Saga - PT Four Ways to "I Love You" (Owen/Beru Oneshot for OTP Challenge #31)

Title: Four Ways to “I Love You”

Author: devilinthedetails

Genre: Romance; Fluff; Mush.

Timeline: Saga-PT.

Characters: Owen Lars; Beru Whitesun; Shmi Skywalker; Cliegg Lars.

Summary: Three times Owen tried to say, “I love you” to Beru, and one time he succeeded.

Author’s Note: Written for the OTP Challenge 31. I’m grateful as ever for the oodles of inspiration that stream from that thread into my writing and the writing of my wonderful fellow fanfic authors!

Four Ways to “I Love You”

Speeding over Sand

Owen came, riding fast as the wind that whipped through Tatooine’s rugged beige and bronze canyons on the speeder bike his dad had bought for him years ago when Owen’s ceaseless begging on the subject had finally been rewarded, to pick Beru up at the Whitesun settlement at the precise time that they had arranged.

He was always punctual when it came to picking her up. Something that made her mother smile and nod in approval, melting like bantha butter left out in the sun. That made her less impressed father roll his eyes and tease Owen about how they could set their chronos by the schedule of his arrival and departures.

Beru, being the product of both her parents by birth and upbringing, found herself fluctuating between the two poles of these positions. Her attitude toward her boyfriend’s meticulous punctuality shifting based on her mood and the surrounding circumstances. Sometimes she admired Owen for his steadiness, his rocklike reliability. Other times she found herself shaking her head and laughing. Affection and exasperation equally mingled into both gestures as they could only be on a Tatooine homestead.

On this occasion, she felt admiration ripple through her. Admiration that she allowed to radiate from her in the warm smile she bestowed upon him as he arrived before the domed abode of the Whitesun family in a spray of sand. Dismounted from his speeder bike. Pecked her cheek in greeting. He would not kiss her on the lips where her parents and siblings might see, she knew. Was both grateful and embarrassed by that. Her face pinkening as if burnt by the blazing suns.

She let him guide her onto the speeder bike. Seating her so she was straddled behind him. Arms wrapped like chains around his hips. Locking her to him so that she would not fall away from him. Landing hard on unforgiving desert sand.

“Hold on tight to me,” he enjoined her as he so often did when they were about to fly together like this. The wind gusting through their clothes and whacking at their faces. The dunes spreading below them like endless waves of gold shimmering in the bright light of the suns.

“I will,” she assured him. Burying her cheek in the strong bulk of his shoulder. Not just to shield her eyes from the tornados of sharp-flinging sand raised by the passing of his speeder bike, but also just to savor the sensation of her body against his. To inhale the scent of him. He smelled somehow of hard work, desert sands, and Tatooine sunsets. Evoking a hundred shared memories between them, and the hope of a thousand more such shared memories.

With her cheek pressed against his shoulder like this, she could feel every measured movement of his arm as he deftly steered his speeder bike, which he had never crashed despite attaining speeds both their fathers considered reckless, over the dunes and through the winding canyons for which Tatooine was famous.

Holding onto him like this with the wind pulling at the brown hair she was glad to have coiled into her two braided buns, she felt spurred to add the almost mischievous, “And I’m never going to let go either. Not even when the speeder bike ride stops.”

“Who says the speeder bike ride is ever going to stop?” The sound of his chuckle reached her over the roar of the engine and the wind rushing through her ears.

“It must stop eventually,” she shouted over the wind and the engine. “When it runs out of fuel.”

“We would pause to refuel as needed,” he called back. “But that wouldn’t be stopping. Not really. Not if we intended to resume our journey as soon as we were done refueling.”

This was a pleasant daydream to her. That they could fly forever across the endless expanse of Tatooine’s sand. Its vast, unabating desert. Pausing only for fuel. Never truly stopping. Him steering them carefully past every obstacle they encountered on their journey. Her holding onto him for strength and security against whipping winds.

The mental image his words had painted must have been equally amenable to him for he twisted his neck briefly to look at her. To face her as he said, “I love…”

She felt adrenaline surge within her. Not just from the breakneck speed with which they were soaring over Tatooine’s sands, but from the prickling anticipation that he was about to declare his love for her.

She would bury him in a sandstorm of kisses when he did, she decided. Her own way of telling him that she loved him just as ardently. Desired him just as deeply. Her feelings a mirror of his.

