Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chapter 3: Bite Marks



Luke hadn't slept.

The suite was comfortable enough—large bed, soft linens, fresher that actually worked—but sleep had been impossible. Every time he closed his eyes, he felt them. The echoes. Thousands of presences, faint as whispers, pressed into the walls like fingerprints in clay.

Children had lived here once. Trained here. Died here.

He could still hear thier screams, and if he closed his eyes for long enough, he could hear blaster fire, lightsaber humming, screams and the smell of burne— He opened his eyes again.

He sat on the edge of the bed as the light of courasount shone through the windows. The Temple had been beautiful once, he could tell. The bones of it were still good—high ceilings, graceful arches, windows designed to catch the morning sun. But the Empire had gutted its soul and replaced it with something sterile. Diplomatic suites where nurseries had been. Conference rooms where meditation chambers once stood.

The walls remembered what had been taken from them.

Luke wondered if Leia felt it too. If she walked these halls and sensed the screaming that had soaked into the stones. He wondered if it even mattered to her as a Sith, or did it just feed her power, her connection to it.

Around the third hour of the night, he'd given up pretending and gone to find Ahsoka. She was in the corridor outside her own suite, sitting cross-legged on the floor with her back against the wall. Her eyes were open, but she wasn't seeing anything in this room.

"Can't sleep either?" Luke asked.

"No." She didn't look at him. "I keep expecting to see them. The younglings. Running through the halls, chasing each other, laughing." Her voice was flat. "I can still feel where they died."

Luke sat down beside her. The stone floor was cold through his trousers.

"Leia put us here on purpose," he said. It wasn't a question.

"Yes."

"Is it a test? A punishment?"

Ahsoka was quiet for a long moment. "I don't know. With her, it could be either. Or both. Or neither." She finally turned to look at him, and something ancient and tired moved behind her eyes. "She might genuinely think these are the nicest rooms available. She might want us to understand what the Empire did to this place. She might want to see if we'll break."

"And you?"

"I'm not going to break." Ahsoka's jaw tightened. "I've been through worse."

Luke was sure that was true, but he didn't ask about it. Ahsoka had known the Temple before. Had trained here, laughed here, belonged here. Coming back to find it hollowed out and haunted must be its own kind of torture.

They sat together until dawn, not talking, just existing in the weight of the Temple's grief. Luke found it strangely comforting to have someone else who understood. Who felt it too. The silence between them wasn't awkward—it was the silence of two people who had both lost too much to need words.

When the light finally turned from grey to gold, Luke stood.

"I'm going to find her."

"Leia?"

"She said we had until morning. It's morning."

Ahsoka nodded slowly. "I'll wait here. I don't think..." She stopped, started again. "I'm not ready to see her yet. Not like this."

Luke understood. Ahsoka had known Anakin. Had loved him, in the way a Padawan loves a Master. Walking through the Temple where he'd slaughtered children was hard enough. Facing his daughter—the product of everything he'd become—might be too much after last night argument.

"I'll tell you what she says."

"Thank you."

Luke stepped out of his bedroom and into the corridor, trying to remember which direction led to the main halls. The Temple was a maze, corridors branching off in every direction, all of them looking vaguely the same. Both Imperial and Jedi architecture favored uniformity over character, even if in drastic different ways. He hadn't paid attention when they'd been escorted here last night—too tired, too overwhelmed by the weight of the place pressing down on him.

He was about to go looking for a guard when he realized he wasn't alone.

Anakin stood at the end of the corridor, arms folded across his chest, expression uncertain. The blue glow of his Force presence flickered slightly, like a flame in a draft. 

Luke stopped walking.

They stared at each other.

The last time they'd really spoken had been here in the same palace, Anakin dying in his arms, their eyes finally locking together. Before that, Bespin. They did not have the best track record for father-son meetings. In the first two, he almost died; in the last one, his father did.

How did you have a normal conversation after all that?

"I can show you the way," Anakin said. His voice was quieter than Luke expected. Less commanding. Almost hesitant. "If you want."

Luke didn't know what to say. A thousand questions crowded his mind—about Leia, about the past, about what Anakin had done and why, about whether ghosts could feel regret—but none of them seemed right for this moment.

"Okay," Luke said.

Anakin turned and started walking. Luke followed.

The corridors were empty this early—no guards, no servants, no courtiers waiting to petition the new Empress. Just the two of them, living and dead, moving through halls that had known them both in different ways. Their footsteps echoed strangely. Luke's made sound; Anakin's didn't.

Luke studied his father's back as they walked. The way he moved was familiar somehow. The set of his shoulders, the length of his stride. Luke had seen holos of Anakin Skywalker during the Clone Wars—the Hero With No Fear, they'd called him—but this was different. This was real. This was his father, walking beside him, existing in a way that shouldn't be possible.

"She's in the old Knights' quarters," Anakin said after a while. "Not the Emperor's rooms."

"Why?"

"She can't stand the feeling in there. Too much of Palpatine soaked into the walls." Anakin's voice was carefully neutral. "She says it makes her skin crawl."

Luke thought about that. Palpatine had ruled from this palace for over two decades. Had sat in those rooms, schemed in those rooms, corrupted the galaxy from those rooms. If even half of what Luke had heard about the Dark Side was true, the Emperor's presence would have left a stain that might never wash out.

