InsaneJournal

Getting out of the mountain had been just as good for Anakin as he'd hoped it would be. It didn't solve anything. It didn't take away the reality of any of the stuff he'd learned over the past month, but it had felt a little bit further away as he'd dug around ruins, and teased Jacen about taking home yet another pathetic pet, and spent time with his siblings and his friends. It had felt a little more manageable. Returning to the mountain hadn't really been something he'd wanted to do, exactly, but he didn't see that there was much option.

While part of Anakin might want to just sneak off and survive on his own somewhere for a while… most of him knew that it wouldn't help. It wouldn't work… certainly it wouldn't work without someone else, and Anakin wouldn't be selfish enough to ask anyone else to give up the family and friends they had here to go with him. So that was a non-thing: A thing that couldn't and wouldn't happen. And he wouldn't be selfish enough to disappear from his family here either. So, all of those things settled it. He'd would figure out how to do good here - even if it was hard. He wasn't going to turn away from that.

But getting away had put at least some distance between him and it, and Anakin was determined to get over the somewhat rocky start of this new year and to put all of it away. To figure out how to deal with the fact that he died at home, and figure out how to make a difference in this world. Anakin knew he needed something to help heal all of the hurt that the past month had caused. He didn't know even if it was reasonable or rational, but dwelling on it would help no one.

So he'd kept tinkering with his speeder idea. He didn't know if he could make it work, there were still a lot of pieces that were missing and he was good at sort of focusing into the Force and seeing what was needed. The problem was that starting from scratch with almost nothing in the way of fuel source, and no repulsor lifts, and a lot of other lacking things, was a slightly different exercise than taking a working droid apart and putting it together again, or looking at a mostly working ship and seeing the small pieces that were broken, or barely holding together, or even waking up an ancient space station - apparently. But tinkering was something he could invite his Dad into, and they could work on together, and truthfully, especially after all the memories of Sernpidal and everything that had happened after, Anakin really wanted that time with his Dad.

So it was that he found himself with his father, and the few things they'd managed to salvage from what had at one point been some sort of space related launching site, and a hell of a lot of uncomfortable. But, at least the uncomfortable here was something Anakin could face head-on rather than all the uncomfortable that seemed to lurk inside his heart and make him feel helpless.

"I haven't really looked over all of it," he told his Dad. "But I thought maybe something could be used to make a speeder somehow." He had no idea why he was so stuck on this idea recently, but he was. He was going to succeed at this. It was like, if he could succeed at this, then maybe he could beat all the other stuff too. "What do you think?"

Han carefully examined the salvage parts around him. He'd done his fair share of repairs, what with the Falcon being a perpetual work-in-progress, and he liked to think that he knew a thing or two about being a mechanic. It was one thing, however, to live in a world where flight was not only possible but a necessity, and another to be stuck here. It was surprising to him that a remnant of this Earth had ever been in space. Looking over what they had, he suspected that this was going to be very much an uphill battle.

"I think we've got a lot of work to do." He picked up one of the pieces closest to him. "So, we better get started…"

Han didn't look over at Anakin as he considered how to sort out the parts around them. He didn't need to. He suspected that what was bothering Anakin would come out eventually, and that it would inevitably relate back to what was bothering himself. That he'd died in the future -- that they both died in some variation of the future -- seemed now to be an irrefutable fact. That he didn't want to talk about it was another.

Tinkering was therapy for Anakin and in one of those ways he was pretty certain he and his Dad were alike, he was pretty certain it was for Han too. With his Dad it was always the Falcon, fixing this thing or that thing, usually with Chewie nearby and when Anakin had gotten older he'd been delighted when he'd been given the opportunity to do something with it. And so it had been only natural when he'd found out things that no one should ever have to find out about their rather too near future, that he'd turned back to tinkering. There had been the droid/heater catastrophe, but this speeder idea Anakin really wanted to make work. Even if it wasn't a true speeder… even if it was just more like a motored bike - he wanted it to work.

