Chapter Text
3 BBY
“BEN!”
Luke’s scream made is throat feel raw, screeching into the stormy abyss, as if his voice alone was desperately demanding the person be returned. As if the storm could just give him back
The sand got everywhere, as it swirled around him, mercilessly pelting at his face and whipping his blond hair over his features. His eyes stung but Luke forced them open, hoping to spot his guardian. The two of them had gotten stuck in a horrible sandstorm of some kind, fleeing from the dangerous Sith apprentice, Darth Vader, the Emperor’s right hand. The Sith had shot them down on the planet before the storm had picked up but after he and Ben had been forced to abandon their aircraft, it had picked up to something awful. Trying to keep his eyes open, the tears welling up burned nearly as much as the billowing sand did.
“BEN!” Luke tried again, at the top of his lungs. He felt like they were filling with sand and he choked it down.
They had lost each other in the storm, despite their best efforts, and Luke was trying hard not to panic. He felt ten years old again and all he wanted to do was go home and curl up with Ben with his hands carding through Luke’s blonde hair as the boy dozed off with a handmade wooden aircraft cradled in his arms, Ben chasing nightmares away.
“Luke?”
The boy perked up at the perceived sound of his name. Had that really been Ben? Or was the sand and storm messing with him, and he was just hearing what he wanted to hear? Could he be imagining it? Luke whirled around, trying to catch any glimpse of anything familiar to him.
“Ben?” He called out, tentatively.
“Luke!”
No! That was real! It was Ben’s voice! Luke fought harder against the sand, clawing his way through as he could. He reached out, with both his hand and the Force, searching for his guardian. There was only a touch of a gentle reprieve as something in his mind nudged, which nearly forced Luke to sprawl into the dunes below. He searched for Ben’s ever steady presence, always calm and witty and kind.
It felt like an eternity had passed until he had bumped into something, blindly. For a terrible moment, he nearly thought he had walked into Darth Vader himself but on second feel, he could grasp rough robes. The other’s grip was firm around him but still loving. The familiar presence, along with his steadfast arms, wrapped his form in a tight embrace.
“Luke,” Ben said, relieved, pulling him closer.
The boy was much too big these days to really hide in Ben’s cloak like he used to, but the older man did his best to tuck him inside as much as he could anyways. It only protected him from the sand a little bit, but it was more the comforting gesture that helped calm Luke’s nerves. He should be complaining, Ben treating him like the way he did when Luke was a child, but he accepted it instead. He would rather not lose Ben once more.
“Are you alright?” Ben asked softly.
Luke nodded and then verbalized his answer, pushing his head near the older man’s form. “Yes. It’s just…sand.”
Ben let out a chuckle, which would have been odd for the circumstances, but Luke had gotten used to it. He tried to find the best in what he could. “Yes,” he agreed. “Sand.”
“Are you?”
“Am I what, youngling?”
Luke hesitated. “Okay?”
That was a loaded question, Luke knew.
“As well as I can be at this point,” Ben answered calmly. Luke could nearly hear the faint smile on his face. “Reach out to your senses and the Force, Luke. We must find shelter or get out of this dreadful storm.”
“You will be going nowhere, old master,” a voice clicking and deep with a vocoder, was gravelly and loud that had appeared out of nowhere, with Darth Vader’s hulking dark form and snapping cape promptly after. The sand around them had pushed away, creating some kind of eye in the storm. A calm.
“Darth,” Ben hissed.
“You will not leave this planet alive,” Darth Vader promised in something of a growl. He didn’t get any closer yet, he was taking his time. For multiple reasons, Luke suspected. “And I will be taking your new… padawan,” he added, although his vocoder hitched, and Luke could hear something similar to disgust. He knew Darth Vader had been Ben’s former student, a padawan, which was a title that Luke had not been bestowed, mainly due to the fact that it was dangerous in the Empire. No one dared to say it. Luke hadn’t completely understood the feelings surrounding Darth Vader and his disdain for Ben taking on another apprentice. It sounded something akin to jealousy and bitterness, but he couldn’t really understand why.
