Title: tell my father, if you can, I was a man
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from "Tell My Father"
Warnings: set before A New Hope; AU
Pairings: none, really
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 460
Point of view: first
Owen, you don't know what you've done. I think Beru does, but the boy is your family, not hers. The choice, therefore, is yours and yours alone. The child is too young yet for such a monumental decision, and you will never tell him enough.
You remember your stepmother fondly, I can tell. I'm sure she was a sweet woman, to raise the kind boy your stepbrother used to be.
Anakin Skywalker is dead. Yoda and I are the last of the Jedi, the protectors of peace killed by one of their own—the strongest Jedi turned darkest Sith.
Only Yoda, myself, and you, Owen, know what really happened to Anakin Skywalker. Only Yoda, myself, and Bail Organa know exactly what happened to Anakin Skywalker's children.
Yes, Owen Lars, your stepbrother's bride had twins before she died, two infants of so much potential… even Anakin's strength paled in comparison to theirs. That is why we separated them, we last two of the Jedi. Why we hid them away—Leia, your niece, as a princess, adopted daughter of the man who loved Anakin's wife. And Luke, here, with you, at the far end of the universe.
I do not know if we did the right thing, separating them. But together they were too powerful, too vibrant. Too easily found. Their father believes his child died with his wife… he does not know there were two.
I hope he never learns.
You remember your stepbrother, though you only met him that one time. He was forceful, powerful, so very angry. You remember his name, and seeing what he's become—you hate it. His name taints your stepmother's, that loving woman who loved you in place of her absent son.
I gave you a child, Owen Lars. An innocent boy, with his father's eyes—and, I hope, his mother's heart. I gave you a child, named by his mother: Luke Skywalker. Hope for the future.
His name would have kept him safe, I hoped. No matter what else Anakin becomes, he will not forget where he came from. But you have taken that protection from Luke, Owen. You have taken away that link to his father, to the past.
You adopted him, and so gave him a new name. Yours.
Anakin will remember his name, and his mother's, until even Darth Vader is dead. But he has already forgotten you, and your name will not protect Luke.
With the boy renamed, Owen, Anakin Skywalker is truly dead. When the Empire comes to Tatooine, and it will come, it will not see the son of Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker. It will see your son, the child of a moisture farmer, a helpless boy called Luke Lars.
And it will not hesitate to destroy him.