Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars, its associated characters, environments, or technology.

[1]

The giant trees of Endor hide the vault of the sky and surround them with night. The flames on the funeral pyre die slowly and light still flickers among the deep shadows. Somewhere among the glowing ashes are the remains of what had once been a man instead of a mechanized monstrosity. Leia shivers as a breeze stirs the branches and brushes cold fingers against her cheek. Even though Luke returned from the Death Star II, living proof that there had been something good there, she can not, will not, wrap her mind around the fact that she is standing here to acknowledge the passing of her father.

She'd wanted to come. But more than that, she wanted to reassure herself that Vader was dead and that he could not rise from the ashes to continue the Empire's ideology.

The revelation that Luke was her brother felt right and good, even if Luke had matured into someone she'd never have expected when she first met the wide-eyed, naïve, farmboy from Tatooine. She'd felt a connection with that boy. She'd been amazed at his emerging talents. She'd been charmed by his easy good humor and sensible suggestions that brought him to the forefront of the Rouge Squadron. She'd helped Luke find what little information remained about Anakin Skywalker and listened to the reminiscences of pilots who'd met the man.

Having Anakin Skywalker, Jedi Knight of the Old Republic, for a father would have been acceptable. But Anakin Skywalker had become Darth Vader, Sith Lord of the Galactic Empire.

When they entered the clearing together and she'd seen that the body on the pyre was Vader she'd felt a thrill of amazement and relief. Leia had always imagined her father—her real father—to be a lot like Bail Organa. Someone strong and kind, someone who stood up for what was right. Someone who would wrap her in his arms after a nightmare and sing her to sleep when she was small. The stories of Anakin Skywalker suggested that man but she'd met Darth Vader too many times and the memory of his arms restraining her while the shot was fired on Alderaan still left her emotionally undone.

The bright embers and occasional flame illuminate only a shape now, and the shape could have belonged to anyone. She can no longer see it as her nemesis. She doesn't know what Luke sees. Perhaps he can see Anakin Skywalker as he could have been, but she can't imagine anything other than what he was.

Luke threads his fingers through hers as if he senses her distress, a reassuring touch that he is still there, still solidly himself despite his recent ordeal.

Tears cloud her vision. They are hot, burning the corners of her eyes as she fights them back. If she is going to cry, it will not be to mourn the reality of her father. She is glad he's gone! The tears distort and magnify the firelight. It flares suddenly and fills her field of sight. Too much, too bright! She squeezes her eyes shut against the blinding pain, moisture beading on her eyelashes and still reflecting the embers until she can't see anything else and she is being torn apart and remade—

—whirling through a kaleidoscopic field of light and dark and everything she'd ever regretted—the day she learned she was adopted—the times she'd sat on her bed with her arms crossed in defiance and told herself stories about her real family; a father who would have taken her with him to work... who wouldn't have had work too dangerous for a child to see—

She screams until her throat is raw, and Luke's answering cry tears at her soul. Whatever has happened to her has happened to him as well. They reach for each other, fingertips brushing, once, twice, as they struggle to remain together.

When Leia can see again, her eyes still weeping in protest against the bright lights, there are no trees or green leaves overhead and no leaf mold crunching softly underfoot. There are no planets whirling backwards in their rotation or stars exploding. She stands instead on a metal platform. Her knees tremble, threatening not to hold her weight, and she wonders if she blacked out and the buzz in her ears is only her brain trying to re-establish reality. Luke is at her side, equally unsteady, and they lean into each other for balance and the reassuring feel of flesh, solid and pulsing with life beneath the coarse fabric of their clothes. He's breathing hard, and her own comes in short bursts.

A short flight of steps leads from the platform to a catwalk running from right to left and intersecting with hallways at either end. There was nothing in the Imperial bunker like this hap-hazard construction of natural materials and mass-produced metals. She has studied the major and minor architecture styles as a way of putting her best foot forward on diplomatic missions and sees no visible clue to narrow down the builders or purpose; they are simply deep in the bowels of a humming machine. Above their heads the lights flicker in a power flux.

A blaster bolt whines by her head and she jumps for cover behind a wire as thick as her wrist. It isn't enough and Luke ignites his lightsaber with the curious snap-hiss she's become accustomed to hearing, deflecting the barrage as they race along the catwalk to take momentary shelter in the shadow of a support beam. "I feel like we just left this party!" he jokes.

"Never a dull moment, eh, Skywalker?" she teases back.

"But who are they?" asks Luke. One of the bolts he returns toward their attackers hits something and a pile of parts falls in a shower of burnt metal on the catwalk behind them. "What are they?" he corrects himself. The pieces seem to have once been a droid, slender and marionette-like and built to kill. More are visible now, urged on by a leader who stays just out of sight and line of fire.

The dim and uncertain lights give the whole encounter a surreal feel, as if she's stepped into an old record. Leia once had the opportunity to go through a series of badly archived images from the Clone Wars and their attackers could have stepped straight from those images. These were Trade Federation droids, in top condition even if they were antiques, and they had identified her and Luke as enemies.

Luke yanks the blaster from the downed droid, calling it to his hand. He shakes off the clutching fingers that had formed the grip of the droid, and hands the weapon to Leia. She cradles it, finding it the same vintage as the droids themselves, but it fires and her aim is far better than that of their adversaries.

Still, they are only two and they lose ground as droids continue to appear and fill the ranks. The catwalk intersects with a main hallway, and another troop of droids appears at the far end.

"Get the Jedi spies!"

If they try to fight now, they will be overwhelmed. So they run instead—right into the arms of three rolling droids that boast heavy firepower. The click of their weapons sounds like death in Leia's ears, but Luke powers down the lightsaber and holds out his hands, palm up. "We surrender," he says. "Take us to your masters."

It'd worked for him with Vader, and it worked now.