Wedge stepped off the shuttle plank onto the Yavin courtyard, alone this time. It felt strange. He was going to miss coming here regularly. It was such a nice departure from the steel jungle of Coruscant. But, the reason was good.

"Hi Wedge."

Wedge looked over his shoulder. "Hi Sir'ren."

"Today's the day, huh?"

"He told you?" Wedge didn't think Luke would have told anyone.

"No no, of course not," Sir'ren said, shaking his head. "Brianna told us, a few of us. The ones who had noticed more, you know, that he was struggling a bit. Also, she wanted us to keep the courtyard clear while you packed up. To avoid any uncomfortable questions."

"That's very forward thinking of her," Wedge said.

Sir'ren shrugged. "She does care. Even if it manifests in some bizarre ways sometimes."

"Yeah, she does," Wedge agreed. "What do you think about it?"

Sir'ren let out a breath and gazed around the courtyard before turning back to Wedge. "He's earned it. He deserves it. He's done so much over the past few decades to make this place what it is. It literally wouldn't exist without him. You know all that. He's been the consummate role model. Whenever someone thinks of what a Jedi is or should be, he's who we think of. We're all grateful for him." Sir'ren paused. "I do understand Brianna's angle. That he did too much of this and not enough of...other things. She is the way she is for a reason."

"Yeah."

"I think it's a good thing," Sir'ren said. "For everyone." He smiled. "We will miss him though."

Wedge reached out to shake Sir'ren's hand. "You're a good man Sir'ren. He tries not to talk about being worried about this place after he leaves, even though I know he's thinking about it. But I'm sure you will be fine."

"We will be," Sir'ren said. "And, I know, so will he." Sir'ren gave Wedge a small bow. "May the Force be with you."

"Thank you Sir'ren."

Sir'ren gave Wedge one last nod, then walked off into the trees, back to his own teaching and training. Wedge headed for the main temple. He didn't need to ask where Luke was. He always knew.

Wedge climbed the main stairs. He slowed down as he approached the landing to the third floor. He always did. But he never stopped. He only glanced down the hall. Corran told him once that he had Wedge's old room when he had been a student. Corran said he had felt Wedge's presence in it, though he didn't really realize that at the time. Luke had to explain it to him. Wedge had never asked Luke what he felt inside that room. He wasn't sure he really wanted to hear the answer. He kept going.

He walked down the hall of the fourth floor. He stopped where he always stopped. The door was slightly ajar, just as it had been forty years ago. Wedge took a deep breath. He knocked lightly, then poked his head inside.

Luke was standing at the window, taking in the view. Just the same. "Come on in," Luke said.

"Just about ready?"

"Yeah." Luke sighed and sat on the bed. "I'm going to miss this place."

Wedge sat down next to him. "There's no rule that says you can never come back here."

"I know. But… There's a lot of history in this room."

Wedge smiled. He knew why Luke had chosen it as his meditation room. "I'll be right down the hall, you know."

"I know… You still think I should live in Leia's apartment?"

"Yeah. For now, at least. Just in case. You can always change your mind later."

"Yeah." Luke looked around the room again. "I guess, when it's time to go, it's time to go." He stood up.

"Is that it?" Wedge asked, pointing to the closed trunk in the center of the room.

"There's one more in my room on the second floor," Luke said. Luke grabbed one side handle as Wedge grabbed the other, and they walked into the hall and down the stairs. "I think I might have less stuff than you now."

"Hmm, maybe," Wedge said. It was an old game, from pre-Hoth days, trying to figure out which one of them had fewer possessions. Wedge usually won. "Maybe not."

"You have a whole apartment," Luke said.

"And most of it isn't mine," Wedge said. "After Iella and I got married, we were combining our stuff and she was baffled that I only had one or two of any kind of dish. She said, 'How do you only have one dinner plate?' I said, 'I'm one person and I only eat dinner once a day. Why do I need more than one dinner plate?' She looked at me like I was crazy."

Luke laughed. "I would have thought she'd be more minimalist."

"So did I. She made some argument about how it's more efficient to wash a small handful of things every two or three days than one thing every day." Wedge shrugged. "I wouldn't know. The only thing I've ever owned more than one of is flight suits."

