Boy oh boy it's a night shift plot-twisting 6000 word fever-dream.

It is also (!) the beginning of our final arc: Part 3, Homecoming. All our of characters are at the beginning of their final journeys for this enormous tale. We are well and truly commencing ROTJ. Can't believe it. Hope it's okay.

Chapter 63: Homecoming

The appearance of the phantom on Yavin 4 had finally begun to fade into the feeling of a distant nightmare when Cere Junda appeared before her former Padawan again, deep in the core of what would very soon be an operational Death Star.

"Leave me. Now."

Trilla did not expect the apparition to obey. She had appeared with luminous blue glow, almost as distinct as a holo-call, as though she lived still, simply somewhere far away.

She could not have lived. Trilla's blade had pierced her. Had sliced right through her core. But that body had disappeared and no one could explain it, not even her Master, who believed himself the wisest in all matters of the Force, who had killed Darth Plagueis for his secrets, who studied the path to immortality…

"You know better than to tumble down this path, Padawan."

Trilla seethed and turned her back upon the apparition. So full of karking bantha-shit. She'd been on this path for a decade longer than she had lived in the Temple and yet Junda still talked to her like an errant youngling who had run away from home for a few nights of dizzying freedom in the under-levels of Coruscant.

"You have never once swayed me, Junda," she told her curtly. "I don't know why you think you might be successful now."

Even with her back turned, Trilla could somehow see Junda's smile, just as they had known each other in those years of a tightly-woven training bond.

"The Princess, Trilla."

Ah. So Junda had the capacity to meditate and know the Force in this incorporeal form and had reached the conclusion that Trilla was guarding fiercely from her Master. She'd become smarter, it seemed, in the afterlife. Trilla would have liked to jam her helmet back on to conceal her scowl but Junda would have known her feelings anyway.

"This is not the first time I have encountered her. She is of no significance to me."

"She is of great significance to you."

She had proved that their connection meant nothing on that fog-laden morning on Ralltiir almost two decades ago. She had proved herself a hundred times over. The princess was no one to her. But it was no good saying any of this; Junda was mad and would not believe her anyway.

"The Jedi taught me to forget my family," she sniped instead. "Non-attachment. It is easy."

The phantom was not so easily unbalanced as her living Master had been.

"Your new Master taught you to feel," Junda reminded her. "And to hurt."

It was futile but Trilla's blade clenched around the handle of her 'saber nonetheless.

"You should have told her," Junda pressed.

Trilla scoffed.

"There was no need. I broke her with far less. Or would you have preferred I hurt her more?"

Junda's voice was low and gentle as it had been in their days of shared meditation.

"Not to hurt her. So that both of you might heal."

Star's sakes. Trilla barked out an almost-laugh.

"A notion almost as absurd as your continued existence, Junda."

"More is possible through the Force, Trilla, than your Master teaches you."

Trilla did not need the reminder. She wondered if she swung her blade at her, Junda would disappear again as she had the first time.

"Shame my first Master didn't teach me better."

But perhaps her petulance was caustic enough, or perhaps Junda had said all she needed to say, for the hum of her presence snapped abruptly to silence. Trilla took a steadying breath and returned her attention to the glowing plans before her. After the Mandalore system, Trilla might turn the Death Star upon her ancestral home, just to shut Junda up.

Turbulence was the only normality that Fenn Rau had ever really known. Very little of the actual conflict in the war that had displaced the Clan Kryze in his childhood had been fought upon Concord Dawn and those years had been of quiet hallways and never enough food as his elders fought the Old Guard on foreign territory. Fenn remembered the celebrations as Satine Kryze reclaimed her Clan's leadership, the halls of his home becoming busier but his family table never quite so full again as it once had been. And then there had been stability – almost, stability – for so many years that it had almost lulled a young Peace Corps soldier into a sense of permanence, before galactic war had broken out and the balance of power had fractured and burst all over again. Fenn had recognised many different leaders in the years of the Empire, mostly against his better judgement, and when the tides of the galaxy had turned again in his favour and Keldabe had been reclaimed Fenn had been under no illusion that there would be normality again. He had known there would be challengers and shadowy threats and evacuations. He had known that his righteous Mand'alor would never trade his ideals for relative peacetime, as Fenn had long done under the rule of the Clan Saxon. He had known that the decades of chaos and strangeness would continue and had been prepared to embrace it as familiar territory.