He picked up what he was pretty certain at some point had been some sort of coolant system and considered it. Through the Force he could see that there were fracture places along the inside - the sort of thing that would be likely to make it fail pretty early. He could also guess that with the right equipment it could be corrected - patched so that it might not fail, or at least not right away. It was otherwise sound, and … working. He hadn't tried it yet, but he was like 99% positive that if he repaired the fractures, it would work. He just knew that.

"We could possibly use a torch to do some welding and repair on this piece," he said, holding it out to his Dad. "It's got little cracks - but they're not bad. I think it's working otherwise."

Taking the piece from Anakin, Han looked it over before adding it to the pile of potentially useful pieces. It was a small, but growing collection of scraps that could have been more easily classified as junk than of any use to anyone. "We'll have to see what kind of tools they have in infrastructure. They've got to have something for holding this rock together…" He surveyed what they had, putting together pieces in his mind to compare what they had with what they needed. Han didn't have the Force. He'd always believed that he didn't need it. But he didn't know now if that was true, or simply arrogance, or if maybe he had the Force, could he have stopped them? It was the same line of questioning that had plagued him since Sernpidal. If he had flown the Falcon, could he have stopped the inevitable?

He didn't need an outside presence to tell him the answer was no. He couldn't have prevented Chewie's death anymore than he could have prevented his sons from falling to the dark side. And yes, it was sons now, a plurality that he hadn't really prepared himself for. Was there something about him and Leia that made it impossible for his children to be happy?

He picked up an old piece of what might have been a radio, once. Now, it was rusted and broken in all the wrong places, a piece of junk. "Something like this will do. It's seen better days, but we can make it work."

Anakin looked over at the metal. It was rusted in places, but again it wasn't impossible that they could make it work. There was a lot of making things work here and most of those things were with items that he would not have tried to anything with at home. But he nodded at his Dad's assessment, agreeing with it. He had the Force, and he could easily look at things through it, but he'd learned so much just by watching his Dad and Chewie, absorbed it through conversations between the two of them, and just the hundred questions he'd asked as a kid.

The memories were at once comforting and sort of painful. Chewie was here now, and he had his entire family here, but he knew that everything changed. He knew his father blamed him - and that he hadn't here - well, Anakin didn't know exactly what to say to that. It was weird to apologize for something that they'd both only lived in memories. And weirder still when Chewie was here and weirder still when he knew he would die in the future and he knew his father knew it.

He dug into another pile of stuff and pulled out a pile of wires. They were mostly unsalvageable, but there was a plug on the end. "I think this is okay," he pulled off the plug and handed it over to his dad.

For a moment he was quiet and dug through the piles again. "So… did you talk to mom at all?"

"About?" He looked over at his son, forgetting for just a moment that they were half-surrounded in junk. He was too busy processing the half-dozen meanings that question could have. "Her future?"

He didn't know what Leia might have told Anakin, only that he knew she'd have to tell them. Or was that his responsibility now that he died? He'd been hard on his oldest son for keeping secrets, but now it all made sense. Even if he'd come to accept what happened, he found he didn't necessarily want to share those experiences. And more so, knowing that none of the children he knew and loved were there in that future.

"It doesn't mean anything." There was no hesitation in the statement. Even if his hands were shaking as he picked up an old antenna, it didn't mean anything. "She's still…"

But whatever ending he might have made to that sentence didn't come. Leia was different, and no amount of bravado or improvisation could change that.

"I know," Anakin said immediately and with more defensiveness than he intended. And he did know. He'd pushed back immediately, and he'd felt … well, he'd felt invisible for lack of a better word. He didn't know if it would have been easier to learn there was some other universe version of him where he had a happy life, or not. He could only say that learning that he apparently didn't exist in another one had hurt more than he felt it was reasonable for it to hurt. Dying should have hurt worse. Or maybe dying had hurt worse and this was just reopening that wound. Regardless he had pushed back from his mother and he knew that had hurt her feelings.

