tatooine_doofus | Room 317 [after workshops]

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Room 317 [after workshops]

After his workshop with Mr. Winchester, Luke came back to his room to convince Artoo that Leia had gone home.

Artoo, still in the closet, remained unconvinced.

"I wouldn't lie to you about this," Luke told the door, rolling his eyes. "She came, she saw him, she had ice cream, she went home. Really."

Artoo let out a mournful whistle.

"Fine," Luke said, flouncing back to his bed. "I'll be over here, practicing levitation with Yoda who's a turtle again, thank the Force."

Yoda? Not thrilled by getting spun through the air again, but he couldn't talk any more, so no one cared.

The door was cracked open.

[OOC: Conversation between Luke & Rikku is locked to them and the topic is NFB, thanks!]

I Want Candy - Bow Wow Wow

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"I haven't really checked. Repression runs as strong as the Force in our family," he said wryly.

He smiled at her story. "That's wonderful. I told Tori most of this stuff and she didn't run out the door screaming...so that's a start, right?"

"Do you, uh, want me to stop in on her, say hi? See if she's okay with, you know, all of this?" She smiled a little ruefully. "We're pretty good at repression, too."

She considered the rest of it and nodded, tentatively. "Not screaming is good. Maybe she was kinda overwhelmed. It's a lot to take in, you know?"

"If you would, I'd really appreciate it," Luke said softly. "And I'm not sure how to read Tori. She still talks to me, and hasn't had mysterious 'things' come up to stop us from getting together, so I think we're okay."

"Absolutely," Rikku nodded. "Where is she? And Tori ... I don't know her very well, but she seems really nice. Maybe she's just ... you know. Not used to all of it. Some people didn't grow up with all of this and it's kinda hard to know how to react, I think?"

Luke nodded. "And I don't know how to explain it," he said. "So it's probably better to just avoid the subject."

That got a skeptical look from Rikku. "Okay, uh, I don't think ... that's exactly what I meant, there. You weren't kidding about the repression, huh?"

Luke shrugged. "I've seen how well wallowing works. I'd prefer to remember how to smile."

"There are other options, you know. Betweeen 'wallowing' and 'pretending none of it happened.'" She shook her head. "I mean, you know that, right?"

No, he didn't.

"...sure."

Rikku sighed. "Man. Okay, listen. If you ever need to ... you know, talk? Like we are now, the whole, that kinda thing. You know where I am. Come bother me. And I promise I won't let you wallow. I'll kick your butt if you try it."

"But it all turned out all right," Luke insisted. "I don't need to talk about it."

Rikku opened her mouth to argue, and then shook her head. "Okay, then. Yeah. When that stops working for you, come find me, yeah?"

Luke smiled and leaned in to give her a quick peck on the cheek. "I will," he promised.

"I'll hold you to that," she said softly, squeezing onto him. "And hey, you never finished the bit from earlier. You were on the Deathstar base thingy and there was an emperor and they were zapping ships and all that. Yeah?"

Luke held in a sigh. He was Totally Fine, of course. He just didn't want to go through this part.

Yeah.

"So the Emperor'd taken my lightsaber and was killing all of these people and I could stop it, you know? I could take that weapon and smack off his smirking head and he said he was unarmed...so I gave in. I reached for the lightsaber...and my father stopped me. His lightsaber blocked mine."

"I'm glad," Rikku said, nodding. "If you ... if you'd done that, you wouldn't have forgiven yourself. It wouldn't have been to save people, it would've been to get that guy, and that's ... harder. Yeah?"

"It would lead to the Dark Side," Luke said flatly. "Anything that's done for selfish ends--because I want it--that's bad. So I realized that about ten seconds into the fight, but it was a little late to back out. I tried. I did everything short of flying away to disengage, but my father had his part to play as well..."

He shook his head. "I thought about Leia and he called me on the relationship. I still don't know why. And then he threatened to turn her instead--and I kind of lost it again."

Rikku shook her head. "Wow. This Jedi thing's kinda ... scary. I mean, that you can just ... yeah."

"He hadn't known? About your sister? Like, at all, or who she was, or what?" She shivered. "Yeah, you said about ... I think being protective is different, you know? I mean. You have to keep her safe, right?"

Luke shrugged again, staring down at his hand. "I've never asked," he said. "I'd like to think it was the first time he put it together--if he'd blown up her planet and tortured her and known who she was..." he shook his head hard. "There are some evils I don't want him to have been capable of, you know?" he whispered.

"Yeah," she said softly. "That's ... that's a lot, you know? That's ... I hope you're right. I think you are. I don't think he'd be able to face her, if he had, you know? I mean, there's gone, and then there's ..."

"And he saved me, there at the end," Luke said fiercely. "I think family's incredibly important to him. He couldn't have done what he did if he'd known."

"He did?" she asked, smiling at Luke sympathetically. "Then yeah. Totally. If he saved you, he would've saved her. Right? I mean, he's your dad. You said he was never gonna kill you. He did bad stuff but ... he's not a monster."

"No, he was a monster," Luke corrected sadly. "He just loved me anyway, and that was something no one at home--not the Emperor, not Yoda, not Ben--put faith in."

"I don't believe that," she said. "That he was a monster. He loved you. He loved her, too, I bet. He's your father. I can't believe nobody believed you. Love is ... love is way stronger than evil. It doesn't seem like it, but it is."

Luke wrapped his arms around himself. "No one knows how many beings the Empire killed because we can't count that high. That's his legacy, and we both know it. I loved him enough to believe there's always a choice and if he was offered it, he'd take the opportunity to come back to the light. But right at the end, I still wasn't sure he'd do it, and I thought I was going to die right there as he watched as did nothing."

See, Luke? This is why repression was bad.

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