Okay, so no Leia stowaway.
Vader takes a circuitous path through the galaxy, hiding in asteroids and moon-shadows to avoid Imperial detection. He approaches the paradise planet of Byss stealthily; to be too brazen would be to give the game away.
Many believed Coruscant to be the seat of the Emperor's power, though, in truth, it was nothing more than a pretty bauble. One more jewel to add to the Emperor's proverbial crown. Byss was the real seat of Palpatine's throne. The home of his Imperial Citadel. And based on the growing ache of the Sith's bond, it would seem to be his present location.
To think Sidious is hiding would be a mistake. He is not hiding. He is waiting. Biding his time and taking pleasure in the cat-and-mouse game foisted upon his Apprentice.
It is a dance of sorts, reciprocal movements between warring bodies, both vicious and poetic. A pas de deux of Darkness, only finished when Vader is left rapined, broken and bleeding at Sidious's feet.
They have engaged in this promenade many times since his awakening inside the shell of armor. It is familiar, routine, practiced, even. He should have been dead many times over. Not that Sidious had not tried. But still…it is always the same…when at last he sinks to the floor like a dying swan, beaten and brutalized, suffocating inside the failing suit under tongues of Sith lightning, the Emperor stays his hand, dragging him back from the release of death.
That was always and forever the coda of their dance, the consummation of their conflict, those sharp and crackling tongues of lightning against which he had no defense.
It is the way of the Sith. Forever locked in a duel of power between Master and Apprentice.
Tomorrow and tomorrow. Forever. And forever.
But not this time. No, not this time. The Light and Dark both lie coiled like serpents, waiting to strike, full of anticipation and hunger on the precipice of destiny.
This time, at least, he will claim his own release, and, at long last, the Force's bastard child shall be free from the chains of fate.
Vader will challenge. They will reach the practiced climax of their war. Sidious will draw near. The Emperor's cruel lightning will spark. The charge buried in Vader's breast will ignite.
And in a splash of gore, Darth Sidious and Darth Vader will be no more.
Inside the walls of the Lars homestead, Obi-Wan dozes, albeit fitfully. His broken body has been strained and pushed to the limits of its endurance, and not even his anguish over Anakin can drive off the weakness pervading his frame.
Even if he knew where Anakin had gone, he is barely strong enough to rouse himself, let alone go rushing to his aid.
As he floats between waking and dreaming, a familiar voice invades his fever dreams.
Sensed the boy in the Force, I have, Obi-Wan. Perhaps, too, has Darth Sidious. Safe you are, hmm?
Yes, he manages, the line between waking and dreaming blurring even as he claws for consciousness.
Talk long, we cannot, but stop Skywalker, we must. Without their father, in grave danger, the children will be.
Vaguely, he knows with unseeing sight that Luke sits beside him crosslegged on the barren floor, blue eyes hollow and red from crying, keeping watch even as the twin suns crest the horizon and his guardians begin to rouse in their bedchamber. The boy seems frightened that if he takes his gaze off Obi-Wan for even a second, he, too, will vanish like his father.
Poor child… He thinks dimly, floating between delirium and vague awareness.
I do not know where Anakin has gone, he confesses to the distant voice, he has hidden himself in the Force.
Worry not, the voice reassures, rest now. Heal. Trust in the Force, we must. It will show us the way.
The presence withdraws from his mind, and Obi-Wan withdraws from the world as he attempts a healing trance, meditating on the Light even as his thoughts move between waking and dreaming.
Eventually, exclamations of outrage and surprise erupt in his ears as Owen and Beru enter their galley to find Luke keeping watch over the half-dead hermit. Obi-Wan cracks open his eyes, attempting to focus enough to comprehend the animated discussion ensuing above him, but manages only snatches here and there.
Luke keeps repeating the word "family," stressing it with reverent intonation, even as he sobs over his father's apparent abandonment. As soon as the word is uttered, it is clear the argument is all but over as Owen and Beru's voices lower to a reluctant hum.
"Family…" that must have been what Anakin told the bewildered child when he had left the unconscious Jedi in his care.
Family is everything on Tattooine...
Even as such thoughts swim poignantly through his brain, he returns to his meditation, only waking with a jolt hours later when Beru takes the liberty of removing his tunic. When his eyes fly open with alarm to the sight of her kneeling over him, Beru shushes him, her gaze downcast as she meets his with a certain knowing solemnity.
"It's alright…" She assures, pressing his shoulder. "I'm sorry for startling you…I was only changing your bandages and had thought you might sleep through it…"
He relaxes, and she proceeds. But it isn't alright. They both know it. They are both aware of the obvious: he has failed. Failed Anakin and failed himself.
As Beru peals and discards the bloodstained patches, it does not escape his notice that Luke stays doggedly close to his side, silent and sullen, but ever faithful, prepping the disinfectant swabs and activating gel on the replacement bandages, handing them to his aunt as she tends to him.
