This chapter is only partially betaed. My friend S looked over the very first segment, but aside from that it is unbetaed.

As always all feedback is appreciated.

There are some pretty major spoilers for the book Leia: Princess of Alderaan in the second segment of this chapter.


She was drunk.

The alcohol that the engineers and pilots had brewed here on base was... really kriffing good.

As much fun as she was having, Leia was so very very exhausted. Yet she didn't want to succumb to the potent mixture of alcohol and the desire to sleep without sharing at least some of what she had learned that day with Luke.

She was finding that she really enjoyed the company of the spacers her other self had gathered together. Sana's dry wit complemented Leia's own, Chewie was thoughtful and caring and… well Han was real easy on the eyes.

Especially in those pants. The tight ones with the blood stripes that framed his… assests. Or maybe it was his tunic that was distracting her. The way he left the top of it undone. Sometimes he'd move in just the right way, and she'd see intoxicating flashes of skin. At one point his tunic had gotten caught on something, was tugged to left, and she had seen a dark smear that seemed to be made of engine grease, undoubtedly carelessly swiped across his chest as he worked on that ship of his, all sweaty and shirtless and...

Han was a very distracting being to spend time around when drunk.

If she was totally honest, the reason she kept losing her train of thought - the reason she kept forgetting to initiate the conversation with Luke she needed to have, was entirely thanks to the attractive spacer.

It wasn't all dirty fantasies of course. He had other qualities that captivated her. His eyes would constantly seek her out in the room, lighting up for just a moment, before his alcohol drenched mind remembered she was not the woman he wanted to find. His hands were constantly in motion, his posture slightly slumped with a fully affected swagger. He was so alive, so full of contradictions, so intense, so...

Getting drunk when Han was around was dangerous.

Han had just left their group for a bit - off to fetch them all more drinks. Sana was attempting to finish off the drink in her hand before Han arrived with more. Chewie was fussing over Sana, worried she was drinking too fast. For the first time that night, Leia was without distraction.

Leia bumped her shoulder into Luke's arm, smiling and gesturing with her head towards a relatively empty corner. He nodded, and together they ducked through the crowd. It was fun, weaving around the assembled soldiers, and Leia was smiling when they reached their destination.

"You seem to be enjoying yourself," Luke said. He did not try to talk over the volume of those gathered. He kept his voice at its normal pitch, the sound of it cutting through the noise regardless. "Go to this sort of party often?"

She laughed, to her ears it sounded too loud. "Stars no! The Jedi Order isn't very big on parties. Most of the ones I've been to were stuffy things mom was throwing for work!"

A curious smile twisted at the corners of Luke's lips. "Your… our… our mother... you said she's a politician like my Leia is, right?"

"Doubtful. That the other me is like her I mean. No one is a politician the way mom is a politician."

"Right." Luke rolled his eyes as he said the word. He didn't believe her!

"No, I mean it Lulu. She's... Stang honestly I don't understand politics enough to really describe what she's like, but mom is scary good at it. Did I mention before that she's the fragging Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic? I can't remember if I told you that."

"You said she was a politician, not that… the Chancellor? Really?"

"Really really!"

"I can't imagine it. Leia's life on Alderaan already sounded so weird compared to mine, but yours…" His forehead creased, he looked away from her, watching the crowd. "I can't stop thinking about that vision you showed me yesterday."

She was so pleased to have been able to return even a glimpse of his family to him. "I can show you more, if you want. I have a whole lifetime's worth of memories I can show you."

The smile that overtook his face was stunning. There was such longing, overwhelming need in his eyes, but then he shook his head. "Maybe later? I'm still trying to process that first one. I want to know more of course but… I think I need to be sober for that."

His shoulders drooped, he shifted his weight slowly from one foot to the other. As if trying to convince himself he said, "Leia isn't getting a choice about how she's having all of this thrown at her, is she? I mean… she was really drunk when the two of you switched, and it isn't like anyone got her permission before sending her there."

Leia frowned. "It's a gift Lulu! She's getting to meet mom and dad, and train with the Order! What's wrong with any of that!"

"Wrong? No, no, there isn't anything wrong with it, I mean honestly I'd give just about anything for an opportunity like that, but well… those aren't things Leia actually wants, and it's all… well it's a lot."

"Oh come on, there is no way anyone would rather be in this reality than mine. I'm sorry Lu but there really is no comparison between them."

"I guess… the only thing that is really there for her is... stang... Alderaan. Do you think she went home? That would mess her up something awful." Luke must have noticed Leia's defensive expression, he hurried to clarify, "Not that I'd blame her, if I had the chance to see my aunt and uncle again I'd take it in a heartbeat, but… seeing Alderaan, your world's Alderaan, that would be… a lot. Kriff, she must be going through so much right now, can you imagine?"

