High overhead, thousands of distant stars were visible against the dark canvas of the night sky.
It was surprisingly peaceful on Borleias, especially considering the chaos that they had dropped into the middle of upon their arrival. But Wedge Antilles was such a great commander that even when he'd been attempting to lose a battle to make the Vong in the system complacent, he'd still somehow managed a victory. There would be a stronger enemy fleet coming now, with a better Yuuzhan Vong commander who would be more difficult to defeat, but for now those occupying the base on Borleias were enjoying a momentary lull in the war.
The pilots were still spending long hours in the sims, the scientists were still working into all hours of the night trying to find new ways to combat the enemy's weaponry, and the Insiders were still meeting in secret to plan their next moves, but there was a feeling of quiet now that had been rare even before the fall of Coruscant.
Standing at the large transparisteel that stretched across the wall of the main chamber of her quarters, Leia Organa Solo sighed, her arms wrapped around herself.
Somewhere out there, among all those stars, was her son.
It didn't escape her attention that everyone, her own brother and her husband included, thought she was in denial, that losing Anakin had made her unable to accept the loss of her oldest son, as well, but she didn't hold it against them. In their shoes, she probably would have thought the same thing, especially since Jaina, who had been connected to Jacen since before birth, perhaps since conception, did not have even a shred of belief, of hope, that her twin was still somehow alive.
But Leia knew that Jacen was not dead.
She couldn't explain how she knew, it was just an instinct, a feeling, really. When Anakin, her baby, had fallen aboard the worldship over Myrkr, she had felt it, even all the way on Coruscant, and it had driven her to her knees, shredding her sanity and her heart into a thousand tiny pieces. It had been as if the Yuuzhan Vong had reached deep into the very center of her being, with their gnarled, jagged hands, and ripped her son out of her, leaving a gaping would that would never fully heal.
Then there had been Jacen, whose presence had surged across the Force brilliantly, only to fade away sharply a moment later, filling her with a profound sense of emptiness.
But it had not been the same.
With Anakin, she had felt the last spark of life leave his body, she had felt him die, but it had not been so with Jacen. In the Force, where stars were born and stars died out, she knew that her oldest boy's star still shone, it had just been hidden by a veil she couldn't penetrate.
And so she kept a silent vigil, ever constant and never wavering, waiting for her son to come home.
Waiting for both her children to come home.
Somewhere out there, just as lost to her as Jacen, was her only daughter, but it was not the little girl she remembered, nor the battle-hardened Jedi pilot who had gone to Myrkr with her brothers.
No, that girl was gone now, and in her place was a powerful storm of rage and grief, as cold to the touch as the snowy landscape of Hoth, but still as molten and fiery as the lava flows on Sullest. Unlike with Jacen, Leia could still sense Jaina in the Force, could still reach and out feel that her little girl was alive somewhere, but she no longer recognized the once vibrant, brilliant presence of her daughter.
Instead, recollections of how she'd perceived the Emperor, and her own father before Luke had been able to save him from the darkness, came to mind, and she could not help shuddering.
Jaina, beautiful, brave, compassionate Jaina, had let the darkness swallow her whole.
It was still so hard to comprehend, to understand how everything had gone so wrong. All three of her children were gone, and Leia could not help but blame herself. For most of their childhood, she had never been around very much, her duties to the New Republic had kept her away, leaving the kids in the care of either Winter or Chewbacca on some distant safeworld, or shipping them off to Yavin Four to Luke.
As guilty as she had felt for her absence, she had consoled herself with the knowledge that they were safe and happy as long as they had each other, and every year she had vowed that the next year she would work a little less and make more time for her family.
By the time that she had finally retired as Chief-of-State, her babies had already been out of the Academy and apprenticed to Luke and Mara respectively, well on their way to becoming full Jedi Knights and adults in their own right. Her duty had forced her to miss out on so much, as Jaina had hurled at her often during her turbulent teen years, and when she'd finally had the time for them, she'd found they no longer needed her.
And now Anakin was dead, Jacen was missing, and Jaina had turned her back on the Jedi teachings, choosing instead to follow in her grandfather's footsteps by letting pain and despair lead her down a path that would inevitably destroy her in the end.
