Title: The Bet
Timeframe: Vision of the Future
Disclaimers: I own nothing. All characters and places belong to Disney.
Part 1: The Bet
Luke answered within moments of Leia initiating the holo transmission. Relief washed over Leia upon seeing her brother's smiling face.
"Hey, Leia."
"Hey to you too." She responds. She studies him for a moment, noticing his mused hair. Doing some quick mental math Leia determines it would be nearly nine in the morning on Coruscant. "Did you just wake up?" She asks. In the nineteen years she'd known her twin, Luke rarely slept past six remnant conditioning from his childhood.
He runs a hand through his hair and nods.
"Sorry." She says.
"It's fine. Mara and I have a meeting with New Republic Intelligence in a couple of hours." He states.
Leia waits a moment, hoping he'd elaborate. When he doesn't she finally asks, "So I take it you found her okay?"
"Yeah." Luke's smile seems to widen briefly before he asks. "When are you and Han expected back?"
"We're in system. Probably with air traffic control being predictably backed up, I'd say five, maybe six hours."
"We'll meet you at the landing bay then. I have something that I want to give directly to you."
Leia squints at the holo image, confused. "What's the meeting with NRI for then?"
"We procured a vessel that we parked in their storage for safekeeping."
"What happened to your x-wing?"
Luke shrugs. "It's not retrievable."
"Jade's Fire?" Surely, Mara had flown her ship back to Coruscant.
The mention of Mara's ship causes Luke to wince. "She should be the one to tell you."
What the hell had happened? Also, what type of ship would warrant NRI secrecy?
Leia nods. "Alright, I'll see you in a bit."
Luke gives her a salute, then ends the call.
Standing, Leia makes her way back to the Falcon's cockpit and takes Chewie's seat.
Something had shifted. It was a similar feeling, like the one Leia had had right before the Endor strike team had launched. When Luke had already known they were twins and hadn't wanted to tell her just yet.
"How's Luke?" Han asks from his pilot's seat.
"Seems happy."
Han smirks. "Probably's heard the news. I'm sure Coruscant is buzzing with the news of an actual peace agreement in the works."
Leia just nods. Stretching out her under utilized and under developed Force abilities, she allows herself to locate the familiar presence, currently a small pinpoint millions of kilometers a way, that was her brother. Luke was too far away for her to sense anything substantial about his current emotions, however, and whatever he was hiding was causing him to be too preoccupied to reach back for her.
Luke wasn't the only being she could identify, Leia also felt her children, the twins and Anakin. Sensing the twins, Leia feels the familiar old stirring of hatred she had once felt so keenly towards Darth Vader. That feeling didn't rear its head often these days, only when Leia would watch Jaina and Jacen play together sometimes and remember she and Luke had been robbed of growing up together. For as well as Leia claimed, she knew Luke -and she did- they still had spent nineteen formative years not knowing the other one existed.
Exactly half of their lives up till this moment, and when she and Luke had first met, they had spent four years unaware of the fact they were siblings. A good portion of those years Leia remembered being confused because she so clearly had loved Luke. It had been like discovering a person she had not known she was missing. Han, however, had infuriated Leia as much as he had endured himself to her in those first couple of years. Luke often joked that she and Han had been so over the moon for each other back then they had made for better holo-drama entertainment than actual holo-dramas. Looking back, Leia couldn't argue with Luke's point.
"Did he mention where he found Mara?" Han asks, breaking Leia out of her thoughts.
"No, he just said they'd meet us at the landing-bay."
Han shoots her a curious if not slightly shocked expression. "Him and Mara?"
Leia shrugs. "That's what it sounded like."
"One could get whip-lash from those two," he mutters, sounding amused. "I swear for the last ten years they've either been irrationally chummy or irrationally venomous towards each other."
"Wonder what it'll be today." Leia muses.
Leia genuinely liked Mara well, as much as Mara let anyone like Mara.
