Author's note: Everything I know about the Inquisitors comes from either the Kenobi TV show or Wookieepedia (I haven't seen Rebels yet – something I hope to remedy soon!), so just wanted to add a little heads up that how I portray the Inquisitors here might not be canon compliant with Rebels.
(Cover image credit: xalala on Tumblr)
The comm came through just as Vader entered the moon's atmosphere, a red blinking light indicating that it was of the highest priority.
He had half a mind to ignore it. Nothing could be more important than the confrontation that awaited him. He could feel his old Master's presence on the ground below, could feel in the Force that Obi-Wan's strength had returned to him. This time the Jedi would put up the fight Vader had been seeking.
(This time he might even give Vader the death he'd denied him all those years ago, thought a small, weak voice inside the Sith—one that he quickly crushed.)
But something in the Force told him that the comm could not be put off. So as the shuttle swooped down, the grey atmosphere thickening with every kilometer it dropped, he hit the accept button.
A blue holo of the Grand Inquisitor rose out of the cockpit's instrument panel.
Voice dripping with displeasure, Vader said, "I trust you have good reason to disturb me at this crucial time."
"My apologies, my lord," the Grand Inquisitor intoned. "But it seems Third Sister is still clinging to life—"
"That is as I intended it."
"—and she has sent a recorded message for you that is of a most urgent and … personal … nature."
There was something about the way the Grand Inquisitor said "personal" that Vader disliked. It was as if the Pau'an were picking up someone's soiled undergarments and trying—but not quite succeeding—in hiding his disgust. But Vader didn't have time to get angry about that right now.
The Dark Lord said, "I have four minutes until I land. Show me the recording. Now."
"Straightaway, my lord."
Outside the cockpit, dense, smoke-colored clouds swirled by, the shuttle rattling as Vader piloted through a pocket of turbulence. While inside, the altimeter's display number steadily decreased, and the Grand Inquisitor's image gave way to a holo-recording of the Third Sister.
Even with a hood hiding part of her face in shadow, it was clear she was in bad shape—eyes puffy, skin covered in a thin sheen of sweat. A sight that brought Vader no small amount of satisfaction. For though it was true that he didn't want her dead, he did want her to suffer. He wanted the flame of her hatred for him to burn ever higher, for it was that hatred that made her stronger than all the other Inquisitors.
It was that hatred that made her the only one who might some day be worthy of becoming his apprentice and helping him to overthrow Palpatine.
But of course, as the events on Jabiim had shown, that day was still a long way off.
"Lord Vader," she said now, a trace of wooziness in her voice. "Or since we're being so honest about our identities now, should I say, Anakin Skywalker."
Irritation spiked through Vader. Was this what the Grand Inquisitor had found so urgent? The Pau'an had once been a Jedi Temple Guard; he knew full well that the Third Sister knew whose ashes Vader had risen from. He should've known better than to distract the Sith with this now.
The Third Sister went on. "You know, Anakin—you're not the only one who knows people's secrets. For instance, did you know that it was the talk of the Temple rumor mill that you were having an affair with Senator Padmé Amidala?"
And suddenly, Vader wasn't irritated anymore—he was genuinely blindsided. The mention of Padmé was like a finger jabbed into an infected wound, the pain shocking and momentarily eclipsing all thought.
"Did you know that when the sludge news figured out that she was pregnant, there were Padawans taking bets that the baby was yours?"
And now pain turned to rage. The shuttle rattled alarmingly, and it wasn't from turbulence. How dare she, how dare she speak of his lost child—
"And did you know that that child …" The Third Sister paused as if to savor the moment, a cruel smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. She leaned closer to the holo-cam and lowered her voice until it was soft as a lullaby. "And did you know that that child—is alive?"
"Impossible," Vader said. Whispered really, so that the only sound that came out of the vocoder was a hiss of static. But the Force rang with the truth of what she was saying. Rang so loudly that he almost didn't hear what came next.
"From what I've put together, seems like good old Kenobi had him hidden away here on Tatooine all this time. But don't worry—your little boy won't be on this dust ball for long." She straightened up, expression turning stone cold. "Because I'm going to kill him. That's right—I'm only ten minutes from his home. By the time you get this message, I'll be at his door. And the next time I'm in touch? Will be to show you his dead body." Her hand hovered over the button to end the comm. "Until then. Good-bye. Anakin."
