Chapter 1: i think you're my best friend
Chapter Text
---- August, 1987----
The closer his dashboard clock gets to 8:00, the more Luke thinks about starting up his car again, pulling back out of the parking lot and spending the day at the shop. His palms start sweating as he taps out a rhythm on the steering wheel, thoughts racing through his head and butterflies swirling in his stomach. He stares at the sight ahead of him, of students milling around in front of the steps to Watford County High School. It’s the start of another year, sure, but this year feels different. It’s high school. And high school, from what he’s heard, is a Big Deal.
A thud from the roof of his car makes him jump. He glances out his driver’s window and sees a familiar face smiling down at him.
“Scare ya?” Biggs asks, his crooked, wide smile covering his face.
Luke rolls his eyes and grabs his backpack from the other seat. He pushes the door open, shoving Biggs backward and climbing out of the car.
“I’m surprised this old bucket of bolts is even still running,” Biggs says, throwing his arm around Luke and walking toward the school.
“We missed you over the summer, Luke,” Camie says from behind them, and Luke looks back to see the rest of his friends tagging along. “The shop just isn’t the same without you.”
“Yeah,” Deak chimes in. “Not another person in there telling me when I fuck something up.”
Luke rolls his eyes again, smiling. He still hasn’t found his voice quite yet. It seems to be receding steadily into him the closer they get to the door. He listens to the conversation as they pass through the double set of doors into the school. The butterflies start swirling again, a nervous energy pulsing through him. Biggs takes his arms off Luke’s shoulder, and his friends begin walking toward the senior lockers. Luke pauses, glancing around at his classmates standing at their lockers and chatting.
“You alright, Luke?” Biggs asks. He’s hung around, giving Luke a curious expression.
Luke shakes his head a moment, finally coming back to reality. “Yeah, I think so. It’s just … weird, you know?”
Biggs chuckles. “Tell me about it. Last first day of high school for me.”
“For all of you,” Luke mutters, glancing down at the floor.
“Aw, c’mon, don’t be like that,” Biggs says, giving him a gentle shove. Luke looks up, and Biggs is smiling at him. “Graduation’s a whole year away. This is your first day of high school. At least try to enjoy yourself, won’t you?”
Luke smiles in spite of himself. “I guess I’ll try.”
“Good. I’ll see you at lunch then?”
The warning bell rings in the middle of Biggs’ sentence. Luke feels his stomach start churning again as the chatter around them increases. “Yeah,” he says weakly, as Biggs gives him another grin and turns around. “Wait! Biggs!” The older boy turns back. “Where’s room 213?”
Biggs rolls his eyes and shakes his head. “Luke, you’re a smart kid,” he begins. “There are six hallways in this building, and only one of them is up a flight of stairs. I think you can figure that one out for yourself.”
Luke peeks his head into the classroom, only letting himself relax when he realizes no one else is there. Even the teacher’s desk at the back of the room is empty. He slips into the desk in the back corner of the room and takes his sketchpad and a pencil out of his backpack. His summer project of designing a new engine for his car had fallen by the wayside once harvest had started, but he was determined to actually have a working model by Christmas. As he starts drawing, he listens absently to the sounds filtering in from the hallways, a gentle buzz of background noise. Voices begin to filter in more clearly after a few minutes as students come in.
The bell rings again. The desk in front of him shakes a little as someone sits down in a rush, and Luke’s hand shakes, creating a dark gash down the middle of his sketch. He looks up to glare at the person in front of him and is met with a pile of dark hair, done up in intricate braids. A boy’s voice comes through the intercom, saying “Good morning, WCHS, and welcome back to another year” in a voice that sounds far too chipper for eight in the morning, and Luke resumes his sketches, letting the announcements fade into the background as everyone around him babbles on about their exploits over the summer.
“Would everyone shut up for a minute so I can take attendance?” a loud, growly voice says from the front of the room. The din around Luke quiets, but whispers persist. The teacher begins calling out names. Luke makes notes to himself on his sketch, listening as his classmates respond, forming a mental picture in his head of the class. It’s not bad, he thinks absentmindedly. It’s not great, either; there are too many football players, but at least they’re all nice to him. Mr. Anderson pauses for a moment, and Luke pauses too, glancing up at him. “L-Leah Or-”
The girl in front of Luke sighs. “It’s pronounced Leia,” she says. Luke can practically hear her eyes rolling. He stares at the back of her, at the braids piled on top of her head. He can’t remember the last time someone new moved into town. Moving out was the more common theme around here.
“Leia,” Mr. Anderson repeats. “Leia … Organa, is it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re new. Parents get transferred in on the railroad?”
“No, sir. My father’s an army officer. Retired army officer.” It sounds like a correction, like the words are unfamiliar in her mouth.
“Odd place to come for retirement.”
There’s a small pause before Leia responds with, “Yes, sir,” again. She sounds amused.
“Your father fight in the war then?
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, be sure to tell him thank you from me.” Mr. Anderson glances back down at the attendance sheet, obviously ready to move on.
“I would, sir,” Leia says, just as Mr. Anderson is about to call the next name, “but my father doesn’t accept any thanks for the part he played in Vietnam.”
Mr. Anderson turns back to her, staring at Leia with a bewildered expression on his face. The announcements have stopped, Luke realizes, which is why it’s suddenly so quiet in the room, the tension palpable. “And what is that supposed to mean?” Mr. Anderson asks, quieter now, with just a hint of disgust.
“Just that. Sir.” Leia’s voice is clipped and cutting.
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard of somebody who fought for their country and then came back to side with hippies and anti-war freaks,” Mr. Anderson spits out, giving Leia a look that sends shivers down Luke’s spine. But Luke can see Leia’s shoulders tense, her fingers grabbing onto the edge of the desk, and hears her let out a shaky breath as Mr. Anderson says “Jeremy Pinkman.” Luke feels the class let out a collective sigh as Jeremy responds, “Here.” Luke returns to his engine sketches, still feeling on edge. “Luke Skywalker,” he hears after a few seconds.
“Here,” he says without looking up.
He hears Leia turn around more than he sees it. The chair squeaks, and her jeans rustle as she turns to face him. Her arm drapes over onto his desk, touching the top of his sketchpad. “Skywalker?” she whispers.
Luke glances up at the new girl, at Leia. She’s close to him, a lot closer than he’d expected, and her big brown eyes are staring at him intensely, as if she’s evaluating him. There’s conflict in her expression - her jawline is set in determination, but her eyebrows are furrowed, as if confused. “Y-yeah,” Luke whispers back, more of a question than a statement.
Her eyes flit over him, scanning him with an intensity that makes Luke uneasy. Leia’s gaze brushes over his sketches. Luke has the urge to cover them up with his hand, but his arm stays where it is. He feels frozen by her stare. “Huh,” she says, turning around casually. The bell rings. Luke doesn’t move again until Leia is out of sight.
“So how was the first day?”
Luke moves his head up only to feel it collide with the cold, hard metal above him. “Shit! ” he whispers as the bang echoes in Ben’s massive garage.
“That well?” He can hear the smirk in Ben’s voice.
“It was fine,” Luke replies, ducking out from between two parts of his engine to scribble in his notebook.
“That’s all I get? Your first day of high school, and all you can say is ‘It was fine’?”
Luke rolls his eyes, glancing up at Ben. “You sound like my aunt and uncle,” he says before returning to his sketch.
“Fair point,” Ben says as he picks up a tool Luke had set down earlier. “But they aren’t letting you build a new engine for your car in their garage, are they?”
Luke sighs and puts down his pencil. “It was … fine,” he says again, and Ben raises an eyebrow. “No, really, it was pretty boring. I was nervous, but I got over that pretty quick once I realized all we were going to do was go through the syllabus and do ice breakers.”
“Meet anyone interesting?” It’s an innocent enough question, but Luke notices the way Ben doesn’t make eye contact with him when he asks it.
Luke snorts. “I know you only leave your house once a month, but you know the way Meridan is. No one comes in, no one goes out.” He frowns. “There was one girl, though.” He waits for Ben to ask a follow-up question, but Ben’s eyes stay fixed on the part he’d picked up. “Uh, in my homeroom. Her name was Leia, I think.”
“Interesting name,” Ben says, still not looking at Luke.
“Yeah,” Luke says, picking up his pencil again. “She acted like she knew me?”
Ben is still for a long time before he sets the part down and finally looks at Luke with an intense gaze that unsettles him. “Really?”
“Y-yeah. Or at least like she’d heard my name before. She heard Mr. Anderson say my name and turned around to give me a look, like she was judging me or something.”
“Douglas Anderson is still teaching?” Ben says, a smirk on his face. “I thought I was done hearing complaints about him from a Skywalker.”
“My father didn’t like him?” Luke asks, feeling his heart pick up speed. It had been a while since Ben had told him something new about his father.
“Anakin had … let’s just say, strong feelings about the man’s teaching style, and expressed his feelings often, and loudly.”
“He cussed him out, didn’t he?” Luke asks, smiling.
“Many, many times.” Ben moved over to stand behind Luke, a smile on his face. “How’s this thing coming, anyway?”
Luke shifted to let Ben look at his design. “I’m hopeful,” he says, looking for approval on Ben’s face. “And I think you’ve got pretty much everything I’ll need to put it together.”
“Good.” The smile on Ben’s face gets bigger, and Luke’s pride swells.
“Thanks for letting me use your garage again. And your parts.” Luke adds a quick label to his sketch as Ben moves to inspect the part Luke had spent the last two hours putting together. “I couldn’t convince Uncle Owen that it would be worth it to let this take up space in his workshop.” Or any of my other projects, Luke stops himself from adding.
“You know what’s mine in this garage is yours, Luke,” Ben says, turning back around. “Besides, I’m sure your uncle will realize what a good idea this is when he doesn’t have to spend half of his harvest money fixing up your piece of shit car.”
Luke smiles. “I hope so.” Ben’s cuckoo clock begins to chime, and a plane begins flying out of its face. “Crap, I better get going,” Luke says, quickly closing his sketchpad and stuffing it into his backpack. “Aunt Beru will have my hide if I’m late for dinner again.” He turns to head for the door before he stops, a question he’d thought to ask during school resurfacing in his mind. “Hey, Ben?” he asks.
Ben doesn’t turn from examining Luke’s engine. “Yes, Luke?”
“Did you ever meet anyone in the army with the last name of Organa?”
The chimes on Ben’s clock echo into nothingness, and Luke counts thirty more seconds before Ben turns around. “The name sounds familiar, but I don’t think I ever met him. He might have been above me. Why do you ask?”
“The girl I was talking about. From homeroom. Leia. She said her dad was a retired Army officer who fought in Vietnam. I was just wondering if you -”
“No,” Ben says abruptly. “No, I don’t think so.”
Luke nods slowly. “Okay,” he whispers. “Well, see you tomorrow.” He turns to leave, the weight of Ben’s intense stare still sitting on his shoulders.
A week later, Luke regrets telling Ben that his first day was boring. The first day was an illusion, designed to lull Luke into a false sense of security before piling on readings and essays. He can admit to himself — now that he’s eating lunch in the library with his history textbook on the left side of his lunch tray and a half-finished essay on the right for the third day in a row — that maybe spending all his free time working on his engine in Ben’s garage instead of doing his homework was not the smartest idea he had ever had. But he is Anakin Skywalker’s son, and making smart decisions about schoolwork has never been his strong suit - or at least, that’s what Ben tells him.
He’s shovelling a square piece of pizza into his mouth and trying to write a coherent sentence about the first American civilizations when he sees Leia Organa round the corner and fix him with a soul-piercing gaze. Leia is filled with soul-piercing gazes. Every time Luke has seen her in the hallways in the past week, she has looked him straight in the eye and stared into his brain, seeming to hear every thought. Which is mostly, when Leia looks at him, Oh God, please stop looking at me. “Is anyone else coming to sit with you?”
He’s surprised at how she can seem so direct and yet so unclear at the same time. Why would she ask him that? “No?” he says truthfully, trying to look anywhere but at her face.
“Great,” she says, beginning to grab books off the shelves and stacking them onto the other end of the table forcefully. Luke can see the librarian at her desk glance over at the noise Leia is making. “You’re the only person sitting alone and I’m going to need the whole table.”
Luke opens his mouth to ask a question, but she disappears into the stacks. He takes another bite of pizza and finishes the sentence on his paper, nearly managing to convince himself the whole thing had been a hallucination before hearing another book smack on top of the stack. He jumps, glancing up and watching Leia sit down and pull one of the books from the middle of the stack. She grabs a notebook and a brightly colored pen out of her backpack and begins to read, taking notes every so often. Luke doesn’t realize he’s staring until Leia looks up again, looks him dead in the eye, and growls, “What.”
Her tone sends shivers down his spine. “Nothing, sorry,” he says, quickly looking down at his essay. He erases his last sentence and starts over. “What are you working on?” he asks, trying to sound like she hadn’t just scared him shitless.
“Research,” she says, scribbling something into her notebook. The pen has bright pink ink, Luke notices.
“Research for what?”
She sighs, gives him a withering glance. “I’m going to win the state forensics meet this year.”
Luke tilts his head and glances at the titles on the spines. A People’s History of the United States. Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America. Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution. Making Schools Work: A Reporter’s Journey Through Some of America’s Most Remarkable Classrooms. “I thought forensics was like … crime scene investigation.”
“It means speech. Debate,” Leia says abruptly, not bothering to look at Luke this time. She crosses a t with such fierceness Luke is sure she’s ripped her paper, but she keeps writing. “Even a school this small has a debate club, I’ve seen the posters around.”
Luke nods, whispers, “Okay,” and picks his pencil back up. He stares at the sentence he had written, or at least started to. Nope, he realizes. Nothing’s coming. He glances back at Leia, her chin sticking out almost defiantly, her mouth silently forming words as her eyes scan the pages, her hand racing across the notebook. He can see her brain working, thoughts going a thousand miles an hour, faster than she can get them on the page. He’s struck, suddenly, by the realization that he’s seen that exact expression before - distorted, reflected back at him in dull metallic parts in Ben’s garage. He opens his mouth to keep talking, then closes it. The words won’t come, but not because he’s scared of her. He knows how much he hates it when Ben interrupts him.
He takes a final bite of his bland, square pizza, glances over at his textbook, and keeps writing.
It becomes their thing, somehow.
Leia is already at the table the next day when Luke arrives with his macaroni and cheese and algebra homework. The next Monday, Luke nearly jumps out of his chair when she sets her backpack down on the floor, sounding like a bag of bricks and earning both of them a steely glare from the librarian. Every day, Luke gives her a polite smile, she nods back, and they work silently on their separate projects until the warning bell rings. After three days of meeting in the library, Leia says, “See you tomorrow,” as they pack up, and Luke could be going crazy, but he could swear he hears a hesitancy in her voice, as if she needs reassurance that he’ll be there. He nods at her, and she smiles as she hurries out of the library.
“I’m telling you, she’s gotta have, like, a crush on you or something,” Deak says to him from underneath a car one day after school. He’d asked for Luke’s help trying to fix an engine he’d been working on for a few days. Hansen blares from the speakers in the shop. Deak’s taste in music always was shit.
Luke shakes his head and chuckles. “Absolutely not,” he says. “Have you even met her?”
“A freshman?” Deak slides out from under the car and gives Luke a withering look. “No. Besides, I think I’d remember seeing - how did you describe her? A chick with fancy braids who looks like she could hurt me?” A shit-eating grin covers Deak’s face as he stands and wipes the grease off his hands. “Your turn. I can’t figure out what’s wrong with it.”
Luke rolls his eyes and lays down on the creeper. “Trust me, even if that was true, and even if I wanted it to be true, it’s not like that.” He grabs a flashlight and slides underneath the engine.
“Then what’s it like?”
“I don’t know!” Luke says defensively. Because he doesn’t. He cannot explain why Leia would continue to sit next to him, why she would let him take up valuable table space as she studies. Especially since he’s seen empty tables in the library the last few days. He stares up at the engine and lets his problems fade out as he works, and he’s grateful that Deak doesn’t push the issue. After a few minutes of nothing but Top 40 radio and the sound of metal and plastic, he hears the bell above the door tinkle, and heavy footfalls come in the direction of the workshop.
“Did you get the onion rings this time?” he hears Deak ask.
“Save some for me!” Luke shouts as the smell from the diner food Biggs and Camie brought into the shop wafts over to him. Technically speaking, there's no food allowed while they're working, but Randall, the shop owner, never seemed to care when they brought in appetizers from Val's across the street.
“No guarantees,” Biggs shouts back, and Luke smiles in spite of himself. He screws the last bit back in place and slides himself out from under the car.
“Please don’t tell me you fixed it in five minutes,” Deak says, shoving food into his mouth, as Luke walks over to the workbench everyone else has huddled around. “I’ve been staring at that thing for two fuckin' days.”
Luke shakes his head. “Nah, I can’t see what the issue is, either.”
“Geez, you start hanging out with a girl, and all of a sudden you can’t fix a car anymore?”
Luke feels his face flush, and Biggs and Camie look at him with wide eyes. Biggs even cracks a small smile. “And I think that’s my cue to leave,” Luke says, grabbing a mozzarella stick from the pile and heading toward the door.
“What?” Camie shouts after him. “You can’t leave and not explain that!”
“Yes, I can!” Luke swings his backpack over his shoulder and swings the shop door open, feeling his stomach churning with every step he takes. He hears his friends shouting after him until he walks out the front door, his heart racing all the way.
“Hey, can I ask you a question?”
Luke looks up from his algebra homework, blinking a few times. “What?” he asks. He needs to make sure isn’t hearing things.
“Can I ask you something?”
Luke looks at the clock. It’s only 11:45, lunch has only just started. Too early for their usual See you tomorrow that comes at 12:17, just after the warning bell. “Sure.”
He sees apprehension on her face, and for the first time he notices that the steel in her eyes is gone. Her mouth is relaxed. She looks … normal. She glances across the library. “Do you know those guys?”
Luke follows her eyes across the room. She’s talking about Grace Dittmer and Annie Blake, sitting on the couches in front of the Literature section. “I mean, yeah,” he answers.
“Are they nice?” Leia asks.
Luke shrugs. “Yeah, I think so.” He’d sat in between the two of them last year in history and had been forced to pass notes back and forth. The only thing the two of them seemed to care about was boys, but they had always been friendly with him when they were paired up for class projects.
Leia nods. “Okay,” she says, smiling. She glances back down at her book, twirling a loose piece of hair.
Luke has never seen her like this before. She seems nervous. Luke hasn’t known her for very long, but the list of adjectives he would use to describe Leia Organa would never have included nervous before today. “Why do you ask?” he says, wanting to see if he can push her.
She looks up at him, her mouth open slightly, as if caught off guard. “Oh.” She swipes a piece of loose hair away from her face. “They’re in my English class. They asked me if I wanted to go to see a movie with them sometime.”
Luke nods. “Okay.” He goes back to his homework, looks down at the string of numbers he’d been in the middle of.
“Do you think I should? Go to the movies with them, I mean?”
He’s really never seen her like this, he thinks. The way her eyebrows worry together, her mouth pulled down into a frown. “I mean, yeah,” Luke replies quietly. “If you want to. Why are you asking me, anyway?”
Leia looks down, gives an uneasy laugh. “I …” she trails off. She wiggles her pen back and forth before looking at him again. “You’re right. Sorry.”
Luke watches her for a moment. She bites her lip as she skims the page of the book on her right. It’s a long time before she writes anything down. He goes back to his homework, working through the problems and periodically spooning bites of spaghetti into his mouth. Leia doesn’t try to talk to him again. When the warning bell rings at 12:17, she gathers her things very quickly, shoving everything into her backpack haphazardly, and whispers, “See you tomorrow,” almost as if it was a second thought. Luke watches her go, absolutely baffled.
Their lunchtime work sessions stop just as quickly as they began. The next day, Leia stops in to grab a book off the shelf ten minutes after lunch begins, smiles at him apologetically, then rushes off without saying a word. The day after, she doesn’t show up at all. Luke even walks around the library halfway through lunch, just to make sure she hadn’t somehow forgotten which table they sit at. On Friday, he sees her walking in the halls, laughing with Grace and Annie. She giggles, loud and high-pitched the same way they do, and he feels something churn in his stomach at the noise. It seems so un-Leia. What do you even know about her? he thinks as he ducks into the science lab. You hardly talked to her.
There had been something there, though, Luke knew. Not a schoolgirl crush, like Deak still seemed to think, maybe not even friendship. But a mutual respect for each other, at the very least. An acknowledgment that they both were working and wanted each other’s companionship. She wouldn’t have kept coming back to the table if she hadn’t wanted to be with him at all. All those other days, she could have found other tables to sit at, freeing the space Luke took up at the end of the table for three more books to lay out and scan and scribble notes about. She had to have felt at least some kind of connection, the same way Luke did.
Maybe he had been making it all up, he thinks as the geology teacher begins lecturing. He takes out his sketchpad and studies the changes he’d made to his designs last night after talking to Ben. Maybe Ben could help him figure out what was going on with Leia? But Luke remembers how Ben had reacted the first time he’d told him about her, his deflections and refusal to make eye contact with him. He’s on his own, he realizes, for the first time in his life, and he had absolutely no idea what to do.
“We made it to Thanksgiving break!” Camie cheers, lifting up her mug of root beer as if it was the real thing. “We are officially a third of the way through our last year of high school!”
Luke lifts his milkshake up to toast with the others, but he doesn’t cheer or applaud with them. He can barely bring himself to smile. He’s excited to have days off of school, to be able to finish his homework on the never-used dining room table at home instead of the old, worn splinter-hazard table in the library. But as he looks around the table the four of them have claimed at the old diner, and watches his friends give each other shit as they shove fried food in their mouth, a deep ache settles into his chest. Nothing will be the same in six months.
“So where are you guys going for Thanksgiving?” Deak asks Biggs. Luke grabs an onion ring and dips it in the ranch dressing cup that made their waiter give him the evil eye.
“Ugh.” Biggs rolls his eyes. “My grandparents’ house. And not the fun ones. The ones who live in fucking Leavenworth. Right next to the military prison. One year when we visited, we couldn’t even go outside because of some lockdown going on …”
Luke lets his friends’ chatter swirl around him, the conversation jumping from trips to holiday food opinions to the homework in their government class. Luke just listens, taking it in. And his friends let him, which may be one of the things he loves about them the most. They’ve learned, over the past two years of working in the shop together, that Luke will respond when he has something to say. They let him in to their weird little group, and kept letting him in, ignoring the fact that he was four years younger than him and that he was a massive nerd who took apart car engines for fun and that he didn’t talk much. They talk about government projects and how they’re never going to be able to get them done and Luke’s chest aches with the idea of doing any of that himself, knowing that these three won’t be around when he does all of those things.
The bell on the entrance rings, and Luke grabs at the nearest bite of onion rings, but they don’t make it into his mouth. Instead, he watches as Leia walks past their table, taking a booth at the far end of the diner. She tosses her hair, lying straight down her back, as the waitress approaches her, but Luke watches as she waves her off. Deak elbows him, and Luke comes back to reality, watches as Biggs and Camie smile impishly and snicker at him. They glance back at Leia, but they don’t say anything, instead continuing their debate about whether the original Pilgrims would have had turkey at the first Thanksgiving, and whether or not turkey is delicious (Biggs) or tastes like napkins (Camie and Deak).
“Fuck,” Biggs says under his breath. “We gotta get back to the shop or Randall’s gonna tear us a new one.”
“Shit,” Camie says, digging in her purse and pulling out a $20. “Sorry, Luke. We’ll see you on Saturday, though, right?”
Luke smiles at them as they shuffle out of the booth. “Yeah, definitely.” The three of them say their goodbyes, and Luke watches them walk across the street to Randall’s shop. They laugh at each other, and Luke smiles, takes one last bite of onion rings.
He glances toward the back of the diner. He and Leia are the only ones left. She’s been alone in the back booth for well over half an hour now. Luke watches her back as she brings a mug up to her face, taking a long drink. She fidgets, tapping on the table, glancing up at the clock, out the windows, up at the menu, back toward the kitchen. Fuck it. He stands, leaving a couple extra dollars on the table for a tip, grabs the half-full basket of fries his friends had abandoned, and makes his way back toward Leia.
He can see her shoulders tense as he gets closer. She doesn’t turn to look at him, even when he stops right in front of her table. He can see her glance down at her tea, and her cheeks redden.
“You want fries?”
She looks up at him, wide-eyed, embarrassed. Finally, she nods, and says, “Um, yeah. Sure.” Luke takes that as his cue to sit, and drops the basket onto the middle of the table.
She takes a single fry, dips it in ketchup and takes a bite, then looks out the window. Luke waits for a while, hoping Leia will be the first to say something. To apologize. But she just keeps eating the fries, so Luke swallows his fear and asks, “Are you waiting for someone?”
He can see her blush deepen. Shame wells up in him momentarily, and then surprise. He’s gone from being terrified of her to pitying her in three months. Leia nods. “Grace and Annie were supposed to meet me here before we went to the matinee. But I, uh …” she swallows and stares at her lap. “I saw them go into the movie theater ten minutes ago with a couple of junior boys.”
Luke nods. “That sucks,” he says, grabbing a fry. “I’m sorry.”
Leia gives him a wry smile, and he can see her eyes well up. “It’s fine. I think I deserve it.” Her voice wobbles.
“What?”
Leia breathes in deeply. “I was shitty. To you. I shouldn’t have just stopped coming to the library at lunch. I should have talked to you.” She looks out the window, and Luke thinks she wants him to say something, but then she looks him in the eyes, and for a second that same terrified feeling he felt on the first day of school cuts through his chest. “I thought I was making friends with the popular girls, which I’ve never done before. I should have remembered that that’s not important. I should have valued the friend I already had. I’m sorry.”
Luke sits, looking into her eyes that no longer seem to pierce into him. Instead, they just look earnest, painfully so. “We were friends?” he asks.
She smiles gently. “I thought we were.”
He nods. “Me, too.” He grabs another fry. “Are we friends again?”
“If you want to be.” She looks at him hopefully.
He smiles back at her. “I do.”
Her smile widens. She grabs another fry and begins to talk with her mouth full. “Well, then I’m going to say I’m sorry, again, because friends aren’t shitty to their friends like that.”
“More tea, sweetie?” the waitress asks, a hint of southern drawl coming through.
“Um, su-”
“Actually, she’ll have a large chocolate shake,” Luke interrupts. Leia gives him a puzzled look. “Trust me,” he tells her. The waitress nods. “And one for me, too, please.”
The waitress smiles at them, small lines crinkling together on her face. “Sure thing, honey.”
“What if I hated chocolate?” Leia asks him, raising her eyebrows.
Luke looks her up and down. “Nah, you don’t seem like the type.”
She giggles. “I’m not,” she admits. “Well, if we’re friends, then you should know that this has happened to me at pretty much every school I’ve been to. I try to make friends, I inevitably screw it up somehow, and eventually I find the person I should have been friends with the whole time.” She smiles to herself as she grabs another fry. “This is the fastest the whole thing has happened though. Usually it takes me at least a year to figure out that I’m friends with the wrong people, and by the time I find the right people, we’re about to move again.”
“Have you moved a lot?” Luke asks. The waitress brings the shakes and slides them over to the two of them. Leia opens her mouth in shock as she watches Luke grab a fry and dip it into the chocolate shake. But she shakes her head, grabs a fry, and dips it into the shake anyway. Luke feels a rush of satisfaction at the expression of glee on Leia’s face afterward.
“Where has that been all my life?” she asks, and Luke smiles. “But yeah, we moved a lot. The military moves their high-up guys around all the time, so we’ve been pretty much everywhere. California, Louisiana, North Carolina. Even Wisconsin for a little while. We’d been in San Antonio for four years, so I figured once Dad retired, we’d stay there but … he decided this was where he wanted to come. Mom and I still can’t figure out why.”
“You mean you don’t know why anyone would ever move to lovely Meridan?” Luke asks, gesturing widely out the window at the run-down shops and stores across Main Street.
Leia’s smile widens. “I’ve given up asking questions. He’ll tell us if he wants to, and if he doesn’t, he won’t. That’s just the way my dad works.”
Luke nods, and watches Leia savor another fry dipped in chocolate shake. “Speaking of,” he begins, feeling a pit open up in his stomach, “how do you know about my father?” Leia gives him a befuddled expression. “The first day, when Mr. Anderson said my name during roll call in homeroom. You turned around and stared at me like you’d heard my name before. I thought, maybe, because of your dad -”
“Oh, yeah,” Leia says. “Yeah. My dad has told me about Anakin Skywalker a few times before.” She smiles wryly. “Most of the time it’s about the trouble he’d gotten my father and the rest of the crew into.”
“Really?” Luke feels his heart pick up pace.
“Oh, yeah.” Leia smiles to herself. “There’s always a happy ending, where Skywalker figured it out, and everyone was back safe and sound, but damn, did he give my dad a lot of heart attacks.”
Luke smiles to himself. Ben had told him much the same. “I wish I’d known him. My father, I mean.” He grabs another fry, and he catches the look on Leia’s face. “He, uh - he died, when I was really little.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry.”
Luke waves a hand at her. “It’s fine. I was so little when it happened, I don’t really remember much. Just Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru telling me that Mom and Dad had been in a car wreck, and they weren’t coming back.” He looks at Leia’s forlorn expression. “Sorry, that’s super dark.”
