Chapter Four: Coming home
Beru hadn't been sleeping for long when she felt a familiar presence. Owen had shaken her awake, to make him a snack, no doubt.
To her surprise she was wrong.
"Anakin is back," was all he said.
Beru shot out of bed and dashed down the hall out to desert morning in her bed robes. Everyone was waiting to greet Anakin as they watched the speeder come closer into view.
Padme and Cliegg were already waiting as she and Owen joined them. Finally Anakin's speeder stopped and he slowly got off. Behind him wrapped in white sheets was Shmi.
She gasped. That was Shmi. She was dead. She felt just as bad as Anakin looked. He had a straight face, though, his eyes were red and he was refusing to look at anyone. Out of the corner of her eye, Beru saw Padme take a step forward. Anakin had finally glanced at her but quickly looked away, ashamed.
Beru felt her heart shatter. He didn't look so strong anymore, but tired and scared with bouts of shame laced into him. As he walked by her she kept her trained on him.
'Please look at me,' she thought. She wanted to help him in the way she knew he would seek from Padme.
He had left her view as he entered the house.
So Beru took her time to glance at everyone else. Padme looked horribly depressed and Cliegg was shocked. Owen was the pinnacle of manhood. He stood very stoic and erect with a straight face.
…the exact opposite of Anakin.
The mood in the home was very quiet. Now that Shmi was found and lingering hope of her safety had evaporated. Cliegg, who for medical reasons was not allowed to work, ignored the doctor's orders. He instead, insisted working out in the field beside his son.
Owen simply had simply nodded without saying a word to his father. He had loved Shmi, too. Before he joined his father in the field he simply turned to Beru and nearly collapsed in her arms.
She was shocked. Owen had always been very serious and hardly ever showed vulnerability but here he was crying on her shoulder. Beru wrapped her arms around him in a comforting manner and patted his back. They stayed like that for a while or at least a half an hour before he gathered his strength and joined his father in the field.
She had not seen either Padme or Anakin since the morning, and assumed that they were off somewhere mourning together.
So quietly she wondered up to her room and lay down on her bed. After being the strong shoulder for Owen to lean on, it was now her turn to cry. Shmi had been a mother for her and in a house full of men she knew she had lost her best friend.
The woman who had told her stories when she was lonely and had listened to her as she talked was now gone from her life forever.
A/N: Next chapter will have finally an Anakin/Beru moment.
