AN: Please excuse the rusty writing. This is the first story I have written and actually finished in a few years. I have been battling against horrendous writer's block and I am hoping this one-shot is just the first of many completed tales - including all my wips.

This has been edited, but has not been beta read, thus any mistakes definitely belong to me!

Treena

5th November 2019

Disclaimer: All Star Wars characters and situations belong to Lucasfilm and Disney, I just like to play in their sand box from time to time.

Don't look, Don't See

He didn't remember moving, he didn't remember the moment when he stepped one foot in front of the other, didn't remember running into the burning homestead, jumping the steps passed the scorched bones of his guardians…

Don't look, don't see…

…to scramble down and into the atrium.

He didn't remember panting in smoke or hacking it out with spasming coughs. There was no awareness of stepping on broken, charred, furniture and smashed dishes, or easing up the stairway while avoiding flickering flames to the door that lead into his guardian's bedroom. He only knew that he now stood in the courtyard of his home carrying the blankets from his uncle and aunt's bed and staring at the steps that would take him back up, and out, into the sunslight of the Tatooine afternoon and to the horror there that lay waiting.

Something cracked with heat from the garage entry way behind him and, on some level, Luke Skywalker wondered if the spare fuel cells for the speeders would explode and, on that same level, he found that he didn't care.

He sniffed, wiped a hand under his nose cleaning soot and snot from his face.

Am I crying?

He supposed he must be. His throat ached, his eyes streamed, and his nose was running.

Or is it just the smoke?

He didn't want to do this.

There was no-one else.

He dragged in a breath of hot air; hot from the suns, hot from the fire that raged in the garage at his back, but he didn't feel it. He moved his foot, a faltering step, then moved his other. His boot crunched on something, but he didn't look down, he just continued taking slow steps carrying his bundle of blankets.

Shrouds. They're shrouds now. Aunt Beru's favourite blanket. The one he was sick on when he was six.

He stopped within the dome, staring ahead, not looking…

…don't look, don't see…

… at the burned bones of the foot that jutted over the steps, the bones that he had avoided on his way down.

He vomited on the corner of the step, bring up only fluid and bile. He gagged and retched, cried and moaned.

Don't be sick on the blanket, not again, aunt Beru will…

…will…

…won't.

He gasped, coughed, and looked up at the blue of the sky through the opening of the dome and the blur of his tears.

Please…

Please…

Heaving in another breath, forcing himself not to think about what he was doing, but thinking about it anyway, Luke stepped out into the sunslight and looked down. He could see the boot marks in the sand, many of them, and knew they had not been made by either Owen or Beru Lars.

Stormtroopers.

"Wait, Luke! It's too dangerous!"

Kenobi. Ben. No, he was Obi-Wan. He'd be waiting for him, with the droids.

"It's too dangerous!"

No, it wasn't. It was quiet, it was done. There was no danger here, not now.

They could come back…

…let them.

Luke closed his eyes, fighting against his gorge, fighting against the stench that he refused to allow himself to smell and forced himself to look…

… but don't see…

…at the bodies of his guardians.

He stepped around the one sprawled by the door, the one that looked as though they had tried to get up, that looked as though she…

…she? Why did he think it was "she?"…

… had tried to crawl away from the flames that were consuming her.

Don't, don't, just don't.

Be quick, hurry, don't think.

He dropped the blankets onto the sand, lifted and tossed away a discarded piece of metal piping...

…his uncle had tried to defend them, had held the pipe in his hands, uselessly threatened the soldiers to leave his property…

…how did he know that? Why did he think that?...

…and spread out his aunt's favourite blanket close to the crawling body. He was vaguely aware that he was retching again, coughing and gagging against the reek of burned meat. He reached out a hand and…

…saw the back of his hand, flecked with sand and soot, his fingernails embedded with dirt. He'd have to wash them, would have to clean them.

After, only after.

The scene blurred and he angrily wiped at his eyes, wiped away the hot tears that streamed; he needed to look and see…

… don't see…

…what he was doing. He had to do this, had to do this right. For them.

His fingers touched the roughened slivers of cooked flesh that still clung to the bones and, fearing that the bones would fall apart, that the flesh would come away in his hands, he gripped hard and, not turning her over…

…can't see her face, not her face…

…Luke gently dragged his aunt's remains onto the blanket.

Her foot! Get her foot!

He scrambled quickly before the loose limb could tumble into the hollow of the staircase, grabbed it and placed it on the blanket which he quickly folded over the corpse.

