Like a dying man thrown a lifeline, Anakin seemed to have rediscovered his purpose. He had thrown himself eagerly into his bunk and gathered his remaining possessions, a headwrap, a pair of goggles and a bedraggled all-weather cloak that had once belonged to his master. He had thrown them hurriedly into a small canvas bag and had emerged to find Obi-Wan watching him with an odd expression.

"What is it?" he asked.

"What was it you said your mother told you when you left her?" Obi-Wan asked abruptly, and Anakin turned to face him slowly.

"She told me not to look back." Anakin whispered, and looked up to find Obi-Wan's eyes on him. There was a softness to his features that Anakin had not seen in a long time.

"She was right." Obi-Wan said quietly. "When we look back, we are faced with all the choices that we might have made, the things that might have been. That doesn't change what is." He moved to stand close beside Anakin and clasped his shoulder fondly. Anakin shuddered, but made no attempt to move away. Reaching into the folds of his robe, Obi-Wan extracted a cylinder and offered it to Anakin silently.

"I thought the Emperor—" he started to say, and Obi-Wan shook his head.

"It's not yours."

"I see." Anakin said quietly.

"Anakin?" Obi-Wan waited until he had lifted his gaze from the floor and looked at him steadily. "I want you to take your mother's advice. No matter what happens, I don't want you to look back."

The depth of Obi-Wan's affection for him shone in his eyes, and Anakin started to turn away but arrested the movement. Clutching his lightsaber tightly, Anakin nodded.

Obi-Wan enjoyed few things like he enjoyed confounding Owen Lars. The stodgy back-water farmer had been reluctant to take them in at first, but had done so out of respect for Shmi. He had been markedly patient with Anakin in his silences, and had been thrilled to no measure to find someone who was able to repair vaporators as easily as he had. Owen had been at turns mystified and frustrated with the Force before finally declaring it a hokey religion and turning his nose up at it. But Obi-Wan decided he would forever remember the look upon Owen's face when Anakin had shown up for breakfast and announced to everyone that he and Obi-Wan were heading out for Alderaan that very afternoon. Obi-Wan had taken a drink and studied Owen's face as he gaped for a few moments before finding his voice.

"Why?" he demanded breathlessly. "Why the hell would you get yourselves involved again?

"I think you know why, Owen." Obi-Wan explained patiently. "Evil cannot be left to endure."

"Why now?" Owen slapped the table top sharply. "What do you expect to do?"

"I have told you before—"Obi-Wan began patiently, "that we had to wait for the children to be of an age to understand what has happened. There would have been very little point in stealing the children away only to have to wait for them to mature to an age to be of use."

"How are the two of you going to take on the Empire? If they killed off all those Jedi, I can't see for the life of me how the only two left are going to pull it off!" Owen thundered, and Anakin ducked his head, in shame, or embarrassment, Obi-Wan couldn't guess. He put a hand on Anakin's shoulder before rising to his feet.

"Owen, we're leaving. I'm sorry." Obi-Wan rested his hands on the back of his chair. "We'll need a ride to Mos Eisley, if you wouldn't mind."

"You're serious about this?" Owen asked as he downed the remainder of his meal. Beru was silent, as she had been throughout the meal, but apparently reaching a conclusion she reached out and put a hand on her husband's wrist.

"Let them go. Let them try, Owen." She said softly. "Ben is right. We can't let the Emperor win."

Owen finished toying with his food and shoved the plate aside. Leaning forward, he looked Obi-Wan directly in the eyes. "You think he's up to it? He gonna be any help to you?"

"Anakin will do what needs to be done." Obi-Wan said simply. "He cannot spend the rest of his days in hiding."

"Look, I don't know what you think the two of you can do against the Empire, but if you want to get yourselves killed it isn't any of my business." Owen stood up and shrugged off Beru's hand. "Let's go." He called tersely, as he made his way to the stairs. Obi-Wan leaned forward fondly and pressed a kiss to Beru's cheek.

"Thank you, Beru. For everything."