The fact that Leia couldn't bear to sleep there—that she'd chosen plain quarters in a forgotten wing instead—felt significant. Like maybe some part of her still recoiled from the darkest parts of what she'd become.

Or maybe Luke was just looking for hope where there wasn't any.

"Is she okay?" he asked.

Anakin made a sound that might have been a laugh if it had any humor in it. "Define okay."

"Not planning to kill anyone in the next few hours."

"Probably not. She seemed... occupied. When I saw her last night." Anakin's form flickered again, blue light stuttering for a moment before stabilizing. "The coronation took a lot out of her."

"Would you..." Luke's voice caught. He hadn't meant to ask. Hadn't even realized the question was forming until it was already halfway out. "Would you have done the same to me?"

Silence.

The corridor felt colder. Anakin had stopped walking, his form gone very still.

"At Bespin," Luke continued, the words spilling out now that he'd started. "When you were hunting me. When you froze Han and used him as bait. You already knew what you'd done to Leia by then. You'd spent years watching what she became." His hand clenched at his side. "If you'd captured me—would you have done it again? Broken me the same way you broke her?"

Anakin didn't turn around. His voice, when it came, was rough.

"I told myself it would be different."

"That's not an answer."

"Yes, it is." Anakin finally turned. His expression was something Luke couldn't read—grief and guilt and something that might have been self-loathing, all tangled together. "I told myself it would be different with you. That I'd learned. That I wouldn't make the same mistakes. That you were older, stronger, that I could bring you in without—" He stopped. Started again. "I believed it. I needed to believe it."

"But?"

"But I was lying to myself." The words came out flat. Certain. "I know that now. I knew it then, somewhere underneath all the justifications. The methods I used on Leia—the pain, the isolation, the systematic destruction of everything she was—those weren't mistakes. They were choices. And I would have made the same choices with you."

Luke's throat tightened. He'd suspected. But hearing it confirmed was different.

"You'd already seen the results," he said quietly. "You knew exactly what your training did. And you still—"

"I still hunted you across the galaxy. Still set traps. Still planned to bring you to my side." Anakin's voice was hollow. "Not for Palpatine. Never for him. From the moment I found Leia, I was planning to betray him. Both my children, trained in the Dark Side, standing beside me when I finally killed the Emperor. A new Sith empire. A dynasty." His mouth twisted. "A family."

The word hung in the air between them, ugly and broken.

"You wanted us to rule together."

"I wanted to possess you. Both of you. I called it love. Called it protection. Called it destiny." Anakin's form flickered again, unstable. "But what I actually wanted was weapons. Heirs. Extensions of my own power that I could shape and control. Leia was the proof of concept. You were supposed to complete the set."

Luke thought about Bespin. The carbon freezing chamber. The duel. Vader's relentless pursuit, his certainty that Luke would join him. Join me, and together we can rule the galaxy. He'd thought it was a plea. A desperate offer from a lonely man.

Now he understood it was a sales pitch. The same one Vader had given Leia, years before. The same lie wrapped in different words.

"And if I'd fallen? If you'd managed to turn me?"

"I would have brought you to Leia. Introduced you to your sister." Anakin's voice was distant now, reciting a future that had never happened. "I had it all planned. The three of us, united. Palpatine dead at our feet. The galaxy reshaped according to our will. I imagined it so many times—my children, standing beside me, finally understanding that everything I'd done was for them."

"Everything you'd done." Luke's voice was flat. "You mean torturing Leia for years. Breaking her. Turning her into Revaris."

"Yes." No hesitation. No excuse. "And I would have done the same to you, if that's what it took to make you stay. I would have told myself it was necessary. That you'd thank me eventually. That the pain was temporary but the power was forever." Anakin met his eyes. "That's what the Dark Side does, Luke. It takes love and twists it into possession. Takes protection and turns it into control. I loved you both. I loved you so much I would have destroyed you to keep you."

Luke didn't know what to say to that. The thought of it—of being captured, tortured, remade into a weapon, and then presented to Leia as if it were a gift—made something in his stomach turn over.

And Leia had lived it. For years. While Luke was safe on Tatooine, dreaming of adventure and staring at binary sunsets, his sister had been the prototype for Vader's twisted vision of family.

"The difference between you and Leia isn't that I loved you more, or that you were stronger, or that you deserved saving and she didn't." Anakin's voice was barely above a whisper. "The difference is that you escaped. That's it. That's the only thing that separated your fate from hers. If I'd caught you at Bespin, you'd be standing where she is now. Maybe worse. Because by then, I'd had years of practice."

"Practice." The word tasted bitter.

"At breaking Skywalkers." Anakin's expression didn't change. "I was very good at it by the end."

Luke thought about his hand. The one Vader had cut off. A small thing, really, compared to what Leia had lost. Her arm. Her childhood. Her sense of self. Everything that made her Leia Organa, stripped away and replaced with Darth Revaris.

And Vader had planned to do the same to him. Had hunted him across the galaxy specifically so he could add another broken Skywalker to his collection.

"She's stronger than I ever was," Anakin said quietly. "Stronger than me, stronger than Palpatine gave her credit for. She survived things that should have destroyed her completely." He paused. "That doesn't make what I did right. But it means something. That she's still here. Still fighting. Still capable of being more than what I made her."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

"No. It's supposed to be the truth." Anakin's eyes met his. "You asked if I would have done the same to you. The answer is yes. Even after I saw what happened to Leia. Even knowing exactly what I was capable of destroying. I would have done it anyway, and I would have called it building a family."

