This chapter has been rewritten as of July 8th. Thank you to Ami for betaing.

-Chapter One-

You don't get enough sleep when everything that exists serves only for one purpose. Torment. And when everything is the Force itself, it's hard to ignore the pressing contortions against every fraction of your mind.

Even the great Jedi Master needed sleep. It was a fact, yes, that all Jedi could survive without sleep, without food, without water, for up to a month in hibernation. The Force was an incredible thing, for an energy field, in that manner of thinking. To some it's everything, to some merely a tool-but incredible, nevertheless. Yet, even though it all, there are certainly very few Jedi who want to try pulling off an all-nighter, tormented and teased by visions of silver. Going for a month in an X-Wing? Oh, look, volunteers. Stay up all night and let the Force guide you?

Oh, you have to test the softness factor on your pillow. So sorry...

Which was why Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master, was lethargic. He had slept a few hours that night, but certainly not enough. Even a Jedi Master needed more than two hours of rest; all the more so as one aged and was faced with all the stresses of a universe either looking up or down to you. Mara Jade?

Of course she was able to sleep.

Women, he thought with a sigh. Just wait. Three days from now, when I need my rest, she'll be up and at it, bugging me to go for a walk with her... asking me to check on Ben...

Just wait.

He felt the vain echoes of what could only be described as the darkside in the back of his mind. Not his own thoughts, his own moment of distain. Yet... there was something off. Something distant and fleeting, teasing the fringe of his mind, dancing on the shadows underneath his eyes, a message in a bottle that he just couldn't touch. The waves carried it away, letting it taunt him, but keeping it just beyond his grasp, just a bit too swift for his senses to latch upon and drag to the wet and sticky sand.

It resounded, then was gone.

The memory remained, just loud enough to mock.

Sith, the obvious side of his mind said firmly.

A Force-sensitive Yuuzhan Vong turned to the darkside? the impossible hopeless romantic side of him asked. He swore he heard something sardonic flicker within that mental tone. The avatar his mind wore smirked slightly.

Luke gritted his teeth slightly, blue milk threatening to slosh out and onto his dark brown garb had he not remembered the bite of breakfast that was within his teeth. He would've grinned sheepishly, but as it was still there, he merely swallowed hard. The slightly sweet flavor of artifically generated bantha milk whisked across his tastebuds, and the Jedi Master found a side of his mind considering exactly what they used to synthesize the flavor. Whatever it was, it didn't taste right.

A strong manifestation of darkside energies...

The person in his mind grinned dryly, running a hand through his flaxen blond hair. No, it's just a memory of the darkside.

When did I get a split personality, he wondered. And realized he didn't, it was merely his own thought processes working against himself, of course. Or perhaps it actually was just that he was going insane. He wondered sometimes if it was possible for a Jedi to completely loose track of their sanity, or if that was a part of the job description. One of those little things written in very small print at the bottom of the page.

Lightsaber not included-you have to provide your own. But you get free access to the Force, and with it, your very own annoying personality glitches that speak up in your head at annoying moments to point out the obvious! He could just hear the exclamation point supplied by his mind.

I'm probably not the only one, he decided, and took another bite of the synthetically flavored cereal with just a bit too much powdered sugar sprinkled on top of it. In the shape of little x's too, he noted with an odd grin.

Stirring around the remainder of the wheat cereal in the bottom of the bowl, Luke let himself smile broadly. This cereal and its unknown ingredients have to be far more evil than any Death Star reborn could be, at least at the moment.

For there were those moments, when cereal could serve as an effective distraction. How could someone escape them? Stress took tolls; if you couldn't let yourself breathe and grin a bit over the existance of sugar-coated x's, you couldn't possibly enjoy life.

Around him, voices clamored for attention. Young Jedi spoke up, vividly jabbering about their hopes and dreams for the future. The Force swirled with emotions and dislike for the oatmeal mush that was left for the latecomers down to the cafeteria for breakfast. A mix of everything from love to hate, from peace to amusement, jam, breadcrumbs, and cereal in small flakes was woven into the atmosphere, and the Jedi Order of the New Republic was at peace.

