The General and his Lady were asleep.
Lady Padmé was sleeping more these days, Rex realized uneasily, casting his gaze back to the screen, staring at the words without comprehension. Her stamina was waning as her condition deteriorated, and it was painful to watch. The farking doctors argued among themselves, unable to decide if the cause of her decline was her mysterious illness or the fruitless, exhausting search for their son. She and the General were thinner and their tempers were shortened by despair, but they still clung to each other and believed. Rex wished he could be as certain that the child lived but, barring a miracle, it was unlikely Luke had survived. Or if he had, would ever be found.
In his opinion, going to the media had been a mistake. In an unexpected announcement this morning, Entertainment Today declared that they were sponsoring a ten-million-credit reward, and Rex knew that would bring out the unscrupulous— crazies, crooks, extortionists, every low mobster in the galaxy. The Skywalkers would freely give everything they owned and held dear to whoever found their boy, and there would be no limit to their lifelong gratitude in every form. But now that a monetary amount had been slapped on the search without their permission, it was turning into a free-for-all with ordinary citizens, bounty hunters, and (Rex suspected) even troopers vying for the prize, with no conscience about hurting the distraught parents.
"This is impossible," Kix muttered across the table, his face made ghostly by the monitor's light. "Or at best, highly unlikely. There are already hundreds of thousands of contacts pouring in. Force, Rex— some people are offering their own son as a substitute!"
"Yeah. FIDO. Put those aside for investigation later." He leaned back and rubbed his eyes.
"You've been going at this for hours." Kix studied him with professional concern. "Need a break?"
"We're the 501st, we don't take breaks." He smirked when Kix grunted and the Shiny at a nearby desk punched his fist in the air.
"The General will be back soon. Probably."
"Hope not. He needs to sleep."
"Yeah, I'm sure he'll keep sleeping and forget what's happening." Kix grimaced to indicate his disbelief. "I'm done with the last batch of claims from Naboo. They're all worthless."
Damn. That had been where Lady Padmé wanted to start even though she and the General had searched her home planet again and again. Alderaan had come up empty too. Now he was overloaded combing through the entries from Coruscant, a monster that kept growing heads. The tally continued to update, and he flinched when he saw they were approaching the one million mark.
"Maybe we should go through the lesser populated planets to eliminate them. There aren't many, and it might be easier to review their new claims as they come. At least we'd have something off our plates."
"Good idea. I'll take Tatooine," Rex decided, then divvied up some Outer Rim planets among the other volunteers.
"Wouldn't that piss off the General if his kid had been on Tatooine all this time."
He didn't respond. To his knowledge, General Skywalker had never gone back to his birthplace after he left as a child. His reasons weren't clear— although being born a slave on that shithole planet would be reason enough.
There were barely half-a-hundred submissions from Tatooine, but he didn't doubt that would increase as news of the reward reached the Hutts and the smuggler scum that used the planet as a hidey-hole for their loot. He ran the respondents through the algorithm and was startled when a pattern emerged immediately. Minor though it was, it couldn't be a coincidence that six people from the barely-there outpost of Anchorhead mentioned the same child. Lars, they said. Lars. When he searched further he found a communique from a couple with that name.
Typical of people struggling to siphon out a living from an unforgiving land, the couple's cheap long-distance holoservice was distorted and half-ruined by static. Their words were jumbled, and they talked over each other to the point that he couldn't make heads or tails of their rambling story, something about a shipwreck and Tuskens and a found baby that they had named Luke Skywalker. Rex tightened his mouth at their audacity and the effrontery of insulting the General and his Lady by claiming they had named their child three years earlier. He would remember these people and gut them himself, later.
Their images disappeared and an old still snapshot filled the screen. It was a swaddled baby, a month or so old judging by its appearance. Two small, strong hands, probably feminine, held it. A leather thong was hanging off—
He bent closer until his nose nearly touched the screen. There was a piece of something pale and solid between her weatherbeaten fingers. Bone? It was carved with notches and seemed familiar. Hadn't he seen Lady Padmé wearing something like it, long ago? Once, when he wasn't supposed to notice, he'd seen the General touch it where it lay between her breasts and smile at her. He wasn't certain if this was a similar necklace because that had been years ago. Before the baby.
He enlarged the shot as much as possible. Was it the same? It couldn't be. "Krinkin' clankers! No! But… is it? Kix, am I crazy?"
"You are, but have you found something?" Kix came round and leaned over his shoulder. "What? I don't get it."
"There. That bit of carving. Didn't she wear something like this?"
Kix shrugged. "Maybe, I dunno. Who notices jewelry? Where'd it come from?"
