Happy New Year! Hope it's been a good festive season for you all. I've had a lovely time but obviously have been slow on the writing - apologies.

This is essentially all not-very-important fluff but I needed to get through it before we head into the next bout of action. Was planning on covering more ground but when you've got 5k words it's time to put a chapter up. Hope it's a nice cheery holiday piece you with a reunion as requested.

Chapter 54: Rebel Interlude

"You have a visitor, Mand'alor."

Korkie, scrawling at a draft for the proposal of an interim parliament, tried to remember exactly who he was supposed to be meeting at half-noon and could not muster a name.

"Unsanctioned," his clerk went on. "No appointment."

At this, Korkie's eyes lifted from his desk.

"Someone interesting, finally, you mean?"

"He wasn't very enthusiastic about a security check. Claims some sort of family relation, but obviously your Clan-"

Korkie sprang to his feet and scattered the flimsi at his desk, hurrying past his clerk towards the stairs.

"I hope you let him in, Erian?"

"He intended to let himself in," the clerk grumbled. "You're lucky there wasn't a fight. Fenn vouched for him, in the end. Stood down the guards."

"Bless Fenn."

"He didn't provide any sort of convincing security pass or-"

But Korkie was already halfway down the staircase. Not Luke, then, if he'd been so assertive. Which could only mean that his visitor was-

"Anakin!"

He met his ori'vod in a clatter of organic and metallic limbs, squeezed hard in Anakin's augmented embrace.

"Thank you for coming. Things have been such a blur since we re-established leadership that I haven't had a moment to-"

"I know. Which is why I came to get my droids before you forgot about them again."

Anakin conceded a grin beneath the reprimand.

"And I wanted to see you anyway, vod'ika. What did I hear about your head getting banged up in that fight with Saxon?"

"Malicious gossip," Korkie muttered, running an unconscious finger over the newly-meshed scar above his eyebrow. "Don't know why no one can stop prattling about my head. I won the fight, didn't I?"

"You did," Anakin agreed, stepping back to admire the weapons at Korkie's belt, the crest of the Clan Kryze at his chest. "We're all very proud of you, obviously. Ahsoka and Cody and Rex and I."

Korkie mustered a bright smile and tried not to show how much he cared to hear it. There was something parental, wasn't there, about an expression of pride? Bo-Katan was proud of him and infuriated by him in equal measures, these days, as he refused to be exactly the Mand'alor that she might have been. But the warmth in the Force around Anakin told Korkie that he was proud of him no matter what, not because he was Mand'alor, but because he'd done something difficult, and something that mattered to him. Anakin was proud of him in the way that his father had been proud of him, so many long years ago.

"Got a long way to go yet," Korkie said instead.

It was a sort of default response these days; it still didn't feel safe to celebrate anything. Anakin grunted his partial agreement but seemed, Korkie perceived gratefully, disinterested in further emotional reflection. His eyes were scanning the bustling court around them. Korkie read him easily.

"I've delegated Threepio to Ba'vodu," he explained, beckoning Anakin to walk alongside him. "Otherwise there'd be no documentation of anything she did and she'd have offended all our foreign relations."

"I hope she's not become too attached to him."

Korkie laughed.

"She'll be thrilled to give him back. The only reluctance will be on my part. I'll need to find another droid to slow her down."

"I'll make you one, when I've got some free time."

"And when would that be?"

"When Jabba's toppled and we've got a non-criminal government running."

"How long 'til then?"

Anakin grimaced but did not look too put out.

"A couple of years, realistically."

Korkie nodded, impressed. A couple of years was far better than when the stars burnt out. And that was how the prospect of civil government on Tatooine had looked, certainly, for as long as anyone could remember.

"Who's your non-criminal government going to consist of?"

"That's the sticking point," Anakin admitted. "Still working on it. Not so many Padme types in the galaxy as there used to be."

Korkie sighed. It was an eloquently-expressed but miserable truth.

"Kriff the Emperor."

"A thousand times over," Anakin agreed. "But Tatooine wouldn't know what to do with a Padme type anyway. Might have to think laterally. Find someone unconventional. As I said, I'm working on it."

