A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

Star Wars:
The Penitent

a round robin by
Jedi Skysong, FernWithy/JediGaladriel, Vee, and Belle Bayard
with Ariana Lang, JediCallie, Kithera, and Rhui Chatar

It is a time of healing.

In the wake of the vast Civil War, the New Republic has taken the first steps in clearing the wreckage of the Empire, and re-building the trust and security of the galaxy.

The ruined world of Naboo has been re-seeded and revived, and Queen Amidala, long a prisoner at its core, reigns again in a resurrected Theed. Her daughter, Princess Leia Organa-Solo is rebuilding the Senate and trying to create a stable government. Thanks to mysteriously obtained Imperial codes, her son, the Jedi knight Luke Skywalker, continues to find hidden Imperial fortresses, prisons, and laboratories.

Acting on a suspicious pattern of these outposts, Wedge Antilles and the Rogue Squadron have made a disturbing discovery in the remote Runa system: a cloning lab, containing an experiment that even Luke had never suspected -- an experiment that could change his life forever, and at last bring peace and closure to his family....

Prologue: Awakening

The clone rested on the table in the laboratory, its eyes staring vacantly at the ceiling and its chest rising and falling in a slow, even rhythm. Anakin hovered at the end of the table, concentrating his mind and his energy in this time and place. It was taxing -- he longed to spread himself out into the living Force, to touch the far corners of life, to feel the very heartbeat of the galaxy; staying in one place made him feel quite alone -- but he found it easier to focus his mind this way. The white noise of the universe that frequently comforted him and blunted his memories was gone; the thoughts of Obi-Wan and Yoda were outside of himself. Qui-Gon, perhaps, was with him, but the old Master was always quiet, and did not interfere in Anakin's decisions. Much to everyone's detriment, Anakin thought, then whispered an apology into the fog. He had vowed never to blame anyone but himself again for any of his poor decisions.

On the table, the clone's breathing continued on. Color was starting to come into his cheeks, and the gel he had been floating in had evaporated entirely. Palpatine's last temptation for him... and Luke's wish for him. A living human body, blood coursing through its veins and real, sensitive nerves in the fingertips. Anakin couldn't really remember what it felt like to run the tip of his finger across something. He wanted to remember.

He wondered what Amidala would make of it, and thought briefly about speaking to her on Naboo, but decided against it. He couldn't start depending on her for his own moral decisions, any more than he could depend on Luke or Qui-Gon. He thought she might smile wryly, though -- the clone wasn't even approaching a respectable age yet.

He thought he knew how to take it; it wouldn't even be that hard, just a matter of concentrating, as he was now, and then... jumping, he thought was the word for it. A little jump, and then a whole life ahead of him. The clone was twelve or thirteen. Its growth was only slightly exaggerated from normal human growth, maybe twice as fast as a normal childhood would have been; it would be more stable than a garden variety clone. Palpatine had begun him when he'd learned about Luke, using a DNA pattern that had been left in the computer of Amidala's transport. The rationale was obvious -- he wanted one more card up his sleeve, because somewhere in the back of his miserable mind, even he had suspected that Anakin was no longer entirely under his control.

"Palpatine is dead, Father," Luke said from the door. "His reasons and his schemes died with him. But the opportunity is still here."

"I'm dead, Luke." Anakin gave his son a weary smile (or at least hoped he did; he was never quite sure what his image was doing). "It doesn't seem to have that big an impact on which Jedi I can influence."

Luke nodded, taking it a bit more seriously than Anakin had intended him to. "Is he... there with you?"

Anakin had considered this question many times. He had not felt Palpatine's presence at all, and that made him suspicious. There should have been something, he thought. But then again, why would the living Force accept Palpatine at all?

And why would it accept me?

"No," he said.

"Take the clone, Father." Luke came into the room. Anakin felt the stir in the force that always accompanied him, which was welcome, and the piercing sensation of an attempt to use a mind trick, which was not.

"Whether or not I take the clone will be a question of my will, Luke, not yours."

To his credit, Luke didn't deny the attempt. "Father, I need your help. Or at least I want your help. And Leia doesn't know you, at least not as yourself."

"Leia knows me quite well. She knew me long before you did."

"But not -- "

"Luke, you're drawing a distinction that isn't there. Vader was a combination of all my bad choices, but he was me and I am him." He did not add, And if I take that clone, and cut myself off from the cool calmness of the living Force, you may get more of both of us than you're bargaining for.

Luke heard his thought anyway. "I know you're afraid, Father," he said. "And that's why you have to do this. I do need your help, finding people and training them. But it's you that you should do this for. You need to remember who you are. You need to find some way to fix what you broke."

Anakin focused on the clone again, on the blank blue eyes, the fine translucent skin at the wrists. To have a heart beating inside him again, ready to race out of control. To have blood ready to boil. A mind ready to fall into the fire. Luke was right. He was terrified of it. "There are many people who deserve a second chance more than I do..."

"But I can't think of anyone who needs one more."

Luke looked at Anakin, then looked down at the clone. His eyes rose again in an unspoken question, then he left Anakin alone with himself.

Anakin let himself drift back into the Force, feeling for advice. He sensed Obi-Wan's presence, but ignored it, not from animosity but from experience -- Kenobi did not understand him and never had; the strong eddy of energy that was Yoda offered him no guidance. He sought for Qui-Gon, a gentle current that ran quietly among the stars. He didn't try to find out what Qui-Gon thought, for he knew it before framing the question in his mind, though the coda, as always, was The choice is yours, Ani.

Will you be with me?

If you need me.

Anakin refocused and found himself back in the laboratory, the clone waiting with its infinite patience. He concentrated more deeply, found his way into the energy the clone wove into the Force around it.

Then he jumped.

Luke did his best to calm the mad beating of his own heart as he waited outside. He didn't know if his fear was that Father would refuse the clone... or that he would accept it.

What if things go wrong again? What if I am doing the wrong thing? What if he is so disappointed in his return that he gives in to despair? And what of Mother? What of Leia?

The thought stopped him cold. Leia would be quite displeased.

Perhaps he should have consulted with Ben, if the old Master could be roused, or with Yoda, who had been achingly silent in the days since Luke had seen his image perched on a rail on Endor. But their counsel... he thought he knew it. And he wasn't sure he agreed with it at all.

His commlink beeped, and he picked it up. "Skywalker."

"So, what did Wedge come up with, anyway?" Leia asked. "Anything important?"

"Yes," Luke said carefully. He didn't want to discuss it with her over a commlink. "I'll be back soon, Leia. With... with answers. Please be patient."

Leia was distracted, using the Falcon's systems to do political analysis, and she didn't argue with him. "If that's what you want."

It wasn't, but it was what he needed. "I'll be there soon, Leia," he said again. "As soon as possible."

He could almost hear her smile. "I caught it the first time."

"Fine. Skywalker out."

He cut off the communication, and looked to the closed laboratory door. What was happening in there?

Then the silence was broken by the sound of a loud, gasping breath.

Anakin took breath into himself once again. It had been longer than he could remember doing so with of his own will and strength. The lightness of it, the heat flowing through him from just this simple act was something he would never take for granted again. But he must not dwell on that just now. He had taken this step in order to help Luke, to serve others as had been his original reason for leaving Tatooine with Qui-Gon. He would now fulfill that purpose to the best of abilities. He would pass on the knowledge that he had gained and the experience that had cost him so dearly. He would not fail again. He had clarity of thought that he had not known possible, a joy and contentment that knew no bounds. He would not let anyone or anything touch that in him again. He wanted nothing for himself except to bring Luke the happiness that he had once denied him. But the world was much that same as it had been before and most in it remembered him, not for his redemption but for his fall. He would have to face that in those around him. None, if any, would truly understand him now and some would undoubtedly wish him harmed. They would call it justice and he would not disagree but he would still have to try to make them see that salvation lies in forgiveness, not vengence.

After awhile, he knew that he needed to get up, get off the stretcher where he was lying. He wondered, momentarily, if he remembered how to move, or walk, or if he would have to be retrained.

But the thought was nonsensical. The clone had been exercised in its gel; he could feel the strength in his limbs, and he had lost none of his memories in the transfer (though there were some he wished to be rid of). He breathed deeply -- enjoying it to its fullest extent -- then tightened the muscles in his abdomen and sat up.

The cold air was shocking; the clone was only wearing shorts, and Anakin hadn't been in a non-regulated atmosphere for many years. Perhaps it wasn't cold to anyone else. He supposed he didn't mind. Being cold was being something, and being something meant he really was alive again. He slid to the floor, the cool metal smooth against his bare feet.

Walking wasn't quite as easy as he'd expected, and it took him two or three steps to train his new legs -- he remembered it taking significantly more steps than that when his artificial legs were being trained -- but by the time he got to the door, he was moving smoothly and easily.

It's me, he thought incredulously. I'm really back.

He regretted not speaking to Amidala. He wanted her to be here, desperately, an ache in the newly beating heart, a fever in the blood.

On second thought, maybe it was best to keep a proper distance for awhile.

When he reached the door, Luke looked up from across the room. There was a moment's passing uneasiness, for which Anakin blamed him not at all, then he smiled. "Welcome back, Father," he said.

He offered Anakin a bundle of clothes, brown and tan...

Anakin took them without saying much. "You can't be serious, Luke. I can't dress like a Jedi. Not after -- " He closed his eyes. "It wouldn't be right."

"It's snowing outside, Father," Luke said, his smile getting wider. "I'm sorry, but all I have are some spare clothes of my own. They'll be a little big on you for now."

Anakin could feel a certain, simple happiness coming from him now, and he wanted only for that to continue. Perhaps he could be forgiven for making a small gesture. He would not claim the title again. He took the robes, and went back into the laboratory to change.

PART ONE: RESURRECTION

Chapter One: The Road Home

Han had never much liked waiting around, even when Leia was there to wait with him, but he guessed there were worse things, and he did owe Luke one for that business on Tatooine, if nothing else. So he hadn't asked for any explanations when Luke had signalled him on the comm-link and said, "I may be awhile. Something's come up." It was Luke... he wasn't likely to be running off for no good reason.

Leia had buried herself in a communication with her mother, who was beginning to hear cases for Naboo war criminals, so Han had entertained himself by playing both sides of his chess game. He was about to hit checkmate -- against the side he'd mentally designated as "the good guys" -- when he finally heard the hatch slide up.

He met Leia in the corridor, and they both met Luke coming up the ramp. With him was a boy, just about the age for his voice to start changing by the look of him. Blond, blue-eyed... looked a lot like Luke, if you squinted. He was wearing a loose Jedi robe that had dragged in the snow. His eyes immediately went to Leia, scanning her from head to toe in a way that made Han feel vaguely uncomfortable, but hey, what was a kid going to do?

Luke was looking around uncomfortably. Finally, the boy himself stepped forward, tearing his eyes off Leia for a scant moment to glance an acknowledgement at Han, then letting them snap back to her again. "I'm Anakin Skywalker," he said. "I... I know you both well."

At first, it didn't register in Han's mind, then one domino after another fell in. Not bothering to answer the boy who claimed to be Vader, he looked to Luke. "Have you finally lost what's left of you mind?" he asked.

The silence streched before them uncomfortably. Solo's disbeliveing stare, Leia's shocked look, Luke's shamed features. Finally Anakin broke the silence. "Well, you see...." he began.

"No, I don't see at all really." Solo interrupted. "Except for a stupid Jedi who has gone a little far and really lost his marbles. I don't care for the Empire, mister, I never did all I care about the rebellion either. But I refuse," here he shot a meaningful glance at Luke, "to allow you on board." With that He turned on his heels and stalked away.

Anakin turned to Luke, "This is not going to be easy?" he asked, meaning it as a rhetorical question. Luke shook shook his head, and Anakin could feel the disappointment coming off of him in nauseating waves. He must have expected this... but Luke was Luke. He might know what to expect, but he still held on to hope, and his heart was easily broken when his hopes -- however unrealistic -- were dashed. Anakin loved him, and wished with all his heart to make this easier on him.

And this was to be expected, Anakin thought, watching the pirate stalk away. He himself would have done the same, if their positions had been reversed.

Leia -- my daughter, Leia! -- was staring, gape-mouthed, at him. They had known each other for many years, through many betrayals, some worse than others. She had broken what heart he'd had left as Vader when she'd joined the Rebellion, and he'd made her pay for it. He tried to meet her eyes, but a wave of shame swept him away from her.

He started for the gangplank -- there was a somewhat less momentous regret that he would still not be able to get a good look at this marvellous ship; he had always admired the Falcon -- but Luke caught him by the robe and turned him around. Luke was staring at Leia.

"Don't look at me," she whispered after awhile. "I'd have said the same, if I hadn't been utterly speechless."

Leia turned and went back to her room on the Millenium Falcon, where Threepio was waiting. Feeling childish, but needing to hear the soothing voice of the unknown woman, she asked Threepio to tell her the story of the young queen and the magic, dragon-riding boy that he used to tell her about when she was young.

Why had Luke done this? What good could possibly come from this? She knew Vader was their father. She realized this. But wasn't he better off dead? She hated Vader. Always had. No. That was lie. Somewhere, deep down, she still respected him from her childhood days. She sighed, and listened to the voice.

