Chapter Text
November in Coruscant was usually sunny and cold but this year it wasn’t, it was gloomy and pissing down rain.
The phone rang in the middle of dinner, right after Dad finished carving the turkey. Papa had a rule about leaving the table to take calls (usually it was Dad’s office, calling to bother him at home, or Leia, who would stay on the line until Luke’s dinner went cold), but this time it kept ringing, and ringing, and ringing, until he reluctantly got up to answer it.
“Obi-Wan speaking,” he said in a smoothly polite tone that, to someone who knew him, sounded more like: someone had better be dead.
Luke didn’t bother trying to eavesdrop, he was more concerned with his father’s roasted yams, how buttery soft they were, how they melted on his tongue. But then the pitch of his papa’s voice changed, and he said, audibly surprised, “Oh, Ezra,” quietly enough that Luke knew he didn’t want him to hear. “My dear boy, you need to call Hera and Kanan.”
Silence. Both Luke and his father stopped eating, shooting each other curious looks. The parlor was down the hall, they couldn’t see Obi-Wan from the dining room, but his tone told them at least half the story: there was trouble, and for whatever reason, Ezra had called them instead of his parents.
“Be that as it may, you’re still a minor. I’m afraid they won’t release you to us, only to your guardians.”
Release him? Was Ezra in jail? Luke stood from the dining table, panic humming beneath his skin, but his father waved him back down, finger held to his lips to signal to him to be quiet. He was still trying to overhear the conversation from two rooms away.
Papa sighed. Then, “I see,” with the kind of browbeaten disinclination he usually reserved only for his husband. “Hold on just a moment.” And then he was in the doorway, expression rife with disappointment. “Anakin, dearest? Would you come here for a moment?”
“What’s going on?” Luke asked, halfway out of his seat. He tried to follow his dad when the man stood up, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him. “What happened? Is Ezra okay?”
“Yes, darling. Everything is fine,” his papa said, but oddly, it didn’t do much to put Luke at ease. “Sit down and finish your dinner. Your father and I will be right back.”
But Anakin didn’t come back. Obi-Wan handed him the phone, and he listened silently to whatever Ezra had to say for a long while, then grabbed his coat and keys and left, with only the briefest of goodbyes. Luke couldn’t pry an answer out of his papa no matter how hard he tried. All he could do was wait, anxious, fully intending to interrogate his father when he came home, and his best friend after that.
When Anakin came back later that night, there was a wild look in his eyes; the same look he had when Luke ran away from Reva, when Miss Elsbeth approached them on the street. “Are you okay? Where’s Ezra? What’s going on?” Luke babbled, but his dad just pulled him into his arms and held him, hands tight on the back of his neck, he hadn’t even taken his coat off.
“Your friend was taken to the police station. He wasn’t arrested, luckily the guy didn’t want to press charges. He just needed a ride home.”
“Press charges for what?”
His dad kissed the top of his head. “You don’t need to worry about it, son. Your friend is okay, he’s back home with his folks, where he belongs. That’s all that matters.”
How could he not worry about it? Ezra had a record; getting picked up by the cops was a big deal, especially if there was another person involved. He wrung his hands together nervously, the worry like a nest of snakes coiling in his stomach. Whatever happened, it couldn’t have been good. For Ezra to ask Luke’s dad to come get him — and more worrying, for Anakin to agree — meant that whatever had happened was bad.
And then there was the tension in his father’s face, the firm grip of his hands. He got like that sometimes after a particularly frustrating day at work, but having to give his son’s friend a ride home shouldn’t have been anything more than a mild annoyance. Whatever was going on here, Luke didn’t like it one bit.
It was the first thing out of his mouth when Ezra answered the phone, after school the next day, the moment the other boy said hello. “What happened?” speaking low enough that hopefully Papa couldn’t hear him, though it was hard to control the volume of his voice when he was upset. “Where the hell were you last night?”
“Sheesh,” Ezra said, trying to play it off, but he wasn’t fooling Luke. “What’s with the inquisition, Lars? Didn’t your dad tell you it was no big deal?”
Luke pressed himself against the wall, hands tight on the phone cord. “He did, and it was a lie. Don’t lie to me, Ezra. Please. Just tell me what happened.”
Silence, and then a sigh. The kind of sound no kid their age should be able to make. “Okay.” There was rustling on the other end, Luke probably caught him just as he was getting home from school. “I’ll tell you, but not over the phone. You want to come over?”
“Is that a good idea? Aren’t your parents home?” Normally Luke would be happy to see Kanan and Hera, but if Ezra was trying to keep this a secret from his parents, his house wasn’t a good idea. It was an older home, small, only two bedrooms in the back, squashed together. They would hear every word either of them said: Luke had to sleep on the living room couch when he stayed overnight, or they’d keep the whole house up, talking all night long. “Maybe you should come here instead.”
“You’re just scared to see Chopper,” Ezra teased, but Luke could hear him moving around through the phone, the tousling of a jacket. “Fine, I’ll come to your fancy mansion. Give me an hour?”
Luke couldn’t help rolling his eyes, but he was smiling, too. “Yeah, sounds good. See you when you get here.”
Ezra didn’t live close by, but the subway could get you almost anywhere in Coruscant. He would bring his bike on the train, ride it from the station all the way to Luke’s house, show up in his punky clothes, his handsome, half-cocked grin. Luke was pretty sure he only dressed like that to get under Kanan’s skin, but Ezra would just laugh, like he’d never dream of messing with his old man.
He looked the same when he rode up their driveway, standing on the pedals, no helmet. “I always forget how nice your yard is,” he said, walking his bike up to the fence. “I should have brought Chopper with me. He’d have the time of his life.”
