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The door opened onto Owen Lars’ scowling face. 

The Jedi had come here with all haste, and he was still wearing the same robes he’d been wearing for the past three days.  He hadn’t slept, and he stank of sewer water and ash and blood and death.  His eyes were puffy and red-rimmed from the lava and the smoke and the constant, ever-present tears that dripped down his face and wouldn’t stop.  He paid them no mind.  He was trembling ever so slightly, and his arms shook where they clutched at the infant in his care.  Clutched with a desperation unbefitting a Jedi, an attachment.  It was attachment, for he knew at this moment that if anyone threatened this baby, he would tear them limb from limb.

He looked like a spice addict, except for the burnt and reeking Jedi robes, and the trembling threat of violence he projected.  He may be shaking, may be weak, may be running on three days of sleeplessness and mind-wounds so intense he was amazed that he was still alive, but he was ready to fight.  He’d fight Owen too, if he seemed at all like an unfit guardian for Luke.

Owen, for his part, took a moment to simply stare.  His eyes raked the Jedi up and down, noticing the robes, the tears, the lightsaber hanging damningly at his side.  Two lightsabers.  The Jedi hadn’t even thought to hide them, but of course he would need to.  He’d need to discard these robes and hide the sabers and probably cut his hair and beard and-

He was spiraling.  He forced himself to focus on Owen.

“Owen Lars?  Where’s Cliegg?”  he asked, in a voice hoarse from shouting and screaming and smoke inhalation.

“Dead,” said Owen, lips curling into a sneer.  “Long time now.  Who are you?”  Behind him, a woman – that must be Beru – was approaching with a blaster held behind her back.  The Jedi knew he looked, well, horrifying, so he wasn’t surprised.

“I’m-” the words caught in his throat.  He’d rehearsed what he was going to say on the way over, and yet, somehow, he couldn’t get his tongue to move. 

“My name is-” he was having trouble even thinking of his name.  Why would he be able to say it aloud?  His mind was fragmented and tattered, ripped into pieces with the deaths of his siblings, mental bonds broken all at once and the galaxy swallowed up in darkness.  And the biggest bond of all, torn up from the roots. 

His Padawan had grabbed that bond and used it to inflict as much mental damage upon him as he could, during their fight.  Psychic attacks could disable a Jedi just as much as physical ones.  Now, after…his thoughts were so broken and jumbled up inside, it was no wonder he could not, at the moment, remember his own name.

“Anakin,” he said instead, because that name, he remembered.  It was one of three names he’d kept in his mind, bouncing around.  Anakin, Anakin, Anakin.  Luke, Luke, Luke.  Leia, Leia, Leia. 

Leia is safe.  Now Luke.

“You’re not Anakin,” said Owen, face turning from disbelief to rage.  “And I don’t know what the hell you think this is.  If you think we’ll help you just because you mention his name-”

“No, I…” curse his unwieldy tongue!  It had never failed him before.  He gathered what fragments of thought he could piece together, almost called on the Force- but no.  The Force was steeped in darkness.  If he touched the Force right now, raw as he was from his mental wounds, he’d die.  He might be dying anyway.

Owen was staring at him expectantly, one eyebrow raised.  Beru had come up to stand at his shoulder, blocking the door, with the blaster she held blatantly on display.  The message was clear.  Come no further. 

With a mighty effort, he gasped out his rehearsed message.  “The republic…has fallen.  Anakin…is dead.  This is…your nephew…his son…Luke.”

“Oh,” said Beru, softly, and took a step forward.  Owen blocked her path, moving to stand in front of her even as his eyes darkened at the news.  He looked the nameless Jedi up and down, scrutinizing him even more.

“I’ve seen the holonews.  I’ll believe you about the kid…for now.  But I trust you about as far as I can throw you.”

A tear dripped off the Jedi’s beard onto the sand.  Beru tracked its path downwards, frowning in distaste.  Crying wasted precious water on a planet like Tatooine, after all.  But these tears were a byproduct of the Jedi’s shattered mental bonds, and not something he could consciously control.  He was certainly far too numb right now to feel an emotion like sorrow. 

“I’ve brought him…” The Jedi was still trying to explain, trying to achieve coherency, but his thoughts were like sand falling through a sieve.  “Luke is…like me.  Like Anakin,” he gestured at himself with his free hand, while the other arm held the baby securely. 