She had failed them, so many times over, and now there would never be a chance to make it up to them.
"Leia?"
Tearing her gaze away from the stars overhead, Leia turned to find her brother had moved up behind her, and gave him a weak smile. "I'm all right, Luke," she assured him, sensing his concern singing within her own soul. "I was just..."
Luke nodded, understanding even without her saying the words.
It had always been like that between them, even before they'd discovered their heritage. Sometimes it baffled Leia how she never saw it back during their days with the Rebellion, when they had the same nose, the same shape of their eyes, when everything inside of Luke mirrored what was inside of her.
From the very start, that night on Endor when he'd revealed the truth to her, she had always wondered what her life would have been like if they had grown up together, what she would have been like. It had taken her time to adjust to the knowledge that their father had been Darth Vader, to see past the armor and find the good man he'd once been and had been again at the end of his life, but in time she had come to accept him, even love him. The only memories she had of him were as Darth Vader, save for the one time he had appeared to her on Bakura begging for forgiveness, but somehow that didn't really matter.
She knew Anakin Skywalker, because she saw him in Luke, and in herself, and now in the children.
And once upon a time, he had been a young, dashing, brave and idealistic Jedi Knight, who had fallen madly in love with their mother, whoever she had been.
All that was left of that forbidden, star-crossed love now was their children, and their children's children, but it was a legacy that Leia was proud to carry, and one that she was content knowing would live on when the twins and Ben had children of their own.
What would you do, Father, she wondered. If you were in my shoes?
Would he have gone off to Coruscant searching for Jacen, despite the visions that showed her nothing but death and destruction waiting for her there? Would he have tracked Jaina down and confronted the darkness consuming her head on?
Or would he trust them to find their way back on their own?
"We have to trust in the Force," Luke told her gently, picking up on her train of thought. "And we have to have faith that, somehow, Jaina will find the light again."
"I know," Leia replied quietly, although it was hard to admit that out loud, to voice what she knew in her heart but didn't want to face. "Everything inside of me wants to go to her, but the Force is telling me that I can't, or it will only push her further away from us. That this is Jaina's trial and no one else can interfere."
"It's telling me the same thing," Luke murmured.
Turning to look at her brother, Leia took in the tired, weary set of his jaw, the dull blue of his lowered eyes, the droop of his mouth, and she loved him all the more for how deeply he loved her daughter and her sons. The loss of her children had hit him just as hard, for he had been there as a third parent since the day they were born, he had been there when duty had kept her and Han away.
He had been the one to train them as Jedi, to instill the basic moralities and ethics during their early years, and she knew that he blamed himself for it all, for sending them to Myrkr, where both of her sons had failed to return from, and where Jaina had become lost to them, and lost to the light.
"None of this is your fault, Luke," she told him, placing a hand on his shoulder. "You are not to blame."
When Luke didn't reply, she turned fully and pressed herself against him, seeking solace for the both of them in the only haven that had never faltered, even when all others had. Her twin's arms came up to enfold her in a fierce, but gentle embrace, and they stood like that for a long while, leaning into each other for strength and support, on more than just a physical level.
Laughter from the lower section of the main room interrupted the moment, and Leia sighed.
"We should join them," she decided, begrudgingly pulling out of her brother's arms. "Han and I are leaving in a few hours to take the kids to Shelter, and you should be spending every second of the time you have with Ben, not in here fussing over me."
"I'm supposed to be fussing over you," Luke assured her, lifting his thumb to gently wipe away a tear that she hadn't even known had fallen through her lashes. "It's in the job description as your twin."
"Job, huh?" Leia echoed, swatting him lightly in the arm.
"It's hard work," Luke responded with a small grin. "But somebody's got to do it."
Chuckling, Leia wrapped her arm around his waist, leaning her head on his shoulder, and they moved away from the transparisteel, coming down the few steps dividing the two levels of the main room to rejoin their family.
On the couch, Han sat with an arm draped around the back of the couch, talking animatedly to Tahiri about some crazy adventure he'd had in his youth, and the young Jedi was actually smiling faintly as she listened, captivated, and perhaps hearing an echo of Anakin in his father's voice, in those expressive features.
