That first time Luke met Leia on the Death Star, he hadn't paid any attention to the details of her cell, only her. Now he stood in the hallway and peered beyond her into the room. Whether he was being curious or cold- she got the feeling he was looking to see if her room had a heater- what mattered was there was a change, a maturing in what he looked at, how he saw. Once she had been a tortured prisoner, or a messenger of fate, and now she was a friend who stood in the way of him and a heater. She found herself amused and even warmly gratified. She was reminded how her friendship grew out of loss, one label at a time. Instead of gawking at her, he simply recognized her, and let his eyes find other details.

It felt like ages since she had last seen him. He looked the same, but if shown two holos of Luke Skywalker, one from the Death Star and the other from Hoth, she would have put them at years apart, not months. It wasn't that he looked older. Some quality about him had changed. The wonder, Leia supposed. And he was tired now, with a pink nose and helmet hair. He had changed from his orange flight suit into the tan quilted snowsuit.

"I'm here," he announced. "I saw the control room, supplies, the mess and the medbay." There was a glimmer in his eyes. "Now I want to see what Princess quarters look like."

Leia smiled and stepped back from the doorway to let him enter. "Does this qualify?"

The room was small, and of course there was no heater. Everyone shared the communal 'fresher down the hall. Leia found she didn't mind. She'd been surrounded by people all her life, and they had waited on her or for her, rarely with her. This way, there was a shared experience. Waiting for an available sani was funny and significant, and somehow very human.

"The medbay is topnotch," Luke related. "I'm not real impressed with the mess."

"We're likely to need a good medbay here," Leia explained, "if only to treat things like hypothermia."

"Yeah, the cold." Luke turned a slow circle in the tiny room. "This is better than what I got." He wasn't really complaining. "I'm in a room with six cots."

"Do you have a door?" Leia inquired.

"No, there's no door."

"Then this does qualify."

He laughed but he was looking at her with surprised eyes. Leia wanted to sift through their past conversations. What had she said that was so unexpected?

Luke took in the sparse furnishings. There was a cot, and a metal unit standing on one end, its height divided into three cubicles. Leia's backpack, the only personal item, rested in the top cubicle. It's where she kept the canister of tea and the Thought Bowl. Leia worried about the condition of the wood in the extreme cold.

He stopped atop the duroboard. "Do we sit on your cot? I don't wanna sit on the floor. I can feel the cold through my boots."

Leia was busy inserting the boiler plug she'd pilfered from items the engineers left behind into a bowl of icy snow she'd gathered from outside after her arrival. The mess was closed. "It slides. Push it against the wall. Or we can go to an office. I just have to make the tea."

"The tea will be cold by the time we get to an office, won't it?" Luke tested the cot and gave it a shove with his knee. "Slides," he muttered darkly. "Man, this place."

Leia tossed him an affectionate smile. "That's what you said on Buteral."

"Yeah, that place was different, too. Think I like that one better. How'd you wind up here?" The cot slid easily on the ice and hit the wall somewhat hard.

Leia glanced at the wall to assess any damage before answering. "The Empire made a show at Buteral."

Luke was shocked. "No!"

"Only sentry ships. I was offplanet at the time, returning. I was on the Falcon, actually."

"In case we get sidetracked I'll mention now I might like that part of the story. What happened?"

Leia waited until the water had boiled before answering. Luke wanted to know but she felt distant from the story, a lack of interest. Past it, she supposed. She added the tea leaves to steep. "They were intending to detain me. You didn't hear of my press conference?"

Luke tried to lean his back against the icy wall, and sat straight with a shudder. "Press conference? No. I told you, we've been nonstop. They said it'd be boring here and I need the vacation. Since when can't you talk to a journalist?"

Leia decided his question was rhetorical. She took her pillow and handed it to him. "Put this behind you so you can lean back. I bet you're tired from all that flying."

"Thanks. What about you?"

She handed him his tea. "I'll use this blanket. Hold my cup, please?" She grabbed the blanket Han had sort of given her and arranged it over her shoulders and then retrieved her cup. Luke was holding his under his face, blissfully enjoying the steam. "My press conference was about the Death Star."

"Oh," Luke breathed out. "Good for you."

"So I suppose a warrant was issued once again for being a traitor."