Luke brought his friend inside, shaking his head. “I think my papa would have a heart attack if you let your dog loose on his garden,” he said as he led them upstairs.
Ezra probably thought Luke was the one who’d keel over dead, but he was nice enough not to say so. Chopper was a big dog, and very sweet, but he barked like the horn of a semitruck, deep, loud enough to make your ears ring. Luke could admit it unnerved him, he was no liar. But Ezra loved that dog like it was family, the way he loved all animals. He even worked part-time at a shelter, after school and on weekends, just to spend more time with them.
They threw a movie on in the background, something from Luke’s VHS collection that Ezra picked out. He didn’t broach the subject again until they’d settled down to pretend to watch it, side by side on his bed, their backs against the headboard. Luke wrapped his arms around his knees. “So, what happened?”
Ezra stared at the screen a moment longer, then said, “You remember that business park we used to go to all the time? The one with the convenience store.” His tone didn’t give a single thing away. Completely neutral, like they were talking about the weather. “I’d leave you there and come back with money. You always asked how I got it, but I wouldn’t tell you.”
Luke hugged himself tighter. “I know how you got it,” he said.
He didn’t blame Ezra for not telling him. Luke wouldn’t have understood, he would have panicked, consumed with moral outrage. Who knew what he would have done the next time one of those men approached them, knowing what kind of hell was waiting for his friend just around the corner, what Ezra was willing to do to keep them going one more day. It had galled him, back then, being kept in the dark, but he knew now that Ezra was just trying to protect him. He would have done exactly the same thing.
Ezra’s hands clenched and unclenched into fists. He breathed in deeply, then slowly exhaled, like he was calming himself down. Eventually he said, “I went back there yesterday,” staring straight ahead, ignoring the shock on Luke’s face. “I swore to myself I never would, but I wanted to see it. I wanted to walk through there and know, for sure, that nobody there had any power over me.”
Luke leaned into the boy’s side, rested his head on his shoulder. “You’re braver than me,” he said, scarcely louder than a murmur. If he never saw any of those places again, it would be too soon. “What happened when you got there?”
He didn’t say anything for a long time. Luke didn’t push, even though part of him wanted to; wanted to take Ezra by the shoulders and shake him until the answers fell out. The two of them sat, silent as stones, and at last his friend said, “This guy came up to me. I didn’t recognize him, but he knew me.” His voice was no longer neutral, no longer deadpan. “He asked if I was still in business. I told him to fuck off, but then he…”
Luke closed his eyes. That fucking place. The Bunker was a nightmare, but for Ezra, that park had been the true hell on earth. They could grow up, move on, never set foot there again, but the things that happened would still have happened. Ezra knew that better than anyone, how some stains just don’t wash out.
“He asked me about my friend.” Ezra’s voice shook, as small as a mouse. “The blond one with the scars.”
Cold numbed his skin, raising the hair on the back of his neck. He didn’t breathe. In front of them, Superman played on almost innocently, uninterrupted by the nuclear bomb Ezra had just detonated, the mushroom cloud of shock, panic rattling the windows.
“He said, ‘If he needs change for the phone again, tell him where he can find me.’ And the next thing I knew I had him on the ground, and people were screaming, and I was trying to cave his face in.” Ezra fidgeted, he was trying to look at him. But Luke didn’t lift his head. “Luke… it’s not true, is it?”
But it was. He had never told anyone but his dad, but he knew Ezra would understand, the desperation, how things could happen to a person, how survival had no room for shame. “It’s true,” he said, and Ezra pressed his head on his, and listened to the sordid tale, how Luke finally escaped that place for good.
They stayed together on Luke’s bed, shoulder to shoulder, talking about bodies and what they endured. And Ezra told him that he had only been nine years old the first time, how an older boy from the Bunker had been the one to bring him there. “I didn’t understand what was going on, even after it was over.” He huffed a humorless laugh. “But I bought myself the biggest sandwich I could afford, and then I just… kept showing up. I was never short on customers.” That park was known for it, the Lost Boys who were willing to do anything. Luke and Ezra, and all the kids who came before them, it was a turkey shoot. Predators looked for easy prey — what could be easier than starving children? “I never wanted you to go through that.”
“You tried,” Luke said, apologetic. “It wasn’t your fault. None of it was ever your fault, Ezra.”
“Kanan and Hera tell me the same thing.” Relief filled Luke’s heart, soothing him. He’d told his parents, confided in them. He was able to trust them, even with everything that had happened. “It wasn’t your fault either, Luke. It was that fucking pervert’s. I probably broke his jaw, he had to handwrite his statement to the cops.” He laughed again, a little more genuine now. “They couldn’t believe he didn’t want to press charges. But if he did, he knew I’d tell them why I went berserk on him, and then he’d be in a lot more trouble than me. Fucking coward.”
So that was why he hadn’t been arrested. Luke heaved a sigh, grateful that, at the very least, Ezra wasn’t going to be sent back to juvie, or worse. “I’m just glad you’re okay,” he said, taking his friend’s hand in his. Sure enough, the knuckles were blue and black, swollen, scabbing over in some places. It looked awful. “But why did you call here?” He gently tested how well Ezra’s fingers would bend, if any of them were broken. The boy didn’t make a sound, at least, so that was a good sign. “Why didn’t you call Hera? Or Kanan?”
Ezra gingerly took his hand back, cradling it against his chest. Maybe it hurt worse than Luke thought. He nudged their shoulders together, contrite. “Because I didn’t want that piece of shit to get away with what he did to you,” he said, still refusing to meet Luke’s eyes, “and I knew your dad wouldn’t let him.”
