Title: Twelve Roses and a Receipt
Chapter: 6. Death by Childcare
Summary: After Bespin, Luke is reunited with his father and mother when a cruel trick of fate throws them into an alternative universe where Palpatine failed and they are forced to act like a functional family. Vader/Padme and baby Luke.
Keywords:
Rating: G
Genre: Adventure/Humour
Timeline: Post ESB/ Legacy Era
Author: Wellingtonboots
Archive: Slytherin Serpent,
Status: Short Multi-chapter
AN: Thank to everyone who reviewed. I have been asked what the point of this story is - I assure you all that the plot will eventually unfold if the action and adventure take a while to arrive.
"Yes, Master Yoda, I do think he has been behaving very strangely ever since he got back from Mustafa…"
There was an inaudible crackled over Obi-Wan's comlink,
"No – I don't think he's ill. He really needs some time to sort out his life. Palpatine had an incredible strong hold on him over all these years," he paused slightly to listen to Yoda's reply, "Yes, I am giving all the support that I can."
Another long moment of silence filled the crèche hall and the thirteen younglings stared with awe and excitement at the comlink from which Master Yoda's garbled voice was emanating.
"I will be checking up on him this afternoon after I've finished the lightsabre lesson and I will send him your best wishes."
With a decisive jab of his finger, Obi-wan ended the call and turned back to his assembled pupil.
"Now my eager younglings, shall we try a new kata?"
A cacophony of affirmative noise rang through the crèche and Obi-wan made a mental note to bring a sound dampener next time.
By the time Anakin came back, the younglings were hankering for some duelling action. One particularly eager child named Ashoka Tano loudly suggested that they would learn much faster if only Masters Kenobi and Skywalker would let them duel!
Obi-wan tried to keep the surprise at Anakin's return out of his expression and smiled pleasantly at the gathered younglings many of whom had decided this was their best and only chance to impress two padawan-less Jedi Masters.
"Now children, I don't think we should be doing any duelling practise just yet. I have one more force exercise we have yet to complete,"
"Is it dodge ball!" cried Ashoka with great enthusiasm, "we should play with paintballs, it gives us more incentive to dodge!"
"You are a very smart young lady, Ashoka," said Obi-wan, "that is exactly what we are going to do, now everyone line up."
Anakin, he noticed, still hung behind him, unhappy and unsure of himself. Still this was his first encounter with younglings since his initiation into the temple and perhaps deep down inside the Hero with no Fear was rather scared of these boisterous youngsters. That beg that question of how in the stars was he handling the baby? Presumably Padme and Dorme were doing all the work for him.
The paintballs were duly bought out and the younglings dived into the box faster than a flock of mynocks spotting an exposed power cable.
Armed to the teeth with exploding paint balls of all different colours and sizes, the thirteen younglings filled the hall with their excited squeals. Behind him, Anakin sent a disturbing tremor through the force.
Honestly, thought Obi-wan shielding his less than generous thoughts from his former apprentice, you've defeated vast armies, came out unscathed against all the odds, but you're scared of a few younglings – it's not like they're going to eat you, Anakin! Perhaps a bit of paint will get you into combat mode again.
Without giving his apprentice any physical sign of what he was about to do, Obi-wan swung his paintball in Anakin's direction, helped by a hefty burst of telekinetics.
To his extreme astonishment the round rubber ball exploded across Anakin's face plastering his hair and robes with sickly green goo.
Oh my, I guess I'm never going to hear the end of that one…
An explosion of laughter broke out across the hall mingled with shouts of "do that again!"
Anakin, Obi-wan saw, looked even more shell-shocked than the time when he had entered their apartment to find his former masterhas set the kitchen on fire in an attempt to cook. Obi-wan's lack of culinary skills was legendary amongst the Jedi but Anakin's permanent departure for Padme's apartment left him with no choice but to fend for himself.
Green slime was dripping leisurely off Anakin's chin and splattering onto his mangled robes but it made very little difference. A crazy splash of neon green now decorated Anakin's dark brown tunic making it look as if he had become the reluctant canvas of a modern artist.
