The Rogues were glad to have their Commander back after Bespin, but it was obvious to his friends that something besides the new prosthetic was wrong. So the fantabulous four dragged him aside to find out what had gone wrong on the city in the clouds, not expecting what they got, but not completely surprised either.

The idea brings its own problems, of course. Rey was a one for so long that it’s been hard to get used to being a two with Finn, but at least for that she has seen models that she could learn from, even living and scavenging in the wastes of Jakku. There were some raggedy families headed up by parents; one or two young couples who shared their food and took turns sheltering each other from the sun. She has no frame of reference for this, for threeness, but she knows she wants it. Never mind that she’s never seen it done before. She’ll have to make it up as she goes; at least she’s good at that. There’s the family you’re born into, and then there’s the one you make for yourself.

"So either you're not here or you're not living," she says. "I'm definitely here," he replies, and there's amusement in his voice.

In which Tobirama is sort of Obi-Wan, Madara is Anakin but not quite, and Obito and Kakashi don’t quite fit the roles of Asajj Ventress and Luke Skywalker but try their best regardless.

“This,” Xanatos says with perfect conviction, “is going to be an absolute disaster, I can't believe you agreed to this.”

“We’re getting a commander?” a loud voice asks, delighted as it carries through the trees.

“What is that?” Thire asks, wrinkling his nose as Fox marches past him. He immediately turns to open a window. Fox snorts, lifting a boot to kick Thorn where he’s sprawled out on the couch. Thorn groans, but raises his head, and Fox jerks his head at him. “A Jedi,” he answers, and Thorn freezes, eyes widening.

"If you say I told you so, I'm going to feed you to a sarlacc," Jango growls, stalking right past Jaster and into the keep, trailing slime.

Padme lives. She runs. -- Leia is growing in fits and spurts, eating greedily and crying loudly. She stays in a sling on Padme’s chest when they move, Luke held snug in a sling around Obi Wan’s. Luke gets a whole head of thick brown hair while Leia’s is still patchy and bald, but he never matches his sister’s powerful lungs. When Padme had been sitting in her high senatorial apartment on Corsucant, holding Anakin’s sweaty hand, she had never imagined she’d be murmuring desperately soothing noises to her fussy daughter while she shot around a corner at stormtroopers, while R2D2 meddles with a ship’s blast doors behind her. Luke starts teething on a hot jungle planet where they hunker down for three weeks, sleeping in an abandoned old temple and catching the local wildlife for dinner. Leia takes her first steps in the belly of a Corellian freighter they’ve stowed away on. She wobbles between Padme’s outstretched hands and Obi Wan’s knees and boxes of smuggled luxuries. When she falls down, Obi Wan surges forward, heart in his throat, but Leia laughs.

Commander Ponds whirls around at the sound of Mace’s step and bolts up to his feet. He begs Mace not to take Boba back to Kamino. He says that he’ll look after him. He’ll take responsibility. With hands pressed together, he pleads for mercy for his brother. Mace tells him not to be ridiculous. Of course he isn’t taking Boba back to Kamino. He’s waiting, that’s all. It is only fair to give everyone a second chance. Even Jango Fett. (An AU where Mace Windu acquires and shares custody over a six-year-old Boba with Jango.)

Later, he will say it was a calculated choice, that he looked at the odds and looked at the clones and decided that better the Jedi he didn't know than the Sith he did. This is, as it happens, a bare faced lie. (or: A Sith Lord realises, abruptly and rather late, that war means casualties, and decides that the great Jedi genocide plan can go fuck itself.)

“Can't kriffing believe he sent a Naboo to kriffing Tatooine,” Owen says, too loud, but—they're in the middle of the wilderness. There's no one who’s going to hear him except the Force, and if it does hear him, he hopes it turns around and beats some light-bedamned sense into Obi-Wan Kenobi’s skull. In his lap, fully entranced by the corner of the blanket Owen has him bundled in, Luke coos, beams, and flips his tail. The fancy, flowing, colorful fins slap Owen’s thigh, and he sighs, tugs the bottom of the wrap down to hide as much as he can.

As a rule, Commander Fox avoided direct contact with the Guard's shinies. It was better not to know them, to let them see her as the intimidating Marshal Commander and let her reputation as a hard-ass scare them into following the rules and regulations that would keep them safe. But when she stumbled across a shiny in need of some comfort, Fox did her best to provide.

“Is the kid in trouble?” “No, of course not—I was just, uh, wondering, Mr. Djarin, if you could tell me about Grogu’s typical diet—I only have limited experience with his species, and I have reason to be... concerned that he’s not getting the enough nutrients here,” said Master Skywalker carefully, the kid sitting beside him, not looking particularly remorseful. Dank farrik, not again, Din thought.