Nearly a year ago, Leia and Mara had spent some enforced time together in a Selonian villa. Between gripping about how Leia was handling the situation, Mara had let slip a few things. Like her and Luke's apparent three-day stay on Nar Shaddaa not long after Callista had dumped Luke. According to Mara, she had "kidnapped" Luke from Yavin 4 on a whim because she had found herself with a free week. Leia had learned Karrde had a flat there he kept for business dealings, in which Luke and Mara had stayed. The two had spent those three days apparently, playing Sabacc, going to the local cantinas, drinking too much, and doing at least one karaoke session, something Leia would have paid good credits to witness. After revealing that Mara had threatened to kill Leia if she ever told her brother that Mara had mentioned that trip. Leia had gotten the impression the threat wasn't to save Luke any embarrassment, but that Mara didn't want Luke to know she'd enjoyed those three days.
However, after the Centerpoint station crisis had been adverted, and when everyone had been reunited, Leia didn't recall Luke and Mara saying a word to each other. Nor did Leia think Luke and Mara had spoken much since, if at all. From Leia's outside perspective, her brother's friendship (if one could call it that) with Mara depended purely on Mara's mood. After the whole enforced villa stay and then Centerpoint, Mara had been eager to return to business as usual. Then, when the New Republic was on the edge of collapse over the Caamas scandal, Luke had dropped everything to go after her. Leaving the government he had, in part, helped establish to its own fate, and choosing a woman who had once sworn to kill him.
Did Leia trust Mara? Leia trusted Mara to get results, but whether she could be counted on as an actual ally, Leia wasn't sure most of the time.
Luke, Leia knew, trusted Mara implicitly. Just like on Endor, when he had been so convinced that there was still good remaining in Vader and was later vindicated; Luke had, in a similar way, had had that faith in Mara, even when all logic should have said differently. Luke could forgive, if not forget, in a way Leia had never comprehended. Perhaps being raised on a harsh, unforgiving world like Tatooine gave Luke a perspective that Leia's privileged upbringing as Princess of Alderaan hadn't given Leia. More likely, though, it was a simple matter of personality differences.
While she and Han waited in orbit for their turn to land, Leia made them lunch, remaining lost in her thoughts. While eating, the conversation turned to the upcoming peace talks with the Empire.
"Still doesn't seem real does it," Han muses.
Leia nods in agreement. She had been actively helping and fighting against the Empire for two decades. Before that, she had listened and watched her adoptive father, Bail Organa, subtly resist the Empire's tyranny as a young girl. Leia missed her adoptive parents and knew Bail would be as thrilled and as proud as she was with what the New Republic had accomplished. "I just wish the friends and allies we've lost in this war could be here now."
Han gives his famous lop-sided grin and states, "It'd be a hell of a party." From his tone, it was clear he was remembering faces and names of fallen friends.
"Assuming talks don't fall through."
"Sweetheart, don't start that! Unless it's a Jedi feeling, no jinxing this." Han putting stock in Jedi senses was amusing, since when he'd first been dragged into this war he hadn't believed in the Force at all.
There was no premonition from the Force though in this moment, Leia was just overthinking. Pellaeon was sincere in his desire for peace.
At that moment, the Falcon's comm chimed.
"Falcon here." Han answered.
"Captain Solo, you're cleared to dock at Coruscant Spaceport landing bay 234." The female voice on the other end said. "Keep to the following indicated traffic lanes for your approach."
"Copy that."
With complete confidence, Han brought the Millennium Falcon into her assigned birth. Before her husband had even begun the shutdown sequence, Leia was scanning the docking bay for Luke. She saw him, just as Han had shut off the Falcon's repulsor engines, entering the bay.
Walking beside Luke was Mara. The red-headed woman carried herself with a feline-like grace Leia recognized as someone who had years of dance training in the Imperial court. In Mara's case, it also hid just how deadly she could be in a fight. Hanging at her hip was the lightsaber that had once belonged to Anakin Skywalker. A gift from Luke, and something Leia had never figured out why he'd given Mara. The one thing he had possessed of their father's, especially after he had just gotten it back at Wayland. It pleased Leia, however, to see that even ten years later Mara had kept the weapon. Even if Leia thought it belonged in a museum and not in the hands of an ex-Emperor's Hand.
"Great," Han mutters. "Looks like it'll be infuriatingly chummy today."
