A/N: A big shout out to Kefalion's awesome "Vainly Deny the Past then Dazedly Reconcile the Future" over on Archive of Our Own. That fic inspired parts of this chapter, and I'd definitely recommend it if you're looking for other fics that rewrite the end of the Kenobi series.


Maybe Obi-Wan would never know what possessed him.

After Anakin had threatened to hurt Leia, the Jedi had hardened his resolve to kill him, and had spent the rest of the trip here strategizing ways to take Anakin down. Would Obi-Wan have to seize the moment and do it in front of Luke, or would he at least be able to wait until the boy was back with the Larses? Should he wait until Anakin attacked (because surely the Sith would), or would it be wiser for Obi-Wan to initiate their final duel?

These were the cold questions that had occupied Obi-Wan's mind, the sick feeling in his stomach over what he would have to do matched only by his iron determination to see it through.

Then Reva made her move—an impulsive strike that not even he saw coming—and his body and heart betrayed him. Betrayed the children.

Gasping, Anakin staggered back from her blow, his helmet split open, his chest panel slashed, sparking and smoking, and as she swung to take his head off—

Obi-Wan found himself between them, her red blade crashing against his blue one like lava meeting the ocean.

He made short work of her after that. She was hurt (had Anakin done that to her?), weakened, and the strength she'd marshaled to strike the Sith quickly petered out. In a few moves, Obi-Wan had her disarmed and on the ground, the split hilt of her saber in his hand.

Looking down at her, he retracted her blade so that only his blue one lit the canyon now, washing the jagged walls and rocky floor in sapphire light. Throwing monstrous shadows everywhere. Panting, she groaned in pain and clutched at her stomach where she lay. While a few meters away, on Obi-Wan's other side, Anakin knelt, head bowed, wheezing horribly, Luke standing next to him with one hand on the Sith's shoulder, plaintively asking, "Father, are you okay? Are you okay?"

"I knew you couldn't do it," Reva seethed at Obi-Wan.

Her fury wasn't as hard to bear as the hurt—the deep sense of being forsaken—that lay behind it.

As it slowly sank in for Obi-Wan what he'd done—who he'd saved—he looked at Anakin. The man who had been a tower of strength just moments earlier. Now reduced to a piteous subhuman creature. Laboring for breath, he met the Jedi's gaze with a bloodshot golden eye. The rest of his face that was visible through the mask looking like a pale moon that asteroids had bombarded for eons. A sight that brought tears to Obi-Wan's eyes.

This ruin of a man had once been his brother. And Obi-Wan had done this to him. Had scarred and mutilated him. He'd managed to do that—and yet time after time, he found that he couldn't kill him.

Not when Anakin was burning and it would've been a mercy.

Especially not now, when he'd just witnessed the instant affection between the man and his son.

Not ever.

"You were right," Obi-Wan said to Reva, voice hollow.

"You disgust me," she said. She spit at the ground near his feet. "He slaughtered the Jedi. He murdered children in cold blood."

"Vengeance will not bring them back."

"But it'll keep other people alive. What about the people he's going to kill and corrupt tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that? He's going to go back out there and ruin countless other lives—" Her eyes locked on a shaken Luke. "—starting with that kid's. And you're really going to let him do it."

Obi-Wan never got a chance to try to think of a response—to try to put the instinct he'd acted on into words.

Because Luke spoke instead.

"You're the one," he said to Anakin, in a soft, utterly devastated voice.

He lifted his hand from his father's shoulder and slowly backed up, heartbroken gaze fixed on the Sith.

"Luke," Anakin said, his real voice audible beyond the vocoder's bass for the first time since Mapuzo—another stab in Obi-Wan's gut.

"You're the one. You killed her family."

Anakin reached for the boy's hand. "You do not understand—"

"No!" Luke snatched his hand back. "No, don't touch me!"

He stumbled away, only turning back around when he was next to Reva and Obi-Wan.

"Luke, please," Anakin pleaded. "I did it for you!"