"Some people named Lars. Tatooine. They seem sincere. Scared maybe." He pulled out his handheld and punched in their names. "Owen Lars, homesteader. Beru Lars, homesteader. No children registered. But they're saying they found a baby three years ago and named him Luke Skywalker."
"That's effing weird." Kix folded his arms. "It can't be true. Could it? You think? Unless— Oh, Sithspit, what if it's a Force thing?"
"Oh crit!" Rex groaned. "I hate Force things!"
"You and me both, brother. But who are they?"
"Lars, they only say 'Lars'."
"There's more to the message." Kix pointed to a nearly-invisible icon. "Your old eyes can't see that?"
Rex opted to neither confirm nor deny and tapped the little arrow. The baby picture vanished and the couple reappeared, their images grainy and shaking.
"...Ana... half-broth… years… mother married my fa… when she… killed…."
"Anakin," the woman interrupted, her voice strong and clear, "we didn't know… we would've… don't be… just… please!"
"Shit." Kix looked at him. "This could be real."
"I hope so." He copied the message to his datapad. "Because damn, I don't want to break their hearts."
"They were broken three years ago, bro," Kix told him gently. "It can't get any worse."
"Never say that," Rex reminded as he left the room to wake up his General.
# # #
Anakin sat on the edge of the bed as they watched the message for the third time.
"It's him, I know it's him!" Padmé's face flushed with excitement and renewed hope. "I can see, it's him! He looks just like his picture! And the necklace-– it's mine, the one you made! They said it was lost!"
They compared the two snaps, Luke's hospital birth photo and the one from the Lars. The hands holding the baby were different, but the little one's face….
Anakin nodded, shook his head, then shrugged. He was afraid to agree, just in case this ended in disappointment like everything else had. He didn't know how much more Padmé could take. He didn't know how much more he could take. "It's… maybe. I don't know. I should follow up a couple other leads, too." Owen Lars. He'd never thought of Lars. Why would he? Who knew they were related? Only he and Padmé. "Did you tell your family about Owen?"
"I told them we went to Tatooine." She bit her lip, thinking. "About what happened to your mother. And… yes, I must have told them about Owen and Beru. I don't remember if I said their names."
"If you did…." His mind raced, pulling the pieces together. "Or even if you didn't, if they mentioned them to Bail Organa-–"
"When Alderaan was attacked, Bail might have taken Luke to them," she finished. "Oh, Anakin! That was Bail's hand holding Luke in the birthing suite. And it means he…. Oh. It was Bail who…."
"Bail who died in the shuttle crash," he completed. "Yes. But Luke lived, just a baby and he lived! The Force must be strong in him." Fear warred with his joy. "Padmé, we could be wrong. This could be a coincidence. Or they could be duping us."
"Why would they? You can hear the pain in their voices." She put her hand on his cheek. "They named him Luke Skywalker."
"Maybe. That could be a lie too. It's incredible. Almost impossible. It's…." Too much to hope for. He stood and faced the balcony, staring sightlessly at the lake. "I thought they were good people, but if this is all a lie…. And what do Tuskens have to do with their story?" His head cocked, screams from Tatooine reverberating through his head, echoes that would never end. I killed them all… women and children too. He didn't want to go back there.
But he would. If there was any chance this was Luke, he would travel to the depths of his personal hell to bring back his baby.
"We're going." She threw aside the sheet and slipped out of bed.
"I'm going. You're staying here." He gripped her upper arms and stared into her eyes. "I want to get there fast, just in case— My love, hyperspace could kill you. Luke will need his mother. I don't want to have to tell him that she died on her way to him."
"I… I know." She curled her fists and rested them against his chest, shaking her head. "I know, I know. But— You have to bring him back. As soon as you can. Bring him home!"
"If it's really him…." He put his arms around her and kissed her forehead. "If it's our Luke, we can't tear him away from the only parents he's known, not right away." Mom… so brave, watching me leave, not shedding the tears that must have come later. "We have to be gentle with him. With them. Once I find out the truth, you come to Tatooine through regular space— with Kix," he added sternly, not trusting that she might decide to fly herself and jump despite the risk to her life.
Taking a step back, Padmé wove their fingers together and pressed them against her lips. "Promise you'll call me immediately. As soon as you get there. As soon as you get the test results."
"Yes, your majesty." He usually grinned when she slipped into regal mode, but not this time. I don't need any tests. "I'll know him."
I recognized him before he was born. I saw him. I felt him.
"He's not dead," she reassured, misinterpreting what she saw on his face. "He's alive. I've always known it."
"So have I, my love." So have I.