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Published:
2019-11-05
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2019-11-20
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3,786
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2/2
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Don't Look, Don't See

Summary:

"... that would lead back... home!"
Luke Skywalker has to deal with the aftermath of the attack on his home.

Notes:

I am slowly emerging from a really bad case of writer's block, so I am a little rusty. Forgive me.

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

 

Don’t look, Don’t See

 

He didn’t remember moving, he didn’t remember the moment when he stepped one foot in front of the other, didn’t remember running into the burning homestead, jumping the steps passed the scorched bones of his guardians…

Don’t look, don’t see…

…to scramble down and into the atrium.

He didn’t remember panting in smoke or hacking it out with spasming coughs. There was no awareness of stepping on broken, charred, furniture and smashed dishes, or easing up the stairway while avoiding flickering flames to the door that lead into his guardian’s bedroom. He only knew that he now stood in the courtyard of his home carrying the blankets from his uncle and aunt’s bed and staring at the steps that would take him back up, and out, into the sunslight of the Tatooine afternoon and to the horror there that lay waiting.

Something cracked with heat from the garage entry way behind him and, on some level, Luke Skywalker wondered if the spare fuel cells for the speeders would explode and, on that same level, he found that he didn’t care.

He sniffed, wiped a hand under his nose cleaning soot and snot from his face.

Am I crying?

He supposed he must be. His throat ached, his eyes streamed, and his nose was running.

Or is it just the smoke?

He didn’t want to do this.

There was no-one else.

He dragged in a breath of hot air; hot from the suns, hot from the fire that raged in the garage at his back, but he didn’t feel it. He moved his foot, a faltering step, then moved his other. His boot crunched on something, but he didn’t look down, he just continued taking slow steps carrying his bundle of blankets.

Shrouds. They’re shrouds now. Aunt Beru’s favourite blanket. The one he was sick on when he was six.

He stopped within the dome, staring ahead, not looking…

…don’t look, don’t see…

… at the burned bones of the foot that jutted over the steps, the bones that he had avoided on his way down.

He vomited on the corner of the step, bring up only fluid and bile. He gagged and retched, cried and moaned.

Don’t be sick on the blanket, not again, aunt Beru will…

…will…

…won’t.

He gasped, coughed, and looked up at the blue of the sky through the opening of the dome and the blur of his tears.

Please…

Please…

Heaving in another breath, forcing himself not to think about what he was doing, but thinking about it anyway, Luke stepped out into the sunslight and looked down. He could see the boot marks in the sand, many of them, and knew they had not been made by either Owen or Beru Lars.

Stormtroopers.

“Wait, Luke! It’s too dangerous!”

Kenobi. Ben. No, he was Obi-Wan. He’d be waiting for him, with the droids.

“It’s too dangerous!”

No, it wasn’t. It was quiet, it was done. There was no danger here, not now.

They could come back…

…let them.

Luke closed his eyes, fighting against his gorge, fighting against the stench that he refused to allow himself to smell and forced himself to look…

… but don’t see…

…at the bodies of his guardians.

He stepped around the one sprawled by the door, the one that looked as though they had tried to get up, that looked as though she…

…she? Why did he think it was “she?”…

… had tried to crawl away from the flames that were consuming her.

Don’t, don’t, just don’t.

Be quick, hurry, don’t think.

He dropped the blankets onto the sand, lifted and tossed away a discarded piece of metal piping...

…his uncle had tried to defend them, had held the pipe in his hands, uselessly threatened the soldiers to leave his property…

…how did he know that? Why did he think that?...

…and spread out his aunt’s favourite blanket close to the crawling body. He was vaguely aware that he was retching again, coughing and gagging against the reek of burned meat. He reached out a hand and…

…saw the back of his hand, flecked with sand and soot, his fingernails embedded with dirt. He’d have to wash them, would have to clean them.

After, only after.