“Like you?”  Owen was insulted.  Oh, he’d taken that the wrong way indeed.  “He’ll be like you over my dead body-”

“He’s in danger!” Get it together, he told himself.  These people needed to understand.  “They killed…nearly every Force-sensitive in the Core.  I can still feel the…the shockwaves.  They’re hunting.”

“So you brought him here?” it was Beru who spoke this time, incredulous.  “What can we do against that?  We can’t protect him from…” she gestured vaguely in his direction.  Her voice was sharp, but it held an undercurrent of worry.  Good, some feral, animalistic part of the Jedi said.  She is worried for Luke.  She will care for Luke.  Luke is safe with her. 

But what of Owen?

Once again he summoned the energy to explain.  Even then, his explanation was halting and agonizingly slow.  “Some planets are…special in the Force.  Clouded.  I think…on this planet, he’ll be safe.  Hidden.  With you.”

Something in Owen hardened.  He exchanged a look with Beru, who nodded, and then looked the Jedi in the eye.  “We’ll take him,” he said.  “We’ll hide him.”  His words rang with commitment, and once again, the feral part of the Jedi that was screaming violence and protect Luke at all costs quieted.

He nodded, once, and Owen came to take Luke from him.  The Jedi brought his other arm up to cradle the infant, protective, and drew back a step.

“Sorry,” he rasped.  He forced himself to move close to Owen again.  Forced his arms to comply and hold the child out to the other man. 

Even so, Owen had to pry Luke from his arms. 

As soon as the child left his care, the fight began to drain out of him.  He could feel his energy flicker, like a candle in the wind, or swinging lights in an earthquake.  The Jedi looked inside himself, took mental stock of what he saw there, the great gaping holes in his soul, the damage left by the broken bonds with Anakin and with his Jedi family.  His life was tied up in those bonds, and the severed stumps bled like cut limbs.  Not every Jedi formed such strong bonds as the ones he’d had.  Not every Jedi was in danger of dying should they break.  But they had all snapped at once, and that last one, the one that had been thick as an artery, Anakin had ripped apart-

No, his soul whispered.  This is non-recoverable.  He needed a mind-healer.  He needed a doctor.  A Jedi doctor capable of treating this kind of wound.  He’d seen one after his Master had died, and though that had been serious, it hadn’t been lethal.  He’d had the rest of his family to pull him through, back then.

He could not remember his Master’s name.  Or even what he had looked like.

The Jedi turned away from Luke, secure in the knowledge that the child would be safe here, and began to walk off into the desert.

“Where are you going?”  It was Beru.  Owen had taken Luke into the house. 

The Jedi raised an eyebrow.  “I thought that was obvious.”  Oh, apparently his snark hadn’t died quite yet.  Even if it did ring hollow.

“It’s double noon.  You’ll last an hour at the most.”  Her brow was furrowed.  The blaster, still in her hand, was hanging at her side.  She’d decided he wasn’t a threat.  She was…worried about him.

Her concern was touching.  But it would change nothing.

“I’m dying,” he said, as simple of an explanation as he could deliver.  She looked him up and down, unimpressed.

“Are you injured?”

She meant physically.  “No…”

“Sick?”

“No.”

“Then you’ve given up?  You’ve done your part, now you’ll walk off into the desert and die?”

“No.”  He swayed on his feet.  “I really am…”  Once more he gestured to his own head, pointing at the unseen wounds.  How could he explain to a non-Force-sensitive?  How could he explain when it was so difficult to string two words together?

He gave it his best effort.  She should know, anyway.  For Luke.  “Psychic shock.  Jedi are telepaths.  Were.  I had…mental ties, to my family…to Anakin.  Strong ones.  I’m dying.”

Perhaps he’d only end up brain-dead, comatose.  Or he’d just descend into raving madness.  Either way, he was losing his grip on his sanity, and he knew it would only get worse.

“Is there anything that can be done?” She took a step closer, close enough to reach out and touch him.

“A mind-healer could help.  Another Jedi.  But…”

Beru nodded in understanding, expression falling into peace.  She reached out and touched his arm, and he trembled but didn’t pull away, so she moved her hand down and grabbed him by the wrist.

“No one should die alone,” she said, and her voice was an ocean of compassion.  “Come inside.”

“I-”

She pulled him through the door.