Yet, he did not say he loved her. Instead he finished with, “Riding fast on my speeder bike. Across the dunes and canyons of Tatooine.”

“I do too,” she replied. Mainly because she loved doing it with him. Being with him. Her sun-heated body pressed against his. Holding onto him in the desert.

A Fresh Zoochberry Muffin Picnic

Beru spent much of the morning in the cool shade of the Lars kitchen. Baking a fresh batch of zoochberry muffins for her and Owen to enjoy. She measured out the flour and the sugar perfectly as her mother had taught her. Not merely by volume but by weight on kitchen scales.

Slowly stirred in the blue milk so the muffins would be fluffy. Airy as clouds. Not dense as permacrete. Did not neglect to rinse off the zoochberries in a strainer over the sink–using precious water–so that the zoochberries wouldn’t be heavy. Wouldn’t drop to the bottom of her muffin tins. Was careful not to undermine the benefit of her rinsing by folding the zoochberries into the batter with attention and diligence.

As the muffins, poured evenly into their tins, baked in the oven, filling the kitchen with the sweet fruitiness of their aroma, Shmi smiled at her. Remarked, “You do spoil my son, Beru.”

That was how Shmi always spoke of Owen, Beru had noticed many times on her visits to the Lars homestead, where it now felt like she spent more of her life than at the Whitesun farm. The house where she had grown up with the family that had raised her into someone who knew how to make the best batch of zoochberry muffins and many other things besides.

Shmi never referred to Owen as her stepson. Only as her son. Which probably explained why Owen was so devoted to her.

“As you spoil me, my dear,” Cliegg proclaimed with gruff good cheer. Coming into the kitchen. Kissing Shmi.

“Yes.” Shmi laughed. “Like I spoil lazy old you while our poor son toils over the vaporators.”

“Our son sent me indoors. Out of the suns. To refresh myself with a glass of juma juice.” Cliegg opened the cooler door. Pulled out the jug of juma juice he mentioned. Poured it into a glass and drank it greedily. Thirsty as a man could be only after spending hours beneath the Tatooine suns. “I’m so old and decrepit now that our son worries about me overworking myself. Overheating like a speeder that needs to be sent to the scrapheap.”

The oven beeped an indication that the muffins were finished baking at that moment. Beru removed them. Confirmed with the dry insertion of a toothpick that they were indeed baked through. Then left them to cool on the counter while she prepared the rest of her planned picnic for her and Owen.

Layered a generous heap of napkins at the bottom of a wicker basket for cushion and cleanliness. Placed a stick of bantha butter in a rounded corner of the basket. Added a knife for cutting the muffins and a butter knife for slathering the bantha butter onto the fresh zoochberry muffins to the basket as well. Then filled a clay pitcher with cold blue milk traded for at the stalls in the Anchorhead market operated by their fellow farmers.

She tucked the muffins into the basket. Nodded in satisfaction over this ensemble. Then swung the basket over one arm while taking a firm grip of the jug containing the blue milk in the other and stepped out of the kitchen. Going outside to find Owen wherever he was working.

She found him near the edge of the homestead. Hunched over a vaporator that seemed to be the focus of his current labors.

She clucked her tongue in mild admonishment as she neared. “You’d forget to eat if I didn’t bring you a picnic lunch, wouldn’t you?”

He stood. Turned to face her with eyes blue and cool as the milk in her pitcher. Eyes that sparkled and shone as they regarded her. “You were good enough to bring me a picnic lunch?”

“I was,” she confirmed. “One I cooked myself, I might add.”

In the shadow of the vaporator, they sat on the hot sand. Munching on the zoochberry muffins she had made. Washing the muffins down with the blue milk. Their lips were stained by the zoochberries and by the blue milk when they finished their picnic.

She could taste the sweet fruit lingering on his lips when he kissed her at the end of their meal.

“The muffins were delicious,” he murmured as he kissed her. His words–his praise–and the kiss his expressions of gratitude for the sustenance she had brought him while he labored beneath Tatooine’s broiling suns.

“You have berries on your lips,” she answered breathlessly when their kiss ended. Grabbing a napkin from the basket. Dabbing his mouth with it.

“So do you.” He swiped at her lips with his fingers.

“You’re supposed to do that with a napkin, silly,” she reproached him. Not scooting away.

“I love…” He paused. Gazed at her intently.