Luke laughed again. They made their way through the main hangar and into the courtyard toward Wedge's shuttle. "Seems pretty empty out here today," Luke observed.

"Hadn't noticed," Wedge said.

After they brought the second trunk down and loaded it in the shuttle, Wedge saw Luke stop to take another long look around the courtyard. "Not quite ready to go yet?" Wedge asked.

"There are two more things I need to do," Luke said.

"Lead the way." Wedge followed Luke back toward the main temple. As they got closer, Wedge saw a familiar blue and white astromech come rolling out of a side door from the main hangar.

"R2!" Luke waved at him and started walking in his direction.

Wedge had wondered if R2 was coming with them. There certainly wasn't anyone who had been more attached to Luke in the last forty years. But Luke hadn't brought it up and Wedge hadn't asked.

Luke knelt down to be eye to eye with R2. "Hi R2."

R2 let out a low whistle that Wedge thought sounded like a question. He had hung back a bit from them. And he had never been as good at understanding R2 as Luke.

"Yeah, we're about to leave soon," Luke said.

Another, slightly higher pitched whistle.

"Well, I was going to ask you," Luke said. "If you wanted to come with me, or stay here, or...do something else."

Something else? Wedge wondered. Like what? R2's trill sounded like the same question.

Luke reached up and reached up and stroked the side of R2's dome. "You've been patiently assisting someone in this family for over seventy years. Sometimes I wonder why. You could do anything you wanted. So I thought, if you did want to do something else, that's okay."

Wedge nodded. As good as he was at predicting Luke, he should have seen that one coming. He'd never seen anyone have as much affection for a droid as Luke did for R2.

R2 slowly turned his dome in Wedge's direction. He twittered a short question. "Yes, Wedge is coming with me," Luke said. "He'll be right down the hall from me."

Wedge smiled a bit. On more than one occasion, he and R2 had conspired to make sure Luke took care of himself. Clearly neither of them had done a very good job…

R2 whistled an answer. "Are you sure?" Luke asked. R2 whistled again, this time sounding a bit sarcastic. Luke laughed. "You're right, she probably does." Luke paused, then shook his head. "Why?" he asked. "Why so long?"

R2's answer came soft and low. Wedge could barely hear it. He moved to the side to see Luke better. Luke nodded along as R2 spoke, with a smile here and there. He sniffled a bit, then wiped away a stray tear. He leaned forward and wrapped R2 in a tight hug. "You truly are," Luke said. "You truly are." Wedge wondered what hugs felt like to droids.

Luke pulled away. "Until we meet again, my friend." R2 twittered one more time at him, then continued on his way, on whatever his latest mission was. Luke started walking again toward the temple.

Wedge caught up with him. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Luke said, still sniffling a bit.

"What did he say?"

"He said he was going to stay here," Luke said. He had just the tiniest hint of a smirk. "Because Brianna needs a pilot."

Wedge chuckled. In a family full of pilots, Brianna seemed to take pride in not even being able to park properly. "I meant, why has he always stayed," Wedge said. "If you don't mind telling me."

"Oh." Luke stopped. He glanced around the courtyard. It was still empty. "He said, when he was part of a maintenance team on Naboo, he was treated like any other droid. Not mistreated. But not anything to really take notice of either. Then, he came more directly into Padmé's service and he met Anakin. He said they were the first two people to really treat him differently. He was part of Padmé's security detail for ten years, and then served with Anakin in the Clone Wars for three. They always treated him - him and Threepio - with kindness. Like friends." Luke smiled. "He reminded me that Anakin had been scolded by other Jedi on more than one occasion for being too attached to him.

"When he was on Alderaan, he didn't interact with Leia all the time, but she always trusted him with the most critical assignments. And then, the last forty years with me…" Luke trailed off. "He said we'd even passed that on to our own kids."

Luke paused and looked up into the sky. He took a deep breath. "He said...droids don't have families." He turned to look at Wedge. "But I do."

Wedge gave Luke's shoulder a squeeze. "He's definitely special."

"Yeah." Luke sniffled one more time and took another breath. "One more thing to do."

Wedge followed him back into the main temple, toward the control room. Brianna, as usual, was sitting slouched in a chair at one of the consoles. Luke stopped a couple of meters from her. He didn't say anything. She didn't look up. Luke glanced back at Wedge quickly. "We're about to head out," he said.

