"I trust the archives were equal your needs," Queen Archana said, spearing a delicate bite of fish on her fork.
Luke replied with a politely incredulous laugh, doing the same. "They exceeded them," he admitted. "It would take more than just one morning to go through it all. I wonder if we might commission some copies to take home with us."
The queen seemed pleased by the request. "How could we refuse?" She gestured toward the wings of the room, and a handmaiden turned to leave on her errand. "Arrangements will be made."
As royal luncheons went, Mara observed, it was a relatively informal affair, hosted in Archana's private quarters away from prying eyes. She was admiring the strength of the queen's cosmetics, apparently unaffected by the meal. Pooja had been included in the invitation, and she sat across the table between Darred and Ruwee, much the same way Ben had been seated between his parents. The Naboo apparently knew how to contain the less charming antics of young boys in settings like that.
On the other hand, the discipline seemed to break down where the royal pets were concerned. A small colony of voorpaks had the run of the place, little purring balls of brown or gray fluff that would climb up their chairs and even onto the table, occasionally standing up on eight laughably thin legs to solicit food. Two handmaidens lingered on either side of the table to discreetly remove the worst offenders, but otherwise no one acknowledged them. Mara would have been more annoyed if the creatures were actually inconveniencing her, but it wasn't too bad. Their vocalizations had a soothing effect, and they smelled surprisingly pleasant, which all housepets should if they could possibly help it. Luke had embraced the status quo without question, giving no indication that he was even aware of the purring lump perched on his shoulder, or of the other three nestled in his lap.
Jacen would have loved it, Mara thought. Or he would have, before he had started growing beyond all those charming personality quirks that had made him a relatable human being. A problem for another day.
"I'll admit, it's been a little disconcerting to realize how closely Emperor Palpatine was involved in much of the history."
"Ah, yes," Archana agreed in a dry voice, "Palpatine. Once a point of cultural pride, and now a decidedly more inconvenient figure. The people of Theed have been at pains to expunge that shame from public view for thirty years. Your discoveries, Your Grace, have not simply resuscitated but reinvigorated our national pride. We are more than happy to claim you and former Chief of State Organa Solo as cultural archetypes in his place, and demands for public expressions of that sentiment have besieged me." She smiled, and gestured to another handmaiden. "Please show our guests the plans I approved this morning."
Luke had stopped chewing for a moment, the only outward sign that he was bracing himself for some embarrassing display of public adulation. He had never been comfortable with the propensity of strangers to treat him like some kind of demigod, no matter how apt the description might seem. Mara nudged him playfully through their Force-bond, hiding a smile behind a bite of fish.
"There is a public atrium in the center of the city that has always featured artistic works in honor of the great figures of the Naboo people," the queen was explaining. "There was once a very prominent window depicting Supreme Chancellor Palpatine from the early days of the Empire. Later, by the time Naboo was considering coming into the New Republic, it had become a particularly unpopular monument, attracting abandoned garbage and other expressions of dissatisfaction. When the question of removing it officially arose, it was destroyed in an act of vandalism before any decision could be made. It was never replaced, a void in remembrance of our shame, until now."
Archana gestured again, and the holoprojector in the center of the table produced a stylized image of Luke and Leia in coruscating stained glass. Leia was prominently wearing the red badge of the Alliance Starbird and carrying the charter of the New Republic, while Luke held an activated lightsaber with a holocron levitating above his right hand, both of them crowned with halos of light. Behind and above them, hidden in the background with no color of her own, was the iconic image of Queen Amidala, her arms outstretched over her children.
"That's very nice," Mara said, injecting more enthusiasm into her voice than she usually would. She was sincere, but she also meant to spare Luke the trouble of venturing an opinion. "Leia will love it."
"I think she will," Pooja agreed with a pleasant smile as she and the boys gazed up at the slowly rotating image. "You will all have to come back and see it when it's finished."
"Absolutely."
Everyone, even Ben, seemed duly impressed, and Luke kept his doubts to himself. Although he appreciated being included in the iconography with his mother and sister, he had obviously never imagined himself as a stained glass window before.
When lunch was over, and they had taken their leave of the queen and her voorpaks, the whole party of them gathered outside on the palace steps. Luke was absent for a few minutes, gone to fetch Artoo and Nanna from their quarters.
Pooja sidled up to Mara. "Are you ready for this?" she asked, meaning Luke more specifically.
"It's been too long already," Mara said. "We're as ready as we'll ever be."
Luke quickly rejoined them with the droids; he had only needed to meet them in the central hall to levitate Artoo down the stairs. "Sorry," he said, apologizing for the insignificant delay. "All set."
Pooja led them through the sedate street traffic to their next destination. It was an easy distance from the palace, and the weather was fair, but that was probably the only thing that would be easy about it. Luke was pleased and somewhat comforted that Mara took his hand as they walked, a simple gesture of devotion and support she usually left him to instigate. There was nothing she could do to make any of it better, but she would always be there for him.
As they finally approached the mausoleum, they could see it was surrounded by a quiet fountain garden planted with lilies and shaded by willowy trees. The stone walls were each adorned with a reinforced stained glass window, each depicting a different idealized image of Queen Amidala.
The boys stood together behind them, instinctively silent in the face of death as Pooja solemnly opened the door with the queen's key and stood aside.
