Theed was a beautiful city, but it was busy. For a boy who'd been raised in the middle of the desert, and then moved to a quaint village in the mountains, it had been overwhelming to first visit. Coruscant was a thousand times worse, of course, but at least he had been prepared. Theed still had the power to overwhelm him at the worst possible time.

That said, he wasn't sure he wanted to revisit their old family home in Thistedel, just yet. Ruwee and Jobal still lived there, away from the bustle of the city, but it was pregnant with memory. And if Empress Amidala was going to try to reconnect with her family, he didn't want that happening in the place that had slowly taught him how to make a home again.

He was still debating where to propose they meet when Ryoo messaged him demanding he come and visit. Her messaged stipulated that she couldn't get time off her work at the museum at such short notice, but she had the morning off. He presumed she couldn't travel far for one morning, which made the decision for him. Meet at the terraced townhouse they had in the south end of the city—at least, for now.

He still needed to break the news to his family that their long-lost daughter might want to come home.

It wasn't too long a walk, though, and an enjoyable one. He had to cross the Solleu to get to that part of town, and with only Tonra with him for security—he was still a controversial politician on Naboo—he got to dwell at the banks for a moment or two. One flower barge was selling posies; Luke bought a posy of bluebells and gifted them to a little boy who'd been eyeing the barge jealously. He grinned and skipped away.

Luke noticed the many, many posies of millaflowers available for sale, but he didn't buy any, even with the salesman prompting him.

Tonra bought a small posy of poppies for himself and tucked them into his satchel. Luke smiled at the gesture.

"My first job was selling flowers along the river," Tonra admitted.

"You went from that into security?"

"The Invasion of Naboo changed everyone's priorities."

Luke nodded. Stepping back, he took in the views one last time—the ornate pedestrian bridge they'd crossed, the steps and quays along the riverbanks, the deep green water itself lapping onto the cobblestones at the bank's edge. Then he set off down a quiet residential road, Tonra following. The noise cut out rapidly—a few decades ago one of the greatest innovations from Naboo's artist-engineers had been the discovery of a building material that absorbed sound as well as foliage did—and they just wandered through the winding townhouses. Private bridges loomed over their heads every hundred metres or so, and Luke tried to spot if the graffiti he and his friends had left was still there. He couldn't tell.

Their own house was just at the corner, fashionably set back from the road by the stone ramp up to the door. He grimaced, smoothed down his dress-shirt and trousers, then—after a moment's hesitation—ruffled his own hair slightly. It floated about his ears in an oddly reassuring way.

He knocked on the door.

Footsteps sounded immediately. The door swung inwards, and Sola stood there, dressed in a comfortable blue tunic and grey leggings. When she saw Luke, her face split into a smile, and they were hugging before he knew it.

"Oh, you're alright," she muttered into his hair, peppering his head with kisses. "We were so worried."

"I'm fine," Luke murmured back. Her own hair was in a messy bun, so he had fewer qualms about how she was messing his hair up even more than he already had. "Sabé and Tonra are taking good care of me."

"They always do." She pulled back, leaving her hand clasped on Luke's shoulder, and looked at Tonra. "Thank you for bringing him home."

Tonra flushed. "It's been a few weeks, Ms. Naberrie."

"And plenty of people have died on Coruscant in less. You kept him safe."

"You act like there's assassins around every corner, auntie."

"From what I've heard in the past, there are. On Naboo, too, but at least here you're with family." She shook her head. "Now, get inside. Mum made a feast for your return and poor Dad has been staring at it all morning."

Tonra murmured that he'd be back to pick Luke up whenever he commed him; Luke gave him a nod and his thanks before he stepped inside and took in a breath. The Naberries' homes always smelled like orange blossoms. He took off his violet cloak and hung it in the entry way, placing his shoes in the cubicles, before padding into the living room.

Ryoo hogged one of the sofas, her legs stretched out in front of her as she leaned back. She was still wearing her neat work uniform, her hair undone from her plait to cascade in faint waves over her shoulders, but she didn't seem too aware of that. No fear of creases, then. She glanced up from whatever was making her frown at her datapad to grin at him. "There he is! Back from hell?"

