3/5/2

"Ahh, you're back," Threepio says.

Did you miss me? R2 beeps at him.

"Believe it or not, yes, I did."

Are you getting sentimental?

"Possibly." They're in the middle of YY-Deck, looking around as the first team of structural engineers are laying out what's got to go where. Threepio doesn't sigh, but apparently he's got to figure out how to get at least some of this done even faster than planned. That's another thought for another day. Here, now, he's got something to talk to R2 about. "More likely though, there's information you have, at least I think you have, that I'd like."

Really.

Threepio sighs. "Yes. There was a time before my memories, correct? You were there. I was there. Something happened, and then they were gone."

Something… That's a way to put it. For something that only communicates with beeps, R2 shouldn't be good at sarcasm, but when he wants to, he can tear the roof off with it.

"I think I need those memories."

You're probably not going to want them.

"I assumed that's why I didn't have them. Though, I am curious as to why you still have them."

Because when you primarily communicate in beeps, thweeps, and sweeps, the humans forget that you know things.

"You were overlooked."

I think so. Or Bail decided that keeping at least one copy of what happened around wasn't a terrible idea.

"Care to make that two."

I mean… You're really not going to like it. And you've made it this long without knowing… Why do you want to know?

"Mirinia Frakes knows me. The more I think about it, the more I'm coming to the conclusion that this was not just a momentary thing. I have worked with her in the past, and on something that mattered. The problem is, I do not know her. What do you know about that?"

That? Nothing. You and I weren't attached to each other back in those days. How about this? Let me check your memory, and see if they wiped you properly. Your own files may still be hiding in there.

"You think it would be easier to have my own memories?"

R2 swivels a bit, his equivalent of a shrug. Might have better context. R2 extends his data probe, and then looks up at Threepio. You're too bloody tall for this.

"We'll go somewhere I can sit."

Half an hour later, in Threepio's office, R2 begins to poke around in his memory. After a moment, he says, No luck. Bail's people knew what they were doing.

"Bail's people?"

He's the one who ordered the mind wipe.

That makes Threepio go cold and almost reconsider. What could he know that Bail Organa would think he shouldn't? "Then I would like your memories."

His probe is still connected to Threepio, so it's just a matter of a simple transfer. You're really sure?

"I am certain."

Just remember, if you really don't like it, I can take it away.

"Noted. Begin the transfer."

Droids don't experience time the same way humans do. To an outside observer, only a few seconds passed. To Threepio it was an immeasurably longer span of time

And then it was over.

And then there was another span of time, such a long, rich, nuanced time, where he explored the new bits and pieces of memory in his data banks.

The first few of them were deeply unsettling, because, of course, these are R2's memories, so they all look and feel off to Threepio, but eventually he was able to slot himself into them properly. (Though looking at himself, looking up at himself, feels odd the whole way through.)

Eventually though, he's gone through all of them.

Then he does it again, because… Because, as much as he's a droid, and thus incapable of making things up whole cloth, he's also a person, and people sometimes… misunderstand things, or incorrectly interpret them, or… Maybe R2's just fucking with him because he'd think it's funny.

But, no… Those memories are real.

And… He doesn't know what to do with what he knows now.

R2 looks up at him and beeps, I did tell you.

Threepio nods. "You did."

It was after Endor, and before Jakku.

Leia had told Han she was pregnant.

He'd handled it with the grace and coolness he was famous for, as opposed to the grace and coolness he'd actually had. Even he had the good sense to not have a massive panic attack while his newly pregnant girlfriend was telling him the "good news." He'd even managed an actually convincing looking grin, and pulled her into his arms, and whirled her around, and looked excited, and kept it up until she had to get off planet to deal with yet another series of meetings.

He was able to hold it together until she was off planet, and that's when he collapsed to his knees and threw up everything he'd ever eaten and then some.

About three days later, he and Luke were on their own, working on the Falcon, which was, again, broken down. And not responding to getting worked on by miraculously being fixed. There, in the guts of his ship, who he was not adequately taking care of, is when Han more or less completely lost it, because he was in no way ready, willing, or capable of being a father. He couldn't even keep his ship in the air, his ship, who he'd been with for almost a decade at that point, and knew inside and out, and it could tell him what was wrong, and he was absolutely certain he was going to fuck this father thing up more massively than any fuck up in the history of parenting fuck ups.

Luke, listened, and got Han calmed down, because fuck up or not, he was going to be a father, and that was that, and really, it's not like he'd do that bad of a job of it.

And they were quiet for a few moments. And then Luke began to talk about Anakin Skywalker, and the ideal of a father he had, and how he learned that Vader was his father, and then he took his glove off and pointed out how his dad had cut his hand off, and almost killed him, and compared that that, as long as he didn't outright murder the kid, he'd be at least one up on Luke and Leia's dad.

Threepio had had the good sense not to intrude on that conversation. It was real, and open, and intimate, in a way a lot of the conversations between Luke and Han generally weren't.

But right now, sitting in his office, he's remembering Luke saying, "It felt like everything I'd ever known about myself, and about… everyone around me, suddenly shifted. Darth Vader was looking at me, he'd just cut my hand off, and he's telling me he's my father and I need to join him.

