Luke strolled into the Lord Chamberlain's offices as many of the staff were walking out. He paused his feet before turning where his eyes stuck on the black and purple man standing guard outside Leia's office. Across the length of the common, Ren Entada met the gaze and nodded a respectful hello. By then, Winter began to stand from her desk to address Luke, but Luke motioned her to disregard. "Social call," and he pointed toward the data library.

Yana had already swiveled her desk chair from her project and lifted her chin to Luke with clear eyes. What can I do for you?

Luke dropped his shoulder against a mainframe and lowered his voice to a secret whisper. "Can you give me a ride home?"

She nodded of course, but red-brown eyebrows wrinkled questions.

"Kess had to run the airport a few hours ago. I'll explain in the speeder."

Yana shrugged and nodded, and she began closing down her work, but Luke stopped her with a gentle gesture. "Finish your work first. I'm in no hurry."

With that, he strolled back out to the common and down to Winter's desk. He shrugged an admittance, "Only if she has a minute so I can say 'hi'." Winter turned to the intercom link and typed in a note.

As he waited, Luke's eyes shifted again to the creature in the corner and found something curiously out of place with this man. All the other former Imperials with which he'd recently learned to interact all had emotional reactions to the famous Jedi's presence. They feared him, hated him, didn't trust him, wanted to take advantage of him, or a combination of all of the above. But not this guy.

Luke strolled over and set his feet strongly in front of the sentry, his old commander stance, and glanced the guy up and down.

Ren snapped his heals together and bowed his chin, "Master Jedi, good evening." The respect was genuine.

Luke sensed deeper and grew more concerned that he couldn't find anything worth being concerned about. He angled his head and eyed Ren curiously. "You're not apprehensive around me."

Ren's eyes shifted away and back as if wondering why that would be a factor. "No, sir." His black brown twitched with a touch of humor. "Should I be?"

Grinning oddly, Luke shook his head. "Well, no, but most former-Imperials are."

Ren's mouth shrugged in its own humor. "With respect, of all the people who come in and out of this office, the Chamberlain's safety in your company is the least of my concerns."

Luke angled his head. The man had a good point. . . .

"What's your name again?" Luke asked.

"Ren Entada."

"No title?"

"Purple Command is still debating on what the titles and chain of command will be exactly. In the meantime, I'm something of a Detail Captain, or Commander of sorts. I manage the specific team in charge of protecting the Lord Chamberlain."

Luke took that in, then blinked to realize it. "You're Alderaani." Luke had interacted with so few, it was difficult to pluck out clues in the Alderaani mannerisms and accent. The way this man moved, the way his words sounded almost Inner Rim, but not exactly, matched Leia's patterns significantly.

"I am, sir."

"Where were you when it happened?"

Ren seemed to pause on his answer, though he was going to anyway-

"No. I'm sorry." Luke punished himself with a face and raised his hand. "I shouldn't have asked that. That was rude of me."

Ren didn't have a problem answering it; he just didn't expect the former Rebel would like the answer. "I was serving with Admiral Eidta's Fleet on patrol in the Perlemian Trade Routes."

Luke's brows lifted into his unkempt bangs.

Ren mistook his the expression for confusion. "Yes, Star Destroyers, my lord, tasked with combating piracy and smuggling in the area."

A smile of disbelief splashed across Luke's face, and an index finger flopped out toward the big office doors. "Does she know that?"

Ren swallowed and began to speak, but Leia's doors opened in that moment. She bid her last appointment goodbyes and thank yous, and sat down in Winter's guest chair to face Luke with a weary sigh. "What do you need?"

"Just in the neighborhood." Luke strolled his feet over and stopped in front of where she was now leaning elbows on her knees and burying her face in her palms. "Let's go inside and talk." Leia shoved back to her feet and stepped back in, and Luke closed the door behind them both. She tried to face him, but he turned her away to the nearest couch. "Sit down. Take a minute."

She didn't hesitate to follow his orders. First she sat down and paused for a moment of deep breath and momentary meditation, but then she kicked off her shoes and curled her feet up on the couch beside her, leaning heavily into the throw pillow and armrest. "I don't know how long I can keep this pace."

