What Could Have Been Part 2: Anakin's Trials

On Edge

Padme

"Please launch another thermal scan of the area, Artoo," Padme commanded. The morning sky was smeared with reddish purples that mixed with an intensity that made her shiver. R2 whistled with exasperation and C-3PO nodded sympathetically toward him. "I know it's the fourteenth one this morning but we must do what Madame Padme asks of us!" he suggested wearily. The little droid swiveled his domed head back and forth but eventually heeded the protocal droid's words. Padme watch R2's tiny satellite extend from his dome and the tool blinked a few times before retracting. Padme sighed in relief; no clan of Stryds were coming for her and her son. As far as she knew of course.

"Once again," C-3PO announced, "Thermal scan is negative. The only lifeforms within a one hundred kilometer radius are you and Master Luke." Padme turned toward her son who was slashing the branches of a fat tree with his lightsaber until they were nothing but splinters of wood. She heard his faint grunts as he swung viciously around. Padme smiled sadly. She had never seen Luke get so upset. Nor had she ever seen her husband simply walk away from a problem the way he had. Which would leave her to fight if such a thing was necessary. Maybe that was the source of her unease.

"Luke," she called softly. Luke barely twisted his head long enough to acknowledge his mother before the branch he had been hacking at snapped and crashed onto his head. "Luke!" she yelled in horror. Luke tumbled to the ground with the weight of the branch using gravity against him. Padme hurried over and pulled the timber off her son. "Oh my poor baby! Are you okay Luke?" she asked tenderly. Luke groaned as he pulled himself up. "I'm fine, alright?" he snapped. Padme looked at her son for a second with crossed features but she refrained from chastising the tone he had used. "Just checking," she added motherly.

Luke brushed chips of wood off of his tan tunic, "Thanks Mom," he said quietly. Padme saw a vertical scratch over his right eye begin to release blood. The wound was insignificant and Padme chuckled as she looked over her son's face. "Now you look just like your father." Luke rubbed the blood from his face carelessly, "I don't want to look like my father!" he stated in disgust. "I don't want to be anything like him."

Padme's smiled faded as she watched Luke turn away shamefully. She could tell that he blamed Anakin as well as herself for their betrayal of the Jedi Order. "Luke, we shouldn't have hidden this all from you. That wasn't fair," Luke gave no response as he kept his arms clamped across his chest. "But we care about you. Your father cares about you. He thought that the best way to keep you from making the same decisions as him, was to keep you from knowing about them. I know he's sorry."

Her son's blond hair covered his tense blue eyes. "He didn't think we were strong enough to know the truth about it all. He didn't believe in us," he grumbled. Padme let her old senator tone fill the hollow tone in her voice. She stood up straight, "Luke, look around you! Would your father have brought you to the other end of the galaxy if he didn't believe in you? Honey, you have a greater power than I can understand and you are going to do great things. Just give your father some time to trust himself."

Luke picked up his lightsaber that had fallen and leveled it in his hand. He seemed to search for the meaning of Padme's words as if they were somewhere deep in the circuits of his sword. A moment went by and he finally looked up at his mother. "Do I really look like Dad?" he asked sincerely. Padme smiled and ruffled his hair, "You sure do."

Luke clipped his lightsaber hilt to his belt and began pacing. "Mom," he began, "Do you ever wish you could be a Jedi?" he asked curiously. Padme pondered the question and opened her mouth to speak when a whistle from R2 interupted. "Oh my," C-3PO shivered as he wobbled over. "Thermal readings are skyrocketing! We're surrounded!" he cried desperately. Padme froze as her eyes danced back and forth. Luke used the Force to retake his lightsaber, not daring to take his eyes off of the dense forests around him. Each shadow of a tree posed a threat to them.

Luke

The air hung with caution as Luke's nerves went into overdrive. There was something close. Many somethings. Igniting the green blade of his weapon, Luke clenched his teeth. Don't loose focus. The Force is with you. Be like Dad. Dad isn't afraid...