Trigger Warning: in this chapter a character struggles with self-esteem and interpersonal issues with no immediate resolve. If you are sensitive to such, it might be best to wait until I publish a chapter 29, as I intend to give certain characters a better ending there.

11/24/21 I posted the next chapter today. They are probably less traumatic when read together.

Chapter 28 - Road Trip

"This way Anakin, you should come," Yoda summoned. Anakin followed him through the ship. They entered one of the quarters and three youngling heads popped up to look at them. "The Bergruutfa Clan, they are. With them for the trip, you will stay. Get to know each other, you soon will."

The Jedi Master knew better than to stay, as tempting as it was. Younglings don't put down their walls and open up when an adult is watching. So he nodded to Anakin and left the room.

Yoda had high hopes for this match. Younglings at the Temple were typically assigned a clan at the age of four based on their personalities, and they would be educated together until they became Padawans. But Anakin was an unusual case. First, he was nine, and none of the other younglings even knew him. Second, he spent most of his time with the adult knights, especially his master, and only attended a few lessons each week with the other younglings. That would be changing soon, as Yoda planned, because Anakin was ready to take more classes with Younglings his own age.

And it's not like Yoda could use his memories from the first time around to place him. Firstly because at the time, Initiate Skywalker was just another youngling to him. Regrettably, the council, himself included, didn't put much attention into his training. Most of it was handled by Knight Kenobi alone, until the boy didn't meet expectations for being a Jedi and needed to be lectured and disciplined, that is.

No, Yoda put those memories behind him. This time Anakin would be assigned a clan and as far as choices go, the Bergruutfa Clan was an excellent choice. As a herd animal, the clan's namesake was very loyal and would often look out for those they thought needed extra help. 'A Perfect Match it is. A kind heart, Anakin always had. Look out for him, the clan will.'

Qui-Gon was excited when he read his orders to join the party going to Tatooine. At first it was disbelief, after all the news had only just gone out that morning, and no one else had been given the opportunity to volunteer yet. Qui-Gon remembered rereading it twice, to be sure he was actually going, and not just a second option if they failed, somehow, to gather enough volunteers.

Of course, it wasn't until everyone was boarding that Qui-Gon found out the reason for his advanced selection. He was just ruffling Anakin's hair, and greeting his former Padawan in the hangar, when Mace walked up carrying the youngling Abigail. Obi-Wan looked like he wanted to pick her up, but Mace handed her to Qui-Gon instead. "You'll be minding her for the trip," he had said.

And truth be told, Qui-Gon couldn't be happier with his role. As he took a moment to rock the Youngling he was holding, he smiled, knowing this would be one of his favorite missions of all time.

'Poor Obi-Wan,' thought Qui-Gon. His former padawan had looked back and forth with worry before finally letting them out of his sight. They were still struggling with trust, but as Master Yoda said, 'Only with testing and trials, can one grow.' If anything, seeing his daughter being cared for under Qui-Gon's watch should help them build trust again, 'Shouldn't it?'

Qui-Gon went to prepare the infant's feeding. The room he was given on the ship included a youngling stasis crib, a device that included several droid-like arms to tend to all of an infant's needs during a voyage, but he was a better caretaker than to use it at all hours. No, infants, he was learning, need to see and experience things if they are to learn.

A loud beep at his door alerted him to a visitor standing outside. "Open the door," he told the ship. It slid open and Obi-Wan walked in.

Obi-Wan stood there looking funny at Qui-Gon for half a minute. Qui-Gon continued to prepare the feeding. "Hello Padawan, what do you need?" he asked.

"Oh, uh. Do you need a hand?"

"No. We were about to have a feeding." Qui-Gon motioned to the infant strapped to his chest, and then realized what Obi-Wan was staring at. "Oh this. It's my invention. See, she's secure, and I can have my hands free to do this."

Obi-Wan started to nod. Then he smiled. "Yes, I can see that. Very clever."

A device beeped and Qui-Gon turned to it. It was the heat pad, and it was finished heating up. He pulled Abigail out of her cocoon and replaced the heat pad with the warm one. "There we go. Space is cold, but these pads keep her nice and warm." Qui-Gon then picked up the bottle and began to feed Abigail. "What can we do for you?"

"Oh, nothing. I just wanted to check up on her. Yoda has Anakin rooming with some other younglings, and I got bored," Obi-Wan shrugged.

"Oh, I was going to take her for a walk down to the more social areas of the ship. Do you want to accompany us?"

Obi-Wan smiled again. "Yes, I'd like that."

Anakin stared at the other younglings after Yoda left. The Younglings just stared back at him. After thirty seconds Anakin figured he'd have to do something, otherwise it would be a very long voyage. "H-hi, I'm Anakin," he greeted them in a timid voice.

