Kuniren looked up from his computer screen. Across from him, the blue light from the other viewer in use was reflected onto his master's face. He and Master Skywalker were currently alone in the Jedi temple library doing research for their first mission together. Kuniren could hardly believe it.

He'd never truly believed that no one would choose him (regardless of what Marrick said); and after the Jedi massacre, he'd been sure of it - they'd need to re-build the Jedi order (though he felt guilty for thinking of it so calculatingly). But to be chosen by the man he'd wanted for a teacher - the only Jedi he'd ever felt he could really get close to - was an unbelievable dream come true. And, once he'd found out what their initial mission was to be, it became even more extraordinary.

It was remarkable first of all, because he'd been wrong about the need for all the students, no matter what, to be trained as padawans: He and Master Skywalker were being sent to take the youngest group home, to their parents, on their home planets. After three weeks, Master Yoda had determined that no more knights had survived than had originally reported in. There wouldn't be enough to train them all. He knew also (Master Skywalker had told him) that the council had re-thought its policy to train only extremely young children. They would begin, in the future, when more masters were available to teach, to train adults instead. While the Jedi would lose the influence it now had over the minds of the very young, it would gain instead members who understood what it was like to not be a Jedi; those who could better relate to the people they served. Of course, there would be exceptions. They had found one student already whose home and parents had been casualties of the war; she could not return home and so would stay on as a Jedi youngling. Kuniren also knew that Senator Amidala was setting up an orphan placement service in conjunction with her father's organization, to foster war orphans, and that any found to be Force-sensitive would be sent to the temple. But even this group of younglings would not be trained as he had been. Instead, they would be sent to the free schools on Coruscant, with the other non-Jedi students their age, for their academic subjects.

He looked back down at the screen, trying to concentrate. It was his task to locate the address on the planet, once his master had sent him the information from the research he was doing in the students' records. So far he was not too far behind, even though what his master was doing was a lot less time-consuming. But he knew that once the addresses were found, that Master Skywalker would need to plot the flight paths to their locations from orbit as well. Forcing himself to concentrate at least for a moment, he matched the address in the records with the most recently known one for the family, before another address appeared on his queue.

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Contrary to Kuniren's belief, Anakin was not simply looking up addresses in the student records, which would have taken very little time. He was also doing some research for Padme, using the Jedis' records of the war, locating the most badly damaged populated areas for use in coordinating her effort to find war orphans that needed help.

The queen of Naboo had predictably appointed a new senator, however she had not insisted that Padme should yet step down from her official duties as a representative of their planet. Instead, Padme was expected to ease her replacement into office by acquainting him not only with the legislation of concern to them, but also with the other senators, the press, and any other professional contacts Padme thought would be of value before she returned home to give birth to her child. Anakin interpreted the queen's decree as a means to let them keep their apartment until they were ready to return to Naboo, while capitalizing on Senator Amidala's current popularity, since the entire "introduction" of the new senator had taken less than two days.

After meeting the newly appointed senator from Naboo, Anakin was just as glad there was so little involved, since the man had turned out to be a former artist - one with dark hair and dreamy eyes (as his wife had once described to him). He'd returned to public service, he said, because when the war broke out, he'd felt it was his civic duty. Anakin had surprised himself by not being nearly as jealous as he'd thought he'd be, though in retrospect, he supposed it was because he could tell beyond any doubt that his wife was not attracted to the man at all. Any more. That, and the fact that the guy was inexplicably terrified of him. He didn't know why, though - he'd been perfectly polite when Padme had introduced them, just before rushing off to manage her newly created job.

Expecting to be separated from her governmental duties at least by the time the baby arrived, his wife had seized upon the war orphan placement service when she'd learned from the Corellian senator, whose planet had suffered heavy damage, that there was no centrally coordinated system to handle the problem, and that many children, who had nowhere else to go, were living on the streets as members of thieving gangs and worse. But even those orphans who were not actively being exploited could benefit from a centrally coordinated agency funded by the senate. Anakin had no doubt that with Padme's formidable conviction, the senate would fully fund her agency by the time their children were born.

He paused in the middle of his search through war-ravaged planets, the name of a senator jumping out at him, though her identity was meaningless. It was the form her name took which aroused his curiosity: Senator Janamin Nojana, representative from the planet Ranbre. He glanced up at his padawan, who was diligently studying his screen (but hadn't been ten seconds earlier, he knew). There's only one way to find out, he thought, and keyed his apprentice's name into the student record file. Sure enough, his planet of origin was Ranbre. He could almost be certain, then, that someone else close to him had come from there as well, but that information would wait a bit. For now, he was going to abuse the power he'd been given to look up Kuniren's background; there might be something there that would help him understand the boy, he thought, remembering he'd only found out recently that Obiwan had never known he'd been a slave. But though the planet's history showed that it sat in one of the worst locations in the galaxy, where it was always going to be first in line for an attack on the republic, it had managed to be relatively peaceful for the three years Kuniren had lived there. The reporting Jedi, who was traditionally the one who found the new youngling, related nothing out of the ordinary - Force-sensitive boy (midichlorian count given - Kuniren's was quite high, as Anakin could have predicted), middle child, parents were minor governmental officials and had initiated contact with the temple themselves. The only unusual thing, in the writer's opinion, anyway (Anakin didn't think it unusual at all), was that the boy had cried when taken away from his family.