"Okie doke, sounds good."

Luke paused. "R2 is going to stay here."

"Is he? Okay."

Another pause. "He said he wanted to stay here...because you need a pilot."

Brianna snorted and grinned. "Little snot."

Luke glanced one more time at Wedge. "Brianna?"

"Mmm?"

"Take good care of him."

Brianna finally did turn to look at Luke. She held his gaze for just a moment. Then leapt out of the chair to give her father a hug.

Luke froze. His eyes darted around the room. He slowly started to return the hug. Then, just as he might have been getting comfortable, Brianna pulled away. She grinned and gave her father a light punch in the shoulder. "I'm gonna get him his jet packs back!" she said.

Luke nodded. "I - I'm sure he'll appreciate that."

Brianna sat back down in her chair and faced the console. "Well, if you forget anything, let me know, I'll ask the pilot to come bring it to ya."

Luke nodded. "Right."

Luke waited. But no one else said anything. Wedge followed him back through the main hangar to the courtyard. "You okay?"

"I don't think she's ever spontaneously hugged me in her life."

Wedge shrugged. "First time for everything."

"Yeah." Luke turned around to take another look across the courtyard.

"Are you ready?" Wedge asked.

"Yeah." Luke nodded. "Let's go."

"No, it's not my appointment, it's his appointment," Wedge said.

The receptionist frowned and looked at Luke. "What's your name?"

"I was told," Wedge said, "that we could set up the check-in alias when we got here."

The receptionist frowned harder. "Are you a new patient, or do you have records here?"

"Both?" Luke said.

"What dates were you in the military?"

"0 ABY to, um -"

"4 ABY," Wedge finished.

The receptionist widened her eyes. "Oh, Alliance records? What about between then and now?"

"Let's start with that," Wedge said.

The receptionist sighed. "Okay." She reached under her console and pulled out a data pad. She typed a bit into it, then handed it to Luke. "This is a new patient packet," she said. "The first three forms are administrative. The rest are health history. As you finish each form, you can click submit at the top and it will be entered into the system on your patient ID. Once you submit forms one and two, I can check you in, and your check-in alias will be called when they're ready for you."

"Thanks." Luke took the pad. Wedge followed him over to some empty seats along the wall of the waiting area. Luke opened up the pad. "Let's see, first form, personal information. Name, address, dates of military service, homeworld, galactic standard date of birth." He looked at Wedge. "I wonder what Leia puts."

Wedge knew all too well what a sore spot birthdays were for them. "You could ask her."

Luke scrunched up his nose just a little bit. "Maybe another day." He filled out all the questions and clicked submit. The next form popped up automatically. "Oh, the check-in alias."

Wedge hadn't even realized the hospital had this service until he made the appointment. It was a nice idea, letting people check in under a different name so their real names weren't broadcast across the waiting area. Wedge figured Luke would want to make use of it. Luke held up the pad so Wedge could see. "John Smith?" Wedge said. "What's that?"

"It's a name," Luke said.

"I've never heard that name before."

"It's the name on my civilian registration for my X-Wing," Luke said.

"Is it a reference to something?" Wedge asked. Maybe it was some fascinating historical Jedi Luke had found in some archive.

"It's - Brianna will think it's funny," Luke said.

"Oh." Guaranteed to be obscure, Wedge thought.

Luke switched to the next form. "Notifications and Decisions. What's this for?"

"That's for emergencies," Wedge said. "You know, if you're brought in and they need to notify someone. Or someone needs to make a decision and you can't…"

"Oh."

"There's a default list they use," Wedge continued, "based on...family relationships. But you can override it with whoever you put on there."

"Who can I put on here?"

"Anyone you want."

"Anyone I want?"

"Yep." Wedge watched Luke stare at the form for a moment before he started writing. Wedge hadn't wanted to be presumptuous or insist Luke do anything. As much as he had strong opinions about what Luke should be doing, he tried not to force Luke to do anything.

Luke held up the pad again so Wedge could see. "Is this okay?"

Wedge scanned the page. On the notification line were Wedge, Leia, and Han. And on the decision making line...just Wedge. "Of course that's okay," Wedge said gently.

