Princess Leia's eyes widened in fear when the Interrogation Droid followed Darth Vader into her cell. Hours later, Vader left after having gotten nothing. He hadn't pressed as hard as he could have because the girl's resemblance to his mother had disturbed him greatly.

Princess Sola glared defiantly when Vader entered her cell with the same Interrogation droid. Vader spent less time with her. He had been unable to look at her the entire time because he saw Padme every time he did, and had gotten nothing out of her.

Princess Breha backed into a corner when Vader and the droid arrived. He got nothing out of her as well, and had to spend the rest of the evening pushing the memory of the time he had gone with Padme to visit her family on Naboo out of his mind.

As he informed Grand Moff Tarkin that he had made no progress with the princesses, he could hear the laughter of little Ryoo and Pooja and feel Padme standing beside him as she had on that day while they had watched the girls play tag with R2.

That evening while he meditated memories of his last days with his beloved Padme - memories he had avoided for the last twenty years - pushed themselves to the forefront of his mind. He remembered how she had ordered everything in threes after he had pointed out the fact that triplets were quite likely considering her size, how they made lists of names for if they were boys or girls or a mix of both, and how in the final days before he had fallen for Palpatine's empty promises they had sat in front of the fire while he fed her sweets and told her how much he loved her and that he didn't care that she had gotten so large that she took up the entire couch.

He struggled to force those memories from his mind. The pain was almost too much. He hadn't deserved such happiness. He'd completely failed his wife, and then he'd killed her and their unborn twins. It didn't matter that he had failed to spot the intestinal parasite that had been slowly killing her from the inside, he had strangled her to death himself. He had gotten upset when he believed she had betrayed him, and killed her in his anger.

The more he tried to push the memories away, more memories came to him until he was back at the Naberrie family home. It had been while he had been assigned to protect Padme from the bounty hunters who had attempted to assassinate her. She had gone to visit her family and he had followed. Several members of the family had thought him to be her boyfriend until she had disabused them of the notion at dinner. Padme's father Ruwee - who had tried to look intimidating despite the fact that he was much shorter - had even taken him aside while Padme was helping prepare dinner with her mother and her sister and had asked him what his intentions were.

After struggling with the memory of Ruwee Naberrie's wide accepting smile after he told the man that he had absolutely no intention of ever hurting Padme, he angrily shoved back the memories that had been brought forth because of the princesses' resemblance to loved ones who had died long ago. The fact that there were three of them didn't help. Despite the fact that an autopsy done after Padme had been brought back to Naboo by some fugitive Jedi had shown that she had been expecting twins and an intestinal parasite, he had always associated those few days when he'd believed that he, Padme, and their children would be a family with the idea of three babies.

Wait a minute... he thought as something suddenly occurred to him. Fugitive Jedi? As in get one parent's permission, take the baby and run before the other parent finds out what happened Jedi?As in can mind trick someone into believing they'd done an autopsy Jedi?

Coming to the realization that the princesses' resemblance to his loved ones might not be a coincidence after all, Darth Vader angrily stood up and stormed down to the Detention Level, briefly stopping in medical to grab a scanner capable of doing genetic comparisons, a syringe and three of those things used to prick peoples fingers to collect small blood samples on the way. He jabbed the syringe into his armor, and drew some blood which he entered into the analyzer as the reference sample.

Storming into Sola's cell first after a quick round of eenie meenie minie mo, he walked over to her, grabbed her arm, and jabbed her right index finger with the finger pricker. As soon as a drop of blood he'd deemed large enough had appeared, he put it in the analyzer with a bit of difficulty due to the fact that she was struggling. A minute later, the scanner gave out an almost cheerful sounding ding to indicate it was done. He looked down at the readout. The word Match flashed in bright green letters on the screen. Subsequent tests on Leia and Breha indicated that they too were his daughters.

His babies had somehow survived. They had survived, and Obi-Wan had stolen them. He would pay.

&!&!&

Aboard the Millenium Falcon - which was rather crowded - the Skywalker boys were gathered around a datapad engaged in some sort of discussion.

"What are you boys doing?" Obi-Wan Kenobi asked when he approached the group.

"We're drawing up a schedule so we can share our father's lightsaber equally." Luke - who'd become the spokesperson of the group when it came to Kenobi - said. "He couldn't have meant for just one of us to have it, or he would've made more."

Obi-Wan sighed. He had planned on training Luke as he was the strongest of the boys. He'd previously been thwarted at every turn by Owen Lars and A'Sharad Hett. He had intended for the lightsaber to be a Padawan gift for Luke like the rock his Master Qui-Gon Jinn had given to him when he became a Padawan. Every attempt he had made to connect with Luke aboard the Falcon had been rebuffed however.