Mara was bouncing little Ben on her knee across from them, eliciting giggles from the infant child.
Despite the weariness in her soul, Leia smiled at the sight of her sister-in-law with her nephew. Only a few years ago, it had seemed like am impossible dream that Mara might one day have a child of her own, the Yuuzhan Vong disease that Nom Anor had exposed her to was ravaging her system so badly Leia had been afraid that Luke would end up a widower mourning his brave wife's memory.
But now here they were, Mara cured and with her beautiful little boy in her arms.
"And then I blasted through the entire blockade at a rush," Han was concluding with a roguish grin. "Not even a scratch on the Falcon."
"Ignore your Uncle Han, baby," Mara instructed Ben, without looking up. "We all know how he likes to embellish things."
Han gestured to himself with a look of mock innocence, and Tahiri giggled softly.
Hearing her laugh, Leia exchanged a look with Luke, both of them relieved to see the young Jedi beginning to heal after Anakin's death had torn her apart. Tahiri's laughter had an affect on the entire room, as Mara finally looked up from focusing on Ben, smiling sadly at the girl, and bittersweet emotion showed in Han's eyes, full of affection for the girl that their son had loved.
It had been far too long since they'd heard Tahiri laugh, not since her shaping on Yavin Four.
The girl had endured such horrors there, such unimaginable pains and violations, and yet she was still standing, still as defiant in the face of her former captors as ever, even if some of the vivacious spirit had dimmed within her.
At the funeral for Anakin on Hapes, Tahiri had been so lost, staring into the flames like a wraith, a mere shadow of the girl she'd once been, and it had taken Leia's hand on her shoulder to pull her back, to anchor her to reality again. Leia felt that same urge now, to go to this child who the Yuuzhan Vong had turned into an adult much too young, to pull her into her arms and embrace her, to never let her go.
This time, though, it was not despair that fueled that urge, but hope.
Seeing Tahiri's strength, seeing the quiet determination to keep going, for Anakin's sake, in his memory, gave Leia the strength to do the same, and allowed her to hope that one day Jaina, too, would find that same strength within herself.
As if baffled as to why the attention was no longer focused on him, little Ben reached out his chubby hands towards his father, whimpering, and Luke smiled, moving to his wife's side and crouching down to tickle their son beneath the chin. "What are you up to, little guy?" he asked lightly.
"He's practicing his methods of getting attention," Mara declared wryly, letting Luke lift Ben up into his own arms. "He thinks he's going to have Aunt Leia and Uncle Han wrapped around his little finger on the way to the Maw."
Though the comment was made jokingly, Leia did not miss the twinge of anguish beneath the surface, and she laid a hand on her sister-in-law's now empty hands. "The sad thing is," she retorted with a rueful smile. "That he's probably right about that."
Mara looked up at her with a weak smile, and Leia squeezed her hand, willing some of her strength and love to her sister-in-law through the Force.
In a few hours, Leia and Han would be leaving for the Maw, to take Kam and Tionne to the hidden installation there, so they could keep the younger Jedi students, those who had not yet reached apprentice level or whose Masters had not survived this long in the war, safe and far away from the Yuuzhan Vong's reach. It had been decided that they would also take the children of allies like Wedge and Iella Antilles along to Shelter, since there were very few safe havens left in the galaxy these days.
It wasn't going to be easy for any of them to be separated from their children for such a long, uncertain period of time, but it would be especially hard on Mara and Luke, with little Ben being so young, and the loss of Anakin lingering fresh in all of their minds.
Leia knew that pain firsthand, having experienced it with her own children.
As hard as it would be to say good-bye to Ben, it really was the only choice that her brother and his wife could make, unless they wanted to go hide out with him at Shelter, and that wasn't even remotely an option.
They still had a war to fight, a war that they had to win, or else Ben's future, and the future of all children, would be lost.
And soon after the Jedi children were seen safely to the Maw, Luke and Mara would be leaving on a mission of their own, one no less important. With a team that included a few Wraiths, Danni Quee and Tahiri, they would be going right into the heart of enemy territory, returning to the newly conquered Coruscant, to seek out some unknown dark side threat there.
