Outside the window of her apartment, speeder traffic flowed in a steady stream, several lanes above and below. No one could see in. The morning rush hour was done. Now, Leia imagined shoppers, errands, leisure.

Many levels down, a crowd of beings was respectfully observing rope barriers that kept them from blocking entrance to her building.

The natural lighting of the bright sunshine didn't match her mood, and she adjusted the window filter until the sitting room was bathed in a golden glow.

The apartment was quiet, except for the quiet murmur of a holoset and the ticking of the mantle chrono. She had seen that the apartment comm unit was turned off, but there hadn't been any calls to her personal comm either. Not since Han woke her up with the news; he was in the Adalvanta Sector, half a day ahead. He'd been gone for a week.

Despite the serenity of her surroundings she felt caged.

The silence could be read a certain way, and Leia wondered if it was that easy to abandon someone.

Luke wouldn't. He couldn't, and they had reached out a number of times through the Force to each other, but he had since grown quiet. Was he asleep? How could he sleep?

Leia had always thought it would come from her. Or Luke. He had the right too, but he hadn't seemed to care, really. She understood he left it to her.

She meant it to come from her. It was always at the back of her mind. She knew it had to come, but the timing never seemed right. Things were always good and she didn't want to ruin them.

Things were good, she heard herself say, glancing at the ticking mantle chrono, surrounded on either side by holos of Leia, Luke, Chewie, and Han.

Or things were bad and she didn't want to make them worse. But, now she thought about it, the bad things were caused by someone else, and surmountable.

Well, it was out now.

Her door chimed, and she heard C-3PO's metal feet shuffle across the tile floor to answer.

"Remember, 3PO, I'm busy," she called out to remind him. It felt odd to lie, odder to not be busy. Mon had told her not to come to the office. Leia had dressed for it anyway. She wore a high collared, palest pink blouse with jade stone buttons and a dark green fitted skirt, slitted to the knee, veins of turquoise marbling it. Her feet were still bare.

"Yes, Mistress Leia." His steps were silenced as they met the thick rug.

She had complained to Mon, "I don't wish to appear to fall prey to the hype. Or are you worried?"

"Of course I'm worried," Mon had answered tartly. "But not for the reasons you think. It's a madhouse here already, Leia. We'll talk later."

Control had been wrested from her, and she was agitated. Busy fretting, as Han had guessed over the comm.

She heard the door open, a murmuring voice, C-3PO exclaiming something.

Leia shook her head and looked down. He was going to admit the visitor. Grant entrance, when she specifically had-

"Is that any way to think of your brother?"

Leia turned, a half-smile already on her face. She left the window for Luke and gave him a hug. "You didn't tell me you were coming."

"We were Force-comming enough; figured it'd be better to be here. How are you holding up?"

He didn't have a bag, but he didn't need one. She and Han were always ready for Luke to visit. There was a room with a private 'fresher, and clothes in a bureau, and personal care items on the counter.

Leia looked to the window again. From this far she could only see straight out, but she remembered the crowd down below. "How did you get by all the holohounds? I didn't sense they were excited."

Luke waved it away. "Eh, they never recognize me."

Leia smiled fondly. His hair was much darker now than the publicity stills showed from after the Battle of Yavin. Gods, it came back to her all of a sudden. How young he was back then. She, too.

"Mysterious Jedi Master Skywalker," she said.

But he probably did something with the Force to cloud their recognition.

"That's me," he said cheerfully, and she smiled again, for underneath everything: the years, the anguish, the life, he had never really changed.

"Would you like something to drink?"

"I would," he answered, and walked to the window and stretched in front of the speeder traffic. "I don't know why, but space travel is so dehydrating."

Leia was looking in the cooler unit. She felt like a bad hostess. Not that she knew she'd be entertaining, but there wasn't even very much for her in there, and she lived here.

"I've got... wine? Water?"

"Water's good."

"I haven't been out," she explained to Luke in apology. "I'll call an order later for delivery."

"That's fine. I don't expect anything else from my sister." His grin was proud.

She arched a sardonic brow at him. "What, that I subsist on wine?"

"You're the mysterious Leia Organa Solo. You don't need fuel like the rest of us."

"Stop," she frowned at him. "I'm not mysterious." She handed him a glass and he drank several long gulps. He was thirsty.

When he had slaked his thirst, he asked, "Remember my first Force-comm?"

At the moment, Leia wasn't sure she was happy he was here. What was the point in talking about that? All it did was serve to remind her of the crowd downstairs, the commentary from the holoset. She didn't want a Jedi Master, she wanted her brother.

"Yes," she answered sullenly. "It was a call for help."

He nodded, eyes glazed in memory. "Leia, hear me. And you did."

"What made you think to do that anyway?"