"Lulu, I am going through a lot right now. Everyone I love, except for you, is…" she didn't want to finish that thought. The next one was almost as unpleasant. "What if she doesn't want to come back Lulu? What if that means I never can go home? As you just pointed out, in my universe all the dead people she loves are alive and well. What if she doesn't want to leave them?"

"No way. Leia would never think of abandoning the Rebellion. Don't worry about her coming home." Luke smiled. "Once Leia sets her mind to a thing, she gets it done. Toppling an Empire, crossing through dimensions… she can do it. I've seen her pull off all kinds of impossible missions before. Leia will return here, and see this war to its end. How could something like this stop her, if even Vader can't?"

Vader. Leia desperately wanted to tell him the truth about their father. But drunk at a party really wasn't the time for that.

Oh! She was going to tell him about the ghost, wasn't she! That was the whole point of this conversation. Well that and letting him know Master Yoda was alive and they needed to leave here so Luke could train with him.

"Hey Leia, what is that you keep calling me anyway?"

"Huh?"

"Lu or Lulu? You keep calling me that instead of my name."

"They're my names for you, nerfbreath. I dunno. I guess they were easier to say when we were babies or something? I've always called you that. Mom and dad do too sometimes, now that I think about it."

Luke nodded, and Leia frowned. She was still trying to think of how to best bring up Uncle Obi's ghost and Master Yoda when Luke spoke again. "Hey, speaking of the vision you showed me yesterday… I have a question. Who was that Togruta? I mean, I recognized Ben, and the other Humans were our… our parents, right? So who was the Togruta?"

"Aunt 'Soka." She answered automatically, her mind still stuck on how to bring up all the things she needed to discuss with him.

He stared at her for a moment. "Uh. Ok. And um who is that?"

"My Jedi Master." She snapped back to the moment. "I told you about her when I first got here, I think. She used to be dad's Padawan before she became a Knight."

"Right." Luke shook his head. "What's a Padawan?"

How could she keep forgetting how little Luke knew? She needed make sure he learned as much as he could, make sure this version of her brother reached his potential.

"I know where you need to go to become a Jedi." She was blurting the words out before she could even process she was saying them.

"Huh?"

"Master Yoda, he's the Grand Master of the Order, and he's still alive Lu. I know where he is. You need to go there now and-"

"What?" Luke interrupted her, loud, almost shouting. "I want to learn, but I can't just leave the Rebellion!"

"Lulu, this could be the key to defeating the Sith in your world. You can't do that without proper training." Didn't he understand how important this all was?

"Defeat the what? You aren't making any sense."

She was getting real tired of how much he did not know. Next time she saw Uncle Obi's ghost she was going to have to talk to him about how neglected Luke was in this world.

"How do you know about this… great master person anyway?" Had Obi-Wan told him anything about the Order at all?

Wait… she still hadn't told him about Obi-Wan had she?

"Lulu, I know this is going to sound really out there, but the ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi told me," she said.

That he did not seem confused by, somehow. "Ben is still around! I knew I wasn't just hearing things! I thought… well it's been so long since he last spoke to me I thought he was actually gone."

"He's spoken to you before?" Why then didn't he just tell Luke this stuff himself? Why have her act as an intermediary?

"Just after he died, and during the Battle of Yavin. He helped me figure out what to do, you know, let go and trust in the Force and all that." Luke's eyes grew large, "Is that what Jedi do, after they die?" His voice shook and grew louder as he talked. "Do you think I can talk to our dad? I mean he has to be a ghost too, right?" His expression crumbled. "But… why hasn't he ever contacted me?"

Leia moved closer to him, to put an arm around him and reassure him that this was very much not what normally happened when Jedi died (a far easier avenue of conversation than explaining what happened to Anakin Skywalker), but she had only just shifted slightly towards him and said his name when he surprised her by moving quickly, grabbing her shoulder.

"I changed my mind. Show me more of your life. Your family. I want to… no I need to know more. To understand who they were. What it would have been like." He reeked of sweat and alcohol.

"What? Lulu -" he interrupted her again, a wild look in his eyes. Leia was suddenly reminded that they were both drunk, that Luke wasn't exactly operating at his best and neither was she.

"Leia, please. All my life, I've wanted to know what my life would have been if I had a mom and a dad." He spoke quickly, the incomprehensible swift rhythm of the inebriated. How much had he had to drink?

She didn't know what to say, not really. "Lulu, just a few moments ago you said you didn't want to see more."

