Archive of Our Own

The Force is, once again, doing whatever it wants, and expecting others to go along with its whims.

As a Jedi, Luke knows perfectly well he must accept this. It is how the universe functions, and he is a conduit to but an infinitesimal part of it, treading water on the very surface. The Force works in mysterious ways, and it is not the fate of sentient beings to comprehend them. As a human, however, Luke is always mildly irritated at the randomness of the directions it drags his life in. It tugs this way and that, mutable as mountain weather, and that’s just rude.

And if Luke feels like this, storm-tossed and reeling from all the Force shenanigans he has to endure, he can’t begin to imagine how Din feels. Din, who has no connection to this preternatural web of energy both his husband and his son belong to, and just has to go along with it, and trust them – or, more correctly, trust Luke. Luke, who barely knows what he’s doing at the best of times, and Din just… sighs, and runs right after them into whatever bantha crap is likely to occur.

Is occurring right now.

As disgruntled as Din had been at having to leave the Wayfinder behind and accepting Fenn Rau’s offer of a Kom’rk transport, Luke is now very happy they wound up travelling in it: the Wayfinder might not have survived the peculiar turbulence they encountered.

Luke groans as he begins to extricate himself from the tangle his own limbs have made with the safety-belt and his cloak. He blinks into proper consciousness, and then jerks to attention.

“Grogu?!” he cries, tearing open the safety-belt clasp and toppling from his seat into the control panel. The cockpit is at an awkward forty-eight degree angle, which makes everything more difficult. He hears a whine from one of the passenger seats, and breathes a sigh of relief: Grogu is still fastened safely, his face tear-streaked from fear. Not even their little daredevil likes to be in a ship crash.

Using the Force a little clumsily, Luke unfastens the harness and floats Grogu to his arms, and the child burrows into his chest with a whimper.

With Grogu safe, Luke can turn to Din, who, thank the Force, stirs with his own groan.

“What the kark?” he slurs. Grogu squeals, reaching out to him, and Luke edges closer.

“I’m going to take the helmet off, ok?” he says gently.

Din groans again. “Go ahead,” he mutters. Luke, one-handed, finds the latches, floating the helmet off and resting it by Din’s feet. Din’s eyelids flutter until he squints at Luke, then at Grogu.

“Ow,” he says, eloquently.

Grogu squeals again, and Din presses his hand against his cheek, which Grogu nuzzles against with a relieved whine. He lets Luke tilt his head around, checking for any injuries.

“Does it hurt anywhere?” Luke asks.

“Everywhere,” Din answers drily. Luke rolls his eyes.

“I mean does anywhere hurt badly,” he amends, clicking his tongue. Din huffs in amusement.

“Not any worse than usual, it’s just aches.”

Satisfied, Luke strokes his cheek before replacing the helmet.

“Artoo?” Luke calls. He gets a wheezy hum in reply, and he turns to see the droid magnetised to the floor, giving him what Luke’s imagination is supplying as a baleful look. “All good?”

Artoo emits another doleful hum, demagnetising his struts and righting himself with his boosters before he can topple over.

“What mess are we in now?” Din asks, tugging his helmet back on. He fiddles with his harness, bracing his feet against the floor for the release so he doesn’t flail inelegantly around like Luke did. Luke sighs.

“No idea,” he says. “All I remember is the cloud, and the turbulence.”

It had come from nowhere: a billowing mass of iridescence had engulfed their ship, and they’d been like pebbles in a can. He had felt it, though. A strong tug, the cloying presence of the Force, wild in a way he wasn’t used to, before everything had gone blank and they’d woken up here. Wherever ‘here’ is.

It’s dark outside the viewport, but there’s a scattering of diffused light which speaks of something brighter beyond. When Luke peers closer, the darkness engulfed the transparisteel looks like…

“Sand?”

Suddenly the Kom’rk creaks, shudders, and slides deeper, and then the only thing keeping them standing is Luke using the Force. Oh, they’re in sand alright.

“We need to get out,” Din says.

They clamber, slowly, to the back of the ship and the airlock, which opens with no problem onto blinding sunshine and gasping heat that blasts Luke in the face. He shields Grogu from the worst of it.

Din hoists himself out first, then reaches down for Grogu, leaving Luke to propel himself out with the Force, followed by Artoo, jetted by his boosters. They stumble out onto thankfully solid ground, and the ship shudders again, slides lower into its sandy prison.

“Oh no, you don’t!” Luke growls, throwing his hands out.

It’s so much easier than it was on Dagobah, at this point. The Kom’rk slides free from the sand’s grasp with ease, the grains sliding off in thick cascades back to the ground, and Luke slowly, steadily, moves it to the firmer ground they’re standing on. Apart from the thick layer of dust, it seems intact.

“Systems check?” Luke asks. Artoo beeps and dutifully trundles back into the ship.

“Any idea where this could be?” Din wonders, gazing off to the horizon. Luke shields his eyes, one hand on his hip.

All deserts, fundamentally, remind him of Tatooine: the baking sun and the freezing nights, the fine layer of grime on everything and everyone, the dry tongue and chapped lips and the endless nothing all the way to the horizon, under an infinite, eternally blue sky. Featureless, wide open but, at its core, a cage. And this is a binary star system too, which heightens the similarities.

He turns slowly, squinting through the suns’ glare until he stops.

It can’t be.

“Patoo?”

Grogu’s gentle touch in the Force, a concerned murmuration, makes him gasp, jerking him back to reality.

It’s still there.

“Is something wrong?” Din asks, quiet. His hand is far too warm on Luke’s shoulder, but the weight of it is a comforting anchor.

“I… do you recognise that?” he asks softly, pointing. Din follows his gesture. He’s quiet for a moment.

“We can’t be on Tatooine, we were nowhere near there,” he says.

They weren’t. They were a whole two sectors away, chasing down some silly rumour Luke heard in a snatch of conversation on some backwater world. It’s what he does, follow whispers in the vain hope of finding some remnants of a broken Order, shards he can use to rebuild some laughable facsimile, wearing its superficial features only. He shakes his head, unable to speak.

Artoo whistles, breaking the silence. Luke groans.

“Why do we always end up stranded?” he mutters.

“What?”

“The ship is fine, but it won’t start.” He heads inside. Already without the temperature control inside, it’s starting to heat up, less cool than when they crashed. He heads to the maintenance port and pries it open. “Run full diagnostics, Artoo?”

Artoo beeps, interfacing with the dataport. He attempts to get at least some auxiliary power going, but it flickers, remains valiantly strong for a second before petering out again. Luke curses.

“No good news, then?”

Luke looks up. Din is leaning on the wall beside him, arms folded. Luke shakes his head.

“It’s not cooperating,” he says. “Maybe there are some loose connections, I don’t know. We’ll be here for a while.”

Din sighs. “Of course we will. I guess we can at least ask Boba for hospitality.”

Din is right. Tatooine is at least familiar territory, full of people they know and will definitely help. It won’t be hard to get back to Mandalore, even if the Kom’rk is a write-off. Luke gets to his feet, straightening his tunic.

“That seems like the best course of action,” he says. He might not like Boba Fett all that much, but he knows he’ll be welcoming to Din and Grogu and at the very least civil to the man who married his vod. Small blessings.

“Artoo, stay with the ship,” he says, giving him a gentle pat on the dome before following Din back out into the sun. He draws his hood up, and privately complains about his frivolous penchant for dramatic clothing. Black is truly the worst colour for the desert. Not that that will actually make him change his fashion sense any time soon.

“Want to check out the homestead first?” Din asks softly.

Luke gazes at it. It shines white in the distance, a solitary feature in a vast expanse of nothing. Luke hasn’t been here for a very long time, the pain too raw to face.

