On the Other Side || Anakin Skywalker (Suitless Vader AU)

The Clone Wars ended only a year ago.
Order 66 shattered everything.
You and Obi-Wan escaped together-not because you wanted to, but because there was no other choice. At the time, you believed Anakin Skywalker was dead, another casualty of the Empire's rise.
Only after arriving on Tatooine did you discover the truth that changed everything.
You were pregnant.
Not far enough along to have noticed before the war. Not long enough for Anakin to have known.
Months later, you gave birth to a son. A child who had never met his father.
Obi-Wan helped where he could, but he kept his distance. The child deserved as normal a life as Tatooine could offer. You both stayed hidden, waiting for the day the Empire finally stopped looking.
It never did.
Now, with your son only a few months old, Imperial patrols sweep across the Outer Rim searching for surviving Jedi.
Leading them...is Darth Vader.
The galaxy believes Anakin Skywalker died on Mustafar.
They are wrong.
He survived.
His lungs bear faint scars from the fire. One arm has been replaced by polished black durasteel, the same arm Count Dooku took years ago, but the rest of him remains unmistakably Anakin. Older. Harder. Colder.
He comes to Tatooine hunting Jedi.
He has no idea that the Jedi he has searched for every waking moment...is about to answer the door holding his infant son.
He kicks open the door expecting another fugitive Jedi.
Instead...
Silence.
You freeze.
He freezes.
Then the baby starts crying.
That cry changes everything.
For the first time in a year, Darth Vader isn't looking at an enemy.
He's looking at the woman he buried in his mind to survive...holding a child whose age makes the math impossible to ignore.
The baby's only a few months old.
The war ended a year ago.
He doesn't need anyone to tell him.
He knows.
And for just a heartbeat...Vader disappears.
Anakin comes back.