this is a disclaimer.
AN: part of the swallows and amazons verse.
to clinch a lifetime's argument
In ten years' time, they're going to joke about the future of the Jedi Order having been decided in the Skywalkers' living room on a rainy weekend.
The light is dim and the rain patters against the windows in a steady rhythm; the apartment smells of caf and woodsmoke from the fireplace Mara had installed almost the second she and Luke were married. Not long after Ben was born they knocked down the wall to the apartment next door and expanded their living space by quite a lot, but it's still crowded in here, and as always when it comes home to him just how big his family is, Luke the orphaned farmboy takes a moment to marvel, and to smile to himself.
Jysella is perched on Ben's lap in the armchair, their linked hands resting on the swell of her belly. It's a boy.
Threepio in the kitchen, remonstrating with Anakin's twins: "Mistress Jessa, in all the years since the births of your Aunt and Uncle, chocolate cake has never been considered suitable for a midday meal in this family!"
Ripple of laughter in the living room: it is if Han's in charge of the proceedings.
Laina, born diplomat, opens the negotiations by clearing her throat. "Everybody got caf?"
"Thank you, Lane, yes," Tenel Ka says, smoothly picking up her cue. "I understand, Luke, we're here to discuss your retirement?"
(Married to Jacen for nearly twenty years and she still trips over using her in-laws' first names. The formality of the Hapan court can do that to you.)
Luke's the only one still standing. "Not so much my retirement as the consequences thereof. One way or the other, I am stepping down as Grand Master."
Nods. No one makes a move to interrupt (yet).
Luke sighs. "To be honest I would have preferred to have this discussion in public, but Leia insisted on a family conference first; against all her democratic instincts, I'm sure..."
His sister sighs right back, mock-exasperated at her brother's mild teasing. "I've said it before and I'll say it again. This Order is less than fifty years old. There's not a single Jedi on Yavin or off who doubts that you'll stay on at the Academy and continue to teach, Luke, or that you'll still be on the Master's Council. But you can't underestimate the impact of your decision. It's not just about who takes your place; it's about how we make that decision and deal with the transition. This family needs to be a stabilising influence on the Order in that time; they need to know where each and every one of us stands. They don't need a united front from us, but they do need certainty. Watching us hash this issue out in public will not help."
"I agree, Dad," Lane says.
"You're disqualified by virtue of having been taught all she knows," Luke says to her, jerking his head at Leia, and Lane laughs at him.
"Well, suit yourself," Corran says. "I agree. I know you don't like people thinking of this place as a Skywalker family project, Luke, but don't go too far the other way and ignore just how much people think of you and your family as being a more stable part of this Order than the Temple we're teaching in."
Luke twists his mouth, sips his caf. "If we're all agreed on that, then?"
"Makes sense to me," Jaina says, implicitly speaking for all the kids just because she's Jaina.
(Colonel Jaina Solo Fel of New Republic Starfighter Command knows all about the importance of knowing where your leaders stand in times of crises.)
Knowing they're all agreed on this makes Luke unaccountably nervous all of a sudden. He looks round at their faces: Han, silent and thoughtful; Corran and Mirax, expectant; the kids, calm and quiet. It's uncanny sometimes how deep the bonds between them run, how close they are, how attuned to one another.
Mara, watching him back. She tips her caf mug at him, tilts her mouth in a half-smile. (I dare you, farmboy.)
"At the next meeting of the Master's Council I'm going to announce my intention of stepping down as Grand Master of the Order," he tells her. "It's time. I've guided this Order long enough. I won't become Yoda, mistaking stagnation for continuity. I think my last act as Grand Master will be to push for the position to rotate on a regular basis: every decade, for example. Whether by election or appointment or what I don't know, but there needs to be a chance for change on a regular basis."
Mara's smile widens.
"Also, there's the grandkid," Luke adds, deadpan. "I'm not having Corran monopolise him."
Everyone laughs, any lingering tension gone. Jaina taps her finger against her caf mug; her other hand is resting on Jag's thigh. He's watching Luke with cool green eyes.
"What sort of change are you thinking of?" he asks.
(Good question.)
Luke nods at him. "Any kind there needs to be," he says.
Anakin, contemptuous: "Jedi Master answer."
Pause. (Luke's not good at this: this revealing of himself. His walls are high and strong, multi-layered, and since Endor the only outsider to bypass them all has been Mara.)
"Stability, perhaps," Luke says at last. "A period of peace, during which we can... settle in. Put down deeper roots, decide the direction of the Order, what works for us and what doesn't."
Anakin again, sharply questioning as always: "You don't feel you've been doing that?"
Luke's boot heel, scuffing back and forth, catches against the edge of the rug. He knocks against it lightly. "Yes and no. I'm a fighter, Nik. I've fought for everything I've ever had. I've fought in the name of vengeance, and of a dead Republic; I've fought for my friends most of all. I fought for my sister, and I fought my father for himself. I fought to found this Order and I fought to keep it, to pass on what I had learned and to bring back a light into the galaxy when it needed one."
They're silent, watching him: guilty too often of forgetting that Luke, too, was a soldier once.
