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False information spreads in the Republic’s – no, the Empire’s – locked-down state. Palpatine does nothing to stop it and rumors breed in the fearful environment.
The dead spring to life from the holo (or the not so dead). There is some measure of grim relief in learning not everyone has fallen.
“I’m glad to see you’re alive, General,” Bail says dryly.
Kenobi’s face says otherwise.
“Senator Organa, is there anyone else in the room with you?”
Bail looks around his office, as if he expects to see someone lurking, knowing full well there is no one else. Paranoia was once the habit of only a handful of senators. Bail supposes he’ll get used to it.
“No. General Kenobi, how were you able to reach me on this line?” He asks testily because now he is paranoid, but as the Jedi steps out of view and another (supposed dead) figure steps in, answering Bail’s question, allaying his fears of a trap.
“Padmé!”
Her face is tightly drawn. Despite this, his former pupil truly is a sight for sore eyes. The news that her transport was attacked by Separatists and all aboard were killed had mixed in with so many other rapidly transpiring events few found the time to mourn publicly. Bail grieved her loss privately, but found even he could not dwell for long. (Too much death, these days.)
By some miracle, she escaped Separatist attack and found Kenobi, who by some miracle survived Palpatine’s new mechanical monster.
He wants to ask her a thousand things: what really happened, where are you now, when are you getting back – Naboo is floundering.
She is as stony-faced as he has ever seen her; he asks her nothing. Her tone completely even. (So little of her old zeal, she could pass for a Jedi.)
“I’m coming to you because I trust you above all others. I need to ask you and Breha to guard someone from the Empire. It’s a dangerous request, I realize, more than you realize.”
Feeling slightly hurt. “You know you don’t need to ask to stay on Alderaan, you’re welcome any time.”
But curiosity gets the better of him, and he feels obliged to renew his position as her lecturing old mentor. “But what have you done to alienate Palpatine so much that you cannot stand for Naboo any longer? They need you back.”
“I’m not going back and I’m not asking for protection for myself.”
It is not the connection on the holo that wavers.
----------
Breha sighs, “We can’t say no, can we?”
“Do we want to?” Bail asks, equally tired.
Breha leans back in her seat, massaging her temples. “No… it’s just a lot to take in at one time… and we would be putting Alderaan dangerously at stake.”
“Alderaan is already at stake,” he says dully, but it is true. Adopting one of Padmé’s children puts their people at even worse risk of two men’s wrath; wrath they both suspect they have not seen the worst of yet. (Systems already begin to fold.)
Bail’s head still spins from Padmé’s call. Secretly married to General Skywalker; Skywalker – not really dead – who betrayed them all; Palpatine, more power-mad than they ever suspected.
(The galaxy crumbling beneath them and Padmé’s head still held high – Bail has never been more proud of her.)
Breha argues with him about his intention to return to the reinstated Imperial Senate. Someone has to dismantle the Empire from within, and his conscience will never be at ease if he doesn’t go. Discreetly, Colton opens channels of dialogue with other systems; the beginnings of a tiny coalition.
Breha argues he is no good to Alderaan (to her) dead, but knows a lost fight when she sees one.
Palpatine will come for them, whether or not they call one of Padmé Amidala and Anakin Skywalker’s children their own. Bail expects it, Breha resigns herself to it.
Still, it is not what weighs heavily in both their minds. The unspoken grief pervades every word, every minute gesture.
Breha inhales shakily; Bail waits.
“We can’t keep her waiting any longer.”
They will risk everything for a child. It is what they would have done anyway.
He rises. Just as he is about to step through the door, Breha speaks, almost to herself, “The girl.”
There could be no other answer. They already have a son. He is safe from the Empire in the Antilles family crypts.
----------
The call with Ben Kenobi is uncomfortable.
Kenobi is terse; Owen is silent throughout, listening to and processing everything the Jedi says. Beru’s heart goes out to the woman who must unwillingly give up her children; to the children who will suffer because of what the boy she used to know became.