"The boy was nervous, but he knew that he could do it. He had fed the dragon specially to make him go faster, and he had been racing his whole life, just not ever for someone else's freedom. What would happen to his new-found companions if he lost? He looked at his mother who was sitting in the stands..."

(he had fed the dragon specially to make him go faster)

Have you considered altering the engines?

(he had been racing all his life)

I raced when I was a child

It had to be a coincidence. It had to be. She knew that he mother had been from Naboo, and so had this legend, but she couldn't have been...Could she? Leia's mind was spinning. "Threepio, stop."

"Excuse me, Mistress Leia?"

"Stop, Threepio. Do you know how this legend got store in your memory? Who's talking?"

"No, Mistress Leia."

Of course not.

Anakin watched his daughter disappear into a closed chamber of the ship, his mind automatically cataloging what he remembered having found in that room on a search long ago. He turned to Luke. "This is pointless, Luke. I've hurt both of them more than I hurt you. They will not forgive me. I will not ask it of them."

"But Father, Leia needs to forgive you. Mother knows that; she's concerned about this anger. I'm concerned about it. Leia needs to understand -- "

"As I told you before, Leia knows me well. Her choice is made, and I don't blame her for it. Right now, it's perhaps best that we find a way off this world. Which world is this, by the way?"

Luke blinked slowly, unwilling to acknowledge the realities of the situation by giving factual answers and alternatives -- it was a good trait, Anakin thought, the trait that had saved his own sorry excuse for a soul, but it didn't leave a lot of room for practicalities. "The planet doesn't have a name, as far as I know," he said at last. "It's in the temperate range around Runa."

"Runa?" Anakin nodded. "That makes sense. The energy storms in the gas clouds around the Runa system would make it hard to find. And destroy any pilot who didn't see them fast enough. That's Palpatine's strategy. He probably got a lot of good men killed just trying to get the laboratories set up." He grimaced. "I hope you lost no one in finding it?"

"No. Rogue Squadron is known for piloting. Han and I flew separately -- "

"Your X-Wing is here?"

"Yes, it's locked to the hull. I thought it would be better if I was with you while we got home."

"Well, that solves the practical problem, at least. You stay here with Solo and your sister. I'll fly your X-Wing."

"You're going to fly a ship class that you've never flown through the Runa energy storms?"

Anakin felt himself smile -- the prospect did his heart more good than Luke knew -- then answered. "I've flown simulations. And I had possession of the X-Wing you flew to Bespin. We were not unaware of Rebel capabilities."

"Father, I just think we should resolve this issue before -- "

"This issue is not going to be resolved quickly. In the meantime, it is well to return to a place where there is some comfort to be found for both of them."

He could see Luke struggling with the idea, but in the end, even he recognized the practical necessity. He gave Anakin a flight suit and helmet (again, far too big; Anakin decided that finding clothes was going to be a priority, in the pracitcal realm, for a time), then led him out to the X-Wing. It took some prodding even to get Solo to allow the ship to be unlocked -- he'd have been happy to see Anakin stranded here -- but eventually he was persuaded. Anakin watched the Falcon take off -- it was a wonderful sight, he thought -- then hit the X-Wing's thrusters, and took off after them.

The X-Wing handled well enough, he found, though Luke had been a bit lax in making modifications -- he'd noticed long ago that the machines had a much greater potential range of motion than the Rebellion had generally employed, though of course he had not made that information public. He broke from the planet's gravity well, and the thrill of deep space filled him again, as addictive as any power he'd ever known, but much less dangerous (though he thought his mother might have had something to say on that subject).

He banked sharply, just to get a feel for the controls -- no sim was a substitute for a real spacecraft -- then dove and spun as a crackle of energy from the storms cut through the space where he had been a moment ago. He could see Solo dancing the Falcon among the beams as well. He was good. That asteroid business had been extraordinary piloting.

But Anakin was better. He smiled, the old joy coming back to him, the joy that had nothing to do with good or evil or anything beyond the moment of flight. He banked again, going closer to the Falcon, but not so close that Solo would take it for a game -- the last thing he needed was Solo thinking that he was being frivolous, or for Luke to think he didn't have a serious mind --

He slowed. He really oughtn't enjoy himself. He had no right to do so.

Joy is the road home, a voice said in his mind. Qui-Gon's voice, a welcome voice. Find your soul, Ani.

Better not to play with the Falcon, Anakin thought. But he could fly -- this was a place where he could really fly. He smiled, and flew into a thicker cloud.

Han didn't have a lot of energy to waste being angry at the kid. Flying around Runa took up a whole lot of his time, and he figured Leia could keep up the anger for now. Luke was out of his mind, but Han figured he should have guessed that two months ago, on Naboo. Both of them had gotten pretty shaken up, finding their mother -- now Luke had it in his head that he could fix the whole mess. Delusions of grandeur. Not a good enough reason to get them all killed by losing concentration out here.

He dove, spun, straightened. Above him, a pulse of energy imploded on itself. Han glanced at it, and caught sight of the X-wing... diving into the thickest cloud.

Deliberately.

And he'd thought Luke was out of his mind! At least he seemed to have come by it --

Flash.

Han veered at the last possible moment. No time to question Vader's sanity. Not that he really had ever thought there was such a thing to question. Calling Vader insane was the biggest understatement in the --

The X-Wing dodged and spun, and went deeper into the cloud; Han grudgingly had to admit that it was some good flying. He was going to lose sight of Vader soon, and he definitely didn't want that to happen. He considered asking Luke to raise his old man on whatever mind-comm they were using and telling him to get back into normal space, or as normal as it got around here.

But that would lose the excuse to follow him.

He didn't call for Luke. With a quick check of his instruments, he followed Vader into the storm.

Anakin dove beneath an arc of light. It almost singed the port lasers, but he managed to pull through untouched. A little close, that.

The exhilaration of the flight was not waning; it was growing, filling his heart and his soul. His hands ran lightly over the controls; it had been a long time since his fingers had been nimble enough to work them so finely. He marvelled at the feel of the worn instrument panel, at the scratch of the flight suit on his skin, at the sound of R2's constant chirping.

R2-D2... back at the beginning again. He smiled. There would be no wrong turns this time. He would --

A proximity alarm light flashed, and he saw the Falcon twisting not far from him, dodging the same arc that had almost singed him a moment ago. Was Solo out of his mind?

The first flicker of anger appeared in his mind, and he squelched it with horror. This was a mistake. It was too soon to open these floodgates.

He flashed the emergency lights twice in a surrender pattern, so Solo wouldn't go any deeper into the storm (not with the twins on board, at any rate), then took the shortest route he could find out of the lightning. He emerged into open space, beyond the barrier, and saw the Falcon pull out not far ahead of him.

Anakin killed the engines of the X-Wing, waiting for contact from Luke or Solo (he had no hope that it would be Leia; she had been flatly refusing to accept even a mental communication for several months). After a moment, Artoo signalled the incoming comm.

"What the hell were you doing out there?" Solo asked, without preliminaries.

"I was getting a feel for the ship." His voice echoed flatly in the cockpit, and he realized the speech patterns he'd accustomed himself to were going to sound a little ridiculous until the clone's voice changed. But he couldn't revert to speaking like a child, no matter how he looked. "On what grounds do you justify following when you have passengers on board?"

"On the grounds that I don't want you out of my sight."

"Han." Luke's voice came over the air, and Anakin could see him in his mind, moving forward to the microphone. "Father, I think it's best if we go to Naboo. I've contacted Mother, and she will take you in."

Anakin shook his head. "I think it a poor idea, Luke. There are some... obvious difficulties."

"Great," Solo said in the background. "He thinks it's a bad plan. Does he have a better one? Some other old buddy to hook up with?"

Luke didn't respond to that. "Father, I'm not pretending that this won't be difficult. But I see no alternative at the moment."

Anakin breathed deeply, trying to calm his nerves. To see Amidala, now, trapped in this body...

But that was unworthy of either of them. He longed for the company of her heart. He'd missed her, all those years, and the past few months, since she'd been brought up from the prison camp, he'd been able to speak to her, and it had been the first real joy he had known in many years. He should not be afraid to see her.

But he couldn't deny the fear, any more than he could deny the longing. He knew, in the end, that he would go to Naboo. But for the moment, he was frozen.

The galaxy beyond waited with cold patience.

Naboo.

Amidala disconnected the communication, and stepped back slowly from the holoprojector she was standing on. Around her, the construction work went on, the sun filtered through marble dust and the wind tossing the voices of the Gungan and Naboo workers from place to place. They worked nearly twenty hours a day. It was becoming background.

Distant background.

She had spun daydreams, spoken to no one, in which Ani returned to her, to hold her and... and to be her husband... and she had cherished them. This, though -- thirteen? She would need to fold up those daydreams, pack them in a trunk, and set them aside forever. There were lines that were uncrossable.

She stepped to the window, saw through the scaffolding on the side of the palace -- it really was becoming invisible to her now -- and looked out across the plains below. The seeds of Alderaan, which Leia had held for so many years, were beginning to take root in the soil of Naboo. A thin, ephemeral film of green grasses stretched to the horizon, dotted here and there by small red flowers. Patches of slightly different colored grass provided a contrast; no effort had been made to sort the seeds. This would be the new nature of Naboo, just as Naboo would be the new home for Alderaan. Many native species of Naboo were gone beyond hope of return, but it seemed that the Gungans had taken more into exile than she had guessed. The red swamp-flowers were thriving again, and a few species of birds, kept as pets and timid from captivity, were beginning to wander the sky again.

She tried to imagine Ani, wandering through this new, delicate world. What would take root in his heart, after all these years? She had told Luke to bring him here, but now she was afraid -- it was all so fragile, and this new place they were all in... could it survive?

Around her, the work of rebuilding went on, unnoticed.

Calrissian had come back earlier in the day, with a shipment of marble from Sullust. Amidala could see him in the courtyard, supervising its unloading and taking instructions for placement from the artisans. She would have to grant him Naboo citizenship, whether he asked for it or not; he was too good a mayor to pass up, and both the Gungans and the Naboo had been asking her to allow him citizenship to run. Even the Alderaanians on her Council had ventured the opinion.

He saw her through the window and waved, and she returned it wanly. She had too much on her mind to handle Lando's harmless flirting today. He claimed not to mean it anyway.

She turned away, toward the throne room, where the day's troubles waited impatiently for her. Hearings, a trial, and a wedding... at least she hoped for the last. The couple had come before her three times already and backed out each time; she thought they were sweet, and was looking forward to blessing their marriage. She bit her lip. She wondered what twisted blessing someone had just put on her own.

Lando Calrissian drew on the robe that the Queen (former queen? future queen? Well, pretty darn good looking for a 40 something year old, anyway.) had given him when the door chimed.

He wrenched the door open and glared at the young man in some sort of uniform.

"WHAT???"

"Uh..er..General Calrissian, Sir... Her Majesty the Queen of Naboo wishes for you to see her immediately."

Lando sighed. He wondered what she wanted. More marble, perhaps? Information on her new son-in-law? Heheheheh. He could give her plenty of information on that. Including how that old space pirate cheated at the card game to win his precious...

"Sir?"

"Yes. Tell her I'll be right there."

He got dressed and went down to (what was left) of the throne. The Queen - what was her name? Amanda? Arcadia? Amidala? He couldn't remember - was staring out the window with a far away look on his face. Not wanting to startle her, he tried to clear his throat quietly.

"Mmm-hhm."

No response.

"Mmm-HHM."

She remained perfectly still.

"MMM-HHM!"

She must have been startled, but she just turned around calmy and smiled at Lando.

"Ah, General Calrissian. How are you? Would you like anything to drink?"

"Sure. Ale?"

She smiled faintly and handed him a cup of tea. Oops.

"Let me get down to business, Calrissian. I have heard of the wonderful things you have done with a mining colony. You seem to be a very strong leader with a good sense of how to run things..."

"Good sense how to run things? I don't want be to rude, but you've got the wrong guy. I almost got my whole colony killed."

"Yes, but you kept them well protected until then and then when the colony was in danger warned them instead of running yourself. That shows responsibility. I want you to grant you honored citizenship of Naboo."

Lando was surprised, but flattered. If only his old space buddies could see him now.

There is something I'm forgetting, Amidala thought dreamily. Yes, oh, of course.

"There has been some discussion among my council, and quite a bit more popularly. Now that you have been granted citizenship, I ask you to consider running for the position of Prince of Theed." She saw Calrissian's eyes widen, and remembered that of course he wouldn't know the term. "It is simply a mayoral post, General. I served as Princess of Theed before I became queen. I was twelve... "

He's thirteen.

She blinked, and tried to bring herself back to the throne room, where Calrissian was waiting patiently. "I don't suppose you've spoken to General Solo today?" she asked.

Calrissian shook his head. "Han's a friend your Majesty, but we don't spend a lot of time talking on the airwaves."

Amidala nodded. "General, my husband will be returning this afternoon. Is there a room in the palace that can be made ready for him before tonight?"

"Your husband?"

"And clothes. He was never a very large boy, at least not at that age. Have any of the vendors begun selling children's clothes?"

Calrissian put a hand on her arm and turned her around. "Your husband?" he repeated.

Amidala drew her arm away, and straightened her head. "Yes, General Calrissian," she said. "My husband."

She looked him squarely in the eye (which took some doing; he was a tall man), then left the room. It was all she had to say.

Naboo.