People spoke, poked fun at, discussed serious topics. Smiles and laughter were exchanged, as were heated glares across tabletops. A girl yelped as a wadded up ball of paper hit her head, a boy wondered if the construction of the cafeteria was safe enough for them to be eating in. After all, the reconstruction of the Temple was hardly finished...

In the galaxy, darkside energies manifested into deep shadows where Jedi Knights sought out the sources, and were stricken silent. Their voices cried out through the tide of the Force, and into the life around them, falling into death and silence. Ships and people passed, lives went by and fell into nothingness.

Planets and moons, metallic lifeforms and bioformed beings. Dark and light, fire and water... contrast, everywhere. It made the rest of the galaxy stronger. And somewhere, a depth waited, and watched for one destined to take a step to cross the skies. It wasn't spoken whether he would trip and fall, or walk the rainy path to light. Only that the step would be taken.

But he didn't care, because at the moment he was too tired to be any more than amused by his cereal's oddly artificial contents. As concerned as he was about the whispering advances of the dark energy on his mind, as devastated as he was about the loss of the Jedi on the other side of the galaxy during the seeker mission... there were times when such things didn't stick in a beings mind. Now was one of them.

He would worry later, fear later, weep later, mediate later.


In the stillness, a woman's feet gave out from beneath herself, crumbling to her knees. She couldn't bring herself to stand, because there was nothing left to stand upon. Her eyes were lowered, and she couldn't find the effort needed to bring them open, to look upon the chances of death, the chances whispering of no hope.

Her fingers emptily brushed against the ground, or lack of it, in front of her, almost lazily murmuring that there was nothing left to stand on. For a moment she felt dust before one came up behind her.

She wondered that if pain was crimson, whether death was black and calm was blue. Were emotions only colors, only shades in the entirety of living?

And if this was true, what color was time? Green, always growing, never yielding; red is go and amber yield-if time is green, then surely all of the people must be amber lights slowly fading into red.

And time, it now (or then) wound around her very body-agony inside, time outside; there was no escape because there was nothing.

As if something had sapped all of her energy, draining her life from her very limbs, she collapsed forward, body crumbling into a black desert of crisp ebony sand.

Dark hair momentarily masked any features that might've shown in the space of nothingness.

And then a footstep crunched in the sandy wastes, a pale hand reached down and brushed her hair from her face. He pulled her upright, but she was lost, only a puppet now in the hands of time.

He dropped her and her body remained. After a while wind blew overtop of her body, slowly piling black sand over her robes. She became merely another dune in time's dusky murmur.


Here was Tatooine again, a planet perhaps not so contorted by time and space as any other location. Sand still twisted in little dunes, heat piercing through any physical attempt to breathe out without loss of water.

It was a dangerous zone, and sixty years didn't alter that in the least. It was still a desert, a harsh environment that insisted on hurting and slowly bringing about the death from lossing the portion of water your body needed to survive as a human being. Your tongue would grow thick, motions chunky, eyesight swimming as you stumbled forward...

Anakin struggled upright, the barest hint of a strangled and now cut-off outcry escaping between parched lips. He touched his hair tenatively, feeling that somehow he had just been through the furnace of a thousand universes. His voice trailed off, the words he had screamed out lost into another time.

Glancing around swiftly, he blinked sand out of intensively blue eyes. Eyelids heavy, it took him a long moment to reorient himself in the midst of what felt like chaos, but surely wasn't.

It was Tatooine.

Wasn't it?

Sand stretched out in all directions, seemingly an endless sea of brown contrasting against two suns. He had to be careful not to look up into them too long, glancing down swiftly but already seeing twin white spots against his vision every time he blinked. Mos Espa seemed to be barely visible on the horizon, but came into greater focus when he narrowed his eyes.

It vanished again when he reoriented his vision.

That was odd.

They had been on the outskirts just a moment ago, after all. The Nubian ship hadn't been that far out. The Nubian ship which wasn't there anymore. That was odd. Wasn't it? Or perhaps not... whatever had just happened...

"Mom?" escaped from the child's throat. And there was nothing, not even an echo. How could there be an echo when there was no solid stone to reflect his voice?

