And I always felt it before
That the world was filled with much more
Than the drowning soul I've learned to be
I just need the rain to remind me
The day that changed Luke's life forever had started in a fairly ordinary way, as far as living with the Rebel Alliance went. In fact, compared to the past month, it had been downright boring. Luke hadn't noticed. He had been keeping much too busy to be bored.
He liked the new base. He loved the new planet. As though Yavin Four, with its verdant greenery, hadn't been amazing enough, this new planet had lakes. And not just a few lakes, no. As far as Luke had seen, more than half of the planet was absolutely covered in lakes.
And what was more, it rained. For all the talk of 'tropical rainstorms' the plants on Yavin survived off of moisture in the air. But here, here water poured from the sky. Of its own volition. With absolutely no help, technological or otherwise.
Luke had seen vaporators. He had seen rain dances. He had learned about dowsing. And drilling wells, though that was quite useless on Tatooine. But freefalling water was new. He couldn't have liked it more.
There was only one thing he didn't like, and that was the effect that it had on his friends. Leia, Han, and especially Chewie and the droids wanted to stay firmly inside.
So, Luke had gone off on his own. He had gently rebuffed Leia's attempts to convince him that going outside would make him sick, and that he should stay at home. He had finally submitted to the idea of wearing a raincoat, but it was now stashed safely in a tree, several hundred feet behind him. He didn't want to keep the rain off himself.
In fact, he was happily splashing in a puddle. Let the water come. It couldn't hurt him. He leapt into a new puddle, sending spray as high as he possibly could and laughing in delight as the muddy water splashed down around him. He tried again, leaping into a new puddle, but his feet slipped, and he ended up unceremoniously on his backside. He bounced back up.
Then he tried running in the mud, then sliding, leaving long streaks of mud behind him.
Yes, he concluded. The only thing that could possibly make rain any better was if there was someone to share it with.
He jumped into another puddle. Then he practiced again, sliding on the mud. He toppled over backwards, landing on his rear again. Trying to get back up in the goo, he managed to fall over forwards.
At this rate, I won't even be recognizable when I get back to base! He thought, amused.
Suddenly, he heard a sound coming from one edge of his clearing of puddles. Turning, he saw a tall man standing at the edge of the clearing. Seeing Luke looking up at him, he smiled.
Luke took him in, noticing that he too had forsaken use of a raincoat for the greater pleasure of being soaked by the rain. He wore a dark tunic and his long brown-blonde hair was soaked and hanging around his shoulders. And, unless Luke was much mistaken, he wore a lightsaber on his belt.
Luke scrambled to get out of the mud, embarrassed. Of all the luck, he would run across a Jedi when he was at his least Jedi like.
"Hi," he greeted the stranger, holding out one hand. Looking down at his mud-caked hand, he decided the other man would probably rather not touch it and lowered it awkwardly.
The man continued to smile, taking in Luke's mud-caked form. "Hello."
"Uh, I haven't seen you around base."
The man shrugged. "I haven't been around base."
"Oh." Luke said. He stood, awkwardly staring at the man, wondering what he was doing on the planet if he wasn't a rebel, and why he had chosen to approach the teenager splashing in the mud.
"You're a Jedi," he said, unnecessarily.
The man's smile broadened. "So I am. I see you've got a lightsaber too. Have I found another Jedi?"
Luke blushed. "Not exactly. I mean, I was trying to learn, but Vader killed my master."
The man's smile fell. "I'm sorry to hear that." He gestured to the swath of mud Luke had been playing in. "Is this some kind of training I don't know about, or exactly what it looks like?"
Luke felt his blush deepening. "It's exactly what it looks like."
The man continued to gaze at the huge puddle for several moments.
"Sounds like fun. May I join you?"
Luke gaped at him.
The man smiled, "It sounds like a good skill to have. I noticed you were working on balance earlier."
Luke turned away, embarrassed.
The man walked into the middle of the puddle and started to run. He fell down too, although he managed to catch himself before he actually landed in the puddle, and Luke felt a bit better.
The man smiled at him, "It's harder when your boots are slippery."
"Yeah," Luke said, returning the smile, "It really is. I'm better with sand, to be honest."
"So am I." The stranger replied. "I'm from Tatooine, and yourself?"
