Written for Elizabeth for her birthday.

This is basically an AU where everything is the same except Anakin somehow survived ROTJ. And he and Luke go back to Tatooine. Actually, it's pretty much a love song for Tatooine, written by two people who kind of hate the place, but are still deeply connected, and ultimately need to go back, because the desert is strength and mystery as much as it is squalor and death.

This one references a lot of my headcanons about Tatooine slave culture and religion. You don't need any background to read the fic, but if you're curious, I've written about the ritual in the fic on my tumblr (I'm fialleril over there as well).

The Guiding Winds

Tatooine looked the same as it always had. Luke almost smiled. It was a strange comfort, that indifference. The galaxy changed, empires crumbled, the Force itself echoed with the pangs of rebirth, but the desert remained, shifting and eternal.

Beside him, his father breathed. The sound was quickened and shallow, and ended on a mechanical whine as the respirator struggled to adjust.

Luke risked a glance, just to check. ("You are behaving like an overprotective nuna," Anakin had all but growled at him just two days ago, but Luke couldn't help it. His father had been without functioning life support for nearly an hour, and the med droids had warned there might be brain damage, and the respirator was still new and what if something went wrong – )

Anakin was staring out of the cockpit, not towards the dusty gleam of Mos Eisley spaceport barely visible in the distance on their right, but to the left, out into the open desert. Luke watched his face, the shockingly open play of emotions and the way his scars stretched and distorted with each simple movement. He hadn't quite memorized them all yet. There were times when he was still left reeling by the simple reality of his father's face.

Anakin's breathing steadied, and Luke released his own breath in relief. He followed the line of his father's sight, out into the desert, and to the shifting brown haze that obscured the horizon.

"We'll have to stay in the ship," Anakin said. His voice was weak and rasping still, and nothing like the rolling baritone Luke had known before. "Sandstorms are – "

"Dangerous," said Luke, feeling oddly wistful. "I know."

His father blinked. "Yes," he said slowly. "I suppose you do." He didn't look away from the desert.

Luke turned back to the controls, though he could have made this landing with his eyes closed. When he'd left Tatooine the first time, he'd sworn he would never come back, and he'd thought much the same after they'd rescued Han from Jabba. So it was strange, now, how much this felt like coming home.

"There," said Anakin, so suddenly that Luke jumped at the rough whisper of his father's voice, and the ship hitched unevenly for a brief second before he regained control. One of Anakin's eyebrows rose, and Luke scowled at him. Anakin's lip twitched, but all he said was, "Land there."

Luke's eyes followed his father's pointing finger. The patch of sand looked much the same as any other, already starting to pick up and swirl in the gusting air. He peered closer, watching the movement of the scudding dust, and noticed the flashes of a darker color beneath. There was bedrock here.

Luke started the landing sequence, carefully not looking at Anakin as he said, "You remember. About the guiding winds."

His father was silent for a long moment. Just as Luke was certain he wasn't going to answer, and was already casting about for some other topic of conversation, Anakin whispered, "Relka-atru. Yes." He hesitated, and Luke chanced a glance at him. Anakin's eyes were very far away. "The rain was long ago," he said in a slow, lilting tone, "but the desert does not forget."

"The desert never forgets," Luke finished with a murmur of quiet reverence. The words were old, old as rock and bone. He hadn't thought them in years, but they were there waiting for him all the same.

"Aunt Beru used to say that," he added, bringing the ship to a slow and steady rest and locking the landing gear. "When she told me stories, or when we kept the vigil at grandma's grave. I never really understood what it meant then. But I do now."

Anakin's hands clenched on the arms of the copilot's chair. They were new, his arms, a match for Luke's own right hand, and just as silent as his, but he imagined he could hear the plasteel of the chair groaning.

Without a thought, Luke reached over and squeezed his father's shoulder. Anakin stiffened and froze in a way that was all too familiar, eyes wild and body tensed, and Luke mentally cursed himself. He knew about this. He should have –

But a moment later Anakin breathed out, a long and shuddering breath, and his shoulders slumped. "We should check over our supplies," he said roughly. "Before the storm is on us."