She filled the pause with everything she hoped he would say. A wild declaration of his love for her. Or a straightforward one. Unadorned as the life they led on Tatooine. Whatever he said, it would be perfect, making her heart sing, as long as he finally admitted his love for her. Gave her the opening to confess that she, too, loved him.

“Fresh zoochberry muffins.” His conclusion was all the more disappointing and anticlimactic because she had dared to hope he would say something else. Something grander.

She didn’t say anything. Afraid her voice would wobble if she ventured a comment of her own. She didn’t want her voice to wobble. Not in front of him. Not after they had shared a picnic of her fresh zoochberry muffins.

“Especially if they are made by you,” he added gruffly.

That was close to a declaration of love, but not close enough that she could do anything but gather up the basket, empty of everything except dirty napkins and knives now, and the pitcher, drained of its blue milk. Reply with words brisk as her gestures. “I do too.”

Something in her tone seemed to alert him that she was less than pleased. Not as happy as she had been at the start of their picnic or when they shared the kisses and the zoochberry muffins. For he studied her with a furrowing brow. “Have I offended you, Beru?”

“Why would you have offended me?” A question. Not an answer.

“I meant to compliment you.” A frown joined his furrowing brow. “Not offend you.”

“Well, if you meant to compliment me, how could you possibly have offended me?” Beru was unable to keep the tartness out of her manner now.

She could almost hear her mother’s voice in her head now. Complaining about how impossible men were. How they always missed obvious truths staring them straight in the nose. Required constant direction in order to be of any use to anybody, including their hapless selves.

She rose. Decided to give him that direction. Give them both that direction. “We should get back to work. You have your vaporators to attend to, and I have a kitchen to clean.”

He grunted an acknowledgment before resuming his business with the vaporator, and Beru thought as she returned to the kitchen that she and Owen might have found a way to communicate like an old married couple without ever actually declaring their love for each other.

Sunset Beauty

Beru and Owen stood on the crest of a sand dune on the Lars farm. Watching Tatooine’s twin suns set. Staining the sky with streaks and splatters of vibrant muja.

“I love–” Owen began. Hesitated. Made a coughing noise as if sand were stuck in his throat. Continued, “Sunsets.”

“They are beautiful,” Beru agreed. So beautiful that she couldn’t even be angry at him for once again failing to tell her that he loved her. She was that munificent. That forgiving. The glorious sunset making her generous.

“You are beautiful too.” Owen bent. Trailed a river of kisses along the narrow line where her hair met her forehead. “Beautiful as any sunset that ever graced the dunes and canyons of Tatooine.”

There was an unusual, almost wistful poetry in his words. Poetry that brought a smile to her lips even though he hadn’t said that he loved her. He had come close enough, she thought as the suns sank ever lower on the horizon.

Silver Star Rise

Beru and Owen lay side-by-side, their hands entwined, on a blanket stretched over sand that was swiftly cooling as stars rose silver in the darkening dome of the Tatooine sky at which they were gazing.

Together, they named the constellations as they saw them. Spotting the shapes in the stars. The stars that all represented suns like Tatooine’s. The milky spiral of the galaxy being far larger than Beru could fathom. An idea that might have made Beru shiver if Owen wasn’t beside her. Warm and comforting merely by existing.

“I love–” Owen’s gaze fixed on her. Twinkling with the borrowed light of the stars. “You, Beru.”

Beru had been waiting for him to say this for so long that she almost couldn’t believe she heard it when the words did finally emerge from his mouth. Her ears were very much in denial, which left it to her tongue to stumble out, “That’s what you’ve been trying to say all along, haven’t you?”

“All along?” He arched an eyebrow at her. Her response evidently not the expected one.

“When we were on your speeder bike, and you told me you loved riding it fast.” Beru drew her fingers along his arm. Teasing him. “When I baked you a picnic of fresh zoochberry muffins, and you told me you loved fresh zoochberry muffins. When we watched the suns set, and you told me you love sunsets.”

“I do love all those things.” Owen grunted. Then amended, “But I love them even more when you are sharing them with me.”

At this rough confession, Beru relented. Kissed his cheek. Finally gave him the answer she knew he wanted. Whispered in his ear as if it were the most salacious of secrets, “I love you too, Owen. I love riding fast on the speeder bike, because I can hold onto you tightly and dream about never letting go. I love making fresh zoochberry muffins for you because I know you will enjoy them. I love watching the suns set with you because you will make them more beautiful.”