Luke stared at Ezra’s profile, dumbfounded. He thought back to last night, the tension in his father’s face, his clenched fists. Anakin scared people, though Luke wished he didn’t. If only people could see him for who he really was, how devoted and loving, how generous, how deeply he cared. But he was protective, too, and sometimes that was the only thing people saw, especially when they were on the opposing side of that protectiveness, the way Ezra had been the first time he and Anakin met.
“What could my dad really do?” he asked. “It’s not like there’s any proof of what happened. Besides, you already beat the guy up. I don’t think my dad yelling at him would scare him off worse than you did, kicking his ass like that.”
“Maybe,” Ezra said, in a tone that meant he couldn’t agree less. Luke frowned, and his friend shrugged, changing his tune slightly. “Your dad’s rich, dude. Maybe he’d hire a private eye to uncover what a creep the guy is and get him sent to prison for the rest of his life. Or one of those fancy mafia lawyers who could bribe the judge.” A pause. “Or a hitman.”
“Very funny,” Luke said, smacking Ezra with his pillow, but he was smiling in spite of himself. The boy retaliated with a pillow of his own, unbothered by his injured hand, and the two wrestled boisterously until Papa came upstairs to ask if Ezra would be staying for dinner, sending him down to the parlor to call his parents and ask permission when Ezra said he’d love to.
When his dad came home from work, he was carting pasta and garlic bread in three heavy take-out bags, Papa must have called him before he left the office to tell him they had company. “Ezra. Good to see you,” he said, nodding to him, which was a warmer welcome than he ever gave any of Luke’s other friends, with the exception of Leia. Ezra nodded back, and that was it, it was like the previous night never happened. The two never said another word, and Luke, despite the vague feeling that something had changed, never brought it up again, either.
In June his father was sent on a work trip overseas, right before their annual camping trip to Endor. Luke tried not to sulk — he knew his dad’s job was important to him, even though it seemed to make him miserable — but he didn’t really succeed. He hated those work trips, how busy Anakin was during them, sometimes too busy to even call. At least he wasn’t the only one.
To cheer him up, Papa took him on a trip as well, an overnight adventure, just the two of them. “It will be very educational,” he said, proud of himself. He’d planned out their entire itinerary. “We’ll spend the whole day at the Natural History Museum. You’ll love the paleo exhibit, Luke, darling.”
Love turned out to be a massive understatement. Papa had connections through his university, he managed to arrange a private tour for just the two of them, the curator was a good friend of his. She let them see exhibits that weren’t on display yet, that were still being worked on — even let Papa take Luke’s picture next to the skull of a T-rex which, on its pedestal, was almost as tall as he was.
The museum was a two-hour drive from their house (for a normal person, anyway. Dad would probably make the commute in an hour or less), so Papa rented them a hotel room for the night, right downtown. They could see the ocean from their window, past the city skyline, the cloud front rolling in off the open water. The hotel had a restaurant and a pool; they dined on locally-sourced seafood and spent their evening in the hot tub, afterward, luxuriating.
Luke figured out about halfway through the trip that Papa had an ulterior motive of sorts. It wasn’t exactly hard — Obi-Wan was being uncharacteristically obvious, lacking his usual shrewdness, inserting the topic of college and graduation every time he saw the slightest opening. “Coruscant University has a wonderful archaeology department, you know. It’s very hands-on. I’ve heard the students really have the chance to get their hands dirty.” Luke smiled. For his papa, that was about as subtle as a trainwreck. “Plus, you’d be able to live at home. We’re not far from the campus at all.”
“That would be nice,” Luke said, rifling through his bag for his pajamas. He wasn’t quite ready to have this discussion yet — partly because he was undecided between archaeology, anthropology, or early childhood education — and partly because graduation was still a whole year away. “That’s where you and Dad met, isn’t it? At college?”
Obi-Wan’s smile turned fond. “You never tire of hearing that story, do you?”
“No,” he said, genuine.
Already dressed in his evening robe, Papa turned and fluffed the pillows behind his back so he could sit up instead of lie down, the book on his lap forgotten. “Indeed we did. He was only a year or so older than you are now, and I was already teaching. Different departments, mind you. Your father was an engineering student.”
And yet he’d ended up a businessman, running some old guy’s company for him, when he could build an engine with his bare hands. Luke didn’t know why, but it made him sad. “He was a very angry young man when I first met him, but determined, as well. You know your father. When he wants something, he doesn’t stop until he gets it.” Papa chuckled, shaking his head at the memory. Luke could only imagine. “I was at my wit’s end with him, and I wasn’t even his professor. But he was charming as well, in his own childish, bullheaded way.”
“He came to see you almost every day, right?” Luke asked, finally fishing out his missing pajama pants. For an overnight trip, he had wildly overpacked. At least Dad wasn’t there to tease him for it. “Dad said he laid siege to your office until you agreed to go on a date with him.”
“An apt metaphor. My poor students were competing against him for availability. I had to extend my office hours just to accommodate him.”
Luke smiled, pulling his pajama shirt over his head. “You could have just said yes, Papa.”
“And legitimize his militant approach? Nonsense.” He set the book on his nightstand, his reading glasses on top. Luke finished getting dressed and flopped onto his own bed, sinking into the plush mattress with a quiet groan. All of a sudden, he was exhausted. “Your father needed to learn the virtue of patience. Giving in to his demands would have done both of us a disservice.”
“I guess. But you liked him,” Luke said with a yawn, rolling onto his side to face his father. “And you ended up marrying him anyway, even though he lacks patience or whatever.”
Obi-Wan sighed, put-upon. “I suppose I can’t refute that.”
