arrest?"
"Typho was informed of it. I overheard. I think they're waiting to make it official because they think it'll be easier to reel you in if the Senate and the galaxy in general isn't up in arms over the arrest of Senator Amidala for a traitor and a Rebel. That way they can concentrate on waiting for you instead of scrambling around dealing with the press and possible indignation from the other Senators."
"In short, you're under surveillance, but they won't actually move against you until I show up, just in case."
She narrowed her eyes at him. "I shook the guy on my tail coming over here. Just what are you up to?"
Anakin grinned. "Skip down the ramp and get Threepio," he said. "You're going to leave here with the twins, now."
Sabé started to grin. "And you?"
"Artoo and I are going to head over to the conference centre to hack into the computer mainframe and find out where they're holding Padmé. One stolen Imperial uniform and a hijacked shuttle later..."
"And you're still flying by the seat of your pants."
Anakin grinned at her. "Well, yeah."
Neither of them noticed the looks the twins were exchanging. Then Luke coughed. "Erm. I have a better idea."
The two adults turned to look at him, surprised.
Leia grinned. "You should listen. Luke's ideas tend to turn out real well."
Anakin nodded slowly.
Luke swallowed. "I can go back to Mom's quarters with Sabé and hack into the computer mainframe."
Leia's jaw dropped. "You can do that?"
He nodded, still looking at Anakin. "One console's all I need."
"And you think that'll be less noticeable than a stray astromech plugging into a wall terminal?" Sabé demanded.
Luke glared at her. "Way to miss the point, Sabé. No, I think it'll be more noticeable. The Imps'll be following me around trying to work out where I came from and what the hell a runaway Senator's son is doing here – not to mention trying to make me keep it under wraps that Mom's disappeared, cause they still wanna catch Dad. The officials here'll never openly arrest an eleven year old kid in a conference centre filled with Senators who almost certainly won't all be the Emperor's bootlickers. The Commander won't be Tarkin, he won't have the guts or the authorityto do anything to me . And in the meantime, an Imperial general's uniform and a shuttle go quietly missing, and no one ever notices, because they're too busy breathing a sigh of relief that Sabé's marching me back to school for a month's worth of detention and a freezing of my allowance, and then later, if there's a brief transmission between this ship and the missing shuttle, well, by the time they figure it out, it'll be too late."
Anakin realised he was staring at his son in amazement with his mouth hanging open like an idiot. Then he started to grin.
"He's got his useful points, hasn't he?" he said to Leia.
She smirked at him. "D'you think we oughta keep him around?"
"Oh, yeah. I think so. He's too dangerous to let run loose."
Luke beamed with pride.
*********
In the end, they agreed that the best thing to do would be to have Luke march in through the front doors of the conference centre with Sabé in tow, clearly visible to everyone in the entrance hall and the corridors between there and Padmé's quarters. If he so happened to run into anyone he knew on the way, well, so much the better. Leia meanwhile would stay with the ship and the droids to wait for them to get back: a prospect she was by no means thrilled with, but it couldn't be helped.
Anakin shook his head when Artoo made to come with him. "I'm sorry, buddy. I'm probably going to be crawling through a few places you won't be able to follow."
Artoo was indignant.
"I know, I know. But I won't exactly have time for anything more sophisticated than hitting some General over the head, taking his uniform, and mindtricking a few troopers into letting me get away with a shuttle."
Artoo remained unconvinced.
"Then I'd better not get into any trouble!"
Threepio, on the other hand, was more than happy to stay with the ship. "Why, Master Anakin! It has been a long time – good gracious, you've met Master Luke at last – and Miss Sabé says that Mistress Padmé is in trouble, you will do something about that, won't you, Master Anakin – and who is this?"
Leia giggled. "I'm Leia Skywalker," she said, grinning up at the golden droid. "Luke's told me an awful lot about you."
"Mistress Leia! My, you have grown – the last time I saw you you were still a tiny baby – humans do change so quickly, don't they, Artoo – no, you're just as scruffy-looking as ever."
Anakin coughed pointedly. "All right, everyone. Time to go."
He hunkered down so he was looking up at his son and put his hands on the boy's shoulders. "You don't have to do this. Not if you're scared."
Luke drew himself up. "I'm not scared," he said firmly. "I can do this, Dad. And Sabé will be right there with me. I'm just here to see Mom; I don't know anything about anything. Remember? Leia's gonna have it worse, waiting for us."
Anakin nodded slowly, drawing him into a hug. "I'll see you soon, Luke," he said softly. "Remember, the Force will be with you. Always."
Luke looked at him with wide eyes; was it the first time he'd heard the words? But then Leia was there, eyes shining.
"I'd kind of really like both my parents back some time, if it's not too much trouble," she said.
"You'll get them," Anakin promised, hugging her too.
"May the Force be with you, Dad."
"And with you, little one."
Sabé shook hands with him, brief and firm. "Good luck, Skywalker."
He smiled briefly. "In my experience, Nertay, there's no such thing as luck."
Once, as a child, he'd thought that favourite saying of Obi-Wan's darkly ominous. Now, it was a comforting thought.
*********
"Arranging" for a new uniform was the easy part, even if it did pull across his shoulders. Tracking down Typho was less so; the man appeared to have been reassigned and promoted almost immediately following his betrayal of Padmé. There was no denying that the Empire liked to reward those who served it faithfully... at least temporarily.
Anakin hadn't mind-tricked so many people in the last eleven years as he did that day. It got easier with every time he did it, which made the bile rising in his throat and the twisting of distaste in his gut that much harder to control, but at last a young officer who'd been holed up in his office writing a love letter to his wife pointed him towards Typho's new quarters in the wing the officers had taken over for the duration of the conference.
Luckily, it was about half a mile away from the rooms where Luke was currently hacking into the computer mainframe. Anakin suppressed another burst of pride: mechanics were one thing, but he'd never had the time for learning the ins and outs of computers – or, to be fair, the money. Slaves could come by discarded mechanical parts without much trouble. Computers were expensive.
Plainly, that was not a consideration that had factored into Luke's upbringing. Anakin couldn't help but regret that Leia had not had the same opportunities, but all in all they'd turned out rather well, he thought smugly: sharp, bright, brave, determined.
Everything he'd hoped for them, and more.
Typho had been given the rank of Commander, and his new quarters were appropriately spacious, with an ensuite fresher. Anakin didn't bother with the door code, simply sliding it open with the Force. Typho was inside, going over a datapad – reports, maybe? He looked up in surprise when Anakin stepped in. The uniform registered on him first, because he was on his feet and saying "General..." before Anakin saw the recognition cross his face.
"Ah," Typho said quietly. "I might have known you'd get past them."
Anakin shrugged. "I'm extremely good at what I do," he said calmly. The lightsabre in his right hand had never felt so heavy.
"Of course you are."
"Why'd you do it?"
Typho shrugged. "Why d'you think? Power, political connections..." he barked a laugh. "You're destroying the galaxy, Skywalker. Isn't one war enough? Do you know how many people are still suffering because of you? Attacked convoys, interrupted supply lines, families torn apart because of your rhetoric and your melodrama. It has to stop, man. There has to be an end to this. The entire galaxy needs time to heal."
"As long as Sidious still controls it, the only things we'll get are stagnation and decay."
"So say you," the other man said quietly.
"I do." Anakin drew a ragged breath. "You know why I'm here."
Typho nodded slowly. "Yes," he said quietly, the blue glow making his face look ghostly. Corpse-like. "Yes, I do."