Chapter Text
Beep Beep Beep Beep
If there is one thing Vader has learnt, it is that no matter how hard he tries, he inevitably ends up covered in sand.
Beep Beep Beep Beep
The already loud breathing sound of his respirator gets louder, before spluttering out and giving up. He’s sweating even with his suit’s cooling systems, which are rapidly failing, they were never meant for this, for shining white twin suns baking their way into deep red fabric and steels.
Beep Beep Beep Beep
As if he speaks it into existence, the suns seem to dim, covered by rolling clouds. Until the last glimpses of light fade and everything is a black so deep it’s cool.
Beep Beep Beep Beep
At least it’s comfortable, so long as he holds still and doesn’t let the sand grate and rub at him, it’s soft, and he’s been lying here so long it’s formed around his body, supporting him with a perfect cast.
Beep Beep Beep Beep
Shrill and high pitched, it pierces into his skull like bright lights no longer can through red tinted lenses.
Beep Beep Beep Beep
The suit is poorly built, and it catches and pokes at him as he reaches through the force, hard to navigate or understand at all, grating against the engineer still alive somewhere deep in him, force, he’s tired.
Beep Beep Beep Beep
Shoving and reaching through blockages and dead code until he finds the thing flicking backwards and forewards, he shuts it down and waits for the beeping.
Silence.
Now that the repeating of the suit is off, he can tell it’s the full kind of silence. He can hear wailing wind far above him, the scuttling of a few animals, and the clicks of rocks they displace as they fall.
There’s sand beating outside, muted slamming in gusts and flurries against the rocky outside of wherever he is.
Maybe a ravine, why does he care
The wind kicks up further until it sounds like screaming, the Luq'tagr, he remembers in his mother’s voice, late at night when the same storm spirits kept them trapped inside. Better to stay here.Tatooine's predominant ghostly march myth/story (if there's an actual name for it I don't know it), a common story found across cultures inspired by the scary sounds of weather being likened to marching armies, wailing spirits, hunting dogs, etc, typically they come with the moral stay inside/don't bother the ghosts.
He’s tired, so tired, there’s no reason he can’t stay.
Palpatine isn’t expecting him is he… no. He’s free to exist here, at least until the storm blows over,
His eyes are already closed, the world seems to rock, an groundquake maybe? Strange, he didn’t remember Tatooine having had much tectonic activity.
The quiet humming of his suit stops, he can taste sand on his tongue now and feel weight all over his body, pushing him down, down, down into sleep.
He’s so tired, it’s so soft here.
Crying.
A baby’s crying, he opens his eyes, trying to turn his head but he can’t.
Another baby joins in, his babies, his twins, his children, Luke and Leia.
Why are they crying? What’s wrong? He tries to push himself up, but he can’t even move his arms to try and start, they’re pinned down.
His fingers wiggle when he moves them, until sand fills up the gaps, he’s not breathing.
Are they okay? What’s happening?
Calling on the force with a sharp tug, the dark side bites into him but he can shove himself up, flooded with the power coming from his panic.
Breaking through the sand, he stumbles as his feet get stuck, but he’s above it, and his respirator starts glitching, not helping him breathe but letting more and more air past as sand pours out of it.
He flares his force presence as he reaches out. Immediately Luke floods his senses, he flinches back for a split second, expecting the sting and pain of electricity and burning of fire from his sun-bright soul, but it doesn’t hurt and more importantly it’s Luke, so he pulls his sun into the edge of his mind as he tries to find Leia and see both of them through the lenses.
A stream of sand slows and stops, revealing an overhang in the rocks, Luke and Leia are curled up under it, they’re so tiny, barely more than tiny premature newborns.
Following their bond he finally finds leia, as slippery as sand and silk, and he relaxes. He needs to cover their mouths with wet cloth, the risk of dust fever is far too great here, but they’re here, alive and healthy and stable.
He starts pulling his foot out of the sand as he reaches up to the clasp on his cape, fumbling with the chain before he just squeezes until the metal shatters.
Carefully reining in the dark side -which writhes and scrambles and twists and shrinks to avoid the storm with an angry hiss- he uses it to hold his cape up, in the right shape to oh so softly drop his twins in, slowly as not to hurt them with accidental blunt strength from his prosthetics.