The Force prickles at the base of his skull, making him frown. Come to think of it, now that he isn’t so distracted by the immediate dilemma of their crashed ship, he can feel it: the Force is… different, not turbulent, but certainly less serene. He looks down at Grogu, who peers back up at him, head tilted curiously. From what Luke can sense through their connection, Grogu can feel whatever this is as well. It’s a reassurance he isn’t going mad.

“Yes,” Luke says slowly. “I think we should take a look.”

Crossing the Flats on foot is as tedious as it ever was, and Luke misses his faithful old landspeeder – Hell, even one of the rustbucket speeders from Anchorhead would be a blessing right now – but walk they must.

When they finally get closer to the homestead, predictably familiar as it is, Luke immediately knows something is wrong.

It’s too clean. The vaporators look functional. It looks exactly as it did the last day he saw it, before… everything.

The Force writhes.

“Luke?”

He blinks. His hand is tight around Din’s arm, tight enough to bruise, and he realises his breath is quick, nervous.

“We… we need to go…” he croaks. They shouldn’t be here.

Din places a worried hand on Luke’s forearm, helmet tilted with concern. But then he whips round, his blaster out and pointed at someone before Luke can even register anything. His head is beginning to ache, an annoying twinge around his temples, and it’s distracting. He turns to see what Din is aiming at.

The bottom of his stomach falls out.

There, solid, real, not some figment of Luke’s imagination, is a man he never thought he’d see again, dressed to match the desert sands around them, as rumpled and grim as always. And ok, he’s aiming a blaster rifle at them, but he never did like unexpected visitors.

“What the kriff do you want?” Uncle Owen demands.

Luke blinks. He’s never heard Uncle Owen swear before, it’s shocking. It shouldn’t be, he’s heard worse, but still.

He still looks the same as the day Luke last saw him: craggy, eyes forever squinting from a lifetime in the desert, his hair windswept and his beard scruffy, no matter how many times Aunt Beru told him to shave. Luke can feel his chest beginning to cave in on itself, his hands shaking.

“We’re not here for trouble,” Din says, using his best Mand’alor voice, the one that’s calmed the nerves of many a trigger-happy Mandalorian, and the familiarity of it steadies Luke somewhat. “Our ship crashed. We just need to get to Mos Eisley.”

Uncle Owen doesn’t lower his blaster. “Well, you’d better start walking,” he grunts.

“We have a kid,” Din says, gesturing to Grogu in his satchel. “We’ll need water.”

That does, at least, make Uncle Owen waver, his stance softening.

“Owen Lars!”

Luke feels like a hand has taken hold of his heart, clutching it in tight, aching longing. He can only reach out, blindly grasping at Din’s sleeve again, as she appears from below.

Aunt Beru’s own blaster is lowered – that was how they always protected the homestead, the two of them, Owen at the front, Beru hidden, the real markswoman of the family – and she’s scowling at her husband. Luke does not cry easily, but the tears fall, streaming down his cheeks. She’s there, alive, real, not some dream, some vision. Her brown-grey hair, her warm, open face, her eyes that match his even though they don’t share a drop of blood.

“They have a baby!” she admonishes, pushing the barrel of Uncle Owen’s blaster down until it’s pointed at the ground. “You know trail etiquette!”

Uncle Owen looks sheepishly at the ground. “Beru, one’s a Mandalorian…”

“That means nothing,” she says. She bustles over, all business. “What happened to you two young gentlemen?”

Din clears his throat. “Our ship crashed,” he says. “Our droid’s working on it but we have no power, so no water. We’re sorry to impose like this, ma’am.”

Aunt Beru shakes her head. “Don’t apologise, Tatooine catches people by surprise all the time. Come in, you look like you need some shade, dressed all in metal like that.”

“Ah, my armour has thermoregulation–”

But Aunt Beru was never one to take no for an answer, when people were in need. She chivvies them down the permacrete steps into the scurrier warren of the homestead, and Luke finds it hard to breathe. The last time he was here, the place was desolate, soot from raging fires still smeared across the walls, preserved by Tatooine’s inclement climate. The pourstone dome had been sand-clogged, the whitewash peeled off by wind, no hands to give it a new coat of paint every season. It was a tomb, a monument to things taken for granted, then lost.

His boots echo on the steps in the sloping tunnel that leads to the courtyard. It’s ringed with funnel flowers, they still haven’t blossomed, and Luke closes his eyes as some sort of protection against the thought that they never will.

“Wait here,” Aunt Beru says kindly, leaving them near the bench beneath the overhang, in the cool shade. Luke wishes he could take off his hood, it’s sweltering, but he daren’t. They cannot see him. They cannot know he is who he is.

With Aunt Beru gone, Din immediately turns to him, gently pulls him closer, runs a tender thumb across his cheek. The tears have already dried, leaving stinging salt behind.

“Are you ok?” Din asks, a rhetorical question, allowing Luke the luxury of denial.

For once he finds he can’t simply dismiss concern. He shakes his head, takes a deep, shuddering breath. Holds it, lets it out again.

“No,” he says, voice cracking.

Din prefers for their affection to be private, nothing but Keldabe kisses and held hands in public, but he pulls Luke closer anyway, enfolds him in his arms. He is murmuring things in Mando’a, empty, soothing things, and Luke is dangerously close to sobbing. He doesn’t cry, it’s not like him, but being here, in this place, in this time… it’s stretching him too thin, tearing him to pieces. At Din’s side, in his carry-bag, Grogu reaches out, buries his face in Luke’s side and whimpers, pushing all the comfort he can into the Force connection between them. At least he isn’t facing this alone. He would break if Din and Grogu weren’t here.

A throat is cleared, and they hastily pull away from each other, Luke tugging his hood low. He knows it’s mightily suspicious, but what else can he do?

“If you’ve quite finished,” Uncle Owen mutters. Luke steps out of his way, and Uncle Owen strides past, blaster slung over his shoulder. He stops halfway across the courtyard, turns back. “You know, keeping that hood up and that helmet on is mightily suspicious.”

Luke almost lets out a watery laugh. He’s been around the man less than five minutes and already the old turns of phrase he picked up are flooding back, like they never left.

“My Creed states I can’t reveal my face to strangers,” Din says. “Only clan.”

But they would be clan, wouldn’t they? Luke thinks distantly. Like Leia and Han and Ben. It’s rare, but they’ve seen Din helmetless, know his face. How would Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru be any different? But they can’t reveal that, can’t they, can’t tell…

Uncle Owen harrumphs. “And what about you?”

Luke daren’t speak. He cannot speak to them, otherwise he’ll fall apart, fracture into a thousand shards and scatter across the Flats. He swallows.

“Same principal, just a different Creed,” Din says.

Uncle Owen gives him a sceptical look, and then turns away, in the direction of the kitchen, probably to bother Aunt Beru about something.

Luke’s knees give in. He sits, heavily, on the pourstone bench, and its woven cushions – he remembers helping to mend them, “it’s a useful skill to have, Luke” – and drags in several breaths, one after the other. Din crouches in front of him, takes his hands in his own.

“Luke, look at me.”

Luke’s head snaps up, his eyes saucer-round. Din can’t say his name! They can’t hear it, they can’t know–

“I know this is a lot to take in,” Din goes on, soothing even though the modulation. “I know it’s a shock that people have moved in here, but life goes on. It’s good that it’s happened, it’s good that this place is being put to use–”

Luke shakes his head wildly. “No. No, Din, you don’t understand, these people…” He wrenches his hands from Din’s presses them to the sides of his helmet, staring right into the visor and praying Din can sense some of his anguish. “They’re my aunt and uncle.”

Din is completely silent, and Luke knows his eyes have widened, his jaw dropped.

“What?” he eventually says.

Luke tilts his head forward, eyes closing as he rests his forehead against the beskar. “It’s them. I know them, I’d know them anywhere. Din, we’re in the past.”

