Chapter Text
”Luke, sweetheart, are you alright?”
Luke flinched and tore his gaze away from his plate where he’d been pushing around the cooked peas with his spoon. His eyes met those of his mother; large, brown, filled with worry and fixed on him from the left end of the dinner table. Blushing, Luke realized most of the eyes in the room were now resting on him: his twin sister Leia sitting right next to him, his uncle Ben, who she'd been talking to just until that point, his aunt Ahsoka as well as his father at the other end of the table.
Swallowing, he answered hoarsely:
”Yeah ‘m fine, why?”
Padme Amidala-Skywalker didn’t look satisfied with her son’s answer and reached over to put her hand over his.
”You’ve barely eaten anything. Are you getting sick?”
”Hopefully not”, Anakin commented dryly, raising an eyebrow over the rim of his wineglass. “The school year’s about to start soon, we don’t want you going around infecting the children, do we? You might kill them all.”
”Anakin”, Ben sneered warningly. Luke bit the inside of his cheek to hold back the snappy comeback he longed to throw at his father. He was well aware of his disapproval of his career of choice. If it had been up to him, Luke would have stayed in his squadron at the airforce and never left to become an elementary school teacher. Pointedly ignoring him, he answered his mother:
”I’m fine, really, it’s just…”
”Just what? Sweetie, you know you can tell us anything.”
That’s debatable, thought Luke, taking in a deep breath to steel himself for the heated debate he was, no doubt, about to start with his revelation. Right when he was about to speak up, aunt Ahsoka chimed in:
”Don’t push him Padme. If he doesn’t want to talk about it, you shouldn’t guilt trip him.”
Luke threw a gratefull look her way and she winked in response. He shrugged:
”It’s alright, I want to tell you, I just-… I don’t think you’re gonna like hearing it.”
”Oh, now that’s a promising start”, said Anakin, put down his glass and leaned forward in his chair, now paying his undivided attention to the conversation. “What is it, you’ve got someone new and are afraid to introduce him? He can’t be much worse than the guy Leia dragged in”, he added with a nod in Leia’s direction. Luke’s sister pulled a sour face.
”Father, Han and I have been married for two years, you should be over it by now.”
Ahsoka cackled and Ben hid his grin behind his glass. Padme didn’t smile, at least not openly. The twinkle in her eyes betrayed her hidden amusement, without them ever turning away from Luke. Her laser sharp focus on whatever she deemed important at the moment was the trait Luke feared most about his mother, though it certainly came quite in handy to her in her profession as a senator.
”So, Luke, what is it you want to speak to us about?”, she asked gently and squeezed his hand reassuringly. Luke drew in another deep breath before finally answering:
”I thought about… like dad said, the school year’s about to start again soon and I was thinking maybe… I would like to move out permanently and live in my house in Yavin.”
The silence settling around the table following those words was so deafening, one could have heard a pin drop. Luke squeezed his eyes shut in expectation of the explosion about to commence and his father did not disappoint.
”You want WHAT?!”
Anakin had jumped up and thrown down his napkin, staring at Luke like he’d lost his mind. Luke held his gaze while his heart hammered in his chest nervously.
”You’ve heard me”, he said, voice firmer than he’d feared it would be. “I think it’s time. Leia’s moved out fully already, why can’t I?”
“Because-“, Anakin began, sounding like he was about to go on one of his dreaded rants, but was stopped by Ben reaching out and roughly pulling him back down on his chair.
”Now wait a second, Anakin, I think Luke is right. He’s a grown man after all, he’s entitled to the independence he wishes for.”
”But-“
”Yeah, let the kid move out if he wants to”, said Ahsoka and leaned back in her chair nonchalantly while balancing her glass between to fingers. “You can’t loom over him like a hawk all his life, he’ll need to spread his wings and fly on his own one day anyway. It’s better if he learns early while still having you around as a backup.”
”Do you think you can persuade me better if you use a flying metaphor?”, Anakin asked darkly, looking gravely from one friend to the other. “This is none of you two’s business anyway!”
”But it’s mine”, Padme joined in, sending a stern look at her husband from across the table. Anakin met it, his eyebrows knitting even closer together than they had before anyway. “Not you too! I thought we agreed to always be on each other’s side when it came to the kids!”
”Only if it’s a reasonable stance to take”, retorted his wife simply. “Don’t think I want to see our son leave any more than you do, honey, but Ben and Ahsoka are right. Luke is an adult and should be allowed to leave home if he wishes to. We can’t keep him here forever, not if it isn’t what he wants too.”
Anakin opened his mouth, no doubt to keep arguing, but Luke didn’t hear the rest of the discussion. He quickly grabbed his half full plate and left the dining room for the kitchen.
After throwing his by now cold dinner into the bin and rinsing the plate in the shiny polished sink, he leaned against the counter with a sigh, closed his eyes and let the welcoming silence of the room wash over his exhausted mind.
”You okay?”
For the second time that evening, Luke flinched at that question being directed at him unexpectedly.
”Oh, hey Leia.”
He smiled at his twin sister who’d appeared in the light falling into the dimly lit room from the hallway before joining him in the abandoned kitchen. Leaning next to him against the counter, her eyes, so similar to their mother’s, scanned him with underlying concern.
”Where did that back there come from anyway?”, she asked with a nod towards the door they’d come in through. Luke shrugged one shoulder again.
”Have been thinking about it for a while actually. I guessed the new school year would be as good an opportunity as any.”
“There’s never a good opportunity to drop something like this on him”, Leia reminded him glumly. Luke chuckled without much humour.
”That is definitely true.”
They both knew all too well the lengths their father’s overprotection and separation anxiety could go to. It had been their uncle Ben one day sharing its origins with them. While pregnant with the twins, their mother had fallen deathly ill and the birth had to be initiated prematurely to save all three of their lives. Luke and Leia had spent their first four months on this earth in incubators, attached to breathing tubes and heart monitors. Luke didn’t fault his father for feeling overprotective of his wife as well as both his kids after going through that, but that didn’t make dealing with him any easier. Leia moving in with her then fiancé Han had been a matter of lots of yelling, fighting and crying. As his comments at the table had proven, Anakin still hadn’t quite made his peace with the fact, even years after the wedding.
”I’m always on your side, you know that, but-“, Leia interrupted herself, hesitating. Luke looked at her from the side.
”But what?”
”I don’t mean to offend you, but you were never forced to live on a budget before. Do you really think you can keep the house all by yourself and on your salary alone?”
Luke paused, chewing on his lower lip. That issue had given him headaches in the past as well. His income as a teacher really wasn’t large and while the house belonged to him, the area he lived in wasn’t exactly cheap. There was one solution he’d thought of, though he was afraid his sister would laugh at him for it.
”I do have those vacant rooms up in my attic and lots of room left in the garage”, he said slowly. “I could look for a tenant…”
He held his breath at the silence that followed and released it with relief when Leia hummed in contemplation. At least she didn’t think the idea ridiculous and reckless, as their father no doubt would.
”Not a bad thought. You know I have some useful contacts, I could help you advertise it cheaply.”
”You’d do that for me?”, Luke asked, astonished. Leia grinned and held out her hand, pinky stretched out at him.
”Hey, that’s what twins are for, right?”
Luke smirked as he hooked his pinky with hers.