"What?" Obi-Wan asked, shock rippling through him. What did that even mean?

"But why?" Luke asked. He sounded like he was about to cry.

Anakin's mask sizzled and spewed sparks for a moment, and he sucked in a strangled breath. When his suit seemed to stabilize again, he said, in that eerie double voice, "Sometimes, I see the future. It is a curse. When your mother was pregnant, I was tormented by visions that she would die and you with her. But a very powerful man promised me that he could teach me to defeat death itself. In return, all I had to do was pledge myself to him, and do his bidding."

And suddenly everything clicked in Obi-Wan's horrified mind.

"Wait," he said. "Are you saying that Palpatine promised to save Padmé and Luke in exchange for you killing …"

He trailed off. He didn't need a verbal confirmation. Gazing into Anakin's terrible glittering eye, he knew it was true.

He blurted the first thought that made it to his lips. "But Anakin—Palpatine killed Padmé. If saving her was your aim, then how could you continue serving him after all these years—"

The sheer animal rage that contorted the Sith's face cut Obi-Wan off.

"He killed her?" Anakin growled.

"Stars, you didn't know," Obi-Wan said. "He never told you."

"He told me that I k—" Anakin bit off the word and looked to Luke, whose expression had turned solemn and far too old for his years as he listened. The Dark Lord seemed to reconsider his phrasing. "He told me that I was responsible for her death. And even after I discovered Luke, I merely assumed that … she succumbed to her injuries after giving birth."

"No, he drained the life out of her," Obi-Wan said quietly. "I felt it. I felt his presence all over her and I … I couldn't get it off. It was like oil coating a bird's feathers. She fought so hard—she hung on for Luke." He looked at the boy, who met his gaze with sad eyes (who shouldn't have been hearing any of this—not in this way—but it was too late now). "But once he was born and she knew he was okay …"

Anakin loosed a deranged wail. It echoed around the canyon, the sound all the more chilling because of the way the broken vocoder distorted his voice.

While Obi-Wan hung his head and closed his eyes. How could he have been so wrong? All this time, he'd thought that Anakin wanted a throne and that he'd viewed Padmé and the younglings as mere obstacles on his way to getting one.

All this time, Obi-Wan had thought this was about power—but it was about love.

"It's no excuse," Reva said, as if responding to the Jedi's thoughts.

Her voice was choked, and when he looked at where she sat beyond Luke, he saw that tears were rolling down her cheeks.

With another strangled wheeze, Anakin staggered to his feet, as if readying himself to attack her.

But then Reva went on, gaze fixed on the ground in front of her. "For years, I've told myself that everything I've done is justified, because I did it in the name of the people I loved. But it's no excuse." Her face crumpled and her eyes sought out Obi-Wan's. "I thought that he and I were so different. But we're not, are we? I am him."

"Maybe so," Obi-Wan said gently.

"Do not be ridiculous," Anakin said. "I am exceptional. There is no one like me."

A bittersweet smile touched Obi-Wan's lips. He continued addressing Reva. "Maybe we're both like Anakin. But not in the way that you're thinking. Today, you set out to do something terrible to avenge those you lost—that we lost." His eyes flickered over Luke. "But you chose not to do it. You chose mercy over anger." He turned to Anakin then. "And you could've killed me on that moon tonight. But you didn't. You chose your son over hatred." He held the other man's gaze for a long moment. "And I could've let you die, just now. But I didn't."

Anakin actually rolled his one visible eye. "And pray tell us—we are dying to know—what did you choose, my old Master?"

"I chose you over fear," Obi-Wan said. "I chose you."

And for a second, Anakin actually looked taken aback.

For a second, he looked deeply moved, his unprotected face revealing things that not even his Force presence gave away.

Then he turned so that the side of his face still covered by the mask was all Obi-Wan could see.

But Obi-Wan had seen enough.

Anakin asked, "Do you expect me to give you a medal for that?"

"I mean, a thank you would be nice," Obi-Wan said.

