Mara woke in a smothering miasma of vicarious emotion—resentment, euphoria, anger, joy, grief, and fierce devotion—and she knew who she could thank for it. Luke's warmth was already gone from the bed, but his heaving sentiments lingered on her like stink on a wet Wookiee. She sat up and pushed her hair out of her face, trying to sort out how she actually felt.

Luke was standing outside on the balcony, hands swept behind his back, facing the dawn. He was in control again, but beneath that cultured calm the emotional storm was still churning. Contrary to popular belief, Luke had never learned to control his emotions. He doubted they could be controlled so much as contained, and he was content to accept them as a necessary part of life. But he had learned how to not be controlled by them.

Mara slid out of bed and went to join him, appreciating the quiet symphony of the diurnal wildlife staking their claims for the day. "So," she said, laying on a thick layer of false nonchalance, "what did I miss?"

Luke smiled, though he didn't open his eyes, catching the sunlight on his face like a blooming flower. "I talked with my father last night," he said.

Making a face roughly equivalent to a shrug, Mara quickly skimmed through the memories he offered her. "I guess that makes sense," she decided. "I can feel him hanging in the air all over this place. What did you talk about?"

"Everything."

Luke wasn't being coy; he was still too taken with the experience to want to summarize it just yet. The details would come out soon enough. Mara put her arm around him, pleased with the change she could already see. "I hope it was everything you wanted it to be."

He nodded, holding her close. "It was enough."

The sunlight was sparkling on the lake, and nesting flocks of birds were filling the air with impatient calls for breakfast. Mara made a point of appreciating those last moments before Ben and the boys were up and sounding calls of their own. "What are your plans for the day?" she asked.

"I thought I'd swim out to that island, if you don't mind," Luke confessed. "See what all the hype is about."

Mara turned a skeptical eye out over the balcony. "That's a lot of water out there, farmboy. You're sure you can swim that far?"

Luke answered with a farcical frown. "I'm fifty-five," he protested. "I'm not dead."

"Well, fine, then." Mara heaved an exaggerated sigh. "Be careful all the same. I'll see that your offspring gets fed."

He hugged her and planted a kiss on her forehead. "I'll be back," he promised, and then headed for the door.

Mara resisted the urge to follow him as far as the water's edge, sucking in a deep breath and keeping her eyes on the glowing horizon. Letting go was without a doubt the hardest part of living these well-balanced attachments, and even now she could use the practice. She wasn't actually worried about him today; despite his deprived upbringing, Luke had made a point of becoming a stronger swimmer a long time ago, and Mara had no doubt that he would be back in time for lunch. Still, that short phrase reminded her of so many other occasions when the outcome had been less certain, when he had volunteered to infiltrate enemy space and destroy the voxyn at their source, when he had been determined to go back to Vong-occupied Coruscant with or without her, when he had left her behind to confront Shimrra, and most recently when he had been obliged to leave her in the capable hands of a surgical team while he spearheaded the last assault on the Dark Nest. Just those three simple words, I'll be back, and a kiss on her forehead while she had been trapped in a hospital bed. Despite all her anxiety, Luke always did come back, alive although occasionally a bit worse for wear, but Mara couldn't help but be sure that, like a canny sand cat, he would run out of lives eventually. The law of averages would catch up to him if nothing else did.

A gentle pressure on her mind was enough to remind her—as though she needed reminding—that her thoughts were not her own. With a subtle touch, Luke stirred up her memory of what else he had said that day at her bedside.

Don't fear. Accept.

Mara rolled her eyes, and answered as adamantly and as affectionately as she knew how.

Shut up.

Her next impression was of a broad smile she couldn't see, but could feel down to her toes.

She packed up all her sentimental thoughts and got dressed. Living was essentially an exercise in slowly dying, as she knew better than most, and they had understood what they were signing up for when they chose relationship over solitude. Everything had its price.

Pooja was in the kitchen when Mara came down, and the boys were already deep into their bowls of mixed fruit and nuts. "Good morning," the older woman said, deftly spooning batter into molds. "I hope everyone spent a restful night."

"Well, that's not quite the word I would choose," Mara admitted. "Eventful, perhaps."

