Hi, how are ya? This is my first entry in my on-going modern Skywalker family series. I don't know how often I'll make additions, but if people show interest in this series I'll try to add more stories as soon and as much as possible.
Please review.
Stick Together Like Glue
A Modern Family Series Entry
Leia always rushed. In her work, in her play, in her mad scramble to the door to escape for lunch. Especially on Fridays. Fridays were the days that her mother slipped cookies and extra treats into her lunchbox. Not always the nicest treats, like the cookies with raisins, but that was what her brother was for.
Luke was not usually the most difficult to trade with, so far as brothers went. He could be easily persuaded, she knew, with promises for the best of her cookies next week, and then he would promptly forget before the next Friday. If she was very persuasive she might even get one of the paper wrapped candies that were so often hidden among their sandwiches.
Of course in order to get his cookies, Leia stormed out the door, she had to get there before he'd eaten them all. She joined the eager flood of school children, all rushing to friends and games and their waiting food, elbowing and shoving with the best of them. She didn't mind it when they shoved back. She was small, but she was strong. At least for being six.
They'd been sitting down to eat lunch, exchanging sandwiches and the small treats their mother had included in their near identical lunch boxes when it all went wrong. It had seemed like any other day at school- they often sat together to eat lunch so Leia could show her brother whatever she'd done in class that day, and plan their mischief for when they got home. She'd been bargaining for Luke's last cookie (unsuccessfully) when she saw him approach.
"Hey, Skywalker!"
It was one of the boys from Luke's class, slightly older, not much bigger. But big enough. She didn't know him, nor his name, but from the way Luke's head hung low at his approach, he seemed to. Luke seemed to shrink, if only a little, as he turned to face the boy, whose smile seemed a little too wide for his freckled face.
"We're all going to skip after lunch. You coming?" his tone was mocking, sounded like a twisted smile, "Huh, Skywalker?"
Now that he was closer she realized he was actually quite a bit bigger than her brother, whose roughest activities were scrambling over the rocks in their garden, in the pursuit of the brightest butterfly. This boy looked rather more seasoned.
Luke shook his shaggy blond head, wordlessly, red cheeks and fingers gripping the seat so tight the knuckles began to whiten.
"Didn't think so, wuss," the smile vanished in an instant, and suddenly the boy was standing far too close to her gentle brother, "and you'd better not say anything."
"I won't," Luke leaned back, as though to escape the boy, and looked at her, "I wouldn't do that."
"Better not, little Skywalker," the boy grinned, "too chicken to do that though, aren't ya?"
Luke, do something! Leia willed him, nudging his arm and glaring daggers at the older boy. Don't let him talk to you like that.
Luke shrugged, and looked down at his toes, where he was brushing them against the ground. Of course he wouldn't do anything. It was Luke. Luke didn't do that sort of thing. Her gentle brother wasn't like the boys that pulled the wings off of flies. He was a boy that preferred to save those poor, wingless cripples.
"What, you're ignoring me now? Or you just shy? Huh?"
"What's your problem!," Leia snapped, "Leave him alone!"
Luke and the boy both blinked at her, surprised that the tiniest Skywalker had dared to jump into the conversation. And Luke knew her well enough to know that his little sister was fuming.
"What, you got your little sister to stick up for you? That's so cute," the boy began to laugh, at both of them now, "You're such a wussy, Luke."
She didn't realize she'd bounded out of her seat until she was peering up into his face, fists clenched at her sides, her pigtails only lightly more askew than normal.
"Leave my brother alone," she said, with all the six year old might in the world, "you're being mean."
And being mean wasn't right. Being mean to her brother was worse. Made her want to-
He looked down at her, from a height that seemed to grow larger by the minute. Her own brown eyes met a pair that were narrowed and forest green.
"You his protector or something?" The boy began to laugh, "Must have got you mixed up. You must be the brother. I guess that makes Luke your little sister, huh?"
She was vaguely aware that other people were laughing.
Laughing at Luke.
Her eyes stung with furious tears. She'd never been so angry in all her life.
She was also only vaguely aware that she'd taken a step forward and she was angrier than she knew was possible. She could hear him chanting something. Something to her brother. Something about her brother.
"Shut. Up." she said.
"Make me."
So she did.
And suddenly he was on the ground- and she was standing there with a clenched fist and an open mouth. Everything was quiet. Everyone was quiet.
The boy on the ground had a face as red as an apple, and green eyes wide with shock and… was it fear? Lips trembling he cupped one eye and Leia saw fat tears begin to roll down his pale, freckled face.
Leia let her fist drop to her side, and then she simply knew she'd done something that perhaps wasn't the right thing. Or it had been the right thing… just… also the wrong thing? Her hand stung, ached even. She'd punched him hard.
Luke was grabbing at her hand and tugging her away from the entire scene. She followed him, a rarity for them. Usually she was the one pulling him every which way.
"Are you gunna tell Mom?" Leia asked him as they walked home, hand in hand. Her mother insisted that Luke hold her hand so neither got get hurt. Any number of dangers and bullies existed when you were only six.
"No," Luke looked at her, confused, "why would I do that?"
"Nevermind," Leia giggled, "silly question."
"Yeah," Luke gripped her hand a little tighter, "brothers don't tell that sort of thing."
She laughed, and inspected the bruises littering the knuckles of her free right hand.
Worth it.
Padme always hit speakerphone whenever someone called at dinner- no point in pausing an entire meal for someone who couldn't be bothered with so much as ringing the doorbell. She savored little, old fashioned things like that. Phone calls were so impersonal.