Din gets to his feet, crosses the porch, comes back again, rubbing the crown of his helmet, one hand on his belt.

“You’re certain?” he asks, his voice trembling slightly. Luke nods miserably.

“This place…” He gestures around him, staring at every single familiar detail. “…it’s exactly as it was eleven years ago.” He looks down, picks up the cushion next to him, flips it over. He traces the mend with his thumb, the clumsy work of an eight-year-old just threading a needle for the first time. “I did this. We’d run out of orange thread so I had to use yellow.”

He puts it back and wraps his arms around himself.

Din sits heavily beside him with a grunt, stretching his left leg out slightly, like he always does.

“We’re in the past, then,” he says, tonelessly, and not due to the vocoder. Luke nods again. They lapse into silence.

“Here you go!”

They both jump, looking up. Uncle Owen looks distinctly disgruntled at having to carry a tray with two glasses and a plate of (Luke’s throat constricts) pallie fruit cookies, and Aunt Beru–

Grogu sits contentedly in Aunt Beru’s arms, munching on a cookie. Aunt Beru holds him with complete tenderness, swaying him gently, smiling down at him.

“He’s a funny little thing, isn’t he?” she says, chuckling. “Came toddling in and jumped right on the table!”

Grogu coos up at her.

Luke ravenously commits the image to memory, attempting to remember every detail of it: the sun on the downy hairs on Grogu’s head, the wrinkles at the corners of Aunt Beru’s eyes, the way Grogu’s tiny claws grip tightly onto her jacket… She’s holding his son. She is holding her great-nephew and she can’t even know.

Luke’s resolve crumbles. The tears begin to pour down his face as his head drops, and his shoulders start to shake.

“Oh, goodness me, what’s wrong?” Aunt Beru asks.

Luke doesn’t hear what Din answers, if he even does. He can’t hear anything, can barely breathe, the only part of reality Din’s arms around him. He fights, tooth and nail, to claw himself back to something resembling composure, hauling in deep, jagged breaths to starving lungs.

He looks up slightly, and that’s enough room for Grogu, now in front of him, to hop into his lap, babbling gently. He touches Luke’s face, pats at the salt tracks, and Luke smiles at him, at the waves of tender warmth blossoming towards him in the Force.

“Thank you, Grogu,” he murmurs, pressing his forehead to that wrinkly little green one.

“Darn weird, that one,” Uncle Owen mutters, which earns him a reproachful elbow from Aunt Beru.

“Seems like you could use a drink, young man,” she says. “It’s cold.”

Luke makes sure to keep his hood lowered as he takes the glass with a grateful nod. He still can’t speak to them, he knows they’ll recognise his voice, so he simply sips at his water and sighs.

It really is a waste to cry in the desert.

“Uh, do you happen to have a straw, please?” Din asks awkwardly, almost making Luke laugh.

He feels less like the world is a technicolour whirlpool, now. It is still unmoored, adrift on great swells he cannot control, but his mind is clearer.

He drains his glass, sets it on the tray Uncle Owen left, lets out a sigh. Grogu offers him the last pallie cookie, a small bite already taken out of it, and Luke accepts it. He’s eaten worse than his son’s germs.

“None for me, huh?” Din grumbles affectionately. “Little womp rat.”

Grogu gazes at him with all the fake innocence in the galaxy, and that does get a chuckle out of Luke. A feeble one, but still something approaching normality.

“Are you ok?” Din asks, smoothing his hand over Luke’s back. Luke sighs again.

“Not really,” he mutters, his voice hoarse. “But I’ll manage.”

He has half a plan now. While he cannot reveal himself to Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru, there is someone he can discuss this with. Something who might, with some luck, understand, and perhaps even be able to help.

He gets to his feet, sets Grogu on the bench.

“We need to go see Obi-Wan Kenobi,” he says.

“Sounds like a plan,” Din says, picking up the tray as he stands up. He takes it back to the kitchen, always polite, and returns, helping Grogu back into his satchel.

“Leaving already?” Aunt Beru asks. Uncle Owen stands mutinously in a corner, glaring.

“We have somewhere we need to be,” Din explains. “Thank you for your hospitality.”

“Our door is open to weary travellers,” says Aunt Beru.

Luke gives them a last, hungry look before nodding, and turning to head up the stairs. He makes it two steps.

He can be forgiven for distraction, he thinks. He is seeing people long dead, people he loved dearly – that he didn’t show nearly enough – and the Force is still uncertain, choppy waters.

So of course he collides with the person barrelling down the stairs without a care in the world. A yell of “Uncle Owen, I’m back from Tosche Station!” is cut short. Luke loses his balance, slips back, and he instinctively reaches for the Force to hold himself up. His hood slips off.

He remains, suspended, and his insides turned to ice. And when time catches back up to him and he remembers how to think, he is face-to-face with himself. Younger, blonder, but still himself.

It is one of the strangest, most unpleasant of sensations Luke has ever experienced. Seeing himself in flesh and bone, in solid reality, in front of himself, is a completely different sensation to looking in a mirror: it feels wrong, and it makes Luke’s skin crawl.

He rights himself with the Force, swallowing. His younger self merely stares at him, gaping like a fleek eel.

The longer he stares, the more differences Luke notices. No scar on his lip and no slight bump in his nose from the Wampa, no hints of laughter lines yet, his hair shaggy and sun-bleached. Both hands intact. It’s eerie.

“Oh,” he hears Din say, and he closes his eyes with a pained expression. He can feel the curiosity in the Force, thudding in the utter silence.

“Stop staring,” he says through gritted teeth.

“I’m not staring,” Din hisses back.

“You are, I can feel it!”

“It’s just weird!” Din is quiet for a long moment, and Luke drops his face into his hands, groaning.

“Stop thinking so loud!”

“Stop reading my thoughts!”

The click of a blaster safety breaks their stupid little spat. Din immediately plants himself between Luke and the rifle, pointed right at them, always ready to take a hit with his beskar.

“Run, boy,” Uncle Owen orders. “Get to Ben Kenobi.”

Younger Luke doesn’t move.

“Wait!” Luke says, holding up his hands, placatingly. “Please, I… I can explain. I need to speak to Ben myself.”

He can see Uncle Owen trembling slightly, and it makes Luke’s heart ache madly. He was always ready to sacrifice himself. At every turn, Owen Lars was ready to die for the boy on the steps, for… for him. And he did. He did, and he saved the galaxy.

“Please, don’t shoot,” Luke murmurs.

“Luke?” Aunt Beru says, her voice barely a whisper, pressing a hand to her mouth. Luke takes a deep breath. There is no hiding it, not any longer. He nods.

“What the kriff?” his younger self exclaims, earning automatic twin glares from both his aunt and uncle.

“Language!” they admonish in unison, and Luke can’t help but snort at that, attempting to stifle his laughter. His younger self huffs, folding his arms and pouting.

Din, Luke notices with some annoyance, has gone back to staring at his younger self.

“Oh, you were a brat,” he murmurs, just loud enough for Luke to hear, and he sounds intrigued in the worst way possible. Luke scowls at him.

“You weren’t supposed to ever know,” he mutters.

“But now I do,” Din says, and he sounds positively gleeful, the rarest of all his moods. “I’m never letting you live this down.”

“I hate you. What are the Mandalorian divorce words?”

“Not telling.”

“Enough!” Uncle Owen barks. “Explain, or I’m shooting!”

“Owen!” Aunt Beru says shrilly. “Please!”

“I have no idea,” Luke says. “We were travelling in the Ferra Sector, we encountered turbulence, ended up crash-landing here on Tatooine.” He frowns, reaching up to stroke his chin thoughtfully. “Of course, it’s something to do with the Force, but exactly what, I don’t know. It’s why I need to consult with Ben, he might have heard of something similar, or can at least point us in a potential direction for returning to where we came from.”