She had never asked. She hadn't wanted to know. Oh, she suspected, but she didn't know why those suspicions sneaked in. They shouldn't have; they frightened her, and they didn't make sense.

Until they did.

He was grinning at her. "The thoughts of a desperate man."

"Because... you didn't know then, did you?"

"No." His laugh was a little bitter. "I knew- gods, I knew so little. The only thing I knew for certain was that I had heard Han before. I hoped maybe I could get you to hear me."

Leia nodded and moved to the sitting room. She wanted to compose her face. She didn't like remembering those times.

The conform chairs faced the window, and were angled to one another. Luke set his glass on a marble coaster on the table between them. He wiggled his body deep into the seat and sighed happily, leaning his head back with his eyes closed, and Leia waited patiently. When he opened them, his eyes glanced at the murmuring holoset.

"The other thing I knew," he said, turning his face so his blue eyes were directed at her, "was a truth that came from the one I thought was my enemy."

"Of course we know now it was the truth," she lifted her hand delicately from her lap, "but you didn't believe it then, did you?"

"Oh, I did," Luke was looking at nothing, just out the window. "That's why I didn't tell you then. I knew you wouldn't believe it."

His eyes returned to her. "Did you ever have something just settle in you, immediately, and you knew it was a truth."

"Twice," Leia answered, looking at her lap.

"You did?" He sounded surprised, both at her ready answer, and the number.

"When you said I was your sister-"

"Yeah, I loved your answer. I didn't know how you were going to take it."

"- and-"

"Han? When you told him you loved him?"

Leia shook her head. "I had to tell myself first before I told him. It was just like you said. All those feelings I had about him: good, and so many bad-"

Luke chuckled.

"- one label. Love. And it settled, yes, all over me. Like... like warmth."

"Oh, I didn't get that feeling. Mine settled as truth alright, but it was horror. The Jedi must have had a saying when the Temple was around. 'Search your feelings.' Ben said it to me once. Vader did then. I tell my students to let the truth settle."

Luke's small talk always had a point now, but Leia didn't feel like discovering it by herself.

"Is that what you came to tell me?" she asked. "'Been there, done that'?"

"Not quite." Luke wiped a bead of moisture from the outside of his glass and stared at it on the tip of his finger. "Just to show you I came through."

Leia nodded at her lap. "This truth is settled; at least I accept it. But I don't like it."

"It seems to have settled within the media," Luke commented.

"Yes."

"We just have to figure out what exactly that means. To us. How do you feel about it?"

"It's multi-layered, isn't it," Leia answered. "How I feel about the truth, and how I feel about them knowing the truth. I'm angry."

Luke nodded. "That's understandable. The thing about the truth is, not everyone needs it. And this was yours."

"Ours. You're right, what you say about truth. I can't see how this one benefits anyone."

"Clears up history, I suppose."

Leia's hands made fists in her lap. "I don't understand how it came out. The whole galaxy- well, it is now; but back then no one else knew."

"You're the first person I told. And that was years ago."

"A researcher, Luke," Leia groaned, and she lowered her head to her hands.

"I know. It was handled wrong. He should have come to us with it, instead of publishing it in a journal of historical artifacts or whatever it was."

"We are not artifacts, Luke. An artifact is something made by hand."

"We were made, anyway." He looked at her to see if she saw any humor at all. "No?"

"No." Leia shook her head.

"Oh, come on," Luke encouraged. "You've weathered so many things, Leia."

"I'm out of practice."

"Yeah, there's that. Peace does that to you, I guess." Luke grabbed his glass and lifted himself off the chair. "Think I'm ready for that wine now. You?"

"It's late morning!"

He laughed lightly. "I'm still on night-before time. Will you be making an appearance today?"

"No," Leia sighed.

"Then what the hell. When's Han coming in?"

"He said he'd leave today. As soon as he could get away."

"Then he'll come home and find us both drunk. Just like old times, right?"

He finally won a laugh from Leia.

When he returned to the sitting room he lifted his glass and touched hers. "To us."

"To us," Leia repeated and drank.

Luke swirled his wine glass. "Skywalkers," he said quietly, looking at the circling liquid.

"Luke," Leia breathed.

"The other part of what I told you, after you being my sister- was it a truth for you?"

Leia took a breath. "No, I don't think so. I felt..."

"Disgust," Luke interrupted.

"No-"

"Yeah, your face. You don't have to be polite."

He made her smile again. "Maybe. Or that horror that you felt. I didn't want it to be true."

"But it had to be, because you wanted me to be your brother."

"Yes."

"That's always been your conflict."

"I suppose."

They were quiet for a time. Their gazes were on the holoset. A human and a Duran were talking, and in the righthand corner, pictures flashed. Leia, Luke, Darth Vader, a man. With the volume low the man was anyone. Wavy, dark hair. Scarred. His eyes were arrogant.

