To celebrate the start of Part III of our tale can I just say a very big THANK YOU to everyone who is still reading this. This story is very niche and requires a stack of pre-reading so I'm very honoured to have you guys still reading along with me. Seeing a new follower or two pop up with each chapter is really lovely and of course your reviews are stellar - I love hearing from you.

Here's the first five years of our time whirl through the galaxy. Enjoy!

Chapter 36: Interlude - I

13 BBY

The Alliance's young Captain Kryze and his esteemed aunty shared curt greetings over comm-call.

"Good to see you, as always. I'm calling on Bail's behalf. We're hoping you could help us with-"

"Let me guess," Bo-Katan challenged, with wry grin. "Another mission that none of your other rebel cells could dream of pulling off?"

"Something like that," Korkie admitted.

Bo-Katan tutted, only partially in mirth.

"If we were getting paid, I'd ask for a pay rise. We've been here a year and we're already the top employees."

It was abundantly true. Ever since the Mandalorian victory in the skirmish on Mon Cala and successful rescue of the King Lee-Char from pursuing Inquisitors – Bo-Katan's record against the Emperor's fallen Jedi, Korkie reflected, was already far better than his own – they had become the Alliance's favoured enforcers for difficult missions.

"I'll speak to Mon Mothma and have your allowance increased," Korkie agreed.

Bo-Katan gave a nod of approval.

"Thanks. That'd be good – could use at least an extra ten percent to cover some new equipment for Sewlen. But you know I'm not really in it for the money."

Even over comms, Korkie understood her silent meaning.

"It's too early for Mandalore, Ba'vodu," he sighed. "We'd be annihilated if we went back in there. But these other jobs are important. Both in terms of weakening the Empire and in establishing the loyalty of the Alliance towards us. So that when the time comes-"

"Yeah. I know. It just can't come soon enough, can it?"

And it couldn't. Every broadcast from Mandalore revealed some new atrocity. Their planet remained sparsely-populated, more Imperial that Mando. The earth gaped with deep wounds from which beskar had been mined and sold to their enemies. Krownest and Kalevala, although spared the firebombing that had reduced the last of Mandalorian civilisation to desert, were subject to strict naval blockade that prevented any unity between them and made near impossible any visits from those with rebellious tendencies. Ursa lived as the Countess Wren, a pale shadow of the warrior Korkie had known in his childhood, who had defended Sundari from Maul's forces only weeks after delivering her first baby, looming as mighty as a soldier twice her size. Korkie did not speak of Ursa Wren with Bo-Katan. The pain of the survival and yet the loss of her best friend was too great.

"We'll give them what they deserve, Ba'vodu. I promise."

"What they deserve and more," Bo-Katan agreed, and mounted a smile. "So what's this impossible mission the grand Senators of the Alliance have allocated for us?"

12 BBY

Cal emerged red-faced and sweaty from the sparring bout with his Master beneath Tanalorr's beaming sun.

"You go easy on everyone else then nearly take my head off?" he wheezed, flopping to the grass.

"You are the only Padawan of Tanalorr to have been knighted," Cere pointed out, coming to sit – rather more elegantly – beside him. "You don't need me to go on easy on you any longer, Cal. Take it as a compliment."

Cal made some noise of scepticism deep in his throat.

"I wasn't going to take your head off," Cere pressed.

"I know."

"No soldier of the Empire will take it easy on you."

Cal looked to his former Master with surprise. Cere Junda never spoke a word more than she needed to and sometimes her silence made Cal forget exactly how much she knew about him. About how much time she spent listening. She had more than recompensed for the years she had spent detached from the Force; she listened to it with greater sensitivity than any other Jedi he knew. And so, of course, Cere Junda knew that he had been thinking about leaving.

"It's been so long since we've found any Temple survivors," he reflected. "I've started to think about what's next for me."

They'd travelled what felt like half the galaxy together and shared great successes, brought to safety another twenty-odd Force-sensitives despite the antagonistic efforts of Junda's former Padawan. But it had been long lunar cycles now since their last successful retrieval mission. The surviving Force-sensitives beyond Tanalorr, if any remained, were well-hidden, and perhaps disinterested in being found.

