Luke Skywalker often woke before the sun rose. Especially when he had the luxury of going to bed early, his eyes would open of their own accord during the cooler morning hours. Even on Coruscant, a world with weather as artificial as everything else, there was a deweyness to certain early mornings that he could sometimes even smell, and that sensation stoked instincts in him that dated back to childhood. The need to rise, to tinker with machinery, to make sure the morning harvest was as prosperous as it could be. On Coruscant there was no harvest, but that didn't mean he couldn't set up the caf-maker in the small kitchen that he and Mara shared in their suite in the consulate so that when she woke—which would occur far later, and with far more aggravated grumpiness—he could have her caf waiting for her.

He was just sitting up when he realized that Mara wasn't laying beside him.

Her place on the bed had a slight indent and residual warmth, so she had been there. Clearly she had woken and been unable to fall back asleep. He reached out in the Force and found her… but her presence had receded from him, shrunk down into a tiny space, as if she was trying to hide from some Inquisitorial assassin. But he didn't feel any physical threat, there was no tingle at the back of his neck that presaged danger, and she didn't reach out through the Force to him to warn him of some imminent danger or nearby foe.

She felt distant and the emotions that he could feel from her were so tangled and knotted that they were hard to interpret. There was some anger in her mind, and at least some of that anger was directed at him. But more than anger was fear. Fear so deep and profound that even with her emotions withdrawn from the Force he could tell that Mara was not just fearful… she was terrified.

Seconds later, he found her on their couch. Her knees were tucked up against her chest, her chin resting against them and her arms wrapped around her shins. Her red-gold hair looked almost black in the predawn dark.

"What's wrong?" he demanded. "Mara, what is it?" He reached out to her with the Force as much as he did with his words and his hands, and even as he dropped to his knees beside the couch, his hand covering hers.

"Do you always think you have to rush in and save someone?" she asked. But her voice hitched midway through.

It was an old jibe and he ignored it as he studied her features and reached out with his heart. He found her locked down tighter than an Imperial excise vault. He had known her for years now… Especially during the last year they had spent as little time separated from one another as possible, growing together, transforming as individuals and as a couple. The only time he had ever seen her anywhere close to this scared had been before they had breached Mount Tantiss, when she had asked him—in all seriousness—to kill her rather than let her become a slave to Joruus C'baoth.

"Mara, talk to me."

He felt her reluctantly relax her defenses and stretch her hand out to take his. She grew in the Force before him, and he could feel the warmth of her mind, which clashed harshly with the coldness of her dread. But, he realized, it wasn't just anger and dread he felt from her now. Fragile hope stoked his own.

She turned his hand over in her grip, drawing strength from the warmth. Slowly she uncurled, putting her legs back under her. "Just… feel this," she said softly. "Use the Force, you tell me what has happened."

He arched his eyebrows and frowned up at her.

She laid his hand over her abdomen. "Don't argue," she instructed. "Please. Just do it. I want an unbiased second opinion."

Confused and baffled, he obeyed. He stretched out with his feelings, probing Mara, looking for a wound, preparing to offer her whatever comfort she needed, to assuage her fears, to help in any way—

He reared back almost as if he had been struck, surprise smashing over him. There, under his hand, inchoate and unformed, he felt potential, and his universe was forever changed.

Mara swallowed, sounding hoarse. "This wasn't my idea. I know neither of us missed our repress meds… this isn't the right time, we have so much to do…" Her tone was full of sorrow, almost plaintive. "I'm not ready for this, Luke."

He took both her hands in his, feeling the crashing wave of all his half-formed hopes lap across them. He tried furiously to let himself think before he spoke. In the end, as he usually did, Luke spoke from the heart. "You're not alone, Mara. I'm not ready for this either. But we have each other, and I know you. I know how deeply you can love."

"What about how deeply I can hate?" Mara shot back bitterly. "I've never had… We've never planned…"

This time Luke thought before he spoke. "If this is what we want, I know you'll be a great mother."

The reality of the words crashed over him even as he spoke them. Mara. A mother. Of his child. Of their child.

In a moment, the bastions and walls blew away and their connection as it always had been, open and warm and pulsing with love. Together the two of them fell into the future. Mara, holding a child, looking into a face that was part of each of them, and still entirely their own. Luke hadn't let himself imagine it—he'd barely been willing to broach the topic of marriage with Mara, much less children—but he'd dreamed about it and he knew that Mara had as well, though Mara's dreams always came with a deeper trepidation.