They said nothing else as they continued to watch the stars rise. There was nothing else that needed to be said. They were just happy to be together on this cooling Tatooine night.

 

@WarmNyota_SweetAyesha Thank you so much for reading and commenting, and for the challenge idea that inspired this story from the OTP thread

I'm so glad that you got a chuckle out of Beru and her family's reaction to Owen's punctuality. I'm like you (and Owen) in that I generally strive to be punctual and appreciate the trait in others. And can sometimes be frustrated by those who are perennially running late. So I would definitely be more on the admiring end of the continuum as well!

I'm so happy that you enjoyed that mental image and pleasant daydream, and that you found it resonated as symbolism of how a couple leans on each other

The descriptions of the zoochberry muffins made me so hungry as I wrote, and I'm so glad that you thought they sounded scrumptious!

I did get a little chuckle out of writing the not exactly an argument between Owen and Beru, because Owen could be so oblivious about not understanding that, as you say, it wasn't what he said but what he hadn't said that had Beru upsetBut eventually he does finally find his courage to say I love you, and we can have our happy ending

Yes, he is getting there! The sunset gives him some romantic words and sentiments

And I'm so flattered beyond words that you felt the last section was a perfect blend of tenderness and teasing since that was exactly the vibe I was hoping to create, and thank you again for the kind words

 

@UltramassiveUbersue Thank you so much for reading and commenting! I'm so glad that you found my portrayal of a young Owen and Beru adorable!

Like many young couple, they can have their struggles with communication with Owen finding it hard to open up about the depth of his true feelings for Beru, and Beru sometimes expecting him to read her mind, but it is those flaws that make them lovably human. And in the end, they are able to get past their communication issues and mutually declare their love for one another

This is Owen during the wild and free days of his youth when he has a speeder bike and rides it fast, but still has some of those tendencies like perfect punctuality that will show just how much of a strict person he will become later in life

 

I love...
...
...
...your Beru and Owen stories!

These two are just so sincere, no-frills, and "sho' 'nuff" in their love for each other, and as this story shows, that comes through even when communication hiccups and breakdowns happen, as are bound to in any relationship. I love that none of Owen's "almost I love yous" were taken amiss or in a negative way by Beru, which is a route that seemed possible given the summary of the story, and that says a lot right there. Indeed, both he and she find a way to interpret each of them as a way of saying "I love you": loving biking together while holding on fast to each other, loving eating juicy zoochberry muffins together, and loving watching the suns set together are all ways of loving each other, if that makes sense. It was sweet that you gave Shmi and Cliegg (and their love for each other and the younger generation) a cameo, too, as it shows what a good model Owen and Beru have. Thanks so much for contributing this sweet and fun story to the OTP 3+1 challenge—always a joy to have you on board!

 

@Findswoman Thank you so much for reading and reviewing! I'm so flattered that you love my Owen and Beru stories, and I do love all your OTP challenges that give me the opportunity to write about this and other adorable couples that steal my heart

Yes, Beru and Owen are both super sincere and no frills in their love for each other as you say, and even with some of the communication hiccups and breakdowns, hopefully the core truth of that love between them is still able to shine through in this story!

I really did want to have none of Owen's "almost I love you's" to be taken in a negative way by Beru, because I wanted to showcase and celebrate some of the groundwork and buildup to that final declaration of love from Owen that in many ways feels even more worth it because of the struggles he's had in getting those words out! And I also wanted this story to be a sort of tribute to the love that can grow and be expressed in those little moments shared together whether it is watching a beautiful sunset or riding fast through a desert landscape or munching on some delicious muffins as happens with Owen and Beru here. They are really wise in being able to see each of these events and experiences as ways of saying "I love you" to each other!

I have a massive soft spot for Cliegg and Shmi as a couple, so I absolutely couldn't resist giving them a sweet cameo here, and I always like to look at some of the mushy family moments that might have been shared on the Lars farm before Shmi was tragically abducted by the Tusken Raiders. Writing Shmi happy will always be a true joy to me

Thank you as always for hosting this beautiful challenge and for reading and reviewing

@earlybird-obi-wan Thank you so much for reading and reviewing! I'm so happy to hear that you love how I write Owen and Beru and explore their characters since they are one of my favorite Star Wars couples

@Hopefulwriter Thank you so much for reading and reviewing and for the kind words! I'm so flattered that you found this to be a wonderful story about Beru and Owen and that you felt it was nice to read about their background since it is always a treat for me to write these two