Cal thought of Korkie Kryze, who he'd still never met. Of Ahsoka Tano, who had saved them from Imperial detection near Mon Cala but had little time to spare for a reunion – who'd slipped away, shortly after diverting them from the Empire's path, to continue in her work for the growing resistance. Cal did not know what had become of the heroes of his childhood. It seemed impossible that Grand Master Yoda could have died. But the power of the Sith was perhaps far greater than Cal could even fathom. He had heard the story of the death of Anakin Skywalker and his Master. To destroy the Chosen One surely conferred an insurmountable power. Unless perhaps Anakin had truly been as unchosen as the rest of them.

"I want to fight," Cal voiced. "You've created a safe haven for Force-sensitives, Master Junda. But to truly recreate the Jedi Order, we have to change the galaxy. Create a galaxy in which the Jedi can serve again. While the Emperor and Grievous and the Inquisitors still reign…"

"I agree."

They watched the children spar with simple sticks under the close supervision of Barriss Offee. The Mirialan had been the last of the Jedi Cal and Cere had brought to Tanalorr. It seemed like another lifetime, in another galaxy, that Padawan Offee had claimed responsibility for the bombing of the Jedi Temple and destruction of the Anaxes. The woman Cal and Cere had found on Mirial had been a hardened soldier – and an explosives expert still – but there had not been even a glimpse of darkness to find within her.

"Spent too much time around Ahsoka," she'd grumbled. "Sentient ball of kriffing light."

Barriss had told them of her return to the Temple on the night of the massacre and Cal had felt a guilty gratitude – despite all the horrors he had witnessed himself – that he had not been there to see it. Younglings riddled with blaster bolts upon the Temple floor. Barriss had been faced with no choice but to cut down the clones who had been the Order's loyal soldiers and had managed to escape with a troop of Initiates who had arrived on Tanalorr as powerful senior Padawans in all but name. (Barriss had laughed at the notion that she might be considered a teacher.) And yet today, after all the years of waging battle against the Empire, a self-professed war-weary Barriss Offee seemed to find a way to bring stillness to the younger students that tended to give Cal nothing but headaches.

It was bizarre to consider a galaxy in which those children came to know Tanalorr as their only home. For whom Coruscant and the Galactic Republic were distant memories. There had been a generation of infants born here, now, on Tanalorr. Who could live their lives knowing nothing more, unless Cal found a way to open that galaxy up to them.

"We have saved so many lives," Cere mused. "But lost so many millennia of wisdom. Our new Order cannot exist separate of our past. I hope to recover the ancient texts."

"Build new Archives?"

Cere nodded. Cal found a grin.

"You'll be the new Master Nu. Start telling off the younglings for being too loud."

Cere gave a gentle smile but did not laugh.

"Jocasta Nu was a far more brilliant Jedi Knight than anyone gave her credit for," she advised. "She gave her life in an effort to protect those Archives. I can only hope that I can find the pieces left behind."

Cal nodded with new sobriety.

"So we're both leaving, then? Putting Barriss in charge?"

"I suppose we are," Cere ceded. "You'll find Ahsoka and Korkie? Join their fight?"

Cal shrugged.

"There are resistance fighters all over the galaxy, these days. Someone will need to draw them all together before we face the Emperor. I'll go where the Force takes me."

Cere reached out and gave his shoulder a squeeze. He could feel in the Force around him that she was quietly proud.

"I'll miss sharing a ship with you," he offered.

Cere gave a faint smile.

"Likewise."

"It won't be long until we share again soon, I expect."

"Force-willing."

"You're not allowed to go and get yourself killed without me there to save you."

"You're the one saving me, are you, my very young Knight?"

Cal cracked a grin and corrected himself.

"Well, I mean, I did save you that one time."

Cere smirked.

"Very heroic of you, Knight Kestis. You're the one who'll need to take care in my absence."

