"Daddy!"

"Uncle Han!"

Squeal!

Amid the cries of delight from Han Solo's children, nieces, and nephew, Leia used her senatorial voice to exclaim "Han! What are you doing here? How can you be here?"

Solo picked up his two year old son in his left arm, kissed his diminutive wife on her dark head, and suggested, "Why don't you feed the baby and I'll explain?"

Leia was biting her lower lip in worry, but since Padme was wailing with increasing determination, she sat down, pulled a blanket over her, and guided the baby to her breast. A moment later, all the Force sensitives in the room, including Darth Vader, heaved a deep sigh of relief. The infant was incredibly loud in the Force when displeased with life.

"So I actually came back from three months in the future," Han explained.

Luke swooped over to capture Shmi, who was pressing buttons on an exit door, and stood up with her in his arms. "Huh?" he demanded in bewilderment.

"You guys left and came back three months ago in my time, according to me," Han related. "But you told me that I came back from now."

Mara rubbed her forehead with one hand while giving Beru a hug with the other. "Ok, so basically we left our timeline three months before you did."

"Exactly," Han said, pleased that someone was following him. "In my current timeline, Luke and I are on a mission and I just got sort of shot."

This caused Leia to leap to her feet again in terror, and Padme detached and started squealing in outrage. "Sort of shot?" the last princess of Alderaan cried out. "How can you be sort of shot?"

"Well, shot but not really seriously," her husband replied, pushing her back into her seat and patting Padme's nearly bald head. "Go back to feeding the baby, Leia."

She did so, though her eyes were running up and down her husband's tall form. "Where did you get shot?"

"In the side," Han said with a grimace, "and I lost some blood, so Luke donated some blood to me, which meant my midichlorian count rose, and ... here I am!"

Leia's eyes were huge in her heart shaped face, and she said in a trembling voice, "You are here, yes, but can you get back?"

"I can and I will," her husband declared, leaning over to give her a reassuring kiss on the lips. "Luke stays longer than everyone else and he senses all of us disappearing back to our timeline, so don't worry, I don't get stuck here.

The adults, except for Vader, who was more bewildered than concerned, relaxed noticeably. "Ok, that's good," Luke stated. "So do you know what we are supposed to do?"

"'Course I do, Kid. You and Mara and Tall, Dark, and Deadly there should mosey over to the Imperial Palace and kill the Emperor."

Vader bent a cynical glance on the man who was obviously his alter son-in-law. "Are you suggesting that killing Palpatine will be a simple matter?"

"Apparently it is this time," Han said cheerfully, picking up Cassian and swinging him in a circle, which provoked the little one to start laughing hysterically, "I guess the Throne Room is in a different place than in our timeline, and there is a back entrance from the lower levels of the Jedi Temple, and you three sneak in and beat up the guards and kill the old rancor. Simple."

Luke glanced at Mara, who was grinning in a definitely feral way, and said, "Ok, sounds good. Han, Leia, can you keep track of the kids until we disappear?"

"Absolutely," Leia assured her brother and his wife, though her expression was vaguely troubled. "You'd better get on it, though, since they are going to get hungry and when they get hungry, they get cranky."

"Father, do you have a food unit?" Luke asked, and then gestured toward a shiny apparatus in the corner, "I see you do. I know you don't really eat so that's weird but we'll take it..."

"I'll order something for the kids and us as needed," Han promised.

"Wait," Vader ordered. "This is absurd. The Emperor has great power."

Luke, who was now tossing his twins into the air with the Force and catching them just before they hit the floor, turned a patient look on the Dark Lord. "And we don't? Seriously, you have the highest midichlorian count in the galaxy, and Leia and I match your power. He won't have a chance against us."

Vader shuffled uncomfortably. On the one hand, the only way to find his current children was to work with his children from the future. On the other hand, Palpatine was his master and he could not strike him down...

"Palpatine killed Padme, you know," Leia said conversationally. "You don't really owe him anything at all, except death. He destroyed your life."

Vader's inclination was to rant about how Obi-Wan had destroyed his life by letting him burn up in lava, but he felt he must clarify the situation for the young brunette.