A few moments later Obi-wan was partly relieved to see his apprentice reach up to wipe the paint off his face. Unfortunately, the slime had already begun to encrust itself onto Anakin's skin and his scrubbing merely caused his face to turn one shade redder than before.
With his sole attention focused on Anakin, Obi-wan failed to notice the significantly larger bright pink paintball hurtling towards his face until his world exploded in a sea of pink gloop.
"Well done, master," snarled Anakin as they sat together in Laundry room 2B waiting for their robes to return from the abyss that was the washroom.
For a second, Obi-wan almost caught something different flicker across Anakin's expression, as if just for a single moment his former apprentice seized to be and something else had taken his place.
Shaking the absurd thought from his mind, Obi-wan attempted to find some semblance of peace in the blank cream tones of the laundry room wall.
"Well, it could have been worse," aid Obi-wan trying to inject optimism into his tone but failing miserably.
"How could it have been worse?" hissed Anakin through tightly gritted teeth. "the younglings and the entire crèche hall are coated in several layers of crusty multicoloured slime, not to mention our faces and robes."
"Well, I'm sure it will all come out with a good wash," replied Obi-wan calmly.
"How am I supposed to go home to Padme?" demanded Anakin gesturing to his face and hands.
"At least you are not bright pink, Anakin," snapped Obi-wan finally loosing what little of his patience he had left.
A dark glimmer of amusement leaked through the force followed by a faint sense of bitter gratification.
"Delight in other's misfortune is not the way of the Jedi,"
"Mmm-," muttered Anakin leaving Obi-wan feeling, not for the first time, that his apprentice had left something nasty unsaid. In fact it felt as if Anakin was withholding a great deal of decidedly unpleasant remarks recently that he had been clearly thinking but never saying. Tactfulness was not in Anakin's rather limited list of virtues and this unexplained change in his former apprentice was a little….unsettling.
"You're been awfully quite these days," commented Obi-wan keeping his tone was neutral as possible but Anakin's eyes sparkled with an emotion he could not quite describe.
"Have I?" Anakin asked coolly,
"Well, I suppose it must the stress of the baby – Luke's nearly nine months old now isn't he?"
"Yes, and he's becoming a handful," replied Anakin causally.
"You know, it's not too late to change your mind regarding Jedi training,"
"I've told you I have no intention of sending my child to the Temple. Even if I did, Padme would never agree to it."
Every conversation regarding Luke's potential as Jedi had ended unsuccessfully for Obi-wan. He wished fervently that he could make Anakin see that the life of a Jedi would be the best possible thing for young Luke who was as talented in the force as his father. However Obi-wan had to concede the point that even if Anakin could be bought on side, there was no possible way to persuade Padme to give up her only child. The last time he had attempted to bring the subject up, he had been summarily banned from the senator's presence on the pain of being thrown out of a window.
Just as Obi-wan's thoughts turned to the said window, Mace Windu walked into the laundry room… and promptly burst out laughing.
Darth Vader, strolled purposefully into Padme's apartment, having finally scrubbed the green slime off his face. Anger, humiliation and confusion raged through his mind, sending spikes of passion into the force but with no Jedi in the vicinity, the emulations of the Dark Side remained undetected.
Why? Why did that one memory decide to haunt him now? He had felt only twinge of remorse after slaughtering the Jedi younglings…they had been guilty of the same crime that the entire Order had perpetrated…so why was he unable to face them now? Why had he been so distracted by their presence that he had failed to see a giant ball of bright green paint flying at his face!
Remorse was not an emotion Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith should even contemplate feeling. Whatever uncomfortable emotion that was fuelling his irrational psychological state, it was not remorse. He was Sith and mercy was a weak flaw of the human body that needed to be conquered through knowledge of the Dark Side. Pulling on his pain and confusion, he wrapped a cloak of pure rage around himself, finding some security in the swirling darkness that enveloped his mind and soul.
As he entered the lounge, still fuelling his rage with thoughts of murder and destruction, he saw Luke perched on Padme's lap eating a piece of guri fruit and dribbling juice all over the upholstery.
