Where Am I Going To?

Part One

Chapter Fifteen

"Luke, please, don't cry like that."

Mother?….

"Hush, now, it's alright. Mommy's got you. You're safe…."

Mother…no, wait…come back…please! Don't leave me alone again!

He was wandering down a dark hall. At the end there was a door, and light spilled out the cracks. The light seemed inviting. He moved towards it. The moth to the flame. He always seemed to be moving out of darkness and into light now. It was becoming habitual. He didn't know why, but he was tightly gripping his lightsaber, his old one. The one rusting on Tatooine. Let it rust. He hated it. And he was wearing his old clothes. He didn't question it. His fingers tightened mechanically as he moved closer and closer to the door, before finally taking one hand off the weapon and opening it. Now let come whatever awaited him on the other side!

The room was full of light. And a very, very beautiful woman, cradling a small child who was sobbing hysterically.

"I know, you miss her already, don't you?"

Miss who? He gathered through some instinctive knowledge that the woman that was cradling the babe was his mother. Was it the Force, guiding his dream? He didn't know, but he did know that the swaddled bundle in the beautiful girl's arm's was him.

"You haven't even gone yet, but you're already crying," she gently scolded the infant. She settled into a chair, humming a very familiar tune. "Stop, please. You'll make me start to cry." "Start," was redundant. Glossy tears were already sliding down the perfect, pale cheeks, and Luke let the lightsaber drop – soundlessly – and crossed the room to the woman. Very gently, he brushed away her tear. She didn't notice.

"Please don't cry," he repeated to her. "I don't like seeing women cry." She didn't seem to hear, or otherwise was continuing to cry to spite him.

"What can I do to make you feel better, hm?" she asked the bundle, quite oblivious to the young man's presence. "How about a lullaby, how does that sound?"

"It sounds very nice," Luke said, beginning to pace as he watched the woman in the chair.

"There's a song in ev'ry silence/ Seeking word and melody;/ There's a dawn in ev'ry darkness/ Bringing hope to you and me./ From the past will come the future;/ What it holds, a mystery/ Unrevealed until its season/ Something Fate alone can see."

The woman's tears had only increased, and she'd turned her beautiful face upward, praying to something entirely unknown. Luke brushed back a lock of her fine dark hair – which seemed very familiar – and kissed her forehead. "It'll be alright," he promised. "Please don't cry anymore."

"Padmè?"

A figure had just rushed into the room, looking very wearied, and not a little harried. Luke stopped breathing.

"Master…"

But Master Obi Wan was dead! But…so was his mother, so….

Luke wasn't thinking about that. He'd rushed foreword, arms extended. "Master, oh Force, you don't know how you frightened me." He didn't note that this Obi Wan was seventeen years younger than the one who had just died mere hours before. It didn't seem relevant. "Please, promise me you won't go again. I don't think I can take it. I-"

Kenobi rushed right through his apprentice – literally through – and to the woman, obviously Padmè Amidala; Luke's mother. Startled, Luke fell back. He tried to reach out to the man again, desperate to embrace him, and was met with nothing but air. "Master?" he begged. He couldn't hear him either.

"Padmè," continued the man, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder, "the transport's going to leave soon. If we're going to be on it, we've got to go, now!" Wait, why were they going? Mother? Master? No, wait….

"I know, I'm just…saying goodbye…." Was she abandoning him? But….Master Obi Wan said that she'd adored him! "You'll take good care of him, won't you?" The dream made sense to the unconscious mind the way all dreams do. Waking, Luke never would have understood the transpiring events.

"You know I will," pledged the Jedi, opening his arms for the baby. Very gently, the mother laid her treasure into the other man's arms, still crying. "He's….he's so little!"

"Of course, he's a baby."

"He's got his father's-" He stopped. That was a subject neither wanted to breach.

What? What! What do I have?

"I promise," continued the rather chocked up Obi Wan. "I won't let anything happen. I promise."

She nodded. "I know."

The man smiled, and the woman stood. Very briefly, he kissed her forehead with affection in the same spot that Luke just had, before turning and rushing out the door.

The scene melted. Blackness came.

"In our end is our beginning;/ in our time, infinity….."
The transport was crowded, dirty, and, above all, panicked. But not the man and the babe. They remained huddled, and Luke stood by them, trying to offer some protection, trying to change the baby's fate.

Please, please, let me grow up with Master Obi Wan. Say this was all a dream…Say that it never happened…please…

"In our doubt there is believing;/ in our life, eternity./" The deep, soft voice comforted the sniffling child, and Luke felt his mind go hazy. The image faded, but he clung to it desperately. "In our death, a resurrection;/ At the last, a victory…/"

Mother?...Master, don't leave me! Darkness coming. Not much time. Leaving soon.