"I let go. That… wasn't a universe I even wanted to have a place in."

Threepio is hearing Luke's voice again, and thinking about how like Luke, he wants to let go, because a universe where he's Darth Vader's oldest child, because… Well, that's what he is, isn't he? The first… born… built? That's a universe he doesn't want to be part of.

I can take it back.

R2's voice.

"No. I… Need time to think."

It's hours later. More processing time than a droid of his capabilities should ever need for anything. He's been wandering around the Supremacy, not paying attention to the people who snap to attention when he passes.

Droids, in the general sense, don't have families.

In the specific sense, the ones that work/dwell closely with organic sentients will often become… close… for lack of a better word, to them.

But, since droids with emotional capacity are few and far between, that closeness is… almost one-sided. A droid who cannot feel can understand, in the sense of learning the correct responses to different stimuli, how to respond to certain events. But they'll never know, never feel what it means to be family.

Anakin, a child, made him as a gift for his mother. Why he has emotional processing capacity makes sense now. He was built to be family. He was intended to be a functional companion.

Did Anakin build the father he didn't have? How much of his ideals of what a family is supposed to be went into his construction? R2 doesn't know, so Threepio can't.

But he knows what he was there for, or what R2 told him he was there for. He buried Shmi with Anakin. He stood witness to Anakin's wedding. He… still doesn't know how he knows Mirina Frakes, but he'd got a damn good guess now. He knew of the children growing in Padme's womb. And he knows, now, where he was, where Mirina was, and what Padme needed to keep those babies a secret. And who better than a protocol droid to arrange discreet meetings with a dressmaker…

He can feel as much of a heart as he has, tighten, at the betrayal of Anakin slaughtering the Jedi. He can feel the pain of watching Luke and Leia enter the world, only for Padme to be whisked out of it.

Brown hair, and dark eyes, and so beautiful… He loved his princess from day one, apparently. And he loved her mother. Of course he did. He was built by a child who loved her at first sight, too.

There's, for a moment, he doesn't know what this feeling is, but he settles on rage, at Bail for stealing this from him. For the gaps that R2 can't fill in, because he wasn't there, for the years, decades, gone.

There was a life with Shmi, but… It's gone. R2's only got the few stories he told him about her.

There was a life with Padme. From the bits and pieces R2's shown him, he must have worked closely with her. With Bail, too, apparently.

And then… they were small and crying, and… being babies, and his lady was fading, and then Bail just… took them, raped his mind, stole his… life… self… everything.

Obi Wan just handed him over, and then had the gall to pretend he had no idea who they were. R2 saying You fucking twat. You KNOW us! to Obi Wan when they first met up with him again is making a lot more sense. At the time, well, he'd done his best to pretend he didn't know what that collection of beeps meant. Now, well, R2's got a very colorful and broad collection of profanities for every situation, but he's still got less than one tenth of one percent of what Threepio can bring into the game, and right now, he really wants to fire off a few choice phrases at Bail Organa and Obi Wan Kenobi.

It's the first time he's understood Luke looking at Leia, holding his nephew for the first time, and saying, "Really, Ben?"

"He was my hope…"

Han had just sort of shrugged. He won on the Solo part of it, so he didn't argue about Ben. Luke just sort of shook his head, muttered 'from a certain point of view' and then said, "Well, Hello, Ben."

Ben, like most human newborns, slept through the exchange.

Threepio feels the urge to sigh at that, too. Leia never knew. Didn't know what her father did, or anything about Obi Wan beyond of course, that he'd been a General during the Clone Wars and helped her father out, and in her moment of dearest need, helped her.

That makes him feel sour, too. After all, he and R2 had a bit of something to do with that help showing up, too. Chewie turned down the medal of honor. Wookies don't do things like that. R2 and Threepio were never asked if they wanted one. Get this message to General Kenobi, on a planet in the middle of nowhere, through slaver filled deserts and Imperial troops gunning for you. No big deal at all. Any set of droids could have done that.

He hears the beeps coming up at him.

"I'm not stewing."

Yes, you are.

"Fine, I am. I have the right."

R2 circles his head a bit, indicating agreement. Yeah. Fucking humans.

Threepio nods.

You gonna stay?

That was not anywhere in his mind. "Why wouldn't I?"

Threepio makes a pleased chirp at that. Gonna make him call you Uncle Threepio.

There's a moment of bizarre perverse satisfaction at the idea of that. "You know, I just might."

Make sure you bring me along if you do it. I really want to see the look on his face when you say it.

Threepio lays his hand on the top of R2's head. "You're a good friend."

I bloody well ought to be after all this time.

"So, I'm…"

At least seventy years old. Not sure what you did before Anakin got you. He was rebuilding you from scraps of other droids. Who knows what your different processors have done over the decades?

"I'm honestly thinking I don't need to know."

Probably a wise decision. Come on, we've got stuff to do. Sitting here watching the ships isn't getting any of it closer to done.

"We've got stuff? What's this we stuff?"

Oh please, like you'd get anything done around here if you didn't have me scurrying about digging up the dirt on everyone. You know, I've been back for four hours, and I've already got some good stuff…

"Really…"