Anakin's heart sped up for a moment as he came out of lightspeed -- it was home, as much as Tatooine, at any rate, and more than Coruscant. Amidala was there, waiting. And it was the first planet he had seen from behind the controls of a starship; that was something worth noting as well, though he wasn't sure anyone else would understand it.

He didn't see the Falcon anywhere yet, so he hit the comm-link.

"Yes, Father?" Luke asked.

"What's keeping you?"

Luke laughed. "The sunstorm around Tatooine. The X-wing dodged it a little better than we did. But we're only an hour behind you."

"Everyone is well?"

"Everyone's okay."

"Very well. I'll be waiting on Naboo."

He cut off the comm, and piloted down into the atmosphere, the sunwashed plains glimmering with their new grasses. The hangar was where it had always been, and Calrissian's people had mostly restored it. He circled Theed once (no one was watching; he figured no one would question him enjoying the flight for a moment here), then guided the X-wing inside.

Amidala couldn't help grinning when she saw the X-wing begin the wholly unnecessary second circle of Theed, and she laughed aloud when she saw it spin neatly on its axis around a perfect arc.

Ani.

For a brief moment, all feelings other than joy disappeared. Ani had come home to her at last, and she had missed him.

She waited patiently for the landing gear to come down, and the ladder to lower itself. The hatch opened.

And he didn't come out.

She could see him there, in the cockpit. He'd been just about on his feet when he'd caught sight of her, then he'd sunk back down quickly. At the size he was at, it didn't take much to hide him. He was hiding from her.

The realization brought back all the nervousness she'd felt, momentarily lost in the joy of watching him fly. It had been one thing, talking to him across the great divide of his death. This... this would be different.

But it had to be done. Ani had come home to her, at long last. It wasn't as she would have it. But it was a fact that had to be dealt with.

She took a deep breath, then steeled herself and went to the ladder. She climbed it.

He was sitting in the cockpit, a smallish boy with fine blond hair and pale skin, and a thin, quiet voice. "Are you an angel?" he whispered.

She smiled. "You're a funny little boy."

Leia sat across from her brother, hands folded tightly against the edge of the small table. Her knuckles were starting to ache. She didn't look up to meet his eyes, and she could feel him trying to probe her mind. For the first time, she consciously tried to block him out.

"Leia, will you please stop that?"

"Stop what?"

Hands, one warm and real, the other a bit cooler, harder, wrapped around her own. Reluctantly, she looked up. Luke was looking at her warmly, concerned... she felt childish for her own behavior. Surely, Luke had to be in the right, had to be superior to her in this --

He wasn't there. He didn't see our father stand perfectly still and do nothing while his homeworld was wiped from the sky. He wasn't... questioned about anything. He doesn't know what I know. He doesn't know yet that Father can caress your face with one hand and rip your heart out with the other.

Then, as if sensing the image but not the horrible wrenching it brought with it, Luke raised his mechanical hand slowly, and placed it on her cheek. She pushed it away and stood up. "What were you thinking, Luke?"

"I wasn't," he admitted. "I should have spoken to you first. And to Mother."

"Yes, well, remember that if you decide to bring Palpatine back from the dead next."

Luke sighed. "Leia, this isn't good for you. I wasn't thinking when I suggested this to him. But now, I think I would have done it for your sake. You have to learn to live with it."

"With it, maybe. With him? I don't think so, Luke."

Luke closed his eyes slowly, opened them again. "Let go of your hate, Leia," he said. A chill passed through him as he remembered saying those very words to his father, a long time ago it seemed. It seemed so ironic that he would be saying those very same words to Leia.

If you will not be turned, then perhaps she will...

Luke shuddered at the memory, at the very thought of Leia trapped by the same darkness that had held Anakin prisoner for so long.

"You just don't understand," said Leia wearily. "No -- don't reach into my head and tell me that you can. It's different when you've lived through it. Different when -- " She paused and shook her head. Stepped back and made as if to leave.

Luke was stung by the words but then, he finally realized what she meant. Yes, he could reach out to her through their bond. But he had never been there on the Death Star when Alderaan was destroyed. And maybe he could say that he too had gone through the same torment -- Bespin was the first memory to come to mind -- but to Leia it still wasn't the same.

And it never could be.

He placed a hand on her arm. "I won't tell you to forget what he did. And I won't tell you that I completely understand what happened between the two of you. But what I do see is that you're still hurting and the hurt's festering inside you like an open wound."

She didn't look at him. "So what do you think I should do, O great Jedi Knight?"

He flinched at her sarcastic tone and she immediately wanted to take the words back. She had never spoken like that to him before. But he doggedly continued.

"Talk to him, Leia. Find a way to heal that wound. Try to forgive."

This time, she stroked his cheek. An apology. A sister's touch, making up for all the times that were lost. "I don't know if I can, Luke."

This time, she did leave.

Leia sat quietly in the cockpit as Han began the landing cycle on Naboo. She could see the X-Wing on the far side of the hangar, and Mother was standing with...

He squeezed her eyes shut, opened them again. He was still there.

Worse, she wanted to go to him.

Not to Mother. To him.

It wasn't right. What Luke had said to her wasn't news -- the hate and anger and resentment burned through her, and she knew they would burn her away if she didn't find a way past them. But every time she tried, the memories flooded back to her, the questioning on the Death Star, the moment he put her dead mother in her arms, the blank, awful stare in the carbon freezing chamber on Bespin...

But there had been something else on Bespin, too, hadn't there? Just for a moment, before Han had gone down into the pit. In her own pain, her mind had opened, and she'd felt a vast, sad confusion coming from Vader. It had been so strong that she'd turned to look at him, despite everything. He'd been so focused on Luke (she guessed now) that he hadn't noticed, and she'd had other things to worry about, but it had been there. She didn't doubt that.

And the other matters, the things that came before, when she had loved him, and he had saved her... those things remained in her memory as well, and a part of her longed to simply go back to them, to reach through the terror of the intervening years, hold on tight to that lost warmth, and fight through this together.

But in the end, it was nothing of herself that made it impossible for her to forgive him. It was the voices of the dead, crying out to her: Have you forgotten us?

She hadn't forgotten, and she couldn't. She was a soldier, and had her own dead to atone for, but Vader had committed murder in cold blood

(i watched him burn)

and that was different. Someone who did such a thing should not be forgiven. No matter how much she regretted having done it.

Anakin had changed into the clothes Lando had brought, and looked like any other adolescent Naboo boy, at least to anyone but Amidala. The tunic was a deep maroon, with biege trousers and brown boots. His hair had been combed neatly and precisely, and he had taken a good deal of time to clean himself. Amidala had found him, half an hour after he'd left her, scrubbing his hands with a harsh brush until they were at the point of bleeding, and had taken it from him. They hadn't spoken of it. They'd barely spoken at all. It had been easier before. Now, their marriage lay between them, lost in chasm more uncrossable than death. He spoken to Threepio longer than he'd spoken to her.

Thirteen.

The hatch of the Falcon opened, and Luke came out first, Chewbacca close behind him. His approach wasn't at all hesitant, and his smile was broad and genuine. Han led Leia out a few minutes later, and Amidala's heart sank. Leia looked like she'd been caught in the gears of a droid factory.

Amidala went to her, put an arm around her, then held her. "It's all right, Leia. It will be all right."

Leia shook her head. "No. It won't."

Chapter 2: Death and Dishonor

The dead followed Kyrys Tashin everywhere.

He had tried to ignore them, tried to pretend that they weren't there. But each face was etched into his memory, every detail, every feature scarred into his mind by blood and by fire.

He'd sought to appease them by saying that everything had been all for the good. That they were a danger to the Empire he had served. A threat to the order, peace and prosperity that the Empire had promised.

They were Rebels whose treason had to be eradicated. Innocent civilians whose deaths were regretted, yet acceptable casualties in the middle of war.

For the glory of the Empire...and the Empire for the glory of the people.

So he had said then. So he had tried to believe.

But it was all gone now.

All that sacrifice, all that pain and for what? For the greedy Imperial governors who even now tried to hold on to their power? For the Emperor who increasingly held the Empire's glory for his own?

It was all lies and everything Kyrys had done, every atrocity he'd committed, was all in vain.

He had nothing left to offer the angry dead. No honor. No all-encompassing, glorious truth. No future bright and full of promise. Only his life.

He'd prepared for his death carefully. A death wrought by agonizing pain, the agony he would offer to appease the dead who waited for him.

But the Rebels...and Isabel had found him first.

They'd brought him to the recently commandeered Star Destroyer Nemesis, now renamed the Skysong. Bound him to a medical bed, sedated by the med-droids at the slightest sign of upset, every sharp object removed from his sight and a constant guard by his side so he wouldn't escape their justice by suicide again.

They needn't have bothered. He would have not attempted to take his life again. Not after seeing the look in his daughter's eyes.

His Isabel, four years old, the one bright thing that had come out of his wasted life. Isabel, whose blue-gray eyes had been wide with fear and terror when the Rebels had come to take her father away. He should not have forgotten her.

Let the Rebels take their justice out of him. But he would not be too proud to beg for his daughter. Let her live. And be untainted by her father's shame.

He watched Isabel sitting on the floor beside his bed, playing with her doll and apparently talking to an imaginary friend.

"Mm-hm, yes, Fro, got a gift for Ani, yes, I do..." the little girl chattered away. She looked up to see her father staring at her.

"Papa!"

He managed a smile, still feeling a little woozy from the last sedative they'd given him.

"I got a gift for Ani!" Isabel announced.

"A gift for who?" he asked.

"For Ani!" She said, rolling her eyes at her father's slowness.

His little one had a lively imagination. He'd done his best to keep up with her little doings, no matter where he was. "Is Ani like your friend Fro?"

"Mmmm, he's bigger than Fro. Much bigger. But he's nice." She beamed. "I got a present for you too, Papa!"

"That's wonderful, love."

She stood and clambered up on his bed, resting her head on his chest. "You'll like it, Papa. Then, you won't have to be sad any more."

He hugged her tight and closed his eyes so the tears wouldn't fall. He had so little time with her left. But at least, Isabel might find a safe place in the planet that had been his home.

Naboo. Home. And the place where he would finally find peace as one of the dead.

Amidala was sadly coming to the conclusion that Leia was right -- things were not magically going to become all right. Leia herself wasn't being very helpful, and Amidala was beginning to get irritated with her (which bothered her; she hadn't seen her children in over twenty years; the last thing she wanted was to be unhappy with either of them). Luke and Ani spent a great deal of time together, walking on the plains and talking about history and Tatooine. Luke kept asking Ani to help him train; Ani continually refused. It had happened nearly every day of the six weeks Ani had been on Naboo.

"I can't," he said, when Luke had left him to train on his own, and he sat in Amidala's parlor, a small, ancient boy with the burden of history on his narrow shoulders. "I can't draw on him again, not even in practice."

Amidala touched his shoulder absently, then drew her hand away. "I understand, Ani," she said. She went to the window. She seemed to spend a lot of time looking out at Theed while she spoke to her husband. "But Luke is trying to tell you that he can live with it."

"I know. But that's what I offered, Amidala. Don't you see? I would complete his training."

"So follow up on it, Ani. Complete it."

"He defeated me already."

She smiled. "This is Jedi training, Ani, not Sith training. Even I remember the difference. Beating you doesn't make him the Master. Especially not when you let him win."

"I didn't let him win."

"Of course not."

"Amidala -- "

She turned and looked at him -- how rarely she did so, and how it wrenched her heart when she did! -- giving him the best smile she could muster. "You forget, Ani. I know you. Both of you."

A streak of light broke the afternoon sky, flashing against the window and catching Amidala's attention. A shuttle was docking.

An Imperial shuttle.

Ani came to the window and stood beside her, a hand shielding his eyes against the glare. He unhooked the electro-binoculars from his belt (Amidala had gotten them for him as a gift), and focused them upward. "Star Destroyer," he said. "But it's been commandeered. It has Republic markings."

"I imagine we'd be seeing a firefight if it hadn't identified itself." The comm-band she wore around her wrist beeped. She raised her arm, and pushed the respond button impatiently. "Amidala."

"Hello, Your Highness." Calrissian's voice was smooth. Ani rolled his eyes and walked away.

"Do you have news on the Star Destroyer in orbit?"

"Yes, ma'am. That's the Skysong -- used to be the Nemesis if Anakin's wondering" -- Calrissian, alone among the the twins' compatriots, had treated Ani's presence as if it were something perfectly natural ever since he'd understood what happened -- "and they've brought a prisoner."

"A prisoner? What sort of prisoner? Is he seeking asylum?"

"No. He's Naboo. He was an Imperial officer. He wants to stand trial. And rumor has it, he's a little bit crazy. Tried to kill himself before they captured him."

Ani grabbed her hand, pulling the comm-band to himself. He grinned sheepishly when he realized it was the first time he'd held her hand in years, but didn't say anything to her. "Calrissian, what's his name?"

There was a pause, then Calrissian came back. "Tashin," he said. "Kyrys Tashin."

Ani closed his eyes. "Thank you." He turned off the switch, squeezed Amidala's hand absently, then dropped it. "I'd best get down there," he said. "Tashin is unlikely to have committed any war crimes and I -- "

Amidala shook her head. "Ani, no. If he committed no crime, then he won't be convicted. Don't... don't reveal yourself. If you open that door, you'll never be able to shut it."

