Hello lovely people! So I know I'm way behind on my Dark Knight story, but that is because I have been working my arse off on this: a trilogy-spanning, OC-insert, Mary-Sue parodying Star Wars fic! Yay!

This story is very, very heavily inspired by FebruarySong's 'The Awkward Adventures of Meghan Whimblesby', a LOTR fic that is extremely funny - if you like what I write (and you like LOTR), I would definitely recommend it.

Finally, I hope you enjoy this fic, and don't take it too seriously. I didn't.

Update as of 30/09/16: This fic IS still ongoing, but I'm taking some time to go back and do a little tweaking of earlier chapters (like this one for example) before moving on to finish it. If you've already read this fic, please, read it again to see what's new - rest assured that in terms of major plot points everything is more or less the same, but I've been working to edit little bits of dialogue, add new little scenes, work on character development and hopefully fix continuity errors. Even though it's been a good four years since I started writing this fic, I'm still obsessing over it!

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars, or any of its characters. Only Alice is mine.

Alice Miller was never the sci-fi type of girl. In fact, quite the opposite.

Her main passion was history, and her favourite genre of fiction was romance and Westerns. She was nineteen years old, lived in a well-to-do part of Surrey, England, and was about to leave for university. For the most part, she was shy, though her close friends could testify to the eccentric side that lurked beneath her quiet, diligent exterior: in the right company Alice was loud, oddly combative, and a proud purveyor of terrible puns. The only area she'd ever truly shone in besides academic work was gymnastics (at the ripe old age of 12), and even in those heady glory days, she'd avoided actual competitions where she could, preferring the freedom to mess around in private rather than shine in front of crowds.

One of Alice's friends, however, was a sci-fi devotee, a superhero, comic-book, fantasy, space-ship fanatic. Think, dear readers, of every sci-fi film you have ever seen. Alice would vouch for the fact that her friend Emily had seen them all (within a certain capacity, obviously – hyperbole and all that).

And so it was that one night about two weeks after she'd left school, Alice was watching a film. To be specific, it was a Western, the classic and intriguingly-named 'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly'. She did this sitting on the top of her bedroom wardrobe, which had been a favourite hiding spot since she was a child – the place she'd gone whenever she fought with her parents, usually threatening never to come down again. Of course, her self-imposed exile would normally only last until she got hungry. Luckily for the wardrobe, she hadn't grown much since then.

She had barely managed to get past the opening credits, however, when quite unexpectedly, her phone rang.

"Bugger," Alice muttered, peering down to try and spot her phone on the bed below.

It was sitting near her pillow, and narrowing her eyes still further, she made out the name 'Emi' emblazoned across the top of the screen, complete with the most embarrassing photo of the girl in question that Alice had been able to find. Grinning, Alice tucked her laptop safely in the corner of the wardrobe, and with an ease born of long practice, hopped lightly down onto her bed. Settling herself comfortably on her bed, she grabbed the phone, "Hello?"

"Yo."

Alice rolled her eyes at the greeting, but she smiled too, "Hi, Emi."

"How are you, my duckling?"

"I object to being referred to as a baby bird."

"Why-ever would you object to that? Anyway, shut up. Are you busy tomorrow?"

"Don't think so. Why?"

"Because I was thinking we could rob a bank. I want you to come round to mine, idiot. We're going to have…wait for it…a movie day."

Alice narrowed her eyes, "What kind of movie day?"

There was an extremely suspicious pause on the other end of the phone, "Oh, you know. Allll kinds of movies!"

"Emi…"

"Alright! I want you to watch the original Star Wars films. Pleeeeeease, I promise you'll like it, they're actually really funny, honestly-"

"That's what you said about the original Batman films, and I think we all remember how that went down."

"Oh. Yeah…well, how was I supposed to know that Tash had a clown phobia? And even if I had known, which I honestly did not, I wouldn't have thought the Joker would be enough to set her off. He's not even that scary..."

Alice snorted, "You are not wrong there."