“No, it’s fine.” Leia takes another fry, rather hurriedly. “We’re friends.”
The corner of Luke’s mouth turns up. “Yeah, you’re right.”
"I can relate, actually. Sort of." Luke raises an eyebrow at Leia. "I was adopted, so I've never known who my 'real parents' are." She does air quotes as she speaks.
"Oh." Luke isn't quite sure what to say to that. "I'm sorry?" he tries.
Leia shakes her head. "Don't be. I don't think I could have ended up with better parents if I'd tried. They always call me their gift. It got annoying for a while, but I just think it's sweet, now." Leia grabs another fry, and Luke feels his stomach curdle. Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru had fed him, clothed him, given him a place to live. They loved him, in their own way. But he doesn't think they've ever thought of him as fondly as Leia's parents think of her. “Do your aunt and uncle talk to you much about your dad?” she asks.
Luke shakes his head. “No, not at all, really. I don’t think they approved of his choices.” Luke grabs a fry, dipping it in his milkshake before continuing. “Did you know my dad actually signed up for the military? He wasn’t drafted. He wanted to fight. Well - he wanted to fly, at least. And he got to. He was even a flight instructor for the military after he did his tour -”
Leia gives him a side eye. “I thought you said your aunt and uncle didn’t talk about him.”
Luke smiles. “They don’t. But one of my dad’s old war buddies - Ben Kenobi?” Leia shakes her head. “Well, anyway, he lives on the homestead right next to ours. He was …” Luke casts around his brain, trying to figure out how to describe Ben. “He was around a lot, when I was little. He supported me more than my aunt and uncle did. Still does, actually.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. My aunt and uncle are still under the delusion that I’m going to stay and farm on the family homestead and continue the legacy or whatever.” Luke rolls his eyes. “My father left. On purpose. He joined the Air Force to get out of this shit hole. And I’m going to, too.”
“What are you going to do?”
Luke breathes in deep, feeling his insides twist a little. He’d only ever told Ben about this before. “I want to be a machinist. Design parts, use new tools … create stuff. I’ve been working on trying to design a new engine for my car.” He gestures out the window to point to his old junker. “I want to do something meaningful.”
“That’s really cool.” Leia takes a final sip from her milkshake.
“Yeah.” Luke sighs. “I can’t believe I told you all that. I’ve never talked about my father, or Ben, or … any of it, to anyone before.”
Leia nods, taking the last fry out of the basket. “Yeah, me either.” She stares out the window. The sun has started to go down, casting a shadow across the street. “And I feel like I should feel weird about it, but I don’t.”
“Me, too.” Luke looks at Leia, really looks at her. Her smile, one of the first he’s seen from her, is gentle. The fire in her eyes is still there, but it’s a merry dance instead of an overwhelming roar. He shakes his head, the corner of his mouth twitching upward, unsure of how the two of them managed to end up here. “So do you need a ride home?”
“What, are you gonna drive me? You’re not old enough to have a license.”
Luke chuckles as he shuffles out of the booth and begins walking toward the door. Leia follows him. “Actually, I am. Out here in the boonies, if you live far enough away from town, they give you a license at 14. You’re really only supposed to drive to and from school, and you’re not supposed to have passengers. But. They can only pull you over if you’re doing something stupid, and I am an excellent driver.”
Leia rolls her eyes, but she climbs into the passenger seat. “So you’ve only been driving for - what? A few months?”
Luke starts up the car, the engine roaring from under the hood. “Well, I’ve been driving tractors since I was … six? But if you’re asking when I got permission from the government to drive, it was last May.”
“Take a left here,” Leia tells him. “Wait, so, when’s your birthday?”
“May 25th, 1972.”
There’s a pause. “No fucking way,” she mutters under her breath. “Take a right at that stop sign up there.”
“Why? When’s your birthday?”
Luke hears the smile in voice as she says, “May 25th, 1972.”
“Seriously?” he asks.
She chuckles. “Yeah.” She points up ahead. “I’m the blue house on the corner up there.”
“Wild.” Luke pulls up into the Organas’ driveway. “So, I’ll .. see you on Monday?” he asks, looking across the seats at her.
She smiles at him. “Yeah. See you Monday.”
Chapter Text
---- April, 1990 ----
“Okay, so, what if I tried -”
“Not again.” Luke rolls his eyes as he makes the turn onto the road to the farm.
“Don’t roll your eyes at me -”
“Leia, debate is over . It ended a month ago. You got a bronze medal at the state meet. It doesn’t start up again until November. Can you please -”
"Exactly. A bronze medal. If I want to get gold I have to start practicing now, it's called being prepared, Luke.”
“No, it’s called being a pain in my ass.”
“Wow.” Leia chuckles. “You’d think I interrupted you in the middle of playing with your precious machines.”
“Hey, now,” Luke says, pointing at her. “One day the machines are going to take over, and they’re gonna come after you for making fun of them. And the only thing that will stand in between you and certain death is the fact that you’re friends with me.”
Leia lets out a belly laugh. “I wasn’t making fun of them, I was making fun of you, dork.” She swats at his arm.
“Hey, watch it!” Luke shouts, coasting easily through the hairpin turn that leads to his house. “You’re gonna run us off the road.”
“Oh, shut up, you’ve only been driving on this road since you were - what, eight?” Leia leans to turn the radio up. “Is this new Aerosmith?”
“Who’s in the driveway?” Luke asks. They’ve come to the top of the hill, the point on the road where he can see the house. He sees Aunt Beru’s green Ford Explorer sitting in the driveway, like it always is, but another car is next to hers, a sleek black truck with lettering on either side.
Leia turns the radio back down. “Maybe it’s the police?” she says, a hint of nervousness in her voice. She turns to look at him. “They know what you did.”
“What would the police be doing out here?” Luke mutters. Leia doesn’t answer him. He takes the rest of the road slower than normal, mind racing. As he pulls into the driveway, the gold lettering on the side becomes clear: “WATFORD COUNTY SHERIFF.” He pulls up behind the Explorer and turns off the car. The music shuts off, but Luke leans back in his chair, still staring at the sheriff’s truck next to him in the driveway. After a minute, he hears Leia slowly unbuckle her seatbelt. He does the same. They grab their backpacks out of the back seat. The sound of the doors slamming closed echoes uncomfortably. Luke glances at Leia, who gives a small shrug as she slings her backpack across her shoulders. The two of them walk toward the front door without a word.
“Uncle Owen?” Luke shouts as he and Leia come into the entryway. “Aunt Beru? It’s me and Leia.”
“We’re in here, Luke.”
Luke turns his head to the left to see Aunt Beru sitting at the formal dining table. Uncle Owen is there, too, along with two men in sheriff’s uniforms. Luke can feel his hands start to sweat. He sets his backpack down on the bench in the entryway and walks toward the dining room. Leia’s quiet footfalls follow him.
“What’s going on?” he asks quietly, glancing around at his aunt and uncle and the strangers sitting at his dining room table. One of the sheriff’s deputies has a notebook sitting out on the table.
“Why don’t you sit down, son?” Uncle Owen asks, his normal booming voice quiet, almost apologetic.
Luke glances back at Leia. Her eyes are big and wide, and her mouth worries into a frown. They take the last two seats at the table, and Luke looks down at his hands.
“You must be Luke,” says one of the men in sheriff’s uniforms.
Luke looks up at him. “Who are you?”
The two strangers glance at each other. “I’m Deputy Souther,” says the man who had spoken to Luke before. “And this is my partner, Deputy Rollins.”
“I bet you’re wondering why we’re here,” Deputy Rollins says in a sweet, childlike voice.
Luke turned to look at him, raising his eyebrows. How old did the deputy think they were, six? “Yeah.”
“Well, Luke,” says Aunt Beru. He can hear a wobble in her voice. “You know I made some extra brownies last night, and I thought I would be neighborly and take some over to Ben, maybe catch up and see how he was doing. But when I got over to his place, well …” Beru sniffles, brings up a Kleenex to wipe at her nose. “He didn’t answer when I knocked, but I saw his car in the driveway, so I let myself in, but I …”
“What happened to Ben?” Luke can feel his heart going a million miles an hour. He feels Leia reach over and squeeze his knee.
Aunt Beru opens her mouth to talk, but she shakes her head. “I can’t,” she says, teary-eyed, to Uncle Owen.
“Your, uh, your aunt called us, son,” says the first deputy. Souther? Luke can’t keep track anymore. “We stopped by Kenobi’s to check and make sure everything is okay, but, uh …” The deputy trails off. He swallows and looks away before looking at Luke again, Luke whose stomach is churning, who can already feel tears burning in his eyes. “Unfortunately, we confirmed what your aunt suspected. Ben Kenobi died sometime last night.”
Luke feels his stomach drop. He wants the floor to swallow him. He hears Leia’s breath hitch next to him, and he sees the tears glistening even in Uncle Owen’s eyes - Uncle Owen, who lambasted Ben to “get a real job” and told Luke he’d be “better off leaving that miser alone.” They’re all looking at him with such pity now. “No,” he whispers. He clears his throat. “No, you’re lying. That’s -” Luke shakes his head and looks at his aunt and uncle. “Ben is younger than you two, he can’t just …” The sad expressions on everyone’s faces stay there. He feels Leia move her hand to hold it, but he yanks it away. “No. ”
“I’m sorry, buddy,” says the second deputy. Luke would roll his eyes if he wasn’t so - angry? sad? confused? “We were able to get a hold of Kenobi’s oncologist in Lawrence. He had pancreatic cancer, and he’d refused treatment.”
“What?” Luke hears a ringing in his ears, and everything feels far away. “No, he doesn’t, he would’ve …” he swallows the lump in his throat, but it comes back up. “He would have told me. He wouldn’t have …” The last time he’d seen Ben had been two days ago. Had he looked sick? What had Luke said to him?
“I’m sorry, Luke,” he hears Aunt Beru whisper, far far away. Beru’s hand reaches over and starts to pat him on the shoulder, but Luke yanks his arm away.
“No!” he yells. He stands and bolts, running back through the family room and into the entryway all the way up the stairs. He hears Leia and Uncle Owen call for him, but he doesn’t stop, not until he slams his bedroom door and collapses onto his bed. His pillows swallow him, finally, and he feels white-hot tears sting his cheeks.
Down below, he can faintly hear Aunt Beru’s tired, kind voice telling Leia, “I’ll drive you home sweetie. He’ll be alright.” He hears the front door swing shut, and the house is quiet until Luke lets himself cry.
The day after the funeral, Leia is waiting for him on her front porch.
(It had been such a small funeral, Luke’s family and Leia’s family - God, he’d been so grateful to have Leia there - three or four people from Meridan, and a few of Ben’s distant relatives. They all came up to him and told him how sorry they were and gave him such pitying gazes, and Luke just sat there wondering what he actually meant to Ben and how Ben could have possibly kept this from him and why he didn’t think Luke deserved to know the truth. He wiped away tear after tear but never really cried. By the end of the day he had a headache and his chest felt somehow hollow and too full at the same time and it was only 4 o’clock when they got back to the farm but Luke just went upstairs and went to sleep in the suit they’d bought in Topeka yesterday and only woke up when Aunt Beru had gently shaken him and told him it was time for school.)
Luke can see her start to reach over and squeeze his hand, but she stops herself before she can make it. Instead she just smiles weakly at him as he pulls the gear shift and drives slowly off toward school.
The routine feels good, lifting Luke’s spirits just a little after four days of abject hopelessness. But the radio is still off, the wall of sound too much right now. Leia is quietly fidgeting, seemingly at a loss for words. Luke can hear every weird sound his car makes, a quiet rattling back in the trunk, a new whir as he steps on the gas, a thump every time he rolls over an uneven patch of concrete.
They walk into school, the noise of 300 other kids surrounding them in the parking lot, getting louder as they pass into the entrance. Leia follows him through the hallways, but instead of ducking into her AP history classroom, she stays, walking beside him toward the math wing. He smiles at her when they reach his classroom, but she grabs his hand before he can walk inside. Leia pulls him in for a hug, pressing herself fully up against him. Luke freezes for a moment, surprised, but then he wraps his arms around her, too, squeezing her so tight. He cradles her head in his hands, careful to keep her braids intact. He can hear people walking around them, can feel the stares, but he stays there, letting Leia hold him. For a moment he thinks he’ll cry again, in this hallway full of people who will definitely laugh at him, but then Leia squeezes him, and he smiles. The warning bell rings, and they gently untangle themselves. Leia smiles at him, and his heart swells.
“I love you,” she says. Leia has always been free with her I love yous. He’s heard it from her a hundred times before today, but now he can hear everything else she’s trying to say to him in those three words: I’m sorry. You can get through this. Today will suck. It will get better.
“Love you, too.” I know. Thank you for being here. I don’t know how I’d do this without you.
A harsh knock on the door makes Luke jump. He glances up at Leia across the table from him, who also looks startled, then out the dining room window. A very pristine Lincoln sits in the driveway. In the distance, he can see Aunt Beru’s Explorer making its way down the road toward the house. The knock comes at the door again. Leia shrugs, going back to her AP notes. Luke stands, setting his pencil down next to his sketchpad, and walks toward the front door.
“Hello,” says the man in the suit standing on the front porch. “Are you Owen Lars, by any chance?”
“Uh, no,” Luke says, squinting from the sunlight up at the man. “But my Aunt Beru will be home in just a minute. Would you be able to talk to her?”
The man in the suit looks him up and down. “Are you Luke Skywalker?”
Luke crinkles his eyebrows together. “Yeah?”
The man smiles. “Excellent. Yes, I can wait for your aunt. May I come in?”
“Who are you?” Leia’s voice comes from behind them. Luke whips his head around to look at her. She has an eyebrow raised and her arms are crossed.
“Ah, yes. Apologies. My name is -”
“Luke!” Aunt Beru’s voice cuts through from the driveway. She grabs a bag of groceries from the backseat and begins to walk towards them. “Do you know who that man is at the door?”
The man turns around and waves. “Hello, Mrs. Lars. My name is Cody, I’m the estate lawyer for Ben Kenobi.”
Aunt Beru’s stops before she reaches the steps. Her mouth hangs open slightly. “Well, come right on in. Can I get you anything? Tea, coffee?”
“No, ma’am, thank you.” Cody smiles at her, then at Luke as he follows Aunt Beru into the house. “Where can we sit and talk?”
“The dining ro-”
“Actually, Aunt Beru, the living room would probably be best. Leia and I were studying in the dining room,” Luke interrupts.
"I was studying, you were doodling,” Leia says quietly, smirking at Luke.
“Shut up,” he mutters, elbowing her gently as he passes.
Aunt Beru is already sitting on the couch as the three of them enter. “Sit, sit,” she says to Cody, who joins her on the couch, awkwardly holding his briefcase in his lap. Luke and Leia take the chairs opposite the couch. “So, Mr. Cody, what can we do for you?”
“Well, actually, I’m here to talk to Luke.” Cody turns to look at Luke. “I understand you were very close to Ben?”
Luke feels an ache in his chest. “Y-yeah,” he whispers. “I was.”
Cody gives him a tender smile. “I’m sorry for your loss, kid. Ben and I were old war buddies. The GI bill paid for my law school, so I didn’t see Ben very much after we came back stateside, but he called every once in a while. He called me about a year ago, said he wanted to get his affairs in order. Of course, he didn’t tell me until a couple months later why …” Cody trails off. “Sorry,” he says. “Don’t mean to bore you with details.” He opens his briefcase and begins pulling out papers. Luke exchanges a look with Leia. Her eyes are wide, and her mouth is turned down into the same frown he’s seen her give her math homework. Cody spreads the papers out across the coffee table. “Anyway. The reason I’m here is because Ben was very specific about who he wanted to inherit his estate when he died. There are a few household things that I’ve already collected and taken to some of his relatives, but the rest of his possessions belong to you, Luke. I’ve got an itemized -”
“Wait, I’m sorry,” Aunt Beru says, and Luke is grateful that it gives him a chance to pick his jaw up off the floor. “You’re saying Ben’s land, the house, his garage all belong to Luke now?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Cody answers dutifully. “Now, as I was saying -”
“But he’s only 17,” Beru protests. “Surely he can’t own all that property.”
“I’ll be 18 in three weeks,” Luke reminds her. His mind is racing - How could he keep up Ben’s land? What kinds of things could he build with Ben’s machines? He can’t let it slip away.
Cody nods. “That’s good to know. And believe me, Mrs. Lars, I was skeptical about it when Ben first approached me, but I have done my research, and this is all perfectly legal.”
“What is a 17-year-old boy going to do with a farmhouse?” Beru asks.
“Whatever he wants, Mrs. Lars.” Cody gives Aunt Beru a short, slightly annoyed, polite smile, and Luke smirks. “Now, if you don’t mind, I need to read this itemized list so Luke knows exactly what he is inheriting. Then I just need his signature, and yours, and I will be on my way.”
The list of Luke’s new possessions goes in one ear and out the other. His heart is practically soaring. He had meant something to Ben after all, if Ben had left him all of his property. He can see Ben’s garage so clearly in his mind - the shelves full of old parts, the table laid out with his last project, the massive tool boxes on the walls, the cuckoo clock hanging above the door. It’s all his. He signs his name on the line when Cody asks him, and Aunt Beru signs too, though reluctantly, Luke can tell. Cody tells them he will be back after Luke’s 18th birthday to finalize the paperwork, and then Luke watches him walk back out the door.
“Luke,” Aunt Beru says, several long seconds after Cody has left. “Why don’t you take Leia home? Your uncle will be in soon, and we have a lot to discuss.”
“Okay, so what happened last night?” Leia asks as soon as she drops down into Luke’s car the next morning.
Luke shifts down and pulls off the curb. “They want me to sell Ben’s property.”
“What?” Leia shouts.
“Oh, no, that’s not even the best part,” Luke says dryly, shaking his head. “They want me to sell it to them. For a dollar.”
There’s silence for a moment. Luke looks over to see Leia’s mouth opening and closing, her hands gesturing wildly. “How the fuck- ” she splutters.
Luke rolls his eyes. “Yeah.” He turns into the school parking lot, carefully dodging the other students milling around. “They told me it would be the best thing to do because it would expand their property, and that when I take over, there would be twice as much land to farm on and so twice as much money to make.”
“Yeah, but you don’t want to take over the farm.”
Luke grimaces as he pulls into a spot. “Yeah.” He and Leia clamber out of the car and grab their things.
“Plus,” Leia says as they begin the trek toward the doors. “It deprives you of any actual money from selling the place.”
“But I don’t want to sell it.” Luke’s stomach churns at the thought of someone else living in Ben’s house, using Ben’s garage.
“So you’re going to stick around here and farm on Ben’s land instead of your aunt and uncle’s?” Leia raises an eyebrow at him as she pushes on the doors into the school.
“No,” Luke says, his cheeks flushing. “I’ll just … come back every couple of years and make sure everything’s okay with it.”
Leia rolls her eyes. “So your aunt and uncle have agreed to pay for you to go to trade school after graduation?” Luke sighs, shakes his head. Leia grabs his arm. “I know it hurts to think about selling Ben’s house. But just think for a second, Luke. The machines in Ben’s shop. All of his furniture. The house. The land. Think about what you could do with all that money.”
Luke bites his lip. “Can we talk about this later?”
Leia drops her arm, and her face falls. “Yeah, sure. See you at lunch?”
Luke nods.
When Luke rounds the corner to their table in the library at lunchtime, Leia is already sitting there, skimming a history book.
“So,” Luke says sheepishly. “How much is two years at a trade school gonna cost me?”
Leia looks up from her book and smiles at him. “Let’s go ask the librarian.”
It takes three long, exhausting dinner conversations and a chart made with Leia’s help to convince Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru to let Luke keep the money from selling Ben’s house. They agree to help Luke sell everything but tell him it’s his job to get the house ready for sale. He worries about that part for a while, trying to think of everything he should do to sort through and clean up the house, but Aunt Beru lays a to-do list on his bed the day school lets out. He calls Leia the next morning and meets her at Ben’s house with a mop, a vacuum, a bucket, and a box of gallon trash bags.
“Didn’t come to play, huh, farmboy?” Leia teases as he tries to grab everything out of his back seat. “Gimme that.” She grabs the bucket and mop and begins to head toward the house. “So what’s my job today?”
“Well,” Luke says, pushing the vacuum on the cement in front of Ben’s driveway. “I figure the best way to do it is for me to try and organize and put together the garage, since I know where everything goes. If you could vacuum and mop the floors inside the house, and maybe dust, too.”
Leia nods, looking down at the vacuum apprehensively.
“Have you ever used a vacuum, Leia?”
Leia turns red. “How much are you going to judge me if I say no?” Luke rolls his eyes. “Also, you didn’t bring any dusting stuff.”
“Shit. I knew I was gonna forget something.”
“It’s okay. There’s gotta be some in a closet somewhere, right?”
“I guess.” Luke fishes the key out of his pocket and unlocks the house. “I never actually went inside his house much. I ate dinner in the kitchen once or twice a year, but mostly we were just in the garage together.” Luke sets the vacuum and trash bags down in the entryway, and Leia goes off down the hallway.
“I’ll start looking in closets in the back of the house, you start up here,” she calls as she disappears around a corner.
Luke nods, opening up the first closet he sees. He’s met with a wave of Ben’s cologne coming off the neatly-hanging coats, and a lump rises up in his throat. He swallows hard, wiping at his eyes, and slowly closes the closet door. He glances down the hallway and spies another closet. As he gets closer he hears Leia’s voice coming from the back of the house. “Whoa.”
“Everything okay?” he shouts back at her.
“Uh, you might want to come check this out, Luke.”
Luke furrows his eyebrows. He takes his hand off the doorknob of his next closet and walks toward the back of the house. When he rounds the corner at the back of the house, he’s met with a closet door so close he nearly slams into it.
Leia peeks her head out from behind the door. “Look at this.” She closes the door slightly, and Luke comes to stand next to her.
“Whoa.” Behind the door of what should be the linen closet is dozens of leather-bound books, all the same faded light brown. “What are these?” Luke whispers. He stands on his tiptoes to grab the very first one, at the top left corner, and opens it up. A flowing script covers the first page, and all the other pages as Luke flips through the book. He turns back to the beginning.
May 19, 1970. I think I may have found my match. Our newest recruit is loud, cocky, and a bit of a troublemaker. But damn can he fly.
“Are these … Ben’s?” Leia asks. She reaches out to the middle row and grabs another. “This one’s from 1983.”
Luke barely hears her. His eyes rake over the journal in his hands. He flips through the pages, looking, looking.
July 14, 1970. Anakin says he’s ready to ship out. And I’d believe him if I didn’t know him so well already.
August 30, 1970. I have another one who will drive me nuts if I let her. So I’ve given her off to Anakin. We’ll see how he likes it.
September 28, 1970. Letting Anakin and Ahsoka be together was a mistake. But Bail tells me it’s too late to separate them now, and I fear he’s right.
November 2, 1970. We have our orders. We’re flying over to Vietnam next Monday. I have never seen Anakin or Ahsoka look so afraid. I have never been so afraid.
“Luke?” Leia touches his shoulder and gives him a concerned look. Luke opens his mouth, but he can’t make a sound. Leia could never understand the treasure she had unearthed. She closes her mouth and gives him a sympathetic smile. “I’ll get started in the living room, then. Do you want to move these over to the office so you can keep reading?”
Luke nods and gives her a big smile. She grabs a stack of journals from the highest shelf she can reach and ducks into a room just to their left. Luke grabs another handful from the bottom shelf and follows her. She smiles at him on her way out the door, and he drops himself down into a comfy office chair, opening up the first journal in Leia’s stack.
At some point he hears the vacuum turn on. Then, it’s off again. He hears scrubbing on the kitchen floor, and a few times he hears Leia whispering to herself. He hears it all, but it’s merely the background noise, his mind playing a movie from the words in Ben’s journals. He thought he’d grabbed the same one he’d flipped through in the hall, but this one begins in January 1971. Luke reads page after page after page, flipping through as fast as he can. Luke had come to accept in the weeks since the funeral that he knew as much as he ever would about his father, but now there are volumes worth of stories he never heard, new people he’d never heard of. Ahsoka was apparently a firebrand on par with his own father, a comrade in arms and in pranks in the camp. Rex kept Anakin’s worst impulses at bay. His father showed up to mail call hours early some days, waiting for letters from Padme, Luke's mother. Ben was constantly putting out fires between Fives and Echo. Luke reaches the end of that journal and grabs the next one, this time from 1977. Luke shakes his head and grabs another one - 1968. He grabs another - 1985. Ben’s organization system is a mess. The next one Luke grabs he almost discards, too, until he realizes the date - just three months ago.
February 19, 1990.
Every time Luke comes over, I debate telling him. The only reason I didn’t today was because he brought Leia over with him. The two of them are so happy when they are together, and I cannot bring myself to ruin that. They spent too long apart for me to get in their way.
The only thing that eases the guilt now are my updates from Cody. He was worried about the legality of giving the homestead to Luke, but it seems all will be okay. He has mailed me a few things I will need to sign. I hate to write these words, but I hope they get here in time. At my last appointment, the doctor said every day I wake up is a blessing.
March 4, 1990.
I am noticing the brain fog more now than I used to. It’s more difficult to get things done throughout the day. Lifting things seems to be harder, too. I needed Luke to help me get down something heavy in the garage. I keep thinking he will notice, and say something, and I won’t be able to tell him another lie. So many lies, so many, and none of them he deserved.
March 28, 1990.
All these years, I had always thought that Anakin would die before me. That I would get to go see him one last time, and hug him, and tell him that I still love him like a brother. To tell him all the wonderful things that Luke has become and is going to be, to tell him that I have taken care of his son, that his son is loved and knows all the good things, only the good things, about him. What a bitch fate has been, that I will never again see my brother. It seems so much crueler, knowing that it will be me taken from him instead of him from me.
A knock at the door makes Luke nearly jump out of his seat. “Hey, it’s almost lunch time,” Leia says. “Do you want …” she trails off. “Is something wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Luke opens his mouth, then closes it. He sticks the journal out toward Leia. “Read that last entry. March 28th.” Leia takes the journal, giving him a puzzled look. “Tell me what you think.” Luke feels his heart pounding and his palms sweating. Maybe he was overthinking it, reading something into Ben’s words that wasn’t there. But Leia looks back at him, her mouth turning into a frown, then looks back at the journal again.
“Luke …” Leia says slowly, glancing down at the words again. “Is this saying …”
Luke nods. “I think so.” He takes the journal back and looks at Ben’s handwriting one more time, just to make sure the words haven’t changed. “I think my father is still alive.”
“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Leeeeiiaaaaaa … and Luke, I guess. Happy birthday tooo youuuuu.”
Luke rolls his eyes as Han sets down the makeshift birthday cake in front of him and Leia. She rolls her eyes too, but she smiles up at Han as he squeezes himself into the booth next to her. Han has been pushing into their booth at Val's more often than not lately, mostly to flirt with Leia on his breaks from the kitchen.
“The big 1-8,” Han says, passing out forks. Luke takes his, but glances out the window, watching cars drive down Main Street. “What are you guys going to do now that you’re legal?”
“I’ve always wanted to buy a lottery ticket,” Leia says, grabbing a bit of the chocolate cake. “My dad says the lottery is for people who like throwing away money, but I just want to say I’ve done it. Also very excited to vote, but I’ve gotta wait six months for that.”
Han nods. “Nice choice, princess.” Leia blushes slightly at the nickname. “What about you, Luke?”
Luke looks back over at Han and blinks. “What?”
“What do you want to do since you’re 18 that you couldn’t before?” Han repeats, shoving a large bit of cake into his mouth.
Luke shrugs and goes for the cake. “Not much, really.”
Han scoffs at him. “C’mon, kid, there’s gotta be something.”
Luke gives him a blank, dull stare. “Guess I’m just boring.” He sticks a too-big piece of cake in his mouth.
Leia gives him a reprimanding look. “What’s wrong, Luke?”
Luke grimaces. “Did you ask your dad? About Ben?”
Han looks back and forth between Luke and Leia. “What are you talking about, kid?”
Leia gives Luke a meaningful gaze, glancing at Han. Luke knows what it means, but he ignores it, just raising his eyebrows at Leia. Finally Leia sighs. “I did ask him,” she says. “But he told me he didn’t know anything about Ben, or your father. He even said he had never met Ben personally, only heard of him.”
“Well, you and I both know that’s a lie,” Luke says, rolling his eyes and leaning back in his seat. “Your dad was mentioned by name in more than one of Ben’s journals.”
“I know, Luke.”
“Did you push him at all?”
The fire in Leia’s eyes returns. “Yes, I did,” she says, each word clipped. “I don’t know how much more I can push. He seems … determined to lie to me.”
Luke shakes his head, looking out the window again.
“Would either of you like to let me know what’s going on?” Han asks quietly.
Luke keeps staring out at the street. He can feel Leia’s intense stare boring a hole in his cheek. “You know what?” he says, looking back at Han and Leia. “I think I’m just gonna head back to Ben’s and do some more work in the garage.” He begins shuffling out of the booth.
The fire in Leia’s eyes disappears. “No, Luke.” She glances at Han nervously. “Come on, it’s our birthday, we were going to go to the movies together when Han gets -”
“It’s fine, Leia. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Luke drops a few dollars in front of Han on the table and turns on his heels to leave.