"Feels like it." He flopped onto the sofa beside her. He had to lever her legs up to get under, but she didn't move until he'd almost twisted her onto the floor.

"Hey, hey! I'm moving." She shifted so there was space, and he shuffled along. She captured him in a hug a moment later. "I missed you. No one else listens to my rambles."

"Glad to be of service."

"I listen to them!" Ruwee protested. Luke swivelled around to look at his grandfather, lounging in a much more dignified manner with a glass of wine. "I'm fascinated by that exhibition you're putting on about revolutionary clothing during the later monarchical ages."

"It's about all dress clothing in the last century of the inherited monarchy, I just only told you about the revolutionary undertones."

Ruwee pointed his finger at her. "But I listened."

"That you did. You're still not as good a listener as Luke."

Ruwee huffed and rolled his eyes right back. "Alright, I'll take it. Not as good a speaker, either." He turned to Luke. "I saw that speech you made in the Senate. All my contacts reached out to say they were proud of you."

"I didn't make a speech," Luke said.

"You know what I mean—that addendum to Organa's."

Luke laughed. "Sabé gave me hell for that."

"That's her job, keeping you safe. Your job is to remind them what Naboo is about. And you did it." Ruwee lifted his wineglass in a mock toast. "I'm proud of you."

"And I'm worried about you." Sola came back in with a glass of mint water for Luke—she knew he didn't like the taste of wine—and handed it to him before sitting next to her father. "That was your first day! What are you planning on doing next?"

"Well, Leia and I still have that committee to put together. We've been compiling research and reaching out to contacts so far, but we intend to meet fully after the Festival of Light to go over our options."

"And you're researching Naboo's court system as a basis for the Empire's, right?" Ruwee asked. "I imagine that's why Senator Organa is here with you."

"I invited her here as a friend, but I know she's taking the chance to do research of her own."

"That's good." Ruwee smiled. "That's what intergalactic politics should be about. Bringing the virtues of our culture to the table and seeing how they mesh—seeing whether that works for everyone else or not. I'm sure this one will."

Luke just sipped his mint water. He was enjoying having it served without a second thought, here—he had missed it on Coruscant. "I'm looking forward to the conversations we'll be having," he said diplomatically.

Jobal appeared at the door between the living room and the dining room. "Get in here, all of you!" she chided. "I told you we were ready to eat." She smiled at Luke. "It's so good to have you back."

"It's good to be back, Grandma." Her eyes crinkled when she leaned down to kiss him on the cheek, the cool folds of her dress knocking into his knees. He stood up and grabbed a couple of glasses. "I'll help you take these through."

"I made some of your favourites," she informed him. "They probably don't have good food on Coruscant—"

"We have a chef droid programmed to make whatever food we want."

"Precisely my point! Droids are wonderful, but they stick too closely to the recipe." The moment he crossed the dining room threshold, he smelled what she meant. "They're not as creative."

He paused, setting the wine glasses down. His mouth watered.

When he had first moved to Naboo, scared and alone, Jobal had tried to give him a literal taste of home. He'd helped Aunt Beru cook back on Tatooine and experimenting with new recipes was the newly retired Jobal's favourite hobby, so they'd combined forces. Naboo dishes with Tatooinian ingredients. Tatooinian dishes with Naboo ingredients. More frequently the latter, because of supply issues, but Jobal continually astounded him with her ways. He suspected that Ruwee's interplanetary contacts must have spent the last decade baffled as to why the Naberries suddenly wanted so much bantha meat, when shaak meat was famously more tender.

He breathed in the smells. There was the casserole that blended Tatooinian spices with shaak and gooberfish, and the generous helping of rice on the side. Black cabbage pastries, made with a heretically liberal amount of butter and a different type of flour. She had roasted potatoes with the same spices Aunt Beru would buy by the handful in the Anchorhead market. A leg of bantha sat beside sauces made of pallies, black melon, jogans.

She'd even left out appetisers—slices of treated slitherfish on toast, with yet more butter. That had been a great week, when they'd discovered that both of them loved something the rest of the family hated—either slitherfish or womprats—and that you had to prepare carefully because of the natural poisons in the creature. To date, they had only managed to convince Pooja to try their hybrid creation of that, but at least she had given positive reports.