"Come on, Ally, it'll be great, really. We'll just watch the first one and if you don't like it, then we can watch something else – you can pick. Even if it's another boring historical epic, like that one about the King of France with the twin brother..."

"You liked that one," Alice said, hurt, "it had Leonardo DiCaprio in it."

"Oh yeah. Anyway, I promise I will suffer through whatever dull film you choose, if you watch 'A New Hope'. Fair?"

She huffed a sigh, pretending to think about it, "Well…alright. Fine." She winced as her friend gave a high-pitched shriek of triumph and wondered if it was too late to backtrack.

"Yes! Great. Come around early okay? We can watch a film or two, then have lunch then watch some more. See you tomorrow!"

"Can't wait," Alice said, with an overly dramatic eye-roll. She hung up and shuddered at the thought of having to watch roughly two hours of people with out-dated haircuts running around in odd clothes. But then she reminded herself that, after all, most Westerns/historical films consisted of roughly two hours of people with equally out-dated haircuts running around in equally odd clothes, and perhaps she should give Emi a chance. Thus resigned to her fate, she went downstairs to make herself some tea before going to bed.

"Mum, I'm going over to Emi's tomorrow."

Her mother looked up from the kitchen table where she sat, novel in hand and a cup of tea in the other. Alice was personally of the opinion that with her black skin, as smooth and unlined at age forty-five as it had been at twenty-six, neatly-braided hair and kind smile, her mother was one of the most beautiful women she had the good fortune to know. Alice's own hair and skin were a little lighter, her curls looser; those physical traits were just about the only lasting memento she had from her dad, a business man who her mother had divorced when Alice was nine. Her relationship with him now was chilly at best, but she absolutely adored her mother.

"Oh, do you need a lift? I can drop you on the way to work. I'm starting late tomorrow."

"Ooh, yes please. Thanks, mum."

"So what're you doing at Emi's? Just hanging out?"

Alice made a face, "Movie day."

"Ah," her mum gave her a sympathetic look, "more space films, I suppose?"

"That would be correct."

"Any in particular?"

"Star Wars."

"The mother of all space epics."

"Yeah. My only consolation being that a young Harrison Ford has a starring role."

Her mother smiled, "I think you'll like them. They are actually quite good films – laughable special effects aside. It's really quite impressive what they managed to do considering-"

"Alright, mum," Alice said, rolling her eyes and pecking a quick kiss on her mother's cheek, her cup of tea in hand, "calm yourself."

"Cheeky," her mum replied, "take your tea and get out of here."

"Going. Night, sleep well."

"Goodnight."

But alas, in the end, Alice didn't end up getting a lift with her mum to Emi's house the next day. Nor, crucially, did she ever get to actually watch the Star Wars films. Because it seemed that instead of a quiet day watching films with her friend, some fate, some force had something rather different in mind for Alice Miller.

She had just drifted to sleep, when all of a sudden, strolling innocently down a street in her dream, she tripped. Her heart practically went into meltdown, and her stomach lurched unpleasantly. A curse dying on her lips, Alice jolted awake, panting. At least, she thought she jolted awake. Looking around, she realised she must still be dreaming, because instead of comfortable darkness, light blazed annoyingly all around her, and though the surface she was sitting on was soft, it definitely wasn't a bed.

"Weird," she said out loud, "I'm dreaming, but I know I'm dreaming?"

"Are you alright?"

Alice startled away from the voice – she hadn't realised there was someone else here. She looked up and was momentarily blinded by the fierce light of the sun. It was blisteringly hot; she could already feel sweat beading at her hairline and on her upper lip, and she was pretty sure that all of her exposed skin was burning.

When the flashing lights had faded from her vision, a number of interesting and alarming objects came swimming into view. The first was a young man with stupidly shaggy blonde hair crouching over her, wearing an expression of innocent concern. Beyond him she could make out a rolling sea of yellow-orange sand, broken by a line of jagged rocks to her right, almost like small mountains, and what looked like a floating speed boat. In every other direction, there was nothing, nothing but dust and dunes.