“And where is that?” Aunt Beru asks.

“Mandalore,” Din says. “In the future, I guess.”

“I live on Mandalore?” Younger Luke asks eagerly. He makes his way down the last few steps, into the courtyard, and there’s a hungry expression on his face, the raw, desperate longing to get away, to leave, to be up among the stars.

Luke knows it is very, very dangerous for his younger self to know anything about his future. Even the knowledge he has acquired in the last second could send the timeline spinning into oblivion, make it so nothing goes to plan in this universe. He has some faith in his younger self – he did so much with far less than Luke has at his disposal now – but still… Luke runs a gloved hand down his face, wincing.

“Generally speaking,” he says noncommittally.

“What if we talked about this sitting down, hm?” Aunt Beru suggests.

Uncle Owen huffs in annoyance. “Don’t be silly, Beru!” he says irritably. Aunt Beru glares at him, hands on her hips.

“Owen, if you think I’m not asking my nephew about everything he’ll get up to once he leaves here, you’ve got another thing coming!”

Luke knows he shouldn’t. It would be dangerously unwise to speak of anything to anyone present. But… Aunt Beru wants to know. She wants him to tell her what he’s accomplished, the things he’s done, and… and…

“We should probably go,” Din says, and Luke sighs with relief. His saviour, his anchor, like always. “We need to meet with Kenobi. Thank you, again, for your hospitality.”

He inclines his helmet graciously to both Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen. He leads the way to the stairwell, giving younger Luke a pointed look up and down. Luke narrows his eyes, reaches up and flicks his gloved finger against the back of Din’s helmet.

“Ow!” Din protests uselessly.

“You’re wearing beskar, now get up those stairs.”

They re-emerge into the baking Tatooine heat. Luke takes a step, two, three, before he has to hold out a hand to steady himself against the pourstone wall of the entry dome. He drags in a breath, in through his nose, out through his mouth.

“Luke? Cyar’ika?”

Luke offers Din a feeble smile. “I’m fine. Better now.” And it isn’t a lie. He feels like the ground is solid beneath his feel again.

“Good,” Din says, pressing his palm to Luke’s cheek. “I was worried.”

“Patoo!” Grogu agrees.

They meet in the middle in a kov’nyn, welcome comfort.

“Hey, uh, future me, Aunt Beru told me to give you– oh.”

Luke pulls away from Din with a hint of irritation to see his younger self standing there, wide-eyed, holding a pair of water flasks.

“Um.” He holds them up. “For the journey.”

“Thanks,” Din says, taking them and slinging them over one shoulder with a grateful nod.

Younger Luke does not take the hint. He rubs the back of his neck, scuffing the ground with his foot, looking almost coy. It’s himself, Luke knows that perfectly well, but there’s something annoying about watching his nineteen-year-old self so blatantly want to flirt with his husband.

“Listen,” younger Luke says. “I can give you guys a ride to the Jundland Wastes. Quicker than walking, only one day instead of three.” He jerks a thumb over his shoulder to his landspeeder, and Luke can’t help but give it a fond look. He’s missed it. He lost his virginity to Biggs in that thing, it held memories.

Din turns to look at him, cocking his helmet. Luke groans.

“Fine!” he grumbles.

He steps up onto the back, settling himself there cross-legged, in much the same place Threepio will one day occupy. He glances to the side with the hint of a smile, imagining Artoo magnetised to the spot next to him.

Din takes the passenger seat, and Grogu immediately wriggles out of his bag and launches himself into Luke’s lap, eager for speed.

“Menace,” Luke says fondly, as Grogu grabs two handfuls of cloak and readies himself for departure.

Younger Luke eyes Grogu, unconvinced. “Will… they… be safe like that?”

“He’s thrown himself off of cliffs, he’ll be fine,” Luke says.

“What is he?” younger Luke asks, leaning on the side of the speeder to peer at Grogu. Grogu sticks his tongue out, and younger Luke maturely responds in kind. Din snorts.

“He’s our son,” Luke says shortly. “Can we get going?”

“Oh, sure!” younger Luke hops into the speeder, settling in, and starts the engine.

“Hang on,” Din says. With a hiss he releases his helmet, slipping it off, and hands it up to Luke. Luke looks at him.

“Din…”

“Humour me,” Din says, and he’s doing that little frown he does when he’s being protective and will not take no for an answer. Luke slips it on with a sigh. It’s already cooler with it on, the thermoregulation a blessed relief. Everything is slightly darker, tinted by the visor, and it smells of Din, warm and familiar.

He notices that his younger self is staring at Din, blushing madly. Din is, irritatingly, now covering a stupid grin with his hand.

“Drive!” Luke barks, his voice strange in modulation, flicking his younger counterpart’s ear with the Force.

They make it about halfway before they have to set up camp for the night. Din takes back his helmet, or goes to, at least – Luke keeps hold of it, spreading a hand over the crown, fond.

“You took it off,” he murmurs. He didn’t want to think too much about it earlier, but… he revealed his face with ease.

“It’s you,” Din replies softly. “I wouldn’t if it wasn’t you.”

Luke lowers his head. He doesn’t know how to articulate feeling jealous of his own self, how to make Din understand. And he knows these emotions are completely ludicrous: he and Din will not meet for another nine years, and in such different circumstances, as such very different men, that it’s not comparable in the slightest.

“Luke…” Din tilts his chin up, and Luke falls into those brown eyes like he always does. They have a gravitational pull all of their own. “Are you… jealous?”

His moustache twitches, and Luke gives him a withering look.

“If I say yes, will you stop bothering me?” Luke grumbles. Din steals a kiss, and Luke in retaliation pokes him in the side, right where he’s vulnerable – with his right hand, too, so it’s extra hard.

“No, it’s amusing,” Din retorts. “I know you, I love you.”

Luke sighs. “I know you, I love you.”

A throat is cleared awkwardly, and they both turn to see younger Luke standing there, red to the very roots of his hair.

“Uh… I, um… need to get something in the speeder,” he squeaks, keeping his eyes firmly locked on the ground. Luke smothers a chuckle.

“Of course,” he says, and drags Din away.

“You’re mean to yourself,” Din remarks gently.

That gives Luke pause. He stops, stares out at the burning horizon where the suns are dipping low, but without really seeing it. Why is he so irritated by himself? How are his curiosity, his lack of knowledge, his obvious interest in the man who will become his husband, shortcomings? He wouldn’t have gotten far in the galaxy without kindness.

“I shouldn’t be,” he murmurs. He sighs again, pressing a hand to his mouth pensively. “I should meditate.”

“Whatever you need, cyar’ika,” Din says, giving him a kiss on the forehead and going to collect their son, who is currently hunting a small dustlizard between the hillocks of sand.

Younger Luke lights a fire, pulls out some field rations and a couple of blankets from the storage compartment in the landspeeder. It’s not much, but everyone present has eaten far worse. He props his elbows on his knees, resting his chin on his fists, and he watches them. He watches them tend to Grogu first, as always, the child falling asleep immediately after finishing his dinner, curled up in Din’s cloak.

“So, uh… I’m assuming he’s adopted,” younger Luke says, scratching his nose.

Luke snorts at that. “What gave that away?” he asks, teasing. Younger Luke grins.

“I don’t know, he doesn’t have our ears,” he says, raising his hands to flap them by the side of his head. “So, uh… how did we – you two – meet?”

Luke’s expression turns serious again. “I’m not sure we can tell you,” he says.

“I’d call it chance,” Din says.

“I’d call it the Force,” Luke replies. Younger Luke gives him a confused look.

“The Force?” he asks.

Luke blinks. He’d forgotten how little he knew, back then (knows now? It’s confusing). He leans forward, gently moves his fingers through the air. A fine trail of sand begins to rise, twisting itself into strange shapes as Luke flexes his fingers.

