Summary: Luke's favorite therapist, Dr. Jinn, has been attacked in his own home! Luke is almost certain he knows who is responsible, and he and Darth undergo some father/son bonding as they try to catch the culprit together. (This story is in line with the AU that I've created through my other Star Wars fanfics. If you want to know more, start with "Dad, Don't Make Us Kill You" and read them chronologically through the dates they were posted.)
Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters or Star Wars.
Dr. Qui-Gon Jinn was relaxing at his comfortable condo in Tatooine, Nevada. Every day after his workday, he drove home, changed into comfortable clothes, and watched the news in his living room. Then his housekeeper served him dinner, and he spent the rest of the evening reading in his study while sipping tea or decaf.
Tonight, the elderly Dr. Jinn, a psychotherapist, was breathing a sigh of relief as he read the paper. One of his clients, a young boy named Luke Skywalker, was going to be all right. About a month ago, Luke and his sister had been abducted from their relatives' farm in Tatooine.
The culprit had been the Skywalkers' father, a former Tatooine businessman named Darth Vader. Vader was desperate to see his kids after they had been taken from his custody during a criminal investigation. But now, it seemed as if Vader had made peace with his stepbrother, and Owen Lars, the kids' uncle, was refusing to press charges as long as he saw his niece and nephew for one weekend a month.
Thank goodness, Dr. Jinn breathed as he turned a page of the paper. Hopefully, Luke will be all right. Dr. Jinn had gone into his patient database earlier that day and found young Luke's e-mail address. He had written his young client an e-mail asking if he was okay. Hopefully, Luke would respond that he was fine, and he wanted to continue with therapy; if not with Jinn, with a therapist in the area where he lived with his father.
Dr. Jinn finished the paper, put it aside, and took a few deep breaths to clear his mind. He rang for his housekeeper to bring him his evening cup of herbal tea; he felt unusually tired and he wanted to drink his evening tea and go to bed. He went to bed early and woke up early.
"Are you okay, Doctor? You've been quieter than usual this evening," Mrs. Strickler, the housekeeper, told him as she served him his tea.
"I'm just tired, Mrs. Strickler. I'll be fine."
Dr. Jinn took a few sips of tea, then got up and made his way to his bedroom. He set his cup of tea down on the nightstand and lay on his bed, wishing to rest his eyes for a few minutes before his toilet routine.
Suddenly, he heard a rustle coming from the window. Mrs. Strickler had left the windows open; the breeze felt nice.
It wasn't a breeze. Before he knew what was happening, a masked intruder leapt in through the open window and started to attack Dr. Jinn, wielding a pair of brass knuckles.
The elderly doctor yelled for help and reached for the phone. The intruder pulled out a knife from his pants pocket and slit deep gashes across his wrists. Dr. Jinn waved his arms in an attempt to throw off the intruder; he was a very ugly man, wearing some kind of red and black mask, all sorts of piercings, and yellow-eyed contacts.
"Help!" Dr. Jinn cried out, summoning all of his strength to continue fighting the man who was whaling on him. The brass knuckles had fallen off, and now the guy was just cracking Jinn's ribs and clawing at his face.
Finally, Mrs. Strickler appeared in Dr. Jinn's bedroom doorway, wielding a shotgun that Dr. Jinn knew was just loaded with blanks; he kept it on his study wall, just for show. She fired a shot straight up in the air, and the intruder, thinking the gun was real, scrambled out of the room, leaping out of the window.
"Doctor Jinn!" Mrs. Strickler cried, rushing over to him. Dr. Jinn was bruised over nearly every inch of his body, his wrists and face bleeding and his chest in severe pain. He couldn't move or speak; as soon as the intruder left, the fight had gone out of him.
Mrs. Strickler picked up the phone and dialed for help, using the blankets on the bed to clot the doctor's wounds.
Sometimes, Luke and Leia Skywalker could communicate without words. Luke even had access to very early memories; even memories from before he was born.
Luke's earliest memory was from when he was about the size of an orange, still inside his mother's belly. He was trying to clear the fuzz from his tiny brain and he realized for the first time that his little arms were wrapped around something...another fetus.
"Er...hello," he said to the other baby. "Am I making you uncomfortable?"
"No, your hug feels good," the other baby replied in a feminine voice. He had a sister!
"Which one of us is older?"
"We're both exactly the same age. But one of us has to be borned first."
"Do you have a name?"
"No." Pause. "I want a name!" she sobbed, and started to cry. Luke started to cry too. He wanted a name!
Luke's most recent memory, on the other hand, was just last night. Leia had stolen Timmy the Tauntaun from his room, and had arranged Timmy and Tina, her own tauntaun, in intimate kissy poses. She took pictures and uploaded them to her Instagram page.
"Leia!" Luke told her angrily. "Don't steal Timmy without asking!"
"You weren't using him!"
Before long, their father had appeared and threatened to kill both of them. This was an everyday occurrence in the Skywalker household, so Luke and Leia both went to bed.
Luke hadn't let Timmy out of his sight since. Timmy may have only been a stuffed animal, but he reminded Luke of how much Luke was loved. Luke was even holding onto Timmy that morning at the kitchen table while C3PO prepared their breakfast.
Threepio was at the stove, flipping pancakes and wearing an apron that read, UNIVERSE'S GREATEST DAD. Only the word "Dad" was crossed out, and the apron now read UNIVERSE'S GREATEST DROID.
"Threepio, where's Dad?" Leia asked as the droid gave her a glass of orange juice.
"Either yelling at Artoo for mixing up the lights and darks in the laundry again, or meditating in his room."
"Meditating?" Luke asked, surprised. "Dad hasn't meditated since Leia and I were little."
"On the contrary, Master Luke. Your father meditates every day. It's a key principle of Jedaism."
Luke knew that his father took his religion very seriously; the key principle of Jedaism was the Force, or the idea that the world was controlled by an energy field. Jedi followers meditated every day to control their use of the Force. His father's former boss, Yoh Da, was a Jedi follower, as was his own therapist, Dr. Jinn.
When Luke was little, Anakin Skywalker meditated for hours and hours. Recently, not so much; most of Darth's time was taken up by work.
"What is Jedaism, Threepio?" Luke asked the droid, fascinated.
"Well, Master Luke, I know that your father has a book on it. How about you ask him? I know he'd be pleased to explain it to you."
Luke shrugged. "Okay." He took a sip of orange juice and then pretended to feed Timmy a sip.
R2D2 rolled into the kitchen carrying the morning paper in one of his appendages and beeping up a storm.
"What's that, Artoo?" C3PO asked curiously. Artoo beeped again.
"Master Luke, Artoo says that your old therapist is in the hospital!" Threepio exclaimed. "It's on the front page of the paper!"
Luke grabbed the paper from R2D2 and unrolled it. Threepio was right; the front headline was, RENOWNED THERAPIST ATTACKED AT HOME. Luke read the article; Dr. Qui-Gon Jinn was resting at home after a long day when an intruder entered his home and attacked him. He was in the hospital with several broken ribs and trauma to his chest and abdomen.
Luke took several deep breaths. At least Dr. Jinn was still alive and resting in the hospital.
The most curious part, though, was Dr. Jinn's description of the attacker. A police artist had drawn a sketch; he was wearing a red and black mask, had yellow eyes, and looked like he had horns at the top of his head.
Luke just stared at the sketch. He could have sworn he knew who that was…
Coming Up Next: Darth's Woes at the DMV