Luke let his hand fall and gave his father a forced smile. "All right," he said. "But first we should – " He hesitated. Aunt Beru had raised him with the stories of his grandmother's faith, with freedom songs and secret words, and he knew what ought to be done now. They had survived, both of them, and his father was free, and that deserved a thank offering, and more.

But his father had been away for a long time. And the old words, the offerings – they weren't the ways of the Jedi. Luke knew this in his bones, knew that Ben and Yoda would not have understood this, that his father, his father the Jedi, might not understand this anymore, either.

Outside the ship, the wind was picking up, setting sharp gusts of sand to dance in the air. They wouldn't have much time.

"We should offer water," said Anakin in a near whisper, but Luke heard him instantly, and he looked up in surprise.

His father was smiling, an old, sad smile that transformed his scarred face. His eyes were focused wholly on Luke. "And," he added, soft and hesitant, "if you have a bit of jerba cord – "

Luke nodded slowly. He wasn't fully certain what his father intended to do, but there was something in the gentleness of his voice that made Luke hesitate to ask. "I think I've got a bit," he said. "Let me check."

The ship wasn't large. It was just a shuttle, really, meant for five people at most, but it had a functioning hyperdrive and that was all they'd needed. There was only one cabin, and it had been converted into a med chamber. Luke usually slept in the pilot's chair, though once he'd fallen asleep at the galley table, and Anakin hadn't let him forget it. He'd woken to the faint sounds of the respirator and his father grumbling none too quietly about the inadequately stocked cabinets, and he'd laughed as he blinked the sleep from his eyes, for the simple joy of being alive.

Luke's belongings, what few there were, were stowed in an ancient rucksack tucked half beneath the pilot's chair. It was drab and worn, but the coarse fabric still held, and would for some time; things were made to last on Tatooine. He dug through the bag, tossing out several changes of clothes, a medscanner, an assortment of bacta patches, a couple of old holocubes, a small collection of rocks and the tauntaun tooth he'd saved from Hoth, a little tin of tzai spices (which he really ought to stock up on, since he'd come back), a handful of old ration bars, a glowlamp, a datareader and several cards whose contents he couldn't remember at the moment, and finally, a thin length of jerba cord.

"Ha!" he said triumphantly, shoving all the other things carelessly back into the bag and turning to give his father the cord. "I knew I had some!"

Anakin was staring at his son in horror. "Troona," he said. "You pack like your mother."

They both froze. The sound of Anakin's breathing filled the room.

"You can tell me about her, you know," Luke said at last, hesitantly. "I'd like that." His hand was still hanging in the air between them, the jerba cord dangling from his fingers, and he realized belatedly it was his right hand. But he didn't drop it.

Anakin's eyes moved from Luke's face to his extended hand and back again. That old, sad smile quirked his mouth. "Yes," he said in a rasping whisper. "But first, the water."

Luke cast a quick glance out the cockpit window. Outside, the wind was picking up, but it would be a few minutes yet before shelter became imperative. "I'll get some," he said, and hurried to the galley.

When he returned he found the ramp down, and Anakin standing pensively several paces from the ship, his back to Luke. The sand swirled around him, dancing across his shoulders and turning the deep black of his clothes to dusty grey. For just a moment, Luke almost imagined he could hear the desert whispering.

The suns were dim and bleary in the sky, and the air was charged with ozone and sparking dust, but it was not yet choking. Luke came to stand beside his father, his left hand grasping a small bowl of water, already mixing with grime, and the length of jerba still clenched tight in his right.

Anakin turned to him and gestured sharply to his respirator. "Luke," he said. "Help me take this off."

Luke looked up in sharp alarm. "But you need – "

"Only for a moment," Anakin cut him off. "This is…important."

It was. Luke knew that. He studied his father's face; he looked simply pale now rather than ashen, and his eyes had brightened and sharpened from the dull, watery gaze Luke had first glimpsed when he removed that black death mask. There was a spark of some old fire in them now, stoked into new life from the ashes.

