A/N: I guess yearly updates are better than no updates? Cheers, all! [Edited to add the correct break between scenes 1 and 2; it's been so long since I've used I forgot I needed to check in the conversion!]

Fields of Gold

Luke waved a glowing datapad in the direction of his twin.

"Smitten, huh?"

Leia did her best to cover up her amusement at the headline, but a laugh still shook through the sternness of her voice.

"Shut up."

Putting down her glass of wine, she put a hand over her face, unable to keep her mirth in.

"Leia?"

She opened her eyes to peek at her brother through her fingers, still laughing. He looked genuinely concerned, so she sucked in a breath and bit her lip to quell her brewing hysterics.

"Sorry … sorry. I'm okay. I just," she dropped her hand to the counter with a slight smack, "Luke, what have I gotten myself into?"

"I dunno. A wedding? A corruption scandal? The seamiest holomags this side of Paradiso?"

"When are you going to open that Jedi monastery, again?"

"I have the most hysterical sister in all the galaxy."

Leia rolled her eyes, "Seriously, Luke. Han and I … this isn't going to work."

Luke circled around the counter beside his twin to scoop her into a hug.

"He's missed you and," he pulled back from her slightly to look at her face, "Look, Mothma's placated for now, your position is secure, you've done something really good for the Galactic Republic. I wouldn't put it past some of Lisi's underlings to really be accepting credits under the table. You can handle Han."

"A wedding, Luke? We can't. We can't even pretend."

He stroked her hair and smiled, "Leia."

She raised her eyebrows to prompt him to continue.

"Dear, dear sister: I don't think you have to pretend about anything."

"Luke …" her voice held a warning tone.

He let go of her and held us his hands in a defensive gesture, looking not unlike his ex-smuggler friend, "I'm not playing matchmaker."

Leia shook her head with a laugh. "Oh, like hells you're not."

Leia palmed into her flat hoping against hope that Han would not be there.

She deflated a bit when she discovered he wasn't. Leaving her heels behind near the entry, she made her way into the kitchen. A flimsy note was tacked onto the beverage machine.

'Check the chiller.'

"Check the chiller," Leia repeated, testing out the alliteration on her tongue and the Corellian slang for 'freezer unit', as she moved toward the appliance, "Check the chiller."

She swung open the door to the unit and found it overflowing with small, carefully and individually packaged meals. She pulled one out to inspect it. Perfectly sliced brown meat, a bright red vegetable, and round grain squished under the plastic as she poked at it with a finger.

"Really?"

At least, she thought, he hadn't been overhauling an engine in her apartment.

Leia didn't see or hear from Han at all the next day, despite sending him a quick holo message thank you in the morning.

She was horribly distracted, and kept mulling over the meaning of his cooking. He'd always cooked for her and she'd never really learned how - at least not in the proper way. Living on Coruscant she didn't need to, not really. Between state functions, parties, Threepio, and ration bars, she survived just fine. The domesticity of Han in her kitchen was too bizarre for her to wrap her mind around.

Of course, he'd done it before he'd been called to involuntary public service and romantic humiliation.

Exiting her offices to head to the afternoon Cabinet meeting, she saw Jas and an aide, a Bothan named Bzchek, giggling over a holopad at his desk.

"Care to share?"

Jas and Bzchek looked up at her, and then at one another, shrugging at the same time.

The Minister of State cocked an eyebrow, "Do I need to order you to share?"

Her young assistant sputtered a moment, "Just the holoblogs, Minister. There's, well, there's been a bit of an explosion … tidal wave? of interest in your upcoming marriage today."

"Someone's even written a song!" Bzchek added with a bit too much enthusiasm.

"Minister Organa," Jas addressed her formally, "It's harmless stuff. Just fun. There's already debate about the dress you'll choose: white for the Republic, red to honor Alderaan, or yellow for Corellia."

"There's even this insane rumor that dead Jedi will show up! This scholar of Galactic religion has some wild theory about how Jedi can materialize after death. It's making the rounds now. The holonet is going to break with the excitement-"

Leia held up a hand and cut her off, "Enough. Bschek, you need to get back to work. Both of you need to get back to work."

The Bothan scurried away with her tail tucked down.

"Don't encourage her, Jas. She's excitable enough as it is."

"Fine. She's just fun. Anyway, I want to show you something."

Jas held up a holopad with an image of Han exiting a posh storefront in the gold district. Although she couldn't see his face, the blond mop of hair gave away her brother, trailing closely behind.

"This just came through. He's ring shopping," Jas whispered conspiratorially.

"Jas, neither of our planetary cultures exchange rings."

He looked at the holo again and wrinkled his forehead, "Then why's he there?"

"Knowing him, they probably sell illegal blaster components in the back room," she reached down in front of Jas to swipe the holopad and clear the image, "Back to work."

When she arrived home late that evening, Leia found Luke lounging in her living room with an ancient-looking holoplayer and a set of holodisks. She sighed and headed straight to her bedroom without even saying a word to her brother.

"Aren't you going to ask why I'm here?"

"No," she called.

"Why I hauled all of these very old holodisks up here?"

"No."

"Aw, come on, Leia. What's the fun in that?"

She came out in and stood with her hands on her hips. Luke twisted his head around to look at her and smiled the biggest, goofiest smile he could manage.

"Fine. What?"

"So you know how by the time our parents were together, the Jedi forbid romantic entanglements, right?"

"Sure."

"I discovered that wasn't as old a practice as they made it out to be. Even during Yoda's lifetime, the Jedi still practiced pair bonding. And I have the proof!" He waved a holodisk in her direction.

She moved around to sit next to him. "You're telling me those are what, Jedi wedding videos?"

"Yes, they are."

She leaned back on the lounger, rubbing her forehead, "Is that what you and Han were after today? In the gold district?"

"Oh, yeah. We had reporters following us everywhere."

"I'm sure he loved that. So, why do you want to show these to me?"

"We tracked these down to a family that's been running a shop on Coruscant for centuries. I guess they made the gold marital insignia for the Jedi. They were very small, thin disks embedded in a row under the skin of the forearm."

"Isn't that a bit gruesome?"

"Maybe, but not that different from a piercing or a tattoo or a brand. Sort of all three in one, really. That's not the point. The point is that no one has ever watched these recordings before. Don't you want to see something that no one ever has?"

"Can we do this another night?"

Luke reached over and took her hand, silent a moment before answering. "We're the only ones left. It's important to me. It's important to me to do this the right way. If our mother and father had been able …"

Leia squeezed his hand back before letting go to pluck a disk off the pile.

"This one?"