As the years passed, the people who had cared for Luke and Leia got on with their lives. While they grieved over the loss of the children they cared for and found themselves thinking about them at odd moments, time stopped for no-one, and they couldn't spend every day dwelling on their loss or they'd go mad.
Owen and Beru adopted a young orphan they had found starving in the streets of Mos Eisley. They had gone to get a part for the speeder that they couldn't pick up in Anchorhead, and had run into the child who had promptly tried to pick their pockets. Rather than leaving the child to his fate as most people would have done, they brought the boy home with them where he began to heal the hole that had been ripped into their hearts the day Luke had been taken, and they began to heal the hole left in his heart by the loss of his parents. The boy grew up happy on their farm, and showed every sign of wanting to continue the family business when it was his turn to do so.
Obi-wan Kenobi went back out into the galaxy where he did his best to aid in the fight against the Empire in any way he could. He briefly found Luke at one point, but just as quickly lost him again when Boba Fett came to the rescue and nearly killed him, getting the boy back.
Yoda stayed on Dagobah doing a task he had found to live for, hoping that the galaxy would find a way to work itself out once the Jedi Order was gone.
Bail Organa threw his time and effort into the Rebellion that was forming as the disparate groups that opposed the Empire banded together after Breha died, believing his little Leia to be dead since he'd never received a ransom note, nor found any evidence that Lord Vader had her. His friend General Riekaan would try to comfort him, telling him that she was alive since her body hadn't been found, and as long as her body wasn't found, there was hope, but it didn't do all that much good.
Out there in the galaxy, Boba Fett cared for and raised the children that he had taken for his own, eventually adopting them, and giving them his family name. As he raised the both of them, he wondered about Sintas and his daughter, how they were doing, and whether or not he should contact them. Though he and Sintas had loved each-other, there had been several factors that had torn their marriage apart including the fact that they'd been a bit too young when they had married. They had not parted under the best of circumstances, and Sintas hadn't tried to call him since then.
&!&!&!&!&
Luke and Leia Fett would be adults in another year according to Mandalorian tradition. Earlier that month, for their twelfth birthday, their dad had gotten them each a set of body armor and told them that they could hunt with him. This hunt wouldn't be easy, as they were after a high ranking officer in the new Rebel Alliance who had already escaped several other highly skilled bounty hunters.
Once the man was captured, their dad would hand him over to the Empire. They had to stay out of the way at that point because of the abilities they had been born with. Abilities which had caused the Jedi to murder their mother and kidnap them from their blood family. Abilities that would lead either to their execution or enslavement in the Empire if they were ever discovered.
So, dad's going to flush him out and we'll nab him? Luke silently sent to his sister. Their sibling bond could be quite useful at times.
That's right. What are you asking me for anyways? You already know the drill. Leia sent back slightly irritated.
Just nervous. This is our first real hunt, and I don't want to mess it up Luke sent as he checked the setting on his blaster once more.
Here he comes, get ready. Leia sent back, her excitement clearly evident even without the Force.
The man they were trying to capture came around the corner faster than they had expected. When he saw Leia who was using her natural appearance for this hunt since she'd gotten in trouble with some of the local law enforcement over her involvement in an illegal race the day before, he looked as if he had seen a ghost. That didn't stop the man from continuing trying to escape. When Luke and Leia finally caught up to him, it became immediately apparent that he had gotten a message out to someone.
Shit, we messed up. Luke sent, upset. His first real hunt where he got to aid in the capture rather than tend to the merchandise after it had been caught, and he screwed up.
No we didn't, we caught him. Leia sent gesturing with her blaster toward their unconscious prisoner.
Yeah, but he had time to warn his buddies, and they'll escape before we can get the bounty on their little nest. Luke pointed out.
Not if we move fast. Leia said, comming their dad and informing him of the situation.
A couple hours later, back on the Slave I, after a rather eventful morning during which a Rebel cell had been handed over to the local law enforcement who pretended not to recognize Leia in her current "disguise", Luke and Leia waited in front of the capture cage with the food tray until the merchandise woke up. When he did, the man stared at Leia once more looking as if he'd seen a ghost, completely ignoring Luke.
"I was right, it is you princess." the man, whom Leia recognized as a friend of Bail Organa's said.
"I'm not a princess." Leia said as she slammed the tray down in front of the captive. Some of the nutritive mush that they fed the merchandise in order to keep it alive until transfer slopped from the bowl.