"I'm Alex." One of the boys waved. He was a human, and his hair was blond, almost white, with green highlights. He was a good three inches taller than the other Younglings, too.

"Kent," said another boy. He was human, too. He wore glasses, and his short brown hair was very curly.

Both boys paused a second, waiting for the third to introduce himself. The young Nautolan looked down nervously. His skin was a smooth blue-grey color, and he had a head-tress of tentacles that came down over his shoulders. He looked slightly younger than the other two, but only by a year, maybe.

"And that is Ramu," The Youngling Alex introduced. "Our Creche Master, Master Quarmall, told us about you. We're only half the clan, but it's nice to meet you."

"Yeah, the others are in another room," Kent added. "Because they're Girls."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Ramu turned to confront his peer.

Kent shrugged, "Incase he wanted to know."

"We'll introduce you to them later," Alex said.

Anakin nodded. His mouth felt dry and his mind was suddenly empty of things to say.

"Here, let me help with your things." Kent lifted Anakin's bag. "Do you mind sleeping on the top bunk? Alex and I already claimed this side, and Ramu's tank takes up the whole bottom bunk over there."

"No." Anakin climbed up the ladder to his bunk. Indeed, the lower bunk bed was replaced by a rectangular tank. Through it's glass wall panels, Anakin could see smooth stones at the bottom and a filter, though the tank was currently empty of water.

The tank was something Anakin was very curious about. As he sat above it, his mind came up with many questions about how it worked, and where the water came from to fill it up. He'd just decided to go ask Obi-Wan, when he realized his Master wasn't there, and he frowned.

Ramu's tendrils moved out as if sniffing the air towards Anakin's direction. "Are you mad at us?"

"No," Anakin said.

"Then why are you upset?" Ramu asked.

Anakin sighed. "It's just, I wanted to stay with my own Master. Master Kenobi," He specified for their enquiring eyes. "Usually I stay with him, but he must not have wanted me or something."

"Oh. These rooms are built for younglings. Your Master is in a Knight's room, where everything is sized for grown-ups." Alex started to explain.

"Yeah, this is an academy vessel. Even Padawans sleep together away from their masters," Kent said.

"Why?" Anakin asked. The idea of separating a Youngling from their guardian was odd to him. Not even the slave Masters did that, most of the time.

The others shrugged.

"It's just how it's done," Ramu said. "You'll like this place. Everything's sized for us in the refresher, and we have datapads with tons of Holos on them." The once nervous youngling waved to invite him to follow. "Come down here and I'll show you."

Anakin climbed down and eyed the tank again. "Is that a HOB filter there? And is that an air pump to keep the water oxygenated?"

Ramu looked down. His cheeks blushed a darker blue.

Anakin could sense he was embarrassed. "I just wanted to know if I could have a look at the technology."

"No." Ramu shook his head.

"I won't touch anything. I am just curious."

"He said no," Alex said in a voice that brokered no argument.

"Alright," Anakin shrugged. "You wanted to show me the holos."

"Yeah, right here." Ramu pulled out a datapad with a list of titles.

Siri glanced down at her comlink. Obi-Wan was calling her. Without thinking she accepted it. "Sss-Zora here," she barely caught herself, raining in her joy to hold a neutral expression.

"Uh," Obi-Wan was startled for a few seconds. "Hi Siri…"

Siri sighed. "Obi. We talked about this. I need to foc…"

"I just thought you'd appreciate taking a little break, and someone wanted to say hi." Obi-Wan turned his com to a close up on an infant. Her infant, baby Gail. She was wrapped up in a papoose and it looked like another Jedi was behind her. Siri couldn't tell who it was, but it looked like the robes that Master Jinn often wore. She thought she could get a cavity, the sight was so cute.

"Oh-Obi," She drawled. "I need to get into the role of Zora again, if I'm going undercover. As much as I appreciate seeing her, Zora has no children. Zora sells children. Hhhh!" she sighed. The memories brought up tears in her eyes, further proving to Siri she needed time to get into the role. Three weeks ago she wouldn't have batted an eye at those memories.

Obi-Wan pulled the camera around to himself again. He looked sad as he said, "Alright. Bye Zora. We're looking forward to getting Siri back. He reached down to wave Abigail's hand at the camera before he clicked it off.

Siri sighed again. This was why, when the council announced their plans to bring two ships full of Younglings to Tatooine, she specifically requested journeying on the second one. She hated that she'd need to be away from them, but she knew it was necessary.

"So-ooo," Anakin began. I was talking to Ribou yesterday and he said…"

"Oh yeah, who's that?" Alex asked.

"Master Nenn, he's in the Service Corps. Anyway, he said that we should be arriving on Tatooine sometime today, after lunch. And I asked him. He said we could sit on the bridge when we come out of hyperspace if we're quiet and well behaved."