"Grandma," he said softly, staring at the spread. "This is amazing. You didn't have to do this."

"You need to make the black melon ice cream for dessert." She waved a hand. "I tried, but—"

"You can never get the technique right."

"I can never get the technique right."

He hugged her. She let out a soft, amused gasp, before wrapping her arms around him in return. "I'll make enough that we'll both have vats to take with us afterwards." Vats of ice cream. Utterly unthinkable in a desert, but still tasting like the cool melons of home.

She patted his back. "Come on, darling. Eat. It's nearly lunch time and Shiraya knows you probably didn't eat enough in the Senate. I'll go yell at the others."

He chose the seat nearest the slitherfish appetisers, and loaded a few onto his plate, nibbling on them as the others came through.

"Why do you only make this casserole when Luke's around?" Ryoo complained, sitting down opposite him with a wink. "The rest of us like it too, you know." Sola grimaced: she'd never quite adapted to the new recipes, though she ate them dutifully.

Jobal sat at the head of the table, directly to Luke's left. She immediately snagged a slitherfish appetiser as well. "It's Luke and I's special recipe. The rest of you can only have it when we're both here."

"That's fair," Darred said, sitting on Luke's right and heaping roast potatoes onto his plate. "It tastes better when Luke's one of the cooks anyway."

She pointed her fork at him. "I'd swat you in the head, but Luke is in the way."

"I can get out of the way if you like," Luke offered.

"Don't abandon me to my mother-in-law's whims!"

"No need, Luke," Jobal reassured him. "But only because he's right." She put a hand on his wrist, then went back to eating.

"You know, we were talking in the other room after you left." Ruwee reached for the casserole and met Luke's gaze. "We've all got good connections with various researchers—Ryoo's connected to the university, I used to work there, Sola works in legal training—so we could recommend you some experts to consult for that committee you wanted to put together."

Luke had to finish chewing his appetiser before he could answer, but when he did he nodded. "That would be helpful. So far we've got a list of people to consult, but it's just been me and Leia messaging each other, the other committee member hasn't chimed in yet."

"Really? Who's the other committee member?" Ruwee chuckled before he thought of it himself. "I bet it's an Imperial, right? They have to assign a bucket of water to every bright spark."

Luke had been about to reach for the casserole, but he paused. Reached for the slitherfish, a comfort food, instead as he said, "Pooja. The Empress assigned her to the committee, but she's been too busy to engage so far."

Sola stiffened. If Luke hadn't been sitting beside Darred, he wouldn't have heard him hold his breath. Luke shot an apologetic look at both of them, and at Jobal, who was chewing very, very slowly.

Ryoo was the only one who kept her composure. "She hasn't contributed yet? Have you seen her at all since you got there?"

Luke nodded. "Frequently. But mainly while she's working. She's got a job as one of the Empress's junior handmaidens, and she's usually running around the Senate on errands. We've only really had one chance to properly catchup."

"When was that?"

"Yesterday."

Sola hissed out a breath. "She's on Naboo?"

"Padmé is on Naboo," Jobal said. "If she is, of course Pooja is as well."

"Have you tried to get her to come back?" Ryoo asked.

"I've talked with Pooja about our political differences, but so far we've only reached an agreement to disagree. She thinks I'm too reckless. But she's wanted to reconnect since I got there. I think she's lonely." He glanced around. "I was thinking that we could all meet her at the fair tomorrow."

"She joined the Empire," Ruwee said. "She's a disgrace to Naboo."

Sola snapped, "She's my daughter."

"And Padmé was mine!"

"Is, Ruwee," Jobal said. "Padmé is your daughter. And don't push your feud with Padmé onto Pooja. She doesn't deserve it."

"She does when she picked a side in it!"

"I'll be at the fair tomorrow," Darred said. "I have to run the stall for the workshop. Pooja can come along."

"What sort of trinkets are you selling this time?" Luke asked. Darred worked for a business that made and sold automated toys. From clockwork figures to mini droids, their stall at the fair was always delightful.

Darred gave a small smile. "That would be spoiling the surprise."