They passed Bo-Katan's office – predictably empty – and then the dojo – occupied, but not by the soldier they sought. Korkie opened the side door of the building they'd finally re-coined as a bland, neutral Government House and beckoned Anakin towards the adjacent hospital, which was the next place his Ba'vodu was most likely to be. Sewlen and Bo-Katan had travelled in close quarters for the entirety of their decade on the run and the soldier still sought the surgeon's opinions on most matters of power and politics, which was certainly to Korkie's advantage, as he suspected that Sewlen was the primary reason his Ba'vodu had not run out of patience and attempted to usurp him yet.

"And so it then logically follows, doesn't it, that the primary focus of the reunification campaign must be-"

Bo-Katan turned and gave a double-take as she perceived the man she had once known as the young hero of the Clone Wars in his sun-weathered and re-limbed state. She switched clumsily to Basic, her accent lagging on his name.

"Anakin! It's good to see you fighting again. I didn't get a chance to thank you after Yavin. I heard you still fly twice as fast as-"

The insult was, fortunately for Korkie, cut short.

"Doctor Sewlen, with apologies, I really do not think my programming is sufficient to assist in the theatre re-stocking efforts. Your resident droids really are quite frightfully particular and I simply cannot follow-"

"Threepio!"

"Don't worry about it, Threepio," Sewlen consoled the droid, as he was enveloped in Anakin's own metallic arms. "Theatre droids are wired neurotic. Even more than you were."

"Please, sir, I'm afraid I don't quite understand-"

Anakin stood back and allowed Threepio some space to compute.

"You've been wiped, huh? Galaxy's been unkind to us all."

He extended a hand in polite greeting.

"Anakin Skywalker. Of Tatooine."

Pleased with the return to predictable etiquette, C-3PO extended his own golden limb.

"A pleasure, Sir Anakin. And, if I may say, you have a fine set of prostheses."

"Thanks, Threepio. Before all these, we knew each other."

"Did we?"

"Yeah. Before your wipe."

Anakin hesitated a moment, then pressed on.

"Don't go getting your circuits in a knot, alright, Threepio? But you should know. I'm your maker. Made you many years ago."

He turned to Korkie.

"How old are you, vod'ika?"

"Thirty-four," Korkie conceded reluctantly.

Anakin turned back to the droid.

"Thirty-four standard years ago," he told him. "Made some modifications in the years after that. But you were more or less done about a week before Korkie was born. Made out the back of a little slave hut in Mos Eisley."

Threepio, despite Anakin's advice to the contrary, did look indeed as though his circuits were rather knotted.

"Now, where's Artoo?" Anakin asked. "Hangar?"

"Probably. With Tristan."

Anakin waved an arm.

"Come along, Threepio."

Although frazzled, the droid rolled along in compliance.

"If you are referring to the astromech R2-D2, Sir-Maker Anakin, I must inform you he is the most volatile creature I have ever encountered. And struck by the strangest delusion that we are known to each other-"

"You do know each other," Anakin informed him. "You know each other well."

"I beg to differ, Sir-Maker, but I do not."

Anakin shrugged.

"Yeah, well, that's not your fault, Threepio. Come on. I'll reintroduce you."

And they made their clinking way from the hospital, Sewlen's theatre droids looking rather pleased to see the back of the golden intruder.

"We can argue about the reunification priorities later, Ba'vodu," Korkie advised Bo-Katan, before turning to follow with a grin. "This will be quite the reunion."

"Okay, just give me a second, Artoo, then you can try again. I've nearly got the connection… ouch!"

Tristan gasped in pain as he received a shock of electricity from a prematurely-activated sensor system in his battered fighter, his hand still deep in the electrics bay.

"Artoo, what the hells were you thinking?"

He banged his head on the metal frame in his hurry to straighten up and reprimand the astromech, who had not only fried his hand but was now jettisoning into the air using his rocket-boosters in a blatant violation of workshop safety protocol.

"Oi! After all I did to defend you from Saxon-"

Rubbing his head, Tristan finally made it out of the innards of the fighter and spotted the strange procession across the hangar floor. The familiar figure of the Mand'alor trailed behind the golden protocol droid who had given Saxon so many headaches. In front of them both strode a man who looked as though he'd fought a hundred wars; his face was sun-lined and scarred, his limbs all replaced by prostheses of various ages. Tristan recognised him vaguely as the hero his sister had met on Lothal after the destruction of the Death Star, of whom she'd spoken to Tristan furtively – a hero of the Clone Wars, returned from exile, near unrecognisably wounded, fighting again. Anakin Skywalker.