Pooja frowned politely. "Where's your other half?"

"He's checking out that island you were talking about. He never can resist that kind of thing."

Seeing her arrive, Ben jumped up from the table to meet her. "Hi, Mom," he said, allowing her a brief hug in front of the boys. Then he lowered his voice. "How's Dad?"

"He's fine," Mara assured him, grateful she didn't have to stretch the truth. "He just needed some time, and a chance to talk about it."

Pooja was frowning again as Ben returned to his breakfast. "Something wrong with Luke?" she asked, slipping the molds into the oven.

"Not really," Mara assured her, keeping her voice low. "He wanted to do a deep dive into his memories last night, and it was kind of rough. Rough, but worthwhile," she decided. She considered confiding their more unpleasant discovery to her, thought better of it, but then reconsidered. Pooja was almost as near the drama as any of them, and it wasn't something she thought Luke would be particularly shy about, especially with family. "We only have his vague impressions to go on," she said, "but we think we can be reasonably certain Palpatine had some hand in Padmé's death."

Pooja's expression darkened, trying the theory on for size. "I'll not ask how you can be so certain," she said. "Surely the Jedi know their own business best. But there were unsavory rumors even in the early days that the Emperor was secretly some kind of sorcerer, obsessed with clones, death, immortality and reincarnation, and frankly I've never seen any reason to doubt it, even before his supposed rebirth and recapture of Coruscant." She allowed herself an elegant shudder, an understated expression of both disgust and disdain. "Unnatural, all of it. It makes me wonder whether Darred wasn't far off the mark yesterday."

Mara pursed her lips in agreement, certain that Luke hadn't shaken that particularly pointed question either. He would probably be doing a lot of thinking out on that desolate spit of rock. The glaringly obvious suspicion was that Palpatine had chosen Padmé Naberrie on purpose, although they may never discover why. Maybe it was best not to know.

They distracted the boys by getting out the paddle boats with the groundskeeper's help, the three of them spending a few hours darting around in the water as fast as their double-ended oars could propel them. It wasn't until they had come ashore and trudged back into the house for lunch that Mara seriously started to wonder about Luke. She could sense that he wasn't upset or in any danger, but she could also feel how deeply entrenched in the Force he was, and she knew it was entirely possible that he was unaware of the passage of time. He would be ravenous by the time he condescended to return to the present. For someone whose metabolism ran as hot as Luke's did, Mara was amazed by how often she had to remind him to eat.

"Do you think I should go after him?" Pooja asked, apparently of the same mind. Maybe it was the maternal instinct. "It would be no trouble to take the boat, maybe some lunch and some dry clothes."

Initially inclined to claim the responsibility herself, Mara paused. Luke and Pooja might appreciate an opportunity to just talk, cousin to cousin, and a more generous course would be to mind the boys in her turn.

She smiled. "Good idea. I'll throw a pack together."

The water was cold and clear, but as Luke finally got his feet back under him and trudged onto the narrow beach, he was glad to trade it for the warmth of the morning sun. It had been a little farther than he had judged, nothing he couldn't handle, although he was obliged to sit down on the gravelly sand to catch his breath and stretch a cramp out of his leg. Age was dogging his steps, but hadn't quite caught him yet.

Somehow Luke was certain he could feel his mother smiling at his expense. "Okay, but you were twelve," he protested to the empty air. "Add forty years, and you'd be slower too."

When he was good and ready, Luke climbed back to his feet and wandered up the steep incline into the wooded interior. The trees gave off an invigorating herbal scent that he had noticed as soon as they had left the ship's airlock. It was unique to Naboo, at least in his own experience. Tatooine smelled like dust, salt, and heat, Yavin 4 like damp, green, and sweat, and the less said about Coruscant the better. The air on Naboo made the whole place smell like an artisanal soapworks.