Well, she thought, this is all extremely detailed. Abstract…but detailed.

"Ma'am?"

She refocused her attention on the boy, realising she still hadn't answered his question about whether she was alright. "Hmm? Oh. I'm fine, fine and dandy. Never been better." She paused, realised that this boy, who looked about her age, or maybe a little younger, had just called her ma'am. Indignant, she burst out, "Wait a second, did you just call me ma'am? Really? How old do you think I am exactly?"

He looked flustered, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean- I mean, I just-"

Alice waved a hand, cutting him off, "That's okay, not a problem. What's a little insult between friends? I'll probably forget it when I wake up anyway."

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the confusion on the boy's face ratchet up another few notches, but her attention had already been caught by something possibly even more distressing than waking up in a desert.

"Okay, what the hell am I wearing?"

Far from the baggy shirt and comfy pyjama bottoms she'd gone to bed in, she was currently dressed in a surprisingly lightweight and well-fitting tan jumpsuit with lots of pockets, paired with a practical pair of boots. It looked like something a fighter pilot would wear – if fighter pilot suits were designed by Yves Saint Laurent.

"Well," she muttered, checking to see if she had a shirt on underneath (she did, a sturdy white tank-top) before unzipping and pulling the top half of the jumpsuit down to her waist and tying the sleeves around her middle, "I guess it could be worse."

"It looks like a flight suit," the boy said, sitting back on his heels and scanning the scenery, "but I don't see your ship anywhere around here – did you crash?"

"My ship?" She repeated, raising her eyebrows, "Um, dude, I don't know if you've noticed, but we're in a desert."

The boy stared at her. Alice stared back. I'm sensing some slight miscommunication here.

"What?"

"What?" Alice replied, feeling stupid. The moment stretched, and as they gazed at each other, Alice noted, with some pride in the power of her subconscious, that he really had quite nice eyes for a figment of her imagination.

"Well," she said, eventually deciding that enough was enough, "this has been weirdness enough for one dream. I'll be going now." With a nod to the boy, she closed her eyes and pinched herself hard on the arm.

Nothing happened. The bright light behind her eyelids did not fade to black. She could still feel the overwhelming heat and the sunlight glancing off her now-bare shoulders, and when she opened one eye tentatively, the boy was still sitting there, still pretty, confused and with hair that was two or three decades out of style.

"Okay," Alice said, throwing her arms up into the air, "fine. Whatever. I have to wake up sooner or later."

The boy hesitated, then said carefully, "I don't want to upset you or anything, ma- miss. But you're not actually asleep."

"Am so."

"Are not."

"Look, I'm trying really hard to take you seriously, but frankly it's impossible with that ridiculous hair."

The poor boy looked taken aback by this sudden personal attack, "My hair?"

Oh good lord. Those puppy-dog eyes…dang it, why am I so mean?

Perhaps he couldn't afford a haircut. He could have been cutting it himself for the last ten dreamy years of his dreamy life. Maybe this shaggy...haystack look was in in the desert. Oh no, what if I've really offended him?

Forgetting her adamant belief that this was all a dream anyway, Alice ducked her head and said sheepishly, "Sorry. That was sort of uncalled for."

He studied her for second, seemed to come to the conclusion that she was being sincere, and shrugged, "Hey, don't worry about it."

"So where are we anyway? Why are we in the middle of nowhere?"

The boy grimaced, "We're on Tatooine. The middle of nowhere is pretty much all there is."

Alice glanced around. Yeah, she thought as she studied the desolate, dry horizon, that seems accurate.

"I was out here looking for a lost droid when I picked you up on my scanner. You're lucky I found you before something else did."

Alice wanted to scoff, but considering how earnest he looked… "I believe you. I guess."

"Can I ask you a question?"

"I suppose so."

Please don't ask me about the dream theory…

"Why do you think you're dreaming?"

Aww, man.

She flung her arms wide, "I don't know, dude, but you try and come up with an explanation for how I went to bed at home and woke up in the middle of the desert. If this is real, how the hell did I get here?"

