Anakin fanned Mon Mothma's face with his candy sack.

"Will she be all right?" Jaina asked worriedly. The Chancellor had collapsed hard to the ground in a faint.

The ghostly form of Qui Gonn nodded reassuringly. "She will recover. I am sorry to have given her such a shock. I must say, I never caused such a reaction when I was flesh and blood!"

"Are you a Jedi from the old days?" Jacen asked. It seemed the Force Ghost was dressed like Jacen in his costume, and he was intrigued. Here was a chance to really learn about the Jedi before the Dark Times, as Uncle Luke referred to them.

Mon Mothma stirred and her eyes flickered.

"It does't feel so long ago," Qui Gonn answered. "You must be counting the years I've been dead. Ah, hello there, m'lady."

Mon Mothma groaned and squeezed her eyes tight. "Now, m'lady, don't be afraid," Qui Gonn said with a twinkle in his eye. "I am merely the Force, but with personality!"

She moved her head gingerly to assess the strange presence. He was tall and powerful-looking, with a thin beard. "Someone beat you to it," she told him tartly.

Qui Gonn appreciated the woman's swift recovery. He nodded. "Through sheer force of his personality, this is true."

"Does every Jedi do this?" Jacen asked. "Turn blue and visit the living?"

"I haven't turned blue," Qui Gonn said. "Not precisely. What you see is the Force. And no, not everyone has learned this. The Force still possesses secrets. I'm proud to say I taught myself."

"Dad and Lando say the creepy kid came back from the dead," Anakin said. "But he doesn't glow."

"The Force doesn't judge or take sides," Qui Gonn explained. "And Palpatine was able to learn a new secret."

Mon Mothma had raised herself up on her elbows. "A dangerous one," she said primly. Jaina helped her to her feet. "Why were you not aware he was doing it?"

Qui Gonn withered a bit under her glare. "Forgive us, m'lady. The Force may not take sides, but those with a consciousness within it did. Quite frankly, once we became aware he had joined us, we didn't associate with him. I suppose it fair to say we didn't like Palpatine."

"There are popularity contests in the Force?" Mon Mothma was angry. "And you shoved him back to us? To threaten our way of life, our own mortality? Not all of us are able to die as one with the Force as you are!"

Qui Gonn bowed. "Obviously, the Force has another lesson for us."

"It wants you to play nice," Anakin said.

Mon Mothma placed her hand on the boy's head. "From the mouths of children," she told Qui Gonn.

The blood of Skywalker pulsed here. So many. Out of nothing, he had recognized it. And, he must admit, he was curious.

What had become of the one he had groomed? The one who threw him down the energy shaft.

The worthless one had said he was dead. And yet here Skywalker was. Filtered; his Force sense was diluted through descendants, but it was present.

Was this justice? All he'd asked was to reside here forever. And it was he who taught Skywalker, gave him everything he knew.

He cackled quietly. Not everything. Not this. And the light of these Skywalkers' Force was malleable.

Mischief Night. They did their own damage. Fear and worry came to him, fed him.

The love of a mother.

Chewie peeled his lips back and spat at the blue form the Princess had identified as Anakin Skywalker.

Darth Vader, out of his trademark black suit and helmet, was just a man. Tall, hairless, and scarred- more scarred than Chewie, it seemed. He was missing limbs, but he could move, and glided toward them.

Leia stood stiff as a board, hands clenched in fists. She wished she had more knowledge of the Force. Luke was always pressuring her, but she had resisted. And Anakin Skywalker was the reason for her resistance.

All the evil he had done, but he'd fathered her and Luke. Deep down, it wasn't the irredeemable death and destruction he'd inflicted upon the entire galaxy, it was the simple fact that he was her father.

Ever since Luke had told her fifteen years ago who their biological father was, the question had lurked in the back of her mind as she rebuilt her life after the war. Had she and Luke been an act of evil?

"What are you doing here?" she demanded. Chewie heard the tremor of real anger in her voice. "Looking for your Master?"

"My daughter," the Force Ghost said in a broken voice.

"I don't grant you the honor of calling me that," Leia seethed. "Mere biology is what happened."

"Tonight, more than mere biology has occurred," Anakin Skywalker said.

"I won't let you rejoin him!"

"I am looking for you, my daughter. I come to you, to beg your forgiveness."

"You'll never have it."

