Author's Notes: Here's chapter 4. Hope you enjoy it. I'll post again on Wednesday.

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns SW. I write for fun, not money.

Fear Part 4

What with the vandalism at the retreat and Gil's being bullied at school, it seemed that the restoration of the Jedi had begun under a jinx, but for the next couple of weeks everything seemed to settle down again. Anakin and Luke decided it would be useful for all the padawans to learn to use a Force-bubble to protect themselves against an attack, and after a few days of diligent practice, they were all quite adept at it.

It saved Gil from any more fistfights, though the teasing and isolation continued. It was very hard for him to restrain himself from lashing out at Reynard and the Goons, but because he wanted to please Anakin and Luke, he managed it.

Either the electric fence intimidated any would-be trespassers or no one attempted to come to the lake retreat again because the alarm remained silent. So they all began to relax and assume that the worst was over. The days fell into a pattern.

In the mornings, Anakin and Luke trained Tera and Elissa, working with them on physical manipulations, like levitation and telekinesis, and on meditation, to help them grow attuned to the Force. They also began learning some basic self-defense moves, just in case.

In the afternoons, Anakin and Luke took turns teaching Gil, giving him a somewhat abbreviated version of the lessons. As Anakin pointed out, Gil was still very young, only about ten years old, and he had plenty of time to complete his training. And he had so much to do already, trying to catch up at school in addition to his Jedi training. They wanted him to have a couple of hours each day just to play and relax so they ended his lessons by mid-afternoon.

While one of them trained Gil, the other worked with the girls. They learned diplomacy and mediation by studying real-life conflicts and dilemmas. Sometimes Luke and Anakin discussed historical examples and what the old Jedi had done to solve problems. Sometimes they discussed current situations. It was fascinating to the padawans and, Luke commented wryly to his father one evening, educational for him as well.

"I think I'm learning as much as they are," he said. "You know, Father, I've been really worried about teaching them diplomacy and negotiating. You and Leia are much better at that. My training was rather combat- oriented."

Anakin raised his eyebrows. "Where did you get the idea that I'm a good negotiator? Even before my fall, I was more the type to just bulldoze people into my way of thinking, and after my fall, I certainly didn't worry about diplomacy."

"Well, you did convince the Empire and the Alliance to agree to the peace treaty," Luke pointed out.

His father just sighed and shook his head. "And I still don't know how I managed it. At the time I was just so desperate to make amends. I couldn't bear to think of the fighting going on any longer, more lives being lost because of my mistakes-"

"Father," Luke interrupted firmly. "The entire war was not your fault. There was another Sith in charge of things, you know."

"I'd rather forget about him," Anakin replied with a grimace.

"Me, too," Luke agreed. "I've never seen anyone so ugly in all my life. Womp rats look cute in comparison."

Anakin gave him a strange look, and then laughed in spite of himself. "Thank you, son."

"For what?"

"For cheering me up when I start to dwell on the past too much," Anakin patted his son's shoulder.

Luke smiled at him. "You're there for me too, Father."

"When you let me," Anakin couldn't resist commenting. It was a gentle rebuke for the way Luke had mistakenly hidden the haunting memories of their first duel.

"Hey, I've been much better about coming to you lately," Luke protested.

"I know." Thinking about the past brought on another pang of remorse, and Anakin pulled his son close and pressed his lips to the top of Luke's head. "I'm sorry, son. For everything."

"I know you are, Father. I've forgiven you, and we're helping each other to get well now. You don't have to keep apologizing all the time," Luke hugged him, wishing for the thousandth time that he could take away his father's burden of guilt and shame. "Really. It's all right now."

"It will never be completely right, Luke," Anakin replied sadly. "Because I can never undo any of the terrible things I've done." He took a deep breath and added, "But you're right. I do need to try not to dwell on the past so much. It does no good, and I need to think more about what I can do now to make things better."

"Right," Luke playfully shook his finger at his father. "Now remember that."

"Yes sir, Master Jedi," Anakin gave him a mock salute, and as they were laughing, Chewbacca came to the door to tell them dinner was ready.

"I haven't even seen you today, Chewie," Luke commented as they headed for the dining room. "Did you go fishing again?"