Luke nodded. He set the bowl of water in the sand, and it splashed as it settled, wetting the dust for a brief moment before the desert swallowed it.

Anakin smiled. "That's a good sign," he said.

"Ready?" said Luke, more for his own benefit than for his father. Anakin nodded minutely, and when Luke's hands reached to disconnect the respirator, his eyes slipped closed and he breathed deep and held himself still and stiff as a droid that had been suddenly switched off, or a soldier at attention.

Either metaphor was more apt than Luke wanted to think about.

The respirator wasn't loud, but the absence of its measured breaths was deafening. Luke carefully detached the mechanisms on either side of his father's jaw and lifted away the mouthpiece.

Anakin breathed, shallow and gasping. He didn't open his eyes. His lips moved with the shape of ancient words, and the desert consumed them into its silence. Around them, the sand swirled.

Luke counted his own breaths, one, two, four, seven. His father opened his eyes, and Luke reattached the respirator.

The low mechanical hum kicked in again, faster than usual for a moment as Anakin struggled for breath. Luke waited until the sound evened and slowed, then bent to retrieve the water.

It was thick and brackish now with dust. He moved to pour it out in offering, but his father's hand on his wrist stopped him.

"Thank you, Luke," he said, and dipped his right hand in the water.

Luke's eyes widened in sudden understanding. He knew this ritual, though he had never participated in it before. He had never thought he would be able to.

His father stood waiting, as if it had never even occurred to him that Luke might not know the words.

And he did know them, not in his mind or even his heart, but in his bones.

"I am Luke Skywalker," he whispered to the wind. "Son of Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Naberrie, brother of Leia Organa, nephew of Beru Whitesun and Owen Lars, grandson of Shmi Skywalker. And I name you Anakin Skywalker, my father."

He dipped his fingers in the water, thick now with the dusty blessing of the desert, and marked his father, head, hands, and heart.

Anakin let out a shuddering breath, but his eyes held Luke's as he whispered, "I name myself Anakin Skywalker, son of Shmi Skywalker and son of the desert, husband of Padmé Naberrie, father of Luke Skywalker – " he hesitated " – Luke Skywalker who is brother to Leia Organa. Ek lukkanu."

I name myself free.

Together they poured out the water, and the desert drank it greedily. Luke wrapped the jerba cord around his father's left wrist, three times sunswise. All around them, the sand whispered and the wind sang. If he listened closely enough, he could almost make out the words.

But now the air was choking with grit, and they were out of time. Wordlessly, they turned and stumbled back into the ship, sealing the hatch behind them.

Luke looked down. The floor was covered with sand.

"You know," he said drily, "that's one thing I didn't miss."

Anakin let out a startled laugh. It was weak but real, and Luke grinned.

"How long do you think it will last?" he asked idly, taking off his boots and tipping the sand out. He'd forgotten the need for wrappings. Now the stuff was going to be everywhere.

He thought of his father whispering Ek lukkanu, and the water soaking into the parched earth, and decided he didn't really mind so much.

"Three days at least," said Anakin. "Maybe more."

"Probably more," Luke said with an easy shrug, and, deciding to abandon his boots altogether, he led the way into the galley, enjoying the feel of cool metal beneath his feet. He had just enough tzai to last them four days, if they didn't drink too much.

Luke set the water to boil, and his father hovered, resting his weight against the galley counter, watching Luke portion the herbs and spices. They used the same tzai recipe: Shmi Skywalker's legacy, passed to her son and to Beru Whitesun, her chosen daughter, and now a secret shared only by Luke and his father.

"You know," said Anakin, his voice hushed but perfectly distinct against the roar of the wind outside, "we used to say that surviving a storm together creates a bond. One that's unbreakable, even by death." He smiled, and it was bitter but not unhappy.

Luke looked up over the pot of tzai and met his father's eyes. "I think we already did," he said, and saw his own memories of blue fire and darkness and terrible laughter reflected in his father's face.

"Yes," said Anakin. "I think you're right."

Outside, the storm raged around their little ship, and the desert enfolded them in its roar and its silence, whispering in a woman's voice, singing the old freedom songs.