"Indeed it would. Pity I learned my manners from a man who did not believe in expressing even a shred of positive sentiment."

Obi-Wan waved his hand in the air, determined not to get derailed into another argument. "Regardless, my point is, we all could've given into the Dark Side of the Force tonight. To anger. To hatred. To fear. But we didn't. You didn't." He looked between Anakin and Reva. "You chose the Light."

Reva made a noise that was somewhere between a scoff and a sob. "Great. So what now? We hold hands and sing together?"

"No," Luke broke in. He still sounded upset—but also fed up. "You keep not killing each other. And stop killing other people, too, while you're at it."

Anakin said, "It is not that simple, young one."

"I'm pretty sure it is."

"There are other people in this galaxy who would kill you for being my son, and you will not win them over so easily as this one." Anakin jerked his head toward Reva. "I swear to you, I will not leave anyone alive who is a threat to you."

"Okay, but you can still leave everyone else alive." And scowling at the Sith, Luke put his hands on his hips.

He reminded Obi-Wan so much of Leia—so much of their father—in that moment.


There was so much they all still needed to discuss, to work out, that it made Obi-Wan's head spin. But for the time being, he had to focus on getting the group back to civilization, or what passed for it on Tatooine anyway. Reva needed medical attention much more than she needed talk. Anakin was holding up fairly well with the Force, but he'd need to get his suit repaired soon (surreal though it still was to think of helping the man).

And Luke needed his aunt and uncle. Though what would happen to the boy once he was reunited with the Larses, now that Anakin knew the truth about him—well, Obi-Wan could only hope, perhaps delusionally, for the best.

Their little band of walking wounded had just started to head back to where the speeder was parked when Obi-Wan heard the vehicle approaching in the distance. The sound cut through the desert chorus of far-off, howling anoobas and pulsating insects—not the hum of a speeder, but a lower rumble that he recognized as coming from one of the lumbering Hover-Utes used for work in the vaporator fields. So the Larses hadn't waited at the homestead after all—and who could blame them?

Luke recognized the sound of the Hover-Ute, too. As they'd set out, Anakin had tried to speak with the boy some more, but Luke had declared that he didn't want to talk to his father—that he didn't want to talk to any of them—and had promptly stomped off to walk several feet ahead of the group with his arms crossed, head down. A not unreasonable reaction, Obi-Wan thought, considering everything that had transpired tonight.

But now Luke's head popped up and his sense brightened in the Force. A moment later, headlight beams swung around a corner of the canyon some ways up ahead of them, ruining Obi-Wan's night vision. Luke set off at a hobbling run toward the twin lights bearing down on them, Anakin lengthening his strides to keep up, and Obi-Wan and Reva following suit.

Obi-Wan couldn't see the Larses behind the burning white lights, but he could hear them calling Luke's name, and Luke called theirs back, over and over again, until the distance between them had closed. The Hover-Ute rolled to a stop, its engine still running. Owen and Beru jumped out of the open-air operator's cabin and rushed to the boy. He in turn flung himself into his aunt's arms and burst into tears.

"Oh, Luke. Luke." On her knees, Beru clutched him to her. "My baby. Oh, you must've been so scared." She stroked his head and murmured into his hair, like a mantra, "You're safe now. You're safe now."

"Are you hurt?" Owen asked, crouching beside the two of them. He shot a wary look at Obi-Wan and the two Dark Siders who hovered nearby. "They do something to you?"

Still sobbing into Beru's shoulder, Luke blubbered something about his ankle. Like Leia, he'd been holding himself together remarkably well, but he was clearly letting it all out now that he was back with people he trusted. Now that he was back with his family.

"All right, well, we'll get that wrapped up when we get home," Owen said gently. "But that's nothin' to waste water crying about, kiddo."

He clasped Luke's shoulder and the boy nodded, face still contorted with sadness as he swiped at it and sniffled.

Owen said, "Stay strong, okay? It's over."

