Sequel to: Helictite
Relationship: Luke/Leia/Han
Notes: I'm not crying you're crying shut up.
1.
Lightsabers cauterized as they burned. What no one ever had to say was how it still hurt like hell. The shock was keeping the worst pain away, he knew in a far away part of his mind, the part that held a timer and counted down the milliseconds until he died.
No time left to say anything, and no breath even if he could. Couldn't contact Leia. Couldn't even find Luke. Didn't have the energy to turn his own head to tell Chewie good-bye. He mustered every atom of strength remaining to raise his arm and touch Ben's face one more time. His brain couldn't help overlaying images of the red, squalling infant he remembered, and the happy boy who'd grown into a sullen adolescent. Han's vision clouded inside and out.
He fell.
He died before he landed. His grave became a star.
He woke.
The old man sat on a comfortable patch of mist beside him, looking just as crotchety and annoyed with Han as he had the day they'd met.
Han rubbed his head. "What the hell? I thought I was dead."
Kenobi smiled grimly. "Hello, Han. You are dead, I'm afraid. This is the bit that comes next."
2.
Luke lay on the hard surface, unable to catch his breath. The battle had taken everything from him. He'd been ripped of his powers and his memories and now his life. He'd surrendered all he had left to give of himself in one last attempt to save Ben's soul, and he'd failed. Luke loved that boy like his own son, and he'd lost him to the memory of Luke's own father.
Distantly, he was aware that Rey was hovering over him, trying to staunch wounds that would never heal. Past her horrified form, the boys were only shadows, already part of a world Luke could not remain in. He'd come close to death so many times, and won.
He coughed a little, laughing. "Luke?" Rey asked. He could hear the sorrow in her voice.
"We all lose the same battle once," he said. It felt like a good teaching. He wished he could have finished her training, wished he could have hugged Leia one more time, wished all the things a Jedi should not wish because a Jedi was beyond wishes. He regretted leaving Rey at this point in her training. He regretted leaving Leia alone, the last of their triad. She had always been the strongest of them. She would survive this loss as she had survived all her losses. But he loved her, and he would have spared her the pain.
He tried to speak again, and found he couldn't, and Luke died listening to his last Padawan fighting her own tears.
The shadows lifted from his eyes sharply, like cloth had covered his face and had been removed. From far off, he saw the sparkle of stars, and near him, he heard voices.
Luke turned. Han was there, that half-smirk on his face Luke had loved for decades. So many friends stood with him, past him, faces Luke remembered, and faces he'd longed to meet.
Han held out his hand, and took Luke's. No prosthetic. He felt the warm if ghostly tingle as Han helped him to his feet. "About time you got here, kid," Han said, and he smiled like a new day while they embraced.
3.
She was old.
Oh, her advisers said she looked amazing and strong, and not a soul would remark on the pure white in her hair or the tender wrinkles covering her face. If she'd had grandchildren, Leia would have spoiled them and let them tug on her clothes and remark how old Grandma was, and they would have said the truth. But she had no grandchildren, and she could only read the truth in the signs in her own mirror and the growing weakness in her grip.
She spent more time these days sitting in the sunlight. Sometimes she forgot which planet she was on, until Threepio gently corrected her. Honestly, did it matter if she spent a morning thinking she was on Tattooine or Alderaan? She still had her mind otherwise, though it was so crowded with memories it stood no wonder when she got lost in one for an afternoon.
It was her one hundred and seventh birthday. It would have been Luke's birthday, too. They'd been born the day the Old Republic had perished, and they'd helped birth the Second Republic. Now she stood in the bright light of a sun whose name she couldn't recall at this moment, accepting that the Third Republic didn't need her any longer. Those new pups ran everything. Leia had finished her work in the names of all who hadn't lived long enough to do so themselves. She remembered them, more clearly than she remembered the name of the latest nurse Poe had foisted upon her.
Besides, the memories came and talked with her these days, and she couldn't count all the times they'd come to her at need in years past. Others had offered condolences when she'd lost the men she'd loved, and Leia had kept the secret.
Nothing ever was lost, if you knew the trick of seeing.
Leia sat in calm certainty in the warm light, and she closed her eyes. When she opened them, she sat under another star, and the boys stood there looking like they were half-expecting her to chastise them for their tardiness.
"This is it?" she asked, standing up slowly and rejoicing in the energy flowing back into her limbs. "I was expecting.… I don't know what I was expecting."
Luke embraced her first, the first soul hers had ever touched. She felt the love pouring through him, and felt it just as strongly as Han held her after pressing ghostly lips into her hair.
"This is what's next," Luke said, taking her hand. "Come on. Mother has been waiting to meet you for a long, long time."
end