I often write quite a bit that doesn't end up in whatever I'm working on, and I'm not always sure what to do with them. Sometimes they end up going in later in the fic, or in a completely different fic, and other times, they just sit there in my folders of text files.
Here's what was going to be the opening to the JAT fix-it fic, except now I'm going to start in a different place in the timeline, where the plot really begins. This scene opens more or less where "Suicide Run" is supposed to finish off - the morning after the Battle of Endor.
I find the idea of drunk!Jedi so freakin' amusing, you have no idea, and also I love Artoo and Luke's dynamic here. Poor Threepio. Poor, poor Threepio.
The morning after the Battle of Endor, Luke Skywalker woke face-down on pile of rope nets, several dozen meters above the ground on a wooden platform, with the worst hangover of his life. Ughhhh, he thought blearily as the sunlight woke him.
It had been a very long night. He'd gotten back to the Ewok village late after his father's funeral pyre had burned to the ground. With all the dancing and revelry that followed, it had been near dawn before he'd collapsed in exhaustion in an out-of-the-way corner where Artoo had powered down. And of course, well before that, Han and Lando had persuaded him to try the Ewok's redberry wine - which had gone straight to Luke's head. All his Jedi training had flown out the window, and he hadn't been able to resist anything after that.
He vaguely remembered making a fool of himself - and that he hadn't been the only one. After all, it wasn't every day that your father died, or the Galactic Empire fell, or your tribe had won a huge victory against unwanted interlopers, and Rebels and Ewoks alike had followed Luke's lead.
Well. Maybe not in everything.
Beside him, Artoo beeped, pleased to see that Luke was awake. The sound made his head ache even more. How the droid could sound so goddamn cheerful right now, Luke didn't know.
"Ohhhh, no," he said slowly, forcing himself to sit up, although he really didn't feel like it. "I'm fine, Artoo. Fine. Really." The world spun a bit, but it wasn't entirely a lie.
Artoo informed Luke cheerfully that he had recorded holo footage of the previous evening's celebration, and asked if would Luke be interested in viewing it.
"Huh?" Memories sloshed through his mind - still vague, but growing clearer. He had an increasing suspicion he'd made a fool of himself. "Why'd you do that?"
Artoo reminded Luke that last night had been a momentous occasion that needed to be preserved to ensure the accuracy of the historical record.
Oh. He did remember now. That was awkward. "You got me lifting Threepio into the air and spinning him around in time to the music? And then joining him when Han said I couldn't?"
Luke wasn't questioning Artoo's competence, was he? Besides, Threepio was going to be beside himself when he learned that Artoo had recorded the whole thing--
Oh, hell. The odds of getting Artoo to delete the footage were slim, so he switched to damage control. "All right, all right, I get it. But don't show those recordings to anyone unless I say so, okay?"
Artoo acquiesced grudgingly, admitting he didn't require the footage to tease Threepio; it was just a bonus.
It had been over a year since Luke had gotten drunk, but he didn't remember the aftermath ever being this bad. Redberry wine must be more potent than he'd assumed, more so than the moonshine he was used to drinking with the Rogues - back before he'd gone to Dagobah and was just another hotshot pilot from a backwater planet, talented but nothing too out of the ordinary.
Now - things were different. He hadn't been ordinary for a long time, not since he'd started training with Yoda and stepped far beyond the boundaries of his old life.
Luke had been the center of the attention after destroying the first Death Star, but this time, no one was celebrating him. After all, he hadn't been part of the aerial assault like Lando and Nien Nunb and Wedge, nor had he taken out the shield generator with Han and Leia and Chewie. At best, he'd been a distraction - diverting the attention of Vader and the Emperor, so that they had no time or energy to focus on the larger battle that raged outside the Death Star's walls. But no one knew that, except Leia and perhaps Han, and Luke wasn't ready for the rest of the world to find out.
Maybe someday. Bu not yet. Not yet.
It was good that no one was looking closely at him, because he wasn't sure he was ready to face the world yet. The memories of yesterday's battle were still too vivid, too fresh, too raw for him to handle social niceties with anything approaching grace. At least this morning, he could blame it on the alcohol.
He hoped Han and Lando were nursing equally violent hangovers, or else there was no justice in the world. They'd drunk as much as he had, if not more. Then again, they were used to heavy drinking, or at least liquor more potent than Luke could handle. I wonder if the Force can help with that, he thought, and made a quiet vow to find out, preferably under less public circumstances.
Last night...
Last night, he'd been visited by the ghosts of Ben Kenobi, Yoda and Anakin Skywalker, radiating their love and approval. He wondered if they had seen what an idiot he'd been afterwards. Hell, he deserved a lecture, or a few blows from Yoda's stick. He didn't think the old Jedi had foregone temperance quite as badly as Luke had last night.
Last night, despite the joyous crowd, he'd felt isolated and detached, his relief at their victory mixed with melancholy for all that had been suffered and lost that day. Without Leia's quiet steering, he might have drifted off into the shadows again, unmoored and untenanted. Thank goodness for Leia. He owed her so much.
But no, he had another anchor. The seeds. The seeds from the Jedi tree he'd visited on Dagobah after Yoda's death. He had to plant the seeds. He'd - er - promised the tree as much. It was a decision that had made quite a lot of sense at the time, and but now the immensity of the task rolled over him, so overwhelming he didn't know where to begin.
He didn't know anything about seeds, really. Or where he should plant them. Or how to take care of the trees, assuming they survived.
Well, he hadn't known anything about becoming a Jedi, either - and things had worked out. He would trust the Force to show him the way now.
And though the Alliance had won a huge victory with the destruction of the Death Star and the demise of the Emperor, he had no illusions that the remains of the Empire would surrender quietly. It wouldn't be safe to plant anything until peace and freedom had been restored to the galaxy at last.
The boy has no patience, Yoda had said when they'd first met.
He will learn patience, Ben Kenobi's disembodied voice had counseled.
Well. Ben was right. Luke had learned patience after all, or at least a little bit.
When the war was over--truly over-- he would plant the seeds.
Until then, there was a hell of a lot of mopping up to do.
Sometimes... I look at my posts and wonder wtf I was thinking when I was typing... And on that note, I have a date with some scotch, sushi, Netflix (Luke Cage), and my hubs. Not at all in that order. No way in hell I’m mixing sushi and scotch. blech! I’ll try not to come back while drunk because that leads to mistakes, and mistakes lead to suffering, and my suffering will probably be your pleasure. (or annoyance bc I’m a very happy drinker.) ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
