Ben saw the smoke from the Lars farm first. Then a terrible twisting feeling gripped him like a fever, and he stumbled to his speeder bike.

Hurry, urged the Force. The decrepit speeder whizzed across the dunes and cut a sharp wake in the sand as he urged it towards the rolling black column.

He reached forward in the Force, trying to determine if he was too late, if he'd failed again, but the faithless thing swirled away from his grasp. It had been so hard to find since...

Hurry. Hurry.

The Lars farm appeared on the horizon. Smoke billowed from every outbuilding, and an imperial shuttle rested not a dozen yards from the main house. A dozen stormtroopers patrolled the grounds.

The Empire didn't care about Tatooine, didn't care about the Hutts or the slaves or the farmers. What in blazes were they doing here?

Ben threw the brakes on the speeder and leaped off before it could stop, landing in a cloud of sand while the speeder skidded to a stop a few meters off.

A half dozen stormtroopers swung toward him, blasters raised. The commander gestured for him to stop. "Halt."

The hermit strode towards them, cloak whipping at his heels, lightsaber in his sleeve. Thank the Force he'd brought it along. He raised both hands with an amicable smile. "What seems to be the problem here?"

The commander pointed at him. "This is Imperial business. Move along."

Clones. One with his finger too close to the trigger. Maybe the Force had finally seen fit to let him die.

Ben slowed and raised his shoulders. "These are my neighbors. Where are they—"

A blaster fired. Ben deflected the shot and cut the trooper down in one movement. He pivoted and two more fell. Three more shots. The last of the troopers hit the sands, still. Ben spun toward the house.

A hulking black figure emerged from the main house, stooping to fit through the low door. A familiar Force presence hit Obi-Wan like a kick to the stomach. A sun burning frigid, eclipsed to a white corona of hatred and death.

Vader.

The realization sucked all the air from Ben's lungs. How had he found them?

In his arms was a white bundle of cloth, writhing against the Sith's grasp. A child.

Luke.

Crying.

Ben steeled himself and raised his saber. "Vader!"

The black-armored Sith turned toward the Jedi, and surprise rippled through that icy star, then razor-sharp rage. "Obi-Wan Kenobi." The respirator in his skull-like mask clicked and hissed. His voice was deeper, slower, like it was coming through some modulator. Like a droid. "I should have expected to find you here."

Rumors of the Emperor's mechanical hound had reached even Tatooine in the year since the Empire's abrupt appearance. More machine than man, built—rebuilt—for intimidation and power. Countless dead at his hands. Hands that held Luke.

Ben pointed his saber at the Sith. "Give me the boy."

"He is-" That horrible click-hiss of the respirator. "My son."

"He is not yours anymore. You will destroy him."

Luke screwed up his face and screamed, his distress bleeding into the Force.

Ben weighed his options. After a year on Tatooine, he wasn't as sharp as he had been. He was leaner, less strong, and he'd already failed to kill Vader once. With Luke so close to danger, it would be reckless to attack first.

But Vader was stiff. He moved slowly, heavily, and the rage in him was laced with pain bordering on agony. Ben might not be the man he was a year ago, but Vader even less so. If they crossed sabers again, it would end the way it had on Mustafar. It would always end the same way.

Ben took a starting stance and fixed the Sith with a stern glare. "Hand over the boy."

"And you will spare me, Master? As you spared me on Mustafar?" It was as close to a snarl as the monotone vocoder would allow.

Ben didn't answer. Couldn't.

Vader looked at the weeping child in his arms. "He is Padme's. Mine. I thought he was lost to me." His grip on the weeping boy tightened. "I will not give him up."

The Jedi took a starting stance, feet planted. "Then I will do what I must."

The corona curled around Vader, encompassing Luke and reaching past the dead stormtroopers for Ben. "No."

As Force shrieked a warning, Ben lunged. Vader raised a fist, and the Force turned on the Jedi, cinched around his throat, wrenched him from his feet.

His lightsaber hit the sand as he gasped for air that wouldn't come. His hands went to his throat. A useless reflex. "Vader."

But the Sith stood there, fist outstretched, his skull mask impassive and cold. Ben blacked out as the sound of Luke's wailing.

Vader watched the Jedi struggle uselessly against the Force choke. He'd waited so long for this moment—his old master at his mercy. He'd make Kenobi pay for what he'd done during their duel. For leaving Vader to die. For stealing Padmé's child and bringing him to this hell hole of a planet.

But Vader had found Luke, and the Jedi had tried to take him away again.

Kenobi's struggle lessened then stopped, and his arms fell limp by his sides as he dangled in the air. Just a few seconds more and—Luke hit Vader's shoulder then threw back his head and screamed, so angry and so scared that it drilled into Vader's head and shook him from his rage. Startled, he dropped Obi-Wan's unresponsive body to the sands and turned his attention to his son. His son.