"Funny. A lot of us are trying to kill one another. You get into an argument with the Emperor and he wants you arrested."

"It's not funny," Leia argued. "The Alliance has left Buteral. Mon Mothma feels it is safer without us there. And that I'm safer if I'm not there."

Luke held up his hand in apology. "Are you sorry for it, the press conference? Because you can't do the work you started?"

"No. Do you realize on Imperial City they put news of the New Republic last? Citizens are dimly aware the Rebellion has grown into a galactic war." Leia sighed. "They tell me the work will continue. And those that join are coming here, so I'll train them how to fight."

"Fight," Luke breathed out again, lowering his cup. "You mean... Alderaani? They're taking up arms?"

"I resent your choice of pronoun. What else are we supposed to do?"

"I don't know. I didn't think it was... you know. Your way."

She gave him a nod for his self-correction. "It wasn't. But only for the last- not even- four hundred years of our history. Things change, Luke. Your hair is darker. Alderaan has been drawn into war the worst way possible."

Luke passed a hand slowly over the top of his hair. "That long. Or only that long. When I think of Alderaan, and remember I'm all the way from Tatooine, such a... rough place, comparatively, I think of spires and manners. And that your peace was, well, like what it meant to be Alderaani. Kind of like in your biology. You know how they say Corellians can't get lost?"

Leia made a wry face. "I think it's only Corellians who say that. And now that I know one..."

"Ha," Luke said. "He got around the Death Star okay after we got separated."

"So did we."

"Yeah." He was silent a moment, lost in memory and staring into his cup. "So... on the Death Star. When you took my rifle from me and you shot the wall..."

"Mm," Leia sipped tea and waited for him to continue.

"Did you... know, how to shoot? Had you been training, living on a peaceful world, how to-"

"It was a wall, Luke," Leia said dryly. "Point and shoot." He hung his head, and she smiled slightly at him. "I didn't know then. I just wanted out of that corridor and Han said there was no way out. I know now, though."

"Know what?"

"How to point and shoot. I used Han's training remote. On the Falcon."

"You've been spending a lot of time there, then." Luke was blowing at steam, but there was some sort of assumption in his tone.

"What's your point?" Leia attempted a sip from her cup while her eyes challenged Luke.

He smiled. "No point. Just something he said once. And I know it's hard for him to let go too; the Death Star, I've said that before. So he's taking on jobs still?"

"What did he say?"

"Nothing. He was trying to piss me off. Worked too, until I got his number."

"What's his number?"

"You know it, Leia."

"I do not," she denied, and glared at Luke while he grinned at her and she gave up. "Unless you're talking about his comm," she drawled, "then that is a number I know," and Luke broke into a laugh.

"You sound good, Leia. I'm glad."

Leia rubbed the rim of her cup with her thumb. "Yes, well. When you point it out I'm not so sure I should."

"You should." He held tea in his mouth a while and then swallowed it. "I've been thinking about that a lot. Because... because. But I don't see dead people holding anything against the living."

"I'd forgotten how you blurt things." She'd had her own way of making herself reel, and it was her guilty disquiet that had broken through her pleasure at talking with Luke. His bald frankness slapped it away and it was weird to feel so empty-handed. "An odd thing to say."

"No, not really." He shook his head, resigned and pragmatic. "Not when you know a lot of death."

"But how would you come to such a conclusion?"

"Or why?" he smiled and shrugged. "I think the dead, if you... I try and use the Force. Their state of being is that now. It's a different perspective. There's no choice, no... they can't resent you, they can't be happy for you. It's like being born. You just are."

"The opposite of existence."

"Not the opposite. A different form."

"I see," Leia said. "It's a neat viewpoint."

"It's not a viewpoint," Luke stated, with a calm confidence that was new, and Leia had a hopeful flash, that he would survive this war, and drink tea with her and tell her stories and share his wisdom. She marveled at him, at the difference between them. Poor Luke, she used to think, but she was wrong.

"You sound good, too," she said. "How are you here?"

"Well," Luke took a breath and prepared to tell a story. "It feels like a lot of little steps leading to a conclusion. Hackers scored some intel, a list of strikes the Empire was gonna make. A fuel plant here, a rebel governor there. Dodonna sent us out, and the list was good. Accurate. We had a few good battles, too. Then, fifth on the list is a planet called Narkot V. Five for five, we said. We are to defend the fuel reservoir. We get there, and there's nothing! Not even a settlement! R2 picked up signs of a ship frequency though, so Wedge and I sent the others back and set ourselves down, to take a look. We needed to wear oxygen. And guess who's there?"