"This wasn't supposed to happen," Mara whispered.

"Repress meds aren't perfect," Luke pointed out.

Her nose wrinkled. "They're not," she agreed sourly. "And I suspect they don't work well at all right after Dathomiri witch fertility rituals." She shook her head. "I've been thinking about nothing else for the last hour, and that has to be it." She started to rise. "I should go kick Kirana Ti's—"

Luke took her wrist in his hand and Mara sighed and sank back down onto the couch without resistance. Then he realized that Mara was staring at him. "You want this. You're glad," she accused him.

She was right. He was. He did. Even as he felt Mara's fear, and even her terror, echoed within himself, they were matched and surpassed by his sudden, towering joy. The abrupt, total commitment to the potential that Mara carried, the unborn life, the child that would be—a commitment that, whatever Mara's anxieties, he could feel matched with her typical ferocious vigor.

"I am," he admitted. "I'm so glad. Mara, will—"

"Luke Skywalker," Mara cut him off before he could get out another syllable, "if you're about to offer me a slugthrower wedding, I swear I'll kill you with one."

He was pretty sure she was joking.

She didn't look like she was joking.

"—we should tell Leia and Han," he finished instead.

"No, absolutely not," Mara said. "Do you know how many people live in their household? Or how many times a day they have to sweep that apartment for bugs? The last thing we need is sludgenews finding out about this! Nobody finds out about this. Nobody." She prodded him hard in the chest. "And don't you dare try to tell me to take it easy. Leia didn't let Han tell her to take it easy, and Mirax hasn't let Corran, and I'm not about to—"

It was his turn to interrupt her, though he didn't do it with words. His lips met hers and he kissed her with all the love and confidence he had. In her. In them. In his family. In the life they had led together these past years, in the life they would lead together—together with the rest of their family—for the rest of their future.

"Together, Mara," he murmured against her lips.

Her arms were around his back, her eyes closed as their foreheads pressed together. "This kind of thing is how we got into this mess," she mumbled. He laughed with her and felt as her fear finally subsided into something that let her share in his joy, and his joy became their joy, and they would figure it out. They would always figure it out. Together.

Now, though, he had to deal with something else, because that sensation was definitely a concerned Leia, probing him through the Force.

Mara sighed and resignedly rested her head against his shoulder. "Why can't you keep a secret for more than five minutes, Farmboy?"

"Since I can't keep a secret anyway," he whispered against her hair, "can we tell Artoo?"

He could practically feel the small, amused smile form on her lips.

Leia was profoundly grateful to have Han back, even just for a few days. His reluctant decision to accompany Wedge on the Corellian campaign had pulled him out of their home and back into military life, something Han had fought for most of his life to get away from. Han's time as a General after Endor had often done that too, but then Leia herself had usually been away also, fighting one diplomatic battle after another, trying to keep the nascent New Republic from spinning completely apart. Now she was well established on Coruscant, in a role that required her to stay on world as much as possible—there was no way for a member of the government's Inner Council to be absent for more than a few days as a time—and though Han had merely moved to temporary quarters on Lusankya, which hadn't even left orbit yet, the distance between them felt chasmic.

His chance to come home for a night, after dropping Captain Rogriss and Commander Dreyf off with the government, had been a precious one. Han had expelled Threepio from the kitchen with extreme prejudice—Leia just hoped he hadn't also deleted the droid's cooking subroutines, because if he had they were going to have to be reinstalled—and once more that had been his space.

The apartment only felt like home when Han was inside it.

She watched him, out cold and breathing softly, adorably next to her in their bed. She had tried to sleep herself, but a persistent sense of unease had nagged at her until a late-night update from General Cracken on her datapad had compelled her to rise from her attempts to sleep, and for the last half-hour she'd been reviewing a transcript of Cracken's interview with Rogriss and Dreyf. That had only fed her anxiety further—Grand Admiral Thrawn had created a secret reserve force in the Unknown Regions? It was everything she had had nightmares about for the last few years, right after cloned Emperors and new superweapons.