R2-D2 was careening with an ear-splitting whistle towards the visitor. They collided with a clang and echoing, giddy laughter.

"Thank the stars they didn't wipe you, Artoo!"

Anakin was embracing the droid as one might embrace their child.

"By the stars, I've missed you. Every flight's been wrong without you."

Tristan felt a faint sadness; he would lose the droid who had become his friend. But beneath this was a slowly rising happiness.

I hold many stories, the droid had told him. And Tristan suspected those memories that R2-D2 had so vehemently insisted he should not wipe centred around the wounded warrior kneeling before them. That the weary old astromech had found his way home at last.

Leia returned from the Advisory Council's morning meeting, where Han understood she was in the habit of contributing much more than had been asked of her by the absent Korkie Kryze when he'd nominated her to sit as his sort of temporary senator, announcing the words that no good-for-nothing pilot likes to hear from the impossibly intelligent woman who's been foolish enough to kiss him.

"I've been thinking."

Han, who'd still been making breakfast – no one asked him to attend morning meetings – looked at her with poorly-concealed dread.

"Uh oh."

"About us," Leia went on.

It had been a good run, Han supposed. The journey back from Caluula and a few weeks of stolen moments and quiet happiness on Mako-Ta before their return to the ever-growing base on Hoth. Too good to be true. Too good to last. Han prompted her onwards with any words of his own to contribute; his throat had gone dry and his mind scattered.

"Mhmm?"

Leia reached around him and picked a piece of toast from his plate. She spoke through a cascade of crumbs.

"I think it'll change what people think of me."

Han blinked and recalibrated. Not done, then. Not done yet. His spirits buoyed, he managed a shrug and even a few words.

"Well, yeah. Probably."

Leia frowned as she continued through the toast.

"Probably not in a good way. Don't you think?"

Han reached to prepare a new slice of toast, an unwelcome grumble of defensiveness in his voice. Done soon, maybe.

"My reputation's not that bad."

He'd done his best to avoid women in all his years of travel, and when they couldn't be avoided, to avoid treating them badly. Given he'd let Qi'ra down so badly, all those years ago, and she'd caused him so much trouble in turn.

"I don't mean to say anything about your reputation," Leia told him. "Didn't come here to insult you."

She offered him what was left of the toast she had stolen, which Han accepted, as much for a reason to touch her hand as for the hunger in his stomach.

"They'd think worse of me no matter who I was with," Leia went on. "They'll stop thinking of me as a leader and a rebel and start thinking of me as a…"

She shuddered.

"As a woman."

Han blinked.

"Huh."

Leia crinkled her nose.

"You wouldn't understand it."

"Guess not."

"Our leader's a woman."

"Yeah. But Mon's a lot older than me. And she doesn't have a husband around to remind everyone that she's a woman."

Leia launched herself to sit upon the kitchenette bench, with a rattling of the cupboards.

"They'll think that I'm doing all this work because of you," she listed. "To impress you. To please you. And they'll think I'm soft and emotional and-"

"I don't think anybody would easily mistake you for soft," Han countered. "But, I mean, if you're worried about it…"

He shrugged. He'd not really looked forward to the inevitable chorus of disapproval from everyone who knew that he was too old and all the rest of it for the Alliance's favourite rebel. Besides, it wasn't like it needed a name, whatever existed between them. It wasn't done yet but it would be done soon, when the girl who'd lived her whole life on a homestead on Tatooine adjusted to this big wide galaxy and realised she could do far better than him. This happiness was just a blip, something for him to know perhaps for the last time, before he could fall back into his work and listen to her save the galaxy over the comm network, and be quietly proud to have known her.

"Nobody has to know," he told her.

Leia looked at him with slow revelation.

"Huh," she mused.

A long way from Tatooine and a lot wiser than any farm kid. But learning still. She repeated his words, tested them in her mouth. Seemed to like the taste of them.

"Nobody has to know."