"Don't you remember Alderaan?" the man asked completely ignoring the food.
"Of course I remember Alderaan. Dad rescued me from that place. Tell me, was Bail going to let the Jedi use me too, or were they just going to use my brother?" Leia responded. They had run into Kenobi a couple years earlier, and the man had tried to kidnap Luke. It had taken nearly a week to get him back, and Kenobi had managed to escape.
"Brother? You don't have a brother. The bounty hunting scum you call dad fed you a pack of lies. If you let me out I'll take you back home where you belong." the man said as he gripped the bars of the capture cage.
"Wrong answer. I'll just stay here where I know I won't get lied to. Dad told me the whole truth, or as much of it as he knew." Leia said as she walked to the small private bunk that her father had installed for her when he came to realize that she needed her own personal space away from the "boys".
"So, you're the so called brother I'll bet." the man said turning to Luke for the first time.
"There's no so called about it. It's been genetically proven several times over." Luke said. The man in the cage was really starting to get on his nerves.
"What's your name son?" the man asked, looking like he was going for a sympathy ploy.
"Luke Fett." Luke responded without hesitating. That was his name, had been his name for years, and the fact that it had been something else beforehand didn't change anything.
"I meant your real name." the man said.
"That is my real name." Luke replied. Boba Fett had formally adopted him and his sister when they were seven.
"I suppose that Fett "rescued" you too." the man said sarcastically.
"Yes he did." Luke said. His father had taken him before the Jedi could take him and get him killed in one of their harebrained schemes, so technically it had been true that his father had rescued him. He hadn't appreciated it at the time though, but now that he'd seen and heard what happened to the Force Sensitives that the Empire had caught, he had a better appreciation for what his father had done, and the risks he took every day they were with him.
"So, what was your name, and where did you live before you were "rescued"?" the man asked in an almost conversational tone as he idly played with the spoon that had come with his food.
The man was soon going to die, and any information he gave him would be useless, so he might as well answer him. Luke thought. He could treat it as the man's last request.
"My name was Luke Skywalker, I lived on Tatooine with my Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen." Luke finally said.
The man's eyes widened at the name Skywalker and he began to study the boy carefully, inaudibly muttering to himself under his breath the entire time.
Damn, seems that people still remember my biological father. Luke thought.
Several days later, a man who had been a security guard for, and close friend to Bail Organa went to his death with a head full of valuable secrets that had nothing to do with the Rebellion. Once he heard the story of the young twins, especially what Leia had to tell, the man realized that he would go to his grave with one regret, and that was that his message had gotten through to Alderaan.
&!&!&!&!&
Bail Organa reread the message he'd received from his old friend who was almost certainly dead now for the fourth time. The same unbelievable words he had seen the first time were still on it. He reread it a fifth time, and it still said:
Princess Leia alive, with Fett.
For the past six years, the notorious bounty hunter Boba Fett had kept his precious little girl captive for some unknown purpose. Very few things seemed to motivate the bounty hunter, and his primary motivation seemed to be money. He knew that the reason the man had kept his daughter couldn't have been money, because the man would have already sent in a ransom note or would have sold the girl to the highest bidder years ago. The only reason he could think that the man had kept his daughter was...Oh Force, not that!
A man who had once been a security guard for the young princess, and now worked for her father, looked down at the message Bail Organa had so carelessly left out on the datascreen on his desk when he had rushed out of the room in order to make arrangements for his daughter's retrieval. He would let his boss have his few moments of elation over the discovery that his daughter was still alive, since the princess wouldn't be alive for very much longer. Certain little secrets needed to be kept after all, and if they were discovered, things would go badly for him. Very badly.
&!&!&!&!&
Yoda stared at the possible futures that had been laid out before him by the Force. Many were surprisingly bright considering the fact that the Jedi order wouldn't be involved as anything other than a footnote in some history texts. The bounty hunter Fett had given the twins strength and a sense of purpose that would carry over to almost any path they chose. The Jedi Order would be gone, but there was the possibility of a galaxy in which it wasn't needed.
After he followed the ever-moving future for a while and found some much needed hope and comfort there, he focused on the task for which he now lived, feeding false futures to the Emperor and his minions so they didn't notice the direction the galaxy was taking until it was far too late to change course.
Edited on 3/13/2012