Do you remember your mother? Your real mother?
Luke felt Mara squeeze his hand, but he seemed very far away, an abyss of unresolved emotions welling up as he stared into the dimness of the vault. She wasn't really there, and he knew that, but it was as close as he was ever going to get in that life, and he had been looking for her for a very long time. It was a small and vulnerable feeling, joy and sorrow somehow coexisting.
It felt like the first time he met—really met—his father, when he had pulled away Darth Vader's mask and found Anakin.
He let go of Mara and stepped inside alone. Padmé's tomb was sealed by a smooth slab of stone, unmarked except for the symbol of the Royal Naboo, the same he was now wearing. Luke ran his hand across it with a tenderness that was usually reserved for the living. It was a miserably one-sided meeting, but he would rather have it than not.
I'm here, he thought. I'm sorry it took so long.
Sola's rebuff that morning still stung, but Luke was generous enough to recognize that all his aunt's vitriol sprang from her own grief, that it really had very little to do with him. He didn't imagine Padmé would have shared her opinion, but some part of him was still shaken by it. He had managed to make more of his life than he had ever imagined, he had a devoted wife and a promising son, but in that place Luke couldn't help being reduced to that anxiety common to all bereaved children, the uncertain hope that his mother would be satisfied with the man he had become.
She should have been there. The inevitable wave of resentment directed at everyone and no one threatened to overwhelm him, and Luke fought back the angry tears he didn't want to indulge in front of his family. She would have only been in her early eighties even then. She might have lived to see the triumph of the Alliance, the restoration of the Republic, her grandchildren. They might have faced the war together.
What had happened? Luke had seen Artoo's recording of their birth many times, heard the medical droid's vague diagnosis, and watched his mother die on the table. But that wasn't right. It couldn't be right. The Padmé Amidala who had retaken her capital from an invading army wasn't someone who would despair of her own life, especially not with newborn twins depending on her. He had seen the way she had looked at him—the one precious time she had seen and spoken to him directly—and Luke was convinced she'd had no desire to die. His mother wouldn't leave him like that, cold and lost and helpless. Something had taken her from them.
It was pointless and indulgent and juvenile, but he imagined how things might have been, how they should have been, what they could have been without Palpatine's interference. But they weren't. Reality was hard and pitiless, something they had all been forced to accept a long time ago.
We should be away from all this now, Leia had confided to him once in a weak moment during the darkest days of the Yuuzhan Vong war, Han and Jaina and Jacen and Anakin and I. And you and Mara and little Ben. In a field of flowers. On Alderaan.
Alderaan would have been fine, but Luke could have been just as happy on Naboo. In an ideal universe like that, he could have been happy anywhere. But happiness was fragile, and they had to take what they were given.
In that spirit, Luke swallowed his regret and decided he would gladly take Artoo's surreptitious holos, and be grateful they had led him to this place. Those recordings had helped him to know and understand his mother and father better than he had ever hoped he would, and in their circumstances that was priceless. Already condemned to live the great Skywalker tragedy, it was a mercy at least to finally understand it.
Luke felt a melancholy smile crease his cheek as he remembered one significant sentiment he and his mother had unknowingly shared, something that had made him feel closer to her than anything else. It was the desperate ultimatum Padmé had given her deteriorating husband, her last hope and her dying wish.
"There was still good in him," Luke said into the silence. There had been a time when only the two of them would have believed it, and he felt a belated and profoundly bittersweet pride in having been able to accomplish that much for her. "It wasn't easy, but we found it."
Mara ventured inside behind him. "Anything?" she asked gently.
Luke extended his awareness deep into the Force, enveloping the crypt and studying the impressions he found there. "No," he admitted. "There's no trace of her. She didn't die here." He paused, studying the unpleasant echoes he had found. "My father is here, though."
It was a residual impression of grief and the bitter sting of self-loathing. The fact that it still lingered after so many years was a testament to how potent it must have been. Or maybe it was just that he was already so attuned to it. Mara was reaching for it, but couldn't quite differentiate the impression from the swirling city all around them. Luke silently took her hand, joining her efforts to his greater sensitivity.
"Hey, you're right," she said, her eyes widening.
The more they isolated it, the more raw and uncomfortable it was, the faded echo of an uninhibited storm of sorrow and remorse and self-immolating hatred preserved in the stones. Luke lifted his hand off the burial slab, feeling the chill creeping up his arm. Already raw himself, the experience of his father's desolation was not something he had been prepared for. He knew Anakin had loved Padmé, but this wasn't Anakin. Darth Vader had loved her too.
Luke had been navigating a complicated relationship with his father's memory lately. It was one thing to have theoretical knowledge of Darth Vader's crimes, but quite another to be confronted with gruesome holographic evidence. Luke had found himself being forced to grant the same forgiveness of thirty years ago over and over and over again, and each time it came more reluctantly. Watching Vader ravage the Jedi Temple had been bad enough, but seeing that monster with Anakin's face dare to raise his hand to his mother had shaken Luke to his core. If he had been forced to choose between them in that moment, there would have been no contest. But he hadn't even been born yet, and that only deepened the horror as he realized Vader had almost killed them all—Padmé, Luke, and Leia—in a moment of blind rage. Where had all his love and enduring devotion been then?
