This is...so off-brand for me. My best friend irl suggested to me that in an alternate universe, "Obi-Wan and Anakin get married, leave the Jedi order together, and train Baby Yoda in the Force."
Of course the idea was too good to leave alone, so here we are!
The setting sun scattered beams of light across the water. Nearing dusk, the Naboo sky was streaked with pale pinks and purples. Obi-Wan Kenobi made his way down to the shore.
A lone, broad-shouldered figure sat near the water, staring pensively toward the horizon.
A plump boy with a thatch of sandy hair ran back and forth in front of him, knee-deep in the water.
Obi-Wan smiled as he neared the larger figure. His dark, casual tunic bore evidence of lying on the wet shore. Silky grains embedded in his clothes and hair.
Five years on Naboo had eradicated Anakin Skywalker's dislike of sand.
Or perhaps he'd never really disliked it. Perhaps it had served as a painful reminder of his beginnings—and everything he'd lost.
He had a new family now.
Obi-Wan laid a hand on Anakin's damp shoulder, trailing down his neck to his arm. Anakin caught his fingers tenderly, never taking his eyes off the joyful child in front of him.
His child. Anakin's child.
Our child, Anakin reminded him often. They're yours too.
Obi-Wan ran his hand through Anakin's messy curls. A few silver strands were woven in with the dark—they'd only just started appearing.
"Do you think all of those Jedi tricks we did during the war are catching up to us?" Anakin wondered aloud. "I'm not even thirty yet." He tilted his head upward toward Obi-Wan. The silver was even more prominent in his beard. "Look at you. You'll be completely gray before the twins are grown."
Obi-Wan lifted his chin indignantly, although there was no denying the gray in his hair spreading from his temples, streaking through his own beard.
Padmé said it made him look dignified.
Speaking of—"Where is Padmé?"
"Up at the house," Anakin leaned forward and patted the sandy ground in front of him coaxingly. "She's teaching Leia to yell at senators who don't agree with her."
"A tried and true tactic," Obi-Wan mused. "Better to expend her anger on debates than with a lightsaber."
"Yeah, don't bring up anger during her training. She might be worse than I was."
"That," Obi-Wan declared, "is impossible. No one could ever be as challenging a pupil as you."
"Yet somehow you left everything behind…for me."
Memories flashed before Obi-Wan's eyes. Back five years, to the end of the war. Padmé had given birth prematurely, causing concern for her health, and the babies she'd carried.
Obi-Wan remembered the long hours of labor, Anakin holding Padmé's hand while she cried out. Privy to the rather badly kept secret, he'd been there too, placing a calming hand on each of their heads.
He remembered the aftermath—the three forming a circle, hands clasped, around the two newborn babies. A bond formed—or, rather, strengthened. A pact made.
Later, Obi-Wan and Anakin had walked away from the Jedi temple, sharing a conspiratorial smile.
Even without two of the Republic's greatest generals, the war hadn't lasted much longer. The clones, always underestimated by the powerful and haughty, had discovered the conspiracy surrounding the Chancellor. The army of millions had disabled Order 66 and removed the Sith Lord from power—with a blaster to the heart.
Dooku had been captured, Grievous shot to pieces in a firefight above Coruscant.
Ahsoka had turned up with Maul in a box, a proud smirk on her face. She'd thrown herself into Anakin's arms when he told her all that had transpired in her absence.
She visited them often now on Naboo, when she wasn't busy training younglings.
Mon Mothma had been voted in as Supreme Chancellor. Under her deft leadership, the Separatists had disbanded their violent campaigns across the galaxy. Whether or not each system rejoined the Repbulic, there was peace.
The Jedi and remaining clones still worked closely together, now launching campaigns to topple Outer Rim slaving empires.
Not Anakin, though. Not Obi-Wan. They received updates from their friends—Rex, Cody, Echo—even occasionally giving pieces of strategic advice. But their days of fighting were over.
After all, there were children to raise. Not just Luke, whose piloting skills would rival Anakin's—once his legs were long enough for him to fly a starship. Not just Leia, who could already argue circles around Anakin and his rather nearsighted politics. Who folded her arms exactly like her mother, and whom Obi-Wan could barely keep up with during lightsaber training. (Privately, Obi-Wan thought he was getting too old for such things.)
No, there was a third, rescued by the Bad Batch during a salvage mission. Palpatine had allowed corruption in upper echelons of the military—power-hungry men who used their authority to carve out their own little kingdoms. One such admiral had kept a strange creature as a sort of pet—strange, but familiar to the two ex-Jedi.
"Luke, don't let him get too deep in the water. He can't swim."
Yoda's time might have come for him to become one with the Force, but the legacy of his people lived on in the little green infant creature toddling across the sandy beach.
Obi-Wan and Anakin would teach him the ways of the Force, just as they taught the twins.
The Jedi would live on.
Had balance been restored to the Force? Had Anakin fulfilled the prophecy as Qui-Gon had believed?
Perhaps. Perhaps not.
Either way, Obi-Wan thought, watching him scoop Luke up and throw him over his shoulder, he hadn't done too badly.
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