As a child living on Tatooine, Luke had always dreamed of what it would be like to have his father around. While he certainly wouldn't have minded having a mother just like all of the stories said he should, he didn't feel that need as much. He had Aunt Beru, after all, and she was so kind and gentle. She had mastered the balance between being encouraging, and being strict. She coddled him when he needed some care, and disciplined him when he stepped out of line. He really couldn't ask for more.
It wasn't the same with Uncle Owen. While Luke loved the man, and he knew that Owen loved him deeply, he was also very strict and occasionally harsh. Uncle Owen was the kind of person who kept both his feet on the ground at all times, and he had a hard time relating to his nephew who always had his head towards the stars.
Luke saw Owen as a caring guardian, but he wasn't a father figure the way that Beru was a mother figure. For an orphan boy, all he dreamed about was a caring and gentle father who loved him no matter what, and would always be there for him.
Luke had accepted that he would never get that, but he was still excited for the chance to get to know Anakin Skywalker. He wanted to know who the man had been. Was he as flighty as Luke was accused of being? Did he feel the same need to fly that Luke did? He had always believed so deep down, but feeling it and knowing it were two completely different things.
Anakin came to the hanger shortly after Obi-wan and Leia left. Luke could feel him coming, and he got more and more excited about it. He was finally going to meet his father. He was sure that he would recognize the man as soon as he saw him. That he would just feel the connection between them.
He definitely felt something, but it wasn't the same connection he felt with Leia, or even Obi-wan. It was more like the potential for something more. That was fine. Even just the potential of a bond was far more than Luke had ever hoped for. When Anakin stepped into the hanger, Luke actually didn't recognize him for who he was.
Anakin was tall. While his hair was blond, it was far darker than Luke's. Anakin didn't look like somebody who had been raised as a slave on Tatooine. He carried himself with too much pride and confidence, and his body had no signs of having been kissed by the suns.
At a second glance, Luke realized that Anakin actually did look familiar. Not because he instinctively recognized him as his father, but because he recognized Shmi Skywalker's son.
Luke had seen him in his nightmare, when he'd come to save his mother. Anakin had failed, getting back just in time to hold his dying mother in his arms. Luke knew from his nightmares how it felt to die. To be tortured so much that your body and spirit just couldn't hold on anymore. He could imagine that it wasn't much easier to see that kind of thing happen to a loved one.
Just the thought of seeing Aunt Beru after she'd gone through horrors like this made Luke feel sick to his stomach. He felt for Anakin, and he accidentally projected his pain and empathy into the Force through the connection he already shared with the man.
Anakin didn't pause in his steps, but a sympathetic look came to his eyes. A look that was full of too much understanding to be pity. He didn't ask what was wrong the way that Leia or Obi-wan would. Anakin just approached him and the ship he was looking at.
"Obi-wan said I'd find you in here." Anakin said with a kind smile. "Though he probably didn't need to. I could probably feel you from halfway across the galaxy."
Luke frowned. It took him a long moment to realize that Anakin was talking about the Force. He hoped that Obi-wan hadn't sent Anakin this way to talk to him about the Force. Luke knew that he couldn't avoid it forever, or even for the rest of the day, but he just wanted a little more time to avoid thinking about this mystical power that he really didn't understand.
Luke didn't know how to say that he didn't want to talk about the Force, but he didn't have to. He didn't know if his feelings were projected through the Force or if he was just wearing his heart on his sleeve like he was told he had a tendency to do. Either way, Anakin seemed to understand.
"What do you think of the ship?" Anakin asked.
"I love it." Luke beamed. "I've never seen an engine like this."
"Really?" Anakin looked at the ship. "It's a pretty standard model for war ships."
Luke grimaced. He needed to remind himself that he was in the past. Ships that he saw as rare relics were the most current model. Leia would be so annoyed if he gave them away because of his fascination with ships.
Fortunately, Anakin didn't seem too suspicious. "You're from the Outer Rim, aren't you?" He didn't say it in disgust, or pity, or like he thought that Luke was an idiot because of where he came from. He was just stating a fact.
"Tatooine." Luke said. Anakin flinched, and there was the disgust that he was used to from off-worlders.
"I bet you're not sorry to be away from that place." Anakin said with a near sneer. Luke frowned at him. He didn't much like Tatooine either, because he had always been stuck there, but it was still his home, and he didn't like people looking down on it.
"I didn't leave on purpose." Luke said. He may have left the homestead, but there had definitely been no intention to time travel or end up on Coruscant. "I was just kinda brought here."
"Yeah, I heard about that." Anakin said. "It's quite an experience for your first proper exposure to the Force." The slightly teasing smile on his face was replaced with a softer expression. "Are you really in a hurry to get back? I've never heard of someone from Tatooine who is jumping at the chance to return."