"Will do, Master Junda. I promise. I've got a lot to do for this galaxy yet."

11 BBY

Korkie had stalked the notorious Count Vidian – famous within the Empire as a master of industrial productivity and infamous galaxy-wide for his habit of achieving his lofty targets through blackmail, bullying, and public executions – as far as the moon of Cynda when he inevitably ran into trouble. The trouble did not, as he had expected, arise from the Count Vidian himself nor from his reluctant colleague Wilhuff Tarkin. The trouble, instead, arose when Korkie was seated in the Asteroid Belt Cantina – the bar's fluorescent sign screamed come in and get belted! – enjoying the cheapest meal on Cynda and what should have been a quiet dinner.

The stormtroopers rolled in with poorly synchronised footfalls.

"We're looking for the fugitive responsible for the sabotage of Zone Forty-Two."

Korkie had noticed the fugitive already; he had been shuffled by his companions into a cupboard as Korkie had arrived in the cantina.

"You don't want to go in there," a young man warned the stormtroopers, who had made to inspect the obvious hiding spot. "We've got a very drunk, semi-conscious Wookiee having a nap in there. He'll not take well to you disrupting his peace and quiet."

It was an outrageous excuse. Korkie slurped a mouthful of noodles in his effort to avoid making a face. But the troopers dropped the matter, easily persuaded, and left the cantina entirely. Korkie, well-accustomed to being the most proficient liar in any crowd, watched the young man with new interest.

Sitting opposite him, the man's companion flipped her green lekku and gave him a disbelieving half-grin as the stormtroopers left the cantina. Korkie knew that smile. On a rounder face, with shorter lekku. And with the orange hue of mito-fungus smeared upon her skin. He picked up his bowl of noodles and made his approach.

"If it isn't my favourite freedom fighter! I told you we'd find each other again!"

The young Twi'lek – grown a long way since he had known her last, now on the cusp of adulthood – gaped at him and said nothing in the face of Korkie's beaming grin.

"Korkie Kryze," he offered, sticking out a hand.

Hera Syndulla gave a breath of disbelieving laughter.

"I haven't forgotten who you are, Korkie, I just-"

She shook her head in wonderment, accepted his hand in her own.

"Going by your real name again? Things must be going very well for you."

Korkie shrugged.

"A lot better than they were, certainly. Are you going to introduce me to your cute date?"

Hera flushed a deep purple.

"It's not a date. We just met. This is Kanan. He saved my life from that one's-"

She jerked a thumb at the uniformed factory worker emerging from the cupboard.

"-explosion at the Moonglow Polychemical. He's got some handy skills. So I'm trying to convince him to help me stop Vidian from blowing up the moon."

Korkie took a seat beside Hera and addressed Kanan with a smile.

"Hera saved my life at least twice when we went to Ryloth together. I fully endorse her as a rebel colleague."

The young human male shifted uncomfortably.

"It's nothing personal. Just that I never exactly planned…"

He scowled in the direction of the factor worker, who came to join them at their table, undeterred.

"I had a good job at that factory, you know. Simple life. Coming to the Asteroid Belt for a drink after work-"

"I saw what you did to those stormtroopers," Korkie interrupted. "Are you trained or untrained?"

Despite his prior insistence that he enjoyed the simple civilian life, Kanan bristled at the suggestion.

"Untrained? I have more training than you, I'd bet."

Korkie raised a brow mildly.

"My apologies."

"Your dad gave me a lecture on signal beacons, you know," Kanan went on. "Probably the last Temple lesson he ever gave. Just before the bombing, when he quit the Order, and I was apprenticed to Master Billaba."

"Temple trained?" Korkie appraised. "Stars. Small galaxy."

He pointed at Kanan with accusation.

"Well, you're definitely wasted on the simple life drinking at the pub and working at the Polychemical, in that case. Hera and I could use your help stopping Vidian."

Hera looked at Korkie with surprise.

"That's why you're here too?"

"Well, I'm not here for the Asteroid Belt's weeknight meal deal," Korkie pointed out. "I was sent on Mon Mothma's orders. You've heard of the Alliance?"

