Unknown Place

"Ben?"

"Uncle Luke!"

It was indeed Ben Solo, also known as Kylo Ren, clad in a practical blue shirt with darker blue pants. The beloved face of his lost nephew sported a delighted smile, and even the jagged scar above his eye seemed thinner and even cheerful.

What was going on?

"Ben?" Luke asked again, bewildered. "Where ... where have you taken me?"

Ben sighed and glanced around, "You are in a medical ward in the Theed Hospital on Naboo."

"Naboo?"

"Yes, you were hurt badly when the colonnades came down. You sustained a severe head injury."

Luke thought furiously. He was dead, after projecting himself across the galaxy to Crait and then collapsing from the exhaustion. No surprise there. No one could actually project themselves across the galaxy like that without dying. For that matter, it seemed startling that he'd done it at all. Who would have believed such a thing was possible? Except he had. Hadn't he? So was this the Force Afterlife? But if it was, why was Kylo Ren here, looking friendly and cheerful? Was it possible he wasn't ...?

"Uncle Luke?" Ben's face was serious now. "How much do you remember about the attack at the palace in Theed?"

Luke Skywalker had been through a many a challenging experience in his life including being captured, shot at, losing a limb by parental lightsaber, being electrocuted by Force Lightning, and sitting for hours on end in extremely dull command meetings. He knew better than to take things at face value, especially when he had no memory at all and the Force was muddled and confused ...

"I don't remember anything," he replied hesitantly, his eyes focused on his nephew's face.

Ben Solo sighed and sat down on a chair across from his uncle's medical bed.

"I'm not surprised, Uncle Luke," he said, concern in his brown eyes. "You got hit very hard on the head, I'm afraid. Speaking of that, I need to get the doctor in here ... one of the machines seems to have stopped working suddenly."

Ben gestured with one hand and a holopad leaped into his hand. He typed a few commands into it and set it aside.

"What did you do on Crait, Ben?" Luke demanded suddenly, his eyes focused intently. Kylo Ren had never been a particularly restrained individual, and Luke doubted that Ben could conceal the truth of their last interaction. If indeed, they had interacted.

"Crait?" Ben asked, bewilderment spread across his face. "Er, that boring, lame salty planet near Naboo? I have never been there."

Luke stared back. The Force was definitely not cooperative right now, but the vague twitches from its energies indicated that Ben was speaking the truth. Which was very weird. Because he remembered the battle and he knew it was on Crait.

"So what happened here on Naboo?" he asked carefully.

Solo groaned aloud and shook his head, "Craziest thing, Uncle Luke. You and Mom landed to meet the current queen of Naboo. Do you remember that?"

"No."

The young man frowned at this, but continued determinedly, "Well, after much investigation, we determined that a very elderly Gungan by the name of Binks, who was in the welcoming party, had placed charges around the pillars holding up the roof over the courtyard. He set them off just as Mom and you stepped under them."

Terror filled across Luke's mind. Leia! He reached out toward his twin, fumbling, desperate.

"Mom's Ok!" Ben cried out. "She's fine! She had to rush off to a diplomatic function on Tatooine, of all places, but I'm sure she'll head back when she hears you are awake."

Luke relaxed slightly. Ben's words were reassuring, and he also felt the bond between Leia and himself pulse with power and joy. Yes, his precious twin was all right.

"So, Binks?" he asked curiously.

"Yeah," Ben replied, running a hand through his overlong hair. "He was like super ancient for a Gungan. He knew Grandma Padme, apparently. Why in all the galaxies he attacked you and Mom is unknown, though they are trying to figure it out."

"He was a Dark Sider," a new voice stated from the corner.

Jedi Master and nephew turned toward the corner, their faces suddenly lit with excitement. Ben Solo leaped to his feet and Luke sat up, then wilted as a wave of dizziness hit him.

"Father?"

"Grandfather!"

Ben Solo, even at nearly 30, was an exuberant soul, and it showed as he rushed forward to greet his long dead grandfather.

"Grandfather Anakin, where have you been? I've been hoping you'd show up for weeks!" he stated, reaching out a hand and then withdrawing it in some embarrassment. Anakin Skywalker was a ghost, so trying to hug him was silly.

(How, Luke wondered, had he been able to physically touch Leia on Crait when he was projecting himself across the galaxy, only to have Kylo Ren's lightsaber pass through him? It made no sense!)

"Sorry, Kid," Anakin said with a grin. "I'm more closely bonded to Luke and while he was unconscious, I just couldn't whistle up enough Force energy to appear. But now that my dear son is finally awake ..."

"How long have I been asleep?"

"9 weeks," Ben said absently.

"What!" Luke demanded in horror. He ran a quick, shaking hand over his face. So that was why his beard was so long and scruffy!

"So ... Binks?" Ben continued with obvious rampant curiosity.

"Jar Jar Binks," Anakin clarified. "Your grandmother Padme and I both knew him a long time ago. Total, complete moron as far as anyone could tell. He talked like an idiot, was incredibly clumsy and shockingly incompetent."

"Except that none of us knew the true Binks," a new voice stated, even as another blueish form appeared at Anakin's side. "It turns out that under that open, rampant stupidity hid a desperate Force Sensitive individual who was under the power of Darth Sidious himself."

"Hey, Obi-Wan," Luke said rather weakly. This was turning out to be quite the party.

"Hello, Master Kenobi," Ben greeted the old ghost with a slight bow, then continued in a puzzled way. "Darth Sidious?"

"Palpatine," his uncle replied quickly. "Your mother and I always refer to the former Emperor as Palpatine, but his cool Sith name was Darth Sidious."

"Ah."

"So Jar Jar Binks was a Sith apprentice?" Luke continued incredulously. "That's impossible! I thought that there could only be the master and apprentice and regrettably, Father was the apprentice for 20+ odd years."

"Not a Sith apprentice, no," Kenobi said patiently. "We're unraveling things here in the Force Afterlife and we don't know all the details yet, but Binks must have been a strong Force Sensitive whose intellectual limitations made him unable to use the Force deliberately. Sidious apparently recruited him long ago, probably using him as a sleeper spy on Padme Amidala and the other senators. And then he subsided into his usual stupidity for 60 years, only to awaken now for unknown reasons. Anakin and I are still working on that side of things. We want to make sure there aren't other idiots out there ready to be triggered."

"Are you sure we were the target?" Luke asked softly.

"I'm afraid so," Ben said sadly. "He died when the roof collapsed on him, but his quarters had hidden compartments filled with holos of you and Mom, and lots of weird, vindictive ... like, poetry or something?"

"Something, I would say," Anakin said with a sad shake of his head. "Jar Jar couldn't even speak clearly, and many people found it very annoying, but his poetry was complete nonsense and likely would fall within the rules laid out in the Coruscantian Treaty on torture. But whatever."

Luke gazed around for a long moment, then managed to sit up slightly, "So, let me get this straight. I've been unconscious for 9 weeks."

"Yes," the other three said in a chorus.

"After being knocked unconscious by a roof near the palace in Theed."

"Yes."

"And Ben, you didn't turn to the Dark Side."

"What?" his nephew yelped in astonished indignation. "Of course not! I'm a bestselling author, not a psychopath."

(Author ... author. That sparked a vague memory in Luke's mind, but he didn't bother focusing on it.)

Instead he heaved a gigantic sigh of relief even as he shook his head incredulously, "I just had the most peculiar nightmare."

Author Note: Ha ha ha ha ha! (Evil laugh.)