"My family's there." Luke said plainly. "I don't like being forced away from them."
There was a pain in Anakin's eyes. He put his hand on the ship. He looked like he wanted to fly away from this very conversation. "I get it." And Luke knew he did. Anakin had been pulled away from his mother. It had probably been for the best, but it was still a traumatizing experience for anybody.
Luke wanted to ask him about it. He wanted to know if his father had ever regretted leaving. He wanted to know if Anakin just pushed Tatooine out of his mind, leaving it forgotten in the past, and convinced himself that there was nothing left for him there. Had Anakin felt like he could even have returned if he wanted to?
But Luke didn't say anything, because he knew where that conversation would go. Anakin had returned to Tatooine, just for a bit, and it hadn't been a good experience. He'd been there to see his mother die. To hold her in his arms one more time. Luke didn't want to talk about that, and not just because he would surely reveal that he knew about Shmi, and that would raise a lot of questions that Leia wouldn't want him to answer.
He didn't know how to talk about it. He wouldn't be able to get the words out at all. It still felt so raw and painful. He would much rather talk about ships, and get to know who his father was as a person.
"Are you a pilot?" Luke asked. Anakin relaxed at the question, smiling.
"The best one in the Order." Anakin said proudly, and Luke didn't doubt his words for a second. "Obi-wan would probably disagree, but he doesn't know what he's talking about. I'm telling you, when I'm behind those controls, it's like I become one with the whole galaxy."
"Wow." Luke was in complete awe. "Is that… is that the Force?"
"Yeah." Anakin gave him an encouraging smile. "I've always had a pretty strong connection to it, but when I fly it's like something else entirely. I just let go and give in to my instincts. I give in to the Force, and it hasn't let me down yet."
Luke hadn't really wanted to talk about the Force, but it was different from Anakin. This was his father. The man that Luke had admired his whole life. If he thought the Force was a good thing, maybe it was at least worth considering.
"Doesn't it ever scare you?" Luke asked. "All this weird power that you can't control?"
"Sometimes." Anakin admitted. There was a distant look in his eyes. "But I can't just ignore it. The Force is…well, it's the living energy of the whole galaxy. It's not really something that can be ignored."
"But it hurts." Luke said. Some might call his tone a whine, but he was just so tired and scared, and he couldn't keep his emotion contained. "I-I can't keep doing this."
Anakin looked at him, a weird intensity in his gaze. "Are you talking about your nightmares?" Luke couldn't help but flinch at the reference.
"I don't want to talk about it." He said stiffly.
"Padmé told me you've had recurring bad dreams." Anakin said sympathetically. "I know this isn't going to be what you want to hear, but talking can help."
"I can't." Luke said. How was he supposed to tell Anakin that he'd been having nightmares about Shmi? It would just open old wounds and raise questions that he really couldn't answer.
"Why not?" Anakin asked. There was a fair amount of frustration in his voice.
"You wouldn't understand." Luke said. He was sure of that, because nobody understood. Even Anakin wouldn't get it. He'd lost his mother, and that was horrible, and traumatizing, but Luke had experienced it. He'd felt the Tuscan's hands over his body, causing pain, humiliation, and other feelings that he didn't even want to think about. He'd heard his grandmother's screams, and felt his own throat break from the strain.
When he woke up, it all became a memory, but the pain had been real. Just because his throat was fine, and he had no bruises or other physical signs of his hurt didn't mean that the feelings hadn't been there. But nobody would believe him. They would probably tell him it was just his imagination.
"Yes, I would." Anakin insisted. "Your dreams, they show the same things over and over again, right? And they're more vivid than other dreams are. More real. And they leave you with a bad feeling, like something's about to go wrong."
Luke felt both cold and warm at the same time, because Anakin knew. He understood just what the Force was doing to him, and the look in his eyes seemed to say that he knew from experience. Maybe Luke wasn't the only one who'd had such terrible dreams.
"I know the burden that comes with having a Force vision." Anakin said in a hushed tone. "It's like it's draining at your very soul." And he was right about that. Luke understood that feeling well.
"What can I do?" Luke asked. If Anakin had had these kinds of dreams before, maybe he knew how to stop it.
"The Force may be trying to talk to you. Maybe to warn you of something that will happen in the future." Anakin sounded pained. "Something you might be able to prevent." Luke knew he was right, because he'd had visions like that before, but what he'd been feeling these past few weeks was different.
"That's not it." Luke said. He couldn't prevent something that had happened in the past, which just wasn't fair, considering the time traveling situation. Why couldn't he have been sent back just a few more years, before Shmi was taken?
