Author's Notes: Thanks so much for sticking with this and putting up with me, guys! ^_^
Special Thanks to:
Amy Lee, GoldenRose, Miut, Culf, Beyond the Grey, Mags, Duo, Ms8309, Earthworm, Master Djo-Solo, Drama-princess, Nadra (& Nev), Amidalasky Snape, Typhaena, Anonymous, Ash Darklighter, t65flyer (gee you're familiar ^_~), Jedi 2-b, A. Windsor (you're a sweetheart, doll), Renee and Heidi M for the feedback.
And now, without further ado.
===============================
The Widow Skywalker 3a/?
By Meredith Bronwen Mallory
mallorys-girl@cinci.rr.com
http://www.demando.net
===============================
"Do you know the Widow Skywalker?"
So strange it was to say the name in connection with someone else. All his life, Luke had been the only Skywalker, a name somehow daring and flashy amidst the sand. 'Owen Lars' was a thick name, too heavy to rise off the ground, and 'Beru' was the native word for tourmaline, a precious green-pink stone. His Aunt was a lot like that, hidden away from prying eyes but still was something strange and wonderful glittering under the body she wore like an old, comfortable robe. Skywalker-- he remembered learning to write it in school, so long and hopelessly complicated. The word made him think of flying, as if he could walk off a cliff and just continue on his way as though there was a bridge beneath him and not just fickle, quicksilver air.
"There is another Skywalker," Yoda had said, but Leia was an Organa-- memories of mother patched up with the kindness of her foster father. Anakin Skywalker was dead.
For a moment, the woman's eyes seemed to vanish, becoming instead two inverted black crescents, the wings of some bird of prey.
He started to say again, "Do you know the Widow-"
"I heard you the first time," she replied, not angry, just factual. She opened her eyes, which were yellow-green like a feline, or that monster in the cave you glimpse but never really see. She turned away from him only slightly, seating her lean form on a crate. "There's the well just down the way a bit," she said, gesturing towards a nerby jar with one long, claw-like parchment hand. Her eyes met his and her pupils seemed almost triangular, "Do a favor for a tired peddler?"
"Yes, Ma'am," Luke reached for the jar without thinking. She could get it very well by herself-- he knew, but this was an exchange. His un-needed kindness for her words. He tried and failed not to jog towards the well like an eager little boy; it seemed to him for a moment that he was back on Tatooine running small errands for Beru, always pretending he was a starship or a winged beast as he hurried over the dunes. Then, with his head bowed a little, he returned the jar to the woman's hands, watching as she noted his single, black-gloved hand with interest.
Wordlessly, she poured the water into two bowls that were only mildly clean and motioned for him to take a seat.
"I'm Deip," she muttered half into the water. Tipping the bowl to his lips, Luke tasted cool liquid and just a hint of coppery dirt.
"Luke," he said his first name and took a quick breath in, to force the family title back down his throat. Deip made the shape of his name with her lips, her eyes distant as if casting back, looking for information.
"Where you from?" She rested the dish in her lap.
"Tatooine."
Curt; "Never heard of it."
"It's on the outer rim." He asked with polite interest, "Where are you from?"
"Almak." Said with a quick, flick of the tongue that might be elegant on someone else.
"Never heard of that, either," he said.
"It' on the outer rim," she raised an eyebrow, and they both laughed a little, pretending it was a joke. This time, they sipped in perfect unison, measuring each other. There was a long pause, in which the hum and jabber of the market place was almost unbearable. "There's a gate on the east side of the city."
He made no comment on this.
"Take that gate-- turn off the main road just after you reach the old plantation. It's just the foundation and the fence now." Deip paused for a breath, twining her finger in one of her thick, loose curls. "You'll go on the off road for a while, then you'll see a big farmhouse. Keep going. She lives up against the canyon... if you reach the dry lake bed, you've gone too far."