"Because I know that is what I am supposed to say!" He looked ashamed, let go of her shoulder and leaned back before he started again. "If I see it, see that life I couldn't have, I'll never be able to get over how jealous I am. All I… I've always wanted to have that life, your life. I used to spend all my time imagining what it would have been like, and now I am just so angry that Leia got to go there and meet them…" He stopped and took a deep breath. It did not calm him down.

When he next spoke a childish whine was creeping into his voice. "My aunt and uncle loved me. They cared for me. Yet as much as I loved them... they were never 'mom and dad.' They were my family, but they weren't my parents. Leia, she already had a mom and dad, now she gets to have mine too? She… you… got to have everything, and meanwhile here I am with nothing. Just like always, stupid Wormie getting left behind. It's just not fair! I know I am supposed to pretend like everything is ok and I am fine with it all, but I'm not! It should have been me!"

She had not been expecting this. Any of it.

She almost wished he had been the one to fall through whatever hole in reality she and her counterpart had slipped through. That they were conversing back home, where her mother was alive and her dad made sense, not here in this blasted military camp surrounded by drunken soldiers, everyone she ever loved save for him and him alone dead or fallen.

No! She didn't wish that, because that would be wishing her Luke would be stuck here in her place, and she would never desire her finicky brother experience a world as awful as this.

She took a step back, looking Luke in the eye, calling him by his proper name. "You're drunk Luke. We'll talk tomorrow when you're sober." She had to believe this was just the alcohol talking. Luke had been her rock since she arrived in this dimension. Stable in a way nothing else in this world seemed to be.

Leia left the party, stumbling off through the base. She was determined to find the room she had slept in the night before, to sleep once more and dream of home. Home, where the people she cared about made sense.


The more questions Luke and General Kenobi asked about Vader, the more clear it became that they would not be able to figure out who he was under his mask. Leia was growing increasingly tired of their questions.

She suppressed a yawn, in addition to being tired of this conversation she was just tired in general. It had been a long and emotionally draining day.

"I see you need to get some rest. Luke, can you please take Leia to Ahsoka's quarters, I understand she will be spending the night there?"

She nodded at Kenobi, smiling with gratitude.

As she stepped back into the hall, she was reminded once more of her unease. Walking through this place was so disorienting.

Luke, noticing her discomfort, drew closer. His body bumping lightly into her own as they walked.

"You know, that time when my sister and I ran away as kids? We were trying to get at the Temple's foundation, to figure out why something here felt off."

Huh? "I thought… well in my universe this is Palpatine's palace, so I thought that was why I feel so uncomfortable, but there really is something wrong with this place?"

"Not wrong, but there is something there. Well, that's what we thought as kids. Neither of us can sense anything now. Or at least I don't, and if my sister still does she never says anything about it to me." He smiled, just slightly. "It wasn't much, just enough of a tinge of something to bother us. I remember we both thought it was somewhere beneath the Temple."

Leia really focused on that sense of wrongness, and Luke was right, it did seem to be coming from somewhere below them. How odd, she would have thought her discomfort would be centralized in that high tower Palpatine had claimed as his office, the one where she had met with the Jedi High Council the day before. Or maybe even his throne room, near the gardens he so prized. Well, whatever it was under this Temple, she didn't like it, that was for sure.

Luke stopped walking in the middle of a hallway, Leia was sure they had not reached where they were going, since they didn't seem to be near any door. "Lei, do you think you'll be able to sleep here? Back when my sister and I kept sensing whatever it is in the Temple's foundation, we never were able to sleep properly when at the Temple. It's part of why we haven't ever moved out of our parents' place." He looked so worried, "you look exhausted Lei, please, I won't even tell mom and dad you're in one of the guest rooms. Stars, I'll even help you sneak out in the morning!"

Maybe it was because he wore a face she knew so well, maybe it was her mother's request that she give her biological family a chance, or maybe it was just her exhaustion. Whatever it was, Leia found herself nodding, allowing Luke to lead her out of the Temple to a speeder parked outside.

She was grateful that during their ride through the city he maintained light conversation. If it wasn't for her need to focus and respond she surely would have fallen asleep right there in the passenger seat.

He was so refreshing to talk to. An innocent untouched by war. When had she last spoken to one of those? Had any such people ever existed in her dimension at all?

Occasionally as he talked to her she'd look out at the city, taking in sights she had not seen since before that fateful day above Scarif.

So many places where her teen years had played out, so many friends she had to leave behind.

How strange to think that this planet, this giant city that had been her second home for so many years, would have been where she would have lived her life had she never been adopted.

She wondered how many places she and her counterpart had in common. Maybe they even had mutual friends.

