Room 424 [early afternoon]
Ben had barely had time to drop his bags on the bed when his comlink chirped.
Tahiri, he thought, grabbing for it. “Skywalker here.”
His father’s face flickered into three-dimensional life before him. “Ben.”
“Hi, Dad,” he replied, instantly wary. “What’s going on?”
“Alema Rar is dead,” Luke replied.
For a heartbeat, the two Skywalkers stared at each other before Ben finally broke the silence. “Are you all right?”
“Better,” Luke said, though there wasn’t anything in his eyes that would confirm that. “Mara’s murderer has met justice, and we can put that uncertainty behind us.”
Ben didn’t believe that for a minute, but he was more concerned with what he didn’t see in his father’s face: that spark that made Luke Skywalker so rightfully renowned. He chewed on his lower lip.
“Your feelings betray you, Ben,” Luke said quietly as the silence stretched into something uncomfortable between them.
“Betray me?” Ben replied. There was no way his father could actually feel his emotions at this distance. He hoped. He schooled his face back to neutrality. “Do they stab me in the back, or just give me a swift kick in the butt?”
Luke grinned despite himself. “It’s true, under many circumstances being betrayed by your emotions will do you no harm. But it’s still best to remain aware of the fact that you are expressing them so clearly. Transmitting them for anyone sufficiently sensitive to feel.”
Ben clamped his shields down hard. He should’ve known better than to underestimate his father’s powers. “All right,” he said quietly.
Luke tilted his head. “You think something is wrong,” he said. “With me.”
“Wrong is one of those kind of relative things,” Ben said. “If I think something is wrong and you think it’s right, which one of us is correct?”
Luke nodded. It was a good response. “I suspect I would be. It’s the whole Master-apprentice, father-son, wise old man-foolish young man thing.”
“Right,” Ben said dryly. “It’s nice that to be older is to be always right. I can’t wait to be older.”
“So?” Luke prompted.
Ben took a moment to compose his thoughts. “I’m trying to figure out why you don’t have any energy.”
“I have energy,” Luke replied. “It’s waiting, in reserve.”
“Yeah…maybe,” Ben said, and just started blurting it out. “Except your energy used to empower other people, too. Get them moving. Make them enthusiastic. Not anymore. Ever since Mom was killed, you’ve been like someone with a landspeeder resting on his back. Crushed flat, hardly able to move because of the pain. I mean, me too. But for me, over time, the landspeeder has slipped off, mostly.” Fandom had helped with that. Distance. People to talk to that had other perspectives. Knowing that his mom was still alive in other realities... “I kind of expected that when you learned that the one who’d killed her was captured or dead, the landspeeder would be gone from your back, too. That you’d be able to move again.”
Luke frowned. “I can move.”
“I’m not so sure. And I’m trying to figure out why. You’re still not you. People are starting to ask questions. Things like ‘when is Luke Skywalker going to find his center and make things better again?’ And nobody knows what to tell them.” Ben had been trained to observe. He’d read between the lines of the reports Master Horn had been sending him.
“Make things better?” Luke sounded surprised. “You mean snap my fingers, end this war, and cause flower petals to rain down on all civilized worlds?”
“Just like that,” Ben grinned, then sobered again. “No, I think they mean, when are you going to really take charge again? Of the Jedi, our role in the war? Lead, not direct? Because that will make a difference.”
Luke’s eyes looked older and even sadder. “Oh, Ben. They’re asking that sort of question out of a misguided sense of what I can accomplish. They’ve based their impression of I what I can do on things that happened when I was a younger man with blind luck and boundless energy---and when you could count all the known Force-users in the galaxy on the fingers of one hand. Other Jedi can do what I can do.”
“No they can’t,” Ben insisted. “They can’t be Luke Skywalker."
Luke’s eyes focused on something far away. “You can’t turn back time. It’s not a landspeeder on my back, it’s the weight of years and events. I can’t cast them off, and even if I could, I’d undo everything I’ve learned from them. Today I’m more useful as a teacher, a distributor of resources. That’s my role. I really ought to be thinking about grooming a viable candidate to become the next Grand Master.”
Ben’s eyes nearly bugged out of his face.
“What is it?” Luke asked.
“I don’t know how to say it,” Ben whispered. “What are the right words?” He chewed on his lower lip again. “You want to be with Mom.”
“Of course I do,” Luke replied. “Don’t you?”
“Yes, but for me it’s different. I want her to be here, with us.” He swallowed hard. “You want to be with her where she is.”
“What do you mean?”
“You want to be dead. At peace. With her. Dead.” Ben fought to keep the tears from his eyes.
“That’s ridiculous.”