Luke let that sit for a moment. The weight of it. The honesty.

Then, before he could stop himself, "How are you dealing with all of this, then? She is the Empress. A Sith ruling the galaxy." He paused, something bitter creeping into his voice. "Your dream came true, in a way. Just without you and me in it."

Anakin flinched. It was small—barely visible—but Luke caught it.

"Terrible." The word came out flat, without self-pity. Just a statement of fact. "I'm dead. I spent twenty years as a monster. I tortured my own daughter and turned her into what she is now. I have to watch her make the same mistakes I did, and just hope I can help her in some way." His form flickered. "My former Padawan is somewhere in this Temple, and I can't face her because the last time we met, I tried to kill her." He paused. "And my son is looking at me like he's not sure whether to pity me or be disgusted by me."

"I'm not—"

"You are. It's fine. I deserve both."

Luke said nothing. Part of him wanted to argue—to insist that he'd forgiven Anakin, that redemption meant something, that the choice to save Luke had mattered. But another part of him remembered Bespin. Remembered the cold certainty in Vader's voice. Remembered falling.

Forgiveness didn't mean forgetting. And it didn't mean the complicated knot of feelings in Luke's chest had untangled itself.

"The new Jedi don't need me," Anakin continued. "You don't need me. I'm a cautionary tale at best, a liability at worst. If Ahsoka knew I was here, she'd—" He stopped, shook his head. "I can't face her. Not yet. Maybe not ever."

"Then why are you still here?"

Anakin's eyes—the same blue Luke saw in the mirror every morning—met his.

"Because I can't leave Leia in the darkness I put her in." His voice was quiet but certain. "I made her into this. I destroyed everything good in her and replaced it with rage and pain and the Dark Side. And I can't fix that—I know I can't fix that—but I can stay. I can be here when she needs someone who understands what she's becoming."

"She has me."

"Yes. But you're her light." Anakin's mouth twisted slightly—not quite a smile, not quite a grimace. "I'm her shadow. She needs both."

Before Luke could respond, Anakin was gone. Just—gone. One moment there, the next dissolved into nothing, leaving Luke standing alone in front of a plain door in a corridor full of identical ones.

No sign. No guards. No indication that the most powerful person in the galaxy slept on the other side.

Luke stood there for a moment, processing what Anakin had said. You're her light. I'm her shadow. He wasn't sure he liked being assigned a role in his sister's redemption story. Wasn't sure he believed it was that simple.

But he'd come this far. Might as well keep going.

Luke raised his hand and knocked.

There was shuffling. Movement. A thump that sounded like someone stubbing their toe on furniture. A muffled curse—creative, multi-syllabic, and definitely not appropriate for polite company.

Then the door opened, and Han Solo stood there.

Han looked like he'd lost a fight with sleep and possibly gravity. His hair stuck up at three different angles, defying any reasonable interpretation of physics. He was wearing what appeared to be yesterday's undershirt and sleep trousers, both rumpled beyond recovery. His eyes were half-closed, squinting against the corridor light like even that was too much to handle this early.

And there, at the curve of his neck where collarbone met skin, was a bite mark.

A bite mark.

Luke's brain processed this information in approximately the following order:

1. Han was in Leia's quarters.
2. Han was half-dressed.
3. Han had clearly been sleeping.
4. Han had a bite mark on his neck.
5. Therefore—

No. Absolutely not. No.

He knew Han and Leia were... something. He'd known that since Tattoine. But knowing it abstractly and seeing the evidence of it were two very different things. His brain was now trying very hard to not think about what had happened in this room last night, and failing spectacularly.

Something of this must have shown on Luke's face, because Han sighed.

"Keep it down," he said, voice rough with sleep. "She's finally out. Doesn't happen often."

Luke opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

"I," he managed. "She. You."

"Yeah." Han stepped back to let him in. "Come on, before you wake her up."

Luke walked into the room on autopilot. His higher brain functions had apparently decided to take a brief vacation.

The quarters were simple—surprisingly so. A main sitting area with a low table and several chairs, all of it made in a simple design without any of the ornate flourishes Luke had expected. A closed door leading to what was clearly a bedroom. Another door, probably a fresher. And another one that opened to what seemed like an office. No gold, no ornamentation, no Imperial grandeur. Just clean lines and practical furniture.

It looked like a place someone actually lived in. Not a throne room. Not a statement of power. Just... a room.

Han dropped into one of the chairs and rubbed his face with both hands. "You want caf? There's a little kitchen thing over there. I haven't figured out how to work it yet."

Luke sat down across from him. The chair was more comfortable than it looked. "I'm fine."

"Suit yourself." Han yawned, jaw cracking. "What time is it?"

"Early."

"Figures." He stretched, rolling his shoulders, and the movement pulled his collar aside slightly, revealing more of the bite mark. Luke looked away quickly. "She's going to be annoyed you're here this early. Said you had until morning, and I'm pretty sure she meant, like, mid-morning. Not dawn."

Luke's mind was already racing ahead to the conversation he needed to have. The conditions. The terms. The things the Rebellion and the Jedi had asked him to convey.