He sighed, and concentrated a moment on feeling the boy in the Force. His padawan was unusually sensitive emotionally. The Jedi - at least the Jedi up until now - would have considered that a weakness to be overcome, but Anakin didn't think so. Kuniren had been able to reach him when he'd been on the brink of death due, he was sure, to that very sensitivity. And he'd used it to create an instantaneous master-padawan bond, something Obiwan had told him it could take years to achieve (and had, for them, thanks to his listening to Palpatine, but he wasn't going to think about that right now). It was a gift and not an obstacle. But Anakin still had to figure out how to best guide him into training it. For now, he'd simply try to provide the emotional stability the boy craved. Maybe that would even turn out to be enough. He knew that when he concentrated on it, he could feel his padawan emotionally relaxing, and the boy worked faster.

He glanced down at his copy of Kuniren's queue. One more and they'd have enough to take the second batch to Obiwan. His old master had been elected to notify the parents that their children were returning to them, and to gauge their reactions (Anakin had been disqualified for that due to his fame; it was felt that the parents might feel they were being coerced into taking their children back if he was the one who called them).

The thought of Obiwan (mixed with the need to do something besides add another address to his padawan's queue for the moment) decided him to look up whatever was in the records about him (if anything still was; for all Anakin knew, the records were deleted when the padawan graduated to knight). Still, he keyed him in, and found, as he expected, that Obiwan was also from Ranbre. But his background was quite a bit different from that of his apprentice.

Obiwan had been discovered by the Jedi quite by accident. A knight-padawan team had been sent to investigate an apparent attack on the planet which was suspected of being an inside job. Much of the capital had been reduced to rubble, and while the two Jedi were on their way to the temporary government headquarters, they'd passed a bombed-out building and felt a sudden surge in the Force. Realizing it likely meant someone was still alive inside (and probably trapped), they investigated. The knight (the one who'd written the report, Syfo-Dias), had called on the Force to help him pinpoint the survivor's location and had been surprised when he was "answered." With the help of some bystanders, they dug down beneath a heap of shattered concrete and rebar, and found a dehydrated two-year-old in a soiled diaper lying next to his dead mother. Syfo-Dias wrote that it was evident the baby was instinctively trying to use his Force-ability to wake his mother up, not to be found himself. He'd cried when they'd carried him away from her. The record went on to state how they'd discovered the baby's identity, but Anakin didn't need to read any more. His mind returned to the visions he'd had of his own mother's death, and how Obiwan had kept telling him, "dreams pass in time." He understood then that his master had long dreamt about his own loss and had been trying to help him with the only reassurance that had worked for him.

"Master?" a soft voice asked him. He looked up to see the young face of his padawan looking at him with concern, his deep brown eyes huge. "Are you all right?"

"Yes, I'm fine," he replied, blinking away the tears that had formed in his eyes. "Just reading about something sad that happened a long time ago. If you've got that last one done, we can take it to Master Kenobi and have a break for awhile."

As they left the library, Anakin thought about the war orphan that had become his master, and how much the order had gained by finding him.

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They came out of lightspeed above the jewel-like blue-green planet Telnoch. Anakin looked over at his padawan, who was sitting in the co-pilot's chair holding Sam, the last youngling to be taken home, so he could see out the viewscreen.

"Would you like to handle the landing?" he asked, not disappointed by the immediate sparkle in Kuniren's eyes. But the boy's insecurity quickly supplanted his pleasure.

"Are you sure?" he asked hesitantly.

"I wouldn't have asked you otherwise," Anakin pointed out. "You always got high marks on your simulator training and you've helped me land the last two times. You're perfectly capable of handling this thing on your own." He didn't add that Sam's home was a good place for a first solo landing, as it was open farmland with no tall buildings or heavy repulsorlift traffic nearby; he simply stood and scooped Sam from Kuniren's lap so they could change places.

"Do you want to watch the landing?" he asked Sam. The youngster nodded vigorously, his eyes not leaving the viewscreen for a moment. Anakin sat down in the co-pilot's chair with him and watched Kuniren begin his pre-descent check.

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The touchdown was smooth and flawless; Anakin felt the boy's pride swell for a moment, until it was suddenly obliterated in an attack of guilt. He knew the source: the Jedi training that forbade any kind of pride in one's achievements. Necessary enough, he thought, for some, but for a child like Kuniren, such a blanket instruction only made his insecurity worse.

