Chapter Text
“Is it just me, or has it gotten colder in here?” Luke was wearing two extra sets of robes and had a mug of hot chocolate in hand. “Bloody freezing, is there something wrong with the thermostat? I can give it a look over for you while his lordship is distracted.” Desperation in action. Even the temple’s dedicated maintenance team shuddered at the thought of examining the thermostat. An after hours appointment with Darth Vader would be preferred by every single member of maintenance, but still they checked, still it came back clear and still it was growing ever colder in the Temple.
The concern Obi-Wan had is that an uncharacteristic cold snap was a symptom of another, far more insidious phenomenon. Strictly speaking, the Temple Guard were in charge of formal security, that hadn’t stopped Obi-Wan from parking himself at a terminal and obsessively flicking between the feeds while Luke watched on. This was Sith related. Luke’s Force sensitivity was non-existent, but the bureaucrat could feel the cold dread rolling across the Temple as its source grew ever closer. Ben was wholly unmoved, sipping his chocolate and absentmindedly, thumbing though a holopaper, doing his best to ignore the front page… spread of recent events. Obi-Wan averted his eyes.
Without warning, Luke shot into a standing position. That wasn’t what necessarily alarmed Obi-Wan. What alarmed Obi-Wan was Luke eying the security monitor and blanching at the sight of an armoured figure marching up the front steps of the temple. Luke of all people blanching. All colour draining from his face.
“Obi-Wan, we need to intercept him now.” Oh yes, that was panic. Luke’s standard expression when dealing with his employer.
“Why?” Ben had also been yanked from his seat and they were sprinting for the front entrance.
“I didn’t tell him that we were bunking with Jedi,” escaped from Luke in a strangled noise that only approximated words.
“Oh dear.” Yes, that would explain why Luke’s blood had ejected itself from his body. Obi-Wan as well as he frantically called Masters Windu and Yoda to notify them of their new, potentially hostile arrival, the anxiety only building the closer they came to the centre of the approaching blackhole. Another Sith, one that gave Vader’s chief of staff cause for concern.
Sentient malice flowed from the Sith as easily as water did from the Fountain, as he silently waited for them at the threshold of the building proper. They skidded to a halt in front of a phalanx of Temple Guards who blockaded the entrance, hands on lightsabers. Masters Windu and Yoda stood off to the side, close enough to engage the Sith if required, but not enough to take his attention away from the Guard. Luke doubled over and wheezed for breath, his breath emerging in puffs of condensation and the Sith approached him.
“Luke,” the armoured Sith intoned, for what else could he be?
“Darth Imperius.” Luke gasped and bowed deeply. “Welcome to Lord Vader’s current senatorial headquarters. I apologise if the offered residence is… unconventional.” Obi-Wan held in a hacking cough to the best of his efforts as he felt the Sith’s searing and unflinching stare land upon him. “This is what was made available to us after the… incident… at the Senate.” Obi-Wan caught Ben’s grimace.
“And your master thought it wise for such an arrangement to take place?” The Sith drawled, rich with… amusement or contempt, Obi-Wan would hazard. Any natural tones to his voice were obliterated by the vocoder.
Luke opened his mouth. Froze for a second. Then immediately closed it.
“This is no need to answer. You are a mere bureaucrat and such knowledge is beyond your station.” Darth Imperius’ sneering tone irked Obi-Wan and he glanced over to see Master Yoda’s ears twitch ever so slightly. What wasn’t slight was the surge of irritation that flowed from Master Yoda back into the Force and Imperius’ head tracking it to its source.
“Lord Vader keeps his own council, as do you, my lordship. I can arrange a meeting, but such is the limit of my assistance.” The only thing missing was an exasperated shrug, but it was to everyone’s relief when Imperius' manner remained unchanged with the news.
“Yes, I am aware of what happened on Nar Shaddaa. Impressive. You may brief me while we await Lord Vader’s contact.”
“Yes, Lord Imperius.” Luke’s relief was visible.
With that, the phalanx parted, becoming an impromptu honour guard as Luke led the Sith Lord back to his makeshift residence in the Jedi Temple.