The recording winked out. With an anguished bellow, Vader pounded his fist down on the comm unit, smashing it in a flurry of sparks before the Grand Inquisitor could come back on the line. He was reeling so badly that he nearly flew right into one of the rocky spires that studded the moon. He jerked the shuttle to the side, just barely missing the thing, speeding blindly toward the ground, mind a maelstrom of memories—
The baby kicking his hand when he'd rubbed Padmé's belly. The glimmer of light inside her, like a little glow worm in the Force. The tiny unformed mind that had brushed curiously against his when he'd sent it love and reassurance.
When he'd sent her—he'd been so convinced it was a girl. But after all these years, it turned out Padmé was right. It was a boy. Vader didn't even know his name, but it was a boy and—
He'd be dead before Vader even got the chance to see him.
And it was Obi-Wan's fault.
With quick, vicious movements, he killed the thrusters and kicked in the shuttle's repulsorlifts just in time to avoid diving nose first into the ground. The shuttle abruptly leveled out. And as soon as it touched down, he let his fury explode outwards, the hull bursting apart at the seams all around him.
Something was happening.
As Obi-Wan stood waiting on the barren moon, at the edge of a forest of rock towers, he felt it in the Force. Anakin's shuttle (Vader's shuttle, Obi-Wan tried to correct himself) was drawing steadily closer, the haze in the sky forming blurry halos around its lights. When all of a sudden, a barrage of emotions started coming from the ship. Shock. Panic. Spiraling rage that was even more frenzied than what Obi-Wan had felt on Jabiim when Anakin had ripped the decoy transport from the sky. And in the midst of all that, like the eye at the center of a monstrous storm—Obi-Wan sensed just the barest flicker of light. Of hope.
It was so startling that the Jedi actually gasped. Then it was gone, and Anakin's ship was swooping down like a bird of prey, and Obi-Wan wondered if he'd just imagined it. If it was his own dying hope for his old friend that he'd projected outward.
He didn't have much time to speculate. No sooner did Anakin land than a black geyser of wrath erupted out of him and into the Force, blasting his entire shuttle apart as if it were made of nothing more than flimsi.
As the shrieks and groans of rent metal died away, he came charging out of the wreckage, one hand already raised, already pulling at the rock formations behind Obi-Wan with the Force. To the tune of cracking stone, Obi-Wan ignited his saber, and turned just in time for a flying boulder to smash itself against his blade. He grunted, the impact nearly knocking him over, rock fragments raining down around him.
"So we're just going to jump right into this, are we?" he called back to Anakin.
"You stole him from me!" the Sith shouted, lighting his saber.
Two more strides and he was upon Obi-Wan, their blades crashing and humming together—while Obi-Wan thought, No.
No, those words couldn't mean what he thought they did.
He ducked as Anakin swung wildly at his head, then jumped back, just barely avoiding a swipe to his chest.
"You aren't making any sense," Obi-Wan said. He parried a strike, then took his own swing at Anakin, the other man dodging.
"LIAR," Anakin roared.
Then the Sith attacked with a fury that outmatched even what he'd done on Mustafar. Their blades clashed and clashed again in a flurry of strikes and blocks, sparks flying from the sabers each time they met, until Anakin got an opening, grabbed the back of Obi-Wan's tunic, and literally just flung him headfirst toward the ground.
"It isn't enough that you put me in this suit," Anakin said.
Obi-Wan rolled out of the fall and onto one knee.
"You had to take my son from me. You had to take the only thing I had left."
Obi-Wan turned to block the blade coming down on him like a hammer blow, the bloody light of it reflecting in Anakin's looming mask. Only one thought left in Obi-Wan's mind now: that if Anakin knew about Luke, then he had to win. He wasn't just fighting for himself anymore.
Still on one knee, he parried another flurry of strikes, until finally, he managed to catch Anakin's blade on a downward swing and hold it back long enough to stand.
"For Force's sake," Obi-Wan said, the two men circling each other with their blades still connected—crossed so that their tips pointed at the ground. "You'd just strangled Padmé. You really think I was going to hand a newborn over to you?"
With an enraged growl, Anakin circled his saber around Obi-Wan's and knocked his blade to the side, Obi-Wan just barely hanging onto the hilt as the blow sent him staggering backwards.
"I had to protect him from you," Obi-Wan said. He regained his footing, and came back in with a thrust aimed at Anakin's chest plate.
The other man batted it away. "Protect him?"
He swung at Obi-Wan's left side and the Jedi blocked.
