The Senate gardens were one of the most beautiful places on Coruscant. Partly because of the care taken to include the flora of all civilised worlds—meaning, of course, to the Empire, the flora of all human worlds—and because the sheer size meant that, at the very centre, the traffic lanes of Coruscant were only a distant hum. They were sparsely populated, too: Luke's personal favourite aspect of the gardens was that it was quiet.

But not today.

Today, their meeting spot was a Gatalentan-styled bench under a trellis of hanging flowers, overlooking the traffic south of Imperial City. He could hear the speeders clearly.

And his contact, once you first noticed it, was anything but quiet in the Force.

She was there before him, which was impressive seeing as he'd only sent the urgent request to meet less than half an hour before. She didn't turn as he approached, though he knew he must be loud—both physically and metaphysically.

She said nothing as he sat down, so he followed suit, staring out at the airlanes.

Finally, she spoke. "You're quieter than usual."

He grinned at her; she grinned back, buns shifting slightly with the movement.

"I was just thinking that it's still odd to see you in white rather than Imperial grey."

"Speak for yourself." Leia wrinkled her nose and she jabbed him in the arm. "I get that you wear black during your... escapades"—she tugged at the cloth of his black jumpsuit—"but whenever I see you around the place you're a riot of colour."

"I'm a colourful person."

"Indeed you are. And it certainly suits you better than Imp uniforms did."

He grimaced good-naturedly. "Not to sound crazy and say I miss that hellhole... but I miss the academy."

"You sound crazy. That place was awful."

"I think you had it worse than most."

"Of course I did. Alderaanian princess, sent there to get the pacifist beaten out of her." Her tone was sharp with anger, but not at him—at the fact that it had worked.

The military organisation she represented showed that well enough.

Luke quipped, "Don't forget making you loyal and obedient to Our Glorious Overlord while they were at it."

The bitterness faded from her laugh. "Yeah. That clearly worked."

"Flawlessly," Luke agreed. "And... I get you've been out for a few years now, but it's still weird seeing you in white."

"And it's weird seeing you in colour," she shot back. We've been over this. "Though mainly because you always fiddle with your collar and sleeves."

"I do not!"

She gave him a look.

"Alright, I do," he admitted. "I'm just... not used to it."

"You'll get used to it."

He kicked at a rock. He missed. "Not necessarily. I might have to wear uniform for the rest of my life."

She frowned at that. "How is all that going? What do you think you're going to do?" A pause, then—as if remembering herself— "Why did you call this meeting, anyway?"

He fidgeted.

Said, "It's... going. Palpatine apparently wants me to hurry up with my decision—suggested I go to this fancy officer's academy here on Coruscant..."

Leia snorted. "You? An officer?"

"It'd mean I could stay on the planet. Continue with," he waved his hand at her, the city, himself, "all of this. And I could get to a higher rank faster—be a spy."

Leia gnawed on her lip. "As a Rebel, I see the benefits."

"But?"

"But as your friend," she said gravely, "I say this: It would crush your soul."

He hung his head. "I know."

"So...?"

"I don't know." He gave a sharp laugh. "At least my father's now on Coruscant to help me decide in these important times."

He glanced at Leia. She had gone pale.

"You're kidding."

"Nope. He's back on planet."

"Why? For how long?"

"So that, and until," Luke drawled, "he can catch Angel."

A bird chirped someone behind them. Leia closed her eyes.

"Kriff."

"You can say that again."

"Kriff."

He laughed, a little hysterically. "Yeah."

"So... are you going to stop? Slow down? If he catches you—"

"He won't." Luke squared his shoulders. "And I'm not going to stop."

"Luke, if he—"

"I won't, Leia." He cut her off with a hand wave. "I won't. I can help people like this—I don't want to stop. I won't stop, Not just because things get hard."

"Luke..."

He reached over and squeezed her hand. "It'll be fine, Leia. I want to keep helping. 'Because I can fight,'" he quoted, "'I feel like I have to, for those who cannot.'"

She smiled a little. "So you do listen to me sometimes."

"I always listen to you. Especially when you're fourteen and possibly the least subtle Rebel sympathiser in the galaxy."

"And when I'm eighteen," she asked seriously, "and I'm telling you that I don't want to lose my best friend? "

"Then I'm listening and telling you that you won't."

She sighed. "I wish I had your faith."

"Hey. One of us has to be practical. Stars know it won't be me."

