The next morning, Luke had to report to the Imperial Archives.

The room was in the same place as it had been when it'd held the original Jedi Archives, he believed, from before Palpatine had converted the Jedi Temple into the current Imperial Palace. It was the centre for all wisdom and documentation in the Empire, well lit, with rows upon rows of shelves of just datapads after datapads after datapads—

He swallowed. The blue glow, the sun shining through the high windows. . . It was almost a cheery place for all that it conformed to traditional Imperial minimalism, but it made his eyes hurt.

As he stepped in, several officers perusing the documents turned to stare. They recognised him, he sensed, and they were none too pleased he was here.

His father wasn't exactly popular with the officers whose friends he murdered, after all.

But he ignored them, his lip curling slightly. He'd been ordered to report to the head librarian, so that was what he would—

"Excuse me," a voice snapped behind him, "but I assume you're the boy sent down here to be disciplined?"

Ire surged at that, but Luke turned. The woman who'd spoken was sitting at a console behind her desk, glaring at him.

He stepped forward. "I'm—"

"Vader's son, yes, I know." She waved it away. "I'm Ittes Horada. You'll be working under me. Give me your lightsaber."

Luke's hand darted to it. "What? No!"

She glared at him. Her pale eyes were like two chips of glass. "Boy, the last time a lightsaber was allowed in here, Jocasta Nu erased all the data in the Jedi Archives. The Emperor was furious, and my predecessor didn't survive it. I will not have that happening on my watch."

Jocasta Nu— "But that happened seventeen years ago!"

"Correct, and I haven't survived this long by taking risks. No weapons allowed in the Archives. Hand it over." She held out one large hand, palm up.

Luke hesitated, seething. He ran a thumb over the hilt. This was his lightsaber, a gift from his father to show how proud he was when he'd finished his training, and he would not hand it over.

This lightsaber was one of the few things that make him unique, better than, the rest of the galaxy and Palpatine's playthings. The indignity of giving it up—

He thought of recent events.

He didn't want to think about indignity.

And that lightsaber did nothing to separate him from the Inquisitors. They all bore lightsabers, all nameless, all the targets of the Emperor's wrath—the differences which had once seemed so stark were starting to recede rapidly.

Horada's eye twitched. "Oh, don't be so dramatic. You'll get it back once you leave."

Begrudgingly, Luke curled his fingers around the lightsaber and passed it to her.

She opened a drawer and set the lightsaber down in it with a snap. "That wasn't so hard, was it?" She moved on before he could reply, which was probably for the best. Immediately getting himself into hot water with his overseer wasn't the wisest thing he could do."Now, you arrived earlier than I was told to expect you, but I've finished all my other tasks so I'll show you around now."

Luke took a step back as she stood from her desk—he hadn't noticed as she was sitting down, but she was tall. She towered over him; even her uniformed shoulder and the wiry silver hair plaited over it was slightly above his eye line.

"You will report here at eight am standard time and be expected to stay until four—excepting an hour lunch break to be taken whenever you want, provided you inform me beforehand. It is a longer shift than most of our assistants are given," she admitted, lips pressing tightly together, "but it is as His Excellency has ordered for you. I will assign you tasks throughout your time here and expect you to complete them forthwith. When you have no work to be getting on with, you may browse the Archives at your leisure, but you are not permitted to leave these rooms."

Luke opened his mouth, a snarky reply on his lips—

"Toilets can be found through that door, on the right, and are within these rooms."

He closed it again.

She took a step forward, into the array of tables and shelves that made up the main room, and made for the stairs to the galleries. The blue light of the datapads cast her focused frown into oddly malevolent shadows; Luke hurried to keep up.

"This is our main method of organisation. . ."

No sooner had Leia woken, tapped Luke's mind to find he was already at the Archives, then rolled out of bed, than she received a message ordering her to report to the Emperor immediately.

When she reread the message on her datapad, she frowned. She had a bad feeling about this.

She was the only one in the apartment, her father probably dealing with some navy dispute, so she left a note saying where she'd gone and left, that bad feeling only growing heavier.

By the time she was kneeling in front of Palpatine, it was like a stone in her gut.

She'd been kneeling for a good minute, her head down, the picture of obedience. Usually she was allowed to get up by this point, but she bit down on her irritation. Her father was plotting a coup; Luke was in the Archives. Now was not the time to aggravate him.

"I have a mission for you, my child," he began. "Do you think you are ready for it?"

Leia frowned. "Yes, Master—I have been on missions before—"

"With your brother. This one, you will be undertaking alone."

All the breath fled her lungs.

She knew that one day they would go on separate missions. She knew that they couldn't stay within the same planet of each other forever.

But she hadn't thought that day would be today.

Especially not when everything relied on them being together, their entire family being together, in order for this coup to work. They hadn't set a date for it yet, hadn't discussed it yet, but Palpatine sending her away immediately after they'd decided to go ahead with it seemed. . . unfortunate.