Luke sat down on the facing couch and watched all the signs. "You shouldn't be keeping this pace at all."

"The baby's fine-

"I'm not talking about the baby."

She rubbed one eye with her fingers and tried to glare at him with the other. Luke's gaze remained steady. He knew her too well, and had too many Force senses to be fooled by her rock solid facade.

She angled her head and gaze away.

"If I were to guess, you're overworking yourself just so that you don't have to think about him."

She spread an understanding grin, but she shook her head and met his eye. "Yes and no. I process it in my own way, in privacy. The work just helps me take it in doses." She shucked a sick smile. "Believe me, Luke, I've been through enough losses to know the procedure."

"I know," he whispered, eyes respectfully on the carpet now.

"How are you holding up?"

He shrugged and gave her a sad smile. "I have Kess."

Her grin warmed for a moment, then died again. "Although I do-" she choked.

Luke felt it the moment her words stopped in her throat. He could see it, how her expression was one of firmness and control, but her insides spiked in a heart-crushing turmoil. "I do admit-"

As Leia tried to fight her throat to let her finish the sentence, Luke shoved off one couch and set down beside her on the other, pulling her shoulders sideways into his chest whether she liked it or not. The whole move had her words tumbling out with quivering tears. "I just wish he would show up and get in my way."

He curled his head around the back of hers and forced her to cuddle into his shoulder, and Leia crumbled into it, crying in a rich quiet for a full minute. She laughed even through her tears. "I wish he would show up and force me to stop work at 20 hundred, to pound on the table any time I start talking about politics at dinner."

Luke too had tears decorating his lashes, but he smiled at these memories too.

She allowed herself a moment of weakness, a moment to lean on her brother's strength, and let out a cleansing sigh and a wistful smile. "By the Force, I miss him."

"Me too."

She pushed to sit up again, patting his knee with thanks.

"You need to slow down," Luke urged her gently.

She huffed with impatience. "I am meditating every day, sometimes twice a day. I'm taking my vitamins and getting enough sleep. Eating healthy meals..."

"And . . ." he lowered his chin, lifted his brows, and eyed her hard, "you still need to slow down."

Leia raised both palms in acquiescence. "All right. I will take it under advisement," she joked.

Luke ushered her to get up. "Go home."

"No, I still have to-"

"No, Leia, go home." He ordered softly, and jerked his chin to the wall chrono. "Look at the time."

She glanced over. 2025. She closed her eyes.

"If Han were here, what would he say right now?"

"You made your point," she tried to glare at him.

But Luke just glared right back. "Go home or I'm going to have that palpy bodyguard of yours cuff you and carry you home."

She wiped her face with her palm. "Okay." When he arched a brow, she climbed to her feet and spread her hands again, "Okay. You win."

Luke hovered in her general presence and served as the duty 'pain-in-the-ass' so she wouldn't try to change her mind before she left the offices. Yana seemed patient to wait for all this too. As Leia murmured notes to Winter and reviewed tomorrow's schedule as the standard end-of-the-day procedure, Luke stepped over to Ren Entada and murmured quietly.

"I'd like you to do me a favor," he said. "At 20 hundred, every night, politely remind her what time it is. See if you can get her to stop for dinner, and try to take away whatever politics she's working on while she eats. Whether she continues to work is not within your power, but I'd like you to gently nudge her in that direction for as much as you can get away with."

Ren's wrinkled his brows at this odd request, but seemed to understand and bowed his chin in compliance. "I understand."

Luke and Yana waited until Leia and Ren left, and walked out of the empty office with Winter for a quiet and exhausted good night. Luke waited until the two of them climbed into Yana's speeder before explaining Nik's arrival, that Gina and Ben didn't, and what that probably meant. He asked her to keep it confidential only because he wanted to save Nik from the press fiasco of "The Emperor Has Returned To Coruscant", but he also asked her to please keep Leia informed of all she heard about Nik's status and progress.

When Yana parked in the valet of the building, and Luke got out, he poked his head back down and offered her to come up and say 'hi'. Yana declined, pressing her palms together and both to the side of her cheek, a sign for 'sleep', then shared her datalink so she could say, But tell her she can call me if she needs girly girl support.