"Protect him?!" Anakin spun around, lightsaber extended, a sweeping windmill of death that nearly took Obi-Wan's head off. "Do not mock me."
Getting behind Anakin, Obi-Wan aimed for each of his sides in turn, but the Sith easily parried without even turning around.
"You have not protected him." Anakin whirled and slashed at Obi-Wan's neck, the Jedi ducking again. "You have killed him! He is dead and it is because of your treachery."
And suddenly, Obi-Wan faltered. Anakin drove him backwards toward the rock spires with blow after bone-shaking blow, and it was only thanks to muscle memory that he was able to block the strikes. Because, to his horror, he realized there was truth in Anakin's words. But did they feel true simply because Anakin believed them?
Or was Luke actually dead?
As that terrible thought crossed Obi-Wan's mind, he caught a blow from Anakin that was aimed at his face, their sabers pressing against each other, the two of them staring each other down through the glowing, crackling X that the blades made.
"Wait," Obi-Wan gasped, straining to push Anakin back—but also straining to find Luke's presence in the Force.
"I have waited long enough to give you what you deserve." And in a flash, Anakin took one hand from his saber hilt to yank at something with the Force. A boulder rammed into Obi-Wan's feet, knocking them clean out from under him.
Obi-Wan landed hard on his side with a groan, then instantly scrambled to his feet, getting out of the way just as Anakin brought his blade down where the Jedi had fallen. The saber made a sound like a whip as it hit the ground and cracked the stone beneath their feet.
Obi-Wan backed away, putting more distance between them as Anakin stalked forward.
"Luke might not be dead," Obi-Wan said. "I don't know why you think that, or how you found out about him, but I have watched over him since the moment he was born, and I should have felt it if he died."
And Obi-Wan could hardly believe it, but just like that—the Sith stopped in his tracks.
He clenched the gloved hand that wasn't holding his saber, and Obi-Wan could practically feel it as he reined his anger in, like a man struggling to hold a snarling, slavering dog on a tight leash.
"Luke," Anakin said, sounding the name out carefully. "That is … his name?"
"Yes," Obi-Wan panted.
"And you can sense him in the Force?" the Sith asked, bitter resentment coloring his voice—along with something else that Obi-Wan wouldn't have thought him capable of feeling:
And that was desperate hope.
The same hope that the Jedi had felt from his former Padawan when the man's ship was approaching.
Obi-Wan said, "I am searching for him in the Force now."
"So help me, but if this is a trick to delay your inevitable demise—"
"I found him," Obi-Wan blurted, soon as he touched the boy's presence, relief flooding through him as he did. "He's alive. I swear he's alive. He is in imminent danger, but if we act now, there's a chance that we can save him."
Anakin was already turning on his heels, cape billowing behind him as he walked away. "We will use your ship," he said over his shoulder, "since I was forced to destroy mine when I discovered your deception."
It was the kind of comment that should've exasperated Obi-Wan, but at the moment, he was too floored by his former Padawan's literal and metaphorical about-face for it to register. He rushed to catch up with the black behemoth striding away from him, deactivating his saber and clipping it to his belt when he saw—to his amazement—that Anakin was doing the same with his own.
"And make no mistake," Anakin thundered, "I am only keeping you alive because you can lead me to the boy. Once he is safe with me, I will end you, Obi-Wan."
"I would expect nothing less," Obi-Wan said dryly. Though deep inside his tightly shielded mind, he was thinking the exact opposite: That once Luke was safe, the Jedi would have to end Anakin in order to keep the boy out of his father's depraved hands.
The short trip to Tatooine was maybe the tensest flight that Obi-Wan had ever been on. Anakin insisted on piloting the ship and kicked Obi-Wan out of the cockpit, banishing the Jedi to the passenger area and ordering him to stay there under threat of physical pain. Even with a closed door between them, though, traveling in a small ship together made Obi-Wan feel like he was in the mouth of a krayt dragon, the Sith's menacing Force presence enveloping him like needle teeth.
Making matters worse was how conflicted Obi-Wan felt, caught as he was between hope and despair.
He couldn't believe he'd fought so hard to protect Leia only to end up here: forced to lead the Sith Lord straight to his other child, all because Reva had somehow found Luke out (a situation that Anakin had angrily explained on their walk to the ship).
At the same time, Obi-Wan wasn't blind to the change in Anakin's behavior. For the first time since Mapuzo—since Mustafar—his former Padawan wasn't actively trying to kill him. For the first time since Obi-Wan watched Anakin cut down younglings all those years ago, it seemed like the Sith might care about something other than power. It seemed like he might actually care about Luke.
