A/N: If you began reading this story before 10-30-14, I crave your indulgence. This week's update actually appears in Chapter Nine. Chapters Ten and Eleven contain previously released material.


[11]

The revelation that the twins' Owen Lars is one and the same as his step-brother sends several of Anakin's assumptions reeling like they've gone two rounds with a Gamorrean boxer. From the stories, he's pictured—well, someone more like his memories of Cliegg Lars: sand-worn and gruff and older than himself. If he'd heard of another Lars brother—a black sheep—he'd been so wrapped up in his own feelings it hadn't registered.

No wonder Leia has been furious with him. He's nothing like the Jedi his mother would have proudly described for her new family. Her expectations, vague as she's been, no longer seem so implausible. And he'd ignored them, ignored that she was mourning for a family that is now gone. The word echoes starkly in his thoughts. Gone. All gone. And he'd known nothing. He hadn't wanted to know. He'd dismissed the entire family from his mind as if they'd never existed.

Shimi would be deeply disappointed. The thought of her gentle rebuke stings more than any suspicion Leia directed his way.

Padmé puts her hand on his arm and his skin flinches away from the contact as if her touch is live currant. There's a roaring in his ears as his thoughts loop through self-recriminations. He forces a short-circuit to concentrate on Luke.

The younger man looks him in the eye and says they'd hid their origin because they didn't want to be a bother. They'd lied by omission and probably a few judicious misdirects. Even now, Anakin feels they're holding something back—and yet he can see they're both relieved to have the connection out in the open; one less obstacle to avoid in conversation. Leia softens, as if the confirmation that he hadn't known is enough to exonerate him. She's seen enough here on Coruscant to know his time is not his own.

He doesn't deserve to be exonerated. The Jedi order eschews family ties, forbidding attachment. But Anakin has found he can't live without family—that to be aloof and alone is stifling, like a plant exposed to the constant heat and buffeting of a Tattooine winds. He needs people. Interest is reciprocal and they are his water, nourishing his roots. The abstract does not compel him except as a tool to be used for a purpose, and his purpose is defined by people.

Anakin sets his jaw. "You should have told me. You're family." Luke opens his mouth to protest, but Anakin cuts him off. They need to get this straight between them. The unspoken accusation that he wouldn't have cared hurts. "Your grandfather married my mother. That makes us family."

"Would it have changed anything?" Leia wonders.

"Yes. No." He can't settle on an answer, and insists, "It makes a difference!"

"From a certain point of view," says Luke, sounding infuriatingly like Obi-Wan defending some abstract principle. But there's a slow smile appearing in his eyes. The young man has seen the nuances Anakin cannot articulate.

Leia's gaze is intense. A firestorm still lurks in her brown eyes. It's only been banked, not quenched, as she weighs his reaction to the revelation and his answer to her question. She hides her thoughts well. He can only catch the faintest hints of inner turmoil. To trust, or not?

In previous efforts to uncover their past, Anakin has come to the conclusion that she'd been hurt by someone she perceived as an authority figure and she can't believe the Jedi are any different. Why should she trust him now? What does family have to offer that duty and allegiance did not?

"Yes," she says, deciding in his favor. "It does make a difference, doesn't it? I'm sorry. It's my fault we didn't say anything. Will you forgive me?"

There's a frisson of relief running down his spine, as if they've passed some crucial marker. He won't delude himself that they'll never clash again, but there's a hope she will no longer automatically attribute his motives to spite or self-service. "I will," Anakin says. He can understand where she was coming from now.

Leia drops a set of guards he didn't even know existed—ones perhaps she was not aware of either—and Anakin has the feeling he's been ushered into an inner circle with the seismic shift in their relationship.

He offers her his hand and she clasps it firmly, sealing the exchange. He is amused by her earnestness. "When you do something you don't do it by halves, do you?"


Watching Luke enter the Jedi temple is to see it again for the first time. The central spire soars above their heads, and Anakin finds himself tipping his head back to trace it until it touches the clouds, circled by the distant traffic patterns like the eddies about a rock. It is nearly impossible to think of constructing the edifice; scaffolding and blueprints and poured durasteel as out of place in this picture as a gleeful Hutt. History and tradition wrap the structure in the Force and it grows without mortal intervention. It is the stuff of dreams, rife with promise and potential.

Entering via the main plaza they climb the massive steps and pass under the shadows of the guardians of the way: stone sentinels reminding each entrant of the foundations of the Order. Two for skill, two for knowledge, two for the Force. It's a child's game to assign a set to each of them—Obi-Wan is obviously the Force. Anakin has no hesitation in identifying himself with skill, which leaves Luke for knowledge. But does the young man have knowledge, or does he seek knowledge?

Obi-Wan looks over, and Anakin acknowledges his focus has wandered. Not that he's worried Luke will try anything—not when he'd been so pleased to have them approve of his skill at constructing a lightsaber, and when he'd been looking forward to meeting the Jedi Council. If anything, this morning's revelation has made the self-proclaimed farmboy more mysterious than ever. Where and how had Luke learned to channel his enthusiasm into white-hot focus? What question have they neglected to ask?

An initiate waits in the entrance chamber—a room of great height and breadth and echoing silence—to lead them to the Council. It is a formality observed as if Luke is a delegate from some long-sundered branch of the order, or perhaps only a politician stepping inside the enclave to see and be reassured of how the Jedi are honed as tools of the Senate despite clinging to their own traditions and values.

Anakin is the one shifting from one foot to the other before the closed doors, pulse trembling and pounding in his ears. Too old, echoes the dismissal from his own first meeting with the Jedi Council. Full of fear.

But Luke isn't afraid—or if he is, his anxiety is hidden beneath a placid surface.

"It's not always this quiet," says Anakin. The others shift to focus on him, and he continues, talking to mask his impatience. "You should see the Temple around dinner time or during a public sparring match."

"It's bigger than I imagined," says Luke, his voice hushed out of respect. "I've never had a clear picture of how many Jedi there are... You could support hundreds here, couldn't you?"

"There are less of us than there were," says Obi-Wan, hands folded inside his sleeves and diplomatically refusing to give numbers or mention that during the Clone Wars the Order has already lost more Knights than the next generation will replace.

"Are you ever afraid you'll die?" asks Luke.

It's always been one of Anakin's worst nightmares, right up there with loosing Padmé and his mother, that Obi-Wan will be the next Knight to fall in the line of duty. Anakin has had some close calls, but he feels cupped in the hands of a destiny he's barely begun to fulfill. And when he is old, he can go, secure in the knowledge that he has left behind a galaxy that is better because of his life. That's his plan, anyway.

"We are servants of the Force," says Obi-Wan. "We can do no more than our duty."

The doors open, ushering them inside the Council chamber before either Knight can wonder aloud if Luke is afraid of death.