Hera nodded faintly.

"Small galaxy," she agreed.

"I could do it by myself if you preferred," Korkie went on, "but with you lot going around blowing things up-"

"My bad," the dishevelled human conceded.

He extended a hand to Korkie.

"I'm Skelly. A local. Don't want those bastards blowing up our moon."

Korkie accepted his handshake.

"Pleasure. Please don't take this to heart, Skelly, but I think that this could all be a hell of a lot less messy if we worked together on that project."

Hera raised a brow.

"And are you putting yourself in charge?"

Korkie shrugged.

"I am a Captain of the Alliance, you know."

"And I'm the captain of my ship."

"But we're not on your ship, dearest."

"You speak with a lot of authority for someone who isn't even trained," Kanan piped up.

Korkie stifled a smirk. He'd known that fire was in Kanan somewhere.

"Not Temple trained, but trained nonetheless," Korkie corrected him. "I can't say I expected such elitism from a man who professes to enjoy the simple life of a factory worker with a casual drinking problem."

"That's not elitism, it's just a fact. And I don't have a drinking problem, I-"

"It's my planet," Skelly argued. "I think I should be in charge."

"You nearly killed Hera and half the factory with that bomb," Kanan pointed out.

"And nearly killed Vidian too!" Skelly protested.

"Executive call," Korkie declared, setting down his noodles with a clatter. "I'm in charge of the ground operation and Hera is the boss of anything aerial. Four captains isn't feasible, I'm afraid."

Kanan looked faintly amused.

"You're a dictator like your mother, then?"

Korkie turned to Hera with a stunned grin.

"Your date needs to learn some manners, Hera."

Hera flushed again.

"He's not my-"

"In any case," Korkie went on. "Better to be a benevolent dictator like my mother than democratically elected like our beloved Emperor."

He drew himself into his most stately posture.

"Now, is everybody ready to hear my plan?"

"No more jokes about dating, please," Hera grumbled.

Despite the dim lighting in the underbelly of the factory, the young Mandalorian's eyes seemed to spark.

"Why?" he asked pertly. "Do you like him?"

"No."

Stars. Hera realised, far too late, that she should have kept her mouth shut.

"Don't give me that look."

"What look?"

"Like you're reading my mind."

Korkie smiled to himself as he fiddled with the wires that would produce the blackout they needed.

"I'm not reading your mind, Hera. It's more like you're broadcasting it."

"Oh, stop!"

He wrapped a tender arm about her shoulders.

"If it helps, Hera, I don't think he's noticed. Kanan's busy with his own things."

This did, quietly, make Hera feel a little better. But she maintained her disapproval.

"You are so rude," she grumbled. "Reading everyone's minds all the time."

"Forgive me," Korkie sighed, with a rueful smile, giving her shoulders a squeeze. "It's been a long time since I've been in love."

10 BBY

Was it a cause for celebration? The devastated dustbowl of Mandalore now boasted population enough for the Emperor to install a governor to keep it in line. Alrich said it was heartening. Ursa wasn't so sure. The Mando'ade were still outnumbered by Imperial parasites and those that have survived the Purge had survived, as Ursa had, for the wrong reasons. They had survived, mostly, out of cowardice.

It was perhaps no cause for celebration but a banquet was mandatory. Ursa had no love for Gar Saxon but he was no more a puppet of the Empire than she was. The Countess of Krownest had to be seen welcoming her new Governor of Mandalore or risk losing the Emperor's tacit tolerance. Krownest's occupying forces had thus far abided by her strict ultimatum: that no soldier ever set foot in the fortress nor in its surrounding expanses of forest and lake, and no soldier, therefore, ever came remotely close to approaching her children – who were nothing but a headache where entertaining the new Governor Saxon was concerned. Sabine had outgrown her days of painting on the walls and sparring with her mother and accepting these tasks as some game, as a mere diversion in her solitary life. She had with her growth-spurt found a new understanding of the galaxy around her that Ursa had been unable to bring herself to shield her from.