“Did you and Dad always want to be parents?” he asked after a moment, nestling deeper into his pillow. The question had never really crossed his mind before. Anakin’s behavior didn’t leave any room for doubt, not even on his husband’s behalf. Both of them worked so hard to make their home feel inclusive and welcoming, Luke hadn’t stopped to wonder if one of them had wanted him more than the other — if this was just one more example of Anakin stopping at nothing to get his own way. “Dad didn’t bully you into fostering me, did he?”
“On the contrary, darling,” Papa said, sitting up a little straighter. A teacher’s pose, the one that meant he wanted Luke to pay attention. “I was the one to propose becoming foster parents. Anakin had always been invested in the idea of having children, I knew nothing would make him happier, but I had no interest in raising an infant. We were both too busy for it, and I was already too old, even back then.”
He supposed he couldn’t really picture it, either. Both Anakin and Obi-Wan were nurturing in their own way, but babies don’t really do much except eat and sleep. You can’t teach a baby how to fish, or have a deep, in-depth discussion about the play you just saw with them. It made sense, looking back on it now, that they were always going to choose Luke over the impressionable three-year-old, damaged or otherwise.
“And so I told Child Welfare, ‘if there is an older child in need of a home, during the summer when I won’t be teaching, let us know.’ And before I knew it, I was on the phone with Reva. And there you were.”
And here he was. “When did you decide you were going to adopt me?” he asked, because despite his father assuring him it had been immediate, he’d never really known for sure. Immediate could have been that first day, or that first month, or that first summer. Immediate could mean anything. “If you just wanted to foster, I mean.”
“Well, it was rather hard not to love you once you came along,” Papa said, so blunt that it flustered him. “I believe I called Anakin that first night, after you went to bed, to assure him everything was fine. You know your father, what a worrywart he is. If I remember correctly, I told him that very night, ‘this boy needs us, Anakin.’ But truthfully, I had no doubt in my mind that you would be staying with us. I had a good feeling about you the moment I saw you.”
He was the only one that did. The only one who didn’t see what everyone else saw: a street kid, damaged beyond repair, with no glimmer of a future ahead of him. Where other adults saw trouble, Obi-Wan Kenobi saw need. Luke loved him fiercely in that moment, overcome with gratitude. If only the world were filled with men like him. Obi-Wan could have so easily dismissed him, shaggy and starved and flinching at everything that moved. He could have turned him away right there on the doorstep. Instead, he chose to save Luke’s life.
His energy restored, Luke slipped from his own bed and collapsed onto his papa’s, hugging the man tightly around the waist. “Oof,” Papa grunted, arranging Luke more comfortably on his chest, but he didn’t push him away, even though he was probably decently heavy now, at sixteen.
“You are your father’s son,” he said glibly, running a hand through Luke’s hair, petting him.
Luke pressed his ear over Obi-Wan’s beating heart, as deep as the ocean, as warm as the sun.
“And yours,” he said.
Luke and Leia’s seventeenth birthday was on a Tuesday, so they made plans to see each other and celebrate the weekend after that.
They had been alternating who visited whom for their birthday for the last few years, so this time, it was Luke’s turn to go to Alderaan again. He wanted to drive himself — he had just gotten his license a few days ago, and his parents, going overboard as usual, had gotten him his own car for his birthday — but Dad vetoed it, claiming it was too long of a drive for his first solo trip, and Papa was quick to agree with him.
He didn’t really mind. The drive to Alderaan was its own thing, almost theater at this point. Papa insisted on having a map out, even though they’d made this drive dozens of times over the years, and Dad griped the whole way that Obi-Wan was only doing it to harass him, which was probably true.
This year, they and the Organas were going to see a movie together, then get dinner after at some fancy restaurant Leia had picked out. Luke sweet-talked her into letting him pick Back to the Future for the movie, which he was stoked about. Ezra had ranted and raved about it until he was blue in the face the last time they spoke, begging Luke to go with him, but Luke wanted to see it with his parents and his sister, and this was the last weekend it was in theaters.
He'd make it up to Ezra. There were plenty of movies coming out soon that they could go see together, just the two of them.
Flustered, he tuned back in to his parents’ bickering, just as they pulled off the highway to get to the theater. The Organas were already waiting for them inside, bracketed by security guards, because Mrs. Organa had recently been elected as Speaker of the House, which was a total trip. Even Leia almost never went anywhere without some kind of supervision, these days — a fact which drove her mad.
Ezra ended up being right about the movie. It was probably the greatest thing Luke had ever seen. Leia and her parents seemed to like it, and Papa thought it was entertaining if a bit juvenile, but Luke and his dad gushed about it the whole way to the restaurant, the discussion inevitably spiraling into a debate about theoretical quantum mechanics that Papa promptly shut down.
Leia’s parents had reserved them a private dining room for dinner, one with a fancy sliding door and frosted glass windows. The waiters had to bring everything to them on a little cart, two or three at a time, one of them there just to hold the door open. It made Luke feel oddly guilty — as did eating in front of the Organas’ security guards, who weren’t even supposed to sit at the table, let alone eat with them.
The six of them never felt more like one big, happy family than they did on the twins’ birthday. Luke and Leia exchanged their gifts with each other over dessert, like they always had, and their parents gave each of them something, too. Dad and Papa always got Leia a gift, and Mr. and Mrs. Organa always gave Luke something as well. Really, they were Uncle Bail and Auntie Breha at this point, and when Luke thanked them as such, they beamed.
Then Leia shared a somewhat nervous, secretive smile with her father, and slid a white envelope in front of him.
“There’s one more.”
Luke blinked, picking up the plain, unlabeled envelope. “A birthday card?” he asked somewhat dubiously, giving his sister a questioning look as he gently tore open the flap. Whatever was inside, it felt fragile, not rigid like a card at all. Tickets to something, maybe? Maybe this was the year they’d finally get to go to Disneyland together. The whole family, this time.