Ben just snarled and held onto Luke tighter for a moment. But that’s all it lasted. “Luke,” he murmured, suddenly turning soft as he started to let go of him. Luke wanted to hold on. “You must run.”
Luke inhaled sharply, “Ben.”
“Remember what we have spoken about.”
Oh, he did. They had gone through plenty of plans over the years in case Darth Vader had ever taken or killed Ben. There were several people he was supposed to contact and go to, none of which Luke particularly wanted to be with. Luke hated talking about it. He hated thinking about it. Vader just wouldn’t leave them alone.
He didn’t want to leave Ben. He wasn’t scared.
(He was)
“But…”
“You must go now,” Ben urged, letting Luke out of his cloak.
“He will not get far,” Vader snapped with a click of his vocoder. It sounded sharp but still a bit wheezy at the same time. It almost would have been funny if not for the rest of it and the danger that accompanied Darth Vader’s presence. “I will hunt, him down once I am done with you,” he vowed.
Ben just ignored the dark figure. They had some sort of odd give and take, the Jedi Master and the Sith apprentice. Unless Ben was already running, neither ever seemed to be much in a hurry when it came to dueling. Vader rarely took advantage and gave Ben time beforehand. Luke thought of it perhaps as some sort of odd game or something. Ben squeezed Luke’s shoulder affectionately with one hand. “Remember, I have always been so proud of you. I will always be with you,” he whispered, quickly, ruffling Luke’s hair under the cloak, still urging him and letting him out. Vader stepped forward. It was slow and deliberate. He had all the time in the galaxy. “Trust in the Force and know I have and always will, love you.”
Luke didn’t get even a chance to respond as he was tossed back into the storm, away from Ben and Darth Vader.
“Ben!” he cried as two ignited lightsabers lit up, red and blue, were quickly obscured by the moving sand and faded from view. The sand pelted at his face again as Luke surged forward, trying to find the two of them again.
It must have been the will of the Force because Luke caught sight of a blue lightsaber again and tumbled into the eye that Vader had created for the duel with Ben. He was barely inside and if either had noticed his presence, they didn’t show or acknowledge it. Perhaps Luke was getting better at shielding. Or they were distracted.
The duel was vicious, with Vader’s strength and Ben’s smooth grace, Luke could never describe it. Darth Vader hammered down on Ben’s blade, but Ben slid with his movements and became something of an impenetrable shield. It made Luke think of the paradox of immovable object and unstoppable force.
But Vader played dirty. He spat some sand at Ben’s face with the Force and as the older man smacked his body on a rock face behind him, Darth Vader kept his swing in tandem for a killing blow.
“NO!” Luke yelled and threw out his hands. Darth Vader went flying and the calm eye of the storm folded in on itself.
Luke ran to his guardian, trying to pull him up into his arms. He was barely lucid, and blood was coming from the back of his head onto Luke’s hand. “You must go, L’ke,” Ben muttered. “Must keep ‘way fr’m V’der.”
“I will not abandon you,” Luke murmured. “Not when I don’t have to. If I die here, it’s going to be with you,” he added with determination. Hooking his arms under Ben’s, he began to pull, dragging Ben’s near dead weight along. Ben tried to help as he could, but it was little more than a few kicks of his feet at the sand in an effort to propel him forward. It didn’t work well with nothing very firm to use.
The teenager didn’t know how long he walked backwards, struggling to keep Ben afloat in his grasp but when he hit something jagged and hard, he nearly sighed in relief.
It was an actual sigh of relief when he turned to see a mouth of a cave. Luke smiled as he moved inside. The floor still had a layer of sand on it but if one dug in enough, they could find some form of footing in the rock.
A few moments had passed, Ben muttering and kicking out with his feet in an attempt to help when a rumble sounded in the cave. Dust and tiny pebbles - too small to be any concern - fell from the ceiling and walls. It started to get warmer.
