Past:

Darth Bane gasped, exhausted from his vision. His hard eyes bulged out unnaturally from their sockets, and sweat poured out through his thin robes as his intense hyperventilating did nothing to calm him. Clenching his fists, he willed himself back to composure, noting the scared young woman in the corner, sitting on the hard stone floors of the dusty old temple and studying him with concern.

"Lord Bane," she asked. "What did you see?"

"The Sith'ari," Bane whispered, the fiery images fresh in his mind.

"The Sith'ari," Darth Zannah repeated, confused. "I thought that was you."

"That may be," Bane said, not wanting to admit out loud the possibility that there could be greater Sith than he to come, "but there will be another one day, conceived by the Force itself, with more pure power than any Sith has ever seen. That Sith'ari will rise to control the galaxy."

"That is good, is it not," Zannah asked, perplexed at her Master's vexation. "That means the success of the Grand Plan one day."

"Yes, but it will all be for naught," Bane spat contemptuously. "The Sith'ari will betray the Sith, one way or another. It is destined."

"How could anyone betray the Sith? Especially once they've achieved ultimate power?"

"A woman," Bane growled, his deep voice threatening murder to all who would dare cross him. Murder upon these traitors yet to be, if only their existence did not lie beyond his reach through time. "She will always be his anchor. She will weigh him down, hold him back from embracing the darkness pure. The full potential of the Sith shall never pass due to her blood. They will make a mockery of our legacy, of all who come after us."

"What can we do to stop this," Zannah asked, after a long time.

"The same way we've survived thus far," Bane said, turning and studying his young apprentice, glaring at her with a fury that would be deemed close to insanity by most. "We adapt. We change the Grand Plan. We build in fail-safes. We turn treachery and treason into opportunity..."

Past:

The Sith had taken over the Galaxy, the Jedi Order essentially collaborating with their eternal enemies, placed in a permanent state of subservience. To A'Sharad Hett's dismay, it was as if none of this had happened in the Temple, all the Masters and Padawans still carrying on with their training, the Jedi Council deliberating these days in willful ignorance of their Sith Emperor and Empress. Many even carry out diplomatic or peacekeeping missions on behalf of this Sith Empire, which to him was a further mark of degradation upon his once proud Order.

Being on the Temple, even on Coruscant, standing on the same planet as the Sith, disgusted him now. His native Tatooine was no sanctuary either...the Emperor's home planet enjoying the pleasure of the Imperial microscope. He had heard grumblings of pacification efforts on the desert world for the Tusken Raiders, the people who had raised him, whose traditions he still revered alongside the Jedi's. Imperial troopers were forcibly settling tribes, partitioning land disputes between the planet's settlers by discouraging the tribes from nomadic ways. Those who cooperated became shells of their former selves, while A'Sharad feared the worst for those who resisted the Empire. He would have liked to return and lead his people against Imperial domination, but one man had no chance against the Empire, and A'Sharad would not have been surprised if the damned Empress sent his own fellow Jedi's to hunt him down.

Meditation was futile, yet he persisted, if only because there was little left for him to do. Many Jedi had taken sabbaticals since the end of the Clone Wars, Master Yoda having been surprisingly lenient and understanding the great weight of the many galaxy wide changes had upon the psyches of his brethren. If only he wasn't so lenient with the Sith, he thought, signing a damned peace treaty with them, out of all things.

So he meditated, though it brought him no peace. He chose Hoth, because the planet's extreme cold marked the opposite of his native Tatooine. Because it kept him uncomfortable, focused on what he already understood was becoming an unhealthy obsession: his hatred for the Sith, and his growing contempt for the Jedi for collaborating with them. Months passed, A'Sharad isolating himself purposefully from the events of the galaxy, relief intermingled with terror when contemplating what slow bleeding atrocities he was missing. As he continued to lose himself day after day into the currents of the Force, he started hearing voices, shadows of the past.

Yavin, they screamed to him by the end, urging him to action. You will find what you seek in the moons of Yavin.

Present:

The twin suns of Tatooine continued as ever to beat submission into all who fell under its domain, the overbearing heat an eternal oppression on the barren, desert planet. A wicked wind picked up, starting as a mere wisp of dust in the Dead Man's Dunes, building speed and deadly energy until the sand storm consumed the entire horizon, obliterating all unfortunate enough to have strayed too far beyond shelter. As families fled into their homesteads and huts, waiting for the tempest to pass, out in the far reaches of Beggar's canyon found a small cave carved into the side of the unforgiving sandstone cliff. Sitting huddled its dark chambers, nary a hint of light escaping in from the storm outside, was a tall man beside a petite, brunette woman, two dusty fugitives taking shelter from the storm, their dirt coated robes a mockery of what their clothes had once been. A closer look would reveal eyes stinging with shame and regret, that their lives had devolved unto this moment, crouched helplessly in a small cave in the recesses of a backwater world.

"What about Anakino?"