"You're welcome, Ben." She laughed as she got to her feet. "You'd better hurry, I don't think Owen will wait long."

"I suppose you're right." He said, and shuffled reluctantly toward the staircase.

"Ben?" Beru asked.

"Yes?" he turned to face her, and found Beru's kind eyes shimmered with tears.

"If you do manage to get those children away from the Empire, and you need someplace for them to stay, they're always welcome here." She said softly. Obi-Wan bowed slightly before turning to bound up the staircase behind Anakin.

Anakin threw himself on the low bench outside the door and put his head in his hands for a moment. He looked up as Obi-Wan sat down beside him and gave him a wan smile.

"You okay?" Obi-Wan asked, and Anakin sighed.

"I think so." He chuckled soberly. "You told me not to look back, and I walked right into it."

"I think you'll find a lot of our journey will be like that." Obi-Wan told him as Anakin nodded. "Where's Owen?"

"Getting the speeder I imagine." Anakin unfolded and stood as Owen backed the speeder out of the garage. Anakin squinted into the sunshine to peer at the backseat and started to laugh.

"What is it?" Obi-Wan asked as he shielded his eyes with his hand. Sitting in the rear seat of the speeder was an all too-familiar gold-plated protocol droid. "I don't believe it." Obi-Wan muttered as Anakin slipped over the side and flung himself down next to C-3PO.

"Where did you get him?" Anakin asked in amazement as Obi-Wan took the front. Owen threw the speeder into gear and tore off toward Mos Eisley.

"I picked him up day before yesterday when the Jawas were out this way. Figured I could use a protocol droid that could speak Bocci. Course, that was before I found out it was Threepio." Owen shook his head in frustration. "You could always take him along." He offered hopefully, and Anakin laughed out loud.

"No thank you!" Obi-Wan shook his head adamantly. "That prissy droid is underfoot in the best of circumstances.

Owen bit the inside of his cheek and nodded ruefully. He fell silent again, and Obi-Wan turned to study Anakin, who was fiddling with one of Threepio's servo motors intently. Unable to entirely hide his smile, Obi-Wan turned back to the front and stared out at the blur of sand, his thoughts on the difficult journey ahead.

Owen had dropped them outside the city's limits and left them to walk in. He'd been gruff, grumbling about the time he'd wasted driving them in, but Obi-Wan could see his concern beneath the surface. He'd gripped the speeder's controls in his hands, clenched until his knuckles whitened while Obi-Wan and Anakin climbed out, leaving only Threepio's golden, glittering husk to occupy the empty space behind him.

"You'll be careful?" he'd asked soberly, and Obi-Wan had nodded. He wondered how much it had cost the stodgy old farmer to ask such a question.

"As much as we are able to."Obi-Wan hedged, and drew a smile out of him.

"I used to hear about the two of you." Owen admitted quietly. "Kenobi and Skywalker. You got in a lot of scrapes."

"We always got out again though." Anakin supplied, meeting his gaze evenly. "We always walk away together." Owen had nodded, and put the speeder back into gear. He had driven away without another word, and Obi-Wan slipped his hands into his cloak and drew it about himself as he started toward Mos Eisley. Anakin moved with him silently, but every once in while his gaze would shift to his master's cloaked form before sliding away again.

"What?" Obi-Wan demanded irritably after they had gone some 50 paces.

"It's just—" Anakin sighed, but gave his master a quirky half-grin reminiscent of his youth. "well, don't you think you look like you're trying a little too hard to hide something?"

"I've done this more times than you have." Obi-Wan pointed out crossly.

"I'm just saying.."Anakin was grinning as he started forward once more, and delighted in his master's heavy sigh.

"You just worry about yourself." Obi-Wan called. Staring for a moment at Anakin's already distant form, he shook his head. It was good to have his padawan beside him once more, even if the odds were not in their favor on this mission.