“So, this isn’t really a gift,” Leia said, which was odd. Luke was the one to ramble through things; Leia always got straight to the point. “I guess it’s just more of a surprise. Earlier this year, I asked Papa if he could help me find our birth mother.”
Luke’s hand froze, halfway inside the envelope. He stared at his sister, his eyes wide. “What?”
Leia averted her gaze, downcast and to the side. “You know I’ve always wondered.” He didn’t mean to make her defensive, he just couldn’t hide his shock. They’d both always wondered, their whole lives, from the time they were old enough to understand that Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru weren’t their mother and father and would never claim to be. Luke wanted to know as bad as she did. He just hadn’t realized, until this exact moment, that there was any chance of ever finding out. “It took a lot of digging. But we found her.”
“And it was quite a shock when we did,” said Bail, smiling, but not exactly in triumph. There was something vaguely grief-stricken drawn in the lines of his face, the way Auntie Breha took his hand, squeezing it hard. “The two of you were listed at the hospital as Baby Girl X and Baby Boy Y, respectively. There was very little else to go off of. I had to ask the hospital directly for permission to access your birth records, which took a bit of sweet-talking —”
“Bail,” Auntie said, pointedly nudging him. Dad and Papa shared one of their silent, we’re-having-a-whole-conversation-telepathically-right-now-so-you-can’t-hear-us glances, and Bail cleared his throat, chastened, sheepish.
“Right. That’s not important.” He smiled again, more genuine this time, and gestured at the half-opened envelope still clutched in Luke’s hands. “What is important is: we found her. And by some incredible coincidence, Luke, it turns out — your mother was a very dear friend of mine.”
Luke’s heart thundered in his chest as he pulled the contents of the envelope free, staring — for the very first time — at the face of his mother.
Leia looked so much like her, that was what brought tears to his eyes. Their mother’s face was rounder than hers, Leia’s jaw was more angular and less squarish, but they had the same shiny, dark brown hair, the same big brown eyes, the same slightness. She was beautiful, maybe the most beautiful woman Luke had ever seen. He wanted to trace her face with his fingertips, but he didn’t want to smudge the photograph. It was immediately, unmistakably irreplaceable. This was their mother.
“What was her name?” he asked, awed.
“Padmé Amidala,” Leia said.
The photo was suddenly ripped from his hands, hard enough to make him flinch. “Hey!”
His father held the photograph in a white-knuckled grip, his face a mix of cold shock and black rage. Papa’s arm came around his shoulders, his gaze flicking between the photo, his husband, and Luke, wide-eyed, uncomprehending. Luke had never seen him so stunned, so thoroughly speechless.
“She died October 2nd,” his dad said, and the tears came down. Luke panicked, reaching out, fingers curling around the man’s arm, clinging. What was happening? Why was he so upset? “She was pregnant. She was pregnant. That’s why she left.”
“Oh, Anakin…”
Something in his papa’s voice broke Luke free from his stupor. He would know that tone anywhere, condoling, rife with grief. The tone you take when someone you love has lost someone they love. He’d known her. He knew Luke’s mother.
Across the table, Uncle Bail straightened his back. “You were the boy she was seeing,” he said, realizing. He looked at his daughter, and his expression cracked, emotion bleeding through the politician’s façade. “Which means you’re…”
“I’m your father,” Anakin said, turning to look at him. At Leia, then back to Luke. “She died October 2nd. She would’ve already been — when I last saw her — ” Anger, then, tearing through the anguish. The table shook when he slammed his hand down on it. “Why didn’t she tell me!”
“How could she?” said Bail, not quailing, to his credit, when Anakin turned to him with the fury of a hurricane. “You were too young, Anakin. She wouldn’t even tell us your name. She had her career on the line, and her family…” He looked at Leia again, sighed, took her hand in his much larger one, Auntie Breha reaching forward to do the same. “Even if she hadn’t gotten sick, she never would have had their blessing to keep you. Her parents didn’t tell anyone she’d even been pregnant, after she… after. If I had known, Leia, if your mother and I had known you’d been born —”
“Don’t,” Leia said, gently. She was reeling, Luke could tell, but acceptance was coming much more gracefully to her than it was to him, she had already overcome the shock.
Luke was lightyears behind her. Anakin was his father. It wasn’t clicking, it didn’t make any sense. Anakin had made him, with his mother; had loved her, had lost her and grieved her and never knew he was — that he was in Tatooine, dreaming of him, imagining someday he’d roll into town as if he’d been searching for him since the day Luke was born —
But how could that be, how could it be possible? What were the chances that they would find each other, like this? That Anakin could find him without ever having known he’d lost him in the first place?
“Are you sure?” he whispered, staring up at the older man, imploring. Tears poured down his face when he met Anakin’s eyes. His father, his hero. Still larger than life, no matter how big Luke grew, no matter how old he got. Anakin held up the sun. Of course he could. If anyone could do something so impossible, so miraculous, it was him.
“I’m sure,” Anakin said, smiling through his tears. He gently rubbed Luke’s cheek, but the tears wouldn’t stop. “I’m sure, baby. I’m sure. I’m your dad.”
Luke leaned into the hand cupping his face, let the man hold him.
“You were always my dad,” he said.
It was late into the night when they got home, even though his dad made the six-hour drive in a little over four hours. Luke trudged off to bed the moment they walked through the door, exhausted both physically and emotionally, but as soon as he lay his head on his pillow, for some reason, sleep wouldn’t come.