But perhaps even that was not as alarming as Leia would have assumed. The New Order had attacked both Pellaeon's forces and the New Republic, and done so with the same TIE Droids. The note that Rogriss carried, signed by Grand Moff Ferrouz, indicated a willingness to conclude a peace under the terms proposed by Grand Moff Kaine. It was clear that Cracken thought the request for peace—and for an alliance against the New Order—was genuine.

Ferrouz's note said that he and the Empire—once he was in control—would accept all of the demands Leia and the New Republic had made of Grand Moff Kaine: The recognition of the New Republic as an equal government. The end of all military operations against territories held by the New Republic. The end of slavery in the Outersector Outer, with verification by New Republic monitors. And, though this had not been a precise demand, even the restoration of the Imperial Senate as a democratically-elected governing body with genuine power to constrain the Grand Moff. Ferrouz's demands in return were more limited than Kaine's had been as well: while Ferrouz wanted amnesty for the men and women under his command, there would be no amnesty for senior officers, Moffs, or ISB agents who had sided against Ferrouz in battle.

The new Grand Moff proposed to eliminate his rivals for power and satisfy the New Republic's desire for justice with the same sure stroke.

If Ferrouz had a personal history of atrocities, it would never have worked. Kaine's proposal for peace might never have gotten over the fact that it came from Kaine, who had been a founding member of both COMPNOR and ISB. Ferrouz, by contrast, had been far from the center of Imperial power, a regional Moff of a well-governed sector with a large, prosperous alien population.

Leia wasn't sure that would be enough for the Inner Council, much less for the Senate at large. She suspected, ultimately, that whether those terms were acceptable would come down to Councilor Kerrithrarr's reaction to them; the Wookiees, as one of the species who had suffered the most under the Empire, carried a lot of weight in such things. But Leia could now see a path forward to peace, and—

She sat up straight, looking away from her notes, her brow furrowing. That was Luke! Through the Force she could feel his sudden alarm, and she reached out with the Force to him. Had something gone wrong with the artifact he and Mara had secured on Nar Shaddaa?

But Luke's alarm wasn't the kind that came during battle. It lacked the acuteness of danger and was more… intensely personal. Was he having a fight with Mara? The two of them hadn't had any major disagreements that Leia knew about and always seemed perfectly at home together, but Mara was… Mara… and Luke could be incredibly stubborn…

Alarm transformed into stunned surprise, surprise so profound that Leia could feel it through the Force even across the great distances between the Senatorial Skyhook in low orbit and the Jedi Consulate on the ground. And then his surprise shifted into a towering joy, married to concerns and anxiety but always with a steady heart of happiness.

Leia blinked. Had Mara just asked him to marry her? Mara had batted away those questions like an angry pitten with a tether-ball, but Leia supposed it was possible. Leia never had any doubt that Mara loved her brother, so maybe now that Mara was established as a Jedi and they'd dealt with the threat on Nar Shaddaa she had decided it was the right time to ask. Or maybe she'd just gotten tired of Leia and Han subtly (or not so subtly) asking. That would explain what she currently felt from Luke.

Maybe this was all for the good, but it was hard to be sure. Concentrating, Leia reached out to him with the Force, extending her mind across the great distances between them. This took exertion, but they had always had an attunement to one another, and she probed him lightly, sure that he could feel her. In response, she felt Luke's dazed acknowledgement, and his return of reassurance. It's all right, his voice almost whispered in her mind.

What is it? she tried to send.

Luke had no words in reply. She could tell, in fact, that he was trying not to reveal exactly what had happened. But his emotions were written in the Force all around him, and abruptly Leia knew exactly what it was that had happened. She had, after all, once before felt almost exactly the same… when she found out she would have twins.

Oh, my stars, she thought, feeling suddenly dizzy. Mara is pregnant.

She sat heavily on the bed, next to where her husband slept, and covered her mouth with her hands, stifling her giggle. Mara is pregnant! She swatted at her husband's chest with sudden, playful enthusiasm.

No result.

She poked him, gently, just under his floating ribs while rubbing the tip of his nose with a single finger, a perfect execution of the 'Mission-Critical-it's-Leia-Get-Up-Now' maneuver.

"Nbwa-? What? Huh? Leia?" Han's drowsy voice came as he groped around, reaching for the side table where he kept his blaster locked away. "What is it? Is everything okay? Is the Empire attacking again?"