"I have some crackers," Leia remembered, and she got up. When she returned with two sleeves of crackers arranged on a plate in a spiral, which was a memory from Alderaan, Luke had refilled their glasses.

"Have you talked to the researcher?" Luke asked.

"No. Why?"

"I dunno. Maybe ask for an explanation."

"How would that help?"

"I guess it wouldn't."

"Most certainly not," Leia snapped.

"I wonder what else he found out," Luke mused.

"I'll buy you the journal when it's in print," Leia said dryly.

"I'd like to read it," Luke said honestly. "And talk to him. Maybe there's other things. And maybe there's something, another bone, to throw at them," his chin lifted to indicate the holorhound crowd waiting one hundred and two stories below.

Leia arched a brow. "A lost triplet?"

Luke laughed. When he was through- he found it quite funny- he munched a cracker and sipped wine. "Han come up with a distraction yet?"

Leia was about to sip but lowered the glass before wine entered her mouth as she laughed. "Han?"

"Yeah. It's how he operates."

"Han is a distraction; he doesn't come up with them."

Luke chuckled. "True." He pretended to glance at his wrist chrono. "He should be arriving at the researcher's office any minute."

Leia laughed lightly.

"You're assuming the researcher is pro-Empire?" Luke asked.

"Aren't you?"

Luke shrugged and took another cracker. "I don't know. The Empire's been gone a few years now."

"For some reason there are those who'd like to see it return. That makes me angry, too."

"Yeah. But that's why you're a Senator. You work so it doesn't." Luke took a sip, thoughts back on the researcher. "He might be. He might want to damage our reputations."

"That's how Mon feels."

"Yeah? Or maybe he really is an archivist. That's what it's called; not artifact; I knew I'd come up with it. But maybe he's a true historian and he just found out something mind-blowing- which it is, apparently, judging by the reaction- and behaved like an archivist , and submitted it for publication to get renown in his field."

Leia was skeptical. "He's in this for himself?"

"He might be. Maybe he had no idea what something twenty-eight years old would mean to descendants, 'cause, you know, his head is in the past."

Leia took a cracker. "You're always generous and always seeing the upside of things."

"It's not a bad thing, Leia." He looked at her as if wounded, eyes drooping from wine.

"It's not," she reached over to pat his wrist. "I'm just shrewd. But you know... you've made it clearer for me. It's politics. Isn't it. I can say whatever, yea or nay, because it isn't really the truth they want; it's information and how to use it to serve their purposes."

Leia sipped wine and gazed at the mantle, memories and thoughts in her eyes. "I don't think there'll be much permanent damage. They'll always question it, use it to try and sway voters against me. It'll always be a bad taste, but I'll overcome. And even if I don't..." she fluttered a hand. "It's politics. But for you... what about your students? Your academy?"

"What about it?"

"Luke," Leia said impatiently. "He wasn't just a Jedi. He was one of the greatest, and then- to... to succumb to the dark side, and become the worst-"

Luke was serious. "I know."

"You may not have students when you get back. Their parents might pull them out, thinking they need to keep them safe-"

"They won't."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because. I didn't just up and leave, you know. I told them."

Leia's eyes widened and she leaned forward. "You told them?"

"I did."

Leia reached for her wine, seeking to quell a sudden nervousness. "You are not a politician, Luke."

Luke had wine tucked in his cheek. He swallowed. "Nope, never was. See, I think we're safe. That reputation stuff; that's just enemies trying to score a hit. I told them I only met him shortly before he died. That he never had a hand in raising me. But most importantly, I told them exactly what you just said: he went to the dark side."

"I said succumb."

"There's a difference between character and nature," Luke said serenely. "His nature wasn't evil. If you look at his history and his accomplishments, I think he started out truly wanting to make a difference. But his character was seriously flawed. He knew what he was doing, and he did it anyway."

"Hm," Leia said.

"It's true," Luke insisted. "Let the truth settle."

"Search my feelings?"

"Whichever."

Leia was quiet for a time. "Why do you think he did that?" She shuddered all of a sudden. "What do you think happened?"

Luke shook his head faintly, brows up. "I don't know. I can't justify it. There's nothing I can imagine, for me, that would make what he did a solution, you know?"

Leia shuddered again and gulped wine. She needed it to warm her from within.

"I can only theorize," Luke continued. "I think it must have had something to do with the Emperor. The Emperor was always on about having..." his brow crinkled as the memory had faded.

"An artifact?" Leia joked.

"No," Luke laughed. "A partner. But less. Not an equal. Apprentice, that's it. Vader called him Master."

"To want all that power the dark side would grant, but to call someone Master?"

Luke nodded. "Which means there's no power."