“Well, that just happened,” Obi-Wan brightly commented.
“Happened, indeed,” Yoda darkly answered, with Mace’s own sentiments resonating in the Force. “On the scene, another Darth is. Yet more evidence against them being Banites, it does provide.”
Obi-Wan could only carry on hoping that this non-Banite Sith faction remained cordial in their dealings with the Jedi Order. Light contact with Imperius’ presence suggested a brutal death for anyone who pried more deeply, so for now it was best to retreat and allow Luke to deal with his visitor in peace. Then, they could ask Luke what had prompted this most unexpected visit.
At least Obi-Wan had on good authority who Yoda would be siding with if an internal scuffle broke out within this Sith faction.
The door hardly closed behind them, before Darth Vader folded his arms and the Dark Side itself practically sighed. Or at least Ben assumed it was sighing, not being a real Dark Sider left Ben with only a minimum understanding of the Dark Side’s body language at the best of times. “You are aware that Darth Imperius as a title has already been claimed by another?” Ben found himself swaying alarmingly as he frantically swivelled his head between the pair. One clad in black Sith armour, the other in three sets of overlapping bath robes that may as well have been armour. It wasn’t like Luke was wearing much else when he flattened Nar Shaddaa.
“Not here, it hasn’t,” Luke chirped back, ushering them deeper within their borrowed quarters. “Instead there was some moron in this universe called Darth Nox who thought he could get ahead by enslaving Force Ghosts. He was a footnote in the annals of history, so I’m going to hesitate a guess and say that it didn’t end terribly well for him.” Whoever he was, he certainly hadn’t achieved the age old Sith goal of complete immortality. Thanks to Palpatine’s stupidity it remained an unresolved mystery. Maybe the Dark Side itself had reconsidered its life choices and subsequently allowing Banites any knowledge beyond the ability to replace a lightbulb. Palpatine was living proof of the Dark Side having at least some standards.
“An alternate pathway,” the Sith mused, panning around the suite and landing on Luke’s heavily stained, hot pink apron as it hung off a hook in the kitchen. “Fortunately the flow on effects appear to be minimal.”
“Maybe if the Sith Empire had’ve survived it would be different, but it didn’t and here we all are,” Luke flippantly gestured over his shoulder at their surrounds. “Holed up in the Jedi Temple, pretending to be Sith Lords,” Luke groaned and Ben used the opportunity to throw himself bodily onto the couch. If grandfather wasn’t about to kill them now, then it wasn’t on his itinerary for the near future.
“Words fail me as to how you achieved such a feat. Your knowledge of Sith tradition is non-existent.” Complete certainty, mixed with muted wonder. This version of Darth Vader had known his son in some capacity.
“That’s precisely why we aren’t pretending to be Banite Sith. Bane was gracious enough to obliterate a phenomenal amount of non-Banite culture and we are the happy beneficiaries of his lack of vision.” Thank the Force for that. The only people capable of contradicting Luke were the Banites themselves and they wouldn’t risk the exposure.
“The sect wouldn’t last twelve minutes with you as its Master.” Vader agreed and a wave of amusement rolled over Ben, while Luke disappeared into the kitchen and reappeared with a mug of hot chocolate.
“Why settle for only one minion when you can have an army of them?” Ben’s uncle was only partially sarcastic, because at least the previous Sith Empire hadn’t been held together with duct tape and an extremely apathetic quadruple amputee.
“Darth Sidious’ folly is rather apparent in hindsight.” That’s right… Darth Vader had only ever wanted one apprentice and Luke had declined at the time. Even if Vader had become the Master, the Rule of Two would’ve ended with him anyway.
“I’m still taken aback that you’re here, father.” Luke gingerly sipped his hot chocolate, with Ben scooting over to allow him to sit. “I was expecting to screw over Palpatine by taking your title first and skipping off into the wild blue yonder with it and now here you are.” Luke sat the mug down and clasped his hands.
“I surmised that my appearance was not part of the plan and have adjusted accordingly. After all, you appear to have taken the lead in matters, annihilating space and time in the process.”