His gut reaction was anger and resentment, unable to feel any pity at all for Vader in his agony. Vader didn't deserve to be here after what he had done, defiling her sanctuary just as he had destroyed her life, and Luke felt a violent pulse escape him, a vain attempt to throw off that lingering shadow and banish it forever.
Mara clutched his arm, her face white. "Easy, big guy," she warned.
But Luke was already coming down from the precipice. There was no need to defend the dead from the dead, and even if it were possible, he knew Padmé would not have wanted to see them fight. They were a family again, however imperfect, and all was forgiven. Unwilling to be the source of discord, especially while standing before his mother's invisible scrutiny, Luke relented and managed to scrape together enough sincerity to forgive his father yet again.
Mara's grip relaxed and became something affectionate. "It's definitely a more human side of him than I ever saw," she observed.
They were all familiar with the rumor that Darth Vader had killed Senator Amidala, although they knew better thanks to Artoo's impulsive recordings. Considering his assault on her, though, it was possible that Vader himself had believed the rumor. "I think he really thought he'd killed her," Luke said, finally able to grant a twinge of sympathy. "Killed us."
"I wouldn't put it past Palpatine to let him believe it," Mara agreed.
Luke just shook his head. That would have been exceptionally cruel, but why not? Palpatine had always been cruel. He tried to imagine waking up every day for twenty years knowing he had sacrificed his position, his rank, his reputation, his integrity, his health, and his identity in an attempt to thwart a fatal prophecy, only to realize too late that it was a direct consequence of his own actions. It was hideous. Luke resolved in that moment to have another long talk with Jacen about the mercurial nature of Force prophesy when they got back.
Several minutes passed before Mara nudged him. "Enough?" she asked. "Or do you need more time?"
"Not much point, is there?" Luke said. He had seen what he'd come to see, and felt what he'd had to feel. All that was left was acceptance, and that would come in its own time. But before they left, Luke laid his hand on the cold stone one last time, a silent and entirely unnecessary promise that he would never forget her again.
The boys were still seated like statues on a stone bench when he and Mara came out. Ben seemed to be setting the tone for the group, looking pale and prematurely solemn, as sympathetic as a ten-year-old could be. He had seemingly inherited both his father's natural strength as an empath and his mother's discomfort with strong emotion, an unfortunate contradiction that had forced him to learn to shield himself from the Force rather than be overwhelmed by the emotional turbulence all around him. Ben was shielding himself again now, and Luke really didn't blame him. The vicarious grief of a motherless childhood wasn't something he wanted to share with his son against his will. He knew Ben adored Mara, and clearly didn't enjoy the experience of how it might feel to grow up without her.
The adults waited as the children paid their respects in turn. Now that it came to it, Luke was irrationally reluctant to leave. There was nothing to be gained by staying, but leaving her there alone in that cold tomb was harder than he had expected it to be. Now that he had found her, the compulsion was to hold on for all he was worth. She belonged with them, not locked away inside a public monument. But that was irrational, Luke reminded himself, just the unsatisfied longing of his childhood finally running riot. She had been there for more than fifty years, and she would still be there tomorrow. He could always come back.
Artoo, attentive to the physiological fluctuations of Luke's moods after a lifetime together, rolled forward to bump into his leg, a mute expression of android affection. Luke put a hand on his dome, comforting them both. Although it was a more subtle exercise, Luke also had some idea of how to read changes in the flow of Artoo's electrical signature, and he could feel the astromech's deep memory banks churning. The little guy had forgotten an entire lifetime of historical context when Bail Organa—the likeliest culprit—had installed that fault in those deep memory banks, preserving and concealing the inconvenient truths of the Skywalkers until a less perilous time. Luke could remember the moment the fault had been accidentally bridged by a stray wire just a year ago, the shock of it overwhelming Artoo's operating system and leaving him in a state of mechanical catatonia. The sudden grand perspective must have been staggering.
Ben came out again with Darred and Ruwee after only a few minutes, looking thoughtful. He appreciated the significance of the place, but had no desire to linger. He didn't like the effect it was having on his family, and Luke—having just careened through the messy sentiments of a protective son himself—could appreciate that point of view.
Luke nodded to Pooja, and she secured the door once again.
They were all ready for a change of scenery, so Pooja invited everyone to her house for the afternoon. They hopped a transport for a brief ride to another quarter of the city, arriving at a lovely home nestled into the back of a quiet street, distinguished by window boxes bursting with purple blossoms.
"It's not much, but it's home," Pooja said, leading them inside.
Luke sighed with relief. "It's perfect," he protested. He liked the intimacy of the setting, smaller rooms and unpretentious upholstered furniture, comfortable and unintimidating after the ageless grandeur of the palace. Artoo and Nanna were dismissed to an unobtrusive corner for a well-deserved shut-down and recharge.
The boys immediately herded Ben away with them. "Come and see our game room!" Ruwee insisted. "We just got the cockpit extension for the HGX-4 on my last birthday. I have the high score in X-wing, A-wing, and N-1."
"Real X-wings are actually easier to fly," Ben told them. "More complicated, but better pitch control."
"You get to fly real starfighters?" Darred demanded, caught somewhere between incredulity and amazement.
"Well, sort of. I'm not really tall enough yet, but Dad has been teaching me, and he lets me run the combat simulations every time he goes to requalify. I've only ever gotten to fly his X-wing planetside with Artoo as primary."