Anakin Skywalker bowed his head. "It is a factor in my old Master's return."

Leia shook her head in disbelief. "Look at you," she spat. "I never knew what you were. To think I once feared you. But you haven't changed. You tell me I'm responsible? When all I've done is tried to live a life of... of morality and quality?!"

"What do your children know of their grandfather?"

"They have all my memories of the man who raised me!"

"But nothing of me."

Leia's eyes burned with fury and her pulse raged in her temple so hard she grew lightheaded. "Shall I tell them how you tortured me on the Death Star? Or their father on Cloud City? Severed their uncle's hand in a duel?"

Anakin Skywalker looked around him. "Do you not sense it?" he asked. "He grows stronger in your anger. Join me, my daughter, and together we will defeat this evil."

Jacen looked around the patio. "Mom was out here, wasn't she?"

"She was talking to all the beings that came," Jaina rationalized. "But everyone's gone."

"You have a hole in your robes," Anakin pointed at Qui Gonn's midsection.

The Force Ghost looked down at himself. "So I do. I died of a lightsaber wound."

"Cool," Anakin said.

"I didn't think so at the time," Qui Gonn said.

The boy popped a sucker stick out of his mouth. "Can I see it?"

"No."

"Anakin," Mon Mothma chided, "it is rude to admire a person's cause of death."

"Why?" he questioned. "It doesn't hurt anymore, does it?"

Mon Mothma was not completely sure the boy was exhibiting bad manners, but it felt like it, so she said, "It is just not something we bring up in polite conversation."

Qui Gonn was smiling. "He is at the age when he is still so open, m'lady. It seems a shame to teach him to close up."

Now that they had an ace in the hole to better fight Palpatine, namely the ghostly form of a dead Jedi Master, Han and Mara thought it best to regroup with the others. They were headed back to the house. The night was still dark and quiet, but the faint blue glow emanating from Ben Kenobi provided a light to see by.

"So what's it like being a Force Ghost?" Han asked Kenobi conversationally.

The dead Jedi considered a moment. Then he came up with an answer. "Rather like an operator."

"I can't imagine you get a lot of calls," Mara said dryly.

"That's all you do?" Han said. "Sit and watch the living through your little blue window? Show up when it's almost too late?"

"We are very helpful," Ben contradicted Han with a frown. "For instance, I told Luke to trust his feelings over Yavin."

"He had, what- 3 hours of training? And you didn't think to nudge the torpedo for him into the Death Star? What if he missed?"

"And I told him to go to Dagobah."

"When he was lost in a snowstorm," Han reminded him. "Almost dead from hypothermia."

The ghost held up his finger in a superior manner. "But he did not die."

"Yeah, big help you are. Why didn't you tell him to... I don't know. Seek shelter? Warn him about the wampa? How about just tell him when he was sittin' on the 'fresher?"

"Luke has told me all about you," Mara told Ben, who looked delighted.

"Has he? I really didn't know him well."

"His main issue was not how you provided help, but that he was never told the truth."

Ben stroked his beard thoughtfully. "It did make for some awkward conversations."

"Find the others, we must," Yoda said.

Luke nodded at his former master and indicated the path that led to the house. He walked behind Yoda, frowning at the blue light and thinking of all the times he had seen it previously. Not often. In eighteen years, he could count on one hand the number of times he saw the Force ghosts of Yoda, Ben or his father. And tonight he learned of a fourth, whom he had never met.

"The last time I saw you," he told Yoda, "was on Endor. "The three of you. You all looked happy."

"Vanquished the Dark Side of the Force, you did."

"By myself," Luke said darkly. "I didn't get any help from you in the throne room while Palpatine hit me with lightning."

Yoda said nothing. Lando's eyes flicked between the two Jedi.

"What if he killed me?"

"There is no if," Yoda declared.

"No if, no try," Luke said. "And no guidance from you, any of you, as I taught others how to use the Force."

"A good job, have you done," Yoda allowed.

"And what have you done?" Luke wanted to know. "Sat on a Force beach drinking Force cocktails? And meanwhile Palpatine used his Force ability to slip back among the living! Are you telling me there's evil in death?"

Yoda floated stubbornly along. "Change not, do natures in death." He pointed a thick digit at Luke. "And resentment, I sense in you."

"You're damn right I feel resentment!" Luke's voice rose in volume.