He wasn't sure how Leia would react. That was what worried him. Yesterday, at the coronation, she'd been controlled. Political. The perfect image of a benevolent Empress. But he'd seen her other side too—the sharp edges, the cold calculations, the way she could turn from warm to glacial in the space of a heartbeat.

What if she didn't accept the conditions? What if she saw them as a challenge, a threat, an insult? What if the fragile truce they'd built shattered before it even had a chance to hold?

Luke was afraid. He could admit that to himself, if no one else. Not afraid of Leia hurting him—he didn't think she would, not really—but afraid of losing her. Of saying the wrong thing and watching her walls go back up. Of pushing her away when she was finally, maybe, starting to let him in.

But he had to do this. The conditions weren't unreasonable. They were practical, necessary, the bare minimum required for anyone to trust this arrangement. If Leia couldn't accept them, then maybe the truce was never going to work anyway.

Better to find out now.

"She's probably been awake since I got near the door," Luke said, forcing his thoughts back to the present. "She can sense me in the Force."

"Probably." Han shrugged. "But if she's pretending to sleep, I'm not going to be the one to call her on it. Woman needs rest."

"She doesn't rest much?"

"She doesn't rest at all. Not really." Han's expression shifted—still tired, but something more serious underneath. "She'll work until she passes out, then wake up a few hours later and start again. I've seen her go three days without sleeping. It's not healthy."

Luke frowned. "Can't you make her stop?"

Han laughed—a short, tired sound. "Kid, you've met your sister. Nobody makes her do anything. Best I can do is annoy her into taking breaks. Works about half the time."

That tracked with what Luke knew of Leia. Stubborn didn't begin to cover it.

Han was quiet for a moment, watching Luke's face. Then he snorted.

"You don't have to worry about me, kid."

"What?"

"The way you keep looking at me." Han gestured vaguely at himself. "Like you're trying to figure out if I'm in danger. If she's going to—I don't know—snap one day and fry me with lightning because I left my boots in the wrong place."

Luke felt his face heat slightly. He hadn't realized he was being that obvious.

"She's not going to hurt me," Han continued. "Probably threaten me a lot. Definitely yell at me. But actual harm?" He shook his head. "That's not who she is. Not with people she cares about."

"You sound very sure of that."

"I am." Han leaned forward, elbows on his knees. His expression was more serious now. "Look. I get it. Sith Lord. Dark Side. All that power and anger and whatever else the Jedi warn you about. You're afraid she's going to lose control one day. Hurt the people closest to her."

Luke didn't say anything. It wasn't exactly what he was thinking—not that simply—but it was close enough.

"You're all too scared of her," Han continued. "Even Leia is scared of herself. She takes too much on her shoulders. She hasn't slept properly in months—years, probably. Every decision eats at her. Every choice she makes, she second-guesses. Not out loud, not where anyone can see, but I can tell."

Luke thought about that. About the Leia he'd seen yesterday—commanding, confident, untouchable. And the Leia Han was describing—exhausted, second-guessing, afraid.

Both could be true. Both probably were true. People were complicated, and Leia was more complicated than most.

"She's gentle with the kids," Han said. "The Force-sensitive ones she rescued. She never loses her temper with them, never makes them afraid. She plays games with them, did you know that? Hide and seek, but with the Force. Teaching them to mask their presence while pretending it's just fun."

"That sounds like training."

"That sounds like someone who doesn't want them to end up like her." Han's voice was quiet. "She never turns away anyone who needs her. Refugees, freed slaves, people with nowhere else to go—she finds them places. Resources. Safety. And she never takes credit for it."

"Because it's politically useful?"

"Because she doesn't think she deserves credit." Han met Luke's eyes. "She thinks she's a monster, kid. She thinks the only good she can do is damage control—using her power to protect people because she's too far gone to be good herself. And every time someone sees her as anything else, she panics."

He just looked at her. It was so different from how Leia presented herself—all cold confidence and calculated control. But it made a strange kind of sense. The way she deflected compliments. The way she framed everything as strategy. The way she seemed almost uncomfortable when people treated her as anything other than a threat.

"So yeah," Han said. "I'm not worried she's going to hurt me. I'm worried she's going to work herself to death trying to be worthy of something she doesn't think she can ever have."

"And what's that?"

"Forgiveness." Han shrugged. "Redemption. Whatever you Jedi call it when someone bad becomes good again."

Before Luke could respond, a door opened and Leia appeared.

She was barefoot. She was wearing a grey shirt that was too big for her—Han's, definitely, Luke realized with a fresh wave of discomfort—and loose sleep pants. Her hair was an absolute disaster, tangled and flattened on one side where she'd slept on it, sticking up on the other in ways that defied explanation.

She looked nothing like an Empress.

She looked like his sister.

Something in Luke's chest loosened at the sight. This was Leia without the armor. Without the performance. Just a woman who'd been woken up too early, stumbling toward caffeine.

She yawned, saw Luke, and stopped mid-stretch.

"Why are you here so early?"

"You said we had until morning."

"I meant a reasonable morning. Not—" She squinted at the chrono on the wall, eyes still bleary. "Dawn. That's not morning. That's still night with delusions of grandeur."

"The sun is up."

"The sun is a suggestion, not a requirement." She shuffled past him toward what was apparently the kitchen area, moving with the graceless determination of someone who hadn't fully woken up yet. "Nobody talk to me until I've had caf."