And yet somehow, even as his boots crunched over the stones of the rocky desert and intermittent scouting ships droned overhead, in constant anticipation of Imperial invasion, in the sort of quasi-warzone that had become the story of his life, there was the strange feeling of walking in a dream.

Something had changed. It had changed first in that stupid land-cruiser in the rain and then by the lake on Kalevala and it had truly changed, joltingly, in that brief moment on Bespin. This had never been a part of Fenn's normal. He had learned very quickly at the beginning of the second war of his life that people were prone to dying unexpectedly in these sorts of circumstances and that love generally wasn't worth the grief. Korkie, it seemed, had learned the same. They were soldiers and leaders but with each other, they were a little out of practice.

In the day they spoke business. The people of Mandalore were practised nomads but the evacuation of Keldabe had not come without challenges and there was much for the Mand'alor to do to keep his people content. Korkie made visits to scattered settlements and reinforced aerial surveillance programs and prepped contingencies for whole planet evacuation. He vowed they would never again be caught out in the matter that they had been on the eve of the Purge of Mandalore. Fenn and the other Alor'ade prepared their own planets for the same, although he tried, a little guiltily, not to spend all too much time on Concord Dawn. He told himself it wasn't selfish; historically, foreign conquerors had never been much interested in the frozen rock he called his home. Mandalore was surely the planet under greatest threat, and Korkie needed him.

Each night Fenn watched the stars for the Empire but they did not come. Korkie would eventually stumble to bed far later than was sensible after fitting in another few holo-calls or tending to their adolescent refugees or sitting in some sort of Force communion with Anakin Skywalker. At night, they did not talk business. They hardly talked at all. Korkie would collapse with a soft groan of relief onto the two pallets they had pushed together, where they could feel the rocky ground beneath the thin fabric of the tent, and they would find each other in the darkness and that would be enough. Most nights, they had worked too hard and sleep found them quickly.

Nothing was said of the arrangement in daylight and that was perfectly sensible; the politics of it all were still far too tenuous. There was no similar precedent in their recent history and even after all that had changed – or perhaps because of it – the people of Mandalore clung to tradition where they could.

It made for a stranger wartime than any Fenn had survived before. But it was a strange sort of happiness, and that was enough.

The galaxy continued to turn as everyone had told Leia that it would; it turned in a manner that infuriated her. Han was frozen and far away and he needed her now – so how was it fair that everyone else in the galaxy demanded help too? Mandalore was a karking mess and Ariarne looked like she needed Sewlen to manufacture her a new spirit to go with her shining new arm and Luke followed the princess around tragically all day without making anything any better. And in the wider galaxy, the Alliance was still finding its feet out near Sullust where she should have been, helping to wrestle everything into order and finding some way to get back on the attack again. She had a kriffing sector she was supposed to be leading. She'd left them to fend for themselves, just as she'd left Han. Not the mention the Millennium Falcon out there rusting in the clouds of Bespin, or worse, under Imperial requisition…

The galaxy continued to turn and Leia seemed to be stuck to the kriffing ground. Her dad insisted they'd go to Tatooine soon but that this brief reprieve together was precious and that a few more days would put them in better stead once everyone went their separate ways to fight their thousand battles.

So when Ahsoka called from the new rebel base – a generous term, she insisted, and really more like a refugee camp – with news of the Empire's latest antics, it really was all too much to bear.

"Every sign says they're building a new Death Star," she announced, grimly. "We've tracked the kyber trails. And the doonium. Cal found a site off Kuat where they're pre-fabricating what looks like big chunks of the exterior. We've not found the thing itself yet but I suspect it's only a matter of time."

Korkie, seated on a fold-out chair around a cluster of supply boxes that served as their makeshift meeting table, rubbed at his perpetually bleary eyes.

"Kriff's sakes."

"On the bright side, Korkie," Ahsoka ventured, "I guess you can probably un-evacuate your cities. They'll be spending all their manpower and resources on building this thing. If they come for you, it'll be after it's done."