"I killed her," he admitted, and his voice trembled slightly through the vocoder. "I killed my angel..."

"No, you didn't," Luke said briskly, marching over to the food unit and studying it. A few seconds later, he managed to order blue milk and turned to face the Sith. "You obviously are losing track of the facts," he added kindly. "If you killed Padme when you were on Mustafar, Leia and I would have died too. Remember, Kenobi took her to Polis Massa and she delivered safely there. Then Palpatine killed her by draining her Life Force to sustain your own, because you were dying from the burns at the time."

The Sith stared, and cogitated, and wobbled slightly in place, and Luke rushed to his cyborg Alter sire while Mara strode over to deal competently with the blue milk as it appeared in the food unit.

"He ... he..." Vader demanded huskily.

"Killed her, yes," Luke declared, placing a comforting hand on a prosthetic arm.

"Children, would you like some blue milk?" Mara added a moment later, provoking a rush of enthusiastic Skywalkers and Solos to converge on the statuesque redhead.

Han moved over to assist and in the midst of pouring drinks down young gullets, Luke stepped a little closer and looked unerringly into Darth Vader's eyes. "Palpatine killed Padme, Father, to cement his hold on you. He lied and said you killed her, knowing you would blame yourself. He never would let her live, of course. Mother was a devotee of democracy, and Palpatine ... is not."

The Sith found himself trembling now, trembling in rage and agony and yes, relief, because he had not killed her. He had not killed her. He had not killed her...

But his master had. His master had destroyed the woman Darth Vader, formerly Anakin Skywalker, had loved with his heart, soul, mind, and strength.

"I am ready," he declared coldly, rising to his full, intimidating height.

Leia, finished with feeding her infant, rose to her feet and patted Padme on the back to provoke a loud burp.

"Go on, then," she ordered, waving absently toward the door. "Please get the viper killed before the kids go completely insane and manage to burn down the palace."

/

Emperor's Throne Room

Imperial Palace

1 hour later

"For Padme!" Vader snarled, sinking his lightsaber into his former master's chest.

Palpatine's yellow eyes were a mixture of fury and horror and disbelief, but they were also fixed in place because their owner was quite dead. Palpatine had many abilities, but surviving a lightsaber thrust through the heart was not one of them.

Darth Vader took a step back and watched as his master dropped to the floor. He stared for a full minute in wonder before tilting his helmet up to stare at his alter son. "That was surprisingly easy," he admitted.

Luke, who had assisted by lopping off both of Palpatine's arms during the battle along with killing a few guards, shrugged insouciantly. "I told you so. We've killed old Palps quite a few times, and this was definitely one of the easiest."

"Luke!" Mara exclaimed from her position by the elevator doors, where she had single handedly wiped out four Imperial Guards. "Tingling toes!"

Luke jumped to her side and they embraced and kissed passionately until she disappeared into the ether, even as the Jedi Master sensed his children, nieces, nephews, sister, and brother-in-law disappearing as well.

"Ok, they are gone," he said cheerfully to Vader, who was frozen in place near his dead master's side. "We should get back to your palace the back way."

"Should we?"

"Of course. Someone will eventually break in and find the Emperor dead, and then they will come to you with helmets in hand and ask you to take over. But before all that goes down, I want to work on your lungs."

"My lungs?" Vader asked stupidly.

"Yeah, I'm pretty good at Force assisted healing and the lungs are the most important thing. It can't be good for you that you can't breathe without all that assistance. You should also work on your suit because frankly, it kind of stinks. Palpatine wasn't interested in you being comfortable or even healing, you know."

Vader shook his head, more out of distress than in disagreement. Now that Palpatine was dead, he felt clearer headed than he had in ... in ... well, a ridiculously long time.

"Very well, let us return to my palace," he rumbled.

/

Vader's palace

Four days later

"Father?" Luke Skywalker asked from outside the hyperbaric chamber.

From within, Darth Vader snarled in frustration and pushed a button with the Force. He had been focusing on one small portion of his anatomy, his scarred right shoulder, trying to heal it with the Force. He had failed, miserably.