“Luke!” Leia shouts after him. “Luke!” But he keeps walking, even though the hurt in Leia’s voice makes his chest ache.
Leia doesn’t show up to Ben’s house the next day, or the day after. At first, Luke doesn’t mind; he gets all of Ben’s tools sorted into boxes and even starts working his way through the raw materials Ben had on the shelves at the back of the garage. But by the first afternoon, he misses Leia peeking her head in the door and asking for a new job or gently ribbing him about the way he was organizing things. The quiet also gives Luke time to think - too much. He hadn’t meant to make Leia so upset when he’d asked what her father had told her. He certainly didn’t think it would make her abandon him for two whole days.
He gets back home close to midnight, feeling the tired behind his eyes. He goes through the motions of getting himself ready for bed - washing his face, brushing his teeth - but his mind is still on Ben’s old house. As he lays down into bed, he glances down at Aunt Beru’s list, still on his nightstand. It’s been nearly a week since school let out, and Luke had thought he would have made more progress by now. He’s only halfway through the first thing on the list. With Leia gone, he’ll have to deal with both the house and the garage, and after spending two days on it, he’s realized that cleaning up Ben’s garage is a much bigger task than he'd first thought. He sighs, gulps down half a glass of water, and reaches down into the box he'd brought back from Ben's house, full of journals. He rifles through them until he finds the one he had left off on last night, then opens to find the next entry to read. He's been working his way through them since he discovered them, reading until he can barely keep his eyes open most nights. Tonight, though, the reading doesn't last long. After only a few minutes, he puts the journal back in the box on the floor and reaches to turn his lamp off.
Laying down on his back, he can see the moonlight creeping in through the tree branches, casting shadows on the ceiling. He watches them sway gently in the wind, rustling quietly. Then he hears a thump on the side of the house, and what sounds like “Fuck,” whispered loudly from outside. He sits straight up, pushing back the covers, and quietly walks over to the window. His eyes widen as he sees Leia, smashed up against the side of his house three feet below the window, sitting in a crook in the tree and rubbing her shoulder, wincing. He pushes the window up, pulls the screen off the window, and sticks his head out into the night. “Leia!” he whispers sharply. Her head whips up to look at him. “What the fuck are you doing?!”
Luke can’t remember a time when Leia looked more like a deer in headlights. She opens and closes her mouth twice before she says, “Can you help me up?”
Luke rolls his eyes, but he reaches his hand down toward her. Leia turns and grabs his hand, then rests her other hand against the side of the house. She grips Luke’s hand hard as she shimmies her way between the tree and the house. As Luke pulls her in through the open window, he prays she doesn’t fall onto the floor (he’s had a hard enough time the past three years convincing Aunt Beru that Leia is not his girlfriend). He breathes in deeply when she quietly sets her feet on the floor and plops down onto his beanbag chair.
“Okay, so,” Luke starts again, sitting down on the edge of his bed. “What the fuck are you doing climbing up my house in the middle of the night.”
Leia takes a deep breath. “So. I’ve been feeling pretty bad, because I can’t get my dad to answer any of our questions. And I know it’s been bugging you, and it would bug me too, if I was trying to find my biological parents and no one would answer my questions. So anyway, Han and I went to see the movie after you left, and it was totally boring, but. The characters in the movie had to go on a road trip, and it got me thinking. What if we tried to find your dad? By ourselves? We take your car, and Ben’s journals, and see if we can’t find someone who could tell us where he is?”
Luke blinks at her a few times. His heart swells at the idea of getting to see his dad again, but he can feel his palms sweat as his mind races through everything that could go wrong. “I have several questions,” he says, trying to keep his voice low. “First of all, how would we even know where to start? Second, why did you have to show up in the middle of the night? Third, how are you planning on convincing your parents and my aunt and uncle to let us do this?”
Leia nods. “I’ve spent the last couple of days thinking about this. So, to answer your first question, I think we try and find one of your dad and Ben’s old war buddies. You said they were in a squadron with a bunch of other people, one of them has to know something.”
“How are we supposed to find them?”
“Ben has to have an address book laying around somewhere. We find one of the people from Ben’s journals, get their address, and head out. Do you think that’s possible?”
Luke thinks, then nods.
“Okay, good.” Leia pauses, licking her lips. “Now, the answers to your second and third questions are … somewhat related. I don’t think your aunt and uncle would let you go on a road trip with me by yourself, especially if we tell them that we don’t really know where we’re going and we don’t know when we’ll come back. I know my dad would absolutely freak if I told him any of those things. So, if you’re okay with it, we’ll leave tonight.”
“Tonight?” Luke can barely restrain himself to keep at a whisper. “Leia, are you insane?”
“I know how it sounds,” she says. She stands up and comes to sit next to him on the bed. “But we have to do it tonight. If we don’t, we never will. We’ll sit around here planning, and we’ll wait until the time is right, and the time will never be right, and school will start up again, and we’ll have lost our chance.” She presses her hand onto his. “Don’t you want to find your dad?”
Luke opens his mouth and looks at Leia. His mind flies through every excuse he can think of, but he knows Leia is right. He nods, and her mouth opens into a wide smile. “Pack a bag,” she says, “and meet me by your car.” She stands and shimmies back out the window. Luke winces as she bumps her head on the top of his window. He watches as she disappears back down the tree.
Before he does anything else, he reaches into his backpack and grabs a notebook. He thinks for just a moment, then scribbles down a note.
Aunt Beru,
I don’t really know how to explain why I think this, but I think my dad is alive. Leia and I are going to find him. We’ll be safe. I’ll call and check in as often as I can. I love you. - Luke
Luke grabs his old middle school gym bag and stuffs as many clean clothes as he can fit inside. In the bathroom, he grabs his razor and shaving cream, deodorant, and his toothbrush. He's just about walk out of the room when he spots the box of Ben's journals on the floor out of the corner of his eye. He stops, pivots, and picks up the box. They'll be the road map for whatever the hell he and Leia are about to do. He grabs the note for Aunt Beru, places it on the kitchen table downstairs, sneaks out the front door, and walks out into the night.
Notes:
here we go!!! i think i'm going to be sticking to posting on sundays so you can expect chapter three next sunday!!!
please comment and let me know what you think!!! you can also find me on twitter @skywalkerlng i talk about star wars mostly but also bridgerton and the pitt and anything else that strikes my fancy lol
Chapter 3: all those people in those old photographs i've seen are dead
Notes:
cw: small reference to the kent state massacre. there's no descriptions of violence, but characters allude to it
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The interstate stretches out in front of Luke, extending eastward toward the first strips of sunlight. The radio plays old rock tunes - quietly, so Leia can continue sleeping in the passenger seat. As the miles go by and they get closer to civilization again, more and more cars surround Luke’s old rust bucket - ordinary people beginning their morning commutes. Luke taps his fingers on the steering wheel and glances up at the address listed under Ahsoka Tano’s name in Ben’s address book, then to the map laying on the dash in front of him. The road signs shine brightly in the early morning light. As the interstate expands to three lanes, then to four, Leia yawns. Luke can see her feet stretch out under the glove box. The passenger seat groans as she lifts her seat back to an upright position.
“So where are we?” she asks, her voice quiet and deep with the last remnants of sleep.
“The wonderful city of Cincinnati,” Luke replies dryly.
“Charming.” Leia grimaces, glancing around at the now busy traffic around her. “Are we going to grab breakfast somewhere?”
Luke gestures at the golden arches near the next exit as he merges over to the right.
“Nice,” Leia says, more to herself than to Luke. “It’s been ages since I’ve gotten to go to a McDonald’s.” Then she shakes her head. “God, I sound like a hick, don’t I?”
Luke chuckles. “Meridan’ll do that to ya.” He pulls off and navigates over to the McDonald’s, only getting honked at once (for what Luke will admit was a bit of a dick move). Once they’ve parked, he grabs Ben’s address book off the dash and reaches into the backseat for one of Ben’s journals that mentioned Ahsoka, found while Leia was driving them through Missouri in the dead of night. He and Leia both get out of the car slowly, stretching the stiffness out of their joints before Luke, for the first time in his life, locks up his car. He grabs a map of the city from the vestibule before they walk into the restaurant. There are a few old-timers sitting in the corner, sipping on coffee and chatting. A mom and her young son sit at the kids table, Ronald McDonald looking down at both of them. Behind the counter is an onslaught of noise from the friers and the drive-thru loudspeaker. A kid Luke’s age takes their order, stifling a few yawns as he punches the order in and takes Luke’s money.
Luke takes a seat in an empty corner, away from where anyone might overhear him. He glances over at the older men gathered around the table across the restaurant and feels a pang of guilt in his chest as he remembers the smell of Aunt Beru’s coffee pot waking him up in the mornings. When will Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru notice I’m gone? “Any reason you decided to start with -” Leia picks up Ben’s address book, eyes scanning the page - “Ahsoka Tano?” She sits down in the seat opposite him, setting down the tray with their food and tossing the address book back across the table.
Luke grabs his hashbrown and McMuffin and takes a bite before he answers. “She seemed like the obvious choice,” he replies. “I saw her name the most after my dad’s. I think they flew together a lot. They seemed pretty close. Plus, I remembered seeing her name on a note on Ben’s desk when we were gathering all the journals up last week. Maybe he talked to her recently?”
Leia nods. Some new pop tune Luke doesn’t recognize plays on the speakers as the two of them eat in companionable silence. Luke can’t taste much - he can feel his stomach twisting in knots, even though he had been hungry just before they came inside.
“What should we say?” Leia asks, and Luke can see his own worry mirrored in her expression. Luke just shrugs. “Do you think she knows about Ben?”
Luke sighs. “Hard to say. I mean, I’d never heard of her before last week, but I guess that doesn’t mean much anymore.” Leia gives him a chiding glance, but doesn’t press him. He looks over at a TV above the older men drinking their coffee, showing the weather forecast for the local area, and shakes his head. “God, we’re really doing this, aren’t we?” He glances back at Leia, who takes one last, loud drink of her OJ.
“Yeah,” she says, staring past Luke. “We really are.”
The neatly manicured lawns feel like something out of a movie, Luke thinks as he guides his car through the suburban neighborhood at Leia’s direction. The rows of almost-but-not-quite identical houses stretch on forever. Luke has the distinct feeling of being out of place, as his car, older than he is with dust from the dirt roads permanently staining the grill, squeezes in between two BMWs parked on either side of the skinny residential street. A deep blue, very clean sedan rides Luke’s ass for three blocks before racing down one of the seemingly hundreds of side streets. “Okay, pull over in front of this house on the corner,” Leia says. “I think it’s -” she points at the house to their right, then shifts to point across the street. “It’s that one.”
Luke nods and glances across the street. He shouldn’t be this afraid of a two-story suburban house with a wraparound porch in fucking Cincinnati of all places. He hears his car creak as Leia opens the door and steps out onto the sidewalk. Luke sighs, then shuts the car off, grabs Ben’s journal off the dash, and follows her out and across the street. As he crosses, he looks both ways, certain that someone will poke their head out from their perfectly white door and yell at him for the grease stains that still dot the front of his shirt from working with the tools in Ben’s garage yesterday. He can feel his heart pounding against his rib cage, but he resolutely follows Leia up the path toward the front door, and up the steps onto the porch. As he climbs up the steps, Leia steps to the side and gives him a look. You’re the one knocking, right?
Luke furrows his eyebrows, incredulous. The hell I am. This was your idea.
Leia gives him a stern look. We’re here about your dad.
Luke shakes his head. “Fine,” he whispers to no one in particular. He breathes in deep, then tries a second time when it fails to calm him down. Quit being such a baby, he thinks, and he watches his hand open the screen door, reach up, and knock three times.
There’s movement inside. He hears a deadbolt unlock, and the door swings open, and a woman slightly younger than Ben answers the door. Her hair is in locs, done up in two long ponytails at the top of her head. It reminds him of Leia, somehow, even though this woman is so unlike her. The woman in the door cocks her eyebrows at him, and Luke sees what he thinks is a glint of recognition in her ice blue eyes that stand in contrast to her rich brown skin. “Um -” he squeaks out in a voice an octave higher than normal. He can see Leia turn away from him, her eyes wide with embarrassment, as he swallows and tries again. “Hello, ma’am. Are you Ahsoka Tano?”
The woman tilts her head and gives him the once over. Luke can see gears turn in her head, and again he’s reminded of Leia, and the way she’d looked at him when she’d first heard his name in freshman homeroom. “Maybe.” Her voice is silky smooth, warm and inviting. “Who’s asking?”
Luke swallows again. “Uh, my name is Luke Skywalker.” He sees the confusion in her expression disappear instantly. “This is my friend Leia Organa.” He gestures over at Leia, and she gives a small smile and an aborted wave. A small smile starts to come over Ahsoka’s face. “We’re here because we were wondering if you could tell us anything about - about my father. Anakin Skywalker.”
Ahsoka looks back and forth between the two of them for a long while. The silence stretches out, and Luke swears he can feel sweat forming on the back of his neck. Finally, Ahsoka smiles and shakes her head. “Come on in.” She nods her head inside, still giving Luke a look of curiosity as he and Leia step inside. “Been a long time since a Skywalker has darkened my door,” she says with a wide, kind smile on her face. Luke can smell pancakes from the kitchen on his left. The TV is on, an older model that reminds him of the one in Ben’s living room, tuned to the same news station as the McDonald’s they’d left. The weather report is playing again, a repeat from an hour ago, and Luke is struck again with the guilt of leaving his aunt and uncle, but this time coupled with an excitement creeping in underneath. “Can I make you kids anything? I was just starting to clean up breakfast, but I think I’ve got some extra batter.”
“No, thank you, we already ate,” Leia says.
“Tea, then?”
Leia glances over at him. Luke shrugs. “Sure,” she says, and he can hear the slight wobble in her voice that tells him she’s nervous.
Ahsoka disappears into the kitchen. “Make yourselves at home,” she shouts. Luke hears water running in the sink, then the metal-on-metal sound of the kettle settling onto the stovetop. He and Leia sink into a soft tan couch, with just the barely-audible voice of the newscaster on the TV filling the silence. As Luke glances around, the thing he’s most struck by is the absence of anything that would suggest Ahsoka had been in the Air Force. It feels odd to Luke, whose only experience with retired military personnel is Leia’s father, Bail. The first time Luke had visited Leia at her house, he had immediately noticed the shrine set up to her grandfather in the entertainment center - the flag set into glass, the uniform her grandfather had worn in Germany framed in the hallway, the dozens of books on military strategy and the history of war in her father’s home office. Instead, there are picture frames strewn across the built-in shelves behind the television, nieces and nephews, Luke assumes, making silly faces at the camera, as well as more serious family portraits. The books are almost all fiction, Luke notices, and the one shelf toward the bottom that does have nonfiction has no titles that even relate slightly to the military. He can tell from the photos on the wall that Ahsoka is well-traveled, with photos of her and what looks to be her sister or a close friend next to several landmarks both in the US and abroad. It looks like an ordinary home.
“Here you are.” Ahsoka comes back in from the kitchen with three steaming mugs of tea. “So,” she says as she sinks down into an armchair across from the two of them. “What is it you want to know?
Luke exchanges a nervous glance with Leia and takes a sip of his tea before he answers, scalding the back of his throat. “Well, uh.” He takes a deep breath. “We were wondering if you’d heard anything about him lately?”
Ahsoka raises her eyebrows. “That’s vague.”
Luke nods. “Yeah.” He looks at Leia again, panicked. She shrugs. Might as well be straight with her. “Well, we were reading in one of Ben’s journals -”
“Ben Kenobi?” Ahsoka takes a sip of her tea and smiles. “Where there is Kenobi, Skywalker is not far behind,” she says, almost to herself rather than to Luke or Leia. “He let you read that?” She gestures at the journal Luke has been clutching to for dear life. “He must have changed quite a bit since I last saw him.”
Luke glances over at Leia. On the way over, they’d practiced a bit of what to say, if Ahsoka didn’t know, but Luke can still feel a hard lump rise up in his throat. “Ben actually, uh -” He takes a deep breath and swallows, trying to push the lump back down. He looks at the ground as he talks. “Ben died. In April. He had cancer.” Luke feels a tear slip out and wipes it away. “He left his house to me, so I’ve been going through it and found his journals. And … found out about you, too.”
He looks up from Ahsoka’s carpet, across the room to Ahsoka herself. Her expression is a mask, but she’s silent for a long time. “Well,” she finally says. “That would explain a lot about the phone call I got from him in February.” She smiles, and gazes off into the distance. “He didn’t say a word about it to me.”
“I don’t think he told anyone,” Luke says, trying hard to keep the bitterness out of his voice.
Ahsoka nods. “He never told anyone anything when he was in pain,” she says. “I truly think Ben would rather have walked across hot coals than burden anyone with the knowledge that he was suffering.”
“Was he like that when you knew him?” Leia asks. “During the war?”
Ahsoka rolls her eyes and lets out a chuckle. “I lost track of the amount of times I had to carry him over to the infirmary. And how many names he would call me as he limped alongside me. There was someone else who needed it more than he did, was what he always said to me. Or to your father,” she nods at Luke, “when we had to gang up on him.” She pauses, giving Luke a wistful expression. “You must have known Ben pretty well, if he left you his house.”
Luke sighs. “I thought I did. But - there’s so much in these journals that Ben never told me. And him not telling me about -” Luke swallows and shakes his head. “It feels like I never really knew him at all.”
“I get the feeling,” Ahsoka says, “though in the opposite way, I think. We went overseas and fought a war together. I would have trusted Ben with my life. Even now, I would. But he never talked much about anything else. About his family, or what his life was like before we all enlisted.” She sighs. “Can’t say I blame him, though, for not telling you about me, or anything else about the war. It was hell … and coming back was almost as bad.”
“What happened?” Leia asks.
For a long time, Ahsoka stares past the two of them, out the window behind Luke and Leia. Luke is about to tell her she doesn’t have to talk about it if she doesn’t want to when she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “We were scheduled to come back two days after the Kent State shootings. To the air force base in Dayton. I don’t know why they went ahead with it but …” Ahsoka shakes her head. “There were protestors shouting at us as we came off the runway. And none of us knew what was going on, because the people in charge thought it would all just blow over after a couple days. But it was everywhere on the news when we got back to our barracks.” Ahsoka pauses again, and Luke looks over at Leia. Luke can see the fire in Leia’s eyes, along with tears threatening to spill over. She doesn’t look away from Ahsoka. “You know, Ben and Anakin and I - we had talked a lot about what we were going to try to do when we came back home. We wanted to teach and train the soldiers who were getting drafted. We were going to request to be together. But after I saw that, I couldn’t even think about doing it anymore. I just couldn’t see the point. Anakin and Ben, they didn’t - they couldn’t understand why I had to walk away. They were angry at me for a long time. In fact, I think Anakin was angry with me about it until the day he died.”
Ahsoka stops again, and Luke shifts. “That’s, uh, that’s actually why we’re here today. We think my father might actually be alive?”
Ahsoka raises an eyebrow at him. “You do?”
Luke nods, and opens up Ben’s journal to the final entries in the middle. He stands and hands it over to Ahsoka. “The final entry.” He sits back down and looks at Ahsoka as she reads Ben’s words, the words he’s read so many times over the last week and a half that he’s almost memorized them.
“Hm,” Ahsoka says as she closes the journal and hands it back to Luke. “I can certainly see what makes you think that.”
“But you don’t think he’s alive?” Leia asks.
“If he is, I’ve certainly never heard from him. And it surprises me that he’d never come back for you, Luke. If there was one thing Anakin Skywalker cared about more than anything, it was his family.”
“Really?” Luke asks. “The only thing Ben ever said was that my father hated the farm and never wanted to come back.”
“Oh, that, too. He said that so many times I almost throttled him.” Ahsoka smiles. “But I have also never met a bigger mama’s boy in my life. Any time we got phone privileges, he was on the phone to his mother or to Padme. Your mother, I’m assuming.” Luke nods. “You’ve got her smile, . It was sickening, part of the time, but it was sweet, too. If he is still alive, I don’t know why he wouldn’t have tried to come find you. If only to take you away from that farm he hated so much.” She chuckles. “Anyway, I heard Anakin and Padme both died in a car accident.”
“That’s what I thought, too. That’s what my Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru have always told me. That’s what Ben’s always told me. But … I mean, doesn’t that sound like my father is still out there somewhere?”
Ahsoka sighs. “It sounds like something’s fishy, kid, that’s for sure. And if I knew something that could help, I would certainly tell you. I wish I had more for you. But before February, I hadn’t heard from Ben in almost 15 years. Because of the way I left, I lost touch with most of our squadron after we came back, and I haven’t heard much from any of them since. I’m really sorry, kid.”
Luke nods, his heart sinking. “Well, thanks for talking to us, anyway.” He and Leia stand up and turn to leave.
“You know,” Ahsoka says, standing as well. Luke turns back. “I think I have some old photo books upstairs in one of my guest rooms. If you want to put faces to the names you’ve been reading about.”
Luke glances behind him at Leia to see her face in a hopeful expression. He can feel his mouth break into a grin as he nods eagerly. “Yes, ma’am.”
The military paraphernalia Luke had been expecting is confined to one small corner of a guest room upstairs. There are two bookshelves, filled with framed pictures on every shelf but the bottom, and those are filled with photo albums.
“I didn’t think they would have allowed you to have a camera while you were overseas,” Leia says as Luke takes in the photos. He scours each one, searching for his father’s face.
“Most of my photos are from basic training, before we shipped out.” Ahsoka walks over and picks up a group photo. She hands it to Luke. “This is the 501st. One of the only photos of all of us.”
“There’s Cody,” Leia says, pointing at one of the faces in the 3rd row.
“How do the two of you know the Commander?”
“He was Ben’s lawyer. He came to tell Luke that he was the new owner of Ben’s house.”
“That’s him,” Luke says, finally finding the face he’s looking for right in the center of the photograph. He points and leans the picture frame toward Leia. “That’s my father.”
Leia smiles at him. “That’s Ben, then, standing next to him,” she says gently. Luke nods.
Ahsoka rests her hand on his shoulder gently, and he turns to face her. She has another picture frame in her hand. She gives it to him silently, and he passes the group picture to Leia. He sits down on the bed as he looks at the photograph. Anakin and Ben are on a dingy-looking red couch in a basement. Anakin is turned upside down, legs sticking up against the wall, resting on Ben’s head. Ben is giving the camera a death glare, but the other person on the couch has his mouth open in pure delight, clearly mid-laugh. “That’s Rex, on Anakin’s other side,” Ahsoka says. “There were days I think Anakin trusted Rex more than either me or Ben.”
“I’ve read a bit about him,” Luke replies.
“He was a great man. Saved my ass in that jungle more times than I can count.” Ahsoka grabs another photo off the shelf, and Luke trades her for it. Ben is sitting on the floor in front of a couch, Anakin on the couch behind him, and a young Ahsoka is sitting on Anakin’s shoulders. All three have their heads stacked on top of one another, giving the camera playful expressions. Luke feels an ache in his chest, and tears come to his eyes. He’d grown up seeing the same four pictures of his father - the one of Anakin in uniform in the upstairs hallway most of all. He looks up toward the photo albums on the bottom shelves of the bookshelf in front of him and feels a tear spill over. So many photos of his father had to be in there, that he’d never seen before - that he hadn’t even imagined existed.
“Luke,” Leia whispers to his right, holding a silver-framed photo. She hands it to him, looking toward Ahsoka. “Is that -”
Ahsoka sits down next to Luke, glancing at the photo. His father stands in the middle, his arms around Ahsoka on one side and a woman Luke doesn’t recognize on the other. “Padme Amidala,” Ahsoka says, and Luke can feel ringing in his ears. Ahsoka says something else, but Luke can’t hear it. Tears bubble over, and one of them drops onto the picture frame.
“Luke, are you okay?” he hears Leia say. She touches his shoulder, and her touch grounds him back to Earth.
“I -” he tries, but his mouth has gone dry. “I’ve never seen a picture of my mom before.” Luke sniffles and tries to wipe the tears away from his eyes. “She’s really pretty,” he squeaks out before Leia surrounds him in a tight hug.
“Oh, child,” he hears Ahsoka say before he feels her arm wrap around him too. He stares at the photo of his mother, of both of his parents, hoping it will sear itself onto his brain. He wants to see this photo every time he closes his eyes. Eventually Ahsoka drops his arm, and Leia releases him. Luke sniffles again. He sticks out the photo to give it back, but Ahsoka shakes her head. “You can keep that one.”
Luke didn’t think he could feel so many emotions all at the same time. He thinks his chest might burst with everything swirling around inside of him. “Thank you,” he whispers.
“I just wish there was more I could do for -” Ahsoka cuts herself off, then grabs the group photo of the 501st off the shelf again. “Now, hold on,” she mutters. She points to a woman standing proudly in the back row.
“I know her,” Leia says. “I think she worked with my father once.”
“You said your last name was Organa, right? Bail’s kid?” Leia nods. “Yeah, she and your father would have worked together a lot. Her name is Mon Mothma. I can’t remember what it was exactly that she did anymore, but she was real important - everyone made sure they had all their ducks in a row whenever she came around. Last I knew, she was down at the joint base in San Antonio. If there’s something going on with your father - if he really is still alive - she might be able to tell you.”
“You think so?”
“If she doesn’t, she may be able to tell us who actually knows something,” Leia says. “I remember how much she and my father worked together. He always said he could trust her with anything. And I think she’s higher up now than Dad was after he retired. If my dad really doesn’t know anything, she might.”
Luke looks back and forth between Leia and Ahsoka. He feels breathless. He glances back down at the photograph still in his hands, of his father and his mother and this woman who must have meant so much to both of them at one point, who means so much to Luke now even though he only met her an hour ago. “So, San Antonio, then?”
Leia nods, and Ahsoka smiles at him. “I hope you can find what you’re looking for.”
“Just as long as we stop somewhere tonight, I’m not spending another night sleeping in your car.”
Luke nods, only half-paying attention to what Leia says. “Please insert twenty-five cents,” says the robotic voice coming through the pay phone. Luke fumbles with the coins in his hands, quickly shoving the quarter through. He taps his heel on the ground as he waits, bringing a hand up to his face to chew on his nails.
“Hello?” Aunt Beru’s voice comes through, so much clearer than Luke had expected. He feels his stomach turn over and tries not to think about how worried she sounds.
“Hi, Aunt Beru,” he says quietly.
“Luke?” He hears a shuffle on the other end of the line. “Owen, I think it’s Luke,” she says in a muffled tone.
“Yeah, it’s me.”
“Oh, Luke, thank heavens. We’ve been so worried about you. Are you okay? Are you lost? Do you need us to come get you?”
Luke takes a deep breath. “I’m okay, Aunt Beru. Leia’s with me.” He glances over at Leia, leaning up against the side of his car. Her head moves back to face in front of her, pretending she hadn’t been listening. “We’re doing good. But we can’t come home yet.”
“Yes, you can, Luke. I don’t know what ideas you’ve got in your head but - “
“No, you don’t. You haven’t seen what I’ve seen, Aunt Beru. Ben’s journals -”
“So you’re following a ghost? I thought we raised you with more sense than that.”
“I’m not following a ghost, Aunt Beru.” Luke pauses and breathes deep, trying to slow the pounding in his chest. “I need to know if he’s out there. If I don’t, I know I’m going to regret it.”
“Luke, he is gone.” Aunt Beru’s voice shudders with force. “I know it hasn’t been easy on you, here on the farm, and Lord knows Ben Kenobi didn’t help how much you idolized the man, but your father is not going to come back. And you have responsibilities here now - you need to sell Ben’s house, and his tools -”
“I know, Aunt Beru. I won’t be gone forever. If I find out I’m wrong, I’ll come back.” The other end of the line is silent. Luke bites his lip. “We met a woman today. Ahsoka Tano. I don’t know if my dad ever mentioned her. She was one of his best friends. They flew together in the Air Force.” Luke takes a steadying breath. “She had a photo -” he cuts himself off, swallowing a lump in his throat. He is so tired of crying. “She showed me a picture of my mom.” He waits, but all he hears on the other end of the line is calm, steady breaths. “This complete stranger was able to tell me more about my parents in two hours than both you or Uncle Owen have managed to do in 18 years. So if nothing else comes out of this … if all I get are stories and photos of my parents, it’ll have been worth it.”
“Oh, Luke -”
“We’re leaving Cincinnati as soon as Leia gets off the phone with her dad. I’ll let you know where we stop next.” Aunt Beru’s voice is still coming out of the receiver when he hangs up.
Luke leans against the phone booth for a second, willing his heart to slow down and his hands to stop shaking. A horn honks down the road, and he jumps. He shakes his head and walks back over to his car, leaning against it next to Leia. “Your turn,” he says to her, more sullen than he wants it to be. She gives him a small smile before walking toward the payphone and inserting her change.
“Hey, Dad,” he hears her say. His chest aches at the gentleness in her voice, and the smile she has on her face. He stands - he’ll go get some gas while she’s busy. The last thing he hears before he shuts his door is, “No, no, I’m fine. Luke’s with me. I’ll be safe.”