"Ha! What a silver lining."

Korkie rocked back on his flimsy chair as he barked out a laugh at the absurdity of it; Fenn caught the back of the chair deftly before it could topple. With their heads tilted low, they spoke to each other in a quiet rumble of Mando'a. Leia understood only snatches but the warm pulse of trust between them was easily tangible in the Force. They wouldn't hear anything anyone else had to say. Leia instead leaned towards her father, who was drumming the table thoughtfully.

"What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking," he mused, "that Han might be safer on Tatooine in the carbonite."

"Dad."

"I'm being serious, Leia. It's going to be an ugly year."

His logic did little for the hot flush of anger in Leia's chest. There was so much karking bantha-shit in this galaxy and Han was the only other person who saw through it like she did. She needed to get off this planet before she went as crazy as the rest of them.

Ariarne had meditated upon the matter – as close to meditation as she could get, these days, at least – and come to her decision. Anakin had helped, in those quiet afternoons of gentle katas outside the compound as Ariarne had begun to know the flow of the Force through her new body. Now that the pain had settled, there lay so much uncertainty in her mind. So much that had happened in that strange moment on Bespin that she needed to find some way to understand. Some strange insanity that had gripped her, that had taken over, the bizarre pull that she had felt as she locked blades with the Sith apprentice…

The time for grieving was over and a return to Dagobah would do her good.

Luke, on the other hand, arriving in her cubicle with a tray of dinner that she'd very deliberately not attended, seemed surprised to see her packing.

"Are you sure you don't want to stay here a little longer?" he ventured. "Where we've got healthcare?"

Ariarne regarded her prosthesis with cool disinterest.

"I don't think there's much more to be done, Luke."

Anakin had, after all, optimised the prosthesis far beyond anything she could have hoped for. Objectively, it was better than her arm had been, in every domain except perhaps the aesthetic.

"You're still recovering," Luke insisted.

"I'm fine."

He hesitated for a moment like he might argue further, then began to stuff his own belongings into his satchel.

"Master Yoda will probably confiscate our lightsabers for a month," he sighed. "Make us do nothing but breathing exercises and handstands."

Ariarne shrugged.

"You don't have to come."

She hadn't said it to hurt him but she knew it stung. He looked at her, his blue eyes bright with bewilderment. All these years, they had been together.

"Sure, I do."

But he didn't. Ariarne marvelled at how Luke couldn't see it. He wasn't lost like she was. He had his people and his place in this galaxy. Ariarne was still looking for her own and she didn't know how she could possibly find them if she stayed forever by his side.

"You chose to leave," she told him, voice effortfully light. "You could choose not to come back. There's no Jedi Order to expel you, you know. If you don't want to come-"

"I do want to come!" Luke protested, indignant.

Ariarne snorted.

"Don't lie. I know you better than that."

Luke groaned, reached for her arm.

"Ariarne, I'm not lying, I-"

"You are!"

She jerked the limb out of his reach.

"I can sense it, Luke. Please. Be honest. You don't want to come to Dagobah. You'd rather head back to the Alliance and fly your stupid fighter and that's fine, Luke-"

"It doesn't sound fine if you're calling my fighter stupid."

"It is fine," Ariarne gritted out. "It's what the Alliance needs. And you're good at it! The hero of the Death Star. They're building another one and they probably need you to blow it up again but they don't need me. I've made a lot of mistakes and-"

Luke rolled his eyes.

"You made one mistake, Ariarne."

Why did that anger pulse through her when she looked at him? His care for her was somehow wounding; he seemed to look at her and fail to see any of her darkness. She could not be that person that he saw in her. The constant failure was exhausting.

"Don't try to tell me what I have and haven't done," she spat, hauling her pack over her shoulders. "I know I've made mistakes. I started making mistakes long before I lost my karking arm. I need more training."

"We both need more training."

"Then learn from your dad!" she erupted. "You have a living kriffing father and you won't even talk to him because you're too busy following me around trying to make me eat this disgusting Mandalorian food when I feel like vomiting all the time and I just want to be left alone!"

And there was a big and terrible silence.