But of course, he'd cared for Padmé, and look what he did to her.
Sitting with the glow of hyperspace streaking by outside the windows, Obi-Wan's mind circled round this track again and again. Every so often, a worrying spike of fear from Luke interrupted his thoughts—as did Anakin himself, who stormed into the passenger berth every few minutes demanding to know if his son was still alive. Obi-Wan reassured him that Luke was, though unfortunately for the both of them that was all he could discern.
It was on the fourth or fifth time that Anakin came back that he entered the passenger berth holding Lola in one hand.
Obi-Wan's mouth went dry at the sight. In the rush to get to Luke, he'd completely forgotten that he'd left the droid on the ship's dashboard. She beeped uncertainly in the Sith's hand, wing panels flapping, and Obi-Wan tensed, suddenly afraid that Anakin would figure out Leia's identity from Lola (an irrational fear maybe, but anything seemed possible at this point).
For a long moment, Anakin said nothing. Just stood in the aisle between the rows of bucket seats, staring down at the toy droid, helmet tilted in a way that almost looked mournful.
A few rows away from the Sith, Obi-Wan sat up a little straighter in his window seat, about to say that yes, Luke was still alive—when the other man spoke.
"Luke was the name that I favored," he said, still looking at Lola. "Padmé was convinced we were having a boy, and she wanted to name him Narmlé, after some dead Nabooian king. She thought it was dignified. I told her it was ridiculous and fusty, and that on the slim chance she was more prescient about the child's gender than I, that we should give him a strong, simple name instead. We never did get around to discussing names for a girl. We thought we had … time."
A pause. Obi-Wan was almost afraid to breathe, lest he break the spell. Was Anakin actually opening up to him?
"After everything," Anakin went on, "she still gave him the name that I wanted."
He stated this matter-of-factly, in that strange new voice of his that was as emotionally flat as it was resonant. But Obi-Wan could feel the man's regret in the Force, the unbearable weight of it. Suddenly, his mind was ringing with the question that had plagued him almost every day for the past ten years: Why? Why did Anakin do any of it?
But Anakin had already told him on Mustafar, hadn't he? That he did it for the Empire—his empire, as he'd put it. So Obi-Wan shelved the question, and tried a different tack.
"I didn't know," he said softly. "I never knew why she named him Luke. She … died, just minutes after giving birth."
Anakin's free hand clenched into a fist at that, the ship trembling ominously. He still didn't look up from Lola.
"But her final words," Obi-Wan said, leaning forward, "were that she believed there was still good in you."
Then Anakin's helmet whipped in his direction. He could almost feel the man's gaze stabbing into him from behind the eye plates. "Then she died believing a delusion," the Sith said.
He held Lola up and the toy chittered nervously.
"What child did this belong to?" Anakin asked, his voice and Force presence venomous once more. Any and all hints of his humanity gone.
"A child who needed my help," Obi-Wan said firmly.
"The Organa brat, you mean. That trifling girl for whom you abandoned my son."
Obi-Wan started to retort, even as his heart clenched at the way Anakin spoke of his own daughter. "It is because of your own Force-damned Inquisitors that I had to—"
An electronic wail cut him off as the Sith crushed Lola between his hands. A second later, he let the crumpled pieces of Leia's beloved companion fall to the floor.
"Spare me your excuses," Anakin said. "I promised that I will end you once Luke is safe, and I will make you another promise now—which is that, if he is hurt in any way, I will do to that girl whatever it is that Third Sister does to him. And I will make you watch before I kill you."
A chill ran down Obi-Wan's spine. "And here I was starting to think you might not be a complete monster."
"You never were capable of understanding me, my old Master."
Obi-Wan didn't get the chance to think up a response. A heart-stopping vision gripped him: Blind terror coming from Luke. His small form tumbling down a rocky slope in the night, his body gripped by a dark power.
"What is it?" Anakin took a long step closer. "Tell me what is happening."
And Obi-Wan could feel the stricken look in his own eyes as he said, "She has him."
A/N: One more note! It didn't fit in the fic anywhere, so I also just wanted to explain that I've always headcanoned that Luke and Leia were so psychically close in utero that they basically came across as having a single Force signature. So that's my explanation for why Anakin couldn't figure out there were two babies, even though he was connecting with them in the Force while Padmé was pregnant.
Anyway, thanks so much for reading and I hope you're enjoying the fic so far!