His wife looked up with pure annoyance at his entrance.
"You're back early," she remarked coolly, as she wiped Luke's juice covered hands.
Vader glared at her, feeling the pent up rage he had been suppressing for last two weeks threatening to boil over. He no longer wanted to control the seething monster inside of him that demanded revenge for her abandonment.
"You bought him here to kill me!"
Suddenly Luke squeezed his piece of fruit too hard and it went flying into Padme's hair. For a second they both paused in shock and then burst out laughing, Luke's high pitched giggles mingling with Padme's bell like laughter.
For a moment, all the years of pain and anger melted away before Vader's eyes and he was once again on Naboo, racing Padme across a flower covered meadow, watching her eyes dancing with joy and her laughter ringing in his ears. The memory melted away as abruptly as it appeared but something had shifted inside his mind, as if the monster had retreated back into the abyss and he could think clearly again.
Killing Padme would only damage his chances of bring his plan to fruition, for now he needed her right where she was to allay any suspicions. She would provide him with the perfect alibi when the time came.
He watch impassively as she hastened to clean the dripping pieces of fruit from her perfect brown curls and a small part of him was secretly glad he would not have to remove her.
The boy on the other hand – the slobbering helpless toddler – would eventually be of use. He had decades to brainwash the boy into becoming an obedient servant. Vader felt a deep sense of bitter satisfaction: the boy was going to be his creature.
As if sensing his dark thoughts, his wife and Luke turned to glare at him in unison. Smiling once more with a putrid pleasure, Vader retreated into his study to plot.
"He's so creepy," muttered Luke as soon as Vader had move out of ear shot. Over the course of the last few hours, he had mastered the tongue movements to make his speech almost coherent.
"Mmm -," replied Padme, wiping vainly at the yellow fruit stains that were now scattered over her royal blue couch.
C3PO choose that moment to appear and, as per his personality, panicked at the state of the expensive upholstery.
"Oh Mistress Padme! Is that Rodian Blood? I shall clean this up at once!"
"It's alright 3PO – there's stain remover in the kitchen cabinet," said Padme wearily to the shining droid as he scurried away like his existence depended on it.
"Has he always been like that?" asked Luke licking his sticky fingers with relish. He had only tasted guri fruit on one occasion when the Rouge Squad had the great fortune of capturing a supply ship bound for the Executor. The untold luxuries on board were mostly far too exotic for Luke's tastes but guri fruit was the one thing he truly loved. In the days and months afterwards, he found himself dreaming of that small yellow fruit even more than he dreamt of the small farmstead that had been his first and only home.
"Well your father did program him, so that probably explains the anal-retentive paranoia,"
"Wah!!"
Luke had resolved never to be taken by surprise again after the string of terrible shocks to his system but this was one revelation too many. Not for the first time, he was beginning to seriously doubt his own sanity. Perhaps this was all just a terrifying dream concocted by his sleep deprived, guri fruit addicted mind. Maybe if he pinched himself hard enough he would wake up back in the pilot's barracks, drooling into his pillow.
"Yes, when I first met Anakin on Tatooine he had already completed C3PO. He salvaged the droid from the junkyard where he worked."
Luke choked on his own finger in shock.
His father – no Darth Vader – working in a junkyard? For a split second he envisaged a grumpy Sith Lord rummaging around piles of rusty metal with one hand whilst choking a customer with the other.
Wait did she just say Tatooine? I really need to get out of here before my sanity breaks!
"You know," he said weakly as he felt his pulse return to normal, "maybe it would be good idea if you just told me right now everything you know about Darth Vader and then I won't have a heart attack every time you say his name."
She looked back at him with wiry amusement,
"I guess Obi-Wan really didn't tell you anything…"
"Well, I only knew him for about two days," said Luke regretfully, "he hardly had any time to tell me about the force before Vader chopped him."
"Well," Padme leant forwards to push her holo terminal aside, "I suppose we should start from the time I became Queen of Naboo…"
AN: I may not be updating for a while considering exams lurk on the horizon. Please review!