“No it isn’t,” Ben replied. “You know who killed Mom, and now she's dead. You should be ready to get back to work. But instead you’re looking to turn the Jedi Order over to someone who’s worthy. Problem is, you don’t have a blaster pressed to your head or an incurable disease. So how’s it going to happen?” Ben’s voice cracked on the last word.
“Ben, that’s so, so…you’re leaping to the wrong conclusion.” Luke struggled to prove that this was a ridiculous notion. But the words weren’t there.
“That’s what attachment is, isn’t it?” Ben asked, words pouring out of him. “It’s not loving somebody. It’s not getting married. It’s not having kids. It’s being where, if something goes wrong, there’s nothing left of you. It’s where if she goes away, you start functioning like a droid with a restraining bolt attached. Mom wouldn’t want you to be this way. So why are you?”
“I can’t help it!” The words were wrenched out of Luke before he knew he’d spoken.
“You’ve got to!” Ben insisted.
“How?” Luke retorted.
“I don’t know. You’re the Jedi Master. You figure it out.”
Luke’s eyes flashed with sudden and real anger, apparent even across the millions of miles between them. And then he closed his eyes and was quiet for a long, long moment.
Ben held his breath.
And when Luke opened his eyes again, Ben let out a deep sigh. The Luke he'd grown up with was finally back. There was life behind those eyes again. “Hey, Dad, look in a mirror.”
“I don’t need to.”
“You know what?” Ben replied, almost giddy with relief. “Your feelings betray you.”
Luke suppressed a snort. “Ben, if you ever say ‘I told you so’-“
“I won’t!”
“-I’ll put you through a training session that would make Kyp Durron cry.”
“I won’t, I won’t!”
Luke smiled. “How did you get so smart anyway?”
Ben shrugged and shuffled his feet.
“You know, these are unsettled times. Things are too busy for many of our usual formalities. For ceremonies, for rites.”
Ben blinked. “What are you getting at?”
“I think you should start building your lightsaber.”
“But…but I haven’t faced my trials,” Ben babbled.
“What do you call pulling yourself back from the brink that Jacen pushed you to...and then pulling the Grand Master back from his own brink?”
“Being obstinate,” Ben said, blushing.
“Show me a Jedi Knight who isn’t obstinate,” Luke said. “Build your weapon, son. We’ll find you a crystal when you come home.”
Ben stared at the comlink for a long moment, then nodded and disconnected.
[OOC: Cut for depressing themes, omg. Dialogue snurched with love from Aaron Allston's Fury. Door is closed, but post is open.]
Tahiri, he thought, grabbing for it. “Skywalker here.”
His father’s face flickered into three-dimensional life before him. “Ben.”
“Hi, Dad,” he replied, instantly wary. “What’s going on?”
“Alema Rar is dead,” Luke replied.
For a heartbeat, the two Skywalkers stared at each other before Ben finally broke the silence. “Are you all right?”
“Better,” Luke said, though there wasn’t anything in his eyes that would confirm that. “Mara’s murderer has met justice, and we can put that uncertainty behind us.”
Ben didn’t believe that for a minute, but he was more concerned with what he didn’t see in his father’s face: that spark that made Luke Skywalker so rightfully renowned. He chewed on his lower lip.
“Your feelings betray you, Ben,” Luke said quietly as the silence stretched into something uncomfortable between them.
“Betray me?” Ben replied. There was no way his father could actually feel his emotions at this distance. He hoped. He schooled his face back to neutrality. “Do they stab me in the back, or just give me a swift kick in the butt?”
Luke grinned despite himself. “It’s true, under many circumstances being betrayed by your emotions will do you no harm. But it’s still best to remain aware of the fact that you are expressing them so clearly. Transmitting them for anyone sufficiently sensitive to feel.”
Ben clamped his shields down hard. He should’ve known better than to underestimate his father’s powers. “All right,” he said quietly.
Luke tilted his head. “You think something is wrong,” he said. “With me.”
“Wrong is one of those kind of relative things,” Ben said. “If I think something is wrong and you think it’s right, which one of us is correct?”
Luke nodded. It was a good response. “I suspect I would be. It’s the whole Master-apprentice, father-son, wise old man-foolish young man thing.”
“Right,” Ben said dryly. “It’s nice that to be older is to be always right. I can’t wait to be older.”
“So?” Luke prompted.
Ben took a moment to compose his thoughts. “I’m trying to figure out why you don’t have any energy.”
“I have energy,” Luke replied. “It’s waiting, in reserve.”
“Yeah…maybe,” Ben said, and just started blurting it out. “Except your energy used to empower other people, too. Get them moving. Make them enthusiastic. Not anymore. Ever since Mom was killed, you’ve been like someone with a landspeeder resting on his back. Crushed flat, hardly able to move because of the pain. I mean, me too. But for me, over time, the landspeeder has slipped off, mostly.” Fandom had helped with that. Distance. People to talk to that had other perspectives. Knowing that his mom was still alive in other realities... “I kind of expected that when you learned that the one who’d killed her was captured or dead, the landspeeder would be gone from your back, too. That you’d be able to move again.”