The boy shouldn't see him like this, but he doesn't have the heart to make the child leave. The Jedi's heart twists as he notices the box of supplies from which Luke works; it is clean and untarnished, filled with top-grade materials, clearly something Anakin has left behind for his welfare.
The bacta patches are working their miracle. The holes punctured in his chest have filled into half-closed gashes. His lungs stretch painfully but still manage to take full breaths of oxygen. Somehow, he feels that he doesn't deserve it.
"I am sorry, Beru…" The Jedi finally says with a groan as she presses on the final bandage. "I—for everything—all of it. I am sorry I didn't save him."
Beru only sighs, her gaze turning to Luke, who listens with a trembling lip.
"Some people don't want to be saved, Ben." She remarks cryptically. "And if there is one thing I know about Skywalkers, it is that you can't get them to do something they don't already want to do."
While maneuvering Organa's cloaked ship through hyperspace corridors, Vader listens as broadcasters on the sub-space radio speak in hushed and excited tones of the galaxy-wide hunt for the Emperor's Second. Interestingly, some seem to speak of him with oblique sympathy, especially those broadcasting from the Outer Rim, speculating as to his desperation as a hunted fugitive.
There were even some hinting in obtuse tones of unrest among the stormtroopers, some of whom appeared to be suspiciously unresponsive to calls to harden the defenses around the Emperor. It was not shocking, but certainly heartening. Vader's men had always been loyal; unlike their useless officers, he not only walked through the hellstorm of the frontline, he created a hellstorm all his own to rain down on their enemies.
The thought of the galaxy's tacit approval of his betrayal surprises him and touches something in his core unfelt since the days of the Clone Wars. It almost makes him feel like Anakin Skywalker.
Almost.
He has spent years in the cold prison of the torturous suit. He is accustomed to loneliness. All the Sith are lonely.
And yet—
Without the warmth of Obi-Wan's presence, his heart feels dead and numb. Ice creeps through the core of his being. In his weakness, he has grown to depend on the Jedi's companionship.
As he consults the navigation system, a small oddly shaped data chip tucked into the console catches his eye behind the red HUD. It looks old and battered. Like models half a decade out of date, it is probably older than the vessel itself.
It should not be there. Organa clearly left it for some reason. But why?
In an act of idle interest, he plugs the chip in and activates it. He expects it to include Rebel intelligence or something similarly useful.
Instead, he freezes as the shape of his daughter's face bubbles up on the viewscreen, babbling repetitively into the recorder.
His eyes drink in the sight with shock. She is young in the recording. Younger even than she is now. Maybe three or four years of age. He had never seen her at this age and never seen her grow up. For a moment, he thinks the Viceroy has left the data chip to mock him, but such thoughts fade as he becomes enraptured by the sight of the child toddling around her toys.
She is talking nonsense, wandering around a playroom, until the voice of Breha Organa speaks to the child, clearly directing her attention to the recording device held by the Alderaanian queen.
"Leia, do you want to record a message for your father?"
"Yes, Mama…" The little girl says, her eyes cast downward, still fidgeting with a small toy in her hands. It appears that she is trying to fix it, albeit rather awkwardly.
"What do you want to tell him?" The queen coaxes. "What was it you told me earlier?"
The young child looks up, her large brown eyes meeting her adopted mother's offscreen. Even so, for just a moment, the child from years before makes eye contact across time, and his breath hitches in his throat.
"I miss you, Papa…" She mumbles. Clearly shy to be recorded.
"And what else?" Breha coaxes.
"I love you this big." She says, throwing her arms wide. "Come home soon!"
The recording freezes and stops. Leia's cherubic face frozen in time. It has been played back by Organa a thousand times. And if he had the time, Anakin would play it back a thousand more.
It has been so long since he had anyone to grieve; he has almost forgotten what it feels like.
Leia is gone. As is Luke. He will never see them again. They might as well have never existed.
Jealousy burns in his heart—jealousy for all that he has missed and all that he will. Even so, a part of him blesses Organa for this small act of kindness.
For that is what it is.
Kindness.
And yet, why does it hurt so much?
"Come home soon," he plays back, and for just a moment, he pretends that Leia's words had been meant for him (in another life, they would have been).
He thinks of Luke, of his plaintive wails clawing at his heart as he fled from Tattooine.
"Come home soon."
Leia, forgive me.
"You're coming back, right?"
Luke, forgive me.
"Your death will not solve this."
Obi-Wan, forgive me.
He swallows hard and, with a rueful heart, jettisons the datachip as he initiates the ship's descent.
Days pass on Tattooine, and Obi-Wan regains his strength. Though Beru tends to him generously, it is obvious that Owen has been doggedly avoiding any interaction. Obi-Wan thinks this is more out of courtesy to his wife than anything else, but he cannot help but be grateful for the reprieve.
He spends days in and out of a healing trance, focusing on the Light, meditating as the bacta and the Light work to heal his broken body.
Even so, meditation does not come easily. He worries for Anakin, despair threatening his concentration. He tries consoling himself that if Anakin had died, surely he would have felt it, but even this is a poor comfort.