"We're prisoners in our own castle!" she had declared, a few days shy of her eleventh life-day, watching the stormtroopers perform military exercises on the far side of the lake.

And with this realisation had come a great shift. She had dragged her younger brother into this newfound maturity alongside her and Ursa's days of determined apathy – about the Empire, about Krownest, about the system of Mandalore and its future – were over. And everything had changed further still with the advent of rebel media. With the name Kryze on the lips of the galaxy again, after the Empire had tried to submerge it in rubble. Ursa had taught her children and her daughter in particular about their Ba'vodu Bo-Katan. Instilled in them all her combat teachings. Had thought the sentimentality harmless; Bo-Katan Kryze was surely dead, after all. And then she hadn't been.

Alive and fighting by her nephew's side. Ursa had been enveloped in relief and joy and then flooding shame. How could she ever embrace her best friend – stars, how could she even look her in the eye – ever again? Bo-Katan had lost everything and yet was still a soldier. Ursa was nothing but a coward and a failure. And the quietly famous Kryze survivors were now her children's revered heroes.

"Not every Mando'ade is under the Emperor's boot after all!" Sabine had declared, and become for the first time in her eleven years a patriot.

"I'm going to hijack star destroyers like Korkie when I grow up," Tristan had solemnly resolved.

Which was why there were strictly no children at the table as they hosted the newly-installed Governor Gar Saxon.

"If the descendants of the Clan Kryze were true soldiers," Saxon declared, "they would be here, fighting for their homeworld."

Ursa had been surprised he'd even dared to broach the subject of the continued survival of the far more legitimate heirs to leadership of Mandalore. She watched the Governor heap more shatual onto his plate and inwardly grimaced at having naively promised her children some leftovers.

"But they know, of course, that they would fail," Saxon went on. "So the nibral busy themselves with the sort of interplanetary humanitarian osik that rightfully lost Satine Kryze her throne."

Alrich made some non-committal grunt of assent and avoided Ursa's eye. They had known that this would be difficult. They perhaps hadn't quite appreciated exactly how difficult it would be. Fortunately, Saxon seemed content with soliloquising.

"This era represents a great rebirth for Mandalore. The deserving have survived and returned home. Mandalore will rise again and be better off, perhaps, for the traitors who were lost. They call it the Purge, after all, hmm?"

It was all Ursa could do not to strangle him. How could they call themselves deserving? They had survived because they had left Mandalore – the Wrens to Krownest, while Saxon had left the system entirely – and left their brothers and sisters to die.

"It is indeed a time of unprecedented change on Mandalore," Alrich agreed. "A new identity is being forged."

Her husband was really rather an adept politician. Beneath the bland neutrality of his statement Ursa heard the words he could not say. Mandalore's new identity, for the first time in its history of millennia, was one of subservience. Saxon could strut his new armour and call himself Governor but Mandalore was a pawn of the Empire now and the shame was his to bear. Theirs to bear.

Ursa had wanted to survive so desperately, the night that Mandalore had burned. But she had not wanted to survive like this.

"I had hoped to become acquainted with your children," Saxon ventured. "It is this new generation that will carry Mandalore into its glorious future."

"Heavens willing," Ursa agreed.

Sabine and Tristan would never be cowardly as she had been. Sabine and Tristan would carry Mandalore out of this hole.

"But I am afraid it is far past their bedtime," she lied.

The children would be awake and likely conspiring to hear anything they could of the conversation downstairs.

"They train from dawn each day," Alrich went on, "and are exhausted by the time the sun is down."

"I am glad to hear that you have instilled in them our proud traditions."

"Thank you, Governor."

The dinner passed in stilted silences and the clinking of cutlery, Saxon having exhausted his apparently abundant optimism for the future of Mandalore. Ursa's shoulders slumped with relief when the fortress door finally clunked shut and the Governor boarded his liner; he had, mercifully, declined their cordial offering of overnight hospitality. She leaned against the solid glass and steel of the door and found her husband's weary gaze.

"This can't be our future," she murmured.

