Chapter Text
Shmi traced the names on her baby boy’s wrist and dreamed about the man he would become.
Qui-gon, Padme, Obi-wan, Sheev, Ahsoka, Luke; these weren't the kind of names a slave to a Hutt should interact with. She desperately hoped they meant he was destined for a better life.
---
When he was old enough to understand, Shmi told Ani the tale of how The Suns gifted the Children of the Desert with names on their wrists to help guide them in life, no matter how strong the storms blew.
---
At seven years old, Anakin came home one day with a black eye. He wouldn’t tell his mother what he was fighting over; he didn’t want her to know what they said about his names.
That’s a lot of names for a piece of property! Do you think they’ll be your masters, slave boy? I bet you have so many because no one actually wants to guide you. They’ll just pass you off to someone else.
---
When he was nine, three strangers and a droid came into Watto’s shop. Two of Ani’s names darkened.
He thought Padme was an angel. How lucky was he to have been sent an angel! He couldn’t wait to introduce her to his mom and Threepio.
---
Qui-gon and Padme needed help, and Anakin would do everything in his power to help them. After all, his mom always said that the problems in the galaxy were from no one helping each other, and what kind of person would he be if he didn’t help his lifeguides?
---
“You’re a Jedi, too?” Anakin asked Obi-wan with a smile and an enthusiastic handshake. “Pleased to meet you.” If he had to leave his mother behind, at least he knew he had guides where he was going.
---
A Jedi’s name marked his wrist. A Jedi stood up for him, wanted to train him. He was wanted.
The echo was still there: Do you think they’ll be your masters, slave boy?
He shoved it down. The Jedi were different. Master Qui-gon was different.
---
Master Qui-gon was dead.
---
It didn’t take Anakin very long to learn the Jedis’ stance on guidenames. The Force gave them, they said, but a Jedi should not dwell on them. That led to attachment, which led to fear, anger, hate, and suffering.
Anakin didn’t really understand. If they were going to have an impact on your life, how could you ignore that?
You couldn’t, he realized as he watched his new master obsessively tug his left sleeve down and try to hide his red-rimmed eyes.
Anakin didn’t know what to say, and Obi-wan didn’t seem to want to talk about it, but he figured out how to make tea with his master’s fancy leaves. He set the hot drink in front of the young man with a tentative smile. Obi-wan smiled back --a real smile!-- then patted the seat next to him and fetched another cup.
---
Chancellor Palpatine was Sheev, apparently. He was kind to Anakin, asked about how he was settling into the Jedi Temple, and listened intently when Anakin spoke. Ani thought that maybe this was what having a grandfather was like. Or maybe a cool uncle. At any rate, he liked talking to the Chancellor. He was glad to have him as a lifeguide.
Anakin was pretty sure that Obi-wan and the other Jedi only tolerated his visits because the Chancellor was one of the most powerful men in the Republic, though, so he tried not to make a big deal about it. He didn’t want them to think he was getting too attached. He didn’t want them to forbid him from meeting with the one person who didn’t tell him that what he was feeling was wrong.
---
When he met Padme again, ten years after their first meeting, there wasn’t another name to darken on his wrist, but the moment felt terribly significant anyway. Anakin was pretty sure he’d made an ass of himself every time he had opened his mouth during that conversation.
---
For Anakin, Shmi Skywalker’s death was so much worse than Qui-gon Jinn’s death. For one, she had suffered much longer than he had, but she was also Anakin’s first lifeguide. She was his mother! He couldn’t restrain the all-consuming fury that came over him when he felt her slip away in his arms. If Anakin was honest, he hadn’t really tried to.
---
Marrying Padme was the best thing that could have happened to Anakin. The Suns, or the Force, or whatever Nubians believed in, had decreed that the two of them would be important to each other, but with their marriage they claimed each other of their own free will. Padme wanted to be with him, with him! He wished he could shout it in the streets of Coruscant until the whole galaxy knew.
---
Anakin didn’t want a padawan, especially not one that the Council had foisted on him, but her name was Ahsoka and she was a real spitfire and she had his name on her wrist, too. He wasn’t about to abandon someone the Suns had entrusted to him. Especially not with a war on. He promised her that.
---
Anakin failed to keep his promise. Something in him broke as he watched his padawan ---his former padawan-- walk away from the Temple. Every day that went by without Ahsoka scarring was a blessing.
---
“What do you think, Ani?” Padme teased. “Is our baby a boy or a girl?”
Anakin thought of a name on his wrist, the only name still a dull gray, and said, “He's a boy. I know he is.”