For a moment, Luke imagined Han was with him, straddling an vacant crate with all the lazy grace of a gundark-tamer. Han would say, "Honey," (Han called all women 'honey', but only Leia was 'sweetheart') "I've already gone too far."
"I'll remember," Luke said, smiling a little, "Turn after the old plantation, pass the farm, don't go beyond the dry lake bed." Deip nodded, accepting his faithful recitation. He took one last drink from the bowl, then bowed his head as he passed it to her, "Thank you for the water." He wondered if she knew how much that meant, to a person from the thirsty desert.
She stood as well, "I don't suppose you're gonna buy anything, are ya?"
He glanced at her wares without really looking, "No, thank you."
Deip snorted, wearing her annoyance like a crown, "Didn't your Mother ever tell you it's rude to window shop?"
"No," Luke said earnestly before turning his back, "she didn't."
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
There was something he never told Leia; something he held from her and guarded with such carefulness that he was sometimes unsure whether he was keeping it from her or protecting her from it. There were things, too, that she owned and kept out of his reach-- she had, after all, served on the Senate and spoken with Vader on many occasions. Sometimes, there was a tinge to the way she regarded the Sith Lord, something that made her tilt her chin up and look down her nose, as if imagining her nemesis still stood before her. Remembered arguments? Subtle politics? He didn't know, had never seen Vader speak to her.
Once, he'd been young (he wasn't young, not anymore-- it was strange how ageless he felt, like a relic) and filled with a sense of loss that sent him hurling towards Vader with his anger alive like vengeful justice. He had been able to see, so clearly, in his child-like imagination, the shadow of Vader betraying and murdering the bright, shining knight of his father. Stabbing him in the back.
(the thrice damned Sith wouldn't have been able to defeat Anakin Skywalker any other way, no sir)
Obiwan had told him just what he wanted to hear, something to counteract the resentful grunts of his uncle and the quiet, bird-like fear of his Aunt. He had lived in Beru's house and eaten her terror as surely as he cleared his plate of beans.
And so, he'd been filled with his own righteousness
(yes, I would have committed patricide without knowing, I'd look at my hands and never see the stains. Where is your honor, Kenobi? Dare you show it to me and let me see that it is not pristine, or do your lies not count?)
and when he sat watching the Princess who was not familiar enough with him to be Leia, and he'd seen the flash from her fitful sleep, well, he'd been ready bind her with his arms and promise he'd protect her from Vader as well.
Her nightmare was a memory, which was really a memory of Vader's memory and now Luke's; a faded transmission, changed with each telling.
A touch on Leia's cheek.
Leather. Was it the machines under there that made it seem warm?
She was dressed in heavy gold and midnight, and had been turning like a perfect porcaline statuette with each noble that asked her to dance. She was thinking that she was not a real girl anymore, that her soul had gotten lost somewhere and how was she supposed to do any good when the world was so glittery and plastic and shallow? Stepping out into the night air, she bit her lip and tried to tell herself she'd forgotten how to cry just like how she'd forgotten to laugh and to have fun and *really* smile.
Then...
A touch on Leia's cheek.
He was a death's head, the reaper who threshed the world into oblivion, and she could see her own wide brown eyes in his darker-than-dark mask. He drew a single finger along her flushed cheek, not straight down, but in a kind of curve. She was so afraid, and she was breathing in his rhythm. It was cold, and her parted lips made her breath into the little wings of ghosts.
There was something under that terror, though, something under the muted... well, she was still very much a child and really had no words for the emotion she was gleaning from the Sith. Then, a bright and instant flash; an image (MOTHER) of a woman (MOTHER) so wonderful and beautiful and warm in Vader's memory that it HURT. Leia had staggered away from him, feeling dizzy because there was something in her mind that was not of her mind shutting down her thinking for protection.
"Apologies, Princess," Leia's memory of Vader's voice was dim past the thundering *slam* of her mind closing in on itself. "You quite resemble someone I used to know."
And he never said anything about it after that.