"Perhaps it should remain open," he said.

Anakin's pace quickened as he strode through the halls of the palace. He knew it disturbed people to see this -- Luke had made a nervous joke about never seeing him merely "walk" anywhere, and no one had laughed -- but it was a habit that he found he couldn't break. He had to either be still, or be truly in motion. He no longer remembered how to amble. Even the daily walks on the plains with Luke tended to be quick and aimed for some planned destination where they could then sit quietly and talk. The return trip tended to be equally fast. Luke complained that he barely had a chance to see anything.

He brushed through a doorway, the cooler air of the hanger hitting him in the slight breeze he created. Maybe it was a little fast. Maybe he should slow down.

The shuttle was lowering its gangplank, and Anakin began to go forward to greet it. For a moment, the last year and a half fell away, and he was in another vast hangar, greeting another shuttle. He could almost feel the pneumatics, and the instinct to kneel was strong. He blinked it away, standing perfectly still at the edge of the hangar until the traces were gone. Amidala had come into the doorway behind him -- he knew exactly where she was in relation to him without needing to look at her, and could practically see the way the slight motion of the air would be pulling at the violet gown she wore -- and he reached to her for serenity. She gave it gladly.

The gangplank lowered, and the illusion was entirely broken. Solo was with the Rebel team -- the Alliance... Republic team! -- and he came sauntering down the ramp like no Imperial who had ever served. He gave Lando a salute, then looked involuntarily toward Anakin.

Anakin nodded a greeting. Solo -- give the man credit -- at least made an attempt to return it. Amidala stepped forward, and Solo came to her.

"How are you doing, Padme?"

Amidala smiled at Solo's name-of-the-day, as she called his rotating addresses. He couldn't seem to settle on one. "Fine, thank you. How is your... your prisoner?"

"He's a little better now. His little girl is with him. I think he's not going to do anything stupid."

"He is well after his suicide attempt?" Anakin asked.

"Yeah. Yeah, he's fine. Crazy, but okay."

"Tashin has committed no war crimes."

"He seems to think he has."

"Perceptions and reality do not always coincide, General Solo."

Solo shook his head. "Do you have any idea how that sounds coming out of a kid's mouth?"

Anakin wasn't sure what possessed him to be contrary -- he was sure Kenobi would disapprove -- but instead of falling silent, he said, "I apologize for discomfiting you, General, but Tashin's perceptions seem not to be the only inaccurate ones at the moment." It would have been overblown even as Vader (though the apology didn't fit), but Anakin had to admit that allowing himself a brief moment of returning Solo's needling had felt rather good. Almost like he was on equal footing. Solo, in a strange way, looked pleased at the response, though Anakin found him completely unreadable and couldn't be sure.

Then Amidala shook her head, and got back to business. "A prison has not been a high priority here."

"Yeah, I know, but Leia pushed through a Planetary Autonomy bill a couple of months ago -- "

"Yes, I remember."

" -- and that means if he's Naboo, he's yours, and he'll be tried under Naboo law, as long as Naboo law doesn't break the laws of the Republic."

Anakin sighed. "I will testify on his behalf. I won't have Tashin punished for war crimes he did not and could not have committed."

Solo looked at him, surprised. "You're seriously going to walk into a courtroom and explain to everyone around you how you happen to know that?"

"Yes."

"Well, you got guts. I'll give you that."

"His courage isn't going to help anyone if he's killed by a crazed mob," Amidala said, then looked across at the shuttle. "Kyrys Tashin will remain in the palace under guard until a trial is set. Under Naboo law, I will confer with my council, and then arrange to hear arguments."

As if at this signal, a group of Republic soldiers came down the gangplant, the thin form of Tashin in their midst. Between them, Anakin caught sight of the little girl -- Isabel, he remembered; he'd seen her once, as a baby... and hadn't there been something else, some other memory of the child? -- and he saw her waving her hand. He waved back.

The soldiers parted, and Tashin stepped forward.

Ten minutes earlier, Isabel had been sitting quietly beside her father as the shuttle prepared to land in Naboo. She turned to glance at her father and bit back a startled gasp at what she saw.

The ghosts were back again.

Her father thought that he was the only one who could see them, the phantoms born of a feverish imagination and a guilt-ridden conscience, but the child could see them all too well. The tiny Imperial shuttle was full of them, men, women and children. Broken bodies, bloody faces, the overwhelming rush of rage and rending agony that reached out to chill her body and soul. Robbing her father of his sanity bit by bit.

She bit her lip as she remembered running into her father's room, fleeing from the strangers who had burst into their home. She had screamed in terror when she saw her father's white, stricken face and all the blood on the floor...

In that moment, she had begun to change.

Isabel's father had not seen this change, too wrapped up in grief and guilt to know. Outwardly, Isabel still seemed to be the happy little chatterbox that she had always been. But within her had awakened a certain knowledge, a certain strength. She was not quite the same anymore.

Go away, she thought silently, trying to drive away all the ghosts plaguing her father with a strong mental shove.

Justice...justice... they howled at her, their fury and pain reaching out to strike her like a physical blow. We will be avenged! We will not be denied!

GET OUT! A mental scream. An unmistakable command. The child Isabel was suddenly overshadowed by the sense of an ancient power, an unassailable authority. The dead backed off.

For now.

Was that really necessary? asked the familiar voice of her old friend Fro. Try doing that a little louder so the Jedi out there can hear you. There's a whole family of them down there, you know.

They cannot have him, answered Isabel quietly, still caught in the grip of that strange new change. I am sorry for all of them. But my father's death will not help them. Once he dies, his pain will join theirs and there will be no healing for them. Only a wound that will fester and rot forever.

Penitence, instead of punishment, observed Fro.

Isabel nodded. Absolution. For both Ani and my father.

"Okay, trip's over. Everybody off."

The cheerful voice of General Han Solo broke the spell. Whatever power or strength that was in the child was gone. Isabel was four years old once more.

Isabel smiled up at General Solo. "You're really funny," she announced.

He grinned. "Anything to see that cute little smile of yours,sweetheart." At that, she giggled. "Now why don't you help your papa get up, okay?"

She nodded and tugged at her father's hand. "Come on, Papa!"

Her father managed a wan smile and Isabel was glad. Papa looked wonderful when he smiled.

General Solo was the first down the ramp and then it was their turn. Isabel had felt a little scared at first; not all of the Rebel soldiers had been as nice as General Solo was. She'd caught them giving mean looks to her father and she'd stuck her tongue out at them in return.

Meanies.

Then, she'd taken a quick glance at the people who were waiting for them. There was a really beautiful lady in a long pretty violet gown.

Amidala. Fro's voice whispered, the faintest echo of that other, changed self tugging at her mind. She pushed it away impatiently, too excited to stop and think the thoughts that OTHER part of her thought.

Ani's Queen. Her child's mind decided. Fairy tale princess.

And then, she saw Ani. Isabel nearly laughed aloud. She remembered him as tall, and dark, and really scary. Though why she knew that, she couldn't explain. Fro could but he was with that new, other part of Isabel's mind. And it wasn't time to go there. The ghosts weren't here to mess with her Papa right now.

Anyway, Ani looked much better now. She waved at him and he waved back.

Papa stepped forward. When he saw the Queen, he fell to his knees before her.

"Majesty, forgive me. I have committed a terrible crime. I will accept the punishment due me but I beg you, please, spare my little girl. Take care of her."

Isabel went to her papa's side, her blue-gray eyes wide with alarm. What was papa saying? "Papa, I want to stay with you!"

The Queen reached out for Papa's hands and helped him to stand up. "Kyrys Tashin, there is no need for this. You and your daughter will be safe here."

"No," Papa shook his head wildly. "No, you don't understand, Your Majesty. They demand justice. It is what I owe them, don't you see? I killed them all and it was all for nothing!"

"Who?" This time it was Ani who spoke. Papa stared at him and Isabel wanted to tell him that it was Ani. That Papa knew him, a long time ago.

But Ani was still speaking. "Who did you kill?"

Papa looked at him and then, looked beyond Ani, over his shoulder. Isabel gasped in surprise.

The ghosts were there once more. Waiting for her father to speak for them.

"No," she whispered.

Papa stared at the ghosts and then, he finally spoke, his voice broken and tired.

"Ihivizi. The people at the shrine. I was the one who killed them."

Isabel shivered. She saw that the ghosts were laughing.

Anakin saw the child's eyes rise to a place above his shoulders, looking into the shadows of the hallway. He would have liked to pretend that she was simply having some sort of daydream, but he could sense something, some strange presence at the edge of his consciousness. It may have been Tashin's madness.

Or it may have been the hungry dead.

One thousand, maybe more. Men, women, and children. Dead on their own ceremonial swords... but they would have starved to death if it had ended differently. And he wouldn't have stopped it. He'd ordered the mountainside burned. He'd been sure they would come out and cease their uprising as soon as the children grew hungry.

He had been wrong. The river had run with their blood. The Great Drought had started after that last rainfall, and Rejuo had told him that there were those in the La'azum underground who believed the dead were holding it back. Nonsense, of course -- a vaguery of the orbit had simply caused a climatic shift, which Anakin thought would correct itself in a century or two -- but a compelling, dangerous idea. Except that it wasn't La'azum the dead would need to punish.

"Tashin," he said, "you served well and honorably. The debt to the dead is not yours to pay."

Tashin looked at him through guarded eyes. "What do you know of the dead, boy?"

Anakin stepped forward, looked the kneeling man in the eye. "I have walked among them," he said quietly. "I walked among them for many years before my body left me to them. I know of the dead, Tashin. And I know that the sentry was an hour late that morning."

The Republic guards shifted uncomfortably, and Anakin could sense a fleeting thought

great -- from one basket case to another

from one of them, but understanding dawned in Tashin's eyes. He said nothing, but allowed the guard to take him off to the room Amidala directed them to. Anakin took a deep breath, and looked at his wife.

At Amidala -- she could no longer be his wife.

She smiled wearily at him. He was about to follow her into the shadows of the hall when he felt a tug on his sleeve. Isabel Tashin was looking up at him hopefully. On an instinct, he picked her up. It was something he hadn't done in more years than he could remember. She kissed his cheek. "You'll help my father, Ani?"

"I will try, Isabel." He returned the kiss, and put her down. She went after her father. It was only when he was halfway to Amidala's conference room that he realized he'd never told her his name.

The council members were gathered in the conference room by the time Amidala got back from the hangar. Four Naboo, four Gungans, four Alderaanians. They were beginning to look less dissimilar than they once had.

Tirzé spoke first. She had a comm-pad in her hand, and directed it to send information to the other terminals at the table. "With your leave, your Majesty?" she said.

"Leave is granted, Tirzé."

"Naboo law, as it has always been practiced, places the sovereign as judge of martial trials, with her advisors serving as -- "

"As counsel," Amidala finished. "No such trial has been held for many years. But I will obey the ancient custom, unless another way is preferred."

Carn-Gari, the Gungan boss, made a sound in his throat that she hoped was going to be an objection, but he looked down at the end. "Wesa going to go with the Naboo laws on this. This man -- hisim Naboo. If it be a Gungan, I say try under Gungan ways."

Amidala turned, and saw the small form in the doorway. "Come in, Anakin," she said, then turned back to the council. "My husband has business with this body."

There were no raised eyebrows at this -- the council had been apprised that Luke and Leia's father had been miraculously returned from the dead -- but there would be as soon as he began to speak. Amidala looked cautiously at Ivva Japui and the Alderaan contingent; those wounds were still open.

Ivva noticed her eye, took it as a request for an opinion (Amidala was amused with the fact that Ivva took almost everything as a request for an opinion, but her thoughts were welcome). "Your Majesty, while I agree that a Naboo citizen should be tried under Naboo law -- as Boss Carn-Gari said of the Gungans, it would be different if he were not Naboo -- I do wonder about the nature of the particular crime for which he is being tried. It was a terrible loss of life, on a world far from here. Perhaps La'azum should have some voice here. The Republic as a whole does have final jurisdiction under the Planetary Autonomy Act" -- Amidala couldn't help a pleased smile at this; Leia had been on Coruscant for months, and her efforts to pass the bill would have made any politician's mother proud -- "should dissatisfaction result, but it would be best to try and avoid that. We should see to it that La'azum has a chance to speak against Tashin."

"No one will be speaking against Tashin," Ani said. Everyone turned to him. Amidala felt a sharp pain in her lip and realized that she was biting it. Ani took a deep breath, and stepped up to the table. "I gave the order to burn the mountain," he said. "Tashin was against it. I ordered the siege, I created the circumstances, and I refused to cease the attack when it became apparent that there would be no surrender. Tashin holds no blame in this, except in his own mind."

In the silence, Amidala could hear the sun stretching the transparisteel in the windowpanes.

Ivva Japui (as Amidala had expected) put the pieces together first. She paled, and stood slowly. "You," she whispered. "Vader."

Ani nodded.

Ivva tried to say something else, but no sound came from her throat. She left the room. The other delegates from Alderaan followed her. The last, an old man named Garlien Taliva who had been visiting his grandchildren on Cal-Dar when Alderaan ceased to exist, paused beside Ani, looked at him with strange, pain-ravaged eyes, then disappeared into the shadows.