Luke .
---
There were no gray names on Padme’s wrist, no names that could possibly belong to their child. As he woke up from his nightmare, Anakin feared he knew why.
---
Darth Vader tore through practice droids like a knife through butter, and if he was not terribly graceful, well, he was only just relearning how to move with his new limbs. He did not acknowledge the relief he felt to know that he no longer had a left wrist and would therefore not have to face the names he knew would long since have faded and scarred.
Shmi.
Qui-gon.
Now Padme.
Luke? Had that name truly belonged to his unborn son? Or was he fated still to meet this stranger?
In the nightmares that haunted him, his nameless child shifted from a blonde boy to a dark-haired girl and back again.
He hated them. He hated himself.
His Master was all that he had left, and he clamored for his attention as much as he resented him.
---
Luke Skywalker was fascinated with the names on his wrist even before he could read them. As soon as he knew what words were, he demanded that Aunt Beru read them to him. He had so many! Aunt Beru told him that it meant he was special; he had such a huge heart that he couldn't help but let people in.
Of all the guidenames the Suns had seen fit to burn onto his wrist, Luke’s favorite was Anakin. Sometimes, when Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru weren't paying attention, he pretended that the name belonged to his father, who'd show up one day from outer space and take Luke to see the stars.
---
Leia prayed to the goddesses each night for protection for her soulnames, kneeling next to her mother and echoing the traditional blessing. She added a few creative curses in her head for good measure; no one ever said that all of the names were meant to affect you in a good way, after all.
---
Darth Vader obsessed over Obi-wan Kenobi and Ahsoka Tano. He no longer had his guidenames to tell him whether they were dead or alive, but he knew better than to underestimate the two former Jedi. Until he received absolute proof of their demises, he would not rest.
---
“Obi-wan Kenobi. I haven't been called by that name since, oh, before you were born,” Old Ben said.
Luke wasn't so sure; Obi-wan had always been black on his wrist. He followed Kenobi to his hut.
---
His uncle had lied to him; Anakin Skywalker wasn't a navigator. His uncle had told the truth; Anakin Skywalker was dead and he was never coming back.
Luke never saw Ben's wrist, but he’d’ve bet you could find Anakin scarred there. He could almost see his father's name scarred on the old man's heart.
---
A cantina in Mos Eisley was the last place Luke expected to find Han. The smuggler named a ridiculous price even as he must have realized who was among his passengers. Or maybe Luke wouldn’t touch his life the way Han would touch his?
The farmboy wondered what life he was walking into that he had Tatooine’s shadier elements influencing it.
---
Apparently Corellians weren’t especially mystical. Han didn’t believe in “hokey religions” or destiny, and that included guidenames. No one told a Corellian what to do. Luke tried not to show how much that bothered him.
---
Never mind what Luke had thought before; the last place he ever would have expected to meet one of his lifeguides was in a detention block on the Death Star. And she was a princess! Boy, would Uncle Owen have had a lot to say about all of this.
---
Leia hadn't dared to hope that fate would intervene and get her off of this battle station and away from her executioners just because some of her names were still gray. That wasn't how the galaxy worked. But as she met Luke and Han , she decided that sometimes miracles came in the form of people. Even extremely irritating Corellians.
---
Luke screamed involuntarily as Vader murdered Ben. He knew that the next time he looked at his wrist, Obi-wan would no longer be black.
---
Luke threw Han’s self-reliance in his face. He couldn’t believe the smuggler would just leave like that.
If Leia felt similarly, she didn’t show it. “He’s got to follow his own path; no one can choose it for him,” she told him, echoing words that her mother had spoken to her long ago.
Luke didn’t know if he could handle losing another lifeguide so soon after losing his aunt and uncle and old Ben. “I only wish… Ben were here,” he said instead. The kiss on the cheek that she gave him as she left felt like an anchor to the one guide he still had.
---
After Yavin, Leia took a vindictive pleasure in seeing the name Wilhuff silvery-scarred. But it couldn't stop the agonizing pain that she felt whenever she looked at her arm and was reminded that Bail and Breha were scarred there, too.
Luke and Han were still pitch black, thank the goddesses, and she admitted to herself how grateful she was that they had both come back when so many others hadn’t.
---
When Vader heard the name of the pilot who had destroyed the Death Star, he couldn’t contain his emotions.
Luke Skywalker. Luke.
He had been right all those years ago. More importantly, his son was alive.
