'It's insane, the way they live,' his Uncle was fond of saying. 'Kill themselves, if it wasn't for you.' Luke was not certain which Uncle Owen spoke of with more disdain; the Jedi or the Sisters. On the second thought, the winner was the Jedi, by a slim margin.

He slowed the speeder considerably once the Fortress was in sight. It looked rather forlorn sitting there, even in broad daylight, backed only by the tall mouth of the canyon. Bypassing the main entrance, he went around to the side. The inner courtyard showed few signs of activity from a distance, but up close it was almost as bad as the market place in Anchorhead. Luke spotted Padme` sitting under the overhang, hands folded and eyes far away. She rose quickly and waved when she spotted him, though, hurrying towards the speeder despite the length of her dark, violet robes. She was dressed, as was the custom of the Sisters, in an embroidered purple habit; her hands encased in gloves and her hair concealed by an all-consuming hood. Only her face truly showed-- beautiful and ageless.

"Good morning, Luke," her smile outshone both suns, wide and unguarded. It seemed to Luke that she was the only one who ever greeted him in genuine pleasure.

"Good morning," he returned the smile, albeit sheepishly, and turned his attention to the shack of parts near by. "Is this all you have?"

Padme` was already loading the cargo into the speeder-- she was considerably stronger than she looked. "Yes, actually. We don't need much this week. If it's too much trouble, I can just wait for you to take me until next week."

"Oh, no," he said, "I actually have to get home early today, so this works out great." Padme` murmured her agreement, laughing a little when Luke insisted on helping her in. He made a mocking bow, which actually seemed to sober her, before climbing back into the pilot's seat.

"Shall we go through Beggar's Canyon today?" she inquired, her eyes glinting with mischief. Once she had confided in him that there were few things she enjoyed as much as racing in a speeder, and that had put a whole new spin on their trips. 'Horrible habit I picked up from my husband,' she'd said, only half-teasing. Luke's piloting skills were often under her praise, and her only caution was to 'drive safely but recklessly'. In all other areas she seemed quite the proper lady, so Luke supposed that she 'let her hair down', so to speak, when it came to racing.

"Sure thing," he said. He allowed her time to tie on her small 'sun bonnet' before he threw the engine into high gear and sent them flying over the dunes. Padme`'s delighted shriek echoed after them.

It was both happiness and intense, piercing pain for Padme` to be with her son. She loved him with an aching mother's heart that longed to be exposed-- so that it was almost always on her lips to speak the truth. After a while, the impulse had died down somewhat, but it came upon her without warning even nowadays. She treasured what little relationship they could manage together, and it was for that reason, if not others, that she held her tongue. There was days it seemed that her life had turned into an insane mirror; Beru-- the distant aunt-- acted as Luke's mother, while she herself had been banished to the mere corners of his life.

'That's selfishness talking,' she told herself sternly. It didn't take a Jedi to understand what was at stake here, it was a risk for her to be around Luke at all. If... if... He should somehow find her, or their son, a mind-probe would expose everything. Part of her didn't think she could have raised Luke on her own anyway, he made her long so for Leia, for the possibility of a happy family that had been taken from her. And then, of course, there was the sun on his young face, his eyes, the way he smiled and handled the speeder-- all of which were pure Anakin. It was a wonderful, frightening thing, and it hurt.

No, she didn't think she could have raised Luke at all; she was so conscious of all that was Anakin, and doubly conscious of her own desire to shield him from the darkness. Sometimes too much guidance was just as bad as none. Theirs was a quiet friendship. She strove to support him, he tried wordlessly to make her proud, and their subtle disagreements were as close as they'd ever come to a fight. Sometimes she wished they could argue, long drawn out accusations with slamming doors-- she remembered her own childhood, wasn't that part of being a mother? A drop of acid with the sweetness of having a child? Padme sighed heavily, mentally chastising herself. It had not been so long ago that she'd been crouched inside a metal crate, hands wringing together in prayer as she held her mind to the simple movement of her breath. Every step she heard in the cargo bay could have been an undoing, her life and those of her children unraveling in bloody ribbons.

"Are you alright?" Luke's blue eyes flickered over her briefly, then back out onto the horizon. For a moment, Padme felt the lack of expression on her face, a blank look that somehow held the truth. Forcing a smile to her lips, she touched Luke's arm briefly with her gloved hand.

