AN: Unsure why hates me so much, since it keeps scrambling the html code. Thanks to some kind souls who noticed, I'm attempting to repair the damage.

.*.

Obi-Wan is dead.

She is dead, crumpled to ash beside a river of flame. Black sand is her grave, and she lies where she falls, in the outline of a man with no limbs. His agony is hers, a new hell for one damned from the beginning.

Rule-breaker, oath-taker.

Obi-Wan is dead, and in her place is the image of another dead woman, one who has been buried beneath Tatooine's sand for thirty years. Bendara Lars is resurrected, as a last shield against the darkness.

She finds the welcome she expects, cold and distant, and not a little angry. But she is welcome nonetheless, taken below into cool subterranean rooms where she will be safe.

But her own safety is not her concern, even as Beru watches worriedly—protectively—from short distances. Her condition only causes unease, and the thought that the Empire could trace her back to her home planet and take away all she has left is terrifying to her.

She reaches for that faint spark inside her for reassurance, that little supernova waiting to explode. It warms at her touch, knowing, welcoming.

So small and yet so powerful.

It's the last good thing that Ben has left, a piece of them in a happier time, only for her to be immediately betrayed.

.

.

When the order was given, she had been in Utapau. Alone and still reeling from the realization that she now bore physical proof of her defiance of the Order's principles. But he hadn't known, not then, not ever. She hadn't told him that he would be a father, and then there hadn't been time. Cody's hesitation had earned her her freedom.

Others were not so fortunate, though she knows that Padmé managed to escape the purge. Where her friend is now, she no longer knows. But the Senator is safe in Rex's hands somewhere, protected.

"You're lucky," is Beru's response when the story is told, months after she's arrived on Tatooine.

Ben's laugh is bitter as tears. "In my experience, there's no such thing as luck." Where has it ever led her? Into darkness and despair. She's given all her hope to that little spark of a supernova, and has not kept any for herself.

.

.

She can see the longing in Beru's eyes, and she cannot fault the younger woman for wanting something she cannot have. Ben has fallen into that pit too many times to know the way out, and she cannot bear to see another follow in her footsteps.

"Will you be my second?"

They are the words of a desperate woman. To give up motherhood into the arms of another. But there is no threat of death, not in childbirth, that would force her hand to this old Tatooine custom. Only fear for her child.

"Why? I cannot think of ever—"

"I put him in too much danger as is, both of us in one place. I can't see him in the hands of the Empire."

Beru's voice is soft when she finally answers. "I would be honored, Ben."

Ben cries.

.

.*.

.

The wandering had been hard, but they'd escaped to a small planet in the Outer Rim, one Rex recalled from the Clone Wars. They'd settled there, had made it home—for a little while.

Padmé had feared the new Empire's long-reaching arm, but Rex had been her shield and her hope. And even as her belly swelled and they tentatively looked towards a future for them both, the galaxy would not halt for their happily ever after.

And now she's alone on a mining colony in the Outer Rims. Rex is dead, struck down by those who he had once called brother in another life. She considered seeking out Obi-Wan, but that door has long-since closed. They are each on their own in this galaxy.

.

.

Ben's hand tenses around her arm, and Beru looks at her sister-by-marriage. Ben's blue-green eyes are fixed on a distant point, seeing things Beru can't even contemplate. It is eerie, but strangely comforting, knowing that things can be predicted and prevented, or aided as the need arises. A Jedi's senses and foresight combat the uselessness one feels when confronted with the unknown, and Beru wonders (hopes) the child will not face the agony his parents did.

"I think it's time," is all Ben says, and she's far too calm for this kind of thing. Beru's already steering her toward the house, her own heart in her throat.

Owen hovers in the doorway of the garage, face creased in a way that could be construed as concern but is more than likely judgment. There have never been kind words between brother and sister, and Beru doesn't wish to hear any of them now, not when Ben is about to give birth.

"Go back to work on your droids," she orders her husband curtly. This is her realm, her strength. What others see as weakness is power as deep and slow as the sand rivers beneath the Basin, and Owen is learning that. "I'll send a message out to you when it's over."

.

.

Halfway across the galaxy, another woman waits her time with fear.

The med-droids have to cut into her to extricate the baby, but the equipment hides the blood and viscera beneath soft white. Padmé Amidala cries silently, giving in to the frightened girl beneath the public mask she's worn for years.

But the fear is short-lived, and with soothing sounds the med-droids settle the small form into her grasping hands.

The little head has her dark hair and maybe his eyes. He would be so proud of his little girl, as he was proud of every accomplishment in his life. And now she's able to carry on Rex's legacy.

She smiles down at the perfect little face, scrunched up and howling in indignation. Perfect, and beautiful, and a bright future she will protect with her life.

"Leia," she breathes.

.

.

"Luke." Her chest is still heaving, but she's too tired to do anything about it. Ben merely holds him closer, soaking in the delicate blonde curls washed free of blood, wonders whose eyes he'll have. The despair clings ever tighter, digging in like a Sarlacc's tentacles.

Her little spark of light, her beautiful beacon of a supernova. He's too perfect to be hers, to be his.

After a few gasps of complaint, Luke has settled into sleep, little mouth puckered into an 'o.' He'll know his mother's arms for a brief time, and then he will know the arms of another mother.

He's all she has left, and she has to give up even that.

.

.*.

.

Beru asks Owen to pretend his sister is dead, bleeding away in childbirth. He does so far too readily, saying there's a reason there's a small headstone next to Cliegg's two wives. There is nothing for her to say to that, shocked at his coldness. And with the back of Ben disappearing into the swirling sand, there's nothing to keep that reminder alive.

But he's willing to take in the boy, raise him like his own. Ever business-minded, he speaks of another pair of hands around the farm when the boy is big enough.

Beru tells herself that he'll warm up to the boy, but she also knows she's a good liar, even to herself. When he looks at the baby, she knows he sees the sister who left him when he could barely remember her, and the step-brother who refused to listen. Rebels who came to the same bad end.

She just hopes that Owen eventually sees Luke for himself, and not for the two people who have hurt him the most. And if not, then she prays that the boy finds someone who does.