Notes:
before anyone comes for me i want to say that i do know that cody and obi wan were technically in the 212th but in my defense i don't know how the military works and it was just easier for me to put them all in the same unit lmao
i used this art as a reference for human!ahsoka as i was writing this chapter and this as an inspiration for one of the photos luke and leia look at of ben, anakin, and ahsoka. i hate linking to pinterest as credit for that last one but reverse google image search was a bust. if anyone recognizes the artist please let me know so i can properly give credit!!
also fun fact this chapter contains the only scene i have ever written where i cried while writing it :)
i've been posting sneak peeks of each chapter over on my twitter so if you want to see those you can follow me @skywalkerlng :) i love talking about this story with people so please please comment and let me know what you think or you can talk to me on twitter
Chapter 4: former heroes who quit too late
Notes:
this would be the chapter where i remind you all that i know nothing about the military or military bases or anything so if anything is inaccurate please don't tell me 😅
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“What exit am I taking again?”
If Luke thought driving in Cincinnati was odd, driving in Texas feels like being on a different planet. He had been sure several times driving through Dallas that he was going to crash, that he and Leia were going to die. He thought he had even seen Leia counting the number of times he’d sworn at another car as it passed him. He’s glad they planned out everything before they left the motel they’d stayed at in Arkansas the night before, because Luke thinks if he has to drive in Texas any more than he already has, he is going to spontaneously combust from anxiety.
“Uh, I think the next one?” Leia says, holding the map up close to her face. “No, wait.” She rotates the map ninety degrees. “The next one.”
“You’re sure?”
“Well, no, but this is starting to look familiar to me, so I think we’re at least getting closer.”
“How in the world did you ever live like this?” Luke mutters, mostly to himself.
“Hey, I learned how to drive in Meridan, just like you did. Now get over, or you’re gonna miss our exit.”
Luke rolls his eyes, but he does what Leia tells him. She hasn’t been wrong so far, across eight states now. Luke takes the exit, the nervous feeling in the pit of his stomach growing stronger as they get closer to the Air Force Base.
“You’re sure this is going to work?”
Leia sighs, setting the road map down in her lap and staring out the window. “I have no idea, Luke.” She looks back at him. “But if it doesn’t, at least we tried.” Luke nods. “Maybe we get lucky and the guy at the front desk recognizes me. Turn right at that stoplight,” she says. “Maybe we get some brand new rule follower who’s never heard of my father. Maybe she won’t see us even if we get past the front desk. We’re putting together the plane as we’re flying it.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Luke mutters.
“Did you see much about Mon Mothma in any of Ben’s journals last night?”
Luke shakes his head. “Nothing. And I was up pretty late last night, too. She may have been important, but I don’t think she actually ever went overseas, like your father did.”
Leia nods. “Yeah, that kinda squares with what I remember about her. I remember hearing her name a lot, but Dad never really talked much about what it was she actually did. I just hope she’s not off-base or something, because then we’re really screwed.”
Luke pulls up to the gate and side-eyes Leia. She’d lived on this base, years before he’d known her. She shrugs. “My parents always just gave their name and got let in. I guess we’ll see what happens this time.” Luke slides his car gently up to the two-way, cranks the window down, and presses a button marked ‘VISITORS.’
“Please state your name and business,” comes a curt voice after a moment’s pause.
Luke stares at Leia. “Uh, Leia Organa, and Luke Skywalker. We’re here to see Mon Mothma.”
“Do you have an appointment?” The question sounds more like a statement.
“Yes,” Leia says so confidently Luke himself almost believes it.
There’s a long silence from the other end. “You’re not on her schedule for today. What did you say your names were again?”
“Leia Organa. And Luke Skywalker.”
The man on the other end is silent for several minutes. Luke doesn’t dare speak, his stomach too busy twisting itself into a pretzel for his brain to make room for talking. The radio is off, has been off ever since they crossed the border into Texas. Leia’s breathing gets louder. Luke taps on the steering wheel, staring out the window and through the gate onto the base.
“Alright, you guys are free to enter.” A loud buzzing comes from in front of the car, and the gate begins to rattle open. The voice starts talking again, but Luke doesn’t catch any of it over the noise of the gate.
“You think you know where her office is?” Luke asks, pulling through the gate.
“Yeah, the Private gave directions. I think I know which building he was talking about.”
Luke nods absentmindedly. He follows Leia’s directions, looking around at the building on the base. He can see rows of identical houses a ways back. A building they pass says “COMMISSARY” in large red letters. It looks like a grocery store on the inside. They pass by a post office, then an office building. He parks in front of the office building, like Leia tells him to. As they both clamber out of the car, Luke notices Leia glancing over toward the housing units. “You remember which one was yours?”
Leia smiles. “Yeah. You can’t see it from here, though.” She chuckles, glancing around at the rest of the base. “God, literally nothing has changed in the last six years. It’s all exactly the same. At least in Meridan, you have a new restaurant opening every year or so.” She turns and heads toward the door.
The private sitting at the reception desk is dressed in his fatigues, and he stands as they enter. “Leia Organa and Luke Skywalker?” he asks.
“Yes, sir,” Leia says, and Luke smiles at the return to the formality he remembers from when she’d first moved to Meridan.
The private shakes each of their hands. “Right this way.” He gestures down the hallways, over the elevator and begins walking. “I have to admit, I’m surprised she’s going to see you. You weren’t on her schedule - she gets very particular about sticking to her agenda every day.”
Leia smiles. “Yes, well, she’s an old family friend.”
“I see, ma’am.” The private stops in front of the elevator. “She’s up on the sixth floor.”
Leia nods. “Thank you.” The private turns around and heads back toward the security desk, and Luke presses the elevator call button. He can see his hand shaking just slightly as he reaches out.
Luke doesn’t know why he was expecting music when they get into the elevator, but there is none. The only thing he has to focus on is the sound of Leia’s nails tapping onto the wall of the elevator and the slow, deliberate beeps as they climb up each floor of the office building. The elevator grinds to halt, and several seconds later the doors glide open. In front of them is a small desk, a woman in a pencil skirt seated behind it. She looks up at them and smiles.
“Hi,” she says, a hint of a Southern drawl peeking through. “Come on through here, she’s expecting y’all.”
They follow the secretary around a corner and into an office. A woman with short red hair sits behind a simple wooden desk, scratching notes onto a legal pad. A short, very neat stack of books lies on one side. Her name plate is perfectly aligned to the end of the desk, and the frames on the wall behind her are all evenly spaced. The secretary closes the door behind them, but Mon Mothma doesn’t look up.
“Please, do be seated,” she says, in a clipped Tidewater accent, without looking up from her notes. Luke exchanges a nervous look with Leia, who shrugs at him before slowly walking to sit in one of the chairs sitting in front of Mothma’s desk. Luke follows her. His fingers tap against his leg as he sits down, creating a new rhythm as Mothma’s pen continues to scratch against the legal pad.
After what feels like several minutes, Mothma sets the pen down and glances up at Luke and Leia. She has a kind face, Luke thinks, even with the slight frown she’s giving them. “So,” she says, glancing back and forth between the two of them. “To what do I owe this … unexpected pleasure?”
Luke takes in a deep breath before he answers. “We were hoping, ma’am, that you could tell us something about Anakin Skywalker?”
Mon Mothma purses her lips and shifts in her chair. “You’re his son, I presume?” Luke nods. “I’m not sure what I can tell you about him that you wouldn’t already know.”
“I want to know more about his death. Or, I guess … if he’s dead at all.”
If the words surprise Mon Mothma, Luke can’t tell from her face. Her eyebrows furrow together, and there is a long pause before she answers him. “I’m not sure I follow. Anakin Skywalker died in a car crash, along with his wife, Padme Amidala, on the way home from the training base where he worked. It was a horrific tragedy. I hope you’re not suggesting that he somehow survived.”
“I’m not really suggesting anything, ma’am,” Luke says. “I just - well see, Ben Kenobi died this past April, and -”
“He died?” Mothma’s face falls. “I hadn’t heard that.”
“He had cancer,” Leia says. “It was pretty quick.”
Mothma nods. “I’m sorry to hear that. Kenobi was a good soldier, and a good man, besides.” She turns away from Luke and Leia, glancing at a photo on the wall. Luke follows her line of sight and sees a photo that looks identical to the one Ahsoka had shown them at her house the day before, of the 501st. “You must have known him well?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Luke nods. “Anyway, he left his house to me, and we found his journals and well - the way Ben talks about him in his journal entries makes it seem like my father might be alive?”
Mon Mothma glances back and forth between Luke and Leia slowly, taking them in. Luke gets the distinct sense of being scanned, as if Mothma can see straight through him.
“So this is what you’re coming to me with?” she asks. “A journal entry from a dead man that ‘seems like’ Anakin Skywalker is still alive? After sixteen years?”
“But you could tell us, couldn’t you?” Leia asks, leaning forward in her seat. “You could tell us if he was alive?”
“‘After all these years, I had always thought that Anakin would die before me. It seems so much crueler, knowing that it will be me taken from him, instead of him taken from me.’” Luke barely has to think before the words come tumbling out of his mouth. They’ve been knocking around his brain so much in the past week he’s barely thought of anything else. “That’s what Ben wrote. You’re telling me that doesn’t sound like Anakin Skywalker is alive?”
There’s another prolonged silence. Luke can hear his heartbeat starting to echo in his throat. “But you have no other proof?”
Luke wrinkles his eyebrows together and glances over at Leia, whose expression mirrors his. “That’s … why we’re here,” he says, looking back to Mon Mothma and staring into her steely grey eyes. “We want to know if you know anything about what happened to him.”
Mon Mothma takes another deep breath in, then smiles. Luke feels some of the tension go out of the room. “Well, I think that’s this meeting done, then.” Mothma picks her pen back up, continuing her notes.
“What?” Leia asks. Luke can see her knuckles turning white as they grasp the armrests of her chair.
Mothma looks up at them with only her eyes, not bothering to move her head. “I have a lot of work to do before the end of the day today.”
“So that’s it?” Leia asks, and Luke can hear the bite in her tone. “You’re not going to tell us anything? Do you even know anything?”
Mon Mothma stops her note-taking, and Luke can see her inhale deeply. She reaches over and presses a button on her phone. “My assistant will show you out,” she says in a sickly saccharine voice.
Luke’s stomach drops, and he feels a pang of heartbreak deep in his chest. He stands and turns toward the door. Leia’s mouth is set into a glare fiercer than Luke has ever seen it before, but she stands too. Luke can hear her muttering to herself as they follow Mothma’s assistant out into the hallway and back toward the elevator, but she doesn’t speak to him again, and then they’re back out on the highway, looking for a hotel.
Leia has been pacing back and forth in their tiny, dingy hotel room, ranting, for the better part of half an hour now. Luke keeps sinking further down into his pillow, hoping she’ll take the hint, but she’s still at it. Luke hasn’t been paying too much attention to her - he’s been trying to read in Ben’s journal - but he finally decides to set the journal onto the nightstand after reading the same sentence five times in a row and still not comprehending anything.
“-and we are not going anywhere until she tells us what she knows!”
“Leia, why are you so sure she knows something?”
Leia rounds on him, and Luke regrets asking the question. He’s seen her like this before, after debate rounds where someone asked a stupid fucking question, as she’d put it. “It’s what she said about proof. Don’t you remember?” Luke shakes his head. “She asked us if we had any proof, and when we said we didn’t have any, she kicked us out.”
“But we do have proof - we have Ben’s journals.”
“Those are the words of a dying man - the ravings of a dying man, for all she knows. For all anyone knows, really.” Leia shakes her head, then continues pacing. “The whole meeting makes me feel like we might have stumbled into some very deep shit, Luke.”
Luke gives her a confused look. “Really?”
“I mean, first my father refuses to tell me anything. And that’s weird in itself, right? There are very few things my father straight up refuses to tell me about what he did in the service, and when he has something he doesn’t want to tell me, he can usually at least tell me why. But nothing. I got completely stonewalled. And then ,” Leia turns and comes to sit on the bed next to Luke, “we come down here, to someone who’s higher up than my dad, and she starts asking us about what proof we have before shutting down the conversation entirely.” Leia shakes her head again. “I’ve just got a real bad feeling about this, Luke. This might turn out to be a lot bigger than either of us expected.”
Luke nods. “I think you’re right.” He sighs. “But I can’t imagine what going back there will do for us. She clearly doesn’t want to talk about it.”
“I think she does want to talk about it, though” Leia says. “I think Mon Mothma, and Ben, and …” she takes a deep breath, “-and maybe even my dad are keeping a massive secret. I don’t think your parents died in a car accident, Luke. I think something happened. I think they’re covering it up. I think they’ve been hiding whatever happened for sixteen years now.” Leia looks straight into Luke’s eyes, and he can feel her looking into his soul. “And I think Mothma will talk, if we can find the right question to ask her.”
Luke can feel his heart beginning to pound in his chest again as he exits the interstate toward JBSA, but this time it’s not because of the hellacious state of traffic in Texas. He can see Leia picking at her nails in the passenger seat. They haven’t said anything to each other since they left the shitty motel they stayed in. He runs the entire scenario through in his brain, over and over, but he still can’t picture what will actually happen when they get Mon Mothma alone. His stomach tightens as he turns a corner and pulls up to the two-way again and rolls down the window.
“Please state your name and business.” It sounds like the same guy as yesterday. Luke pleads with whatever god will listen that they hadn’t taken down his plates.
“Hi,” Leia says in a tone Luke has never heard from her. It sounds like a Valley girl crossed with a chipmunk on steroids. “My friend Val invited me over. Valerie Carson? I didn’t realize her house was, like, protected by armed guards.”
There’s silence on the other end. Luke nervously taps his thumbs on the bottom of the steering wheel, feeling his palms start to sweat.
“You’re free to enter. You know where the barracks are?”
“Val gave me directions. Thank you so much!” Leia’s voice goes so high-pitched at the end that Luke winces as he rolls up the window. The gate rolls open.
“Valerie Carson?” Luke asks as he rolls the car back onto the base.
Leia shrugs. “One of my friends when I was down here.” She chuckles. “I wasn’t even sure if she still lived on the base anymore.”
“Good lord,” Luke mutters under his breath. “So should I pull in up front?”
“Might as well,” Leia says. “When do you think she’ll come out?”
Luke shakes his head. He reaches into the back seat to find the journal he’d been reading. “No idea. You should keep your eyes open, though. I’ll be reading.” He gives her a shit-eating grin.
He can sense Leia rolling her eyes more than he can actually see it. “You know,” she says after a moment, “I’d kinda like to know what’s in those things.”
Luke looks up at her over the top of the journal. “Really?”
“Yeah, I mean, I’m coming with you on this trip across the country to find your potentially-long-lost dad. I want to know some things about him.”
“Like what? I don’t even know that many things about him.”
“But you’re reading those journals. You’re finding out things. I want to … I don’t know. Find out with you.”
Luke stares out his window and sets the journal in his lap. He taps his fingers absently on the cover, mulling over Leia’s request. He knows what Leia said makes sense, but there’s a part of him that feels protective of the journals. Leia hadn’t known Ben the way he had. He didn’t mean the same things to her that he did to Luke. He worries she wouldn’t understand.
She can’t understand if you never let her in, whispers a voice in the back of his head.
He looks back out the windshield, into the office spaces and the private at the reception desk. He can see Leia gazing intently into the building. “I, uh, I haven’t actually found out too much yet. From the journals anyway,” he says in a low voice. “So far, I’ve learned more from Ahsoka than from Ben.”
Leia nods. He can see the corners of her lips turn up ever so slightly.
“She’s coming,” Leia says suddenly, undoing her seatbelt and scrambling out the car before Luke can comprehend what’s happening. He quickly unbuckles his own seatbelt and climbs out of the car. He and Leia walk around the hood and stand at the front of the car, just as Mon Mothma walks out the front door. She doesn’t see them at first, but as soon as she does, she stops in her tracks.
“We just want to talk,” Luke says, trying to sound authoritative.
“I don’t have anything to say to either of you about Anakin Skywalker,” Mothma says, sounding defeated. “That is why you’ve come, isn’t it?”
Luke is about to respond when Leia replies, “It’s not actually.” Luke stares at her, his mouth coming open. “Luke and I aren’t stupid, you know. I’ve been around my dad and classified secrets for years. I know how this works. We know you know something. And we know that you and my dad are in on it. So was Ben Kenobi. So no, I don’t want to talk about Anakin Skywalker.” Leia takes a step onto the sidewalk toward Mon Mothma. “I want to know who else can tell us what we want to know.”
Mon Mothma doesn’t say anything for a long time. Luke has to stop himself from fidgeting. He glances back and forth from Leia to Mon Mothma. Both of them have their jaws set in determination to outlast the other one. Finally, Mon Mothma heaves a deep sigh. “Can we take a walk?” She gestures down the main road. Leia nods, and Mothma begins walking. Leia turns back to Luke before hurrying to follow. Luke scrambles after both of them, hastening to catch up.
Mothma doesn’t talk for at least five minutes. She leads them up toward the commissary and into a small, sparsely equipped playground before stopping and facing the two of them. She takes a deep breath and sits down on a bench. “There’s only one person I know of who could maybe - maybe - tell you the kind of the information you’re looking for.” She begins digging in her purse and pulls out a pen and a pad of sticky notes. “I don’t know what state he’ll be in when you get to him, or what he’ll be able to tell you. But if you’re intent on finding answers, he’s the only person I can give you.” She scribbles on the notepad before ripping off the page and handing it to Luke.
“Saw Gerrera?” Luke asks, reading the name from the sticky note. There’s an address underneath. He passes the note to Leia.
Mothma nods. “That address is to a VA hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, near DC. Gerrera has been there for the last 16 years.”
Luke watches as Leia folds up the sticky note and slides it into her pocket. Even from this angle Luke can see fire in her eyes. He’s just glad it’s not directed at him for once. “How are we supposed to talk to a man who’s been hospitalized that long?”
Mothma smiles. “I assume you lied your way in here just now. You’ll figure something out.” Mothma stands. “If you mention my name at all, I will deny ever giving you that slip of paper.” She walks through the middle of them, back in the direction they came. Luke and Leia turn and watch her as she leaves the park.
“Thank you,” Luke calls after her. He sees her hesitate for just a moment before continuing on.
Luke stirs his tea absently, looking at Leia as she stares off into space. The 50s-style diner they stopped in for dinner is more crowded than Luke would have expected, but the atmosphere makes up for the time it’s taking for him and Leia to get their food. The waitress seated them in the back corner, the same booth they’d claimed over the years at Val’s back home. The smells coming from the kitchen remind Luke of Meridan, of his friends. The gentle roar of conversation coming from the rest of the diner reminds Luke of all the times he’d spent with Deek and Camie and Biggs on their breaks from working in Randall’s shop.
“So,” he says, and Leia blinks rapidly, turning her attention back to him. “What do you think?”
Leia lets out a raspberry and takes a sip of her coffee before she replies. “Honestly?” She shakes her head. “I don’t know if we should go all the way to DC. This whole thing is starting to freak me out.”
Luke raises his eyebrows. “Really? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you be freaked out before.”
Leia gazes back out the window. “I know I acted like I knew what I was talking about back there, but I really didn’t.” She looks down at her coffee and holds it up to her face, almost like a shield. “My dad being involved in a coverup? It …” She takes a sip. “There’s part of me that thinks I shouldn’t be surprised, but it’s just not something I can picture my dad doing. And this new lead, if we want to call it that, is sketchy as hell. A guy who’s been hospitalized almost as long as we’ve been alive? What is he going to be able to tell us?”
“Sorry for the wait, y’all,” says the waitress, setting down their food in front of them. Leia pushes up her coffee toward the middle of the table and looks out the window.
Luke smiles up at her. “Thank you.” He turns to look at Leia. She seems to be pointedly not making eye contact. “So you think we shouldn’t go?”
Leia takes a bite of her omelet. “I just don’t think we’ll get anything useful out of it.”
Luke nods and picks up his fork. He takes a few bites, and Leia does the same. “You might be right,” he says after a minute, and Leia looks at him with her head cocked, intrigued. “We might not get anything useful out of Saw. But you’re the one who said to me that if we don’t try to find these answers now, we’re never going to get another chance. And now that we’re here, and we’re actually doing this, I don’t want to stop until we get the answers we came for.” He takes a sip of his tea, and the warmth spreads through his chest. “If we go to DC and we can’t get anything out of Saw Gerrera, then we can go home and at least say we tried. But I don’t think I’ll be able to live with the regret if we don’t even go in the first place.”
The buzz of conversation from the other booths continues, but Leia stays silent for a long time. Luke takes a few bites of his potatoes before reaching over for the ketchup at the end of the table. The song playing overhead fades out, and Luke hears Leia click her tongue.
“Long drive to DC, isn’t it?” she asks with a wry smile.
Notes:
just as a heads up, the next couple of chapters might come out on a monday instead of sunday, i'll be doing some travelling over the next couple of weeks and i'm not sure i'll be able to post on sundays. if you're super impatient, i've been posting previews of each chapter over on my twitter every week if you'd like a sneak peek at what's coming next!
Chapter 5: and it's our time now if you want it to be (maul the world like a carnival bear set free)
Notes:
thank you all for being patient with me! i thought that maybe i could have gotten this up yesterday, but travelling took it OUT of me lmao. i'm just going to go ahead and say right now that next's week chapter will also be out on monday, but we'll be back to sunday uploads for the last two chapters!
Chapter Text
Luke doesn’t want to let Leia drive his car. His car is his baby; he’d spent hours upon hours in Ben’s shop fixing up the engine, upgrading the brakes, installing a new U-joint, getting the stereo working. But he can see the determined look in her eye as they leave the diner and knows there’s no point in arguing with her. He barely speaks as they head on the interstate out of San Antonio, unable to shake the feeling that his car will revolt at the idea of someone else driving and spontaneously break down, leaving them stranded.
As the traffic thins and the skyscrapers give way to suburbs give way to empty Texas desert, Leia turns on a radio station she says she would listen to when she lived on the base. She turns the volume up high and sings at the top of her lungs, and Luke begins to relax. He sings along with her, to the songs he knows. At some point, Bohemian Rhapsody comes on, and Leia convinces him to sing Brian May’s falsetto parts. The guitar comes back in, and both Luke and Leia bang their heads along to the music. When the song fades, Leia turns the music back down, and Luke reaches into the back seat to find Ben’s next journal.
“So you finished the one you were reading?” Leia asks him, quietly.
“Uh, yeah,” Luke says. He wants to start reading, but he remembers their conversation from earlier. He hasn’t kept something secret from Leia since they became friends, and he doesn’t want to start now. “Do you remember what Ahsoka told us, about how the three of them wanted to train new recruits after they came back?”
“And she couldn’t do it.”
“Yeah. Well, the last journal had a lot about Ben and my dad and how they finally got to do that. They just got appointed to the San Antonio base, actually, in one of the last entries.” Luke hesitates for a second, but decides to keep going despite the flutters in his stomach. “Ben also talked about my parents’ wedding, at the end, too.”
“Aww, really? What was it like?”
“Pretty small, from the way Ben described it. It sounded like a courthouse wedding - Ben said it was just him and Rex for the witnesses, and one of my mom’s friends, but Ben didn’t know her name. It was after Ahsoka left.”
Leia smiles. “When did they get married?”
“Uh …” Luke trails off, trying to remember the date for that entry. “I can’t remember the date exactly. But I think it was in the fall of ‘71. September, maybe? October?”
Leia nods. “Sounds like you’re getting close to your own appearance in Ben’s journals.”
Luke glances down at the journal in his lap, which suddenly feels very heavy. He hadn’t even considered that possibility. The idea that Ben might have known him before the farm in Kansas, that Ben might have been around when he was too young to remember, still seemed like a foreign concept, something Luke couldn’t quite get his head around. “Yeah,” he breathes quietly. He notices, suddenly, that the sun has started to set behind them.
“You know, I’ve been thinking,” he says, after a few moments. “About what you said earlier. About wanting to find out things with me.” He sees Leia nod out of the corner of his eye. “I could read the journals out loud, if you like.”
Leia bites at her lip, and for a moment Luke feels his stomach tighten with nerves. But then Leia reaches and turns the radio off. “I would really like that,” she says quietly.
Luke nods, smiling despite the fact that he thinks his heart is about to leap out through his throat. He swallows hard, then lifts the journal and opens the front cover. “January 3rd, 1972,” he begins.
“I think we should stop soon,” Luke says, looking up from the journal. His voice sounds a little more hoarse than it did when they left San Antonio, after three hours of reading Ben’s journals out loud to Leia. The overhead light is on, turned on after the sun went down. There are barely any cars on the road now. They pass a road sign for Acadia Parish, which makes Luke think they’ve crossed into Louisiana at some point.
Leia yawns beside him and shifts in the driver’s seat. “I’ll pull over at the next exit. I think I saw a sign that said there’s motels. Keep reading, it’ll help me stay awake.”
Luke turns his gaze back toward Ben’s journal. “Looks like you were right,” he tells her. “The next entry is for May 25, 1972.”
“He was there.” Luke can hear Leia smile through the words.
Luke sighs, pressing down an ache in his chest. “I still can’t believe he never told me.” He shakes his head, swallowing hard to stop any tears from coming up. “I’m so tired of hospitals,” Luke begins, and he can hear the annoyance in Ben’s voice as loudly as if Ben had said the words himself. “No matter how good the outcome of this trip to the hospital was, I think I could live my entire life without setting foot in another one. So clean, so bright. It’s an assault on the senses. And the people with me in the waiting room seemed to have lost all sense of common decency. I got asked about 10 times an hour why I was there, and each time I got a glare when I said my friends were having a baby, and that Anakin was in the delivery room with his wife. But then, I can’t say I’m surprised by Anakin’s choices; tradition is not something Anakin tends to have much respect for.”
Leia snorts. “I can’t believe there was ever a time where a husband wasn’t expected to be in the room helping his wife give birth to their baby. What an ass-backwards way of thinking.”
Luke chuckles, going back to the entry. “Anyway, despite all of my own issues with hospitals, and the rudeness of the other people, it was indeed still a wonderful day. I had been worried when Anakin said he was taking Padme to the hospital - it’s a bit early, but Anakin’s instincts are good, even outside the barrel of a gun. It turns out -” Luke stops in the middle of the sentence, his stomach drops. He can’t stop his eyes from going ahead, however, and he feels his mouth drop open as if someone else is operating his body. “Holy fuck,” he whispers. Suddenly there’s a ringing in his ears. His eyes keep raking over Ben’s next words, as if somehow reading them over again will change what’s written.
“It turns out what, Luke?” Leia asks, and Luke feels a cold sweat begin on the back of his neck. She sounds calm, too calm, and that’s when Luke realizes he hadn’t actually finished the sentence out loud. Shit shit shit FUCK is the only thing racing through his brain. He can hear, now, how loud his breathing is. “Luke?” Leia asks again, and this time there’s concern in her voice. “Luke, is something wrong?”
It would be Leia, the one lone rational part of his brain tells him, a casual observer of the chaos occupying the rest of his thoughts. It would be Leia, driving his car through the middle of Louisiana, close enough to Luke that he can smell the cheap conditioner she’d stolen from the motel they stayed in last night, sitting next to him as he discovers the biggest secret Ben had been hiding from him. Bigger than the cancer that killed him. Bigger even than Luke’s father being alive.
He has to tell her, he realizes. Immediately he tries to kill the idea, tries to come up with a lie good enough to justify stopping dead in the middle of what was presumably a happy story and staring at Ben’s journal like it had shot a puppy. But she wouldn’t believe him. She knows him too well, and he knows her too well, too. She’d find out. And she’d find out the same way he did, and she doesn’t deserve that. Especially not from him. Especially not now that he knows, too.
He closes his eyes and takes two deep, calming breaths before he closes the journal, keeping the page bookmarked with his thumb. When he looks out the window he realizes they’ve turned off the interstate and are heading toward a small town. The golden arches of the McDonald’s logo loom up ahead, next to a bright Super 8 sign.
“Luke,” Leia says in a quiet, slow voice. “You have to tell me what’s wrong.”
“I will once you stop at that motel,” Luke says, trying to keep his voice even and steady. “I don’t want you to be driving when I tell you.”
Leia looks at him with a confused expression, opening and closing her mouth a few times. Luke can’t remember the last time she was speechless like this. He stares straight ahead. If he looks at her he thinks he’ll start crying and if he starts crying he’ll never get to tell her. And he has to be the one to tell her.
Leia turns and pulls into a spot near the end of the Super 8 parking lot. It’s silent for a long time before she speaks. “Finish the journal entry,” she says, in a tone he’s never heard before. She sounds scared.
Luke nods and opens up the journal. The words glare up at him like a neon sign, unchanged since the first time he’d read them. He takes a deep breath before he starts to read. “Anakin’s instincts are good even outside the barrel of a gun. It turns out Padme was pregnant with twins, which explains why they came earlier than expected.” Luke sees Leia open her mouth to talk, but Luke holds up a finger to tell her to wait, that he isn’t done. He can see the shock on her face, and it makes his stomach start to do backflips. “But I am so glad I got to come here, to this awful hospital, so I can meet Luke and Leia, the newest Skywalkers. The two most beautiful babies I’ve ever seen.”