“I don’t think we shared space and time in the first place. You can’t possibly be from our timeline,” Luke hummed, half to the Sith Lord, half to himself. “It’s an impossibility.”
“I concur. There is no possibility that you are the Luke from my timeline.” Yet Luke still called him father and Vader no doubt thought of Luke as his son. Interesting.
“Um, should we compare notes?” Ben found himself accidentally cutting in, lulled by the casualness of the encounter. Vader’s agitation didn’t appear in his body language, but it was rippling through the entire Jedi Temple as a sweeping malaise that was sure bestow nightmares upon the residents for weeks to come. Well, at least they couldn’t be any worse than the waking nightmare that was the wall to wall coverage of Sheev Palpatine's exposed arse. Literally, holoboards had been rented out all across Coruscant for each outlet’s deep dive into the death of Palpatine’s political career.
Darth Vader inclined his head and turned to Luke. “You died. Sidious killed you on the second Death Star.” Short. Clipped. The difference between the Anakin Skywalker of now and the once not so distant future was giving Ben whiplash. There was none of the barely restrained glee that followed around the Anakin of the Clone Wars. Though… this was also before the Clone Wars and there wasn’t going to be a Clone Wars if Luke had his wicked way with the universe’s timetable of affairs. Anakin Skywalker was never going to experience Sheev Palpatine’s war. Instead this Anakin Skywalker lived in a future where Sheev Palpatine’s greatest achievement was the amount of dance remixes set to his screams. If Ben had released one of his own under DJ Ren Dance Remixes, it was for him to know and for Luke to eventually find out after it made enough money to fund another warship. So far, monetary progress was steady, but there was only so many beats in the galaxy and finding one that made money was difficult when Ben’s day job involved physically beating the galaxy’s criminal population into a fine pulp.
“On the other hand, I didn’t die. You took offence to Sidious’ attempt on my life and hurled him to his death at the expense of your own. After that, the Empire sort of collapsed, splinter groups blasted off to parts unknown and basically we had another civil war.” Luke paused. “Oh and a group of idiots popped up, naming themselves after lightsabers.” Ben smirked. “Basically, we got stuck dealing with Imperial remnants, because everyone in power decided it’d be an excellent idea to let them flee into the Outer Rim and beyond instead of arresting them for corruption.”
Darth Vader sighed into the Force. “I see.”
“You have absolutely no idea how much I missed you when I found out that they weren’t planning on arresting any of the bastards.” The aristocracy was a protected species regardless of the galactic government of the day, which is part of why Ben’s father clashed with his mother.
Darth Vader admirably ignored Luke’s watering eyes. “With how little this child resembles you, I presume that he isn’t your progeny?” Darth Vader’s raking stare was invisible to the naked eye but clawed along Ben’s essence in the Force. Not violent; more the sensation of a krayt dragon doing its best to delicately examine a lothcat with its teeth without immediately clamping down. Still, Vader’s almost delicate probing with the Force was nothing compared to the noxious presence from the previous timeline. It was almost comforting, in the same sort of way that knowing what a serial killer’s rap sheet was prior to ambushing them in a dark alleyway.
“Oh, right! Introductions, I forgot,” Luke grimaced apologetically at Ben and Ben surreptitiously nodded back. “Father, this is Ben Solo, my nephew and your grandson. And Ben, this is Anakin Skywalker, your grandfather after he became a Sith Lord. We’re still trying to work out a Sith name for Ben that doesn’t sound like we appropriated it from a janitorial supplies manufacturer,” Luke added as an afterthought, with Ben shrugging.
“Nephew?” Vader’s shock rolled into the Force with the same approximate level of self-control as Ben’s father at an unattended minibar. His fist clenched, trembled and he might’ve taken a step backwards if he wasn’t locked into position by the news Luke had colony dropped from the heavens.
“Yeah, this is Leia and Hans’ son,” Luke blithely continued, either unaware or totally indifferent to the nexus building opposite. “He’s such a sweet kid, you’re gonna love him. Never got around to having one of my own so I stole him off them instead.” Luke leaned over and dragged Ben into a crushing, one armed hug. “He’s the best!” Without warning, Ben’s eyes began to intensely water. Pollen that followed Vader into the temple, surely.