The Force was practically whispering around them. Nothing really tangible or audible but the feeling was there. It was strong and Luke was drawn towards it.
“N’xs?” Ben muttered.
Luke didn’t really know what he was saying but he seemed to be alright with the way they were going, and Luke trusted Ben and his knowledge. It made sense, following this feeling in the Force.
Unfortunately, it had seemed to attract other unwanted attention as well. Luke doubted Vader could see this far into the cave, but Luke could just make out Vader’s glowing blood red saber at the entrance of the mouth, everything else rather obscured by distance and sand.
“Mus’ go, L’k,” Ben tried again. “N’vr make it c’rrin me.”
“I won’t leave you behind, Ben,” Luke murmured back. “It’s you and me, like always. I don’t think it’s your time yet.”
“H’w?”
“You’re always telling me to listen to my feelings and reach for the Force,” he mumbled back, picking up the pace as well as he could. It was getting warmer still. And... was that a glow? Luke didn’t take time to glance behind him to look. “I don’t think it’s your time yet. We still have a lot to do.”
“Hmm,” Ben hummed. “Head h’rt.”
“I know, just hang on a little longer,” Luke replied softly. “I’m going to get us out of here.”
“It’s ok’y pad’wn.”
Luke’s heart nearly melted. He knew the significance of that word and although Ben had never told him that; had never granted that title on him, Luke knew that was what he was. It was really nice to hear him say it. It made his dream about being a Jedi in a time of Jedi a little less further away. He couldn’t be a real padawan, he knew, not with the Order dead and gone, destroyed so utterly by the Empire. But he could be just enough, a student and apprentice for Ben, a bit of family left in a world where everyone else was gone or lost.
The light got brighter rapidly behind him as well as the grumbling sounds go louder and lower. Something shifted in the walls. Luke tried not to look. Perhaps they would die here.
But Luke would not leave Ben to die alone.
Even if he could make that choice now, he wouldn’t. It wasn’t so much a fact of being unable to let go, Ben had taught him about attachment - a lesson Luke was still learning - but if he could help it, he wouldn’t leave Ben. They were all they had. Ben had Luke and Luke had Ben. Everyone else was gone.
The red saber of Darth Vader was so faint, it was barely a red blurb in the distance.
Luke was exhausted. Rocks were piled up behind him and he tripped, falling back into the floor. He didn’t look back. He just curled Ben up in his arms as best he could and did what he could to shelter him.
“It’s you and me, old man,” Luke smiled faintly. He was pretty sure Ben had passed out by now. There was no answer, not even a twitch to show he had heard the boy. It was okay, Ben didn’t need to be awake for the end. Perhaps it was better this way. “We had a pretty decent run. Kinda short, woulda loved to have done more with you. Saved the galaxy or some stuff. People deserved better. You did too, I wish you hadn’t lost everything. I may be a poor substitute for your family but I’m really glad I got to know you, to learn from you. I was your padawan in all, but name and I would have chosen you over and over given the chance.”
Luke ran a hand over Ben’s hair. It was pretty grey now, almost white and thinning. Nearly ten years solely in the Judland Wastes of Tatooine would do that to a man his age, living like a hermit. The physical appearance of aging had slowed a little more when they had left Tatooine but the damage had been done. Luke wished it could have been better. Ben’s grief had always been present, nearly palpable and Luke had spent years trying to help fill some of that void.
He wondered if he had helped.
The end seemed rather inevitable now. Vader would probably come, without Ben’s shielding, they would be discovered. He always told Luke that had shone so brightly in the Force it was so difficult to miss. Luke had gotten pretty good at shielding, but he still had a ways to go. At least, he did.
Luke just waited, keeping a hold on his guardian, and sighed. He was okay. The Force had things well in hand.
It always did.