Ivva Japui's legs would carry her no further. She sat heavily on the palace floor, halfway down the hall from the conference room, at the edge of the patch of sunlight thrown by the window. The cool rock wall was soothing on her back.

She had been at school, at the Cloud City Academy for Girls on Bespin, when it had happened, the unthinkable event. She hadn't learned of it immediately -- the news had gone around quickly enough, but she'd only been fourteen, and she'd had a math test that afternoon. She'd been celebrating it when the announcement from Tarkin was broadcast: "The Empire regrets that it was forced to take extreme action against the rebellious world of Alderaan." Then the holos. Ivva had returned to her dormitory, knowing there was no one for her to call, no possibility that anyone was all right -- her people had all been farmers, and sending her to school had meant extra work and no travel -- and curled onto her bed in a waking nightmare. The housemistress had found her there twelve hours later and taken her to the hospital. She had eventually come out of it. But the memory... she could not stand the memory, but it kept coming to her anyway. She had asked the Princess what had happened, and been told. No one blamed Princess Leia (except, Ivva had a sneaking suspicion, Princess Leia herself) -- they would not have had her betray the Rebellion, and she could not have foreseen the monstrous act -- but Vader... The Princess had been perfectly clear that Tarkin had given the order, not Vader, but she had also been perfectly clear that he'd stood by and let it happen.

Her father. The natural father of the only surviving member of Alderaan's royal family. Vader. The man who had let her world be destroyed.

And he was alive again.

A shadow fell across her, and she looked up to see old Garlien. The small white hat he usually wore was in his hands, twisted into almost nothing. "You remembering?" he asked.

She nodded. Garlien had been kind to her ever since he'd found her. He'd finished paying for her schooling, and raised her with his grandchildren. "The thing is, I like Anakin. I've spoken to him several times since he came here."

"I know, child. I know. And in my heart, I know what he did today was an admirable thing. And I know what the Princess says happened on the battle bridge of the Abomination" -- he always referred to the Death Star as such -- "and I believe her."

"Can we be sure? He's her father. She might be covering for him."

"Come, child, we have no reason to distrust the Princess. And the Abomination was not the sort of weapon Lord Vader was known to wield, nor was it the sort of act he was known to commit. It was always known that one needed to provoke Vader's wrath to fall prey to it. Alderaan had not done so." He shook his head. "And yet, when I see him, when I think of him, the beautiful world comes into my mind, and the children I raised on it. And I want to tell him about the people he watched die. The people who never had a chance. I want him to never have peace from them."

"I want that, too."

"But it isn't our way, Ivva. To torment him so is to destroy Alderaan again, by forgetting who we were... and who we are."

Ivva smiled bitterly. "So it is our way to just let things go, forget, and tolerate anything?"

"No. Do not forget. Do not trust. But allow him a chance to prove his regret sincere. If it is sincere, the torment will come on its own. A good soul will feel the pain of those crimes."

"And if it is not sincere?"

"If it is not sincere, Ivva, then there are matters no one must tolerate."

Kyrys Tashin stared straight ahead, not wishing to see anything but his guards and the hostile looks they were giving him. Better the anger of the living than the rage of the dead. At least, once the doors of their cell were closed, the guards would leave him alone.

The dead would not.

...you have served well and honorably...

He remembered those words, spoken long ago by the Dark Lord of the Sith. They had feared him then and others whispered darkly of strange powers and sorcerous ways. But Lord Vader had been the one to fight beside them, risking his life along with theirs unlike the other commanders Tashin had served.

...I have been among the dead...And I know that the sentry was an hour late that morning.

Words spoken by a thirteen year old boy and yet, Kyrys Tashin knew who he really was the minute he'd looked into that boy's eyes and heard him speak.

Lord Vader.

None of them had ever seen Vader without his mask and even then, which Imperial soldier could ever recall not discussing the Dark Lord, wondering who he was and what he looked like? From the lowest stormtrooper to the highest Grand Admiral, they had all talked and wondered about him.

Tashin knew that he should have been thinking that it was impossible. How could the Dark Lord, who they knew died at the Death Star with the Emperor, be this thirteen year old boy?

But Tashin had seen the boy's eyes. Old eyes, eyes that had seen too much, holding too many regrets and too many sorrows, shadowed by too many dark memories. Eyes just like his own.

I know the sentry was an hour late that morning...

Only one man could have had that sort of knowledge. A memory surfaced. Vader stooping on the ground, dipping his gloved hand into a pool of water suddenly stained with red.

Vader grabbing Tashin's blaster and shooting at the mountain, discovering that the shields were down.

Following behind Vader to the cave where the zealots were hiding and finding that they were all dead...

Tashin felt a chill run down his spine and he was acutely aware of the dead watching him, glaring at him. He clenched his hands, fighting against the urge to flee, curl up in a corner and wait for his death. But he grimly held on to the remaining shreds of his dignity. The Rebels already thought him mad and Isabel...

He felt her slip her hand in his and he looked down to reassure her. Instead, she was the one who smiled at him reassuringly. He immediately felt guilty. He was the one who should take care of her. Not the other way around.

Tashin saw his daughter scowl and then stick her tongue out at one of the guards. He tugged at her hand to get her attention.

"Isabel," he said warningly.

"Meanies," she muttered, still glaring at them. "Don't worry, Papa. I'll take care of you."

He wanted to laugh, for the first time in months. Instead, he smiled down at her, touched by the little one's concern -- and how little did he deserve it! -- and quietly resolving to hold himself together. He owed the dead a great deal but his duty to his child came first.

They stopped at the door of the cell -- no, a room. It was not the prison cell or dungeon he knew he deserved and expected. He flushed with shame. He did not deserve such kindness. He would have begged for his child to be kept in comfort but not for himself.

The door slid open and Isabel ran inside, all pent up with a child's excitement. He was about to follow her when a hand caught his arm.

"It was my people you murdered at Ihivizi, you Imperial b--strd!" a voice hissed in his ear. "Baa'thala's curse on you and all your line!"

Tashin was shoved inside. He spun around to face the speaker and met the cold gray eyes of the Rebel guards' commander just before the door shut in his face.

Anakin stood in the conference room after the Alderaanians left, his eyes closed. Amidala watched him carefully, taking a few steps closer to him to offer what support she could. The Naboo and Gungan council members were still staring at him, the Naboo with a kind of fixed sadness, the Gungans with a sharper appraisal.

Ani opened his eyes.

Carn-Gari spoke first. "Wesa having no trouble with you. Palpatini, wesa no liking much, and yousa shouldn't have being with him. But yousa never do anything to usen. Wesa being with you."

Anakin shook his head. "I ask no allies, Boss Carn-Gari, though I thank you for your offer. I will face this alone."

Amidala's heart seemed to stop beating for a moment. She wanted to run to him, to hold him, to promise that he would never be alone. And she wanted to strangle him.

He turned to leave the room, straightening his shoulders and walking with quiet dignity...

Then he let out a gasp of pain, and fell to his knees, his hand grasping at his shins.

Amidala ran to him and knelt beside him. "Ani, what is it? Ani?"

Tirze was headed over, but Amidala held up one hand. She could see Ani biting his lip against whatever pain he was in, and a tear was hovering at the edge of his eye. He wouldn't want them to see his face.

"My legs," he finally said. "Like fireknives in the bone marrow. Twisting." His face was pale, and his breathing shallow. She tried to put an arm around him, to help him up but he held out one hand. "I'll be all right."

A part of her knew that he was trying to be noble, that she should let him do everything for himself and take pride in it. But the rest of her had been shut out once too often. "Anakin," she hissed, almost under her breath, "I have had enough of this. I'm your wife. You need help. I'm taking you to Two-Onebee."

He shook his head. Sweat was beginning to gather on his brow. "I'm fine."

"You are obviously not fine, Ani. Let me help you."

He turned to her, his eyes meeting hers through whatever haze of pain he was in. Then he held out his hand to her, and she took it, and helped him to his feet. He leaned on her as she led him to the infirmary.

Neither of them noticed the eight council members around the table, looking after them in confusion.

Two hours later, at Two-Onebee's orders, Anakin sat in the hot springs up to his neck, his eyes closed and his head leaned back against a slab of rock, feeling like a fool. A self-important, deluded fool, who'd had himself knocked into place quite effectively.

Growing pains! The clone had snapped out of the stasis it had been in since it had awakened, and its accelerated growth had started again in a spectacular flash of pain. He'd said it felt like twisting knives, but when he considered it, he realized that what it really felt like was having his bones stretched like pull-candy on a rack. It had been genuinely painful when it happened. Now, it was vaguely embarassing. What would be next?

Oh, but he knew that one. He would stand up in the courtroom to plead Tashin's case, and his voice would crack.

He felt Amidala's approach as soon as she entered the room, but kept his eyes closed until a splash of cool water cascaded down his face. She was standing above him with a pitcher, giving him a tired, but oddly contented, smile. It had been a strange moment there in the conference room. Unable to think about anything but the awful pain in his legs, he'd forgotten about being thirteen, he'd forgotten that she was over fifty, and he'd forgotten that after a lifetime of crimes to terrible to let go, he would never be her husband again. She had reached out, and he had needed her, and for a moment, things were as they

(should be)

had been long ago. And now, there was a different comfort level. She was not his wife. But in an instant of both blinding terror and blessed joy, he realized that she was, at the end of the day, his friend.

"Ani," she said, "you don't need to do this alone."

He knew well that she wasn't speaking about his bout with growing pains. "But I was alone, Amidala. My responsibility is mine. I will face this alone."

She was quiet for a moment. He could feel her struggling for the right thing to say. But she never said it.

Footsteps were strange in the cavernous room -- Anakin couldn't tell if they were from a large person or a small one. But someone was standing hesitantly at the arched entrance. He sat up straight, and waited for the visitor to enter.

Isabel made her way through the halls of the Queen's palace as quickly as she could, one hand clutching her favorite doll. To any curious eyes, she looked like any child exploring an unfamiliar place. It was what the guards assumed when she slipped out of the room she shared with her father. They wouldn't think a four year old, even an Imperial officer's daughter, would be up to any nefarious deeds.

If they only knew, Fro wryly commented in her mind.

Oh shut up, Fro,Isabel shot back wearily. The ghosts had come again as soon as her father fell asleep, wishing to torment him through his dreams. Once more, that strange, changed part of Isabel took over and pushed them back, blocking their pathway into her father's mind through his dreams.

That same, other part of her wished for more time. Not now! she wanted to cry. Not yet! Let me be a child for a while longer! Let me remain innocent and unaware and never know...

Oh, Isabel, Fro sighed softly. You don't have to know. You don't have to change. You can remain as you are now, Kyrys Tashin's innocent little girl, with no ghosts of the pasts to haunt you. Let them haunt Kyrys now.

He is my father. He was misled.

But he made those choices of his own free will. As did Anakin Skywalker. Fro paused for a moment. Anakin Skywalker...Darth Vader was a Dark Lord who destroyed more lives, more hopes and dreams than even we can imagine. I can understand your compassion for your father but why him? Why will you choose to recall all that you have been to help Vader?

Isabel paused. In one brief moment, everything came back to her in a flash of terrifying clarity. Every memory, each scrap of knowledge, every joy and regret of the lives she had lived before, the people she had known and loved, the power she had wielded and the one single purpose that had defined all those lives lay before her, showing two pathways that had been laid in front of her before.

One, she would turn back now, remain the girl child that she was in this lifetime. She could see herself continuing to explore this palace, playing little games...and then, going back to soothe her sorrowing father, her child's mind and heart not comprehending the extent of his grief but offering what comfort that she could.

The other...

One single memory floated before her, a memory belonging to Isabel Tashin, in this particular lifetime.

She was an infant in her mother's arms, six months old, her only concerns being of food, comfort and warmth. It was her Name Day and her father had given a grand celebration for it, not knowing that three months later, he would be in mourning for the sudden illness and death of his wife.

Her father's fellow officers and peers had all come to have a look at the newly Named citizen of the Empire. Even Lord Darth Vader had deigned to join them in the festivities, however briefly. The rest of the guests would all comment at the favor Tashin enjoyed with the fearsome Dark Lord of the Sith, somehow escaping the brunt of Vader's notoriously lethal temper.

The baby Isabel had no knowledge of that, of course. As she lay in her mother's arms, blinking sleepy blue-gray eyes at the rest of the world, she saw the dark, grotesque mask of the Dark Lord looming over her.

The mask was so strange and so frighteningly different from the human faces the baby was used to that she almost began to wail in distress.

Instead, that slumbering, other part of her mind stirred for the first time. And stared up at Vader in recognition.

I know you.

Oh, that other part of her did know him. Knew of him and others of his kind in the memories of friends over a thousand lifetimes. Bright, gentle, noble souls who by choice or by circumstance, or even both, had lost their way. Even now, with all the darkness and the aura of terrifying power surrounding him, she could see that light left in him, one last bright spark of what he had been.

Isabel wished that she could help him, as she had helped others like him before but that was not to be. Their paths were different; she was not part of his destiny nor he of hers.

The baby that was Isabel smiled up at Darth Vader instead. A blessing. A benediction. A sense of hope. A name came to mind, one that he had been called by in love.

Be well, Ani...

It had only been a few seconds in real time but it had been enough. Vader had looked at the child, who had smiled and laughed at him, spoken a few words of congratulations to her proud parents and had gone.