"Ariarne…"

He said her name like a sort of question. Like he didn't quite know who she was. Stars. It had not been easy to be perfect before him but it didn't feel good either, to let him see the mess that was left of her now.

"Luke, I'm sorry, I…"

She heaved a breath, drew herself up a little taller.

"I think we've got different journeys ahead of us," she tried. "Don't you?"

But the damage was done; he looked at her crestfallen still.

"I mean, sure, but…"

He grimaced.

"You don't mean forever?"

And she had been so angry at him but she lapsed into tenderness then. A wave of flooding affection that she'd long tried to ignore.

"Obviously not, Luke," she mumbled, in half-hearted reproach. "Just until I've… got things figured out again."

Luke nodded thoughtfully; he seemed to be wrestling with something.

"I'd meant to tell you-"

He started then faltered.

"Never mind. Another time. I, uh…"

He glanced down at the unwanted plate of dinner in his hands.

"I'll go find someone who's still hungry. I think Korkie skipped dinner too. Working too hard."

He left her with a stomach-ache and a gnawing in her chest. She wanted to hear what he'd had to say but did not have the courage to call him back to her.

Korkie and his Ba'vodu had at least stopped in their perpetual arguments; he knew, now, without anyone telling him, that the time had come to stand for Mandalore before anything else. They'd seemingly escaped without reprisal for his role on Bespin but this could only be as Ahsoka had said – that the Empire was waiting until they had rebuilt the Death Star and had the means to destroy his system efficiently and entirely. They could allow the population to return to the cities – if Keldabe and their few other scattered settlements could be considered cities – but when would the time come to evacuate the whole planetary system? How much warning would they need and how much would the Empire give them? It might have been sensible to flee the system now, to abandon Mandalore entirely until the war was done, but there was no saying how long that would take and there was no place for them to go. His people had been displaced long enough. In the age of the Empire, it was hardly any safer in Wild Space. And an overcautious Mand'alor would be viewed as weak. So Korkie continued to prepare for the worst, to prepare obsessively, and to sit with the gnawing wonder in the back of his mind as to whether he had returned home and reclaimed his birthright too soon in the giddy elation after victory in the Battle of Yavin.

Fenn had gone to bed; Korkie had insisted that he should. It was no good both of them being exhausted. Korkie suspected he would go mad entirely without Fenn's steady countenance and he was to be protected at all costs. The pallet would be warm when Korkie eventually joined him and what little sleep that he did get would be good. Korkie had insisted all these years that he did not need companionship but it was easier to sleep, certainly, with someone at his side.

It would have been nice to be close to him during the day, too. That was an argument with Bo-Katan that Korkie had delayed thus far. The last thing his tenuous government needed was claims of the Mand'alor's favouritism to Concord Dawn.

He forced his gaze back onto the figures upon a sheet of flimsi.

Their problem was star-ships, not in quantity but in quality. Those who had fled the Purge of Mandalore all those years ago had been picked off in rickety old freighters by the waiting Imperial Navy. They would not make it past the Death Star in unarmoured vessels designed to freight cargo or take a few clan-mates between planets on festival days. Korkie was staring at the figures and trying to rationalise how they could possibly fund – or wile from the Rebel Alliance – the additional liners that would be required for a successful planetary evacuation when a plate was set down before him.

"You didn't eat."

Korkie lifted his head to find Luke casting himself onto an old crate to sit before him.

"I did eat," he protested. "I had a ration bar and three cups of tea."

But he pulled the plate towards himself and jabbed a spoon into the lukewarm tiingilar. Luke probably had a point. His armour was beginning to fit loose around his body as it had when he was seventeen-standard and careening around the galaxy in miserable pursuit of the Second Sister.

"Ariarne thinks your food is disgusting."

Korkie tutted, his eyes already fallen back to his columns of figures.

"Alderaanians."

"Would it kill your cooks to serve something without the heturam?"

Korkie shrugged.

"It might do. The Empire's already tried to eradicate my culture. Ariarne can have ration kits if she prefers."

"You're not being very accommodating," Luke reprimanded him.

"I'm afraid that our dinner offerings are the last problem on my mind."

Ships were the problem. Ships and credits. His mother had taught him long ago about the power of credits.