It had been strange enough, Ahsoka remembered thinking, that the whole debacle between Darth Gelid and the most intrepid Skywalker had occurred on the planet of Caluula, which hadn't been part of the route to or from Cymoon that had been approved for the Millennium Falcon by the Alliance's Advisory Council. It had been stranger still, she'd thought, that Solo had stuck around for weeks on Mako-Ta without any conceivable opportunity for a lucrative side-hustle when the Corellian pilot had previously let slip to her his potent dislike for shipyards, on which he'd more or less grown up, surrounded by suffering. So her suspicions really had been high for a long while. Which is what she reminded everyone when Leia Skywalker and Han Solo returned to the base on Hoth and all her less perceptive colleagues started catching on.

"I knew it first," she told Rex, when he came to her with a worry-lined countenance and the accompanying news that those on the base who spoke Shyriiwook had heard Chewbacca complaining that the noise of Han and Leia's earlier arguments was preferable to what he heard from them now. "I want it on record that I suspected this weeks before anyone else did."

Rex looked at her, stunned.

"Forget who knew it first, Commander. When Anakin finds out-"

The Chosen One's reaction would be somewhere along the spectrum, presumably, from one very disgruntled father to a galaxy-melting panic attack. And Anakin was as fierce a soldier as he ever had been.

"We won't let that happen," Ahsoka reassured Rex.

It would have been easier to keep the secret, of course, if Han and Leia had been a bit more subtle about it. There was always an excuse for one to accompany the other in a fur-clad foray into the elements – as though there were scope to think of anything other than survival when out in the cold of Hoth – and they were inexplicably inseparable, also, when it came to mission allocations.

"You'll really be far more comfortable in an additional ship, Rex," Leia advised the veteran clone trooper, at mission briefing. "Not to mention we'll all be safer spread across a couple of vessels."

Rex was trying valiantly not to look nauseated by the whole debate.

"I'll keep you with me then, Skywalker, and see if we can't keep you out of the way of the Emperor's apprentice this time."

Leia danced around the suggestion with all the political elegance of her late mother.

"We'll sort out allocations once we've finalised how many of your fellow soldiers will be making the trip. I'm happy to stay on the Falcon if that's how it ends up working out. We dodged Gelid alright last time, didn't we, Han?"

A brief, flashing smile across the room that escaped no one's notice.

"Besides, Captain Solo's manner of running a ship is… unmilitary, at best. Better I suffer them than one of your soldiers who is trained to expect better."

"Perhaps one of us could teach him better," Rex grumbled.

But the clone did not argue any further. It was obvious that they would not talk Leia out of the Millennium Falcon with such indirect tactics. And no one had the stomach for anything else. And so the return trip was made to Mako-Ta with Leia's preferred bunking arrangements and no additional chaperone. By all accounts, the work on Mako-Ta went smoothly. No one could fault either of the suspects in their ever-growing contributions to the Rebellion. So nothing was said.

"Is it true?"

It was the first question that Korkie asked Ahsoka on his arrival to Hoth, his first since the ascension into his role as Mand'alor.

"I came to see it with my own eyes."

Ahsoka tutted.

"The Mand'alor flies all the way across the galaxy for some juvenile gossip?"

"I also had to meet with the Advisory Council about the logistics of Mandalorian contributions under new leadership," Korkie admitted. "I'll need to find a successor to sit on the Council. But you don't care about that and neither do I. Have they really done it?"

Ahsoka arched a brow.

"Done what?"

Korkie cuffed her over the montrals.

"Be decent!"

"Like you always are," Ahsoka snickered.

"You and I," Korkie argued, "are the last bastions of Jedi abnegation."

"Anakin is too," Ahsoka pointed out. "Besides, it's not too late for you."

Korkie shook his head.

"It is too late for me. Tell me about Han and Leia."

"What makes you think I've got anything to tell you?"

Korkie simply grinned at her in response. He was far, far too attuned to her in the Force. Ahsoka sighed. He'd figure it out for himself anyway.

"See that?"

Leia, in the midst of conversation with several other rebels in the hangar, was stifling a yawn.

"She's up very early. Almost before dawn. Leaving the Falcon and going back to her dorm."

Korkie's eyes sparked.

"At Jedi meditation hour," he observed.

Ahsoka nodded. Old habits died hard.

"Does she know you've seen her?"

"No. I'm not annoying, like you are."

"You're annoying in a completely unique manner," Korkie agreed.

Ahsoka rolled her eyes.

"That's no way to thank me for the gossip."