But of course, it wasn't over at all. It was just beginning—this new era in which it wouldn't just be Obi-Wan and the Larses arguing over Luke, but Obi-Wan, the Larses, and a certain Dark Lord of the Sith.

It was beginning right now.

"Do not tell him he cannot cry." Anakin stepped forward, radiating indignation in the Force—along with suffocating jealousy. "Emotions are the key to the Dark Side. He must learn to embrace them, not suppress them like some Jedi weakling."

"You are not training him in the Dark Side," Obi-Wan said, doing his best to channel Owen. "Do you honestly want what happened to you to happen to Luke?"

"Never fear, my old Master. I will be sure to advise him not to do a front flip over your head."

Meanwhile Owen had stood up along with Beru, the two of them moving with the caution of people trying not to make any sudden movements in the face of a predator.

Without taking his eyes off Anakin, Owen said, "Beru, get Luke back home. I'm going to stay behind and make sure Ben"—he shot Obi-Wan an accusatory look—"actually has everything under control here."

But no sooner had Beru started to guide Luke back toward the Hover-Ute—than the boy cried out "No!" at the exact same time as his father. The boy's voice plaintive; the man's somehow imperious and forlorn all at once.

"Wait," Luke said. "We have to take him with us."

Mouths gaping, the Larses looked between him and the Sith—at the two Skywalkers mirroring each other, each standing with a hand outstretched toward the other.

"And here I thought you did not want to associate with me, young one," Anakin said, the forced amusement in his tone not quite hiding the quiet sadness underneath.

Lowering his arm, Luke said, "I'm still mad at you. Don't think I'm not." He sniffled again, and blinked away the last of his tears. "But you're my father."

"Sweetheart," Beru said, "there's no way in nine hells that that man is your …" She trailed off as she finally seemed to really see Anakin's face, every line and scar of it harshly illuminated by the headlights. "… your father," she whispered.

"I have traveled every road in hell," Anakin said, "and I can assure you that one of the more pleasant ones did indeed lead me to sire this child whom you have claimed as your own."

"Anakin." Owen's voice was suddenly thick with emotion. "You're alive."

"Anakin Skywalker is dead—"

"Does not go by that name anymore," Obi-Wan cut in smoothly, earning himself a murderous glare from the Sith. "He is known as Vader now. But yes, Luke's father—Shmi's son—he lives. I didn't know myself until this past week."

Until this very night, he thought, as he looked in wonder at the man at his side.

"How the hell'd you end up like this?" Owen asked Anakin.

"Was it the Empire?" Beru asked. Her eyes cut toward Reva, who just gave a dark chuckle, followed by a wince as that upset her wound.

"I'm sorry I attacked you and your boy," Reva said. "I was wrong. I know that now. But don't blame me for what happened to him."

"It was me," Obi-Wan blurted, before he could think better of it.

All eyes snapped to him, but he only met one of them: the golden eye that stared out at him from within a broken mask.

"It is my fault that you are in this suit," he went on. "And I am so sorry for that, Anakin. For everything."

At that admission, horror rolled off Reva in the Force. She was the only one present who seemed to grasp what it meant, aside from Anakin himself of course.

"I knew it," Owen was saying, shaking his head. "I knew it. What'd I tell you, Beru?" He looked to Obi-Wan. "Ana—Vader followed you on one of your damn fool Jedi crusades, and it got him killed. Or nearly killed, from the looks of it."

He gestured roughly at Anakin's burned face.

But to Obi-Wan's utter shock, Anakin simply said, "No."

Obi-Wan could feel his eyebrows shoot up, his eyes widening.

"You did not do this, Obi-Wan. I did this to myself."

His voice rang with a kind of disturbing pride, and confusion and unease from the Larses now mingled with Reva's abating horror.

There was something else in the Force, too, though—something that was deeply remorseful and coming from the Sith. He held Obi-Wan's gaze for a long moment after his declaration and the Jedi gave a slight nod of acknowledgement in return, letting his own immense gratitude leak out into the air around them. As a weight that he'd borne for ten years suddenly lifted.