Luke patted the hood and nodded thanks.

Riding up to the apartment, Luke sensed out. Nik was in the back in a fitful sort of statis, asleep probably, and Kess was trying to meditate her way through a bruise of insult. He came in to find the lights low and the droids put away. From a naked spot on the long dining table, Kess opened her eyes and gave him a weary grin.

Luke stepped around and pulled her up for a hug.

"He's resting," she sighed into his chest. "I moved him into other master bedroom."

"What happened?"

"She left him." Kess pulled away and combed her long locks from her face. "I guess he took up drinking as a solution. Kept saying something about how it helps him breathe. I can't figure it out, but something's very wrong. I don't think he's in the condition to start training."

Luke's eyes flicked aside and thought a moment. "His debreif..."

She looked up.

"His debrief didn't say anything about . . ." Suddenly, he looked at her. "Remember when you were on Pad 14 right before the launch and you sensed something from him; you thought he was dead."

"Yeah . . . yeah why?"

"You said something that day about not being able to breathe."

She thought back. "Yeah. I sensed choking or something. Panic mostly. But yeah, your right." She stared at the air. "And there was nothing in his debreif about that."

"I'm going to guess something happened to him that shocked him to his core. He may have blocked it out, or just doesn't want to tell anyone about it but . . ."

"Well, step one is to get him sober."

"True. But remember, light side first, tricks later. Let's just focus on taking care of him for a while. Okay?"

"Yeah." She agreed, but was still distracted, still somber . . . still insulted. Her eyes dropped closed with tension.

Luke angled his head. "What else?"

"I called Gina. Just to tell her he was here so she'd know where he was, that he was getting care, but she hung up on me before I could get a word out." Kess sucked in a hard breath and tried to swallow a lump in her throat. "So I called Dad to see if he could pass on the message. I didn't even intend to say anything about Jedi or training or anything like that. It was just going to be 'Nik's with me', 'I'm taking care of him . . . . "

"And?"

She laughed and cried at the same time, "My locket wasn't inside my shirt for the vid comm." She dove into his chest, clenched the sides of his shirt, and growled violently at herself.

Luke held her and tried to meditate a moment. So, Dane Lendra now knew his daughter was engaged. It was obvious by Kess's suffering that the man did not take the news well.

Her voice squeaked. "Why does my father hate me so much?"

Luke pressed his mouth and held her harder. He wanted to say something consoling, but nothing seemed right, so he tried to crack a joke instead. "Want me to see if I can get my father to beat some sense into him?"

Kess's faces exploded reluctant laughter into his shoulder, and soon Luke was chuckling too.

"I'm sorry," she finally said, smiling up and sniffing hard, "I shouldn't complain."

"Hey," he shrugged it off, took her hand and led her away, "you've got it worse than me."

Her face grimaced comically, "How do you figure?"

"I never tried to have a relationship with mine," he pointed out as he switched on the bedroom light. "And I still got him to turn back somehow." He let her hand go only to sit down and start kicking off his boots. "You're doing everything you can to help yours and he still won't turn it around."

Standing numb, she shifted her eyes. "I never thought of it like that."

Luke sighed through his nose. "The doors are always open for your father. And he knows that. If he doesn't walk through them, that's his problem. And there's nothing you can do about that."

Kess accepted defeat and sat down on the foot of the bed next to him so she could take off her boots too.

"As for Nik," Luke murmured, "I'll train him when the time comes, but for now, let's just both work on nursing him back to sanity."

In seconds, they'd stripped all they were going to and crawled into bed. They cuddled close in their usual position, but this time Kess stared passed his neck to nothing beyond, worrying about Nik, Gina, Ben, and her dad. Luke stared passed her hair and beyond thinking about Leia, Breha, Chewie, and Han. And Wedge was struggling with survivor's guilt so much that he didn't have the guts to comm a girl. And Yana was suffering brain damage and would never speak again without a prosthetic.

There were so few family members left . . . and even those seemed to be falling apart at the seams.