“It binds everything together,” he explains. “It runs through every living thing, every planet. Everything exists within it, and it exists within everything. You know that hum that never goes away? The feeling you’ve seen someone, been somewhere before, and you know you haven’t? The itch that tells you when to grab a falling thing, or when a sandstorm is coming?”

Younger Luke stares at him, nodding slowly. He is transfixed.

“That’s the Force.” Luke smiles slightly. “That’s what gives the Jedi their power.”

“Are… are you a Jedi?” his younger self asks. “Are we a Jedi?”

Luke allows the sand to trickle back to ground. “To the best of my abilities, yes,” he replies.

Din leans into him then, shoulder-to-shoulder, the gentle ring of beskar on beskar resonating in their little encampment, crystalline in the quiet desert night.

“He’s an excellent Jedi,” he says, and there’s a wave of affection, of devotion and of pride in the Force. Whenever doubt is there to rear its ugly head, Din is there to fight it back. Much like the faith Luke has in Din, the faith Din has in him is unwavering.

“How many Jedi do you know?” Luke asks, raising his eyebrows, lips twitching.

“Including you? Five. And I’m counting Grogu. You’re my second favourite.”

“Good, I don’t want to be first, that’s Grogu’s spot.”

Nestled safely between them, Grogu shifts in his sleep as he buries his face into Din’s thigh. Luke gently strokes his ear, smiling at the little contended sigh that earns him.

“That’s his name? Grogu?” Younger Luke leans closer, peering at him again. “I gotta admit, he’s… not what I would have expected to have for a kid.”

“Grogu has a habit of just barging into your life and changing it completely,” Din says, making Luke chuckle.

“I’m taking first watch,” Luke says. Din, helmet now firmly where it should be, levels him with an unimpressed look.

“No, I’ll take first watch. And morning watch. You’re tired.”

Luke scowls at him. He’s soldiered through worse on just the Force and sheer determination, this is nothing. Din scowls back through the visor, hands on his hips.

“Just sleep,” he says sternly. “You can take middle watch.”

Luke’s sigh is sharp, irritated. “You won’t take no for an answer, will you?”

“No,” Din replies, and he walks past. He takes younger Luke’s rifle from the landspeeder and props it against the vehicle, leaning next to it with folded arms and crossed ankles.

“Your heads are all made of beskar!” Luke calls after him. Din doesn’t move, ignoring him. Luke throws himself back down on the sand, next to the little nest of blankets that is Grogu, and glowers into the fire.

“Trouble in paradise?” his younger self asks with a smirk. Luke shoots him a withering look.

“He’s stubborn,” he says with a huff. Younger Luke looks over at him, lying on his stomach between two old blankets, chin on his arms.

“He’s not what I expected,” he murmurs. Luke follows his gaze. “Marrying a Mandalorian… you are married, right?”

“Two years in the eyes of the manda,” Luke says. There’s no reason to hide this, it’s out there, plain to see. He settles himself down, wrapped in his cloak, curled protectively around Grogu. The day’s heat is beginning to fade, replaced by the bitter chill of the desert night.

“It’s better than I could have hoped for,” younger Luke says quietly. He rolls over onto his side, eyes closed.

Luke cannot think of an answer to that. Is there even an answer to give? No, Din is not what a farmboy from Tatooine would every have dreamt of… but he happened. They happened, as strange and outlandish as it is, and Luke wouldn’t trade that for any familiarity in the galaxy.

Luke wakes up with the first hint of dawn over the horizon. He sits up with a groan, rubbing at his eyes. He hears harsh noises, and when he looks over, he sees Din talking to a pair of Tusken people, not too far away, making gestures Luke still hasn’t managed to grasp quite yet.

His younger self also stirs, still cocooned in his blanket, and he startles into full alert when he sees the Tuskens and their bantha.

“There’s–” he starts, voice pitching high in fear, but Luke merely shakes his head.

“They’ll leave in a minute,” he says, taking a sip of water from their second flask.

“Surprised they didn’t kill us in our sleep,” younger Luke mutters, keep a suspicious eye on the conversation.

“And why would they? What have we done to them?”

Younger Luke gives him an irritated look. “We don’t have to do anything, they just attack.”

The look Luke returns is unimpressed. “Not all Tuskens are the same,” he says. “Most are just trying to survive here. On their planet, that we’ve occupied without their consent.”

Din bids the two travellers farewell and they haul themselves back onto their bantha, the creature letting out a low, rumbling bellow as they depart. Din returns, holding a small net bag.

“Black melons,” he says. “Got them in exchange for some thermal detonators.”

Younger Luke looks at him in alarm. “What did you give them those for?!”

“There’s been a rockslide near their burial grounds,” Din says, sitting down again with a grunt. “They need to clear it.” He hands Luke a melon, and then tosses one to younger Luke, who catches it almost distractedly and then stares at it in bewilderment. “Told them to steer clear of the Kom’rk, if they’d be so kind.”

Luke cracks open his melon and takes a sip, making a face. The flavour still hasn’t grown on him, and he doubts it ever will. “That won’t help if any Jawas happen to pass it.”

Din sighs, tipping up his helmet to take a sip of his own melon. “We’ll tame that blurrg when we’ve corralled it.”

Breakfast is more rations, some dried meiloorun and, for Grogu, the bounty of his latest successful hunt, a doop bug. It crunches gratingly under his teeth, but he seems to be enjoying it.

“Does he just eat anything?” Younger Luke asks.

Both Luke and Din let out twin groans.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Din mutters, rubbing his helmet as he would his forehead.

They make good time to the Jundland Wastes, coming to rest at the foot of the cliffs where Ben’s pourstone hut sits, staring out over the Flats. Much like the homestead, it looks very different now, its paint relatively fresh, its vaporator and perimeter sensor still very much intact. The last time Luke came here it had been empty and cold, and Boba Fett had been hot on his heels.

Luke draws his hood up again. He doesn’t know exactly how he feels, or what he is expecting. There is an undeniable sense of trepidation as they ascend through the caves to little plateau where the hut sits. What will Obi-Wan even think of him?

He looks up once they have almost reached the summit, and halts. The wind tosses his cloak, rippling black in the noonday suns, but apart from that, silence.

Obi-Wan Kenobi stands there, waiting, hands folded in his sleeves. Luke is so used to the blue incorporeality of his Force ghost that seeing him there, solid, real, after so many years, is surreal. The old man is just like Luke remembers him: weathered by the Tatooine suns, his hair snow-white and his eyes a warm blue, and infinitely kind.

“I sensed a disturbance in the Force,” he murmurs, gazing down at him. Luke’s words are stuck in his throat. He speaks to this man whenever he deigns to appear, seeks his counsel – and sometimes gets it – but this feels… different. They had little time together as two people alive. Was Luke even truly his padawan?

“Master Kenobi,” he says, dragging the syllables out by force. They taste alien. “We need your help.”

Ben shifts his gaze to look at his other guests.

“A Mandalorian, how intriguing.”

Din nods. “Master Jedi.”

“And young Luke Skywalker,” Ben continues. “Does your uncle know you’re here?”

Younger Luke looks shifty at that. “Um…” He rubs the back of his neck, pointedly looking away. Luke can’t fault him for it: he would have done the same, has done the same many times.

“Well, that cannot be helped, although I don’t think he’ll be pleased. I have no other option but to invite you in.”

The inside is cool, a relief for people who have been out in binary heat for half the day. Grogu makes a demanding noise, asking after the flask through the Force, and Din helps him drink, holding it for him. The desert doesn’t do him good, he was meant for swampy places.

Ben, shaking out his sleeves as he sits, gazes at him curiously “He is very familiar,” he says.

Grogu looks up at him, head cocked, eyes big.