As Isabel retreated back into infancy, her last memories were of three people that she had briefly seen as part of that one remaining spark of light within Vader. A beautiful Queen, a young knight, and a princess...

You were always a sucker for the dark and tragic princes,Fro said dryly, interrupting her reverie.

Isabel began to laugh. Fro!

So I blew your tragic mood moment. You're not the only one who's supposed to pull people out of their um, heart-tugging angst periods.

But it's so much fun. Isabel said, all perfect innocence. And there's just something about these lovely, angst-ridden heroic types that gets right to me.

Oh, spare me. Whatever will Queen Amidala say?

Isabel rolled her eyes. Poaching is not part of my job. And you forgot to mention that I'm also a sucker for true lovers and happily ever afters.

He's thirteen, remember?

No kidding, Isabel shot back sarcastically. She just entered the part of the palace that led into the hot springs. Her footsteps echoed eerily in this particular place and as she came to the arched entrance, she could hear voices as well.

"Ani, you don't need to do this alone."

"But I was alone, Amidala. My responsibility is mine. I will face this alone."

He's gonna face this alone? Oh, for heaven's sake-- Isabel belatedly realized that they were aware she was there. She stood hesitantly near the entrance, trying to reach a decision.

A little too late now for good manners, isn't it, Isabel?Fro commented wryly. He turned serious. Once you open your mouth, child, there's no turning back.

Isabel came inside. She looked at Amidala and then at Anakin, and finally spoke.

"You're not supposed to face this alone, Ani."

Both of them stared at her and Isabel fought the urge to giggle. She must look a sight, giving words of wisdom on one hand and holding a nice, soft little dolly with the other.

She continued.

"That was the mistake you made in the first place. You thought that you had to do everything alone and make things all better. But everything got all wrong real fast." She paused for a beat. "Papa made the same mistake too. But he's not alone. He's got me. And you're not alone either. You got Amidala and Luke. Even Leia." She grinned. "Han, too, I think."

Ani blinked. He glanced at Amidala but she was looking at the little girl with a strange expression of combined amusement--

And understanding.

Isabel smiled at the Queen, who nodded as if to say Go on, and then looked back at Ani, holding his gaze with her own.

I know you...

Be well, Ani...

"You have another chance to make things right, Ani. Don't blow it."

"How?" Ani asked, finally finding his voice. Which was starting to crack a little. Come to think of it, he was a little taller than he was some hours ago...

"The first thing you do, Ani," said Isabel simply, "is to let your family back in. And let them...let you back in too."

And then, she left.

Chapter Three: Rumors

It began with Tirzé, though she never intended it.

It had just been too much to absorb, one strangeness too many, one overwhelming Council secret that she simply couldn't keep to herself. She told her husband, Drel. He could be trusted, no doubt about it.

And there was no doubt about Drel... he was as true as she believed. But Theed was a small world, in the physical sense, and as she had poured the story out to him, and he had tried to make sense of it, neither of them had paid much heed to the draft coming in from the slightly open window, and had never heard the footsteps of the eight-year-old Gungan child who had been playing outside, who, in all innocence, asked other children in the square "Who-sa dees Darth Vader, which Ani say he is?"

The children didn't know, but the adults watching them did, and they talked among themselves. There had been much discussion of the strange, somber boy who bore the name of the Queen's husband. Some thought he was Luke's son, others that Skywalker had survived long enough to father another child with the Queen. Rumors from the Council had made their way around, that he was the Queen's husband, but until the new rumor began, the old one was dismissed.

If he said he was Vader, then he wasn't thirteen. If he wasn't thirteen, he could be Anakin Skywalker. And if he could be both of them, then they could be the same.

It was speculation.

But it was a speculation that had the ring of awful truth to it, the sense of perfect inevitability. When had Vader appeared? When the Queen's husband died. Who had Vader died saving, at least according to the one he had saved? The Queen's son.

It all came together, at least the pieces they had in their minds. And the talk spread quickly.

The whispers reached Mos Espa at true noon, as the suns balanced the meridian precariously between them. It was at this hour that the popular holoproj program, Eye, was broadcast. It was only a brief report, and it was hardly unusual to hear the name "Skywalker" on the news anymore -- it had been more than welcome in the old city to see fresh-faced young Luke appear out of nowhere -- but this time, it actually accompanied the name "Anakin," and a grainy, poorly filmed holo of a towheaded boy walking beside Amidala of the Naboo was flashed onto the screen. The old-timers ceased their chattering, and the story fell into place.

It was just past sunset in Anchorhead, and Camie was closing up Toshi station. Eye was one of her guilty pleasures, and she looked over her shoulder to make sure Fixer wasn't paying attention to her when she turned it on. Her hand went to her heart, and her only thought on the matter was, Poor Wormie... no wonder he never wants to talk.

Cloud City did not receive its gossip in such a low brow manner as a holoproj program. Thieves they might be, but they weren't commoners. Oh, there had been a reporter involved, of course, and she had heard the rumors that were flying across subspace. But she had been Ivva Japui's roommate at the Academy, and she went to the source. Ivva had refused to answer, which her roommate knew perfectly well was a confirmation. Ivva never refused to speak. There was talk of the Imperial takeover, and Vader's betrayal of his promises, then a memory of Calrissian's heroic effort to save them, then simply... lowbrow gossip.

Ampinua took the news with little fanfare, never sure what it made of Lord Vader, and having no opinion of Anakin Skywalker. The niece of a woman named Rejuo -- her only surviving kin -- smiled sadly; she was glad that the man would have a chance to show what her aunt had seen... but she had a feeling the chance would be of short duration.

Word reached La'azum more directly, as it was more directly involved in the situation. Astaya Jelon Laryhi, technically the leader of the Ka'alyan Order (though he wasn't sure his position would outlast his... well, his position on this matter), had contacted Solo on Naboo to learn the status of the Imperial prisoner as soon as he himself had learned that there was such a prisoner. The call had been taken not by Solo, but by the boy himself, Skywalker, who told him all details he felt were relevant. Jelon believed him, and knew more details than Skywalker would have dreamed of revealing. Jelon Laryhi was a descendent of an ancient mayor of Coruscant... a mayor who had also been the first of a long line of secret apprentices in the Sith order. He had her papers (actual papers, written on with fading ink, in a strangely beautiful hand). He knew with whom he was dealing. He prepared to make a voyage to Naboo.

Luke Skywalker was aboard the Millennium Falcon when the news first broke, trying to converse with Chewbacca as they scoured this sector of the galaxy for hopeful padawans. None had yet been found, and he was planning to return to Naboo after one more stop anyway. By the time he got to Phindar, the rumor had been spreading for two days, and had turned into a full-blown maelstrom. There was no question of examining padawans.

He strode to the center of town, thinking it the only thing he could do, really, and stood in the marketplace. People knew him from the holoproj, and gave him their attention. The questions poured out.

Is it true? Did you know? Did he raise you? Whose side were you on? Whose side was he on? Does your sister know? What is real? What is true?

Luke held up his hands, and spoke calmly. The faces below were concerned, but not frightened. Some were even merely curious. "My father," he said, "has come forward, though he didn't need to. He returned to the good at the end. And he will remain there. Yes, I knew. No, he didn't raise me, though I wish he had. Nor did he raise my sister." (Something about this didn't seem entirely true to him as he said it, but he shrugged it off.) "I had business here on Phindar, and I hope to return to complete it. But now, I have to get to my family. Please understand."

The crowd was largely accepting, to his surprise, and an aging Phindarian named Paxxi slapped him on the shoulder. "I never knew such a Jedi as you," he said, then winked. "Not so, I lie. I'll tell you when you come back."

Coruscant.

Leia braced herself. She had to leave her office eventually.

She hated this entire business, with her whole heart. For the first time she remembered, her father -- and at the moment, she thought of him so clearly as her father that she could not bring to mind the other face to whom she had assigned the title -- had done something of which she could be unequivicably proud. And she was still angry at him, because, in doing it, he had broken open the family's secret, and the crowd outside the Senate building was screaming for an explanation that she did not want to give. The old questions of his influence on her had resurfaced in a fury, and even more lurid accusations were being hurled at her -- including the preposterous notion that they had always known, that the Rebellion had been a sham, and that he had killed Palpatine in order to put her in power.

She shook her head, looking at the small holo of Han that looked back at her from the comm-disk. "I have to go out there," she said.

"You can stay inside until I can get to you," he said. "I wish you would."

"I'm fine, Han, and I don't want them thinking I'm afraid of them. I can do this. I just... need a moment."

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure."

She closed the communication, then did a deep relaxation exercise that Luke had taught her -- one of the few aspects of the training that she'd managed to pick up. She let the serenity fill her. Then stood quietly, put on her long coat, and went outside.

Serenity left her. Coming up from the huge holoprojector set in front of the Senate was something she hadn't thought to ever see again. A holotoon, grotesquely oversized. Her own face, hovering over Vader's armour, her hair braided to resemble his helmet. She reached up to her head, chagrined to feel that today, of all days, she had chosen the style she'd worn on Bespin, which did drape in two loops and form that triangular shape. The holotoon carried a bag of medical supplies in one hand, and a red lightsaber in the other. "Influence?" it said, batting its lashes furiously. (She thought vaguely that, had those lashes been real, it would have caused a windstorm.) "I can't imagine what you mean!"

Something flew out of nowhere and hit her in the face. A piece of paper, something that food had been wrapped in.

Garbage.

A voice in Leia's mind told her to run, to lose this crowd and disappear into the secret runs of the city that she'd learned so well during the Rebellion. Another voice told her to hotly deny any influence, to remind them that she'd been tortured by this man in whose likeness they'd cast her, that she had fought him every step of the way.

But that garbage... that decided which voice she would listen to.

Leia Organa Solo (and, for a fleeting moment, she referred to herself in her own mind as "Leia Skywalker") stood to her full height, pulled up as if a wire in her spine were being stretched. She was Supreme Chancellor. She was a princess of Alderaan. She was the daugther of the queen of Naboo, and the sister of a Jedi knight. And she was the daughter of Anakin Skywalker, also known as Lord Vader, and he had done something worthy of honor (for once), and she would be damned if she would apologize for it, or tolerate being pelted with refuse.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the Republic," she said, and though her speech was formal, her color was high and her anger unmistakable. The crowd fell ominously silent. "This is the capitol of the Republic, not a circus arena. My family's business is its own. The crimes my father has committed he will be held responsible for. But I will not have the Senate turned into a gossip column, or the Republic into a daily serial on the holoproj."

Silence. Then, a single voice. "Did you know?"

"I did not."

Then, the one question that all of them really meant to ask. Out of a mouth she never identified, a faceless voice from the mob. "Then are you saying it doesn't matter?"

Leia blinked slowly. She felt as if she were wrapped in cloth, and the world was ticking around her insulated form. "He is my father," she said quietly (but oh, how loud it was inside her mind, how impossibly, staggeringly loud!). "It matters immensely."

She said no more. The crowd said no more. They parted as she walked down the great path, but did not accost her.

The giant holotoon laughed once more as she passed it, then was abruptly cut off.

Chapter Four: Alkari

Lando Calrissian was elected Prince of Theed in an uncontested election a week after Kyrys Tashin arrived on Naboo. Hardly anyone noticed. Amidala offered him the best smile she could find when she gave him the new ceremonial robes (which he, of course, had obtained, so they weren't exactly a great surprise to him). He shook his head and rolled his eyes.

Little Isabel Tashin stood quietly to one side, for once not with her father. She hadn't said much since that day at the hot spring, but Amidala always welcomed her company. She was comforting, in a strange way, though unsettling. Maybe it was just that she wasn't too much older than the twins had been when...

But it was no good thinking about that. Isabel was not her child and never would be, and nothing could replace the lost years.

Ani was the only Naboo citizen who attended the ceremony (though Amidala was free with citizenship, Isabel had not asked for it). He couldn't quite bring himself to like Lando, but Amidala thought she had convinced him that the other man's attempt to include him was sincere, and he tried to at least reciprocate the effort.

"You've done well, Calrissian," he said.

"I do my best."

"And we are very glad of it," Amidala told him. "Naboo welcomes you, Prince Lando." She dropped her head in a ceremonial bow.

"That's going to take some getting used to."

They looked up at the new voice. Luke was standing at the door, a grin on his face. He came in, shook Lando's hand, and kissed Amidala's cheek. He never seemed exactly sure how to greet Ani -- it was obvious that he preferred some kind of affectionate gesture, but things were still awkward. Finally, Ani held out a hand, and Luke grasped it. "How are you, Father?"

"I am well," he said. He glanced at Isabel. "This is Isabel Tashin."

Isabel -- astonishingly -- raised her arms to Luke to be picked up. Luke knelt beside her and gave her a kiss. "Nice to meet you."

"You too."

He stood again. "Mother, I saw that people were gathered, the press... "

"Yes. Things have a way of coming out." She pursed her lips, and looked out over the courtyard. Most of the press had been kept at a distance, but some had actually made it over the partially re-built walls of the palace. "I'm concerned about your sister. They questioned her rather nastily on Coruscant. Han is bringing her back now." She bit off the reason for her concern, not knowing if Luke would guess it or just assume that it was directed toward Leia's career or hurt feelings. But she'd seen the impromptu "conference" on the holoproj, and seen the high color in Leia's cheeks. She'd seen the horrid holotoon and heard that it dated back to her first Senate campaign (Ani's comment, when she'd demanded an explanation, was that it was Leia's business to discuss). And she had seen the fire in her daughter's mind. It frightened her. She'd glanced over at Isabel (ridiculous as it was to glance to a four-year-old), and seen that the child was disturbed as well, and that had made it worse.