Maybe he had dreamt it all. Imagined up Padmé and the podrace and the Jedi Knight and the tattooed creature who had appeared and dueled the Jedi in the sand. It was possible, wasn't it? What child didn't daydream about Jedi Knights and monsters and creations far beyond reality?

Watto would be furious.

So many maybes...

He scanned the horizon. Where was Anchorhead? Where was any moisture farmer's settlement, for that matter? Surely they hadn't gotten that far out from any sentient life, beyond perhaps the Tuskens, somehow living out in the horrific atmosphere offered by Tatooine's twin suns beating off of the sand.

Things were barren.

Anakin hardly fancied the idea of being lost on Tatooine after nightfall; he didn't appreciate the idea of being away from any human settlements for any great length of time, either. Not here where the sun beat down on him, sending sweat droplets tracing down his back.

Any Jawas?

He didn't cry out for attention. Something could be watching him. Something nasty.

Someone, anyone, anything... anything that wasn't going to ravage him, scalp him, or bury him alive. Something that could point him towards a settlement before thirst overcame and he succumbed to the continual pressures of the desert's dehydration.

The Force was with the newly freed slave boy, however, his strangling footsteps leading him across the sand into a rocky area. There was some shade here, a cliff or two masking the sun's intensity ever so slightly, and hiding a house away from prying eyes either from above or below. He wasn't so foolish as to run, but Anakin made his way towards it.

A small dwelling, he realized a bit later. Abandoned and lingering all alone on Tatooine's barren landscape, it was a hermitage of some sort; something perhaps that should've been destroyed by time. It felt... familiar. He approached it with a mild feeling of trepidation, entering and feeling an intensive amount of relief sweeping over his body.

He didn't feel welcome here, but it was cooler than the outside. The idea that it could've been a heat trap had been horrifying.

Having been out in the desert perhaps a bit longer than was desirable, as soon as he regained his bearings, Anakin sought out water. Every house outside of Mos Eisley would've had to have some sort of water tank underneath the house, equipped to gather water from the air and the dry soil if possible. It was similar to any moisture gathering apparatus, but perhaps a hint more intensive and thought-out, and a great deal more compact.

The water was stagnant and murky, a bit stale smelling from the years of disuse that the equipment had clearly faced, but it was water. The machine had very nearly fallen into wreck, but had kept on gathering water mindlessly, slowly getting clogged with sand and rust. It groaned a bit as Anakin glanced over the system: a simple system that he thought he could've fixed and had functioning at a prime level with a few hours of work.

But, for the moment, he sipped at the stale water slowly. It quenched his thirst, although the taste left something to be desired and it was far from the standard definition of refreshing ice water. After a couple of handfuls of water, he left it to sit. Who knew how long he'd have to remain here, if it was too far out from Mos Espa, Mos Eisley, or any occupied location?

A map.

Scavenging through the supplies left in turmoil, he finally located an ancient datamap, and glanced to see where they were. The nearest settlement... Oh, stang. Mos Eisley was far from a quick jaunt over. He knew he should've been gratified by the relatively safe location to spend the night, complete with water and even bedding, but he couldn't help but swear to himself.

Without a landspeeder, it wasn't about to be an easy walk, and certainly not one he could make tonight. Not without risking his life at the hands of the Sandpeople.

The occasional drip from underneath the house was his only companion, though, and it wasn't about to give him an answer as to how he could get home without scorching his skin and suffering dehydration. Who lived here, that they had to be this far from any settlement! What, were they nuts?

But luck had seemed to have been on his side this far. The moisture-gathering machine was working more or less, and he knew he could hit it a few times and convince it to work all the way with the help of a few tools. He had a relatively safe place to spend the night. He wasn't dead...

Maybe the next day he'd find an old speeder bike or something he could modify to get home faster; to get to Mos Eisley alive. But no, Anchorhead was closer...Maybe Watto wouldn't skin him alive, if being freed had only been a dream.

It grew dark.

Anakin shivered with a sensation of extreme familiarity that seemed to sweep itself over his mind and body.Something so very alien, and yet so very akin to himself...