"Unrevealed until its season," sang the man, quite oblivious, as he faded farther and farther from sight. "Something Fate alone can see…."

Wait….

…

Luke's eyes snapped open. Very calmly, he folded his arms behind his head and sighed. He vaguely wondered how long he'd been asleep for. He seemed to recall having dreamt, but most of it was quite fleeting. It twisted and weaved, but it never stayed. He couldn't say the same for nightmares. As a child, he'd had terrible nightmares that had faded with time. Until Tatooine. Once he'd touched Tatooine's surface, he was plagued by such awful nightmares as to make his skin crawl. Master Obi Wan had comforted, counseled, and analyzed them with Luke, calming the boy considerably. His father had never done that.

He swung his legs over the edge of the bunk and waited for the sleepy haziness of his senses to clear a little more. Getting up, he just sort of wandered, and found that his feet carried him – instinctively – in the direction of the cockpit without Luke so much as thinking about it.

In a blink of an eye, his senses caught a white blur, and his arms reached out, snaring the princess. For an awkward moment, they just sort of stood there, both rather embarrassed that Luke was holding onto her without even actually having made a pass. Fate was funny like that.

Leia stepped back, and Luke was quite certain she was sniffling a little. He reached out to her again, but she didn't budge. "Your friend's quite a mercenary," she huffed, dabbing at her big, beautiful, brown eyes. "I wonder if he really cares about anything, or anybody."

"I care!" Luke protested, and Leia, who was about to sweep past him, paused.

"Yeah, I know." They stood there like that, and Luke looked at the floor while Leia looked at him. "Did you mean what you said about having no place to go?"

He nodded. "I don't want to go back to Tatooine. I can't go back to Coruscant. I….I don't know where to go."

"We've….we've got a base," she slowly admitted, finally seeming to decide to trust him entirely. "Pretty big rebel outpost. I…I know you're second in line to the Imperial throne, but I thought that…what with…Look, if you could see your way to helping us out…you don't know what it would mean to me." He perked up at that. "You…you could tip the scales, Luke! You could give us a chance! Could you just think it over?"

"I'll go!"

Startled, she blinked. "What?"

"I'll go wherever you want me to go. Just let me be with you. That's all I ask."

"Luke…It's not going to be like that."

"I know. But…but maybe someday, like you said…You could see your way through to looking at me in a different light. I'm not such a bad guy if you give me a chance."

She quickly leaned over and kissed his cheek, which made his insides melt. "You're not such a bad guy with or without a chance. In fact, I think you're really sweet."

Can't…complete…sentences…brain…no longer…functioning properly….Sigh…

She turned and walked off, leaving Luke to stew for a minute. Wow….Wow….Just…Wow. He was really, really, really happy. Life wasn't good, but it had a chance at becoming that way again.

To Be Continued….

Wow! I can't believe I'm almost through ANH already! How long has it been? Three months? Four? I thought it would take a lot longer. I'm really excited about this! Well, we're hardly out of the woods yet, so please stick with me! I have abandonment issues, and a fear that people will suddenly flame me and say that my story is crap (The review from "Bill," is a good example of where I get this from.) So, your reviews are really encouraging! If I don't' update this for a week, it's only because I've got an awesome concept for "Where You Were Going To," that I'm going to type out. That, and I have a massive report due in English. I thank you all for your love and support. You don't know what your feedback means to me!

TorontoBatFan: When I wrote that one, I was on such a high from it that I immediately started writing the next one. However, I like to answer at least one review, and so, when I went to post the next chapter, I had a review from Myotismon13! Quite lucky. So, I answered it, and popped the next one in. So, that's a very round about way of saying when the next chapter would be up. This one we interesting to do. It didn't work out like I'd hoped it would, but the results are still nice.

Alabama would be nice….-shudder- It would be smart for Luke to go to Degobah. But this is Luke. And he follows at Leia's heels like a puppy. So, if and when he does go to Degobah, he's going to rip his hair out: Stay with his "fiancé," or listen to his master/"father." Don't you just want to bonk him on the head?

Myotismon13: Actually, that's exactly what happened!

xInuyashaxangelx: Yes, poor, mentally disturbed Luke.

Schnickledooger: Sorry. I didn't like doing it, either. But it had to be done. Otherwise Luke wouldn't be going off to the Rebellion. He wouldn't have a reason. He'd be too busy training as a Jedi.

Vivid Butterfly: I'm really glad you like it that much! I was afraid I'd lost some readers a few chapters back when Luke became a Jedi. However, I got an e-mail from a fan who never reviewed on this site, and so I figure the ratio of people who read versus review is pretty high. I'm not too worried!