This chapter's a little shorter than usual, but that's because I couldn't really figure out where to break it and the next one up but where I did. So, yes, tomorrow's is longer.

Thanks as always to the awesome reviewers!

Lou.


Han awakened only slowly. He couldn't see, but he wasn't aware of that yet, because he couldn't open his eyes. Couldn't move at all.

He could only really tell he was actually awake now because there were voices.

"I… I killed them all?"

"Anakin…" An older voice than the first.

"Don't comfort me, Obi-Wan."

A sigh. "You went to Mustafar- a volcano planet. She followed you, and I snuck along on her ship. She tried to turn you back, and you grew angry. As I came out of the ship, you believed she had betrayed you-"

"And I killed her." The words were sobbed.

"You choked her. You did not murder her. She… she died later, Anakin, giving birth to your children."

There was just sobbing now. "Go on, Obi-Wan," the younger voice choked out.

"Anakin, this wasn't you."

Well, that made no sense.

"But it was."

"You can change this."

The voices both paused. Han tried again to open his eyes, but couldn't.

Another sigh, and the older voice continued. "We dueled. I fought my way to higher ground- and you attacked me anyway. I… I chopped off it's legs and arm, and I left it to die. I thought it did."

"You thought I did."

"Anakin…"

"I deserved it."

This was a seriously depressing conversation, and the smuggler was beginning to tire of it.

"Ugh…"

"Obi-Wan… The pilot-guy's awake."

-

It had, thought Obi-Wan, been a distraction at exactly the right time. Even if Anakin claimed that he was capable of continuing to listen, the force-ghost was not sure that he himself was capable of continuing to tell the story.

All too soon, Anakin reemerged from the hut's second room.

"The Captain's alright?" inquired Obi-Wan.

"Asleep again."

Both of them stared at the ground.

Finally, Anakin spoke up. "I wasn't aware Jango Fett had had a wife, let alone that her morals were so lax."

"What?"

"I take it you didn't understand the language he was swearing in?"

"I wasn't listening, Anakin." I had slightly more important things to think about.

"You missed some very entertaining curses, Obi-Wan."

"I take it that was all he said?" From his brief interactions with the smuggler, this did not surprise Obi-Wan in the least.

"The only other intelligible thing was 'I love you, too' or something. Bunch of random names. He wanted to know where someone called Leia was, told him I didn't know. That was when the whole, um, commentary on the Fett family began."

"Boba," said Obi-Wan absently. "Became a bounty hunter." Lovely. More things to tell Anakin, apparently. You're a Sith Lord. Your son hates you. And, apparently, your daughter is dating a smuggler.

Anakin stared at him. "And I think he could hear you."

"What? Anakin, that makes no sense. He's definitely not force-sensitive." The force-ghost permitted himself a light laugh.

"No," agreed Anakin. "I think… Maybe the laws of the universe aren't working right. I mean, I came through time, you can all of a sudden deflect blaster bolts, now what's-his-face, statue-guy, he can hear you… It doesn't make any sense."

"Maybe it's for a reason," suggested Obi-Wan.

"I am the Chosen One," said Anakin with a hint of his old mocking arrogance.

"Anakin, that does not mean that you can bend the laws of the universe."

There was another silence, and they stared at the ground.

"What happened afterwards?" said the younger Jedi quietly.

-

"…And then…" Obi-Wan stopped.

Anakin was annoyed by this point. This was hard enough, hearing this, what he'd become, the things he'd let happen. Pauses were unacceptable. They had stopped the story twice in the past half-hour or so- Anakin had triumphantly discovered a few cans of ground Bantha that seemed to have somehow survived in an edible form since Obi-Wan had left, and rapidly dug in- and that was enough.

And this part- he had to know what happened next. He was amazed at how the story had developed an almost unreal quality. It was too far removed from who and what he was. Even as he dreaded what his future self would have done next, he relished the sidetracks- his son said his first word!- and the stories of heroes who had stood against him.

Now Obi-Wan was just going to be quiet? He had to know what happened for both reasons, for morbidity and hope.

"Obi-Wan."

"We stopped off in a cantina. Miserable place. That's where we met Captain Solo- we hired his ship to take us to Alderaan."

Alderaan was gone. An entire planet, gone, because of people- things- he'd chosen to serve.

"And of course we ran dead into the Death Star."

A desperately wry smile spread across Obi-Wan's face, and Anakin glared at it.

"So it was us- a decrepit old Jedi, a farmboy, two droids, a smuggler, and a Wookiee- Chewbacca, the co-pilot- trapped on the worst ship I've ever flown on, on a planet-sized battle-station."

This. This was one of the parts of the story that Anakin was sure he would like. Adventure, heroism. His son and the closest thing he had to a father would run in, rescue his daughter, and fly off into the sunset heroically. Thwarting his future self, of course, but Anakin could almost separate himself from that. It's not me yet.

For perhaps the first time, a thought hit him. Maybe it doesn't have to be…

Obi-Wan was still talking. Furious at himself for being distracted, Anakin once again focused his attention on the force-ghost's words.

"I turned off the tractor beam fairly easily, and started to head back to Luke. Of course, along the way he'd not only rescued his sister but gotten trapped in and then out of a trash compactor onboard the ship."

Takes after me, thought Anakin proudly.

"On the way back…" The old Jedi's voice broke suddenly.

"On the way back," repeated Anakin. "Are you all right?"

Obi-Wan just shook his transparent head. "I ran into Vader."

This was rapidly becoming less fun of a story.

"We dueled."

"How many limbs did I lose this time?"

Obi-Wan's expression was horrified, and Anakin felt a pang of remorse.

"Joke, Obi-Wan. C'mon."

"Anakin… You won the duel. You killed me."

-

Forgiveness was not something that one hoped for aboard the Executor. A slightly less painful death, perhaps. An opportunity to contact one's family if Vader happened to be off board when the mistake was made.

But forgiveness?

The entire group of men who'd failed to apprehend Skywalker were in near-shock.

"I'm breathing," repeated the Commander for the third time.

"Shut up," muttered the second-in-command. The insolence was near-unheard of- but so was surviving letting a prisoner escape, let alone Skywalker.

No, that wasn't true. After going through a number of High Command men, Lord Vader had for some reason allowed Admiral Piett to live the last time the flagship had failed to capture the rebel.

Of course, that time the Sith had been in such a fearsome rage that the unspoken consensus on the incident was that death wasn't considered easy enough. For several weeks, everyone had expected multiple unfortunate things to befall the Admiral, but nothing ever had, unless one counted the stubbed toe.

Maybe Skywalker was just special.

It could, of course, have something to do with the fact that he had been captured immediately afterwards that saved them, but that seemed unlikely. Hoth had been, if not a rousing success, a victory, but that had not saved Ozzel.

Still, the pondering of the "why" of life did not change a simple fact.

The men were alive.

Alive.

This was, in afterthought, the best day of Commander Javin's life.

-

Sitting in what was a nice jail cell- even nicer than the closet- but still decidedly a jail cell, Luke Skywalker woke up.

-

"…If it makes you feel better, I let you win, and- argh!"

Multiple Hoth swimming pools seemed to have dumped themselves on Obi-Wan's head.