Luke can see that there’s more to the entry, but that’s as far as he can go for the night. Maybe forever, he thinks distantly. He closes the journal and risks a glance over at Leia for the first time since he started reading the entry from his birthday. (Their birthday. He’s always known that, since they’d become friends. Why hadn’t he thought that was strange?) Leia’s expression is stony, her jaw sticking out the way it does when she’s angry, but he sees tears in her eyes, just beginning to spill over. He can feel his own tears coming up now, and he tries to wipe them away. Leia’s mouth opens and closes, but no words come out. “I -” her voice comes out in a whisper. “No, that’s … that’s not …” her voice is getting angrier. “My dad would have -” she cuts herself off, wiping at the tears on her face.
Luke reaches across the seat, trying to grab her hand that is gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles, but Leia shies away from him like a scared animal. “Don’t touch me,” she snaps at him, and this is when Luke realizes that something is deeply, deeply wrong. “I can’t be in here with you right now.” She unbuckles her seatbelt with shaking hands and reaches for the door handle. “Go get us a fucking room,” she says as she scrambles out of the car as fast as she can.
Luke climbs out of the car, too, watching Leia as she walks toward the edge of the parking lot. He keeps his eye on her as he walks back toward the motel and walks inside, stopping at the front desk.
“Trouble with your lady friend?” says the man at the front desk with a heavy accent. “Need a place to help rekindle the spark?”
Luke stops, turns his head away from Leia to stare at the man in front of him. “That’s my twin sister, you freak,” he says before he can stop the words from coming out. He doesn’t feel guilty about the sheepish look on the attendant’s face. “Double room, please.”
“Yes, sir.” Luke can hear the man scratching down information, but he turns his eyes back toward Leia. She’s staring out into the field next to the parking lot, her back toward him. But at least she’s still there. The man hands him the keys to their room, and Luke nods at him wordlessly before heading back out into the humid Louisiana night.
He hears Leia come up to him as he lugs their suitcases out of his trunk. “Did you see a payphone?” she asks.
He lets the trunk slam shut. “No, why?”
“I want to call my dad.” Her eyes dart around the parking lot, and she starts to move back toward the front door of the motel. “There has to be one somewhere in this place,” he hears her mutter, mostly to herself.
“Leia,” he says, walking after her. He rushes to get in front of her.
“Get out of my way,” she says, trying to slip around him.
“Leia, stop. ”
She rolls her eyes at him, but she stops. “I’m calling my dad. Tonight.”
“No, Leia, you’re not.”
“Really? You’re going to stop me?”
“Yes, I am.”
“And why is that, exactly?”
“Because I’m your brother, Leia.” He sees her flinch at the word, and his heart sinks, but he keeps going. “Because it’s two o’clock in the fucking morning and neither of you are going to have anything coherent or productive to say to each other right now. If you still want to call and talk to him in the morning, I won’t try to stop you then, but calling him right now is not a good idea.” Leia looks down at the ground, nervously shifting to one side. He’s won, he thinks, for once. “Please, just sleep on it. We’ll both see how we feel in the morning.”
Leia sighs and shakes her head, but she turns around to walk with him. “Don’t think I’ll be sleeping much tonight.”
Luke lets out an empty laugh. “Me either.”
Leia’s duffel bag lands with a thump on the asphalt next to him, and Luke hears Leia scurry away and open up the passenger door before he sees her face. He sighs, hefting Leia’s bag into his trunk and letting the hatch fall closed. Leia has pointedly refused to interact with him since they woke up this morning, and it appears that this is going to continue.
Luke walks around and opens up the driver door, sticking his head in to look at Leia. “I think I’m going to call my aunt and uncle. Do you still want to talk to your dad or … ?” Luke trails off. Leia’s face doesn’t change - he can’t tell whether she’s even heard him or not. After a few seconds, she very quickly shakes her head, still keeping her eyes fixed solidly out the windshield. Luke nods, closing his door without a word, and walks across the parking lot to the payphone.
“Hello?” Uncle Owen’s gruff voice answers the phone. Luke isn’t sure whether to be insulted or relieved that he doesn’t sound all that worried.
“Hey, Uncle Owen.”
“Luke.” His uncle sounds surprised. “How are you, son?”
Luke chuckles. “Honestly, I’ve been better.”
There’s rustling on the other end of the line, and Luke thinks he hears Aunt Beru’s voice, though he can’t make out the words. “Your aunt wants to know where you are, and if you’re safe.”
“We’re just about to leave Louisiana. We left Texas last night. I would have called, but we made the decision kind of fast. And yeah, Leia and I are safe.” Uncle Owen grunts his approval, and the line goes silent for a moment. “I actually had a question I wanted to ask you.” Luke breathes deep, steeling himself. “Did you know?”
“Know what, Luke?”
Luke closes his eyes and bites his lip. “That Leia is my sister.”
Uncle Owen is silent for so long Luke is worried that he’d run out of money. He feels around in his pocket for an extra quarter. “What in the sam hill gave you that idea?”
“I read it last night in -”
“-Ben’s journal,” Uncle Owen finishes over him. “The more I hear about these journals, the more I think the cancer might have affected that man’s brain.”
“It wasn’t in a recent entry, Uncle Owen,” Luke says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “It was a journal entry from May 25, 1972 - that’s our birthday. Did I ever tell you that we have the same birthday? We’re both adopted.” Luke grabs his wallet out of his pocket and takes the picture of Anakin, Padme and Ahsoka out. “Leia even kinda looks like my mom.”
“Please insert another 25 cents,” drones a robotic voice.
“Anyway, Leia and I are leaving, so I gotta go. Tell Aunt Beru I said hi and I love you.” Luke hangs up the phone before he can hear Uncle Owen’s response.
The silence in the car as they drive through the swampland borders on oppressive. Every time Luke tries to find a radio station, Leia reaches over and turns it off. There’s a challenge there, somewhere. Leia leans back in her seat, crosses her arms, and sighs, her long hair becoming a wall as she turns to look out the window. Luke glances back and forth between her and the road, trying to figure out something - anything - to say to make her talk to him again. The sun rises high into the sky as they drive toward Mississippi in stony silence.
After lunch at a Waffle House (in which Leia was all smiles for the waitress but wouldn’t so much as look at him), Luke decides to try turning the stereo on again. Leia immediately reaches over and switches it off as soon as Luke decides on a station, crossing her arms over her chest and staring out the window like she had been all day. “You’re gonna have to talk to me sometime,” Luke mutters under his breath.
“Oh, fuck you, Luke.” She still doesn’t look at him, but the words cut at him all the same.
“Excuse me?”
“I said: Fuck. You.” She turns to look at him now, and even with his gaze on the road he notices the inferno blazing behind her eyes. “You wouldn’t understand.” She huffs a deep breath and digs back into her seat, and if Luke hadn’t been able to hear his heart beat in his ears, he would have been able to hear her voice shake.
“You think I don’t understand why you’re upset? You think I’m not pissed as hell at Ben for never telling me, either?”
Leia scoffs at him. “It’s not the same thing.”
“Not the same -” Luke sputters, glancing over at her while trying to keep his hands on the wheel. “Leia, we’ve known each other for three years now. I talked about you all the time to Ben. You came over to his house a few times, you hung out with us while I fixed up this junker. He had so much time to tell me, and he didn’t. You think I’m not angry about that?”
He can see Leia roll her eyes at him. “You just don’t get it,” she spits out, disgusted with him, and it makes his blood boil.
“What about it don’t I get?”
“Ben’s not your dad!”
Luke has never heard Leia raise her voice. He’s seen fire in her eyes and heard her poison with her words, but she has never yelled at anyone, let alone at him. Luke realizes he doesn’t know where they are or how long he’s been driving while seeing red, so he pulls over underneath a grove of trees. He’s almost afraid Leia will take off running when he stops, but when he looks over he sees tears streaking down her face.
“Ben’s not your dad,” she repeats, and now he does hear the wobble in her voice as she talks. “You always thought your dad was dead. But you knew who Anakin Skywalker was. You knew where you came from.” She takes a deep breath, wipes her tears off. “You live in a family that looks like mine, you learn real quick that you’re adopted.” She smiles weakly at him. He nods, but he knows better than to interrupt. “But it never mattered. I never felt like I was missing anything, because I still had a mom and a dad that -” she stops, swallows. “-that loved me. I didn’t need to know anything else. I didn’t care to know who my ‘real parents’ were. As far as I was concerned, Bail and Breha Organa are my real parents. I was their gift -” she cuts herself off, her voice cracking. Luke reaches his hand across the center console, and Leia lets him take a hold of her hand, lets him start rubbing his thumb in a gentle motion across the back of her hand. She wipes her tears away again.
“I just keep thinking about this day when I was like - I don’t know. Ten? Eleven, maybe? I was going through a phase where I was interested in who my biological parents were. I think I might have watched something or read something about an adopted kid - I don’t really remember. But I asked my mom and dad at dinner one night if they would ever tell me who my parents were. It was the first time I had ever asked. I can still see the exact expression on my dad’s face …” Leia trails off. Luke doesn’t stop rubbing her hand. A tear drips down and falls on Luke’s hand instead of Leia’s. “They said that if I still wanted to know, they would tell me on my 18th birthday.” Leia looks up at him. The fire’s gone out , he thinks to himself absently. “I can’t stop wondering - if I had asked them before we left, would they have told me the truth?”
She’s crying now, deep sobs, and before Luke can think, he drops her hand and reaches to grab her, pulling her into his chest and wrapping her up in his arms. Three days ago he would never have thought to do this, would have been shocked to even see her this way, but finding out who Leia is has emboldened him. He can feel, somehow, the intense courage Leia has always had settling into him as he runs his fingers gently through her hair. Eventually, he hears her breathing even out and her body stops shaking with tears.
“God, this whole thing is so fucked up,” Leia says shakily, letting out a nervous laugh. She pushes herself gently off of him, and Luke misses the warmth, even though he’s glad to see her smile.
He shakes his head. “Understatement of the century.” He looks out toward the road, checking for any traffic. “For what it’s worth,” he says quietly, his hand resting on his gear shift. “I’m sorry that we had to find out this way. But -” he turns to looks at Leia’s tear-stained face. “I am glad that we found out.”
She smiles at him and rests her hand on top of his. “I think I am, too.”
Luke and Leia argue as they drive through the Deep South, mostly over what to do when they finally get to DC. Leia has a million places she wants to visit when they get there - the National Mall, the Houses of Congress, Mount Vernon. Luke has to talk her down from each and every place on the massive list of monuments and tourist attractions she makes one night in a hotel in Alabama - all except one. He’s grateful that she’s talking to him again, at least, although he hasn’t brought up the fact of them being twins since that stop on the road in Mississippi. Luke knows she’ll talk about it when she wants to, but he can feel her discomfort when he brings up his father (our father , he reminds himself in his head every time). He lets Leia take a few turns driving as they make their way north, but he can’t quite bring himself to open up one of Ben’s journals again. They feel dangerous now, liable to upend the fragile peace between Luke and his sister.
Luke takes over driving once they hit Richmond. Leia leans her seat back and naps as he drives up the interstate, the flow of traffic feeling comfortable after so much time together on the road. It’s been nearly two weeks since they left Meridan, but it feels to Luke like it’s been years. He follows the maps sprawled out on the dashboard, doing his best not to wake Leia as he weaves through rush hour traffic around DC. He navigates them toward a hotel in a small suburb called Falls Church, managing to pay for the room and grab their bags out of the trunk before gently shaking Leia awake so they can go up to their room.
It’s almost supper time when Luke and Leia get settled in their hotel room, so they wander up and down the main road for a while, sweating in the Virginia heat until they find a diner. They order what’s become their usual as they’ve made their way across the country - Luke a chicken fried steak with country gravy, Leia a burger, fries, and a chocolate milkshake. They sit in companionable silence as they wait for their food. Luke watches as Leia casually twirls a loose strand of hair around her finger and smiles. Leia furrows her eyebrows at him. “What?”
“Nothing, just …” Luke trails off. “Feeling glad that we have each other, you know?”
Leia smiles too, reaching across the table to squeeze his hand. “Yeah, I do.” She goes back to her hair, bringing her whole mane around one shoulder and beginning to braid it. “I - “ she takes a breath. “I think I want to call my parents. When we get back to the motel.”
Luke notices her eyes trained on the table, steadfastly not meeting his. “Yeah?”
She nods. “They haven’t heard from me since before we left San Antonio. They’re probably nervous. And … I think I’m ready. To ask them.”
Luke nods, and the server brings out their food. Leia changes the subject, talking about an ad for some new movie she’d seen on a billboard a few states back as she dips her fries in her chocolate shake. Luke just listens, nodding and interjecting in all the right places, and feels himself slip back into habits he’d learned sitting with Biggs and Camie and Deak. He steals the last of her fries and helps her finish her milkshake, they tip the waitress, and walk back to the motel in relative silence, listening to the cars dash by them. In the motel lobby, Leia peels off toward the phone booths, and Luke squeezes her hand before he leaves her alone to make what he thinks has got to be the worst phone call she’s ever had to make in her life.
“Hi, Mom,” he hears her voice strain as he unlocks his room. “Yeah, I know it’s been a while. I’m sorry.”
--
An hour later, Luke hears the door squeak open and Leia’s ragged breathing as she enters. He stands, walks towards the door, and hugs her as she sobs into his shoulder.
Chapter 6: black banners raised as the crooked smiles fade
Chapter Text
The next morning at the hotel is quiet. Luke eats his PopTarts while Leia showers. Leia leaves her things strewn across the room while Luke neatly folds his dirty clothes and sets them on a chair next to his bed. Luke squeezes her hand before they walk out the door toward the car.
“So,” Luke says as they buckle up. “Memorial first?”
Leia nods, her face solemn.
It was Luke’s only concession to the laundry list of monuments and government buildings that Leia had wanted to tour once they started up the road toward DC. The Vietnam War Memorial isn’t exactly on their way to the VA hospital they came to the city to visit, but it feels right to Luke that they stop to pay their respects. He knows his father’s name won’t be on the wall, but there are others that he wants to see and remember, for Ben’s sake almost more than his own. He can tell Leia has some people she wants to see, too - names and stories that Bail Organa told her over the dinner table her entire life. He’d made himself a list a few nights ago, when Leia had worn him down enough to agree to visiting the Memorial, of the soldiers Ben had eulogized in his journals during the war. He reaches down and feels in his pocket, checking again to make sure the list is there.
Leia helps him navigate to a parking garage close to the Mall, a new experience for the two of them on their trip. Luke locks up his car, a routine that has become normal to him over their trip across the country. As they walk past the other national landmarks on the Mall that he’s only ever seen in black and white photos in history textbooks, Luke feels a deep sense of history welling up inside of him. He and Leia barely speak as they navigate toward the memorial. He can see Lincoln’s face even from a distance, looking down toward them as they step into the memorial itself.
Only a few others linger at the entrance to the memorial this early in the morning. Leia leads them over to a guide book situated at the beginning, a list of where every memorialized soldier’s name could be found on the panels. Luke fishes his list out of his pocket. Leia does the same with hers, and they wordlessly search through to find the names of the soldiers their father had fought with - Hevy, Fives, Jesse, Hardcase, Waxer. Luke knows them more by the nicknames Ben had written in his journals than the names memorialized in stone, but Ben had at least been kind enough to list out their full names on the dates of their deaths. Luke and Leia mark down the panel numbers next to each soldier. Most of them are on the same couple of panels, the results of the battles Ben, Anakin, Ahsoka, and the rest of the 501st had fought over the course of their year-long deployment. So many lost over such a short period.
As they walk down the path toward the panels they’re looking for, Luke wonders if Ben had ever made it here himself. He tries to remember if Ben ever mentioned it, but he feels that same lingering resentment, the knowledge that Ben might not have told Luke even if he had made the trip. After all, Ben had obviously lied to him about numerous doctor’s appointments and treatments over the last few years of his life - who’s to say he simply hadn’t mentioned coming to visit a memorial to his dead friends?
Luke is so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he misses when Leia stops in front of the panel they’d been searching for and has to backtrack toward her. Her eyes are turned up toward the top, searching across each line. Luke starts at the bottom instead, and finds Jesse’s name almost immediately. He kneels down and touches the name of a man who’d fought and died with his father, and he blinks away tears at the thought. He glances upward and finds Fives’ name not too far above. Waxer and Hardcase’s names are further up, side by side, and now Luke can’t stop the tears from silently falling down his cheeks. He knows what Ben thought of each of these men, and the words from Ben’s journal float in his head as he touches each of their names. But what did his father think? And what did they think of Anakin Skywalker? What would they have thought of Luke, or even of Leia, standing there now remembering them even though they’d only learned their names mere weeks ago? He stands back up to find Hevy’s name and finds Leia’s hand already on it, ghosting over the letters chiseled in stone. Luke digs in his pocket for the Kleenexes he’d grabbed on the way out of their hotel room and hands one to Leia, using another to wipe away his tears as well as the sweat building on his forehead.
Eventually, Luke backs away, taking in the whole of the panel, the hundreds of names listed alongside the men his father and Ben had known. He’s not sure how long he and Leia stand there, in the quiet of the morning, listening to birds chirp out their morning songs and the shuffle of other mourners and tourists walking past them. At some point, Leia squeezes his hand, and he squeezes back, and they walk back up the ramp toward the hustle and bustle of the city.
Leia has the map held up close to her face as Luke tries to navigate through the crowded streets of the capital. When they finally hit a highway, they go over the plan together, then they go over it again. Luke feels his stomach churning as they ride down the highway, his mind racing through just how many ways this whole thing could go wrong.
“It’s going to be fine,” Leia says softly, almost to herself, as Luke begins to tap his fingers on the steering wheel along to the radio. “It’s going to be fine.”
Luke breathes deeply, and wills himself to believe her.
As they pull into the parking lot, Luke lets out a low whistle at the size of the place. It’s a massive building, six or seven stories at least, white walls gleaming in the sun. They have to pay to get in, which Luke grumbles about under his breath as they pull through into the parking lot. Leia rolls her eyes. “Are you going to be insulted if I say you sound like your uncle right now?” Luke tries to glare at her, but ends up smiling as she bounds out of the car. It’s a short walk to the entrance, but Luke still feels himself sweating from the humidity. He thought he knew humidity growing up on a farm, with the pivots constantly pumping extra water into the air, but this is nothing like he’d ever experienced before. He feels a million times more grateful for the air conditioning that blows on him as he and Leia step into the atrium.
The hospital looks a bit like something from a movie, Luke thinks. It’s bigger than any doctor’s office he’d ever been in. They pass a sign listing the floor number of each department, and Luke tries unsuccessfully to see if they can find something that looks like where Saw Gerrera might be. He follows Leia up to the front desk.
“Hello, ma’am,” Leia says, flashing the receptionist her brightest smile. They’d both agreed it was for the best to let her do all the talking. “We’re here to see a patient. S-”
“What floor?” The receptionist barely looks at Leia, continuing to type into her computer.
Leia opens her mouth, then closes it again. Luke feels his stomach tighten, and a bit of anger flare up at the receptionist’s complete disregard for them.
“We were told that there would be someone to take us to see the patient, actually. His name is Saw Gerrera?”
Finally, the receptionist looks up at the two of them. She looks back and forth between them. “Did General Palpatine send you?”
Luke glances nervously over to Leia, who simply nods. “Yes, ma’am, he did.”
The receptionist shakes her head, then stands. “Marla,” she calls to someone working the desk behind her. “Cover me for a minute, I’ll be right back.” Luke catches the name on her nametag as she stands and moves around the counter - Abilene. “Follow me,” she says, moving toward the elevator quickly.
“So,” Abilene says as the elevator doors close behind them. She presses a button for the 6th floor. “What did you kids say your names were?”
“I’m Carrie,” Leia says without skipping a beat. “And this is Mark.” It takes Luke a moment to realize that she means him, and smiles up at Abilene.
Abilene smiles back at them. “And you work for the General?” Leia nods, and opens her mouth, but Abilene continues on. “I sure hope he is doing better. I told him the last time he stopped in that he needed to go see someone about the amount of pain he was in. But you know the way vets can be. Some of them just can’t bear to let anyone know they’re suffering. They don’t want to be a burden.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“He’s such a sweet man, too. The General, I mean. Keeping up with his soldiers even after all these years. He’s visited Saw as often as he can for as long as I’ve been working here.”
“How long is that?” Luke asks, feeling safe enough to use his voice for once.
“Coming up on eight years, now.” Abilene smiles. The elevator dings, and Luke and Leia follow her through a series of hallways. “I suppose the General told you what happened to Saw.”
“Not in so many words,” Leia replies.
Abilene shakes her head. “I obviously can’t say anything to you kids about it. HIPAA laws.” Luke nods, pretending he has any idea what that means. “But it’s just so sad. And General Palpatine is usually his only visitor.” Abilene stops in front of a door and grabs a key from the pocket of her scrubs. “I bet he’ll be happy to see some new faces.”
Abilene sweeps the door open and ushers them inside. This looks nothing like the hospital room he had been picturing. The entire wall across from the door is made of glass, a window looking out toward the capital. Luke can just see the Washington Monument peeking out on the horizon. Pencil drawings of the skyline hang up on the walls, almost professional quality. A few bookcases line the walls, filled with books of all different genres. There’s a reclining chair set up in front of a TV mounted to the wall. The back corner is the only sign that this room is in a hospital. A hospital bed sits, along with a few other pieces of medical equipment that Luke has only ever seen on Aunt Beru’s soap operas. Aside from the three of them, the room appears to be empty.
“Saw?” Abilene calls out. There’s the sound of a flush, and then a sink running. A door that Luke hadn’t noticed before opens to his right, and Saw Gerrera steps out, wiping his hands on a paper towel.
“Abilene,” he says, his voice raspy. Luke is surprised at the gray flecks in his dark hair, and the intense lines set in his face. “I didn’t know there were visitors today.”
“Sorry, hon,” Abilene says, offering Saw a smile. “They just got here - they said the General sent them to check on you.”
Saw looks nervously back and forth between Luke and Leia, and Luke feels the knot in his stomach tighten, which he didn’t think was possible. Suspicion is still obvious on Saw’s face when he sticks out his hand. “Nice to meet you.”
Leia shakes his hand first, her smile brimming with confidence. “You as well,” she says, just a little too loud. Luke reaches out and shakes Saw’s hand as well, hoping Saw thinks his hand is clammy because of the ridiculous heat outside and not because Luke is waiting to get yelled at and kicked out or maybe even arrested for lying his way into a hospital.
“I’ll be back to check on y’all in about twenty minutes,” Abilene says, moving toward the door. “If you kids need anything, the nurse’s station is just around the corner.” She flashes a smile at them, and then the door is closed.
Luke turns back to look at Saw, who gives him an awkward smile. He walks over toward the recliner and sits. There’s a long silence before anyone speaks.
“So,” Saw finally says, eyeing Luke and Leia. “General Palpatine sent you?” Luke nods, glancing at Leia and hoping the panic he feels isn’t blatantly obvious on his face. “He’s never done that before.”
Luke feels a cold sweat begin on the back of neck and his stomach swoop. “He hasn’t been very well lately, as I’m sure you know,” Leia says smoothly, and Luke feels so much gratitude that she is there, lying her ass off so he doesn’t have to. “But he talks about you often, so we wanted to help him out.”
“I see.” Saw nods, but the look of suspicion he’s worn since they walked in hasn’t gone away. “You wanted to come see me?”
“Yes,” Luke manages to get out. “We wanted to come and talk to you. To learn more about you.” He says it in a rush, and he can feel Leia staring at him.
“Really?” Saw snorts, and rocks back and forth in the recliner. “There’s not that much to know about me. I’ve been here for … a long time. Don’t really get out much.” He smirks, and turns around in his chair, turning the TV on.
Luke feels his stomach sink. He looks at Leia, who shrugs. He is so completely bewildered by everything that has happened since he walked into the hospital. Almost nothing had happened according to plan, except the lying through their teeth. But now they are here, in Saw’s room, and everything is so normal and yet so strange Luke feels like he has whiplash. When Mon Mothma had said Saw had been in the hospital for sixteen years, they had expected someone with immense physical or maybe even mental limitations, but Saw is up and moving around, talking with them and making jokes. He even understands how weird it is for two teenagers to come into his room. This is better than almost every scenario Luke and Leia had come up with together in the week since Mothma had given them this lead, but Luke still feels like he is on the back foot, especially with Saw literally turned around and paying them no attention. For a moment Luke feels like walking out and giving up. But then he remembers the feeling he had when he’d read Ben’s journal for the first time, the hope he’d felt on realizing his father might still be alive. He remembers Leia’s words to him, too, the night they’d decided to go on this wild goose chase together - we’ll never get another chance like this again . He takes a deep breath, steels himself, and walks to face Saw.
“When did you decide to join the military?” he asks, the even tone of his voice surprising him.
Saw’s eyes flick down from the TV to Luke. For an instant, Luke wonders if Saw will go back to watching whatever rerun he has on, but Saw reaches over to grab the remote and presses the mute button. “I didn’t decide anything, kid. I was drafted, same as pretty much everyone else. Didn’t even make it through basic training before the war ended in ‘74.”
Luke makes eye contact with Leia, still standing behind the recliner, trying to ask a question with his eyes. Is that date right? He can remember, in the back of his mind, Bail Organa trying to help both of them with their history homework, giving them exact dates of when the war had ended, when the draft had stopped. Leia shakes her head, and Luke nods back at her. She doesn’t say anything, though, and he decides to follow her lead and not correct Saw, either. Instead he simply nods again, this time looking at Saw. “Where did you do basic training?”
“JBSA, in Texas.” Luke can see Leia smile out of the corner of his eye.
“Did you ever know someone there named Anakin Skywalker?”
Something changes in Saw in an instant. The moment Luke says his father’s name, the blood drains from Saw’s face. His stare could bore a hole through Luke’s stomach and maybe even into the wall. Saw’s hands tighten around the armrests. “Skywalker,” he mutters. He blinks, and his eyes dart around the room, before they find Luke’s face again.
It happens before Luke can even think about it. His head collides with the wall, and he sees stars. He hears Leia scream. Saw’s hands are on his shoulders, so close that Luke can smell his toothpaste. “Skywalker!” Saw screams at him. “What did you do to my sister, Skywalker?”
Luke’s heart is racing. He scratches at Saw’s hands, trying to get them off of him. He can’t see Leia behind the recliner anymore, but he can’t really see anything except for the crazed expression on Saw’s face. “What are you talking about?” Luke manages to get out, squirming underneath Saw’s vice-like grasp.
“Where is my sister, Skywalker? Where is she?!”
Just as quickly as it began, Saw’s hands withdraw from Luke’s body. He feels his knees weaken, and he thinks he’s going to fall over before Leia is there, sliding her small frame underneath him. “It’s okay,” she says, her hands wrapping around him. Luke watches in shock as three large men in scrubs wrestle Saw back into the recliner and hold him down, then inject him with a clear vial. The crazed look in his eyes softens, and he hangs his head.
“Steela,” Saw says, his voice a whimper. “Steela, what did he do to you?” And then Saw is openly wailing, an animalistic noise that Luke has only ever heard when his uncle had shot a coyote that wandered too close to the house. It chills him to the bone. He can feel Leia squeeze him just a little tighter.
One of the nurses turns to look at the two of them, now that Saw isn’t fighting them anymore. “Are you okay, kid? What happened?”
Luke begins to nod, but hisses at the pain that shoots down his neck at the motion. The nurse comes over and flashes a light in his eyes. He shies away from the sudden sensation.
“We were just talking to him,” Leia says. The nurse tells Luke to follow his finger, and he does. “He flipped out when we asked him if he knew Anakin Skywalker.”
The nurse inspecting Luke stills. “Why would you do that?” the nurses asks quietly.
Luke furrows his brows. “It was just a question,” he says lamely, feeling his stomach tighten.
The room is deathly silent as the nurse continues to check out Luke’s head. Finally, he says, “You’ll have a pretty big goose egg back there, kid, but I don’t think you have a concussion.” The nurse looks at Leia. “Be liberal with the ice though. And don’t let him drive y’all back home.” Leia nods.
“I think you two should leave now,” says another nurse who has Saw’s head on his shoulder. Saw is still quietly crying.
Luke looks toward Leia. He’s never seen this amount of fear in her face before. She nods again. “C’mon, Luke,” she mutters, and leads him out of the room, the sound of Saw’s sobs following them out.
Leia hasn’t said anything to him since they left the hospital. Luke thinks it’s the longest he’s ever heard her go without talking since he’s known her.
She pilfered the keys out of his pocket somewhere in between the elevator and the parking lot, lowering him down into the passenger seat before driving them back to the hotel. Luke doesn’t remember much of the trip, just holding onto the back of his head where it hit the wall and feeling slightly dizzy when Leia merged onto the Beltway. When they got back to the hotel she disappeared and came back with a bag full of ice, which she shoved unceremoniously into his lap before disappearing again. He held the ice on the back of his head until he no longer felt nauseous, waiting for Leia to come back. She finally returned forty-five minutes later, grabbing his keys once again and dragging him back into the car to find the diner they’d eaten in last night. Leia is on the last dregs of her milkshake and still hasn’t said anything to him, so Luke reaches deep inside to find his courage again.
“Leia.” She looks up at him, and he can see the concern painted across her face. “What was that?”
She takes one last gulp of her milkshake. Her hands go back to her hair, undoing the simple braid she’d done in a hurry this morning. He watches as she begins a more intricate plait. It’s a while before she speaks. “Have you ever heard of PTSD before?” Luke shakes his head gingerly, anticipating the ache. “It means post-traumatic stress disorder. They used to call it shell shock, or battle fatigue. Basically, it’s something that happens to soldiers when they experience these awful tragedies of war, and then come back and try to have a normal life. My dad has said that it’s like their brains still think they’re at war.”
