AUTHOR'S NOTES: To be clear, in this story, Luke and Leia were born and hidden after Mustafar. Nothing has changed except that Sidious concocts this method of replacing his apprentice.

Anakin comes to him. No. Not Anakin. This monstrosity. This mechanical monster. Darth Vader. He comes to him in the middle of the night. A tiny whisper that draws the hermit from his bed. The older man steps beyond the walls of his self-imposed prison, and he finds a black-shape on the dune hills.

It twists in the Force with all the rightness and wrongness of his former charge.

But there is something strange.

Another presence. Another…being. Not precisely cognizant. But aware. Alive. He senses its power, its raw thrumming energy. And he gasps to find it centered in the black behemoth looming like death upon his hillside.

Help it begs, though it is little more than an impulse, not yet conscious words. Safe. Declarative. Heal. Questioning.

Before he can make sense of it, Vader crumbles. The silhouette slumping uselessly into the sand.

On pure conditioning, the man who was once called Obi-Wan Kenobi runs to him. Saber drawn, but loosely held. This is no trick. Tricks were never in Anakin's nature. They are less so in that of Vader. Vader has not come for him, but to him. This is…unprecedented. World-shifting. Kenobi feels it, the way he suddenly stands balanced on a knife's edge, looking down at the strange double being that is collapsed within the sands.

Two minds reach for him, one begging for life, the other, death. In his confusion, Kenobi reaches back. He feels the wrongness there. It is something unnatural. A perversion. And yet, so full of light. Light like how Anakin used to feel, when, oh, so many years ago, he, too, was young and innocent.

The respirator wheezes, struggling to breathe despite the lack of exertion. In fearful fascination, Obi-Wan places a hand to the breastplate, searching and finding the working whir of the machinery.

But then his eyes shift lower, and widen. Unbidden, he extends a trembling hand. A shiver of something terrible and wonderful races like electricity through his fingers as he traces the source of his fascination beneath the plastoid girdle. His mind goes white with its power, the raw, untapped potential, speaking without words of its might and magnitude.

Its roots are deep in the well of Anakin Skywalker, not Vader, no, the darkness, the darkness has not watered it. Kenobi feels it. Feels its tendrils burrowed into the depths of his being, drawing, pulsing, its leaf and stalk filled with traces of light, and warmth, and him. The thought it almost too much to bear.

Even through the armor, he can feel his old apprentice's heart laboring. Faltering. The strain is clearly altogether too much. How he managed to get there, Kenobi will never know. But the Jedi will not ignore the pleas of Safety, Healing, and Peace echoing from the innocent.

He wonders if the blazing spark knows whether it asks for itself or for its progenitor. It matters not. And yet, still, he wonders.

He does not speak.

He does not need to.

Already, he understands.

It is not far to his cavern. Yet Vader struggles every step they take. The mechanisms of his limbs are creaking; they have fallen into disrepair. With a surge of righteous rage, Kenobi realizes they have become extraneous. Unnecessary maintenance on an obsolete machine whose only remaining purpose is the creation of its replacement.

And so the Jedi takes him into his home.

For hours on end, he does little but sleep, remaining limply where Obi-Wan has deposited him. The light blazes within him, flourishing like a blooming flower, reaching for the sunlight, and yet, Vader is hollow. He is tired. He is resigned. Even the Force around him feels torpid. He does not speak, does not stir, does not move. Were it not for the fluttering awareness in the Force. Obi-Wan would think him comatose.

For hours, he sits and watches the listless being. Even when Kenobi grows so bold as to touch him, there is no reaction beyond the inclination of the impassive helm. But still Kenobi sits, and relishes the way his soul entwines with the echoes of Anakin Skywalker, blossoming in the young and tender shoot.

What any of this means, he does not know. So he meditates and waits upon the Force. He trusts in the Force, that, in its wisdom, it will show him what to do.

When two days have passed, the Jedi sleeps, but he wakes to aching agony. The Force itself wails with the pains of its own labors. Anakin is in pain. Anakin is dying. Dying all over again!

From where he lies, he turns to see Vader stripped and disassembled, a wreck of Obi-Wan's tempestuous making. The helm and armor plating have all been threshed away, leaving naught but the control panel to remain.

It is a horrid and terrible sight unto itself, but there is no time to dwell on it.

Gushes of wet red blend with the hum of a red blade, and then, in one fluid movement, the cyborg is digging, pulling, uprooting the young shoot from where it lies buried.

And Obi-Wan can only watch in horror.

He wants to stop him. To plead sense into the maddened monster. But too late he senses the limpness of Not-Anakin's signature, all bloody and pulpy in the bed of mechanized palms. In despair, the naked, scarred face, all white and shaking, offers the little wilting body to him.

Instinctively, he rushes toward it, all disgust and revulsion forgotten. Two perfect little hands and feet. A face so small and innocent. And a chest that isn't breathing.

Breathe! Obi-Wan commands, his lungs forcing air into the tiny chest. Breathe! He calls upon the living Force, vigorously rubbing the shoulders of the gangly creature, invoking heretical oaths of the Jedi. Breathe! He wails.

And breathe the young one does.

In a fit of tears, Kenobi wraps him in his own blanket, holding the now-shrieking creature close to his chest.

Weary eyes watch him. Fading eyes. Eyes that droop with grim resignation. Blue eyes.

"Anakin," he breathes, "you have a son."

There is a slight smile on the scarred lips. The ragged breathing elongating into what might have been a sigh. Without the layered signature, Obi-Wan can feel him and only him. Pure and simple. This…this is all Anakin. Thin and worn, but still him.

"Dear one…" he whispers with recognition, teary-eyed as he kneels beside the gore-splattered body. Before he quite knows it, his calloused hands cup the scarred cheek before taking him into an embrace.

"Obi-wa…" The man chokes. "M-mast-…" The words die in his throat. But their meaning does not.

A moment passes, and then his eyes roll back, his chest heaving, sucking for oxygen he cannot possibly consume.

Air. The boy needs air! With not a moment to spare, Kenobi returns the mask to his face, slipping it over his nose and mouth just as quickly as he can. He cannot die. Not now. Not when they have only just been reunited!

Even as he cradles the baby to his chest, Obi-Wan turns to the vermillion trough ploughed into the arid flesh of his padawan. A desperate feat of a desperate father. With needle and thread, he sews the wound. Each stitch a prayer to the Force or any other deity that will listen. He has lived this nightmare once and relived it every night ever since. He will not be responsible for yet another orphaned child.

For days, Kenobi continues his vigil by the bedside, the loneliness somewhat eased by the company of the mewling babe.

His prayers are rewarded when, at last, Anakin stirs, his eyes fluttering, delicate moans escaping his tattered voicebox.

"Drink…" Kenobi commands. But even so, he cannot hide his tenderness as he carefully lifts a cup of precious water to desperate panting lips.

"You need to get better…" He whispers. "You have three children waiting for you, now. Did you know that? Three of them, Anakin…!"

He is weeping now. Raindrops watering pale skin.

"No, of course not. But I am telling you now. I have watched over them. All this time. Please, Anakin, come back. Come back to us. Come back to me."

The eyes flutter. Struggling against the light.

As blue eyes look up at him, he sees the source of Sidious' miscalculation. The innate goodness stamped in the core of Anakin Skywalker. The same core from which his children, all his children, were born.

"I—I am… here…Obi-Wan."

And there he remained.

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