Chapter Text
I wouldn't want to be faster
or greener than now if you were with me O you
were the best of all my days — Frank O'Hara, "Animals"
"Owen and Beru Lars," the security-droid announces as it rolls open the cell door. "Your bail has been posted."
Poe fails to hide his grin as he strides inside, then stops with his hands on his hips. "I hope you know we've been simply beside ourselves!"
Leia is sitting against the wall, Luke's head resting in her lap. It would be kind to call their disguises "rudimentary" - an old-fashioned Corellian turban to hide her braids, Bespin-style cape and skin-tight breeches in place of his usual robes - but they seem to have done the trick. No one, not even in this huge metropolitan security installation, has twigged on to who they really are.
"All the other kids are frantic," Poe continues as he helps them up, holding each by an arm. Leia's eyes widen at that. If any of this should get out -- but Poe winks at her before pulling them along, out of the cell, towards liberty. He has his hands on their shoulders now as they step outside. Before releasing them, he squeezes and adds, "I wish I knew what gets into you two sometimes, I really do."
*
"You owe me six thousand credits," he tells them when they're safely aboard the rickety old skiff he had to hire for this retrieval. When Leia starts to say something, he shakes his head. "I wasn't going to go to the bursary, General. Any more than I'd've flown something from the fleet. What would I have said?"
Frowning, she sits back, and starts to slowly unwind the turban. "Good point."
"Is Rey all right?" Luke asks.
"She's fine," Poe says. "Pissed off, but she'll come around. Eventually."
Luke gazes down at his hands in his lap, shoulders slumping, but when Leia takes his hand, he tilts slightly toward her.
Poe becomes preoccupied by the details of departure - codes and callsigns, queuing sequences and an unfamiliar customs protocol. The fuss is not helped by the skiff's sticky controls and entirely unintuitive switches.
When they're clear and rising out of the atmosphere, however, he can turn around. Luke's cape is around Leia's shoulders now, and their arms are wound together, hands clasped, and they are kissing softly. Leia's hand rests on Luke's cheek, pulling him in, holding him fast.
Poe turns back to the controls. He sends a message - encrypted according to resistance standards, then further wrapped in the key he shares only with Finn and his dad - back to base that everything is fine, everyone is safe.
"So," he says, checking them on the system security feed, then raising his voice slightly. He doesn't want to interrupt, per se. Seeing them like this, relaxed and affectionate, safe, sends a warm billow through him. It's more than relief, though relief is certainly there.
Like the time he snuck home from school at mid-day, trying to escape - someone or other, he can't even remember the bully's name - and came up onto the back porch to see his dad embracing his mom from behind, chin on her shoulder, swaying a little as they danced to something Shara was singing.
He saw his parents touch, be affectionate, all the time. But this was different. This was just for them.
Now, he is vouchsafed a glimpse of a similar sort of privacy. The trust that they must have in him is a dizzying thing, swooping through him.
"So," Poe says again and clears his throat. "You want to clue me in, or can I just make up the wildest, zaniest possible story and spread that one around?"
He hears Luke laugh. Leia is sitting up, smoothing out the fabric of her skirt. He knows that expression, that posture, very well. She is considering how much of the truth can be shared. She's dividing it up, evaluating consequences and fallout, taking it on herself alone to make these calls.
"General?" Poe adds. "You don't actually have to tell me."
"That's very generous of you," she replies, but she's relaxing again, smiling, and looking up, then over at Luke. "You're far too kind to the crazy old lady."
*
The intel came in very late, long past the time anyone but a skeleton crew was on duty. Connix flagged the report as both intriguing and dubious, then moved on to the next.
Leia doesn't sleep much these days, even less than she used to. Luke leaned against her desk, tapping his fingers lightly, until she finally sighed and looked up. She did not set aside the datapad, however.
"It's late," he said and she rolled her eyes.
"Three more reports," she said, looking back down at her work, "and then I'll --"
He was about to chide her when her tension suddenly spiked, soaring from its usual nearly-unbearable state into something he hadn't felt since they lost Han the first time.
"What is it?" He tried to read off her datapad, but he still hadn't mastered the resistance's elaborate shorthand and idiosyncratic codes.
Leia set down the datapad and rose to her feet. "Vader."
As she strode through her quarters, gathering blaster and knife, flak jacket, emergency currency and credits, Luke dogged her heels. "What are you talking about?"
"Here --" She tossed him the flight codes for an old Rodian tug, drew her cloak around her shoulders, and paused. "You're coming, aren't you?"
She was fierce, implacable, her mouth a harsh red line and her eyes glittering. She was challenging him.
They had once simply assumed that the other would be at their side, whatever they needed to do, wherever they were going. It's his fault, Luke knows, that nothing is the same.
"Of course," Luke said and they were outside, rushing to the hangar through the damp night air before he quite knew what was happening. "But where are we going?"
His comlink rang then: Rey, wondering when she could leave off levitation exercises and turn in. He was a terrible teacher, Luke thought. He'd forgotten about her entirely when he'd arrived at Leia's quarters.