"Huh?" The Empress of the known galaxy spun around at her husband, her dark brown eyes as befuddled as they were annoyed by the interruption.

"It's like a combination of Anakin and Varykino." Seeing a blank look on her face, the Emperor continued. "Varykino," he repeated, as if she were dumb. "Our favorite place? By the lake?"

"Yes, Anakin," Padmé groaned impatiently, rolling her eyes, "I obviously know what Varykino is. But...Ani, I say this in the nicest way, but...what the fuck are you talking about?"

"The name! For our third child! I've been thinking up different ones all trip!"

Shaking her head, the pregnant Empress sank into a hard, stone bench. "And that's the best you could come up with? Anakino?"

"Well, no," Anakin replied, suddenly all the more shier after his wife's rebuke. "There were a few other ones."

"Such as?" Padmé twitched her chin impatiently, waiting for him to continue.

"Well," Anakin started uncertainly, "what about...Colton?"

"No."

"Clayton?"

"No."

"George Michael?"

"Definitely not."

"Eldridge?"

"Try again."

"Brad?"

"What?"

"Chad?"

"Are you drunk?

"Gary?"

"Over my dead body."

"Shmio?"

"Your mother would be ashamed."

"Joffrey?"

"Puke."

"Oliver?"

"Seriously. Have you been doing death sticks?"

"Snooki?"

"I'll murder you first..."

"Hego?"

"...with my bare hands."

He stopped, the rapid rejections taking a toll on his self-esteem. Outside, the wind whipped furiously, the intensity of the sandstorm matched only by the young Emperor's anxiety. Relieved that her husband's inane babblings seemed finally over, his wife lifted her hand from her eyes.

"Is that it," she asked, hoping the answer was going to be an affirmative yes.

"Well," Anakin started nervously, "I had one last small idea..."

"Just get it over with," the Sith master snarled, her eyes dangerously on the verge of glowing.

"Well, I know you had your disagreements with him, but the name itself I always thought had a nice ring to it...Sheev?"

The small cave exploded with dark energies, the Empress summoning all of her powers to Force shove her husband, who only grinned in response while warding off the attack.

"You're making fun of me, aren't you," Padmé asked as her fury subsided, an amused smirk gracing her features.

"Only with the last few," Anakin admitted peevishly, "after you shot down all the other ones."

The Sith lord stared at her husband in disbelief. "So you were serious about Anakino?"

Anakin shrugged. "Would you be mad if I said it came to me in a dream?"

"With all due respect to your powers of prophecy, Lord Vader," Padmé said, addressing him sternly by his Sith title, "but your dreams haven't been quite on the mark lately."

"You mean the one where I dreamed that we found out my actual father was a magical walking, talking shaak with long, purple hair and smelled like Alderaanian custard?"

"Or the one where you dreamed Luke and Leia turned into Ewoks and ruled the Empire alongside Threepio as their God?"

"Hey, it could still happen," Anakin said, eyes narrowing, trying to appear the wise sorcerer to his wife, who promptly punched him in his shoulder playfully with her small fists. "Though I guess the one where you're this crazy lady with three dragons can't be real, cause we fuck a bunch of times and then I find out you're actually my aunt..." He stopped mid-sentenced, and turned his eyes towards Padmé suspiciously. "We're sure you're not actually my aunt, right?"

Not for the first time and not for the last time in that cave, Padmé slapped at her husband playfully.

"You caught me," she cried out maniacally, "it's all true. I've always been so ashamed of my older brother, your father, the pleasant smelling Shaak with the good hair, that I've locked him up in a dungeon on Mustafar all this time..."

"My true father," Anakin exclaimed with mock astonishment. "After all these years, what was his name? I must know!"

Padmé bit her lips, looking coyly at him for a moment, as if deciding whether or not to tell him the truth. "Anakino," she admitted with a smirk, and the laughter from her husband was music to her ears.

"Well played, love," Anakin said, embracing her with both arms, their small cave feeling almost cozy in this moment.

"Did you dream he's going to be a boy too," Padmé asked, cradling her belly, the size of a small melon now, with her own hands.

"No," Anakin admitted. "Just a feeling." His eyes widened again, this time in actual surprise. "You know!"

"A girl," Padmé said quietly. "I got the emdee's report this morning, before we left."

"Oh Force," Anakin said, his consternation rising, and Padmé could feel his eyebrows furrowing behind her. "I'll need to meditate, try and come up with a whole new list of names..."

"I was thinking," Padmé interrupted gently, knowing she had his immediate attention, "it's my turn this time. Luke and Leia came to you in a vision..."

"But we could have come up with them together eventually."

"I know," Padmé said, stroking her husbands hands, flesh and metal, gently with her fingers. "But...what do you think of Dya?"

"Dya," Anakin asked, and Padmé could feel the wheels in his head spinning. "I like it," he said sincerely with a smile, after he had given it some thought. "It's beautiful. It's perfect, just like she will be."

