Rebuilding and Remembering: A Star Wars Fan-fiction
My first attempt playing on the great George Lucas' galactic playground. Everything belongs to him, unless it stinks, then it's all me.The story is complete and I will update often. Read and review, please!
Chapter 1
The Emperor is gone. The war is over. Vader is dead. Luke...
Luke Skywalker lurched up from the soft Endor ground. The celebration fires simmered around him. The revelers slept now, their complete exhaustion uninfluenced by the light glimmering through the trees as a new morning - a new universe - enveloped Endor's forest moon. Luke stretched out in the Force. Sensing Leia only a few feet away he relaxed again onto the ground. Whatever had caused him to wake, Leia slept safely and soundly.
Pain rippled through Luke's muscles. He tried to remember what Yoda and Obi-Wan had taught him about healing. Maybe Leia will be a healer. He smiled at that thought. Leia possessed many fine qualities but the patience required for healing probably would not top the list.
He inhaled and felt searing fire in his lungs. The embers simmering around the Ewok village reminded him of the Force lightning coursing through his blood. Now his raspy breaths echoed the final shudders from his father. I couldn't save him. No, that isn't right. He said I saved him.
"You did". Luke sat up again and Anakin Skywalker sat beside him.
"Father," Luke stammered. He had seen him the night before. He knew his father joined Yoda and Obi-Wan in the Force. He had longed for answers to many questions though he had been unable to ask them as Leia had led him to join the living. His fears about never seeing Obi-Wan, Yoda, or his father again slipped away into the Endor mist.
"I expect there are things you want to know," Anakin smiled in a way that seemed familiar to Luke. Familiar and yet so foreign. Luke did not immediately respond and Anakin looked away. "I will answer anything I can, Luke." Anakin still spoke Luke's name as if he was testing, searching, realizing truth, understanding the gift he had been given and how indescribably precious this felt to him. The forsaken one no longer. The Chosen One. The completion...
"I want understanding, I want answers, I want truth," Luke said. "I don't think I'll ever find them." Anakin's eyes questioned and Luke felt like a whiny teenager again. "Obi-Wan told me that the truth changes according to your point of view." Those words seemed to cut into his father and Luke regretted them, but he could find no words to explain his emotions.
"I suppose Obi-Wan is right. He usually is." Anakin smiled his wry smile again and Luke felt the draw to learn about Anakin, to truly know him, to annihilate the specter of Darth Vader forever. His father now seemed young, vital, so achingly nearly alive, in his shimmering Jedi robes. Younger than Luke or Leia, and untouched by the years of conflict, and that image caught Luke off guard. So many wasted years! Anakin looked away at the still slumbering heroes and Luke knew the thoughts his father held inside.
"She's over there," he gestured to the tiny hut where Leia slept. Luke followed his father to the humble quarters. Leia slept soundly, favoring her wounded arm but comfortable on the bed the Ewoks had insisted she take.
"She's beautiful," Anakin whispered. "Padmé."
"Her name is Leia," Luke murmured, trying not to wake everyone. Anakin did not speak. He turned quickly away as if he could no longer look at her.
"I've hurt her," he said simply, acknowledging, though not fully realizing, his guilt.
"Very much," Luke replied as he sat back down on his own mat. "She was raised on Alderaan."
"Princess Leia," Anakin murmured. Luke knew his father spoke more to himself than to his son. "Daughter of a queen." Luke wondered if his father was quite sane after all he had been through.
"Daughter of the Viceroy of Alderaan," he replied hesitantly.
"Daughter of the Queen of Naboo," Anakin corrected, facing his son once again. Luke's confusion must have shown plainly.
"Our mother was a queen?"
"And a senator, and fighter, and the most beautiful woman in this or any galaxy," Anakin sighed, retreating into his own thoughts. And the melancholy smile playing around Anakin's lips hurt Luke far more than he could have imagined. Must lighten this mood...
"That does sound like Leia," Luke smiled.
"What sounds like Leia?" The Princess emerged from her hut. Surprise and confusion rushed through Luke as he realized that Leia could neither hear nor see their father. Anakin disappeared into the haze.
"I've been talking with Father," Luke confessed. He watched as Leia worked to control her revulsion and fear. Despite her training as a Senator she could not hide her feelings, at least not from Luke. She visibly took control of herself and sat next to Luke. She absently scuffed her boot against the dark Endor soil.
"How are you feeling?" She wanted to ignore whatever Luke had been doing. She felt bewildered and vaguely angry about her long lost brother being one of the mysterious Jedi she had heard described in the Alderaan court and in the hushed Senate corridors of Coruscant. And the knowledge that Darth Vader had fathered her...The murderer.
"Better." Luke wrapped his arm around his sister, careful of her wounds. "You?" Leia did not answer because she simply did not know. How was it possible to feel every emotion known to the galaxy, all at once?
"Mon Mothma will be here today," Leia decided to confront the tangible battles of the day rather than her illusive issues surrounding her own troubled family. When Luke did not respond Leia rushed on, "The plans for the rebellion must be discussed and since nearly everyone is here she decided to come here. The war is not over."
"I know." How much feeling and wisdom she sensed behind those two simple words. "It will not be over for many days, perhaps years." Leia felt her hopes and dreams drain from her as Luke spoke. How happy she had been as Han held her during the celebration only a few hours before. She could almost see the children they would have, the home they would make and now those long desired things disintegrated into all her other dreams; the oft recurring nightmare that there was some way she could save her beloved Father and her adopted people from the Death Star or the terrible shadows of someone she loved crying and dying while calling her name, someone who left her alone.
"Coruscant is the first priority, I believe," Leia murmured, knowing instinctively that her brother – Her brother! – would understand her desire. "There are reports of civilians killing the Emperor's guards and storm troopers. The quicker a provisional government can be established, the better."
"In which you will be instrumental." He touched his lightsaber unknowingly, for comfort she supposed.
"No," she denied. "I have no home to represent."
"You are a leader, Leia," Luke smiled, not quite happily. "You must realize they will expect you to lead." Leia looked at the sky and leaned her head against her brother's shoulder. She wished she knew where Han, Chewie and Lando had gone. They had better not be playing Sabaac... "I will be happy to see Coruscant," Luke admitted. "I've waited my entire life to see the fabled center of the universe! I suppose the Jedi Temple will be my first priority. Maybe there are still files, something to teach me what I should do next. How I can re-establish the Jedi, if I can establish the Jedi." Luke stood as he sensed Han approaching. "Han is coming."
"I know that," Leia replied. "I may not be a Jedi but I do know that."
"Everyone in the system probably knows," Luke agreed. Chewie made no effort to keep his steps quiet and he seemed to be shouting again, possibly with joy but equally possibly with anger. As Leia ran to embrace, question, and berate Han - in that order - Luke looked for his father. Yoda, Obi-Wan, & Anakin stood off to the side again, watching but not interfering.
"What do I do now?" Luke whispered. The spectral forms did not answer him and the Force seemed silent.