---
Han and Leia screamed at each other for the next three years after Yavin, refusing to admit the other’s importance to them. Even the names didn’t help. Wedge and Luke took bets on who would snap and kiss the other first. Leia kissing Luke was not something that the betting pool had anticipated.
---
Following the Battle of Hoth, Luke wasn't sure he was making the right decision, but he followed a dead man's words and found himself crash landed in a swamp, chasing yet another black name. Yoda’s fake-out would have gone better for the young man had he not apparently met the old Jedi as an infant, too. Not remembering meeting people he had met as a baby was becoming a strangely specific issue. Fate, or the Force, or something, was laughing at him, he was sure. Thankfully none of the other names on his wrist were likely to be Jedi Masters in hiding.
---
Luke would have risked his life to save any one of his friends, much less the ones he carried with him on his wrist. There was nothing that Yoda or Ben could say to change his mind.
Leia and Han knew it. They hated that there was nothing they could do to stop the Empire from using them against their friend.
Vader was depending on it. He couldn’t wait to finally meet the son he thought he had lost two decades ago, even if it meant delivering him to his master.
---
As Luke Skywalker plummeted away from his father, the Sith stood frozen in place. His son had rejected him, would rather die than accept him as a father and lifeguide.
The only consolation he had as the Millennium Falcon disappeared into hyperspace was that he could still feel his son’s presence. At least he hadn’t failed him that completely. Again.
---
In the adrenaline rush that was the duel on Cloud City, Luke hadn't even noticed his wrist prickling as Anakin darkened.
Afterwards, as soon as he was alone and coherent, Luke peeled back the left sleeve of his medical gown with his teeth. He screamed.
---
Leia lay awake at night, staring at Han on her wrist. She was scared that if she fell asleep, she’d wake up to find that his name was no longer black.
---
After rescuing Han from Jabba the Hutt, Luke returned to Dagobah for the answers he so desperately needed. Yoda confirmed his father’s words, and Obi-wan told him about his sister, but Luke had another question.
“Ben, did he-- do you know-- did he have my name on his wrist?” Luke asked, his eyes pleading for Obi-wan’s honesty.
“He’s more machine now than man, twisted and evil. Vader has no names; his wrist is metal, cold and inorganic. There are no names there.” The apparition paused for a moment, then sighed. “I do know that Anakin Skywalker had Luke on his wrist. It was gray for as long as I knew him.”
“Then I have a chance,” Luke breathed.
“A chance?” Ben questioned sharply.
“To bring him back. I know there’s good in him; I can feel it.”
Luke didn’t want to fight his father, but he’d be damned if he wouldn’t fight for him.
---
Leia reacted about as well as Obi-wan had. Luke showed her Anakin on his wrist, dark and alive, and told her that he had to face him again.
She begged her newfound brother to run away, to stay safe, and she choked back bitter tears as she subconsciously rubbed the space on her wrist where Bail was written.
Luke didn’t run away.
---
On the moon of Endor, a Jedi and a Sith shared an interlude away from the war.
“I've accepted the truth that you were once Anakin Skywalker, my father,” the Jedi said.
“That name no longer has any meaning for me,” the Sith replied.
Luke stared into his father's soul. “It doesn't say Darth Vader on my wrist,” he challenged.
Vader had no response to that.
---
“So…” Vader drawled. “You have a twin sister.” Outwardly, he persisted in his master’s plan to turn his son. Inwardly, his mind was reeling.
He hadn’t had any more names on his wrist, much less female ones.
He had no guarantee that he would ever have a chance to meet his daughter.
---
Writhing on the floor in agony, Luke had called out for his father. He wasn’t sure who had been more surprised --Luke, Vader, or the Emperor-- when his father had answered. As Luke cradled his father where he had fallen, he rested his hand on Vader’s --no, Anakin Skywalker’s-- left wrist, where he knew his own name once rested. For a moment, his surroundings melted away and he was a little boy again.
His father had come home to him, and if he looked out the viewport, he could even see the stars.
---
Down on the moon below, neither Han nor Leia had any doubts that Luke had made it off of the battle station. After all, if he hadn’t, they’d both have a physical indication of it. That didn’t make Leia any less glad that she could feel his presence if she focused hard enough.
---
Luke smiled as he watched his father join Yoda and Ben. For once, a scarred name felt like less like a painful reminder than like a promise.
Anakin Skywalker had reclaimed his name from the very depths of darkness; the Suns would smile down on those who were willing to change for the better, no matter what the Jedi said.
Luke allowed his sister to drag him back to the celebration.
And in that moment, all was right with the universe.