"You have way too much fun. Can you invite us to Coruscant as soon as you get back?"
"I almost forgot your dad basically founded Rogue Squadron. Have you ever met General Antilles?"
"Uncle Wedge? Yeah."
Luke smiled after them as they disappeared into the back of the house. "I never was considered one of the 'cool kids' growing up," he confessed to Pooja. "At least I get to be the cool dad."
"Those kids you grew up with were idiots," Mara insisted with her usual gruff affirmation. She had met what remained of his friend group in Anchorhead years ago, and hadn't been impressed. Then she transitioned seamlessly from uncensored critic to gracious guest. "It really is a lovely home, Pooja."
"Thank you," Pooja said, looking pleased. "I would prefer something farther outside the city, but the young ones need their education."
Luke realized it would probably have been polite to sit down at that juncture, but he was fascinated by the bank of holoframes on the far wall, and drifted in that direction. Each one was a pale but living fragment of the past he wanted to know. Pooja and Mara came to join him.
"That's one of the last times we were all together," Pooja said of the largest one, a family gathering on a lovely balcony overlooking a shimmering lake, herself and Sola, a handsome young man with bright eyes and an eager smile, a pretty but rather melancholy woman, a toddler and an infant.
"Oberrin and his wife?" Luke guessed, committing his deceased cousin's features to memory. "That must be Darred and Ruwee."
"Ruwee was just a few months old at the time," Pooja confirmed with a wistful smile. "Oberrin was leaving for his first duty assignment, and we wanted to make a few more good memories beforehand."
It was an emotional contradiction Luke was all too familiar with, trying to enjoy what good times they could while knowing any one of them could be dead the following day. Mara had almost died, Ben had almost died, Luke himself had almost died, but somehow they had always managed to come through, reunited against the odds only to play that game of chance all over again. It was an intense and often exhausting way to live, but somewhere in the midst of that wary contentment existed the revised ideal of Jedi detachment he had been trying to define. Luke had found the rewards to be well worth the sacrifice, but it wasn't an arrangement to be undertaken lightly, and he pitied Oberrin's wife. "Was Coruscant his first duty assignment?" he asked.
Pooja nodded. "It was."
Best move on before they dwelt on it too long. "Who's this?" Luke asked, indicating an older couple with kind faces.
"Those are our grandparents," Pooja said, brightening a bit, "Ruwee and Jobal Naberrie. Oh, what can I tell you about them? They met and were married in a country village. Grandfather tried his hand at many professions, as a weaver, a builder, and a volunteer. He even served for a time as president of the Refugee Relief Movement. Later, after they had relocated to the capital, he built a name for himself as a lecturer at Theed University, and eventually accepted a permanent teaching position."
Mara nudged him. "So, that's where the teaching gene comes from," she theorized.
Luke shrugged, willing to entertain the idea. "When did they die?"
Pooja frowned. "They never did quite recover from Padmé's death, although they tried to regroup when their great-grandchildren were born. We used to say neither one of them would long outlive the other. In the end, it was a speeder accident that took them both twenty-six years ago."
Now Luke frowned. Twenty-six years ago the Thrawn crisis had recently ended, the twins had been born, and Han and Leia were expecting baby Anakin. Taking Sola's reluctant admission into account, that left at least six years for them to have known the Naberries before they died.
"A missed opportunity, to be sure," Pooja said, seeming to read his face, but then she offered him a cryptic little smile. "It may be cold comfort, Luke, but even though Grandfather Ruwee didn't know you, he certainly knew of you. When he died, we found his secret stash of documents. I tried to find it for you when I knew you were coming, but I think my mother threw it away years ago."
"Okay, I'll bite," Luke said, returning the smile, instantly intrigued. "What documents?"
"Well," Pooja began, "as you know, Padmé brought Anakin Skywalker home to meet the family just before the Clone Wars broke out, while he was assigned to her by the Jedi Council. Apparently Grandfather was slightly obsessed with Anakin's career after that, like one might follow a favorite celebrity, collecting prints of this and that in a scrapbook just as a harmless hobby. Of course it all came to nothing when Anakin was allegedly killed in the uprising. We all thought nothing of it after that, but apparently," she said, "after Yavin, Grandfather pulled it all out again, this time collecting everything he could find about you."
"Why?"
Pooja gave them a conspiratorial look. "An excellent question," she agreed. "He kept it all very secret during his life. When we found it after the accident, we thought it was just the next phase of his interest in the Skywalkers. He had every holoprint, every wanted notice the Empire ever posted for you, and after Endor he started pulling serious records searches from anywhere he could. In hindsight, some of his handwritten marginalia—especially when he started comparing dates and adding in Leia—would suggest he was pursuing an investigation rather than a hobby."
How many people had been onto them? There were so many threads that had never quite managed to come together. "So why didn't he say anything?" Luke asked.
"I think he was about to," Pooja confessed. "He probably didn't want to upset Grandmother without first being absolutely sure. I remember the last page being a receipt from the Ministry Council on Coruscant acknowledging his request for contact, but there was quite a backlog, as you can imagine, and that was a difficult year."
