"It's Father's Day."

16 year old Anakin Skywalker lay on his sleep couch, staring at the ceiling. He never had a father. For a time he never questioned why. When he finally did his mother had no answers.

"You don't have a father, Ani."

Back then he was too young to understand. He just accepted it. Thought maybe the man had walked out and left his mother behind. Or maybe they were both enslaved together. It was very likely that he was sold to someone else along the way before he was born, never to be heard from again.

That wasn't the case. It didn't sink in until he was older. I don't have a father. There was no name to be found. The man simply didn't exist. Later on as he became a Padawan Learner he tried to explain it Obi-Wan, but is was Obi-Wan who explained it to him.
"You never could have had a father, Anakin. You were conceived by the very Force itself."
That's why everyone thought he was this so-called "Chosen One".

So did that mean the Force was his father? It was too strange to think about. To be a father, you had to father a child. You also had to raise it. He wasn't raised by the Force. He wasn't raised by anyone else besides his mother. It had never bothered him this much before. I never needed one before and I don't need one now. I'm here to be a Jedi, not to question my existence.

So he stopped thinking about it, at least for a time. At least up until the past two weeks. He'd never heard of father's day until he came here. The Jedi didn't celebrate it. They celebrated few holidays. It was a few years before he really knew about it. He was 13 and he was on a training mission. They ran into some civilians and a woman asked him if he was vacationing with his father for Father's Day.

That's stupid. He had thought. But the questions pressed at him. In the end, he admitted to the woman that he was a Jedi and that he didn't know what the holiday was about.
"Oh," She seemed surprised and a little embarrassed by the way her purple complexion turned a shade deeper. "Well it's a day life forms celebrate their fathers and fathers everywhere for all the hard work they do."
He wasn't sure what to think about it. It occurred to him that there was a mother's day as well and he felt bad for never knowing about it until he was no longer with his mother.

Right then though, he told her curtly that it didn't matter to him because he didn't have a father. She asked him why not.

"Who was that man with you earlier?"

"My master. He's training me here."

"Isn't he like your father?"

The thought puzzled him. He'd never had anyone vaguely close to a father. And he wasn't exactly adopted by Obi-Wan.
He had stammered, struggling over an answer.
The woman continued kindly in explanation as her husband came over.

"A father is someone who raises, nurtures, cares for, and protects someone and helps them grow up to be the best person they can be."

The couple walked away, Anakin returned to his master, they completed the training mission and went home.

It took him a while to get it but eventually he did. You didn't have to be related to someone to call them family. Well, he had known that. But that time it struck him in a different way. The Jedi may have had their rules about attachment, but they were a family: with father figures, mother figures, brothers, sisters, the interesting extended family...Everything. He knew well what Qui-Gon had meant to his master. He was reminded of it every day. It was the only reason he was being trained at all. Obi-Wan loved his master and wanted to fulfill his dying wish.

However, because he knew that, it created friction between them for some time. The past few years of his training had been the most difficult. He finally deduced that Obi-Wan didn't care. He was trying too hard to be the perfect master who followed the guidebook and wasn't willing to bond with him and figure out how to be the master that Anakin needed. So he closed himself up, did what he was told because he had to. Mostly he tried to figure things out by himself. Not that he figured he could. If something went wrong he blamed his master for not being precise.

Anything the man told him wasn't relevant to him. Lectures. So many lectures. He hated them and tried not to show resentment when they were given. Sometimes, he would do things to try to show his master that he could be a good student, just to see if his master was proud of him. It only brought lessons on pride, being audacious, and being arrogant. Never once did he ever tell him he was proud of anything Anakin did. Subtle complements were given. He surmised that it was because his master didn't want him developing hubris, even if he probably was proud of him. But his master never said it. So to him, it was like he wasn't at all.

Things had started to change though. He was beginning to see from his master's point of view and as a result they were becoming closer. Now more then ever he was beginning to see the truth of the underlying statement he'd heard years ago: Obi-Wan was the closest thing he had to a father. Despite any reluctance, and even though Anakin didn't always understand his master, he knew that he had been wrong. Obi-Wan cared immensely. It's what so often held him back. As frustrating as it was, it was true. He was trying his best -or what he thought to be the best- to be good to his Padawan. And he deserved to be honored for doing so.

It never occurred to him to actually do anything before. Frankly, he forgot about Father's Day all over again until the HoloNet started running advertisements for it. Is it even appropriate? He sat up and stretched. I'm thinking too much about this. No appreciation would be given by merely sitting and thinking. But he didn't know what to do. I'm probably the only Jedi in the entire Order worried about today. Over the course of the week, he'd tried to figure out what average civilians did for the holiday. They did a lot...and nothing he had time (or the courage) to do.

Letting out a heavy sigh, he stood and straightened his white tunic. Time to evade training for the next few hours and plan something adequate.