A Long Time Ago, In a Galaxy Far Away

Chapter 24

The next day, Luna gladly left the house, practically running to the hideout after she remembered to apply makeup over the bruise that looked even worse than it had previously. Yesterday was done, she wouldn't dwell on it anymore. Not until next year.

Luna could leave her past behind.

She arrived at the hideout relatively quickly after stopping by a fastfood place to grab a hot breakfast for everyone. She found that Anakin and Obi-Wan were just getting up and made sure to be quiet as to not wake Padmé.

"You weren't joking when you said you'd be here the whole day," Anakin joked before taking his breakfast from Luna. Earth's food was different than what was around back in their galaxy, but it was good. Luna just smiled as she picked up one of the kittens after setting down her back pack.

"Why not? I've got nothing else to do," she replied in a low voice, trying not to eye the food as she pet Han. Luna had skipped breakfast again.

It wasn't long until Padmé was waking up. Anakin brought the food to her while Luna played with the kittens. Obi-Wan had disappeared for the moment which allowed the couple to talk to Luna without the fear of being overheard.

"Did you ask her?" Padmé asked, her voice low.

"Yes," Anakin replied.

"Luna, could we talk?"

Luna looked up from where she was with Luke and Leia before standing and coming over.

"Sure," she replied.

"You know what I asked you about the other day?" Anakin asked. "Did you find anything?"

Luna paused for a moment, recalling what he was talking about before shaking her head. "Not really, my best guess is the same. When you get back to your proper universe the baby should be back."

"Could you guess as to why the baby isn't here?" Padmé asked. Luna shrugged, an apologetic expression crossing her face.

"Not really. I mean I guess it's possible that, for lack of a better word, your 'frozen' in time. Your universe wouldn't continue on without you so because of that maybe it only brought you and not the baby, but I couldn't tell you for sure. I'm really sorry, but I'm just about as clueless as you."

"Well, thanks for trying," Anakin told her.

"I just wish I could give you a better answer," Luna sighed, shaking her head.

They were quiet for the next few moments before Obi-Wan reappeared, a newspaper in hand. Luna and Anakin looked at him questioningly.

"Where did you get that?" Luna asked.

"What is that?" Anakin questioned.

"I believe, Luna do correct me if I'm wrong, that this has news about Earth in it. I thought that we might want to hear of what's going on, if Luna is willing to read it to us. As to where, I found it," Obi-Wan replied.

"Yeah, that's called a 'Newspaper,'" Luna informed them, taking the newspaper from him and checking the date, giggling when she saw that it was that day's date. "Did you steal it off a doorstep or from one of the machines?"

"Someone was selling them actually."

"Oh, mind tricks, I see. Well, at least we don't have to worry about some seven year old missing the Sunday Funnies."

"The funnies?" Anakin repeated.

"The best part of a newspaper.... Unless there's something Star Wars related, but that's usually in magazines," Luna replied paging through it as she sat down, putting the ads in a pile to one side. "So you want local news, national news, international news, um....sports....garden, business and finance....like that's interesting....food, or home improvement?"

"Let's start with local," Padmé replied.

"Sure...."

***

"And two people were killed because of a bomb in.... Mo-ga-di-shu, So-ma-li-a?" Luna said, shaking her head. "I don't think I said that right."

"Why was there a bomb?" Padmé asked. She was the most interest out of the three in the news of Earth, being a politician; however, this particular headline had caught all three's attention.

"Probably terrorists.... Um, let's see.... Extremists trying to overthrow the government," Luna sighed, shaking her head. "Close enough." Luna tended to live in her own little bubble, and it had been awhile since she had seen any news unless it was was huge, like hurricanes and mass shootings along with the occasional bombing of somewhere, and even then, she got most of her information listening in school halls. The paper was just further proof of the dark and death filled world that seemed to be growing darker each day. It wasn't looking so good for her generation.

"Not that peaceful of a planet," Obi-Wan muttered.

"Welcome to Earth," Luna replied. "Where mankind messes up a lot."

"At least you aren't at civil war," Anakin said.

"In the eighteen-sixties, there was an American Civil War. Then there's also World War I and World War II with Hitler and the Nazies, both cases had more than half the world choosing a side and fighting."

"Hitler?" Obi-Wan repeated.

"Nazies?" Anakin asked.

"Really bad guy who was really messed up and single handedly caused the the near extermination of the Jews in Europe and deaths of over six million people. The Nazies are his followers. For World War II at least, I'm pretty sure most of the deaths were civilians. Just because it isn't a system or galaxy wide conflict doesn't mean it isn't bad...."

"Well, why don't we look around town, if you wouldn't mind showing us around," Obi-Wan said, deciding to get off of depressing topics.

"I don't see why not."