It was dark. The cold was unbelievable, and his teeth clattered against each other painfully. He was alone, and it was dark. So terribly, frightingly dark. He was afraid, the dark seemed threatening and it wanted to eat him alive. Wherever he looked he just saw darkness. What had happened to the voices he had just heard? Where was his daddy now? He had felt the strong, secure arms lift him from the ground, out of the blazingly cold fires. He had heard him scream his name, kiss his head, his face, and held him tight. Where was he now? Daddy? Where was his daddy?

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Luke watched his brother-in-law sink to his knees in front of the little boy. The Force was growing uncomfortable, overwhelming, threatening to overthrow the good of life, the peace of his world. No! The boy was slipping away from his grasp, like a slippery fish in the hands of an untrained fisherman. He felt like panicking, but a Jedi does not panic.

"Medic! We need a medic over here!" He yelled instead, causing several of the men in Han's rescue team to turn around. "Quickly!" They hurried over, and for that Luke was grateful, and would always be. All he could feel at that moment when time seemed to stop was fear. Fear and despair. He felt so empty, and he knew that he would not wish to be empty forever. He was powerless to death. There was nothing he could do; he couldn't hang on for someone else's sake. He couldn't fight the clutches of emptiness with reason, with logic, with calm. Nothing!

An arm stretched up towards him, followed by another and then quickly by two more. The emptiness was big enough for him to want to push the hands away, but they were empty too. More empty than he was, and probably more afraid.

"Uncle Luke?" One of them asked him through the haze. He didn't know which twin it was, and he probably never would. They broke into ragged sobs as he kneeled down to embrace them both. They wanted him to explain. He was supposed to be the one you could always trust, the calm one, and the reasonable, but what could he tell them? How do you tell two seven-year olds that light has left their future? Or is leaving? How do you explain that their little brother holds more potential than you have ever felt in someone before? That without him you know that you, as in the universe, might not survive? That sometime in the future, near or far, they will all need to depend on that little boy, and that if he dies now, all hope is lost? He closed his eyes and hugged them tight, throwing a glance at his brother-in-law and the child now surrounded by desperately working medics.

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It was still dark, but he could hear his father's voice. He was yelling at him… No… Yelling for him. He's looking for me. Something lit up inside him as he thought that. He no longer felt afraid, like if the dark wasn't as dark any longer. He clawed at the shadows that he could not see in the blackness, they were still strong, stronger than him, and they held him to the ground that wasn't beneath him, but he fought. He fought for his daddy, and his mommy, who loved him beyond reason. Who would hug him tight when he was sad, and who would tousle his hair and say that he was a good boy. For uncle Luke who would give him the funny look of love and amazement, and for Jacen and Jaina who would, sometimes, play with him and tell him their secrets. But no matter how he clawed and hit and bit and kicked the shadows only closed in on him. They were stronger, stronger than a little boy, stronger than even his daddy.

But not stronger than the Force.

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Leia held his hand harder. He was pale. Her little baby. All his life she had been afraid that he would be taken by the Dark Side, kidnapped and exploited because of his gift. His heritage. Never had she thought that her son, her little baby boy, would be lost to her in an accident. War-related accident, but accident none the less. She wanted to cry when she thought back to the moment she first knew that he was lost to her, but her tears were gone. Empty was the only word she needed to explain it. Empty and maybe shattered. Shattered like the pieces of Alderaan; shattered like glass Anakin had thrown on the floor in anger just hours before the attack began. His last words to her had been: I hate you mommy. Still, no tears came when she thought about it.

For so many long minutes had she thought that it was the last thing she would ever hear from him. Even though she knew that he had not meant it, it hurt. What if he thought that she did not love him? My baby… She caressed the back of his small hand with her thumb, it was comfortingly warm. She felt a hand on her shoulder. A cup of herbal tea was put in front of her face and she accepted it with her other hand. The hand that wasn't squeezing Anakin's. Han. Her dear Han. She could not imagine what he had been through, finding the little boy… knowing that he was lost…

Thank the Force he found him!

Jaina and Jacen had been shocked. So had Luke. Still he had offered to take them home. That was when she knew that everything would be fine. Luke knew that Anakin would be well again, otherwise he would never have taken the twins and gone back to Han's battle cruiser. Leia knew, as Luke did, that Anakin was special. Luke would never have left if there was something that could still go wrong. The slightly rosy cheeks of her youngest child confirmed Luke's assertion. The Force was unusually strong in her little baby boy.

He stirred a little as Han sat down on the other side of the bed. He seemed to give one last fight. Stubborn, she thought lovingly and felt him squeeze her hand back. The tears returned as he opened his eyes slightly,

"Daddy… Mommy…?" And he fell back to sleep. Han, her strong, brave, solid Han, collapsed onto the bed in muffled sobs. His pent up emotions exploded out onto the beige blanket that covered their little boy's body. All she could do was cry with her husband.

Anakin was fine now.

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His knees grew soft. A weight came off his shoulders and suddenly he became aware of how hard he had had to fight to keep upright. Light flooded back into his heart, and into the Force, it overpowered him, spread into every corner of his being and he knew that everything, as in the universe, was fine now. There was no need to worry about the future. The Light, the Saviour had returned.

Anakin was fine now.