He considered, then said, quite annoyingly sensibly, "You could have bumped your head, forgotten everything about how you got here. Just because the last thing you remember is going to bed, doesn't mean that's the last thing that happened."

Alice opened her mouth and closed it again. Alarming. But that still doesn't explain…um…how I got here. "I…suppose so."

The boy got to his feet and held out his hand to her, "Well, we're not going to figure it out by sitting around here. I still need to find that droid – but I guess I should take you home with me."

"Really?"

"I can't just leave you out here, can I?" He said, his tone clearly implying that such an idea was ludicrous, "And maybe tomorrow I can take you to Anchorhead; I've got a friend who just graduated from the Imperial Academy. He can ask around, see if anyone saw a ship crash, or dock- what?"

Alice blinked, realising she was staring at him, open-mouthed, "Wow. You're really nice."

He grinned in a bemused sort of way, "Thanks. Come on."

She took his hand and he pulled her easily to her feet.

"Cheers," she said, "I'm Alice Miller, by the way. You know. If you were interested in knowing the name of the mad girl you found sleeping in the middle of a desert…"

"My name's Luke Skywalker. Nice to meet you."

Alice made a small strangled noise in the back of her throat. Because even a history-obsessed avoider of sci-fi like her knew that name.

"You're joking, right? Luke Skywalker? As in: 'May the Force be with you'? That Luke Skywalker? Well, now I know I'm dreaming."

He frowned, "What?"

Alice saw that he genuinely had no idea what she was talking about, opened her mouth to explain, decided that telling him he was part of a story might be a very bad idea and closed her mouth again. "Oh. Well. Okay, great name."

"Master Luke?"

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," Alice muttered. An extremely shiny golden robot was sort of…waddling towards them, a smaller white and blue robot that looked a bit like a rubbish bin on wheels right behind it.

"Threepio, you found him! Hey, Alice, these are some new droids of mine: C-3PO and R2-D2. You two, this is Alice."

Alice whimpered eloquently.

The gold robot spoke to Alice in a voice that was as annoying as it was upper class, "Greetings, Miss Alice. I am C-3PO, human-cyborg relations." The smaller droid, R2-D2, didn't speak but instead whistled urgently.

Alice glanced at Luke who glanced at Threepio who snapped, "Master Luke is your rightful owner now. We'll have no more of this Obi-Wan Kenobi gibberish."

Alice put a hand to her forehead, supressing the urge to groan. She knew the name Obi-Wan Kenobi as well. This had to be a dream; something brought on by Emi's invitation to watch the Star Wars films and one too many cups of tea before bed. Closing her eyes, she pinched herself hard on the arm again. She opened her eyes. Nope, still endless sandy dunes and blinding sun. Or suns, rather.

Oh, come on…

"Alice? Are you alright?"

"No!" She burst out, "Because I can't wake up and I should be waking up, because there is no way that this is real and no possible way that you are actually Luke Skywalker, and these are actual robots that actually work."

Sounding, for the first time, a bit frustrated with her, Luke snapped back, "Hey, if you want to stay here that's fine, but it's getting late and I've already been out here long enough. I've got work to do! So are you coming or not?"

Feeling a little stung by the irritation in his voice, but trying to control any further outbursts, Alice considered her options. Option One: refuse to accept this as real, refuse to go with Luke and co. and quite possibly die in the desert, assuming she was wrong after all. Not ideal. Option Two: go with Luke but still refuse to accept this as real. Better, but if she kept insisting this was a dream, people would think she was crazy – judging by the looks Luke had been giving her, at least one person already did. Finally, Option Three: accept this as some kind of reality, go with Luke and just wait and see what happens. By far the best of the three.

"Well?"

Alice nodded so hard she felt her head might come off, "Yes, okay. Thank you. And I'm sorry about all this…dream stuff." She forced a short laugh, "Must be dehydration or sunstroke or something."

Appeased, he glanced over his shoulder and said, "Wait here."

