Title – Jedi
Author – Kazzy 
Rating – G

Timeframe – Anytime from Luke's childhood on.
Category – Vignette
Keywords – Angst, I guess. Is there a category for musings?
Series – None, yet.

Summary – Luke wonders about his father both before and after Vader reveals himself in ESB.

Disclaimer – Don't own it. Any of it.

Notes – Well, when kayladie was over in one of my other fics, Senator – Leia vignettes, she asked me to write Luke vignettes. I tried and then one Thursday I was happily sitting in a Shakespeare lecture and this Evil Plot Bunny crept up and bit my ankle. Causing me to wander off to the library straight after class and write this.

~~Pictured Here~~

Before he was twelve he'd never seen a picture of his parents. Either of them. Anytime he tried to ask he was rebuffed. "They're dead, leave them that way."

His father had been a navigator on a spice freighter and was killed in a raid by space pirates, months before Luke's birth. His mother, grief-stricken, had died giving birth to him. Often he wondered if she didn't love him enough to keep living, but Aunt Beru said his mother had loved him more than anything, things just went badly for her. "But you were a gift to us, Luke, and I am grateful for it."

Uncle Owen seemed to forget Luke was a gift because he was always yelling at Luke who could never seem to do anything right, no matter how hard he tried. Uncle Owen always managed to find something wrong with Luke.

Looking back, Luke supposed the older man had been afraid. Aunt Beru might have been thrilled at Luke's presence, but she could afford to be. Uncle Owen felt he had to be watchful. His brother's son was dangerous.

Anakin Skywalker had been killed, not by pirates, but by a Sith. Luke could be a Jedi and Jedi could be killed. So it wasn't that Luke could never do anything right, he could never be right. The Force was something you were born with, not something you acquired. And having the Force meant you were marked for death or slavery.

Only Luke had to wonder, why had Owen Lars taken him in? He was responsible for Luke, that was certain. But had he felt the responsibility out of love, or duty? Anakin Skywalker had always been labelled a "damn fool who not only broke his mother's heart, but his wife's as well" to Owen Lars. What were his motives in taking in his wayward brother's child?

Once upon a time, before he found the holo, Luke had had a sister. Not a real one, even though she seemed that way at the time, but one who had helped him to do his chores and make mischief, nonetheless. The sister that would have been his, he knew, if his parents had still been alive. She was calmer than Luke, but knew better tricks, too; only she was never around when he was caught. She had been beautiful like their mother.

Luke knew that because Aunt Beru had told him once, to make him go to sleep. "She had long hair and the prettiest face. Your father fell in love with her the moment he saw her. She was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen." "Even prettier than you, Aunt Beru?" She'd smiled at him and kissed him goodnight without an answer.

She hadn't smiled when Luke had told her about his sister. Actually, he hadn't meant to tell her, it had just slipped out when she'd questioned him about where he'd disappeared to when he was never meant to go anywhere alone. He'd protested that he hadn't been alone, and when Aunt Beru had asked further, he'd had to tell her the truth.

Her skin had gone white underneath her tan and she'd asked him about his sister. When he did, she told him he must never tell anyone, ever, especially not to tell Uncle Owen. "He wouldn't like it," she said. Well, Luke knew that, Uncle Owen didn't like any of Luke's stories – "Useless dreams, like your father's!" – so Luke didn't bother to tell him any. Then she'd sent him to help his Uncle on the north vaporators and disappeared for the afternoon. Luke never mentioned his sister again and eventually she'd disappeared like everyone else in his family.

When he was twelve he'd found the holo. A spoon had dropped behind the cooking unit and his aunt had managed to pull it far enough away from the wall so Luke – small and skinny for his age – could crawl in behind. He'd grabbed the spoon and noticed something else lying there and grabbed that too.

Maybe it was a treasure map and he could find a treasure and they could use it to move away from Tatooine and go and live on Coruscant or somewhere exciting. Back then he hadn't know that even if it had led to untold riches there was no way they could go and live on Coruscant.

In the light he could see it was only a holo. A picture of a boy a little younger than him. At first he thought it might actually be him – a small boy with blond hair and blue eyes, smiling cheekily at someone outside the picture. Quickly, though, he could tell the picture wasn't him. If he'd ever worn clothes like that his aunt would have had a fit. Besides the quality of the picture showed it couldn't have been taken in Luke's lifetime. Then, as he'd looked closer, he could see the boy didn't look quite like him – his face was a bit wrong and he stuck his chin out in a way that Luke did not.

Aunt Beru, who had been fussing over getting the cooking unit in place, finally noticed Luke was holding something and asked him about it. He showed her and she frowned. "I thought this was gone," she said softly. When he had asked who it was she told him distractedly it was his father. In his excitement he never noticed her reluctance to hand it back, or the way she'd watched him uncertainly. He spent all afternoon staring at it, imagining what his father was like as a boy and if he were like Luke.

Uncle Owen had come home to dinner late that night and when he'd found out about the holo, he'd taken it from Luke and sent the boy to bed early. The next day, when Luke had asked about the picture, his aunt had looked at him sadly. "No dear, it got dropped and cracked last night. You could barely see anything, so I threw it away."

She wouldn't have thought of keeping it, even if it had been safe to keep a damaged picture of a Jedi Knight. Beru Lars was from Tatooine and few who lived on the desert planet could afford sentimentality. A similarity Luke did not share with them, but instead took after his father – the crazy dreamer who had loved to fly and who had fallen in love with the most beautiful woman in the galaxy.

Luke didn't have much to connect him to his father, apart from Uncle Owen's frustrated words that he drove him to distraction with his head in the stars, just like Anakin. So Luke was glad he'd had the chance to spend that one afternoon staring at the holo, trying to memorise it, rather than chasing womprats with Biggs Darklighter.

For weeks he traced every memory of that picture until it became blurred and hard to see, like a holo with too many fingerprints. He had mentally viewed it from every angle, every plane, poked and prodded, trying to draw out everything he could about his father. Then he lined it up against every action, every thought, of his own to see how much the same they were.

Eventually they seemed to merge into the same person, and although Luke could no longer remember the exact angle his father had held his chin, or exactly how messy his hair was he felt like he had part of him to carry around. Now Luke was taking another step to becoming like his father, and it couldn't help but make him fell an even stronger connection between them.  

*****

Notes: How did I go? I wondered if the ending was a little weak. Your honest opinion is highly appreciated.

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