******
The sand was horrible when it came to Anakin Skywalker’s mechanical hand. He has always hated sand, even more so when he actually got to get away from it as a young boy, leaving Tatooine. That hatred had only gotten worse when he had lost his arm and had to go to another desert planet the next time. Sand got everywhere - including the delicate workings and casing of his artificial arm. It was a pain to clean, although it was kind of amusing when he pulled it off in front of Ahsoka. He didn’t think she had yet forgiven him.
Anakin let out a low curse in another language, shaking his arm, but it garnered the attention of his padawan and the squad of troops accompanying him. Ahsoka shot him a glance and the troopers tried not to look at him pointedly. There weren’t many of them that had accompanied Anakin and his padawan, but the planet was suspected to have at least some Separatist presence in the vicinity and the clones had insisted on backup.
Anakin almost wished he had sent them instead and stayed on the ship.
“I can’t believe Obi-Wan got himself stuck out here,” Anakin hissed, trying to dust off sand from his person. It was sticking everywhere on him. “Couldn’t he have picked a better planet to get shot down on?”
His padawan shot him an unimpressed look, on the verge of rolling her eyes. Ahsoka was rather lucky, she didn’t have any mechanical body parts or hair to get sand stuck in. Those were the worst places. “Oh yeah, because he has a choice.”
“It was his choice to get shot down,” Anakin grumbled back, shaking a few grains of sand from his arm again. It was a constant battle, one he knew he would never really win, no matter how hard he tried. If only he could avoid these types of planets for the rest of his life, or, at least, the rest of the war.
“Right,” Ahsoka replied sarcastically but smirking knowingly. She had a comeback. “Like it was your choice every time YOU have gotten shot down?”
Anakin’s lip curled in disgust but didn’t dignify that with an answer. That was not the same. The Togruta padawan appeared smug, believing to have won. She probably would have in the eyes of anyone else, but Anakin wouldn’t give it to her. “There was a huge burst in the Force around the area,” he said instead. He tapped a button on his vambrace and a holomap sprang to life, tinged in the signature blue. He gestured to where they were and then the estimated vicinity of where the Force burst had erupted.
“General Kenobi is probably in the middle of it,” one of the troopers joked, shouldering his rifle.
“He gets in the middle of everything,” Anakin rolled his eyes. “But you are probably right. It to close to where he is estimated to have crashed so that would be the best place to start, at the least.”
“Force shenanigans,” another trooper grinned.
“I just hope he’s okay,” Ahsoka admitted as they walked on, trudging through shallow sand.
Anakin shrugged. “I’m sure he’s fine.”
“I really don’t want to disappoint Commander Cody.”
“Commander Cody? Why?”
“Master Obi-Wan is Commander Cody’s friend,” Ahsoka replied, like it was obvious. “He doesn’t like it when Master Obi-Wan gets hurt. I mean none of them do, but Cody is his commander. Especially when he’s not there to help him. He probably hates it that we are the ones looking for him and not him and the 212th,” she pointed out. “Pretty sure I could almost feel the irritation spiking from them.”
“Well, someone had to command the troops,” Anakin replied, with a shrug. Obi-Wan was his friend and his master, if anyone should rescue the older master, it would be Anakin. “And I would rather love to rub it in Obi-Wan’s face on rescuing him again,” he added with a grin. The other troopers chuckled so softly it was nearly inaudible. Anakin did like to brag about how many times he had saved his former master’s life. At times, it was difficult to tell which stories were true or not, he did it so often. Suddenly, he perked up, stopping in his tracks. The other troopers and Ahsoka quickly followed suit. “He’s close.”
They had gotten to a rock formation. It was almost like a large wall, spreading across the edges of the dunes, broken and flat faces cared into the side. There was a small cave a few meters to the right, nearly a dark divot, really with a figure curled up inside. There were the remains of Obi-Wans wrecked ship rather far off to the side. Anakin recognized some of the yellow paint of the ship.
“Go see if you can salvage R4, his droid,” Anakin ordered, looking over at a couple of the troopers. They silently started towards that way.