Leia narrowed her eyes. She felt she knew the answer, just like her intuition fed her the correct guesses with Han. "Who?"

Luke leaned forward and pronounced the name with spooky gravity. "Darth Vader."

Leia only nodded. She patiently waited for him to continue and twitched a shoulder to adjust the blanket.

Luke sat back as if affronted. "How come you're not surprised?"

"What do you mean?"

"Dodonna about fell out of his seat when we told him. You act like, 'of course it was Darth Vader.'"

Leia shrugged. "You telegraphed it. I already knew before about Vader's interest in you. So it was a trap?"

Luke regarded her from the sides of his eyes before resuming his story. "It was just him."

Leia's brows knit together. "That makes no sense."

Luke wagged a finger side to side. "It's taking time to figure out the illogical that gets you killed," he stated. "I learned that."

"Perhaps wise," Leia allowed. "But get on with it. What happened?"

"Hey," Luke protested. "All you said was they wanted to detain you and you hand me a pillow. No story at all."

"Okay, I'll finish the story. They boarded the Falcon. We had enough time for me and Chewie to hide in the smuggling compartment- he could be taken as a slave- and Han shot them. He forged orders to impound the ship to an Imperial base, and we got away. And I never got back to Buteral. That's it."

Luke was looking at her, eyes wide and face still. "That's a lot. You came close. Kriff, Leia. How was Han?"

"Charming and murderous. We spaced the bodies over some moon. Finish your story, Luke. You came close, too. Was this some large detainment movement by the Empire? Any attempts made on Mon Mothma, or Ackbar or Dodonna? We weren't able to contact anyone while we followed the phony Imperial impoundment order, so I'm in the dark about how a lot of it happened."

"Not that I'm aware of. You think yours and mine were connected?"

"I don't know," Leia muttered, shaking her head. "It'd be new. In the past Palpatine just openly assassinated those he perceived as enemies." She thought of P'oppero, and Corellia, and all the innocents whose misfortune was to be standing nearby.

"Well," Luke spoke slowly, thinking out loud. "If you look at the most wanted lists and the bounties... we all have one, dead or alive, for crimes against the Empire. I'm the only one- I think- with an additional one. Well, not counting Jabba's, for Han. That's not related. The reward is put up by a Patron. That's all it says. And it's the highest amount, and checked off is Alive/Unharmed."

Leia was puzzled. "Patron," she echoed.

"Surprised you," Luke crowed and drained his cooled tea in a few gulps. "I think it's Vader."

"Vader has a private bounty? Why? He's the second most powerful in all the Empire." The more Leia thought about it, the less it made sense. "And, why is he trying to collect on his own bounty?"

"He said it was to contain the situation. His words. He has a real concise way of speaking."

Leia's mouth dropped open. "You spoke to him? What was that you said about logic and staying alive?"

Luke grinned. "When it's their illogic. I learned first, from Han, that behaving unexpectedly, or what Threepio would call illogically, aids in survival as well. I'm piling up all sorts of lessons."

"Are you ever going to finish this story?"

"See, I thought yours was more interesting. Mine is just talking. Until the end."

"That's how mine is, too. And I was in the smuggling hold. I couldn't see anything. Finish."

"He took our blasters but not my lightsaber. He told me he had me, and I should just come. I asked why, and he said all my questions would be answered."

"Oh," Leia said, a little troubled. "That sounds almost exactly like what you said to me a while back. You had questions."

"I know," Luke nodded along with her worry. "Contain the situation meant ensuring I stayed alive, which I thought gave me some leverage. I demanded Wedge be allowed to leave. He told Wedge if he didn't prevent me leaving with Vader, he'd let him live and he could even collect the reward. But- he was still threatening, somehow. The air got funny. And Wedge couldn't breathe for a second. We thought it was the respirator, but Vader said everything was under his control. So Wedge went along with it."

"I think I would, too."

"Yeah. Wedge kept talking about the bounty but I knew he was pretending. Before, when we were talking about the mystery of the Patron bounty, Wedge said he doubted Vader had that many credits to pay out." Luke barked a laugh and raised his empty cup at Leia. "He's one who says he doesn't get lost, you know. Corellian."