His helmet lowered onto his head and he checked the oxygen levels within; he still needed augmented oxygen, but thanks to his Alter Son's work on healing his lungs, he needed far less. Indeed, with time, he might be free of the helmet completely, which would be incredible.

The chamber opened and new Emperor of the Known Galaxy stepped out to loom over the thirty year old plus version of his son, who was leaning against a door with one dark blond eyebrow raised insolently.

"It isn't going to work, you know," the Jedi declared with a smirk. "You need to use the Light Side of the Force for healing."

Darth Vader stomped irritably past his son and into his main living quarters, where he used the food unit to order some blue milk. Luke had mostly focused on healing his lungs these last days, but he had dedicated a full afternoon to Vader's messed up digestive system. The unexpected, glorious result was that Vader could now tolerate drinking blue milk and other tasty liquid substances. Of course, he couldn't drink the blue milk without a straw and some modification of the helmet, but he didn't mind straws, and he loved tinkering with things.

The blue milk arrived promptly, of course, and with a slight gesture of the Force, the Sith opened a small hole in his helmet, plugged it with the straw, and drank up a long sip of yummy blue goodness.

"The Dark Side is power," he proclaimed dramatically, turning to stare regally at Luke Skywalker.

Luke shrugged and wandered over to a mouse droid that he had been working on. "The Dark Side has a lot of power," he acknowledged, "but I really don't think it lends itself well to healing. Do you know why I am so good at healing you?"

Vader tilted his head and blinked his three millimeter long eyelashes.

(Yes, for some reason, the healing of his lungs was helping his eyelashes grow, though his head was still as bald as a convor egg.)

"You are my son, of my blood," the Sith Emperor proclaimed dramatically. "You have great power in the Force."

"I do," Luke agreed, stepping closer with a sly grin on his face, "but power isn't enough, nor is technique. I love you. That's why I have been able to heal you so much."

In spite of himself, Darth Vader flinched. He was hardly worthy of the love of his son from the future, or of anyone, for that matter.

"Love is weak," he intoned, only to be promptly interrupted.

"Love is very, very, very powerful," Skywalker retorted, lifting a hand to cover the cyborg's mouthpiece. "I do love you, even though you don't feel you deserve it, even though I know you hate yourself for what you did to our mother. Do you love your children? The three year olds, I mean, not me and my Leia? Or do you merely look on them as possible weapons in your desire to rule the galaxy? Will you harm them if they do not grow up to serve you and your Empire the way you want?"

Vader raised himself up to his full height in outrage. "They are my children, the only thing left of my dear Angel in this galaxy! I would never harm them!"

"My father cut off my hand," Luke responded calmly, lifting his right cyborg hand, "and he tortured my sister twice. He and I made our peace about thirty minutes before he died, but we did not have a good relationship. You have major anger management issues and the Dark Side lends itself to freaking out. Seriously, Father, consider the Light Side again. If you do lose some power which, frankly, you won't, it shouldn't matter a lot; you'll be on way better terms with your kids if you aren't running around murdering people in rages and snapping necks and fun stuff like that."

"Given that I have no idea where my children are, I would argue I have no particular incentive to work toward being a kinder, gentler father," the cyborg said resentfully.

Luke blew out a slow breath and said gently, "I can't make you do anything, of course, but surely it is obvious that the twins' guardians will do everything in their power to keep them away from you if you keep wreaking such tremendous havoc. It is your decision, of course, but you cannot blame them if..."

"I do blame them!" Vader snarled. "They are my children! They belong with me!"

"They are people, not slaves, and they don't belong to you," Skywalker responded sternly. "Leia and I are both thankful that we didn't grow up in the Imperial court surrounded by vicious Dark Siders... oh!"

"Oh what?" Vader demanded, looking around uneasily. There was an odd disturbance in the Force.

"My toes are tingling. I guess I'm out of here..."

Luke lurched forward, threw his arms around his Alter Father and whispered, "I love you" just as he disappeared.

Author Note: I am going to write one more chapter from this timeline.