They had held each other for a little while, outside the restaurant, the three of them. Luke, Leia, and their dad. The situation was unspeakably surreal for him, but he couldn’t imagine how much weirder it had to be for Dad and Leia, who knew each other, cared for each other, but lived so far apart, in separate family units. Knowing their dad, if he had his way, Leia would have come home with them tonight, the Organas’ adoption be damned. But that wasn’t an option, and maybe that was why he didn’t say a word the entire way home, white-knuckled grip wringing the steering wheel.
Leia’s feelings were harder to discern. She didn’t dislike their dad; she just had high expectations of him, and no small degree of disappointment that he wasn’t the man she thought he could be. She had never said any of that out loud, of course — if one thing could make the two of them fight, it was criticizing the parents that had saved and loved them — but Luke knew how to read her, even when she didn’t want him to.
Only Leia, salt of the earth herself, could look at the miracle-worker that was Anakin Skywalker and think: do better.
Surely if anything could bring the two of them closer, this had to be it. He wanted Leia to love and respect their father, and he wanted their father to see his sister as family, instead of just a friend who took up too much of Luke’s time. He wanted Papa to be okay with it, too — to love them both like his very own children, like he had loved Luke since the day they met. He didn’t want this to change anything, except for the better.
But what if that wasn’t possible? What if this thing that should have brought them closer together became the thing that tore them apart?
Rolling onto his side, Luke reached beneath his pillow where he’d laid his mother’s picture. In the end, he didn’t get to hear much about her. Leia probably knew everything, since Uncle Bail was such a close friend to her, but Luke didn’t know anything except her name, and the fact that her family apparently didn’t like Dad very much.
She really was beautiful. Luke didn’t look much like her, but he was okay with that. It meant he took more after his dad, like people who didn’t know he was adopted sometimes said he did. He had always thought those people were just being polite, but maybe they meant it; maybe he really did resemble his father, or someday would. Maybe he’d even be that tall. After tonight, nothing seemed impossible anymore.
There was a creak outside his bedroom, and then his door slowly swung open, the darkened, towering form of his father gliding through. Luke put the photo down, watching him come around the bed, unsurprised. Dad did this sometimes, since that first time Luke had a nightmare, all those years ago. Sometimes he just poked his head in; sometimes he’d sit on the edge of the bed, pulling the blankets up to Luke’s shoulders and smoothing them out.
“Did I wake you?” he asked, taking a seat beside Luke’s hips, one leg folded on the bed, the other hanging over the side. “Sorry, kiddo. I just wanted to check on you.”
Luke shook his head. “You didn’t. I can’t fall asleep.”
His dad stroked his shoulder. That large hand, warm even through the blankets. “Neither can I. We had a pretty big day, huh?”
And suddenly, all of the questions Luke had been chewing on slammed against his throat like a battering ram. He turned onto his back, facing his father in the dark, trying to keep his voice low so he wouldn’t wake Papa.
“You didn’t know about us?”
Anakin’s face pinched, then smoothed back out, like he was wrestling for control of himself. “No. I didn’t know you were even a possibility.” He hung his head, but Luke could still see how much it pained him. His heart broke for his father. He’d spent his entire childhood wishing he could meet this man, but at least he’d known Anakin existed, in some form or another. His dad didn’t even have that. Luke and Leia had been less than ghosts to him, their whole lives.
“Luke,” he said, uncharacteristically lost for words, pausing and deliberating before he spoke again. “I would have spent my entire life looking for you if I had known.”
“I know.”
“I loved Padmé.” His father tensed, like every word was barbed, slicing him open on the way out. “Your mother. And I know that she loved me. I can’t — I don’t know why she didn’t tell me. I wish I could answer that. But I know one thing: no matter what Bail says, she never gave you and your sister up. That isn’t what happened.” His voice lowered, his body coiled with anger. Luke listened very closely, hanging on every word. “I don’t know if it was her parents or her sister or someone else, but it wasn’t her. I want you to know that.”
After a moment, that revelation suspended between them like a body from the gallows, Luke rolled back onto his side and pushed himself backwards across the bed, making room. His father lay down beside him, sideways, facing each other, this darkened room like their own little world, separate and sacred.
“I’m not mad at her, Dad,” he said, very quiet. Just a whisper. “Even if she did. Our whole lives, we didn’t know anything about her except that she gave us up, and I wasn’t mad at her then, either. Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen loved us. They took good care of us. And I still found you. So if she had to do it, especially if she was sick, or… or knew she wasn’t gonna make it, then I understand. Leia does too.”
“You’re better children than I deserve.”
Luke knew how he felt. Even knowing that Anakin was really his, Luke didn’t feel fully deserving of him. A part of him still thought this had to be a mistake, there was no way he could really be this lucky. Things like this just didn’t happen in real life. Especially not to Luke.
But there was no way Leia wasn’t Padmé’s daughter, just as there was no way Luke wasn’t Leia’s twin. So if his dad was certain that he was the one who fathered her, then he fathered Luke, no matter how impossible it felt. It was a pipe dream, but so was getting adopted by Obi-Wan and Anakin in the first place. His whole life had been a pipe dream since the day Reva brought him here.
He pressed deeper into his pillow, his eyes falling shut. “Will you tell me about her?” he asked.
His dad reached over, smoothed the blankets over his shoulders, tucking them in. “What do you want to know?”
“How did you meet?”
A smile stretched across his dad’s face, softened by the dreamy darkness. “She came into a shop I worked at. I was pretty young.” He kept his hand where it was, gently stroking Luke’s side through his comforter. It was soothing, made him sleepy. But he didn’t want to sleep now, he wanted to hear the story. “Younger than you are now. She was a few years older, already preparing for a career in politics. I assume that’s how she met Bail.”