Was it enough? Obi-Wan wondered, as he studied his old friend. These little snatches of humanity that he'd been seeing from Anakin ever since the man discovered Luke. Was it enough to free him from the Dark Side's grip?

Obi-Wan honestly didn't know. But at some point tonight—he didn't know when exactly—he'd become committed to finding out.

It was Owen who broke the spell. "Do you wizards ever say anything straight?" he asked.

"I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for it," Reva said.


Ultimately, it was decided that Luke would stay with the Larses for the indefinite future. Or to be more accurate, Vader ordered them to keep the boy while he accelerated his longstanding plan to kill the Emperor.

Not that the Larses would have wanted to do anything different. Even before they learned the truth about what Vader had done, he'd sensed the conflict within them—the happiness that he was alive (a strange thing to feel from these people he barely knew), but also the fear that his return would mean the loss of their adopted child.

And once they did learn the truth (Luke told them on the way back to the homestead, with a guileless openness that Vader would need to school out of him), needless to say, it made them doubt whether he was fit to be a father.

The opinion of simple farmers was of no import to a Sith, though.

"Think of me what you wish," Vader told them. "It is inconsequential. So long as you keep the boy safe and hidden, that is all I care about for the time being."

"Well, that's all we care about, too," Owen said. "So we're in agreement then."

The whole group was gathered outside the domed entrance to the homestead, the sky lightening from black to dusty indigo above their heads. Beru and the Third Sister sat in the Larses speeder with a thermos of caf in the cupholder, ready for the long drive to the Mos Eisley med center. While the men stood around the vehicle with Luke leaning into his uncle's side, the older man's arm around the boy's thin shoulders. It should've been Vader's arm embracing his son, but the pain he felt from seeing someone else in his place would be useful. It would fuel him in his quest to defeat his Master, and the sooner that was done, the sooner it would be safe for Luke to be at his side.

Having refused to go to bed while the adults were still up, Luke yawned hugely now, looking like he was about to fall asleep on his feet.

"Uncle Owen, Aunt Beru," Luke said drowsily, "you'll still let Father visit us, too, right?"

"It is not up to them," Vader said, "for they could not stop me even if they wanted to. All the krayt dragons of Tatooine could not stop me from seeing you."

Owen muttered, "Looks like we know now where Luke gets his dramatic side from."

But Vader hardly noticed the impertinent remark, because Luke's face had lit up with a smile that made his heart flip.

"Good," Luke said, "because I do really want to see you."

And to Vader's astonishment, Owen added, "I do, too. What you've done, it … I'm not gonna pretend that I like it. But Shmi would've wanted us to be in each other's lives. Like Luke said—you're still family."

"I am not your family," Vader grumbled. "I have no family anymore, save the boy. But you have cared for him when I could not, and for that I will concede that you and your wife are … valuable assets."

Owen just rolled his eyes, while Beru arched an eyebrow.

"So I guess we're not such unsatisfactory guardians after all, huh?" she asked.

Vader would have loved to fire off a scathing retort, but he paused to measure his words. Acutely aware of Luke watching him with those huge, innocent eyes of his.

"I was concerned about the boy," he said stiffly. "And because of that, it is possible that I … spoke rashly."

At that, he sensed a tiny bit of smugness from Beru in the Force, but to his surprise, it quickly melted into genuine understanding.

She gave him a warm close-lipped smile before turning a wistful gaze on Luke. "Loving a child'll do that to a person," she said.

Beside her, in the speeder's passenger seat, the Third Sister spoke up then. "So you're really going to try to take on the Emperor, huh?"

"I am not merely going to try. I am going to succeed," Vader said. "And I will say now—if you swear to channel your thirst for revenge away from me and toward Sidious—you are welcome to join me on this mission. I must eliminate the Grand Inquisitor anyway now that he knows of Luke's existence. If you wish to wear his badge again, you need only say the word."

