Reviews;

Nequam95: Thank you! It's not really my idea, I was just super inspired.

The Hope Lions: Nah you're fine, I just came close to fighting someone when they wouldn't let word count go in another story I have. I get where you're coming from. For me I don't pay much attention to word count, but if there only like, a paragraph per chapter I won't stick around.

Fleefly: We'll see!

TidePoolAngel: Thank

rookeyy14: Because he went AWOL. More details to follow.

Obi Wan had doubts that there had ever been a more confused five year old than the one currently squinting at three men from across a cup of fruit juice they'd found in the fridge.

Surely he had seen traumatized children, and snarky ones, and little blue-lekku'd girls with too much sass for their miniscule height, but this was none of those things. This was suspicion and absolutely befuddlement. Odd on the face of a child.

Children, Obi Wan had learned a lifetime ago, had a tendency to learn quickly. To form hypotheses and assume those to be truth without any boundaries or basis. The only exception to this had been Anakin, who had soaked up information with keen eyes and open ears. A boy who knew more than anyone else and less all at once, and who learned with such vigor it was near frightening.

He had never learned patience, though, nor restraint.

With any luck, those were lessons that would take better with the next generation.

"So you're supposed to be my dad," Luke pointed to Vader, "And you're the weird hermit that grows useless plants," his finger moved on to Obi Wan. Ben, to Luke and his family. "And you're some guy that works for my dad?" on to the uniformed individual at the end of the line. He wore no armor, he was neither Storm Trooper nore Clone. Which meant he had to be Imperial Navy, an officer by the hat.

"That about sums it up, yes," Obi Wan confirmed. He had three lightsabers in front of him. One was his, one was Anakin's, and one was Vaders. He had confiscated it after their little bout in the pilot's seat, untrusting of the Sith Lord. For good reason too.

"I thought my dad was dead. That's what Uncle told me," the boy reported dutifully.

Obi Wan exchanged a look with Vader. There was an uneasy truce to them now, one that allowed for such things. The question did remain.

What the hell was going on here?

It had become apparent from the second that the Troopers had started shooting at the oncoming Sith that he was no longer a commander of theirs. Which meant that the kidnapping of the boy was beyond bizarre.

Now that he had had time to think rather than simply react Obi Wan could only conclude that Vader had completely, totally, lost his mind.

So with his clear instability they were supposed to come up with a way to explain to a small child the complex ways that the mind broke and splintered, that a person with the same DNA might not be the person they once were.

How did you explain evolution to a five year old?

"Your uncle didn't know."

Apparently, they weren't going to tell him period. Obi Wan frowned beneath his beard and sat back, displeased. He may have been raised without a family, but his apprentice had had his mother and they all knew how well that had turned out.

On the other hand, the circumstances were vastly different.

Luke was already showing himself to be bright and difficult to frighten. Well, he didn't stay frightened for long at least. Perhaps because children had little sense of mortality, Obi Wan wasn't sure about it just yet.

Obi Wan hoped that Leia was more like her mother, or Breha was in for trouble.

After a moment pause Obi Wan took that back. Padme had been just as much trouble. Sometimes more.

Usually more.

"Why didn't you come before?" Luke pressed, proving himself just as curious as anyone his age. Even Jedi younglings had asked after their origins before, it was no surprise that this boy had so many questions.

"The Empire kept me back," Vader rumbled through his mask.

"Why?" the boy asked.

Vader faltered, a difficult thing to see with the mask in the way. If Obi Wan hadn't practically raised the creature he wouldn't have noticed.

"They needed him," Obi Wan said, surprising even himself by his helping, "He was their best enforcer," a fact that was now, apparently, no longer true. Unless the entire thing was ruse, but that wouldn't make any sense at all.

"I am here now."

Obi Wan could have sworn there was some Anakin in his robotic voice, if only for an instant.

Sidious was glowering. Scowling. Whatever you wanted to call that look it usually meant murder for anyone unfortunate enough to be around to see it.

Lucky for the rest of the galaxy, there was no one left to see it in the Emperor's palace. He was alone to glare viciously at the holopad that read data he didn't need to see to know.

Vader, his prized student, the only one to never offer him any disappointment, was gone. He was stronger than Maul, stronger that Tyrannus. He was the best apprentice that Sidious had ever had and now, after an attempt to sever and ties of love he might still have, he had lost him.

It had started with a call. One that started with a lowly Stormtrooper and ignited a burning train of horror that shot right through the ranks until the knowledge was being reported with a great deal of hesitance to the supreme commander of the entire Empire.

He could still hear the unsteady shake in the officer's voice when the comms came on.

"Emperor Palpatine, sir. It appears that Lord Vader has, ah, abducted a child. And run. He isn't answering any calls."

Not even calls from his master were answered.

There was only one choice that Sidious was left with.

He ordered the troopers to open fire on Vader. A veritable army of the best soldiers ever trained, hand picked from all the planets under his power. They were the best of the best, end of story.

They should have been enough to defeat Vader.

If a secondary force hadn't appeared and prevented them all from converging together on the Sith Lord. A Jedi, not yet dead, somehow escaped from the purges and was now on the run with a wayward Sith, a child, and a kidnapped officer that had been in the stollen shuttle.

This was a mess.

A disaster.

A catastrophe.

Sidious tapped his comms back on and put in to his top generals.

"This is Emperor Palpatine to all points," he announced regally, "bring Vader to me at all costs."

The hunt was on.

Firmus watched the exchange between Jedi and Sith with increasing unease.

Every now and again his hand would twitch for a side arm that was no longer there. He didn't know where the old Jedi had put his blaster, only that he no longer had access to his only form of defense while a hostile force had taken control of his ship.

Which was more hostile, the crippled cyborg or the armed Jedi, he honestly couldn't say.

The Commander had witnessed before the wrath of Vader in face of set backs. They were few and far between but since he had joined in with Death Squadron Firmus had witnessed more than one person torn apart by the man before him. He had even stumbled upon an unfortunate mechanic that had tweaked the wrong nerve during a repair and been sent flying through a wall for her troubles.

Jedi, on the other hand, were traitors and exterminated on sight for a reason. Firmus had never seen one this close before. In fact, he had only ever caught a few looks at them back during the Clone Wars. It felt like ages, even if had only been five years.

They were dangerous. Both of them. And with the lack of favor paid to him from either of the two he was in worse shape than the child. His safety was anything but guaranteed.

Slowly, he started sinking into his chair. There was always his old survival skills to fall back on.

Be competent and don't anger supernatural creatures that could slice him in half.

Yes, that was a good plan. In fact it was so good that he felt comfortable slipping away to try and figure out where they were headed. It took him twelve steps to realize he hadn't gone as unnoticed as he thought he had.

A small hand on his pants alerted him, drawing his eyes down see the little boy holding onto him and staring up with the widest eyes of the brightest blue he had ever seen in his life.

"Are you gonna go to controls?" he asked, something breathless in his voice. Firmus wondered if he had ever been in a spacecraft before or if he just loved them.

The officer nodded slowly, painfully aware of the holes being bored into his skull from behind red lenses. One wrong move…

"I am," he confirmed, which was evidently an invotation for the little boy to grin and run ahead of him.

With a heavy heart he trudged after them, praying to a deity he had forgotten the name of years passed that this would be a short trip.

One look at the coordinates displayed on the hyperdrive and he knew that praying was useless.

They were stuck for another three weeks.

Perfect.