A politician. Luke couldn’t really picture it. He ran his fingers along the edge of his mother’s photograph, trying to imagine her giving speeches and debating, surrounded by security like Auntie Breha. That must have been what Uncle Bail meant when he said her career was on the line. If being with his father was scandalous in some way, it made sense they would try to hide it. And if she hid that, she would have to hide Luke and Leia’s existence, too.
“I fell in love with her the day I met her. I’d never felt that way about someone before. She was fearless and determined. Kind. And beautiful. Her photos don’t do her justice. Everyone turned to look at her when she walked past, you couldn’t take your eyes off of her. But she loved me.”
What a pair they must have made. People stared at his dad like that, too, though Anakin never seemed to notice. He could imagine it: his father, already tall for his age, lanky and lovesick. The kind of boy who had to grow up a little too fast, but still just a kid, really, where it counted. How he must have been bewitched by a girl like Padmé, a girl whose future was set in stone, on the cusp of adulthood, grown up in a different sort of way. Anakin would have deeply envied that, Luke thought, but wouldn’t be able to resist the way girlhood sprung from her like clear, cool water through an icy dam, that first thaw of spring.
“We were together for years, in secret. We never told anyone.” How he must have hated that. His father, who was openly affectionate and loving in front of complete strangers, no matter how much it embarrassed his husband and son. His father, who kissed his family noisily underneath every strand of mistletoe at Christmastime, who never got tired of holding him, who hated to be alone. Luke couldn’t comprehend only being with the person you love behind closed doors. Anakin loved so loudly, the whole world seemed to hear it. “When she left, I never imagined… It never even crossed my mind that she could have been…”
“I’m not mad at you, either,” Luke whispered. “You know that, right?”
Grief crumpled his father’s face, clear, even through the darkness. “You were orphaned and abused, because I didn’t know.” That low voice, like the rumble of an earthquake. His father’s rage was always a mighty thing, frightening the way thunder is frightening. Even when you knew it wasn’t aimed at you, it was wise to be careful, an instinct. “Because I wasn’t there.”
“You’re here now,” Luke urged, taking his father’s hand. He folded their fingers together, that large hand, so big it made his own seem like a child’s. Hands that could hold the world together, that could move mountains. Luke was seventeen today, and still, almost four years later, nothing on earth made him feel safer than they did. “You and Papa. That’s all that matters, Dad.”
He reached up, his father’s face a silhouette in the dark. He couldn’t see the tears, but he knew they were there. Being an emotional crier must be genetic. At least he knew where he got it from, now.
“You took me in when we were little more than strangers. You loved me. You saved me, Dad,” and the tears came, right on cue, like actors peeking behind the curtain for their role in a play. “You would’ve taken care of us. I know that. But you might not have met Papa. And Leia and I wouldn’t have had Owen and Beru, or Uncle Bail and Auntie Breha. I,” a sob escaped, just one, but his dad squeezed his hand hard, a good kind of hurt, and he found the strength to keep going. “I wish you had known, too. But I don’t regret my life. Not even the bad stuff. I might have never found you.”
And that would have been the worst thing. Worse than the violence, the dogs, the hunger. Worse than a stranger in a parking lot shoving him to his knees for 50¢. Never meeting Anakin and Obi-Wan — never finding his father, whom he loved more than he could physically stand — would have been the true hell.
He'd survived the rest of it. But he wouldn’t have survived that.
His dad pulled him in, easily, like a child with a doll. Luke loved even the way he hugged too hard. Papa would scold him, tell him to ease up, but it never worked. It only made him squeeze you harder, a challenge, hugging tighter and tighter until you breathlessly groaned. The kind of embrace that meant he didn’t want to let you go. That he’d hold on to you forever if you let him.
Luke closed his eyes, resting his forehead against his father’s throat. He was too old to be held like this, probably. He couldn’t imagine very many of his classmates let their dads soothe them to sleep this way, but then, most of them had probably known their dads for longer than three years.
They had only found out the truth a handful of hours ago. Surely it was okay, for one night, to fall asleep in his father’s arms the way he would have when he was young, if only the world had been a little different.
Luke sprawled on the couch in his father’s office reading a Superman comic he’d borrowed from Ezra. His dad was at his desk, predictably, alternating working at something on his computer and barking at his secretary to bring him things, documents and phone numbers and reports, like a chef in a busy restaurant, overwhelmed with orders.
“You should say please, Dad,” Luke called between the turns of a page, even though he’d promised to be quiet if his dad let him play hooky today. “Papa would put you in a time-out for that.”
“Papa doesn’t have to deal with this level of incompetence,” his dad griped, reviewing the stack of forms in his hand with a critical eye. He could be such a perfectionist. Luke really didn’t envy his employees at all. “And ‘please do your job or lose it’ just doesn’t have the same impact.”
Luke rolled his eyes. Leia was right; sometimes their dad was a tyrant.
“He’s right, though. This job isn’t good for you. I mean, do you even like being here?”
His father didn’t so much as glance up from the papers he was holding. “I’ll like it much better when you graduate and join me.”
A chasm opened in the pit of Luke’s stomach, that sinking feeling, like the ground beneath your feet was about to give way. “Dad…” he said, hesitant, the comic book abandoned in his lap, his shoulders hunched. “You know, I… I’ve decided I want to go into teaching.”
“Teaching?” his father parroted, like Luke just said he wanted to be a rodeo clown. He finally put the documents down, his eyebrows pinched, his frown aging him. “Where did that come from?”
“I’ve been thinking about it for a while,” he said. “I still like the idea of being a pilot or the next Indiana Jones, but… I want to help kids. I want to look out for them the way someone should have looked out for me. Papa says I shouldn’t choose a career for the money, but for my own fulfillment. I think that would fulfill me.”