"Thank you very kindly for the gossip, dearest 'Soka."

And that evening, Korkie was a welcome figure in the freezing dining hall after his long absence, crowded by rebels eager to congratulate and hear stories from the soldier who seemed to have saved everyone's shebs at least once in the decade gone past. But he seemed uninterested in his own stories of combat against Gar Saxon and the flight of his brother Tiber and the gargantuan task of reconstructing civilisation on Mandalore anew. He welcomed his old friends with hearty embraces but his eyes wandered quickly to the other side of the table, where Leia and Han seemed to have sat next to each other by mere coincidence – Chewbacca, of course, having engineered the happy accident.

"I just think the Falcon would handle a lot better with a modern engine unit," Leia was espousing, waving her fork with a gloved hand. "I'm sure the Council would invest-"

"She handles perfectly fine when I fly her," Han countered. "Not my fault you never learned to pilot."

"I'm a very capable pilot."

"Weren't you just complaining that you can't pilot my ship?"

"I didn't say that. I said she'd handle better with a modern engine unit. Besides, the rebel fleet can hardly risk the unreliability of-"

"I've heard you test its unreliability quite frequently, ad'ik," Korkie piped up. "Even after Rex offered you a better option."

Leia flushed red and dropped the argument, looking down at her dinner with renewed interest. Han made a loud enquiry into the dubious origins of the meat in tonight's stew. Korkie turned to Ahsoka with a guilty smile.

"Oh, come on, that was hardly even mean," he mumbled, in half-hearted self-defence. "I can't help it. It's like being around my kriffing parents again."

Ahsoka couldn't berate him; she snickered softly, leaned into him to speak softly.

"I think this is how Qui Gon Jinn must have felt."

Korkie grinned his agreement.

"I'd be as grey as Jinn if I had to listen to this every day."

"You're very old and ill-tempered, for thirty-four."

"But I have no greys," Korkie protested.

"None yet."

He scowled at her.

"What are you bullying me for?"

"No reason."

"Out of fondness, I suppose."

"Deep fondness," Ahsoka acquiesced.

It was good to have him back, even if only for a few nights. The galaxy seemed to be getting too big for them, these days, as the Alliance grew in reach and force. So many friends she had loved, scattered around the galaxy, fighting their own battles.

"You heard from Anakin recently?" she asked.

"Yeah. He came to collect Artoo and Threepio. Never seen him so happy."

"I'm really glad."

Korkie indicated Han and Leia – bickering again – with his fork.

"Does Anakin know about this?"

Ahsoka chuckled.

"He is the only person who doesn't know about this," she told him.

"Wonder how long we can keep it that way," Korkie mused.

"'Til the end of time, I hope."

"Good luck."

"It's for the best."

"Yeah, I know."

Ahsoka chewed a bit of stew contemplatively. It was probably tauntaun, she thought. Sort of gamey. Their Sullustan kitchen officer tended to guard his secrets. She swallowed and returned her attention to Korkie again.

"You're Han's age," she pointed out. "You're sure you've not got any new love interests around to keep you young and joyful?"

Korkie gave a sort of cough and seemed to nearly choke.

"Certain," he concluded, eventually. "No one at all."

Ahsoka hummed her vague acceptance. She had a feeling that there might be some brewing gossip there too. She'd know of it first, of course.

"Hey. Sorry I said anything at dinner. I was being stupid."

Leia looked up from the dishes at her Ba'vodu, who shooed her away from the icy stream of water and sacrificed his own hands. She accepted the offer and stepped back, folding her arms to warm her frozen fingers beneath her armpits. He deserved the washing up duties, she thought, after embarrassing her like that.

"You're always stupid," she grumbled.

Korkie, like Han, wouldn't be able to understand what it was to be a young woman in politics and war. He probably couldn't remember a day when his voice did not command the instantaneous and unquestioning respect of thousands.

"Everything going okay?" he ventured.

Leia rocked back on her heels. What did he want her to tell him? She loved him dearly but it wasn't something she wanted to speak of with him. It wasn't something she wanted to speak of with anyone. There was a strange preciousness to the moments that only she and Han shared. Nobody had to know and it felt nice that way. A universe in which only they lived.

"Everything's going well," she told him. "Really well. I'm happy here."