Where, pray tell, would I go?

He jogged briefly away from her, heading towards the floating boat thing she'd spotted earlier. Peering after him, Alice studied it curiously, and realised that it was closer to a hovercraft than a boat, but one that actually floated, unlike the lame ones from home that just skimmed over the ground and barely looked as if they were hovering at all. Well, that's somewhat convincing…

A few seconds later Luke returned with a hard plastic canister in hand. He passed it over to her, and she heard the slosh of liquid coming from inside.

"It's water," he explained needlessly as she pulled the cap off and tipped the bottle back to drink.

The feeling of cold water in her dry mouth went a long way to making Alice feel better, and the way Luke shook his head and said, "You keep it," when she held the bottle out to return it went a long way to endearing him to her. Evidently, he'd no more planned on finding a strange girl lying in the desert than she had planned on being a strange girl lying in the middle of a desert, but he'd been nothing but sweetness and light so far. Shame about his hair though.

Artoo whistled impatiently, and stomped from side to side, clearly determined to attract the attention of the two humans. Luke looked first at the little droid, then at Threepio, "What's wrong with him now?"

"There are several creatures approaching from the south-east," the butler droid said nervously.

"Creatures?" Alice said, her voice breaking suddenly in her haste to get the word out. Is it too late to review that 'accept this is reality' option?

"Sand people," Luke said, frowning, "or worse."

"So…we should go, right?" Alice said, taking a few anxious steps in the direction of the hovercraft, whipping her head around in an attempt to look everywhere at once.

Luke seemed to think for a moment, then with a decisive nod to himself, he strode over to the hovercraft thing and grabbed a long metal stick that Alice immediately doubted the innocence of. He turned to face her with grin that was worryingly mischievous, "Come on, let's go have a look."

"What? Is that really a good idea?" As if waking up in a different place than she'd gone to sleep in wasn't enough, now there was the threat of actual mortal danger too?

"Don't worry, we'll be careful. Come on."

And then he held out his hand towards her, palm upwards, just like every hero to every heroine in every movie ever.

"Oh, don't do that…" Alice stared at his hand reluctantly, then glanced up at his face, then back down to his hand. Well, going with him was better than waiting here to die alone, wasn't it? "Promise you won't let me get eaten?"

He laughed, "I'll do my best."

"That isn't reassuring," Alice said, as she grabbed his hand.

Immediately, he pulled her up a rocky ridge, the two of them climbing until they reached a sheltered outcropping where they could survey the gulley without being seen. While Alice caught her breath and Artoo and Threepio trundled up behind them, Luke lay down on the ground, propping himself up against a handy ledge and somehow summoning a large pair of scarily high-tech binoculars apparently from thin air.

"Where did you pull those from?" Alice asked, wrinkling her nose slightly, "Actually…on second thoughts, don't tell me."

Ignoring her, Luke raised the binoculars and peering through them, remarked, "Well, there are two banthas down there, but I don't see any-" He paused, and fiddled with the buttons. Alice crept over to join him, peering apprehensively over the edge. "Wait a second…" Luke muttered, "They're sand people alright, I can see one of them now."

He started to hand the binoculars over to Alice when suddenly a robed figure wearing a spiky mask and waving a stick reared up in front of them. Alice shrieked in surprise, stumbled backwards, tripped over Artoo and fell hard on the rocky ground.

Luke reacted a little more heroically, lunging forward to grab his gun stick thing. He managed to block one of the creature's blows, but got sent flying backwards when it kicked him in the chest.

Alice scrabbled away, pressing herself against the rocks, her heart in her mouth as Luke rolled over the sand, dodging the staff while the creature tried to bludgeon him with it. He managed to keep up his evasion technique for a minute or so; but eventually, he miscalculated and the butt of the weapon connected with the side of his head, making a dull thumping noise as it hit the side of Luke's head. He instantly went limp, and Alice let out a small yelp of shock. What the hell?! You were supposed to know what you were doing!