"I am going to melt ice and splash you with the water if you don't tell me how you got away!" Leia said in mock exasperation.

Luke laughed. "I'll finish if I can have another cup of tea. So Wedge pretended he'd surrender me, but he was holding on to me, for his own protection, you know."

"Right."

"We were headed to the Wings- we told Vader we needed to give the all clear signal if he wanted to get away without a fight."

"What was his ship?"

"A small shuttle. Ambassador class. A nice one."

"I don't know why I wanted to know that."

"Maybe from spending all that time on the Falcon," Luke surmised. Leia widened her eyes at him but he continued unfazed, "When Wedge climbed up in his I lunged at Vader and did my best to just cling to him. I figured he wouldn't kill me, you know, if it was so important to bring me in alive. So I wasn't scared he'd hurt me. But I didn't want him killing Wedge. And it gave Wedge time to fire up the Wing and he started strafing the ground. Vader and I sought cover in different directions, only mine was to my Wing, and we got away."

"My gods, Luke," Leia said in a hush. "It wasn't you that came close. It was Vader." She took Luke's cup and got off the cot to prepare to boil more water. "What questions could he answer?"

"He was probably bluffing. But I admit I'd be curious about that."

"About General Kenobi?"

"Maybe." Luke watched Leia tend unnecessarily to the water. "What are you thinking about?"

Leia's teeth bit her lower lip. "About... what if our stories were somewhat reversed. And it was Vader who boarded the Falcon. That... I don't think Han could kill him. I think he would have killed Han as soon as he set eyes on him. He's... powerful, and evil, and..." she inhaled sharply. "I don't know. He would have killed us. Easily. Alone. But you..."

"He'd have killed Han," Luke agreed. "You too, probably, or maybe he'd let the Emperor do it. I don't know why he wants me alive. But it gives me an edge, don't you think?"

"Yes." Leia didn't look at Luke. It seemed unfair. She bit back making a comment similar to Luke's about getting into an argument with the Emperor. We get shot at; Vader wants to bring you home. "It does give you an edge. Us too, though I'm not sure how we'd use it. It's like a weakness."

Luke snapped his fingers eagerly. "Weak- exactly. I told you we were wearing oxygen. There, on Narkot V, we were just like him. Ours was a two hour supply, but still- we were masked, our breathing was audible, voices distorted. And when I lunged at him, I was pulling on his cape, to restrict his arm movements, and my face was squished against the chest panel. Ben was right. He is more machine. But there's something about him... he feels so strongly. It's intense."

Leia bounced the tea infuser up and down in the water. "I didn't get that impression," she said quietly, "on the Death Star. He was methodical. It didn't matter to inflict pain; it was a means to an end. He was..." Leia thought about how impassively he watched her torture. But then his fingers had bruised her shoulders, pressing her to him and holding on so hard. That was emotion.

"What?"

"Nothing. Here." She handed him a fresh cup of tea. "It's obvious why he wants you alive, Luke. I'm surprised you're not saying it."

"Obvious?"

"Vader has taken extreme steps to recruit you. The rest of us he'd kill, or destroy our minds. It's the Force. It can't be because you're Red Five. The Emperor would want that being dead if that was his only significance. And if Vader doesn't want the Emperor to know... then he's keeping a secret. He's desperate for you, for some reason. You're his weapon, his... ally. The future."

"You think he plans on overthrowing the Emperor," Luke surmised. He nodded. "And that what I'm sensing is his ambition. Which I guess is very strong. It occurred to Dodonna, too. That's why I'm here. Good thing I'm not interested in ruling. Or being used." He placed the dispo cup against his cheek, closing his eyes at the sensation of warmth. "I miss the desert," he said.

Leia made a sympathetic smile. "Feeling homesick?"

"It's not that. It's... I want when things were simpler. When there weren't secrets or beings talking about you or making plans for you without you."

"But the secrets were there," Leia pointed out. "Weren't they. Your uncle's explanation of your father's death compared to what General Kenobi told you."

"Yeah. Gods." Luke rubbed his warm cheek, as if the motion could spread warmth to the rest of his face. "And Ben's whole reason for being on Tatooine."