The scene blurred and he angrily wiped at his eyes, wiped away the hot tears that streamed; he needed to look and see…

… don’t see…

…what he was doing. He had to do this, had to do this right. For them.

His fingers touched the roughened slivers of cooked flesh that still clung to the bones and, fearing that the bones would fall apart, that the flesh would come away in his hands, he gripped hard and, not turning her over…

…can’t see her face, not her face…

…Luke gently dragged his aunt’s remains onto the blanket.

Her foot! Get her foot!

He scrambled quickly before the loose limb could tumble into the hollow of the staircase, grabbed it and placed it on the blanket which he quickly folded over the corpse.

He vomited again, unaware of the sounds he was making, the cries and gasps that tore from him.

Quick! Be quick!

Get it over with.

He grabbed the second blanket and turned to his uncle who lay atop more junk – the junk Luke had promised the man he would clear away and then hadn’t - and found himself staring into the eye sockets of the skull, saw the grin of the exposed teeth.

He looks happy for once.

Stop! Stop it!

He threw the cover over the carcass, covering the upside-down smile, cutting it from his view…

…don’t look, don’t see…

… and crouched to tuck the edges in under the bones, making sure every piece of his uncle was in the blanket.

He remained there a moment, head bowed, hands on the fabric, feeling the hard bones beneath, fighting the sobs that threatened to fell him.

Not now. Cry later.

Hurry, Luke. Hurry!

“Wait, Luke! It’s too dangerous!”

Not yet. Can’t leave. I have to…

Luke stood, again wiping a sleeve across his face, and bent to lift and move his uncle from the detritus upon which he lay. With the heat of the suns beating upon his back he dragged the body away from the farmstead dome to the small family grave site a few yards away and there he laid Owen Lars next to the grave of his father, Cliegg. He ran back, grabbed the edges of his aunt’s blanket and brought her across the sand to the side of his uncle, all the while inwardly begging for her foot to remain in the folds of the blanket.

Leave them now, leave them.

Hurry!

 No!

He would see this through. He would do this. For them.

He ran back to the homestead as a distant winged creature cried a long lament from the cloudless sky.

There were no birds here, no bonegnawers.  In the Jundland Wastes, but not here.

The shovels and tools were in the garage where the fire still raged, from where thick, black, smoke still billowed into the clear Tatooine sky, but his uncle had been lying on something, a vent, that he could use. Luke grabbed the scrap of metal and ran back to the gravesite and began to dig.

 Hurry, hurry, hurry….

Get it over with…

“Wait, Luke! It’s too dangerous!”

He quickly dug, throwing sand aside, it stuck to the sweat on his hands, to his tears and perspiration on his face, the mucus trailing from his nose as he wept and cried with hitching, panting, breaths. He threw up in the grave, dug it out and worked on as the walls collapsed inward, sand running back into the terribly shallow grave.

He screamed his frustration.

Hurry, hurry!

A hot wind rose to blow his hair, to blow the dry sand in grainy plumes around him. It got in his eyes, scraping and stinging and still he dug. He ignored the wind, ignored the zephyrs it raised around him. He ignored it as it died down, focused only on digging.

Quick, quick, quick…

…no time…

… no time!

There was the thudding of many bootsteps and a clamour of shadows fell across him.

That stopped him.

“Please,” he said, voice whispering through a dry throat, not looking…

…don’t look, don’t see…

… around at the silent gathering of stormtroopers at his back. “Please, let me finish.”

He had known the cry was not a bird. Had known the wind was the backdraft of a landing ship.

There was another shadow. One larger and taller and a sound like a malfunctioning vaporator as it wheezed in air against its condensers. It suddenly grew cold and Luke shivered, chilled in the afternoon suns.

A large, black gloved, hand grasped him by the upper arm, firm fingers curling around the trembling muscle. It drew him up and out of ditch he had dug.