The stiff, coarse armourweave probably isn’t the best, but once he slings them around himself in the cape, tying it tightly into a knot, they quiet, cries stopping as he reaches out to them in the force, careful to keep as much as possible of the burning, blistering, biting darkness away from them.
Luke grabs onto the fabric of his tabards, stubby, baby fat fingers grabbing onto the fabric of his suit and he can’t stop himself from hunching over, from some emotion he can’t even decipher himself.
They’re so small.
He forces his eyes away from where Leia is drooling onto the fabric, her little face smushed so her mouth rests open, sand is starting to cover his feet again and dust is making the air hazy.
It is time to move
Vader curses Tatooine with every bone -that is left- in his body and every drop of blood, which is leaking out into clumps of dark red sand. He loathes that sand, loathes this planet and the way it makes the sight of Mos Espa on the horizon welcome.
He hates Mos Espa.
But he needs repairs before his respirator or something else vital gives out entirely and kills him, and before the sand gets worse and his prosthetics stop letting him move. He needs to get back to Coruscant, to Palpatine.
The dark side flares, making his skin burns all over again, he shivers, Leia bursting into tears and Luke following. He tries to move past the emotion, but it doesn’t work and all trying to get the dark side out achieves is a growl, that makes Leia’s wailings turn into screams right back at it, Luke joining in.
He hates Tatooine. So. Much.
At least the twins have calmed down again to the swinging rhythm of his footsteps, and weather’s calmed down. Small mercies, no matter how hard he tried to shield he hadn’t managed it, and he’d ended up walking through cave systems in vaguely the right direction for hours.
Hours, the twins must be hungry. When’s the last time he fed them? Come to think of it, what was he doing before waking up on Tatooine?
The memories swirl, just out of his grasp, eyes he can’t match to a face frowning at him.
He’s going to have to find formula on Tatooine.
Even as it tears his skin and throat, he throws back his head and groans, the respirator whirs louder in protest, but it’s too broken to stop him like usual. Horrible thing. What he wouldn’t do to have Padmé wi-
-
He arrives at Mos Espa looking like a sight.
The stomping is enough to get looks sent his way, he’s clenching his jaw so hard his poor suit beeps pathetically and tearing and rending the ground bellow his feet into pieces to stop from lashing out at Luke or Leia. His hand won’t stop twitching. And despite being dressed head to toe in black he’s coming from who knows where in the hot desert midday, carrying two babies in a makeshift sling.
His left leg has completely given up and he’s given up on trying to fix or walk on it, using the force to bend it and straighten it over, and over, and over again as he walks faster, and faster. The sound of the metal stressing and steering further making him shatter the ground in a small explosion that wrecks this road. Good.
This planet should’ve just spiraled off into it’s suns when it had the chance.
The dark side writhes, getting such a feast off his anger it nearly ignores the sla- everybody miserable to be stuck on this planet. Nearly. He should fight it off, but he’s given up to the point where it laughs at that thought as he lets it further fan the flames of his anger.
He needs to not be aware of his surroundings or expected to do anything, so much.
If nothing else he looks so irate that even the least savoury people here step out of his way, if not deferentially, then quickly.
Because no one recognises him here.
Like the channels haven’t been streaming imperial propaganda for months. There’s not even an imperial outpost, of course nothing ever gets to Tatooine. He hates everybody and everything.
Except for Luke and Leia.
The ground cracks bellow him as he stomps down, actually having frozen, and an idiot walks up to him, and collapses to the ground with his organs as slush before he tries anything.
He needs a house, a place to stay, an inn, somewhere with water for the formula and supplies for a crib on the way there.
There. A shop.
Scaring off any customers it might have had, he storms in, a muscle in stump arm pulling as he shoves the door open.
Staring at him, the Rodian at the counter goes so pale she’s almost indistinguishable with the light sand wall. She stammers in Huttese,
“Shut up.” he growls. Literally. Whoops, if only he cared.
Yanking a complicated enough repair kit off it’s shelf, he flies a few filters and some metal he could probably bend into a cot into his hands.
There’s a rug draped on the counter.
Good enough.
“M- Mx. uh- you have to pay, the rugs not- for sale…”
He forces himself to freeze, to not do something stupid, the stone around him cracks, his teeth grind, he needs to get away quicker, without trouble.
