Home One had been in a mild state of chaos for two days. Ahsoka was used to it from the last war, but she could see how it frazzled young Luke. His meditation, which had been improving, was now shot through with anxiety. He was deeply uncomfortable that Bail had gone on some sort of mission, leaving him and Queen Breha behind.

Ahsoka wasn't too thrilled about it herself, mostly because she hadn't been read-in on the details. All she knew was that a signal from an agent had come in, requesting a pick up. It was much like the signal she herself had used when she'd decided to return.

But this signal had come from Nemoidia, and Home One couldn't exactly revert from Hyperspace near such a populous planet. So Bail, and a few Alliance troopers had gone, and were soon due back, assuming it had been a simple pick up operation on the Nemoidian home world.

She wasn't at all prepared for the familiar presence that was suddenly, jarringly present in space nearby. She felt her eyes well up with tears. Obi-wan. It was Obi-wan.

Luke burst into her chamber, eyes bright. "C'mon, let's go to the docking bay!"

Ahsoka rose from her mediation cushion, smoothing her robes automatically. It had been… lifetimes, and she'd not even dared to hope to see Obi-wan Kenobi again in the flesh.

Luke was practically vibrating with anticipation, and she didn't even remind him to calm himself. What was the point? Dozens of young officers and troopers had filled the corners of the observation deck above the bay, and everyone was whipped into a state of excitement.

Bail was the first person she saw, and she felt Luke sag with relief beside her. Then the team of troopers he had taken with him, and finally an old man, and a young woman with short, dark hair.

"Obi-wan?" She asked aloud, knowing him from his Force presence, but utterly unprepared for his thick white beard and the lined skin of an old man.

"It's her!" Luke gasped.

"The girl?" She asked, not recognizing the young woman.

"It's my, uh, Bail and Breha's daughter, Leia." A strange twinge in the Force accompanied Luke's words, but Ahsoka did not have time to examine it. The crowds were parting, and she was given a straight path to her master's master.

She bowed, then grinned into his wrinkled face, "Well, Master Kenobi, it's about time you got here!"

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Luke knew he had to be patient, though his heart beat a painful rhythm and it was all he could do not to follow it the few short steps to the door of the Organas' suite. He had to give them this time with Leia, and, he had to forcefully remind himself, no matter how much he wanted to meet her, Leia Organa had no idea he existed, let alone the connection between them.

Ahsoka had disappeared for several hours after the arrival, clearly delighted to have Ben back safe and sound. Luke wanted to talk to Ben desperately, but he knew he had to wait. Both Ben and Leia had been Darth Vader's prisoners, and they had to be debriefed for any useful information.

When Ahsoka sought him out her face was flush and her eyes looked unusually moist. "C'mon, let's go do katas."

Luke got to his feet, retrieving his lightsaber eagerly. At this point he'd do anything to let off some steam.

They'd taken to practicing in the mess hall between meals, but today Ahsoka led him to the far end of the ship where there was some cargo space they sometimes used.

They did the kata movements slowly, Luke with Ahsoka's shoto, and she holding her main saber. It had been a tremendously kind gift she'd given him. Lent him, really, because he knew that when the time was right he would have to make his own weapon.

He hadn't quite been able to put into words how disinclined he was to use Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber. Ahsoka, too, seemed pained by its very shape, and so they'd put it away.

He gotten in the habit of thinking about Anakin Skywalker, Darth Vader, and "his father" as three separate people. It was the only way he could process the whole bewildering situation. "His father" was the one who had never existed, who'd been a simple pilot, who'd left Tatooine and never returned. Anakin Skywalker was a hero from the past and Ahsoka's master. He was someone everyone had known, apparently, such that people felt the need to exclaim when they found out Luke had the same surname. Darth Vader was who he had always been, the Sith who had murdered Luke's father, and many, many other Jedi.

"You're distracted." Ahsoka said softly.

"So are you, Master Tano." He replied back easily.

Ahsoka grinned, "Yeah, not much of a teacher today, am I?"

They kept doing the katas, sabers lit, tracing white arcs through the stale air of the cargo hold. Luke slowly felt himself relaxing into it when Ahsoka finally decided they could stop, and talk.

He settled on a crate of medical supplies, curious what his Master had to say.

"Big changes, huh." Ahsoka observed. "Have you gotten to see Obi-wan, yet?"

Luke shook his head. "I figure I'm the last person he'd want to see."

Ahsoka blinked, "Why would you think that?"

Luke shrugged, "Well he surrendered to Vader because of me. Everything he's been through is partially my fault."