The other boys had outright refused to speak with him after they had been told that he had "Lied to Luke about how their father died". To make matters worse, Typho - the merry prankster of the bunch - took every opportunity to trip him, spill things on him, stick ridiculous signs on his back, and dye his hair weird colors courtesy of his vast hair-dye collection purchased with funds from the mechanic work he did in Anchorhead and the surrounding area when he wasn't working on the farm [Typho's hair was currently orange]. The twins - one of whom was his master's namesake - didn't deem him worth their attention and generally ignored him, but they would glare at him every time he approached, as they were doing now.

One of the boys must've gotten to Chewbacca, because while he had been friendly at the cantina - even reminiscing about the first time they had met - he was much less so now. Chewbacca must've said something to the smuggler Solo, because the man looked at him coldly every time they met. It seemed that throughout this entire trip, he was going to be an outcast.

&!&!&

Han watched Kenobi. He had been a child during the Clone Wars, nearly seven when it started. Kenobi and Skywalker had been his heroes. To trillions of children across the Galaxy Kenobi and Skywalker had been one word spoken rapidly Kenobiandskywalker. They had been two heroes fighting side by side pushing back the Separatist threat with their lightsabers held high. Time had disillusioned him. The last of his heroes had died yesterday when Owen Lars told him how before Skywalker was even cold in his grave Kenobi had abandoned his children on the Lars' doorstep and tried to sneak off into the night, not even caring what happened to them. If Owen hadn't heard the babies crying, a stray pack of Anooba or any predator for that matter could have eaten them long before the sun rose.

It figured. His only living relatives turned out to be assholes. The Empire which he'd seen as an escape from his servitude to Shrike turned out to be a den of monsters. The woman he loved used him and people who trusted him, destroying that trust...the list just went on and on.

The fact that guy he'd seen as a hero turned out to be a kriffing jerk was pretty much par for the course.

&!&!&

Owen watched the boys he had raised since infancy. All of the boys were excellent mechanics and phenomenal pilots like their father. They were all kind and caring like their grandmother as well.

Luke - the smallest of the lot - was the wide eyed dreamer and the peacemaker. His imaginative stories had kept the family entertained during the occasional sandstorm when all there was to do was to hunker down, wait for it to pass, and hope it didn't destroy too much of the farm. He had been the one his brothers went to when they needed mediation. He had been the one to stop most of the arguments and fights.

Typho - the prankster - was a brilliant Slicer, and an exceptional fighter. Typho had been the one who had gotten them free Holonet and Comm service when he was ten. Typho had also been the best of the boys at hand-to-hand when A'Sharad had taught them. He was also good at turning just about anything and everything in the immediate area into a weapon.

Qui-Gon absolutely adored animals of all kinds. A'Sharad had said that had the galaxy been different he would have made an excellent Veterinary Healer. The boy was constantly bringing home sick, injured, and orphaned animals. The place would have been overrun with pets if he hadn't convinced the boy to sell any creature he couldn't return to the wild.

The cheerful and sunny Rex was the best marksman of the four, and the best at first aid. The boy could accurately fire any weapon be it a slingshot or a blaster and was downright lethal with the Tusken slug thrower he'd acquired. He had probably saved all of his brother's lives at least once either with his blaster or with his first aid.

They were his boys, and the fact that their father was alive didn't change that. A'Sharad had told him a few hours earlier about the lie Kenobi had told Luke and what it meant before asking his permission to tell the boys later. A'Sharad had always respected his decisions when it came to how much to tell the boys about the Jedi, the Force, and their father in particular. Anakin had scared the living daylights out of him when he first met him, and he didn't know why until he'd returned with his mother's corpse. He heard the stories afterward and knew that Anakin wasn't someone to be messed with.

&!&!&

Beru silently cried as she watched the boys. Poor Anakin. He'd been dragged into a war almost immediately after his mother died, forced to fight battle after battle, unable to properly grieve his mothers death and the deaths of the friends who were dying all around him, forced to hide his love for the boys' mother who had died giving birth to them.

It was no wonder he had broke down, almost everyone he had ever loved and cared for were gone. All he had left in the end were his pain and his anger. She was damn near certain that Kenobi had told him that his boys had died with their mother, otherwise he would have raised them. The Anakin that Shmi had constantly spoken of would never have abandoned his children.

(**^**)

Edited on Sept. 3 2010