Han caught Luke's eye and shrugged, as if to say this is what I deal with.

"Couldn't figure out the machine," Han said. "Tried for ten minutes. Thing's broken or something."

"It's not broken, it's just—" Leia's hands were already moving across the caf machine, pressing buttons in a sequence that seemed entirely random. She wasn't even looking at it. "You have to know the design. My Master used to—"

She stopped.

Her hands went still on the machine. The caf was already brewing, the smell filling the small kitchen, but Leia wasn't moving. She was staring at the machine like she'd never seen it before.

Luke watched her face. Something was happening there—something shifting behind her eyes. Her jaw tightened. Her fingers, still resting on the machine's casing, curled slightly.

"Leia?" Han asked.

The caf machine crumpled.

Luke flinched at the sound—metal shrieking, components crunching inward. Caf sprayed across the counter as the whole thing collapsed into a twisted ball of wreckage.

Leia picked up her cup, which had somehow already been filled, and turned around. Her expression was perfectly calm. Blank.

"Machine's broken," she said.

She walked past them, dropped into the chair next to Han, and pulled her feet up under her. Took a long sip of caf, eyes closed, as if nothing had happened.

Luke glanced at Han. Han gave a small shake of his head. Don't ask.

When Leia opened her eyes, she looked at Luke over the rim of her cup.

"Okay. Morning. You're here." She took another sip. "What's the answer?"

Luke took a breath. This was it. The moment he'd been dreading and preparing for since yesterday.

Just say it. She's your sister. She won't kill you for delivering terms.

Probably.

"We accept your terms," he said.

Something flickered in Leia's expression—surprise, maybe, or relief—but it was gone almost immediately. Her face settled back into neutral attentiveness. "Go on."

"We have conditions of our own. Not unreasonable ones. Just practical."

Luke watched her carefully as he said it. Looking for any sign of anger, any hint that he'd pushed too far. But Leia just nodded, setting her caf cup on the arm of her chair.

"I'm listening."

"The Rebellion can't control all of its factions. Some splinter groups may still attack the Empire. We can't be held responsible for people who don't answer to us."

He held his breath, waiting for the pushback. For Leia to point out that this was a convenient excuse, that the Rebellion should control its own people, that she wouldn't tolerate attacks on her Empire regardless of who was responsible.

Instead, she just nodded slowly.

"I expected that. If they splinter off from your command structure, any actions they take are on them, not you. But they will be dealt with."

Luke exhaled. "I understand."

"And?"

Keep going. She's being reasonable. Don't lose momentum.

"The Jedi plan to rebuild. Choose a planet, establish a temple, start training again." Luke held her gaze, trying to project confidence he didn't entirely feel. "You can't know which one. Not yet. We don't trust you that far."

This was the condition he'd been most worried about. Telling the Empress of the known galaxy that she couldn't have information—that she wasn't trusted—seemed like exactly the kind of thing that might trigger a bad reaction.

Leia's expression didn't change. She was quiet for a moment, and Luke could almost see her thinking. Calculating. Deciding.

Then she nodded again.

"Fine. I won't ask, and you won't tell me. But Luke—" She leaned forward slightly, and something in her voice softened. Just a fraction. "When you're ready. When you trust me enough. I'd like to know. Not to control you. Just to know where my brother is."

The word brother did something complicated to Luke's chest. She said it so rarely. Always Luke or the Jedi or you. Hearing her acknowledge the relationship out loud felt like a small victory.

"Maybe someday," he said.

"I'll wait." She sat back, picking up her caf again. Then she paused, something shifting in her expression. "Speaking of Jedi. I have something that might be useful."

Luke blinked at the change of direction. "What?"

"Imperial intelligence files. Vader's personal records." Leia's voice was careful, measured. "There are some Jedi who survived. Ones who went into hiding after the Purge. The Empire knew about them but never managed to track them down." She met his eyes. "I can give you their names. Last known locations. Whatever information we had."

Luke stared at her. He hadn't expected this. Hadn't even considered that she might offer something unprompted. "Why?"

"Consider it an olive branch." Her mouth quirked slightly. "I'm supposed to be building trust, aren't I? This is me building trust."

"Do you know who they are?"

"Some of them. Cal Kestis, for one—Vader was obsessed with hunting him for years. Never succeeded. There are a few others. I can't promise the information is current, but it's more than you have now."

Luke felt something loosen in his chest. He'd been bracing for a fight, for resistance, for Leia to push back on every condition he brought. Instead, she was offering him a gift. Freely. Without being asked.

"Thank you," he said. And meant it.

Leia nodded, something almost warm flickering in her expression before she suppressed it. "The Rebellion's high command. They want guarantees."

"They won't be harmed. As long as they behave. But they can't return to their old positions. The war is over, and the galaxy needs to see that." Her voice was matter-of-fact, like she was reciting obvious facts. "Mon Mothma specifically. She's too prominent, too connected to the old Rebellion leadership. Having her in any position of authority would undermine the peace."

Luke had expected this. He'd argued about it with Mon Mothma herself, actually. She hadn't been happy. But she'd also been practical enough to recognize that being alive and irrelevant was better than being dead.

"She won't be happy," he said.