Suspiciously unfortunate.

But what could she do? Refuse?

Luke had as good as refused to kill that Rebel, and look where it got him.

"Very well, Master," she forced out through a breathless chest, glad for once that her eyes were cast to the ground. "What is my mission?"

There was a pregnant pause. She shifted where she knelt, that stone in her stomach growing heavier and heavier—

"I want you to find me Amidala."

Her eyes blew wide. Her head shot up, then she realised her mistake when her gaze clashed with cold eyes. She averted it immediately, but the objection still sprung to her lips. "Master, Amidala—"

"Has evaded us for too long. She must be found."

There was something amused in the darkness that swamped the room. She didn't know what to make of it, but whatever it was, she knew this: Palpatine found the idea of her going on this mission vastly entertaining.

She dispelled it from her mind. She could seethe about it later.

"Master," she said carefully instead, "we have search parties scouring the galaxy for the Rebellion, squadrons of Star Destroyers, massive bounties—"

"And yet she has not been found." A slight smile. "I would think the future Empress should know where her greatest enemy lies."

I do, she thought. He's right in front of me.

But she didn't say that. She chose to point out, "We have no idea who she is. She might not be female—she might not be human—"

"She took the late Senator of Naboo's name and exploited her legacy to gain support for her insurrection," Palpatine snapped. "Yet many of the captured Rebels have admitted to genuinely believing it's her. They're misguided and foolish, but I doubt they would be convinced by someone who didn't look like her."

She couldn't argue with that, even if something. . . felt off. She just swallowed. "Very well, Master. Where should I start?"

"That's up to you, my dear. You choose where to go, which Imperial resources to commandeer, but you do not return unnecessarily to Coruscant until you have found her, or I give you permission to do so. I want this woman found, and I want her found quickly. Which is why I'm putting my best agent on the case." He smiled fondly at her.

She swallowed her objection—it would go so much more quickly if I had Luke to support me—but she knew was he was doing.

Divide and conquer.

Luke and her were closer than anything—closer than he considered safe. He needed to break that bond somehow, and forcing them onto opposite ends of the galaxy seemed like a good way to start.

It didn't matter.

Whether she was with him or hadn't seen him in years, Leia would tear down the stars for her brother. And she knew he'd do the same.

So she asked, "When do I leave?" and couldn't bring herself to worry in excess about it all.

Palpatine gaze burned through her. She stood there unflinching.

He smiled as he said, "Tomorrow."

Luke was bored out of his mind, but at least he was starting to get the hang of this filing business.

The Archives were constantly quiet, for all that he could feel the myriad of people around him in the Force. It was a rule to be observed, and Horada stalked round the rows ensuring it was observed well.

No one particularly wanted to cross her. Luke would have scoffed and sneered at them, but he was cowed as well—and not just by her withering looks.

He couldn't touch her. He couldn't mess up this assignment, or the Emperor would find something worse, infinitely worse, for him to do. This task was supposed to teach him obedience. He supposed it was doing so, in a way.

But mainly, it was teaching him how to pick his battles.

It was not worth it to take his frustration out on any of the other volunteers. His lack of self-control would only put him in more trouble than before—and wasn't he in this situation because he'd lost control in the first place?

The blue light had started to ache against his eyes after the first hour or so; three hours away that, he was squinting just to read the monitor. A Short History of Coruscanti Trade Wars, winked the holobook he was trying to transfer onto the system.

He eyed the amount of work he'd already had to do on it.

Short.

Right.

That was bad enough, left him restless and antsy enough; throw in the copyright disclaimers, complaints, lawsuits and queries he'd had to file right alongside it—why would anyone care enough to plagiarise this—and his head was swimming.

He was so, so sick of legal jargon.

Frustration rolled into him; he clenched his fist, and ignored the slight creaking as one of his datapads started to bend a little around the edges. Control yourself.

He didn't know what any of this meant! This was Leia's forte!

Wasn't the Empire supposed to have cut down on the Republic's bureaucracy? If this was what it was like now, he couldn't examine what senators' aides had had to wade through before he was born—the sooner the Imperial Senate was disbanded, the better.

He lifted his hand to rub his temple, grimacing. He stared at the console, but he couldn't make out the Aurebesh text right in front of him. It seemed to imprinted itself on the back on his retinas, but he didn't know what it was saying—

"Boo."

He let out a short scream.

There was an instant shhh from Horada's desk, and several sharp glares from the other volunteers or visitors. He forced himself to calm down as Leia slid into the seat next to him, smirking, and glanced at the console.

"That's what that is?" she observed dryly. "I saw you staring at that thing for ten minutes."

"My eyes hurt, don't be mean," he grumbled back, massaging his head. Four hours in on the first day, and he was already done. "I don't know what any of this means."