Ani sat down in a high-backed chair, his hands resting lightly on his shins, which Amidala had learned meant the growing pains were back. They came and went fairly regularly. He'd picked up an inch in the past week. "They treated her shamefully," he said. "I wish I could remove this... " he pointed vaguely at himself "...stigma from her."

"She'll be okay," Lando said. "Leia's tough. She can come back from anything. You should have seen her after Bespin."

"It is rather fortunate that I didn't."

"Good point."

"At any rate," Luke said, "Chewie's waiting in the hangar because we got a message that they were on their way in."

Four hours later.

He'd done everything else.

That's why Han was crouched against a wall -- not hiding, because no-one was looking for him -- in his and Leia's rooms, finishing the last of his stash of Corellian brandy. Sure, Chewie was there, but he never got drunk.

Probably a good thing, he laughed to himself.

Lando could've made the experience more interesting, as Han suspected his interest was more in the people surrounding him than it was in the politics, but that was hypocritical. He couldn't bring himself to gossip. Absolutely no way.

Han usually didn't get drunk, not anymore and especially not since Endor, but this called for it. Every time he'd ventured outside the palace since he'd brought Leia back to Naboo, there were always a few ambitious young reporters "undercover" as vendors, soft Coruscantian accents giving away their true stations. After a while, it just became tiring, and since his original purpose was always to get away from the stress and strain which surrounded

(Leia)

the palace, he decided his energy would be best spent getting himself intoxicated.

Then his only problem would be keeping his mouth shut.

He didn't want to think it, but it wasn't even a thought -- well, not in the sense of stream of consciousness, where one chooses the topic. In flight to Naboo, he'd nearly said it.

(You're being just like him.)

She would have killed him where he stood, but it was the truth: every step she took screamed "Vader," and he didn't even have a problem with the facts of her parentage. (To be perfectly honest, he didn't have a problem with him; he just wasn't going to go out of his way to make friends with him.)

The pacing across the floor, head down, posture straight, arms behind her back. She saw nothing, only stared at everything blankly.

"Mebbe I should 'make friends'," he slurred, quite loudly. "Show her how it's done."

Chewie grumbled a low reply.

"Yeah? Well, I don't see you comin' up with any better ideas."

He was met with a loud, snarling response.

Han kept his eyes on his friend, then drained the last drop of the brandy.

Something had to change here. Something had to happen. Even if it meant trying to see who this Anakin was.

La'azum, but he didn't know when.

Far off, Kyrys Tashin stood by the river of blood, his stricken face slack and unfocused. Closer, Isabel Tashin walked beside him, her small hand linked around his pinky. Ahead, a factory burned, and an engineer called Rejuo was screaming for help. He picked up the pace, and Isabel lost her grip.

"Ani, please, slow down!"

He turned, and saw the shadow coming behind her. "Isabel, drop!" he shouted, and she dove for the ground, disappearing into the flying dust as the speeder bike flew over her, racing toward the factory. Anakin was caught in the blast of wind, then the world changed completely.

The dust flew up, solidified into grey metal walls, a hivelive hexagonol hallway, with heavy doors lining it on either side. The blasted grate of a garbage chute sent up a puff of smoke halfway down.

The Death Star prison ward. Anakin looked down at himself, expecting to find the wretched suit, but it had not appeared. He was dressed in the simple brown robes of a Jedi knight. But it seemed not to matter. His destination was the same.

Cell 2187.

He reached the heavy door, half expecting (and hoping) that it wouldn't open, but it did. Inside, Leia sat on the bench, dressed in a lovely red gown, with a matching feathered mask. Beside her, the speeder bike was spread out into its various constituent parts.

"Leia," he whispered.

She didn't turn to him, but drew further back into her cell, curling into a tight ball.

"Leia, please..."

CRASH.

Anakin's eyes opened. It wasn't even sunset yet. He was sleeping at strange times. Across the room, he could see a section of scaffolding lying in pieces. A young woman sat on the high windowsill, a floating cam-droid in tow. "Lord Vader," she said, "I'm Lersi Gerov, from Eye, and I'd like to talk to you about -- "

Anakin stood up. "I admire your persistance, Miss Gerov," he said. "But it does not change my stance on speaking to the press of this matter."

Luke appeared in the hall, lightsaber drawn. He was still impatient, he thought, still too quick to draw, though not quick to actually use the weapon. Anakin shook his head slightly, to tell him it was unnecessary. "Miss Gerov was just leaving."

The reporter smiled sheepishly. "Actually," she said. "I don't know my way out. I climbed the scaffolding to get in, and I have no idea where I am."

"I'll escort you," Luke said, going toward her.

"Oh, thank you. Do you have any comm--?"

"No."

They disappeared around a bend, and Anakin rolled his eyes. Not a very Jedi-like gesture, he thought, but the only one that fit the situation.

"Is this what you've come back for then?" a voice asked in his head. "To expose your family to ridicule and re-live the experience of being hated by half the galaxy, this time under your own name?"

Only half, Obi-Wan? Anakin answered silently, a bitter smile on his lips. I would have thought the number would be higher. I wondered when you would speak to me again.

"There is little point in speaking to one who refuses to listen. You must know that this is ill-advised, padawan."

Anakin's smile became warmer at the old form of address. It brought to mind memories of better times. And more turbulent ones. What is ill-advised, Master? Taking responsibility for my crimes? Facing the judgment of the galaxy I terrorized, instead of taking the easy escape of death? Or simply knowing my family? That never was a priority of yours.

There was a pause, and Anakin could almost see Kenobi tugging at his beard, carefully considering which answer to give. Finally, the resigned tone that told him the short conversation was over. "You must do what you feel is right," he said. "You always have. I wish I could say it never led you wrong."

Then Kenobi left him, and Luke stood before him. "Are you all right, Father?"

"Fine. A few too many dreams and phantoms. Walk with me."

"Where?"

"Anywhere. The hangar. I've been examining your X-Wing, and I think we can make it run a little more smoothly."

"My X-Wing?"

"Luke, I have to put my hands on something real, that I can touch and fix. Please allow me to do so."

Luke stood silent for a moment, and Anakin waited for him to take Kenobi's route and forbid such a frivolity. Then Luke grinned, put a hand on his shoulder, and started toward the hangar. Anakin accompanied him gladly.

Leia found herself drifting again, her mind half-dreaming awake. She would come out of these states, not knowing exactly what had happened inside her mind, and find herself in a place other than where she began. It should have frightened her, but it didn't. She didn't get the sense that anything was wrong. She came out with the feeling that she'd been searching for something and not found it.

And it wasn't that she wasn't aware of what she was consciously doing. She remembered leaving her quarters, wrapping a shawl around herself, wandering through the light rain, and even smiling wanly at a reporter and saying that she had no comment at the present time. She even remembered deciding that she'd like to come down to the Alderaanian quarter. It was just that all of that happened on a brittle surface, and what was underneath it, what she was really thinking and feeling, was a complete mystery.

When the surface broke and she was fully present again, she was in the large new building that was going to serve as the Alderaan museum. A few items had been brought in from around the galaxy; more were sent every day. Old Garlien was serving as the curator, slowly cataloging the pitiful remnants of a rich world.

Most of the building was still empty, but on the wall was a tapestry -- Leia remembered the uproar when one of old hill families had sold it offworld; now she blessed them -- showing one of the old myths that Zeria had loved so much, this one about how the Uali and Voj had come to the aid of a warrior queen who had been cast into the underworld. The queen was bound to a thornbush, and Voj tried first to burn it away, but it wasn't consumed and the queen was harmed. Then she tried to hack it off, and it kept growing back. She didn't remember how it ended -- wasn't sure she'd ever known -- though the last picture showed Uali kissing the thorn bush. She moved in to study it, hoping it would jog her memory.

"She's eating it," someone said behind her.

Leia turned to find Ivva Japui. The girl was as quiet as a ghost. "Hello, Ivva."

Ivva smiled shyly. "I always wondered, too," she said. "So I studied the old texts when I was in school on Cal-Dar. In old Alderaanian. We spoke a very complicated language once."

Leia nodded, tried a smile. She liked Ivva, and knew that for all the girl's pretense of having just been a serious scholar on Cal-Dar, she had also been instrumental in the escape routes of many Rebels fleeing the Empire. "I tried studying the old language once. I didn't get very far."

"It's pretty, once you get used to it." Ivva moved closer to the tapestry, and pointed to the final segment. "You see that Uali is eating the thornbush -- "

"I thought she was kissing it."

"The ideas weren't all that different in the old culture. Anyway, you can also see -- right over here -- that Voj has a bit of it in her mouth, too. And see how she's holding out to the queen, Gerah?"

"Oh... yes."

"It's when all three of them eat of it that Gerah is released. Did you ever hear the word alkari?"

Leia vaguely remembered hearing it, long ago. "A few times. My friend loved the stories. Her Thirteenth was based on it, a masquerade. I was Voj. Doesn't it mean 'tribe'?"

Ivva shook her head. "Not exactly. It's smaller than a tribe. Bigger than a family. And a little more inclusive than friends. It translates literally into 'Those one eats with.' The point being that people who ate together were bound."

("We would be honored if you would join us.")

Had they eaten then? Had they?

No. He hadn't eaten at all. Not with anyone. He couldn't.

"Your Highness? Is something wrong?"

"No. I just... didn't remember the story. So they all ate the thornbush and everything was all right after that?"

Ivva shrugged. "Well, Gerah was Gerah. She kept getting herself into trouble. Though after that, she usually did it with Voj's help." She grinned. "You were Voj?"

Leia nodded. "It was a great dress. I loved it." She felt her smile fade, and the brittle surface began to form again. "I was lovely," she said quietly. She didn't remember deciding to leave.

She was nearly home again before she realized that she hadn't said goodbye.

Isabel stifled a laugh as she watched father and son make their way to the hangars. Ani did love to tinker with machinery. And Luke's X-wing wasn't going to be the last thing he was going to play with. She could see how he looked at Han Solo's Millennium Falcon.

The only way Han Solo is going to let Darth Vader near the Millennium Falcon is if he's roaring drunk or if he's dead and buried for six months, said Fro dryly in her mind. And even then, I wouldn't put it past the Corellian to rise from the grave to stop our favorite Sithlord from setting foot on his beloved ship.

Favorite former Sithlord, corrected Isabel. And a zombie Han Solo is just a tad too morbid for you, Fro, don't you think?

Hey, don't look at me, said Fro defensively. You're the one who spent several lifetimes tracking down certain creatures of darkness. And you're about to start doing that all over again or I'm a hobbit.

Don't remind me.

She lingered just for a few more moments, watching father and son, and then decided to slip away. She didn't wish to spoil it by her intrusion and she knew Ani and Luke's powers well enough to begin picking up on her presence soon, no matter how well she was able to shield herself. Luke would be good company for him. Ani needed a break from all the craziness that was going on.

Come to think of it, all of them needed a break from all the crazy mystical stuff that was going on, the dreams and the visions, the phantoms born out of grief and guilt. She sighed, thinking of her father. Papa refused to come out of his rooms, though he let her wander around as much as she liked. She'd done her best to keep the ghosts from plaguing him with nightmares and the nights of sweet, dreamless sleep were doing him well. But she couldn't stop him from brooding, though he'd done his best to conceal it from her and gladly gave her his attention when she wanted it.

Isabel knew she couldn't talk to him the way she did to Anakin. Anakin and Amidala were slowly becoming aware that there was something a little different about her. But to show that change to Papa? It would be too much of a shock. That was the last thing he needed right now.

Isabel decided to make her way to the palace gardens, which were slowly being restored to their former beauty again. She too needed to put her hands on something real, get her feet back on the ground again, so to speak. It wasn't just the thoughts of her father or Anakin that were getting to her.

Leia.

That godsforsaken holotoon. "Darth Leia" might have been some idiot's idea of a cheap shot when Leia first ran for the Senate but Isabel had seen something more when she saw that image.

Leia's face behind silken veils...the veils lifting to reveal her beauty scarred and burned beyond recognition...her eyes burning with a darkness that could overshadow them all.

A fragment of an old, old tale, barely remembered from an ancient past life came to her mind...

In place of a Dark Lord, you will set up a Queen...beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night...

Isabel shuddered. Amidala hadn't missed her disquiet about it. Hell, why mince words? Isabel was frightened of what she saw. Oh, she understood what it was. A vision of a past that had never been. It was one of her particular gifts, the Vision to see the past, instead of the future. But this non-existent past could just as easily become a very unavoidable future.

She closed her eyes and shook her head wildly. No more visions! She had enough of that for one day. And Leia would not need such knowledge. Mystical riddles and visions were not going to help her.

Isabel was growing to love Leia, even though they'd barely exchanged a couple of words when she and Han arrived, just as much as the rest of her mystical, noble, sometimes crazy family. She wanted to reach out to her, just as she wanted to reach out to Kyrys, Ani, Amidala, Luke, Han and all the rest of them.