*

There was a hushed argument with Owen – one he didn’t hear because Beru had forced him out of his soiled robes and into the sonics.  He managed to put on the clothes she left him, soft-spun pale tunics that reminded him of the robes he’d just shed, if a bit lighter.  They were Owen’s, clearly, and too big for him.  He finished putting them on and his body convulsed- he leaned over the fresher- but nothing came up. 

When he emerged, Beru pressed a cup of tea into his hand, precious water, and sat him on a couch.  Owen had seemed to accept her decision to take him in, but was none too happy about it, and stomped around as he prepared some bantha milk for Luke, muttering about needing to buy formula and baby things. 

“Drink,” said Beru.  The Jedi drank.  The tea was well-made, but all he could taste was ash.  The memory of Mustafar clogged his senses.

“I know you are a Jedi,” she said.  “But what’s your name?”

This is Master _____.  I regret to report that both our Jedi Order and the Republic…

A woman’s voice.  Blonde hair and white Mandalorian lilies.  Ben, she’d called him. 

It meant something, didn’t it?  That word, Ben.  It wasn’t truly a name, he knew.  But it was the only thing he could think of.

He tried that.

“Ben…maybe.”  He took another sip of his tea.  “I’ve…I’ve forgotten.”

“No one just forgets their own name-” That was Owen, from the other room.  Ben thought he was being perfectly reasonable, all things considered.  Psychic wounds were baffling to outsiders.

Beru sighed.  “Okay…Ben.  Who were you to Anakin?”  She must be trying to gauge his sanity, trying to get him to talk.  It was…nice.  Ben wouldn’t die alone.  The thought comforted him more than it should.

He considered her question.  Some things were so fuzzy, like names, details, dates.  His train of thought.  Other things were crystal clear.  Younglings’ dead bodies on the floor, his hands in their blood as he felt for a pulse.  The fight on Mustafar.  A young togruta – who was she?  Her smiling face popped into his mind, and Anakin’s face, and the three of them together, laughing-

The answer was easy.  “He was my brother.” 

A body writhing on the soil.  The stink of burning flesh – I hate you! – he had turned away- he could not watch-

Ben couldn’t let himself think about it, or he’d drown in it.  He was drowning in it.  And that, Beru did not need to know.  Anakin Skywalker was dead, and Ben had failed him, and had killed him, but in his mind they were two separate people.  The brother he’d lost and the monster he’d killed.

Beru had been speaking.  Ben inhaled sharply and tried to refocus. 

“-not biologically, I take it?”

If he wasn’t numb, he’d have laughed, but as it was he felt his lips curl into the barest hint of a smile. 

“Jedi family,” he explained.  “We’re all family.  But our lineage…lineages are close.  Teacher-student…relationships, are usually like a parent and child, but…”  he trailed off.  “We were too close, in age.”

She nodded.  “Brothers.  I see…you were his teacher?”  Ben nodded back and took another sip of his tea.  His stomach roiled.  He swallowed down nausea.

“How old are you?” that was her next question, and it was logical.  But he opened his mouth to answer her and nothing came out.  He shook his head, and she accepted that.  She rose.

“I’m going to get you something to eat.  Are you allergic to anything?”

“There’s no point,” he hadn’t eaten in days, of course, and maybe that was the source of his nausea, but he was dying.  He’d be gone by the end of the week, at the latest – what did it matter?

“You listen to me, Ben,” Beru got in his face.  “You’ll eat my food, and then you’ll go to sleep, and if you’re still here in the morning you’ll eat again.  You’re going to do everything in your power to live, psychic shock or no, despair or no.  You’ll hold out as long as you can, as long as there’s a chance you might make it, until you’ve given it your best effort, and only then may you die knowing you’ve done right by your family.”

He snarled.  The audacity- he’d given all he had to give.  Surely a quick death was merciful?

Had he earned the right to mercy?  Anakin’s death had not been swift.  He’d failed Anakin, and the Order, and his Master’s dying wish. 

Beru held his gaze.  There was a core of steel in those eyes that spoke of a fellow survivor.  Something dark and ugly and violent just like him.  It made him reel back in shock.  He saw in her face a wounded animal, left in the desert to die, only to survive at the last moment.  That look was wild and raging and understanding. 

He blinked, and it was gone.  She brought him a very simple meal, which he ate without complaint or protestation, and when she told him to sleep, he curled up on the couch and slept.

