SHADOWS

They had been in Ben Kenobi's house for three days now. It was a small house, so Chewbacca had decided to stay on the Falcon, which was parked nearby, along with Luke's X-wing. The plan to rescue Han Solo, still frozen in carbonite and acting as a macabre decoration in Jabba the Hutt's lair, was well in train. Lando was in place, and Luke had almost finished his new lightsaber. Once he had that ready, he would install it in the hidden compartment he had made in Artoo's dome, and then he would send the droids to Jabba. After that, he would need to plan no more: one event would follow another, as surely as night follows day. The Force would guide him, guide them all, and Han would be returned to them. He had no doubts.

When he emerged from the garage, his work done for the day, Leia was not in the house. He found her outside, sitting on the wall and watching the binary sunset.

He took a seat beside her. She remained silent for a while, then spoke, without looking at him.

"Earlier, you said everything's falling into place," she began. "What exactly did you mean?"

He shrugged. "Just that. I can't be any more exact, but I can feel it."

"The Force?"

He nodded as she turned to look at him. "It doesn't give me any details, but everything feels right. And not just rescuing Han, everything else too. I think we're approaching the end of this war."

"I really hope you're right," she said fervently.

"Me too," he smiled, putting his arm around her shoulders. She leaned against him, and they just sat there for a while, watching as the suns sank lower in the sky, washing the world with a warm, golden glow.

"It can be beautiful here," Leia said quietly. "So peaceful. I never understood before, why someone might want to live in the wilderness like this. But lately ..." She sighed. "It's been exhausting, these past few years. Sometimes I feel like all I've been doing is running …"

He nodded. "I know what you mean." Particularly in the past six months. After Bespin, they'd both been in shock, and they had turned to each other for comfort, instinctively. They had supported each other, wordlessly for the most part, neither wanting to talk about what they had been through, both understanding that. But Leia had told him, eventually. She had told him how she and Han had become close, and realised they loved each other, and how much it hurt to have him almost immediately stolen away from her. Luke knew she had a right to expect him to return her trust, to tell her in turn what had happened to him. But he found he couldn't, and he still couldn't, even now. He had long ago decided that he would not think about what Vader had told him, about whether it was true or not, until he could find out, for sure. But the only way he could find out was to ask Yoda, and he couldn't do that until he could get to Dagobah. So he had said nothing, and continued to say it ever since.

He took her hand. "I couldn't have got through these last few months without you, Leia," he said. "Thank you."

Leia knitted her fingers with his. "I know you don't want to tell me what happened to you," she whispered. "But I wish you would."

He shook his head. "I can't," he said sadly. "When I can, I will."

She looked at him, and her eyes were haunted. "What if … what if you never get the chance to?"

He frowned, confused. "What?"

"I don't know … I … I'm afraid I'm going to lose you."

"Lose me?" he echoed. "How?"

"To the Empire," she whispered. "To Vader …"

He stared at her. It was like she knew already.

"I had a dream." She was speaking so quietly now, like she was afraid her words had some mystical power, that speaking them could somehow make them come true. "More than one, actually. About you, and Vader and the Emperor. You were together … all three of you, and you were allies. They'd … converted you, or something … you were like them."

"What happens?" His voice, too, was barely audible.

"Nothing; I just see the three of you in a dark room, with a big window behind you, looking out onto space … but it's terrifying."

His heart was pounding. "On Cloud City," he whispered, barely believing he was telling her even this much, "Vader tried to turn me to the dark side. He wanted me to join him. He said that together we could defeat the Emperor and rule the galaxy. But I refused, Leia." He squeezed her hand, his voice becoming stronger as he spoke. "I told him I would never join him, and it's true. I'll never turn to the dark side. You'll never lose me like that, I promise."

She looked up at him, tears shining in her eyes, and threw her arms around him. "I believe you," she said. But her fears still lingered.

They stayed like that for what must have been a long time, just holding each other, each wrapped in their own silent thoughts, but taking comfort in each other's proximity.

Until a long, ululating call echoed across the desert plain, and Luke suddenly snapped alert, realising night had fallen. Tatooine was host to many nocturnal predatory species, not to mention the sandpeople, making outdoors a very unwise place to be after dark. He realised that if he didn't get the power turned down immediately, the house would be lit up like a beacon, drawing predators, both sentient and not, from miles around.

"We better get inside," he said. "It's not safe to be outside after dark around here."

Once inside, he had the shutters down and the lights reduced to minimum within a minute, but he was still painfully aware that he'd missed all the warning signals he used to know so well. "My uncle always said I'd make a lousy farmer," he commented wryly.

"You've been a long time away," Leia reminded him, smiling softly.

"I guess," he agreed. "I almost didn't go with Ben, you know," he told her, sitting on the couch beside her. "But with Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru gone … there was nothing to stay for."

Leia shook her head. "The Empire has a lot to answer for," she said.

He caught his breath. "Alderaan," he whispered. "Not just your family, your whole planet …"

She looked away. "Even though they weren't my real family, they were all I'd ever known … but it makes it worse in a way, that they were destroyed because of me, even though … I wasn't really theirs. It makes me feel responsible."

He reached for her hand. "No, Leia … you shouldn't feel that. It wasn't your fault."

"No? Bail and Breha chose to take me on. They didn't have to, they did it because they were good people … and it led to their deaths."

"Leia …" He shook his head. "They knew you were in the Alliance, right? Your father was as well. So … they supported you. I don't think they would have wanted you to do anything different. You weren't responsible for what happened to them, any more than they were for what happened to you."

She sighed. "When you put it like that … I know, Luke. When I look at it rationally, I know. But …"

"It hurts. I know. I feel the same when I think about my aunt and uncle."

She nodded, sadly, squeezing his hand. Not for the first time, Luke found himself thinking how much their lives paralleled each other, below the surface. Both adopted, knowing little about their birth parents. Both had their home and family destroyed by the Empire because of their involvement in the rebellion. Both had become targets for Darth Vader, though for different reasons. Perhaps that was why they seemed to understand each other so well. And perhaps, he reflected, that was why he'd been able to reach her at Cloud City. He had called to her out of desperation, just because he'd known she was nearby, not really expecting her to hear him. Yet she had. And he'd been wondering why ever since. He shrugged mentally: just another thing to ask Yoda about, he supposed. There was so much he still didn't know about the Force … so much he still had to learn. He hoped he would still have time to learn it when the coming fight was over.