"She's still mom," he finished Han's sentence, even if it wasn't originally what his father had been going to say. Anakin couldn't help but wonder though what happened if his mom did show up. If he had two mom's as Jaina had said could happen. What then?

He dug his hand into a large metal cylinder getting a scratch down the top of his hand, greasy fingers, and what seemed it might be a spark plug of some variety for his trouble. It looked - well felt - surprisingly new for under the circumstances.

"This is good," he told his dad, adding it to the pile and then wiping his hands on his trousers and examining the scratch. It wasn't bad, not even bleeding that much, and he could wash his hand later and deal with it.

The cylinder he'd been looking through might have been an old coffee can, and was half rusted in the bottom. Anakin looked into it and then set it aside and looked over at his Dad. There was no manual for this conversation. It was a conversation Anakin didn't even know if he wanted to have. After an instant he reached for what was some sort of processing board -- the type of thing that at home might have been the interior working components of an astromech droid, or an X-wing, or almost any appliance. Anakin blew on it gently. The problem with this sort of processing board was the detail at which you had to work, things that couldn't typically be accomplished by human hands. But he might be able to do things that would be otherwise not accomplish-able by locals with the Force.

That made Han pause. "She is, and she's not," he agreed, digging through a haphazard collection of broken wires. None of them looked like they'd be any use to them, not if they wanted something half on the way to working. But they could salvage the metal, maybe transform it into something that did work.

"Did she tell you what happens?" he asked, uncharacteristically uncomfortable with the words. It was the question that Han didn't want to ask, and yet he had asked it. It was out there now, barren and vulnerable, as though knowing what happens in a future where he didn't exist might somehow make it better for Anakin.

Han knew from experience that it wouldn't.

"No, she didn't."

Anakin looked down at the board in front of him and it might have looked as if he were examining it in the Force looking for broken places and where it might be able to be stitched back together. The truth was he was far too emotionally distracted for the sort of intense, pure focus that would tell him immediately if this was the case or not. His Dad had summed up what he'd felt initially. In every important way Anakin could tell that she was, but there were little pieces not the same.

"To be fair, I didn't ask," he added eventually, a wave of guilt rushing over him that he hadn't asked. He could tell his mom was sad, and since he had been purposefully giving her space he wasn't certain if that was because of what she'd said - that she'd wanted her memories to include him and Jacen and Jaina - or if it was because of something that happened to her in the future. If he'd been betting though, it would have been on both. But maybe that was just because he personally felt without hope of a happy ending and he was projecting. But if she'd needed someone to talk to about it? He should have been able to put his own things aside and help her. She was his mom and if he couldn't even put aside his own stuff to help his own mother, what kind of Jedi was he really?

He swallowed, finding himself blinking back sudden moisture at the edge of his eyes, and he focused his vision on the edge of the processor board as his brows furrowed together in a near mimic of the father he was sitting next to. After an instant he lifted the ice blue eyes underneath those brows to gaze at his dad instead of the board. "She told you though."

Han met his son's gaze, struck by how similar they were. And how similar the paths they walked were. "She did." His words seemed to carry the weight of the emotions that he refused to acknowledge. But he recognized that this was something that needed to be said, that couldn't be buried between them like a piece of space junk, eating away at whatever connection they had with each other. That he wanted to respond in the way that he had to Chewie's death was only a reminder that such a response was wrong. He'd learned that much from being here. "And it's nothing like ours."

It was a half-truth. There were differences to the future, but the similarities were what had stood out to him. "Your mom and I only have one son in that universe. His name's Ben, and he goes…" Han picked at the pieces connecting a spark plug, aware of how little he knew about the Force. "Dark. Not Vader dark, but dark. I don't know how it happens. Turns out, I'm not as invincible as I thought." He wanted his meaning to be clear: he didn't make it in that other universe. But somehow, those words just didn't come. Instead, he said, "your mom's got a tough path ahead of her."