"You don't mind?"

"No, of course I don't mind." And truthfully, Wedge was relieved.

"You make better decisions than me most of the time anyway." He clicked to the next form. "Oh, family medical history. I guess I can just put unknown for everything, right?"

"You know some things," Wedge said. "You know your parents' names, ages, homeworlds, occupations."

"Dates of death," Luke added.

"That's a bit morbid."

"It asks for that," Luke said, tapping the pad.

"Of course it does."

"It does not ask for occupations." He gave Wedge a hint of a wry smile. "Is Sith Lord an occupation?"

Wedge grinned. "Just fill out the form."

Luke already looked exhausted and they'd only been at the hospital for a couple of hours. After they'd finally been called in, it was a battery of checks: height, weight, blood pressure, eyes, ears. All with a bit of waiting in between, while Luke continued to fill out the myriad medical history forms. They were now waiting, again, in another exam room. A young, chipper Pantoran entered the room.

"Hi there!"

"Hello," Luke said. Luke did not sound chipper.

"I'm Surchi, and I'll be doing your blood draw today."

Luke glanced at Wedge then back at Surchi. "Blood draw?"

"That's right."

"Is that...necessary?" Luke asked.

Surchi frowned just a bit as he started opening drawers. "It's a standard part of a physical," he said.

"Oh."

Surchi pulled out a needle and some vials. "Which arm?"

"Does it matter?"

Surchi shrugged. "Not really. Most people pick their non-dominant arm."

Luke looked back and forth between both arms. "Left, I guess." He rolled up his sleeve.

Surchi seemed to notice Luke was a bit hesitant. "Have you not gotten a diagnostic blood draw before?"

"It's...probably been a while," Luke said.

"Oh." Surchi cleaned off the insertion point. "Make a fist." He slid the needle in. "You must have gotten this done as a kid, though, right? Maybe for school or a checkup or something." He slipped on a vial.

"Tatooine isn't exactly known for its five star medical care," Luke said.

"Oh."

Wedge rolled his eyes. On the other hand, that plus the early Alliance's haphazard way of doing anything other than emergency medical care probably explained a lot of Luke's gaps in knowledge.

"How much do you need?" Luke asked, as Surchi slipped on a second vial.

"Um, I was told four."

"Is four a lot?"

"That depends," Surchi said. "Four of these eight milliliter vials? No. Four liters? Yes."

"I see." Wedge saw Luke take an inconspicuous deep breath as the third vial went on. Wedge recognized it as a Jedi calming technique. "Don't droids usually do all this?" Luke asked. "I've seen mostly people today."

"Oh, well, yes, usually," Surchi said. "But, not always." Surchi looked up at Luke cautiously. "Would you...be more comfortable with a droid?"

"No, no, no, you're fine," Luke said quickly. "I mean, I'm fine. It's fine."

Wedge caught separate glances from Luke and Surchi. He wondered if some hospital manager directed that Luke get seen by all people instead of droids, to make him less nervous. The thing was, sometimes Luke was more comfortable with droids. Droids likely didn't have expectations of him that Luke imagined he wouldn't live up to.

Surchi finished the fourth vial, labeled it, and put it in a container with the rest of the labeled vials. "Anything else I might be able to answer for you?"

"I - no," Luke said. "But, thank you."

Surchi smiled. "You're welcome!"

After the door was shut and Surchi was gone. Luke let out another breath. This one was not a calming technique.

"I don't think I've ever been poked this much in my life," Luke said.

They were in yet another exam room after having gone through a vaccine regime. "Well, that's what happens when you put this off for forty years," Wedge said.

"You really do this every year?"

Wedge shrugged. "Yeah. Some things you only have to do once. Some things you do every year. Some things you do every two or three years. Some things you do more as, you know, you get older…"

Luke raised his eyebrows.

Gaps in knowledge, Wedge reminded himself. He waved his hand. "We can talk about that later."

Luke started to ask another question, when a light knock came at the door. A nurse, this time a Twi'lek, poked her head in the head. "Hi," she said. "Can I come in for a moment?"

"Sure," Luke said.

She came in and shut the door behind her. She had a data pad in the crook of her arm. "Hi, I'm Elvina, I work in the Bio-Electronics Department. We found your original medical records, and we're working on merging those with what you've been submitting on the new patient forms. I just need to clarify something real quick."