*

In the morning, he was still alive.  He knew this because a man’s face was inches away from his own, snapping fingers in his eyes.  Ben startled and jumped and fell off the couch, one hand going to his lightsaber- it wasn’t there.  Where was- he looked around frantically.

“He’s alive alright,” said the man in front of him. 

“Saber,” said Ben, in a panic.  Did he leave it on Mustafar- did he lose it in the desert?  It was bright out, too bright.  He’d gone to sleep when it was bright as well, so had he slept for long?  The brightness gave him a headache.  So did the man’s voice.

“They’re on the table,” the man grunted.  “I don’t usually let my guests carry in my own house.  Especially not ones as crazy as you.”

Ben looked around, noticed the sabers lying on the table, and calmed.  He nearly summoned them with the Force, but he vaguely thought that wouldn’t go over well, (and the Force was so dark.  If he touched it, would he die?) so instead he picked himself off the floor and looked around for Beru.

“She’s with Luke,” said the man, answering his unspoken question.  “You should wash up and join us for breakfast.”

Ben nodded absently.  “Um,” he was so eloquent in the mornings.  “I don’t believe I caught your name?”

The man blinked.  And then treated him to a mighty frown.  “You know my name.”

“I…”  Ben searched his memories.  He’d been…bringing Luke to his biological family, yes.  The Jedi were dead, Anakin was…yes, he remembered.  It was hard to think, but he was sure of that much.

He tried for a smile, but it was ruined by the ever-present tears.  “Humor me, please.”

“Owen Lars.  You brought Luke to us yesterday.  Beru Lars is my wife.”

Ben closed his eyes a moment.  “That’s right, I…I remember now.  Thank you.”

“If you’re lying to me about this- this psychic shock or whatever-” Owen’s voice was a fierce growling thing.  “Luke doesn’t need this Jedi banthashit in his life.  It’s what got Anakin killed, and the only reason I’m letting you stay is because Beru’s right and you’d die in an hour out there.”

“Jedi banthashit,” Ben repeated, stung, because the Jedi were dead and the urge to scream the truth of Darth Vader in Owen’s face was overwhelming.  But he didn’t.  He must not tell them, it was safer if they didn’t know-

“Don’t talk about them like that.  Don’t-” The Jedi were dead.  They were dead, it was Anakin’s fault (and by extension, Ben’s fault), and Ben and Luke were all that was left.  He had a fleeting impression of a third remnant, someone with green skin and a troll-like countenance, but he could not place the face or the name.

“The Force is in Luke’s life whether you like it or not!”  Ben continued.  “He’s born with it!”

“How the fuck would you know, huh?”  Owen’s voice had risen considerably.  Ben flinched away from it.  The loud noise felt like physical pain to him, and he had no idea why.  “He’s just a baby!  You’re making an assumption because of Anakin, when he could be normal as anyone else.  He’s not Anakin!”

“I can feel it.  Any Force-sensitive can.  That’s why I brought him- to hide him.”

“Fine!  Even so.  What better way to hide him than to leave him in ignorance?  No, Luke will never know anything about this, or you, or the Jedi.”

“But-”

“You don’t get to make decisions for him!  You’ve done your part, now we’ll do ours.”

Ben furiously scrubbed at his face, trying to dry the tears, but it was useless.  They might not stop until he died.  His eyes hurt something fierce.

“We are…we were his people.  His…his culture.  You’ll have Luke live in ignorance…even of his- his heritage?”

“Anakin,” said Owen, slowly, “was born here.  This is his culture.”  He’d turned away from Ben.  His hands clenched at his sides.

“Anakin,” said Ben, equally as slowly, but that was because he was trying to gather his thoughts, “was a Jedi.”

Anakin had also been a slave on this planet, and had carried that experience with him, in his hatred of deserts and his outer rim accent and the spices he’d bought and brought home every time he was in the area – they reminded him of his mother, he’d said.  But he’d cooked desert food while wearing Jedi robes, while using the Force to stir his pot, while humming old Dai Bendu lullabies Ben had once sung him and hadn’t realized he’d remembered.

Anakin had been both, had been a child of the twin suns and the Force.  Ben had thought it a balance, something beautiful.  But, in the end, hadn’t Anakin hated the Jedi and everything they stood for?  Would Anakin have wanted Luke to know about the Jedi?

It was a question Ben couldn’t fathom, not with his sanity hanging by a thread the way it was.  The Anakin he’d raised would.  The monster he’d slain wouldn’t.  That monster would have probably killed Luke, anyway, so Ben privately thought it shouldn’t get a vote.

