There's just too much that time cannot erase.


Tense moments passed as the Millennium Falcon pulled away from the Death Star. All four of them watched in the cockpit, waiting for the inevitable pursuit. And waiting.

"Lightspeed calculations done," Han said, frowning. "Guess they're going to let us go."

Luke, who had been quiet until now, his arm around Leia, spoke up. "They know where we're going."

"What?" Han spun around at the same time Chewbacca snarled. "What did you do, Luke?"

"I didn't tell him." He looked to Leia. "Vader saw it in my mind, I'm sorry."

"Darth Vader?" Han was seconds away from activating the hyperdrive. Instead he pulled his hand off the lever. "All right. Where are you two planning to go now?"

"Yavin 4," Leia said immediately.

"Not in this ship you're not, sister." Han turned around to glare at them. "Listen, running into your dad's right hand man and his planet-destroying space station by accident was bad enough. I am not going to take this ship the next place he expects us to be."

"They've probably got a tracker on us anyway," Leia argued. "It doesn't matter where you go."

Chewbacca barked something short and unhappy.

"I know we'll have to land to scan for it, Chewie. Just let me figure out where…"

"You agreed to take us to Yavin 4—"

Luke put his hand on Leia's shoulder, stopping her. "Han, take us to Yavin and we'll pay you twice what we still owe you, and we'll help you scan for the tracker when we land."

Leia started to protest. "Luke—"

He shook his head at Leia, keeping his blue eyes steady on Han. "Well?"

Han looked away first, turning to Chewbacca to gauge his answer. The two exchanged some silent form of communication, then Chewie shrugged eloquently.

"I should have known better than to pick up two Imperials," Han muttered. "Triple what you still owe me, and you don't set foot off this ship until that tracker is gone."

"Twice what we owe you," Leia snapped, "and we don't turn you over to the Empire for trying to hold us hostage."

Han hissed through his teeth. "Now see, I don't think you'd do that." A hint of a grin. "You like me too much."

The temperature in the Falcon's cockpit dropped by ten degrees just from Leia's voice. "You weren't that good, Captain."

Chewbacca groaned and Luke rolled his eyes. "Will you two stop it? Is it a deal or not, Han?"

"Chewie?" Han asked, and got an affirmative answer. "Okay fine. Don't make me regret this."

"I already do," Leia said. "You all stink. I'm going to go wash off this garbage. I recommend you do the same." She stormed out.

She shed bits of stormtrooper armor as she went, muttering to herself. Getting her hair clean was going to be nightmare, impossible with just sonics; she had every intention of using some of Falcon's fresh water supply to wash it.

It took forever just for her to uncoil it once she reached her bunk, grimacing at the muck that fell out of the long strands as it came down. Scrubbing it clean felt like heaven after she stepped into the Falcon's refresher to wash off the rest of the filth. After about half an hour, she finally felt human again.

She came out wrapped in a heavy robe, doing her best to squeeze the water from her long, long hair, and ran straight into one of the last people she wanted to see.

"Who just leaves armor lying around a corridor?" Han demanded. "Who do you think is gonna pick that up, Princess? Do you see an army of servants running around?" He stopped, taking in the sight of her. For a moment she felt oddly exposed, vulnerable. Very few people ever saw her with her hair down. He was staring at her like he'd never seen her before.

"I'll get it," she half-mumbled, then started to move past him. She'd been lying in the cockpit. He had been that good—what had passed between the three of them in her bunk had been bigger than just a diversion for an afternoon. Now all of a sudden he and Luke were on a first-name basis. Luke had always been faster to form friendships, and she'd never begrudged him that because she knew she was always the single most important person to him. But this—things were shifting and changing, and she felt uncertain of her footing.

"Hey, there's no rush. It's not like it's going anywhere." Han touched her arm and she imagined she could feel the warmth through the robe to her skin.