"Okay."

"In your original records there's an entry for a right hand bionic replacement in 3 ABY, is that correct?"

"Yes, that's correct."

"And on your new patient forms you listed that as well," she said. "But, where it asked for the date of last replacement, you put 3 ABY again. What I need is the date the actual mechanical part was last replaced."

Luke glanced down at his perpetually gloved right hand. "3 ABY?"

Elvina looked at him in disbelief. "Are you telling me it's never been replaced?"

"Was it supposed to be?"

"Yes, every two to three years!" Elvina said. "That tech is almost forty years old, it's gotten so much better since then."

"Oh."

"Well, you must have gotten maintenance done on it, someone should have told you."

"I do my own maintenance," Luke said.

Elvina looked skeptical. "One handed?"

"My - a droid helps me."

"You have a medical droid?"

"No, he's an astromech droid."

"Does your astromech droid have a medical speciality?"

"No."

Elvina looked exasperated. "What is your droid's speciality?"

Luke didn't miss a beat. "Improvisation."

Wedge covered his mouth to hide a giggle. He was not very successful.

Elvina did not look impressed. She started clicking through her data pad. "Fighter pilot, right?"

"Used to be," Luke said.

"X-Wing or A-Wing?"

"X-Wing," Luke said. "Why?"

"You fighter jocks think you can jury-rig anything."

"But why X-Wing?" Wedge asked.

"Y-Wings are slow," she said. "It makes their pilots cautious. So all their jury-rigging has a lot of redundancy. A-Wings are fast so their pilots jury-rig everything for speed. X-Wing pilots tend to be a bit more," she paused to smile, "creatively reckless."

"I see," Luke said.

Elvina started clicking on her pad again. "I'm scheduling you for a hand replacement."

"I don't need one," Luke said.

"I wasn't asking." She clicked two more times, then smiled at them. "Have a lovely day!" she said as she left the room.

As soon as the door was shut, Wedge burst out laughing. "That is the best description I've ever heard for both you and R2."

"Well, he is a mechanic," Luke said. "And last I checked, you were also an X-Wing pilot."

Wedge pointed at him. "And you are still the most reckless person I know."

Luke sighed. "The only thing you and Master Yoda have ever agreed on."

Wedge followed Luke into the last office of the day. This was a proper private office, with dimmer lighting, comfortable chairs, and a stylized desk. As they entered, a human male stood up to greet them. "Hi there. I'm Dr. Hong." He motioned to the chairs on the other side of his desk. "Please have a seat. I'm sure it's been a long day for you, so I don't want to take up too much of your time," he said as he sat back down. "But I did want to take a few moments to explain what we collected today and how we use that to determine the next steps in care."

Wedge caught a quick glance from Luke. "Okay," Luke said.

"What we do is take all the information from the patient forms you filled out, the tests and measurements we did today, and, to an extent, the conversations you had with some staff" - Wedge caught another uneasy glance from Luke - "and we put those through a correlation matrix that identifies certain areas for follow up. For example," he clicked on his console a couple of times, "based on the answers you gave about your sleeping and eating patterns and some of the blood tests, it would probably be worthwhile for you to get some sleep and nutrition counseling. And," he clicked a couple more times, "based on your species, sex, age, and medical history, there are some other, more specific diagnostic tests you ought to have done."

"That...sounds reasonable," Luke said.

"Those are some of the simpler things to evaluate," Dr. Hong said. "Others are a bit more complex." He clicked a few more times. "I'm sure you noticed the variety of mental health and well-being questions in the patient questionnaire."

"I did."

"Well," Dr. Hong said, "at the risk of being too direct, the system flagged you for a depression and anxiety follow up."

"Oh."

Dr. Hong stopped a moment. "You don't seem terribly shocked about that," he said.

Luke stole another glance at Wedge. "It...might have come up before."

"Ah,"Dr. Hong said. "Well, that's good actually. What I want to emphasize here, though, is what this is not. This is not a diagnostic tool. It's a suggestion, based on a correlation of factors, of what areas might need more attention. So, if you choose, you can make a consultation appointment in the appropriate department."

"If I...choose?" Luke asked.