The Third Sister just gave him an incredulous look. "You're joking. Right? Or let me guess." She held up a finger. "This is a trap. Some scheme to keep me close so you can get back at me when I'm least expecting it."

Vader snorted. "If I were planning to continue our dance of revenge, I would never do anything so transparent. No, I am utterly serious. This is no machination. I may be the sword that cut down the Jedi, but the Emperor is the hand that guided me. That makes him your enemy just as much as he is mine—and I would know better than anyone just how impressively ruthless you are in pursuit of your enemies. Just as importantly, you have clearly developed an attachment to my son and can be trusted to protect him. All of these are qualities I desire in my right hand. In my apprentice."

As he finished, the Third Sister thickened her shields, but not so quickly that he didn't catch the flare of emotion within her as he made it clear what he was proposing. He felt her panic—and also her pulse-quickening hunger. Her reaction not unlike that of a struggling addict who's just been presented with their spice of choice.

He certainly hoped that, in this case at least, she would be just as weak as addicts were.

"Reva," Obi-Wan said softly, a gentle plea in his tone.

The Inquisitor held up a gauntleted hand. "This is my decision," she said.

She leveled her gaze at Vader, eyes considering—calculating—while all the rest of the group glanced between her and the Sith.

"And my answer," she said, expression turning steely, "is no. I'm done." She shook her head. "I just can't keep living like this. I can't keep fooling myself into thinking it'll make the galaxy a better place."

Vader's wrath stirred anew in his veins at her words, dropping the temperature of the air around them. If she would not join him—if she dared to refuse the honor of becoming his apprentice, then so be it. She had outlived her usefulness, and he would finally dispose of her.

But even as he thought this, he was aware, again, of Luke watching him anxiously. Everyone was watching him, holding their breaths, tensing for his response, but it was only Luke's gaze that mattered to the Sith.

And as he met his son's eyes, he was transported to another time and place for just a second: Padmé's apartment on Coruscant, the two of them lounging on her sofa, her swollen feet in his lap. As he'd kneaded their soles, she'd told him about all the things she'd had to give up for the sake of the baby: full strength caf and Nabooian blossom wine, raw oysters from Mon Cala and fried eggs with runny yolks. So many little pleasures, dropped the minute her home med scanner gave her that positive result.

He'd made some kind of joke. "You have to drink decaf sludge now? Screw this baby." And she'd kicked him lightly and they'd laughed. All the while, he thought with utmost seriousness about the things that he wanted to give up for this child, if only the Jedi would let him. The war. The killing. The hypocrisy of being a peacekeeper who kept the peace with a blade.

He was going to be a father and he needed to be different, he'd thought—better.

Then all those well-meaning thoughts were driven from his head by his first nightmare about Padmé dying.

A nightmare it seemed he had never woken up from.

Until tonight.

"Very well," Vader finally said. Exhausted though he was with his suit functioning below capacity, he took a threatening step toward the speeder, and jabbed a finger at the Third Sister. "Do not breathe a word of my son's existence to anyone. Do not attempt to contact any Imperial authorities ever again. Do not get in my way. If you agree to abide by these terms—"

"I do," the Third Sister said quickly.

"Then I release you, Reva Sevander, from your service to the Empire."

For a second, she just gaped at him, as if she didn't actually believe him. But then she quickly collected herself, and gave a nod of her head that was surprisingly respectful. "Thank you, Lord Vader."

Blowing out a shuddering breath, she closed her eyes, her relief palpable, while Beru gave her shoulder a comforting squeeze.

Much more importantly to Vader, Luke relaxed at his uncle's side, and gave his father a delighted grin. Vader had accomplished much in his life, spreading peace, order, and security throughout the galaxy, but he didn't think he'd ever felt so proud as he did now, feeling his son's happiness as it shimmered across their bond. And knowing that he was the cause of it.

It was Obi-Wan who interrupted his brief reverie by stepping forward. "Well," the Jedi said, "if Reva will not be helping you in your campaign against the Emperor, might I propose an alternative?"

