Disclaimer: All things Star Wars belong to Lucasfilm.
At the Homestead
by ami-padme
(ami_padme@yahoo.com)
Chapter 2
Owen stepped into his father's room and crossed to the window, pulling its
heavy shades closed as the suns reached their midday zenith. The room immediately darkened and cooled.
His father was resting, asleep on his new bed – Beru had thrown the old
mattress out rather than try to clean off the blood – and Owen thought he
looked a little stronger. He had been
improving quite a bit over the last week, as the doctor said he should.
They had been lucky enough to find a surgeon as soon as they reached Mos
Eisley, and he had been willing – for a price – to operate right away. The bleeding was stopped and the wound was
closed. Dad's life signs steadied, and
Owen allowed himself the relief of believing that his father would indeed
survive.
Owen smiled and pulled the covers up, tucking them under his father's
chin. Dad had been alert and talkative
for a good part of the morning, and that was great progress. Owen was beginning to think he might be able
to use the hoverchair, at least for short periods of time, in the next couple
of days. It would do him good to get
out of this bedroom.
Owen gave his father's shoulder a pat, and then quietly left the bedroom. Once he was beyond the door, he stopped and
heaved a great sigh, thinking about the nightmare he had lived through during
the last week. Owen had never thought
that anything could compare to losing his mother and his newborn sister within
days of one another. Now he wondered
about that. Shmi…that was like losing
another mother. And though his father
was recovering physically, he didn't know exactly how he would be able to deal
with this, with losing another wife.
With losing his leg and the ability to walk.
Owen had checked into getting his father some kind of prosthetic, but the
expense was far, far beyond what they could even conceivably afford. That kind of item was a luxury on Tatooine,
not a medical necessity, and Owen wondered if even the Hutts could afford
one. Even the hoverchair, used as it
was, had set the family back.
And he had paid a great deal to the surgeon.
And the vaporators needed to be fixed.
Something clattered in the kitchen, and Owen went to join Beru. She had been cooking constantly over the
last week. Dad was only able to eat
light soups and broths, so she'd made as many kinds of them as she could think
up. Both of them were worried about
keeping Dad's strength up, and about preventing him from becoming
dehydrated. Beru had been good about
waking him after a certain number of hours, no matter what, and feeding him
soup or giving him water. He had
grumbled impatiently at her this morning when she insisted he finish the whole
bowl. Owen thought it was the best sign
yet that his father was getting back to being himself.
She wore a faint smile and a reassuring look as she watched him enter the
room. Owen had nothing to give in
return. The pure shock from what
happened had worn off, but he wasn't ready to start smiling yet.
"You should eat something," she whispered. It was a practiced refrain, repeated constantly over the last few
days.
His response was also practiced, also the same. "I'm not very hungry, Beru.
The soup will do more for Dad anyway."
He expected her to say that she had made more than enough for both of them, for
all of them, but instead she turned back to stirring the food. "How is he?"
"Sleeping quietly. He had a good
morning…maybe he'll be good again when he wakes up this evening."
"I'm sure he will be." There
was a long pause, and Owen waited her out, taking a seat in one of the chairs
behind her as she pretended to look at the soup. Finally, she added, "What about you?"
"Me? I'm fine."
"Owen…"
"My arm is all healed up now, and compared to Dad, I wasn't that bad off
to begin with. I'm fine."
She spared a brief glance back at him, then went back to her pot.
Owen settled into the chair, moving so his back was to her completely. His hands rested on his knees, and he stared
at them for a moment. "I know that
isn't what you meant," he said quietly.
"Then how are you, Owen?"
"I…I really don't know…Beru, I…"
She was beside him instantly, crouched next to the chair, taking his hands in
hers and squeezing them tightly. She
kissed the back of one of them, and then rubbed his arm. "It's all right, Owen."
He wondered if he should have been crying.
There were no tears – he didn't even feel any beginning to sting or well
up in his eyes. But the weight of what
had happened was there, sitting in the middle of his chest. "No, it's not."
"Tell me," she whispered.
"Tell me what happened."