Anakin still found piloting, especially in space to be an exciting subject, and he couldn't imagine anyone would think differently. Which is why, when Alex shrugged, he tilted his head to get a better view. "It's nice to know we'll be arriving soon, but I'd rather watch the rest of that holo-fic."

"Yeah, the professor is almost finished fixing the ship," Kent said. "I want to see if they finally get off the planet."

Anakin sighed. He learned already that pointing out the chances of a group traveling on a thirty minute tour of the Core Worlds, coming across an undiscovered hyperspace portal and getting stranded in the outer rim is slim to none. Not to mention that the parts of the recovered pirate's ship would be incompatible with the barge they were originally stranded in.

Alex and Kent left to go watch their Holo-fic in the rec-room with the other younglings.

"I'll sit with you," Ramu offered. "Hhhhhhaw," He yawned.

"What's it, are you tired?" Anakin asked.

"Yeah, the one pump in my tank developed an annoying squeak last night," Ramu said.

"Want me to take a look at it?" Anakin offered.

"Oh you don't have to."

"No, I'm good with stuff like this. I mean I've never worked on aquatic systems, but technical stuff in general is usually similar enough. It might just be a clamp that needs some oil."

"Oh, Okay. I mean if you don't mind." Ramu pulled open his tank. "It's that pump right there."

"The air pump. I'll just take it out to have a look at it." Anakin leaned into the tank and pulled out the device. He carried it over to the worktable in the room, and used the Force to bring over his bag of tools.

After getting the cover off, Anakin discovered that the pieces were very tiny. Fortunately, his smallest tools, used for droid processor chips, were perfectly sized for it. "I see." Anakin announced. "This plate is cracked."

Ramu looked worried over his shoulder.

"It's no big deal. If I take the pieces apart I could solder them together." Ramu nodded, and so Anakin began the process of disassembling the pump. The hardest part was removing a set of elastic bands from the longest part of the device. They were fragile and if he pulled them too tightly, he feared they would snap, but he got them all off without breaking one. He placed them in a dish to the side for safe keeping.

"Okay, I'm ready to solder. Here, wear these." Anakin handed Ramu his spare mask. He donned a pair of gloves and picked up his solder gun. Squeezing it's trigger, he iced the broken edge with a thin layer of metal and then he used a clamp to hold the ends together until it cooled down. Within a few minutes it was ready to begin reassembly.

Anakin wore his magnification goggles when he reattached the elastic bands. He wanted to be very careful as he stretched them over their hooks.

"Hey!" Kent shouted by the doorway.

Anakin jumped. snap! The band broke. "No!" He cried.

Kent charged over and began yelling, "This isn't some toy of yours to mess with! It's his tank! Ramu still needs to sleep underwater. His junior gills haven't been reabsorbed yet."

"Hey, I was fixing it just fine until you stormed in here!" Anakin yelled back. He lifted his hand with the tweezers still clutching the broken band.

Kent folded his arms. "Oh yeah. Looks broken to me."

Ramu's mouth dropped open in shock and tears began to appear in his eyes.

Anakin apologized, "I'm sorry Ramu. I didn't mean to."

"What's going on here?" Alex appeared at the door.

The Nautolan Youngling ran away, pushing past Alex at the door.

Alex turned back to look at the two of them. His eyes settled on Anakin with a judgemental stare.

"He broke Ramu's air pump." Kent pointed the blame.

"I was trying to fix it. If you hadn't stomped in here like a stompeeding Bantha…"

Kent swung his hands up in the air. "You were the one who pulled the thing apart."

Alex ran in and positioned himself in between them. "Kent Jacoon. It is not worth it." He put a hand supportively on his clan mate's shoulder. "Skywalker. I think it's best, you leave. Now."

"Fine!" Anakin growled. He rushed to throw his supplies in the bag and stomped out of the room.

"I was standing up for Ramu." Kent whispered.

"I know. I will report this to the Masters later today." Alex whispered back.

Anakin felt like a failure. It didn't matter what he tried to do, everyone hated him.

Hello everyone,

As I said in the beginning, I kinda started a difficult storyline for Anakin. But I already know how I want to end it and I will try very hard to resolve it in the next chapter. Obi-Wan and Siri might have to wait. I do have quite a few plans for this Tatooine Story Arc, that will probably take more than one chapter to do.

For this chapter I tried to research a Youngling clan for Anakin, but I couldn't find anything on the Wiki's so I am assuming he never had one. The Bergruutfa clan is real, from legends. Only the younglings I had to make up.

I will try to finish the next chapter quickly, but in case I am not done by then, Happy Thanksgiving. The Liberty Day celebrations may yet include a feast inspired by the holiday mood.