"Certainly," Dr. Hong said. "You don't have to accept any treatment recommendations. Theoretically, after you leave here, you could not come back at all. Although," he put his hand up, "I wouldn't advise it." Dr. Hong paused for a moment. "Unless, you actually couldn't make a decision and your designee did, or you were deemed a danger to yourself or others." He paused again. "Are either of those things true?"

Wedge saw Luke hesitate. Jokes about recklessness aside, one of Luke's biggest fears had always been inadvertently hurting someone if he ever lost control of his use of the Force. Which wasn't exactly what Dr. Hong was asking about. Wedge had never asked Luke the other question. Though it had certainly crossed his mind to on occasion.

"I...no, if you're asking what I think you're asking, no, I don't think so," Luke said.

"Should I ask it more explicitly?"

"No, I - I get it."

Dr. Hong nodded as he looked at Luke carefully for a moment. He leaned forward on his desk. "Let me tell you something that might be of use to you," he said. "If either of those things were true, you would not be the first and you would not be the last. Nor would you be the first or last to successfully work through those things.

"I'm certainly no expert on your particular circumstances. I know what's public knowledge. But in many respects, you are not unique here. You are not the first veteran to come here, a long time after having gotten out, with a considerable gap in medical history. You are not the first person to wonder what asking for or accepting help means for you. Humans, indeed many species, follow a few predictable patterns in their responses and ways of coping with loss and trauma and adversity. And, despite how unusual your particular circumstances might be, I'd be very much surprised if you deviated too much from those patterns.

"All of which is a long way of saying that, while things can often feel impossible, like you've tried a hundred different things that never seem to work, sometimes, it's worth taking a look back, instead of forward, to see how many steps you've already taken. And see, that it might not be so impossible."

Luke nodded along as Dr. Hong spoke. Wedge wondered if he was thinking about his time machine journal.

"Can I think about it?" Luke asked. "Extra appointments, I mean."

"Absolutely."

"And if I did, could - " he looked at Wedge.

"Could I go along?" Wedge finished.

"Indeed. Highly encouraged, in fact."

"I'll - I'll do that," Luke said. "Think about it, I mean."

"Excellent." Dr. Hong stood up. "Like I said, I don't want to keep you too long." He extended his hand to Luke.

"Thank you," Luke said, returning the hand shake.

"And, since I've just thought of it," Dr. Hong said, "I understand one of our Bio-Electronics nurses actually did make an appointment for you."

"Ah, yes, she - "

"You can keep that if you like. Or cancel it, if you choose."

"I - I'll think about that too," Luke said. Luke started to follow Wedge out, when he turned back to Dr. Hong. "Thank you."

"My pleasure."

Luke and Wedge finally left the hospital for the day and started walking home through the city maze of catwalks. "I didn't realize it was dark out already," Luke said.

"It's been a long day," Wedge said. "You hungry?"

He was, kind of. But mostly he was just exhausted. "Not really."

"Okay."

Luke frowned as he half glanced at Wedge. He sounded like that was okay. But there was an undercurrent there of skepticism. "Do you think we should go eat something?"

"Not if you don't want to."

That undercurrent of skepticism again. It grated a bit. "If you think we should go eat something, just say so."

And now a sharp sting of hurt. Had he misread it? He was really tired. But that didn't really matter. "I'm sorry," Luke said. "That wasn't fair."

"Give yourself a break," Wedge said. "It's been a long day."

"That's not an excuse." Luke sighed. "None of this is. None of it is an excuse for anything." Luke stared at the ground as they walked. Part of the reason he'd agreed to this was because he realized he needed to take some responsibility for fixing it. He was grateful for what everyone else had done. But he needed to do some work too. He'd just needed them to show him himself.

"Sometimes," Luke said, "I wish I could step outside myself and see what other people see." Luke shook his head and looked at Wedge. "But that's what you always do, isn't it? Try to tell me what's real and what isn't. I just don't listen."

"You're here, aren't you? You did all this today." Wedge gestured back in the direction of the hospital. "Clearly sometimes you listen."

"Perhaps," Luke said. "But, I couldn't have done it alone."

"And you don't have to," Wedge said.

Luke frowned. But shouldn't he have been able to?