Alas, Korkie, no leader can win the love of their people without them.

"Too busy enjoying the company of your Alor'ad?" Luke enquired.

Korkie did not look up.

"Mind your tongue, ad'ik."

He did not much mind that Luke had noticed – he was bound to be perceptive about these things – but the jibe had been delivered with a snarkiness that a young Leia would have been proud of. A side-effect, presumably, of the Skywalker family reunion.

"It's true," Luke pressed.

Korkie flipped his page of flimsi.

"I didn't deny it. But it's not public knowledge, Luke, for obvious reasons."

"How do you do that?"

Korkie frowned and finally looked up from his desk.

"Do what?"

It wasn't a simple side-effect of the Skywalker family reunion; Luke was properly out of sorts. He was tapping the handle of his lightsaber absent-mindedly against his thigh, face drawn tight as he wrestled for the right words.

"Not… not deny it."

Korkie blinked with slow understanding.

"You didn't come in here to request a menu change."

"No."

"I see."

He pushed the flimsi aside. It was no good giving his every waking moment to being a good Mand'alor if he couldn't even be a good Ba'vodu.

"You and Ariarne had an argument," he observed.

"Not about the food."

"I've gathered."

Luke gave a disheartened sigh.

"She wants to go back to Dagobah without me. She's sick of me. She thinks I should be training with Dad instead of Master Yoda. And look, I mean, maybe she's right, but…"

His shoulders slumped.

"I promised myself after the surgery that we wouldn't keep secrets from each other anymore. But I couldn't bring myself to tell her. It's a bit pathetic, isn't it? When she just wants to get away from me…"

Korkie had been there. He had been there badly.

"I don't think it really has anything to do with you, Lukey," he advised. "I think Ariarne needs some time and space to begin to feel like herself again. And that might be easier to find between her and Master Yoda."

"It is to do with me," Luke groaned. "I never say anything right when she's upset. I don't know how. Not without telling her-"

He threw his hands up irritably.

"I don't know," he concluded.

Korkie smiled.

"You'll never be able to tell her if you can't even tell me."

Luke scowled.

"You're laughing at me."

"I'm not!" Korkie insisted. "There's nothing to laugh at. Young love is beautiful."

Luke flushed.

"It's not love, Korkie-"

"Whatever you can stomach calling it."

But Luke settled back into his shell of misery.

"I don't think she even likes me anymore."

Korkie shook his head. He'd not been paying enough attention, recently, but he was not blind in the Force.

"If it has anything to do with you at all, Luke, it's only because you've spent nearly every waking hour-"

"-and every sleeping hour."

"-and every sleeping hour together for the past two years. A bit of space is probably sensible for both of you. They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder. Take my parents, for example."

Luke looked sceptical.

"I never met your parents."

Korkie grimaced.

"Stars, I'm well aware of that. But you can trust they did very well together, despite the distance. Each of them had their own journey to follow, just like you and Ariarne."

Luke gave a hum of half-hearted agreement.

"I don't think it's a coincidence that the Jedi Order didn't train Padawans in pairs," Korkie went on. "There are probably some matters best explored by Master and student alone. Give her some time, Luke. You've still got plenty you want to learn and do, no? With the Alliance?"

Luke nodded thoughtfully.

"I mean, I'd like to fly again. Join back up with a squadron. Do something useful."

"Mon will be glad to have you back. I hear they're anticipating a dogfight in the Hudulla System soon."

"There'll be more than dogfights coming up if the Empire's really building another Death Star."

Korkie sighed.

"I fear you're right."

He looked at the figures on the flimsi before him and knew that none of it would be enough if the Empire was not stopped. Part of him longed to follow Luke back out into that enormous galaxy and fight the battle himself. But the time had long come to look after his people and entrust the battle to a new generation of heroes.

"It'll do you some good, Luke," he concluded. "To get a sense of yourself again. To put that training into practice and grow as a Knight."

Luke looked vaguely sceptical.

"I didn't think you believed in Jedi."

Korkie snorted.

"Of course I believe in Jedi. My father was one."

"But you never wanted to be one. I figured you never thought it was much use."

"Not everyone has the temperament for it," Korkie shrugged. "I'm too much like my mother. But I think the training is useful, for the right person."