Luke is distracted from taking in the room and its familiarity (there is the chest with Anakin’s lightsaber; there is the small hidden niche with Qui-Gon’s crystal; there is where he sat when giving him Leia’s message, repaired Threepio). Lowering his hood, he turns.

“He survived Order 66,” Luke explains, and Ben startles, perhaps the first time Luke has seen the old man so emotive. It must be shocking, to hear Luke speak so frankly about old and hidden things. “He was in the Temple creche.”

“And how did you come by him?” Ben asks quietly. He holds out a hand and Grogu immediately, without hesitation, wraps a hand around his finger, cooing.

Luke and Din exchange a look, both then glancing to younger Luke, who is perched on the edge of his seat looking kind of awkward and nervous.

“He was a bounty,” Din says carefully. “But I couldn’t allow him to be used by the Empire.”

“I see.” He turns to Luke, who has remained standing, arms folded, feeling oddly defensive, on edge. “I can also see why you’ve come here. You are most certainly not from this time.”

Luke shakes his head. “I suppose it’s the future. We need to return to our own time, somehow, so we came here for guidance. We’ll take any advice you can give.”

Ben strokes his beard. “I’m afraid I can offer very little, this is far beyond my realm of expertise. The Force works in mysterious ways.”

“And don’t we know that,” Din mutters darkly, making the corner of Luke’s mouth twitch.

“Then we will have to find someone else,” Luke says grimly. “Perhaps Ahsoka…”

He had hoped to not have to traipse halfway across the galaxy searching for her, at the height of Imperial power. The galaxy is a dangerous place, especially for Force-sensitives and for Mandalorians. They all have targets on their backs, for one reason or another, he doesn’t have even the first idea of where to look and Tython is so close to Coruscant it’s walking into the krayt nest.

“Ahsoka?” Ben’s voice is small when he says her name, and Luke’s heart aches. He never knew she still lived, did he? He died thinking she too was gone, lost like so many others to people they trusted with their lives.

“Yes. She’s alive.”

Ben closes his eyes. His sigh of relief is small, but potent, his shoulders visibly lightening as if a great burden has been taken from them.

“Luke,” he says. His younger self’s head snaps up expectantly, but Ben merely smiles. “Ah, not you, my boy, your older self.” Younger Luke deflates, pouting slightly. “I believe meditation is in order.”

Ben leads him further up into the crags, to another cave, well-lit, but cool, distant from the hut. There is a great window that offers an unparalleled view of the Salt Flats, and from here, even without macrobinoculars Luke can see the homestead, the Kom’rk, and, a speck on the horizon if he squints, the Darklighter farm. Easing himself onto a broad, flat rock, Ben draws up his legs to cross them. There are threadbare old blankets here, a battered table littered with discarded ephemera, telling him this place was once in use as… something. Perhaps a watchtower of sorts.

Luke takes the floor, mirroring Ben’s stance but for their hand placements, Luke’s on his knees, Ben’s folded in his lap. Together, they close their eyes, slow their breathing, and reach out with the Force.

Ben’s Force signature is a refreshing novelty. Luke had never had the chance to truly know it, when Ben was alive, too new and unhoned in the Force to sense it. But it’s beautiful. It’s the wind in wildflowers, the dance of titterlings in the summer sky, something gentle and soft and lilting. It’s warm and welcoming, and oh, for something so unfamiliar, it feels like home.

It would be easier, Luke thinks, if they were in a place more connected to the Force. Iope, perhaps, or Tython, or one of the ruined temples Luke has found scattered across the galaxy. But Tatooine was a boon for hiding a small Force-sensitive, nothing to amplify, to make him a greater target.

The Force does, however, respond, though not entirely clearly. It shows flickers of emotions, of visions that might be solutions, if only they were more coherent… Luke reaches in, coaxes more firmly. Ben seems surprised by that, but does the same, and together they draw the blurred sensations out, into the sun.

Images.

A marketplace. A man holds hands with a boy. “Uncle, look–!”. Luke watches, and something constricts in his chest, tight with longing.

Ahsoka stands there, arms folded, leaning against the doorway. Luke looks up from his work building the firepit. “This isn’t right, Luke,” she says. “This could lean to ruin for something not even rebuilt.” “I think it’s the right thing,” Luke replies. But he feels doubt then, because what if she’s right? What if she’s right and all the things that bring him joy will also doom them all…

He hears Din chuckle, turns slightly to watch. He lies next to him, unhelmeted, carefree, Grogu on his chest. Grogu babbles in good-natured annoyance as Din sneaks tickles, and he is reminded, with vivid, agonising clarity, of Aunt Beru doing the same. She will never see them, will she? She will never know.

Luke drags breath into starving lungs, his eyes flying open. Of course. Of course, it all makes sense now, why they are there. He gets to his feet, walks over to the window. Was this what this was all for? The Force toying with him, sending him into this madness simply to teach him some pathetic little lesson he could have learnt at home, without endangering the people he loves, and the very future he has fought so hard to make? Anger rises, hot and sharp. He could have done without this.

He glares out at the desert, and grabs his anger by its throat, casting it into the Force, though it feels more like retaliation than catharsis.

“It seems you have yet to let go,” Ben says. Luke doesn’t move. “I sense a lack of… closure. You have certainly been granted a gift, with this little temporal journey.”

Luke does turn back to him, then. “The Force is a son of a bantha,” he complains, the stern mask of Jedi propriety tossed casually aside. Ben looks surprised, before he chuckles.

“Occasionally, yes,” he says. “This is only an educated guess, but I believe that once you have reassured yourself, the path home should open to you of its own accord. But I also do not entirely believe you have truly made a physical journey.”

Luke sits at Ben’s side, stretching out his legs and crossing them at the ankle. His boots are thick with the pale dust that coats everything here on Tatooine, gets in the nose, the throat, the hair.

“You think this is just a vision?”

“A spectacularly vivid and tangible one, but yes.” Ben flexes his fingers. “Perhaps the Force has simply allowed our realities to touch and intersect for a brief moment. I was never very inclined to visions myself. There is no way of knowing until you have left, and we see the future ourselves.” He looks him up and down appraisingly. “You travel with strange companions.”

“My family,” Luke explains. “My husband and my son.”

“Ah… so you have not continued the path of the Jedi.” Ben sounds disappointed, slightly hurt.

“I have,” Luke replies. He shifts his cloak, revealing the hilt of his lightsaber. “But that doesn’t mean I forsake what brings joy.”

He blinks. That came easily, with not a flicker of doubt. If he thinks about Din and Grogu, there is no version of his life where he does not want to be with them, as the small, tightly-woven thing they are, an interlaced celestial dance. What would life be then? Empty, and lonely. So very lonely.

“I am… all that’s left,” he says. “We are so few, and so scattered and alone. Before, perhaps, it made sense, when there were tens of thousands of Jedi, and everyone burnt so bright in the Force. But now… We’ve had to find what happiness we can, forge new bonds. We’ve loved deeply.” He raises his head. “The Order will not go back to what it was. It can’t.”

Ben is quiet for a moment. “You seem certain.”

“I still serve the galaxy,” Luke says. “My family is part of it. And not just Din and Grogu.” He pauses. “You should tell him.”

“Pardon?”

Luke looks at him, aware of how steely his gaze must be. “Don’t hide the truth. Tell him about Anakin.” He gets to his feet again, starts pacing. “Tell him about Leia. Start training him now.” His right fist clenches, the creak of leather audible, the synthskin beneath tight against mechanical knuckles. “You risk losing everything by hiding it all.”

The silence lengthens as they gaze at each other. A breeze blows through, strangely cool and fragrant for Tatooine. It gently catches the hem of Luke’s cloak, the ends of his hair, drives tiny grains of sand across the floor.