"That's not something you should feel bad about," Wedge continued. "It's not weird, feeling more comfortable with all of this when someone helps you. It's normal. You are normal. Like Dr. Hong said."

Luke smiled a bit. He was pretty sure he hadn't felt normal in forty years. "I think there might be a bit more to it than that, though," he said.

"Like what?"

"Did I ever tell you?" Luke said. "I don't think I did. You remember when I took you down to that museum, the one Corran came through, right after all of Rogue Squadron resigned?"

"Of course," Wedge said.

"And how I mentioned how dark it felt in that room, but it was strangely lighter when we went inside?"

"I remember suggesting you had gotten used to it," Wedge said. "You didn't like that idea."

"When you left," Luke said, "and I mean the second the door shut behind you, it immediately got darker in there. In the Force."

"Oh."

Luke sensed a bit of hesitation. Wedge never quite seemed to know what to make of these revelations. "I almost ran after you," Luke said. "To make you go in and out a few times to make sure I wasn't imaging it."

"I would have," Wedge said.

"I know. That's...part of why I didn't. You had other things to do." Luke took a breath. "Still. Once in a while I think about it and why it might have happened. Whether it was something about you, or something about me, or…"

"Or like your stargazing analogy?"

Luke smiled. "Yeah, like that." His analogy of stargazing to sensing things through the Force was still one of his best moments of explanation.

"I bet we could test it," Wedge said.

"Test it?"

"Yeah. Maybe tomorrow we can see if the place is even still there. Then we can grab Corran and test it. If it happens with him, then it's definitely about me. If it doesn't, then… It's probably the other thing."

Luke found himself nodded. It sounded like a good project. "I like that idea."

They walked in silence through the lamp-lit catwalks. "You know," Luke said after a moment, "I am kind of hungry."

Wedge smiled at him. "I thought you might be.

Corran followed Luke and Wedge through an older section of one of the government buildings. "Tell me again where we're going?" he asked. They hadn't actually told him in the first place.

"The museum you came through when you escaped the Lusankya," Luke said.

"Ohh, I did even realize that still existed," Corran said. "Why are we going there?"

"We're doing an experiment," Wedge said.

"What are we testing?"

"We can't tell you."

"I see." Corran followed along, getting more and more curious. He hadn't been back there since he tried to return what ended up being his own grandfather's belongings. He wouldn't even have known if Luke hadn't told him.

They stopped at a nondescript door in a side corridor. Luke reached for the entrance panel. "How long should I wait?" Wedge asked.

"Not very long," Luke said. "Five minutes maybe." Luke opened the door and motioned for Corran to go inside. The door shut behind them, leaving Wedge on the other side.

"Whoa," Corran said.

Luke turned on the lights. "Dark, isn't it?"

"Yeah." Dark in the Force, of course, though the cavernous room was also pretty dim, even with the lights on. "I don't remember it being like this."

"You weren't that open to the Force then," Luke pointed out.

"Yeah, true."

"On a scale of one to ten, with one being the brightest thing you can think of and ten being the darkest, how would you classify this space?" Luke asked.

"Is that the test?" Corran asked. Luke cocked his head at him. "I don't know," Corran said. "It's pretty bad. Maybe a seven?"

Luke nodded. "That's about where I'd put it too."

"Did I pass?"

Luke smiled. "Come on," he said, nodding further into the room. "When I was in here back then," Luke said as they passed by several exhibits, "I only recognized a few names. I know several more now."

"It really is morbid," Corran said. The exhibits themselves were as he remembered them. Mannequins in glass cases, looking vaguely like a real person, but defaced and mangled. A few had artifacts, some items belonging to the Jedi in them. Most were bare, other than a nondescript cloak.

They wandered a bit more then came to a stop at a familiar one. "Sometimes, I wonder what he'd think about all this," Corran said, as he looked at the defaced effigy of his grandfather. He didn't have a proper image, other than the medallion his father had given him. It hadn't been safe for Rostek to keep any.

"I'm sure he'd be very proud of you," Luke said.

"I'm sure he would be too," Wedge said as he came up behind them, giving Corran a light slap on the shoulder.

"So, we were talking when we came in," Luke said, "about what this room feels like in the Force." He looked at Corran. "How would you rank it now?"