It was possible Ben’s perception of Anakin was as warped and twisted as the man himself had been.  Already it was forming into something pleasant, warm memories to be cherished (and swiftly forgotten, since he was dying) and his memory-Anakin was still a sweet child.  Ben’s mind flinched away from any perceived darkness…even remembered darkness.  Unwittingly, Ben’s hand came up to finger the bracelet on his left wrist, a braid of brown-blond hair, woven through with threads and beads, long enough to wrap three times around his arm.

Ben remembered that day, although fuzzily.  Anakin had given Ben his braid, once he’d been knighted, and Ben had the hair treated with chemicals to preserve it and keep it in stasis, and then had it made into a bracelet for him to wear.  It was a common enough practice among Jedi, to keep their Padawan’s braids.  They were precious.  Anakin had rarely seen him sleeveless, but the few times he did, his gaze had always drifted to his own braid, hanging from his Master’s arm, and his eyes had crinkled in warmth.  Ben, for his part, had never taken it off.  Hadn’t even thought to.

He’d been staring into space; Owen gave him up as a lost cause and left the room.

*

Ben ate breakfast with them, and he didn’t speak, but focused on his food (some type of lentil stew – it was buttery and wonderful) and his surroundings.  He drank everything in, knowing he wouldn’t be around much longer to enjoy little things like sunlight.  But what was sunlight, in comparison with his family?

I’ll see them soon.  He’d be one with the Force.  His family was dead and murdered, but they were with the Force, and thus, with him.  And he’d see them again before the week was out.  The thought made him smile for real, his first true smile since all this had happened.  I’ll see them again and I’ll remember their names. 

“You like the soup?” Owen was peering at him.  Ben nodded.  “It’s delicious, thank you.”

“Any chance you’re going to stop crying?”

“No…can’t help it,” said Ben.  Owen just nodded and looked down at his bowl.  He appeared to be pondering something, working through it in his mind as he chewed his food.  Ben sat comfortably, giving him time, and continued to watch the sunlight and the windows and study his lentils as he ate them. 

“You’re really dying?”

“Owen, we talked about this,” said Beru.  She was sitting across from her husband, feeding Luke a bottle of what looked like…formula?  She must have gone out, while Ben was sleeping.  Really, Ben thought, Luke was such a quiet child.  Peaceful.

“Yes,” he assured Owen.  “I don’t know…how long it will take.”

“This…psychic shock…that’s why?”

“Yes.”

Owen seemed to be wrestling with himself.

“Is this…something that could happen to Luke?”

Ben paused to think about it.  Anakin had never shown sensitivity to mental bonds – he remembered Anakin saying something along the lines of our bond is weak, which had seemed ridiculous to Ben at the time.  Their bond had been so strong.  Too strong, he now knew.  It was killing him.  But Anakin…with his endless power, his deep connection to the Force, had probably been unaware of his own strength, and therefore, of the strength of his mental connections. 

Now, the ends of it were like a heavy chain, hurled into the ocean, dragging Ben down with it, pulling him under the waves and ripping his mind to shreds as it went.

Had Anakin perceived their strong bond as a sign of weakness?

“I don’t…think so.  Anakin was strong.  Much stronger than me, in the Force.”  There was a word for that.  Midi…midi what?  Oh, it didn’t matter.  “Luke will be strong, too.”

Once again, Owen nodded.  He looked Ben in the eye.  “I think,” he said slowly, “you should tell us what we’ll need to expect.  Raising a…” he looked back at Luke.  “…Jedi.”

“Does this mean…you’ll tell him?”

“No.  Beru and I will decide that together, years from now.  I don’t like this shit.  I think Luke deserves a normal life.  But we can’t put him in danger through ignorance.  So tell me.  What do we need to know?”

Ben told him. 

*

Owen, once he’d decided to listen to Ben, was unbelievably patient.  Ben felt like a fumbling idiot, unable to get his tongue to cooperate.  With his explanations came long silences, or jumbled words, or sometimes he said the wrong word when he meant something else, or sometimes he couldn’t remember what he’d been about to say.  And he kept forgetting important details. 

“…mental ties to loved ones…he’ll have one with you…he’ll be able to feel your…sooyth.  Ah- your- your emotions.” 