Leia's amusement had taken her from giggle to full on guffaw. The sound brought Han around to stare at her. "Leia?" he asked, his tone suggesting sudden speculation that she had been dipping into their liquor cabinet.

She bit her lip. "You should get started on breakfast," she said. "Luke and Mara are coming."

"Here? Now?" Han looked at his chrono. "Leia, it's barely morning. Why would they be coming here? What happened?"

She shook her head, unable to hide her bursting smile. "I can't tell you. Luke needs to."

Han rolled his eyes. "If they're coming over at oh-four-hundred just to tell us they're getting married, I'm gonna kick the kid's ass. It's not like it would be a surprise. That could wait until actual breakfast!"

"Just cook, will you?" She said, and then shook her head with mulish stubbornness, at a plaintive look from her sleepy husband, her grin peeked through her facade of resolve. "I'm not telling."

Han stared at her, then shook his head in bafflement. "Unbelievable. You're lucky you look so good in that robe, Your Worshipfulness," Her husband grumbled.

"No you're lucky I look so good in this robe, laserbrain," Leia shot back.

"Well, yeah. I am."

The phrase Aunt Leia, Aunt Leia, Aunt Leia, might have been racing around her head and her heart, but her husband's lopsided grin was still enough to leave her weak at the knees.

Luke and Mara were later in arriving than Leia had expected, at a time more reasonable for breakfast. The trip between the Jedi Consulate and the Senatorial Skyhook was far longer than the distance between their old apartments in the Imperial Palace, and clearly Luke and Mara had not been in a huge hurry to arrive—and especially did not want to arrive at a time so early it would be disruptive to the Solo household morning routine.

The joke was on them, though. Once they had kids, they'd know that in truth there was no such thing as a reliable routine. Every day was its own adventure.

With Chewbacca back to help look after Jacen and Jaina while Han was with Fifth Fleet, it was less exciting that morning than it was most. Once they were up and moving, Threepio had been charged with looking after the kids (and more importantly, keeping them well away, as the last thing Leia wanted was for them to start pestering Mara with questions about a prospective cousin), which meant that it could be just Luke, Han, Leia, and Mara.

Leia had Winter cancel everything in her planner for the morning, something which had astonished Winter. Leia Organa? Canceling all her work plans? But she had simply nodded, wielded her stylus with the florid flair of a Shadow Guard with a stiletto, and then headed into the office to tend to the duties that she could do without Leia's help—which was most of them, Leia thought. The most important meeting was the one with Asori Rogriss and the Inner Council, but that wasn't scheduled until lunch, which gave Leia some time.

She made sure the caf on the table was the spiced blend that Mara had once said she liked, and then panicked and poured three kinds of non-caffeinated Alderaanian tea. It was expensive, and normally something Leia just kept in her office for dignitaries, but…

Now she, Han, and Chewbacca waited at their kitchen table with bated breath. Han was grumpy and, unlike Leia, he still hadn't quite figured out what this was all about. Leia kind of suspected that Chewbacca had guessed—there was something almost smug about the way he moved, and the Wookiee hadn't stopped grinning since he'd been awakened by Leia and Han's preparations and been told that Luke and Mara were coming.

The chime at the door brought Leia lunging towards it, then stopping and sliding her hands down over her clothes to remove any wrinkles the excited movement had brought.

Han's expression was baffled. "What is this? You're acting like you've never seen your brother and Red before." He pulled the door open and, with a theatrical wave of his arm, invited the pair in. "Welcome back!"

"Thanks, Han," Luke said with a smile.

Mara stepped in after him, removing her jacket. She looked distinctly uncomfortable, which was most unlike her—even when Mara was uncomfortable, she could feign comfort quite well.

Leia and Mara locked gazes, and in Mara's eyes, Leia could see the other woman's disorientation. Her world had just been spun on its axis, her expectations and certainties shifted, and her future changed. Leia sympathized, but Leia and Han had chosen, quite deliberately, to start trying to have children. They had not been a surprise. That was not the case, she knew, for Luke and Mara.

Conscious of the fact that she had herself been beyond irritated at Han and Winter and Threepio's attempts to treat her tenderly during her own pregnancy, she stepped close and took Mara's jacket, hanging it on the nearby coat rack. "Are you okay?" she asked Mara quietly.

