The twins arrived back to where they had left, strapped to their seats in the lounge of the Millennium Falcon while the ship lurched as they fled from the Empire. Eventually Han came back and found them, informing them of the plan to head to Bespin in realspace, and telling them that it was probably a good idea for them to get some rest.

It was odd when you were drifting through space without the benefit of day/night cycles. You just had to keep track of the hours that had passed and make sure that everyone in the crew got enough sleep. Chewbacca had offered to remain awake to start, and Leia, being the more hospitable one, had directed the twins to two side-by-side bunks in the Falcon's crew quarters. After they had retired for the night, they briefly heard some discussion where Han tried to tell Leia that she could use his quarters if she wished but she insisted she would be fine sleeping in the med bunk.

The argument was one of their shorter ones since they'd been on board, and it wasn't much longer before the twins had fallen asleep.

Some hours later, Jaina bolted up in her bunk, startling herself out of a dream.

"Hey, you all right?" she heard her brother question sleepily from beside her. With their bond through the Force, it was nearly impossible for one to experience any sort of distress without the other knowing.

"Yeah," she said, taking a few more deep breaths. "I just had a bad dream."

"Anything you want to talk about?"

Jaina thought for a moment, temporarily wondering if she even remembered why she had started awake in the first place. But then the images came back, and she knew why she had opened her eyes.

"I don't think I've had that dream since I was a kid," she said more to herself than to her brother.

"What dream?" he asked.

She looked at him in the dark, noticing that he had turned to face her. "Remember when we were like five, when I kept waking up, thinking that I was all alone and trying to get Mom and Dad to come find me, but they never did?"

"Yeah, I think I remember," Jacen said.

"It was the exact same thing. It was like being lost in the woods or something. And even in the dream now I could tell I was smaller, like a helpless little kid again. And I kept shouting for Mom and Dad but they weren't there and I felt like I was going to be alone forever in the dark."

"Well, you're not alone, okay?" Jacen said reassuringly. "I'm here. And Mom and Dad are… well, sort of here."

"Right," Jaina almost laughed then, and then settled back down against the bunk. It had been years since she'd had that dream. It had been a temporary recurring nightmare over the course of a few months. And each time she had it, she would wake up unaware that she was home in her room that she shared with her brothers, and her parents were only down the hall in their own bed. She'd call out to them before realizing where she was, and it wouldn't take long before one or both of them came into her room to reassure her that they were right there, and that they weren't going to be leaving her anywhere.

She was almost embarrassed at this age to be having this same nightmare again after so long. She was practically an adult, and she shouldn't be that concerned that her parents wouldn't come running immediately when she needed them. But something about seeing them this way now, acting as anything but the parents she knew who had been so devoted, was really starting to affect her. Jacen was right, their parents were 'sort of' here, but really, that wasn't enough.

"Jacen, did you ever think about what it would be like if Mom and Dad didn't love each other?"

She could hear the grogginess in her brother's voice, but he didn't sound annoyed. "Not really. I mean, why would I? It wasn't something I ever really worried about."

"Me neither," Jaina admitted. And truthfully, she had never worried about it. Until now, that is. Something about watching her parents interact now had made her think about them behaving similarly when she was growing up. And just how unsettling it would have been. Not only just not being in love, but having this animosity toward each other. She was realizing now how she had taken that secure feeling for granted. She was also realizing that she missed her parents interacting with her in a more loving manner, and being able to trust that they were always working together as a unit.

"I don't like it, either," Jacen said. It was a response to a question she hadn't asked. But then he always tended to know what she was thinking. "It's like… I miss them. Even though they're right here."

"Exactly," Jaina agreed. "And I just feel kind of bad for them. Like, I know how good they are when they're together. They've always been better together than apart. Except right now they're together and I don't feel the same thing coming from them."

"You know, none of this would've happened if you didn't insist on coming back here. Everything would've been fine, and we wouldn't have endangered our own existence."

"Well, what do you want me to do about it now?"

"I want you to maybe go back to sleep so that when we get up later we can fix this mess and go back home where Mom and Dad are happy and in love and had three kids!"

"Hey!" That voice they heard was familiar, but also different from what they usually heard. It was their father, and he sounded annoyed. There had certainly been times when the twins and Anakin were growing up that they might have stayed up too late, talking too much or playing too loudly. And they'd hear their father's voice similar to that, chastising them for being too loud and telling them to go to sleep. It might also be comforting at the moment if it weren't for the fact that this particular version of their father really had no feelings for them either way. They were just stowaways. "Keep it down in there!"