A natural but overgrown path through the trees led him to a craggy overlook, a broken slab of granite protruding from the cliff face as the rest of the earth slowly eroded around it. Luke sat on the ledge, letting his legs hang over the drop as he appreciated the view. Somewhere out there the momentum of history was still grinding forward without him. Cal Omas was straining mightily against the levers of power to steer the Galactic Alliance in whatever direction he thought best, the Jedi were settling into their new structure of discipline, Leia was adjusting to her burgeoning career as an active Knight, Jacen and Jaina were hopefully sorting themselves out in retreat, Jagged Fel was still lost on a hostile jungle world, and the Chiss Ascendancy was once again fortifying its borders against all comers. Luke couldn't forget any of that, but as he looked out over the gently rippling lake and the forested hillsides of his ancestral homeworld, it all seemed very far away.

He closed his eyes and quieted all those practical thoughts clamoring for his attention. He allowed himself to sink deeply into the steady life of that place, where one summer was much like another, the seasons following one another in their rotation eternally the same. Only a few passing echoes disturbed the ancient memory of the land, all blending together in his perception like the sedimentary layers in a riverbed. There were echoes of Padmé and Sola as children, someone who must be Grandfather Ruwee coming to fetch them, others he didn't recognize, Pooja and Ryoo in their early adolescence, and right in the midst of all of them the secret lovers Anakin and Padmé Skywalker, sitting on that crag of rock exactly as he was.

Intuition made him open his eyes again, drawing his attention to a large rock beside him. It was covered with years of lichen, but once he had rubbed it clean Luke found a series of cuts so deep and narrow that they must have been made with a lightsaber, the Aurebesh initials A, P, and S.

The intimacy of the discovery made him smile, the record of a tender moment lost to time, uncovered only because Pooja had led him there, because Sola had shared her childhood memories with her daughter, because R2-D2 had unwittingly guarded a trove of family records spanning three generations, all recovered because a stray wire bridged a memory fault and exploded the whole mystery. Once again, the sequence of events seemed larger than mere coincidence.

But, as with almost everything else he had discovered on that journey, Luke found a shadow lingering just beyond it. A lifetime removed from his first experience of the cave on Dagobah, the best way he could describe the impression was still of something 'not right.' It was dark and cold, a shadow where there should be none, a stain of malice and fear. It wasn't there with him, but it was close, closer than he would like.

Before he could dwell on it, his eyes were drawn to movement on the lake. It was Pooja, rowing toward the island with practiced ease. One glance at the progress of the sun told him he had lost track of time again. He got up and went down to meet her.

"Good morning," Luke greeted his cousin, wading into the water and taking hold of the boat's prow.

"Good afternoon," Pooja corrected him with a smile. Her eyes widened momentarily as he dragged the boat ashore with the last of its forward momentum, far enough that she could debark without wetting her feet. "Oh, thank you. You're stronger than you look."

"Comes with the job," Luke explained, eyeing the other contents of the boat.

"Mara thought you might want something to eat, and some dry clothes."

He smiled. "She's always looking out for me like that."

Once he was dressed and officially presentable again, Luke returned to the beach to find that Pooja had unpacked a rustic lunch on a flat rock. She had kicked off her shoes in the sand and seemed perfectly at ease, reminding him of those faint echoes of her childhood that still lingered there.

"So," she asked, looking at him with a sort of familiar irreverence he found very refreshing, "what do you think of our mothers' secret island? All it's cracked up to be?"

Luke almost laughed. "Well," he said, sitting opposite her, "seems pretty standard, as islands go. Some great views, though, and I found a rock Anakin left their initials on."

A light seemed to dawn in Pooja's mind. "Oh, the APS rock! Of course!" Then she snorted to herself and passed him a sandwich. "Ryoo and I found it too, but we didn't know what it meant. Mother said it was nothing, but for at least two summers, we considered it the secret headquarters of something we dubbed the Allied Planets Society."

"Conspiring to jump into the diplomatic service even then, I see," Luke observed. "I did catch some hints of you and your sister here, along with everyone else."

Pooja nodded, absently turning a red fruit in her hands. "Ah. Reading the aura of the place again? Appreciating the nuance lost on all the rest of us?"

Luke shrugged. "That also comes with the job." He hesitated for just a moment before deciding to broach a less pleasant subject. "Pooja, don't take this the wrong way. Varykino is amazing, quite possibly my new favorite place in the galaxy, and I can never thank you enough for sharing it with us. But now that I'm this far removed from the house, I can feel something else that I don't like at all. It's not here on top of us, but it's definitely nearby. Any ideas?"

