Never Walk Alone

Chapter 1 - Connection

Author's Note: This is another gift for IceyGemini on ao3! :D Updates will be weekly. :)

~ Amina Gila

Pain. Pain. Pain. Vader can't register anything else. All he knows is that it feels like it's never-ending, ceaseless, and he hardly knows where he is anymore except that Sidious found him. The pain is more than he can handle, but he can't give up. He can't.

He has to –

Padme.

His child.

He has to save them. Everything he did, all of it was for them, and no matter how much he wants to give up, he can't. Not until he knows that they survived.

His vision is swimming, and he can't make out anything, not that he's really trying either, but suddenly, the sheer agony ripping him apart feels much further away. Like it's happening to someone else even if he can still feel it.

He can vaguely see a flash of red that soon fades to white. He feels a rush of air against his skin everywhere, as though he isn't strapped down to an operating table anymore, which doesn't really make sense. Not that he can make sense of anything in this state.

The room around him is shifting again, and he suddenly sees Padme's face next to him. She looks bigger than she ought to, but maybe it's because he can't see anything straight right now. He can hear her whispering something, face tensed in pain in a way that reminds him so much of his nightmares, and then the full reality of the pain tearing him apart suddenly comes rushing back again. Whatever he was just seeing is gone, replaced by the medical room again.

***

The name Artoo-Detoo somehow feels familiar, though Luke isn't fully certain why. Just... as though he's heard it before, from somewhere, from another time, but it doesn't really matter.

What does matter is getting their droids situated and cleaned up.

Or, at least that's what Luke tries to tell himself as he works on the astromech. It works until Artoo starts projecting a small hologram of someone. She has dark hair and eyes, but something about her looks... familiar. He knows her somehow. She's safe. She means home.

"Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi," the girl in the hologram says, "You're my only hope."

Obi-Wan.

He's heard that name, too. From his dreams. But who is she, and why does she want Obi-Wan's help?

"What's this?" Luke asks, turning to the droid. He feels a little breathless and mind blown. First, he saw a space battle, and then the droids his uncle bought are from the Rebellion? That's where he wants to be. And now, Artoo knows someone who knows Obi-Wan?

Luke doesn't really know anything about him. He just knows what he sees almost every night. Of Obi-Wan and his father in a fight to the death on a lava planet. And he's seen the – how it ends far too many times. It makes him sick every time he sees it, and he doesn't understand what's happening or why he's seeing this again and again. Is it something that really happened years ago? And what happened?

Artoo beeps, as the hologram continues playing on repeat.

"What is what?" Threepio repeats, incredulous, "He asked you a question!"

The droid beeps, almost sheepishly.

"Oh, he says it's nothing, sir. Merely a malfunction. Old data. Pay it no mind."

Old data? That only makes Luke more intrigued. If the droid used to know someone who knew Obi-Wan, then... what if this is a way he could get real answers about his father? But if this is old data, why does he feel such a connection to the girl in the hologram?