Not even Luke knew what was waiting for them once they reached the fallen capitol, but they all knew that this new dark power that had been awakened there was far too dangerous to go unchecked.
No one had said it, but it was there just the same.
The fear that one day, a similar strike might have to be mounted against Jaina.
Now it was Mara who squeezed Leia's hand, and, pushing the dread aside, Leia smiled weakly, hoping there weren't tears welling in her eyes. "I'm supposed to be doing the comforting here," she chastised.
"We can comfort each other," Mara responded, not letting go. "I'm sorry, Leia. I feel like I've let you down somehow."
"Don't be ridiculous," Leia said, and she meant it with all her heart. "I've already told Luke off for blaming himself, don't make me do the same with you. None of this is anyone's fault. Not Jacen's disappearance, not Anakin's death."
There was a flicker of grief all around, and Tahiri seemed to shrink in on herself for a moment before Han ruffled her hair to shake her out of it, earning a faint, slightly forced smile from the girl in return.
"And you in no way contributed to Jaina's fall," Leia insisted quietly, her eyes boring into Mara's green ones. "You did all you could for her, Mara, and you taught her so much. It was your teachings that kept her alive through this war, that kept her from burning out like so many others have." The tears that had slipped unnoticed into her eyes fell freely now, but without grief. "And I am so grateful to you."
"That goes double for me," Han cleared his throat, and there was a slight catch as he spoke. "You and Luke, you turned our brats into Jedi, made them into who they were and..."
"And we love you," Tahiri concluded softly, a bit timidly, as if she wasn't sure she was allowed to finish his thought.
"Yeah," Han agreed, flashing a cocky smile that was lacking the usual bravado. "What she said."
"As we love all of you," Luke replied, pointedly looking at Tahiri as he said those words, words that he knew she desperately needed to hear these days.
Sensing something he wasn't saying, Leia looked hard at her brother, trying to figure out what he was hiding, or rather, what he was hesitant to reveal. As if he could feel her eyes boring into him, which he probably could, Luke gave a heavy sigh and looked back at her, his eyes, their father's eyes, full of regret and apology.
"What is it?" Leia asked, her voice remarkably steady.
Instantly, all eyes were on Luke, even little Ben's, who stared up at his father from Luke's arms with wide gray eyes.
"I spoke with Tenel Ka this afternoon through a secure channel to Hapes," Luke responded seriously. "After hearing about everything that happened there from Lowbacca, I wanted to speak to her about her role as regent, and to tell her that Cilghal has agreed to travel to Hapes in order to see what she can do to help speed up Teneniel Djo's recovery."
"And?" Mara asked, and from the way she narrowed her eyes, it was clear she hadn't heard any of this yet either.
"And, she had quite a few things to add to Lowie's report," Luke said wearily, handing Ben back to her, much to the baby's confusion as he watched his father with an intensity that would have startled Leia, had she not seen it many times in her own children, even at that young of an age. "Officially, she reported that Ta'a Chume was behind the assasination attempt on her mother's life, and that Ta'a Chume was executed for her crimes by palace security."
"She's covering it up?" Leia asked, mildly alarmed.
"Not exactly," Luke replied slowly, with careful deliberation. "By Hapan laws, Jaina didn't commit murder, she disposed of a traitor. There isn't any crime there for Tenel Ka to cover up. She did, however, neglect to explain the nature of Ta'a Chume's death."
Something profoundly sorrowful behind his words struck Leia deeply, and her breath caught in her throat even as Mara asked the question she didn't want to know the answer to.
"How did she die?"
Luke hesitated, looking down at his hands for a brief moment, as if they could give him an answer, as if they could take the burden from his shoulders, and then he drew a slow, determined breath, and raised his head to look directly at Leia, the rest of the room fading away.
"Ta'a Chume was asphyxiated with the Force," Luke whispered, his eyes never leaving hers.
Closing her eyes, Leia felt her heart sink further than she'd imagined possible, beyond her feet, beyond her toes, slipping from her body as if she was being drained of her very life.
It was every nightmare she had ever had since the night Luke had revealed their parentage, the very reason she had been frightened to have children before that trip to Tatooine with Han shortly after their marriage. A child of her blood, a child of Skywalker blood, had followed in her father's footsteps.