The sandman or whatever it was roared out a guttural yell of triumph, shaking its stick over its head, and for half a second, Alice thought she could make a break for it. But she was too slow – in the next second, the attention of the sandman shifted from Luke to her and it began to advance on her.

"Oh no you don't," she said, feeling a tad hysterical as she tried to edge away only to find that her back was already pressed to the wall. She glanced around, but Artoo had disappeared, and Threepio was simply standing in a small alcove, wittering away about how he always knew this was a bad idea. Yeah? Well, I thought it was a bad idea too. No one listens to the woman or the android. Typical.

Taking advantage of Alice's distraction, the creature stepped forward and in one startlingly swift movement, grabbed Alice by the waist and slung her over its bony shoulder, winding her. Wheezing as she tried to get her breath back, she could only stare, helpless, as a number of other creepy sand people appeared from over the rocks and began poking at Luke's body.

The sand man (sand person?) holding her grunted, and started to lead the way down the hill. The others whined/shrieked in reply, and taking Luke's hands, began to drag him along the ground. Alice winced in sympathy – this part of the canyon was more rocks than sand.

Then again, she wasn't particularly comfortable either, being carried as if she were a sack of potatoes. She could see why in movies, they always had the hero carry the heroine in front of him. I feel your pain, my unconscious friend. Alice felt her legs starting to go numb, and tried to shift her position to prevent pins and needles. The creature carrying her snarled, and jolted her roughly.

"Hey!"

She tried to twist around, though what this would help her to achieve she wasn't sure, besides a better view of her captor. Eventually she flopped down across his shoulders, tired out by the attempt.

One of the creatures walking behind them looked up at her and made a growling choking sound that she thought might be laughter. Feeling a sudden hot rush of irrational anger, Alice bared her teeth and hissed back. She couldn't really tell because of the thick metal mask it was wearing, but she liked to think it looked kinda surprised.

Their captors carried them back to Luke's ship, dropping them side by side before going off to ransack the hovercraft. At once, Alice's legs were gripped by savage pins and needles, and she lay on the floor trying not to move a muscle as feeling slowly returned to her lower body.

She turned her head to glare at the still unconscious Luke, "Some hero you are." Careful not to move her legs, she reached over and poked his shoulder, "Luke? Luke, wake up!"

No reply. He just lay there, lovely and limp and useless. With a huff, she stared up at the sky, arms folded. "Great. Of course you had to be knocked out, bloody typical…" She heard a faint whistling to her left, and glancing past Luke, saw Artoo hiding in the shadow of a rock, humming anxiously. "Artoo, help me!"

The droid whistled back, and suddenly, a sound vaguely reminiscent of her school fire alarm echoed around the canyon. Alice sat up quickly, her eyes narrowed, "What the-?"

The sand people spun around and gave shrieks of alarm; straining to see what they were looking at, Alice saw a hooded figure making its way slowly towards them across the sand. "Uhh…" She rolled over and started to shake Luke's shoulders frantically, "Wake up, you idiot, wake up!"

She glanced up again – the stranger in the cloak had managed to frighten off the sand people, but did that mean they were a good guy? Or an even worse guy? Faced with something possibly very bad indeed, Alice staggered to her feet, positioning herself between the approaching figure and Luke.

"You'd better not come over here!" She called, without much conviction, "I'm warning you!"

The figure paused, seeming to study her. Alice swallowed, but stayed where she was, her hands balled into fists at her sides.

Her mouth fell open as, with a distinctly unconcerned air, the figure kept walking, simply ambling right past her and bending down next to Luke. "Hey! Leave him alone!"

The mysterious stranger paused, and glanced up at her again, their face still hidden in the shadow of their hood. Suddenly, they lifted their hands and threw back their hood to reveal…an old man with a scrubby white beard, wearing an innocent smile.

Alice's mouth fell open, "Oh. Hello."

Author's Note: Just so you know, I have written all but the last two chapters of this fic, so hopefully, updates should be regular. If you did like this chapter, please take the time to review - especially now that the site designers have made it so much easier to do. :) Thanks!