"Too right." She shoved his shoulder with a laugh. "Considering that you contacted me and it's taken you over ten minutes to say why."

"You can't guess?"

"I can. You've already given me a clue," her smile was a little pained, "Angel."

"Please tell me who came up with that name, I just want to talk to them."

"No. It's a good name."

He shook his head avidly. "It's a terrible name. It's like the person knew it would annoy my father."

Leia pressed her lips together at that, but Luke decided not to push.

"And why give me a name, anyway?" he continued irately. "Surely it'll make it easier to evade the Empire's attention if they don't have a name for people to talk about me with!? What happened to keeping it a secret?"

"Rebel Command," Leia said slowly, "had a brainwave."

Luke held his hands up to stall her. "Wait—Command know about me?"

"Of course—"

"Do they know who I am?"

Leia deflated. "...no."

"Then why—"

"People know about you anyway, Luke." Leia reached for his wrist. "On Coruscant, word was getting around about the kind thief helping the community by sticking it to the Empire. You're an urban legend, here—and High Command wants to use that."

Luke gently tugged his wrist back and crossed both arms over his chest. "Use that how?"

It was her turn to fidget, now.

It dawned on him. "Leia—"

"It's not what you think."

"I don't want to be tied up in any propaganda—"

"It's not propaganda!"

"How?" he demanded. "How is intentionally spreading the word about a kind thief working with the Rebellion against the Empire anything but propaganda?"

"You— fine!" She threw her hands up. "Fine! It's propaganda. But we need this, Luke. You know the sort of lies the Empire spreads about us at the academies—and everywhere else! You've lived with them your whole life! Do you know what the average person thinks the Rebellion is?"

Luke looked away. He did know that.

She said it anyway. "Murderers! Scum! Traitors!"

"Technically—" he tried to add.

"Don't get humourous with me, Luke Skywalker. You know exactly what I mean. Scum, criminals, scoundrels—" She choked on her own outrage. "And none of it is true!"

"Well—"

"Very little of it is true," she amended with an irritated huff.

Then her burst of fury gave way to something far more terrifying: calculation.

Luke's father did not trust politicians. Every time he saw Leia make that face, he remembered why.

"Essentially," she said airily, "you know as well as I do that most Imperial propaganda is either outright lies or blatant disfiguration of the truth. But this..."

Luke did not like that gleam in her eye at all.

"This is entirely true. No sugar-coating whatsoever. A posh military brat with enough money that they could just forget about it has decided they aren't impressed by the Empire's relationship with the people and are doing something about it, despite great personal risk to themselves."

She continued, "They're a hero for the people. A hero for the Rebellion." Luke just raised his eyebrow. "It's all completely true."

"Most of the Rebellion doesn't even know who I am."

"Rumours spread. It adds to the intrigue."

He tried a different tact. "You're embellishing it."

"Am not. That's exactly who you are—and we need that sort of press."

He pinched his lips together and examined a particularly large pink bloom in the trellis above in lieu of Leia's face.

She did not stop. "Come on, Luke. You work so hard. Don't you want some recognition for that?"

Well, he had to admit it'd be nice—nobody liked doing work and not seeing the results, for better or for worse—but as pleasant as his encounter with the Twi'lek had been that evening, it was dangerous.

"I'm not doing it for recognition," he told her instead. "I'm doing it because—"

She held up a hand. "If you say 'it's the right thing to do', I'm gonna scream."

"Why," he shot back, "because it's your line?"

She sighed. "You're insufferable."

"And you're a hypocrite."

"How so?"

"If I ever meet a more self-righteous fourteen-year-old, I'll let you know."

She snorted. Raised an imperious eyebrow at him. "People change."

"Indeed they do." He grinned and watched her eyes narrow in suspicion. "Especially when they've been spending a lot of time with a particular individual, such as one Han S—"

"Finish that sentence. I dare you."

"I thought you said there were no scoundrels in your Rebellion."

"Luke," she said. It sounded so much like a whine—a ludicrous thing, coming from her—that he burst out laughing.

"Alright. I'll stop."

"Han isn't even an official part of the Rebellion," she grumbled. "You just dragged him in because we needed a fast ship and smuggler, and he needed money."

"I'd argue that Chewie had a lot to do with it as well."

"True," she considered, then looked up to meet his eye. "Though speaking of Han, I hear he was pretty annoyed at how cryptic you were about the non-monetary part of the deal, this evening."

"He probably got bitten by another tooka. That always leaves him in a bad mood."