It was the first time that either of them had expressed the truth in such certain terms. Their love was lived mostly in silence, these days. Words had never come easily to Ursa and she had lost her grip upon them further still in the years of her depression, when they had seemed to melt and stagnate in a concrete sludge inside her mind. But she knew, now, after emerging from the fog, that Alrich was her greatest ally and always would be. She hoped he knew it too.

"When the kids are older…" he mused.

"When the kids are older," Ursa agreed.

There was no need to say the rest. They watched Saxon's Imperial-stamped ship lift into the inky sky and they knew.

9 BBY

"Owen-Beru-Shmi-Ani-Owen-Beru-someone come quick!"

A dark-haired boy tore across the desert sands, noise-cancellers tossing around his neck and his shirt flapping behind him.

"In the canyon! Luke's gone and kriffing-"

The boy was so short of breath from his sprint that he could not finish his sentence; Shmi Skywalker did not need him to. The only activity her grandson would be interested in pursuing in Beggar's Canyon was flying and Biggs Darklighter would not be running for help – which meant getting his friends in trouble – for anything less than a disastrous crash.

"I'll grab some things and we'll take the speeder and go."

Anakin had gone to Anchorhead and Beru and Owen were working, scattered across the property, while Shmi had been bade in her advancing age – a half-century beneath Tatooine's burning suns being no small feat, and nothing less than exceptional for a woman who had lived as a slave – to stay home and rest. She slung the medi-kit over the speeder's saddle.

"Is he trapped in the wreckage, Biggs? Do we need to get Owen to help us?"

Biggs shook his head, sweat flying.

"Leia lifted it already."

There was a stunned shake in his voice that told Shmi that Leia had demonstrated something approaching superhuman strength in doing so. Her physical abilities in the Force had lagged always behind Luke's but it did not surprise Shmi in the slightest that she had drawn new power from her brother's pain. An exposure before Biggs that was, at this point, by far the least of their problems.

"We'll go just the two of us, then. Best to be quick. I can always call the others over on the second speeder if we need to."

They cut through the desert, the scorching air whirling past them as though trapped in some enormous industrial oven. The rocky scape of the Canyon loomed ahead. Young Biggs had run a long way. Shmi quietly reminded herself that the boy would need to be rehydrated while she dealt with Luke; it would not do to have two casualties.

"They were going too fast," Biggs panted, as the tangle of wreckage came into view. "I told them they were going too fast but when the two of them are racing you can't kriffing stop them, Shmi. I tried but-"

"I understand, Biggs."

They dismounted from the speeder to find Luke, paler than his tunics, lying on his back amidst his fractured ship. Leia had clambered in to join him, holding her twin's torso in her lap in a fierce embrace.

"Nana Shmi!" she wailed. "Luke has broken his leg!"

Shmi called out to the children as she hurried over, medi-kit in tow.

"His head, Leia? His neck?"

"They're okay, Nana."

Shmi and Biggs together heaved aside the racer's broken wing with great effort – a feat that Leia had somehow managed alone – and joined Luke and Leia amongst the wreckage.

"Your head, Luke? Your neck?"

"I already said-"

"They're okay, Nana."

Luke's words were panted with pain.

"Your belly? Your back?"

"They're okay. My leg-"

"I can see."

Luke's right thigh was purple-red and swollen and not quite straight. Of all the bones he could have broken…

"What are we going to do, Nana?"

"We are going to splint it straight and get you home."

Shmi didn't even want to think about the matter of repair. It surely needed some sort of surgical repair. Something far beyond their means.

"Will the splint hurt?"

"It will make the pain much better, Luke. But it will hurt more for just a few moments."

"I can't-"

"Leia, help your brother find some peace. Slow breathing for the both of you."

Leia gave a determined nod, jaw clenched, and tightened her arms about her brother as Shmi fumbled for a bandage strong enough to give the necessary traction. It had been many decades since she'd treated an injury like this. Since she had been a slave treating the arena fighters. Sometimes the master had given her some supplies to do so, if they had an interest in seeing their prize slave return for another fight. More often the injured slaves had been left by their masters to die, a resource spent, and she had made do with what she could scavenge. Shmi's hands shook as she measured up the splint and pulled taut the bandage.

