Breathing Ashes

Chapter 10 - Teaching

"It wasn't me!" Vader can hear Leia insisting loudly, as he steps inside the house. He stayed over at the ship for the night, because there really isn't room here, and he knows Padme's not comfortable with it.

"Was too!" Luke accuses, as angrily as a five-year-old can. "It had to be! I wasn't there!"

"Yes, you were –"

"Enough, both of you," he hears Padme say sharply. (Much too sharply to be talking to the twins. They're their children.) "I expect an honest answer from both of you about what happened here, and why you're trying to hide it. We don't have the resources to be breaking things like this, or at all."

They only point at each other, yelling a mutual "S/he did it!"

Vader stops in the doorway, taking in the very strange scene in front of him. The rug in the center of the room is pulled back, with a smashed... vase of some sort very sloppily shoved under, as if in a failed attempt to hide the evidence.

And somehow, he can only guess immediately what happened here. But there's just something about the way she's looking at the twins, who are both now glaring at each other, that... especially being on Tatooine now, it's making him think of when he lived here. Of when he'd even slightly damage something, and Watto would totally lose it, yelling or hitting depending on his mood.

Of course, he learned to lie about it. Why do the twins feel the need to do the same?

But he thinks he already has the answer, and he doesn't understand. His mother never yelled at him ever. (Only Masters do that.)

"You were fooling around inside again, weren't you?" she demands.

"You said we couldn't go outside!" Leia protests.

"I also specifically told you –" she begins.

"Padme," Vader interrupts. He feels glaringly out of place here, for as much as he hates it because he wasn't here raising them from the start like he should have been, but he's not going to just... say nothing.

She looks up sharply – obviously unaware he was standing right there. "What?"

"May I... speak with them?"

"When we're finished here," she replies, tersely.

"I can handle it," he offers.

She blinks, as though not expecting the offer at all. Likely, she's also still adjusting to the fact that she's not raising them alone anymore. "Fine," she concedes at last, her voice gentling significantly when she looks back at them. "At least you're both alright." Then, she leaves the room.

The twins look suspiciously close to crying, and something clenches in him painfully, angrily. He knows she's stressed from what he can feel in the Force, but that's... that doesn't give anyone the right to hurt his children. He never thought about how she'd raise them. He never had a reason to think she wouldn't be a perfect mother. He has no idea what he's doing himself, so he can only do what his mother would have done. Or he can try to.

He approaches, kneeling in front of them. "Are you... alright?"

They blink in surprise and confusion, nodding.

"It wasn't me," Luke says, sullenly. Why are they willing to hurt each other to stay out of trouble? He doesn't know what it's like to have a sibling, but he knows him and Kitster would have done anything to keep the other from being hurt, even taking the blame for the other.

"I am not upset," he promises, laying a hand on each of their shoulders, "You were... playing and broke that by mistake, and you do not want your mother to be... upset?" he clarifies.