"I've always wanted to honor Master Sifo-Dyas, for his sacrifice for us. But had it been a boy, well...he was a good friend, but the name, Sifo-Dyas just kinda...sucks," Padmé confessed, feeling a bit shameful of speaking ill of their former Jedi friend. "But, Dya is fitting, and it rolls off the tongue well."

"Dya Skywalker," Anakin said happily, cradling his hands over hers, and sending gentle ministrations through the Force into his wife's swollen stomach. To his surprise, she bit her lip again anxiously. "What is it?"

"I was thinking," she said, pausing and looking nervously towards her husband's reaction, "we have two Skywalkers running around these days. They will inherit the Empire, and their blood will rule for centuries. Little Dya, she's young, we will give her everything we can in the galaxy, but her inheritance will not be like her older siblings. We could give her Naboo though, Force knows I'm tired of manipulating those elections all the time...but were she to rule my home planet, I think she should do so as a...Naberrie."

Her explanation over, Padmé felt a great weight off her chest, though her husband's reaction was inscrutable. Anakin had never cared that much for namesakes, their most recent conversation notwithstanding, but he cared and loved their children deeply. Would it matter if one did not don the Skywalker name?

"You've thought about this a lot, haven't you?"

"I have," Padmé confessed, feeling a bit guilty for having kept her thoughts to herself for so long. To her relief, Anakin smiled warmly at her.

"I'm surprised you gave Luke and Leia my name in the first place, considering everything you've already done for me..."

"Don't say that, Ani. We're a team, we are equals!"

He kissed his wife gently on her forehead, feeling the storm wane outside. "I love your family, Padmé. And how can I hate your name, when it represents everything about you? Dya Naberrie will be the perfect Sith Queen of Naboo, although," he frowned as a memory came to him, "doesn't Pooja want to be Queen too?"

"Hmmm," Padmé said thoughtfully, "maybe I can convince her to be a Senator instead."

"Always a perfect solution to everything," Anakin remarked happily. Rising, he walked over to the mouth of the cave, and tested conditions by placing his flesh hand outside. Sand still flew at him, but with much less of the furor as an hour ago. After letting the first few pebbles hit him, he pushed out with the Force and repelled all that was coming his way, the sand piling up horizontally in front of his hand as it found its progress impeded by a Force of nature. "Think the storm's almost over," he said. "Just a few more minutes."

"Thank Shiraya," Padmé said, "these pregnancy cravings..."

It did not surprise her that her hormones combined with the dark energies of the Force would give her some weird pregnancy appetites, having experienced plenty of unconventional emotional needs and wants with the twins six years ago. But the overwhelming urge to go, out of all things, swoop bike racing on Tatooine was an odd one, even for a Sith. Anakin had willingly complied, of course, and was in the process of wisely letting his pregnant wife win as they flew through the last stretches of their predetermined course in Beggar's Canyon before they both sensed, too late, the sandstorm.

"Stop by and see Ma before we fly back to Coruscant," Anakin asked. "I'm sure she's eager to see how her newest grandchild is doing."

"Of course," Padmé said. "I'm sure Beru will be happy to see me too. It'll give her an excuse to bug Owen to finally agree to having one of their own. Force, I have no idea what your step-brother's waiting for."

"He can be a blockhead sometimes," Anakin admitted sheepishly.

"And so can you," Padmé teased, eliciting an evil grin from him. "Seriously? Brad? Chad? Snooki? I mean, where did you even think of these? Don't tell me, another dream?"

"I don't know," the Emperor of the Galaxy whined defensively, "they all sounded good in my head at the time."

"Ugh," the Empress said, brushing the dirt off her race suit as she rose to join her husband, "keep it up, Skywalker, and I'll change Luke and Leia's names to Naberrie too."

"Oh yeah," Anakin replied, a daring look in his eyes. "Then I'll..."

"You'll what," Padmé taunted as her husband started to hesitate, not wanting to finish his thought.

"I'll...I'll withhold sex," he finally said, taking a deep breath as he did so, and knowing immediately how unconvincing he sounded. "I swear, I'll do it!"

"Ha," Padmé scoffed, so loud that her voice echoed through the walls of the canyon. "That will be as likely as Luke going a whole week without peeing himself." She shook her head, wondering what to do about her poor, weak-bladdered son. "It's a good thing I'm the one in charge of negotiations in this Empire."

PaulLenzen: Thanks! Apparently I couldn't get enough of this world too, because I decided to continue with another story.

1saaa: Thanks! I'm really glad you enjoyed the series. Hopefully you'll like this one as well...it'll be a little different, the Siths ruling rather than trying to take over. (And I agree with you on reylo...mainly on the Kylo part...besides a few good lines in the last movie, I found little interesting about his character).

Nightshade's sydneylover150: You'll find out what's going on with Obi-Wan soon!

Anna: Maybe, maybe not...but Anakin and Obi-Wan may get a chance to work out their differences this fic! For better or for worse.