Waiting, bored inside the starship, Anakin couldn't even focus on his own breathing-although much quieter than before-because Rey's fear permeated the air. "Your fear is overwhelming, child," he said calmly.

Rey took a deep breath from the back seat. She looked him over anxiously and confessed, "I've heard of you."

He replied, unshaken, "At this point the deaf have heard of me, and the blind have seen me."

"My father told me you turned into a sith lord and nearly tore the entire galaxy apart," she explained hastily, "but you were a jedi for a long time before that. You were a good person. If you, a well trained jedi knight could fall to the dark side, how do I stand a chance? There's no way I can be a jedi even with your son's help!"

"I fell because I was afraid of losing everyone I cared for," he explained solomly, "as they died, or left me, one by one, first my mother, then my apprentice, and my wife and my master, and even the child I was sure didn't make it through birth...once every once of them were gone I had nothing left. I turned into a numb souless void of nothingness, fully prepared to follow whatever order came next from the emperor to feel something again."

She hesitated, unsure of what to say to that. "You were afraid of losing people," she reiterated calmly, "does that mean you feared being alone? Because I think that's probably the one fear I don't have. Being alone is all I've ever known. What's so scary about that?"

Anakin explained, "Being alone is one thing, I could handle that. Being too weak to protect the people I cared about was a far harsher reality than I could face."

After a moment of silence to contemplate, she said, "I don't understand the difference. Sorry."

"For your sake I hope you never do," he said.

Anakin looked out the windows to the surrounding sand hellscape he hated so much and slammed his fist onto the console. Rey jumped. He said, "Luke is taking too long."

"What are you doing?" she asked.

He stood up and left. "I'll find him so we can leave already."

"Wait!" she ran after him, "I'd rather go into town!"

Anakin didn't slow down. As he marched down the ramp he explained, "Keep up my pace and follow directly behind me. R2, stay with the ship." He beeped in response.

As Rey ran to catch up to him, she marveled at her surroundings. "Wow this is harder to walk through than I thought it would be," she said, picking up her feet, "I didn't know the air could feel this hot." She fanned herself in an attempt to kick up some wind but all it did was give herself more hot air.

"Stay close to me," he warned, "you don't want to get caught by the sand people alone out here."

"Sand people?" she asked.

"Ruthless slavers who would love to take in a teen girl like you."

Although it had been decades since Anakin had returned to Tatooine, he still knew where they had landed in relation to the planet and the towns he knew growing up. It could never leave him.

As they walked on, Rey kept on chattering. Anakin wanted nothing to do with it and stopped answering any of her questions after a while.

Meanwhile, Rey had never walked through a desert before. When she watched Anakin step to the side and up a small dune, she didn't understand why he went up instead of down and instead walked straight into the shallow valley. There she found the sand was darker.

Two steps in and she suddenly couldn't move. "Whoa!" she yelped, "Hey, what is this? What happened?!" She tried to pull herself along, but nothing worked.

"I told you to stay behind me," Anakin scolded from the high ground, "you just walked into quicksand."

"What?" she asked, sinking further in.

"Stop moving so much you're only going to pull yourself in deeper," he explained, "quicksand happens is when pockets of water form underground and turns the surface levels into mud temporarily. You're stuck there until it dries." He turned and kept walking.

"Hey!" she shouted after him, "You're not going to help me out of here?"

"I'll come back this way and dig you up later!"

"What about those sand people you warned me about?" she asked, terrified, "You're going to leave me defenseless from them!" She was up to her hips now, but slowly stopped sinking any further.

He replied, "They won't bother. It too much trouble to dig you out." He didn't even turn around, but kept going.

Rey didn't sink any further, but she was still covered in mud and it was too wet for her to dig herself out. Every time she tried to pull any away from her body it slopped itself back against her, pinning her in worse than she started. At least it was cooler than the sand.

Anakin made it to town quickly enough. People moved in and out everywhere and he couldn't help but remember growing up on the planet, despite this not being the town where he did. Instead of making an attempt to find Luke, he made his way inside a club to ignore it all.