"She doesn't have to be happy. She has to be alive. That's the deal." Leia's mouth quirked slightly—not quite a smile, but close. "Tell her I said that."

"I will."

Luke hesitated. There was something else he wanted to ask—something he'd been thinking about since Han had mentioned the children. The Force-sensitive kids Leia had rescued from Hutt slavery.

"The children," he said. "The Force-sensitives you rescued."

Something shifted in Leia's expression. Subtle, but there. A guardedness that hadn't been present a moment before.

"What about them?"

"I know you care about them." Luke chose his words carefully. "Han told me. About the games you play with them. The training you give them."

"It's not training. It's—"

"I know. It's protection. Teaching them to survive." Luke leaned forward slightly. "But Leia, you can't bring them here. Not to Coruscant. Not to the Imperial Palace. And you won't have time to care for them properly. Not as Empress."

Leia's jaw tightened. He could feel her resistance in the Force—not anger, exactly, but something defensive. Protective.

"I'm aware of the logistics."

"The Jedi can help." Luke held up a hand before she could interrupt. "I'm not trying to take them from you. I'm offering support. The adults who joined your campaign—they're already committed. They've chosen their path. But some of them might want something else. A place to rest. To heal. And the children..." He paused. "They need stability. Training. A community. Things you can't give them while you're running an empire."

Leia was quiet for a long moment. Her fingers tapped against her caf cup—the only sign of tension in her otherwise still posture.

"You want to take them."

"I want to offer them a choice. Only those who want to come. No one forced, no one pressured." Luke met her eyes. "They're not prisoners, Leia. They're people. Let them decide for themselves."

The silence stretched. Luke could see Leia thinking, weighing options, calculating risks. This was the part of her that frightened people—the cold strategic mind that never stopped planning, never stopped analyzing.

But underneath that, he could feel something else. Something that almost felt like hope.

"One condition," Leia said finally.

"Name it."

"You take everyone who wants to come." Her voice was hard now, challenging. "Not just the ones who are easy. Not just the bright-eyed children who've never touched the Dark Side. Everyone."

Luke frowned. "I don't understand."

"Some of them have already fallen." Leia's gaze was steady, unflinching. "Some of them touched the Dark Side during the liberation. Some of them killed slavers with their bare hands and liked it. Some of them are angry, and broken, and dangerous." She paused. "You want to prove you believe in redemption? Prove it. Take the dark ones too."

Luke felt the weight of what she was asking settle on his shoulders. It wasn't just about the children. It was a test. A challenge. You say I can be redeemed. You say there's still light in me. Then prove it means something. Prove you're not just saying it because I'm your sister.

"If you're so convinced that I can be saved," Leia continued, her voice soft now, almost vulnerable, "then show me it's not just words. Show me the Jedi will actually try. With everyone. Not just the easy cases."

Luke thought about what she was asking. About what it would mean to bring fallen Force-users into a new Jedi Order. The risks. The challenges. The possibility of failure.

But he also thought about Leia. About Anakin. About everyone who'd ever been told they were too far gone, too corrupted, too broken to save.

"Okay," he said.

Leia blinked. "Okay?"

"We'll take everyone who wants to come. Light, dark, or somewhere in between." Luke held her gaze. "That's what redemption means, Leia. It has to mean something for everyone, or it doesn't mean anything at all."

Something changed in Leia's expression—surprise, maybe, or something deeper. She looked away, reaching for her caf cup, and Luke pretended not to notice the way her hand trembled slightly.

"Good," she said. Her voice was rough. "I'll have the files sent to you. Names, locations, assessments. You can coordinate with Serra on the logistics."

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet." She took a long drink of caf. "Some of them are going to be difficult. I'm not sending you easy cases."

"I didn't expect you to."

The corner of her mouth twitched. Almost a smile.

Luke felt some of the tension he'd been carrying start to ease. They were getting through this. Actually making progress. Maybe this truce wasn't as fragile as he'd feared.

Then he remembered the last condition.

The hard one.

"There's one more thing," he said.

"From you?"

"From Bail. And Breha." He saw Leia's expression tighten slightly at the names. The shift was subtle—a muscle in her jaw, a slight tension around her eyes—but Luke caught it. "They asked me to deliver it. They thought it would be better coming from me."

"What is it?"

Luke took a breath. He didn't want to do this. Didn't want to be the one to add another wound to the complicated mess of Leia's relationship with their adoptive parents. But they'd asked him, and they'd been right—it would be better coming from him than from them directly.

At least Leia might actually listen.

"They're asking you to step down as Princess of Alderaan."

Silence.

The room seemed to get colder. Luke could feel something shift in the Force around Leia—a cold current, dark and sharp, rising up before being ruthlessly suppressed. Her face didn't change. Nothing visible. But he could sense the reaction she wasn't showing.

"Why."

Luke hesitated. The official reasons were ready on his tongue—political neutrality, too many responsibilities, protecting Alderaan from being seen as her power base. All of it true enough, in a technical sense.

But they both knew that wasn't the real reason.

"Because you're a Sith," he said quietly. "Because you're Empress. Because you rule by force, not consent, and they can't—" He stopped, tried again. "They can't have the Princess of a peaceful planet be both. Princess of Alderaan and Sith Emperor. The two things don't fit together."

Leia's expression didn't flicker. But something in her eyes went flat. Dead.

"They're ashamed of me."