Luke was small, pale for a child of Tatooine, weighing nothing in Vader's arms. Nothing good grew on this planet. Certainly not children. Luke was clearly sickly—born too early-and at that thought guilt coursed through Vader like an electric shock. His son had been born too early.

The boy's face was blotched and red from crying. He was afraid. He was afraid of Vader.

"It is all right, Luke." He put a hand on the boy's soft head in an attempt to comfort him. "You are safe now. I will never harm you."

If Luke understood, he didn't believe it. He kept screaming, even twisting in Vader's arms to reach pitifully for Kenobi's unconscious form.

Vader's newly rediscovered heart twisted in his chest like a broken gear. "Luke. Luke, he cannot help you. Look at me."

But Luke wouldn't look at him. Wouldn't stop crying.

How could such a small child have such powerful lungs? How could he already know so much fear?

The vocoder cloaked all Vader's words and inflections in a protective monotone, but it couldn't hide his desperation as he pleaded with his son. "Stop crying. Luke, please."

Vader didn't know what to do. He didn't know how to be a father. He couldn't even make his own son stop crying.

His gaze fell on the unconscious Jedi. Obi-Wan has always been good with children, even if he'd been a foolish old man who thought he could help them. He had tried to help Anakin Skywalker. He had tried to help Luke.

Luke. Beautiful, bright boy. He was strong in the Force, and even sickly he was full of life and Light like a third sun, still wailing his fear in his father's mechanical arms. He needed guidance. A teacher.

In what he would look back on as a moment of desperate madness, Vader held out a hand and called Obi-Wan's lightsaber to his hand. It obeyed, and he clipped it to his belt then levitated a still unconscious Obi-Wan off the sand. Then, with his son and his old master in his possession, the Sith strode onto his ship and left behind the endless, pitiless sands of Tatooine and the black smoke rolling into the pale sky.

He was dead. Vader had killed him, and he was dead on the Tatooine sands. At least he wouldn't be around to see what that monster was going to do with Luke.

But if he was dead, why did he have such a terrible kriffing headache? And why could he hear crying? Was the Force crying for its lost children again?

Ben opened one eye and found himself looking up at a ship's ceiling. He was lying on the floor, hands cuffed in front of him, and his legs at an odd angle like he'd been tossed in a heap like so much laundry. Under him, the cold metal floor shook with the rumble of a hyperspace engine. If he wasn't dead, what in the nine hells had happened?

Groaning, Ben sat up. Every bone in his back cracked. When had he gotten so old?

A respirator hissed in exhale. "I see you are awake."

Vader.

Ben snapped his gaze to the front of the ship where Vader stood near the control console with a still-wailing Luke in his arms. The boy was wrapped in the Sith's black cloak, which he clung to with tight fists.

Ben reached for his lightsaber, but it was gone. Where was it? Had he dropped it in the sand?

Vader held Luke stiffly, and the boy threw back his red-face and wailed. Crimson blotched his little face from what had to be hours of on and off crying. Vader's mask was frozen, but he tilted his head at an angle that seemed to indicate concern. "Why will he not stop?"

Ben ran a hand over his face, and the cuffs snagged on his beard. Luke had cried all the way from Polis Massa to Tatooine, all confusion and hurt and fear. Now he was crying in fear, in exhaustion.

"He will cry until he cries himself to sleep," Ben said.

"Why will he not be comforted?" The frustration in Vader's voice was evident, and Ben couldn't help the vicious pang of satisfaction he felt.

"You're scaring him. You're a stranger who took him from his home. From his family."

"I am his father." Vader's monotone stayed the same, but there was an edge of despair to it that seemed to transcend the voice modulator. In another life, it might have evoked pity from Ben, but he wouldn't allow himself to feel that now. The Jedi twisted his wrists, and the cuffs snapped and clattered to the floor. Seemed the Empire hadn't improved the quality of law enforcement. Ben kicked the cuffs aside and got to his feet with only a few joints popping.

If Vader was alarmed to see Ben slipping his restraints, he didn't show it. He just shifted Luke from one shoulder to the other while the boy continued to wail. The Sith and the Jedi stared at each other for a long tense moment, Vader's respirator keeping a steady tempo under Luke's crying. Ben wanted to comfort the boy. But Vader did not seem inclined to hand him over, and a fight in such close quarters would only end in injure to the child, and Ben couldn't risk that. He crossed his arms. "How did you find us?"

"That is your primary concern?"

Ben shrugged.

"I… have been having dreams." Vader almost seemed embarrassed, but that was preposterous.

Ben stared blankly at him. Then, "Of kriffing course you did."

Vader's respirator cycled, and a light on his chest flickered red. So much of him had been burning when Obi-Wan turned his back on Mustafar—

Ben shoved the memory aside and clamped down on his shields both to protect Luke and to hide from Vader.

How much had the Emperor been able to save? Enough for him to feel something for his son. Not enough to feel for Owen and Beru.

"You didn't have to kill them."