"Take tomorrow off," he told her, overcompensating, and Rey was far from an idiot. She asked why; Luke glanced at Leia, striding ahead of him, her jaw set and cloak streaming behind her. "I need to take a trip."
"I'll come," Rey said promptly.
"No," Luke said, hauling himself into the cockpit, "that's not necessary. You're --" He checked on Leia, saw her settled and strapped in, inserted the launch drive, and lied to Rey. "You're not quite ready for this."
He didn't hear what he'd said until much later, when a Knight of Ren had nearly amputated his leg and Leia was howling for help. And then, then Luke knew that he was not doing any better. He was lying to a good soul, seeking vengeance and adventure, ruining everything even more than he already had. He'd failed Ben - both old and young - and Han, Leia, and now he was failing Rey.
The report was garbled, but Leia explained it as best she could while directing Luke where to fly. A double agent had let slip to another informant, either due to too much drink or as pillow talk, that there were more Vader relics in transit, heading for an auction on Nar Shaddaa. Grakkus the Hutt's agents would, everyone assumed, be the successful bidders. The Knights of Ren, however, were organizing to intercept the shipment and claim the relics for themselves without having to undergo the hassle and expense of an auction.
"Grakkus is still in prison," Luke pointed out.
Leia snickered. "As if that's ever stopped anyone, especially a Hutt."
"I'd rather he had them in his collection than --" Luke made the jump to hyperspace, then continued. "What are the relics?"
Leia worked her jaw for several moments. "Hand, possibly a rib."
"He --" Luke had sat next to the bonfire for an entire standard day. There was nothing left when he was finished. He'd made sure of it and then Han had, too. Leia would have been all too happy to kick through the ash and grind down any surviving bits under her boot. "No. Impossible."
"It doesn't matter if it's really him," Leia said.
"I know." Belief was what mattered, not the facts, especially with fanatics like these. That was precisely how propaganda worked.
"He's never going to be gone, not completely," she said then.
"He --" Luke stopped. This was an argument neither of them was ever going to win. It shouldn't be something you'd want to win.
"Vader," she said. "Not...Skywalker."
Well. That was an admission he'd never thought he'd hear.
"We could bomb their ship," Leia said then, flipping open a datapad and retrieving a stylus from the mass of her braids. "Dispose of the knights and the relics at once. I don't like our chances with that, however."
"We --" Luke looked at her, startled, slightly nauseated, by the prospect and just how coolly she suggested it.
Leia returned his gaze. "Better, I think, to meet the shipment and steal it ourselves."
"Us against how many Knights of Ren?"
Her lashes flickered as she checked the datapad. "Up to five. Possibly seven, but that's unlikely."
Luke choked on a laugh. "You like our chances better with this plan?"
"I do."
"Who's the seller?"
"No one knows. Some suggest it's us, attempting to lure the Ren out."
Luke nodded and sighed. "That would've been a good plan."
"Indeed." She smiled. "Crafty and devious, yet elegant."
"What if we allied with Grakkus? Make a deal, get his security on board?" Surely the Hutt would bear Luke some affection still. You don't fight to death in a sentient's arena without growing slightly fond of each other.
"He is, as you pointed out, in prison."
"There must be visiting hours."
In the end, Leia prevailed and they implemented her plan. There hadn't been much question of whether that would come to pass, of course, but Luke remained highly uneasy at the prospect of fighting five young and fervent devotees of Ren. At first, however, his unease seemed unfounded. He and Leia easily infiltrated the customs-house and found the docking bay where the anonymous seller's freighter hung.
Neither let themselves think too hard about it, but this - sneaking in, creeping together single-file, alert to every squeak and thump - was exactly like the old days. The good part of the old days, that is, when exhilaration flushed them both red-pink and tightened their chests and made each thought, every sensation, sharper and more resonant. When you're young, everything you do is significant.
Maybe they'd have succeeded with a third set of hands. Maybe they'd been acting as if there were a third, and that left them vulnerable.
As it was, two knights fell to Luke's lightsaber before a third slashed open Luke's leg. They were so close, too, to the shipping container; their blasting caps had been fired remotely and landed on its side perfectly as if they'd been placed by hand. Leia had been on the verge of exploding it when two more knights tackled her. She fought like a feral thing, spitting out curses, kicking her feet and swinging a lethal, thin little blade in one hand.
The stiletto in her hand was new. Luke dragged himself upright again and stalked toward the fight.
"Blow it now!" she screamed at him and tossed the detonator.
But one knight had stepped back from the fray to aim his blaster. Luke took the opening to strike him down, grab Leia's hand, and make a (hobbling, horrible) run for it. She shot the last knight over her shoulder, shouting that she hoped like hell it landed.
Of course it landed; she has the force guiding her hand every bit as much as he does, whether she admits it or not.
For ignoring the detonator in favor of her, she didn't speak to him for over an hour.
He supposed he deserved that.
When they returned to where they'd landed, however, there was only a black, smoking crater. Luke sat on a pile of rubble to bandage his leg while Leia paced back and forth.