It appeared that way, though through the Force, Mara felt just as on edge as she normally did. Though that feeling didn't seem to be directed at her current companion. Luke and Mara were engaged in conversation and she was wearing a smile Leia had never seen Mara display.
Once again, Leia sensed that something had shifted.
"She does look happy for someone who just met with NRI," Leia states. For that matter, Luke looked way too happy as well. Considering every other time Luke had had conversations with New Republic Intelligence in the past, he'd always come out of those meetings in a foul mood. NRI agents rarely seemed to like or accept Jedi reasoning for things, even if the agent respected Luke as a past military hero.
Han snorts. Standing, he stretches before extending a hand. "Shall we?" He asks.
Taking her husband's hand, Leia nods and lets him lead her out of the ship and towards her brother and Mara. Exiting the ship, the four meet midway between the Falcon and the bay's entrance. Without thinking, Leia embraced Luke, exclaiming; "It's so exciting!"
"What?" Luke asks.
The siblings release each other and Leia stares at Luke incredulously. "I'm sure it's reached Coruscant."
Luke and Mara exchange glances. "We just got back last night." Luke admits.
"Pellaeon wants peace!"
The shock emanating from both Luke and Mara hit Leia as she watches their expressions go from uncomprehending to enthusiastic.
"You didn't think to tell me this earlier!" Luke accuses as he and Leia hug again.
"I thought you'd have heard." She says, laughing.
Abruptly, Luke lets go of Leia and turns to Mara. The two hug.
It takes Leia a moment to realize what just happened, even as her eyes watch her twin and the once Imperial agent celebrate. A glance at Han shows Leia's husband just watching, jaw dropped and with a slight smugness worming its way into his brown eyes.
Han recovers first. "Well, I feel totally left out." He mutters, arms crossed.
Luke and Mara release, though Leia notes they are still holding hands, if only for a moment. Before Luke and Han have their own moment of celebration.
Leia takes that moment to study Mara. Had it just been the exciting news that the long war was nearly over? No. There was something, though Mara's face was unreadable, in the other woman's green eyes and in the way she looked at Luke.
"This is for you." Luke says, forcing Leia's attention back to her brother, as he hands her a datapad.
Leia accepts it.
"It looks legit." Luke adds.
Intrigued, Leia turns the device on. It only takes a moment for Leia to realize that the document on the screen is the Caamas files she had been trying desperately to locate. "Where!?" Glancing up at her brother.
She senses Han look over her shoulder and hears him whistle.
"Afraid I can't tell you that," Luke says.
Leia looks at the datapad again, then back at Luke. "This is fabulous." She felt giddy. Leia hadn't thought she could feel anymore happiness, but this proved that wrong.
"I assume this means you aren't going straight home." Han guessed.
"I have to authenticate it and then get it into the hands of the senate." Leia explains.
Han understood. Though his expression stated he wasn't happy about being detoured from being able to get home and have some uninterrupted time with his family.
"You and Luke can go spend the afternoon with the kids, and I'll meet you all for dinner later." Leia said, trying to placate her husband's disappointment.
"Actually," Luke begins, "can Mara and I just join you for dinner?"
Leia glances at Luke then Mara. "Sure." Though Leia had figured Mara would be in a hurry to join Karrde. The other woman seemed content to remain on Coruscant for whatever reason.
The four quickly make arrangements to meet later. Then Leia watches Luke and Mara disappear through the bay's entrance and into the crowds beyond.
Despite being in a hurry to get to her office in the senate rotunda, Leia walks with Han for as long as possible through the spaceport. After a long stretch of silence, Han says, "I was wrong."
Leia glances up at him.
He laughs. "They weren't chummy." He explains.
"Seemed chummy to me."
Han gives her a you're kidding right look. "I'll stake the Falcon that they are full on sleeping together."
Leia scoffs. "The Falcon. Really?"
"You don't think so?"
Leia takes her time in formulating her response. Perhaps if the two people in question were anyone but Luke and Mara, Leia would have agreed with Han. But nothing that had happened today couldn't be explained with the relief of another crisis adverted, and the excitement of having peace on the horizon. "I'll take that bet." She finally says. "And tonight I'll prove you wrong."
With a firm handshake, husband and wife seal the bet before each turn their separate ways.