"Uh, sorry, Captain," Jacen said sheepishly. He wasn't even sure if he should reply at all, or if silence was the best way to go. "Hey," Jacen whispered to his sister. "We'll figure it out. Get some sleep."

Jaina merely nodded and then shut her eyes, hoping that the rest of her sleep was dreamless.

They awakened feeling fairly refreshed. Drifting through space as they were, nothing was hugely urgent. There wasn't a lot they could do as far as they were aware except wait to get to Bespin.

"Ok, so what the heck are we going to do about this?" Jacen asked his sister before they headed out to the galley.

"I'm not sure. We need to figure out how to get them closer, I guess."

"Yeah, but how?"

"I don't know," she said, clearly frustrated. "Maybe we can like, mess with the thermo setting. Get it so it's really cold in here and they need to huddle for body warmth."

Jacen's face told her all she needed to know about his thoughts on that idea before he even opened his mouth. "Is that the best you can do? And what, like there aren't blankets on board? Just because our mom and dad like to cuddle when they're cold doesn't mean those two are going to," Jacen said as he pointed out to the main hold. "Let's go see how civil they plan on being today and then figure it out from there."

Jaina nodded and the twins made their way out into the main hold to find Leia sitting at the Dejarik table with a cup of caf. "Hi," she said with a hint of a smile. "I hope you slept all right."

"Yeah, thanks," Jacen said.

"Take a seat," Leia said. "Han is trying to see if rebooting the whole system will help at all. It's a long shot, but we might as well try everything. So we have some time to wait."

"Sure," Jaina said before scooting in next to Leia. Jacen followed by sitting across from them.

"So, you're from Corellia?" Leia asked.

"Yep," Jacen said quickly and Jaina nodded in agreement.

"What was it like growing up there?"

"Um…" Jaina started. The truth was, the Solos had visited Corellia three times on family vacations. The twins had absolutely no idea what it would've been like to grow up there. "Nice," Jaina said simply. "It was nice growing up there."

"Really?" Leia said. "I had heard the Empire had a fair bit of presence there."

"Oh, sure," Jacen said. "I mean, yeah, they did. But we were on like, the… quiet side of it."

Leia looked confused as she held her steaming mug close. "Which part is the quiet part?"

"Uh," Jaina interjected, "really we traveled a lot. Our parents really loved to travel, so we were always flying somewhere."

Leia shook her head and put her mug down. "I guess I'm never going to hear much about Corellia."

"What do you mean?" Jaina asked.

"Well, the captain there will hardly tell me anything about it. I haven't even tried to ask him about it for months. Not worth the trouble, and he usually just gets irritated with me for asking." She paused for a moment, then added, "Then again, it doesn't really matter what I say to him, he always tends to be irritated."

Jaina and Jacen exchanged somewhat helpless looks. This could be harder than they thought. How was it that those two had managed to fall in love?

Almost as though he was proving her point, they heard some slamming noises and yelling just faint enough that they couldn't make out the actual words, but they certainly understood what he was trying to convey.

Leia even smiled over at them. "See? Always irritated."

Before they could even respond they heard his intense footsteps as he marched closer and rounded the corner. "It didn't work," he stated calmly.

"How shocking," Leia said in an equally deadpan manner, just a hint of a smirk on her lips as she picked up her mug and took another sip of her caf.

"Yeah, well, there's still a few more things we can try," he said as he started to walk off again but Leia called him back.

"Wait a minute," she yelled, and for once he actually listened and came back, his eyes intently on her. "You haven't even eaten anything."

"So?"

"We're not getting anywhere fast, and you're in a bad enough mood as it is without having to add to it by being hungry."

"Who said I was hungry?"

Leia eyed him skeptically.

His face softened a little. "All right, fine, maybe I'm a little hungry. But don't even think about offering to cook me something."

"Wouldn't dream of it," she replied as he went and started looking for some food.

With Han's back turned Leia's eyes went back to the twins and she gave them a little smile, and they could tell she was quite proud of herself. The twins suddenly felt a little more at ease. It was only a brief moment of recognition between their parents, but it was enough to give them some sign that they already had a bit of a connection to one another. Hopefully a connection that would grow very, very quickly.

A/N: See? I told you I wouldn't abandon it!