He had washed as well, and changed into fresh clothes. She could smell the clean scent of soap clinging to him as he stood too close. Much too close. She should step back, she should tell him to take his hands off her, but she wanted to do neither. "Are you all right?" Han asked. "Your leg took a beating from that thing in the trash."

"It's fine." It wasn't fine; once he mentioned it her calf started to throb painfully. There was probably already a nasty set of bruises forming. It felt as if she had a pulled muscle as well, from where the tentacles had pulled her off her feet and beneath the water.

"Why were you limping then?"

"I wasn't limping." Was she? She tried to take a step away and he was right, she was limping. She'd been so determined to get clean she'd ignored the pain.

"Sit down and let me take a look."

"I'm fine," Leia repeated.

"Come on, don't be stubborn." Han guided her over to the bench and sat her down, the first time she could remember anyone handling her in such a way. It made something in the base of her spine tingle. He knelt before her and gestured for her leg.

Acutely aware of every movement, she lifted her foot and placed her leg in his hands. His warm hands smoothed over her bare skin and made her conscious that she wore nothing beneath her robe.

"Yeah, you've already got a set of bruises," he murmured, and his voice sounded tight. "All around here." His fingertips traced a circle around her calf and she shivered. "I've got some stuff in the Falcon's medkit that might help."

"No, it's fine…" Leia started, trailing off as her eyes met his. She swallowed, aware of the tiny spark of want flaring within.

"Are you sure?" He came up on his knees, and the hand on her calf slipped a little higher.

Leia knew this game, and for the first time, she wasn't sure if she'd be the winner. She caught his hand, stopping it from going any higher. "I'm sure."

Whatever other flaws he might have, he took the hint, and drew back. She slipped past him without looking back.

She didn't like uncertainty. Uncertainty made her angry, and by the time she'd gathered up the bits of stormtrooper armor and gotten back to her bunk, she was seething. She'd left the cabin in a mess, but now it was clean, probably Luke's doing. Military training had made him more averse to mess than her.

He wasn't there for her to vent her anger at, so she threw the armor up on the top bunk and started angrily drying her hair—stopping only when she realized she was going to wind up doing damage.

Luke finally came in, his own hair still damp and tousled. He read her mood almost immediately and sat beside her on the bunk, taking the towel from her hand. He didn't ask what was bothering her. He almost never did.

She wanted to stay mad, but he started carefully drying her hair and the worst of her tension started to fade.

"He wanted to stop us from going to Yavin," Luke said finally, and at first she thought he meant Han, before getting a glimpse of his thoughts. "I can't figure out why, but I sensed fear."

"Darth Vader is afraid? Of us?" Leia scoffed.

"Of what we can do, yes." Luke used the towel to push the heavy weight of her hair aside and kissed the nape of her neck. Leia shivered pleasantly. This was familiar; this wasn't unsettling or unnerving. "We'll have to move fast once we land."

"We could move faster if you hadn't promised your new best friend that we'd help him scan the ship." She meant to keep her voice cool and detached. It didn't sound that way to her ears at all. And Luke could always listen with more than just his ears.

"It was the only way to get him to help us."

"I'm sure you could have just batted your eyelashes at him. He seems to like you."

"You're jealous!" Luke gave a startled laugh, turning her around to face him.

Leia sniffed. "Please, if I got jealous every time you went chasing off after some new playmate I wouldn't have time for anything else."

"Ah, but this is different, I can see it." Luke tilted her chin up to make her look him in the eye. "Are you jealous of him or jealous of me?"

Leia pulled her chin away. "I'm not jealous at all." She hated being transparent, even with him. Maybe especially with him. He got so pleased with himself.

He slipped his arms around her waist and murmured into her ear. "You can't lie to me, Leia." And that was ridiculous—she could and she had, but she wasn't about to disabuse him. Luke nuzzled her hair aside and punctuated his words with kisses along her neck. "No one is ever going to take your place. Not ever."

"Just… don't get too attached, Luke." She rested her hand over his heart and kissed him. "I know how you are."