He put the map aside and stood up.Maybe there'd be some sort of food left in a unspoilable package.

The sunlight became gradually more blocked as time circled around them... Anakin paused a moment, pushing hair out of his eyes again. Eyes which swiftly narrowed as he picked up on the vaguest trace of a sound.

A ship!


The Falcon landed smoothly on Tatooine's surface. It had been Leia's request to come here, some blather about the Force leading her to insist fairly vividly on landing here, near an old hermitage. Han recognized it, at any rate. Luke had stayed here once.

They were supposed to be on Coruscant, aiding in the rescue efforts. Everyone was suppose to be there, if they could be spared.

A hiss of breath escaped the woman's mouth, gazing outside the ship to the sandy hermitage.

Vader.

No, no, that can't be right at all. Far too much stress.

"Leia?" Han had already unbuckled the crash webbing, standing up and stretching himself out from the cramped cockpit. The shutdown cycle had already been initiated, running through smoothly, without any of the hitches the strange system offered. "Thought you wanted to come here for a reason, not to sit around in your chair and grumble."

She smiled dryly, unbuckling herself to stand up. "Did."

Quickly exiting the ship, she was hit by the sudden dryness. The entire area seemed saturated with a filth and stench that only a planet continually bombarded by years of straight sunlight could produce. If there was a cloud in the sky, it was a moment for rejoicing, for laughing. If it ever rained, it would be akin to hell freezing over, all the things that never happened coming true.

I'll date you when it rains on Tatooine. The Empire will return when it rains.

No wonder people want off this planet.

But why, she wondered? Why had she insisted, almost childishly in temperment, to come here? With the Republic and Empire finally merged into one, with the war over, with all the efforts to restore Coruscant to some bare figment of its former glory? And then there was something in the corner of her eye... Leia blinked and glanced over to her left. Footprints in the sand.

Child's footprints, soft and undefined.

"Well! Hey! Leave my ship alone!" Leia's head snapped up at Han's sharp tone of voice, yelling at something. No... someone. A kid, garbed in the pale clothing of any Tatooine farmer had crept from the shadows of the enclosed house, dashing into the ship. Had he planned to stow away?

"I'm not going to hurt your ship!" The child's eyes were a dead ringer for Luke's, though long and messy hair hid most of his general features underneath a mop. Haunting and almost older than he should have been, the child looked well worn.

"I've just gotta get out of here! There was a battle and this evil red dude and Jedi! And then everyone vanished! And I woke up here! And I've gotta get back to Mos Espa or Watto'll skin me!"

Leia's eyes narrowed. "Your father?"

"Nuh-uh. My owner."

"You're a servant?"

"A slave," the boy muttered. "But I'm not anymore! I'm a person. A free one! Really!"

Han sighed. "Well, princess, here's your calling from the Force. Are we going to play taxi?"

She sighed in return. "I suppose so."


After a few hours of searching in Mos Espa, they finally gave up. There was no sign of any of the people the boy (Anakin, as he had called himself, lending a bit of a wince to both of their faces. People who wanted to mimic the Jedi and their heroes, but it still hurt to meet another Anakin) said would be there. There was only an old, abandoned and ransacked shop where he said he worked. Some child's storytale? But even with the aid of the Force on her side, she hadn't been able to get much more out of him.

"Maybe it wasn't a dream!" Anakin raved to himself. "I did win my freedom and they did take me away!"

Han grumbled something about childish dreamers and overly sympathetic wives as he led the way back to the Falcon.

"I was in this podrace!" Anakin carried on. "And then I nearly got killed, but I salvaged the pod. And then I won and the Jedi were going to take me back for testing, because they said I had the powers to be a Jedi Knight if I wanted to be..."

Slavery's outlawed. It's been outlawed for years. Even the Hutts... mostly... obey it now. They still have slaves, but not so blatently...

"...but then there was this huge battle! And Master Qui-Gon was fighting this evil red demon dude! He was probably a desert monster. A genie. With magic powers! And then Padmé and I left the ship and there was this really weird firey thing..."

"We'll take you to the Jedi, then," Leia finally reasoned with a sigh.

Master who?