Dai Bendu, Ben’s first language, came easier than Basic, for some words.

“He can’t read my mind, though, right?”

“No.  But he’ll know if you…um…iden.”

Owen waited him out.

“Lie,” said Ben.  “He’ll know…if someone means him harm.  If someone’s good or bad, inside.”

“That’s good,” said Beru.  “Useful.”

“It is not always accurate.”

“Less useful.”

*

He told them everything he could think of, everything that was practical.

“You must teach him…peace.  He won’t have us to help him.  He must be…at peace.  Jedi usually meditate…”

“I don’t think puberty and peace go together.”

“Even so.  Overwhelming anger…overwhelming fear.  In an untrained child…he could bring down a house.”

Owen was very pale.  “A house?”

“Anakin once caused an earthquake…because he was angry at me.  That’s why our…apprenticeships are so long.  To learn…self-control.  Peace.”

*

Eventually it devolved, and Ben found himself happily telling Owen stories about his family.  Things that wouldn’t matter – what did a knighthood ceremony look like?  How do you say “may the Force be with you” in Dai Bendu?  Who was in Anakin’s Jedi lineage, apart from himself?  (Ben couldn’t answer that last question, even though he’d wanted to, because names were too difficult.)

“So, the lightsaber isn’t just a weapon?  It’s…part of your soul?”

Ben was nodding.  “This lightsaber is your life.  That’s what…I told Anakin.  And what I was told.  They are…they sing, in the Force.”  All this talking was giving him a headache.  He felt strange.  Cold, too cold, for a desert house.  He hugged his arms around himself.  He wished for his Jedi robes.

“But you have two.  Do some Jedi have two?”

“Yes, but…”  Ben had begun to shiver violently.  He felt cold and hot, flashes of something racing up and down his body.  Was that the Force?

“…not…me.  Mine and…Anakin’s.”

“You mean that’s Anakin’s lightsaber?”

Owen said something else, but Ben was far away.  It felt as though someone was holding him underwater – he couldn’t get enough air-

*

Ben woke up on the couch, with a terrible, throbbing headache.  There was blood in his mouth.  His limbs were curled up in the fetal position.  He tried to move, but he couldn’t, and then he began to panic.

Is it happening now?  I don’t want to die alone!  Where’s Beru?  Owen?

He reached for the Force without thinking.  But he was far enough away from the Core – half a galaxy away – it didn’t kill him.  He should have realized that before, but in his confusion, he’d assumed it was as dark here as it was on… that city-planet.  Core…Coruscant.

He cast his senses around the house.  Beru?  Owen?  Luke?  They were there, their life-forces shining hale and healthy.  Luke was hard to see, his Force-signature appearing blurred with the natural brightness of the desert.  Just as he’d planned.  At least this part of his plan had worked.  Luke was safe.

Beru walked in and saw him hyperventilating.

“It’s alright,” she soothed, moving closer.  “You’ve had a seizure.  Give it some time, these things are temporary.”

I can’t move, he tried to tell her.  He projected his words as though speaking to another Jedi, or to Anakin through their bond.  Beru’s expression didn’t change, but across the house, he heard Luke wail.

“Give it time, Ben.”

He closed his eyes and tried to calm himself.  Tried to pretend it was just an exercise in self-control with his Master.  How many times had he been caught and tortured, during the war?  How many times had they used drugs that did things like this, to paralyze him, to hurt him?

Of course Ben would remember those memories, and not other, nicer things. 

Slowly, he came back to himself.  It began with his pinkies- just a twitch.  Soon he was moving his hands, unlocking his jaw, taking deep breaths.  It was just as Beru said- temporary.  He’d bitten his cheek, drawing blood, but otherwise felt okay.  His body hurt, and he was shaking like a leaf, but in Ben’s mind that was still in the realm of fine.  He summoned his own lightsaber with the Force, needing it near him, and curled around it like it was a stuffed-tooka.  In his periphery he noticed Beru jumping when the saber floated past her, but he was beyond caring.

He fell asleep, absolutely wiped out.  It wasn’t even noon.

*

The next time Ben woke, someone was putting a cold cloth to his forehead.  A cold cloth and a warm hand.

“Master?” he mumbled.  He must be sick indeed if his Master was caring for him like this.  It’d been such a long time since anyone had…

“No, no masters here.  We’re all free people in this house, Ben.”