"I'll be there as well," Ryoo said. Sola and Jobal voiced their agreement; Ruwee, after a hard look from his wife, nodded.

"I miss her," he admitted. "And I won't understand why she made the decisions she did until I can ask her myself."

That was one way to ruin the festival entirely, but better than nothing. And it wasn't like Luke wasn't about to ruin it further. He put his appetiser in his mouth and started chewing.

Until Ruwee added, "She isn't the Empress herself. She's just a pawn."

That was it. "About that." Luke chewed and swallowed while everyone turned to look at him. "That's the other thing I needed to tell you."

"What is the other thing you needed to tell us?"

Darred bumped Luke's shoulder. That expression of support gave him the courage to say, "I've met the Empress. While she's on Naboo, she wants to meet with you again—reconcile."

Jobal put her hands over her face. Her voice was a hoarse whisper. "Luke…"

"I know it'll be hard," he said.

"Why? We've tried to contact her before, and she never responded then," Sola said.

Ruwee was incensed. "Now she reaches out? After dragging our name through the mud?"

Luke reached for Jobal's hand. "Grandma?"

She grasped his. "You beautiful boy," she finished. "How did you do this?"

Floored by the hope in her dark eyes, he floundered for words for a moment. "I didn't really do anything."

"I think you did." She brushed a lock of loose hair out of his face. "Thank you."

"This festival is a celebration of democracy, and she comes now?" Ruwee's hand was clenched around his fork. "Why now?"

"Because she had the chance now?" Ryoo suggested. "I don't know, Grandpa, you shouldn't—"

"It's been fifteen years!"

"Exactly." Jobal raised her voice. She didn't do it often, but when she did, it swept through the room like a thunderclap. "It has been fifteen years since you and Padmé argued so fiercely about politics that you broke this family apart."

"You agreed with me!"

"And I still do. I still hate what my daughter has become. What she made of our teachings." Jobal pinched her lips—and looked at Luke. Her gaze roved over his features, his nose, before she turned back to Ruwee. "But if she wants to come back, I will hear her out. I will never let that door close again."

Ruwee stumbled into silence. "Jobal," he finally got out. "She betrayed us. She betrayed you, as well as the rest of Naboo. Palpatine took her as his protégé, and even after we all found out what he was truly like, she stayed loyal to him. That's the only inheritance she acknowledges."

"I don't think that's true," Luke said.

"You were the one who pushed her into politics at so young an age, Ruwee. Don't be surprised that she found her own feet and her views happened not to perfectly fit yours. Everything she is came from you, as well—don't be stubborn about it."

Ruwee grimaced. "Yes. And I regret starting her off with it when she was eight—perhaps that was too young. But I can't change the past."

"No. The past will never change. But the future might." Jobal looked at Luke again. "We have a chance. I won't squander it."

Ruwee sighed.

"You're sure?" He rose, walked to Jobal, and bent down, lowering his voice, their faces inches apart. Private though it made the moment seem, they were still on display for the whole family. "Jobal, I don't want us hurt again. We won't endorse the Empire, ever, and I'm worried she expects us to. What will happen if this goes wrong?"

"What will happen is that I will know my daughter is gone for good, even all these years later." Jobal's voice broke as she said it, but her tone remained strong. "And I will handle that. I will take that as it comes. What I will not take is the opportunity to hide from the truth."

"You're sure, then?"

She lifted her chin. "I'm sure."

He kissed her lightly. They broke apart a moment later, and he staggered back into his seat, almost, like a man drunk on sorrow.

"Alright," he said to Luke. "Thank you. For the chance, that is. Being the messenger is never easy."

"You're sure you want to meet her?"

"Yes. Let's do it."

"Where?"

"Thistedel. The dining room."

Luke swallowed. Exactly what he hadn't wanted, but it was their call. Sola saw his hesitation, and explained, "The last time they argued was right here."

Luke nodded. "Then it'll be Thistedel."

"Do you think she's changed, Luke?" Ryoo asked.

"I'd never met her before a few weeks ago." Jobal stiffened but said nothing. "I don't know."

"Then we'll hope," Jobal said slowly, and reached for her food again. It was the cue everyone else needed and released them all back to their plates. "That is all we can do."