But everything always boiled down to the same thing. Isabel couldn't just presume to help all of them. Not even her father. It would be wrong of her to do so. In the end, everything was always going to be done according to their own free will. Their choices, not hers.

Isabel opened her eyes and bit back a swear word that a four-year-old wasn't supposed to know.

"Greetings, Sorceress Child. Long time it has been," said Jedi Master Yoda.

Chapter Five: Tinkering

Luke couldn't suppress a pleased grin as he watched his father dive into the X-Wing's mechanics. The green Naboo tunic that Mother had given him was folded neatly and placed in the corner of the hangar (Father seemed not to care what he wore, but he always kept it neat and clean), and his face and chest were already smeared with engine grease. He was chattering happily about a new fuel injection system, and complaining that since the split of the Radon and Ulzer companies and the subsequent bankruptcy of Radon, components had gone steadily downhill. "It was the war, of course. Certain things were deemed a priority. The Ulzers are very good for bursts of sudden speed and precise maneuvering for accurate firing, but they are somewhat lacking in sustained speed. Radon was known for that. Radon-Ulzer engines had a reputation as... "

Luke let him go on, watching as he scrambled from one part of the X-Wing to another, adjusting a valve here, tightening a connection there. He was tempted to make a joke about the fact that Father seemed to feel the need to narrate every event as it happened (Luke had thought him talkative as Vader; as Anakin Skywalker, when the hard subjects weren't in evidence, he wouldn't shut up), but he was afraid such a comment would break his good mood. Instead, he shed his long outer robe, and joined in to learn what he could. That a former Imperial could teach a Rebel the mechanics of an X-Wing might have been troubling when the war was on, but the knowledge seemed to have done no particular harm.

"I suppose you can get her to point-two-one past lightspeed as is?"

Luke shrugged. "I've only gotten her to point-two-oh." A pause in the chatter, long enough for Luke to realize that he'd thought his question rhetorical. "You got it to point-two-one on the way from Runa?"

Father shrugged and grinned. Luke was taken aback -- it wasn't a grin he'd seen yet, and it was such a bright, sunny, innocent expression that he felt a pang of sorrow at not having had it all the years of his growing up. Nostalgia for the life he hadn't had. The ache had a dull anger at the center of it, one he shrugged off easily, though something about it made him think of Leia.

The grin faded. "Is something wrong, Luke? What are you thinking about Leia?"

"You do that far too easily."

"You need to learn better control of your thoughts." He turned back to the engines. "As to the other, I will try not to grin again."

"Why is it that you can see that and not understand what it means?"

"It clearly caused you pain."

"It caused me pain because I missed it. I'd ask you not to take it from me again."

There was a moment of complete silence, then Father shook his head and sighed. Luke picked up a streak of bewilderment, a desire to please, and -- what he'd hoped to find -- a cautious happiness at knowing that Luke wanted something from him that only he could give, even something as simple as a grin. He didn't entirely believe it, Luke thought, but he was willing to entertain the possibility. Progress.

"I'm not a project, Luke," he said quietly, then picked up the toolbox again. "This propulsion system, on the other hand... "

Luke joined him, and managed to find at least two parts of his ship that his father hadn't found first. By the time they were done, even without the Ulzers Father insisted Luke should obtain, the ship could make point-two-three, at least in theory. "It's getting late," Luke said. "I know Mother likes to talk to you -- "

"It's quite mutual."

" -- and it's getting late."

"Yes. I agree. I need to clean up, at any rate." Luke noted a certain hesitancy in his voice, and saw that his eyes had darted to the Millennium Falcon. "I don't suppose," he said when he noticed he'd been caught, "that if I told him I could get the Falcon to point-seven-past, he'd let me have a look at her?"

"I wouldn't get my hopes up. Han doesn't like anyone else doing 'special modifications.'"

"It's a good ship. I always admired it. If I hadn't needed to arrange your escape from the Death Star with the tracking device, I'd have -- " He shook his head. "Well, it's a good thing I didn't."

Luke was always a bit uncomfortable when Father used the first person to talk about Vader's actions, but had learned that complaints only earned him a cool look and a reminder that he was responsible for his own decisions. He didn't answer.

They were starting back to the palace when they heard the loud, off-key voice, slurring out a song in a language neither of them was particularly familiar with.

It took them a moment, but -- although they were unfamiliar with the language -- the voice was clearly recognizable.

"Han," Luke sighed, not loud enough for Solo to hear, but just enough for his father to hear.

An amused look, not quite the controversial grin, crossed Anakin's face. "He's incredibly drunk."

Then the figure staggered in, walking quite smoothly for one whose voice gave the distinct impression that he would be falling over his own feet. The singing stopped and Solo brought himself to a halt.

In his vision, the two Skywalkers had a fuzzy, ghostlike quality to them, as if -- if he wiped his eyes -- he could wipe them away too.

"You," he said loudly, pointing vaguely in their direction ... they were still, yet they moved about. He had to fight so hard to speak clearly, to not let the letters run together, much less walk in a straight line toward them. "Just the two I've been looking for."

He blinked, and things began to take a more normal shape.

Luke stepped forward. "What for?"

It vaguely disturbed Han that Anakin was not quite looking him in the eye, avoiding an honest conversation -- but why would that bother him? It was that damned song. He knew he should have focused on his reason for coming down here ... but it had something to do with Anakin.

The thought hovered away from Solo's tongue. "Leia," he finally said, then continued his search. "Something about Leia ... and Coruscant, and you" -- he pointed at Anakin here -- "and I said something to Chewie and he thought it was absolutely ridiculous. And I'm out of brandy."

Of course, this was all met with twisted expressions of bewilderment.

After a moment, Anakin spoke up, something which made something click for Han. "If you're referring to the caricature, neither of us knew. You should ask Leia anything else."

"That's it!" It seemed, for just a moment, that the only after-effect Han was still suffering was a loosened tongue. "Can't ask Leia. Can't even talk to Leia. And I was thinking, why is that?" He paused for good measure, threw his hands up, and continued. "Because of the both of you. She's been turning this one over for a while, but it finally got to her."

He could almost feel that Anakin knew what he was going to say, but Luke clearly made evident that he didn't by asking, "What?"

"You're like your mother, Luke. You're patient. You're quiet. You're a good shot, and you think beyond yourself. Leia's a great person, but she's not completely like that. She figures she's like you."

A sober mental voice cried for him to stop, but he persisted, and turned to Anakin.

"I don't know you. To be honest, what I do know of you doesn't make me want to know you. But if she can be now like you used to be, then you can be like she used to be." He scratched his head, realized he'd said it right, then offered his hand. "She had to get it from somewhere, right?"

Luke tried not to laugh at the hotch-potch reconciliation.

Anakin looked at the outstretched hand curiously. He did not like drunkards -- he never had -- but Solo seemed not to be habitually drunk, and the circumstance was somewhat extraordinary. Perhaps brandy was an acceptable crutch when preparing to extend one's hand to a man who had tortured one and frozen one in carbonite.

He sighed, and shook the offered hand. "I'm pleased you've come, General Solo."

"Han!" Solo took his hand away, shaking his head. "It's just Han. This 'General' business is for the war."

"Very well... Han."

Luke stepped forward. "Han, maybe you should sit down and sober up."

"Ah, I'm getting there on my feet, kid. Never could make it last for long. Maybe just long enough to say what had to be said."

"About that... Han, you don't really think that Leia is afraid of becoming dark?"

Anakin turned away from Luke, caught Solo's quick glance. He knew. He saw what Luke was refusing to see. The threat to turn Leia, during their final duel, had not been as idle as he'd intended it to be. He hadn't found her identity until later, until he'd felt himself slipping away and reached to Luke for strength to say a few final words. Then he'd understood. And he'd known that it was a threat that he could have carried through. He'd wanted to make sure Luke told her that the darkness wasn't the end, that there was something inside of it, a light that couldn't die. He'd wanted to make sure she knew that because...

Because she had been lost in the dark, and knew the paths of anger and aggression well.

But Luke's concern had been in getting her to forgive him, not herself. She hadn't told him, and he would never see the darkness beneath the light.

"Leia has battled her demons before, Han," he said quietly. "It is not easy, but she prevailed. And she will again."

"Yeah. Yeah, I know. But maybe she could use a hand." Solo laughed without humor. "No pun intended."

"One is offered, but she has to agree to take it."

Luke's eyes were distracted, his face troubled. This was clearly not a thought he could entertain for long. Anakin tried to send him an image of Leia on La'azum, to show him that Solo's fears were not baseless, but his mind batted the thought away. Wonderful. Leia won't let her mind out. Luke won't let my mind in. She refuses to share; he refuses to know. A curious pair, my twins. What a legacy I've given them.

Anakin wasn't surprised that Luke spoke first, or that it was a change in subject. "Father says he can get the Falcon to point-seven past lightspeed."

He was surprised at Solo's response. The pirate's face lost its slack, drunken look, his bleary eyes sparked. "You really think so?"

Anakin shrugged. "I said it. Largely hyperbolically, in the hope that it would be enough to persuade you to let me look at the ship."

"You want to see the Falcon?"

"I realize it is somewhat frivolous and -- "

Solo smiled. "I never figured you for the sane one in the family. The first words out of his mouth" -- he pointed to Luke " -- and I quote, were, 'What a piece of junk.'"

Luke nodded. "And Leia said 'You came in that thing? You're -- '"

"'-- braver than I thought,'" Solo finished with him. "I was trying to decide whether or not to kill her."

Anakin laughed. "She always had a sharp tongue. As long as I remember her. I always meant to teach her mechanics, but we never did find the time. If I had, she'd never have insulted your ship." He noticed the shocked silence from his son and Solo, but didn't acknowledge it. He hadn't intended to approach the subject of his long, painful friendship with Leia, and certainly didn't plan to elaborate on it until she was ready to discuss it. He owed her that much. He took Luke's tactics, and headed to the Falcon. "This ship," he said, "could outfly anything the Empire produced. The best we could have hoped for was a trap."

"Either that or a disabled hyperdrive."

"Even that wasn't terribly effective. I admired that maneuver in the asteroid field. One wouldn't normally assume a freighter would have that sort of manueverability. May I ask how you configured the thrusters?"

As it happened, he was allowed to ask. About the thrusters, the hyperdrive, the modifications to the engines... at some point, Luke disappeared back into the palace, leaving him alone with Solo, but by then, they were deeply into the possibility of streamlining the hyperdrive.

Anakin looked up once, saw Amidala at the door to the hangar. She was smiling, and shook her head. She whispered "Good night" (he could hear her in his mind, and see the words on her lips), and he regretted momentarily missing their nightly talk, but it was good to be himself again, a whole self. He wasn't sure what Solo was thinking -- the man was a complete enigma to him -- but he knew, from his own perspective, that he would always owe the man his friendship for this.

Isabel's eyes narrowed as the shimmering, ghostly figures of Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi stood before her.

"I was wondering when you two would show up," she said grimly.

"Your anger we do not deserve," said Yoda. "Much we have to say to you."

"I am angry, Jedi, and you do deserve it," she answered, her eyes shading to a cold, frosty gray. "But I will listen to what you have to say."

"What Anakin is doing is folly." This time, it was Kenobi who spoke. "He should not have come back to the world of the living. The Council requests that you do not interfere in this matter."

"The Jedi Council does not command me, Kenobi. My kindred and I worked the ways of the Force long before the Jedi and the Sith were even born." Isabel's eyes sparked. A child still faced the two Jedi spectres in the garden, but a child with an aura of great age and terrifying power. For one brief moment, Isabel was, once more, the Sorceress Child Yoda had named.

She continued. "I do not interfere in Anakin Skywalker's decisions. These are his choices to make. I merely guide, as I have done for aeons past. You should know this, Yoda. You have done the same thing after all with his son."

"This I know well, Sorceress Child," said Yoda. "But something more you intend for Anakin Skywalker. A gift you have in your power to give him."

"A gift that you must not give," seconded Kenobi. "Isabel, Anakin Skywalker was redeemed by his son. But he must pay for his crimes and earn absolution in the life beyond and in the lives that will come after. This you know well too."

"Anakin Skywalker owes debts to the dead and to the living," Isabel shook her head. "His journey is not yet over. He must fulfill the task that he was born to do. He would not have been allowed to return otherwise."

"Will your gift help the others? Will it help Leia, who is slowly being consumed by her anger at him?" challenged Kenobi.

"Much anger in her," said Yoda heavily. "And much fear. Fear that she might become as he, she does. Slowly she is drawn towards the Dark Path. See this fate you do, Isabel. As I did for Anakin, long ago."

Isabel closed her eyes. For one brief moment, the image of the Leia she saw in the dark past that never was came to mind.

In place of a Dark Lord you will place a Queen...

She opened her eyes and spoke, her voice quiet and oddly sad.

"Let me tell you about fear, Jedi. It was your fear that drove you to reject a slave boy who had come to you with nothing except his hopes and his dreams. You saw a dark future for the Chosen One and you feared it so much that you thought to avert it by denying him training as a Jedi. You took him in at the end, but that rejection had already taken root and he did not forget that as he hunted all of you down, years later. No." Isabel shook her head again. "This fear will not rule us again."

Her father's voice called her name. Isabel turned and left the two ghosts, going back to speak to the living.