Anakin kept his gaze on his Dad's face. Sometimes it was odd looking at his father here - he looked so much younger, like something out of one of Anakin's memories almost, and nothing like the memories he'd more recently dreamed through. Still he knew his Dad well enough to know little things, to feel emotional shifts, to read the lines even without doing so in the Force, and while it might not be perfect right now he could look at what his Dad failed to say as much as what he did.

He'd gathered enough from what was said on the Network that there was no Yuuzhan Vong in that version of the galaxy, or if they were there, they lurked on the edges still and for whatever reason had not chosen to attack the New Republic. And for a while, Anakin had to admit there had been some jealousy - an Imperial Remnant, well, yes, it could cause problems and portions of the Empire had caused problems for most of his childhood - but it was nothing compared to the utter world destruction of the Yuuzhan Vong. But this simple piece of the puzzle snapped everything back into place. His mom's sadness, and the way everyone had been startled by the fact that he and Jacen and Jaina existed, and his dad's comment - I'm not as invincible as I thought.

Anakin didn't know what he was feeling at any of this. Maybe he'd had so much emotion running through him recently that there was no more left to have. No anger, no fear, no dark side looking over his shoulder and just waiting for him to make the wrong call. There was the inevitable realization that it wasn't what he wanted, not for his mom, not for his dad - who apparently was still with his mom in another universe - not for… he hadn't really thought about having siblings that weren't siblings, but having lived in the shadow of his grandfather's legacy Anakin wouldn't have wanted it for them either. His mother hadn't mentioned having a child, but why would she - it wasn't as if Anakin had been doing a fantastic job of holding himself together recently. His lips pressed together with some frustration with himself, but he could do better. He would do better. Jacen was right that he had a choice in what he did and how he did it.

There was an instant where he thought he'd stay where he was, but it passed and he pushed himself up and walked over to his Dad and wrapped his arms around him in a hug although whether it was for himself or his father he really couldn't say. It just felt like the right thing to do in the moment, and Anakin wasn't going to question that too deeply as he finally said: "It seems like we all do."

Han held his son for a moment, aware that this was something that they both needed. "You're right," he agreed, stepping back. "Least we're all in it together this time." It wasn't exactly a forthcoming confession, but the sentiment was there. Han was glad that they were all together in this universe. Whatever hands fate decided to deal them, they could handle it. And maybe the Force was an unknown, maybe Han didn't have much experience with alternate realities, but he knew his family.

"Now, about this speeder…" In spite of his need to push on against the odds and his own son's Force abilities, he didn't think the growing pile of junk looked promising. "We might need to enlist some outside help, if we're going to get this thing off the ground."

Anakin offered his Dad a grin. Together was doable. And the family was more or less together, even if his Mom did hail from some other reality. She'd at least gotten the memories after being here and knowing them, rather than arriving new from that universe. It could have most certainly been worse.

"The panel might be good, at least I can spend some time on it, but programming it's only like 10% of the problem," Anakin admitted, stepping back and putting both hands on his hips as he stared at the pile. "We need some larger parts, and there's going to be a challenge with the repulsor lifts regardless of what we find on that larger part scenario. And I don't know how to actually create that from scratch. Did you have an idea?" He glanced over at his Dad.

"We'll have to scavenge the larger parts, maybe once the snows stop...." Han didn't know how long that would be, but he figured their best bet was finding supplies like that outside the mountain. "We can scout for what we need. And until then, see what we can do about those repulsor lifts. I've got a few ideas that might work, and if not, there's always...something." He didn't know what that something was just yet, but he was willing to push for it.

"It'd be nice if the snow would stop," Anakin mused and then knelt back down pulling out another piece and taking a look at it. "We can make this happen. There's always something, and it's not impossible," His jaw set with determination as he considered the part in front of him. Part of an engine he was pretty certain and maybe something that could be mixed with some sort of solar energy, as he stared at it, his mind slightly clearer than it had been a few minutes prior despite the news that he'd gotten, he was able to visualize the ways that it might fit together and work. "But yeah, we can solve it."