"They knew we were coming," she said, crossing her arms, shaking her head. "This is personal."
"Of course it's personal," he replied, snorting a little as if she'd made a joke in poor taste. She whirled on him, eyes nearly black beneath her scowling brows. He held up his palms, then said, more softly, "Of course it is. It's all personal. It always has been."
She turned away. In her gray cloak, before the smoke and steam of their destroyed ship, thin and small as a breath exhaled on Hoth, she could have been a ghost. In fact, Luke had seen Obi Wan, even Anakin, appear with far more robustness.
"I can't accept that," Leia said finally.
She needed to believe in something bigger than parents and mistakes; Luke used to feel that way, too. They were switching places, sliding into the other's position, all the time.
They exchanged most of the currency and credits for changes in clothes and a room in a hostel deep in the city's downtown. On the way into the city, Luke shaved his beard and Leia wrapped up her hair.
They reached their room and sank onto the thin, slightly damp mattress.
He had been back from Ahch-To for over a month. Aside from two incidents, which Leia deemed after the fact "regrettable" and "unique" - how, he'd wanted to know, could the same thing be "unique" twice? But she'd simply shaken her head and he didn't press the issue - they hadn't done anything more than fall asleep against each other. And that, they did nearly every night.
Tonight, however, Leia touched him first, tracing the hollow of his cheeks, the line of his jaw, tapping the snags and scabs that came from a hasty shave with a cheap razor. She kissed him like she used to, half-thrilling, half-terrifying, with her nails in his hair and digging into the skin of his arms.
They were strangers then, just becoming acquainted, like the last first time. (How many first times were they going to have? How many times would they tip from ignorance and estrangement back into this, so close they might as well have still been in the womb together?) He pushed his hand between her legs, curling his fingers against her, palm slipping in the wet, and the moan she gave wasn't anything like he'd ever heard. She came on his hand, in his mouth, and, still panting, pushed him up the bed with trembling hands and took him in her mouth, brought him so close to coming, then pushed his legs open wider and moved her mouth lower, opening him up with tongue and fingers as he hadn't been in years, decades. He came with his hands tangled in her hair, moaning for more.
*
In the morning, they spent the last of the hard currency on breakfast and walked the urban core, debating their options. The Knights of Ren, possibly the First Order itself, knew they were here. According to the newsfeed, three passenger shuttles had been blown out of the upper atmosphere overnight.
"They're covering all their bases," Leia said, pulling his arm tighter through hers, clutching his hand against her torso.
"Dragging the net," Luke agreed.
They were followed down an alley; Leia made short work of the mugger, possibly an agent of the Order, with her stiletto.
"How long has that been..." Luke circled his free, machine, hand. "In your repertoire?"
She crouched next to the dying man, shaking out comlinks and credit slips, stuffing them into her satchel. "Not long. Weighs nothing. Easy to conceal." As if to underline that point, she wiped the blade clean on the man's filthy jacket before stowing it back in her boot. "Dameron gave it to me last Lunar Day."
The Alderaanian holiday for family, chosen and blood. Luke nodded. "I see."
She grinned as she stood. "I didn't think you could get jealous." They slipped out of the mews and into a large, bright square. "That was always Han's thing."
Far from the base, from anything that tied them to real life - her personnel, his work with Rey - but close again, right up against danger and death, she could say his name as easily as she ever had.
Luke swallowed, let the sting and grind of grief summoned up by Han's name pass a little before he answered. "I'm not jealous."
She glanced over her shoulder, smiling, her eyes so warm and knowing that he had to blink. "Not of him, no."
*
It was the attempted skyjacking of a light freighter in the Republic's mercantile fleet that landed them in jail. They were running out of money and options. It seemed as good an idea as any other for Leia to fake a seizure and Luke to try to muscle his way into the cockpit; there was only one other passenger, a space hostess, and the pilot. No one got hurt, but the space hostess was a Korunnai adept and easily subdued both Luke and Leia.
After that, the only thing Leia could do was contact Poe.
*
Poe brings the skiff down in Kaadara Spaceport. He reports in to the customs and tourism bureau as Finn Lars, then wakes Luke and Leia.
"Your dacha awaits," he says, gesturing them down the gangway.
Leia strides down, then stops right at the bottom and takes a deep breath. "Naboo?"
"One and the same." Poe's leaning against the entrance's locking mechanism, grinning, fairly bursting with pride at what he's managed to wrangle up on next to no notice. "Figured after all the adventuring and misadventuring, you two could use some R&R."
Luke is halfway down and turns around. "What about you?"
Poe rubs his chin. "There're plenty of hostels. Maybe not here, but in Theed, I'll find something."
Luke's cape flutters in the slight breeze. "I can't speak for Leia, but --"
"Of course you can," she calls over her shoulder, moving toward the ground transit station. "You know that very well."
"Why don't you join us?" Luke finishes.
"Yeah?" Poe asks, two steps closer, then another two.
Nodding, Luke draws himself up a little straighter, and descends the rest of the way with Poe. They lock down the skiff, pace around for a quick, entirely cursory visual inspection, then hurry after Leia.