Leia somehow knew where to find Luke, dispensing with any need to inquire after him with the others at the party. She followed her gut and it led her right to him.
Luke was standing alone on the tree-hugging walkway in front of a basket and pulley that lowered passengers to the forest floor level. Since the exodus from the party had not yet started they were alone, disconnected from the party behind them.
Leia paused as she neared Luke, considering him. She didn't fight the swell of sisterly affection she felt for him, knowing now that it was right instead of peculiar but wrong as it used to be. Luke's eyes were half-closed, as though he were a million miles away.
"Luke?" Leia said softly.
Luke slowly and fluidly turned to her, betraying his awareness of her presence long before she'd spoken. His eyes came into focus on her and he smiled faintly but genuinely. Leia felt calmed and comforted by his smile, maybe some measure safer than she was before when she didn't know she felt at all threatened.
Leia stepped toward him, taking his live hand between hers and holding it near her chest, fingers clasped over his flesh as she looked up into his eyes. Brother and sister felt so right, as though she had stopped forcing something unnatural. "What is it?" Leia asked.
Luke looked down at their joined hands a moment and Leia didn't have to be trained in the Force to know something was bothering Luke... it had been shrouding him since his return from the Death Star. Leia had not pushed Luke to tell her what was wrong, she could only imagine the horrors he'd seen in the clutches of the Emperor... and Darth Vader. His father. 'My father', Leia thought uneasily, her throat tightening and her heart suddenly aching.
Luke seemed to know her thoughts and chose that moment to speak, "There's something I must tell you about what happened. A message I was told to deliver to you."
"A message," Leia said, "from whom?"
Luke looked directly into her gaze with his piercing blue eyes and she knew. A part of her inside broke and lay cold. Luke as her true brother she was able to accept effortlessly... the idea that Darth Vader was her true father as well was something she'd been running from dealing with since the connection fired in her thoughts. She saw she was about to be forced to deal with that reality just by the look on Luke's face. She wasn't sure she was ready for that yet, but Luke needed to talk so she steeled herself for the inevitable.
Luke brought up his other hand, mechanical and covered with a black glove, and said lowly (so lowly only Leia could hear him), "He's dead."
"I know," Leia uttered almost weakly in return.
Luke's chin dipped fractionally, "He didn't die as Vader, he died as Anakin Skywalker. I–he came back from the Dark Side, before he died. He saved me, Leia. The Emperor was killing me and he saved my life. He died to save me."
Leia found it almost impossible to breathe but she couldn't move, locked under Luke's eyes and his voice. She clung to his hands like an anchor, intent upon hearing what Luke had to tell her no matter how hard it was to listen to.
Luke ducked his head lower until Leia could barely see his eyes. "I tried to save him but he was already dying. There was nothing I could do," Luke's voice wavered but he continued. "He... our father told me to tell my sister–told me to tell you that I was right about him. That the good in him was still alive, that he could be saved. When he died he was Anakin Skywalker... he was our father..." Luke's voice broke and tears escaped between his lashes, trailing down his cheeks. Pain and grief seemed to roll off Luke in waves, washing over Leia strongly until she ached for the loss, too.
Leia freed one of her hands and reached up to brush away his tears. "It's all right, Luke. I know." She thought to herself unspoken, 'I know you hurt and I do, too. It's not wrong you miss him, not when you saw the man he could have been. You couldn't have done more than you did, Luke. It's not your fault.'
Luke allowed himself to be guided into her embrace, dropping his head on to her shoulder as tears walked wet paths down his face. Leia wrapped her arms around his trembling form, holding him tightly. The pain was almost palpable wrapped around Luke. Leia tried to soothe him, comfort him as best she could. An image, fleeting and almost too brief to make sense, flashed into her mind. There was fire, billowing flames licking intimately at the dark cloak and helmet of the monster, the beast... the redeemed protector, the father. Leia wasn't prepared for the sadness that slammed into her. She knew it was from Luke but that didn't stop her from feeling what he'd felt at that moment. She saw Darth Vader and part of her was hate and fear but a tenacious bud inside her took the figure to her heart as her father.
Leia felt her eyes well up. Was this what it was like to be Luke, all this time? Knowing he should see the enemy but his heart screaming at him to love this man? The confusion was a painful rip in itself, seeming to rend Leia in two.
Luke seemed to feel her tense, seemed to know he'd given her some of his pain that he hadn't meant to, and whispered as he tried to pull away, "I'm sorry."
Leia held him tightly, refusing to let him escape, and closed her eyes as finally her own tears fell, "No... thank you, Luke. I needed to see him as you saw him. I want to know what you feel so I can help you. You don't have to grieve alone."
In the whole of the Rebellion she and Luke would be the only ones who would grieve for Darth Vader's death... even as they celebrated it.
Luke was no longer crying, having quickly taken control of his emotions. Leia felt his composure returning and loosed him from her grasp, feeling an ache at the loss of his touch.
After a polite silence between them Leia asked gently, "Are you going to be all right, Luke?"
Luke nodded, taking a deep breath and an unfair amount of peace and calm seemed to flow into him. 'If I have the power to do that too then I must ask Luke to teach me.'
"Would you like me to stay with you tonight?" Leia asked, finding she asked almost as much for her sake as his.
Luke shook his head, "No, I'm all right, I will be all right." He seemed to think a moment. "I need some time to meditate. I don't feel... balanced, right now."
'Neither do I,' Leia thought. What she said aloud, however, was, "If you need me come find me. No matter what time it is."
