Title: Forward
Author: upsidedownbutterfly
Summary: "You're not walking away. You're moving forward." Luke leaves the Jedi Temple near the end of Apocalypse.
Rating: G
It was a warm day when the Jedi Order departed Coruscant for good. Luke was the last to leave.
On the highest landing platform, the last batch of supply crates were being loaded aboard the Millennium Falcon. However, the Jedi Temple itself was empty when Luke settled himself cross-legged on the floor of the onetime council chamber. He had spent the last several hours wandering aimlessly throughout the Temple, surrendering himself to the Force and allowing it to guide him down twisting corridors and though great vaulting halls. All the once-familiar rooms had seemed so strange in their emptiness. No fountains had bubbled in the meditation gardens, no lightsabers had hummed in the training areas, and everywhere Luke went, his footsteps had echoed impossibly loud off the now-bare walls.
Now from the floor of the abandoned council chamber, Luke opened himself to the Force once more, reaching out with his mind to trail tendrils of the Force through all the distant corners of the Temple he'd missed – every nook, every closet, every crawlspace from the terraformed basement labyrinths to the pinnacle of the highest spire. No matter how smaller or insignificant, he wanted to etch each of them into his memory one last time. It was his own way of saying goodbye.
It was there that Leia found him. Luke could sense her arrival in the steady pressure at the back of his mind that had always represented Leia, but his sister made no move to disturb him. He could feel her there, lingering in the doorway, content to wait for him to complete his mental journey. When he opened his eyes at last, she returned his smile and held out her hand in silent offering.
They walked out onto the landing platform hand in hand. Behind them, the Temple door closed with a resolute snick. It was a sound Luke had heard a thousand times before but today there was a finality to it that had nothing to do with the acoustics themselves. The wind was at their backs as they stepped out from the shelter of the Temple's lee, a warm, steady pressure driving them onwards across the landing platform. Ahead Han and Jaina were hauling a final crate up the boarding ramp of the Millennium Falcon while Allana scampered about chattering animatedly at a Ben. Above them all, Luke could just make out the distant buzz of the HoloNet camera droids as they circled through the sunlit air.
He looked back only once as they crossed the landing platform, a single glance back at the building that had been the heart of the Jedi Order for over four thousand years. It had weathered much over the millennia. Razed first in the Sacking of Coruscant during the Great Galactic War, it had fallen again in the wake of Palpatine's purge and then once more during the Yuuzhan Vong's terraforming. Every time however it had ultimately risen anew, rebuilt once more out of the ashes of each calamity. It was only a symbol Luke knew, but it was a powerful one, and it felt strange to walk away.
"You're not walking away. You're moving forward," said Leia. Luke hadn't spoken out loud, but then words had never mattered much when it came to Leia.
She was right, of course; she always was. For so many years, Luke had looked to the millennia-long legacy of the Jedi Order as a source of strength, and in most respects it would always be that. Yet somewhere along the way, in the wake of Jacen's fall, the past had started to lose some of its luster. Now when Luke looked back, all he saw were the mistakes. In his effort not to repeat them, he'd instead allowed the Order to become mired in them, and in the process turned their history into a burden rather than an inspiration. It wasn't the sole reason for this exodus, but it was one of the things he hoped it could represent – a chance to escape the weight of their past and all its mistakes before the Order suffocated beneath them. To move forward, as Leia had said, and though forward toward what, Luke couldn't be certain, he was finding that uncertainty unexpectedly liberating.
Before them, the Falcon's engines flared to life with a roar as Ben and Jaina herded Allana aboard the ship. A moment later, Han reappeared at the top of the boarding ramp. "You ready, kid?" he called. Luke didn't answer him, but when his feet touched the edge boarding ramp a moment later, he didn't hesitate.
The future was always in motion after all. It was time to embrace it.