Chapter Text
When Barry finds himself tumbling face first into sweltering sand, superspeeding feet getting caught in its loose grains, he knows immediately that he's very far from home.
With a groan, spitting out a mouthful of sand, he looks around, not recognizing anything around him. Why would he? It's not like there's any deserts in Central City.
He does his best to run on the sand though his feet keep getting caught and nearly tripping him. Plus, with the exhaustion of his run with the tachyon device and the blazing heat of the sun, his only reprieve is the suit's cooling fabric designed to combat the excessive amounts of friction and heat made while he runs.
As he finally begins to approach what looks to be civilization, there's a shrill scream of anguish.
Sand be damned, Barry sprints toward whoever let out the pained sound. A woman is being unclothed by a group in oddly familiar masks and robes, her body already covered in bruises and lashes.
Barry takes no pause and knocks out the people (creatures?) and slows to normal speed, carefully approaching the woman.
She flinches back away from him and he holds his hands up in hopes to placate her fear.
"I won't let them hurt you, miss," Barry says.
"Who… who are you?" she whispers.
"I'm The Flash." He smiles gently. "And I'm going to get you out of here, okay? Can you tell me where you live so I can take you home?"
"I live on a moisture farm in Mos Espa," she says, voice cracking from her screams.
Barry obviously has no idea where that is but he's sure he can figure it out.
"Cliegg must be worried sick," she murmurs.
"Cliegg?" Barry repeats.
"My husband," she says. "I've been gone for nearly a week."
"I'll get you home to your husband," Barry promises. "Do you two have any kids?"
"I had a son before I met Cliegg, my Ani," she says, lips turning up with a fond smile. "And then I got another wonderful son when we married, Owen."
Something itches in the back of Barry's mind again but he disregards it, the familiarity not important now.
"Do you have any things that they took?" She nods wordlessly. "You grab those and we can head out."
When she turns to gather her stuff, Barry does a few laps around until he gets a sense of where Mos Espa is.
"Are you a desert spirit?" she asks. "Come to guide me away to the after?"
Barry shakes his head. "No, no. Nothing like that. I just move faster than others."
"You're special then," she says. "My Ani was special and that's why he went away."
Barry makes a mental note to ask about that later, worried about a possible meta trafficking situation.
"Do you feel comfortable with me carrying you?" he asks. "I'm going to run you home. It may be a bit disorienting."
"I want to go home," she whispers.
Taking that as confirmation, he picks her up, carefully making sure she's got a steady grip on him, and runs towards where he had seen the signs reading Mos Espa.
"You're going to have to guide me from here," Barry tells her.
With careful direction, she leads him to her home.
Barry has never felt heat like this and he can't wait to strip off his suit and hop into a cool shower.
"You're not from around here, are you?" she asks.
He shakes his head. "No. How could you tell?"
"You're not dressed for the two suns. And you're so pale. No one around here can stay pale.”
He freezes. "Two suns?"
She points to the sky and finally Barry notices the two glowing circles illuminating them and the endless sand around them.
Barry goes still as her home comes into view.
"Holy shit," Barry breathes. "I'm on Tatooine."
The woman — Shmi freaking Skywalker, Anakin Skywalker's mom — leads him in and her husband and son tackle her into a relieved embrace.
Her husband, Cliegg, thanks Barry profusely, shaking his hand with his own trembling one.
Barry tries to remain calm as he takes in the man's gratefulness, trying not to panic about the fact that he: 1. somehow has found himself in Star Wars, 2. just saved the woman whose death would lead to the first taste of darkness that Darth Vader would have, and 3. Barry's connection to the Speed Force is beginning to dwindle the more he uses his speed.
All of these things are worrying, but the fact that Barry has no idea what his changes will do to the narrative is the most worrying.
Barry had never been a big prequels guy. The Empire Strikes Back is one of his favorite movies. He grew up on the Original Trilogy. But the prequels? It just wasn't his thing.
And yet here he's found himself, in the prequels, regretting that he never really watched them.
Barry knows the dangers of messing with the timeline and he's just messed with it bad. What if Luke and Leia don't get born because of this?
Wait…
What if Anakin Skywalker doesn't become Darth Vader?
Could Barry stop him from falling to the Dark Side? Should he?
There's a careful balance that he's messing with. Fixing one thing could make something go irreperably worse.
Though how much worse can it get than Palpatine becoming the Emperor, enslaving the galaxy for twenty years until the heroes take it down. And even then, from what little Barry knows about the recent sequel, The Force Awakens, it doesn't look like things have really changed for the better.
And clearly this isn't a movie. These are real people. So what right does Barry have to mess with their lives?
But would him standing back and doing nothing be even worse? Knowing their possible fate and not even trying to help them?
And in that moment, Barry knows exactly what he has to do.
.-~*~-.
Barry stays with the Lars for a few days, him having the flimsy excuse that he's waiting for his ride home to pick him up.
He just doesn't mention that that ride is Shmi's son who hopefully will be showing up in the next couple days due to his nightmare visions that have been plaguing him.
When Anakin Skywalker bursts through the door of the homestead, the first thing Barry thinks is "wow, he's tall."
His second thought is that he's younger than he expected. Barry knows, distantly, that Anakin was young when his mom died, but the young man clinging to his mother with tears streaming down his cheeks can't be any older than 19.
Padme Amidala stands behind him politely, not interrupting the reunion. Barry feels his cheeks warm at the sight of her, knowing that his teenage self definitely had a crush on her.
When Anakin finally peels himself away from his mother, he notices Barry, standing with his shoulders squared at the sight of the stranger.
"Mom," Anakin says, "who is this?"
"This is the man who saved me," Shmi says. "Barry."
Anakin's eyes narrow at Barry. "The force is turbulent around you"
"I wouldn't know," Barry says.
"Really?" Anakin says doubtfully. "It's strong with you."
"Cool," Barry breathes, not being able to help his fascination with the thing that he pretended to wield as a little boy suddenly being real.
"May I speak to you, alone?"
"Ani—" Shmi starts.
"It's fine, Shmi," Barry says. "I'm sure Anakin has his own questions."
Anakin leads Barry to the garage, filled with tools and half fixed projects.
"I don't sense darkness within you," Anakin says. "But I don't sense light either. The force, it's like it's a sandstorm around and in you, always in motion."
God, Barry's an idiot. The speed force. It must be an equivalent entity to what the force is here.
"I must insist you come with me back to Coruscant," Anakin says.
And Barry, giddy at just the thought of seeing the Jedi Temple for himself, nods eagerly.
Maybe if Barry's lucky he'll even get to hold a real lightsaber! Cisco is gonna lose it when he finds out.
Barry says his goodbye to the Lars family before joining Padme and Anakin back to their ship (their real, actual spaceship!!!).
Barry prepares himself for the incoming interrogation. What will he say? What can he say?
Well, one thing he knows for sure. He will not let Anakin fall. He will find a way to stop the Empire from forming. And he will learn how to wield the force even if the speed force is just a distant cousin of it.
C'mon. He's in Star Wars.