Luke faltered.

"And you think I'm… right?"

Korkie found a smile.

"I think you are completely right for the job, Luke. You and Ariarne both. It never feels like it at the time, but I think you're both on the right track."

Luke echoed a faint smile of his own, rose to his feet.

"And I think," Korkie added, reading him, "that your paths will cross again. Soon."

Luke dropped his chin, blushing faintly.

"Thanks, Korkie. Sorry for what I said about the dinner."

Korkie chuckled and pushed his fork at another mouthful.

"No matter, ad'ik. You know I'm always happy to talk young love."

Luke made a show of scowling but could not mask his grudging laughter as he ducked back out and left Korkie to his figures and flimsi and thoughts of Fenn.

"Alright, everyone," Leia declared, so soon as the sun had risen high enough for such an announcement to escape retribution. "Enough's enough!"

She stalked through the narrow walkway past her father's allocated cell. He would be awake already, presumably meditating, or some other useless Jedi practice. She gave her best Mos Eisley marketplace holler, the sort that rang out in a discordant symphony by the main hangars.

"All aboard the galaxy's slowest YV-666, bound for Tatooine via Bespin. We're disembarking at four hours pre-meridian and late arrivals will be left behind."

She would fly alone if she had to; thankfully, however, there was movement behind the canvas flaps as Chewbacca and then Anakin emerged into the corridor.

"Via Bespin?" Anakin asked.

Leia shrugged. An inconvenient but unavoidable detour.

"We have to get the Falcon first."

At this, a somewhat bedraggled Chewie visibly brightened. Anakin, meanwhile, still looked confused.

"If we pull Han out of there and tell him the Falcon's been lost," Leia elaborated, "he'll ask to go back into the carbonite."

Chewie grunted his emphatic agreement. Anakin shrugged off his bewilderment.

"Alright. That's fine. There were a couple more things I was planning to do today. I have to call Ahsoka and Artoo needs some work-"

"All late arrivals will be left behind," Leia repeated, sweeping past him towards the kitchen tent. "Today is the day."

Her father and brother believed in meditation and listening to the Force and Leia could do it just as well as any of them. It was obvious in the Force, humming and bright: they had to go now. And she must have been right, because there was the familiar clunk of metallic footsteps behind her; her Jedi father didn't look like he really intended to argue with her, or slow her down.

"Today's the day?"

Korkie's accent floated across from the kitchen tent, where Leia found him making tea for Fenn, who still looked to be halfway asleep, slumped at the table.

"We're leaving," Leia affirmed, joining him at the boiler unit.

She would be having caff. An extra spoonful or two of the bitter, potent Mandalorian caff.

"That's revolting, Leia," Korkie observed, as he strained the leaves from the chipped teapot.

"You're going to have palpitations," Fenn added.

They were probably right.

"I've got things to do today," she insisted. "I can handle more caff than the elderly."

Korkie spluttered his protest; Fenn accepted it with a good-natured shrug.

"Jabba won't know what hit him!" Luke snickered.

Her brother had pushed aside the wall of canvas to join them in the kitchen. He had the thin beads of sweat upon his brow and bare arms that suggested he had been doing his make-believe sparring and handstand antics before dawn again.

"I'd come along just to see it. Except that I called Mon this morning and she wants me on Hudulla."

Anakin hesitated between dismay and relief; Leia read him easily. What was worse: his son fighting a war unsupervised, or having to grapple with both of his children while trying to pull off a successful rescue mission?

"I think it's for the best, Dad," Leia contributed. "Luke'll be fine."

Anakin mounted a brave smile.

"I'll tell Ahsoka to look out for you."

"Tell her good luck keeping up with me," Luke grinned, tearing into a ration bar.

Leia rolled her eyes.

"I thought Master Yoda was supposed to teach you humility."

"Mhmm. That's why Ariarne is his favourite student."

There was a flicker in his brightness as he said her name – something to probe another day, when she didn't have more important tasks on her mind. Leia suspected that her usual teasing would not be well received.

"Well," Korkie sighed, bringing over the two mugs of tea, "I can only ask that none of you require my rescue in the near-to-immediate future. I really haven't got the time."