"They hid Luke from me. They deserved to die."

The vocoder made the pronouncement apathetic, but somehow that made it all the crueler. Rationalizing. Always looking for somewhere to lay the blame when Ben knew exactly where the blame went. He'd brought Luke to Owen and Beru, and now they were dead. But Vader had killed them, and Ben wouldn't take the blame for that. Biting back the urge to spit at Vader's feet, Ben crossed his arms. "I hid Luke from you. And yet you have not extended me the same courtesy."

"No, I have not."

"What's it to be then? Torture? Will you hand me over to your new master for a public execution?"

"Perhaps I should kill you now and spare myself your self-righteousness."

They stood glaring at each other, and Vader's anger simmered at a terrible rate, but Ben didn't care. Let Vader storm and rage and rampage. He'd destroyed everything the Jedi cared about a long time ago.

Almost everything.

Ben stuck out his arms. "Give him to me."

Vader looked down at his son and seemed about to argue.

"Do you want him to stop crying or not?"

Reluctantly, Vader handed the child over, cloak and all. Ben immediately stepped back several paces and turned his back to Vader, shielding Luke from his father's presence. "It's all right." He bounced the boy in slow motions. "It's all right now."

He had so little experience with children, none with younglings this small apart from a few shifts in the crèches to teach him patience. He wasn't sure it had worked. But he had raised two teenagers, and he had never killed children. A low bar to hurdle, but it did make him the most qualified person on the shuttle.

"It's going to be all right," he whispered. He didn't know if he was lying.

While Vader watched like a hawk from the cockpit, Ben paced the back of the shuttle for close to an hour until Luke cried himself into a fitful sleep. He was drooling on Ben's shoulder and had both fists full of Ben's tunic, but he was sleeping and peaceful. Thank the Force.

Reluctantly, he turned to Vader but kept his distance. "Where are we going?"

Click. Hiss. "My home."

Coruscant then. The thought of going back to that place stung harder than Ben had expected, but he kept his face at a stern neutrality. "You cannot be serious. The Emperor will kill him."

"He will not." Vader stabbed a finger at Ben like he wished it was a lightsaber. "I will never allow that."

"Because you've done such a good job getting what you want to this point."

"Be silent." Vader rose to his feet, all hulking six feet of him taking up the door. It would have been intimidating if Ben wasn't already sick of his dramatics. Is this what the galaxy had been dealing with for the past year?

"You are fortunate I allowed you to live."

"Yes, and why exactly is that, oh Sith Lord?"

Vader hesitated. His respirator cycled a few times before he answered. "I... require your assistance."

Ben felt his brain shorting out. He must have sustained some damage when Vader knocked him unconscious. "I beg your pardon?"

"Luke is small. Fragile. I have lost… enough. I will not lose Luke again. Obi-Wan." He bowed his head, fists clenched, and his next words sounded like they came through gritted teeth. "Given the choice, I would cut you down where you stand. But Luke needs you."

Ben closed his eyes. Maybe he was dead and this was some cosmic torture for his failures. Maybe he'd suffered heatstroke, and this was all a terrible dream as he baked under Tatooine's twin suns.

Luke shifted, smearing drool across his cheek. Ben looked down at the child-found and in danger. His to save.

And if he did not save him…

And if Vader knew about Luke, if he thought he had Padme's child, then she was still safe. He wouldn't even think her name in Vader's presence. It was too dangerous.

As long as she was safe, there was still hope.

The Jedi shuddered a sigh. "I swore to protect this boy. If you harm a hair on his head-"

Vader growled. "I would never-"

"-I will finish what I started on Mustafar. And this time I will not hesitate."

They stared at each other for a long time. Then Vader inclined his head and said mockingly, "I would expect nothing less from the great Obi-Wan Kenobi."

"Ben."

"What?"

"Ben. Obi-Wan died a long time ago." And Ben turned his back to the Sith and resumed pacing in the back of the small shuttle.

Author's Note:

This is actually a prequel to another AU about Luke and Leia I started which is much fluffier, but the angst was too good to pass up, so we're starting here.

Citations:

"Obi-Wan has always been good with children, even if he'd been a foolish old man who thought he could help them. He had tried to help Anakin Skywalker. He had tried to help Luke."

Borrowed from "An old man who thought he could help gifted children. He was mistaken." - Darth Vader, Star Wars comics (2015)

"Luke shifted, smearing drool across his cheek. Ben looked down at the child-found and in danger. His to save. And if he did not save him… "

Borrowed from "The chosen one Qui-Gon gave to us all, not proven, full of fear, and yours to save. And if you do not save him..." - Rogue Planet (2001)

Recommended Playlist for this AU:

No Children - The Mountain Goats (chapter titles taken from this song)

Thistle and Weeds - Mumford and Sons

Heirloom - Sleeping at Last

Uneven Odds - Sleeping at Last

True love - Coldplay

Constructive criticism welcome!