Anakin was getting frustrated. "Then what is it?" But Luke didn't say anything, because how could he? Anakin waited impatiently for an answer, but when he didn't get one he sighed, looking completely drained. He didn't even seem mad anymore, he was just sad and tired.
"I had Force visions a few years ago." Anakin said quietly. Luke looked at him, but Anakin was pointedly looking away from him. "I was plagued by nightmares for months, and it was unbearable. I was scared of going to sleep. Even when I was awake I felt haunted by what I saw."
Luke felt slightly ill. "You had your dreams for months?" He felt like he was going to fall apart after just a few weeks. He didn't know if he could take much more
"They weren't every night." Anakin said, and that just wasn't fair. "Maybe once every two or three weeks. Just long enough that I could convince myself that everything was fine, and that my dreams were just a manifestation of my anxieties, and not really a vision. And then I would have the dream again."
"What did you see?" Luke asked, though he didn't think he actually wanted to know. Anakin looked pained, and Luke could feel the sadness and rage flowing out from him. He didn't like this at all.
"My mother." Anakin said, and Luke felt like his blood suddenly turned to ice. "She was...suffering. And my mom never showed her pain easily, so for me to know she was hurt at all meant that it was bad."
Luke felt like he was going to be sick. His father had seen that. Maybe not all of it, but obviously enough. Luke wanted to feel a deep empathy with his father. He wanted to feel seen and understood. Instead all Luke felt was hurt, horrified, betrayed, and painfully furious.
"Months." Luke's voice shook so much that it was barely audible. "You had your visions for months. You knew your mother needed you, and you didn't do anything?" Where he had started quiet, he was nearly screaming at the end. A dark, ugly feeling was curling up in Luke's chest. "You could have saved her!"
Anakin looked like he'd been stabbed right through the heart. A moment later his shock was overcome with anger.
"I did what I could." Anakin said. "I tried to save her, but I was too late."
"You didn't try hard enough." Luke growled. Anakin's eyes flashed dangerously. A part of Luke that felt a lot like Leia told him that he needed to calm down. That he should take a deep breath, walk away, and center himself. He knew he should listen to that, but he couldn't. The churning in his gut was too strong, and the anger was overpowering.
"You had your dreams for months." Luke's voice broke, but he was still so mad. "You could have saved her. You could have stopped her from being taken in the first place." Shmi had been with the Tuskens for weeks. Anakin had been having his visions for far longer than that. He could have spared her from all the unnecessary pain.
Anakin looked furious and tortured. He took a step towards Luke, and he suddenly looked even taller. Maybe Luke was projecting the dark feelings swirling inside of him, but Anakin looked like he was absolutely surrounded by shadows.
"You don't know what you're talking about." Anakin said with forced calmness. Luke knew he should back down. He didn't want to start a fight with his father, or hurt him, but he couldn't stop. He felt too hurt and betrayed.
His father had never been there for him. Luke had done his best to understand that he couldn't be, but that couldn't keep him from wishing he could. Especially these past few weeks. Luke had felt like he was drowning in pain, and he couldn't get out himself. He needed someone to save him. He'd needed his father more than ever.
But Anakin hadn't come, and he hadn't come for Shmi either. Not until it was too late for her. She'd suffered unspeakable horrors, and Anakin had just ignored it. Now Luke was facing that suffering himself, and it killed him to know that he wouldn't have had to if his father had just done what he was trying to tell Luke to do now. If he'd just followed his visions from the start.
"You weren't there." Luke tried to glare at Anakin, but his eyes were stinging with tears. He was falling apart, and he couldn't keep himself going. "You were never there. You should have saved her." He should have saved Luke.
"I tried!" Anakin shouted. He looked as broken as Luke felt, which just made the boy angrier. For a horrible second, he didn't think his father deserved to feel upset about this, because it wouldn't have happened if he'd just done something.
Luke knew it was the Tuskens' fault. He knew that Anakin had made a mistake, and that didn't necessarily make someone a bad person. But he couldn't think through those facts. All Luke knew was that he was hurt, and scared, and oh so tired, and he wouldn't be going through any of this if the man in front of him had just done things a little differently.
"You didn't try hard enough." Luke said brokenly. He was still mad, but more than that he just felt drained and shattered.
Anakin looked furious. "Don't you think I know that?!" He took another step towards Luke, and it was more than the boy could handle. He didn't know if he was scared of his father hurting him, or if he was scared of causing more pain because he was lashing out. All he knew was that he couldn't stay there. He couldn't be here anymore.
Luke shoved past his father, and he just ran. He didn't know where he was going, and he didn't care. He wouldn't ever be able to get far enough away, because what he was trying to run from was the shadows that clung to his soul. He couldn't run from himself, no matter how much he wanted to.