As Anakin got close, he started to recognize Obi-Wan’s form. His armor was a bit askew and the robes under his gorget rather crumbled, but it was him. He then quickly realized the large figure wasn’t just one, wasn’t just Obi-Wan, but rather, it was two. Obi-Wan’s body was was bundled up in the arms of a blonde teenager, who grasped at him desperately with Obi-Wan’s head drawn up into his chest. Anakin didn’t recognize him but approached with caution.
Confusion permeated the air and Anakin nearly thought the boy might be at the least, unconscious, but when he got close, a bright blue saber lit up to life in front of him. The boy’s head had popped up and through tear stained and red rimmed eyes, Anakin could only see fierce determination and a protective glare. He held Obi-Wan’s lightsaber like he was born to it; like he had held it for years.
“Whoa! Easy there!” Anakin shouted as he jumped back. “Who are you?”
“You won’t touch him!” The boy snapped, tightening his grip on the saber with one hand and curling the other in Obi-Wan’s robes just under his gourget. His lip curled and there was a dried cut on the side of his face. It was small, probably wouldn’t even scar, but it seemed to give him more of an edge.
“Easy, easy,” Anakin stepped back again and started to kneel, making him appear just a bit smaller. It didn’t have the intended effect, as the boy just continued to glare at him. He barely paid any of the other troopers any heed, but they had set down their weapons all the same. They knew the drill. Anakin took a breath and kept his hands out for the child to see and watch, “That’s my friend right there, that you have in your arms. My name is General Anakin Skywalker-“
“I know who you are,” the boy interrupted with another lip curl. He almost sounded a bit bitter, which appeared a bit odd, considering Anakin had never seen this child in his life.
“Do you know who that is?” he asked, gesturing to Obi-Wan. The boy tried to pull the body closer, not even giving the unconscious master another look. He stared straight at Anakin and his answer had not a hint of hesitance or cause of a lie.
“Yes.”
“We aren’t here to hurt you. Or him,” Anakin promised.
“Rather rich coming from you,” the boy mumbled but he sounded like he was rather talking to himself rather than Anakin specifically. He didn’t know what that meant but he was starting to grate on his nerves a bit. Who was this kid?
Anakin looked over his former master’s body. Some blood was drying from under his head. The boy’s hands were stained with it. “He looks hurt,” Anakin pointed out, trying hard to keep his voice calm and level, trying to use that tone his master used when trying to placate children. The boy just looked even more suspicious. “We can get him some medical care.”
The boy looked down at Obi-Wan, pained, and sorrowful. He knew the right answer, but apparently, that didn’t make it easier. “You can save him?”
“I’d say so,” Anakin replied, biting down on the inside of his cheek to keep himself from making a sharp comeback. Obi-Wan was his master, his best friend. He knew the man better than this…this…whoever this was.
“You can’t touch him,” the boy ordered loudly. He glanced at the troopers behind Anakin, narrowing his eyes. “I will accept assistance from your Captain there, but I don’t want you anywhere near him.”
Anakin had no idea what was going on or why this child was so protective over Obi-Wan and honestly, it was completely irritating. Was this another secret that his master had kept from him? How many more could the man have at this point? He would have his answers, Anakin vowed, once he woke up. He could at least he could get his master out of here and Anakin could get out of this blasted sand pit. Then he would be able to gloat. “Alright,” he agreed, although a bit grudgingly. He hated how he had to cave to the demands of a child.
Rex shuffled closer, holstering his weapons and he helped the boy and Obi-Wan up. The trooper did most of the lifting and carrying when it came to Obi-Wan but the blonde haired child stayed close, eyeing weapons and Anakin and Ahsoka, cautiously.
Anakin swallowed his pride for the moment. “What’s your name, kid?”
The boy glanced at him in distaste, probably for being called kid. Most teenagers did not care for that. He hesitated, just barely, like he thought his answer could be dangerous or compromise his safety. But in the end, he stood a little taller and stared straight at Anakin. His eyes seemed vaguely familiar.
“My name is Luke.”