"They're afraid." Luke leaned forward. "Not of you. Of what it means. Alderaan has always stood for peace. For diplomacy. For everything the Empire isn't. If you're Princess, then Alderaan is complicit in whatever you do. Every order you give, every decision you make—it reflects on them. On their planet. On everything they built."

"So they want to cut ties."

"They want to protect their people. And—" Luke hesitated, then pushed forward. "They won’t say it’s the reason. You can use whatever reason you want. An excuse. A story you can tell. I stepped down to focus on my Imperial duties. I didn't want Alderaan's politics to interfere with galactic governance. Something that doesn't make it look like they asked you."

Leia was quiet for a long moment. Her fingers had gone still on the caf cup. Her face was a mask—but Luke could feel the hurt radiating from her despite her control.

Princess of Alderaan. It was the title she'd been born to. The role she'd been raised for, before Vader had taken her. Even after everything, even after becoming a Sith and an Empress, some part of her was still that little girl in the white dress, heir to a planet that valued peace and culture above all else.

And now they were asking her to let it go.

Not because of politics. Not because of logistics. Because of what she was.

Because of what Vader had made her.

"They're right," Leia said finally. Her voice was flat. Controlled. "I can't be both. I knew that. I just..." She stopped. Swallowed. "I thought they might let me pretend a little longer."

"Leia—"

"It's fine." She set down her caf cup with a small click. "I'll draft the formal abdication today. Winter can take the title, or they can choose someone else. It doesn't matter."

"It matters to you."

"What matters to me is irrelevant." Her voice was sharp now, brittle. "I'm Empress. I don't get to have feelings about things. I just get to make decisions." She looked at him, and something raw flashed in her eyes before she buried it. "Was there anything else?"

Luke wanted to reach out. To say something that would make this easier. To acknowledge the sacrifice she was making, even if she'd never call it that.

But he didn't know what that would be. And Leia wasn't the kind of person who wanted her wounds poked at.

So he asked something else instead.

"Why did you offer it?" He kept his voice careful. Curious, not accusatory. "The pardons. Letting the Jedi rebuild. You're a Sith. I know you don't exactly like us."

Leia was quiet for a moment. She looked down at her caf cup, turning it slowly in her hands.

"For the same reason you agreed to a truce, I imagine." Her voice was softer now. Tired. "The same reason you're willing to let a Sith rule the galaxy instead of fighting to the last man." She met his eyes. "There's been enough fighting. Enough death. I'm tired of it. Aren't you?"

Luke hadn't expected honesty. Not like this. Not so simple and raw.

"I convinced the Jedi," he said, choosing his words carefully. Wanting her to understand. Wanting her to see that this wasn't just politics to him. "I told them I don't believe you're as far gone as you pretend to be. That there's still light in you, even if you've buried it deep. And that if I'm here—if I'm part of this—I can help you find it again."

Leia's expression changed for a moment. Something that might have been hope, quickly hidden. She looked down at her caf cup, then back up at him.

"I also told them that fighting the Hutts is worth supporting. That I won't forgive the Rebellion if people stay enslaved because of stubbornness and ideology." Luke met her eyes. "You're doing good work, Leia. Even if you're doing it for complicated reasons. That matters."

"And the Jedi agreed?"

"Reluctantly. Ahsoka still thinks this is a terrible idea." He allowed himself a small smile. "But she's giving you a chance. That's all any of us can do right now."

"And if in a few years things go badly?"

"Then we reevaluate." Luke shrugged. "But I don't think they will. I think you're going to surprise everyone. Including yourself."

Leia stared at him for a long moment.

Then she laughed—a short, surprised sound, almost involuntary. The tension in the room broke, just slightly.

"You shouldn't have admitted that," she said. "I guessed you would. That you'd convince them by being earnest and hopeful and impossible to argue with. But you shouldn't have confirmed it."

"Why not?"

"Because now I know your strategy." The corner of her mouth twitched. "You're going to be optimistic at me until I give up and become a better person just to make you stop."

"Is it working?"

"Ask me in a few years."

They sat there for a moment—the new Empress in her borrowed shirt and messy hair, the smuggler still half-asleep, and the Jedi who still believed in impossible things.

It wasn't peace, exactly. It wasn't trust.

But it was something. A foundation, maybe. Something to build on.

Luke felt some of the tension he'd been carrying since yesterday start to ease. This was going to be hard. All of it—the truce, the rebuilding, the complicated dance of trying to save his sister while she ruled an empire. But for the first time since arriving on Coruscant, he thought it might actually be possible.

"So," Han said. "Breakfast?"

He stretched again as he said it, and his collar shifted.

Luke's eyes caught on something he'd missed before. Another mark. Lower, closer to the shoulder, partially hidden by the fabric.

A second bite mark.

He looked away quickly, but not quickly enough.

Leia followed his gaze. Saw what he'd seen. Saw the mark she'd apparently left on Han's shoulder at some point during the night.

Her face went red.

Not slightly pink. Not a subtle flush. Red. The kind of red that started at her neck and climbed all the way to her hairline, turning the Empress of the known galaxy into a mortified teenager caught doing something embarrassing.

"I," she started. Stopped. Tried again. "That's not—"

Han looked down at himself, realized what they were both staring at, and laughed.

"Relax," he said, still grinning. "It's not a big deal."