Her expression fell into something resembling resignation, and she pointed out over the lake toward the far distant shore. "That way?" she asked.

Luke considered it for a moment. "Yeah," he decided. "What is it?"

"Convergence," Pooja said, her voice cold and formal, "the ancestral home of House Palpatine. The Emperor spent his childhood there."

That familiar chill clutched Luke's heart before he could arm himself against it. No matter what rock he overturned, it seemed Palpatine was lying in wait beneath the next one. He breathed deeply before he could get angry again.

"His whole family was killed in a sudden accident during his late adolescence, and he sold the place rather than go back. The estate changed hands a few times before it was essentially abandoned. The owners never seemed to prosper. Too much bad energy, I suppose."

"You think?" Luke asked, heavy on the sarcasm. He pitied those new owners, trying to live in the residual stench of Palpatine's corruption. "How accidental was that 'accident?'" he asked.

Pooja met his gaze with an equal measure of skepticism. "Officially quite accidental, but young Palpatine was the sole survivor and the only witness. Hindsight might tempt one to ask a few questions, especially considering his contentious relationship with his parents, but questions were dangerous during the Imperial era. The Emperor meticulously destroyed all the public records of his origins, his family, his house, and his ancestry. That might have effectively deflected suspicion in the broader galaxy, but no one can simply erase an entire house from the ruling families and expect people here to just forget. The Naboo remember their own history, even if no one else does."

Luke screwed up his courage to ask another question, one that had gradually become more difficult to ignore. Whatever the answer, truth had to be better than gnawing uncertainty. "Pooja," he began again, "how closely is House Naberrie related to House Palpatine?"

She frowned. "I was afraid you might ask. I'd like to say I have no idea, but I'd be lying if I didn't admit that we all examined our genealogies very carefully with the rise of the Empire. House Palpatine was always a bit of an outlier by comparison, and they intermarried less often than the rest, mostly because they were neither the wealthiest nor the most influential. But," she continued, coming to the meat of it, "our own archives confirmed that we and the Emperor did share a common ancestor, Calyx Palpatine, seven generations past."

Luke found that knowledge unsettling on an existential level, and he was tempted to claw off his own skin to purge the Palpatine out of him. What did that make Darth Sidious to him, some kind of horrible distant uncle not nearly enough times removed?

Disturbing possibilities flashed through Luke's mind before he could give them due consideration. Had Senator Palpatine chosen to bring young Padmé Naberrie into his circle of influence because they shared some genetic similarity? Did that make it easier for him to manipulate her life energy? Was the Emperor's eagerness to replace Vader driven not only by time constraints, but by a desire to snare an apprentice who was both a Skywalker prodigy and a Royal Naboo kinsman? In all his dealings with the Emperor in all his incarnate forms, there had been an astounding amount of context Luke had not appreciated at the time. Perhaps that had been for the best. He suspected that if he had been aware of even half of what he knew now, he might not have been able to control himself.

Pooja must have seen his mood deteriorating, because she reached to gently touch his shoulder. "I'm sorry," she said, her brow furrowed with sympathetic concern.

Luke exhaled heavily, and tried with all his might to release the resentment with it. "Don't apologize for the truth," he insisted. "I asked for it." He had indeed asked for it, but now what was he going to do with it? "Nothing's changed in the last ten minutes," he said, mostly for his own benefit. "No one knew it, now everyone will, that's all. Besides, Calyx can't be blamed for any of this, and might even have been a decent person. Do we know otherwise?"

"Not to my knowledge," Pooja answered with a shrug. "I would offer to look into that, but as I said, all the official records were purged."

"We'll give him the benefit of the doubt, then," Luke decided. "Far be it from me to blame anyone for the bad behavior of his family members."

"Of course not," Pooja agreed.

"It's not even that remarkable, really," he reasoned. "Every family tree has a bad fruit or two."

"That seems to be the common experience."

"Not even unusual."

"Not at all."

Luke and Pooja looked sideways at one another, and then burst out laughing.

