Disclaimer: All things Star Wars belong to Lucasfilm.
At the Homestead
by ami-padme
(ami_padme@yahoo.com)
Chapter 4
"Did you get it?" Beru asked.
"Yes," Owen replied. He
removed the holo-imaging recorder from his bag. "I found a place that loans these out." He sighed heavily. "I wish it hadn't taken so long, but there's no way we could
pay all that money to buy one and never use it again after this. And to actually send the message – we're
going to have to sell a few more things first, and that's going to take some
more time."
"Is it really that expensive?"
"I want to put those tags on it.
At least then we'll know that someone read it after it
arrived." He put the device down
on the kitchen table and shrugged.
"The guy I talked to in town said that there were no individual
message-receivers for the Jedi, there was only a general one for their
Temple. He said we should send it to
the Temple with Anakin's name on it, and hope for the best."
Beru grimaced. "That's not
terribly reassuring."
"No, but we're going to have to live with it." He sat at the table and began fiddling with
the recorder. "Where's Dad?"
"Out in the garage with 3PO.
They're working on one of the speeders."
Owen smiled at her – a genuine smile, a rarity – and she returned it. 3PO had been conspicuously absent throughout
everything that had happened. Owen had
shut him down shortly after Shmi was taken.
He had felt a little bit guilty about doing it, but 3PO's panicked
stammering had driven them all crazy after a few minutes, so the droid had been
unceremoniously turned off and left in the extra bedroom. Beru had reactivated him a few days later,
but Dad simply couldn't deal with him, despite 3PO's honest attempts to be
calmer and quieter than usual. Owen was
happy to hear that this piece of their family life – one of the pieces still
shattered by Shmi's disappearance – seemed to be returning to normal.
"Well, I hate to interrupt, but we should get Dad in here," Owen
said. "The sooner we get this
done, the sooner I can return this thing, and the less we'll owe."
"I'll go get him," she said, and she ran off to the garage.
Owen continued playing with the recorder while he was alone. Contacting Anakin was the last step they had
to take to finish dealing with what happened, at least as far as he was
concerned. Nothing was going to
magically be better, and the pain wasn't going to go away, but he expected
there would be a finality in this. He
hoped they'd be able to send it out soon.
Of course, this wasn't about to bring closure for Anakin. It pained Owen to think about what this
message would do to him. He had some
vague notions in his head about Anakin, about this stepbrother that he had
never met, but he couldn't fathom how he would react to this news, or to receiving
it this way.
Owen heard the clanking of 3PO's footsteps, and saw the droid trailing Dad and
Beru into the kitchen. All three of
them took seats, and they stared at the recorder, lying in the middle of the
table.
No one said anything.
"So," his father began, "you two have any great ideas on how to
do this?"
Beru shrugged helplessly. "We
probably should be direct."
"I don't think so," Owen said.
"'Anakin, your mother's gone' is not going to work."
"I didn't mean that direct," she replied. "But I don't think we should make
ourselves crazy when there's just some terrible news we have to give, and not
that many different ways to say it."
"Do we introduce ourselves?" Dad asked. "Do we want to take all that time setting up who we are
before we tell him why we're sending the message?"
"He'll guess before we say it if we do that," Owen answered. "There's no other reason for us to be
talking to him. If this were a normal
message, his mother would have sent it.
Which brings up the question of who we're addressing this message
from. He has no idea who 'Cliegg Lars'
or 'the Larses' are."
Beru shook her head. "We have to
introduce ourselves. You both know
that. We'll keep it brief. And…I don't know how we're going to address
it. You'd think that if he saw a
message from Tatooine, that would be enough to get him to read it, even if he
doesn't recognize the name on it."
She paused thoughtfully.
"Maybe we should mark it as an emergency message?"
"Good idea," Dad said.
"It might help make sure he actually gets the damn thing. You don't think they'd actually keep it from
him? Not something like this?"
"No," Owen said, with more certainty than he actually felt. He had found it…distressing…that Anakin had
never been able to visit or contact his mother in ten years. Ten years!
Owen had always thought Shmi dealt with it in a remarkably patient way,
saying as matter-of-factly as she could that none of them knew much about the
Jedi way. That the Jedi Master who took
Anakin had said that the life would not be easy. But he knew that she had never given up the hope of seeing him
again, and he couldn't stand the thought that her dream had not been
realized. He hoped that the Jedi knew
exactly what they had cost both Shmi and Anakin. "This isn't just another message Anakin's getting. Even they have to know that."