One foot forewards, the other one follows, anger left behind. Stomping then walking then rushing, faster and faster towards-
oh.
Something snaps, he was heading towards the slave quarters. He was heading for- because-
An inn. So many bounty hunters come here, there has to be one…
There.
Off to the side, easy to be unbothered, not the place to ask questions.
He’s inside, a struggling cooling unit working worse than his respirator grates against his ears, he nearly shatters the floor but clenches and unclenches his fists instead, the metal groans, there’s a passive aggressive sign about tolerance for client behaviour in four languages and a receptionist.
If he stops he will not start so he doesn’t slam the counter.
“Any room.” he manages, she tosses him a key he snags with the force, careful not to warp it.
“We’ll need payment for the first night by tomorrow evening,” she informs him as he turns on his heel again and heads for the doorway.
-
The twins are both asleep, force signatures obviously peaceful as they rest bundled up in his heart away from the wider galaxy.
People move out of his way even though he’s not walking like something only pretending to be humanoid anymore, with the dark side kept at arm’s length. He’s calm enough to recognise the wary and interested glances. He’s made an impression.
The door opens, he hasn’t broken it. The Rodian looked up, her eyes widened then she jumped to her feet.
“You! I mean- uh-” she rearranged herself to a calmer professional “Mx. you have to pay for the things you took and return the rug.”
He dropped a little bit more than the right amount of credits onto the counter.
“I am in need of more parts, I will pay as I receive them this time.” he ordered. He needed to make a functioning comm, one that could reach Palpatine and wouldn’t be traced, and enough to keep his suit functioning until he could get to a place equipped for him.
She hesitated, he ground his teeth, then nodded
“What do you need?” she asked, spinning around before he could answer “Mr Jai could you grab the inventory datapad please!”
Jai. Kitster’s father, he’d-
Vader shifts on his feet as he waits, the dark side burning hotter with his annoyance. A door behind the counter opens and- and Vader fully freezes.
Jai Firesinger-Banai walks out the door, identical to how he remembers him, the same outfit, not worn out or patched, no wrinkles or grey hair. Exactly the same.
The ground cracks. Luke and Leia stir. He forces himself down and calm, soft and slow, quiet again.
“What year is it?” he asks, both the Rodian and maybe-Jai quickly turn and frown at him, he doesn’t wait to see more, reaching out into the force and flaring his presence, the dark side reaching out like a wave, surging through the galaxy as he watches carefully for a reaction.
At least a hundred little light sided signatures immediately reach out, poking him, trying to figure out what and where and who. Some realise he’s looking back now and recoil.
Hiding himself purposefully this time, a rock on the ground within the storm that is the dark side, he makes his sheilds into durasteel, pulling every last part of Luke and Leia into his own mental space, away from the sharp darkness swirling around the whole sector and Jedi alike.
The Rodian has answered, his brain finally catches up, he was still on Tatooine.
The Empire is gone, Palpatine is gone.
He hasn’t even met Palpatine yet.
His family is here but they’re not his family-
The twins are upset.
He’s upsetting the twins.
He forces himself calmer, aware of definitely-Jai and the Rodian moving away from him and the air that flies fast around him.
They calm, a little, he should go home and properly comfort them.
“Are you okay?” Jai asks, voice softer than it needs to be and-
“I am fine.” he snaps, brushing over their minds roughly but fast enough to only freak them out, but the air is not longer writhing like the angry force and they only come closer.
“Okay.” Jai soothes, like he’s talking to a wild animal, Vader bristles and leans forewards, about to growl before he cuts himself off.
He needs to find a way back through time, to his future, to Palpatine and all that’s left of his family except for the twins.
For that he needs information, the Jedi, who are in the core on Coruscant, he needs to a ship to get-
The force turns it’s attention to him, screaming no-no-no and danger and stayhere so loudly he flinches backwards.
Tatooine.
He hates Tatooine.
“Are you a store as well?” he snaps sarcastically, Jai relaxes a little. With more and more horror, he realises that’s good, community serves you well on Tatooine and he’s stuck on force-forsaken, horrible, abhorrent Tatooine.
He will not be staying here.