Ahsoka shook her head, amused, "Don't be stupid, Skyguy. Obi-wan Kenobi surrendered to rescue Leia, harebrained plan though it was," she added in an undertone, "But it worked. Now we are all safe and sound right where we should be."

Luke nodded. He hadn't told Ahsoka the secret Bail and Breha had shared with him, when they thought Leia had died. He hadn't told anyone. It had felt… beside the point, really, when everyone thought she was already lost. He couldn't very well go around adding in, "Oh yeah, also she was my twin sister who I never got to meet."

Now though, the Organas's had their daughter back. Their joy practically seeped through the wall separating their suite from his room. But they hadn't called him in, and he hadn't knocked.

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Leia was adrift. Everyone was worried about her, she could sense that very clearly, but she couldn't do anything about it. She'd never imagined it would be so hard being back.

She forced herself to speak with her parents, but ignored everyone else. Any more than two people in a room with her made her feel suffocated. Her heart would race, it all felt just too complicated.

They thought she'd been terribly tortured. She told them that had only happened once, which was true, and then she had lied about everything else. She told them nothing of Tarkin's death, nothing of her confinement, or her conversations with Darth Vader, and nothing of her Force sensitivity.

They were accepting of her silence, for now. She supposed Kenobi might tell what he knew, but that was out of her hands.

She just… couldn't. What happened didn't make sense, and until it did, she did not want anyone's help in figuring out the strangeness of why Darth Vader had let her escape.

Kenobi suspected it, too, she thought. But after their pick up on Nemoidia he'd been deep in discussion with her father, and she hadn't had the emotional bandwidth to care.

Why had he done it? Why had Vader let her go?

She'd thought, initially, that it was a ploy to get her to lead him back to the Alliance. But neither she, nor Kenobi, nor even the Imperial ship they'd stolen had had trackers. It had all been clean.

The last thing she had done was rebuff Vader's offer to overthrow the emperor. The next day she'd been set free, and with Obi-wan Kenobi, no less. It didn't make any sense, it was ludicrous.

She'd expected, at the very least, to pay some sort of price for laughing in Vader's masked face.

But he'd let her go. Just like that.

She'd been given a room in the back of the medbay on Home One. There were medics watching her, she knew that, just in case she wasn't alright. It wasn't everyday a member of the Alliance was allowed to just stroll off an Imperial detention wing. In fact, it never happened. So they were monitoring her, in case she'd been turned, in case she tried to kill herself, in case.. well, whatever. Her father had argued against it, but she actually preferred the all white room, with its simple fixtures.

It almost felt like she was still there. She would have liked to try to meditate, but she resisted it for a reason she didn't quite want to admit. If she meditated here, she would not be able sense his presence. It was silly. It was pathetic. It was because she'd been his captive. She knew this sort of thing could happen, but she wasn't about to talk about that with the medics, or anyone else.

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Luke knew who it was before the door to his room slid open. Obi-wan Kenobi stood there looking much as he had last time they had met, old, tired, but immeasurably kind.

"Hello, Luke."

Luke bowed, if he was going to be a Jedi, he would do it right. "Hello, Master Kenobi."

Ben beamed, "Come, let's take a walk."

They decided to make the circuit of the ship, out of the habitation levels, through engineering, and the X-wing bays.

"I thought he would kill you for sure." Luke admitted. "I'm glad he didn't."

"Yes." Obi-wan agreed solemnly. "I rather thought the same."

Luke glanced around but there was no one to hear, "I know he's my father."

Obi-wan's face relaxed slightly, and his eyes looked at him in sympathy. "He is and he isn't. Hear me when I tell you, Luke, Anakin Skywalker was a good man. He was a hero every day of his life, until the day he fell into darkness. What emerged was a Sith who bears him very little resemblance."

Luke sighed, "I knew you'd say something like that. Ahsoka said that's why you told me Vader had killed my father, because that's how it felt to you."

Ben nodded, "Yes."

"Did you talk to him much, on his ship?"

"I did."

"Did you tell him about me?" Luke asked.

"No." Ben replied firmly, "You will be far safer if he does not know you exist."

Luke turned and stared forward as they walked, "But he'll find out eventually. People here know I'm Anakin Skywalker's son."

"By then you will be ready to face him." Obi-wan replied enigmatically.

"And then what? Fight him?" Luke pressed. "I've been thinking that's the other reason you told me Vader killed my father, so that I would hate him enough to kill him."

Obi-wan didn't seem offended by the question, "Once Vader hears of a Skywalker in the Alliance, I believe he will reach out to you. I would give you the skills to face him without hate in your heart."