"Han—"

"What? He was going to figure it out eventually." Han shrugged, completely unbothered. "Now he knows his sister's a biter. It's fine."

The silence that followed was deafening.

Luke made a sound like he'd been punched in the stomach.

Leia looked like she wanted the floor to open up and swallow her whole. The blush hadn't faded—if anything, it had gotten worse. Luke had never seen her this mortified. Not during the coronation, not during negotiations, not even when she'd been caught off-guard by her parents' request. But this—this had broken through all of her careful composure.

"I didn't need to know that," Luke said, his voice slightly strangled. "I didn't—that's my little sister, I don't want to—"

"Your what?"

The mortification vanished from Leia's face, replaced by something far more dangerous.

"My little sister," Luke repeated, confused by the sudden shift. "You're my—"

"I am not your little sister." Leia's voice had gone sharp. The embarrassment was gone, buried under a fresh wave of outrage. "I'm the older twin. Obviously."

"No, you're not."

"Yes, I am."

"You're really not." Luke couldn't help the smug smile that crept onto his face. This was solid ground. This was something he knew for certain. "I asked Obi-Wan."

Leia went very still. "You asked Obi-Wan."

"He was there. At the birth." Luke's smile widened. This was, perhaps, the only advantage he would ever have over his sister. He intended to enjoy it. "And he said I came first. By about two minutes."

"That's not—" Leia sputtered. "He could have been wrong. It was chaotic. There was—our mother was dying, there was no time—"

"He had very clear memories of it, actually. You can ask him yourself ."

"That doesn't—I'm the Empress—"

"And I'm still older than you."

Leia turned to Han, as if expecting him to take her side. Han held up both hands in surrender, grinning.

"Don't look at me. I'm not getting in the middle of this."

"This is a betrayal," Leia said. Her voice had gone slightly distant, like she was processing a fundamental shift in her understanding of the universe. "The galaxy itself has betrayed me. How am I the younger twin? I conquered an Empire. I killed two Sith Lords. I rule worlds."

"And I was born first."

"By two minutes."

"Still counts."

Leia's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. She looked genuinely thrown—more off-balance than Luke had ever seen her.

"I'm going to find Obi-Wan's Force ghost," she said finally, "and I'm going to have words with him."

"He's probably hiding," Luke said, still grinning. "He knows what you're like when you're angry."

"I am not angry. I am processing."

"You're angry."

"I am the younger twin." Leia said it like she still couldn't believe the words coming out of her mouth. "All this time. All these years. And I'm the youngest in the family."

"By two minutes," Han offered helpfully.

"Not. Helping."

Luke was trying very hard not to laugh. He was failing.

"This changes nothing," Leia said, drawing herself up with whatever dignity she could muster while barefoot, red-faced, and wearing her boyfriend's shirt. "I am still Empress. I still rule the galaxy. I am still—"

"My little sister," Luke finished.

The look Leia gave him could have melted durasteel.

"I liked you better when you were focused on redeeming me," she said. "You were nicer then."

"I'm still trying to redeem you. I'm just also enjoying this."

"This is the Dark Side," Leia muttered. "This feeling. This is what the Dark Side actually is. Not power or anger. Just... having a smug older brother."

"Now you know how most people feel."

Han was laughing again, quietly, looking away from her. Leia shot him a look that promised retribution later.

"I hate both of you," she announced.

"No, you don't," Luke said.

"No," she admitted, after a moment. Her voice was grudging, but some of the tension had left her shoulders. "But I'm going to pretend I do for at least the next hour."

"Fair enough."

Leia grabbed her caf and stood. "I'm going to shower. And get dressed. And try to forget that this conversation ever happened." She pointed at Luke. "When I come back out, we are not discussing the bite marks or the twin thing ever again."

"What about breakfast?" Han asked.

"Breakfast is acceptable." She paused at the bedroom door, looking back at them. "But if either of you mentions anything about 'little sisters' or—" she gestured vaguely at Han's neck, "—that—I will make you both regret it."

"Understood," Luke said solemnly.

"Wouldn't dream of it," Han added.

Leia gave them both one last suspicious look, then disappeared into the bedroom. The door closed behind her with more force than was strictly necessary.

Luke and Han sat in silence for a moment.

Then Han turned to him, eyebrows raised.

"Two minutes, huh?"

"Two minutes."

"She's going to hold that against you forever."

"Probably." Luke couldn't stop smiling. "Worth it."

Han shook his head, but he was grinning too. "You're not as nice as you look, kid."

"I have a Sith Lord for a sister. I had to learn to hold my own somehow."

From the bedroom, muffled by the door, came Leia's voice: "I can hear you!"

"I know!" Han called back.

The only response was the sound of the fresher turning on, pointedly loud.

Luke sat back in his chair, still smiling.

His sister was a Sith Lord and an Empress. She had bite marks on her boyfriend and a temper that could level cities. She was apparently younger than him by two whole minutes, and absolutely furious about it.

And somehow, sitting in her quarters on the morning after her coronation, listening to her sulk in the shower while Han made terrible jokes, Luke felt something he hadn't expected.

Hope.

Not the desperate, determined hope he'd carried through the war. Not the grim resolve that had gotten him through the negotiations, through the uncertainty, through the fear of saying the wrong thing and losing her.

Something quieter. Something that felt almost like normal.

Like family.