Mara nodded tightly, a wordless affirmation.

"I have breakfast on the table, so why don't we all sit down and eat while we can," Han said. "Before Leia and I have to get to the Council meeting with Captain Rogriss and Wedge."

"That's a good idea," Luke agreed. He came close, patting Leia's back. He went to guide Mara to the kitchen, but her sudden determined glower made him back off. She headed towards the kitchen at a brisk pace; the others followed behind.

"So what's this all about?" Han asked Luke, leaning towards him and keeping his voice pitched low. "Leia's been acting weird all morning. I'm not sure she's gotten much sleep."

"Let's eat," Luke said instead of answering.

Chewbacca thwacked Luke's back with a gigantic paw, roaring a welcome.

"Congratulations?" Han asked. "Wait, is that what this is about? Are you getting married?"

Luke squirmed. "Well, no—"

"Well, then…" Han's eyes suddenly went very, very wide, and a knowing grin started to develop on his face. "Oh don't tell me…."

Luke and Mara were standing next to each other now, looking at one another as if sharing some silent, private conversation. Mara sagged and nodded reluctantly, briefly allowing her head to rest against Luke's shoulder. Luke put his arm around Mara's back. "Yes," he admitted shyly. "Mara's pregnant."

Surprise gave way to hugs. Mara and Luke got swept into Chewbacca's massive arms together and were squeezed against the Wookiee's massive, furry chest as Chewie yowled a fervent congratulations. Han batted him away so he could get his own hug in, and found himself ensnared by the Wookiee capturing all three of them at once, an image that Leia promised herself she'd never forget.

Eventually, she had her brother to herself, and she threw her arms around him. "How did this happen?" she asked quietly, a whisper in the hug.

Luke reddened. "Dathomir. The witches were using the Force as part of their planting season rituals and… I didn't realize the potential implications."

She hugged him tighter. He was surprised but joyously happy, as she would have expected. Then she found herself embracing Mara instead, as Han pulled Luke out of her embrace. Unlike Luke, Mara's emotions were not so easy to read. Instead of trying to ferret out Mara's true feelings with the Force, Leia just wrapped her future-sister-in-law (whatever Luke and Mara said, Leia had no doubts) in a hug that would make a wookiee proud. "Congratulations," she whispered.

Over the cacophony that was Artoo excitedly beeping away at Threepio, Leia took a quick breath and the two women paused to listen in.

"A secret? Why I never."

Artoo responded with a blat and a series of scolding whistles.

"Oh do go ahead and tell me, you misfiring bucket of bolts. Yes, of course I promise. No, you don't have to reprogram me! I can too keep a secret!" There was a pause, and they could vaguely hear Artoo's whistles, pitched low. "Mistress Mara is what? Well, at least we still have all the baby things. I shall have to paint a bassinet black I suppose."

Mara started to laugh and actually hugged Leia back, but only after being silent for many seconds. "I have no idea what to do," Mara admitted, her voice thick with uncertainty Leia had only rarely encountered from her.

"That's okay," Leia promised. "That's okay. I'll help, I promise."

Roganda's surveillance of the Jedi Consulate was scheduled to last another week at least, but the droid she'd designated as her aide sent her a message in the middle of the night. Using a Force technique to rid herself of bleary fatigue, she read the message.

SKYWALKER AND JADE DEPARTING CONSULATE.

And with that, she was wide awake. The difficulty was always going to be breaching the Consulate with the two of them there. Skywalker had killed the Emperor and Jade had been a Hand; that made them the only two real threats to her. With them removed, all she would have to deal with was Skywalker's untrained Padawans, and that was something she could do. "How long will they be gone?"

UNKNOWN.

She put her trust in provenance. "Prepare for the assault," she ordered. "Pattern Delta-Aurek, preload variations Five through Eleven. Send the initiation command to the Palace main computer."

ACKNOWLEDGED MISTRESS ROGANDA.

Kirana Ti swung her spear through a series of ritualistic combat forms. A traditional Dathomiri warrior exercise, it was meant to be practiced in the forest, surrounded by nature… not in a building, surrounded by… buildings. The Jedi Consulate had plenty of plants and even a few animals, especially in the large central spaces, that were tended to by droids, and they made her feel a bit more comfortable, but it was not the same. Still, it was best performed at first light, and while that meant something different on Coruscant where even the darkest night featured plenty of artificial light, it was first light.