It was all so bizarre, a foregone crescendo of absurdities playing in reverse. Ever since the Battle of Yavin, one question in particular had electrified certain sectors of the galaxy. Who was Luke Skywalker? Luke would have given a confident answer at the time, but in reality he'd been almost as clueless as the rest of them. Now, after acclimating to the revelation that his father had been a Jedi phenom turned Sith warlord, that he was secretly half of an extraordinary pair of twins upon whom the powers of the old world had pinned all their hopes for the future, that his mother had been a regnant queen, and that even the Emperor himself had been some kind of obscure relation, Luke was sure he still had no idea.

He buried his face in his hands and briefly expressed his frustration in a single inarticulate noise. "What a mess!" he said, somehow still smiling in spite of everything. "What a monumental galactic muck-up! Can nothing about us just be normal for a change? Maybe my childhood was normal, but I don't know if I'd recognize normal if it walked up and bit me. Pooja, is growing up on an isolated moisture farm normal?"

Pooja shrugged. "I spent my childhood hiding from Imperial Inquisitors, and was both a senator and a formal traitor by the age of twenty-five, so maybe 'normal' isn't my strong suit either."

"Just not in the cards, I guess." Luke was reminded of Janren's brutally honest observations over dinner, and was forced to concede that he was right. "I guess we were always destined to be the ones the normal people read about," he said, "the ones who hold the line so everyone else can be normal."

"Perhaps." Pooja threw the uneaten portion of her fruit into the water, where it bobbed for just a few seconds before some enterprising creature sucked it down into the deep. "In my experience, there are some people who can't help but make ordinary things extraordinary, wherever they find themselves."

They packed their things, loaded the boat, and prepared to return to the house, but not before Luke went back to the overlook one more time. Mara had packed his lightsaber with his clothes, and he used it to carefully incise his own name below his parents' initials. He could imagine that rock cut with dozens of names in the future, generations of Naberrie Jedi gathering to ground themselves at Varykino like their tragic grandparents, nieces, nephews, and cousins, Skywalkers, Solos, and whatever other surnames they might inherit.

Whatever the whole picture of their heritage looked like, Luke was glad they were still able to fill in the details. The slow work of restoration would probably outlive him, but it was an encouraging start.

Mara rolled her eyes at herself, clearing away the mess she had made in the kitchen as Luke and Pooja arrived back at the house. Her attempts at domesticity had ended in failure, but she could at least leave the place as tidy as she had found it. Pooja had made it look so easy, but one or more of her substitutions must have gone horribly wrong to end up like that.

Luke took in the scene at a glance, and looked so hopeful that Mara felt disappointed on his behalf. "Hey, what's that?"

"Not good, Skywalker," she admitted, leaving a bowlful of used utensils for the droids to sort out. "And don't try pretending otherwise. Your son has already made his opinion known."

They were supposed to be little cakes much like Pooja had made that morning, but they had mysteriously separated into pockmarked fritters swimming in their own grease. Undeterred, Luke fished one out of the pan and tried to take a bite, but the blasted thing had the consistency of duracrete, and his teeth didn't even dent the surface. "Mm," he admitted with an apologetic look. "I guess I'm going to have to agree with Ben this time."

Pooja laughed, but in that generous way that made it clear she was laughing with them. "Don't worry, we can throw them to the klaa fish," she suggested. "They'll eat anything."

The weather was too gorgeous to waste indoors, just warm enough to be comfortable with the sun dipping in and out of the clouds. They all went outside to the broad green lawn at the center of the gardens, somewhere Ben could perform his mandatory tumbling practice in relative safety. It was still early days in his official Jedi instruction, but he had been dabbling in the more physical aspects long enough to have a foundational skill set, and as far as his father was concerned, commitment to one's own personal training knew no vacation.

"Loosen up," Luke called back, coming to sit beside Mara after leading Ben and his cousins through their warm up. "Trust yourself, or you'll end up with a mouthful of grass."

Mara tried to appreciate the moment for all it was worth, sitting in the dappled shade with a cold drink, holding her husband's hand while Ben practiced a careful series of handstands and backbend kickovers. Part of her wished their whole lives could be as carefree as that, but no doubt they would drive themselves crazy if the years weren't punctuated by some deadly peril or other. Mara wondered whether she should ask Luke about that brief but intense emotional ride he had taken on the island, but decided it would keep. No need to spoil the moment.