“-know ‘m free,” he mumbled, eyes squeezed tightly shut.  The headache was awful.  “You saved me, Master.  Not a slave anymore.  Knew you’d come.”

“I…okay.”

Ben’s eyes opened, little by little.  Everything was too bright.  A man’s face swam into view…he furrowed his brows in concentration.

“…Master?”

“No.  Owen Lars.  Remember?  You brought Luke to us?”

Oh.  Owen Lars.  Luke.  Beru.  Anakin. 

“I…I remember.  Sorry.”  He brought one hand up to hold the cloth in place; it was soothing to his headache.  But he also, with effort, sat up. 

“You okay?” said Owen, and then he seemed to wince at his own question. 

“If you need…if you need to know anything else, you should…ask me now.  I don’t know how long I…”

“I actually think it’s the other way around.  Is there anything more you need to tell us?”

Ben cringed.  There were two things, both equally awkward to talk about.

“I’d like to be burned.  Please.”

Owen was a practical man.  “We can do that.”

“Thank you.  And thank you, for letting me stay.  Thank you.”

“No one deserves to die alone, Ben.”

Anakin had died alone.  Ben trembled at the memory.  I loved you.

“Is that it?”

“No.”  Ben slowly brought out his lightsaber.  His hands were shaking so badly that it was easier to use the Force.  It floated into the air in front of Owen, who appeared to be suppressing a scream.

“You should keep this.  For Luke.”

“Beru and I needing to know a few things about psychic children in no way means we’re about to give him a laser sword.  How many people did you kill with that thing?”

“Lightsaber,” Ben corrected, with the exasperated huff of someone who’d made that particular correction many times.  He pointedly ignored the last question.  He’d killed Anakin with it.  The kyber crystal inside was weeping with grief, crying softly for having been used to slay its brother.  But grief was not rage.  Despite its sorrow, this crystal hadn’t bled.  It was light, even after everything.  Pure.

“I know you’re still deciding.  I know you might…decide not to say…anything.  But words cannot express…how much a kaitahj means to us.  Place it in a safe, if you must.  Bury it…in a hole.  But keep it.  Luke may never have a chance to have one, otherwise.”

Owen sat for a long time, just looking at the saber, floating in the air between them.

“Is this Anakin’s lightsaber?”  He made no move to take it.

“No.  Mine.”

“Why not give us Anakin’s?  Or do you mean us to have both?”

Ben went to shake his head, and stopped, because that made the headache worse.  He could not give Owen the full truth.  “Anakin’s…damaged.  It screams, in the Force.”  It was bleeding, actually.  Bleeding and screaming as the crystal inside could not bear the strain of having been used to slaughter innocents.  If Anakin had continued using it, the saber’s blade would have turned red.  “It will harm Luke, should he touch it.”

“And yours won’t?”

“No.  Burn Anakin’s, with my body, please.  It is not safe to use.”

Owen still hesitated.  Then he began, with the speed of a glacier, to reach out.  Tentative fingers curled around the hilt of Ben’s saber.  Slowly, very slowly, Ben released his Force-grip on it.  It felt like a weight had lifted from his chest.  It felt like…passing a torch. 

“Turn it on,” Ben whispered.  “So you know how.”

Blue light lanced through the room, with the telltale snap-hiss of ignition.  The plasma hummed a quiet background melody.  The blue reflected off Ben’s eyes.

*

By the next day, Ben wasn’t doing well.  He’d had another seizure, and Beru tried to get him to eat something, but he didn’t want it.  He felt like his mind was water, precious water, spinning around a drain and emptying rapidly.  It was so hard to remember.

“Ben, please.”  That was Beru.  He still remembered her name, but he’d had to ask for it at least five times. 

“Not hungry,” he gasped, lying facedown on the couch.  He liked the smell of the upholstery.  It smelled like…the color of sand.  Everything was blurring together.

“Please.  Please, try.”

Try, said the Force, whispering in his ears.  That voice, it sounded like- like-

It sounded like someone he couldn’t remember.

“Okay,” said Ben.  “Okay.”  And Beru helped him sit up and pressed the mug into his grip- it was soup.  Precious water.  His hands shook, so she pressed her hands over his and steadied them as he took a sip, and then another.

“Here,” said Beru once he’d drunk half of the cup and was too nauseous to continue.  Something warm and soft was draped over his shoulders.  “I think you’ll be wanting this back.”