"Same," Luke answered, re-entering the mud. He found, though, that he didn't feel as much like splashing around now that he had someone to talk to. And, frankly, he didn't want to embarrass himself more than he already had. The other Jedi seemed to sense that and sat still in the mud. "I'm from Anchorhead."
"Mos Eisley."
Luke grinned, "Cool. We might have met before then."
"I doubt it. I haven't been back to Tatooine in just about twenty years."
"Oh," Luke said, "I'm seventeen, so I guess we wouldn't have met before."
"If you're seventeen, you couldn't have been more than a year old when the Empire took over. How did you survive the purges?"
Luke shrugged, starting to feel a little bit downtrodden. Clearly this man had had higher expectations that he could hope to meet. "I didn't, really."
"Did they take your master then?" the man asked sympathetically.
"What? No. And if they had, I wouldn't have remembered him anyway. No, I was raised by my aunt and uncle until just a few months ago. Then everything-" he gasped, choking back tears. "Everything went wrong."
He looked away, staring into the mud. He couldn't cry now! He was supposed to be a Jedi! Jedi wouldn't be moved to tears so easily. But the other Jedi had his hand on Luke's knee, seeming sympathetic.
Luke just found the strength to say, "The Empire killed them."
The other Jedi nodded sadly. Luke closed his eyes and rested his head in his hands. He felt the tears slipping through his fingers and wished this other Jedi hadn't come along. He didn't want to think about this now! Playing in the rain just now, he had been able to forget for the first time.
"I know how hard it is to lose a parent."
Luke didn't want to hear this Jedi pretend he had a clue what was happening to him. He just wanted to cry until his aunt and uncle were before him again, asking him if he was all right, trying to comfort him.
"Padawan?" the Jedi asked.
Luke ignored him, burying his face deeper in his hands. Don't talk to me. I just want to be alone. I just want my family.
"Luke?"
Luke didn't notice that he had never told the Jedi his name. Even if he had, he might have assumed that it was a Jedi skill he still had to learn.
"Son?"
That got Luke's attention. His head snapped up and he stared into the other man's blue eyes.
"What did you just call me?"
"Luke Skywalker, my son."
Torn between incredulity and hope, Luke chose to take Leia's form of dealing with those situations. "What's your name, then?" he asked, as coldly as he could.
"Anakin Skywalker. Your mother was Padme Amidala. Here, you can see this as proof too. It's pretty similar to the old one." He tossed Luke his lightsaber.
Catching it, Luke gaped. Then he managed to close his mouth, noticing as he did so that he had been startled out of his tears.
"Father?"
Anakin smiled back at him, nodding. "Yes, Luke."
Luke's mouth fell back open. A thousand thoughts raced through his head. He was three, sobbing in the sand because his uncle had got angry and told him that his father was never coming back. He was five, running home from school because Fixer had teased him about being an orphan. He was seven, wishing with all his heart that he was being raised by his father, who would understand him. He was nine, running away from home because he couldn't take the loneliness anymore. He was eleven, crying over his family tree poster, which remained almost completely blank. He was thirteen, marching up to the social sciences teacher and slamming down a volume on etiquette and the old family tree and announcing that she should think harder about what she said about orphans in class. He was fifteen, preparing for his licensing test to be allowed to pilot and wishing his father was there to encourage him. He was seventeen, sitting in a mud puddle, staring at the man for the first time, frightened, but hopeful.
"Dad?"
Anakin drew him close.
"Dad?" Luke asked his father's arm.
"I'm here now Luke."
"But where were you?" Luke asked, feeling hurt.
"I was everywhere. Luke, I've been fighting to be myself all these years since I lost you. I've had to fight for my own body, and no one told me my son survived his birth. They said you were dead."
Luke sniffed, and forced out, in a very small voice, "They said the same about you."
"I'm sure they did," Anakin said gently.
Luke began to cry harder still, leaning so heavily on his father that Anakin shuffled against a tree so he wouldn't have to struggle to hold his boy up.
When Luke finally managed to pull himself together, he looked up at his father and wiped the tears from his eyes.
"What's going to happen now?"
"I was hoping to join you and your friends, and maybe teach you to be a Jedi, if you want that."
"Yeah," Luke nodded firmly, brushing a few more tears away. "Yeah, I'd like that. That would be everything I've ever wanted."