“Of course, what do you need?” Jai asks, pulling up his datapad,
- -
The strange new person, whose stormed through the streets and stole, then came back with an apology and who is yet to introduce themself, doesn’t quite fit in enough with Tatooine to be a local. Their outfit? is somewhere between too nice and just distinctly not one of Tatooine’s styles or armour for one, and would usually mark them out as a bounty hunter. But Jai’s… good at recognising what type of people people are, comes with the job. Confident, but in a way that has Jai decide they should be, they shouldn’t be worried about walking down a dangerous street that isn’t their territory or home, about offending a shop keeper. That doesn’t fit in here, their confidence isn’t the subtle power of Tatooine’s more dangerous children or the pride of a free person. And even though he hasn’t figured out exactly why yet, or maybe it’s just the mystery of the person, the part of him that is solidly a therapist wants to ask them questions. Considering the essentials they’re buying (along side things he has no idea what are), he assumes they’re buying a place, he comments as much with an offer of his help and they glare frostily at him, he assumes at least, although he’s not bad at reading through masks and thick clothes, but they accept his help, probably after realising what an anger it would be to move everything with two babies strapped to their chest.
He’s so curious.
He knows, he knows, he won’t hunt for secrets that aren’t his or willingly given. But that won’t stop him from from speculating, which he’ll do away from the person’s face and with friends over water and food.
And the babies, he’ll need to keep a close eye on that. Not that he suspects they’re a baby kidnapper or depur or what (best-worse case scenario they’re just not ready or capable or rasing two kids) immediately, but this is one of those, take every possible precaution moments. He should ask about them.Master, slaver, chainer
“So,” he starts “Do you have a house yet or?”
“No.” they answer curtly. Reaching for something on their belt before their hand twitches back.
“My friend Lirim needs a roommate if you’re interested.” he offers. Liri would be able to make sure everything was okay, and it was a convenient connection to them.
“Roommate.” they state
“Yup.” he grins, then realises they might be some confused core worlder. Do core worlders have the concept of roommates? “You’d live in the same building, but te’d give you the whole upstairs,
“It’s a nice place, two freshers so you’d get one to yourself. You’d have a bedroom and uh…” he tries to remember the floorplan of the place te had just brought “A living room, not a giant one, but enough for a chair, a small workshop for… whatever your job is.”
The person considers it, tilting their helmet, and ignores or doesn’t notice his implied question about their job. Fair enough, he’ll be more straight forewards next time.
“Yes.” they decide. “That would be… satisfactory.”
“Great!” Jai turns in roughly the right direction, picking up a bag and an armfull of stuff “We can ask together, come on.”
They don’t answer, but he can hear their footsteps, “Can I hear and use your name? I was never given yours, or the kids?”
“I am…” he can’t see what they move like, but they hesitate to finish the sentence “Vader. They are Luke and Leia.”
Lukk’e and Lei’ar he mentally translates, the sandstorm. Before realising Vader’s talking about their kids, and there’s no promise those are the children’s lev-nams..Hidden name, third name, name of the third heart. A name used only in rituals and specific formal situations, it is important and kept fiercely hidden from the public.
It would be a krayt coincidence if it weren’t though, to name your children of the two aspects that make the storm carried in the wind and darkens and lightens the sky without the help of suns or moons. The lightning which is bright, Lukk’e, and the thunder sand which makes sound, Lei’ar.
The lighting which scattered and caught them alight and became the stars in the sky. Which is glimpsed in the candle and torch flame that lights the dark when it cannot be stomached.
The thunder which became the Krayts roar. Heard and mimicked in the bang of drums and the deep, echoing richness of a thousand voices singing.
Vader says no more and he glances back, but they’re not even looking at him, certainly no indication they know.
Jai’s hands reach to his belt, rubbing his thumbs over the detailed leatherwork. But no one’s whispered of stolen children recently, and he would’ve recognise the names they’d showed up.
He’s making assumptions, doing exactly what he tells people not to. He closes his eyes and breathes deeply, the silence in stead of an answer to his unasked question getting heavier.
“Okay. I’m Jai Firesinger-Banai. Human man. Usually my wife Wari runs the shop actually, I’m a crafter." depur's rarely care enough for therapy, no need for a mention until he’s sure they aren’t an enemy “The Rodian woman is Rain, she does odd jobs including working the shop when we need it.”Master, slaver, chainer
Vader stays silent, annoyingly not mentioning pronouns, but that’s not about to stop him.