“But Saw said he was never deployed.”
“I know.” Leia undoes the braid she’s been doing and starts a new one. “My dad has been really interested in it, so I did some research on it a couple of years ago for debate prep, because I was curious. And there are people saying that you can get PTSD from any stressful or traumatic event. Not just war. They’ve been doing research on sexual assault victims and they find some of the same symptoms.” Leia runs her hands through her hair again, letting the plait out even though she’d only gotten halfway down the length of her hair. She shakes her head. “I think something … happened to Saw. Something that made him -” Leia stops, and Luke can see her fight back tears. “Something that made him attack you just for saying Anakin Skywalker’s name.”
Luke puzzles through that for a long time. He brushes his hand up against the goose egg forming on the back of his head. “What would make him have that kind of reaction just to someone’s name?”
Leia bites on her bottom lip. “Nothing good.” The waitress stops by with their check, and Leia gives her a small smile. Her eyes don’t return to meet Luke’s gaze. “While you were icing your head, I made some phone calls.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Leia looks up to give him her familiar, annoyed let me finish look. “That nurse, Abilene, mentioned a General Palpatine who kept coming to visit Saw. I know that name. He was one of my dad’s commanding officers in the war … and he oversaw JBSA until he retired, just before we moved to Meridan.” Luke feels a chill go down his spine. “Obviously, I don’t know what happened to him after that, I haven’t thought about the man in years. I barely knew who he was when I lived there. But I figured that he had to be at least somewhat local, if the nurse said he was visiting Saw on a regular basis. So I made some phone calls to some other VA hospitals. I …” Leia trails off, and looks out the window with a guilty look in her eyes. “I pretended I was my mom, asking for my dad who wanted to come visit his old CO after hearing he was in the hospital.”
Luke’s mouth drops open. “Did -” he swallows. “Did you find him?”
Leia nods, almost imperceptibly. “He’s in Baltimore. On hospice, actually.”
“Shit.”
“You’re telling me.” Leia bites her lips, then goes back to fidgeting with her hair. “Luke, what the fuck is this?”
Luke shakes his head. He taps his fingers lightly on his thigh along to the oldies playing over the speaker, his mind racing. The back of head decides to ache at that moment, and he winces. “Hell if I know,” he says. “We’ve got to go see him, right? Surely, he can tell us what happened?”
“Yeah, I think so,” Leia says. “Even if he doesn’t know anything about your dad, I need to know why you got assaulted back there.” Luke sees the fire dancing in her eyes, a fire he’s only seen when Leia thought she was losing in a debate round. “I think - “ she hesitates. “I think this has to be it, Luke.”
He stares at her, his eyes wide. “What do you mean, ‘it’?”
“I mean, if we don’t get any answers about your dad from this Palpatine guy, I think we should go home.”
“What?” Heads at other tables turn to look at him, his shout cutting through the chatter of the other customers. “Leia, this whole thing was your idea. We can’t just -”
“I don’t want to watch you get hurt again, Luke.”
Leia’s voice is quiet, but it stops him instantly. “Okay,” he hears himself say, even though his brain is screaming at him to keep arguing, to tell her that she’s being ridiculous, that he can’t possibly get bodyslammed into a wall by a man on hospice. But the look on her face is one Luke knows he can’t argue with. He’s spent too many years arguing with Leia to know when he can’t win. “Okay.”
The headache starts as soon as Leia merges back onto the Beltway and heads north toward Baltimore. Luke’s head is still throbbing as he follows Leia out of the car and toward another monster-sized VA hospital. The clouds hang low and heavy in the air over the city, and Luke thinks he hears thunder, but it could also be any one of the noises Luke has gotten used to hearing as they’ve travelled through major cities. The grey light through the clouds somehow makes Luke’s head hurt worse, and he squints as he walks toward the entrance of his second hospital of the day, trying to calm the nervousness building in his stomach.
You’ll get the answers you need, he tries to convince himself, still replaying their decision in the diner to go home after this. You’ll get what you need, and then you can go home .
Home .
It feels like a different lifetime, thinking of waking up, going to school, doing chores. If he was at home, he would be on a tractor in a field helping Uncle Owen with the planting, or fixing fence, or any of the hundred other odd jobs he’d always done. Aunt Beru might go with him in the evenings to help clean out Ben’s house. It’s only been two weeks on the road with Leia, but he feels so divorced from the version of himself that he left behind in Meridan.
“Can I help you?” The voice from the nurse behind the counter breaks Luke out of his reverie.
“Yes, actually,” Leia replies, again flashing the brilliant smile that had charmed so many people on their trip so far. “We were hoping you could direct us to Sheev Palpatine’s room?”
“Sign in here.” The nurse sets down a clipboard without looking up from her computer screen. Luke and Leia exchange a glance - they’d had an elaborate story planned, in case they were questioned like they had been last time. Leia shrugs and grabs the pen, signing in as Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill. She pushes the clipboard back, and the nurse takes it, still looking at the computer. “Third floor, right out of the elevator, take the first left. He’ll be in room 310.”
“Thanks,” Luke says. The phone rings, and the nurse picks it up without even looking at them.
The dead silence on the journey up to the third floor is worse than a nurse chatting to them the whole way up, Luke decides. The elevator groans as it opens to a dimly lit hallway. Luke follows Leia left and down the hall, his head throbbing and his heart racing as he watches the numbers get closer to General Palpatine’s room. When they reach the general’s room, the door is already slightly ajar. Leia glances back to Luke, a question in her eye. Luke nods at her. They’re going to get answers. Leia swings the door open.
The first thing Luke notices is the smell. Uncle Owen is a hunter; Luke is well acquainted with the scent of death that hangs throughout the room. The overhead light of the room is off. A dim lamp is the only light in the room, barely illuminating the hospital bed in the corner. A nurse stands on the side of the bed, and Luke forces himself to look at the man lying there. There’s a hardness in the lines of his face. Even in the face of death, Luke can see the toughness the man must have once possessed. Palpatine’s cheeks are gaunt, and he breathes heavily. His eyes are closed, and he grimaces as the nurse injects him with medication.
“What are you kids doing in here?” The nurse doesn’t take her eyes away from her patient.
“We’ve come to visit the general,” Luke says, surprising himself with the steadiness in his voice.
The nurse looks back and forth at the two of them. “The general isn’t seeing visitors right n-"
“It’s okay, Jenny.” Palpatine’s voice is thready, weak, but Luke can imagine that voice, slightly stronger, sending soldiers into battle. Sending his father and Ben and Ahsoka and the others off to fight. Sending some to die. Luke glances at the general and finds his eyes staring straight at him, a piercing gaze that unsettles Luke.
“But, sir, you need -”
“Oh, for god’s sake, I’ll rest when I’m dead!” Palpatine nearly shouts, but he pays for his outburst, leaning over and hacking so loud Leia takes a step backward. “Ten minutes, Jenny,” Palpatine says when his cough subsides. “Then I can rest.”
Jenny looks at Luke and Leia, then back at Palpatine. “I’ll give you five,” she says tersely before leaving the room, closing the door behind her.
Leia opens her mouth to speak, but Palpatine beats her to it. “Suppose I shouldn’t be surprised to see you here,” he says slowly. The confusion must show on their faces, because he continues. “Nearly pissed myself thinking I was dead and Anakin Skywalker’s ghost was the first to come haunt me.”
“And why would he do that?” Leia’s voice is deadly calm.
Palpatine smiles, finally turning his gaze to Leia. “Did you finally figure out who you are?” Leia’s gaze hardens, her mouth setting into a thin line. “I assume you must have, if you’re here with him. Bail finally tell you the truth?”
Leia swallows hard, and Luke can see her fighting back tears through the anger. “No,” she squeezes out.
The corners of Palpatine’s lips turn upward. “Didn’t think he would have.” Leia opens her mouth, forming words, but no sound comes out. “So who finally talked?”
Luke feels like his head is spinning. The conversation is not at all going in the direction they had planned for. “What?” he asks.
“I had my doubts when Kenobi proposed the separation … I figured it would leak within a month, maybe two. There were too many -” he wheezes again. “-too many people in that room who couldn't keep their mouths shut. But it took you two sixteen years to find me, so he must have been right.”
Luke feels his mouth drop open as his brain puts the pieces together. “Ben …” he can’t finish his sentence. He doesn’t even know what to think.
“He kept his end of the bargain.” Palpatine keeps talking, as if Luke hadn’t spoken. “Bail, too.”
“What does that mean?” Leia asks, rage bubbling under the surface.
“Of course, you’re here together, so something must have happened. Someone must have talked.”
“Ben Kenobi died,” Luke blurts out. “In April. He left me his house, which had his journals. He made it sound like my father was alive.”
There’s silence in the room, save for the beeping from the machines, until Palpatine decides to speak again. “Can’t believe I outlived Kenobi.” Palpatine chuckles, and it makes Luke’s blood boil.
“That’s all you have to say?” Leia spits out. “He was under your command in the war.”
“And he was the biggest pain in my ass until the day he was discharged.” Palpatine leans over for another coughing fit. “With the exception of your father, of course. I was at least glad I could be rid of the two of them at the same time.”
“How dare you speak about -”
“For Christ’s sake, did Bail teach you his same brand of self-righteousness?” Palpatine snarls out, cutting Leia off. “Is that all you came here for?”
Luke opens his mouth, but Leia speaks before he can. “I want to know why Luke was assaulted by Saw Gerrera today when we mentioned Anakin Skywalker’s name.”
Palpatine nods, the ghost of a smile edging around his lips. “Saw Gerrera,” he mutters. “Mothma give you his name?” Luke glances guiltily at Leia, but they both stay quiet. “She’s smart. So am I, though.” Palpatine winces, and the beeping of one of the monitors increases speed for a moment. “So … you two know who you are, but you don’t know who Anakin Skywalker is?” Palpatine chuckles to himself. “Aren’t I lucky?”
“Quit speaking in riddles and just get on with it,” Leia snarls.
Palpatine's mouth turns upward into a sneer, and Luke feels his stomach drop to his toes. “If you insist.” Palpatine looks from Luke to Leia to Luke again, and Luke can sense the satisfaction emanating from the bitter old man. “I would guess that Saw Gerrera attacked your brother today because the mention of Anakin Skywalker’s name, along with seeing someone who looks so much like him, brought back memories of the night Anakin shot and killed Saw’s sister Steela and 10 other recruits in his charge during a routine training exercise. And Saw wanted revenge.”
Luke feels cold, like someone has dumped a bucket of ice water on his head. There’s ringing in his ears, and for a moment it feels like he’s floating just to the left of where his body is standing. “No,” he hears himself say. “Anakin Skywalker would never do that.”
“That’s certainly what the lawyers argued during the tribunal. They didn’t have our modern understanding of PTSD, of course. But even so, killing 11 of your own charges? There’s no justification for that. And I knew Anakin, certainly better than you, boy .” Palpatine spat the word out, malice shining in his eyes. “There was a darkness in him that few really saw, really understood, the way that I did. He was going to snap, sooner or later.”
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Leia mutters next to him, and it’s only the sound of her voice that reminds Luke that she’s standing next to him. She looks pale, and one of her hands is clutching at her mouth in horror.
“Quit your pearl-clutching,” Palpatine growls, rolling his eyes. “The man you’ve called ‘Dad’ all your life killed more people than that while we were in ‘Nam. You can’t handle discovering that your real daddy killed a few of the wrong people?”
“You’re disgusting,” Leia says, her voice wobbly. She’s about to cry, though Luke can see the rage burning in her eyes.
“I’ve been called worse in my life. Though you might be the last person to insult me, so thank you for that.”
Luke shakes his head. “Is my father still alive or not?” he asks, trying to keep his voice calm.
Palpatine chuckles again, and Luke feels his stomach twist into a knot at the sound. “Last I knew, he was waiting for an appeal to get off Death Row in Leavenworth.”
A laugh escapes from Luke’s mouth, and he feels Leia stare at him. Leavenworth . His father had lived 90 minutes up the road from him his entire life. From another life, he remembers Biggs complain about his grandparents who lived in Leavenworth, close enough to the military prison to have shelter in place orders during drills the prison would conduct. Luke laughs again and shakes his head. “Well then,” he says. “I guess we’re done.” He turns to leave.
“Luke, wait.” He glances back at Leia. “You always said that your parents died in a car crash.” Luke nods, furrowing his brows. “If your father is still alive …” she glances back to Palpatine, and aims the question at him. “What happened to Padme?”
Luke feels a flash of guilt for not even thinking about his mother. Palpatine’s eyes are alight with the satisfaction that has illuminated their entire conversation, but they’re saved from his answer when the nurse from before, Jenny, opens the door again.
“Time to rest now, sir,” she says, cutting between Luke and Leia and shutting the lamp off at Palpatine’s side table.
Leia stomps over to his bedside and leans in close to him. “What happened to Padme?” she repeats, deathly quiet.
Palpatine smirks at her, refusing to back away. “As much as I would love to tell you, I have to rest now. Doctor’s orders.”
“Leia, let’s go,” Luke says, reaching for her hand. She swats him away.
“You deserve every awful thing coming your way,” she growls, before turning on her heel and stomping out of the room, leaving Luke standing with Palpatine. He turns to follow her, but Palpatine’s voice stops him at the doorway.
“When you ask Anakin what happened to your mother,” he says, and his voice sounds like it might give out at the effort, “please remember that I tried to protect you from it. We - we all did.”
Luke looks back at the dying man in the hospital bed. He chuckles and rolls his eyes. “Go to hell,” he says, feeling satisfied at the expression of shock on Palpatine’s face as he slams the door behind him.
Notes:
... so, what do we think of the chapter? please let me know in the comments :)
as a general note, i will be updating next sunday for chapter 7 and hopefully the sunday after that for chapter 8 (the final chapter ahhhhh), but i have had way less time to write this summer than i thought i would AND i have two massive papers to write for my summer classes in the next week so please bear with me if chapter 8 is late. hopefully it will get done on time but i make no promises
Chapter 7: when it rains, it pours
Notes:
apologies that this chapter is so late to get posted! these papers are kicking my ASS lmao i hate academia
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“Luke.”
The urgency in Leia’s voice snaps him awake. He glances around at the journals sprawled out on the desk in front of him, the sleep lines etched into his arms, and it takes him a moment to register where they are and what is going on. Bright sun shines through the hotel room windows. He rubs the back of his head where it had slammed into the wall in Saw Gerrera’s hospital room and looks up at Leia.
“I -” Leia licks her lips and hands him an open journal. “I found it.”
Luke takes the journal, wiping the sleep from his eyes. He notices the date on the top - July 26, 1974 - and the events of the last day hit him again like an arrow to the chest.
“What time is it?” he asks, yawning.
“About 6:30 in the morning.”
“Leia, you shouldn’t have let me -”
“You were exhausted.”
“You didn’t have to read -”
“Yeah. I did.” Her mouth is set, and Luke knows better than to argue with that expression. They’d done enough arguing last night when they got back to the hotel.
“Did you -” he points to the journal.
She shakes her head. “Only the first couple of sentences. To make sure.” Luke nods. “I’m going to go shower and try to feel like a person again.” She gives his shoulder a squeeze as she passes by him toward the bathroom.
Luke heaves a sigh, turning the desk chair around. He remembers their argument from the night before.
“We are not going to visit a murderer in prison, Luke.”
“He was a soldier, not a murderer.”
“He killed his recruits! They tried him for murder and he’s been rotting on Death Row for the last sixteen years, so I feel pretty comfortable calling him a murderer.”
“You really believe everything that Palpatine told us?”
“Oh, come on, Luke. He had no reason to lie.”
“I can think of a few.”
“Such as?”
Luke knows that tone of voice, the challenge that Leia knows she will win, but he can’t see past his own rage. “First of all, the mere joy of fucking with probably the only people who have ever come to visit him -”
“Luke -”
“Come on, Leia, he was clearly enjoying the whole thing! What other proof do we have?”
Leia is silent, and Luke thinks he’s won, until he follows her gaze to the box of Ben’s journals sitting on the desk between them.
He’d kept trying to argue after that, but Leia was right, and he knew it. He stares at the journal she handed him, keeping his eyes on the date at the top of the page. He sighs and stands, moving over to sit on his bed as he hears the shower start up with a dull whine. He closes his eyes, feeling a sense of panic well up in him that he hasn’t felt since he started high school. Since the day he met Leia, he realizes, shaking his head. After three deep breaths, he opens his eyes and starts reading Ben’s description of the worst day of Anakin Skywalker’s life.
I should have known something was wrong the moment Steela’s gun misfired …
… panic, just pure panic, and nothing I said made a difference …
… so much blood, everywhere - on Anakin, on me, on the recruits. I thought blood didn’t bother me anymore …
… didn’t know who else to call after that but Bail. The solution he suggested won’t be pretty, but we think it’s the only thing that will save us. Lord knows nothing will save him …
… and Padme … God, Padme. I hope one day you can forgive me.
Half an hour later, the shower shuts off. Five minutes after that, Leia comes out of the bathroom, still dragging her fingers through her long, wavy hair. She reaches for a comb in her suitcase and walks over to a mirror, and finally makes eye contact with Luke, still sitting motionless on the bed behind her. He can see her take him in, and he knows that he looks like an absolute wreck. She turns around slowly and sets her comb down before she climbs across the bed and throws her arms around him. Luke feels her tears drop onto his shirt, and, for the first time since Ben died, he finally lets himself cry.
There isn’t very much to talk about after that.
Luke and Leia load up their belongings in silence. Luke lets Leia pack the journals that they had scattered across the room the night before, no longer caring to try to keep any organization system. He can barely even look at them now.
They stop one last time at the diner around the corner. Neither of them really feels like eating, but it’s a habit at this point. The waitress recognizes them, and gives the two of them a milkshake to share, on the house. Leia gives her a smile, and Luke tries to smile too, but he can feel how his mouth doesn’t quite turn up all the way. Leia dips a few of her leftover fries into the shake, but the milkshake is still pretty much full when the two of them, wordlessly, stand and walk toward the counter.
It’s Leia’s turn to pay, so Luke turns to leave and start up the car, but Leia grabs him by the wrist before he can get away from her. “Call your aunt and uncle,” she says. Luke rolls his eyes and tries to pull away, but Leia keeps her grip firm. “Call them,” she says, more firmly this time. Her eyes tell Luke that it’s not a suggestion.
“Fine,” Luke whispers. He shakes out of her grasp and tries to ignore the hurt in her eyes as he walks out into the hot Virginia sun. Squinting, he looks around for a payphone, finding one at the end of the block, near where he and Leia parked. As he walks, he hears Uncle Owen’s curse words spilling out of his mouth under his breath, cursing the heat, the humidity, the sun, the raised piece of sidewalk he doesn’t see that almost kills him. He looks back at the diner as he enters the phone booth, trying to see if Leia is on her way back yet.
“Hello?” Aunt Beru’s calm, sweet voice answers the phone. For a moment, the anger boiling up inside Luke quiets, and he can picture her sitting at the kitchen counter, sipping on a cup of tea with the phone squeezed between her ear and her shoulder. He can hear her singing nonsense songs to the barn cats as they come up to the back porch looking for milk, smell the mixture of hay and manure that Leia still turns up her nose at but Luke thinks is the most comforting scent in the world.
But only for a moment.
“Hello?” Aunt Beru asks again, and Luke catches sight of Leia looking for his car.
“We’re coming home,” Luke says forcefully.
“Luke? Oh, I’m -” Aunt Beru’s voice is cut off when Luke slams the phone back onto the receiver. He closes his eyes, wills himself not to cry again , then steps back out of the phone booth.
Leia sees him before he can call out to her. They both climb wordlessly into Luke’s car and drive off, not even bothering to turn the radio on as Luke navigates them toward the highway - back toward home.
Luke doesn’t think that he and Leia have ever spent this much time together in silence, not even all the time they spent together in the library when they first met. It gives him time to think. Too much time.
He’s had almost two weeks to adjust to the idea that his father might be alive - the shock of that particular revelation has lessened the more time he’s spent on the road with Leia. Getting confirmation of that isn’t what he comes back to time and time again on the drive back to Kansas. No, the thing he can’t let go is the fact that his father has been a two hour drive away Luke’s entire life. Luke remembers on his first day of kindergarten, when he cried after Uncle Owen had dropped him off and he’d been the only one in his class not to get a hug from his parents. Or the day he’d won the science fair in fifth grade for creating a model of an engine using spare parts from Uncle Owen’s shop, looking around the gym at the grade school and only seeing Aunt Beru smiling back at him. The first day of his freshman year, when he’d unknowingly met his sister again for the first time, his father had been closer than Luke had ever thought was possible.
And he keeps coming back to the Ben of it all, too. Ben had been more of a father to Luke than Uncle Owen had ever managed to be - had encouraged Luke’s love of machines and tinkering and fixing, given Luke free rein over the tools in his garage and teaching him how to use each of the machines. Uncle Owen had tried his best a few years ago to teach Luke how to shave, but Ben had been the one to help him with the weird spots on his neck that he’d missed for a few months afterward. There had been some months - probably even some years - where he’d spent more time at Ben’s house than at his own.
And the entire time, Ben had known both that Anakin Skywalker was alive and exactly where to find him.
Had Ben ever visited his father in prison? Luke doesn’t think so, but he has to second-guess everything he thought he knew about Ben now. Ben had lied straight to Luke's face the day he met Leia again and asked him if he knew Bail Organa. Ben had lied by omission so many times Luke couldn't even begin to try to count them - about Anakin, about his time in the war, about his cancer. When Leia takes over driving for a few hours somewhere in Kentucky or West Virginia, Luke thinks about grabbing a journal out of the backseat, just to feed his own sick curiosity about everything else that he's sure Ben had been hiding. But just turning around to look at the boxes gives him a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, so he grabs his pillow instead and shoves it between his body and the window. He closes his eyes, trying in vain for the next three hours to shut his brain off long enough to sleep.
By the time they stop for dinner, the only words Leia has said to him since the diner in Virginia are “Lemme drive,” and “We’re stopping, I’m fucking starving.” Luke opens up his eyes and looks at another city skyline, monstrously tall buildings rising in the distance behind the interstate signs. Leia pulls up to the first restaurant off the exit ramp, and Luke has never been more excited to see an Arby's in his life. He doesn’t want to see the inside of a diner for another month, at least.
Luke can tell Leia wants to say something to him as he smears horsey sauce all over his sandwich. She keeps taking in a breath like she wants to speak before thinking better of it and shoving a curly fry in her mouth. He should probably ask her what she’s thinking, he thinks distantly, but an idea had started forming while he was attempting to force himself asleep, so he lets her stew. He knows she’ll say something if it’s important. She never does, and they leave the restaurant in silence again. Leia hands him his keys back, and he twirls them around, bits of a plan forming as he drives back toward the interstate.
They’ve made it out of the city lights, back to the waning twilight shining in through the windshield, when Leia mutters, “Hey, Luke?”
“Yeah?”
“We are going home, right?”
Luke bites his lip. “Yeah,” he nods, and he doesn’t look at Leia to see whether she believes him.
Leia falls asleep not long after that. She doesn’t wake up when Luke drives them through downtown Kansas City. She doesn’t wake up when Luke turns north shortly after, too early to be taking the exit for Meridian. She doesn’t wake up when Luke meanders around Leavenworth at 1 in the morning, looking for a cheap hotel. Luke has to finally shake her awake after he pays for their room at a Super 8 with the very last of his cash.
“Where are we?” she mumbles, barely opening her eyes. Luke holds her hand and guides her through the hallway to their room. She shields her eyes from the fluorescent lights.
“I’m too tired to keep going.” It’s only half the truth. He really is tired, though, and there’s nothing they can do till morning anyway.
She’s too tired to press him any further, which he’s grateful for. He’s too tired to argue with her about this right now, too. Better to be fully rested for an argument with Leia. He opens the door to their room and hands Leia her bag. She digs out the massive sleep shirt Luke has come to recognize, but instead of heading into the bathroom to put it on, she holds it up to her face and smells it. Then she simply crawls under the covers of the far bed. “Night, Luke.” Her voice is more soft and childlike than he’s ever heard.
He follows her lead and curls up into his bed. “Night, Leia.”
By some miracle, Luke wakes up before Leia does. He tries to be quiet as he fishes his toiletries and clothes out of his duffel bag, but the squeal of the shower is loud enough that Luke thinks it has to have woken up the entire hotel. As the lukewarm water sprays over him, he thinks about what he’ll say to Leia. He knows she’ll have him figured out before his shower is even over, and she’ll use the rest of the time he spends getting ready to come up with something clever that will destroy any reason Luke brings up for doing what he wants to do. Fortunately, this means Luke also has time to ponder his own arguments.
So he makes sure to take extra time on his hair, in a way that he thinks the Leia of two years ago who taught him what conditioner is would be proud of. He takes his time shaving, even though he could probably wait a day. And he looks at himself long and hard in the mirror after he’s dressed, taking deep breaths and psyching himself up for what awaits him on the other side of the bathroom door. It’s rare to know when a confrontation with Leia is coming, so he wants to get at least one rehearsal in his head (can’t plan it out too much, though, because Leia will inevitably go off script, which will throw him off, and then she’ll win the argument, and the whole thing will have been for nothing).
Leia is sitting in the armchair in the far corner of the room when Luke finally exits the bathroom. She’s holding onto her sleep shirt, running her fingers through the hem over and over, staring out the window at the deserted parking lot. In her lap is a binder that says “WELCOME TO LEAVENWORTH!” in some god-awful Microsoft Word Art pattern Luke can’t discern from this far away. She doesn’t acknowledge him at all. It seems he’ll have to get them started. “You getting in the shower?” he asks. Maybe she wants to avoid this argument as much as he does, he thinks, knowing there’s a snowball’s chance in hell of that happening.
The only sign that Leia’s heard him is a slight clench in her jaw. “Luke,” she says in a low voice, her tone too even.
“You probably want to get in soon. We slept a little late this morning, I’d hate for you to run out of hot water halfway through.”
“Luke.” She turns to look at him now, and her expression is hard . Her mouth is set in a fine line, and her eyes blaze with heat.
Luke sighs, trying to school his face into something resembling a neutral expression despite the ferocity of her gaze fixed on him. “Okay,” he mutters. “Can I just say what I want to say, and then you can pick holes in my argument when I’m finished?” She doesn’t respond, which he takes as permission to continue. “When you climbed into my bedroom window two weeks ago, the thing you said that convinced me to go along with this hare-brained scheme was ‘don’t you want to find your dad?’ And I thought that might mean that we’d find where he was buried and I’d get to leave flowers on some grave a thousand miles from home. But we actually found him . He is alive, and he’s here. He's literally on the way home. I don’t want to go home empty-handed. I don’t want to go home until I’ve seen him, and talked to him, and let him know that I know that he’s still alive. You don’t have to come with me - you can stay out in the car for all I care. But I need to see him. You can’t walk me this close to the edge and expect me not to jump.”
The fire in Leia’s eyes has softened, though only slightly, by the time Luke is finished. The room is silent and still for long enough that Luke starts to feel uncomfortable. Eventually, she looks away, back out the window. “Okay.”
Luke’s eyes almost bug out of his head. “Okay?” he repeats. He can’t have heard her correctly.
She looks back at him with a withering stare. “Don’t make me say it again.”
“Did I just win an argument? Against the Leia Organa?”
“Oh, my God, shut up , Luke.” She rolls her eyes and stands and begins digging around in her duffel. “I’m getting in the shower. Make sure you don’t develop some kind of complex before I get out.” Luke snorts as he lets her past him to get to the bathroom. “Also,” she tacks on, and he turns around to look at her in the doorway. “I am still pissed at you for lying to me.”
“Wouldn’t expect anything less,” he replies. Leia nods, giving him a wry smile before she closes the door.
Luke sinks down onto his bed again as the shower starts up. It seems louder out here, strangely enough. He stares up at the ceiling, thinking about things he hadn’t allowed himself to think about, even over the last day and a half. He wonders what Anakin will look like now, what his voice will sound like. He wonders what they will talk about. For just a while, he forgets all the awful shit they’ve had to learn along with the good stuff, and he lets the joy and the wonder of what they’ve found seep into his chest.
It’s only when they pull up to a booth in front of a massive fence topped with barbed wire that Luke realizes he has no plan whatsoever. That had been Leia’s job, usually. Before he pissed her off. So much for winning the argument, he thinks as he rolls down his window.
“Morning,” says the officer in the booth. “What can I do for you folks?”
Luke steels himself, resisting the urge to look back at Leia for reassurance. “We’re here to see our father. Anakin Skywalker.”
The officer, whose name tag on his uniform identifies him as Gantry, gives Luke a puzzled look. Without speaking, he turns to the massive computer set inside the booth and begins typing. Luke taps on the steering wheel lightly with his thumb as he waits, trying to push down the nervous feeling in his stomach.
“Y’all sure you have the right place?” Gantry asks. “There’s no record of anyone with that name here.”
Luke hesitates, feeling his heart drop into his stomach. “He’s here. We’re sure,” Leia says, her voice firm. Luke whips his head around to look at her and finds her trademark smile, teeth bared in a way he recognizes. This is a fight, and even if she doesn’t want to be here, she won’t back down. Luke has never felt more grateful for her in his life. “You may need to contact your commanding officer.”