She skim read it; two seconds later, she told him, "It means the copyright case failed, and the original writer was just cited as an inspiration for the rip-off."

"Fascinating," Luke drawled, but he shoved the document into the right file and pulled up the next one. "So, did you come just to mock my torment, or—"

"I'm going off-world."

He turned to her. "What?"

She grimaced, pinching her lips together. "The Emperor," His wonderful Royal Excellency, she said into his mind, startling a laugh out of him, "wants me to go search for Amidala. On my own."

"I can see the logic in that," Luke said, and did his best to keep his face straight.

Leia rolled her eyes. "Anyway, I have to leave tomorrow. And I could have told you tonight at the apartment, I suppose, but—"

"You wanted to spend as much time with your darling brother as possible?"

"No," Leia scoffed. Yes, she admitted, half to herself. He heard it anyway. "I just figured I should probably do as much research on Amidala as possible before I leave, and considering you so considerately got yourself a job in the main source of Imperial information. . ."

He got the hint. He closed down the document and pulled up the search bar. "What were you going to search for? I think I've got the hang of this whole filing system."

"No doubt it'll soon come crashing down around you then," she quipped. But she leaned forward. "I've already received a particularly thorough dossier on the Rebel figure Amidala, and besides: information about her is classified. I want to do some research on her namesake, that senator from Naboo."

"Padmé Amidala?" He typed it in, and opened the file Padmé Amidala Naberrie that came up. "'Human female, born on Naboo twenty seven years before the foundation of the Empire, served as Queen of Naboo from thirteen to nine BFE, then senator from nine BFE until her death during the Jedi insurrection. She was pregnant by an unknown partner when she died; her baby died with her.'" He frowned at the picture of her at her funeral, white flowers in her hair. She looked. . . familiar. "That seems a little insensitive, using the name of a beloved senator killed by the Jedi to boost support for a terrorist organisation actively aiding Jedi."

"Yeah, but it's not like Rebels are sensitive," Leia scoffed, even as Luke copied the file onto a datachip for her. "Though I can see why they thought it'd be a good idea—look how popular she was. Apparently one speech from her could turn the tides of a Senate meeting. If they could convince people she was still alive, drum up support. . ."

"You saw that picture of her dead body, right? I can pull it up again if you want."

"I'm not saying she's alive," Leia snapped, "I'm just saying that convincing people of that fact would help the Rebels a lot. Force, even the idea that she would have supported them over the Empire might hold sway."

"Are you so sure she wouldn't have, though?" While he waited for the files to finish downloading, he flicked open another page. "It says here she was a staunch defender of democracy, and refused to run for another term as queen even when her subjects wanted her to. She was also," he said pointedly, "close friends with Bail Organa."

Neither of them wanted to say it so explicitly in such a public place, but they knew what Bail Organa was like. He wasn't exactly Palpatine's favourite senator.

"She got the Emperor into the position of Supreme Chancellor," she pointed out. She might well have been in on his plans from the start, spying on Organa, and that's why the Jedi killed her. It's not like it's unusual for politicians to say one thing and mean another—all this nonsense about democracy was probably just a cover up for whatever she was doing to serve Palpatine's cause. They're even from the same home planet.

You're being harsh on her.

She's a politician.

You're a politician.

Exactly. Don't I always say one thing and mean another?

"Not to me you don't," Luke said aloud as the data finished downloading and he pulled the chip out of the console. "But I concede the point. Here's the information."

"Thanks." She accepted it, then watched curiously as he opened up another document in the folder. "What's that?"

"Her living and economic conditions once she moved to Coruscant. She was certainly paid well"—although, if she was working with Palpatine, she didn't see any monetary benefits while she was alive—"and her apartment looks like it was in really nice area as well." He examined it more closely then, and blanched. "Wait—"

"That's our apartment." Leia leaned forward again to squint at the blueprint that came up, the address printed next to it. "We've been living for the last ten years in Padmé Amidala's apartment."

No wonder she looks so familiar, she said over their bond, and Luke relaxed to know that he hadn't imagined the whole thing.

"Interesting." A thought came to him then—terrible, horrible, painful.

Padmé Amidala had died pregnant.

"We should ask Father about it later," Leia continued, apparently oblivious to his turmoil. He knew that was false, that she'd sensed it. . . but she was going to wait for him to volunteer the answers, rather than pry. "See if he can give me any answers I won't find in here. He might have known her."

"Maybe." If Luke's theory was true, he had.

But if it was true, Vader would never, ever tell them so. It was too sensitive a topic.

He swallowed, and tried to dispel the thought. "I'm due to go on my lunch break in a few minutes," he said. "Want to get something to eat, before you vanish for several months?"

"I'm not going to vanish," Leia said. She didn't correct the timeframe though, and Luke felt a twinge in his gut.

But he ignored it. He had to.

It was the same way he knew he would survive without her: he would, because he had to.