[Leia]

Luke. Hear me. Luke, she thought insistently. When there was no answer, Leia tried to settle her emotions. She tried to come back to that sense of peace and purpose that was the last thing she'd known of her brother when he lived in this world. Even that, she wasn't sure how real it was. Probably just wishful thinking. Well, Rey had felt it, too, so it had to be something. And Luke had come to her once since then, so she knew he could. Luke.

"Leia."

Finally. "Luke!"

"I'm here."

He looked disappointed, though. Like he already knew why she was calling him and he disapproved. Maybe that, too, was just wishful thinking.

"Luke. They've been gone nearly an entire cycle. Tell me – are they alright? Are they alive?" She didn't bother to say who. He should know. She'd barely seen her son in the flesh before he was gone again, taking with him much of her command staff and Rey.

There was the disappointment again. "Leia, this isn't how the Force works. You can't just call me to use it for you."

"Then what good is it?"

"You have to use it yourself. Find the Force within yourself."

"We've been through this before," she said warningly. And they had, years ago. Decades, now. She'd declined his offer of Jedi training, too busy being pregnant and trying to put the galaxy back together after the war. Both were more important than any spiritual enlightenment. Neither reminded her of the cold press of Darth Vader's mind intruding into hers, trying to yank the location of the Rebel base from her and so implicate her family and destroy everything they were working toward.

But Luke was as stubborn as she. "What do your feelings tell you?"

"My feelings tell me it's been nearly a full cycle since they checked in and I'm worried! Are they alright? It's a simple question."

He took a seat. Or his ghostly form appeared to. He looked engaged now. "Reach beyond that. What do you sense?"

"Why can't you just tell me? If what you said is true, you're even closer in the Force now than you were when you were alive."

"I am. That's how I know – this isn't how you're supposed to do it. It's time for you to take your own journey."

"Like I haven't been taking it all my life? That's rich."

He frowned. "You already know the answer. It is within you. You have this power. You always have."

"Luke, I have sent people into combat and on missions expecting they would come back. Expecting they would win. Every time I hoped they would. Not all of them did. I have held out hope," her voice turned even more earnest, "for you. For Ben. That you would both come back to me. You're dead. And he's gone. Is that the answer you're not willing to tell me?"

"The Jedi are not supposed to interfere. We're supposed to eschew attachments-"

"You're not a Jedi now. You're a ghost. You're my brother." 'Eschew attachments' her ass. "Aren't you finally past those limits now?"

He sighed. "There are … a thousand generations with me now, of Jedi, of others in the Force. I carry their mantel, just like you carry that of Alderaan." He gave her a single nod in acknowledgment of the pang that somber mention caused her. "It is your legacy to honor and pass on, just as the Jedi are mine. I can't betray their principles anymore than you can those of Alderaan. Look into your heart and tell me: does your son live?"

She sighed and finally – finally – turned her attention inward as he directed. There was something there that told her Ben wasn't done. He wasn't part of the Force. But then again, he just wasn't … out there. "I don't know!" she said, exasperated and worried. "I don't feel anything! It's like when I reached out to you after the temple burned and you went missing. I couldn't … find you. You couldn't hear me."

He made a slight nod, looking hopeful, as if she had the answer and he was breathlessly waiting for her to realize it.

"All I can think about," she told him, "is how frustrated I was all those years, that you left me. You left us, but you left me. And I know what you've done, or what you nearly did, so I know why you left. But you didn't have to stay away. You made it worse. You didn't just turn on Ben. You turned on me!"

He drew back, guarded again.

She went on, "If I had known, Luke, we could have done something about it!"

"You couldn't have done something about what I had already done. Or … about that expression on Ben's face that night. I couldn't … I couldn't live with myself. There were times I considered ending it. I would dress in my formal robes, go to one of the cliffs, and try to find the meaning in my life, a reason to stay alive."

"You're an idiot, Luke. You could have come back. You should have come back."

He sighed. "You're probably right."

"I know I'm right. I needed you. And I need you now."

"No," he said quietly. "You don't. You need your son. He needs you. Neither of you can truly move on until you both understand that and deal with it."

"I know I need him …" she said defensively, giving her head a little shake.

Luke raised a knowing brow at her. "And not for the Resistance," he said in the tone of someone who had no love left for political movements of any stripe.

She pressed her lips together and thought about Lando's words that Ben needed his mother. She thought about Rey's – clumsier and awkward – but still expressing that she, Leia, needed Ben. In his few days here, she'd barely talked with Ben and never alone, trying to minimize the chance of reopening old wounds. Or making new ones.

She let her thoughts wander further. She remembered the feel when Ben had fallen to the dark side and the wounded sorrow from him when Han had died. She remembered the moment outside the Raddus when he'd faltered and his fear when the torpedoes streaked by him. She'd known that wasn't him. He had all the reason in the galaxy to fire on her, yet she'd felt his anguish when the decision was made for him.

He had feelings for her. She'd felt them, too. Fear and longing and love and shame. She didn't feel any of those now. There was no reason why they would have ended. And if he wasn't dead … "He's concealing himself somehow." She raised her eyes to Luke. "From Sidious?"

Luke nodded slightly, the corners of his lips curling under his beard.

"Then he's alive." And Sidious didn't have him. "Are they all alive?"

Luke made a face, like he wasn't supposed to tell her. But he did anyway. "Yes."

"Thank you."

He nodded and stood. "This is normally where I'd say 'Trust in the Force'. But for you? Trust in yourself." With that, he faded out of sight.