At that, Gantry narrows his eyes. “You might want to check and make sure you have the right place, ma’am. This is a secure facility, and -”
“Sir, I want to assure you that we know exactly what kind of facility this is,” Leia interrupts. “And we know exactly who we’re here to visit. He may not be in your official records, but he is here. Please, call your CO. We haven’t seen our father in sixteen years. Waiting a few minutes while you make a phone call is nothing.”
Luke looks slowly back to Gantry, who is still looking at Leia with suspicion. After a moment, Gantry turns and grabs a phone near the back of the booth. Luke turns back toward Leia. Thank you, he mouths. Leia shakes her head, instead reaching out to grab his hand and squeezing gently.
“Can I see your IDs?” Gantry asks, still holding the phone to his ear. Luke and Leia both scramble to hand him their driver’s licenses. “Luke Skywalker and … Leah -”
“Leia,” both Luke and Leia correct.
“Leia Organa,” Gantry spits out, rolling his eyes. There’s a pause. “They say they’re here to see their father. Anakin Skywalker.” Another pause, longer this time. “Yessir.” Luke can hear smooth jazz coming out of the phone now. He chuckles to himself. Even the military has goofy hold music. He risks another look at Leia, raising his eyebrows. She shrugs before going back to picking at the nail polish on her nails. Luke finds himself tapping in his steering wheel along to the tinny music coming out of the phone. After a minute or so that feels like an eternity, the music stops. “Yessir.” Gantry scribbles something down on a sticky note. “Yessir. Thank you, sir.” He hangs up the phone, handing Luke back his and Leia’s IDs, along with the sticky note that has the number 2187 scrawled on it. “You two are free to go in,” he says. He presses a button inside the booth, and there is a loud buzzing sound as the gate begins to tug open. “Tell the guys when you get inside that the person you’re here to see is in that cell number. You should be all set.”
“Thanks,” Luke mutters. Gantry gives them parking instructions, and then they are driving through the barbed wire fence. Into Fort Leavenworth. The military prison. Where his father is.
Luke doesn’t take in hardly anything as they pull into a parking space and walk toward the entrance to the prison. His heart races, and the sweat coming off his forehead isn’t from the mild sunshine beaming down on them. He’s choosing to take the sunshine as a good omen, as a sign that this is the right decision. That everything will work out. What it means for things to work out, Luke is less certain about. But it’s the only thing keeping his legs walking, Leia following closely behind. He’s surprised at that, but he’s grateful for her all the same. The thought of meeting their father without her feels supremely wrong to him, in a way that surprises him. It shouldn’t, though. Leia has been part of his life for so long that the adjustment to thinking of her as his sister hasn’t really been much of an adjustment at all.
Luke holds the door open for her as they enter the prison. A secretary sits at a desk, in a room behind a pane of glass. She is polite, and Luke gives her the cell number that Gantry had given them. Again, the two of them get a very skeptical look from the secretary, but they don’t need to ask for another call to the commanding officer. She buzzes them through, and suddenly Luke feels like he’s in an episode of Law and Order as the door clangs shut behind them.
A guard leads them through cinder-block hallways. Distantly, he can hear raucous noise coming from somewhere, echoing off the walls in a way that makes Luke unable to identify the direction it’s coming from. As they turn corners, the noise seems to get closer, then further away, then closer again. Everything about the building throws him off-kilter - as if he wasn’t already. Luke taps out a wild rhythm against his shorts, his fingers unable to stay calm. At some point, Leia reaches out and grabs one of his hands, and he feels a rush of calm wash over him at her touch.
Eventually, the guard leads them into a long, empty room, a few square tables dotted around haphazardly. A computer sits in the back corner. One lone bookshelf has been shoved, half-filled, against the back wall. The cinder blocks of this room are painted gray instead of white. “You kids can have a seat,” says the guard. “I’ll be back with the prisoner.” And then he’s gone.
The prisoner. The word hangs in the room. The ambient noise is gone now that the door is closed, save for the ticking of a clock. Luke chooses to sit down at the table closest to the door, although ‘closest’ still means at least ten feet away. His fingers begin tapping away on the surface. Leia sighs loudly and walks over to inspect the books on the shelf.
“Luke,” she says, an edge to her voice, “I need you to stop tapping your fingers or you’re going to drive me insane.”
Luke feels heat come into his cheeks. “Sorry,” he mutters. He takes his hand off the table, but he still feels restless. His leg starts bouncing, and his mind quiets just a bit.
“You know what, go back to the tapping,” Leia says almost immediately. “That’s way worse.”
Luke rolls his eyes, but he does go back to the tapping. His stomach is turning over. He looks around for a trash can, in case he throws up.
“There’s, like, four copies of Moby Dick on each shelf,” Leia says in a low voice, almost to herself. “Isn’t being in here punishment enough?”
“Maybe when you’re a big-shot lawyer, you can fight for better literature for your clients.”
Leia snorts. “Excuse you. I don’t appreciate the implication that my clients all end up in jail.”
Right at the end of Leia’s sentence, there is a sudden clinking sound from outside the wall. Luke stops tapping abruptly, making sure he heard right. It’s there again, the sound of metal dragging against the concrete floor. His eyes flash toward Leia, whose smile fades into an expression Luke can’t quite parse. Apprehension, if he’s being optimistic. Dread, if he’s being honest. A mirror of what he’s feeling right now. Luke breathes in deep, trying to get his heart to stop its furious tap dance as the sound of the clinking gets closer, and then the door swings open, and -
The first thing Luke notices is that his father’s jumpsuit is tan, not orange like he’d expected. Luke has to drag his eyes up to his father’s face, and even then, he almost can’t believe what he sees.
There are a few more wrinkles around his eyes, his mouth, on his forehead than in the picture hanging in the stairwell at home. His hair has grown longer than Luke has ever seen it, resting just above his shoulders, and it has a wave to it that reminds Luke of the way Leia’s looks when it’s wet, before she straightens it or weaves it into some intricate braid. There’s a scar to the side of his right eye that Luke has never seen before in photos. Luke immediately shuts down the part of his brain that starts to wonder where the scar came from. The guard bends down, undoing the shackles around Anakin’s ankles, then releasing his handcuffs from the shackles around his waist without taking the cuffs off. He makes a move toward the door.
“Aren’t you going to remove his handcuffs, too?” Leia asks pointedly. The guard looks over at Luke, as if for permission. Luke nods. The guard shrugs, but takes the key back out to unlock the handcuffs. Anakin hisses as the handcuffs are released and rubs at the spots where they dug into his skin. The door slams closed as the guard leaves, and then everything is still.
“Luke?” Anakin’s voice, near a whisper, breaks through the silence. Luke can already feel a lump rising in his throat, but he nods. Anakin looks across the room, but Luke does not - cannot - take his eyes off of him. “Leia?” Luke watches as Anakin looks back and forth between them. He can see the tears falling slowly down Anakin’s face. “Can I -” Anakin opens up his arms slightly, and Luke doesn’t need any more prompting before he surges forward and swallows his father in a hug.
For all the coldness and severity inside the prison, Anakin’s embrace is warm. He squeezes Luke so tightly, Luke can barely breathe. Anakin smells of sweat and leather, and something else, something Luke can’t quite identify, that feels so achingly familiar Luke can’t help but let the tears spill over. He feels them fall onto the hand clutching his father’s back for dear life. “I can’t believe you’re here,” Anakin whispers, his voice racked with tears.
Luke squeezes his father even harder at that, closing his eyes and breathing in that deep, comforting smell of home. Eventually he lets go, and Luke follows his expectant gaze across the room to where Leia stands, her arms crossed and her mouth set in a hard line. What Luke notices (that he hopes Anakin can’t read) is the fire beginning to blaze behind her eyes, and her jaw beginning to clench. “Uh, this is all a bit new for Leia, Dad,” Luke says. The word feels so unfamiliar in his mouth.
Anakin looks back at Luke, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “What does that mean?”
“They separated us,” Leia replies, her voice clipped. “After what you did.”
“Separated,” Anakin repeats, an edge to his voice.
“What did you do to Padme, by the way?” Leia asks, and Luke can feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end at the thinly concealed rage in her voice. “We managed to get most of the horror story out of General Palpatine, but even that sick fuck wouldn’t tell us what happened to her.”
“Leia.” Luke starts to move in her direction, but Anakin holds out a hand to stop him.
“It’s okay, Luke,” he says. “She’s right to feel that way. I still don’t forgive myself, truth be told.”
Luke feels a prickly feeling deep in his belly. He swallows, trying to ignore the tension threatening to bubble over. “Dad,” he says quietly. “What do you mean?”
Anakin takes a deep breath. “You said General Palpatine told you what happened.”
“He told us you killed all the recruits in your care, yeah," Leia interjects before Luke can respond. He turns to glare at her before looking back at his father.
Anakin closes his eyes. He grimaces, and his jaw works in the exact same way Luke has seen Leia's work when she revises debate answers in her head. “I don’t know what it was about that day, why Steela’s gun set me off.” He trails off for a moment, lost in thought, then shakes his head. “Ben and Ahsoka and Rex and I got lost, once, after a raid. Somehow we got separated from the group and had to walk back to camp through enemy territory. Took us three days of slashing through the jungle before Fives found us. Rex broke his leg during the initial firefight, so we were pretty slow going. There were some close calls. That’s where I thought I was that night.” Anakin trails off again, slowly sinking down onto the bench Luke had been sitting at before he’d walked in again.
“And Padme?” Leia’s rage is evident even in her whisper.
Anakin breathes deeply, runs a hand through his hair. There are tears still glistening in his eyes. “They thought she could snap me out of it.” Luke’s stomach drops to the floor. He reaches out to grab onto another table to steady himself, then sits down, his heart racing. “But she couldn’t.”
Words from Ben’s journal come back to Luke: and Padme … God, Padme. I hope one day you can forgive me. His stomach twists into knots. He can’t speak, can barely keep track of the thoughts that race through his brain.
But Leia can. “You’re despicable,” she spits out, and Luke has never heard her this angry. The fire in her eyes burns with the heat of the sun. “You disgust me. I will never, ever forgive you.” She turns her eyes on Luke, and he flinches as her ire redirects toward him, but her gaze softens. “I’m sorry, Luke, I can’t …” she shakes her head. “I think I’m going to be sick.” And with that, she practically sprints toward the door.
“Leia, don’t -” Luke starts after her, but he stops when Anakin reaches out a hand and holds him back.
“Let her go,” Anakin says, his voice just above a whisper. Luke sits down next to his father, watching the tortured expression on his face. “This can’t be easy for her, especially since you said it was new?” Luke nods. “Explain that to me.”
So Luke does, the best he can. He goes back to the beginning, tells Anakin everything he can. Anakin is patient and curious - he wants to know every detail, no matter how small. So Luke tells Anakin about Uncle Owen’s gruffness and the way Aunt Beru would tuck him in at night when he was younger. He talks about the day he met Ben, chasing a lost cow through the fields bordering their properties, about how Ben had shown Luke his garage that very same day and Luke had decided that he was going to learn how every single one of Ben’s machines worked. He told his father about how he fixed up his car, about the job he managed to get at Randall’s shop across from the diner downtown when he was just 13, about Biggs and Camie and Deak. And then he tells his father about the day he met Leia in homeroom, and how they became friends. He has to tell Anakin about Ben’s death, and how he owns Ben’s land now, and how he’s selling it to pay for school so he can be a machinist. His father smiles at that, and tells him that he’s proud of him, and Luke’s heart soars. He tells his father about Ben’s journals, and how they figured out that Anakin might still be alive. About their visits with Ahsoka and Mon Mothma, about the late night on the road finding out they were twins, about the hospital visits with Saw and Palpatine. At the end of his story, Luke feels wrung out - he’s never talked this much in his entire life - but also strangely fulfilled.
Anakin interjects throughout Luke’s story, and tells some of his own. He tells Luke about the day he met Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru, after his mother, Shmi - Luke’s grandmother - had gotten remarried while he was overseas. Anakin is stunned to learn that Luke has never heard Shmi's name before today. He tells Luke stories of pranks that he pulled with Ben and Ahsoka during basic training. He’s in the middle of telling Luke about the time Rex had to cover for him while he snuck into Bail Organa’s office to sneak a phone call to Padme during a communications blackout when there’s a knock on the door, and the hinges squeal as it opens.
“Hey, Skywalker,” the guard says. “We got lunch in the mess in five minutes.” And the door squeaks shut again.
Anakin’s eyes darken. He looks down at his hands and starts to fidget, and Luke smiles to himself, finally able to trace the source of his restless energy.
“What happens now?” Luke asks.
Anakin sighs deeply before he looks back at Luke, the sadness in his eyes overshadowing the smile on his face. “I go to the mess and have the world’s blandest sandwich,” he replies wryly. “And you go back to Meridan with your sister.”
“Can I come see you again?” Luke isn’t sure if it has been minutes or hours, but he cannot imagine this being the only time he gets with his father.
Anakin’s smile finally reaches his eyes. “I would really like that.” And then Anakin is hugging him again, and he feels tears welling up in his eyes again. Despite the lump in his throat, Luke feels that familiar sense of calm wash over him as he breathes in the scent of his father. “I love you, Luke,” Anakin whispers as he pulls away.
There’s ringing in Luke’s ears. He feels a tear fall down his cheek. Anakin stands and gives him one last smile. “I love you too, Dad,” Luke replies, barely audible, the lump in his throat the size of an egg. And then Anakin has turned back toward the door, and Luke is left alone, in a prison, his father’s words repeating on a loop in his mind.
Notes:
i will be fully honest with y'all, i'm probably not going to have the final chapter done by next sunday. i'm hoping for the sunday after (the 20th) but i'm not going to make any promises because i know how long it has taken me to write the other chapters lmao. i do fully intend to finish it before the summer is over though so fear not! this is getting done, i have at least 2k written of the last chapter but i'm expecting it to be the longest chapter - probably around 10k? so it's just going to take me awhile. if you want any updates or sneak peeks, i will be posting them on my twitter. anyway. please enjoy the latest chapter!!!
ALSO don't forget to leave comments telling me what you think! i love talking with everyone and hearing what they like about the story :)
Chapter 8: and in the end, i'd do it all again
Notes:
thank you all for being patient as i finished this story! hopefully the word count makes up for how long you all had to wait :)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“What took you so long?” Leia mutters as Luke slides into the driver’s seat of his car.
“We were … just talking.” Luke starts up the car, and even though he can’t see it, he can feel Leia’s eye roll from the passenger seat. “What?” he asks, feeling bold.
“Don’t know what else there could have been to talk about after what he told us.”
Luke waves at the officer in the booth as he drives out of the prison complex. “He’s my father, Leia. He wanted to know what happened, to both of us. He’s your father, too, you know.”
Leia shakes her head and lets out a humorless laugh. “I can’t believe you just said that to me.”
“Just because you don’t like it -”
“Don’t, Luke,” she interrupts, her voice deadly quiet. “I don’t have years of Ben’s stories about Anakin Skywalker in my head to create whatever picture you seem to have of him. The Anakin Skywalker my dad - my real dad - told me about was calculating, shrewd, and a damn good marksman, and he had a habit of not caring who stood in his way as long as his strategy was the one being implemented. He was a good pilot, and a good soldier, but he was ruthless and cold when he needed to be. I don’t care how you dress it up - PTSD is not an excuse for murdering his wife along with 11 other people he was supposed to be protecting, and a lot of people agree with me, since he’s sitting on Death Row for it. Anakin Skywalker lost the right to be my father the minute he did that, and I don’t have to give him any place in my life just because you did. If you think I’m just going to magically forgive him because he seemed really sad about it, then … you don’t know me at all, Luke.”
Luke has to force himself to relax his grip on the steering wheel after Leia finishes speaking. “You’re not going to give him a chance at all? Not even for me?”
Leia actually laughs at that. “Everything I’ve done since Ben died has been for you, Luke. I helped you clean out his house. I needled at my dad to get him to tell us what happened. The whole idea of this trip was for you, because I could tell how much it was eating at you to think that Anakin was out there somewhere. And along the way, my entire world got turned upside down, and I still did everything you wanted me to, because we were onto something and, frankly, I wanted to see where this ended almost as badly as you did. I went in there to see Anakin with you, against my own better judgment, because I knew you needed me there. And I stayed as long as I could, Luke, I really did. Please don’t ask me to do anything else. Please let me be the selfish one, just this once?”
They’re back on the highway now, have left Leavenworth far behind in favor of the little country highways that will take them back to Meridan. “Fine,” Luke mutters. He reaches over to turn the radio on, tuning it back to the hard rock station from Topeka he has on a preset. “I think I’m going to start visiting him.”
“Fine,” Leia replies, mirroring Luke’s tone. “I won’t be coming with you.”
“Fine.”
The rest of the ride home is in stony silence. Leia looks out the window for most of it, suddenly fascinated with the expanse of yellow-green grass fluttering in the wind and the rows of corn lining the sides of the road. Luke taps on the steering wheel along to the radio, absentmindedly at first. He can see Leia give him a sidelong glance out of the corner of his eye about five minutes after she stops talking to him, but she doesn’t ask him to stop, so he keeps on tapping. More purposefully now, to see if he can get her to break. But she doesn’t. Not even as they finally pull into Meridan, not even as Luke pulls up in front of the Organas’ house. Leia unbuckles her seatbelt and opens the door without even a glance at him.
“I’ll see you later?” he asks, and she stops, one foot on the concrete.
“I don’t know,” she says, barely turning back around and not meeting his gaze. She stands and shoves the door shut. Luke flinches at the noise it makes. He pops the trunk for her, and flinches again as it slams closed and the whole car bounces with the force of it. Luke watches her walk toward her front door and not even look back at him once. He wonders, then, watching her slip through her front door and out of sight, if he had gained Leia as a sister only to lose her as a friend.
When Luke finally crests over the hill and rounds the corner so he can see his house, he’s surprised at the feeling in his chest, the mix of guilt and joy tearing him up in equal measure. It’s been two and a half weeks since Leia convinced him to leave, but the person driving down this hill is so different from the person who drove up it that Luke almost feels like he has whiplash. Coming back here, after everything he has learned, feels like a regression.
He opens the front door tentatively and sets his duffel bag down. “Aunt Beru?” he calls out to a seemingly empty house. The clock in the entryway is the only thing that answers him. “Uncle Owen?” he calls out again, casting his eyes toward the stairs. He can’t help but catch his eyes on the portrait of his father that hangs in the hallway. Even though he can only see half of Anakin’s face, his stomach churns as he looks at this version of his father from twenty years ago - the closely shorn hair, the small light playing in Anakin’s eyes that Luke knows is not there anymore, the laugh lines around his eyes that have only gotten deeper with age. He forces himself to look away and walk further into the house. The sliding glass door out to the deck and the backyard is open, a breeze wafting in through the screen door. He can see the barn and the corral out through the sliding glass door, the wheat fields further beyond. Uncle Owen is probably out with his hired hands, Luke thinks - where Luke himself would be right now if he had never left. Slowly, he slides the screen door open and steps out onto the deck. He spies Aunt Beru crouched down in her garden at the back corner of the yard, her back to him. “Aunt Beru,” he calls out again.
She turns in an instant, the hair in her short ponytail whipping around. Her bug-eyed sunglasses obscure most of her face, but her jaw drops open. “Luke!” she shouts. She drops the tool in her hand and scrambles out of the garden as fast as she can while avoiding the sprouts that peek out from the ground. “Oh, Luke!” He walks down the few steps of the deck onto the grass to meet her. She wraps her arms tight around him, and he does the same. “Don’t you ever scare me like that again,” she says, rubbing his back up and down before letting him go.
“I’ll do my best,” he says. Aunt Beru reaches up and touches his cheek, smiling through the faint glimmer of tears appearing in her eyes.
“Why don’t you go and get a hat and come help me out with the weeding?” she asks, in the way that Luke knows she’s really giving him instructions. “Then you can help me get started on supper for tonight.”
Luke smiles at that. He’d helped Aunt Beru with lunches almost every day in the summer before Uncle Owen decided he was old enough to work out in the fields with the farmhands. Even then, he had preferred the kitchen to sweating through his shirt in the summer sun. “Sure thing,” he says. He flits inside to grab his bucket hat before heading out, feeling decidedly grateful that Aunt Beru had not asked at all about what had happened - mostly because he had absolutely no idea what he was going to tell her.
It turns out he doesn’t need to figure out what to tell Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru, because they don’t ask him. The closest either of them get to even mentioning Luke’s absence is Aunt Beru’s, “Well, we didn’t get to do much for your birthday,” when he notices her making all of his favorites for dinner that night. Uncle Owen gives Luke a gruff “Good to see you, son,” when he come in from the fields, and then carries on like Luke had been home the whole time, talking with Aunt Beru about the crop yields so far and whether or not they would need to buy more pesticide before the end of the season. Luke thinks he should feel more upset about their complete disinterest in hearing about his and Leia’s trip, but he’s just thankful that he doesn’t have to figure out how to tell them what he’s discovered about his father. And even more grateful that he doesn’t have to explain the fact that, because of these discoveries, Leia probably won’t be speaking to him ever again.
When Luke wakes up the next morning, he’s almost surprised to be back in his bedroom. It takes him a moment to remember where he is. He tosses onto his side and throws a glance across the room, half-expecting to see another bed with Leia’s sleeping form, her curls strewn over the covers. Instead, he’s met with the tree outside his window shaking gently in the breeze and the sound of mourning dove calls. The smell of Aunt Beru’s coffee finally reaches him and puts him back in place, just as he hears the roar of an engine leave the barn and head out to the fields. He flops back down onto his bed, relief washing over him with the realization that Uncle Owen is letting him skip his chores, at least for another day. He stays in bed for a while, wallowing. He can’t stop replaying his conversations with Leia yesterday in the car ( God, was that only yesterday?) . Eventually, Aunt Beru comes upstairs to remind him that Ben’s house still needs to be dealt with. He rolls his eyes, but does get out of bed and get himself ready. Maybe working in Ben’s garage will distract him from the hollow feeling in his chest whenever he thinks about Leia, or his father, or anything else that happened to him on their road trip.
The next few days pass in pretty much the same way. Luke thinks that Aunt Beru must have said something to Uncle Owen, that she’s noticed him moping more than normal, because Uncle Owen doesn’t bother him about not doing his chores or heading out to the fields to help with planting. Instead, Luke just goes from his house to Ben’s and back again, every day feeling a little less hope that Leia will come around and they’ll be back to normal again.
The cleaning and polishing and sorting of all of Ben’s machines and tools don’t distract Luke at all, because of course they don’t, so his coping mechanism really isn’t much of a coping mechanism at all. He thinks of the way Leia had spoken to him after they’d left the prison, on the short drive back to Meridan. She’d basically called him selfish, accusing him of not being able to see things from her perspective, of not allowing her the same comfort she was trying to give him. For a while, he stews over that, a sick feeling rising up in the pit of his stomach as he remembers her words: Everything I’ve done since Ben died has been for you, Luke . He feels angry about it, scrubbing too harshly at Ben’s tools and muttering to himself as he works. The road trip had been her idea, after all! They hadn’t needed to do it, but they’d gone and made a mess of it anyway.
But after a day or so, he realizes that he’s doing exactly what Leia had accused him of: only thinking of himself and not being able to empathize with her. He thinks about how hard it must have been for her to even suggest going on their trip. Leia has always wanted to make her parents proud, to not disappoint them in any way. It’s why she politely ignores Han’s blatant flirting at the diner, even though Luke can tell she wants to flirt back, because she thinks her parents wouldn’t approve. He thinks about what she told him when they found out they were twins, how she didn’t care who her “real” parents were, because Bail and Breha had been everything she could have wanted in a family. While Luke was reveling in discovering and gaining a family, Leia’s entire idea of who she was had been collapsing in front of him, and he’d been so caught up in his own shit that he hadn’t even noticed. He’d hugged her when she cried, sure, but he kept forcing her to discover uncomfortable truths about a family she had only just discovered she was a part of. When he thinks, really thinks, about how she must have felt in that prison, he feels a little sick to his stomach. He goes home that night with his stomach churning, can barely look at what Aunt Beru has cooked for dinner that night. He tosses and turns all night, unable to stop his mind from swirling with all the things he should have said to Leia, all the ways he could apologize.
Luke is sweating before he even makes it out of his car the next morning as he pulls into Ben’s driveway. The summer heat has made its way here, as if it followed Luke home from Virginia. He leaves the garage door open as he works, grateful for the soft breeze that filters in every so often. After a couple of hours, he hears what sounds like a car driving over the gravel road, getting closer. He sets down the tools he’d been working on and walks out to the driveway, waiting, trying not to get his hopes up. Eventually, Leia’s small blue sedan pulls up, rounding the corner and parking next to Luke’s. She sits in her car, staring at him without moving, for a while before she gets out.
“Hey,” she says weakly, offering a small smile. She closes her door gently, as if she’s afraid to make too loud of a noise.
“Hey.” Luke smiles back at her.
For a moment they just stand there, Luke squirming, Leia twisting around the strands that hang loose from her braid. Then Leia just says, “Ah, screw it,” and barrels into Luke, nearly knocking him over with the force of her hug. When he realizes what’s happening, he wraps his arms around her, too, squeezing his eyes shut to try to stop the tears welling up from how happy he is to see her. “I don’t want to be fighting anymore, it sucks.” Luke laughs, and he can feel Leia laugh too. She pulls away, wiping a tear off of her cheek. “I’m sorry I was such a bitch the last time we saw each other.”
Luke shakes his head. “No, Leia, you don’t have to apologize.” He takes a deep breath. “You were right. I was being selfish and completely inconsiderate. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize how hard the trip had been on you.”
“You had a lot of shit going on, too, farmboy.”
Luke gives her a look at the nickname, but she just smiles at him, that playful light in her eyes coming back. “I still should have noticed. I should have been a better brother.” Leia breaks eye contact at that, but Luke continues. “And a better friend.”
Leia bites her lip. She looks like she wants to say something more to him, but instead she looks at Ben’s house behind them. “So, where were we?” She starts walking toward the front door, and Luke follows, digging Aunt Beru’s well-worn to-do list out of his pocket.
Luke is not the best at routines (see: how he and Leia first met, finishing homework in the library at lunch). The only routines he’s been able to keep have been forced on him – getting up and ready for school, waking up at the crack of dawn to do chores and help with planting, keeping Ben’s garage exactly the way Ben liked it. That summer, after he and Leia get back, is much the same.
Monday through Thursday, he and Leia meet up at Ben’s house to continue getting it ready to sell. Eventually, Leia runs out of things to do in the house and comes to help him in the garage, cleaning, polishing and sorting alongside Luke. She learns, mostly against her will, the names for the different tools, their purpose, which of Luke’s scars can be attributed to which tools. Together they work their way through Aunt Beru’s to-do list, looking up places they can sell the machines to, working with the real estate agent in town to get the house listed.
A little by accident, Fridays become his day all to himself. The first week they were back, Leia called him early in the morning, just before he’d been about to leave, and told him that her dad needed her for something that day, and she wouldn’t be able to make it. There was something in her voice that made Luke think she wasn’t telling him the whole story, but after everything they’d been through, he hadn’t been willing to push it. He’d been sad, thinking about working in the garage without her, for a minute - until he realized what the free day meant he could do. He gave Aunt Beru a quick kiss on the cheek, saying “I’ll be home for supper,” before dashing out the door and getting on the road to Leavenworth.
After a couple of visits, the staff at the prison begin to recognize Luke’s car and let him in without much fanfare. The woman behind the glass smiles at him when she sees him in the lobby and asks how he’s doing. “Good,” he always replies. “Really, really good.”
And he is. The look on his father’s face when he walks in is worth it, every single time. Anakin’s face lights up when Luke enters the room, almost like he can’t believe that Luke keeps coming back. They talk for hours every time. After three consecutive Fridays, the guards start bringing the two of them lunch in the visitation room (Anakin hadn’t been kidding about the world’s blandest sandwich, Luke realizes. He doesn’t care, though. He’d happily skip lunch just to keep hearing his father’s voice). Ben’s journals stay, untouched, in boxes in the back seat of Luke’s car, but Luke learns more from his visits with Anakin than he ever would have from the journals alone.
Anakin tells Luke stories of growing up, going with his mother to clean houses until she finally got a decent job working at the hardware store just on the edge of Meridan. Shmi Skywalker married Clieg Lars when Anakin was 17. Luke’s bedroom, up the stairs at the end of the hall, had been Anakin’s for the short year he’d spent on the Lars farm before enlisting in the Air Force. Anakin had met Padme while she was protesting with her school’s Young Democrats chapter outside the base where he was stationed for basic training, and the rest (at least according to Anakin) was history. Padme getting pregnant after he got back from his deployment had prompted their courthouse marriage, but they’d already been talking about it for ages. Anakin tells Luke all sorts of stories from when he and Leia were first born. Padme was so terrified she would mix them up in the beginning that she painted one of Luke’s toenails with bright purple nail polish until Anakin reminded her that all she had to do to figure out which twin was which was change their diapers. Ben would come over sometimes in the evening to help with bathtime and bedtime. Padme took them to the park all the time - the park they’d visited on the San Antonio base, Luke realizes, where he and Leia had talked with Mon Mothma.
