Conference Room
Former Imperial Palace, now New Republic Headquarters
There was yelling, and screaming, and howling, and numerous questions, and people running to and fro and Luke Skywalker, the galaxy's only living Jedi Knight, stared in disbelieving horror at the holoscreen where his alternate timeline counterpart had just revealed the truth of his parentage, of Leia's parentage, to the galaxy.
"Leia is gonna be pissed off," Luke murmured to himself. "She is gonna be really, really, really mad."
/
Organa Solo Apartment
Delaya
"I am going to kill them!" Leia Organa Solo shouted. "I am going to dip them in a vat of eel pudding, and then I am going to throw them to the coco claw fish and then..."
"Who are they?" Han Solo demanded in confusion. "How do they know about you and Tall, Dark, and Ugly?"
Leia picked up a random pillow from the couch and threw it hard against a wall, though she was careful to avoid hitting anything breakable.
She flopped onto the couch and burst into tears, which caused her husband to sit down next to her and draw her into his arms. "Hey, Leia, it's Ok. It is..."
"I told them not to tell anyone!" she sobbed. "How dare they?"
"Um, Leia, you know these people?" Han asked. "Who are they?"
"Yes, I know them, " his wife responded, grabbing a tissue and blowing her nose. "They showed up a few days ago here, like literally out of thin air, and they proved they are from the future, and from a different timeline. They insisted that bad things would happen if we didn't tell the galaxy that Vader was my father. I told them I didn't give a rip what they thought, that Vader had to be kept a secret, and they disagreed, but I never thought they would go on Relinka Spetzv's show and blab the truth to everyone! I mean, who does that?"
"Did you tell Luke?" Han asked.
"No!" his wife said, rolling to her feet and beginning to stomp up and down the floor. "No, I didn't, because he thinks that we should tell everyone about Vader, and he would just argue with me, and I am too sick, and too hormonal, and too pregnant, to argue with my recently discovered twin brother. It is just too exhausting!"
The door opened suddenly and Chewbacca lumbered in, howling urgently.
"Yeah, good idea, Chewie," Han said.
"What is?" Leia demanded, stalking over to the cooling unit to find some blue milk.
"Chewie says we need to get on the Falcon and get out of here. This whole Vader thing is probably going to upset some people, and you might not be safe here."
Leia growled in frustration, took three long sips of milk, and slammed the bottle back into the unit. "You are right, of course. The diaspora is going to lose its collective mind over the heiress of Alderaan being the daughter of Alderaan's worst enemy. Which is exactly why I didn't want to tell anyone! We should go to Coruscant so I can punch the Alter Twins in the noses."
"Sure, Leia, whatever you say," Han said in a placating tone. "Let's go."
"Does the Falcon actually fly?" Leia demanded, marching briskly toward their bedroom so that she could do some quick packing. At least her anger had overwhelmed her nausea for the moment.
"Sure, Leia; she's flying beautifully. Trust me!"
/
Holonet Studio
"Your father, your father..." Relinka stammered.
"Was Darth Vader," Luke said, his expression sorrowful.
"Darth Vader," Relinka said blankly. "As in, Darth Vader, second in command of the Empire?"
"Darth Vader, monster, murderer, guilty of the destruction of entire people groups, largely responsible for the enslavement of the Wookiees. Yes, that Darth Vader was our biological father," Leia said calmly.
"I ... I don't believe it," Winter croaked.
"Well, you wouldn't be the first one to have major doubts," Luke said with a roll of his eyes. "Vader told me at Bespin after we fought and he chopped off my right hand. That was not my best day."
"And I," Leia said irritably, "found out at Endor, right before my heroic brother marched off to be arrested by Vader himself. The timing totally sucked."
"To be fair," Luke said, "I had only just found out we were twins like two days earlier..."
"I know, and I had to know the truth before you went off like an idiot, but it made an already stressful mission even more impossibly crazy."
"Wait, you surrendered to Lord Vader at Endor?" Winter demanded. "I thought you were captured!"
"Well, I was captured after I surrendered," Luke said with an airy wave of his hands. "The problem was that Vader knew I was on Endor because we have a Force bond and I was hoping to distract him while the assault team blew up the generator. That turned out to be erroneous thinking on my part, because the Emperor already knew about the strike team. The whole thing was a trap for the Alliance, but my wonderful brother-in-law, sister, and the assault team, along with the Ewoks of Endor, turned the table and managed to blow up the shield generator anyway. It was awesome."
"And where were you during the battle?" Relinka demanded. There had been a kilometer of speculation about what had truly gone down on the Death Star during the final battle at Endor, which had resulted in the death of both the Emperor and his fearsome second in command.
"Oh, I was on the Death Star. The Emperor had me brought up there by my father in the hopes that I would switch sides."
"Emperor Palpatine wanted to recruit you?" Relinka asked in a disbelieving tone. "In spite of the fact that you worked for the Rebellion for years and, if the reports are true, blew up the original Death Star?"
"I did blow up the first Death Star," the older Luke declared insouciantly, "and yes, he wanted to recruit me. Like father, like son, you know. Though actually, old Palps wanted to replace my father with me. I was, at the time, young and fresh and full of vim and vigor."
"Well, compared to Vader, you still are," Leia pointed out. "The poor man was burned over his entire body and had all four limbs chopped off."
"Poor man?" Winter asked incredulously. "Do you actually pity Darth Vader?"
"I do," Leia answered, sitting up straight and looking directly into her Alter Friend's blue eyes. "Listen, our biological was the second most horrible person in the galaxy behind Emperor Palpatine. He tortured me twice, cut off my brother's hand, tortured the man I loved, and stood in silence when Tarkin ordered the destruction of my home world. I hate Darth Vader as a person. Having said that, I am, now that I am in my early thirties, capable of combining hatred with sympathy. He did have a really rotten life in many ways, and spent the last 23 years in life support, in massive pain from third degree burns which were never treated properly. So yes, I hated who he became, and I grieve over the tragedies of his life, some of which, but not all, were self-inflicted."
"He did save my life, too," Luke commented, his blue eyes suddenly faraway. "I refused to join Palpatine, and he started hitting me with Force Lightning, which was the most painful experience of my life – and I've had my hand chopped off with a lightsaber, so I know pain! Father grabbed him and threw him down a handy shaft in the throne room, but electricity and life support aren't a good mix, so he died a few minutes later. His last act, after twenty three years of cruelty, was to save his son's life. So yeah…"
"Oh!" Leia suddenly cried out.
"Oh what?" Relinka demanded.
"Oh, our toes are tingling," Luke said. "That means we're about to disappear back into our timeline. Luke, get married, preferably to Mara, but if she isn't available, someone else sensible. Don't go off and be a stupid hermit."
"And have babies!" Leia cried out. "Lots of babies. Babies are very helpful in pounding some sense into your thick heads that you aren't able to fix the galaxy all by…."
The twins from the future vanished.