Luke gave a half-smile as he said, "I won't disturb you; knowing you're near will be enough."
"I'll always be near when you need me," Leia vowed.
"I know... thank you, Leia."
Leia nodded, turning back to head for the main party and finding a disquiet had settled into her stomach after their conversation. She moved through the dispersing party attendees with the same subdued cloud about her that had hung heavy over Luke all night.
Leia was tucked into her sleeping pallet within one of the lofty tree canopy Ewok huts hours after the party had broken up, nearly into the dawn of the encroaching morning. She couldn't sleep.
Something inside her chest was twisted and bent, a place where she was coming to acknowledge love for someone who had never done anything to earn it from her. Quite the opposite, someone who had done everything imaginable to garner her hate. A child's love for its parent was in her, and however sick or demented it seemed even to her Leia felt it there inside her. 'My real father,' Leia folded her arms over her chest, 'how can I love you? And yet I do. I hate that I do.' Did Vader know the whole time she was his daughter? When he'd captured her over Tatooine did he know? When he interrogated her did he know? Did he know when he tortured her and Han to bait Luke? Did he know when he watched Alderaan destroyed?
Leia burrowed further into her pillow, sad all over again for the death of Bail Organa when Grand Moff Tarkin gave the order to fire on her home planet. He'd been her father all her life, he took care of her and deserved her love. Vader... Anakin Skywalker had done nothing to earn any affection from Leia but unwittingly it was there. That was an insult to Bail, who had been so kind and loving to her, that a hideous beast could claim any of the same love.
Leia felt almost sick. 'Forgive me, Father,' she thought, and the parent she referred to was Bail Organa of Alderaan, 'you deserve better than this for everything you were to me.'
Leia felt like a horrible daughter, a traitor, and more homeless than ever before in her life.
A sound at her doorway stirred her from her thoughts, a welcome distraction even if she found herself advanced upon by an enemy.
Leia sat up, looking in the darkness toward the cloth door, expecting a curious Ewok.
"Leia?" a husky voice issued forth carefully.
"Han," Leia returned, having forgotten completely that she had subtly invited him to find her later. Hell of a time for the thick-headed flyer to take a hint.
Han moved toward her sleeping pallet in the dark, his shapes growing more distinct as he moved into the moonlight filtering into one of the windows hacked out of the grass walls.
Han sat down on the floor by her bedroll, eyes glittering in the night. "Thought I'd stop by. I set Chewie to work on the Falcon. Lando took out the long-range communications dish but other than that he managed to hold her together. We should be able to head out not long after sunrise if you want."
Leia realized her hands were twisting the sheet in her lap into wrinkled fist fulls and consciously stilled her fingers.
Han leaned forward, hand coming to rest against her face.
Leia reflexively flinched away.
Han stopped, frowning. "What did I do now?"
Leia shook her head, "Nothing. It's not you."
Han sighed, dropping his hand into his lap loudly, "That old line again. Come on, Leia, save me the headache and just tell me how I screwed up this time."
Leia snapped back, "It's not you, you egotistical maniac. It's me..." Leia's voice dropped in both volume and force, "it's Luke."
Han went quiet, feeling stupid for his behavior as he thought back on Luke's somber mood at the party earlier. This really wasn't about him; she was right, he was an egotistical maniac.
"What would you like me to do?" Han asked, canting his head to try and see her in the dark. "Do you want me to go away?"
Leia shook her head then stopped, not sure what she wanted. She didn't want him to expect anything of her, but this was Han Solo; he couldn't resist pushing his limits and Leia was really not in the mood to have her buttons pushed. Right now she couldn't take it.
She didn't realized she was shaking faintly until Han, surprisingly compassionate, whispered, "It's okay," and slid closer to her, bringing his arm around her and pulling her into him.
Leia folded against his chest, letting out a shaky breath and closing her fingers around his shirt material. He smelled of hydraulic fluid, fire, trees, alcohol, and that musky scent solely Han Solo's. She snuggled into him in his entirety, filth, grim, and all, and found herself not as lost as she was before.
Han rubbed her arm slowly, saying lowly, "Whatever it is, I'll fix it."
Leia barked a faint laugh, "You stupid pirate, you think you can fix anything."
Han chuckled, sending his chest under Leia's head bouncing.
"But thanks anyway," Leia said softly, relaxing into his embrace.
Han pulled aside the sheet to the bed pallet and lowered himself and Leia into position for sleep. Leia did not let go of his shirt the entire time, coming to rest with her head on his chest as he quietly covered them both with the sheet.
"Sleep," he told her, hugging her tighter, "I'll put the sex on your tab."
Leia lifted her arm enough to drop her elbow on to his chest. Han grunted and the air rushed out of his lungs, but half of it was the tail-end of a laugh.
Leia almost laughed too but held back lest she encourage him. Instead she smiled to herself and settled into his arms, shocked to find the rough arms of a smuggler and scoundrel like Han Solo could be so warm and comfortable.
Leia was almost at peace for the night were it not for the thought that Luke felt just like she had, even worse, and he'd chosen to be alone. 'Why, Luke?'
Leia was only half surprised when she heard an answer in her mind, 'Because three in a bed is company.'
Leia almost laughed, which would no doubt have drawn some curious looks from Han.
'Sleep,' Luke's presence urged, 'I know you're here. You're with me, Leia. I'm not alone.'
Leia believed him and the last clinging worry in her thoughts came loose and she was able to drift into a sleep that was destined to be short because of the already lightening sky over the Ewok village.