Snapshot 6: One Helluva Jedi

Third Person POV

Pushing red blond hair from his gray eyes, the small boy snuck out of his room, careful that his bare feet made no noise on the carpet. One would never guess that this mischievous boy, dressed in X-wing spattered long johns, was heir to the Skywalker dynasty. In fact, this little boy really could care less about dynasties and being a Skywalker. He'd really prefer, actually, to be a Solo. Because, the five year old reasoned, his Solo cousins had all the fun. His Solo cousins went on all sorts of adventures and fought all sorts of bad guys. They carried lightsabers and flew X-wings. They averted disaster on many occasions. And, most importantly, they didn't have bed times.

Nope, no bed times for them. Jaina, Jacen, and Anakin, being adults, got to stay up as late as they wanted and didn't have to deal with a certain redhead if they misbehaved. Now that just wasn't fair.

So really, who could blame little Ben for sneaking out of his room to spy on his hero-cousins? If they got to have all the fun, all of the time, couldn't he have some of the fun some of the time? And that was just exactly what he planned to do.

Tonight was the perfect night. His parents and Uncle Han and Aunt Leia were out for dinner and some other adult stuff. Mommy told him, but it sounded boring so Ben shut her out. The only thing he registered was that his cousins would be babysitting him. He had been so excited!

Anakin had come over first, in the early afternoon, and the twins had come around dinner time. Ben was thankful for that because Anakin certainly couldn't cook or even operate any of the machinery in the kitchen. Nevertheless, he and Anakin (who he had to admit was his favorite cousin) had had a wonderful time playing X-wings and TIE fighters with his models and staging lightsaber battles with the cleaning droid's removable extension arms. Ben had asked to hold Anakin's real lightsaber (which had the coolest purple blade) but the older cousin had declined.

When the twins got there, Jacen made dinner while Jaina joined Anakin and Ben in the young Skywalker's room to tinker with the spare parts he collected. With his older cousins' help, Ben created a model of the Millennium Falcon from scrap metal. It even flew by itself! Ben couldn't wait to show Uncle Han.

They finished the model after dinner and that's when the disappointing part came. Ben had thought his cool cousins would be a bit lenient with his bed time, since they were so fun and flexible. Unfortunately that had not been the case. So, with promises of exciting stories and no lullabies, the Solos marched Ben up to bed.

Ben was wowed by his brave cousins' adventures and the bad guys they brought to justice. They denied his request for more after five, tucked him in, said their goodnights and "I love you"s and left him to sleep.

Silly cousins. Did they really expect him to sleep after their exciting stories while they got to stay up? For such awesome heroes, they really needed to learn some common sense.

So out of his bed he quietly rolled and crept down the hallway to where it opened up with a view into the living room. As silently as possible, he stuck his head between two of the railing posts and strained his young ears to hear their conversation.

It was pretty quiet down there. Jacen was cleaning up in the kitchen, Jaina was reading something on a datapad, and Anakin appeared to be meditating with his back towards Ben.

So this is what big, bad heroes did after Ben's bedtime? Seemed pretty boring to him. In fact, the young Jedi's dreams were a lot better than sitting around in silence. Maybe bed time wasn't so bad after all.

Making up his mind, Ben turned crawl back to his room.

Uh-oh. He had a problem.

"Ben, I know you're there," came Anakin's voice moments after Ben realized his predicament.

Oh no.

"Ben," Jaina laugh-sighed as she looked up from her reading. "What did we say about bedtime?"

Ben looked from side to side, struggling for a way to get out of this.

"That it was silly?" Ben tried to stall.

"Ben… Go back to bed. Your mom's not going to let us come over and hang out if we don't get you into bed on time," Anakin said.

"Trying, Anakin," Ben murmured.

"What's wrong, buddy?"

"I'm stuck," Ben cried in frustration as his pushing on the bars of the railing proved futile. "Really, really stuck."