"Did I forget to do something?" the boy asked him, apparently sensing his displeasure with the old Jedi training, though from Kuniren's point of view, it was merely displeasure; of what, he had no idea. Anakin needed to remember to watch his own thoughts; his apprentice could read his feelings, not his mind.

"No," he replied quickly. "I was thinking of something else. You did a wonderful job." Deliberately, he let Kuniren feel the truth of his statement as he looked the boy in the eye. "See? I knew you could do it."

He felt his padawan relax, though the boy kept a tight rein on his self-satisfaction. He was simply happy to have pleased his master. It bothered Anakin that the boy felt this much control was necessary; there was a difference, in his mind, between being smug and being satisfied with one's performance. But he forced himself not to dwell on it, reciting a Jedi meditation verse in his mind, lest his apprentice pick up on his negativity:

My thoughts are serene and my feelings peaceful ...

He stared out the viewscreen at a fruit orchard in bloom in the near distance, set beside a white farmhouse with a shady front porch. The pastoral scene was peaceful; he almost envied Sam his childhood in such a place.

Kuniren glanced at him and released the boarding ramp. Anakin sighed, and turned to the boy in his lap.

"Sam," he said, "This is it - that's your home."

The little boy stared at it, his face expressionless. Anakin glanced up at Kuniren and saw that his apprentice had noticed the same thing he did: Sam did not remember ever being there.

"You remember what I told you?" he pressed on, touching the boy's cheek to get his attention.

Sam nodded.

"What did I say?"

"I can come back an' be a Jedi when I grow up," Sam recited.

"Only if you want to," Anakin added.

Sam stared at him; Anakin guessed what he was thinking: Why wouldn't I want to? But as he got older, he might think differently.

"Let's go, then," he said, setting the boy on the deck, before he stood and took his hand.

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Lasri had seen the ship land from an upstairs window, and had watched as the boarding ramp was lowered. She'd imagined the moment every day for the past two weeks, since the Jedi temple had notified her they were bringing her son back for her to raise. In her imagination, she'd run outside the moment the ship was visible in the atmosphere, waiting. But now that it was really here, she was almost afraid to meet it.

It had been over a year since they'd taken Sam to live on Coruscant, with her blessing, and the blessing of his father. He'd had a special gift; it hadn't taken a Jedi blood test for them to know that, and they had been happy he could use it in his life, to serve the republic. But it had nevertheless hurt so terribly to have him gone; to know she could never see him again. It was that which frightened her now - he'd been so young at the time, would he even know who she was?

A movement on the ramp caught her attention; they were disembarking. She should be there to meet them; it was going to look bad if she weren't - the man who'd called had made it clear that if she didn't want Sam back, he would still have a home at the temple. Of course she had wanted him back (what a silly question!), but if she didn't meet him, would they believe it? Still, it took forever to unstick her feet from the floor, so that she ended up flying downstairs in what seemed a single jump, to hurry and throw the front door open before they knocked on it.

They had just made it to the bottom of the porch when she got there, her Sam and a tall man in black robes holding his hand. She didn't bother even looking at the man's face; she couldn't tear her eyes away from Sam, he'd gotten so big. He'd been looking down at the bottom step, but looked up as she appeared, and she waited, her heart in her throat, while he stared at her long and hard. Then he smiled. Tears sprang to her eyes as her son let go of the man's hand and ran to her. She scooped him up, hugging him, feeling the slight weight of him in her arms, his head pressed to her neck, her heart comforted as it hadn't been in a long time; she drank it in.

It was impossible for her to say how long she stood like that, her eyes closed in silent prayer, when she felt Sam twist in her arms. He was staring back out at the man who'd brought him, and who had, by now, nearly reached his ship. Sam pushed away and she put him down. He ran out to the man, who turned to him without being called, and dropped to the boy's level. Lasri followed hesitantly, almost afraid her son had changed his mind, especially when she saw him embrace the man tightly. They exchanged a few quiet words; Sam listened intently to what the man - who looked somewhat familiar - said. Once her son glanced back at her; it was the expression on his face that allayed her fears about losing him again, more than anything. Instead, she felt reassured that the Jedi had truly cared for her son while he was away.

Their conversation didn't last long. With a last nod at the man, Sam walked back over to her calmly and took her hand. The man stood up, smiled, nodded to her politely, and walked the short distance back to his ship. Lasri stood there with her mouth open as it took off. Anakin Skywalker, the hero of the galaxy, had brought her son home to her, and she hadn't even recognized him until he was leaving - he was so young, and she'd thought surely he must be at least thirty! She remained dumbfounded until the ship disappeared into the distance. But when it was gone, a tug at her hand brought her thoughts back to what really mattered.