"I don't have to imagine it," Luke said, remembering the sudden loss of Coruscant, the resurrected Emperor, and all the chaos that had followed. It was no wonder a single request for contact from a random private citizen had been completely lost in the pandemonium. It was just another in what was becoming a tragic series of missed opportunities, but Luke couldn't deny that it was a strange comfort to imagine his grandfather staying up late at night to pour over the archives, wondering if he had found his lost grandchildren. He shot Sola's image a sour look, hazarding a guess as to why she had been so quick to destroy her father's research. He would have liked to have read those marginal notes.
He moved on, drawn to a scene of a young girl playing with a pair of alien children. Her smile seemed very familiar. "Is that Padmé?" he asked.
"It is! That was when she was eight years old, working with Refugee Relief to evacuate Shadda-Bi-Boran. It was always one of her favorites, and used to hang in her bedroom."
That name filled him with something akin to dread, but he couldn't quite place it.
"But the evacuation was a failure," Mara observed, almost hesitantly. "No one from Shadda-Bi-Boran survived."
"No, they didn't," Pooja agreed with a sigh. "That was one of the reasons Padmé treasured the memory. She always thought it was important to help anyone she could, even if the effort seemed hopeless."
The tragedy certainly cast the holo in a new light, as did Padmé's insistence on displaying it. It showed a surprising maturity for an eight-year-old. "That sounds like Leia," Luke said.
"Pardon me, Luke," Pooja objected with a tolerant smile, "but from what I've heard, I'd say it also sounds a lot like you."
"Seconded," Mara said. "You've been turning around hopeless causes ever since you learned to walk. I guess the starry-eyed altruism gene comes from this side of the family too."
"Oh, not entirely," Pooja insisted. "Later in her career, Padmé was fond of reminding people that a wise woman she knew on Tatooine used to say the biggest problem in this universe is that nobody helps each other."
The way she was looking at him told Luke he was supposed to be able to guess who that was. How many people could Padmé have known on Tatooine? "Was that Shmi?" he asked, a smile creeping across his face.
Pooja smiled back. "The very same. They never met again, but Padmé was deeply impressed by Shmi Skywalker, with her generosity and quiet dignity despite living as a slave. She took a number of life lessons from her, and was certain all members of her staff did as well."
Just that anecdote went a long way toward lifting his mood. Luke had come to know Shmi a few decades earlier thanks to that half-corrupted holojournal the Darklighters had recovered on their old farm and entrusted to Leia. The thought of her and Padmé sharing a lasting rapport despite only briefly encountering each other was surprisingly heartwarming. "I've stopped being surprised that other people know more about my family than I do," he said. "In the beginning I had to rely on Leia to tell me about Anakin's exploits during the Clone Wars. I guess it evened the score when I had to tell her she was my sister. We'll get this whole mess sorted out one of these days."
Judging by the roars of elation and disappointment coming from the gameroom, the boys were having a great time. Luke hoped the next generation would find their own history to be much more straightforward.
Pooja disappeared into the kitchen for refreshments. Luke sank into the couch, and Mara gladly kicked off her boots and curled up beside him. It was only the second day, and the sheer wealth of information was a new trial. After grasping at shadows most of his life, the clarity was blinding.
"It is a lot at once," Mara agreed. "Any chance of getting away for a few quiet days without any state dinners or official appearances, Your Grace?"
Luke scoffed. "You wouldn't want to disappoint our adoring public, would you?"
Mara scoffed right back. "Our nothing. They want to see you. I'm just a bit of arm candy."
Luke drew back and turned on her with the loftiest expression of indignation he could muster. "I'll thank you not to insult my wife in my presence," he insisted, but she just jabbed him in the ribs, dissolving his regal persona instantly.
Pooja returned with three glasses of crushed ice swimming in lavender-colored water that managed to taste exactly like the air smelled, although maybe a bit sweeter.
"Pooja," Mara began when they were all settled again, "I have an indelicate question."
"Oh, how intriguing," Pooja said, obviously determined to enjoy the visit no matter how indelicate the conversation. "Fire away."
"Not that we aren't glad to see it," Mara began, "but why was Amidala given such a permanent burial? It was my understanding that Naboo funerary custom demanded immediate cremation."
"Your understanding is correct," Pooja answered, lowering her glass. "And honestly we don't know why an exception was made, only that it was by direct order of the Emperor."
Luke balked a little at that. That man had his fingers in everything.
"It was all very surreal," Pooja continued. "The directive came almost as soon as her body was brought to us. Several individuals approached the family—Silya Shessaun, her former handmaiden Sabé, Captain Typho—each wanting to pursue an independent investigation, but all of them met stiff resistance. Imperial Inquisitors began appearing in Theed, asking probing questions about Amidala's pregnancy. One of them went to confront Padmé's grandmother, Ryoo Thule, while she was mourning in seclusion, and murdered her there. Eventually Darth Vader did visit the tomb, despite the common belief that he was responsible for her death. No one suspected he was Anakin at the time, but knowing the truth now just seems to make it worse, doesn't it?"
"The truth can be like that," Luke agreed, "but I'm sorry, you said an Inquisitor murdered our great-grandmother?"
Pooja nodded. "About six months after the funeral. It was getting so bad, my father moved us out of Theed for a few years."
The story was even darker than he had thought. "I'm starting to understand your mother's resentment," Luke said.
"And the conspiracy theories," Mara added. "Was there any follow-up, or did it all just time out?"