And the galaxy would suffer because of it.
The room was full of emotion after Luke's pronouncement, and her own fears, so closely intertwined with Luke's, mingled with Tahiri's dread, Mara's bitter regret about not sticking around on Hapes, and Han's dull, throbbing ache of disappointment and anguished terror.
"There's more," Luke said thickly, and someone groaned. "It won't be easy to hear."
"Kid, my daughter, the oldest grandchild of Darth Vader, has essentially decided she wants to carry on Grandpa's legacy, and she's seduced Kyp, the kid who destroyed Carida the last time he fell, back to the dark side," Han pointed out darkly, too much emotion tangled up inside of him to be clearly defined. "How could it get any worse?"
Oh, don't ask that, Han, Leia thought, finally understanding what had Luke so on edge, courtesy of Han's own unknowing words. Don't ask.
"From what Tenel Ka observed while they were on Hapes, and from what my own feelings tell me, I think that Kyp and Jaina's relationship..." Luke trailed off, clearly uncomfortable, and in any other situation, Leia might have smiled, seeing how unsettled her brother truly was by this development. "That is, I think that since we left Hapes, the two of them have become... well, intimate."
Despite all the reasons this was not good news, that it could only bring about terrible results given the current state of mind of her daughter and the young Jedi Master, Leia found she wasn't all that surprised. Maybe the Force had been giving her the same subtle hints that it had Luke, or maybe she'd just always known the path that Kyp and Jaina would one day take together, no matter how much she may have wished otherwise.
After all, hadn't she specifically requested, in the message she left for Kyp while he was on Gallinore with Jaina, that the young Jedi Master look after her daughter?
And it was impossible to deny that Leia had set a standard for choosing older men.
Seized with a sudden dread of how Han would react, she slowly looked over at her husband, expecting to find him either pale and about to faint, or livid with a blaster already in hand, ready to shoot at anything that got in his way. Instead, she was taken aback to find that he was still seated on the couch, having apparently taken the news calmly, albeit unhappily, given the troubled expression on his face.
"You're just figuring now that out, kid?" Han asked Luke sarcastically, voice rough with weary emotion.
Startled, Leia looked at him in disbelief, and a touch of horrified wonder. "You already knew?"
"Knew, no," Han said with a bitter shrug. "Suspected... I've seen the way Kyp looks at her when he thinks no one is looking, sweetheart, and no one can deny there's always been fire between them."
"You're taking this well," Leia observed, narrowing her eyes in suspicion. "Almost too well."
Han sighed, running a hand through his graying hair. "Look, Leia, I'm not saying I'm happy about this, okay?" he said shortly, and that was definitely an understatement, given the jumbled feelings she perceived within him. "Do you think I like knowing that Kyp and Jaina... that the kid and my little girl...?" He couldn't bring himself to say it apparently, and scowled darkly. "If I saw Kyp right now, I'd probably shoot him, and where it counts."
"But?"
"But I'm tired, Leia," Han replied, and she could hear the exhaustion in his voice, could feel it in the Force. "I'm tired and my heart hurts, and Jaina's pushed everyone away from her- everyone except for Kyp. Whatever I feel about the two of them being... whatever they are, at least Jaina's got someone. At least she's not alone. Because right now she's more lost than she's ever been in her entire life, I don't need the Force to know that, and, well, I can tell you from experience that being alone right now is the last thing she needs."
That, Leia had to concede, was impossible to deny.
"Besides, I know the kid tried," Han added somberly. "He saw Jaina was in trouble and he did everything he could to pull her back out. Maybe it didn't work, maybe it only made things even worse in the end, but... he tried to save her, and that's go to count for something, right?"
For a moment, they all just stared at him in silence, each privately wondering who this impostor was and what he'd done with the real Han Solo, and then Luke chuckled softly, shaking his head. "Sometimes you truly amaze me, old friend," he told Han with a smile, and Leia had to agree.
"Just sometimes?" her husband retorted, with a lopsided smirk.
To let him know just how amazing she really thought he was, Leia crossed the space between them and leaned down to kiss him. "Always, you nerf-herder," she assured him thickly, smiling even as her eyes shimmered with wetness. "Always."