A brown cloak.  Worn and old and woven with great care.  His hands came up to hold it and wrap it further around himself, and it felt right in his hands, like he’d done this a million times before.

But he looked at Beru with confusion.  “It’s your cloak, Ben,” she said.  “I washed it.”

“My cloak?”

“Yes.”

His mind was gone, but the cloak was warm and a familiar brown and he was so, so cold.

“Who am I?” he asked Beru, his voice cracking.  “Where’s Anakin?”

Anakin Anakin Anakin

The tears never stopped.

*

“I’ll see them again,” said Ben, later, and he was wrapped in his cloak, and shivering, and talking to himself.  There was a lightsaber on the table, or maybe it was called a laser sword, and it wasn’t his, but it screamed and screamed into the Force and Ben pulled it to his chest and cradled it close.

“There, there, I’ve got you,” he mumbled to it.  “Stop screaming.”

The metal burned his hands, was trying to burn his soul, howling and clawing and bleeding.

“Anakin,” said Ben, cradling the saber and touching the braid around his wrist.  “Anakin.”

And then that name, too, faded from his mind.

*

When the end came, he wasn’t alone.  Someone was there, holding his hand, whispering words that his ears could no longer hear.  His vision blurred and failed, everything was spinning- his soul was leaking into the Force.  Something from somewhere beyond time and space was pulling on him, slow but insistent. 

He was a clay pot, broken into pieces and floating away on a river.  He was a tree, casting off its leaves, and the leaves blew away in great gusts of wind.  Pieces of himself tore free in great chunks and flew into death.

His senses pulled inward; no longer able to see or hear or touch, and it was as if he walked through his own mind, past the broken bonds, bloody stumps.  There was nothing but blood here, a thousand gaping, raw wounds, festering and putrid and incurable.  It was killing him as sure as if he’d had wounds like those on his body.

All his bonds were broken.  They were all gone, torn and severed, all-

Wait.

Ben stopped, with great effort- pulling his head above the water with wavering strength-

Not all. 

There was a connection.  Paper thin.  Buried under death and fire.  Someone was alive!  Someone in his family! 

His spirit jolted with a raw, wild hope, and he grabbed at that bond with everything he had left.  He was already halfway in the Force, halfway into death, and that made it so easy to do this- for in the Force, time and space were one. 

Her name came to him then, easy as breathing.  He should never have forgotten it.

Ahsoka. 

Alive, alive, alive!

To reach across parsecs and systems was nothing to him in this state.

Ahsoka.

Her answer was a shocked scream of joy and hope, to match his own.

Master!?

He had no time.  He sent her an image of the rolling desert, the two suns.  The spaceport.

Tatooine.  Anchorhead.  I am dying, Ahsoka, but there is someone here who needs your help.

No, no, Master!  Hang on.  Hang on!

She flooded the bond with everything she had.  The courage of a Jedi Knight, the pure strength of an unbroken youth.  It was stupid, reckless.  She should know better.  She did know better.  It was desperation.

Please, I can’t lose you too!  Please hold on!  I’ll come- I’ll come to Tatooine, I can be there- I can get there!

No, Padawan, his voice was a whisper as it lost strength.  She didn’t correct him for his use of her old title.  I am one with the Force.  I will be with our family.  I’m happy, dear one.  I’m…

Please!  It was a sob.  I can’t do this without you.  Everyone’s dead!  Live, Master!  Live!

It echoed what Beru had said, a few days ago.  But the pull on his spirit was more than he could resist.  Ahsoka’s grip tightened, but it was like a rope, slipping through her fingers.  She held him suspended over a cliff, hands grabbing at that rope and turning bloody as it burned through her skin.  Trying to keep him from falling was hurting her, would kill her as it had killed him.

I love you, he said to her, just to make sure she knew.  Funny, after saying it to his Padawan as he lay defeated and dying- after saying it to a monster, those three words came so easily.  They had never come easy before.  I love you.  Let me go, my dear.

No.  Never.  But they both knew she would have to.

It will be alright.  Let me go, please.

She was crying, ugly and hard, in a way she probably hadn’t since everything had happened.  Guttural sobs tore their way down the bond, as the rope between them frayed in the middle and soaked through with the blood from her hands.

I love you too, said Ahsoka, and then she let him go.

*

Beru and Owen screamed as the Jedi Master on their couch took a deep breath and faded into nothing, tunic, cloak, lightsaber, and all.