Then Ben transitioned into a rapid series of back handsprings, a skill he hadn't quite mastered yet. Despite his calm facade, Luke was watching like a raptor, and he caught a bad tumble in a firm levitation a few centimeters from the ground, unwilling in the end to watch his son faceplant into the turf.

"You got a little ahead of yourself," he said, getting up to take charge of the lesson. "Come on. One at a time until you're sure which way is up."

"And . . . it's gone," Mara said to herself with a wry smile.

"What's gone?" Pooja asked from the other side.

"The moment. Just a normal moment. They never last." Still, Mara couldn't quite bring herself to be sorry, watching as Luke acted as spotter, guiding Ben through his handsprings until he was confident enough to launch on his own again.

"We were just talking about that," Pooja said, matching her tone. "I suppose Luke would say that comes with the job."

Mara stifled a laugh. "He wouldn't be wrong."

All the boys whooped as Ben landed four consecutive handsprings like a champion. Pooja applauded politely from the sidelines, but then she stiffened. "Oh," she said, "oh, no. Sweet powers that be, what are they doing?"

Darred was eagerly negotiating himself into a backbend as Luke supported his spine.

"Don't worry," Mara assured her, "this is basic stuff. After all, you can't spend time out with your famous Jedi cousins without picking up some flash moves to impress your schoolmates, can you?"

"I suppose not," Pooja allowed, obviously unconvinced. "I just can't help but feel like someone is going to get hurt."

"Sprains we can't rule out," Mara admitted, "but Luke won't let them break anything."

Ruwee, less athletically inclined than his brother, collapsed out of his backbend laughing. He got up and appointed himself official cheerleader with Ben as Luke guided Darred through a slow kickover.

"So," Mara began, trying to sound casual, "it seems you two had some significant conversation out there. Bad news?"

"Perhaps," Pooja admitted, gathering her thoughts. "Luke wanted to know if the Naberrie and Palpatine lines had ever crossed in the past."

"Oh." Now that earlier flare of agitated anger made sense. "I assume they did?"

"At least once in any way that would affect us, a few centuries ago."

Mara sighed. Yet another rotten surprise with their name on it. Truth bombs like that seemed to be strewn along Luke's path like buried pressure detonators, but that hadn't deterred him from pushing forward. Some said ignorance was bliss, but in their experience ignorance was dangerous. But for those rude surprises, Luke might have found himself blissfully married to his sister. "He seems to be taking it well."

"As well as can be expected." Pooja twitched as Darred attempted a shaky series of independent kickovers to the full-throated acclaim of the other boys. Ben jumped in to demonstrate the technique once again. "I can appreciate how difficult that might be to accept."

"Luke's had a lot of practice accepting difficult things."

Pooja turned toward her with a knowing look. "Comes with the job?" she guessed.

Mara smiled. "In his case, yes, it does."

They all applauded Darred as he enthusiastically celebrated a stronger series of kickovers. High on his own success, he immediately demanded Luke's help to advance into a handspring.

His grandmother wasn't so sanguine. "Prone to delusions of grandeur, that one," she grumbled, "the kind who would try to climb the wall just because the spider made it look easy."

After eight years of trying to keep a rambunctious boy alive in spite of himself, Mara could sympathize. "I'm sure the courage will prove an asset one of these days."

Only a few trials were enough to convince Darred he had mastered the move, but Luke held him back for at least twice the practice before he turned him loose. Boys being boys, within the next twenty minutes Darred and Ben were running wild handspring races across the lawn, and Luke wasn't sparing them the consequences of clumsy mistakes. Ben came away the undisputed winner by virtue of having more experience, and perhaps because he was smaller and faster, but Darred gave an unexpectedly good account of himself.

"I think you may have a natural on your hands," Mara commented.

"We'll see if his newfound interest in gymnastics overpowers his obsession with ball games," Pooja said, looking skeptical. "He's been cursed with a great deal of natural talent, but whether he has the perseverance to make good on it remains to be seen." Then she frowned. "What's this?"