Obi-Wan settled back in his seat aboard the transport ship with a sigh. It hadn't taken them long to get into trouble, but fortunately, nothing had truly come of it. Yet. He grinned ruefully, there seemed to be no way to leave Tatooine without bringing along another pathetic lifeform. A young pick pocket by the name of Han Solo had been trying to eek out a miserable living in Mos Eisley, after he'd been abandoned by his last employer. It had surprised Obi-Wan that Anakin hadn't punished the boy, instead, he'd insisted that he at least travel with them to Alderaan. Give the boy a chance at a decent living, if there was such a thing to be found any more. Sobering, Obi-Wan turned to find his padawan had his face pressed to the window and was intently staring out at the starfield.

"I don't think it's changed much." He pointed out dryly.

"It beats watching the in-flight safety vid." Anakin pointed out, and Obi-Wan chuckled. "I really don't think there's much point to knowing how to survive a water landing in a space-faring ship."

"I suppose not." Obi-Wan agreed, still smiling.

"Can I turn this on?" Han interrupted without warning, and Anakin crossed back over to sit beside him as he struggled with the vid.

"I don't see why not." He assented, and brought the screen up. "You have something you need to see?"

"Don't feel like watching that." Han grunted. He flipped mercurially through several channels before Anakin put a hand on his arm to stop him.

"Wait, what's that?" he asked.

Beneath him, Obi-Wan felt the hyper drive engines kick in as they made the jump. The starfield voided completely, and he felt compelled to pull the shutter down.

"It's just the news." Han sounded put-out, but Anakin wouldn't let him change the channel. He looked longingly at the screen, and fiddled to bring the volume up.

"..we have learned that the High Chancellor's health has continued to improve, and that Her Excellency is expected to meet all of her appointments this week. In a related story,we have learned that young Luke Naberrie is to begin his tour of duty aboard the Imperial ship the Executor. It is widely rumored through many Imperial circles that the High Chancellor's son is showing great talent as a future commander, and it is expected that the Emperor will name him in an official capacity before too much longer."

The vidscreen had shifted to show footage of the twins together, and then Luke, alone, boarding a private shuttle that would presumably take him to his post aboard the Executor. Anakin stared at the tiny holoimage of his son with an unreadable expression that hovered somewhere between longing and resentment. Han, too stared at the image darkly before wrestling the tiny screen away from him. Anakin let go limply, and sank into his seat.

"Can't stand that." Han muttered, resuming his search for something to watch.

"What?" Obi-Wan asked.

"Spoiled Imperial brats. No idea how it is outside their pretty little walls. Still, I say better him than me."

"Why do you say that?" Anakin asked faintly.

"You won't catch me wearing a uniform, taking orders. Give me a ship of my own and cargo, and I'll keep as far under the radar as possible." Han seemed to have settled on something, and Anakin grinned despite himself as he glanced at the screen to find it full of half-naked girls.

"Might come a day when you find yourself getting involved. You can't always stay under the radar." Anakin pointed out, and Han shook his head adamantly.

"Got no love for the Empire. Not the Rebellion either. I just want to be left alone." Han said, sinking back into his seat and leaning away into the aisle. Anakin seemed as though he had considered arguing it further, but changed his mind, crossing over to sit beside Obi-Wan again. Leaning close, Obi-Wan kept a wary eye on the seat across from them.

"That's distressing." He said quietly. "That the boy has left so soon for his next tour of duty."

"We could try to track down the Executor.." Anakin began, and Obi-Wan shook his head in amusement.

"I don't think we're quite ready to take on the Imperial Navy." He said dryly.

"What'll we do?"

"We'll have to try for the girl instead." Obi-Wan said simply, and Anakin shot him a look of disbelief.

"Is..is she--?" Anakin seemed to be trying to find a delicate way to phrase his question, and Obi-Wan took pity on him.

"She is as capable as he is." Obi-Wan said gently. "Perhaps more easily molded as well, since I presume the Emperor has likely spent most of his time working with your son."

"Easily molded?" Anakin snorted. "Not if she's like her mother." He muttered darkly.

Author's note: I couldn't resist adding a little Malcolm Reynolds to Han's character. If you have NOT seen Firefly or Serenity, I highly recommend them!