“You’re not expecting anyone else to come live with you are you?” maybe a spouse of Vader’s own, or another kid.
He doesn’t even actually have a clue what species Vader is, they could be the equivalent of a teenager babysitting their siblings until their parents arrive, although they did just agree to buy a house, maybe their parents aren’t going or able to watch the little ones, in which case hopefully friends might be coming to help?
But Vader cuts him off with a strong no almost before he finishes, and he lets that train of thought go for now.
“What’s your job?” he asks instead, it’s silent for a while, and he assumes they’re ignoring him
“I’m a mechanic. A good one.” they answer
Perfect!
“You could work at our shop after Wari gets some proof of that.
-
Liri happily agrees to Vader as a roommate, Vader agrees too, much less enthusiastically, which is fair enough considering how long they’ve been walking around while carrying a bunch of stuff and in armour and holding and trying to entertain two human passing babies whose names are Luke and Leia.
They greet Liri with a short and stiff hello and immediately start dragging their stuff up the stairs, disappearing one final time holding the crib Jai had found for them.
“What an interesting roommate you’ve found me.” Liri teases, elbowing him,
“Don’t tell me you’re not curious.” he laughs, “But keep an eye on them and the kids.”
Te stiffens, hand hovering above a scar on her stomach.
“I have no reason to believe he’s cruel, but when safety costs as little as paying attention you do it.” the mood softens slightly, the contrast between the shadows and light seeming to soften out like a cloud had covered the sun, never mind they’re indoors,
“The kids are named Luke and Leia, literally all the information Vader has given me are the names, no one else is coming, and they’re apparently a good engineer.” he informs tem and te grins as much as Bith can, ter already wide black eyes widening.
“We have a mystery.”
- -
Vader shoves things into categories and tries to keep his mind from wandering.
The bedroom, quickly turned into the twins’ room, is done first and despite it being a fraction of the weight of his prosthetics and armour he is a little glad to finally lie them down in the crib he sets up for them, right besides a soft enough chair for him to sit on, a table soft enough it doesn’t need to be baby proofed and a pile for everything else in a corner.
The fresher is left alone after a glance, although he makes a note to add a table for the twins and a high cupboard that can be medical storage.
Asides from what he managed to find for the twins and some water (as well as soft enough food he could potentially force it through a peg tube without worrying about having to get a new one), he has a small heater for milk for the twins, and he starts it up immediately, mixing together some formula.
He can wait to risk the whole mushy can, he’s hungry and thirsty and he’s not quite sure how long he’s been Vader and everything hurts so much and- he ignores that. The dark is swirling thick and strong around him, as much as pain in his skin as power in his blood, he can last longer.
So as he waits for it to warm, he sections off a workshop and a living room. Jai was right, it definitely could be bigger, but it’s enough. So everything that hasn’t found a spot to live gets shoved in the workshop, and he puts the few food and medicine supplies he’s scraped up in a kitchen shelf.
Finally, he’s confident it’s at a close enough temperature, and he picks up the bottle and walks slowly to the bedroom. Sitting down is… more of a relief that it should be, even as he winces when his knees move wrong and pull and press on his stumps.
But he settles into as comfortable a position as he can, and the twins are just an arm’s teach away, content and asleep in a way only babies seem to be able to do. Once more he wards of the dark side, off and unable to even whisper to them, it riles it up further, but that’s all the better considering he’s a rancor hiding under a krayt.
They both wake up to the offer of food, making it hard to pay attention to anyone but them, Luke has always been a star so bright he was unmissable from the second he was noticed, and Leia is a darkness that could deepen the night sky itself.
He looks past them, to the wider galaxy. Jedi are still scattered everywhere, small flames and scattered sparks and pieces of glitter and droplets of condensation and pebbles and a hundred other things.
Most of them are shielding strongly, probably in response to him, and considering that and the distance it’s hard for him to be able to get anything more specific than a general feeling of wariness without diving deeper into the force.
He turns his attention back to Leia, who worms her way deeper into her mind, seeing but too young to understand the emotions and memories she rifles through, and he laughs which must show enough that she attempts to stop him.
He obliges although the amusement must ruin it, Luke isn’t nearly so adapt and screws up his little face as the… darker memories and feelings are gently pulled away. The Jedi and Palpatine will have to wait.