Work Text:
Luke Skywalker is a few months past his fourteenth birthday when he learns the truth; he may have always known that he’s not Uncle Owen’s nephew, not by blood anyways, but by the marriage of his grandmother to Cliegg Lars, but the truth about his father - who Uncle Owen had always just referred to as a pilot during the Clone Wars, a statement that had always seemed to ring as not-quite-true in Luke’s heart - a man nearly completely unknown to Luke because his uncle rarely ever wants to speak of him, and the Kenobis, the only other link he has to the mysterious Anakin Skywalker, haven’t come by the Lars Homestead since Luke and Mara Jades’ rather explosive falling out when he had been twelve and Mara eleven. He’s fourteen and yearns for adventure beyond the sands of Tatooine and the simple life of a moisture farmer.
His friends have all started to leave the planet, flocking to the station and off to join the Imperial Academy in hopes of becoming an important officer in the army, or just something more than children from a backwater Outer Rim territory, and Luke is left behind. Which is ridiculous in his opinion; in his group of friends, Luke is the best shot, he’s the fastest and the strongest and has the best endurance, and old man Kenobi has taught him how to fight in the years before Luke and Maras’ argument, and yet Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru won’t even hear his pleas to leave the planet and join the army with his friends.
He knows his aunt and uncle don’t support the Empire - Luke doesn’t particularly like them either - but it’s better than living in fear from the Hutts. They’ve supported him in the past, back when he had decided to start hounding old man Kenobi for training, so Luke can’t understand why they won’t let him leave . Luke can see his uncle growing more and more tense with every passing day as more and more of Luke’s agemates leave, but Luke’s birthday has come and gone and he can see the indecision that weighs his aunt and uncle down.
Something important is about to happen, he can feel it in his gut - the same way he could always tell what people were dangerous and who wasn’t, the same way that he knew that crazy Ben Kenobi felt nostalgic when she looked at him or that old man Kenobi was deadly but not a threat - but Luke can’t tell what it is that he’s feeling this time.
Then the last grain breaks the bantha’s back.
Two standard galactic months after his fourteenth birthday, Luke is awoken earlier than he ever has been before when the skies are dark and lit by the moons by Aunt Beru’s hand on his cheek. She looks tired and resigned, but she can still spare him the gentle loving smiles she’s given him all his life, a half-packed duffel bag just visible behind her.
“Aunt Beru?” Luke asks groggily, lifting himself from his bed and very confused. “What’s going on?” Aunt Beru hesitates, and Luke knows that whatever she’s about to say is very painful for her.
“You’re leaving.” She manages to say, and Luke feels a thrum of fright in his gut. “It’s time for you to know the truth, Luke.”
“What?” Luke is out of bed faster than he completely comprehends, gently taking his tearful aunt’s hand in his own, blue eyes wide and pleading. “What truth, Aunt Beru? What’s going on?”
Aunt Beru shakes her head, worrying her lip between her teeth, “It’s... not for me to say, Luke. But… but know that I will always love you.” She pulls her hand from his grasp to lay it against his cheek again, “You may not be my son by birth, dearest, but I still consider you the baby I couldn’t have. I want you to have every happiness in this world that you can. And that’s why I agreed with your uncle that it’s time for you to go.” She leans forward, gently kissing his cheek, and Luke blinks tears from his eyes. “The life of a moisture farmer was never the life for you.”
“You’re… letting me leave?” Luke asks, gaze traveling to the bag that had been packed with a large portion of his limited belongings. Something tells him that it’s not the Academy he’s being sent to.
Aunt Beru draws away with a nod, her expression loving but torn, “Finish packing what you need - I’ll put together your rations - and meet your uncle at the speeder.”
So Luke finishes packing the bag Aunt Beru had filled with his tunics and leggings, carefully wrapping a few of his model starships, the favourites that he can’t bring himself to part with. His family may not be poor, per say, being moisture farmers with a reasonably sized homestead, but they don’t have a lot for frivolous belongings and purchases depending on the season; the few models he has were either gifts, or broken things he had found and repaired. He considers the old blaster Kote Kenobi had given him for his tenth birthday - it can still shoot, despite the damage years and Luke’s clumsiness had done to it - before adding it to the bag.
He’s not sure where he’s going, but even an old blaster could be useful.
Before he knows it, he’s fastening his bag over his shoulder and trudging into the main room of the home he grew up in, where his tearful aunt hands over a pack of rations and a flask of water, and kisses his cheek before sending him off to where Uncle Owen waits for him beside their old red speeder. The desire not to talk is obvious in the way that his gruff uncle holds himself, so Luke tosses his duffel bag into the back of the speeder and gets in, but the silence doesn’t last long as their journey begins, and Luke’s curiosity overpowers his acknowledgement to his uncle’s discomfort.
“Where’re we headed, Uncle Owen?” Luke ventures as canyons and sand come and go, drawing his gaze away from their surroundings to look at his aging uncle. He can see Uncle Owen’s waffling desires, the way he doesn’t seem to be able to collect the words he wants to say as he opens his mouth to answer, then closes it again and hesitates.