“No!” he cried, trying to pull back, feet scrabbling in the sand, “No, I have to finish, I have to…”

He was turned around, strong hands now on his shoulders holding him in place…

… don’t look, don’t see…

… he kept his head down, stinging eyes dripping tears into the sand at his feet.

“My men will finish your task, young one, the Lars’ deserve that much.”

The voice was deep, its bass tones reverberating through Luke’s aching body. He was trembling now; with fatigue, adrenalin, and grief. Still not looking, but hearing the soldiers continuing his work, feeling relief that the task was no longer his alone, he said, dully, “you did this.”

“Men of my company,” the man told him, “Yes.”

“They didn’t have too,” it was a murmur.

“No, they did not, but Owen did not make it easy for them,” the voice held a hint of sad humour.

Luke hitched in a breath, feeling his heart thrumming a frightened rhythm. “You’re here for the droids?”

There was a brief pause, a beat of time, then, “No, Luke. I am here for you.”

At the sound of his name, Luke raised his head, lifted his eyes and stared up into the black, angular, mask of the giant who held him. “Who are you?”

You know. You looked. You saw.

“Wait, Luke! It’s too dangerous.”

This time there was no hesitation. There was only the darkest of declarations.

 “I am your father.”

ooOOoo

Chapter 2: Look, See

Summary:

I was asked how Vader knew... it was all very simple really.

Chapter Text

Look, See

 

“…. get away with this, Vader!”

The cell door slammed shut, cutting off the Princess Leia’s protestations and threats of the sanctions the senate would impose against him for ignoring her diplomatic status. He silently scoffed behind his mask, and smirked; the movement tugging on the tight scar tissue he had lived with since his defeat on Mustafar. The Princess should be caring less about her diplomatic status and more about her life. Tarkin had already indicated he wanted her dead, wanted her meddling father dead…

“… the lot of them, Vader. I would gladly wipe the whole Organa family from the face of Alderaan.”

Too often had the Organa’s stuck their noses where they didn’t belong, turning up in the middle of military actions for “…humanitarian purposes.”

Vader had long suspected their links to the growing rebellion, this so-called Alliance that had begun to develop as smaller groups of insurgents forged links. Their show of strength and outrageous success at Scarif could not be allowed to be widely known; the Death Star’s schematics had to be recovered at any cost and before the Emperor’s speech to disband the Senate. Nothing could interfere with his master’s move for total control and if those plans were to make it to Coruscant and into the hands of a pacifist like Organa it could delay, or hinder, the dissolution of the Senate.

Then things could become bloody. A long drawn out battle for….

“Lord Vader!”

The Dark Lord turned from the bland grey durasteel cell door; he had lingered here too long…

Look, see…

… and began walking along the corridor away from the Princess’s cell. The officer fell into quick steps beside him.

“Report,” Vader told the rather young Lieutenant who was nervously clutching a datapad.

There was no hesitation. Hesitation could be lethal. “We have an update from Tatooine, My Lord. The escape pod was located, but the Death Star plans were not inside. However, a piece of droid plating was found and tracks leading away from the scene indicated that two droids could be in possession of the schematics.”

They had reached the bank of elevators.

“Then find those droids!” Vader told him.

“Yes, My Lord!” The man said quickly as they stepped into the turbolift, “They have traced to them to a farmstead,” he quickly checked his datapad, “near the township of Anchorhead.”

Anchorhead…

Look, see…

“A rebel outpost?” Vader questioned, more out of idle curiosity than concern. It was no matter who these people were as long as those plans were recovered.

Another quick glance at the datapad. “No, my Lord, farmers. When questioned locals in Anchorhead identified them as a family. A couple and their nephew, called ‘Lars’ and the boy is ‘Skywalker’.”

Vader stilled. Despite the officer still talking, he could hear nothing.

Skywalker…

Look… see…

Lars…

Skywalker…

Nephew…

Look... see…

Skywalker…

She died… she died… the child, too.

Look.

See!

It was impossible!

“What did you say?” His question was a whisper, his vocoder enunciating it as a hiss.