"Now? Still a seven I guess. Nothing's changed." He saw Wedge and Luke exchange a small glance. "Why, how would you rank it?"

"Definitely a five," Luke said to Wedge.

"Guess that answers that question," Wedge said.

"Yep."

Corran opened his mouth to ask again what changed, and then it clicked. It wasn't what changed for him, it was what changed for Luke. Corran wasn't the experiment. He was the control. "Oh."

Wedge pointed up at Nejaa Halcyon. "Did you ever figure out why he was in here?"

"Huh?" Corran asked.

"What you were telling me back then," Wedge said to Luke, "about how he was different from everyone else in here?"

"Oh!" Luke said. "You know, I'd forgotten all about that. No, I never did get a chance to go back and figure it out."

"What's this about?" Corran asked.

"When I was in here the first few times, Nejaa stood out to me for a few reasons," Luke said. "One, was because you had been drawn to him. But the other two were because he's unique here." Luke pointed around to the other exhibits in the room. "Of all the exhibits in here, Nejaa is the only human who has a homeworld listed."

"Why?"

"I didn't know at the time. It makes sense to me now though, given what R2 told me about how Jedi brought children into the Order very young and tried to raise them without attachments. Many of the humans may not have known where they were from, though there was probably a record somewhere." Luke gestured between Corran and Nejaa. "Obviously the Corellian Jedi did things differently - possibly even entirely separately - from the rest of the Jedi Order."

"Huh," Corran said. "I never thought about that before. What was the other reason?"

"The other reason was the date." Luke pointed around the room again. "Everyone here has a date of death. Everyone in here was killed during Order 66, right at the end of the Clone Wars. Except," Luke pointed up again, "Nejaa Halcyon."

"Yeah, it would have been much earlier. My father was only ten."

Luke pointed to the exhibit marker. "I did the date conversion once. This was a full fifteen years before Order 66. And two years before Palpatine was even Chancellor. He was still the senator from Naboo."

"So?"

"Plenty of other Jedi died in those fifteen years," Luke said. "Especially during the war. But none of them are here. So why is Nejaa here?

"And," Luke said, getting more animated, "you told me that Corellian Jedi rarely left the system, right? But your grandfather did much more often."

"That's right," Corran said.

"So what was he doing?" Luke asked. "More specifically, what was he doing that caught Sheev Palpatine's attention fifteen years before he was Emperor?"

Corran felt his jaw drop a bit. "Are you suggesting Palpatine had something to do with his death?"

"Not necessarily," Luke said. "But, he at least had to know about it. And he - or more likely his apprentice - had to be close enough to get Nejaa's lightsaber, medallion, and cloak to put here." Luke tapped the glass casing.

"Who was his apprentice?" Corran asked. "I guess that would have been too early for, you know -"

"Oh yeah, way too early for that," Luke said. "I did the math once. Anakin would have been about seven years old and still a slave on Tatooine, running pod races." Luke tapped the glass again in thought. "R2 told me once who Palpatine's apprentice was at the time. I'm trying to remember… Maul, I think is what R2 said? Brianna would know. She got really interested in that era."

"Was there anything in your grandfather's notes about what he was doing that might have attracted attention?" Wedge asked.

Corran shook his head. "Not that I remember. I've gone through it all several times. Of course, I wasn't looking for anything like that. I can look again."

The three stood in silence for another moment. "Are you going to do anything with this space?" Corran asked.

"No," Luke said. "I guess I'm not doing anything with anything anymore. But, maybe Brianna will be interested. She does really like the Clone Wars." Luke glanced around the room again. "I think we got what we came for," he said. "Unless you want to stay for any reason."

"No, no, we can go. It really is pretty bad in here," Corran said. He followed them back out into the main hallways. "The difference is really stark," he said as the door to the museum shut behind them. It was like the darkness was entirely contained within those walls.

"Designed that way by Palpatine, I'm sure," Luke said.

"Coffee?" Wedge said. He nodded back in the direction of the shops and senate apartments.

"Sounds good to me." Corran followed again, staying a step or two behind them. He watched them, comfortably walking side by side. Corran wondered what had sparked the experiment he had just been a part of. Maybe he'd ask some other day.

Coming soon - The Shape of Perception Boom 5: Out of the Shadows