"Alright, slow breathing, Luke, and we'll-"

"Sleep," Leia commanded, her cheek pressed against her twin's.

Luke's eyes fluttered closed. Biggs gaped.

Shmi looked at Leia, her heart was bursting with both love and exasperation.

"It is very common to faint from the pain," Shmi offered the dumbfounded Biggs in explanation. "He'll be alright."

Shortly after Shmi's curt comm-call, Anakin entered the homestead ashen-faced and flustered.

"What did you do?"

Luke, who had been stoic all day, leaked fresh tears from his bright eyes as he looked up at his father from his supine position on his pallet on the floor.

"Dad, I'm sorry, I-"

"It doesn't matter what he did," Shmi cautioned, laying a hand upon her son's arm. "He's okay now. He's going to be okay."

In a manner of speaking, of course. The swelling of Luke's thigh had continued as a mottled bruise had flourished. Shmi had given him almost their entire supply of analgesics already but there was no question of them affording the more effective synthetic pharmaceuticals. Luke would not die of his injury. But what the coming days and weeks held, whether he would ever walk and run as he once had…

"What did he do?" Anakin asked Shmi, voice lowered with determined restraint that did not conceal his anger.

"He's fractured his femur," Shmi answered, "but nothing else, as best I can tell."

"Was he racing?"

"What else would we be doing?" Leia sniped, from her sentry's stance at the head of her brother's pallet. "It's not like we're allowed to do anything else!"

"You are allowed to race pods with me," Anakin gritted out.

There was such bubbling anger beneath his words. Luke must have sensed it in the Force; he turned paler still.

"You are allowed to race pods with me because racing pods without supervision is dangerous!"

"We were with Biggs," Leia contributed, rather unhelpfully.

"You race with an adult who knows how to keep you in check-"

Anakin perhaps realised the hypocrisy of his own words and took a shuddering attempt at a Jedi's meditative breath.

"Never mind. You're right, Ma. We'll talk about this later."

He rubbed a hand over his sun-lined face.

"I've seen this before," he murmured. "These injuries get operations in the Core. But no one will fix it here."

Shmi nodded heavily.

Tatooine's health system was non-existent. Drugs, of course, were sold, but there was little money to be made in medical droids or operating theatres. So few lives upon Tatooine were deemed worthy of the credits. On a Core World, this leg would be operated on. On Tatooine, the leg was left to heal the best it could. A lucky child healed well, or continued a productive life with a prosthesis or mobility aid. An unfortunate child died, hungry, because they could work no longer. Luke seemed to hear her thoughts, for his delicate tears turned to sobs.

"We'll splint it and do whatever you can with the Force," Shmi resolved. "We have the hover-chair that Cliegg used, while we save for something customised."

"I didn't leave Tatooine to give them this," Anakin spat, disgusted. "If he limps his whole life because we can't-"

He cut his speculation short before his listening children. His anger was trained only at himself now. Shmi reached out to him, found his organic shoulder as it met his prosthesis.

"Anakin, unless we take him off-planet, our options are few."

Anakin shook his head.

"I can't. I won't be able to shield them both if they're apart."

"Then bring me with you," Leia suggested. "We could go-"

"To an Imperial hospital?" Anakin cut in, his anger flaring once more. "We can't, Leia. It's not safe. It's not worth the risk."

"But if he limps his whole life-"

"Then both of you will remember never to do something like that ever again," Anakin resolved darkly.

He knew, without Shmi's reminder, that he had been too harsh. He clunked to his mechanical knee by Luke's pallet, dropped his head low.

"I'm sorry, Lukey. I wish I could do more. But to go off-planet risks something far worse than this."

He gave his son's hand a squeeze.

"We'll get you better right here. I'll give you everything I can. I promise."