“Leia Organa is your twin sister?” And there it was - cutting through all presumptions was the Anakin Skywalker that Ben had spent so much time with in this distant timeline. While his vocoder masked his inflections, Ben could perfectly hear the overlay of the new and old and fought down a dangerous grin.
“You didn’t know? Huh, guess I died before you found out.” There was an indifferent shrug. “Ah well, better late than never. If it makes you feel any better, Leia wanted absolutely nothing to do with you, so this is probably for the best.” Luke’s optimism was barely shining through the swamp water it occupied.
“Organa of all people,” was Vader’s strained reply. Then Vader’s gaze fell onto Ben and the Force related weight that came with it.
“Hi, grandfather.” Ben awkwardly waved. “It’s nice to meet you.” Even though Ben had already technically met Anakin Skywalker. But the more the merrier, right?
Silence. Stunned silence as the Force roiled around Darth Vader’s armoured form.
“If you need a moment, father, I do have a list of criminals to mow down. You know, if you need need it,” Luke offered in an quiet undertone. “We deal with a lot ex-Banite Sith in the organisation these days, so we do understand that a healthy outlet for build ups of negative emotion is better than no outlet at all.”
“I will consider it,” Vader finally replied, the coffee table was now only slightly rattling.
“Excellent! There’s a lot of work to get through and we’re out of tea,” Luke pouted. “You kids hang tight, I’ll be right back!” Vader had enough dignity to not react to Luke's long term verbal tic. Luke bounced out the door, whistling jauntily, with both Ben and his grandfather staring after him. Luke had a few screws loose, ones connecting core components for overall system stability, but he meant well and that was more than Ben could say about a lot of people in either timeline.
For now though, the silence between grandson and grandfather stretched onwards.
“So… grandfather,” Ben slowly began. “How do you feel about designing dreadnoughts?”
Seconds ticked by, before the Sith finally answered. “I am amenable to dreadnought design.”
“Great, because Jacen has ideas for a dry dock covering something of the old Executor-class size and getting a second opinion on that from non-time travellers has been difficult.”
“I can’t imagine why,” oozed back, loaded with sarcasm, as the Sith folded his arms.
Maybe, just maybe, being dumped into an alternate dimension wasn’t the worst thing ever.
From the moment a cool hand laid itself against his cheek, Luke was fully aware that this was one of those dreams. Not a memory, not a night terror, not a desperate struggle with a past long gone or even a future to come, as the Force so often delivered, but a far more frightening possibility - the present. Visions of the now. Specifically, a vision of the present provided by an entity of the current times, one that didn’t have hundreds or thousands of years barring access, but instead only space itself. It was, to be blunt, utterly terrifying, but Luke set his mind to the blissful memories of Sheev Palpatine’s cries as he bounced along on Luke’s shoulder and the sensation faded.
Pitch black extended before him. There was something solid beneath Luke’s feet for now, certainly, but one step forward, even a teensy one was temptation enough for some entities to engage in catapulting and rolling nightmares, like a hound slathering after barbecue offcuts. For now, Luke would play it cool and stand precisely and exactly where he had awoken.
I’ve missed you… Longing, filled with warmth.
Luke blinked. Slowly. Then stared straight ahead. Best not to give it too many ideas.
“I… couldn’t forget you… wouldn’t forget you…” The overlaid voice(s) corrected, with far more substance and Luke was carried into the conversation by good vibes.
“I’m glad you thought of me,” Luke answered, fully sincere, briefly wondering if anyone apart from Leia, Han, Chewie and Threepio had even noticed the disappearance of Luke’s fledging Order. At least it was one more on the list, even if Luke wasn’t entirely sure what was being added to the list. “It’s comforting to know there’s at least one more person in existence who cares.” Even if Luke wasn’t sure what it cared about.
“A person…” A far more solid, masculine voice whispered, filled with an unnameable emotion. “Yes… I’m a person.” A single voice, far stronger than the others. There was someone or something buried in that hive of activity after all.