Nearby, Streen performed his daily morning meditations, sitting by one of the windows and looking out over the city. She felt him watching her before she noticed it. He gestured at the sitting cushion next to him. "Care to join me?"

Somewhat reluctantly, she set her spear down, and sat cross-legged on the cushion. She had tried this style of meditation, but its stillness and passivity did not come easily to her. The Force, as the witches of Dathomir used it, was more tangible, more knowable, and more predictable than in the practices of the Jedi. Theirs was a more esoteric tradition.

"How many people live on your world, Kirana Ti?" he asked her curiously.

She shrugged, counting the number of tribes she knew of and estimating it. "A few thousand, maybe?"

"A few thousand," Streen said. His hair was brown, streaked with gray, and he had a deeply lined face from many years of exposure to the sun and wind. "Where I am from, there were a few million. Here—" he gestured out at the cityscape "—more than a trillion. Can you feel them all?"

Kirana Ti's lips pressed together. The learning had been a persistent frustration in the short time she had trained as a Jedi. She could feel strong emotions, even a child could do that, but more than that…

"When I was young," Streen murmured, "Everything was always so loud. I traveled into the clouds of Bespin, looking for quiet, and I found peace and riches. Some of the other prospectors would talk of how their intuition would lead them to the right place to find Tibanna, so I started letting mine lead me. Soon, I was finding Tibanna reserves even before the machinery searching for it did… reaching the places it would be, before it was there."

Kirana Ti did not understand, but Streen spoke with such quiet fervency that she leaned closer and listened closely all the same.

"I learned, over time, that I was more successful when I was calm," Streen added. "Clear-minded. Well-fed. Rested. And serene." He sighed. "And then, I realized I was starting to feel other things too: I could feel the people around me. Know they were there. It became harder to be clear-minded because my mind was not alone. I could feel emotions, good and bad, and it was impossible for me not to feel them. Then, when the Empire took Cloud City, everything got much worse. The people were agitated, their thoughts full of chaos. Noisy and ugly." He shook his head bitterly. "I had to be alone."

Such was known on Dathomir, too, Kirana Ti thought. She remembered the sisters who had chosen to live alone, without husbands. Many of them had fallen and become Nightsisters, but others still lived apart. Many others, those most sensitive, learned with time to dull their senses, so as to not be overwhelmed.

"Piloting massive barges of explosive gas through lightning storms above Bespin is much more relaxing than listening to people on Coruscant. Even if Mara taught me how to control how much I feel," Streen continued with a smile. "And Luke taught me that this empathy was a blessing, not the curse I thought it to be. A Jedi acts on behalf of the Force, and the Force is life. One way the Force guides us is through the feelings of others. Their hopes and dreams and fears… if a Jedi is to be a true servant of life, we must understand these things." He offered her a wry, weathered smith. "And not be overwhelmed by them. Close your eyes."

"All right," she agreed curiously. She settled into a more comfortable sitting position and did so.

"Empty your mind," Streen encouraged. "Of all thoughts of self, of fear and desire. Feel all the minds of Coruscant, all the lives, the trillions. So many. Remember that the Force is created by all life, and that we are a part of the Force, and it of us. Let them guide you to where you need to be. Listen."

She tried, but she found none of the calm that Streen described. Instead, a gnawing anxiety chewed at her gut, one she couldn't put a name to. Her eyes popped open; she saw on Streen's face a similar expression to her own. "Maybe we should try again later," he suggested tiredly, pulling himself to his feet.

She popped up, grabbing her spear and strapping it to her back. "Perhaps we're hungry," she suggested with false cheer. She adjusted her armor, making sure it sat properly on her sinewy frame.

"I'm not yet Luke's equal as a teacher," Streen said with a self-deprecating smile, "but I'm not a bad cook."

Kirana Ti wasn't sure why, but she found herself hurrying Streen a bit, moving them both deeper into the building.

Barely ten seconds later the windowed alcove they had been sitting in exploded.

Author's Notes

Elements of Kathy Tyers's "Balance Point," including descriptions and dialogue, were repurposed to varying degrees in this chapter.