“Luke!” A voice calls from below, breaking the taut thread between them: it’s Din. “Comm call from Artoo! you know I don’t speak Binary.”

That brings a smile to Luke’s face, then.

Being faced with the past is daunting. There is so much he could have done better, smarter, less impulsively, knowing the outcomes. But in the end, he can’t change anything. Despite everything, isn’t the fact he is living, and living joyfully, proof enough that even the darkest of times can lead to something better? He can look at Grogu, and Ben, and know that despite all that he and Leia have lost, there is something that will live on, burning and bright, long after they are gone.

“Think about what I said,” he says, and turns away, cloak billowing as he descends.

In shadowy privacy, hidden by rocks, Luke borrows Din’s helmet, comms Artoo back. He smiles as he hands it over again.

“Kom’rk’s fixed,” he says. “So there’s that.”

“We can get off the planet, at least,” Din says, putting his helmet back on. He leans against the cliff-face as Luke sits with a sigh, Grogu snooping in between the rocks at their feet, looking for something edible. He’ll probably find it. “Everything ok?”

Luke shrugs. “As best as it can be.” He explains Ben’s theory, plucking Grogu back with the Force as he moves a little too close to the cliff edge without even turning to look.

Din is quiet once Luke’s finished talking, looking out at the desert sprawled out beneath them. Luke can feel his unease: Din dislikes being pulled around without his consent, something that happened painfully often before they met, or so he tells. Events simply befell him, a passive player in his own tale, and Luke hates that that has occurred once more.

He gets to his feet, steps closer to place his hands on Din’s waist.

“I’m so sorry,” he says. Din’s helmet turns toward him, and Luke senses features hastily schooled into neutrality beneath it.

“It’s not your fault,” he says, and that is something he believes wholeheartedly. But there is an undercurrent of something else there, kept tamped down so as to be barely discernible. Din never bothers to hide his feelings in the Force, an open book for Luke (and Grogu) to read plainly, and Luke cannot deny it hurts to know he’s doing it now.

Din squeezes his arm and moves past him, scooping up Grogu as he goes. Grogu offers him a half-bitten thing that might, at one time, have been a bug.

“No thanks, buddy, you enjoy that,” Din says drily, making Luke smile.

There is now a plan, of sorts. If it doesn’t work, and it turns out both Luke and Ben’s perceptions were wrong, well… they can tame that blurrg when they’ve corralled it. Back in the cool, stale air of Ben’s hut, younger Luke is leaning forward on his seat, hanging eagerly on Ben’s every word. Luke hopes it’s something that might help.

Younger Luke looks up, watches them enter.

“Did you figure it out?” he asks.

“I think so,” Luke says. He tucks Grogu back into his satchel, slinging it over his shoulder. It’s his turn to carry him. “Back to the homestead, for now.”

Ben politely offers them water for the journey, the oldest and most sacred of Tatooine traditions, watches Din and Luke busy themselves with what they need. Before they leave, he catches Luke’s attention, inclines his head to a private spot a little further away. Luke follows him, waits for what he has to say, hands clasped in front of him.

“I believe,” Ben says, with slight hesitance, as if weighing his words carefully, “that you are seeking approval for your choices. A reassurance that the path you are following is righteous, and good. I cannot give you that.” He tentatively raises a hand, placing it on Luke’s shoulder. “But I see the knight you have become. I see the compassion in you, your sense of justice, and I could not be prouder. You could not be a finer Jedi.”

Luke smiles at him, and a weight he hadn’t realised he’d been carrying is lifted. “Thank you, Master,” he says.

The return journey is uneventful. Luke insists on taking the first watch that night, and he tilts his head back to gaze up at the familiar cacophony of stars above. Nowhere else, he thinks, has a sky quite like Tatooine.

“Hey.”

He turns. His younger self leans against the side of the speeder, digging in the dirt with the toe of his boot. He swallows.

“So… a sister, huh?”

Luke nods. “She’s incredible. You’ll love her.” Mentally he bats away a very unwanted memory, the hot burn of shame returning tenfold whenever his brain is cruel enough to remind him of it. “You have a lot of things in common, and some things not at all. But meeting her… it’s like finding a missing piece.”

Younger Luke grins, rubbing at the back of his neck. “She sounds great.”

Luke takes a moment to gather his thoughts, figure out what he’s going to say. “It won’t be easy,” he murmurs. “You’re going to go through… a lot. Lose a lot. But… you’ll find good things as well. Remember that.”

The homestead is the same as they left it, except Uncle Owen is waiting in the courtyard, looking absolutely livid. Freezing hot guilt rises in the pit of Luke’s stomach that he has to fight down. It is such a familiar sight it’s hard to think it’s not aimed at himself. It is then replaced by a surge of melancholy, at remembering that no, it isn’t aimed at himself, and it never will be again.

“Where did you run off to?!” Uncle Owen demands of younger Luke, who grimaces under the weight of his angry glare.

“Um…”

“We kept an eye on him,” Din says, clapping the kid on the shoulder. Younger Luke turns a vibrant shade of red, letting out a choked squeak.

Luke rolls his eyes, goes to the kitchen in search of Aunt Beru, since it was always her usual haunt, when she wasn’t tending the hydroponic gardens. He catches her making flatbreads, kneading the dough leisurely, sleeves rolled up, a smear of imported flour on one cheek. It’s a familiar vision, one he assumed he’d be seeing for the rest of his life, and a lump rises in his throat.

“Oh, hello!” she says. “Did Ben help?”

Luke nods. “From a certain point of view,” he says, his smile wry. He looks at her a moment longer, at her soft smile, and he can’t stop himself. He throws his arms around her, buries his face in her neck, breathes in the scent of cheap synthetic starflower and something uniquely her that he’s missed, he’s missed for years.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, his voice cracking, fighting back tears.

She wraps her arms around him, patting his back gently. “Whatever for, dear?” she asks. He shakes his head, holds her just that little bit more tightly for a moment, before letting go.

“Nothing,” Luke says. “Just… needed to say it.”

Aunt Beru looks at him, raises weary, callused hands to gently touch his face. He doesn’t care about the flour and the oil, just about her touch.

“Look at you, so mature,” she says. “You’ve grown so much.”

“I am definitely not any taller than I used to be,” he says drily, and she chuckles, poking his nose. It almost breaks down the wall inside that’s holding back everything he feels.

“You know what I mean,” she says. “A family of your own even. Goodness me.” She squeezes his cheeks tenderly. “I’m very proud of you.”

He heads back outside, Aunt Beru in tow, to a staring contest between Uncle Owen and, of all people, Grogu.

“Weird little thing,” he hears Uncle Owen mutter as he gets closer. “What species is he?”

Din shrugs. “We don’t know. We’ve been calling him a Yoda.”

“A Yoda?”

“Something Luke came up with.”

Luke stifles a snigger. Master Yoda greatly disapproves of it, but he also refuses to tell them what his species is actually called, so he has to put up with it.

“He’s a good boy,” Luke says, plucking him out of Din’s arms to give him a gentle squeeze. Grogu hums happily. “Very talented. Very precocious.”

He feels a hint of curiosity in the Force, Grogu peering up at him with wide, confused eyes.

“Nothing for you to worry about,” Luke says, earning himself a pout.

They leave not long after, Aunt Beru insisting they keep the freshly-filled flasks, at least. She gives Grogu a goodbye cuddle, which has him cooing in delight. Uncle Owen stands there, arms folded, glowering at them like he always does.

Uncle Owen was never effusive in his feelings, not with words, or touch: a clap on the shoulder, an approving nod, perhaps a gruff word of praise. And Luke had felt stifled, held down, desperate to take flight and leave, at loggerheads with his uncle four days out of five. But Uncle Owen had taught him so much, ruffled his hair, cracked a dark joke. He’d sat by Luke’s bedside when he had fevers, and mended his shoes when the soles fell off, and put bacta patches on skinned knees, wiping away tears from dirt-smeared cheeks.