The music was a song he had heard once before. It wasn't until he sat down that he remembered exactly from where. It was in a bar once, in a system far, far away, during the clone wars. He remembered it well.

While Anakin was so caught up in remembering the past, the other patrons slowly began to recognize him. In groups they made their way out. Even the staff didn't want anything to do with him. Sure, he wasn't the galaxy terror he used to be but they couldn't take that chance. What if he snapped?

Meanwhile Luke found the power converters he needed in what he was sure was a timely manner and made his way back through town, weaving in and out of people, when he saw an entire club clear out. What was going on?

"I thought that murderer had be with his son at all times now," someone said as they walked passed him.

Luke felt his father's presence through the walls of the club and even without the people muttering around him he knew what happened. His father had left the starship, and for some odd reason decided to sit down inside a club instead of look for him.

When Luke went inside he found the building was empty, except Anakin sat at a table with an empty stare across the barren dance floor.

"Dad."

Nothing."

"Father."

Still nothing.

Luke made his way around to the front of him to see he was definetly out of it. "Anakin."

No response.

"General Skywalker."

After there was still nothing, Luke whispered to himself, "Don't make me say it." He sighed, moved in close, and said, "Lord Vader."

Anakin leapt up and used the force to throw the table at him, only for Luke to catch it with the force and let it hang in the air. Anakin insisted, "I heard you the first time."

"What did you hear first?"

"You called me Anakin."

"I called you 'Dad' first," he replied, finally setting the table down, "where is Rey?"

"Who?"

"The girl we picked up on Jakku!" Luke exclaimed, "You couldn't have forgotten her already! You didn't actually leave her alone in the middle of nowhere, did you?"

Anakin waved his hand, "She's fine. She's stuck in quicksand halfway between here and the ship." He turned around to see the club was deserted. Of course it was. "Let's get out of here."

All the while, chilling in quicksand, Rey crossed her mud-covered arms and waiting impatiently. When she first heard noises of machines, she got excited, maybe someone was going to get her out of there. Then she remembered what Anakin had said about the sand people.

Tusken Raiders rode their speeder bikes across the sand and over the small dune and found a patch of water, and a teen girl stuck in the middle of it. While the group all conglomerated around the dune, they stopped and laughed at her misery.

"Hey!" she shouted, "I might not understand you but I know laughing when I hear it!"

They threw some garbage at her, laughed some more, and eventually moved on, leaving her behind in the dust.

As Anakin and Luke left town, Anakin explained, "You know it's been 30 years now since I've killed any innocents."

"I'm sure these townspeople are grateful," Luke replied quickly, then glanced over at him cautiously, "did you ever come back to Tatooine and visit as Vader?"

He answered, "Never outside of official empire business and why would I? I only have bad memories of this place."

Luke said, "And I have only have good memories, well, for the most part. I'd say all accept for one. Would you like to hear it?"

"No."

"Alright," he said, "we can talk about what just happened inside that club back there instead."

Anakin asked hastily, "What was it like growing up here with Owen?"

"Well like I said," he explained, "it was alright on the farm. Then one day Uncle Owen bought some droids from the Jawas, and one of them decided to take off in the middle of the night. I knew the sand people loved causing trouble at night, so I had to wait until the second sunrise before going after it. Still, once I caught up to it, the sand people attacked me out of nowhere. But this old gezer showed up and rescued me from them. We stumbled upon a bunch of dead Jawas and we saw they had been killed by imperial storm troopers. I ran all the way back to the farm and found Uncle Owen's and Aunt Beru's charred dead bodies."

Anakin stopped walking ubruptly and stared at him.

Luke said, "And then the old guy and I took the droid to Alderran...or at least we wanted to but things ended up turning out much more complicated than that."

"You never told me those details before," Anakin said.

"I didn't think it mattered," he added, "it isn't like you can do anything about it now."

As Anakin began walking again, he said, "The stormtroopers had orders to only kill those who resisted their questioning. Owen and Beru must have fought back hard."

Luke replied, "They were known for it."