He sat at this very table, his mother cleaning a bloodied nose. Owen was embarrassed. Beru tried to mollify him; “Some boys fight – look at my brother. It doesn’t make them bad.”
(If Owen says yes, she will sit at this table, cleaning up a different boy up.)
“What about the girl?”
“She will be taken in by friends of the mother.”
Kenobi sounds annoyed. Beru supposes she’s asked too much; everything must be on a need-to-know basis, but she worries. Worries for the boy, she hopes will be as good as their son, and his sister.
She’s getting ahead of herself. Although her wishes can be read plainly across her face, her husband is closed off. Beru prides herself as the only one who can read Owen’s silence, but today she is uncertain.
She looks back and forth between Owen and the holo projection. Kenobi clears his throat.
“I can give you an hour, no more.”
“Thank you. My husband and I will get back to –”
“We’ll take him.”
It is the first time Owen speaks since Kenobi called.
Though he is firm, Beru swears she hears the same longing she feels in Owen’s voice.
----------
Breha’s fears, that they will be slow to love this baby, vanish instantly.
She hides her elation as best she can. Padmé puts up a brave front, but Breha knows her feeling of irrevocable loss too well.
The quiet hum of the ship lulls Leia, who began fussing shortly after being taken away. For now, Breha is glad of it – she could not bear if their little girl cried all the way home.
Though the baby is asleep, Breha rocks her gently. She has forgotten what it felt like to hold one’s own child in her arms.
Bail sits close, equally captivated by Leia. He runs his fingers through her hair – Breha’s never seen a newborn with as much as their daughter.
General Kenobi warns them to keep an eye out for overt signs of Force-sensitivity. It is what will give them away; what the Emperor would fear most.
To hell with the Emperor. He will not have their daughter.
----------
Beru spends more of the day waiting than working. She tries to keep busy; distracting her worries with her hands, but to no avail. Projecting crop yields will be for another time.
Owen returns from Anchorhead. No word from Kenobi, but more clone troopers have been “disposed” of. Any other day, he would grumble about inability of others to hold to a schedule.
He joins her in her vigil.
It is nearly dark when the Jedi arrives with Luke. He offers little in the way of explanation for his delay: doubling-back and ducking into corners.
Beru is not listening. Her full attention is on Luke, who in turn, seems to be attempting to see all that he can from the limited view of his blankets.
Owen must have said something to Kenobi, because when she looks up, it is just the three of them. Owen moves around the dining room, busying himself with nothing, avoiding looking at her or Luke.
“Would you like to hold him?”
Something, anything, to acknowledge their nephew.
Owen stops short in his aimless walking, drops into the nearest chair, and buries his head in his hands.
“What if I can’t do it? What if I look at him and all I can see are Anakin’s mistakes? What if –”
Beru moves quickly to kneel by Owen, still holding the baby. She’s never seen him this lost, this fallen apart before. She feels tears come hot and furiously down her face, but has no free hands to wipe them away.
“You just need to love Luke.”
Owen looks up; his tears match her own. She offers up Luke again.
“Hold him, Owen.”
Hesitantly, he reaches out, taking Luke into his arms.
There is too much unhappy history to expect Owen to ever forgive his stepbrother; Beru doesn’t want him to forgive him either. She hears what he does for the Empire these days; it sends shivers down her spine. But she’ll be damned if Owen loves Luke any less for it.
She rises, kissing Owen lightly on the temple and wraps her arms around his shoulders; both absorbed in the little boy who does not comprehend why his uncle and aunt are at once heartbroken and strangely content.
Owen breaks their silence first, “You don’t think it’s too cold outside for him yet, do you?”
The suns dip below the horizon; the stars appear slowly and in minutes, all at once. It is the first time Beru has ever seen her husband look at the sky with any sort of wistfulness.
The sky does seem somehow different.