"To the best of my knowledge, the investigations simply stalled on both sides," Pooja told them. "Apparently no one was able to track down the principals involved."
Luke and Mara shared a look. "Organa, Kenobi, and Yoda," she said, recalling the lineup. "Slippery fish, those three."
"Were they the ones?" Pooja asked, suddenly more interested.
"They were there on Polis Massa when we were born," Luke told her, "when she died. Artoo caught them on his recordings."
"That would answer a lot of questions," Pooja said, thoughtfully sinking back into her chair, "some of which I haven't even thought to ask yet. Even with Artoo to fill in the blanks, it will probably be a while before we sort out this whole mess, as you say."
They sat in silence for a few minutes, which would have been awkward if they weren't already so comfortable with each other. They all had a lot to think about, and it would have been easy to lose themselves for a while. Fortunately, the thumping and laughing of the boys was enough to keep them grounded. Luke's eyes were again drawn to the moving images on the wall, the faces of so many people already lost beyond recall, his grandparents, his mother, Oberrin and his family gathered beside that lake in a terrestrial paradise just days before making his final sacrifice. Life was short, often cruel, and so incredibly precious.
There was also something strangely familiar about that balcony.
"I realize," Pooja finally said, delicately interrupting the reverie, "that you probably have a scheduled itinerary. But if you're feeling overwhelmed in Theed, I would suggest that we might possibly go out to Varykino in the lake country. It's the Naberrie family estate, very isolated and quiet, and truly one of the most beautiful places on this world. Padmé was very fond of it, and I believe often went there to be out of the public eye with Anakin."
Before Luke could even consider the proposal, his fragmented memories suddenly aligned and he sat bolt upright. "That's where they were married," he said. "And where that holo was taken."
"That was at Varykino, yes," Pooja confirmed, glancing at their last gathering with Oberrin. "We suspect the wedding may have happened there, but we have no proof."
"Yes, we do," Luke insisted. "Artoo took his role as official witness very seriously."
"Oh, of course," Pooja sighed with a smile that said she should have known as much. "Artoo."
The droid tweedled and beeped from the other room as he powered himself up again.
Luke turned to Mara. "What do you say?" he asked. "Want to go see the villa?"
"What, just blow town, abandon all our social obligations, and crash at the lakehouse?" she retorted. "Absolutely. I've wanted to visit that place ever since I laid eyes on it."
He turned back to Pooja, letting just a hint of desperation into his voice. "May we, please?" A chance to sort themselves out in peace sounded wonderful, never mind how important the place was in its own right.
"Just say when," Pooja assured them. "I've already contacted the groundskeeper, and no one is due there for months."
"How about tomorrow?"
The boys were thrilled with the plan, and not just because Darred and Ruwee would be missing at least a week of school. They were having such a good time together that Luke and Mara agreed to let Ben and Nanna stay overnight at Pooja's, all of them due to meet at the Jade Shadow the next morning for their brief flight into the lake country. They would send their apologies to the queen after breakfast. Despite Mara's humorous protestations to the contrary, there really wasn't anything on their schedule that couldn't be rearranged.
It was after dark when they arrived back at the palace. Mara went to bed immediately, but Luke stayed up to meditate. He wanted to have his head on straight before they blasted away to yet another extremely significant site in his family's history. It was all coming at him so quickly now, an avalanche of information, images, and vicarious memories, that he needed a chance to sort through them, to understand his place in the midst of them.
He sat cross-legged on the moonlit balcony, eyes closed, filling his mind with the floral scent of the air and the distant roar of the waterfalls. His idea of Padmé was now inextricably bound up in that sensory experience, just part of his attempt to experience things that had been denied him, things that were already irretrievably lost.
It was something at least, something he could keep in that empty place that had bothered him ever since he had been old enough to realize that children were supposed to have a mother and a father, something very different from an aunt and an uncle. Aunt Beru had been many things to him, but she had never claimed to be his mother. There had been nothing cold about that, just uncompromisingly honest, something Luke had learned to appreciate after being otherwise forced to claw his way through a web of lies and questionable points of view.
His peace was short-lived, gone the moment he plunged into his churning memories, still a confused morass of voices and conflicted emotions.
I'm not going to die in childbirth, Ani . . .
I won't let this one become real . . .
Do you think Obi-Wan might be able to help us? . . .
Some decisions can never be reversed . . .
You will not take her from me! . . .
There's good in him. I know . . .
That's what your uncle told you . . .
Much anger in him . . .
Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father . . .
To protect you both from the Emperor, you were hidden from your father when you were born . . .
But why must you confront him? . . .
There is good in him. I felt it! . . .
That name no longer has any meaning for me! . . .
Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design. . . .
It is unavoidable. . . . It is your destiny . . .
Luke opened his eyes, and the cacophony was immediately silenced. He wasn't perturbed by the memories so much as he was annoyed that any successful meditation was going to require twice the effort it usually did.
"Ani, I want to have our baby back home on Naboo."
He stiffened. It was thin and quiet, but he had heard that voice with his ears and not inside his mind.
"We can go to the lake country where no one will know, where we can be safe. I can go early and fix up the baby's room. I know the perfect spot, right by the gardens."
Climbing to his feet, Luke went back inside the dark apartment. Artoo was projecting another of his holograms onto the table between the couches, presumably for his own benefit. The quality was poor, and the sound was scratchy, as though the droid had been using his laser recorder to preserve the scene from a great distance and through at least one layer of transparisteel.