Mara looked. Luke had pulled Darred aside for what looked like a very earnest conversation, and she could feel her husband reaching into the Force for a deeper read of those natural talents Pooja had alluded to. "I don't know," she said, "but I expect we'll find out."

It seemed like they were talking a long time, but it was really only a few minutes before Luke dismissed him with an affectionate slap on the shoulder, just in time for all three boys to attack a tray of snacks and fizzers brought out by the groundskeeper's wife.

Luke returned to the quieter company of the ladies as the young ones replenished their energy reserves. "I'm impressed," he admitted to Pooja, resuming his seat. "I have to say I didn't expect Darred to jump in with both feet that way."

"That's Darred," Pooja said, sipping her floral tea. "Always the first to jump the crevasse, and the confounded child sticks the landing more often than not."

Luke smiled to himself. "Sounds familiar," he said. "I'm afraid I probably made Aunt Beru prematurely gray rocketing around the way I did." Then he lowered his voice, although the boys weren't paying attention. "I think Darred might actually have some measurable Force sensitivity."

Pooja paled. "Enough to be a Jedi?"

"No." Luke shook his head. "I could run some more exact tests, but I don't think so. It is enough to give him quicker than average reflexes, surer footing, and a more instinctive grasp of his position relative to objects and space around him. That could be why he gravitates naturally to sports, and if he learns to trust it, that ability could be an invaluable asset later in life." He paused, appreciating the sensitivity of the subject. "If he chooses a career as a pilot, for instance."

Pooja's expression gave nothing away, but Mara could imagine the maternal dread the possibility had to conjure up. "He's expressed an interest before," she admitted, "and not just for his father's sake."

"I haven't told him yet," Luke said, "but I wanted you to know."

"I'd never keep a secret like that from him," Pooja decided, resigned to accept the facts as they were. "Do whatever you think best. Maybe then he can use the rest of your time here to best advantage." She forced herself to smile. "After all, it's not every day you're offered private lessons with the Grand Master."

Luke returned the expression, a silent salute to her resolve. "Beneath that sophisticated exterior, Pooja, you're really quite mercenary. Now I'm not surprised that you were helping lead the resistance on the Imperial homeworld, and survived."

"Dad!" Ben was shouting from the table at the other end of the yard. "Dad, come on! Teach us something else!"

"And have you spew fizzer all over me?" Luke retorted. "No, thanks."

The noise of juvenile protest and disappointment echoed from the hills.

Luke held up a finger, unmoved. "One hour," he insisted. "Then we'll talk."

The afternoon was far from over, as it turned out. The boys took Luke at his word, waited the hour to the minute, and then demanded his full attention once again. By dinnertime, they had spent several more hours learning new skills and putting him through his paces. Thanks to his active habits, Luke could still move with more strength and agility than most men his age, but not even a Jedi could escape the cumulative physical consequences of life forever. A few sessions of hyperbaric oxygen wouldn't be a bad idea when they got home. Now, as the stars began to appear in the darkening sky, Mara had him laid out on that stone bench on their balcony, performing his routine adjustment.

"So, what do you want to do with Darred?" she asked, her fingers palpating his neck for any stiffness.

"I thought we'd start including him in the morning meditation," Luke answered, lying limp and letting her work, "get him in touch with—" He grunted as she cracked his vertebrae to the right. "—with his extra senses, and just see how it goes. I'd like to teach him how to be aware of it going forward, just—" And to the left. "—just in case he needs it."

"Ruwee seems to be taking it well."

"Not everyone considers our lifestyle a blessing," Luke reminded her, crossing his arms over his chest as she lifted his shoulder and lay across him, prepared to realign his spine. "Ruwee's a bright kid. He'll be fine. Ow!"

"That was a big one," Mara observed with what could be called an affectionately sadistic smile, moving to lift the opposite shoulder. Again, she carefully felt along the contour of his back, and then brought all her weight to bear at once. Luke grimaced, the cracking sound of his own bones disconcertingly satisfying.

"On your back."

He complied, willing himself to relax as Mara cautiously manipulated his leg, investigating his hip joint.