"I feel there were secrets, too. And they were covered up, so carefully. And I knew they were there, but... if I asked, I think they would have told me, but I got the impression I shouldn't ask. Or I wouldn't like the answers once I heard them and there was no going back. And now all that information, or potential knowledge, or the truth- the truth, Luke-" Leia broke off in a sigh.

"Yeah. And if the truth is so different than what you thought you knew, and why should it be? but if it's so different, that makes everything you thought you knew-"

"You can go back to the desert and pretend things are simpler," Leia said. "I can't."

"No. I have this feeling we both will learn our truths. There's been too much set in motion, you know? It's coming for us, on its own. Ben told me- oh, speaking of that. I have something to show you! A bit of truth, but one I don't mind knowing."

Luke leaned over to set his cup on the floor, hovering his fingers to make sure it was balanced well on the slightly uneven ice floor. Then he reached into a jacket pocket of his snowsuit and pulled out his lightsaber.

"It takes me a minute to get ready. Bear with me. Don't make fun of me or anything." He set it on the cot.

"Why would I make fun of you?"

"Han laughed at me my first lesson. And Wedge did when he caught me at this. I told him Darth Vader wouldn't and he shut up."

"What are you going to do?"

Luke hushed her. His lips were folded over his teeth in concentration, and he held his hand several inches over the hilt of his lightsaber. His hand trembled. This time, Leia couldn't make a guess what would happen. She wanted to take a drink from her cup but thought she might break his concentration if she moved.

She waited. It didn't take too long. First, the lightsaber appeared to twitch, and then it trembled like his hand. Then all of a sudden, he was holding it and he was smiling at her.

"Luke," she said a bit amazed. "I didn't see you pick it up."

"I didn't." He was proud. "I called it to me. I lifted it with the Force!"

"By the light of the stars," Leia admired. "That's wonderful. How did you learn to do that?"

"I don't know. I taught myself. Or it taught me. There's no one around to help me. I did like you suggested, train myself. How else is anything going to happen, right, if I don't make it for myself. I have what Ben told me, that the Force is energy, and I have my father's ability, and I-" he broke off, his eyes wide in realization.

"What is it?"

"I was feeling it. Like Darth Vader feels."

Leia shook her head. "Don't do that to yourself. He's a Force user, so are you. Making something move is entirely different than the desire to have someone help you kill someone else."

"But I wanted it to move; that's em-"

"Anytime we apply effort to something it is because we want it, Luke, Force or not."

"That sounds smart," Luke said, still uncertain.

Leia saw he needed a more concrete example. "You wanted warmth, you drank tea."

"But I didn't use the Force for that."

"You're just unfamiliar with what the Force feels like. It's a new sensation to you, that's all. Once you start to apply it more, it will become like second nature."

"I hope so." He cocked his head at her. "Do you think if I want to feel warm, I can use the Force to actually feel warm?"

"I have no idea."

"I'll have to try that." He rubbed his finger over a section of quilting in his pants leg, and soon the troubled look on his face cleared.

"Just don't melt the ice," Leia cautioned.

"I won't." His grin was cheery and grateful.

"How else have you grown with the Force?"

"I like how you put that. Wedge asks me what other tricks I can do." Luke scowled. "It's not tricks."

"Of course it isn't," Leia soothed.

Luke sat straight with a huge inhale, and slumped back on the exhale. "I have what Ben told me. That the Force is energy, connecting all living things. That my eyes can deceive me. And that the Force will be with me always."

"Have you... heard him?"

"You mean run, Luke?" he shook his head. "I think I have to be under real stress for that. But, it means it's there. So, I've been closing my eyes, and just...letting things wash over me. I'm slow at it, but I've felt... intent. I think I've been able to sense beings I can't see. I've been able to kind of know before a situation changes that it's going to change. It's vague. And after it's over I convince myself it was just me thinking after the fact. But now I can do this." Luke held his lightsaber in his palm. "Progress, right?"

"Big progress," Leia enthused for his benefit.

Luke nodded and was silent a moment. Then he changed the subject. "When was the last time you saw Han?"

"When I left Buteral. He brought me here."

"Did he. Like he brought me to the Death Star. Us to you. The truth is on its way, Leia."

Despite the fact that it was Luke in front of her, sweet, earnest Luke, Leia got a chill. "You sound mysterious."