"I'm not. I swear."

She didn't believe him, but she didn't stop him when he started to peel away her robe.

#

Luke should have been able to sleep, after everything. Instead he lay in the darkness, curled behind Leia, his eyes open. Things were changing, and they were changing too fast. Darth Vader's sudden interest in taking on the role of father, after avoiding it for so many years, Luke's own growing connection to the Force… and he wasn't lying to Leia about Han, not exactly, but there was something about the three of them together. Something greater than just he and Leia alone.

There were still voices screaming inside his head. How many people had lived on Chandrila? Millions, surely. Maybe more. Fathers and mothers and children. Some of them loyal Imperial subjects. He had every faith that there was a valid military reason for such a drastic step, and yet… he could still hear them. Luke hoped that they had given their lives for a greater cause. He just wished he knew what that was.

His own hands weren't entirely clean, he knew that. It had never mattered to him before.

It was the war. It made everything gray. Once they'd put down the rebellion, it would get easier. In a day or two, he and Leia would do their part on Yavin. They could help end this war.

He was still making plans when he finally fell asleep.

#

On nights when Sola couldn't sleep, she walked. Her security staff hated it, and often wanted her to take someone with her. She had a lot of practice dodging her security. The base on Yavin was as safe as they could make it, but for how long?

The night air was heavy with moisture, like walking through a heavy mist. Despite the humidity, the sky was clear, and Sola looked up at the stars. Which one of them was getting closer? She was no Jedi, but sometimes she knew things, and she knew that Obi-Wan was right about the Empire coming here. Why she felt compelled to stay despite that, she couldn't say. Whatever was coming to Yavin 4, she needed to be here. The Alliance needed to be here. She knew it down in her bones.

Sometimes it was hard to keep hating Obi-Wan. What had happened to Anakin wasn't his fault, as tempting as it was to blame him. As for the children… he hadn't been wrong then either. Luke and Leia weren't safe with her. He couldn't have known what would happen. If she was going to be honest with herself, she blamed him because there was no one else to blame. Despite everything that had happened, she couldn't bring herself to blame Anakin. Not entirely.

There were too many memories, from the tow-headed boy who had defiantly given her his name to the man who had slept uneasily at her side for too few nights. Why couldn't she remember his smile? The only image she could conjure was of him scowling and serious.

Sola shook herself and turned back toward her quarters. This was why she should never walk the base at night. She looked up at the stars and they made her sentimental.

The boy she had loved once was as good as dead. In her darker moments, she felt as if all four of them had died that day. But she hadn't. She was the one still standing. Changed, scarred, bent, but standing. And if the ghoul the Emperor had resurrected on Mustafar wanted to bring the fight to her door, she would be waiting with an army at her back.

#

Darth Vader dreamed of sand.

The people who served beneath him whispered that he never slept, that he was too much of a machine to have such human needs, but they were wrong. He slept, and he dreamed.

In the dream he was running across the sands of his childhood, but the feet weren't his. He ran, his heart in his chest thudding with fear. Before him was a familiar homestead, the place where his mother had found a little bit of happiness before it had been ripped away from her, before she had been ripped away from it. It was burning. The smell of ozone and burning flesh filled his senses and made his stomach clench.

He spotted blaster marks everywhere before his eyes were drawn to two human forms, burnt and charred beyond recognition. There were no words for the horror he couldn't explain.

He ran.

Then he awoke to a disorienting sense of unreality. The dream had been real, as real as any vision he'd received, but it didn't seem to be the future or the past, or even the now. It was a never-was, a might-have-been.

Tatooine. Luke had been destined for Tatooine when Yularen had brought the children to the Emperor. Was he dreaming of his son? Was it a warning?

It was still the middle of the night cycle on the Death Star, but sleep was out of Vader's reach now. They would arrive at Yavin sometime tomorrow, and then he could reclaim his children. Let Tarkin gloat about destroying the rebellion, Vader had other concerns.