Luke couldn't imagine standing in front of Vader without hatred, but he pushed the thought away. He knew hatred was not the Jedi way.

"I also know about Leia." Luke said softly.

Obi-wan stopped in his tracks looking surprised, "I did not expect that."

Luke shrugged, "Queen Breha told me, when we thought Leia had been executed."

"I see." Obi-wan replied solemnly. They resumed walking.

"You weren't going to tell me." Luke accused in as even a voice as he could manage.

"No one knows." Obi-wan replied. "No one knows the whole truth but you, Bail Organa, and myself. Leia herself doesn't know any of it, and a good thing, too, or Vader would have pried it from her mind and never let her go."

Luke blinked, "He let her go?"

Obi-wan's mouth was a thin line, "Yes, I believe he must have. Our escape from his ship was far too easy. But Luke, you must not tell Leia she is your sister or Anakin's child, it would be too much for her to take in right now."

Something in Obi-wan's tone was strange.

"Is she alright?" Luke asked.

"No. She has been through an ordeal."

"I want to meet her." Luke blurted. "Even if I can't tell her what we are to each other. She is my twin. I have to know her."

Obi-wan nodded, "Of course you do, I wouldn't not dream of preventing your meeting. You will find her in the medical bay."

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Leia felt someone approaching and waited calmly to see who it was. A boy, her own age, with blonde hair and blue eyes waved hesitantly, then blushed at his own awkwardness.

"Hi, I'm Luke Skywalker." He said. "I was looking for you."

Leia scanned the boy's outfit, he was dressed as a pilot, but she was sure he was Force-sensitive. She hadn't expected that. "Why?" She asked plainly, wondering that he seemed vaguely familiar to her, like someone she'd met in a dream.

Luke Skywalker blushed again, "Just to meet you, I guess. There aren't that many people our age on Home One."

Leia gestured to the chair opposite her, which abutted a viewport currently showing the blur of hyperspace. "Just don't ask me any questions."

The boy blinked, "Alright."

Good to his word, Luke Skywalker sat staring at his hands not asking questions.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be rude. Medics keep asking me to talk about what happened, I'm just tired of it." Leia explained.

Blue eyes met hers, "Well, I'm the one who bought your droids on Tatooine. I mean my uncle bought them, but I cleaned them up a bit."

Leia found herself smiling, "Artoo and Threepio? I guess you did a good job, because they found their way to General Kenobi."

Luke smiled back, "He took me with him to deliver something called Stardust to your father."

"Oh, my parents mentioned you, actually. They said you're in training to be a pilot?"

Luke nodded, "Yeah. I'm um, also Ahsoka Tano's padawan."

Leia grinned, her suspicion confirmed, "So you are Force-sensitive!"

Luke nodded, "Yeah. I'm not trained or anything, yet."

Leia sensed that was basically true. "Well, I'm glad to meet you, Luke Skywalker, I'm sure you'll be an asset to the Alliance."

"Yeah, I hope so." The boy replied.

They lapsed into silence and Leia strongly considered reaching out in the Force to probe his mind, then realized what a mistake that would be. Luke would very likely notice her intrusion, for one, but worse, the Jedi on Home One were sure to notice her use the Force and she hadn't told a soul that Vader had been teaching her. She'd told her parents the bare minimum. That Vader had interrogated her once, when she'd first been apprehended. But beyond that, the conversations they'd had later, she just couldn't put into words.

Why had he let her go? Why had he suddenly sent her away after so much talk of training her? Because she'd laughed at the idea of joining him to overthrow the emperor? She didn't think it was that. There had to be a message in it all, but she didn't know what it was. She supposed that once it made sense, then, perhaps, she could start to put it all behind her.

"You look sad." Luke observed.

Leia shook her head, "I'm used to having a lot of time to just think. I— the only person I spoke to for weeks was Darth Vader and sometimes he didn't come for days at a time."

Luke regarded her calmly, not pointing out that she'd said she didn't want to talk about all that. Instead he asked a question she did not expect, "What's he like?"

Leia raised an eyebrow. "Vader? He's a monster. He's responsible for the destruction of the Jedi Order!"

Luke was impassive, "He must be very cruel. I— am sorry if he hurt you."

Leia shook her head, "I guess at some point I stopped feeling afraid of him. What's he like? I guess I would say he's intelligent, um, focused on getting what he wants… and angry. He was always angry."

Luke bowed his head, "I'm glad you got away from him."

Leia sighed, "I thought I was going to die there. He told me I was already dead."