Anakin knew he would be little use as a healer if he could not let go of his anger. His anger at his children had faded long ago, with the pallor of Luke's face and the fierce way that Leia had protected him. But that deeper anger at his own self…

He did not know how to let go of that. For it was the simple truth that his son had broken his leg because Anakin had left his children, bored and unsupervised, on this hells-damned dust ball where he too had only ever found joy in flying. In that momentary illusion of freedom that it granted.

He'd helped them make that pod. He'd taught them to fly. And then he'd left them on the farm while he disappeared for days at a time…

"He's sleeping," Shmi reported, coming to find him where he stood amidst the cooling sands. "We have enough analgesics to get him through the night. But anything extra you could do with the Force, to help us ration them-"

"I know. I'm coming in soon."

He was supposed to be meditating. Preparing himself for the role as a healer than he'd never even kriffing trained for. He'd spent the Clone Wars too busy losing men on the blasted battle-field to ever learn to be a healer.

"You think that this was your fault," Shmi ventured.

Anakin grimaced.

"This was my fault."

Shmi shook her head.

"No child can be protected from every accident."

Anakin mirrored the gesture, without any of his mother's softness. His jaw was clenched tight and he didn't seem to know how to release it.

"I should have been here. I should have been watching them."

"You were doing something important, Anakin."

The surprise loosened that rigid tension; he looked at his mother with mouth slightly ajar. She knew. Anakin had told no one of the purpose behind his erratic missions to Anchorhead and Mos Eisley. He'd not wanted to put anyone else in danger and besides, it was hardly anything to boast. He'd used what was left of his Jedi tricks – used the tricks that had always come more easily to his Master, the sweet-talking and swindling – to liberate a few precious lives from slavery. It had taken him years in Owen's workshop to craft the tools required to deactivate the chips. His work was small-scale and unpredictable, seizing quiet opportunities as they presented themselves. He'd given those slaves a chance at a new life but been able to guarantee nothing, as he slipped them onto transporters under the guise of new names. They were still illiterate. Still all but creditless. He wasn't doing a hero's work.

It was better than doing nothing, he'd told himself. But now with his son in pieces, sleeping fitfully, he wasn't so sure.

"I'm proud of you, Ani."

Anakin dropped his head once more.

"It's not as important as looking after my children. Nothing is as important as looking after them."

"Everybody is someone's child," Shmi implored. "Your children live good lives, Anakin. You gave them good lives. And you are helping those now who have not been so lucky."

Anakin wanted to cry but almost laughed. Good lives. He had not given his children the lives he ought to. He and Padme had dreamed of good lives for their children, in that naïve flush of hope that had risen with her swelling belly in the days before the nightmares and before it all fell apart. They'd planned to give them Padme's childhood: daisy chains in the spring and long summers by the sea. Their favourite stories woven into a silk tapestry above their beds. A banquet for their every lifeday.

"This isn't the life I had hoped for them," Anakin whispered. "I was going to give them a better life than this."

Something seemed to crumble in the Force. A horrible emptiness remained. Anakin turned to his mother and saw tears on her face.

"I had hoped to do better for you too, Anakin."

He had done a million wrongs and yet this somehow felt the worst. To bring his mother to tears.

"But this is not the end, Anakin," she resolved.

Shmi found the smile that had always eluded him, even as she sniffled back tears.

"There is still hope."

Anakin embraced her and wished desperately to have his own arms again. To hold his mother and know the feeling of her.

"I'm sorry, Ma. I didn't mean it. You gave me everything I needed."

"And you have given it to them," Shmi promised. "You have, Anakin. They will live good lives."

It was the mantra, Anakin realised, that sustained her. And that hope would have to sustain him too.

"They will, Ma."

As though by saying it they could will it into existence. Shmi nodded and repeated the oath.

"They will."

Aw, Tatooine babies. It's all going to be okay.

I hope you enjoyed Hera's return. I had fun with her segment. I'm excited to return to Mandalore in the coming chapters too.

Next chapter, we continue to race through the years. There will be more rebel reunions, the kids grow to adolescence, we check in with our favourite Inquisitor, and Korkie stands up for his planet.

xx - S.