Trouble

A study in teenage frustration, dramatic irony and tragic foreboding. Missing moment from ANH.

~:~:~

Trouble. It's what Uncle Owen always says whenever he actually lets Luke go anywhere. Stay out of trouble. Don't get into trouble.

It's never given as the reason for not letting Luke go – Uncle Owen doesn't usually give reasons. Just comes up with an endless string of other chores to be done first. Then you can run off with your friends.

It's like this evening. Just one more season...

Luke shifts and shuffles and turns over in bed. He's not hungry, quite. Aunt Beru had left his dinner keeping warm and waiting for him, guessing as usual he'd sneak into the kitchen and grab it later. But his stomach is sufficiently disturbed by its delayed mealtime that it doesn't seem to plan on letting him go to sleep. Either that, or his mind's too troubled to switch off.

Trouble.

Luke can practically hear Uncle Owen's voice saying it. Never with a word of explanation, of course.

"He worries about you," Aunt Beru always says, by way of explanation.

Yeah. Right.

When he was at school, it wasn't so different from what everybody else's fathers said. But now-?! What does Uncle Owen think he's going to do? Go into Anchorhead's only cantina and get rip-roaring drunk?

He doesn't have enough money to do that, for one thing – quite aside from that he simply wouldn't! It's not like there's anybody left on Tatooine who'd stand him even one drink. His friends have all gone, none of the girls ever took much notice of him anyway. Owen Lars' nephew, the moisture farmer's kid from way out back by the Dune Sea – not an attractive proposition. There aren't even any Imperial Stormtroopers to flick wamp rat dung at, on the forsaken bit of twin sun parched rock! – which is what Biggs used to laughingly suggest Uncle Owen might be thinking of, when Luke told him about 'trouble'.

Biggs. Where's Biggs now? Luke turns over and kicks at the tangling blanket round his feet. Somewhere cooler – in all possible senses of the word. Flying. Which really, really wasn't fair! Biggs wasn't the best shot! Biggs wasn't one who could go fastest up Beggar's Canyon! Biggs wasn't the one with a navigator for a father – even a disastrous, fly-by-night, never-to-be-mentioned navigator off a spice cruiser father had to give you some genetic right to be a good pilot!

The blanket's in an unendurable knot. Luke kicks it sharply off the end of the bed. Then he sits up and drags it back again. Aunt Beru has enough difficulty in life without him sweeping the floor with his blanket so it would need washing.

No, life isn't fair. But it's life in general, really. Not Uncle Owen, whatever Biggs said when he'd tried to coax Luke into just plain running away and joining the Academy with him. Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru were fair. He couldn't have just betrayed them like that, run out on them like a thankless urchin. They were fair and good and worried about him like no-one else did and meant well – even Uncle Owen.

They're here for him. He has to be here for them.

But, basically, Uncle Owen would rather he stays home. Luke sits up to stare across the dark room. Stay home – forever. Work on the vaporators, help out with the harvest, sweat away in the workshop – keep his head down and his hands busy. Even watching the sunset isn't something Uncle Owen thinks highly of.

Luke sighs, and flops back hard against his pillow. Well, he does it – give or take a few sunsets. Look at today! Stayed home, stayed out of trouble, got the two new droids checked over...

So much for staying out of trouble.

Sand! If he doesn't get that little droid back in time in the morning, the mysterious girl in the hologram isn't going to be the only one in trouble!

~:~:~