"What was it you gave him? What did you find?"

He swallowed.

Nearly glanced to where he knew the holocams were, watching, but that would just give it away.

They didn't pick up sound. Luke and Leia were facing away from them; no one could read their lips. They were safe.

"It's the codes to the communications to and from the Tarkin Initiative base," he admitted. "All of them—past, present and near future. For maybe the next six to nine months. I made a copy then returned the original; he won't know they're gone." He shrugged. The lightness of the gesture belied the gravity of it all. "I figured that if that sleemo was up to something, cracking his comm signals would be one way to find out."

Her eyes blew wide. "Shiraya's word, Luke," she breathed.

"You've clearly been spending time with Pooja as well," he commented. He wasn't supposed to tell people she was his cousin, but Leia knew they were close.

She punched him in the arm. "Be serious," she chided. "Tarkin's getting more and more power and responsibility every day. This could turn the tide of the war."

He said, "I know."

Something—the Force, basic intuition, common sense—told him it wasn't the only thing that had happened today that would.

He tried not to dwell on it.

"So," he asked cheerily, "before I stay out so late my father sees fit to impose a curfew, is there anything specific you'd like me to steal in the next few days or should I just stick it to the rich?"

"A curfew might impede your workings," Leia agreed. Luke snorted at the idea. Infamous Rebel Thief Foiled By Overprotective Father.

"And..." she continued. "Actually, there is."

She fell silent. With every beat that passed, Luke got more of a bad feeling about this.

"What is it?"

"It's a personal request. I— feel free to turn it down, it's selfish of me to even ask—"

"Leia," he caught her hand, "what is it?"

"I need you to steal a holocron," she said. "From Palpatine's personal collection."

Luke sucked in a breath. "Oh boy."

"I know."

"You're sure it's in there?"

"It was stolen from a sacked Rebel base. Unless it's with Vader..."

"It might be." Hope was evident in his tone; she winced. "What does it look like?"

"Here." She passed him a small holo. "This is it."

He studied it for a few moments. It looked like your standard Jedi holocron: blue, glowing, cubic. He memorised the geometric patterns on the sides.

"Never seen it before," he announced. "It's not one of my father's."

"Then it's the Emperor's...?"

"Must be." His tone was doubtful. "I'll have a look."

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure. I'll— I'll have a look. And even if it's not there, the Palace—especially that vault—will have a lot of things to steal."

Leia hugged him. Luke was left reeling for a second before he hugged her back.

"Thank you," she whispered. "You have no idea what it would mean to me if I had it."

"I'll do my best," he promised. She beamed at him.

The weight—the pressure—of how much this impossible task would mean to her made him suddenly viscerally aware of just how tired he was.

"If it's a personal memento, I'll bring it straight to you," he said, standing up. "I won't send it through Han. But I'd better get going now, before my father sends out a platoon looking for me."

"Best avoid that," she quipped, but it was half-hearted. The mention of his father seemed to have brought back her earlier melancholy—her earlier worry.

His father would not catch him. Luke was sure of that.

"I'll comm you when it's time."

He didn't wait for her response as he walked away, the starlight casting her and the trellis in silvery shadows.


Luke was quiet when he re-entered the penthouse. He used the secret passages. It made no difference.

"Son," his father boomed, "you were out late."

Luke whirled, desperately trying to get his hammering heart under control. "Aren't you supposed to be asleep?"

His father took another step towards him. He seemed less massive than he had when Luke was nine and trying to steal cookies, but he seemed to crowd the entire corridor nonetheless. "I was. For several hours after you left. When you said you were meeting a friend, I did not expect you to come back so late."

"It's fine, Father, I'm not a kid—"

"Be that as it may, young one, Coruscant is a dangerous place to be out late at night. Particularly for someone of your rank and importance."

"Coruscant is always dangerous, regardless of the time of day."

Vader tilted his helmet. Luke cursed himself, soundly, in every language he knew.

"You are correct. Perhaps—"

"I'm fine! There's no need!" Luke wasn't certain what his father's solution would be—a curfew seemed a bit of a cop out, coming from him; an armed escort would be more his style—but he knew he didn't want to hear it. "I went to military academies for seven years. I think I can handle myself."

"That may be so—"

"You think I can't?" Luke challenged.

Vader hesitated.

"I know full well that you are capable, my son," he said eventually, oddly mournful.

"But you fuss and worry anyway?"

