There was going to be another one before this one, but it ended up falling chronologically later, so I'll post it when I get a chance to type it up. Anyway, this is a given. You can't have a series of vignettes where Luke thinks about his father without one of these. :-D
**At Last**
Knowing brought a certain realisation. It acknowledged something he hadn't noticed, but had sensed nonetheless.
Somewhere along the way, something hadn't quite added up. Oh sure, it all made perfect sense, until you thought about it, until you knew. Then the great gaping holes of your childhood suddenly reopened and you realised why.
Finding out about his heritage as a Jedi, about his father's past, had done that. It had revealed all those moments, long buried, when something happened that he couldn't explain. Finding something that had been lost, knowing things he couldn't possibly have been told, objects abruptly changing position when no one was looking.
Incidents like that had made Aunt Beru turn white, and her hands shake. She stopped smiling, and her voice wobbled when she spoke. They had turned usually gruff Uncle Owen into a man whose temper was short and sharp, harsh.
Luke, the child, didn't connect these reactions overly much with his own actions, or rather non-actions. How could his guardians' moods be affected by something that was so uninteresting, so unworthy of attention, something that just was? It's hard to understand you're different when the only mould you have for normalcy is yourself.
Even after he started school and saw how truly unusual his life was, he couldn't see the link between the odd events and why his uncle worked him harder than any of his friends were by their own parents. Or why even when all his chores were done and Aunt Beru didn't need his help he couldn't go and play with others.
Obi-Wan's stories about the Jedi and Luke's father had struck a cord. Little Luke Skywalker, Wormie, that strange kid from the Lars homestead, was now the son of a great Jedi Knight; the son of a man who had fought in the Clone Wars and had been hero. Luke had inherited a gift – a curse – from his father that the Emperor and his grim shadow, Darth Vader, would kill him for. He had the Force. It flowed through his veins, a little like blood, but more illusive and far more potent.
Uncle Owen's over-protectiveness and Aunt Beru's occasional fearfulness were connected to this. They must have looked over their shoulders every day that Luke spent in their care. Each morning they must have woken knowing that today could be the day when soldiers, white armour gleaming in the hot sun, would come and take their nephew from him.
How much of their lives had been terror and how much could Luke have prevented simply by living somewhere else? It was not a decision that was his to make, and his inability to change the eventual outcome of it chaffed. In some ways, it would have been easier if the choice had been his. Guilt could then be clearly defined, and not taken by default.
Luke could remember times when, at a very small age, he'd been good, when he'd behaved himself. Uncle Owen, his mood much improved, had allowed his nephew to sit quietly and watch him tinker with this vaporator, or that droid; explaining to Luke a knowledge that even instinct couldn't bring. In those times there had been no trace of anger, or resentment, or fear, or even bitterness.
Was Luke placing something on those moments that had not been there? Or had Uncle Owen truly felt affection for the small boy who had cluttered his workshop, filled the air with chatter, and brought fear to his life? He had to wonder how much of Owen Lars' life had been warped by the presence of his stepbrother's child and the danger he brought with his every breath.
Aunt Beru had said on many occasions that she liked to have Luke around the house, where she could hear him, see him, call to him if she needed help. Now he thought that perhaps it was her way of keeping him safe, as though if he were out of earshot he might never be returned to her.
Permission had to be granted for everything. As he grew older, he found it harder and harder to have to ask to do anything, and yet the fights that not asking caused were terrible. His other friends thought nothing of going to Toshe station to spend the time together. Yet for Luke, even leaving the house was an effort.
His teen years had become increasingly tense. He felt stifled, as if he couldn't move without doing something wrong. Dinner was like flying through an astroid field: he knew what he was saying was going to get him in trouble, but he also knew that he couldn't quite swerve out of the way fast enough.
Luke just didn't understand why it had to be that hard to leave the farm, and Owen and Beru had been unwilling to explain it to him. Knowledge brings a certain freedom, but danger has always dogged the steps of the free. It would seem that awareness of the world leaves you open to attack from it, like the prey that only becomes visible when it is aware of the predator. Understanding has a way of bringing to life that which has never existed before. To know of his past might have made Luke a walking target. It was unstable reasoning at best, certainly, but truthful? Maybe.
Obi-Wan's story about Anakin-the-Jedi had made a whole lot more sense than anything else Luke had been told until then. So much sense in fact, that Luke never noticed the other little niggling bits.
Vader's relentless pursuit of him, for instance. After slaughtering an entire order of Jedi, you'd think one barely trained farm kid from Tatooine would be easy. Why hadn't Vader struck him down with a single blow?
He'd always considered it luck before now, or some skill on his part. Maybe his escapes had contained some minor elements of both, but that hadn't been why, not really. It's a lot harder to capture someone than it is to kill them. And that's what Vader had been aiming for: the capture of Luke.
Perhaps on some level he'd been aware that Vader and Palpatine wanted to capture him. Possibly known it was because he had a Jedi for a father, and could be one himself. But he hadn't made the connection. Maybe he hadn't wanted to. Not that there had been anyone to confirm his suspicious had any arisen. Which they hadn't. Luke Skywalker had never once assumed the relationship between him and Vader was deeper than the one he'd been told of.
And why should he? Why should he have assumed anything of the sort? There was nothing to connect Luke with Vader other than the fact that the Sith had killed his father. Obi-Wan and even Owen and Beru had made very sure of that. Luke Skywalker must never know the truth about Vader and his father.
Still, he wished he'd known. He wished someone could have told him before he raced off to face Vader on Bespin. It would have been nice when clung to that ledge, in agony and beaten so thoroughly he wondered how he could have thought it could have gone otherwise, to have had an inkling of what would be tossed at him: the last blow struck by an already victorious opponent. No, I am your father.
If anger had been an outlet, he would have used it. How could have any of them stared him in the face and told him about his father, the navigator, or the war hero? Even Anakin-the-Reckless hadn't been like this. At least that Anakin had had something worth emulating. Yet they had all sat there and told him that he was not the son of one of the most evil beings in the galaxy.
A Jedi knows no anger. He couldn't use fury against anyone; he couldn't stamp his feet in childish temper; or refuse to speak to any of them. Not least of all because he knew he was above that. Those displays had been left on Tatooine and they could stay there. Besides, there was no physical target. Yoda had refused to discuss Luke's father with him, muttering about the 'here and now' and focus. The ancient Jedi had turned away giving no clue, but leaving little in the way of actual lie. Everyone else he could have blamed was dead.
So he was left to sit alone and contemplate what had been said and why.
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