"I've fought for long enough, I think," Luke says quietly. "Choose who you will, Nik. But it needs to be someone who can look at that uniform" – he points at Jag – "and not see the shadow of the Death Star hanging over every move the Imperials make."
Silence still.
(Perhaps too much of himself revealed. They see the compassion and the peace process and the man who went to Vader at Endor to bring him back to himself; they don't see the nightmares that lingered too long, the scars that went too deep, the boy who stood before the burnt-out ruins of his home and locked his ability to mourn for his family away inside himself in order to finish the job he knew he had to do.
They don't see the way the duel with Vader disintegrated at the end, how Luke drove his father to his knees by using his lightsabre more like an axe than a Jedi's weapon, elegance gone, all training forgotten, raining mindless savage blows on the thing he couldn't hate.)
"I hadn't known," Jag says.
"Even sometimes is too much," Luke says.
Jag nods, understanding. (He's a smart kid, quick as Jaina but steadier with it. They match each other well.)
Maira, speaking for the first time: "How do you suggest we decide your successor?"
"I don't," Luke says, and holds up a hand when his sharp-tempered daughter makes to object. "No, May, I think that's important. It was Mara's idea, and I agree with her: I shouldn't suggest even the process of choosing my successor. No preferences stated. No hints, no nudges, no grooming of anyone to take my place. Clean break."
May shakes her head, firelight catching on her gold earrings. "Don't take this too far the other way, Dad. Remember Yoda was nine hundred years old; that's not a problem that's going to face any of us."
"Human life expectancy is just over a century," Luke says. "Jedi life expectancy could well be a good thirty years longer. That's a hundred years of me influencing this Order."
"You still think that's too long?"
"Yes."
May nods. "I don't know if I agree with you, though."
"I'm flattered."
Tahiri clears her throat. "You know, as the resident family historian, I think I agree with Luke. We've always said the worst mistake the old Order made was allowing the Council to choose its own members, yes? I'd argue this is a part of that: how much say the Grand Master has in the matter of his successor."
May, impatience banked (she's always struggled with it more than Ben and Lane): "And how do we make that kind of change without completely destabilising the Order every time a Grand Master steps down?"
"Include as many people as possible in the decision-making," Ben says.
"I won't have election campaigns held within this Order," Leia says sharply. "That would destroy us."
"I'm not talking about campaigns," Ben says. "I mean a kind of... grand convention, where everyone who's ever passed through this Academy comes together and decides on a list of nominees."
"Your basic direct democracy," Lane says.
"That might work," Leia says, considering. "We'd need someone to have the last word."
"Following Uncle Luke's logic, it shouldn't be the Master's Council," Jaina says.
"It would have to be," Valin objects. "Who else is qualified to decide if any of the candidates are even equipped for the position?"
"What about the Master's Council in conjunction with others?" Ben says. "A delegation from the Senate, and the Imperials, and Hapes, for example."
"I'm not turning this Order into a political instrument," Luke says.
"No, but Ben has a point," Mara says, leaning forwards. "You've worked hard to keep us independent from the Senate, to take in students from the Empire as well as the Republic: this could be it, Luke, final proof of the Jedi Order as independent from any one single government."
"Governments tend to have agendas other than the good of the Jedi Order –"
"I think we need outsiders to be involved, though," Jysella says. "People like Mom, and Han, and Jag; and Reb, May. Or people like Wedge, Talon Karrde, people the Order trust. It'd help avoid the isolationism of the old Order."
"Sella's right, we can't get too involved in our own problems."
"But we'd still be talking about opening the Order to the influences of others – don't forget that without the old Order's close ties to the Senate a lot of things might have been different!"
"But they might not have. Are we guarding against another Palpatine or are we trying to find a way to allow the Order to move forwards independently of the actions of a single Grand Master?"
Luke tucks his thumbs into his belt and watches them argue with a warm glow building in his stomach: what he wanted this, ideas the old Order would never have contemplated. Openness and innovation.
(Remembers still the instinctive recoiling of a twenty-two year old boy from the idea of thousands of years of changelessness, Yoda's sorrow, his conflict that Luke only glimpsed, as deep as Vader's own.
But, Master, surely there's a difference between remembering and respecting the past and clinging on to it with both hands.
Perhaps. Perhaps see that difference too late I did. But still, a search for alternatives, not easy it is.
The important thing, Luke wants to tell him across the gulf of fifty years, is that a search takes place.)
Anakin stands up with lazy grace, swinging his empty caf mug by the handle: "I think we're going to need more of this."
"Good idea," Luke agrees. His youngest nephew is smiling at him, strange little smile, secretive.
"You know who I'm going to nominate, don't you," he says.
Luke grins a bit, two pairs of blue eyes focussing on Jacen: animated gestures, quick smile, ability to talk himself out of any kind of trouble inherited from both his parents, even now shooting down every one of Valin's arguments with gentle ease.
"Yes," he says. "I think I do."
Han follows the direction of his gaze, catches his eye. He and Chewie both silent for most of the morning; Luke hasn't been entirely sure why, but now he thinks he is: Han, damn him, knows him too well, can predict him too accurately.
He glares. Han grins back.
(They don't need words for this.)