After Luke’s second trip to Leavenworth, he stops by the general store in town before he heads back to the farm and picks up a small, black, leather-bound notebook. He scarfs down his dinner and holes up in his room for the rest of the night, frantically copying down everything he can remember from his conversations with Anakin. It’s past midnight, his hand cramped and stiff, when he finishes, but he’s filled almost 10 pages with anecdotes his father has told him.
He wants to tell Leia the things he’s learned from Anakin. It feels wrong to keep them to himself, to learn things about the way they were together as babies and not share them with her. Sometimes, when they’re working together in the garage or driving into town to meet with the real estate agent, he can feel Anakin’s stories bubbling up inside of him, threatening to tumble out of his mouth. But then he remembers the way she looks at him every time he reminds her that they’re family, and the words die on his tongue.
Maybe one day , Luke tells himself as he looks at Leia, working on her AP summer homework at his dining room table. She glances up at him for a moment, gives him a terse, perfunctory smile, and maybe it’s the fact that he’d been to visit his father just yesterday, but he swears he can see Anakin in the way her lips curl, in the dimples that form deeper on her left side than on her right. Maybe one day she’ll want to hear them.
“You know what I was thinking the other day?”
Leia looks over at Luke as he rounds the turn and follows the road toward home. He can see dark clouds behind her through the window - rain coming, probably soon. “What?”
“Do you think Mr. Watt could use anything in Ben’s garage?”
She ponders that for a moment as Luke pulls into the driveway and puts his car in park. They both climb out to head for the front door before Leia answers. “You would know better than I would what kind of things he’d need, but schools are always hard up for supplies. They probably wouldn’t pay as well as other places, though.”
“That would only be an issue if we could find any place else to sell them to.” Luke pushes the front door open and yells, “Hey, Aunt Beru, it’s me and Leia,” then turns back to face Leia again. They shake their shoes off before moving toward the living room. “Plus, you know as well as I do from all our meetings with the real estate agent that the price of the farm alone will more than cover my -” he stops when he catches sight of Aunt Beru. She’s sitting on the stool next to the phone on the kitchen counter, the receiver held up to her ear. She’s white as a sheet, and her mouth is open, staring blankly at Luke and Leia. “Aunt Beru? Is everything okay?”
Aunt Beru licks her lips and moves her mouth, but no sound comes out. She’s still for a while before she sticks the receiver out toward him. Luke walks toward her slowly. “I-it’s for you,” she whispers, handing him the receiver, then vacates the stool as fast as she can.
Luke brings the receiver up to his ear gently as he situates himself onto the stool. He hesitates for a few seconds before speaking. “Hello?”
“Hey, kid.”
“Dad?” Luke says, shocked. Leia’s head whips around, and she fixes him with an unsettling gaze. Aunt Beru just settles into the couch, shaking her head and muttering. “How - how did you get this number?”
Anakin chuckles darkly. “You think I could forget the number I used to call my mom every night while I was overseas? I’m just as surprised as you are that the number hasn’t changed in twenty years. You be sure to give your aunt an apology - I think I gave her a heart attack.”
Luke nods. “Y-yeah,” he says weakly.
“Listen, I, uh -” Anakin hesitates, and it’s the first time in a while that Luke has heard him nervous. “I don’t have much time here, so I apologize for being blunt. My appeal was denied.”
“What does that -”
“My final appeal, Luke.”
“Final –?” And then it clicks into place, and Luke feels his body go cold. “Oh,” he whispers. He has to put his other hand up under the receiver to keep it in place.
“Yeah, son.” Anakin sniffles on the other end of the line, and Luke can feel the tears welling up in his own eyes. “I know you don’t –” there’s a pause, another sniffle, “--don’t owe me anything, but I would really like to see you … one last time.”
“Dad, don’t say that, there’s gotta be –”
“There isn’t, Luke.” Anakin’s voice is shaky. “I understand that I’m asking a lot of you, I just - I want to see your face.” There’s a shuffle on the other end of the line. “I gotta go, Luke. Time for my last meal.”
“No, Dad, please don’t –”
“I love you.”
“No, no, no –” but all Luke gets in return is the dial tone. He squeezes his eyes shut, gripping the phone tightly in frustration. A few tears slip down his cheeks. He slams the phone down too hard, making it rattle. Aunt Beru jumps at the noise. Luke just buries his face in his hands, feeling the tears slide down his arms.
“Luke,” Leia says, her voice much closer than expected. He looks up to see her in front of him. “What just happened?”
Luke sniffles, wipes his nose on his shirt. There’s no easy way to say it. For a moment he wants to come up with a plausible lie, something to keep the fragile peace that’s existed between them all summer, but he knows that peace was broken the second Aunt Beru answered the phone. So he just comes out and says it. “They’re gonna execute him.”
And then he’s really crying, big sobs that wrack his entire body. Leia comes up to support him, wrapping her arms around him. “When?” she asks, her voice barely loud enough for him to hear.
Luke shakes his head and pulls away from Leia. He can see a wet spot on her stomach where he’d had his face pressed against her, and the embarrassment of that breaks him out of the crying, if only for a moment. “I - today, sometime. He just said he had to leave to have his last meal.”
“God,” Leia mutters. She bites her lip, her hands going to the ponytail slung over one shoulder. She works her fingers through slowly, fiddling with the ends.
“He wants me to see him,” Luke rasps out, a lump rising in his throat.
Leia nods. Her face twists. Luke can tell she’s trying hard to not let the fire start behind her eyes. “You should go.”
“Do you want to come –” with me , but Leia is already shaking her head.
“I’ve already said everything I need to say to him.”
Luke closes his eyes and feels his heart drop into his stomach at that. He thinks of the notebook, sitting upstairs on his desk. It’s only half full. It will only ever be half full. Tears spill over again.
“You should go,” Leia says again. “I’ll still be here when you get back.”
He nods absently, his body moving before he really has time to think. “Luke, where are you going?” he hears Aunt Beru ask, but he’s already slipping his shoes back on in the entryway and grabbing his keys off the ring. He hears Leia start explaining everything as he slams the door shut. He practically runs toward his car and peels out of the driveway faster than he ever has in his life, starting the trip he thinks he could make in his sleep now – toward Leavenworth, toward his father, one last time.
When the door to the visitation room slams closed, Luke realizes it’s the first time he’s been here before his father since his first visit, with Leia. The employees had recognized him and started bringing Anakin out as soon as Luke’s car pulled into the lot. Luke turns in circles, looking at the now-familiar surroundings, trying to make himself focus on anything other than the reason he’s here. He feels like he ran a marathon to get here - palms clammy, heart racing, sweat falling down the back of his neck even though the prison is kept cool. The lump in his throat swells, the same lump he’s been swallowing ever since he left his aunt and uncle’s. He paces back and forth, taking slow even breaths to try to calm himself down.
At the sound of chains outside the room, he freezes. His stomach drops to the floor. They haven’t kept Anakin in chains since Luke’s first visit, either. Luke feels each of the scrapes against the concrete as if they scrape against his own skin, rubbing him raw. Finally the door opens, and Anakin shuffles in.
“Dad,” Luke says breathlessly, crossing the room immediately and wrapping him in a hug. Anakin’s hands don’t wrap around him in return, which makes Luke release Anakin to look down at his hands. They’re in chains, stuck in place. Luke turns to the guard who brought Anakin in, watching them from the door. “Take these off of him,” he demands. The guard doesn’t move. Anger bubbles up inside Luke. “Now.”
The guard shakes his head. “I can’t, sir, it’s not –”
“Go ahead, Smith.” An older man comes up behind the guard. His beady grey eyes send a chill down Luke’s spine. “This was Skywalker’s only request. I think we can make an exception, don’t you?”
The guard makes a face before walking over toward Anakin, fiddling with the keys on his ring. “Yes, sir,” he says quietly.
“Thank you, Lieutenant Tarkin,” Anakin says as the guard undoes the cuffs around Anakin’s wrists and ankles.
Tarkin chuckles at that. “I do have a heart, you know.” Tarkin turns to the guard and nods, and both head out of the visitation room, letting the door creak shut.
Anakin’s arms are around Luke the second the door closes, and Luke embraces his father with equal fervor. Tears drop down onto Luke’s shoulder, which makes Luke squeeze Anakin even harder. Luke feels like they stand there forever, and yet it’s still too soon when Anakin lets go, bringing a hand up to cup Luke’s cheek.
“My son,” Anakin whispers, smiling while the tears drip down his cheeks. “I am so proud of you.” Luke closes his eyes, and a tear finally falls, unwillingly. Anakin’s thumb wipes it away. “All the guards who’ve seen you say you and I look exactly alike. And I will take credit for your interest in machines, but … whenever I look at you, all I see is your mother. She believed in me the same way that you do. Even when I said things that scared her, she always believed that I was a good person. She made me want to live up to the person she thought I was, and you have made me feel that way these last months, too, Luke. I know that she is proud of you, too. Of both of you.”
“I’m sorry Leia isn’t here,” Luke starts, but Anakin raises his hand and shakes his head.
“It’s okay, Luke. I knew it would just be you. What I need now I can’t get from your sister. Just from you.”
Luke brow furrows. “What do you need from me?”
Anakin pauses for a moment, takes an unsteady breath. “Forgiveness.” He can barely get the word out before he breaks down sobbing. Luke guides him to a table so they can sit, then goes to the water cooler to grab a cup of water. He brings it back, and Anakin drinks the whole thing, his breathing finally returning to normal.
“Dad, you’ve had my forgiveness since the moment I met you,” Luke says. Anakin’s head is still down, looking at the empty plastic cup, but Luke sees him smile.
“I know,” Anakin whispers. He looks back up at Luke, his tear-stained eyes gleaming with love. “I just wanted to hear you say it one more time.”
And then they’re both hugging again. Luke tries his best to commit the moment to memory – the feeling of his father’s heartbeat against his chest, the sound of Anakin’s still-shaky breathing, the smell that is so uniquely Anakin that makes Luke feel safer than he’s ever felt. Luke wants to live in the moment forever, never let his father go.
“Skywalker, it’s time,” Tarkin’s voice echoes behind him.
Luke jumps back. He hadn’t even heard the door open. “No,” he says, as the guard from before appears behind Tarkin. He looks back at his father.
“I love you, Luke,” Anakin says, his face hardening. He stands, but Luke grabs his hand, trying to get him to sit back down.
“No, Dad, you don’t have to go -”
“Yes, I do.” Anakin turns back around to look at him, at their intertwined hands. “You have to let me go, son.”
Luke stares up at his father. Let him go? Luke had only just gotten Anakin back. “I can’t,” he whispers.
“You can,” Anakin whispers gently.
Luke sniffles, his eyes on their hands. “It’s not fair.”
“No, it’s not. But I’m grateful for this extra time we got, even if it makes this part harder.”
Luke takes a deep breath. Don’t be selfish , he thinks to himself. Then, with more effort than he expects, he lets go. “I love you, too, Dad.”
Anakin smiles. Luke watches, helpless, as he turns around and walks toward the door. Anakin looks back at him one last time, and Luke does his best to smile before Anakin follows Tarkin out of sight.
Luke wakes slowly, the light through his windows getting brighter and brighter. He’d been dreaming, as he’d done often this summer, of his father. Of playing with him at the park in Meridan, of going with him to get ice cream, of him teaching Luke how to drive. It’s warm in Luke’s bedroom (it’s always warm, even in the winter), but the ceiling fan blows on him gently, the cool breeze a gentle caress on his arms.
Slowly, he becomes aware of his belt sticking to his back, and he realizes that he still has his jeans on. He hears a rustling noise and opens his eyes to find Leia sitting at his desk, flipping through the notebook he’d been using to write down Anakin’s stories. What is Leia doing in my room ? he thinks for a moment. Aunt Beru barely let Leia up in his room, and she would have never allowed Leia to stay overnight. Leia turns to look at him, a look of pity plain on her face, which confuses Luke, until he remembers what had happened yesterday.
All at once, the emotions from the last 24 hours - anger, sadness, confusion, betrayal - hit Luke like a freight train. The tears come up faster than he can think to stop them. Leia jumps up from his desk, crawls into bed next to him, and just holds him while he sobs. He remembers, now, the trip home from Leavenworth yesterday - which took longer than normal because Luke kept having to pull over to stop crying so he could see the road. Aunt Beru bringing dinner for the two of them up to his room because he’d refused to leave his bed. Leia holding him as he cried, just like she was doing now. He doesn’t remember falling asleep. He feels wrung out, hollow and exhausted, like there’s nothing left in his chest but a black pit.
He’s lived in a world where his father was dead for as long as he could remember. It was accepted fact, unremarkable. The sky is blue, water is wet, Anakin Skywalker was dead. Luke had been at peace with that fact for a long time, or as close to peace as he could get. There were times when he’d felt some twinge of annoyance or anger or sadness at his father not being in his life, but it was a passive sort of feeling, missing something that he’d never really known in the first place.
Luke knows now, though. Truly knows what it’s like to live in a world where Anakin Skywalker is dead.
At some point he stops crying, the pit finally emptied out. It’s quiet. Leia runs a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.
He looks up at her, surprised to see tears threatening to spill over in her eyes. “What for?”
“I shouldn’t have been reading that journal. I thought it was one of Ben’s, so I just opened it and started reading. I should have stopped as soon as I realized –”
“It’s okay, Leia,” he says. “I’ve been wanting to share those stories with you all summer.”
Leia wrinkles her nose in confusion. “Why didn’t you?”
Luke gives her a look. “Every time I remind you that we’re …” he trails off, the pit in his chest beginning to open up again. He shakes his head. “You haven’t seemed very interested.”
Leia nods, her mouth tight. “Actually, I, uh …” she pauses and moves to sit up. Luke shuffles up the bed, too. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you. About that.”
Luke furrows his brow. “Okay,” he says, slowly.
Leia takes a deep breath before she starts. “When we got back home, the most important thing to me was to find out what I could about Padme. That first Friday, when I bailed on helping you at Ben’s, my dad started to help me find out more about her.”
Luke feels very small all of a sudden. He feels the urge to dig his wallet out and look at the photo Ahsoka had given him all those months ago, but he settles for looking at Leia instead. He swallows hard before he asks, “What did you find?”
Leia bites her lip. “We found her.” Luke opens his mouth in shock, but Leia keeps going. “Her grave, I mean.”
“Oh.” Feelings swirl around in Luke’s chest - obvious ones like grief and anger, that feel familiar to him after the last 24 hours, but others like guilt worm their way into his heart, too.
“Yeah.” Leia sighs. “I know this is probably the worst timing in the world, but – do you think you have one more trip in you?”
Luke opens his mouth to protest, but closes it. Leia knows, surely, all the reasons that this is a bad idea - school is starting in the next couple of weeks, they’ll need to start showing Ben’s house soon, their father just died, for crying out loud . He doesn’t need to spell them out for her. Don’t be selfish. “Where is she buried?”
He can tell Leia is holding back a smile. “New Hampshire. Tiny town called Hartsfield’s Landing.”
Luke lets out a raspberry. “Damn,” he mutters. “Well,” he smiles at Leia, “at least we know where we’re going this time.”
It takes much less convincing than Luke was expecting for Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru to be on board with him and Leia going to New Hampshire to visit Padme - hardly any at all, really. Luke is expecting more of a fight, and he almost gets one with Aunt Beru. But Uncle Owen just says, “You’re 18, son. Figure you can handle yourself pretty well, ‘specially after the summer you’ve had,” and that ends the conversation.
They only plan to stay a day. Leia wants to stay longer, but neither of them have very much money left after the first trip, and it’s all they can scrounge together, even after Bail and Breha give Leia a little extra money. It looks like a two-day trip one way, maybe even three, so Luke figures it will take them an entire week to make the trip there and back. He’s pretty sure they’ll get back with maybe two days before the start of the school year, if they’re lucky.
The day before they leave, Luke finally brings in the boxes of Ben’s journals that have lived in his car since their last trip. He’d stared at them in the backseat on all his drives to Leavenworth, but the sick feeling he’d gotten in his stomach when looking at them had never really gone away, so they’d stayed there, out of sight and out of mind for the most part. But now, Luke flips through each one carefully, a set of sticky notes beside him, marking the pages with stories about Padme. The journals with rainbows sticking out the sides get put back in the box, while the rest accumulate in a pile on his bookshelf. It takes him most of the day. When he’s finally done, he packs up his duffel bag again and sets it and the box of journals next to his door. He glances at his own notebook, the one full of Anakin’s stories, and sticks it on top of the other journals before he can think too much about it.
The drive seems much more quiet, almost subdued, this time around. Leia spends most of it curled up with one of Ben’s journals – when she isn’t driving, anyway. Luke feels much more at ease letting her behind the wheel of his car this time. As she drives, Luke stares out the window, letting the countryside wash over him. He tries not to think about his father, which means he spends most of the first day thinking about his father, wondering whether it was right to leave so soon after Anakin’s death. But he also thinks, given everything he knows about his father, that Anakin would be happy to know that his children are going to visit their mother.
That first night, in the hotel in Indianapolis, Luke brings in the box of journals from the car and starts reading the passages he’d marked up for Leia. He has spent the summer so laser-focused on his father that he realizes he hardly knows his mother. The next day, as he watches the countryside change from mostly cornfields and farmland to wooded hillsides, he asks Leia to share what she and Bail had found about Padme. Apparently, Bail and Padme had turned into pretty good friends once she and Anakin had moved onto the base in Texas. She liked to argue, and so did Bail, which resulted in many lively conversations which had left Anakin convinced that they would get sent away to another base for insubordination. The two of them would team up with Mon Mothma, even, during parties. Bail had told Leia that Padme had a good heart, and always saw the best in people, and fought hard to make sure that everyone was treated fairly. She was always organizing an event for someone who needed a little extra help. Most of her spare time was spent volunteering at different organizations around San Antonio. A few times she had even brought Luke and Leia along when she hadn’t been able to get a babysitter.
Bail hadn’t been certain of what Padme’s life had been like before she’d crossed paths with Anakin, however. It took Bail and Leia most of the summer to figure out who to contact to get an answer about where Padme was buried. They discovered that her mother’s family, the Naberries, were pretty influential in Hartsfield’s Landing - they were one of the founding members of the town, and several of her great-grandfathers had been mayor at one point or another throughout the town’s history - but beyond that, they hadn’t been able to get much more information. It was one of the things Leia desperately wanted to do when she and Luke finally got into town. Luke was pretty sure they wouldn’t have time to visit all the places she wanted to, but he wasn’t quite ready to broach that subject with her just yet. Leia hadn’t crushed his dreams when they went on their wild goose chase to find Anakin, so he wouldn’t crush hers unless he absolutely had to.
Luke and Leia pull into Hartsfield’s Landing, population 457, at around four in the afternoon on the third day of their trip. The style of the buildings around them is different than in Meridan, but Luke recognizes the spirit - the main street that has seen better days, a locally owned pharmacy that looks like it’s been in town since time immemorial, the small park with metal playground equipment, empty save for two teenagers lounging under a massive oak tree. There’s one stoplight, blinking yellow, to turn off the highway toward the main road that Luke takes, hoping to find a place they can stop and ask for directions.
“Park here,” Leia says, quietly enough that Luke almost misses it. He pulls into a parking spot and realizes they’re in front of a flower shop. An odd feeling settles into his chest, one that’s been growing as he and Leia drove across the country (again). It feels different than the first time - less apprehension and dread, more guilt mixed with … something else he still can’t quite figure out.
“Do you want me to come with you?”
Leia thinks for a second, then nods. Luke follows her into the shop. A bell tinkles as they open the door, and Luke is hit with a thousand different floral smells. There are stones with Bible verses engraved on them, decorative pots littering the floor around him. He and Leia traverse the maze of the store to find the counter, which is empty. “Hello?” Leia calls out.
Luke is just about to echo her when he hears footsteps from somewhere behind the counter. A man that doesn’t look much older than the two of them, whose nametag identifies him as Phil, steps out from a back room. A pen is stuck behind his ear. “What can I help you folks with?” His voice is kind.
“We’re, uh, we’re here to buy some flowers,” Leia says, her voice unsteady.
Phil smiles at her. “Well, you’re certainly in the right place for that. What’s the occasion?”
Leia takes a deep breath and swallows hard. “Visiting our mother’s grave,” she says in that same quiet voice she’d used in the car a few minutes ago. Luke reaches over to hold her hand, and he feels grateful when she squeezes back.
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Phil genuinely sounds sad for them. “Is there a certain color or kind of flower you’d like me to include?”
Luke looks to Leia. She breathes in unsteadily. “My dad said that she liked blue.” She turns to look at Luke. “Like Anakin’s eyes.”
Luke squeezes Leia’s hand again. He can see tears welling up in her eyes before his own start to blur.
“I think I can do that,” Phil says. “I shall be back in just a moment with a bouquet for you.”
It doesn’t take much to find the grave where Padme Naberrie Amidala is buried. A large headstone stands in the middle of the cemetery, marking the area where the Naberries have been buried since they established Hartsfield’s Landing over 200 years ago. From there, it’s just a matter of tracing the family through generations, until they finally find a small marker with Padme’s name on it, next to her parents, who had died when she was 14.
“Leia,” Luke calls when he finds her stone. Her eyes are startled, and she walks over to Luke slowly. She hesitates, looking at him for a half a second too long before finally letting her eyes dart down to Padme’s stone. Luke backs up, letting her stand in front of it. She drops down to her knees and sets the bouquet Phil had wrapped for them on the ground next to the headstone. Then, slowly, she traces her fingers over Padme’s name.
“Hi, Mom,” she whispers. Luke can tell she’s crying, and he tears up, too. “I’m sorry it took us so long to find you. They separated us, after … but we found each other. Luke and I,” Leia turns around, gestures back at him, “we found each other. And now we found you.” Luke steps up to put a hand on her shoulder. “Bail and Breha took me in, and they raised me. He wanted me to tell you …” Leia pauses, wipes the tears away. “He wanted me to say ‘thanks for letting us borrow your little girl. We hope we made you proud.’” Luke squeezes her shoulder, and Leia covers his hand with one of hers. “I didn’t know who you were for so long. And I thought it wouldn’t matter, because I love the Organas so much, and I know they love me. But I am so proud to be your daughter.” Luke is crying now, the tears falling down onto Leia’s fingers, intertwined in his. “I want to help people, like you did. I want to be like you. I think I’ve always wanted to be like you, even before I knew you existed. I … I hope I can make you proud, Mom.”
Leia stands, and Luke pulls her in for a hug. He holds on longer than normal, but Leia doesn’t let go either. Leia sniffles, and Luke finally lets her go. She starts to walk toward the car, but Luke keeps looking at Padme’s gravestone. He kneels down and runs his hand across the marble, cold to the touch even in August. “Love you, Mom,” he whispers, before he stands and follows Leia to the car.
On the way back into town, they pass by a massive white house with a sign out front that reads Naberrie Museum. The front door says they close at five, and Luke wants to come back in the morning, but Leia insists that twenty minutes will be enough for one night.
There isn’t much that Luke hasn’t seen before, in the museums they visited when his fourth grade class took a field trip to the state capitol building. Historical dresses hang on mannequins next to well-preserved items of furniture, all hidden behind a pane of glass, freezing the old Naberrie house in 1794. The only thing of interest to them is the family tree painted near the gift shop that goes back to the first settlers that came over from England in 1709.
“I wish I could remember this,” Luke says. He glances at his watch. They hadn’t spent much time walking through the house, but they still only have ten minutes left.
Leia frowns at the family tree on the wall. “Did you leave the car unlocked?”
Luke raises an eyebrow at her, bewildered. “No?”
Leia nods, then darts back toward the entrance. “Stay there!” she yells back at him, not bothering to turn around. He shakes his head, chuckling to himself, and sits down at the bench on the opposite wall. A minute later, Leia comes back with a small black notebook and a pen in her hands. She sits down next to him and waits, the question plain in her eyes.
Luke bites his lip. He feels conflicted; he’d bought the notebook to write down stories that Anakin had told him, and he’d wanted to keep it for that. But he can tell how much this means to Leia. And he also thinks Anakin would like it, that his and Leia’s memories of their parents exist in the same space. Don’t be selfish . So he nods, and Leia smiles. She opens up to the notebook to the first empty page and begins frantically copying the family tree onto the lined paper. A few minutes later, the employees at the gift shop come by to tell them that the museum is closed. Leia is only halfway done, but she closes the notebook and stands anyway.
Luke raises an eyebrow at her skeptically. He’d half-expected her to argue that they stay until she gets the very last person recorded. But she simply says, “We can get the rest in the morning.”
They do come back to the museum in the morning, and Leia gets every last Naberrie accounted for, even adding Luke and herself to the bottom of the family tree that ends up spanning several pages in the notebook. As much as Leia wants to stay and collect all the information she can, Luke convinces her that they really do need to leave so they can get back in time for school. “Besides,” he says to her as they make their way back to the museum entrance, “we know this place is here now. We can always come back if we want to.” She smiles and nods at that, and lets Luke lead her back out to the car. He drives them both out of Hartsfield’s Landing, and Leia turns around to watch it disappear into the horizon behind them.
Luke pulls up to the Organas’ house at 7:30 on the dot on the morning of the first day of school. All three of them are already out on the porch, Breha sticking her camera up to her face while Leia protests loudly.
“Mom, stop,” Luke hears Leia whine as he slams his car door shut. “You’ve gotten so many already.”
“Young lady, I have gotten pictures of you every day on your first day of school since you were in kindergarten. You know I’m not going to miss your senior year.”
“Good morning, Luke,” Bail shouts out, waving at Luke. Luke gives a two-finger wave back.
“How about you get a picture with Luke?” Breha asks.
“Oh, ma’am, I don’t –”
“Okay,” Leia says, already walking down to meet him at his car. Breha and Bail both follow her. Luke looks down at his clothing, feeling a bit underdressed. He notices an oil stain on his T-shirt that he hadn’t realized was there. Leia sidles up next to him. “This okay?” she asks.
Luke shrugs. “I don’t get much of a say in this, do I?”
Leia giggles. “Not when it comes to Mom and her pictures, no.” She grabs his hand and squeezes. Luke smiles back at her.
“Look at me, you two,” Breha says, her face obscured by the camera. Luke and Leia turn back to look at her. “Beautiful,” she says softly, then snaps the picture.
“Okay, Mom, now we really have to go, or we’ll be late.” Leia turns back toward Luke. “I have to grab my backpack and then we can go.” She walks back toward the house and heads inside. Bail comes up to Luke this time, which makes Luke nervous. He and Bail haven’t shared many conversations, and none since he and Leia had gone on their trips.
“I haven’t had the chance to say thank you,” Bail says, sticking out a hand for a hand shake.
Luke takes it tentatively. “What for, sir?”
“For keeping our little girl safe.”
For a moment, Luke isn’t sure what to say. Leia lets the door slam behind her on the way out, which startles him. He looks back at Bail. “Always, sir,” he says. Bail just smiles at him.
The drive to school is relatively quiet for the two of them. Leia hums along to the song on the radio, her fingers running through her hair, which is down instead of braided (although Luke is pretty sure it will be braided before third period). Luke taps on the steering wheel absently. He remembers the first day of his freshman year, three years ago. It had been hot that day, too, and Luke had been so nervous he’d barely been able to speak, even to his friends. Now, the silence feels more comfortable. He feels more comfortable. He keeps expecting his stomach to twist up into knots the way it normally does on the first day, but nothing comes, even as they get closer and closer to the school.
Luke pulls into one of the reserved senior spots, toward the front of the lot. Only a few kids are here this early, most of them fellow seniors eager to claim the best spots. “What are you thinking about?” Leia asks.
He shakes his head. Her ability to read him is uncanny. “Freshman year. I was terrified to even go into the building on the first day. Biggs had to walk me in.”
Leia chuckles. “I didn’t even know you existed back then.”
Luke smiles. “Me either.”
“And now you’re my brother.”
Luke’s mouth drops open. There’s a funny feeling in his chest, almost like hope. It feels warm, spreading from his heart through the rest of his body.
Leia glances over at him, quizzical. “What?”
“Nothing. Just –” Luke shakes his head. “I think that’s the first time you’ve called me your brother.”
Luke can see the gears turning in her head, thinking through their conversations. “It is, isn’t it?” Luke nods. “Well, then, little brother,” she says, opening up her door, “let’s go get our senior year started, shall we?” And with that, she scrambles out of the car and heads toward the school entrance.
Luke darts out after her, barely remembering his own backpack. “Pretty sure I’m the oldest!” he yells out after her, half-running to catch up.
She turns back around but keeps moving toward the doors. “Pretty sure you’re wrong!” Leia sticks out her tongue at him and races toward the entrance, and Luke starts running to catch up with his sister.
Notes:
thank you again to everyone who has read this story. i hope you all have enjoyed it. i've put so much of myself and my own experiences into this story, especially into luke and his life on the farm, so it means the world to me that anyone would want to read this silly road trip au i came up with when i was 19. it's the longest thing i've ever written, both in word count and how long it's taken me to finish lmao. i want to thank kaylee, my best friend and beta, who's been reading this story since the beginning and encouraged me to keep writing (even when i took years-long breaks in between chapters). please don't forget to leave a comment and let me know what you thought of this chapter or the story as a whole. thank you again for reading :)
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