No. Former friends.

Most of the people she had known on Coruscant were loyal to the Empire, she couldn't think of them as her friends anymore. No matter how much she sometimes missed their company.

As they drove past the building her eyes caught on the gardens on top of the Senatorial Complex.

"My sister and I love those gardens! When we were little and mom used to take us to work with her, we'd play up there all the time," Luke commented. Clearly she had been staring at the gardens for far too long if he had noticed. "I hope you also have pleasant memories there. It really was my favorite place when we were young."

"Oh I have pleasant memories there all right." She smirked, turning her head away from the scenery, looking at Luke instead. "The first time I ever had sex, it was in those gardens."

"What? Outdoors? That's a semi-public place!"

"Senatenate was in session, so the gardens were totally empty save for my boyfriend and myself." She felt almost like a normal youth, scandalizing Luke with a memory untouched by the war.

"Right." He shook his head, smiling. "You don't do things by halves do you?"

She raised one of her eyebrows, still smirking at him as he drove. "Hey, it was his idea to do it there, not mine. Not that I wasn't thrilled with the idea, but I didn't pick the place."

"So are you still with this guy or-"

"He's dead." She cut that question off swiftly, the illusion of normalcy shattered. She hoped he understood she did not really want to go into it further.

Luke didn't get the message. "...You said your home-planet was blown up, right? Did he die in that attack?"

She closed her eyes, allowing herself to picture Kier's face for the first time in years.

He had been right, hadn't he? Her family had been putting Alderaan in danger, and in the end everyone on the planet they both loved so dearly had paid the ultimate price. Funny how knowing that didn't make her more inclined to forgive Kier. Even considering how it all ended, she would never be able to fully excuse his actions.

"No. He bled to death in my arms four years ago."

Luke was silent after that. She felt a few pulses of comfort from him in the Force, but she tried to block all of them out. She was getting pretty good at that trick, keeping people from connecting with her. She didn't need his comfort. Kier's death had saved the Rebellion. He was going to betray them all! She had long since made herself ok with what had happened. (It was her fault. It was all her fault.)

The speeder pulled up to the penthouse, and Leia stared at the building wondering why she had agreed to come here.

Luke hopped out of the car, turning to her as he did, "Leia, I… I am sorry if I brought up stuff you wanted to forget. I keep underestimating just how bad things are in your world, and I know I hurt you in the process. I don't want to hurt you."

She began to leave the car herself, and he gestured for her to stay put. "No, let me make sure mom and dad are sleeping first. You didn't want to see them, remember?" He grinned. "Don't worry, I have plenty of experience both sneaking my sister in and sneaking in myself. If you don't want them to see you, we can do this. Just follow my lead ok?"

She nodded and leaned back against her seat. She made the mistake of closing her eyes, and exhaustion claimed her immediately.

Luke woke her sometime later, shaking her shoulder and helping support her tired frame as she exited the car.

"Luke, I don't know if I have the energy to make it all the way downstairs." She yawned, just wanting to lie down already.

"If you don't, mom and dad are going to see you."

"I don't care anymore. I want to sleep."

"Are you sure Lei? I don't want this to be something you'd regret."

"Please Luke, just let me sleep."

She felt his body shift as she leaned against him, and assumed that was him nodding as he dragged her along. She really wanted and needed to just collapse.

She heard the sound of a door sliding open, and then just a few steps later she was horizontal at last. She curled up where she was, and slept deeply and well.


Pride surged in her when she found the near-empty room she had slept in the night before.

It wasn't exactly as she left it. Someone had taken the dirty robes she had left balled on the floor, she did not know where they were.

She sat on the bed. Stared at the datapad still tossed haphazardly on it.

Where was the Dagobah system anyway?

She picked up the datapad, unlocked it and stared at the blank background screen.

She looked the system up, put her astrogation skills to the test plotting out the best and easiest routes to get there.

Then a ping. There was a new message for the Princess.

She knew she shouldn't but… she opened the messenger client.

She was looking for some sign that there was something worth fighting for in this dimension, some reason it was worth saving.

Most of the subject lines seemed fairly self-explanatory. Impersonal. Professional.

Not all of them though. The newest one, the one that just came in was "Late (sorry) Name Day Greetings" followed by a highly excessive number of exclamation points. It was labeled as being from someone named Amilyn Holdo.

Leia did not open it.

It was a real message, from the subject alone she could tell it was not about the war, not about facts and figures.

Leia smiled. Her counterpart did have a life outside her fight. She had connections and impact and wasreal in a way she had not seemed to be just moments before.

Leia shut the datapad off, and lay back in the bed, ready for the day to end and the next to begin.