“Your aunt and I… we… we never had children of our own.” His uncle says instead, “Not without the lack of trying, of course. We wanted kids - someone to pass the homestead onto, but nothing we tried seemed to work. And then you were brought to us.” His blue eyes met Luke’s own. “And then Kenobi brought you to us.” He corrects, and Luke blinks in shock.
Kenobi?
“Old man Kenobi?” He asks, thinking back on the no-nonsense, but kind, older man who had taken him under his wing and had known his father once upon a time, but didn’t speak much about him. Uncle Owen had never liked him, distrusted him even, and Luke had never been able to piece together why not; he had thought the man was pretty wizard back then, an actual Mandalorian like Jabba’s bounty hunter. He had asked Kote once about his uncle’s distaste for him, but the man had been rather accepting of it, like he was used to it, resigned to it.
"No." Uncle Owen snorts derisively, a bit of disgust in his blue eyes. “No. You have to understand that he's not really a man, Luke. There were thousands of others like him during the Wars. Made for the Wars.”
The Wars?
Oh!
The Wars!
“He’s a Clone.” Luke murmurs quietly, eyes widening - that was so wizard ! An actual Clone Trooper, a relic of the Wars that had ravaged the galaxy before Luke had even been born, on Tatooine, it was so obvious now - his skills, so obviously a soldier - how had he not seen it before?
“He came later.” Uncle Owen continues with a nod, moving his gaze back to the world around them as the sped through the dunes. “No, it was the witch who brought you.”
Luke goggles, “Crazy old Ben?” He asks in shock - the sweet old lady who his uncle had seemed to hate even more than her husband? She had never left much of an impression on Luke as a child, overshadowed by just how wizard her husband was and how fun her daughter had been to play with. He hadn’t known her beyond her role in old man Kenobi and Maras’ life, he had just written her off as Aunt Beru’s strange friend-not friend.
She had been the one to give him to the Lars’?
“She came out of nowhere, landed her ship on my homestead, just gave you to us and wandered off.” Uncle Owen grumbles, “I hadn’t heard anything from my step mother’s son for almost four years and suddenly this woman comes striding off of a starship with her crazy space wizard robes and fancy Core accent, with a baby in her arms, telling me that this was the son of the man I had only met once, years before, and only for a few days. I was about ready to give you back and send the woman off of my land, but then you were placed in Beru’s arms, and I could see that she immediately fell in love with you.” He sighs, and Luke pushes away the faint feeling of hurt that stabs his heart. “So I agreed to take you, but I told Kenobi that she wasn’t to have a part in raising you, not after she and her crazy religion ruined your father and left your grandmother to rot as a slave. Not with that Imperial bounty on her head.”
“...What?” Luke is confused, very confused, so confused , as his uncle dissolves into near-unintelligible grumbles and curses, and his own understanding of his life seems to start crumbling at the base, threatening to collapse at any moment. He both does and doesn’t want his uncle to continue the story.
“I never wanted you to have that kind of life.” Uncle Owen admits, “I wanted you to be happy with life here on Tatooine; the simple life of a moisture farmer. I thought if I raised you the right way, what ruined your father wouldn’t ruin you too - but you have too much of him in you.” His eyes narrow, and Luke figures he’s remembering something painful. “You’re a good kid, Luke. You don’t have the same… anger in you that he had. Shmi always said that her boy was meant to see the stars, and I can see that in you too.” He sighs again, “You wouldn’t be happy trapped here, I could tell the moment you started walking.” His uncle goes quiet for a long moment, leaving Luke to try to collect his thoughts and find his voice.
“You never trapped me here.” He manages to say, able to feel Uncle Owen’s sadness and wanting to comfort him, and his uncle chuckles.
“I was so afraid of what would happen if they found you, that I might as well have.”
“They?” Luke echoes, worried. “Uncle Owen, please - what’s going on.”
“The Empire.” Uncle Owen says quietly, “I didn’t tell you the whole truth about your father. Anakin Skywalker was a pilot, but it wasn’t the only thing he was. He was a Jedi.”
“A Jedi?” Luke says, disoriented by the feeling of rightness that came with the word - he had never heard of Jedi before. “What’s that?”
“I’m not really sure myself. They were warriors, once, and fought in the Clone Wars.” Admits Uncle Owen with a shrug, “But Kenobi was your father’s teacher, she could tell you more… she will tell you more. I do know that the Empire declared all Jedi traitors though, and had them killed for it while doing their damndest to erase them from history.”
“Am I a Jedi too?”
“Maybe. Probably.” Uncle Owen shrugs, “I don’t think that’s how it works - I know that the Jedi were chosen from all the races in the galaxy, that some sort of crazy space magic tied them all together, but they didn’t really come to the Outer Territories often. All I know is that if the Empire knew who you are, you’d be dead... or worse.” He chuckles, nervously amused. “It’s why all your legal flimsiwork illegally lists you as Luke Whitesun. Skywalker was too obvious outside of Tatooine.”
Stunned, Luke stares at the side of his uncle’s head, “So… you’re taking me to Ben Kenobi? To learn about being a Jedi?” He asks, and Uncle Owen nods mutely.
On the horizon, the Kenobi homestead - Luke’s destiny and purpose, he can feel this much in his gut - grows closer.