The New Rancor Theater
Coruscant
5 years later
"30 minutes to pink screen, sir."
"Thank you, Jeb," Sheev Palpatine told the Ithorian stage being. "I will be ready!"
"Yes, sir!"
"Are you nervous, Father?" Emperor Trey Palpatine asked from the corner, where he was busily painting his face with random colors from his father's make-up kit. He needed the stress relief after an irritating day of mediating meetings between an Outer Rim trade alliance and a group of irritable Core Worlders who had tried to corner the market on shaak meat.
"Not at all, Son," the elder Palpatine said jovially. "I am so looking forward to playing a krayt dragon. I believe it will be an enjoyable stretch of my acting talents to play a non-sentient creature which just wants to eat people."
"Just don't really eat anyone, Father," Trey replied, rolling to his feet and walking over to place an affectionate arm around his aged sire.
"Tempting, but I'll restrain myself. Ah, your wife is here!"
Trey turned with a smile toward the door, just as the former Aralina Silk strolled into the room.
"Darling wife!" Trey cried out.
"Darling husband, what have you done with your face?" his loving wife inquired.
Trey frowned at the mirror, "I painted it green and blue and purple, of course. Do you like it?"
"Yes?"
"Trey found today's trade alliance meetings quite tedious and the face painting was stress relief" his father explained cheerfully, rising to his feet. "I need to get back stage to get inside my dragon costume."
"Break an elbow, Father!"
"Thank you, my boy!"
Aralina waited for her father-in-law to depart and then strolled over to wrap an affectionate arm around the Emperor.
"How are you really doing, Trey?"
The emperor of the known galaxy groaned slightly even as eyes, with awe and delight, his wife's bulbous figure. Their first child was due in some three months.
"I am fine, I suppose. Today everyone was being so stubborn. I don't, of course, approve of Lord Vader's former methods of choking idiots, but I understand the impulse."
"Come on, Trey. Let's go watch your father as a krayt dragon. Brilani and Wedge are going to join us. "
"Awesome. Can I get some chocolate popcorn with Crait red salt?"
"Of course you can, your Highness."
/
Tree House
Kashyyyk
"Yes, I do see the problem," Darth Vader murmured aloud, eyeing the lightsaber hilt in the great Wookiee's hands.
The mighty Longray rumbled at some length, causing C-3PO to shuffle forward a few steps to ensure he did not miss anything of the great furball's words.
"He says, Lord Vader, that in addition to the hilt being too small in diameter, he feels it bending under his fingers when he tightens his grip."
Vader shook his head incredulously. His own cyborg hands were extremely strong, but there were feedback loops and he had trained himself not to clutch the hilt too tightly. It made sense that the Wookiee, with his even larger hands, was holding the hilt more tightly to secure his hold.
"I will work on it," he assured the giant who stood even taller than he did. "We will need to expand the diameter and change the material."
The Wookiee roared a short reply which Vader did not need translated, but of course Threepio translated anyway.
"He says, thank you for your assistance, Lord Vader."
"Thank you, C-3PO," Vader replied courteously. It had been a shock to discover some years ago that C-3PO and R2D2, his old droids, were not only in the custody of his children, but had been heavily involved in the Alliance's retrieval of the stolen Death Star plans.
R2D2, when informed of his true identity as the former Anakin Skywalker, had attached himself firmly to the (former) Sith Lord and yelled at him in binary for a full 27 hours and 15 minutes. Vader, knowing he no doubt deserved the rebuke, had listened, though had grown weary with the process and had fallen asleep at about the 23rd hour.
C-3PO had grown increasingly peculiar with age. The droid had always had a rather odd personality, no doubt because he had been created by a nine year old Tatooine slave boy, but the combination of a memory wipe (apparently shortly after the twins were born) and interacting with Rebels on a regular basis had proven hard on the droid's underlying personality.
Han Solo, now Vader's son-in-law ...
Really, how could it be that his daughter, Princess Leia Organa, had fallen for such a rogue?
At any rate, Solo was quite tired of C-3PO and his neurotic chattering, and had gifted the droid to his father-in-law at a Life Day party last year as a joke.
Fortunately, Threepio had proven a useful companion even if he was a little annoying. He was an excellent translator and he and R2D2 were quite an amusing pair.
It was odd, really, after 20 years of being steeped in the Dark Side, how pleasant it was to be amused by anyone or anything.
"Perhaps wood from a wroshyr tree could be used," Luke commented as he walked into the room with a small Wookiee clinging to his torso. Vader's son had been on the adjacent balcony of the dwelling, caring for the female cub while her father was working with Vader. This entire Wookiee family was, incredibly enough, Force Sensitive; the most obvious manifestation of their powers was that they had successfully protected their clan from capture by the Empire during the long years of Kashyyyk's occupation and enslavement.
"That ... is a wonderful idea," Vader murmured softly, looking around with interest at the various objects within the tree house; it was clear even from a brief glance that wroshyr wood would be used for a multitude of uses.