Luke sank onto the couch beside him with a tolerant frown. "Spying again?" he surmised.
Artoo offered only a low, mournful note in reply.
Luke sighed and slid his hand across the astromech's frame. Despite being only an artificial intelligence, Artoo had a highly developed sense of self-awareness and of whatever drives and impulses passed for emotions in an android's consciousness. There had been no practical directive motivating him to preserve stray snippets of Padmé and Anakin's lives. He had been genuinely interested. "You loved her too, huh?"
Artoo answered with a low flutter of beeps and whistles, implying that Padmé wasn't the only one he'd cared about. He packed up the first holo and pulled another, a fragment Luke already knew all too well, a perspective of Artoo dragging his unconscious mistress—and her unborn children—back toward her ship as Obi-Wan engaged Vader on Mustafar.
Luke offered him a sad smile, realizing what the droid was driving at. "Looking out for me even then, weren't you?"
Before all these bizarre revelations broke, Luke could not have imagined that his unorthodox relationship with R2-D2 could possibly have been any more meaningful, but now he could see with his own eyes Artoo's intimate involvement with his parents, saving his life even before he'd been born.
He remembered looking over a motley assortment of junked droids disgorged from a random sandcrawler that happened to pull up outside their farm thirty-six years ago, remembered his own voice carelessly suggesting on Threepio's recommendation, What about that one? He remembered one of the earliest of Artoo's secret recordings, a close view of a young handmaiden with the face of a queen scrubbing the blast scoring off his frame, a strange and wonderful parallel to the first service Luke had been obliged to perform for him several decades later.
There were some who doubted the Force had anything like a conscious will, but this was enough coincidence to strain credulity.
Artoo stopped and whirred to himself, pulling up another scene. Anakin and Padmé were standing together, she smiling proudly and extending her hand as if she were presenting the droid to her husband. He tried to protest, but she silenced him with a finger against his lips.
"After all," she whispered, "what does a politician need with an astromech?"
"But I'm a Jedi–" Anakin insisted.
"That's why I'm not giving him to you," Padmé explained. "I'm asking you to look after him. He's not really a gift. He's a friend."
He's a friend.
Artoo had indeed been a friend during all the darkest periods of his life, sometimes more constant than the people around him. Luke realized that if he ever had the misfortune to lose him, he would mourn him as a friend. Artoo was more than a technological convenience, more than an invaluable copilot, more even than an unexpected and irreplaceable heirloom from his parents. Artoo was a fellow traveler, and he had sentiments of his own.
Sitting there in the dark, Luke suddenly made up his mind. "Artoo," he said, "do you feel like going for a walk?"
The streets of Theed were almost deserted at that hour, although still bathed in soft golden light beneath the black of the sky. The only sounds were the creaking of the insects and the rustle of dry leaves across the stones. The whole place was so beautiful and so peaceful that it gave the impression of existing just outside of time, inhabiting a fragile sphere of ageless serenity where he might for a moment step away from his crushing responsibilities.
There was something about Naboo that felt, if not quite familiar, at least right somehow. Whether that was some vague genetic memory or wishful thinking, Luke couldn't say, but he was absolutely certain he would be drawn back there. He needed that quiet in his life. He wanted to spend some time there with all of them together, at least as many of them as they had left. Maybe they could all heal together, draw closer as a family, the way they used to be. It wasn't exactly that field of flowers on Alderaan, but it would do nicely.
Padmé's tomb was lit from within, the stained glass glowing with vibrant colors and reflecting off the fountain pools, as welcoming as a tomb could possibly be. Luke sat on the stone bench, not entirely sure why he was there, but only that he wanted to stay a while.
We can go up to the lake country where no one will know, where we can be safe . . .
All she had wanted was for them to be safe. All Anakin had wanted was for them to be safe. And yet somehow their family had exploded under the pressure with enough force to cripple a galaxy. Maybe things could have been different if they had made it back to Naboo, up into that fabled lake country he hoped to see tomorrow, the place that should have been their nursery. Away from the war, away from the intrigues of the Jedi Council, away from Palpatine.
But "maybe" was no comfort now.
I miss you, he thought, looking up at the gently smiling figure illuminated in front of him. My whole life, I've missed you. So much.
Luke wanted to leave her something, but no soulless bouquet of hothouse flowers would do. On Tatooine, a common expression of devotion was to weave intricate shapes out of dune grass. Dune grass wasn't rare, but it wasn't exactly common either, and the leaves had such a high silica content that they could easily draw blood if you weren't careful. Despite Luke's wishing for them during his teenage years, there had never been any girls his age worth the trouble. He had made one once for Aunt Beru, but she had lovingly discouraged him from ever trying it again as she had wrapped sani-tape around his wounded fingers. The only other occasion was when he had secretly made one for Shmi, the grandmother he had never known, and buried it in the sand above her grave. He had always known where her grave was, despite Uncle Owen's belated attempt to obscure the little family cemetery by removing the headstones. In a world in which he thought he had no family left and never expected to know anything else about her, he felt he had owed her at least that much.
He would have to make due with what was available. Luke reached up into the trailing tree branches, and found them to be thankfully much more benign than dune grass. Twisting off several long, thin boughs, he sat down and got to work.