"I have a question," Lando interrupted them. "You say Palpatine was able to come back because of the Force. Only different than you, because he doesn't glow all blue."

"A question that is not."

Lando glared at the blue ghost floating beside him. "Let me finish. Say we're successful and we defeat him. Won't he return to the Force? And doesn't that mean he can keep doing this, and history will repeat itself, again and again and again?"

Qui Gonn put his hand on Mon Mothma's forearm, though she didn't feel it. She stared at the blue light touching her skin. The baby squirmed in her arms, not quite able to fall back asleep.

"A moment, m'lady," the ghost told her. "I wish to keep you from further injury."

"That's quite all right, Qui Gonn," the Chancellor assured him. "I don't fear Palpatine. I believe the children are correct, and that I, and the New Republic, are not his first targets."

"I didn't mean Palpatine," Qui Gonn said. He swept his hand out in all directions. "I meant the patio. It's quite a hard surface. If you faint again, you are likely to break a bone."

Mon Mothma sent her eyes past the patio and allowed them to adjust to the darkness. From three separate directions, blue glows were moving toward the house.

Out of old habit, she breathed a saying. "May the Force be with us."

"Precisely!" Qui Gonn smiled.

There was a thudding noise of feet, and Leia turned to see her three children running at her. She frowned at the ghost of Anakin Skywalker, but it was too late to warn the children away.

"Mom!" Anakin shouted, and rammed himself into her for a hug.

Leia squeezed him back, looking at Jacen and Jaina. "What's happened? Where are the Chancellor and baby Ben?"

Jaina hooked a thumb behind her. "They're on the patio, with Qui Gonn."

"With- who?" Leia asked.

"My old master," Anakin Skywalker said. "Briefly. For a day, maybe. He got killed."

"That's just like Uncle Luke and his master," Jacen said. He was looking at Anakin's disfigured form with a combination of distaste and wonder. "Who's this, Mom?"

"My name is Anakin Skywalker," the ghost said. "I am your grandfather."

"That's my name," Anakin Solo informed him. "Did they call you Nak?"

"No, they called me-" the ghost cleared his throat. "Nak is a good name."

"What happened to your arm? And your legs?" Anakin asked. "And your hair? Did you get killed, too? Like Qui Gonn?"

Anakin Skywalker glanced at his missing body parts. "My cause of death was the Force. But these are old wounds, caused by a lightsaber."

"He compensated for them by wearing a suit and calling himself Darth Vader," Leia told her children, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

"You should have worn that," Anakin said. "It's Mischief Night."

The property felt large in the dark, but finally Han saw lights which meant they were approaching the house. "Hey, we're getting close," he said happily. Then he frowned as he noticed more blue glows. "Wait, what's that?" He turned to Kenobi. "There are more of you?"

"Where's Ben?" Mara said. She was looking with wild eyes into the dark.

"I'm right here," Ben said.

"No- Ben. My baby, Ben. Not you."

"In the house, remember?" Han said.

"Luke named his baby after me?" Ben was beaming with pride.

"I don't feel him." Mara was trying to fight a rising panic.

"Probably asleep. It's late."

"I'd sense that. I can't feel him! He's gone!"

"He can't be gone," Han tried to apply logic, but of course that was useless. The Force could not be described as logical. He went for calming instead. "He was with the kids and the Chancellor. There'd be noise or something, a fight, if- You know."

"It is not he who has departed," Ben said sagely.

Mara whirled on him. "What's happening!"

"It is your ability to sense that has left."

Life. He let it fill him, breathing deeply. So close now. There was a tingle at the ends of his fingertips.

So much more here, ripe for the taking. Vast, open Force. Untapped, instinctive, inherent.

He saw now, how this was different than last time. Qualities that had made him strong, but against others of the opposite it was a fight. This... this was being.

"Luke!" a woman's voice called across the spacious grounds.

"Your name, that is," Yoda informed Luke.

"That sounds like Mara," Luke said worriedly. He rushed off, leaving Lando and Yoda to make their way to the patio by themselves. Lando could see dark silhouettes of humans and one wookiee, as well as two other glowing blue lights.

Lando stroked his mustache. "You know, the Force has caused a lot of problems," he said to Yoda.

"Over eight hundred years have I been with the Force. Think it the same of us."

"Is that so? Maybe it's more trouble than it's worth."

"Then no life there would be. Intertwined, are we. Too many destinies there are."