Anakin waved a hand.

"We'll be fine. And Luke-"

A pointed glance at his son.

"-will behave."

"Good," Korkie agreed. "Then I will ask you instead to go easy on Boba. Every life is precious. Especially a Mandalorian life."

He stood pensive and solemn behind his Alor'ad, his hands upon Fenn's shoulders. Another reason Leia had to get out of there. It was a great injustice to be without Han when even Korkie had a boyfriend. At least Luke and Ariarne, Leia reasoned, had hit some sort of wall.

"I'll spare Boba for you," Leia offered magnanimously. "But Jabba gets no mercy."

She sculled what was left of her caff, stifled a grimace, and rose to her feet. Enough was enough. Today was their day.

It had been a day of farewells, first to Anakin and Leia and Chewbacca, and now to their Mandalorian hosts. Ariarne wasn't sticking around any longer after Leia had so easily shrugged off the inertia that had kept them all together in the strange hazy days following the battle on Bespin. Leia had gone and so would she. She thanked Dr Jerac and her apprentices and even the old medical assistant droid for their care and thanked Korkie and Fenn for the rescue and their hospitality. She smiled bravely through the pleas to "take care" and "be careful" and "call us anytime." She was going to be alright. She had a great deal to unravel but at the end of it all she told herself that she would be okay.

Saying goodbye to Luke would be another matter. They'd not really managed to talk to each other properly since she'd blown up at him about the karking dinner.

He joined her as she readied the fighter Korkie had donated to her, presenting her with a satchel of ration packs. He gave a tight smile but said nothing. Ariarne wanted to be annoyed at him but couldn't. It was on her to find the right words, to fix this.

The words that came to her lips, however, were somehow argumentative.

"You told Korkie."

"Hmm?"

Luke knew what she was talking about; he had flushed with the accusation.

"The lunch they gave me was an admirable attempt at Alderaanian. Missing a few key ingredients, but-"

"Oh. Sorry."

He gave an apologetic grimace.

"It just came up. I didn't mean to-"

"You apologise too much."

"Yeah, well…"

He found a grudging smile, gave a sigh.

"I am sorry. About everything. Including saying sorry so much."

Ariarne dropped her gaze, conceded a small smile of her own.

"I know."

"You'll tell Yoda I'll come see him soon?"

"Of course."

"Hope the swamp's not too cold for you."

"It's not too bad at this time of year."

It would be colder without him. She would have the whirring heater he'd put together out of a few scavenged spare parts on the floor beside her pallet but nothing could replace his presence in the Force.

"Ariarne?"

"Yeah?"

They caught each other's gaze again. It wasn't fair for him to have eyes like that.

"I'm glad we're having this time, Ariarne, but…"

A finger twisted in a stray blonde curl.

"I really look forward to seeing you again, when you're back."

"Luke..."

It was half a plea. Don't do this to me. Because she couldn't karking fight it when he looked at her like that. She reached out with both arms – touched him for the first time, with this arm that was not her own – and bundled him into a tight embrace. She could not bear to look him in the eye and so pressed her face against his chest, held him so much closer than they had ever been before. His hands were tentative and then warm against her back. His heart raced beneath her cheek.

"Me too," she mumbled. "I'll miss you."

He laughed.

"You won't."

They released each other, took a half-step back. Her own heart seemed to be thundering in her throat, in her head.

"I might," she insisted. "A little bit."

A lot. She would miss him a lot.

"Fly safely," he bade her.

"Don't forget I'm the one who flew us safely to Ilum."

She hoisted herself up into the cockpit before she could do anything else outrageous. She would come back to him. She would unravel everything that was said – and what was not said – on Bespin, and she would find peace in herself, and she would come back to him.

She hoped that the journey might not be too long. A part of her quietly knew that it would be. She could not ask him to wait for her. She could only trust that he might still be there when she was ready to come home to him, to know him, when she finally knew herself.

Aaaaaaah it's all happening. Sorry that Ariarne and Luke have had to have this hiccup. It's good for them (mostly).

Next chapter will have Falcon-hunting adventures, rebel antics, swamp meditation and Sithly plots.

Thank you, dear readers, for reading.

xx - S.