Luke bobbed his head agreeably and a felt the back of a hand tenderly stroke the side of his neck and resisted a shiver. Don’t respond. Responding was encouragement and even though it was testing the waters, Luke desperately didn’t want it setting sail anywhere near his person. There was no need to give it ammunition. Don’t feed it.
“What do you want?” The voice purred, circling Luke in the dark, tugging at his clothes at it made its way around him. Playing coy as always. Either that or Luke’s guest was unusually shy for a being with such a phenomenal arsenal of tricks and traps that could snap his neck with an errant thought. Then again, that also went for Luke with the rest of the galaxy just as much. “What can I give you?” Or rather what can it tempt Luke with… There was a moment of consideration and the list was rather short. Every single item on Luke’s ideal Life Day gift list came with the caveat of physical impossibility or catastrophic consequences for the galaxy at large. And… hadn’t both he and Ben already received the gift of a lifetime when the artefact had punted them into a new reality entirely? In light of that, there was one thing… just maybe… this entity could help out with…
“I don’t want what you think I want,” Luke clarified, waving a hand through the air and cutting through the static. “You’re a shapeshifter.” If this was the same entity from before… yes, it was unquestionably a shapeshifter and the last thing Luke wanted to do was solidify any of its designs. “You’ll take the form of whatever answer I provide…” Luke briefly paused as a hiss filled the silence but carried right on. “But I don’t want that. I’d prefer to see you as you really are.” And if it was a four hundred foot, tentacled eldritch horror, then at Luke would know where he stood - at the bottom of the totem pole and about to be eaten, but such is life. At this point in Luke’s life it’d be unusual if it were anything else. “So who are you really?” Who and what had been stalking Luke’s every step for over a decade?
“I am what they made me!” It abruptly snarled and Luke blindly reached out a hand to reassuringly pat it on the shoulder and hit true, with the tension fading as it leaned into Luke’s hand. Luke held on until eventually the being below vanished and his hand dropped back to his side.
“So what?” Blasé, sure, but also honest and he felt the double take ripple through the Force. “Why are you beholden to them at all? Tell them to piss off and do what you want to do.” Worked well enough for Luke.
There was a stunned silence.
“It’s not an option.” A single voice again, resigned.
“Why not?” Of course it was an option!
Pain echoed through the Force, a phantom stab through Luke’s chest. “I’ve missed you so much, Luke. Please, come find me.” Delicate hands slipped around his waist, a voice from a woman long dead crooned into his ears, while a mass of undoubtedly red hair cascaded over Luke’s shoulders. But he wouldn’t look back, couldn’t look back - it broke the rules of engagement. “We’ll be together again… Soon.” Soon. A legion of voices echoed. That was new, never before had it asked for Luke to find it… instead its whispers chased him across the galaxy.
Luke merely smiled into the abyss as the arms around his waist tightened. Mara Jade had been dead for over a decade, but it was almost comforting to know that the entity who so often borrowed her face was as persistent as ever and fully capable of jumping dimensional boundaries unassisted. What a wonderful discovery.
“I’m willing to listen, provided you can be yourself.” Gentle, non-confrontational, but without pity. Never with pity. “What do you really want?” Luke queried, allowing the shadow to drape its full weight along Luke’s shoulders. At the core of this entity, it still had its own voice, Luke assumed, for as much as it borrowed from others there must still be a foundation. A person, nestled deep within.
“I want you.” One voice, as defined as Luke had ever heard it.
Yes, Luke had rather been afraid of that. Ben had no idea how lucky he was to be blissfully ignorant to this part of the family history. Ben might’ve been hearing voices, but at least it wasn’t this set of voices. Hesitation, the phantom arms briefly loosening before strengthening their grip.
Mortis, the voice whispered. Find me on Mortis. I miss you. Just like that, Luke’s long term, mystery stalker finally had a planetary address after a decade of obstruction and Luke beamed. Finally!
When Luke’s eyes snapped open, half dangling as he was off the couch, it didn’t escape his notice that a patch of shadows, far deeper than the others, was securely wrapped around Luke’s waist… and Ben was eying it speculatively from the doorway. Maybe it was time for a gentle chat about current and past events.