“Your papa is a horrible influence,” his dad said, but Luke could tell he didn’t hate the idea half as much as he was pretending. He smiled. “What happened to your dream of us becoming firefighting helicopter pilots?”
Luke crossed his arms. “Are you going to leave Empire?”
His father sighed, lifting a hand to rub his temples. “You have me there.” Grey hair was beginning to grow in above his ears — a development he blamed Luke for, to no one’s amusement but his own. “At least you don’t tell me, ‘not a chance in hell,’ like my daughter does.”
At that, Luke laughed. Dad and Leia were talking more and more, these last few months. Their father called her at least once a week, on Sunday mornings, and after every volleyball game to ask how it went, did she kick the other team’s ass. Leia was warming up to him, reluctantly, little by little. She could admit he was more dorky than maniacal lately, which was leaps and bounds above how she used to describe him.
“Leia’s got her heart set on politics, Dad. Don’t take it personally.”
“How could I?” his father mused. “Empire could offer her more than our corrupt government ever will, but she’s following in her mother’s footsteps. I’m proud of her.”
Luke knew better, but he didn’t say so. Leia wanted to be a politician before she even knew about their mom, and it was because of Uncle Bail and Auntie Breha. She’d seen first-hand the good they could do, how much they helped people, how badly the world needed more people like them. They inspired her to do something meaningful with her life, the way Papa had inspired Luke. But he didn’t want to take his dad’s assumptions away. It was a comfort, he knew, believing that Mom lived on in her children.
He'd grieved her quietly for almost two decades. Alone, because Papa never met her, she was already gone by the time he and Dad met. He loved Obi-Wan, and he loved Luke and Leia, but losing people changes you. You’re never quite the same, reshaped by grief, hammering down on you like hot iron on an anvil. Luke knew that well, and so did his dad.
“Mom would be proud of her, too,” he said, certain. He’d never known her, wouldn’t even recognize her voice, but he knew Leia. It was impossible to know her without loving her, and it was impossible to love her without being proud of her. She was like gravity, touching everyone around her, pulling them in. She was going to take the world by storm. “Leia’s going to help people. She’s going to make a difference.”
“So are you,” his father said, restoring him. He approved. Maybe he was disappointed, more than he’d let on, but he was still giving Luke his blessing. “And your mother would be proud of you too, son. More than you’ll ever know.”
A few years ago, earnest praise like that might have rattled him, left him unable to respond. But he’d grown used to his father’s impromptu heart-to-hearts, his outpourings of love, his sudden declarations. The sentiment delighted him, but it didn’t hold a candlestick to the word son, which even now, four years later, relieved a lifelong ache in him like a balm, and had since the very first time; since long before he’d ever known it was true.
“Luke. Time to wake up, kiddo.”
Groaning, Luke rolled away from the offending sound, burying his face in his pillow. He heard a huff of a laugh — it was never a good sign, when his dad was amused — and then the ear-piercing shriek of a whistle, which made him bolt upright with a shout.
His father smiled down at him, utterly unrepentant. “Up and at ‘em, soldier.” He tossed a pair of Luke’s running shorts at his head, already dressed for their morning run. For the life of him, Luke couldn’t fathom when this man actually slept. “You sleep in any later, you won’t have time to shower before school. And your papa will ground us both if I let that happen again.”
Luke wasn’t exactly in a rush to repeat that lecture, himself. Sighing, he pathetically shuffled out of bed, regretfully leaving its warmth and comfort behind. His dad ruffled his hair and then left the room, giving him privacy to get dressed, and Luke took advantage of the moment alone to pull himself together, still more asleep than awake.
But he knew he couldn’t keep him waiting long. Dad could and would use that damned training whistle on him again if he thought Luke was dragging his feet. Above all else, he loved to be as irritating as possible. It was his goal in life, Papa said.
Reluctantly, he stood from the bed and began to strip out of his pajamas, before his gaze caught on something in the corner of the room. There was a standing mirror there, taller than he would ever be, in the same place it had been the day Reva dropped him off. Medals from his track meet victories hung from the corners like bundles of golden flowers, and below them, the glass was partially obscured by a collection of photographs, wedged along the perimeter, corners stuck beneath the frame. He and his parents in Disneyland, Leia and Han, Ezra with his dog. His dad and papa, laughing at something at the little table in the backyard, Papa’s face beaming. Between the photos, his reflection stared back at him in the dim morning light, familiar in most ways; in some, not at all.
He stepped closer, gaze roaming over his own body. Only the scar on his bicep was visible without looking for it, the only remaining clue that he had ever been anywhere but here, with the men who had become his fathers. His ribs no longer pressed against the inside of his skin like there was absolutely nothing at all to separate the two, his stomach flat instead of concave. He didn’t look the way he did Before, but he never would’ve, even if every foster home between there and here had been a paradise. He still would have changed, and grown, and left his childhood behind. If trauma hadn’t reshaped him, time still would have.
There was a knock on the door, and then his dad’s voice, stern, but still more amused than not: “You’d better be getting dressed, young man. Don’t make me come in there with a bucket of water.”
Smiling, Luke threw a shirt on and opened the door, arms wrapping around his dad’s waist on the other side. “I love you,” he said, overcome with it, pressing his face to the man’s chest, ear over his beating heart. “Even if you wake me up way too early. Still love you.”
His dad embraced him, immediately, fingers threading gently through his hair. “If you’re trying to get out of running, it’s not working.” He bent down, kissed the top of Luke’s head. He wished he had the words to tell his father how little he was afraid. Life could be cruel, and one day, grief would find him again, like visiting an old friend. But he would always have this, even when the moment ended. He didn’t need to freeze time.
No matter what happened or where he ended up, his heart would always lead him back home, to his father, like a compass needle pointing north.