Owen untangled their hands so that he could stretch around her and pull another
chair right next to his. She sat in it,
and hung her arms around his shoulders, holding him.
He had only told Beru stray bits and pieces of what had happened on that rescue
mission. She hadn't pushed him for any
information beyond confirming that only he, his father, and two other men had
made it back, and that the rest were indeed dead. After absorbing that news, she had let them both concentrate on
getting Dad well again.
But now, he felt badly for having kept it all from her. And he needed to lighten the burden from his
chest.
"This fight with those…with the Tuskens…it's been going on the whole time
we've been on this farm. Practically my
entire life…but I knew it had been getting worse lately. I knew they were just itching to do
something. But, I didn't
think…" His voice trailed
off. She ran a hand lightly through his
hair, and pulled him closer.
"We weren't prepared. They
were. They're traveling in bigger
groups now – we took thirty men, we needed twice that many. It was like two or three of the roaming
clans had met up, and were fighting together.
They had so many weapons, there were so many of them…" He stopped to draw in a shaky breath. "We've all been thinking that they were
getting ready for another round of fighting, but we weren't prepared for
them. They were bearing down for
war. We weren't ready at all."
"Owen, there was no reason to think that things had escalated to that
point, that things had gotten so out of hand –"
"We should have known that they wouldn't have come this close to the
settlement unless they were ready for us!" he cried in anguish. "We should have known…They were coming
at us from everywhere. Every time we
killed one, there'd be two more right behind him. They were vicious.
We could have brought more men with us."
"Owen," she said intensely, "you took nearly the whole farming
community with you. You and Cliegg did
everything you could to get Shmi back.
You can't blame yourself for not thinking like those beasts. They caught us – all of us, everyone in the
settlement – by surprise. That isn't
your fault."
Owen shrugged and shook his head. He
didn't mean it as a dismissal of the comfort she was trying to give, but his
thoughts were a jumble and had already moved on to the next point. "I can't imagine her with them. I can't picture Shmi being held by the same
monsters who were killing all those men, who cut off Dad's leg…" His throat tightened, and again his voice
trailed away.
"Did you see her?" Beru whispered.
"Was she with them?"
"No."
"Then, then she's –"
"I don't know," he replied.
"By the time we caught up with them, it was just the men
riding. The rest of them probably had
set up camp somewhere nearby. She could
have been with them. Who knows where
they are now.
"You know," he continued, "when my mother died, I blamed myself
for a long time. I knew she was sick,
and I knew the baby was sick, but I still thought that I should have been able
to do something."
"You were young, Owen. Kids always
blame themselves."
"Yeah well, I'm not a kid anymore.
And I know we let Shmi down. I
hope she isn't in their camp. It'd be
better if they killed her right away than for her to have to endure…endure the
kinds of things I saw when we fought them.
I know that's what Dad was thinking.
We stayed there much longer than we should have because he couldn't
stand the thought of leaving her to them."
"You both did everything you could," she repeated. She touched his face and stared at him until
he met her eyes. "You both could
have died. There wasn't anything else
to be done."
"I didn't see Dad lose his leg," Owen said, his voice dropping to a
whisper. "I was fighting off the
one who gave me this –" he gestured to his arm, which was still bandaged,
even though it was almost healed "– when I heard him scream. I don't know how I got over to him. Or how I got him to the speeder. I was still firing at some Tuskens who were
following us while I was trying to stop the bleeding. When I finally climbed in to leave, I looked back to see who I
could take with us. All I saw was
bodies. I just left then."
He closed his eyes and exhaled forcefully.
"It wasn't right to leave her like that. I should go back."
"Owen," she whispered gently.
"I should! I could!"
"No," she said plaintively.
It was a long while before Owen was able to accept what she said, and what it
meant. When he did, he said nothing,
but he felt his shoulders sag, and his head drop forward.
"I know, Owen, I know," she whispered. "I miss her too."
She drew him into a full embrace, letting him lean against her heavily. Owen rested his head on her chest, and he
listened to her heart beating, while they mourned Shmi in silence.