"I'm fine, Luke," she said, leaning back against the seat and enjoying the feel of the wind. "I'm afraid I didn't get much sleep last night, but-- goodness! Here I am wrapped up in morbid contemplations and I haven't even asked how you are. Has your week gone well?"

Luke grinned boyishly, "Yeah, I guess so. I tinkered with the engine on this thing a little more, I think I can push it at least two points faster."

"Ah!" Padme cried delightedly, "You'll have to show it off to me, then."

"Sure thing, I found just the place, too. Mind if we take a little detour?"

"Not at all," she held her breath as Luke made the sharp turn into Beggar's Canyon. The high, weathered walls became more and more narrow, like the corridors of her life. "I take it that was the highlight of your week?"

"Well, not unless you count--" Luke bit his tongue briefly as navigated past a large boulder, "-- getting yelled at by Uncle Owen. It was particulary spectacular."

"Really?" the wind caught her voice, forcing her to shout, "What did you do?"

"Oh, no, it's not what I did, at least not this time. Biggs Darklighter left for the Imperial Academy, that leaves just me and Camie now." He seemed about to go on, until they sped around another corner. "Here it comes!" he cried. The canyon walls rose higher, building quickly like nightmarish battlements. Up ahead, Padme saw the small passageway leading into the open desert. Instinctively, she tightened her hold on the arms of her seat, leaning forward in anticipation. The little speeder shook as Luke flipped a small switch, and the hypnotic blue of Tatooine's sky became visible through the mouth of the canyon. Then, like surfacing from the deep waters of an ocean, they burst of out the shadowy canyon, Padme's high laugh mixing with her son's whoop of triumph.

Luke raked a hand through his already wind tousled hair, "No, I don't think the T-16 is small enough to maneuver if you go that fast. Camie found a great place where we can to push this thing to full, though."

"Ah," she replied appreciatively, "You were saying something about your friend Biggs?" Quickly, she searched her mind for a face to go with the name.

"Oh, well, Biggs left for the Academy, and I said that he was lucky. I just meant lucky to get off the planet, but Uncle Owen started in on me about how ungrateful I am, and how he needs me another season..." Luke shook his head, "I just don't understand him sometimes. To hear him tell it, he never wanted me in the first place."

"That's not true," Padme soothed. Briefly, her lips drew into a frown, concern pooling in her opal eyes. "Do you... want to go to the Imperial Academy?" she asked carefully.

"I want to go to *an* Academy," Luke emphasized, "I just..."

"You want to fly for real," she finished, voice full of understanding. The young man turned to look at her, and the look on his face was more thanks than he could put into words.

"That's it exactly," he made a fruitless gesture with his free hand, "Uncle Owen doesn't get it, it's not as though I like the Empire, but they have the only training school there is. It's either the Imperial Academy, or farming for non-existent water on this rock."

Padme made a small, contemplative sound in the back of her throat, "When I was a young girl, there were at least a dozen well-run flight academies. There used to be one on Alderra, the Republic guard snatched up their graduates as quickly as they could turn them out." She laughed, mocking herself, "That shows *my* age."

"You're not old," Luke said softly, and though she wanted protest, Padme found the words withering in her throat. Her eyes caught on a strange shape jutting from the sand.

At first, no matter how had she looked at it, she couldn't figure out what it was. It's presence was so out of place, so surreal, that her mind simply refused to process the image. She must have made some noise, for Luke frowned and opened his mouth to speak. She beat him to it.

"Is this where you wanted to test out the engine?"

"Yeah," he said slowly, "The ground is pretty level here. I wonder what it was built for..." Expertly, he guided the speeder around the rubble of a fallen wall, but Padme could feel his curiosity like a particulary piercing gaze. She forced her vocal cords to move, eyes taking in the solid stands for the audience, the pit, and the high, ruined balconies. For a moment, she could hear the crowd roaring, see Anakin's triumphant grin as he scrambled from his pod.

"Pods," she said, "They used to race pods here."

Luke's eyes lit up, "Really? Maker, I wish they still did that! Wouldn't it be neat?" When she didn't answer, he continued, "Why'd they stop?"

