Post-Bellum CATEGORY: Hurt/Comfort
by KovacsSUMMARY: The war is over. Leia confronts Luke at Vader's funeral pyre on Endor, and forces him to confront his feelings for her.
SEQUEL/SEQUENCE INFO: Part three in the Luke/Leia trilogy The Good Soldier
RATING: R
PAIRING: Lu/Le, m/f
WARNINGS: None
AUTHOR NOTES: Thanks to Tabitha-Jane Russell and Andrea for beta reading
DISCLAIMER: Star Wars and all publicly recognisable characters, names and references, etc are the property of George Lucas, Lucasfilm Ltd, Lucasarts Inc and 20th Century Fox. This fan fiction was created solely for entertainment and no money was made from it. Also, no copyright or trademark infringement was intended. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. Any other characters, the storyline and the actual story are the property of the author.
Fragments of the dead star were still falling, hitting the roof canopy like hail and sparking tiny fires in the leaves overhead. Sometimes a dark piece of metal would tumble through, rustling down through the tangled branches and striking one of the Ewok walkways; he could hear the outraged squeals of the little creatures as they gathered round to inspect the damage by torchlight.
The funeral pyre, too, was dying. He watched little points of red flaring up then fading in the reflective surface of Vader's helmet, short-lived stars against a dark background. We thought this would be an end, Luke told himself, hearing another faint crash and animal protest, but there are no ends. Wedge had come to him during the celebration to report, under his breath, that an Ewok mother and infant had just been struck and killed by a chunk of debris; there would be further casualties throughout the night. The Death Star was still fulfilling its design, even after its own destruction. There are no endings. Vader lies in flames, but what was Vader but that dark armor, the casque, the rasp of breath? Vader was a symbol, not a man. It was a Skywalker who created him, and the Skywalkers are only just beginning to rise.
"How are you, Leia?" he asked softly without turning from the fire. He sensed her surprise and mild annoyance; perhaps she imagined he had seen her in reflection, or perhaps she knew he had other ways of feeling her approach. He could have placed the question directly in her mind.
"How do you think I am, Luke?"
He turned slowly. This was a face she hadn't shown him for a long time: tired, drained, with red-rimmed eyes.
"Why don't you tell me how I feel?" she asked with weary annoyance. "You can sense it, can't you? You're the Jedi."
"I can't...your feelings are complex." It was half a lie. He reached out, rested a hand on her wrist. "Tell me, Leia."
She looked away, letting out a breath. "I don't know. How am I meant to feel? My father is dead. How am I meant to feel?" She turned her eyes back to his; twin moons. "Grief? I don't feel grief. I feel glad. I feel glad that Vader's dead, Luke."
"Darth Vader was Anakin Skywalker, our father." The same line he'd repeated to himself before giving up to the Empire and allowing himself to be led to Vader; it had become a subconscious mantra, tripping him into calmness. "There was still good in him, he showed me that."
"He saved your life." There was bitterness in her voice, but Luke failed to notice.
"Yes, Leia. He saved my life. Anakin was a good man, a Jedi."
"Is that how you're going to get yourself to sleep tonight, Luke?" she asked, her voice shaking. "By repeating that little story to yourself? Then maybe you should plant it somewhere in my stupid head, because I don't know how the hell I'm going to sleep, I don't know how I'm ever going to get to sleep."
"Leia..." He glanced past her, towards the other, smaller fires. They were alone on this walkway, far enough from the last group of pilots and Ewoks who were still chanting softly into the night. He wondered where Han was now.
"Darth Vader...Anakin Skywalker - " she spat the second name with more venom than the first - "Anakin Skywalker killed my father, Luke. He killed my mother, the only mother I knew and loved. Anakin Skywalker had me locked in a prison cell when I was a girl, when I was hardly more than a child, and had me tortured with needles." She held his eye. "Anakin Skywalker allowed his troops to rape me."
She had held it to that point, but now the tears came as he knew they would, and her head dropped. She pushed the back of her hand against one eye, swallowing hard.
//Leia...// He reached into her mind now: she was right, she couldn't live like this. As if kneading a taut muscle, he nudged and pushed at the knotted mass of her feelings until they relaxed slightly. "Leia, you can't think that way."
Her head was down, and firelight shone from her wet cheeks. "I don't know how you do it, Luke," she sniffed. "I don't know what you've told yourself. I envy you. You've managed to wipe it all out somehow, smooth it all over."
He looked off towards the distant fires, and tried genuinely to give her an honest answer. "I guess I...I see the bigger picture, somehow. If you open yourself up to the Force, everything becomes...so much wider. It gives you a certain perspective, a certain point of view."
"A certain point of view?" she repeated sharply. "Is it a certain point of view that lets you forget about you and me, Luke?"
He produced a warm, soft smile. "You and I are brother and sister, Leia."
"You love me as a sister, do you?" She wiped the back of her hand under her nose, glancing up at him.
"Of course."
"You loved me as a sister in the med-bay on Hoth, right? Or in the Falcon, when we were headed back to Yavin? That was all healthy brother-sister stuff, right?"
Luke would never blush again, but his expression flickered; faltered, then hardened. At hip level he moved two fingers decisively to one side, matching the gesture with a new, firm tone. "That was the past, Leia."
"That was the past."
"We don't need to think about those times anymore."
"We don't need to think about those times."
"We love as brother and sister, and that is enough."
"Just who the hell do you think you're talking to here, Luke?" she snapped, glaring at him.
Now he truly stumbled. "I - "
"The Force can be a strong influence on the weak-minded, isn't that what Kenobi told you? Thanks a lot, Luke, but I was a senator and a spy and a soldier before I was twenty-one, and I may be no Jedi but I've got it in me, you know that...and I'll thank you to not insult me like that again."