So when the phone rang beside her at the dinner table she simply pressed the speaker phone icon, and hushed Leia from the lively story she'd been telling about her art lesson (though Padme was rather eager to hear exactly why her daughter had come home in a shirt covered in paint. Again.)
"Hello?" Padme speared a piece of lettuce on the end of her fork.
"Am I speaking with Mrs. Skywalker?" the voice was cool, official.
"And co!" Padme beamed down the table at Anakin as he continued to dig into his dinner eagerly, "Who am I speaking with?"
"Ms. Shaak Ti, school office," a brief pause and Padme couldn't help but turn her eyes to Leia, "I hope I haven't called at a bad time."
Leia...
"Mrs. Skywalker, I need to talk to you about an incident that occurred on the playground today."
Padme watched, eagle eyed, as her children made eye contact over their dinner plates.
Really? Luke, you too?
"An incident?" Padme stared hard at the two of them, watching little Leia shuffle uncomfortably in her chair, "what happened?"
"Leia… attacked another child on the playground today. An older boy," the voice coughed, "she gave him a black ey-"
Padme snatched up the phone, and snapped it off speakerphone, pressing it to her ear and drinking in the story, never taking her eyes from Leia, who had the six year old smarts enough to not take her eyes from her plate.
Leia, what on earth have you done?
"Yes. Yes. Thank you. Yes, I'm sure." Padme managed to respond from her state of shock, "I will. Thank you for calling."
Padme placed the phone back on the stand as though it were as fragile as glass. Then she looked at it as though it might bite her, sucking her teeth.
My children aren't ruffians. They don't do things like that.
She took a deep breath. Leia had always been too wild, and too full of energy. She and Anakin broke the silence at the same time.
"You did what?" Padme said, in a voice like thunder and lightning.
"You did what?" Anakin said through his laughter, "That's my girl."
"Anakin!"
"What?"
"Anakin!"
"Right. Sorry dear," Padme watched her husband stifle an obvious laugh, "Leia, I'm sure there was a reason."
"There's no reason to hit someone. Ever," Padme corrected him.
"Leia," Anakin turned to their more seriously, his face no longer jovial, "I hope there was a reason."
Padme saw Luke nod to her, reassuringly. He'd always had his sister's back. Though really, she frowned, he should have told her what had happened if he knew.
"There was a reason," Luke said, turning his serious eyes to Anakin, "I promise, Dad. Mom."
"You were there?" Padme turned to Luke in surprise, "You saw her attack a boy on the playground?"
"I didn't attack him."
They all turned to her.
"Well then, what happened, Leia?" Padme took yet another deep breath, "We're all waiting."
Leia explained, in worried words, what had happened. How she'd watched her brother's cheeks go redder, and his head dip lower as the words came at him from such an arrogant mouth. How there had been others who came after, and were laughing at her brother, and that simply couldn't happen. It made Padme's stomach twist to imagine a group of children- probably bigger than her boy, circling him, laughing. That wasn't meant to happen. And there was nothing she could do about it, not when he was at school.
"… so I punched him," Leia finished uncertainly, "I didn't mean to hit him in the eye."
"But you still meant to punch him!" Padme sighed, "Leia, what am I going to do with you?"
"Skywalkers have to stick together, Padme," her husband said quietly, then to Leia, "you were very brave, and you backed your brother up. I've always told the two of you that that's what I expect from you."
"Anakin."
"No, really," he turned his blue eyes to her, "Skywalkers have to stick together. She saw her brother being hurt by another boy and she made sure it stopped. What else should she have done?"
"Gotten a teacher, for one thing," Padme said tersely, "they could have walked away, they could have gotten a teacher, they could have ignored it."
She watched Luke's mouth curl into a small smile. Leia's mouth mirrored it. They knew that their mother was running out of arguments, though she was no less displeased. Padme didn't approve of her children being impolite to other children, let alone blackening their eyes. But it was hard to argue that Leia hadn't simply protected her brother. And wasn't that the duty of all siblings?
Padme sighed, shrugged, and turned to Leia, who was hiding her usual, mischievous grin.
"Leia," she said sternly, "I don't want to hear about this sort of thing again. But just this once, I know that you thought you were doing the right thing."
Leia nodded, and her thoughts were clear as day to Padme, though they remained unsaid.
I was doing the right thing.
With that, Leia cleaned her plate, rather pleased with herself. She didn't dare look at Luke, nor he at her, for fear of the giggles that they knew would have erupted. Her mother cleared the table, her father helped, hiding his own smile.
"Vanilla or chocolate?" her mother called.
"Vanilla!"
"Chocolate!"
Leia grinned. She and Luke could never agree on which was best. And they never seemed to end up having the same flavor. Chocolate for her, vanilla for him.
To her surprise, when she sat, poised to bury her spoon into her bowl of rich chocolate, there were two more scoops than usual. Delighted, she advanced, dissecting each globe of ice cream with fervor.
Her father's hand came down to pat her on the head, and he grinned to her with a smile not unlike her own.
"Skywalkers stick together, right?" he winked at her plus sized ice cream portion, "We look after each other, don't we?"
Leia looked, first at her mother who stood with the dishes in the kitchen - paying them no mind, then her father, who beamed down at her before returning to her mother's side, armed with a towel for drying.
And lastly, at Luke, who was grinning back at her over his bowl of white ice cream.
"I owe you all my cookies next week," he promised.
Skywalkers. We stick together, Leia took a proud bite of her well earned ice cream, all of us.