Vader said, "If you are about to sanctimoniously preach that I should reach Palpatine with compassion or some other Light Side dreck, I will drag you through fire all over again."

"No, I would never suggest that," Obi-Wan said, ignoring the threat. "Palpatine is pure evil and he must be killed. But seeing as how you seem to be in search of a partner …" He paused for a moment to fold his arms, before plunging forward. "Perhaps you would accept my services in Reva's stead?"

His old Master spoke the words in such an innocuous tone, but they hit with the force of a blaster bolt. In their wake, something warm spread throughout Vader's chest—like blood seeping out of a wound, only far more pleasant—as another memory sprang into his mind unbidden: the two of them fighting side by side on some battlefield, their movements so in sync that they were like a choreographed dance.

Of course, Vader hadn't forgotten that he'd sworn to kill Obi-Wan as soon as his son was safe. But there were variables that he'd either failed to take into account or hadn't been able to take into account at the time he made that promise:

The fact that Luke wouldn't ever be safe until Palpatine was gone.

The fact that, mere hours after he said he would end Obi-Wan's life, the Jedi turned around and inexplicably saved his.

Perhaps already sensing where the Sith's thoughts were going, Obi-Wan broke the silence with a tentative smile. "So what do you say? The two of us, back together again? I know I'm not exactly the same as a Sith apprentice. And Kenobi and Vader doesn't have quite the same ring to it as Kenobi and Skywalker—"

"No," Vader cut in. "It sounds better. If you say the Vader first."

For a moment, Obi-Wan looked like he might be overwhelmed by emotion. "Right," he said, as he struggled to compose his face.

"Vader and Kenobi."

"Of course."

"In truth, it must be Vader alone, no Kenobi at all, because you are a fugitive and an enemy of the Empire and the public cannot know that we are in collusion. Also, you are old and out of practice and I will certainly pull more weight than you."

And at that, his old Master finally lost the battle with his face, a mirthful smile breaking across it that crinkled the lines around his eyes. He threw his head back and laughed, a rich sound that mingled with the trills of desert songbirds just starting to wake.

Vader said, "You think I am joking."

"You were once known for your sense of humor."

"I was," Vader said dryly. "But I regret to inform you that it burned up with the rest of my internal organs."

Beru cleared her throat loudly then. "Well, if that's all settled, then I think we'd best be off."

She looked to the Third Sister (no, he corrected himself—it was just Reva now), and the other woman nodded while eyeing Vader uneasily.

"Indeed," Vader said. "I must return to the Devastator myself. Obi-Wan, I trust that you will not object to me commandeering your ship for that purpose."

"Well, actually—"

Vader glared at him.

"I was hoping to use that ship to check up on someone," Obi-Wan finished. He paused to give his beard a thoughtful tug, and when he went on, it was in a strangely hesitant manner. "But perhaps we could kill two womp rats with one slug, and you could … accompany me. Once you've attended to your suit, of course."

Vader narrowed his eyes. "And why would I have any desire to accompany you? Where exactly is it that you plan to go?"

"Alderaan. Assuming that your threat against the Princess no longer stands, given that Luke is fine?"

"He is not fine. He has a sprained ankle and a scalp wound."

Obi-Wan hiked up his eyebrows at that (while Luke chimed in with, "It's not that bad.")

"But yes," Vader grumbled, "you are correct that to give that girl matching injuries of such a minor nature would be beneath the dignity of a Sith Lord."

"Good. Because the girl in question is, uh, well … how do I say this?" Obi-Wan took a deep breath, clearly steeling himself for something. "Well, perhaps I should go back to the beginning. You see, it turns out that Padmé was actually pregnant with—and I don't know how she didn't know this, because aren't pregnant beings supposed to get sonograms or some such? But—"

"Princess Leia Organa is Luke's twin sister," Reva cut in bluntly.

In response to which, a Sith Lord, two moisture farmers, and a little boy all promptly exclaimed, "WHAT?!"

.

.

.

FIN


A huge thank you to everyone for reading and for the reviews! :D