He reaches out to Yoda, but the elder Master has gone quiet; his concentration has shifted elsewhere.
Obi-Wan is on his own. And somewhere halfway across the galaxy, so is Anakin.
Luke has wept each night since his arrival. At first, the child had all but refused to sleep, but failing in that endeavor, he had become a constant shadow to the Jedi. Fetching him water and tending to his needs, even as it becomes less and less necessary; walking has become doable, albeit difficult, as he tires all too easily.
He has tried talking to the boy, but the child is seemingly unwilling to speak beyond the barest snippets of conversation.
Obi-Wan has pointedly avoided the topic of his father out of deference to his own grief as much as to that of the boy. But as the days wear on, it becomes increasingly obvious that he must broach the subject directly if the child is to move beyond his current melancholy.
"Come sit with me, Luke," he asks the child as he works to peal and clean the desert roots that Beru has brought home for supper.
The child moves to kneel obediently at his side, taking handfuls of the roots and working the sand from their crevices with a dry brush, scraping the detritus into a bucket.
"I know you're angry with your father."
The child gives him a glower out of the corner of his eye.
"And I understand why…"
"He lied." The child mumbles angrily.
Obi-Wan takes a breath. It is going to be difficult to make the sheltered boy understand.
"Your father wants you to be safe, Luke. He was afraid that, if he stayed here, the people who hurt me might also come and hurt you."
"Now you're lying…" The boy pouts, throwing the roots petulantly back into the bucket.
"I assure you, I am not." Obi-Wan says evenly. "I am not happy with him, either, Luke. He disobeyed me by bringing me here and then running off to face some very dangerous people by himself."
The child eyes him skeptically, but at least he is listening.
"I'm very worried about him. Probably in the same way that you are. I just want you to understand that your father did not leave because he does not love you. I assure you, it is quite the opposite."
"I don't care. I just want my dad!" The child snaps angrily, flickers of Darkness flaring like black spots within the Force.
Obi-Wan falls silent, taken aback by the child's display of temper.
"Be careful of such anger, Luke…" He admonishes softly. The boy does not hear him. Luke is still sullen, eyes downcast.
"I know you miss him, but you cannot let these feelings define you." Obi-Wan tries again, more gently this time.
The boy may as well have turned into a statue. Unresponsive, eyes staring into the distance.
"You keep saying he loves me, but how can he love me if he's not here," Luke whispers, his thin voice broken and frail.
Obi-Wan stills, shame flaring in his heart.
The Force around Luke is gray and sober, blanketing the child like a fog. Had this been how Anakin felt as a boy? Crying out to be loved and receiving what he perceived as indifference?
Oh, Anakin. He whispers along the vacant bond. What have you done?
A moment passes. Maybe two.
And then, to his shock, Obi-Wan feels awareness flare back as Anakin suddenly seizes on their connection, shattering the indifference of the previous days with a telepathic cry of anguish. It's an instinctive response, something deep and primal and filled with terror unlike anything he has ever felt from his Padawan.
The brush clatters to the floor as Luke looks to Obi-Wan in bewilderment and fear; he, too, senses the distress radiating from his father.
A vision fills Obi-Wan's inner sight. Ferns. Gulleys. Blue-green skies.
And then. A single word.
LEIA!
With that, the connection is gone. Leaving Obi-Wan with a sense of cold dread and the crying of a terrified child.
Despite the warships and battle stations that encircle the world for the Emperor's protection, Vader remains undetected as he enters Byss's atmosphere. His knowledge of the Imperial forces and skill as a pilot allowing a feat that would otherwise remain inconceivable.
Vader has all but touched down in an isolated fern-filled canyon when a static buzz echoes ethereally on the radio.
The engines power down, and Anakin has only a moment's warning from the Force before the comms system bursts to life with an ominous scratch.
"Lord Vader, I see you have at last come to your senses."
As the voice speaks, the ship's cockpit hisses and unseals, opening seemingly under its own power. Anaking shudders involuntarily, cold terror shooting down his spine. The mocking voice emanates all around him, surrounding him like an icy shadow.
"Did you think I could be deceived, my Apprentice? Or did you forget who chooses the Chosen One? Did you forget your true Master? "
"If you are my master, as you say, then face me." He growls.
"Why, Lord Vader. Have you forgotten all that I taught you? Can that Jedi," he spits the word like venom, "really have weakened you so easily? Come, my Apprentice. Come and find me…."
A chuckle.
"Or should I say… come and find us."
A pause.
"Did you really think you could keep Skywalker's daughter hidden from me…?"
There is a crunching noise, and before he quite realizes it, his prosthetics have shattered the ship's throttle in their iron grip. The weight of an unseeing gaze makes his skin crawl as a burst of laughter screeches in his ears, punctuated by the sound of a girl's shrieking...
"…Come and find us, Lord Vader, come and find us…"
The voice echoes away. And then, in one long crackle, the instruments on the ship buzz and go black.
Does Sidious know about Luke, too? Please read and review, let me know if you like anything in particular or dislike other stuff.