Jaina snorted quietly and Jacen put his hands to his face, mumbling something about Skywalker genes.

Anakin chuckled quietly. "Okay, okay. Sit tight. We'll figure something out."

"We better," Jacen piped in. "Or Aunt Mara is going to skew us with her lightsaber and serve us for dinner."

At that thought, Ben couldn't help but giggle. Mommy sure would…

"Uh, hurry, guys. I can't feel my ears," Ben announced.

"That's not good," Jaina said, leaping to her feet and up the stairs. "Okay, Ben. Let's see if some extra strength helps."

She grabbed him by the shoulders and tugged.

Ben's head didn't budge.

"Nice try."

"Hey, watch it, smart aleck," Jaina admonished, scruffing his hair.

"What if we cut the bars?" Jacen offered.

"I'd rather destroy as little of Aunt Mara's property as possible," Anakin reasoned.

"Good point," Jaina seconded.

"But aren't you two supposed to be able to fix anything?"

"Fix it so it works? Yes. Fix it so Aunt Mara doesn't know we got her beloved son's head stuck in the railing? Maybe not."

"Hey, we didn't get his head stuck. He did that all on his own," Jaina replied, roughing Ben's hair again.

"Sorry!" Ben cried in exasperation, struggling against the posts again.

"Whoa, cool it there, little man. How about something slippery?" Anakin brainstormed.

"Soap!" Ben agreed.

"Right. I'll get it," Anakin said, mounting the stairs two at a time and darting into the bathroom. He emerged moments later with liquid soap in hand.

He and Jaina slathered Ben's head while Jacen came behind cleaning up spills.

"Okay on the count of three. You count, buddy."

"One… Two… Three!"

Jaina, Jacen, and Anakin tugged in unison. All four Skywalker cousins fell into a gasping heap on the hall floor, Ben on top.

"Nice work," Ben commented breathlessly.

"Good idea, little brother," Jaina sighed, nudging the tall figure laying to her right.

"Thanks, Jaya," Anakin gasped.

"Okay, Ben, time for bed for real this time," Jacen said, climbing to his feet.

"Right," Ben said. "Thanks guys."

"No problem. But how about we make a pit stop in the bath tub to clean you up a little while Jaina cleans up here?" Anakin suggested.

"Wow, thanks, boys."

"No problem," Ben mimicked his number one hero.

"Little rascal," Jaina grinned, giving the boy a hug. "Don't tell your mom about this one, okay?"

"Got it.'

The boys proceeded into the bathroom. Ben stripped down and hopped into the warm bath water Anakin drew for him while Jacen disposed of the soapy pajamas in favor of fresh ones.

Ben was toweling off and climbing into his pjs when he heard the front door begin to open.

"Red alert!" Jacen whispered from the doorway.

"Go stall!" Anakin said back. "C'mon, Ben."

As Jacen hurried down the stairs to help Jaina hold Ben's parents back, Anakin and Ben crept into the hallway, making as little noise as possible with help from Anakin's trained Force ability. They were less than a meter out when they heard footsteps on the first step.

"I'll go. Make a run for the bed!" Anakin whispered.

Ben nodded in agreement.

Anakin stood up straight and went to meet his aunt and uncle on the steps.

"Aunt Mara! Uncle Luke!" He flashed a Solo grin. "I was just checking on little Ben. He is sound asleep. Snoring his way to dream land."

"Mmhmm," Mara started, her face telling Anakin she didn't quite believe him. "We'll just go check in."

Anakin stepped aside to let them past, hoping Ben had made it into bed and was pretending to be asleep. He followed Ben's parents into the room to be sure.

Sure enough, there was little Ben Skywalker sleeping as innocently as a babe. Or at least appearing to. Luke and Mara each gave him a kiss and then headed back out, thanking Anakin.

As Anakin turned to go, he saw a little gray eye wink at him in the dark.

"'Night, little man," Anakin grinned. "You're gonna make one helluva Jedi someday."