Luke embraces him, and Uncle Owen freezes in shock.

“Thank you,” Luke says, squeezing once before pulling away.

“Yes, well,” Owen mumbles, all bluster to hide his embarrassment.

Luke offers himself a smile, and a murmur of good luck, which his younger self answers with a wave. Din gives them all a brisk nod, and they turn, and set off back into the desert.

With each step they take, further and further away, Luke feels as if some burden is lifted from him, atom by atom, his shoulders growing lighter. He doesn’t look back.

When they get back to the Kom’rk, Artoo trills indignantly, demanding to know where they’ve been.

“We met some people,” Luke explains. The temperature control within the ship is up again, and it’s a relief after the scorching heat of the twin suns, and Luke immediately does away with his cloak, tossing it in a corner. Din tugs off his helmet and takes a long swig from one of the flasks, sighing.

“Well, that was… something,” he says. Luke nods.

“Unexpected,” he replies. “I don’t think we should tell anyone about this.”

“Would they even believe us?” Din asks.

Luke huffs in wry amusement. “Probably not.”

In the cockpit, Din readies them for takeoff. All systems appear to be normal, back to their proper state, the power working perfectly again. Luke can’t wait to leave.

He feels drained. Physically he’s done very little, but emotionally the last three days have been a strain on him, requiring a strength of will he hasn’t had to rely on for a while now. Perhaps domesticity has made him complacent, soft, even, but he won’t apologise for that. It’s a good thing, peace.

Luke wakes up with a cheek pressed against a cold, damp stone floor. He winces as he stirs, remembering how muscles work and nerves function, a sensation he never particularly enjoys. He is being tugged on, he realises, by small but insistent hands, a little worried voice very close to him calling “Ba!” urgently.

Luke’s eyes flutter open to see Grogu come into focus.

“Ba?” the child asks, touching Luke’s cheek softly.

“It’s ok, Grogu,” Luke says, voice thick, words stiff. “I’m here.”

He gathers his strength to curl his hand around Grogu’s little body, holding him there as he sits up.

“You’re awake!”

Luke blinks at the wave of relief in the Force. He smiles at Din, who is now kneeling in front of him, cupping his cheeks.

“I am now,” he says.

Din shakes his head. “You wouldn’t wake up,” he says. “We tried for a while. It’s been a couple of hours since we…” Luke can sense a frown in the Force, like Din is trying to figure out what to say. “Got back? Not sure…”

Oh. Yes. Tatooine. Ben. Himself. And… Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. He lets out a shaky breath, lowering his head.

“I remember we hit that turbulence again,” Luke says. “But that’s it.” He looks around. They are in a damp, circular chamber, the ceiling caved in from millennia of neglect. Sunlight filters in, thick with dust, tree roots reaching down through the opening. The walls are thick with ancient script and worn, indecipherable pictograms. Luke remembers this place now: a temple, the quarry at the end of their wild mynock chase, on Bundil, a planet barely worth putting on a starmap. The Force felt strange, he remembers, overpoweringly soporific, and then everything going black.

Whatever it was that happened – a vision, a journey, Luke has no idea what to call it – they have returned now, and safely, at that.

Grogu crawls into his lap, makes a small, inquisitive noise, claws catching in his sleeve. Luke smiles down at him.

“I’m fine,” he says. “I’m glad you’re fine too.”

Grogu seems appeased by that.

“Let’s get out of here,” Din says. He gets to his feet, helps Luke to his own, which are still shaky, cooperating only under duress.

Luke knows he will have to come back here eventually. The place must be documented, added to the map of hallowed places re-found. Whatever properties the Force has here, they are strange and should be studied, perhaps to give others the benefit of whatever ease the Force can offer. He certainly feels lighter, he thinks, as he follows Din from the temple and out into the dappled sunlight of the forest.

Din has been very quiet since they’ve returned to Mandalore. A little distant, a little withdrawn, in a way he never really has been before. Whenever Luke asks, Din utters reassurances that Luke doesn’t find totally convincing, and he has no idea how to fix things.

It culminates one night, when Luke awakens to find him sitting on the end of their bed, staring into the visor of his helmet. There is something slightly eerie about it, like seeing two Dins in the same room together – ironic, really considering their latest escapade, and how strange it must have been for Din to see two of him.

“Din?” he says softly. He slips from under the covers to the end of the bed, legs folded beneath him, and touches the broad expanse of his husband’s bare back. It’s cool to the touch, he must have been sitting there for ages.

“Do… do you have any idea why it went to your past, and not mine?” he asks, and his voice is small, fragile.

Din told him of his past, of Aq Vetina. Din told him of the droids, and the cellar that kept him safe until vambraced arms pulled him out, carried him away to a new life. A life of armour, of weapons, of honour and bloodshed.

Luke presses his cheek to Din’s shoulder, arms wrapped around him, eyes closed tightly. The Force around them weeps softly.

“I… I think it was because of the Force,” he says. “There was probably a fifty-fifty chance of ending up in Grogu’s past, as well.”

He shudders at the thought of ending up in the Jedi Temple during… during… He dismisses the mental image harshly. He will not think of the horrors their son has seen.

“Oh,” Din says. “That makes sense.”

He falls silent, still staring at his helmet as if it holds all the answers, and not for the first time Luke wishes he could offer a scrap of comfort in the Force, anything he could. He wants to wrap Din in the same warmth and security he gives Grogu, help him understand how he is loved so deeply it connects to everything in the galaxy. But all he can do is press his lips to Din’s shoulder and hope that simply being there and holding him, physically, is enough.

“I think they would have liked you,” Din says eventually. “I… it was a long time ago. I don’t remember much. But they would have liked you. And… and I would have shown them Grogu, and they would be proud of him, so proud, and… and…”

Din caves in on himself. He wraps his arms around his helmet, folding himself around it, head lowered, and sobs. Broken, horrible things that shatter Luke's heart into miserable pieces, ones that he tries to contain but simply cannot. Luke can do nothing but hold him, cradle him through it, tears pouring down his own cheeks as Din’s grief is a howling, stricken thing in the Force. Not the Mand’alor, not even a Mandalorian, just the lonely orphan boy from Aq Vetina, weeping for his parents.

Eventually his tears subside, to infrequent hiccups, and he raises his head. His eyes are red, his face blotchy. He wipes his nose with the back of his hand, sniffing powerfully, rubbing at his eyes.

“I forgot crying makes them itch,” he mumbles. Luke gives the smallest huff of laughter, running a hand tenderly through Din’s hair.

“I know, it sucks,” he says. He is quiet for a moment, chest tight. “They would be so proud of you, Din. Of who you’ve become, of what you’ve made. Of the good you’ve done.”

Din swallows, chin trembling, and he closes his eyes as his head falls forward. Their forehead touch, Luke cradles the back of Din’s head, presses a loving hand to the helmet between them, threading his fingers with Din’s.

He doesn’t know how long they stay there like that, entwined in silence. The grey of first light creeps slowly in turning everything in the room to fuzzy suggestions of objects. Din lets out a sigh.

“I think… I need to sleep some more,” he says quietly. Luke kisses him, at the corner of his mouth.

“Do it, then. Sleep all you need. I’ll be here.”

And he does, and Luke is.

When the morning light grows stronger, Grogu toddles in, ears perked up curiously. Luke presses a finger to his lips and pats the bed between him and Din. Doing his best impression of a scatterbug, Grogu shimmies under the covers, emerging at the head of the bed, between them. He gently touches Din’s sleeping face, reaches for Luke’s hand.

Luke settles back down, head on the pillow, and watches the two of them. They have all of them lost so much, but then again, they have also gained this. And it is enough.