The officer stopped talking as the lift came to a stop and the door slid open. Vader didn’t move. Neither did he.

“Uh,” he hesitated, not knowing what part of his report the dark Lord was referring to.

Vader grabbed him by the throat, lifted him up and shoved him against the wall. “The boy!” Vader snarled. “The Lars’ nephew. What is his name? His age?”

“Sky…walker…” the officer grunted out. “Lu..ke… Luke, Skywalk…er. He’s…nineteen.”

Vader abruptly released him, and he dropped to the floor in a heap of hurt and relief.

Could it be?

A Skywalker at the Lars farm. Like mother.

Look, see…

It was more than a coincidence.

Nineteen…

It was more….

…a child.

Look, See…

My child…

Skywalker!

My son?

My son!

“Tell them not to move in until I arrive!” Vader told him, immediately turning away, the hem of his cape catching the lieutenant in the face, “no-one is to be harmed.” He strode away, as the officer struggled to his feet, using the wall for support, even more alarmed and terrified but needing to pass on his last part of information.

“My Lord!” he called, to Vader’s back. “It’s too late! Their last statement before sending the report was that the Lars had resisted, the farmer attacked the troopers, they were executed. The droids were missing with the boy. He’s been declared a rebel suspect!”

The young officer watched the Dark Lord’s retreating back as he rounded a far corner and, if he hadn’t known any better, he would have said that once out of sight Darth Vader had begun to run.

 

Tatooine.

How he hated this planet.

He hated what it represented. His youth, his enslavement, and the horrors that had shaped his childhood and that haunted him even now. Watching friends die; heads blown open at the touch of a button and at the whim of a master.

Laughter, “…worth more as Rancor meat, that one.”

He hated the sand. He hated the crunch of it between his teeth when he ate his meals. He hated how it had crusted in the wounds on his mother’s back as she lay dying in his arms.

He hated. Had always hated. Had nurtured his hate in his heart even as he trained with the Jedi, even as he listened to the repeated advice to…

let go of your hate…

Let go…

Let go of all you fear to lose…

He hadn’t been able to let go; not of his hate, not of his fear of loss.  He had held her close…

Padme…

…refused to listen to his master; to Obi-Wan and Yoda. His dreams were too strong, his fear of losing Padme in childbirth had become all encompassing, tormenting him night and day; her cries of pain against the scream of a new-born.

He had vowed he would not lose her. She would not be taken from him as his mother had. He would not allow it.

If only it had been that simple.

If only…

“It seems in your anger, you killed her.”

A lie.

A betrayal from the man in whom he had put his trust. Palaptine…

No, Sidious…

…had betrayed him. There was no way to save Padme, no dark side power that could cheat death. Not then, and not now. He had been tricked.

He had been a fool.

But, look, see… the power you have! Look, see… how men cower to you. You are a slave no more. You are a master!

A master!

Again a tug of scar tissue around his lips as he smiled thinly beneath his helmet; a master who was about to have an…

Another… remember her…

…apprentice. That was if this Skywalker…

Luke… his name is Luke

…boy was his son and was a Force sensitive, and if he could locate him before the soldiers searching for the droids.

Vader shifted his bulk in the pilot’s chair of the lambda class shuttle and tore his gaze away from the ball of the planet that filled the viewscreen. He manipulated the controls, bringing the craft down and into the atmosphere. He did not lay in coordinates; he didn’t need to. He remembered.

Behind him the squad of stormtroopers stirred and checked weapons knowing they were near their destination.

The desert landscape unfolded beneath them as the craft hurtled through hot air above high mesas, deep canyons, salt flats and dune seas and Vader at last allowed himself to open to the Force, to reach out and feel…

…a familiar presence. An undeniable presence. A practiced surety within the Force.

Obi-Wan!

So, the Jedi had hidden in the one place he knew that Anakin…

…Anakin?

