Thanks for the reviews, folks. I doubted that there would be much audience for this story, once you got past its not-particularly-accurate summary, so the feedback is appreciated. The plot is about to thicken...
Chapter Eight--And Vulnerable
In the end, it took *three* days. Owen Lars was a stubborn man.
Sitting in her room, Beru heard Luke's screams before she saw either him or Owen. They were quite literally earsplitting, and continuous. She could not feel his presence through the Force, though; Owen was successfully suppressing that. To judge by his appearance, though, the effort was draining him. Owen's face was grey, his clothing disheveled and covered in food stains, and he was holding Luke gingerly in front of him. Luke's shrieks changed to wails when he saw Beru. He held out his small arms to her.
Beru acted on instinct. She jumped up and snatched the child from Owen.
Owen, slumping into a nearby chair, released Luke's Force-sense. The shock of it nearly knocked Beru over. She felt an overwhelming sense of fear, anger, hunger and discomfort coming from the child. Beru sat down abruptly, the baby in her arms. She hitched up her tunic, exposed one milk-swollen breast and put him to it. The wails stopped; the tantrum ended abruptly; the child took the breast as though he was starving. He probably was. She looked up and saw that Owen was trying not to stare, without success.
"Enjoying the show?" she asked sardonically. Owen flushed darkly, finally averting his eyes.
While Luke nursed, Beru inspected him. He had lost weight. He appeared grubby, and he smelled none too sweet.
"Why didn't you look after him?" Beru asked angrily. "He's dirty. And--" she pulled his diaper down for a better look, "he's got diaper rash."
"Serves him right," Owen muttered. "I did my best, but he wouldn't eat anything. He didn't sleep. And he never stopped screaming the entire time."
"He's not weaned, you idiot! What did you expect, that he would eat prep-rations?"
Owen looked guilty.
"That's what you tried feeding him, isn't it?" Beru said, rolling her eyes.
"He spat it out," Owen muttered.
"It's a good thing he did. It's far too hard and dry; he couldn't have digested it."
"I mixed it with water! What do you want from me?"
"Did you even *try* a bottle?" Beru asked, exasperated.
"Yeah, I did. No luck. He wouldn't even look at it."
Beru bit her lip. Quarreling with Owen Lars wouldn't help matters. After a pause, she said in a milder tone, "So, how far did you get?"
"Azurea," Owen said sullenly. " I finally clued in to the fact that I couldn't get him all the way out of the zone before he starved to death or I went crazy. I couldn't take him out in public. People thought I was torturing him, or something, he screamed so much. We just attracted too much attention. If I didn't suppress him, his Force-tantrums kept me up all night; if I did suppress him, I had to stay awake to do it. And that didn't stop his regular tantrums, either. I haven't slept since we left."
"Don't expect any sympathy from me," Beru said coldly. "Go to bed. There's one in the next room. I'll look after him."
Owen heaved himself out of his chair, and stood awkwardly beside her for moment, looking down in a baffled way at the now blissful Luke. Finally, he shambled meekly out of the room. Beru was relieved. She was afraid that if he stayed, she might damage him. Once the second day after their departure had ended, she had panicked, torn between waiting it out and chasing after them. The previous day had been a nightmare, and her nerves were shattered.
It took Beru nearly two hours to feed Luke and calm him--and herself--down. Finally, when he started dozing off, Beru gently detached him from her breast. She gave him a quick bath, and changed him. When she saw the actual extent of his diaper rash, she contemplated blasting Owen Lars into the next system. She also discovered that their expedition had another sequel: Luke refused to be put down in his crib and clung to her like a Mynock to a power cable. She slept that night sitting up in her bed, the baby cradled in her arms.
Beru didn't see Owen Lars again until noon the next day. He still looked half asleep when he shuffled in. She was sitting at the table in the kitchen area, eating a belated breakfast, the baby on her lap. When they caught sight of each other, Luke and Owen scowled in unison.
"Stop that!" she hissed at Owen.
"He started it!"
"He's a baby. You're the adult. Allegedly."
Owen came over to the table and sat down heavily. He observed Beru helping Luke to drink juice from her glass, and scowled. "When I tried that, he'd spit it up in my face."
"He was mad at you."
Owen was silent for a moment. Then he said quietly, "Beru, doesn't he scare you?"
Beru looked at him, but didn't answer. She set down the juice glass.
"If he's like this as a baby, what's he going to be like later on?" Owen asked, "Have you thought about it?"
Beru shrugged. "Yes, of course. But what's the solution? Do you agree with Amidala, then?"
"No. But I can see how she came to it."
"I can't."
"You don't think clearly about him, Beru."
"I know what you're thinking," Beru said tiredly. "Poor pathetic Beru, can't have children of her own, so she's fixated on this one. But it isn't that. I never wanted to be his wet-nurse, or have anything to do with him, for that matter. That damned doctor dragooned me into it. So I did it, and after awhile, I recognized something about him. Something familiar. One day when I was seventeen years old, I woke up in a strange med-center and discovered that my past and my future were both lost forever. In a different way, that's happened to Luke, too. I know how he feels. He may be only a baby, but he knows something has gone terribly wrong with his life already. His father's gone bad, his mother's gone mad--it's almost poetic, isn't it?--and he *knows* it. That's the source of the tantrums. It's the only way he can express himself."
"Then why doesn't he have them with you?"
"He did, until I started breast-feeding him. Dr. Sydos said he needed someone to bond with. As it turned out, he was right. I'm also fairly sure that he could sense that Amidala was a danger to him. Just think about it. You're trapped in a tiny body, unable to walk or talk, and your mother goes homicidal on you. Wouldn't you be scared? Well, I would, too. He knew he had to look around for help. You know, the doctor actually wanted me to breast feed the baby so I could protect him. I'm willing to bet that Luke shared that view completely. He needed a protector and a provider. I was the only available candidate, and was elected unanimously. The tantrums were designed to attract my attention."
"Are you saying that he's manipulating you?" Owen asked, astonished.
Beru sighed. "No. Well, not consciously, anyway. He's a very small child with a very big and volatile Force talent. I'm not really sure what he can actually sense through the Froce, or if an adult would recognize it; it must be on a very basic level, given his age. But he knows the bottom line."
"Don't you think you ought to take him back and let Ben deal with him?" Owen's voice now had a pleading note.
Beru said, shaking her head, "I'm not sure Ben wouldn't agree with Amidala."
"He wouldn't. You know that."
"Do I? I'm not sure that I know anything about Ben anymore. What would he do with Luke? The probable answer to that question is that he would give him back to his mother. I don't see Luke lasting a day in her company in her current state of mind."
"He wouldn't give him back to Amidala."
"He's never refused her anything. Well, let me amend that-he did once." They both knew what it had been. "And she's been making him pay for it ever since."
They looked uneasily at each other.
Beru ruffled Luke's white-blonde hair, and without looking directly at Owen, said, "Have you heard the rumors?"
He didn't ask which rumors she meant. He shrugged.
"Do you think they're true?" Beru asked him.
"It would explain a lot, wouldn't it?" Owen said. Beru sensed that this was as close as he would go to criticism of his brother.