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"Well there goes that entire plan."
The gathered insurrectionists - slaves, farmers, freemen and women from the cities, several Jawas standing in the corner – fell into an awkward silence that permeated the kitchen of the small farm they were using as a staging ground. They were gathered in a rough semi-circle around the table, in front of which stood Kitser and Melee.
They had (at great risk) brought fighters and other personnel from half the planet to this rundown, ramshackle collection of buildings just outside Mos Eisley on a hope. Kitser had already know it was never a good idea to trust to hope, but this was a hard reminder, of many things.
"I don't think giving up on the idea altogether is an option." Melee sounded calm even now. "This is the only opportunity we might have for while, we can't meet like this often without drawing unwanted attention. And I don't see that we can afford to wait much longer."
"The plan can be modified to work with what we have here if necessary but I don’t think it will be. Anakin will be back." Kitser turned, looking for the maps he had brought, when he caught the movement out of the corner of his eye.
Seek leant forward from where he had been slumped in his chair rubbing at the burn one of the Jedi have left him with during their parting and pushed lazily into a half-standing position. Predictable Seek, all bruised pride and bad attitude, always looking for a fight. "Weren't you paying attention?
“Wake up and join us in the real world, idiot. He went scurrying after those depuran like a dog."
Kitser carefully controlled his reactions. He relaxed his shoulders, leant slightly against the table, laid his hands on the wood and schooled his face into calm neutrality with just a hint of emotion. Acting came easy, and was always important, especially with so many of those who had looked to him these past years – and would rely on him to see them through the next few days – watching.
"No matter how long he’s been away he’s still one of us, one of ours.
“He’s my brother.”
A shadow fell over him from the doorway as Seek replied. "Maybe once. Now? He's one of them.”
"I really hope not."
The new voice cut through the crowd steadily. The background noise that had remained at a low and steady hum exploded. The crowd that had gathered in the makeshift meeting room shifted and twisted to see the speaker as he added hesitantly, in contrast to his bravado of just seconds ago, "I'm sorry the others left. But I'll try, I'll- I'll help as much as I can. I can do something."
"But not your master?"
Seek's voice was loaded with scorn, spitting the final word out.
"He's probably half way to Coruscant by now."
His voice was filled with the bitter acceptance of loss that was more Tatooine than anything Kitser had seen or heard or felt in his storm-brother since he had turned around and found him standing in the doorway, just slightly out of sync with the world that silhouetted him.
Anakin abandoned his post in the doorway now and stood among them. The differences were obvious. The revolutionaries wore rough undyed linen and what body armour they had been able to scavenge, those recently come in still with wrappings bound tight around wrists and ankles and pooling around necks for protection from the burgeoning storm. Former slaves wore the traditional tattoos and improvised ornaments – frayed strips of leather pushed through and tied around japor snippets and interestingly shaped rocks and tiny, tiny cuttings of what green things grew on a world as barren as theirs, then twisted and braided around bare arms.
Anakin cast a long shadow, dressed in layers of synthwool tunics beneath nerf hide tabards and his long hooded cloak. All in black, even in the desert, it gave him a long, imposing silhouette even with his shoulders stooped and eyes still red and painful from sand, whipped into a frenzied attack by desert winds. Kitser thought it was useful for image purposes – dramatic enough to be a theatre costume – even if it was impractical in the middle of the desert.
The tension built for a few seconds, then, as if a silent consensus had been reached, faded away. Seek eyed Anakin sardonically. "Well it's not as if we have any number of mystical warriors running around.
"I guess we're back on. Unless anyone else has anything to say?"
No one spoke up.
Kitser stepped forward and deftly took control. "Everybody, we should move while we still can. Let’s clear the kitchen and meet again after the storm has passed, it shouldn't be longer than a few hours."
Murmurs of assent rumbled through the room and they began to disperse with the wearied knowledge of the pains of being stuck inside someone else’s house during a sandstorm.
Anakin hovered awkwardly by the table until it was just Kitser, Melee and Beru who remained. Melee stepped up to him and pulled him down into a tight hug. He was slow to react, his hands fluttering uselessly over her back while she held on determinedly. He shuddered visibly and settled, pulling her in tightly. She ran one hand over his just golden-brown hair, stepped away, said "Welcome home," and left.
He watched her go with a slightly shell shocked expression. He looked down at his still half extended arms, tucked them instinctively back into his sleeves, then jerked them out again, letting his hands hang like dead weights from his wrists.
"Tea?" Beru offered, slightly dry, as though she had decided there was no good reaction to the drama occurring in what she had designated her kitchen. "Or perhaps clothes that won't send you into heatfits within the hour?"
"Both sound like a good idea."
She smiled at his sheepish tone. "You’ll find clothes in the back room. We'll have tea after, maybe I can even stretch to actual supper."
"Thank you, I appreciate all of it. I didn’t really think things through before I left." He laughed, quietly. “Didn’t really have time, I wasn’t kidding when I said they’re probably half way to Coruscant by now.”
"Don’t worry about it. Your mother has been like family to me and that makes you and me family.
"So hop to," she called cheerfully. "Shmi's safe house signalled she got there safe so she'll be here before nightfall."
She showed him to a room in the back of the house - no windows, four sleeping mats and two covered woven baskets tucked unobtrusively into a corner - and moved away, but Kitser sat on the floor as Anakin removed first his cloak, then boots, then belt and attached weaponry, then lifted the heavy, durable material over his head, carefully folding each piece away.
He seemed to wear inumerable layers but once they were stripped away, there were the familiar scars covering his back and collarbone, the same scars so many of them bore.
Kitser watched him. "Why did you leave in the first place?
"I mean, it made for a dramatic entrance when you came back, which is good enough for me, but why?"
Now in only his leggings, Anakin sank down to sit on the cool packed-dirt floor opposite him, cross-legged in the same way as his brother. He began going through one of the baskets, checking sizes. He kept his head bowed and his hands busy and Kitser was almost ready to give up on an honest answer for now when his hands stilled suddenly and he spoke in a stumbling near-whisper.
"Whenever I talked about home they- they looked at me like I was a failure so... I stopped talking about it. Never stopped thinking about it, even if I got better at hiding it, but they're not the same thing, now here near. I guess it took me a while to remember how to break down the barrier between them."
He looked up and smiled shyly and Kitser leant forward and pulled him roughly into a bear hug. "I missed you, Ani."
He rested his head against his brother’s shoulder.
"Missed you too, Kit."