"I, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. I'm sorry."
"Let's get this straight. I'm your equal, Luke, and don't you dare even try to pull your mind-tricks on me. I deserve respect from you, and I deserve some straight answers."
He spread his hands, took a breath. "You win. Shoot."
"That's better." Affection crept back into her voice.
"Let's not do this here."
She turned. "There's no-one around."
"Where's Han?" He was already touching her elbow, leading her off away from the flames and down another walkway.
"Asleep. I don't know, I'm not his keeper."
They were silent for a while as they walked together, the bridge swaying slightly under their feet. At their backs, their father burned; below them, deep below, the forest floor lay in darkness.
They both ducked to enter the hut; inside, Luke's head grazed the ceiling. She could just make out his eyes.
"So," she said quietly. "How did you deal with it? Did you really just wipe it from your mind?"
"No." He breathed in, again thinking honestly before replying. "What I told you was true. I've stepped back, or...or upwards. When I think of Vader now, I see his entire life. I can see him as a boy, training with Ben -" and he smiled slightly, the image returning to him - "I see the whole story of us, the Skywalkers, and my father's seduction by the Emperor as just a part of that story. And it's not over yet, Leia. The Jedi are about to return, and we have such a part to play in that..."
He took her shoulders in his hands, and she stepped back. "Hold up." His eyes were lit with a fever that almost scared her. "Where do I fit into this? You know what I'm asking, Luke. Where do we fit into this?"
She could see him focusing down from his grand scheme, back to the personal. "I thought you chose Han," he replied flatly.
"I needed someone to hold me, Luke. And you weren't there."
"And if I had been there?"
She stared straight at the gleaming whites of his eyes. "Did you ever think of me, after Hoth? Or are Jedi beyond such things?"
"Think of you?"
"You know what I mean."
He thought of his quarters on Yavin, knowing Leia was in the room above; of how he'd imagined her letting the white gown fall and slipping under his sheets; and he thought of the X-Wing cockpit, the time he'd switched to auto and let himself drift, and remembered her kisses on his chest, on his stomach. He was about to reply, and realised she had already heard.
//And did you think of me?// he asked her.
"Yes."
"Say it with the Force."
He watched her close her eyes, felt the effort. He closed his eyes with her, coaxed the word from her mind.
//Yes.//
They looked at each other again.
"I always imagined there would be one time, Luke. When all of this was over. One time on our own."
"What about Han?"
"Han could come later. I...I always knew. I guess I always knew about you, about us, and just pushed it away. I wanted the one time, Luke, after the war, before the truth came out. You told me too early."
"Do you want to forget?"
It was said. The offer was made. She reached behind herself and loosened the ties at the neck of her dress, flexing her shoulders. //Yes// she said, and smiled with shy pride.
He was in her head, untying, unweaving quickly and deftly, conjuring knots undone. He saw her forehead relax, and she let the dress fall off her shoulders as he'd imagined on Yavin - roughly-woven fabric instead of the Alderaanian gown - and she was beautiful. The gleam on her cheekbones was beautiful; the burn darkening her shoulder was beautiful, the orange smear of antiseptic under her collarbone, the shadow of a bruise above her breast -
"You're a warrior, Leia," he told her softly, his hand resting gently on the twisted strap of her shift. "You were right...you'll always be a solder."
Her hand covered his and slid the strap down, uncovering her breast. "You were always a knight," she smiled.
He kissed her neck and she let her head arch sideways, leaning back against the wall of the hut. She was a soldier who had won a war, and she deserved this; his mouth sliding down to take her nipple in, sucking slowly once then letting the tip of his tongue trail over it. She deserved this moment, this night. She slid down the wall, guiding him down with her; taking his hand and pressing it between her legs with an arrogance that almost surprised her. His fingers felt good through the rough, thin cloth.
"I want you in me very soon," she told him, and again she was shocked by her own raw need. She'd locked this side of herself away for so long; chained in Jabba's palace she'd retreated back into her own private mind-space, the little cell she found when they held her on the Death Star. She'd split her body from the rest of her, the Leia that mattered, and told herself they could do what they wanted to her flesh while she curled up inside. Yes, she'd wanted Han, but she'd wanted to be loved by Han, held by Han, that was all; it was wartime and the Imps had them pinned, and she needed him for his strength and his smile and the comforting smell of spice which he was never going to get out of that waistcoat. Han Solo was like her big brother, and it was wrong of her to let the big puppy fall helplessly in love, and she'd fix that but right now she needed more. Right now she felt the rasp of wood against her bare skin as she pulled the shift up to her waist, and felt him pushing against her because she was only slightly wet, and the tightness made her wince slightly but it was what she needed.
//Tell me you want it.//
//Yes// she sent. //Yes.//
Wrapping her legs around him, her head back against the hard wooden floor and something sharp pressing into her neck, and now he was getting deeper as she took him more easily, and she needed this, she needed this.
Luke watched her face, his vision becoming stronger in the darkness; the clenched-up eyes, and her teeth showing as she willed herself further, seeking and catching the tail-end of her climax, and he knew he could pull back and stop himself if he wanted. He visualised the Force inside him, the way his father's spirit had instructed him as they stood to the side of the funeral pyre; the tiny midichlorians swarming, swimming, under his control. He could make this last as long as he wanted, and he could clutch back as he knew he should; but he watched his sister's face as she struggled and let a hard gasp escape her, and he saw the future of the Skywalkers, the return of the Jedi. And he let go, almost coldly, feeling his body clench and pump and release.
And he knew, then, suddenly: a flash of the future which made him smile just in time, as she opened her eyes and lifted her hand gently to his face.
Twins. It would be twins.
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