"They haven't known it in ten years," his father grumbled. "His mother shouldn't have to die for
him to able contact his own damn family."
Beru sighed. "Cliegg –"
"All I'm saying is that if rules are rules, this might not work."
That brought on another uncomfortable silence.
Beru was the one to break it. "If
they read it, they'll give it to him.
Shmi wouldn't let her son leave with a man callous enough to not tell
him this kind of news. So we should
stop talking in circles."
Owen's eyes wandered, and eventually stopped on the droid across the table from
him. An idea dawned on him. "3PO…maybe you could…"
3PO snapped to attention and gave his best approximation of panic once he saw the
way Owen was looking at him.
"Me! Oh, Master Owen! I couldn't possibly –"
"Anakin knows you. If he sees you
in the message –"
"Master Owen! My understanding of
human relations is quite extensive, but I don't believe I have the proper
protocols for this situation."
Owen blinked at him in surprise.
"3PO, I've never heard you downplay your vast knowledge of
humans."
"I simply believe that it might be better for one of you to record the
message."
"And perhaps that shows a greater understanding of humanity than you give
yourself credit for," Beru said kindly.
"I don't think you should give the message, 3PO, but maybe it isn't
a bad idea for you to be in the picture, where Anakin can see you."
"Aw hell, give me that thing."
Dad snatched the recorder and set it.
"3PO, get over here."
3PO jumped up and stood behind him. The
indicator light flashed on.
Dad took a deep breath, and then launched into his message. "Anakin, my name is Cliegg Lars. You don't know me, but I married your mother
more than five years ago. Son, I'm
sorry to have to give you this news this way…Ah…" He waved his hand in disgust and stopped
talking. Owen shut the recorder off.
His father looked at him in dismay.
"Owen, that sounded even worse out loud."
"It wasn't that bad," Beru said.
"Why don't you try it again?
Do you want me or Owen to do anything?"
"No…No. He needs to hear it from
me."
"3PO," Owen said, "you're the only one of us that actually knows
him. Can you give us any advice on
this?"
"I haven't seen Master Anakin in quite some time," the droid answered
thoughtfully, "and I've never known him as an adult."
Dad gave a small laugh, and smiled a little.
"Come on, now. We heard a
hundred stories about this kid. I bet
we know him as well as the droid. Don't
know if we've got anything that will help though. Remember all those podracing stories? Or how he spent all that time building 3PO?"
Owen smiled too. "Or how he used
to go off exploring with all his friends –"
"– and come back with used speeder parts and covered in grease –"
Beru said.
"– and he could fix anything anyone threw at him," his father
finished. Then his smile faded. "You think he might come here to see us
after he gets this?"
"I would," Owen said.
"He hasn't come so far," Beru pointed out. "But this is different."
"Okay, okay," Dad said in exasperation. "Let me do this."
He reset the holo-recorder and waited for the light to come on.
"Anakin, I'm sure you're surprised to get a message from Tatooine,
especially from someone you don't know.
My name is Cliegg Lars. I freed
your mother from Watto more than five years ago, and we got married shortly
after that.
"I'm sorry this has to be the first time we've 'met' – I'm sorry you have
to get this news from a stranger.
"More than three weeks ago, your mother was attacked and kidnapped by
Tusken Raiders. We tried to stop them,
we tried to save her…we went after her as soon as we could, with as many people
as we could get. I'm sorry – we
couldn't bring her back." He
stopped, and Owen worried he wouldn't be able to finish. But he swallowed hard and continued. "For her to have lasted this long…well,
there's almost no chance of that. I'm
sorry, Anakin.
"I'm sending you this because we owed it to you to tell you what
happened." Another pause, and then
he apparently decided there wasn't much else to say. "I'm going to include in this message where on Tatooine you
can find us, if you…if you ever want to do that." There was a helpless silence. "Again, we're sorry, Anakin."
Beru reached out quietly, and shut the recorder off.
He didn't ask what they had thought. He
only asked, "When can we send it?"
"Maybe in another week or so." Owen took the device off the table and
put it back in his bag. "I'll see
what I can do."