He vomited again, unaware of the sounds he was making, the cries and gasps that tore from him.

Quick! Be quick!

Get it over with.

He grabbed the second blanket and turned to his uncle who lay atop more junk – the junk Luke had promised the man he would clear away and then hadn't - and found himself staring into the eye sockets of the skull, saw the grin of the exposed teeth.

He looks happy for once.

Stop! Stop it!

He threw the cover over the carcass, covering the upside-down smile, cutting it from his view…

…don't look, don't see…

… and crouched to tuck the edges in under the bones, making sure every piece of his uncle was in the blanket.

He remained there a moment, head bowed, hands on the fabric, feeling the hard bones beneath, fighting the sobs that threatened to fell him.

Not now. Cry later.

Hurry, Luke. Hurry!

"Wait, Luke! It's too dangerous!"

Not yet. Can't leave. I have to…

Luke stood, again wiping a sleeve across his face, and bent to lift and move his uncle from the detritus upon which he lay. With the heat of the suns beating upon his back he dragged the body away from the farmstead dome to the small family grave site a few yards away and there he laid Owen Lars next to the grave of his father, Cliegg. He ran back, grabbed the edges of his aunt's blanket and brought her across the sand to the side of his uncle, all the while inwardly begging for her foot to remain in the folds of the blanket.

Leave them now, leave them.

Hurry!

No!

He would see this through. He would do this. For them.

He ran back to the homestead as a distant winged creature cried a long lament from the cloudless sky.

There were no birds here, no bonegnawers. In the Jundland Wastes, but not here.

The shovels and tools were in the garage where the fire still raged, from where thick, black, smoke still billowed into the clear Tatooine sky, but his uncle had been lying on something, a vent, that he could use. Luke grabbed the scrap of metal and ran back to the gravesite and began to dig.

Hurry, hurry, hurry….

Get it over with…

"Wait, Luke! It's too dangerous!"

He quickly dug, throwing sand aside, it stuck to the sweat on his hands, to his tears and perspiration on his face, the mucus trailing from his nose as he wept and cried with hitching, panting, breaths. He threw up in the grave, dug it out and worked on as the walls collapsed inward, sand running back into the terribly shallow grave.

He screamed his frustration.

Hurry, hurry!

A hot wind rose to blow his hair, to blow the dry sand in grainy plumes around him. It got in his eyes, scraping and stinging and still he dug. He ignored the wind, ignored the zephyrs it raised around him. He ignored it as it died down, focused only on digging.

Quick, quick, quick…

…no time…

… no time!

There was the thudding of many bootsteps and a clamour of shadows fell across him.

That stopped him.

"Please," he said, voice whispering through a dry throat, not looking…

…don't look, don't see…

… around at the silent gathering of stormtroopers at his back. "Please, let me finish."

He had known the cry was not a bird. Had known the wind was the backdraft of a landing ship.

There was another shadow. One larger and taller and a sound like a malfunctioning vaporator as it wheezed in air against its condensers. It suddenly grew cold and Luke shivered, chilled in the afternoon suns.

A large, black gloved, hand grasped him by the upper arm, firm fingers curling around the trembling muscle. It drew him up and out of ditch he had dug.

"No!" he cried, trying to pull back, feet scrabbling in the sand, "No, I have to finish, I have to…"

He was turned around, strong hands now on his shoulders holding him in place…

… don't look, don't see…

… he kept his head down, stinging eyes dripping tears into the sand at his feet.

"My men will finish your task, young one, the Lars' deserve that much."

The voice was deep, its bass tones reverberating through Luke's aching body. He was trembling now; with fatigue, adrenalin, and grief. Still not looking, but hearing the soldiers continuing his work, feeling relief that the task was no longer his alone, he said, dully, "you did this."

"Men of my company," the man told him, "Yes."

"They didn't have too," it was a murmur.

"No, they did not, but Owen did not make it easy for them," the voice held a hint of sad humour.

Luke hitched in a breath, feeling his heart thrumming a frightened rhythm. "You're here for the droids?"

There was a brief pause, a beat of time, then, "No, Luke. I am here for you."

At the sound of his name, Luke raised his head, lifted his eyes and stared up into the black, angular, mask of the giant who held him. "Who are you?"

You know. You looked. You saw.

"Wait, Luke! It's too dangerous."

This time there was no hesitation. There was only the darkest of declarations.

"I am your father."

ooOOoo