Together the two of them stopped by the old abandoned Lars farm. Luke was surprised to see it still so empty. He figured someone would have moved in after a while, but perhaps it was too haunted for the locals. They stopped in front of Shmi's grave together.

"Uncle Owen loved her like she was his own mother," he said.

"She deserved better."

Luke explained hesitantly, "It feels different than before." He couldn't put his finger on it, but the grave felt different than it did when he was growing up.

"It's been so long, Luke," Anakin said sadly, "the sands have changed."

"I suppose you're right," he replied.

They turned and moved on through the desert of sand and dunes. Halfway back to the ship they finally walked up on Rey and found her still trapped in the middle of her quicksand puddle. Luke looked on, disappointed. Anakin said, "See, she's fine."

Luke carefully walked down the dune and asked, "Are you alright, Rey?"

"Other than getting heckled at by random sand people-I think-I'm fine," she replied.

"It's half dry," he said, walking around to the back of her, "I should be able to get you out now." He used the force to pull most of the caked in mud away from her, then pulled her up from under her arms and dragged her to the flatter part of the regular sand. She tried to shake herself off, but the mud clung to her.

"Gross," she whined.

They continued through the desert together and made their way back to the downed ship.

As they got closer, they were still a few sand dunes away when Anakin asked out of the blue, "Do you sense it?"

"Yes," Luke replied, "what's your plan?"

"We're getting a new ship," he turned and gave him a smile that he could see even through his mask.

Luke hesitated, sighed, and said, "Alright."

Anakin asked, "Is there a problem?"

"No," he said, "I said it was alright. Why not? We've needed a new one for a while now." He threw the brand-new power coverters away into the sand dunes and kept walking.

Anakin marched ahead and said, "I'll take care of this." He brought up the communicator on his arm, "R2 eject yourself from the ship!" He turned walked off to the side behind a dune.

"Rey," Luke warned, "stay behind me and you'll stay safe."

"What's going on?" she asked.

"You'll see."

As Anakin took the short cut around a dune to get closer to the ship, Luke and Rey walked straight on together and found another very different ship come into view slightly closer to them. Luke recognized the uniform on the young man immediately, he was with the First Order as he suspected. And he looked no older than 20. What was the First Order doing on Tatooine?

The boy turned around and finally faced Luke. "You!" he shouted, pointing his blaster directly at him, "I knew I saw you land here!"

"What was that?" Luke asked, feigning trouble hearing, "I can't hear you all the way over there. Come over to me if you want to talk." He motioned for him to come closer.

Blaster still pointed, he moved closer and said, "I'm Petir of the First Order and I demand you turn over Lord Vader so he may be punished for his crimes against the galaxy!"

"In what ship?" Luke snarked.

Petir gestured to his own behind him. "Mine!"

Rey looked at up at the sky and screamed in horror. "AAAHHHH!" She stepped back and covered her eyes and ears. Petir turned around and screamed as he witnessed Anakin lift his own ship and smashed it into the million pieces directly on top of Petir's. Meanwhile R2 rolled behind him like none of it was a big deal.

"My ship!" Petir yelled.

Anakin marched up from behind him and demanded, "I'll only ask this once, what are you doing in Hutt controlled space, you First Order brat."

"Lord Vader, I order you to come with me in the name of the First Order!" he said, shaking but still aiming his blaster at him.

Luke said, "He won't cooperate with us."

"Thank you, son, for the observation," Anakin snarked, "you, unless you want to be stranded here and get enslaved by the Tusken Raiders I suggest you come with us. I'll make sure you make it off this dust ball alive." He started walking back the way he came up the sand dune.

Petir proclaimed, "I'm not walking anywhere with you!"

Having had enough, Anakin pulled out a cord he kept on demand and used the force to instantly wrap it around his body. "Then I'll drag you across the sand like an animal," he replied, quickly pulling him along.

"Hey!" Petir shouted to no avail as he was dragged. He stared at Rey as she walked beside him. "Have they captured you too, young lady?"

"My name is Rey," she said, "and no, I'm along for the ride willingly." She added under her breath, "Mostly."