...Skywalker had vowed he would never return to. The coward had hidden here, where some of his most painful memories lay. Obi-Wan had hidden here, bringing Luke with him to suffer the desert as his father had.

A dull, longing, anger descended, one that pushed aside the burning rage that he had nursed these last two decades and, with it, was an envious understanding. Obi-Wan had brought his son here, had placed the boy with the Lars and had watched Luke grow.

Fatherless.

Obi-Wan would not die an easy death.

It took effort to move on, to cast aside his thoughts of betrayal and delve deeper into the Force looking for…

Don’t look. Don’t see…

Please… Please…

Hurry!

There! A harried presence. Disturbed and distraught feelings screaming into the Force with no barrier, and no restraint.

Him!

The boy was strong; his feelings and convoluted emotions diffusing into the Force with an intensity that beggared belief. He was powerful.

Hurry, hurry, hurry….

Get it over with…

“Wait, Luke! It’s too dangerous!”

Vader winced against the battering feelings, throwing up his barriers against the onslaught of raw horror and grief and he knew that Luke had found his guardians as his men had left them. He angled the shuttle, bringing the craft lower passing over the dome of the farm and through the black, suffocating, smoke that billowed from the garage…

“They’re animals, and I slaughtered them like animals.”

Glancing down Vader was dismayed at what he saw; a small figure clothed in white frantically digging at the sand, sending up plumes of grainy particles, but making little headway with the hole he was trying make.

His son was digging his guardians’ grave.

The Dark Lord fought his own hurry, his need to get to Luke, to stop the boy, to draw him away from the horror and the death.

To protect him.

You forget yourself, Lord Vader.

Obi-Wan would pay for this.

Palpatine would pay for this.

Betrayed by both masters.

He landed the shuttle, stood and exited the cockpit, addressing his troopers as he passed between them. “The boy is not to be harmed.”

The ramp lowered and a blast of hot Tatooine air blew into the shuttle as the troopers ran out to cluster behind the boy in a semi-circle.

The boy stopped digging. He stood still. Not looking around, sand crusted hands still holding his makeshift shovel. “Please,” he begged, breathing hard. “Let me finish.”

Vader pushed through the troopers, his shadow eclipsing his son. Reaching down he curled his hand around Luke’s upper arm and firmly drew him from the grave.

“No!” the youth cried, pulling back, feet scrapping in the sand trying to find purchase to stop being removed from the shallow dent he had made in the sand, “No, I have to finish, I have to…”

Vader pushed down his frustration, silenced his anger at being resisted. This was his son, not some malcontent rebel. He turned Luke around, placed his hands on the boy’s shoulders keeping him in place. The fight was short-lived. Luke was exhausted, physically and emotionally drained. He stood, trembling, before his father, head down with tears dripping onto the sand.

“My men will finish your task, young one, the Lars’ deserve that much,” and he meant it; both Owen and Beru had been kind to him, to Padme.

 “You did this,” Luke stated…

“Luke.” How easy that name comes to him now.

… his voice was dull, factual, accusing.

“Men of my company,” Vader answered, “Yes.”

“They didn’t have too,” it was a murmur.

“No, they did not,” Vader conceded, remembering the young lieutenant shouting after him that the Lars had resisted, that Owen had attacked. “but Owen did not make it easy for them,” and Vader could not help but remember the farmer as being serious and protective.

He was protecting your son and died for it.

The boy hitched in a breath, “You’re here for the droids?”

Vader hesitated. His men had been seeking the droids, not him. The droids were secondary to his son. The Death Star, even his master, were not as important as this boy and so again he spoke the truth. “No, Luke. I am here for you.”

For the first time Luke raised his head, lifted his eyes and stared up at him. The young face was dirty, sand caked, blue eyes red rimmed and weeping. “Who are you?”

He knows. He looked. He saw.

This time there was no hesitation. This time there was only a claim to be made and Luke’s destiny to be sealed.

 “I am your father.”

ooOOoo