"That one's getting crunchier," she said, preparing her next move. "I'll bet it gives you trouble in the future."

"I'll bet you're right," Luke agreed. "Ugh!" The pop reverberated through his whole body. "You're so mean," he breathed. "Thank you."

"Anytime," Mara assured him, taking aim and cracking the other side as well. "Roll over."

The stone was cool against his face, pressing into his chest as Mara exerted gentle pressure between his shoulders with the heels of her hands.

"Any idea how you want to spend tomorrow?" she asked. "Pooja was saying something about a hiking trail into the hills."

"Maybe."

"Okay," Mara amended, unable to overlook his lack of enthusiasm. "You obviously have something else in mind, so spill it."

"There's a ruined villa on the other side of the lake," Luke said.

"And?" Mara asked, bearing down on his spine and popping it back into place. "Anything remarkable about it?"

"It was the Palpatine family estate."

Mara froze, and Luke could feel the bitter chill that ran through her. For a drawn second she considered her response, torn between fight or flight. Ultimately she chose to fight, and she pressed him into the bench again, to restrain him this time rather than for any therapeutic purpose. "No," she said, as adamantly as he had ever heard. "No. Are you crazy? What reason could you possibly have for going out there?"

"I don't know," Luke admitted, being perfectly honest. "I just feel like I need to see it."

"No!" she said again. "You don't need to see shavit, Skywalker. That man isn't going to lay a finger on Ben, not even a dead one, and I don't want you going out there either. We're supposed to be learning about your family, not indulging this sick fascination. What do you expect to do? Sit in what's left of his dining room and pick a fight with a ghost?"

Luke said nothing. It did seem like an unhealthy compulsion when she framed it that way. Why did he feel compelled to go stand in the midst of that dark stain in the Force? Was he trying to prove something to himself, or was he fighting a battle that didn't exist outside his own mind?

"I want this to end right here," Mara demanded, and her tone was deadly serious. "For the last time, Darth Sidious is dead, dead three times over, just about as dead as anyone can possibly be. Grand Master Skywalker is very much alive, and he needs to start acting like it. Don't you dare start circling that drain again."

The anger in her voice was fed by a pain Luke regretted to have caused, and had never intended. He moved to sit up, she let him, and they sat together in silence for a while. His first instinct was to apologize, but he didn't because he could sense that she wasn't done speaking yet and was groping for words.

"That man took everything from me," Mara finally said, a tremor in her voice she couldn't quite stamp out. "In return, he gave me an identity that meant nothing without him, and convinced me to be grateful. Now my life means nothing without you, Luke, but I love you, and I chose this. I don't want him to come between us anymore. I can't help but wonder how much earlier we might have seen our way to each other if you hadn't run straight into his hands at Byss. How much time has he already taken from us? Please don't give him any more."

Luke put his arm around her and pulled her close. "I'm sorry," he said. It wasn't eloquent or adequate, but he meant it. He knew she was right. Palpatine was dead, and couldn't influence him anymore one way or the other. Any influence he had was purely a product of Luke's own memory.

"He has no power over you that you don't give him," Mara said, echoing his thoughts. "So don't give it. Live your life and be happy. You've earned it, for fark's sake."

Now she was echoing his father's candid advice from the night before. Life was indeed too short to waste time and energy on people who didn't deserve either one. Luke remembered the hurt and betrayal he'd felt as Darth Vader had time and time again chosen Emperor Palpatine over his own son. There was no way he was going to allow himself to do the same.

"All right," he agreed, deliberately choosing to set that burden down. All the misery, all the damage, all the malice and injustice was real, but he didn't have to carry it any longer. There was probably no better way he could honor the memory of both his parents. Convergence and whatever bad aura lingered there could stay put, overgrown with weeds and crusted with animal droppings, an empty grave that didn't concern him. "You know I'd never choose that over you and Ben. If you want it to end here, it ends here. I promise."

Mara gave him a sharp look. "I want you to want it for your own sake," she insisted, "not just to please me."

"Fine," Luke granted with a twisted smile. "I want to end it for my own sake. Happy?"

"Not quite." Mara mirrored his impudent expression, and pulled him into a kiss. "Now you can promise to do it just to please me."