Luke frowned. “I can move.”
“I’m not so sure. And I’m trying to figure out why. You’re still not you. People are starting to ask questions. Things like ‘when is Luke Skywalker going to find his center and make things better again?’ And nobody knows what to tell them.” Ben had been trained to observe. He’d read between the lines of the reports Master Horn had been sending him.
“Make things better?” Luke sounded surprised. “You mean snap my fingers, end this war, and cause flower petals to rain down on all civilized worlds?”
“Just like that,” Ben grinned, then sobered again. “No, I think they mean, when are you going to really take charge again? Of the Jedi, our role in the war? Lead, not direct? Because that will make a difference.”
Luke’s eyes looked older and even sadder. “Oh, Ben. They’re asking that sort of question out of a misguided sense of what I can accomplish. They’ve based their impression of I what I can do on things that happened when I was a younger man with blind luck and boundless energy---and when you could count all the known Force-users in the galaxy on the fingers of one hand. Other Jedi can do what I can do.”
“No they can’t,” Ben insisted. “They can’t be Luke Skywalker."
Luke’s eyes focused on something far away. “You can’t turn back time. It’s not a landspeeder on my back, it’s the weight of years and events. I can’t cast them off, and even if I could, I’d undo everything I’ve learned from them. Today I’m more useful as a teacher, a distributor of resources. That’s my role. I really ought to be thinking about grooming a viable candidate to become the next Grand Master.”
Ben’s eyes nearly bugged out of his face.
“What is it?” Luke asked.
“I don’t know how to say it,” Ben whispered. “What are the right words?” He chewed on his lower lip again. “You want to be with Mom.”
“Of course I do,” Luke replied. “Don’t you?”
“Yes, but for me it’s different. I want her to be here, with us.” He swallowed hard. “You want to be with her where she is.”
“What do you mean?”
“You want to be dead. At peace. With her. Dead.” Ben fought to keep the tears from his eyes.
“That’s ridiculous.”
“No it isn’t,” Ben replied. “You know who killed Mom, and now she's dead. You should be ready to get back to work. But instead you’re looking to turn the Jedi Order over to someone who’s worthy. Problem is, you don’t have a blaster pressed to your head or an incurable disease. So how’s it going to happen?” Ben’s voice cracked on the last word.
“Ben, that’s so, so…you’re leaping to the wrong conclusion.” Luke struggled to prove that this was a ridiculous notion. But the words weren’t there.
“That’s what attachment is, isn’t it?” Ben asked, words pouring out of him. “It’s not loving somebody. It’s not getting married. It’s not having kids. It’s being where, if something goes wrong, there’s nothing left of you. It’s where if she goes away, you start functioning like a droid with a restraining bolt attached. Mom wouldn’t want you to be this way. So why are you?”
“I can’t help it!” The words were wrenched out of Luke before he knew he’d spoken.
“You’ve got to!” Ben insisted.
“How?” Luke retorted.
“I don’t know. You’re the Jedi Master. You figure it out.”
Luke’s eyes flashed with sudden and real anger, apparent even across the millions of miles between them. And then he closed his eyes and was quiet for a long, long moment.
Ben held his breath.
And when Luke opened his eyes again, Ben let out a deep sigh. The Luke he'd grown up with was finally back. There was life behind those eyes again. “Hey, Dad, look in a mirror.”
“I don’t need to.”
“You know what?” Ben replied, almost giddy with relief. “Your feelings betray you.”
Luke suppressed a snort. “Ben, if you ever say ‘I told you so’-“
“I won’t!”
“-I’ll put you through a training session that would make Kyp Durron cry.”
“I won’t, I won’t!”
Luke smiled. “How did you get so smart anyway?”
Ben shrugged and shuffled his feet.
“You know, these are unsettled times. Things are too busy for many of our usual formalities. For ceremonies, for rites.”
Ben blinked. “What are you getting at?”
“I think you should start building your lightsaber.”
“But…but I haven’t faced my trials,” Ben babbled.
“What do you call pulling yourself back from the brink that Jacen pushed you to...and then pulling the Grand Master back from his own brink?”
“Being obstinate,” Ben said, blushing.
“Show me a Jedi Knight who isn’t obstinate,” Luke said. “Build your weapon, son. We’ll find you a crystal when you come home.”
Ben stared at the comlink for a long moment, then nodded and disconnected.
[OOC: Cut for depressing themes, omg. Dialogue snurched with love from Aaron Allston's Fury. Door is closed, but post is open.]