"Come on, Artoo," he said. "Show me your favorites. We'll watch them together."
Something woke Mara in the bleak hours of the night. Or maybe it was the lack of something. She reached for Luke and found that he wasn't in bed, nor had he ever come to bed as far as she could tell. He wasn't even in their apartment, or in the palace. Blinking the sleep out of her eyes and focusing her awareness, Mara could sense that he was out in the city somewhere, contending with some formidable emotions.
No prizes for guessing exactly where he was.
She grumbled to herself as she crawled out of bed and groped for her clothes. She couldn't close her eyes for five minutes without that adorable idiot trying to do the noble thing and face the worst of life alone. Mara knew Luke hated being alone. She had promised him he would never have to be alone again. But all nine Corellian hells would freeze over before he would consider disturbing her rest for something as trivial as emotional comfort.
She was dressed and out the door in record time.
Mara remembered the way to the mausoleum, but even if she hadn't, she could pinpoint Luke's presence as if it were a beacon. She found him exactly where she expected him, sitting on that bench beneath the trees, watching holos with Artoo. She recognized the thin voices on the recording, and braced herself.
"For reasons we can't explain, we are losing her."
"She's dying?"
Mara just sighed and sat down beside him, leaning into his shoulder. She would ask why he kept putting himself through this, but she already knew why. It was all he had. Luke gratefully accepted her hand as she wrapped it around his. He was putting up a brave front, but he was crying on the inside.
"I remember her voice," he said miserably. "Nothing specific, but it sounds familiar. Like something I should recognize. Something important."
Mara squeezed his hand, but didn't intrude with words. They had both learned many things about human gestation during her pregnancy, including an infant's ability to process sound as early as four months before birth, to recognize his mother's voice and native language, and how crucial that steady stream of sound was to the development of a child's auditory centers. Luke's brain had literally formed itself around Padmé's voice, so Mara wasn't surprised that some part of him still remembered. Considering the phenomenon of microchimerism and the cross-placental exchange of maternal and fetal cells, these familial bonds now seemed even more intimate than simple proximity and shared chromosomes. Part of Leia might still be alive in Luke, part of Luke in Leia, and part of Padmé in both of them.
Then they came to it again, as the medical team induced a quick and intense labor, pulling the twins into the outside world whether they were ready or not. That seemed like an accurate metaphor for their lives in so many ways. The cooing natal droid presented the first infant and declared it to be a son.
"Luke," Padmé said immediately, as though she had decided on that name long before. Obi-Wan received the child and held him closer, so she could reach out and stroke his face. "Oh, Luke."
It was the one time his mother had been able to see him, to speak to him face to face, giving him in her last moments both his life and his name. Mara could feel it cut Luke to the heart in all the best possible ways each time he heard it, and she could have kissed Artoo for preserving it. It hurt, but it was so much better than nothing.
"Aunt Beru used to say that," Luke told her in a thick voice. "She had a few quilts her mother had made, and when I would complain that I had nothing from my mother, she would always say, 'You have your name.'"
Beru Lars might not have known just how accurate that had been, but it was quite possibly the best thing to say to a displaced child struggling to ground himself.
Remembering where they were, Mara was reminded of a similar scenario almost twenty years ago when Luke had brought her to that forsaken bluff of shifting sand where he had buried the brutalized remains of his childhood guardians. Kenobi, his Jedi protector and in many ways a distant father figure, was taken from him not long afterward. Many good people had died so that he could live, and Padmé had been the first. None of that was Luke's fault, but he carried it with him every day. It was partly what inspired him to work as hard as he did, to make their sacrifice worthwhile.
He was still remarkably good natured for someone who had been on the receiving end of all the galactic shavit dumped on him by the momentum of history, and the more Mara recognized that the more she loved him. By this point, she considered it a privilege to stand beside him in that storm. Separately, they were just two lonely people trying to see the way forward in a cold and vast universe. Together they were the Masters Skywalker, indivisible and invincible. They would weather this the same way they did everything else.
Mara could feel it taking form even now, that strange joy that could only be forged through misery. Luke knew very well how to find those gems in the misfortunes of life, often the only consolation he could take with him. His lost hand and the lightning scars were trophies, a small price to pay for the soul of his father. The grief these holos caused was nothing compared to the relief and simple happiness of finally knowing his mother. Luke wanted all of it, no matter what it cost him in the moment. Later he wouldn't remember the pain, but only what it had accomplished.
Be that as it may, Mara realized it was well after midnight, and that day promised to be an important one. Even Artoo had packed in his holoprojector, seeming to recognize that his organic counterparts were awake well beyond their healthy parameters.
She wrapped a warm hug around her husband and planted a kiss on his cheek. "Come on, Master," she said. "If she could say anything else to you right now, I'm pretty sure it would be to rag you for ducking your bedtime."
That pulled a wry laugh out of him despite it all, and his mind cycled through his memories of Beru, Leia, Mara herself, and the behavior of every other mother he had ever experienced. "You're probably right," he agreed.
"Well, then, no backchat, farmboy. We've got another big day today, and I don't need you falling asleep in your breakfast."
Luke turned and kissed her back, and Mara felt herself once again enfolded in his love and gratitude, something that always made her feel weightless with that joy that was all their own. No tragedy anywhere could touch that. "As you wish."