Only no, Luke imagined, did they understand the true danger she had been in that day. Leia said it was a reflex, the shielding of her mind, and that years later on the Death Star she had used it survive.
It helped that Vader had not been looking for a daughter, but a son.
One child.
(Who told him there was only ONE child? Who hid Leia right under Vader's nose? Was it you, Kenobi? Yoda? You taught me so much and told me so little. Or was it...?)
And it also helped that during that brief time Leia's mind touched that of her father's, Vader was too focused on his-- even the memory, transferred from Leia's mind to Luke's, could not accurately name the emotion-- his *need* for Padme, that he had not thought to probe the girl who's face inspired such turmoil.
"So," he said to Artoo. The rented speeder raced along the worn road that was little more than a dip in the dirt; the wind took Luke's words and littered them all along the ground. He wasn't sure if the droid heard him, wasn't sure it mattered. He needed to hear his own voice and make himself real. "Here's my secret, Artoo. The thing I told Leia, maybe half because I wanted to keep it to myself and half because I really don't think she'd want to know anyway." It took him a moment to gather the images, they pressed between his fingers and became smaller. Ashes, ashes.
"I was trying not to hope for anything when turned myself over to Vader... to father," the word was strange on his tongue, still, "I almost believed he as just a hollow echo in that suit, not really Anakin Skywalker anymore, like Obiwan had said. Then," it was a statement, that one word. Artoo cooed lowly from his place secured in the back of the speeder; it was strange how there seemed to be sympathy in the modulated tones. The small craft slid over the breeze above the road, down a slope that revealed a rambling farm house and the sea of red-yellow fields stretching one way as the canyon rose another. Luke steered expertly towards the rocky formation, eyes scanning the horizon. Unconsciously, he flexed his mechanical hand, "I came to escort me from my cell to the shuttle, he was going to take me to the Emperor, turn me over-- I said something about Palpatine, probably one of those irreverent terms I picked up in the Rebellion, I really don't remember. Father pointed out that I and he and everyone in the galaxy were the Emperor's subjects. That the Republic the Rebellion was so fighting to reinstate was a dream, the real thing had only been chaos. He was trying to bait me, I think, just a little. I felt so strange, like I was hollow inside too. I always wondered how Leia was so passionate and yet to calm at the same time..."
In the distance, he saw a structure built of rock just a little lighter than that of the canyon. It was a lopsided, small mud-brick building, huddled in the shade of a few spidery trees; the roof was scrap plank and thatch, and there was a little fence with bars and pieces that didn't match. Just beyond the building, he could see a few more closely gathered trees. There was a rustle in the golden leaves.
Or maybe it was just a trick of the setting sun.
Luke drew on the Force, felt it slide down his throat like cool water. "I said to Vader, to Father, that I was not and never would be the willing subject of a man who ruled only through terror and brutality. He stopped, right there in the hallway, so mechanically perfect. I think we were halfway to the shuttle, but he turned and really *looked* at me through that mask and said, 'You are your mother's son, as well as my own'. Just like that-- he turned, and I followed, and he never...."
"Apologies, Princess. You quite resemble someone I used to know."
And he never said anything about it after that.
Luke couldn't, wouldn't, didn't want to finish. The house was close now, but still a ways away; he pulled the speeder into a curve of the canyon and stopped it with a jerk, apologizing absently at Artoo's squeal.
"Wait here, Artoo," he pressed his lips together, then vaulted over the side of the vehicile. He walked, measuring each step, up the worn dirt road that looked as if to had only known footsteps in the long years. The fading sun was warm and cold on his face at the same time.
He couldn't stop himself from running.
============================================
(to the tune of "Jingle Bell Rock")
Feedback yeah, feedback yeah, feedback's my thing,
It makes me dance,
And it makes me sing,
A few words, a thousand, or a bunch in a row,
I just like to know,
'Cause it makes me glow,
Oh, yeah, feedback's my thing.