Korkie sensed her earnestness and smiled. Leia felt the embrace in the Force, that flood of warmth. Her Ba'vodu, who usually struggled to stop talking, said nothing else as he washed the last of the dishes and spoke again only when he caught sight of Cody in the distance and slung a tea-towel in her direction.

"If you'll excuse me, I barely got to speak to Cody at dinner. And I get the feeling you've had enough of my company for today."

He gave a sparking smile that cut off Leia's protest, grinned lazily at her over his shoulder as he walked away.

"I think everyone knows, by the way."

Leia's hands stilled upon the plate, which she very nearly dropped. Her heart sunk just about to her feet and she looked up at the ceiling as though for an answer. Perhaps an avalanche would engulf them all, and save her the shame.

"Ba'vodu…" she groaned.

"But they still respect you. Because you're good at your job. So don't worry about it."

Leia blinked.

"Really?"

"Really."

Perhaps she didn't need the avalanche.

"Just mind your dad doesn't hear about it anytime soon."

"Understood."

And Leia stood alone, holding the half frozen plate against her burning cheeks, as he walked to find his friend.

There were plenty amongst the rebels of Hoth who didn't respect him and that was alright with Han. He'd joined late, tried to leave a couple of times and still refused to wear their stupid uniforms. They'd appreciated his efforts enough to give him a nice little medal for his and Chewie's help with the Death Star, which would be the first and last such award Han suspected he would ever receive in his life, but he was far from a popular hero. Which suited him just fine. Han had gone through most of his life being disliked and the sort of adoration granted to the other revolutionary heroes wouldn't have sat right with him.

He did care, although he was loath to admit it, what Korkie Kryze thought of him. Korkie Kryze who'd been just as lost as he'd been – kriff, probably more lost – when they'd met twenty years ago. Korkie Kryze who'd been the optimist to Han's cynicism and had something to show for it. He'd waltzed back in from Mandalore with a new title to his name, the victor of his homeland, but looking barely any worse for wear. The scar on his eyebrow almost suited him.

It didn't bode well, then, when Korkie wandered over to find him in the hangar where he was preparing the Falcon for her next freighting trip across to the developing rebel space docks on Mako-Ta.

"You here to lecture me too?" he asked.

Korkie frowned.

"What do you mean?"

Han sighed and listed the facts.

"General Tano keeps quizzing me on my life plans. Thinks I'm going to run off again. I'm surprised old Rex hasn't shot me yet. And your blasted medic keeps trying to book us in for 'general health' appointments."

Korkie snickered.

"As an unplanned child myself, that's not a bad idea."

"Star's sakes," Han grumbled. "Not you too."

But Korkie, who never conceded a point when sitting with the Alliance Council, backed off, hands raised placatingly.

"I won't add to the chorus."

Han glared at him. He'd surely come to speak to him for no other reason.

"Oh, come on then," he sighed eventually. "Hit me. One more lecture won't kill me."

Korkie shook his head.

"I don't want to lecture you."

"Don't you?"

"No. Really."

Han didn't believe him. Korkie pressed on.

"I don't need to lecture you. I know you're good. Just so long as you're good to her… it's all fine."

Han scoffed. This was the weirdest kriffing lecture he'd ever had.

"I don't think I'm anyone's idea of good."

"You are," Korkie insisted. "You're the first person who showed me any kindness, in my years on the run. Really, Han. I'll never forget that free speeder ride. Not to mention our TIE fighter demo."

And this time, it seemed to ring true. Han allowed himself to relax, for a beat of laughter to escape his chest.

"You know," he muttered. "That's still the stupidest thing I've ever done."

Korkie gave a wistful sigh.

"I wish it was the stupidest thing I'd ever done."

He gave Han a clap on the shoulder.

"Welcome to the family. We're the maddest in the galaxy."

And Han would have liked to protest that it wasn't that karking serious, or anything, but the Mand'alor had already sauntered off in the direction of a smirking General Tano, unconventional lecture soundly delivered.

Yay. Artoo is finally home.

Next chapter, Korkie catches up with another rebel friend, we check in on Luke and Ariarne, and trouble brews on Mandalore. As for the timing of when it will be written - I'm currently on a holiday with patchy internet. Would love to get it done in another fortnight for you, but I apologise in advance if it turns out to be slower.

xx - S.