"Gods," Leia said. Realization and relief coursed through her body with the wine. "The failure of Darth Vader is settling like a truth in me."

"Good," Luke laughed. "That's what this mind-blowing piece of information ought to be for the galaxy. Instead they're lapping up the fact he had children like it's something important."

"Well, the children have risen to some prominence."

"We always were," Luke argued. "Even me, as a moisture farmer. I didn't know it at the time, so I wasn't."

Leia's thoughts were jumping. The wine, she knew. She was thinking about her childhood, and Luke. "I don't want this to detract from my parents."

"Of course," Luke said. "And what about our mother? I haven't heard everything yet, but have they mentioned with whom he had children?"

"No."

"See. She's lost to history. That's not fair."

"Hire the researcher," Leia said half-seriously, and changed the subject. "So if you've admitted it, then I will have to as well."

"Of course," Luke said. "Or you could deny that I told them anything. We could make it really messy. They'll go along. But you should. It's your truth. You were going to, weren't you?"

Leia nodded. "I was. Just wanted to go about it the right way."

"Careful and slow? Shrewd?" Luke smiled and refilled their glasses. "They're so focused on Vader right now they're barely focusing on who you and I are. And when they do, they'll see."

"Twins," Leia said. "Separated at birth by people who knew we would need protection from him."

Luke frowned. "What makes me angry is that those people, and I'm sorry Lei, but your father is one, weren't so much protecting two innocent babies as they were preventing the spread of the dark side of the Force."

"By my estimation," Leia had a different viewpoint, "my father did protect me. But he was a politician too." She raised her glass. "To politics."

Luke raised his. "To the Force. It can't be used in politics."

Leia sighed. "But that's what's happening." They were back to the beginning.

"I'll do a holoprogram with you if you think it'll help blow things over," Luke offered. "I'll even show them by prosthetic hand." He raised his gloved hand that held the wine glass.

"The Force has made you funny," Leia said.

"I wasn't before?"

"No, but now you are." She got up and opened her arms for a hug. "Are you hungry? I'll order something."

"I'm tipsy." Luke drained his glass and poured another. "That's funny, right?"

"Hilarious."

"Hey, I know. Let's watch the news. Every time we hear the name Skywalker we have to take a drink."

"You're on. And throw a cracker. I'll be right back; I want to get out of these clothes."

Outside, the sun's light was no longer harsh. The crowd below had grown. When the second rush hour grew heavy, Luke stood at the window and waved at stopped speeders, who couldn't see him. The sitting room was subdued in its own lighting, but easy noise came from the two, later sitting on the floor and drinking wine, backs against a sofa. C-3PO had been called in twice to vacuum cracker crumbs. A box of cereal lay tipped over on its side between them. Leia had forgotten to call for food and instead had comm'd Han to pick up something when he landed.

Leia was using the 'fresher when she heard Luke call her.

"Hey, Leia."

"Just a minute."

"Han's home."

"He is?" She rushed washing her hands and smiled into the reflector.

"Come look."

When Leia returned to the sitting room, Luke was standing, holding dry cereal in the palm of his hand. He pointed at the holoset. "Look."

Han, evidently, was at the building entrance. The holocameras showed him irritated and scowling.

"The news is telling me my husband is home," Leia announced with a giggle.

"No, I told you."

"And you learned it from the news."

Luke tossed cereal at the holoset. "So I did." He leaned forward, peering. "Is he carrying anything?"

"Gods," Leia admitted lustily, "I'm so glad he's back."

"He forgot food." Luke spoke to the holoset. "Louder," he commanded.

The volume remained at its current setting. "You have it on voice recognition? How do you louder it?"

Leia tsked. "Louder," she told the holoset.

They heard shouts from the reporters, "General Solo, General Solo!" but that's all they could make out. Han was trying to shoulder his way through the pressing crowd. Leia's heart swelled. He looked fantastic, dark and irritable and handsome.

A beautiful distraction.

"Huh?" Luke said.

"Oh, sorry," Leia didn't realize she had said that out loud, or maybe thought it loudly with the Force.

"-bombshell revelation?" was the tail end of a question.

On the holoset, they say Han stop. "You know," he spoke slowly, "I've always known there's stupid beings in the galaxy." He waited a couple of beats, still trying to move forward. "Just didn't know how many. And you're all stupid. Go home."

The building security manager apparently was there to help, for suddenly, Han breezed away.

"He's in," Luke celebrated.

When Han stepped into the foyer of his home, pushing C-3PO away from helping with his coat, he blinked at Luke and Leia grinning stupidly at him from the sitting room, the holoset blaring and two pieces of cereal in his wife's hair.

A slow smile spread on his face. "Kriff," he cursed lightly at them, "Didn't I tell you two years ago?"