It was true that the Wookiee wasn't around much during the day. While Luke and his father worked with their students, and the droids puttered around the house, Chewbacca spent most of the daylight hours exploring the woods and fields surrounding the retreat.

Luke had felt a little guilty about neglecting his old friend at first, but when he'd mentioned it to him, Chewie just shook his head and patted the young Jedi on the back reassuringly. He enjoyed having a chance to spend some quiet time in the country, Chewbacca had explained. Much as he loved Han and the other members of his honor family, he also missed the natural setting of his homeworld, Kashyyk. Being able to hike, fish, and climb trees on Naboo was like a vacation for him.

He did usually join them for dinner, though. They all ate most of their meals together. Breakfast and lunch were served on the terrace on sunny days, but dinner was always eaten in the dining room.

Afterwards, they took turns helping Gil with his studies while the others enjoyed a few hours of free time. They read in the library, watched the holonet in the living room, and Chewbacca was teaching the padawans how to play sabaac. Surprisingly, Elissa, who was the quietest and most timid of the padawans, was a natural at it. She even beat Chewie one night. He graciously managed to restrain himself from pulling her arms off.

One afternoon Anakin announced that they were ready to begin practicing with the lightsabers.

"We'll all stay together this afternoon," he said. "Tomorrow Luke and I will help you begin constructing your own lightsabers, but for now, you can take turns with ours. Tera and Gil, you'll go first. Elissa, you watch and in a little while, you can swap with one of them."

Luke handed Tera his saber while Anakin gave his to Gil. The boy ignited the lightsaber with an excited grin. He'd been longing for this since he'd first watched Luke practice on board the Angel long ago.

Tera seemed equally thrilled. She stared at Luke's green blade with a spellbound expression. Gil wasn't content to stare, though. He began swinging the saber through the air with bold, sweeping motions.

"Careful, now," Anakin warned. "Lightsabers can be dangerous. We have ours set on the lowest frequency right now so you won't get killed or cut with them, but you could still burn yourself or someone else. Be careful. We don't want anyone to get hurt."

"Yeah," Gil agreed. "Like when Master Luke cut off his hand with a lightsaber."

Anakin froze for just a moment. His face twisted as if he were in pain, but then he forced himself to say quietly, "That's something else we might need to talk about later, but for now, just keep in mind that lightsabers are weapons, not toys."

He turned to his son and reached out to him through the Force. //Are you all right?//

Luke had been a little startled when Gil mentioned his artificial hand, but not terribly disturbed. The reconciliation scene at Bespin with his father had done a lot to heal his emotional wounds. He was more concerned with Anakin being hurt at the reminder. He gave his father a reassuring smile. //I'm fine. I'm much more at peace with it now. How about you?//

//Well, I'll never be at peace with what I did, but I'm all right for now. I just don't want you to be hurt again.// Anakin answered.

//I'm okay. Really. Let's get back to work.// Luke glanced about to see the three padawans staring at them, looking bewildered. They could sense their masters doing something through the Force, but had no idea what. Luke didn't know if they could be trained to use telepathy or not, but that wasn't what their lesson was about right now.

"All right, let's work on your stance. Grip the lightsaber like this, and keep your knees slightly bent."

After a little while, Anakin fetched the training remotes and all three padawans spent the next couple of hours learning to deflect low-volt laser rays. They were just finishing up when a loud alarm rang out. Someone was trying to breach the electronic fence. The padawans immediately handed over the lightsabers as they all hurried inside to look at the screen set up in the kitchen.

The screen showed the property of the estate with the fence around the boundaries. A blinking red dot showed the location of the would-be intruders.

Artoo whistled and Threepio exclaimed, "Oh, dear. More vandals. Will we ever have peace?"

"It looks like they're trying to come in at the front gate so I doubt they're vandals," Luke remarked. "Come on, Father. Let's go see who's there."

Anakin looked at the padawans. "But just in case, all of you stay inside."

He and Luke hurried outside to the front gate. A pretty young woman with long, blonde curls, brown eyes, and a terrified expression stood in front of a blue landspeeder with several large trunks in the back seat.

Keren Miret had arrived.

TBCa