"Oh," her fingers twisted about the small, gold ring held beside the medallion she wore, "There was a slave riot." They were almost past the main section of the stadium, and Padme consciously turned her gaze from the shadows.

"An uprising? Wow, to hear Uncle Own tell it, nothing that interesting has ever happened on Tatooine," Luke winked, though Padme sensed he was only half teasing.

Her smile was forgiving, "Your Uncle tries."

"Yeah, well." Shifting in his seat, the young man cleared his throat, asking with deliberate casualness, "Did you ever get to see one of the pod races?" For a long moment, Padme felt her the stillness of her hands in her lap, thinking that if she moved them her spirit might loose its grip on her body. Her mind went blank out of habit, old instinct Obi-wan had drilled into her during the days of her pregnancy. She opened her mouth, letting silence pour from her lips.

Luke said nothing.

"You're running out of smooth road," she pointed out after a small interval. They exchanged a significant look, two friends careening across the hot desert, sharing and with holding in equal amounts.

"I can take a hint," he brought his hand to grip the lever with cat-like grace, threw the switch with assurance so like Anakin's that Padme wanted to cry.

After that, they were going too fast for her to think of anything at all.

By the time he reached the age of five, Luke understood the nature of questions. He knew you had to phrase them carefully, that others-- especially his foster parents-- were bothered by too many questions about too many things, and he knew that when someone yelled at you for asking-- well, that meant the answer was all the more important.

Aunt Beru didn't remember, and Uncle Owen claimed not to have met her. To not remember-- TO NOT REMEMBER? Often, Luke would force himself to stop thinking at that point, so sour would his heart feel, such was the anger that rose from it like a terrible dragon. He didn't ask about his father, he'd been given bare, short answers once. Quick essentials; he was the navigator on a spice freighter, he met your mother, had you, died a bad death. Don't you go running off like he did, now. After that, Luke felt like he didn't have the right to ask anymore. For a father, he had a few sentences, and his mother was an insubstantial mist he couldn't hold on to.

He had taken that mist, that insubstantial mother-vision, and somehow wordlessly entrusted it to Padme. She wasn't his nanny, his I-wish-you-were-my-sister, or his Aunt, and she was more than his friend. He loved her, and he didn't know why he loved her, which made him love her more. He didn't remember the first time he'd met her (there was a vague image of her, standing in the doorway framed by the dark; but she'd said 'my, how you've grown!', so that couldn't be it). During his childhood, she had held him and played with him, but she had also rolled up her sleeves and helped him work on his first sand-skipper until they had matching grease smears. There were stories he still heard sometimes, as he was falling asleep, all of them told in her voice; his favorite had been the one about the queen imprisoned by a dark lord pretending to be her husband and, growing desperate, called to her sorcerer husband through a magical amulet. It didn't have an ending though-- Uncle Owen had stood disapprovingly in the doorway, and later Padme said she couldn't remember if the story had a happy ending or not. She said it didn't matter, and she didn't get mad at him for asking about it. She was the first person Luke felt didn't expect anything more of him than he could give, and she seemed to know who he was even before he'd figured it out. When she gave, it was because she wanted to, and when she didn't want to answer questions, she didn't get angry to fill the space.

Instead, she said nothing at all.

As he'd guided the speeder towards the ruins of the stadium, Luke had felt old, faded images blooming in his mind. It wasn't unusual, and he'd learned a long time ago that speaking them aloud was the only thing that could get him in more trouble than asking questions.

He'd seen a girl-- all brown-blond, sun-touched curls and big smile-- leaning over the counter in Aunt Beru's kitchen. She was so young and so pretty, and her eyes were just like Beru's except that you could see in them just how carefree she was. Laughing, she crawled into one of the cupboards.

He never wondered about the else worlds, the other happenings he saw, because it had become habit to avoid questions all together.

It wasn't that hard to navigate past the ghostly vehicles and the colorful drivers he knew weren't there; the sensation was much like looking through two transparencies at once. The crowd was loud with anticipation, bright with myriad colors and species. All at once, he'd asked Padme about the races, and the vision fell in itself.

Knowing his attempt at causality was see-through, he'd asked, "Did you ever get to see one of the pod races?"