There was a sudden shout through the Force and both Skywalkers jerked in frenzied concern.
"Take your daughter, please," Luke asked hastily, handing over the cub to her father and dashing toward the door.
Vader was right at his heels. His body was far more pliable and functional than it had been before Sheev Palpatine returned to the Light; his mechanical parts were the best in the galaxy, and his organic body had largely been healed by his twins and their compatriots.
He was still bald, but bald was beautiful.
Luke leaped heedlessly across a five meter gap to an adjacent balcony with his father right behind him. They skittered to a halt next to the red maned woman who stood at the railing, staring worriedly up a tree
Luke looked up as well and suppressed a gasp. Staring down at him were two little boys, one 2 and a half years of age, one only 11 standard months. The red haired older child looked rather uneasy on his perch some 100 meters above the forest floor far below, but the younger, blond baby was grinning enthusiastically, his few pearly white teeth gleaming in the sunshine.
"I am holding Jaxon with the Force," Mara Jade Skywalker explained quickly, "but I am not sure I can hold both boys if they let go at the same time."
"Father, can you take Cristofer?" Luke asked. Vader reached out with the Force and carefully grasped his eldest grandson gently, then nodded at his son, who leaped into the tree.
"High up, Daddy," Cristofer commented, casting an uncertain glance below him.
Luke carefully wrapped a physical arm around the toddler and pulled him close to his own body, "Yes, high up, Son. You shouldn't climb trees without Daddy or Mommy climbing with you."
"Ok."
Luke leaped carefully back onto the balcony just as Jaxon, apparently deciding he was tired of branches, let go. Mara floated him back into her arms, the child giggling madly in the process.
"I seriously went into the refresher for five minutes!" Mara ranted softly, leading her husband and father in law into the guest treehouse where she and her family were currently residing. "I left the boys locked in their room, no dangerous toys, the nanny droid in residence, and when I came back out, they had escaped and were climbing a tree. And the nanny droid is shut down."
"Cristofer," Luke asked sternly. "Did you unlock the door and turn off the nanny droid?"
The little boy hung his head sheepishly, "Yes, Daddy. Jaxon heped."
Jaxon gurgled enthusiastically and threw out a hand toward a random door, which opened obediently.
"Dear Moons of Iago," Luke muttered, as Vader stared at the baby with wide eyes.
It was quite possible, he realized, that his twin children would not have survived to adulthood under his care; he hoped that he would have treated Luke and Leia well, but baby Skywalkers were capable of finding more trouble in five minutes than most children could boast in an entire week.
/
Otoh Gunga
Beneath the surface of Lake Paonga
Naboo
"It has indeed been an honor to meet with you, Boss Lanu," Leia Organa Solo said with a dip of her head.
"Yes, great," Han Solo agreed manfully, opening the door to the small sub and gesturing for his wife to proceed ahead of him.
Leia crept into the vehicle with her boy/girl twins in her arms and adjusted herself into her seat, with Han following her. He closed the door behind them and, without comment, started up the vehicle's engine. Within seconds, he had the sub on its way out of the Gungan city of Otoh Gunga and into the great waters of Lake Paonga.
"I totally could not understand them," Han said with a groan.
"This from the man who is fluent in Shyrriwook," Leia replied with a chuckle.
"With the Gungans," Solo complained, "it is like the words should make sense because they are sort of Basic, but then they aren't, really. I mean, the way they talk should be criminalized."
Leia laughed as she drew her sleeping baby twins closer to her, "I do know what you mean. I spent quite a bit of time with a Gungan ambassador as a child and I think that helps me understand them, but they have a very strong, um, accent, if that is the right word? That and an odd word order."
"They make Master Yoda sound downright refined," Han commented bitterly. "I spent so much of the last three days of the negotiations grinning like a fool when someone talked to me, because I truly did not know what they were saying. It almost makes me miss C-3PO. He would have loved following us around translating every random Gungan comment."
"Han, should we be worried about the giant fish following us?"
"Nah. They are pretty harmless, I understand, and if not the outer hull of the sub has an electrical network which will let us fry them."
"Nice," his wife commented, looking around through the surreal underwater mountains. "It's very beautiful here."
"Romantic, even."
Leia grinned at her husband, who was smiling at her roguishly, and then focused on her infants, whom she carefully floated into their little bed in the back of the sub.
"Very romantic," she agreed, pulling him close to her for a kiss.
The End
Author Note: I truly found the Gungans in general, and Jar Jar in particular, almost impossible to understand in the Phantom Menace.
Also, many thanks to Brievel for giving me the idea of a Palpatine redemption story!
Thank you for all of you who patiently waited on the slow updates on this fic.
And thanks to my loyal husband for his faithful editing!
/
For those of you who enjoy the Pride and Prejudice fandom you might be interested in my books on Amazon:
I am Jael
The Blind Will See
I have been Jaeled – coming soon!