"I remain alert and concerned, anyway."

Luke smiled a little. "I love you too, Father."

Vader said nothing.

Until, that is— "So, about this friend of yours—"

Luke buried his face in his hands. "I already told you, you wouldn't like them. I'm not going to introduce you, so stop—"

"Oh, we need no introductions," his father purred. Luke had a very bad feeling about this. "And I am well aware that I would not like her. I do not like her."

Luke frowned... then it hit him. "The security footage—"

"Son, you are the one so insistent on me getting sleep. If you want me to stay asleep, I suggest you do not perform activities within the Emperor's purview that would lead him to wake me with important updates about how I should ensure my son does not involve himself with the wrong people."

It's a little too late for that, Luke thought. "So, what? He just commed to gossip because he happened to glance at the security holos and notice that I was meeting with, gasp"—he splayed his hand across his chest dramatically—"a friend?"

"A friend was not his implication, Luke."

He blinked and stared for a good minute before he blanched. "Father!"

"Under no circumstances is Organa a suitable match for you, son, she's the daughter of an open Rebel sympathiser and a politician—"

"We are not having this conversation. No. I refuse to believe it."

"Luke—"

"Nope! Not having it!"

"I understand I have not been around but I had trusted that you were sensible enough not to involve yourself in—"

"We. Are. Not. Involved. Leia is my friend. We were catching up after I spoke to my other friend and returned his speeder."

Vader folded his arms. "I have seen the footage. You seemed awfully close for friends."

"Because we're close friends!"

"I will believe it when I see it—"

"You saw it on the holo."

"—and Palpatine is not impressed." Luke made a face—he couldn't care less about what Old Wrinkles thought.

He'd been spending too much time around Han.

"You know we are his potential heirs."

"Potential," Luke insisted. Stars, he went out to deal weapons and meet with a Rebel contact, and now he was getting lectured on propriety? He almost wanted to laugh.

"Nevertheless. I would not be surprised if he endeavoured to introduce you to more suitable matches at the parade tomorrow, just to dissuade you from this... political faux pas."

"Faux pas?"

His father—who had certainly taken fewer politics classes than Luke had been forced to, that was for sure—nodded curtly. "Indeed. Organa has a reputation as being a little too anti-Imperial. If word gets around that you are spending time with her, the consequences—"

"I think you just hate the idea of me dating anybody." He added hurriedly, "Which I'm not doing!"

His father did not disagree, which allowed Luke a moment to fully process what he'd said a little while earlier. "Wait—parade?"

"It is perfectly natural for me to have reservations about you potentially trusting someone to that extent, son. You are a desirable target: you could be robbed, killed, kidnapped and sold to the Rebellion..." With every possibility, he grew tenser. His hand gestures sharpened. "Military training or not—"

"Father." Luke planted his hands on his hips and glared. He knew full well that with his size, demeanour and face, the expression was more reminiscent of a kitten play-acting at being a nexu than an actual nexu—Leia, as a terror unto herself, had always been the first to criticise it—but he might as well try. "What parade?"

Vader paused mid-rant, finger out and jabbed at him, frozen. "...we are not done with this discussion."

"What parade?"

"Another of the reasons Palpatine woke me from my... nap." He said the word with disdain, like a child throwing a tantrum about having to take it in the first place. "He informed me that we are both to attend a military parade in honour of my great victory on Ryloth tomorrow, as a show of the Empire's continuing strength."

Luke whistled. "Oh boy. What did you do to make him that angry?"

"I returned to Coruscant." I returned to you.

Luke half-laughed, mainly to cover the pang of pain the words caused. He took a step closer and tugged Vader's hand towards him, lacing his fingers through his.

There weren't words, really, for what he wanted to say, so he let actions and feelings speak for him—sent of wave of gladness for his presence, of peace, of contentedness to his father.

Vader's hand contracted on Luke's slightly, but he said nothing.

"I don't suppose we can get out of attending?" Luke said hopefully.

"Unless I leave the planet this very minute, no."

Luke's shoulders sagged. He didn't want that.

So he supposed they'd just have to deal with it.

After all, they always did.

"And do not think I have forgotten about you and Organa. I still disapprove."

Luke sighed. "Go back to sleep, Father."

"And you?"

"I'll go to sleep too. It's early morning."

"We would not be up this late if you hadn't stayed out so late—"

And so they restarted.

Luke smiled, tiredly and affectionately, and dragged his father back to his meditation chamber.