"Is he coming back?"

She smiled at him. "You say he is."

"Ha, I do. Yeah, he flickers in and out. Like the Force right now. You know what I was thinking- ech, never mind. I get a certain way, when I'm thinking of the Force and all that happened. And I've always had an imagination. Pictured myself bigger than I was, you know. A hero, or a legend."

"But you have become a hero."

"But it's nothing like what I imagined. I haven't changed."

"To me, that's what says it's real. Tell me what you were thinking."

"Well," Luke hesitated, looking at Leia with a probing glance. He was afraid again of being made fun of, she saw. It whispered again, poor Luke, before she could stop it, the youth who used to share what his imagination proposed and then got laughed at.

"Well," he repeated. "The things Ben told me. The Force is always with me, in me, part of me- that's you. I knew it soon as I saw your holomessage. No, don't," Luke held up his hand to stop her from protesting demurely. "It's me really, that's always with you; that's how it happened, but it's the same, when you're linked. And me, I'm the thing that deceives." He shook his head in frustration. "I'm not saying this right! It sounds so much better in my head." He smiled feebly at her. "But when beings looked at me, they saw a farm boy. And not much else."

"Luke-"

"No, it's okay. I don't mind. I'm not feeling sorry for myself. I saw a farm boy. And the last thing is-"

"- the energy that binds all things," Leia finished for him.

He nodded. "Han. Because of Chewie. You see?"

Leia was still a moment. "I do."

Luke nodded. "And sometimes, it's different, but it still fits. At Yavin, it was Han that was the deceiver. A beat up old freighter, but it knocked two Ties out. Vader's! And the Force was with me: I made the shot without the targeter. And you, you were the one connecting all things." He stopped as Leia shook her head, unable to see. "The Force, Leia. All things. The past, the future. The living and the dead, all in the Force."

"Luke," Leia's brow was furrowed. "The way you talk... it sounds so mystical."

"And I have to include Darth Vader. We're the ones off the Death Star."

"Darth Vader," Leia's echo dripped with distaste. "You're going to give him significance?"

"I have to," Luke answered. "After what he did to you? What he wants with me? No, he's part of this."

Leia swirled the cooled tea in her cup. "I can't see how he fits the roles of your scenarios. Binder of life, or deceiver. Deceiver," Leia scoffed. "He's the good guy after all? No, Luke. He'll never be the good guy."

"Yeah. I wish he'd answer my questions without having to capture me. That would be a good start. But I told you, it's just me thinking. Part of me says I'm not wrong; there's too much to not see it. But then another part says I'm crazy."

Leia smiled. "The Force in us. That's true mainly for you and Vader. Not me or Han."

"Yeah, I have to get really poetic to make that one fit, especially for Han."

"And me as deceiver..." Leia was thoughtful. It was like a puzzle, and interesting to think about, no matter how fantastic. "That I'm ordinary? I was adopted. I'm not a blood member of the House of Organa."

"Ordinary," Luke scoffed gently. "No, Leia. I didn't see it either, but I do now. The point is," Luke continued stubbornly, "farm boy or Princess, we did live that; we are that, but we're also something else."

Leia shook her head. "You're assigning three simple, mortal beings with... with things that are beyond them. It's you, Luke. It's all you. The Jedi and the Force. That's you. Han is... maybe he's not a mercenary, but we have to hope he'll be more than rancor fodder when he pays off Jabba the Hutt. And me, well, I feel that the Force has finished playing with me, that I'm-"

"My turn to state the obvious," Luke interrupted. He was stern, another facet new to Leia. "You're the warrior. A soldier. The Princess from a pacifist world? Look what she's been doing. Look what she's doing now."

The blanket slipped from Leia's shoulders. She felt her eyes were wide and must look very brown set against all the white in the room. "I feel that's true."

"It is. Just wait until Han gets back here. I know he will. And then the galaxy better watch out."

Leia laughed suddenly. "You sound... so like yourself, Luke," she hedged, "eager and hopeful and searching, but also... how do I put this? Unrealistic? If he comes and we somehow fulfull our destiny on this ice planet- or find our truths- but that means Darth Vader will have to come, too."

Luke sobered. "Oh, that's right," he said, and swallowed the contents of a dry mouth. "Yeah, we're not ready. Forget I said anything."