Luke and Wedge sat on a bench on a lightly visited upper level of Coruscant, halfway between Leia's apartment and Wedge's. Luke was enjoying the quiet and the night air, and could tell Wedge was feeling more relaxed too. Earlier in the day, the Bothan delegation had held a memorial service for one of Wedge's pilots, Asyr Sey'lar, who had died early in their most recent mission, and the delegation invited Wedge to speak. All of Rogue Squadron had been there, spread out among the audience, and Luke had stood in the back with Leia and Winter. Afterward, Wedge had joined Luke for dinner at Han and Leia's apartment and got to meet their six-month-old twins, Jacen and Jaina. They were taking their time walking back to Wedge's apartment.
"I heard," Wedge said, "that you ended up having to fight that Jedi you were looking for."
Luke shrugged. "Yeah. He wasn't quite all there. Just as well I guess." He threw Wedge a wry look. "But I am back so you can say 'I told you so'," he said.
Wedge shook his head. "I'm sorry Luke. I know you wanted that to work out."
"You turned out to be right about that being a setup though," Luke said. "As usual, you have a far better track record for being right than me."
"At least it didn't get any weirder," Wedge said.
Luke grimaced. "Well, apparently someone found my severed hand at Bespin, made a clone of me, and I had to fight that too," Luke said.
Wedge's jaw dropped as he gave Luke a slightly horrified look. "You're not allowed out anymore," he said.
Luke raised an eyebrow. "You've been officially dead for the last two months because of some Imperial intelligence agent you thought you killed two years ago," Luke said. "If I'm not allowed out, neither are you."
"Good, we can hang out more."
"Done."
Wedge laughed. "Actually, one of the reasons I'm not that unhappy about being pulled up to general staff is that I might actually get to see you and Han and Leia more than once a year."
Luke smiled. "That would be nice. They pulled you up fast. How did the rest of the squadron take it?"
"Oh, about like you'd expect," Wedge said. "I mean, we knew it was coming, Tycho taking command. Just not that fast. They were sitting, trying to absorb it, when Wes leans over to look at Tycho and says, 'I'm still not calling you Sir'. Tycho whips around and says, 'Good. If you did, I'd think there was something wrong with you.' Everyone in the room lost it."
Luke laughed. "Sounds like everyone is glad to have Wes back," he said.
"Oh yeah," Wedge said. "That was…" Wedge looked at his hands. "That hurt." He looked at Luke. "You know, there are days you just want to strangle him - not you, you think he's funny anyway." Luke grinned. "But then there was that gap, where some weirdo comment of his ought to have been, and then it wasn't… And you realize how much you miss it…
"I even wrote him a condolence letter," Wedge said. "Not to give to anyone - Hobbie was having a hard enough time as it was - but it deserved to be part of the official record." Wedge grinned. "I did end up showing it to Wes though, because we had to pull it back out of his record. I told him not to let it go to his head."
Luke laughed. "Wes is special."
"The running joke for the past few days," Wedge said, "was that Wes got the better end of the deal anyway because he got to hang out with you for the past two months."
"I'm sure he would have preferred not thinking you all were dead for a month," Luke said.
"Yeah," Wedge said.
"And I'm sure you would have preferred not thinking he was dead for two months," Luke added.
"Yeah…" Wedge looked at Luke. "He felt bad he didn't fully believe you that we were alive."
"Well, it's not like I could prove it," Luke said. "I just told him what I knew." Luke watched Wedge shift slightly in his seat, and caught a bit of...embarrassment? Self-consciousness? "I heard," Luke said, "that you kept making Wes repeat what I said."
"Well, yeah, you know…" Wedge shifted in his seat again. "One more time?" he said, looking at Luke.
Luke smiled a bit. "I didn't really say that much," he said. "Just that I knew for certain that you were alive, and while I couldn't be as certain about Tycho and Hobbie, I figured since you were alive, at least some of the rest of the squadron probably was too. I told Winter the same thing."
"Hmm." Wedge nodded slightly. He turned, his mouth open, and then closed it. Wedge frowned a bit.
"You want to know how I knew," Luke said.
"Yeah... I did wonder, when we were out there, if you knew..."
Luke thought for a moment. Explaining the Force was always such a challenge. It wasn't like he knew the mechanics of how the Force worked. It wasn't physics. "So, everyone has a unique presence in the Force," Luke said, "like a ripple...or a fingerprint. Some are just...bigger than others." Wedge looked at him, clearly anticipating more of an answer. "It's like -" Luke looked out across the Coruscant night skyline "- it's like -" and he had an epiphany. He put his hand on Wedge's shoulder. "It's like stargazing," he said.
"Stargazing?" Wedge asked.
"Yeah," Luke said. "You know when you stargaze, what you can see depends on how far away you are, how powerful the telescope is, and the intrinsic brightness of whatever it is you're looking at, right?"
"Sure," Wedge said.
"So this is the same," Luke said. "Distance is distance. It's usually easier for me to sense things that are closer than things that are farther away." Wedge nodded. "And it's not the power of the telescope, but it's me. Or rather, it's how powerful or sensitive I am to the Force. And it's not exactly intrinsic brightness, but, it's you. Well, not you. Well, not just you. It's, it's -" and suddenly Luke found himself a little bit embarrassed. He absently moved his hand between the two of them.
"Us?" Wedge said.
"Yeah," Luke said. "It's...how well I know you and...our friendship and...yeah." Luke stopped, hoping that made sense. Wedge looked out at the night skyline, nodding slowly. Luke could feel an intricate bundle of emotions flowing out from him. Happiness…? Humility…? Gratefulness…? Peace.
Wedge looked back at him and smiled. "I like that," he said.
Luke smiled. The Force didn't always make sense. And while there were moments Luke wished he'd never heard of it, the moments he could most feel his friends' happiness were the best of his life.